The Daughter of an Empress

Catharine with a joyful spirit and a proud smile laid her hand in that

of Peter, and as she stepped with him to the altar she thought: "I do

this that I may one day be empress! and as I can reach that position in

no other way--well, then, let them call me the wife of this under-aged

boy! I will suffer it until the time when I shall no longer suffer, but

command."

With such thoughts did Catharine become the wife of the Grand-duke

Peter, who, as he with a loud and solemn "yes" vowed eternal truth to

his young wife, looked at the Countess Woronzow, and both exchanged a

stolen smile and a glowing glance of love.

"They may henceforth call this proud Catharine my wife," thought Peter,

"but I shall never love her, as my heart will ever belong to my dear

Woronzow! But Elizabeth has decided that Catharine shall be my wife.

I accommodate myself to her command, and obey now, that I may one day

command! But then woe to the wife this day forced upon me!"

And when the ceremony was ended, the new-married pair received with

smiling faces and radiant glances the congratulations of the court,

which in loud and ecstatic exclamations commended the love and happiness

of this young princely pair.

On the same day a second marriage was celebrated in this same imperial

palace, perhaps not so splendid, but certainly a happier one, for it

was love that united the two--love had overcome Elizabeth's aversion

to marriage, and decided her to raise her dear Alexis Razumovsky to the

position of her husband--love, and also a little superstition! As the

son born to Elizabeth some months previously had died soon after its

birth, and in this dispensation Elizabeth recognized the punishment of

heaven in disapproval of her connection with Alexis, she shudderingly,

remembered the words spoken by Eleonore Lapuschkin, and her heart was

filled with fear for the children which the future might bring her.

"I will destroy the curse which this Countess Lapuschkin has pronounced

against my children," thought Elizabeth, as she now for the second time

felt herself to be a mother. "If God blesses my children, the curse

of no human being can affect them, and this revengeful prayer of the

countess will have no more power when the priest of God has consented

and blessed the child now quietly reposing under my heart!"

This was the reason why Elizabeth resolved to marry Alexis Razumovsky;

this was the reason why she, in a solitary chapel, accompanied only by

Lestocq and the priest, stood before the marriage-altar with Alexis, and

became his wife.

She breathed freer when the priest had pronounced his blessing upon her;

an oppressive weight was lifted from her heart; the child she was about

to bear was saved and sheltered, and Eleonore's curse had no longer any

power over it!