re 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 br