“The great Catharine was right. She said that Paul would not long outlive her.”
“True. He hasn’t reigned five years.”
“A terrible blow this—to the Empress Mary.”
“A blow! Say rather a piece of good luck! But yesterday, so ’tis said, Paul threatened to put her into a convent for life.”
“Lucky, too, for Alexander. To think that he was a prisoner yesterday, threatened with death, and to-day the Czar!”
There was no disputing the fact that Paul’s departure from this world had been very opportunely timed for Alexander by that particular angel who has the arrangement of such matters; very opportunely indeed—so opportunely that, perhaps, it may not have been an angel at all, but——
There was less cheering now. Men began to stare suspiciously at one another. But what each thought he kept to himself, mindful of the Muscovite saying, “If three persons be seen conversing, one of them is a spy.” How many spies must there be, then, in a crowd so vast! In Russia the wise man is the silent man.
Wilfrid’s remote situation had prevented him from hearing the announcement made by Count Pahlen, but he quickly became apprised of it by the thunderous shouts of “Hourra, Alexander! Hourra, the new Czar!”
“Paul dead!” he exclaimed, turning to the Baroness. “So this is the secret you have been keeping from me? When did he die?”
“Late last night, suddenly of apoplexy, so Benningsen says. We shall see a full account of it in to-day’s Journal de Petersbourg.”