which slowly advanced through its midst. It was a in the occupation of a barber to | sion great funeral which had passed through the principal streets without any one knowing whose funeral it was. Some soldiers, wearing mourning robes over their uniform, carried torches; and while the attention of all in the place was occupied, this cortege passed on and disappeared. Afterwards many questions were asked about this of the Princess D'Aschekoff, whose only answer always was : "We had taken our measures well." It is probable that this was a trick played to spread about among the people and the serfs a vague notion that the emperor was dead, thus to dispel, even if it were only for the first moment, any idea of resistance, and, adding surprise to seduction, to render the proclamation general and His unanimous. And certainly of this multitude which inundated the streets and the place, scarcely twenty persons, even in the palace, knew precisely what was being done. The people and the soldiers, uninformed if the emperor lived or not, and repeating in their acclamations the word houra! which is only a cry of joy without any other meaning, thought that they were proclaiming the young grand-duke as emperor, and only giving the regency to his mother. Several of the conspirators, hastening in the first moments to inform their friends, wrote them this false news. The tumult had thus taken an air of joy; no idea of injustice troubled the public By order of the empress an officer, with a numerous escort, hastened to seek the grand-duke, who was asleep in another palace. This child, already aware of the peril which threatened his life, awoke surrounded by soldiers, and manifested a terror, the impression of which long remained. governor, Panine, who till now had kept beside his pupil, reassured him, took him in his arms, and carried him to his mother, dressed in his night clothes as he She from a balcony showed him to the soldiers and the people. An innumerable crowd ran up. All the other regiments in the city had joined the soldiers of the guard. The acclamations were again and again redoubled, and all the hats of this multitude were thrown into the air at once. report spread that the emperor was being brought. The crowd opened out without tumult, fell back, and in profound silence made way for a pompous proces was. A satisfaction, and friends embraced | obliged to take precautions against and congratulated one another. But a manifesto, which was distributed throughout all the town, soon cleared up the real design; a printed manifesto that the Piedmontese Odard had, in mortal terror, been keeping for several days in his chamber; and this man, next day, seemed to breathe freely and said, "At last I am no longer afraid of being broken on the wheel." This document announced that "the Empress Catherine II., yielding to the entreaties of her people, mounted the throne of her dear country to save it from ruin," and heaping invectives upon the emperor, she indignantly denounced the king of Prussia and the spoliation of the priests. Thus spoke a German princess who had cemented this alliance and achieved this spoliation. All the nobles, learning the news when they awoke, ran to the palace, and it was not one of the least remarkable spectacles in this great scene to see their faces, full both of joy and of uneasiness, where zeal and smiles were joined to paleness and fear. On entering the palace they found a solemn mass going on, priests receiving the oath of fidelity, and the empress making use of all the arts of seduction. In her presence was being held a tumultuous debate upon what was to be done next. Each one, excited by the danger, and trying to make himself of value, was putting forward proposals and urging their execution; and as they soon ceased to be the city, by this time all in revolt, and were now able without apprehension to leave St. Petersburg behind them, it was resolved to lead the whole army against the emperor without delay. A great clamourraised among the soldiers interrupted this council. Always alarmed as to the dangers of the empress, always persuaded that the pretended assassins sent to kill her and her son were about to arrive at every moment, they imagined that she was not secure in this vast palace, one side of which is washed by the river, and which, not being then finished, appeared to be open in many places; they could not answer for her safety there, they said. They loudly demanded that she should be transferred to an old wooden palace which looks out on the same place, and which they could surround on all sides. So the empress crossed the place amid the most tumultuous acclamations. Beer and brandy were distributed to the soldiers. All had put on their old uniforms, throwing away with disdain the new uniform of the Prussian fashion which the emperor had just given them, and which, in that icy climate, left the soldiers almost naked. Those who, coming up in haste, had put on the new uniform, were received with yells, and the new hats, thrown from hand to hand like footballs, became a sport for the multitude. A single regiment looked grave and sullen; it was a very fine regiment of cavalry, of which the | graces, from the nobles who suremperor had been colonel from his childhood, which he had sent for to the city as soon as he mounted the throne, and to which he had given rank among the regiments of the guards. The officers of this corps had refused to march, and were all arrested; it was by other officers in different uniforms that the soldiers were led with evident ill will. Towards mid-day the heads of the Russian clergy, all old men of venerable aspect (it is well known how the smallest things capable of striking the imagination, become, at these critical moments, of the most real importance), all with white locks, with long white beards, all clad with pomp and dignity, bearing the insignia of consecration, the crown, the imperial orb, the ancient books, passed with a slow and majestic march through the whole army, which received them with respectful silence; they entered the palace to consecrate the empress, and this spectacle impressed on all hearts a certain sentiment which seemed to legitimatise violence and usurpation. As soon as she was consecrated, she dressed herself in the old uniform of the guards, which she borrowed from a young officer of the same