of their military violence, she
wished, of course, that they should retire to their quarters, and resume
their habits of subordination, and of submission to the civil authority.
But this they would not do. Couvansky, having found how important a
personage he might become through the agency of the terrible organization
which was under his direction and control, was not disposed at once to
lay aside his power; and the soldiers, intoxicated with the delights of
riot and pillage, could not now be easily restrained. Sophia found, as a
great many other despotic rulers have done in similar cases, that she had
evoked a power which she could not now control. Couvansky and the troops
under his command continued their ravages in the city, plundering the
rich houses of every thing that could gratify their appetites and
passions, and murdering all whom they imagined to belong to the party
opposed to them.

Sophia first tried to appease them and reduce them to order by
conciliatory measures. From the Monastery of the Trinity, to which she
had herself now retreated for safety, she sent a message to Couvansky and
to the other chiefs of the army, thanking them for the zeal which they
had shown in revenging the death of her brother, the late emperor, and in
vindicating the rights of the true successor, John, and promising to
remember, and in due time to reward, the great services which they had
rendered to the state. She added that, now, since the end which they all
had in view in the movement which they had made had been entirely and
happily accomplished, the soldiers should be restrained from any farther
violence, and recalled to their quarters.

This message had no effect. Indeed, Couvansky, finding how great the
power was of the corps which he commanded, began to conceive the idea
that he might raise himself to the supreme command. He thought that the
Guards were all devoted to him, and would do whatever he required of
them. He held secret conferences with the principal officers under his
command, and endeavored to prepare their minds for the revolution which
he contemplated by representing to them that neither of the princes who
had been proclaimed were fit to reign. John, he said, was almost an
imbecile, on account of the numerous and hopeless bodily infirmities to
which he was subject. Peter was yet a mere boy; and then, besides, even
when he should become a man, he would very likely be subject to the same
diseases with