Regent Anne had her suspicions; but the Princess was so indolent, so good: at last, when directly taxed with such a thing, the Princess burst into ingenuous weeping; quite disarmed Regent Anne's suspicions;--but found she had now better take L'Estoc's advice, and proceed at once.

Which she did.
"And so, on the morrow morning, 5th December, 1741, by aid of the Preobrazinsky Regiment, and the motions usual on such occasions,--in fact by merely pulling out the props from an undermined state of matters,--she reduced said state gently to ruin, ready for carting to Siberia, like its foregoers; and was hereby Czarina of All the Russias, prosperously enough for the rest of her life.

Twenty years or rather more.

An indolent, orthodox, plump creature, disinclined to cruelty; 'not an ounce of nun's flesh in her composition,' said the wits.

She maintained the Friedrich Treaty, indignant at Botta and his plots; was well with Friedrich, or might have been kept so by management, for there was no cause of quarrel, but the reverse, between the Countries,--could Friedrich have held his witty tongue, when eavesdroppers were by.