They left the house, laughing and chatting as carelessly as if they were a party going to the theatre. Lestoc took the reins. "To the palace of the Duchess Regent, coachman!" said the Marquis, pleasantly. And to the palace they went. They made no attempt to slip in by backdoors, but boldly drove up to the grand entrance, inside of which the guard-house was situated. "Who goes there?" cried the sentinel as they left the sledge and passed in. The Marquis took a pinch of snuff. "Don't you see, my good fellow?" he said. "A lady and two gentlemen." The slightest irregularity was serious enough to alarm the guard at the Imperial palace in those critical times. The sentinel presented his musket at the Marquis, and a drummer-boy who was standing near, ran to his instrument and caught up his drum-sticks to beat the alarm. Before the sentinel could fire, he was surrounded by the thirty-three conspirators, and was disarmed in an instant. Before the drummer-boy could beat the alarm, the Princess Elizabeth had drawn out her knife and had stabbed--not the boy, but--the drum! These slight preliminary obstacles being thus disposed of, Lestoc and the Marquis, having the Princess between them, and being followed by their thirty-three adherents, marched resolutely into the great hall of the palace, and there confronted the entire guard. "Gentlemen," said the Marquis, "I have the honour of presenting you to your future empress, the daughter of Peter the Great." Half the guard had been bribed by the cunning Lestoc. The other half, seeing their comrades advance and pay homage to the Princess, followed the example of loyalty. Elizabeth was escorted into a room on the ground-floor by a military court formed in the course of five minutes. The Marquis and the faithful thirty-three went up-stairs to the sleeping apartments of the palace. Lestoc ran out, and ordered a carriage to be got ready--then joined the Marquis and the conspirators. The Duchess Regent and her child were just retiring for the night, when the German surgeon and the French ambassador politely informed them that they were prisoners. Entreaties were of no avail; resistance was out of the question. Both mother and son were led down to the carriage that Lestoc had ordered, and were driven off, under a strong guard, to the fortress of Riga.