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Updated: June 19, 2025
Therefore, when the other guests retired, he begged of Munnich to remain with him awhile; and the field-marshal, thinking it might possibly enable him to prevent any warning reaching the regent, consented to stay.
Meanwhile nothing is to be had here; the very face of the earth the Turks have burnt: not a blade of grass for cavalry within eight miles, nor a stick of wood for engineers; not a hole for covert, and the ground so hard you cannot raise redoubts on it: Munnich perceives he must attempt, nevertheless.
Count Munnich was very much devoted to the pleasures of the table, and, sitting near the regent, he gave himself wholly up to the cheerful humour which the excellent viands and delicate wines were calculated to stimulate.
The noble and virtuous Count Ivan Dolgorucki had been broken upon the wheel, and three of his brothers beheaded, and for what? Because Count Munnich, fearing that the noble and respected brothers Dolgorucki might dispossess him of his usurped power, had persuaded the Czarina Anna that they were plotting her overthrow for the purpose of raising Katharina Ivanovna to the imperial throne.
Clasping the offered hand of the duke, he respectfully pressed it to his lips. "And now go, to kiss the hand of the young emperor, that you may not be accused of disrespect," smilingly added Biron; "one must always preserve appearances." Munnich silently bowed, while walking backward toward the door. "We part as friends?" asked the duke, nodding an adieu.
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!
"You all envy me on account of my power and dominion," said he to Munnich; "of that I am not ignorant. But you know not with what secret pain and anguish these few hours of splendor are purchased! the sleepless nights in which one fears seeing the doors open to give admission to murderers, and then the dreams in which blood is seen flowing, and nothing is heard but death-shrieks and lamentations!
"The good Munnich will never become generalissimo, and poor old failing Ostermann may now, unsuspected, go quietly to bed and comfortably await the coming events. Such an illness, at the right time, is an insurance against all accidents and miscarriages.
It shall not be said that Elizabeth has delivered up her aunt and cousin to torture for the purpose of securing her own advantage. Let them go hence free and unobstructed! I tell you this is my express, imperial will!" And Elizabeth, exhausted by so great an effort, leaned her head upon the shoulder of Alexis, mechanically playing with his locks. "And Munnich and Ostermann?" asked Lestocq.
Munnich shuddered slightly, and the color forsook his cheeks. "He knows all, and I am lost," thought he, and his hand involuntarily sought his sword. "I will defend myself to the last drop of my blood," was his first idea. But Biron, although surprised, saw nothing of the field-marshal's strange commotion he was wholly occupied with his own thoughts, and only awaited an answer to his question.
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