renadiers, and you, Grunstein, the leader of this faithful band!
Receive them into your ranks, my counts and barons, they are worthy of
you!"

Hesitating, not daring to mingle with those proud magnates, stood the
new barons; but the princes and counts advanced to them with open
arms, with exclamations of tenderness and assurances of friendship. The
empress had spoken, the slaves must obey; and these princes and counts,
these generals and field-marshals, who yesterday would hardly have
thrown away a contemptuous glance upon these grenadiers, now called
them friends and brothers, and were most happy to admit them into their
circle.

Elizabeth gave a satisfied glance at these hearty greetings: she found
it infinitely sweet and agreeable to make so many men happy in so easy a
manner, and with pleasure she recollected that she had yet to reward her
coachman who had guided her sledge in the great and decisive hour.

She ordered him to be called. A considerable time elapsed, and all were
looking expectantly toward the door, which finally opened, and, led by
four lackeys, the coachman stumbled into the hall. They had had some
trouble in finding him, until at length he was discovered among the
people in the court-yard, enjoying the brandy distributed by order of
the empress. From this crowd they had withdrawn him in spite of his
resistance, in order to bring him to his sovereign.

She received the staggering Petrovitch with a gracious smile, she
praised the dauntlessness with which he had guided her sledge in that
eventful night, and in gratitude for his good conduct she raised him, as
she had the grenadiers, to the rank of a nobleman by naming him a baron
of the Russian empire.

Petrovitch listened to her with a stupid laugh; and when the magnates
crowded around him, offering their hands and assuring him of their
friendship, he tremblingly and with effort stammered some unmeaning
words, and falling upon his knees, he bowed his head in the dust before
these great and powerful magnates, humbly kissing the hems of their
garments, not suspecting that he was their equal in rank.

And constantly more brilliant and beautiful beamed the imperial grace.
None of Elizabeth's faithful friends and servants were forgotten, for
she possessed a virtue rare among princes--she was grateful.

She named Lestocq her first physician, president of the medical
college, and member of her privy council. She made Grunstein an imperial
aide-de-cam