e young Duke Peter
Ulrich of Holstein accepted her call. Declining the crown of Sweden,
he professed the Greek religion in St. Petersburg, was clothed with the
title of grand prince by Elizabeth, and declared her successor to the
throne of the czars.

Elizabeth could now undisturbedly enjoy her imperial splendor. The
successor to the throne was assured, Anna Leopoldowna languished in the
fortress of Kolmogory, and in Schlusselburg the little Emperor Ivan
was passing his childish dream-life! Who was there now to contest her
rights--who would dare an attempt to shake a throne which rested upon
such safe pillars of public favor, and which so many new-made counts and
barons protected with their broad shoulders and nervous arms?

Elizabeth had no more need to govern, no more occasion to tremble. She
let sink the hand which, with a single stroke of the pen, could give
laws to millions of men, which could give them interminable sorrow and
endless torments; she again took the heavy imperial crown from her
head, replacing it with wreaths of myrtles and ever-fragrant roses. She
permitted Tscherkaskoy to govern, and Bestuscheff to sell to England the
dearest interests of Russia. She permitted her ministers to govern with
unrestricted power, and was rejoiced when no one came to trouble her
about affairs of state or the interests of her people.

ELEONORE LAPUSCHKIN

Two years had elapsed since Elizabeth's accession to the throne; for
her, two years of pleasure and enjoyment, only troubled here and there
with occasional small clouds of ill-humor--but those clouds overshadowed
only her domestic peace. It was not the affairs of state, not the
interests of her people, that troubled and saddened Elizabeth; she asked
not how many of her subjects the war with Sweden had swept away; how
many had fallen a sacrifice to hunger in the southern provinces of
her realm. She had quite other cares and anxieties than those which
concerned only her ministers, not herself. What have princes to do with
the happiness of their people.

Elizabeth was a consummate princess; she thought only of her own
happiness, only of herself and her own sorrows. And it was a very
severe, very incurable sorrow that visited her--a sorrow that often
brought tears of anger into her eyes and curses upon her lips. Elizabeth
was jealous--jealous not of this or that woman, but of the whole sex.
She glowingly desired to be the fairest of all women, and constantly
trem