"Live Constantine!" replied the soldiers.
"Live Nicholas!" exclaimed Colonel Sturler, the commander of the regiment, throwing himself courageously into the hall. "They are deceiving you, my friends; the Czarowitz has really abdicated, and you have now no other emperor than the Grand-duke Nicholas. Live Nicholas!"
"Live Constantine!" responded the soldiers.
"You are mistaken, soldiers; you are about to take a fatal step; you are deceived," again shouted the colonel.
"Comrades, do not abandon me; follow me," cried Panoff; "let those who are for Constantine, unite with me in the cry, 'Long live Constantine!'"
More than three parts of those present joined in the cry of "Long live Constantine!"
"To the Admiralty! to the Admiralty!" said Panoff, drawing his sword; "follow me, soldiers, follow me."
With a wild hurrah two hundred soldiers followed their leader to the place he indicated, whither, though by a different route, the insurgent portion of the Regiment of Moscow had already preceded them.
Milarodowich, the military governor of St. Petersburg, a cavalry general, whose splendid charges on the field had gained him the appellation of the Russian Murat, was by this time at the palace, to communicate to his new sovereign the dispositions he had made for the defence of his throne and the capital. He had directed the troops upon whose fidelity he thought he could rely, to march to the winter palace. The first battalion of the regiment Preobrajenski, three regiments of the guard Paulowski, and the battalion of the Sapper and Miners, were those he considered fit for this important service.
The emperor saw then that the mutiny was more general than he anticipated; he therefore sent by Major-general Meidhart, to carry orders to the Semenowski guard to repress the mutineers, and to the horse-guards, to hold themselves in readiness to mount. He went down himself to the corps of chief guards of the winter palace, where the regiment of Finland guards were at that time on duty, and ordered them to load their muskets and invest the principal avenues of the palace. At that very moment tumultuous sounds interrupted the voice of the sovereign, occasioned by the approach of the third and sixth companies of the Regiment of Moscow, headed by Prince Stah——, and the two B——, with the captured flag proudly displayed to the wind, and drums beating, to the ominous cry of "Long live Constantine! Down with Nicholas!" The rebel troops debouched on the Admiralty Square, but whether they thought themselves not sufficiently strong, or that they dreaded facing majesty with these treasonable demonstrations, they did not march upon the winter palace, but took up their position against the senate, where they were immediately joined by the grenadier corps, and sixty men in frocks with pistols in their hands, who mingled themselves among the rebel soldiers.