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THE ORLOFF. 49
the
history of the Orloff becomes one of long repose and seclusion,
diversified by transient re-entrances into grandeur as successive Czars
appear upon the scene to be crowned.
The
most singular coronation which has ever been performed was probably
that which followed the death of Catharine and preceded the
consecration of her son and successor. Catharine died in 1797 after a
reign of thirty-five years. But before she could be buried there was a
ceremony to be performed, the like of which had never been seen.
Her
son Paul, a taciturn individual who seems never to have forgotten his
father's miserable death, performed an'expiatory coronation in his
honor, seeing that that ceremony had been neglected in Peter's life.
For this purpose the body of the long-dead Czar was disinterred and
was dressed in the Imperial robes. The ornaments of the coronation
which had been fetched expressly from Moscow for the purpose were then
disposed about the moulder-
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