CONTENTS.
| Chapter | Page | |
| I. | Guillaume de Lambert | [ 7] |
| II. | The Golden Hall | [ 21] |
| III. | Aunt and Niece | [ 34] |
| IV. | The Livonian Peasant Girl | [ 49] |
| V. | The Tower of Ivan Veliki | [ 64] |
| VI. | Catherine and the Czar | [ 79] |
| VII. | The Envoy’s Cloak | [ 93] |
| VIII. | A Meddlesome Cousin | [ 106] |
| IX. | Mademoiselle’s Bracelet | [ 120] |
| X. | The Tryst | [ 131] |
| XI. | An Intercepted Letter | [ 146] |
| XII. | Under a Cloud | [ 160] |
| XIII. | Two Warnings | [ 172] |
| XIV. | A Fair Rebel | [ 184] |
| XV. | An Imperial Inquisitor | [ 196] |
| XVI. | A Duel with Tongues | [ 207] |
| XVII. | Mentchikof | [ 223] |
| XVIII. | Missing | [ 233] |
| XIX. | The Marriage of the Dwarfs | [ 244] |
| XX. | The Faithful Spy | [ 256] |
| XXI. | Najine | [ 266] |
| XXII. | An Interval of Suspense | [ 279] |
| XXIII. | A Fair Petitioner | [ 290] |
| XXIV. | A Duel with Swords | [ 303] |
| XXV. | Najine and her Lover | [ 314] |
| XXVI. | Madame Zotof | [ 326] |
| XXVII. | The Czar’s Equerry | [ 337] |
| XXVIII. | A Son of Misfortune | [ 346] |
| XXIX. | The Greatest Romanoff | [ 357] |
| XXX. | A Future Empress | [ 369] |
AN IMPERIAL LOVER.
CHAPTER I.
GUILLAUME DE LAMBERT.
Twenty years had passed since my last visit to Moscow, a visit made memorable by my marriage with Zénaïde Ramodanofsky. For many reasons we did not return to Russia until, in the spring of 1703, the King of France said to me: “M. de Brousson, there is no one else whom I care to send to Moscow on a delicate mission. You have married a Russian, you know Russia and the czar. In short, monsieur, I desire that you should go.”
The year before the king my master had bestowed upon me the bâton of a marshal of France, a reward for my services with the Marquis de Villars at the victory of Friedlingen. The king’s favors to me had been conspicuous; owing him so much, I owed him also a ready obedience to his wishes, although this second mission to Moscow was far from acceptable. The king desired to have some one at the Russian Court to watch the vicissitudes of the northern war. The Czar Peter had joined the alliance recently formed between Denmark, Brandenburg, and King Augustus of Poland, against Sweden. He had been drawn into it partly by his friendship for Augustus of Saxony, the King of Poland, but more because he desired to recover the Land of Izhora, lost to Russia in the Troublous Times. France was embarrassed by the war of the Spanish Succession, which had broken out after King Louis XIV. accepted the conditions of the will of the King of Spain, Charles II., bequeathing the Spanish crown to the Duke of Anjou, the son of Monseigneur. It was because of this imbroglio that the king my master watched with interest the struggle between the princes of the North, since it diverted that mad young hero Charles XII. of Sweden from supporting the Grand Alliance against France.
In the midst of these complications it was my duty to go to Moscow and observe the course of events, and transact some delicate diplomatic business with the czar. My mission was a secret one, and I travelled ostensibly to take my wife to visit the home of her childhood and to look after some estates recently bequeathed to my son. I was destined to find an altered Russia since the days of the regency of my old friend the Czarina Sophia, now imprisoned by her imperial brother in the Novodevitchy Monastery. Peter’s journey through Europe had inspired him with a desire for reform, and on his return he swept away the old régime. The national costume and the beard, sacred in the eyes of the devout Russian, were sacrificed by this young iconoclast. All the men about the person of the czar wore German clothes, and shaved their faces so that the aspect of the court was greatly changed. Peter no longer permitted forced marriages, and had liberated the women from the old Eastern seclusion, and they, at least, rejoiced in the fashions of Europe.
Madame de Brousson and I set out upon our journey north without our son, a young man of nineteen, who was enrolled in the king’s household troops and on the road to early preferment. Our daughter remained in a convent at Paris, for we did not care to take her to the Russian Court. We were attended by Pierrot, my old and faithful servant, who spoke the Russian language, and an equerry named Touchet, and my friend and secretary, Guillaume de Lambert,—a young man of noble family related to my own, in whom I had become interested. On the field of Friedlingen he was sent with a message from M. de Villars to one of the squadrons; when he returned to where the marshal stood, surrounded by his staff, he was about to present a note from one of the officers, when there was a flash, and some one cried out that M. de Lambert was wounded. “It is nothing,” he said with a smile, “but M. le Maréchal must pardon my left hand;” and he presented his despatches with a salute, but we saw the blood on his right sleeve, and his arm hung limp, broken by the shot. From that day I became interested in M. de Lambert. A man who can endure a broken arm with a smile has the mettle of a soldier in him. As soon as his wound was healed he served directly under me through the remainder of the campaign, and we became attached to each other. He was the very picture of a soldier, of medium height, powerfully built and athletic, with a handsome face and bright hazel eyes; something of a gay courtier, but keen, ambitious, and brave to a fault, so that I forgave the tendency to the fashions and foibles of the day, which my wife declared I often regarded with too much severity. M. de Lambert was the figure for a romance, yet little did I suspect the labyrinth into which he was destined to lead me.
I had supposed that my mission would be speedily accomplished, and left France in May, expecting to return in two or three months; but to my chagrin December found me in Moscow, waiting impatiently for my recall and involved in a domestic drama of a nature far too romantic and delicate for my taste. I was no longer the hot-headed gallant who had wooed and won Zénaïde Ramodanofsky. I was now past fifty, a marshal of France, and a man whose mind was full of many grave problems; nevertheless M. de Lambert had succeeded in interesting me in his love affair, and Madame de Brousson was full of sympathy for him,—for, like all handsome young soldiers, he knew how to win a woman’s friendship.