establish a court
in imitation of that of France. She could compel her nobles to appear
in the costume of the west, and, unless they were very wealthy, make
them sacrifice estates and serfs to pay his increased expenses, but of
the refinement which creates fashion, there was none. One of her
guests, a procurator-general was so intoxicated at one of her
receptions that he insulted one of Anne's most trusted advisers; she
was a witness, but only laughed heartily.

The young nobles benefited by the German influence at Court, since
they received a better education. A law was made requiring them to
study from their seventh to their twentieth year, and to serve the
government from that age until they were forty-five. Between the age
of twelve and sixteen they were made to appear before an examining
board, and any one failing to pass the second time in catechism,
arithmetic, and geometry, was put into the navy. In the schools for
young nobles,--the serfs received no instruction of any kind,--the
course of studies was enlarged after the German system.

Anne's infant son, Ivan, was three months old, when he succeeded to
the throne as Ivan VI. Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great and
Catherine, was twenty-eight years old; tall and masculine, bright and
bold, daring on horseback as well as on the water, she had made a host
of friends among the high officials and the Guards. She found an able
adviser in the French Minister at St. Petersburg who was anxious to
destroy the influence of Germany. The Swedes went so far as to begin
a war, proclaiming the desire to deliver "the glorious Russian (p. 179)
nation" from the German yoke. Elizabeth decided that the time had come
to act, when the regiments devoted to her were ordered to the
frontier. In the night of October 25, 1741, she went with three
friends to the barracks. "Boys," she said to the men, "you know whose
daughter I am?" "Matuska," (little mother), they replied, "we are
ready; we will kill all of them." She said that she did not wish any
blood to be shed, and added: "I swear to die for you; will _you_ swear
to die for me?" They made the oath. When she returned to the palace,
the regent, the infant czar, and the German members of the Government
were arrested. Ivan VI was sent to a fortress near the Swedish
frontier. The Germans were brought before a court and condemned to
death, but Elizabeth commuted the sentence to exile. After this she
went to Moscow, where she wa