A party was formed for his dethronement; so one evening in July, 1762, when he was surrounded by his guard of Holsteiners, and amusing himself with his flower gardens (he was a great botanist), and with some of his beautiful mistresses at the palace of Orienbaum,—particularly the Countess of Woronzow, to whose allurements he had abandoned himself,—the exasperated Empress prepared to strike a final blow for Russia and for herself.
Putting on a uniform of old Russian Guards belonging to her future favourite, Captain Vlasfief, with the most coquettish grace, this young and beautiful, but in some respects terrible, woman borrowed from the nobles around her all the accessories of a complete military toilette: of Basil Mierowitz, a hat; of Count Orloff, a scarf; of Colonel Bernikoff, a belt; of some one else, a sword. Over all, she wore the blue ribbon of the first order of the Empire, which her impolitic husband had laid aside for that of Prussia.
The drums beat to arms: in this strange guise she showed herself to the troops, who were now mustered to the number of twenty thousand men in the great square of St. Petersburg, where the sight of the uniform of the old guard, which had been forced to give place to Peter's cherished Holsteiners, raised bursts of acclamation, quite as much as the appearance of Catharine, who was then "in the full flower of her robust beauty, perfectly elegant in figure, and purely feminine from her shoulders to her feet, which were remarkably handsome, and of which she was very proud." Her nose was aquiline, her eyes blue with black lashes, and her hair, a brilliant auburn, was curling on her shoulders. Thus has an eyewitness described her.
The regiments began to file off against the Emperor, and little knowing the end of the expedition, among the troops on this night marched Charlie Balgonie, with the colours of the Regiment of Smolensko on his shoulder.
Everywhere the rebellious Empress was received with enthusiasm, and the Great Chancellor Woroslaff, who was sent against her, was among the first to join her party.
The Emperor, abandoning his flowers and his fair ones, fled to his yacht or galley, which was rowed to Cronstadt, of which his enemy, the High Admiral Talizine, had already made himself master. The imperial galley (relates M. Rulhière in his "Histoire sur la Révolution de Russie") came under the ramparts in the night, while the great alarm bells rung, the drums were beaten and scarlet rockets ascended in showers from the dark mass of the Castle of Kronslot; and then, all along the line of fortifications, Peter saw two hundred port-fires shedding their weird unearthly glare through the yawning embrasures upon the twilight sea and sky—each port-fire beside a loaded cannon—loaded against himself!
This was at ten o'clock; but ere the great oars of the galley were laid in, or the anchor dropped, a sentinel challenged:
"Who comes there?"
"His Imperial Majesty the Emperor," replied the Captain of the galley, who was standing on its gilded prow.
"There is no longer any Emperor!" was the stern reply of some one on the ramparts.