Instantly the table and the cards were brought forward, and the piles of gold placed in order.  She took the cards, pretended to shuffle them, and gave them to the first comer to cut.  She had the pleasure of seeing her bank broken at the first deal, and indeed this result was to be expected, as anybody not an absolute idiot could see how the cards were going.  The next day the empress set out for Mitau, where triumphal arches were erected in her honour.  They were made of wood, as stone is scarce in Poland, and indeed there would not have been time to build stone arches.

The day after her arrival great alarm prevailed, for news came that a revolution was ready to burst out at St. Petersburg, and some even said that it had begun.  The rebels wished to have forth from his prison the hapless Ivan Ivanovitz, who had been proclaimed emperor in his cradle, and dethroned by Elizabeth Petrovna.  Two officers to whom the guardianship of the prince had been confided had killed the poor innocent monarch when they saw that they would be overpowered.

The assassination of the innocent prince created such a sensation that the wary Panin, fearing for the results, sent courier after courier to the empress urging her to return to St. Petersburg and shew herself to the people.

Catherine was thus obliged to leave Mitau twenty-four hours after she had entered it, and after hastening back to the capital she arrived only to find that the excitement had entirely subsided.  For politic reasons the assassins of the wretched Ivan were rewarded, and the bold man who had endeavoured to rise by her fall was beheaded.

The report ran that Catherine had concerted the whole affair with the assassins, but this was speedily set down as a calumny.  The czarina was strong-minded, but neither cruel nor perfidious.  When I saw her at Riga she was thirty-five, and had reigned two years.  She was not precisely handsome, but nevertheless her appearance was pleasing, her expression kindly, and there was about her an air of calm and tranquillity which never left her.

At about the same time a friend of Baron de St. Heleine arrived from St. Petersburg on his way to Warsaw.  His name was Marquis Dragon, but he called himself d’Aragon.  He came from Naples, was a great gamester, a skilled swordsman, and was always ready to extract himself from a difficulty by a duel.  He had left St. Petersburg because the Orloffs had persuaded the empress to prohibit games of chance.  It was thought strange that the prohibition should come from the Orloffs, as gaming had been their principal means of gaining a livelihood before they entered on the more dangerous and certainly not more honourable profession of conspiracy.  However, this measure was really a sensible one.  Having been gamesters themselves they knew that gamesters are mostly knaves, and always ready to enter into any intrigue or conspiracy provided it assures them some small gain; there could not have been better judges of gaming and its consequences than they were.