"Shout 'Long live the empress!'" demanded the visitors.
Without hesitation the guardsmen obeyed, their only thought at the moment being that of a free flow of vodka, the Russian drink. A priest was quickly brought, who, like the soldiers, was prepared to do as he was told. Raising the cross, he hastily offered them a form of oath, to which the soldiers subscribed. The first step was taken; the empress was proclaimed.
The proclamation declared Catharine sole and absolute sovereign. It made no mention of her little son Paul, as some of the leaders in the conspiracy had proposed. The Orlofs controlled the situation, and the action of the Ismailofsky was soon sanctioned by other regiments of the guard. They hated the czar and were ripe for revolt.
One regiment only, the Preobrajensky, that of which the czar himself was colonel, resisted. It was led against the other troops under the command of a captain and a major. The hostile bodies came face to face a few paces apart; the queen's party greatest in number, but in disorder, the czar's party drawn up with military skill. A moment, a word, might precipitate a bloody conflict.
Suddenly a man in the ranks cried out, "Oura! Long live the empress!" In an instant the whole regiment echoed the cry, the ranks were broken, the soldiers embraced their comrades in the other ranks, and, falling on their knees, begged pardon of the empress for their delay.
And now the throng turned towards the neighboring church of Our Lady of Kasan, in which Catharine was to receive their oaths of fidelity. A crowd pushed in to do homage, composed not only of soldiers, but of members of the senate and the synod. A manifesto was quickly drawn up by a clerk named Tieplof, printed in all haste, and distributed to the people, who read it and joined heartily in the cry of "Long live the empress!"
Catharine next reviewed the troops, who again hailed her with shouts. And thus it was that a czar was dethroned and a new reign begun without the loss of a drop of blood. There was some little disorder. Several wine-shops were broken into, the house of Prince George of Holstein was pillaged and he and his wife were roughly handled, but that was all: as yet it had been one of the simplest of revolutions.
Catharine was empress, but how long would she remain so? Her empire consisted of the fickle people of St. Petersburg, her army of four regiments of the guards. If Peter had the courage to strike for his throne, he might readily regain it. He had with him about fifteen hundred Holsteiners, an excellent body of troops, on whose loyalty he could fully rely, for they were foreigners in Russia, and their safety depended on him. At the head of these troops was one of the first soldiers of the age, Field-Marshal Münich. The main Russian army was in Pomerania, under the orders of the czar, if he were alert in giving them. He had it in view to annihilate the Danes, to show himself a hero under Frederick of Prussia; surely a handful of conspirators and a few regiments of malcontents would have but a shallow chance.
Yet Catharine knew the man with whom she dealt. The grain of courage which would have saved Peter was not to be found in his make-up, and Münich strove in vain to induce him to act with manly resolution. A dozen fancies passed through his mind in an hour. He drew up manifestoes for a paper campaign. He sent to Oranienbaum for the Holstein troops, intending to fortify Peterhof, but changed his mind before they arrived.
Münich now advised him to go to Cronstadt and secure himself in that stronghold. After some hesitation he agreed, but night had fallen before the whole party, male and female, set off in a yacht and galley, as if on a pleasure-trip. It was one o'clock in the morning when they arrived in sight of the fortress.