rable occafion, and who has related the tranfaction in his Authentic
Memoirs,' penetrated, at the head of only twenty men,
into the palace inhabited by the duke of Courland, though
guarded by forty foldiers, who were placed under the windows of
the regent’s bed-chamber, and by numerous centinels polled
in the feveral apartments through which he was to pafs. Being
perfonally known to the centinels, they permitted him to pafs,
thinking that he had an affair of confequence to. communicate
to the regent- Having burft open the door , of his bedchamber,
he approached the bed, in which the duke and
dutchefs were fo fail aileep, that the noife. did not awaken
them. On drawing the curtains, both ilarted up in furprife,
and the duke inilantly got out of bed with an intention
to efcape, but was prevented by Manflein, who threw himfelf
upon him, and held him fall till the foldiers came to his affiil-
ance. In this interval the duke had difengaged himfelf from
Manflein, and endeavouring to burfl from the foldiers who had
laid hold of his arm, received feveral blows from the but-ends
of their muikets. Being at length thrown down on the floor, his
mouth gagged with a handkerchief) and his hands tied behind
him with an officer's fafh, he was led to the guard-room, where
being covered with a fbldier’s cloak, he was conveyed in a cac-
riage to the winter palace, in which the princefs Anne refided.
While he was leading away, the dutchefs. fprang out of bed, and
though only in her fhift, ran after him, fcreaming, in an agony
of defpair, into the ftreet, till being forced away by the foldiers,
fhe
fhe dropped down upon the fnow, and would have perifhed with
cold, if the captain of the guard had not fent for fome clothes
to cover her, and re-condudled her to her apartment.
The next day the duke and his family were conveyed to the
fortrefs of Schlulfelburgh j and in June were removed to Pelim,
a fmall town in Siberia, where he was imprifoned in a wooden
houfe under the itrifteil confinement. Fortunately he did not
long occupy this dreary prifon. The emprefs Elizabeth had no
fooner afcended the throne, by the depofition of Ivan, than fhe
recalled Biron from his imprifonment} and if his misfortunes
had not foftened his vindictive fpirit, he enjoyed the pleafure of
feeing his enemy, Marfhal Munich, occupy that prifon which he
had juil quitted.
Biron was. transferred to Yaroflaf, where he had a comfortable
manfion affigned. to him and his family, five roubles a day, and
the permilfion of hunting within twenty or thirty miles of Ya-
rollaf. In this fituation, wretched when contrafled with his former
dignified flation as the omnipotent favourite of Anne, or as
regent of Ruflia, but a paradife when compared with his prifon
at Pelim, he palled his days during the whole reign of Elizabeth.
On the demife of Elizabeth, Peter the Third recalled Biron
to Peteriburgh, but did not reinllate him in the dutchy of Courland.
Biron had refufed, during his confinement, to refign his
right to that dutchy, although he was offered his liberty, and a
peniiom