Ostermann, seeing the weakness of Anne, ordered the guard to be ready to leave for the frontier within twenty-four hours. It was probable, he mendaciously said, that Sweden was about to re-open the war. He had recently quarrelled with Elizabeth, and had no mind to see her Empress. This was on December 5th, the day after her interview with Anne. That night at ten the conspirators met to decide upon immediate action. Lestocq, the doctor, went out into the snow to see that all lights were out at Ostermann’s mansion and the palace. They were as feeble a group of conspirators as ever engineered a revolution in Russia, and Elizabeth wavered between dread of a convent and eagerness for the throne. The most active and eloquent of them was the French physician. Then there were Vorontsoff, her chamberlain; Schwartz, her music-master; the brothers Shuvaloff, gentlemen of her household; and Alexis Razumovsky, her lover at the time, of whom we will see more. They raised Elizabeth’s courage to the required pitch, and Lestocq stealthily introduced twenty grenadiers of the guard who professed that they were--for a consideration--ready to die for her. Elizabeth donned a cuirass under her cloak and slung a crucifix at her breast, and then, after a long and fervent prayer, committed her fortunes to Providence and the modest skill of her friends. Her lover was left to guard the house. At two in the morning the party passed swiftly through the frozen streets to the Preobrajensky barracks. A small crowd of about two hundred soldiers gathered round Elizabeth and listened to her appeal to support her, the daughter of Peter, and exterminate the foreigners. They would cut them to pieces, they assured her; and she had to explain that she would have no bloodshed. Other soldiers joined them, and presently a troop of four hundred marched with her and her supporters to the palace. It was the tamest revolution Russia had yet seen. Ostermann, Golovkin, and the other leading ministers were pinned into their mansions; the few loyal guards at the palace were thrust aside; and, as I said, Anne and Julia awoke to find Elizabeth in their bedroom at the head of a crowd of grenadiers. Anne was not of the stuff of heroines. She meekly begged Elizabeth to spare her family and not take away her dear Julia, and she and her imperial baby were put upon the sledge and driven to Elizabeth’s house. The blaze of fires in the courtyards and noise of soldiers soon roused the city, and courtiers and soldiers rushed out to study the situation. It is said of Lacy, the Irish commander, that, when a friend asked him which party he stood for, he promptly replied: “For the party that is in power.” Few were so candid in speech, but all behaved alike. They rushed to take the new oath of allegiance, and the Empress Elizabeth inaugurated her reign.