Alexis Razumovsky stood by her bedside, weeping. Overcome, as it seemed,
by his sorrow, another left the death-chamber of the empress, and rushed
to his horse, standing ready in the court below! This other was Count
Rasczinsky, the confidant of the empress.
The bells rang in St. Petersburg, the cannon roared; there were both joy
and sorrow in what the bells and cannon announced!
The Empress Elizabeth was dead; the Emperor Peter III. ascended the
throne of the czars as absolute ruler of the Russian realm. The first to
bow before him was his wife. With her son of five years old in her arms,
she had thrown herself upon her knees, and touching the floor with her
forehead, she had implored grace and love for herself and her son; and
Peter, raising her up, had presented her to the people as his empress.
In St. Petersburg the bells rang, the cannon thundered--"The empress is
dead, long live the emperor!"
Before the villa stopped a foam-covered steed, from which dismounted a
horseman, who knocked at the closed door. To the porter who looked out
from a sliding window he showed the written order of Elizabeth for his
admission. The porter opened the door, and with the loud cry, "Natalie,
Natalie!" the Count Rasczinsky rushed into the hall of the house.
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