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 chain
of vexations and mortifications. As his inordinate ambition was known,
he was constantly suspected, and was reprehended with inexorable
severity for every fault.
It is true the regent raised him to the post of first minister; but
Ostermann, who recovered his health after the successful termination
of the revolutionary enterprise, by various intrigues attained to the
position of minister of foreign affairs; while to Golopkin was given the
department of the interior, so that only the war department remained
to the first minister, Munnich.
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