Terrible tsarinas

«157»

Terrible Tsarinas clergy) sentenced all the “culprits” to the wheel, quartering, and decapitation. This exemplary sentence offered Elizabeth the opportunity to decide, during a ball, that she would spare life of the miserable wretches who had dared to conspire against her, and would limit their punishment to public “lesson.” When this extraordinary measure of leniency was announced, everyone present cheered Her Majesty’s angelic kindness.

On August 31, 1743, a scaffold was erected in front of the palace of Colleges. Standing before an enormous crowd of curious onlookers, Mrs. Mikhail Bestuzhev was brutally stripped by the torturer. As she had managed to find the time to slip him a jewelstudded cross just before he began, he barely stroked her back with the whip and slid his knife over her tongue without scratching the flesh. She suffered these apparent blows and wounds with heroic dignity. Less sure of her nerves, Mrs. Lopukhin struggled desperately when the torturer’s assistant ripped off her clothes.

The multitude was stunned to silence by the suddenly revealed nudity of this woman who was even more appealing in her distress. Then some of witnesses, impatient to see the rest, began to howl. Panicking at this outburst of raw hatred, the poor woman struggled, insulted the torturer and bit his hand. Furious, he grabbed her by the throat, forced open her jaws, held up the sacrificial weapon and presented the laughing crowd with a bloody scrap of meat. “Who’ll take the tongue of the beautiful Mrs.

Lopukhin?,” he cried. “It is a lovely piece, and I am selling it cheap! One ruble for the tongue of the beautiful Mrs. Lopukhin!”4 This was a common type of joke from executioners in those days, but this time the public paid more attention than usual, for Natalya Lopukhin had just fainted from pain and horror. The torturer revived her with a large knout. When she came to her senses, she was thrown into a carriage and shipped off to Siberia! Her husband would soon join her in Seleguinsky, after being severely