After Peter had been six days at Ropscha, one morning two nobles, who had been most active in the revolution which had dethroned the tzar, entered his apartment, and, after conversing for a time, brandy was brought in.  The cup of which the tzar drank was poisoned!  He was soon seized with violent colic pains.  The assassins then threw him upon the floor, tied a napkin around his neck, and strangled him.  Count Orlof, the most intimate friend of the empress, and who was reputed to be her paramour, was one of these murderers.  He immediately mounted his horse, and rode to St. Petersburg to inform the empress that Peter was dead.  Whether Catharine was a party to this assassination, or whether it was perpetrated entirely without her knowledge, is a question which now can probably never be decided.  It is very certain that the grief she manifested was all feigned, and that the assassins were rewarded for their devotion to her interests.  She shut herself up for a few days, assuming the aspect of a mourner, and issued to her subjects a declaration announcing the death of the late tzar.  When one enters upon the declivity of crime, the descent is ever rapid.  The innocent girl, who, but a few years before, had entered the Russian court from her secluded ancestral castle a spotless child of fifteen, was now most deeply involved in intrigues and sins.  It is probable, indeed, that she had not intended the death of her husband, but had designed sending him to Holstein and providing for him abundantly, for the rest of his days, with dogs and wine, and leaving him to his own indulgences.  It is certain, however, that the empress did not punish, or even dismiss from her favor, the murderers of Peter.  She announced to the nation his death in the following terms: 

“By the Grace of God, Catharine II., Empress of all the Russias, to our loving Subjects, Greeting:

“The seventh day after our accession to the throne of all the Russias, we received information that the late emperor, Peter III., was attacked with a most violent colic.  That we might not be wanting in Christian duty, or disobedient to the divine command by which we are enjoined to preserve the life of our neighbor, we immediately ordered that the said Peter should be furnished with every thing that might be judged necessary to restore his health by the aids of medicine.  But, to our great regret and affliction, we were yesterday evening apprised that, by the permission of the Almighty, the late emperor departed this life.  We have therefore ordered his body to be conveyed to the monastery of Nefsky, in order to its interment in that place.  At the same time, with our imperial and maternal voice, we exhort our faithful subjects to forgive and forget what is past, to pay the last duties to his body, and to pray to God sincerely for the repose of his soul, wishing them, however, to consider this unexpected and sudden death as an especial effect of the providence of God, whose impenetrable decrees are working for us, for our throne, and for our country things known only to his holy will.