44 THE ORLOFF.
The
Prince Orloff mentioned in the letter is no other than Gregory, the
favorite of Catharine n., a man of such singular fortunes that a few
words may well be spared to him.
Orloff's
grandfather first came into notice in an extraordinary manner. In 1698,
when Peter the Great barely escaped assassination at the hands of his
body-guard, the renowned Strelitz, he resolved to destroy the corps
altogether. This he performed effectually by cutting off their heads by
scores and hundreds. The Czar aided in this bloody work with his own
hand and decapitated many of his mutinous soldiers on a big log of
wood. One young fellow, Jan nicknamed Orell (eagle), annoyed at finding
the severed head of a comrade exactly in the spot where he had decided
to lay his own neck, kicked it aside with the remark, " If this is my
place I want more room." The Czar, delighted with the congenial
brutality of the observation, pardoned the soldier and gave him a post
in his new regiment of guards.
