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With flashing eyes, folded arms, and pale, stern, face, sat Potemkin, and his glance seemed about to annihilate the terrified woman, who had neither strength to call for help nor self-possession to greet her unwelcome visitor. He rose, however, and came forward. Catharine trembled and shuddered as he passed her by, locked the door and put the key in his pocket.
In the course of the unimportant operations following the defeat of the Turks, during which the squadron maintained a strict blockade of Oczakow, Jones was sent on a number of trivial enterprises by Potemkin, whose language was carefully chosen to irritate the fiery Scotchman. I require that this be done without loss of time; if not, you will be made answerable for every neglect."
He pressed the spring and it opened, revealing nothing but a key! But Potemkin snatched it up, and, unheeding the treasures worth a million, that lay scattered about the room, he passed into a little dark anteroom, thence into a corridor, up and down staircases, forward, forward, rapidly forward! Finally he reached the end of a long, narrow corridor.
It has had a very varied ownership, with some curious features in that connection which remind one of a gigantic game of ball between Katherine II. and Prince Potemkin. Count Razumovsky did not live in it until after the Empress Elizabeth's death, in 1762.
Count von Gortz also had risen and contemplated him in anxious silence. "Did the courier from Berlin bring any letters to the czarina?" asked Potemkin, as he ceased walking and stood before Von Gortz. "Yes, your highness, and I shall deliver them, as soon as I receive the assurance of your influence with the empress." "Very well, you have it. I will go to her at once.
"Who wrote the inscription?" asked Potemkin, hastily. "Her majesty's self," replied Narischkin, with a deep inclination at the name. "But the emperor greets every thing with a quiet smile. When he visited the mint and saw the enormous piles of bullion there, he merely said: 'Have you always as much silver in the mint as there is to-day?" Potemkin laughed aloud.
After his own death, his brother sold it to the state, and Katherine II. presented it to Prince Potemkin, who promptly resold it to a wealthy merchant-contractor in the commissariat department of the army, who in turn sold it to Katherine II., who gave it once more to Potemkin.
Potemkin hesitated at no expense. The journey had cost the empire no less than seven millions of rubles, fourteen thousand of which were expended on the throne built for the empress in what was named the admiralty of Kherson. Such was the scenery prepared for one of the most theatrical events the world has ever witnessed. It cost the empire dearly, but Potemkin's purpose was achieved.
It was the custom of the French memoir writers a race who always aimed at pungency of narrative in preference to truth, and who, for their generation, performed the part of general libellers to represent Potemkin as a savage, devoted to drinking, and whose influence was solely the result of his grossness.
At dessert, on the table were put crystal goblets full of diamonds, which were served to the ladies by the spoonful. The queen of the festival observing this luxury, Potemkin whispered to her, "Since this celebration is for you, why should you be astonished at anything?" He would spare no sacrifice to satisfy a wish or a whim of that charming woman.
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