A strange joy suddenly lighted up the brow of the count.
"Ah," said he, breathing more freely, and stretching himself up--"ah, I
thank God that I now have some one on whom I can wreak my vengeance!"
And kicking the unfortunate weeping and writhing servants, who were
crawling in the dust before him, Munnich cried: "No mercy, you hounds--no, no mercy! You shall be scourged until you
have breathed out your miserable lives! The knout here! Strike! I will
look on from my windows, and see that my commands are executed! Ah, I
will teach you to break my cups and let my hounds escape! Scourge them
unto death! I will see their blood--their red, smoking blood!"
The field-marshal stationed himself at his open window. The servants had
formed a close circle around the unhappy beings who were receiving their
punishment in the court below. The air was filled with the shrieks of
the tortured men, blood flowed in streams over their flayed backs, and
at every new stroke of the knout they howled and shrieked for mercy;
while at every new shriek Munnich cried out to his executioners: "No, no mercy, no pity! Scourge the culprits! I would, I must see blood!
Scourge them to death!"
Trembling, the band of servants looked on with folded hands; with a
savage smile upon his face, stood Count Munnich at his window above.
Weaker and weaker grew the cries of the unhappy sufferers--they no
longer prayed for mercy. The knout continued to flay their bodies, but
their blood no longer flowed--they were dead!
The surrounding servants folded their hands in prayer for the souls
of the deceased, and then loudly commended the mild justice of their
master!
Retiring from the window, Count Munnich ordered his breakfast to be
served!(*) (*) Such horribly cruel punishments of the serfs were at
that time no uncommon occurrence in Russia. Unhappy serfs
were daily scourged to death at the command of their
masters. Moreover, princes and generals, and even
respectable ladies, were scourged with the knout at the
command of the emperor. Yet these punishments in Russia had
nothing dishonoring in them. The Empress Catharine II. had
three of her court ladies stripped and scourged in the
presence of the whole court, for having drawn some offensive
caricatures of the great empress. 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. As his inordinate ambition was known,
he was constantly suspected, and was reprehended with inexorable
severity for every fault.
It is true the regent raised him to the post of first minister; but
Ostermann, who recovered his health after the successful termination
of the revolutionary enterprise, by various intrigues attained to the
position of minister of foreign affairs; while to Golopkin was given the
department of the interior, so that only the war department remained
to the first minister, Munnich. He had originated and accomplished two
revolutions that he might become generalissimo, and had obtained nothing
but mortifications and humiliations that embittered every moment of his
life!