He had originated and accomplished two
revolutions that he might become generalissimo, and had obtained nothing
but mortifications and humiliations that embittered every moment of his
life!
THE REGENT ANNA LEOPOLDOWNA
Anna had succeeded, she was regent; she had shaken off the burden of
the Bironic tutelage, and her word was all-powerful throughout the
immeasurable provinces of the Russian empire. Was she now happy, this
proud and powerful Anna Leopoldowna? No one had ever yet been happy
and free from care upon this Russian throne, and how, then, could Anna
Leopoldowna be so? She had read the books of Russian political history,
and that history was written with blood! Anna was a woman, and she
trembled when thinking of the poison, the dagger, the throttling hands,
and flaying sword, which had constantly beset the throne of Russian, and
in a manner had been the means in the hands of Providence of clearing
it from one tyrant, only, indeed, to make room for another. Anna, as we
have said, trembled before this means of Providence; and when her
eyes fell upon Munnich--upon his dark, angry brow and his secretly
threatening glance--she then with inward terror asked herself: "May not
Providence have chosen him for my murderer? Will he not overthrow me, as
he overthrew his former master and friend Duke Biron?"
Anna now feared him whom she had chiefly to thank for her greatness.
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