The Daughter of an Empress

Count Ivan Dolgorucki no long felt the ability to stand aloof from her sorrow. He bent down to his wife, raised her in his arms, and with her he wept for his youth, his lost life, the vanishing happiness of his love, and the shame of his fatherhood. In half an hour all was over. The noble and virtuous Count Ivan Dolgorucki had been broken upon the wheel, and three of his brothers beheaded, and for what?—Because Count Munnich, fearing that the noble and respected brothers Dolgorucki might dispossess him of his usurped power, had persuaded the Czarina Anna that they were plotting her overthrow for the purpose of raising Katharina Ivanovna to the imperial throne. No proof or conviction was required; Munnich had said it, and that sufficed; the Dolgoruckis were annihilated!