derment, and then
sent for Munich.

"Field marshal," said he, "I perceive that I was too late in following
your advice. You see to what extremities I am reduced. Tell me, I
beseech you, what I ought to do."

About two hundred miles from where they were, directly down the Gulf
of Finland, was the city of Revel, one of the naval depots of Russia.
A large squadron of ships of war was riding at anchor there. Munich,
as prompt in council as he was energetic in action, replied,

"Proceed immediately to join the squadron at Revel. There take a
ship, and go on to Pomerania.[17] Put yourself at the head of your
army, return to Russia, and I promise you that in six weeks Petersburg
and all the rest of the empire will be in subjection to you."

[Footnote 17: Pomerania was one of the duchies of Prussia, where the
Russian army, in cooeperation with the King of Prussia, was assembled.
Frederic might, perhaps, have sent his troops to aid Peter in the
recovery of his crown.]

The women and the courtiers, with characteristic timidity,
remonstrated against a measure so decisive, and, believing that the
empress would not be very implacable, entreated the tzar to negotiate
rather than fight. Peter yielded to their senseless solicitations, and
ordered them to make immediately for Oranienbaum. They reached the
dock at four o'clock in the morning. Peter hastened to his apartment,
and wrote a letter to the empress, which he dispatched by a courier.
In this letter he made a humble confession of his faults, and promised
to share the sovereign authority with Catharine if she would consent
to reconciliation. The empress was, at this time, at the head of her
army within about twenty miles of Oranienbaum. During the night, she
had slept for a few hours upon some cloaks which the officers of her
suite had spread for her bed. Catharine, knowing well that perjury was
one of the most trivial of the faults of the tzar, made no reply, but
pressed forward with her troops.

Peter, soon receiving information of the advance of the army, ordered
one of his fleetest horses to be saddled, and dressed himself in
disguise, intending thus to effect his escape to the frontiers of
Poland. But, with his constitutional irresolution, he soon abandoned
this plan, and, ordering the fortress of Oranienbaum to be dismantled,
to convince Catharine that he intended to make no resistance, he wrote
to the empress another letter still more humble and sycophantic than
the