Surely the Devil will reward such a Five of his Elect?-- But we detain Herr Busching: it is still only Friday morning, 9th of the month; and the Czarina's Hackney Coach, in the manner of a comet and tail, has just gone into other streets:--"After this terrible uproar had left our quarter, I hastened to the Danish Ambassador, Count Haxthausen, who lived near me, to bring him the important news that the Czar was said to be dead. The Count was just about to burn a mass of Papers, fearing the mob would plunder his house; but he did not proceed with it now, and thanked Heaven for saving his Country. His Secretary of Legation, my friend Schumacher, gave me all the money he had in his pockets, to distribute amongst the poor; and I returned home. Directly after, there passed our house, at a rate as if the horses were running away, a common two-horse coach, in which sat Head-Tutor (OBER-HOFMEISTER) von Panin with the Grand Duke [famous Czar Paul that is to be], who was still in his nightgown," poor frightened little boy!--"Not long after, I saw some of the Foot-guards, in the public street near the Winter Palace, selling, at rates dog-cheap, their new uniforms after the Prussian cut, which they had stript off;whilst others, singing merrily, carried about, stuck on the top of their muskets, or on their bayonets, their new grenadier caps of Prussian fashion. [See in HERMANN (v. 291) the Saxon Ambassador's Report.] I saw several soldiers,, out on errand or otherwise, seizing the coaches they met in the streets, and driving on in them. Others appropriated the eatables which hucksters carried about in baskets. But in all this wild tumult, nobody was killed;and only at Oranienbaum a few Holstein soldiers got wounded by some low Russians, in their wantonness.
"July 11th, the disorder amongst the soldiers was at its height;yet still much less than might have been expected. Many of them entered the houses of Foreigners, and demanded money. Seeing a number of them come into my house, I hastily put a quantity of roubles and half-roubles in my pocket, and went out with a servant, especially with a cheerful face, to meet them,"--and no harm was done.
"SATURDAY, JULY 17th, was the day of the Czar's death; on the same 17th, the Empress was informed of it; and next day, his body was brought from Ropscha to the Convent of St. Alexander Newski, near Petersburg. Here it lay in state three days; nay, an Imperial Manifesto even ordered that the last honors and duty be paid to it.
July 20th, I drove thither with my Wife; and to be able to view the body more minutely, we passed twice through the room where it lay.
[An uncommonly broad neckcloth on it, did you observe?] Owing to the rapid dissolution, it had to be interred on the following day:
--and it was a touching circumstance, that this happened to be the very day on which the Czar had fixed to start from Petersburg on his Campaign against Denmark." [Busching, vi. 464-467.]
Catharine, one must own with a shudder, has not attained the Autocracy of All the Russias gratis. Let us hope she would once--till driven upon a dire alternative--have herself shuddered to purchase at such a price. A kind of horror haunts one's notion of her red-handed brazen-faced Orlofs and her, which all the cosmetics of the world will never quite cover. And yet, on the spot, in Petersburg at the moment--! Read this Clipping from Smelfungus, on a collateral topic:--"In BUSCHING'S MAGAZINE are some Love-letters from the old Marshal Munnich to Catharine just after this event, which are psychologically curious. Love-letters, for they partake of that character; though the man is 82, and has had such breakages and vicissitudes in this Earth. Alive yet, it would seem; and full of ambitions. Unspeakably beautiful is this young Woman to him;radiant as ox-eyed Juno, as Diana of the silver bow,--such a power in her to gratify the avarices, ambitions, cupidities of an insatiable old fellow: O divine young Empress, Aurora of bright Summer epochs, rosy-fingered daughter of the Sun,--grant me the governing of This, the administering of That: and see what a thing I will make of it (I, an inventive old gentleman), for your Majesty's honor and glory, and my own advantage! [Busching, <italic> Magazin fur die neue Historie und Geographie <end italic>
(Halle, Year 1782), xvi. 413-477 (22 LETTERS, and only thrice or so a word of RESPONSE from "MA DIVINITE:" dates, "Narva, 4th August, 1762" ... "Petersburg, 3d October, 1762").]--Innumerable persons of less note than Munnich have their Biographies, and are known to the reading public and in all barbers'-shops, if that were an advantage to them. Very considerable, this Munnich, as a soldier, for one thing. And surely had very strange adventures; an original German character withal:--about the stature of Belleisle, for example;and not quite unlike Belleisle in some of his ways? Came originally from the swamps of Oldenburg, or Lower Weser Country,--son of a DEICHGRAFE (Ditch-Superintendent) there. REQUIESCANT in oblivious silence, Belleisle and he; it is better than being lied of, and maundered of, and blotched and blundered of.
"Biographies were once rhythmic, earnest as death or as life, earnest as transcendent human Insight risen to the Singing pitch;some Homer, nay some Psalmist or Evangelist, spokesman of reverent Populations, was the Biographer. Rhythmic, WITH exactitude, investigation to the very marrow; this, or else oblivion, Biography should now, and at all times, be; but is not,--by any manner of means. With what results is visible enough, if you will look!
Human Stupor, fallen into the dishonest, lazy and UNflogged condition, is truly an awful thing."Catharine did not persist in her Anti-Prussian determination.
