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"You will liberate yourself from one tyrant, your highness, to become the prey of another. The eyes of the dying see clear, and I tell you, duchess, you were already on the point of giving away the power you have attained. Know you what Munnich's demand will be?" "Well?" "He will demand what Biron refused him, and for which refusal Munnich became his enemy.
One of these scourged ladies, afterward married to a Russian magnate, was sent by Catharine as a sort of ambassadress to Sweden, for the purpose of inducing the King of Sweden to favor some of her political plans. "Memoires Secrets sur la Russie, par Masson," vol. iii., p. 392. From that time forward, however, Munnich's life was a continuous chain of vexations and mortifications.
While the guards were doing homage in the palace, Grunstein and Woronzow, by Lestocq's command, led their men to Munnich's and Ostermann's, and both were imprisoned; with them, a great number of leading and suspected persons, who, perhaps, might have been disposed to draw the sword for Anna Leopoldowna.
Quite forgetting his illness and his pretended pains, he rapidly crossed the spacious room, and, throwing his ragged fur cloak upon Munnich's mantle, said: "A poor old cloak like this is yet in condition to render that resplendent uniform invisible. Not a spangle of that magnificent gold embroidery can be seen, it is all overshadowed by the ragged old cloak which Munnich so much despises!
Keith waits there two hours; his men, under fire all the while, trying this and that to get across; Munnich's scalade going off ineffectual in like manner: till at length Keith's men, and all men, tire of such a business, and roll back in great confusion out of shot-range. Munnich gives himself up for lost.
A flat impossibility. Fermor, aware of these facts, remembers what happened at Oczakow, long ago, in our presence, and Keith's and Munnich's, if the reader have not quite forgot. Munnich, on that occasion, took Oczakow without any siege-furniture whatever, by boldly marching up to it; nothing but audacity and good luck on his side.
No, for this time I must be present, to the vexation of Munnich, that he may not put all Russia in his pocket! The good man has such large pockets and such grasping hands!" Nodding and smiling to himself, Ostermann opened the door of the anteroom. A rapid, searching glance satisfied him that he was alone there, but his brow darkened when he observed Count Munnich's mantle lying upon a chair.
"In the centre of Munnich's line is one General Keith, a deliberate stalwart Scotch gentleman, whom we shall know better; Munnich himself is to the right: Could not one try it by scalade; keep the internal burning free to spread, at any rate? 'Advance within musket-shot, General Keith! orders Munnich's Aide-de-Camp cantering up.
Count Munnich's brow beamed with inward satisfaction. "I shall, then, attain my ends," thought he. Aloud he said: "Your highness, I have but one wish and one request; if you are willing to fulfil this, then will there be nothing left on earth for me to desire." "Then name your request at once, that I may grant it in advance!" said the princess, with a smile.
Biron leaps from the bed, but Mannstein overpowers him and holds him fast until his soldiers come. The duke defends himself with his hands, but is beaten down with musket-stocks. They bind his hands with an officer's scarf, they wrap him in a soldier's mantle, and so convey him down to Field-Marshal Munnich's carriage which is waiting, below, to transport him to the winter palace.
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