"
But while thus speaking, her eyes suddenly became fixed and her cheek
pale. She laid her trembling hand upon her heart--tears gushed from her
eyes.
Under her heart she had felt a movement of a new and mysterious life!
Heaven itself seemed to contradict her words! Elizabeth felt that she
was a mother, and Eleonore's words now filled her with awe and terror!
Fainting, she sank into Razumovsky's arms.
A few weeks later, a great and magnificent court festival was celebrated
at the imperial palace at St. Petersburg. It was not enough that
Elizabeth had chosen a successor in the person of Peter, Duke of
Holstein, she must also give this successor a wife, that the throne
might be fortified and assured by a numerous progeny.
She chose for him the Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, the young and beautiful
Sophia Augusta, who, embracing the Greek religion, received the name of
Catharine.
It was the marriage festival of this young German princess with the heir
to the Russian throne which was celebrated in the imperial palace at St.
Petersburg--a festival of splendor and enthusiasm, as it was attended
by two women of the most exciting beauty, Elizabeth the present and
Catharine the future empress--the one gorgeous with the splendor of
the present, the other irradiated with the glory of the future.
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