Anna's revenge was complete: Marshal Dalgoruki died in prison; Basil and two others were beheaded; Ivan was broken on the wheel; the story of his beautiful wife, Natalia, who bravely shared his misfortunes, reads like a romance. Anna was chiefly urged to this severity by her minister, Volynski, who was himself plotting a greater treason. "He was distinguished for his great intellect and intolerable disposition. Turbulent, ostentatious, proud, constantly making advances, insolent to his equals, ready for any act of crying injustice toward the poor, he drew upon himself the hatred of all." He plotted to force Anna to marry him and lift him to the throne. But he managed to offend Biren, who said to Anna, "One of us must go." He was in turn put to death after having his tongue torn out, and his children were sent to Siberia. His estates were given to Biren.
After these conspiracies were put down Anna again devoted herself to her amusements. Her court became famous in Europe for its barbaric splendor. "Biren loved bright colors, therefore black coats were forbidden at court, and every one appeared in brilliant raiment; nothing was to be seen but light-blue, pale-green, yellow, and pink. Old men came to Peterhof—her pleasure palace near the capital—in delicate rose-colored costumes." Anna took great delight in her court-fools; she made princes of the noblest birth occupy this position, and had them beaten if they refused to amuse her. She forced two Russian princesses to gulp balls of pastry and crouch in bark tubs and cackle like hens.
NEVSKI PROSPEKT.
Prince Galitsin's wife having died, Anna forced him to marry an old and ugly Kalmuk, nicknamed Pickled Pork. The marriage festival was celebrated with great pomp; representatives of every nation and tribe of the empire took part, with native costumes and musical instruments; some rude on camels, some on deer, others were drawn by oxen, dogs, and swine. The bridal couple were borne in a cage on an elephant's back. Anna had a palace built entirely of ice for their reception. It was ornamented with ice-pillars and statues, and lighted by panes of thin ice. The doors and window posts were painted to represent green marble; droll pictures on linen were placed in ice frames. All the furniture, the chairs, the mirrors, even the bridal couch, were ice. By an ingenious use of naptha the ice chandeliers were lighted, the ice logs in the ice grates were made to burn! At the gates two ice dolphins poured forth fountains of flame; vases filled with frosty flowers, trees with foliage and birds, a life-sized elephant with a frozen Persian on its back adorned the yard. All was of ice. Ice cannon and mortars guarded the doors and were fired in salute. The bride and bridegroom had to spend the night in their glacial palace.
The year after this festivity Anna died, leaving the throne to Ivan of Brunswick, her niece's son, who was only three months old. At the same time she appointed the hated Duke of Kurland regent. His regency lasted only three weeks: Ivan's parents could not bear his presence; a plot was laid to get rid of him; he was suddenly arrested in bed by eighty grenadiers and sent with his wife and children to Siberia. Ivan's mother, Anna, assumed the regency, but her conduct was scandalous. She spent days at a time undressed upon her couch conversing with her friends; she had not even the energy to sign the most important papers. Such incapacity was doomed to destruction. Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, aided by French money and Swedish influence, won the guards: "My children," she said, "You know whose daughter I am." "We know and we are ready," they cried. "I swear to die for you; will you swear to die for me?" she asked, and they all took the oath. Anna, her husband, Duke Anton of Brunswick, and the other Germans, were suddenly arrested and exiled. The poor infant Emperor was put into a dreary dungeon for life, and grew up idiotic.
Elizabeth was hailed as the savior of the people, "the Moses who snatched Russia in one night from Egyptian slavery," "the Noah who had saved the land from the deluge of foreigners." Like a true Russian she was devoted to the Orthodox Church; under the influence of the priests she planned to suppress the dissenting churches on the Nevski street of St. Petersburg; she closed the Tartar mosques in the East and South; she expelled thirty-five thousand Jews because they were the foes of Christ the Lord and did much evil to her subjects." She turned her attention to the morals and education of the clergy, ordered the peasants to clean their dirty ikons, caused catechisms to be distributed in the churches and a revised edition of the Bible to be sold. At the Church Academy of Moscow the pupils discussed the nature of the light of glory in the life to come."
THEATRE IN ST. PETERSBURG.
Elizabeth also looked after the material interests of Russia; she founded banks, sent the sons of merchants to study trade and book-keeping in Holland. She encouraged the working of mines and colonized Siberia and the Southern steppes. At the same time that she abolished the death penalty, she used more stringent measures to put a stop to brigandage and punish crime; those who survived the knout were mutilated and sent to the public works. Her minister and lover, Count Ivan Shuvalof, founded the University of Moscow and opened schools on the borders. He patronized literature and the stage. By his example French civilization began to influence Russian manners. Elizabeth dressed in the fashion of Paris, and is said to have left in her wardrobe fifteen thousand costly dresses, several thousand pairs of shoes and slippers, and two great chests full of silk stockings. The French theatre in St. Petersburg was all the rage. French plays were translated into Russian. Learned Frenchmen joined the Academy of Sciences, for which a splendid palace was built.
Elizabeth's foreign policy was no less worthy of her father; the Swedes tried to win back lost territory; her armies forced them to make the treaty of Abo, which assured Southern Finland to Russia, and the crown of Sweden to her ally, Adolph of Holstein. She also interfered in the war of the Austrian succession, and her army of thirty thousand men, though they fired not a shot, helped to bring about the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. She was afterwards persuaded that Frederick II. of Prussia was "the most dangerous of neighbors," and united with Maria Theresa, the Empress Queen," and with Louis XV., against Prussia and England in the Seven Years' War. Frederick invaded Saxony, and eighty thousand Russians occupied Eastern Prussia, captured Memel, and defeated the Prussian General Lewald. Two years later the great king himself was completely crushed. He wrote from the battle-field: "But three thousand men are now left of my army of forty-eight thousand. All are in flight; it is a cruel blow." The Russians then entered Berlin and Pomerania. The greatest general of his age was saved from absolute ruin only by the death of the Empress, who was succeeded by her nephew, Peter of Holstein, the grandson of Peter the Great.
Catherine Dispatches her Husband