HOPES DECEIVED
Tranquillity was again established in Russia. Once again all faces werelighted up with joy at this new state of affairs, and again the peoplecongratulated themselves on the good fortune of the Russian empire! Allthis was done four weeks previously, when Biron took upon himself theregency, and the same will be done again when another comes to overthrowthe Regent Anna!
It was on the day after this new revolution, when Munnich, entering thepalace with a proud step and elevated head, requested an interview withthe regent.
"Your highness," he said, not bending the knee before his sovereign ascustom demanded, but only slightly pressing her hand to his lips--"yourhighness, I have redeemed my word and fulfilled my promise. I promisedto liberate you from Biron and make you regent, and I have kept my word.Now, madame, it is for you to fulfil your pledge! You solemnly promisedthat when I should succeed in making you regent, you would immediatelyand unconditionally grant me whatever I might demand. Well, now, you areregent, and I come to proffer my request!"
"It will make me happy, field-marshal, to discharge a small part of myobligations toward you, by yielding to your demand. Ask quickly, that Imay the sooner give!" said Anna Leopoldowna, with an engaging smile.
"Make me the generalissimo of your forces!" responded Munnich in analmost commanding tone.
A cloud gathered over the smiling features of the regent.
"Why must you ask precisely this--this one only favor which it isno longer in my power to bestow?" she sadly said. "There are so manyoffices, so many influential positions--ah, I could prove my gratitudeto you in so many ways! Ask for money, treasures, landed estates--allthese it is in my power to give. Why must you demand precisely thatwhich is no longer mine!"
Munnich stared at her with widely opened eyes, trembling lips, andpallid cheeks. His head swam, and he thought he could not have rightlyheard.
"I hope this is only a misunderstanding!" he stammered. "I must haveheard wrong; it cannot be your intention to refuse me."
"Would to God it were yet in my power to gratify you!" sighed theregent. "But I cannot give what is no longer mine! Why came you not afew hours earlier, field-marshal? then it would have been yet possibleto comply with your request. But now it is too late!"
"You have, then, appointed another generalissimo?" shrieked Munnich,quivering with rage.
"Yes," said Anna, smiling; "and see, there comes my generalissimo!"
It was the regent's husband, Prince Ulrich von Brunswick, who thatmoment entered the room and calmly greeted Munnich.
"You have here a rival, my husband," said the princess, withoutembarrassment; "and had I not already signed your diploma, it is veryquestionable whether I should now do it, now that I know Count Munichdesires the appointment."
"I hope," proudly responded the prince, "Count Munnich will comprehendthat this position, which places the whole power of the empire inthe hands of him who holds it, is suitable only for the father of theemperor!"
Count Munnich made no answer. Already so near the attainment of his end,he saw it again elude his grasp. Again had he labored, struggled, invain. This was the second revolution which he had brought about, withthis his favorite plan in view: two regents were indebted to him fortheir greatness, and both had refused him the one thing for which he hadmade them regents; neither had been willing to create him generalissimo!
In this moment Munnich felt unable to conceal his rage under anassumed tranquillity; pretending a sudden attack of illness, he beggedpermission to retire.
Tottering, scarcely in possession of his senses, he hastened throughthe hall thronged with petitioners. All bowed before him, all reverentlysaluted him; but to him it seemed that he could read nothing but mockeryand malicious joy upon all those smiling faces. Ah, he couldhave crushed them all, and trodden them under his feet, in hisinextinguishable rage!
When he finally reached his carriage, and his proud steeds were bearinghim swiftly away--when none could any longer see him--then he gave ventto furious execrations, and tears of rage flowed from his eyes; he toreout his hair and smote his breast; he felt himself wandering, franticwith rage and despair. One thought, one wish had occupied him for manylong years; he had labored and striven for it. He wished to be thefirst, the most powerful man in the Russian empire; he would controlthe military force, and in his hands should rest the means of givingthe country peace or war! That was what he wanted; that was what he hadlabored for--and now. . . .
"Oh, Biron, Biron," he faintly groaned, "why must I overthrow you? Youloved me, and perhaps would one day have accorded me what you at firstrefused! Biron, I have betrayed you with a kiss. It is your guardianangel who is now avenging you!"
Thus he reached his palace, and the servants who opened the door ofhis carriage started back with alarm at the fearful expression of theirmaster's face. It had become of an ashen gray, his blue lips quivered,and his gloomily-gleaming eyes seemed to threaten those who daredapproach him.
Alighting in silence, he strode on through the rows of his tremblingservants. Suddenly two of his lackeys fell upon their knees before him,weeping and sobbing; they stretched forth their hands to him, beggingfor mercy.
"What have they done?" asked he of his major-domo.
"Feodor has had the misfortune to break your excellency's drinking-cup,and Ivanovitch bears the blame of suffering your greyhound Artemisia toescape."
A strange joy suddenly lighted up the brow of the count.
"Ah," said he, breathing more freely, and stretching himself up--"ah, Ithank God that I now have some one on whom I can wreak my vengeance!"
And kicking the unfortunate weeping and writhing servants, who werecrawling in the dust before him, Munnich cried:
"No mercy, you hounds--no, no mercy! You shall be scourged until youhave breathed out your miserable lives! The knout here! Strike! I willlook on from my windows, and see that my commands are executed! Ah, Iwill teach you to break my cups and let my hounds escape! Scourge themunto death! I will see their blood--their red, smoking blood!"
The field-marshal stationed himself at his open window. The servants hadformed a close circle around the unhappy beings who were receiving theirpunishment in the court below. The air was filled with the shrieks ofthe tortured men, blood flowed in streams over their flayed backs, andat 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 asavage smile upon his face, stood Count Munnich at his window above.
Weaker and weaker grew the cries of the unhappy sufferers--they nolonger prayed for mercy. The knout continued to flay their bodies, buttheir blood no longer flowed--they were dead!
The surrounding servants folded their hands in prayer for the soulsof the deceased, and then loudly commended the mild justice of theirmaster!
Retiring from the window, Count Munnich ordered his breakfast to beserved!(*)
(*) 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 chainof vexations and mortifications. As his inordinate ambition
was known,he was constantly suspected, and was reprehended with inexorableseverity for every fault.
It is true the regent raised him to the post of first minister; butOstermann, who recovered his health after the successful terminationof the revolutionary enterprise, by various intrigues attained to theposition of minister of foreign affairs; while to Golopkin was given thedepartment of the interior, so that only the war department remainedto the first minister, Munnich. He had originated and accomplished tworevolutions that he might become generalissimo, and had obtained nothingbut mortifications and humiliations that embittered every moment of hislife!