looked hard at her; answered evasively this and that. At last,
being often importuned, she answered plainly, 'I almost feel convinced
thou wilt never come back!' Protestations from the Fraulein were not
wanting:--'Well then,' said Elizabeth, 'if thou art so sure of it, leave
me thy jewels in pledge. Why not?' The poor Fraulein could not say
why; had to leave her jewels, which were her whole fine fortune,
'worth 100,000 rubles' (20,000 pounds); and is now the brave Wife of
Winterfeld;--but could never, by direct entreaty or circuitous interest
and negotiation, get back the least item of her jewels. Elizabeth,
as Princess and as Czarina, was alike deaf on that subject. Now or
henceforth that proved an impossible private enterprise for Winterfeld,
though he had so easily succeeded in the public one." [Retzow,
_Charakteristik des siebenjahrigen Krieges_ (Berlin, 1802), i. 45 n.]

The new Czarina was not unmerciful. Munnich and Company were tried
for life; were condemned to die, and did appear on the scaffold (29th
January, 1742), ready for that extreme penalty; but were there, on the
sudden, pardoned or half-pardoned by a merciful new Czarina, and sent to
Siberia and outer darkness. Whither Bieren had preceded them. To outer
darkness also, though a milder destiny had been intended them at first,
went Anton Ulrich and his Household. Towards native Germany at first;
they had got as far as Riga on the way to Germany, but were detained
there, for a long while (owing to suspicions, to Botta Plots, or I know
not what), till finally they were recalled into Russian exile. Strict
enough exile, seclusion about Archangel and elsewhere; in convents, in
obscure uncomfortable places:--little Iwan, after vicissitudes, even
went underground; grew to manhood, and got killed (partly by accident,
not quite by murder), some twenty-three years hence, in his dungeon
in the Fortress of Schlusselburg, below the level of the Ladoga waters
there. Unluckier Household, which once seemed the luckiest of the world,
was never known. Canted suddenly, in this way, from the very top of
Fortune's wheel to the very bottom; never to rise more;--and did not
even die, at least not all die, for thirty or forty years after. [Anton
Ulrich, not till 15th May, 1775 (two Daughters of his went, after this,
to "Horstens, a poor Country-House in Jutland," whither Catherine II.
had manumitted them, with pension;--she had wished Anton Ulrich to
go home, many years before; b