The Empress Anna was dead, and--an unheard-of case in Russian imperial
history--she had even died a natural death. Again was the Russian
imperial throne vacated! Who is there to mount it? whom has the empress
named as her successor? No one dared to speak of it; the question was
read in all eyes, but no lips ventured to open for the utterance of
an answer, as every conjecture, every expression, if unfounded and
unfulfilled, would be construed into the crime of high-treason as soon
as another than the one thus indicated should be called to the throne!
Who will obtain that throne? So asked each man in his heart. The
courtiers and great men of the realm asked it with shuddering and
despair. For, to whom should they now go to pay their homage and thus
recommend themselves to favor in advance? Should they go to Biron, the
Duke of Courland? Was it not possible that the dying empress had chosen
him, her warmly-beloved favorite, her darling minion, as her successor
to the throne of all the Russias? But how if she had not done so? If,
instead, she had chosen her niece, the wife of Prince Anton Ulrich, of
Brunswick, as her successor? Or was it not also possible that she had
declared the Princess Elizabeth, the daughter of Czar Peter the Great,
as empress? The latter, indeed, had the greatest, the most incontestable
right to the imperial throne of Russia; was she not the sole lawful heir
of her father? How, if one therefore went to her and congratulated her
as empress? But if one should make a mistake, how then?
The courtiers, as before said, shuddered and hesitated, and, in order
to avoid making a mistake, did nothing at all. They remained in their
palaces, ostensibly giving themselves up to deep mourning for the
decease of the beloved czarina, whom every one of them secretly hated so
long as she was yet alive.
There were but a few who were not in uncertainty respecting the
immediate future, and conspicuous among that few was Field-Marshal Count
Munnich.
While all hesitated and wavered in anxious doubt, Munnich alone was
calm. He knew what was coming, because he had had a hand in shaping the
event.
"Oh," said he, while walking his room with folded arms, "we have at
length attained the object of our wishes, and this bright emblem for
which I have so long striven will now finally become mine. I shall be
the ruler of this land, and in the unrestricted exercise of royal power
I shall behold these millions of venal slaves grovelling at my feet,
and whimpering for a glance or a smile. Ah, how sweet is this governing
power!
"But," he then continued, with a darkened brow, "what is the good of
being the ruler if I cannot bear the name of ruler?--what is it to
govern, if another is to be publicly recognized as regent and receive
homage as such? The kernel of this glory will be mine, but the shell,--I
also languish for the shell. But no, this is not the time for such
thoughts, now, when the circumstances demand a cheerful mien and every
outward indication of satisfaction! My time will also come, and, when
it comes, the shell as well as the kernel shall be mine! But this is the
hour for waiting upon the Duke of Courland! I shall be the first to wish
him joy, and shall at the same time remind him that he has given me his
ducal word that he will grant the first request I shall make to him as
regent. Well, well, I will ask now, that I may hereafter command."