Elizabeth gave a satisfied glance at these hearty greetings:  she found it infinitely sweet and agreeable to make so many men happy in so easy a manner, and with pleasure she recollected that she had yet to reward her coachman who had guided her sledge in the great and decisive hour.

She ordered him to be called.  A considerable time elapsed, and all were looking expectantly toward the door, which finally opened, and, led by four lackeys, the coachman stumbled into the hall.  They had had some trouble in finding him, until at length he was discovered among the people in the court-yard, enjoying the brandy distributed by order of the empress.  From this crowd they had withdrawn him in spite of his resistance, in order to bring him to his sovereign.

She received the staggering Petrovitch with a gracious smile, she praised the dauntlessness with which he had guided her sledge in that eventful night, and in gratitude for his good conduct she raised him, as she had the grenadiers, to the rank of a nobleman by naming him a baron of the Russian empire.

Petrovitch listened to her with a stupid laugh; and when the magnates crowded around him, offering their hands and assuring him of their friendship, he tremblingly and with effort stammered some unmeaning words, and falling upon his knees, he bowed his head in the dust before these great and powerful magnates, humbly kissing the hems of their garments, not suspecting that he was their equal in rank.

And constantly more brilliant and beautiful beamed the imperial grace.  None of Elizabeth’s faithful friends and servants were forgotten, for she possessed a virtue rare among princes—­she was grateful.

She named Lestocq her first physician, president of the medical college, and member of her privy council.  She made Grunstein an imperial aide-de-camp, with the rank of brigadier-general; and Woronzow a count and her first chamberlain.

Then, at last, she repeated the name of her friend Alexis Razumovsky.  Her fair brow lighted up as with a reflected sunbeam on his approaching her throne, and, holding out to him both hands, she said aloud:  “Alexis Razumovsky, I have you most to thank for my success in dispossessing the usurpers who have robbed me of my father’s throne; for your wise counsels gave me courage and force:  be then, henceforth, next to my throne, my chamberlain, Count Razumovsky!”

Bending a knee before her, Alexis gratefully kissed her beloved hand, and the counts and gentlemen surrounded him, loudly praising the great wisdom of the empress, whose divine penetration enabled her everywhere to discover and reward true service!