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Updated: May 28, 2025
"Punish them all, all!" had Elizabeth said, "but the regent, her husband, and her son them you will permit to return to Germany!" "We must accomplish the will of the empress, and therefore let them go!" "We will obey her commands," said Lestocq to Alexis Razumovsky. "We must let them go free, but it would be dangerous to let them ever reach Germany.
Lestocq, her physician and confidant, with a solemn countenance, took a place opposite her. "We are ready to hear your bad news," said the princess. "The regent, Anna Leopoldowna, will have herself crowned as empress," laconically responded Lestocq. Elizabeth looked at him interrogatively and with curiosity for the continuation of his bad news.
But as Lestocq remained silent, she asked with astonishment: "Is that all you have to tell us?" "Preliminarily, that is all," answered Lestocq. Princess Elizabeth broke out with a joyous laugh. "Well, this is, in fact, very comic. With a real Job's mien you announce to us the worst news, and then inform us that Anna Leopoldowna is to be crowned empress! Let her be crowned!
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.
I will not be empress, not the bugbear of a quaking, kneeling people, I will be a woman, who has nothing to do with the business and drudgery of men; I will not be plagued with labor and care, but will enjoy and rejoice in my existence!" "For that you will be allowed no time!" said Lestocq, with solemnity.
Lestocq listened to her with most intense interest, taking a piece of paper from the table and mechanically writing some unmeaning lines upon it with an appearance of heedlessness. Perhaps it was this mechanical occupation that enabled him to remain so calm and circumspect.
"Perhaps your majesty may remember Biron, Duke of Courland," said Lestocq. "Count Munnich, as you know, overthrew him, and placed Anna Leopoldowna in the regency. Biron has ever since lived at Pelym in Siberia, and, indeed, in a house of which Munnich himself drew the plan, the rooms of which are so low that poor Biron, who is as tall as Munnich, could never stand erect in them.
Lestocq bent down close to the ear of the empress. "She conspires for the Schlusselburg prisoner Ivan!" said he. "I shall therefore be able to punish her," said Elizabeth, smilingly. "I shall no longer be obliged to suffer this hated woman within the walls of my capital!" "Siberia has room for her and her fellow-conspirators!" replied Lestocq.
France is your enemy, France meditates your destruction, and the Marquis de la Chetardie is exciting the princess and Lestocq to an insurrection." "And to what end, if I may be allowed to ask?" scornfully inquired Anna.
"I will never desert you, even if I must follow you to suffering and death!" exclaimed Alexis Razumovsky, casting himself at the feet of the princess. "We will remain true and faithful to you unto death!" cried Woronzow and Grunstein. "Well, and you alone remain silent, Lestocq?" asked the princess, with tears in her eyes.
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