| Citation |
BEP(F.762.057
8 Nov 1762:21 (1418)
London, Aug. 26. Anecdote of the late Emperor of Russia.
A gentleman, who resided a very considerable time in
Russia has communicated to us the following authentice
anecdote. About fifteen years ago, a grand Gala Day was
appointed to be held at Petersbourg, to which the principal
personages of the Kingdom were invited. It being known,
that the Duke of Holstein (since the late dethroned Peter
III) was to dance that night, some persons about court
meditated his destruction. With this view they corrupted
his laundress, who poisoned the water in which his linen was
washed. The duke danced, but no sooner began to grow warm,
than he found himself extremely ill. As his distemper
increased upon him, he retired, attended by a numerous train
of weeping friends, all greatly alarmed at the suddenness of
the danger. In this situation some short time passed away;
when, at last, a Princess of the Dolgornski family, who was
supposed to have borne him a secert kindness, making her way
through the croud, asked those about his highness, whether
the Duke had still the same shirt on as he danced in.
Having said this, she immediately vanished, and was never
afterwards heard of. The laundress also disappear'd. But
those in attendance being wise enough to take the hint, the
dying Prince was stripped of the envenomed shirt, just time
enough to save his life, but not to prevent the ill effects
of the poison: For from that period to the hours of his
death, it is said, his spirits were seldom free from a kind
of drowsy languor, which made him appear perfectly stupid at
times, and hence have arisen those various reports of his
being a drunkard, an idiot, &c.---The only thing remaining
to confirm this anecdote, is what sort of poison it could
be, that would thus impregnate the water: Most of them, it
is well know, [sic] will not mix with it; but, on the other
hand, it is assured by some gentlemen of the faculty, that
there are certain arsenical preparations, which would
dissolve sufficiently in water, to produce much more than
the effect here attributed to it.
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