Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

" One of the Counts Orloff (for, on the first day of the troubles this title had been given them), the same soldier, surnamed le òalafré*, who had abstracted the note from the Princess d'Asehekof, and one Teplof, a person who had risen from the lowest employs by the singular art with which he had ruined his rivals, went together to the unhappy prince, and announced to him, on entering, that they had eome to dine with him. Before the repast, they caused glasses of brandy to be brought, according to the Russian custom. In that of the emperor was poison. But, whether rendered precipitate by their haste to carry the news of their success, or by the horror with which their action inspired them, they wished the moment after to make him take a second glass. His already burning stomach, and the horrible expression of their faces, rendered him, however, suspicious, and he refused the glass. To make him drink it, they resorted to force, and the emperor resisted. In this terrible strife, in order to stifle his cries, which could be heard at a distance, they threw themselves upon him. As he defended himself with all the energy of despah`, and as it was necessary to avoid marking his body with wounds, fear for themselves at length induced them to call to their aid the two officers who had been appointed to guard his person, and who were waiting outside at the door of his prison. These were the youngest of the princes Baratinski, and one Potemkin, a youth of seventeen. They had shown so much zeal in the conspiracy, that, notwithstanding their extreme youth, this guard had

* One whose visage is marked with the scar of a wound.—Trans. D 3