There happened at this time, in another country, an event of which I shall take some notice, though it had no relation to our affairs. The deposed Czar, John of Muscovy, had been confined from his youth, and, as it was said, had had drugs administered to him destructive of his intellects. He had been spared, however, during the long reign of his rival Elizabeth; and had even been visited by her short-lived successor, Peter the Third. This visit might perhaps have awakened some sentiments in favour of Ivan in Russian breasts; at least jealousy in that of the foreign murderess, who now reigned in the room of both.[27] On a sudden it was given out, that one Mirowitz had forced himself into the castle where Ivan was imprisoned, intending to deliver and proclaim him Emperor, but that so great was the fidelity and circumspection of the governor, that he had instantly cut the poor young Prince to pieces. This tale, almost as improbable as horrid, was believed by the greater number, and supported by a parade of forms and manifestos. Mirowitz was tried by the senate, and beheaded, after reading a confession consonant to the story divulged. His accomplice, for _one_ they did allow him to have had, was said to have made his escape, and to have been drowned in his flight crossing a river. As Mirowitz suffered death unaccompanied with the torments used in that country, it is no forced construction to suppose he was threatened with torture if he did not authenticate what was required of him; or deceived with hopes of pardon, and prevented by sudden execution before he could recal a false confession.[28] Whatever was the truth, the Empress had given such earnest of her bold and remorseless nature in the assassination of her husband, that no wonder she was suspected of being as deeply concerned in the death of Ivan. I was assured by the Duchess of Choiseul, wife of the first Minister of France, that a French physician who had been at Petersburg at the time, and employed at that Court, had told her that they who knew most believed that the death of the Empress Elizabeth had been hastened too by the arts of Catherine: yet this fell character did Voltaire and the Literati of France select as the patroness of philosophy and toleration! She had artfully been generous to a few of them; and a poet and an author will go as far in whitewashing a munificent tyrant, as a Cossack or Calmuck in fighting for those who pay him. From Augustus to Catherine the Second, no liberal usurper has ever wanted an ode or a panegyrist. The Duchess of Choiseul, who had an excellent heart and solid understanding, being provoked at the scandalous encomiums poured forth by Voltaire on so black a character, wrote an answer to him with equal sense, spirit, and reason; a work, in her situation, improper to be seen: I was one of a very few that had the satisfaction of reading it.