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Updated: June 15, 2025
"That was a magnificent comedy!" said she, retreating from the window when the condemned were released from their bands and raised into the vehicles that were immediately to start with them for Siberia. "Yes, it was, indeed, very amusing! But tell me, Lestocq, where are they about to take old Count Ostermann?" "To the most northerly part of Siberia!" calmly replied Lestocq.
"We will not appoint him generalissimo!" exclaimed the princess. "He must never forget that he is our servant, and we his masters." "And now permit me to go, your highness," said Ostermann. "Will you have the kindness, prince, to command your lackeys to bear me to my sedan-chair? It is impossible for me to walk a step.
That you may depend upon!" And, dismissing his assistants with a kick, Count Ostermann ascended the last steps of the winding stairs alone and unaided. But, before opening the door at the head of the stairs, he took time for reflection.
A dark, fatal suspicion for a moment overclouded her soul, and in her usually unsuspicious mind arose the questions: "What if Ostermann was right, if Elizabeth is really conspiring, and the French ambassador is her confederate?" "And what, if one may ask, was the subject of the wager?" she asked, with the tone of an inquisitor.
He sent Vandamme with forty thousand men to attack the allies before they could unite their forces, and thus effect their complete destruction. Only the almost despairing bravery of the Russian guards under Ostermann, who held him in check till the allied troops united, prevented Napoleon's design.
A Russian force of 14,000 men, led by the young Prince Eugène of Würtemberg and Count Ostermann, sought in vain to stop his progress: though roughly handled on the 28th by the French, the Muscovites disengaged themselves, fell back ever fighting to the Nollendorf pass, and took up a strong position behind the village of Kulm.
Of the heads that dropped by orders of Elizabeth it is needless to speak; but of one that was spared there is an interesting account. Ostermann, a German, had been vice chancellor to the Empress Anna, and had also brought about the downfall of Biron the Regent. Now his turn had come.
In a few minutes, Count Ostermann, painfully supporting himself upon two crutches, entered the regent's cabinet. Anna Leopoldowna received him, sitting in an armchair, and listlessly rummaging in a band-box filled with various articles of dress and embroidery, which had just been brought to her.
Satiated and exhausted, she in some measure left the wielding of the sceptre to her first and confidential minister, Count Golopkin. He ruled in her name, as Count Ostermann was generalissimo in the name of her husband the Prince of Brunswick. Why trouble themselves with the pains and cares of governing, when it was permitted them to only enjoy the pleasures of their all-powerful position?
He will ask you to appoint him generalissimo of all your forces by land and sea." "Then will he demand what naturally belongs to me," said the prince, excitedly, "and we shall of course refuse it." "Yes, we must refuse it," repeated the princess. "And in that you will do well," said Count Ostermann.
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