height as herself. To the imposing ceremonies of religion succeeded a martial toilet, in which the charms of gallantry increased the lively admiration which this young and beautiful woman claimed, with the most seductive rounded her, a hat, a sword, and above all the cordon of the first order of the empire, which her husband had left off, to wear no order but a Prussian one. In this new attire she mounted her horse at the gate of the palace, and having by her side the Princess D'Aschekoff also on horseback, and in the uniform of the guards, she made the round of the place, announced to the troops that she was going to be their general, and by her air of cheerfulness and assurance gave back to the multitude the confidence which she received from them. The regiments began to defile preparatory to leaving the city, and marching against the emperor. The empress re-entered the palace, and dined near an open window looking out on the place. Holding up her glass she was seen to salute the troops, who replied by a long burst of acclamation. She remounted her horse, and set out at the head of her army. A whole city had changed its sovereign, an army had revolted, yet without any disorder, and after their departure there remained not at St. Petersburg the least symptom of tumult. * * * * So long as the life of the emperor left a cause of disquietude, it was believed that there could be no tranquillity. One of the Counts of Orloff (for from the first day this title was given them), the same soldier surnamed Le Balafré, "The Scarred," who had abstracted the Princess of Aschekoff's billet, and a person named Teploff, risen | they had been charged with this from the lowest employments guard; they hurried in, and three through a singular art of bringing of these murderers having tightly about the destruction of his rivals, knotted a napkin round the neck went together to this unhappy of the unhappy emperor, while prince; they announced to him | Orloff, kneeling, pressed upon his on entering that they had come to breast and kept him choked, they dine with him, and, according to contrived to strangle him, and he the Russian custom, glasses of remained lifeless in their hands. brandy were brought in before the repast. That which the emperor drank was a glass of poison. Either because they were in haste to carry back their news, or because the very horror of their deed drove them to hurry it on, they tried a minute afterwards to make him drink another glass. Already his entrails seemed on fire, and the cruelty of their countenances causing him to be suspicious, he refused this glass; they used violence to make him take it, and he to resist them. In that dreadful struggle to stifle his cries, which began to be heard far around, they hurled themselves upon him, seized him by the throat, and threw him down; but as he defended himself with all the strength given by despair, and as they did not wish to inflict any wound upon him, beginning to be afraid on their own account, they called to their help two officers who had the duty of guarding him, and who were then waiting outside of the door. These were the youngest of the Princes Baratinski, and a certain Potemkine, seventeen years old. They had shown so much zeal in the conspiracy, that, in spite of their extreme youth, It is not known for certain what part the empress had in this affair, but this much we are sure of, that the same day, as this princess was sitting down to dinner with much gaiety, people saw this same Orloff enter, dishevelled, covered with dust and sweat, his clothes torn, his countenance agitated, full of horror and haste. As he came into the room, his glittering and eager eyes sought those of the empress. She rose without a word, passed into a cabinet, where he followed her, and a few minntes afterwards she sent for the Count Panine, already named as her minister; she informed him that the emperor was dead, and consulted him as to the best way of announcing his death to the public. Panine advised her to let a night pass, and to spread abroad the news next day as if it had been received during the night. This plan having been agreed upon, the empress returned with unchanged countenance and continued her dinner with the same cheerfulness. Next day, when it was given out that Peter had died of a hemor rhoidal colic, she appeared bathed in tears, and published her grief in an edict. THE FALL OF POLAND. (Cantu's Universal History.) A.D. 1765-1795. WHEN Augustus III., who had always lived in dependence on Russia, abandoned the unhappy Poland to go and die in Saxony, a deplorable interregnum commenced in the country. In order to alarm the Radziwils, the Czartoriski faction appealed to Catherine, who for some time had been threatening and desiring to intervene; this cast oil on the flame. The Czartoriskis hurrying on the work of reform during the vacancy of the throne abolished the great offices, repressed the powerful families, weakened the nobles by limiting their power over their serfs, abrogated the privileges of the great towns and of entire provinces. The regiments of the guard were to be under the king, as also the mint and the posts; it was to be lawful for him to appropriate four of the richest domains. They tried above all to abolish the liberum veto. All this they did in a few weeks, without trying to gain the support of the nation's will, while Prussia and Russia opposed the reforms, interested as they were in the continuance of disorder. Each of the two parties, of one mind about resisting a foreigner, put forward a creature of its own. But how could it be hoped that in the midst of such passions more than a thousand electors would arrive at a unanimous vote? Among the members of the diet, where disputes broke out every moment, there were exchanged more than a hundred thousand sword-cuts, without more than a hundred gentlemen being killed, seeing that on such occasions the Poles do not wear pointed weapons. But what was the use of discussing, when Catherine had made up her mind? Sixty thousand Russians on the frontiers, ten thousand at the gates of Warsaw, were to assure the free election of her paramour; Turks, Janissaries, Hungarians, Prussians, filled the town, and the galleries of the hall; Stanislaus was elected then. On the very day of his coronation Stanislaus Poniatowski displeased the Poles, by not showing |