[Footnote 1:  Brunehault (in modern English histories called Brunhild) was the wife of Sigebert, King of Austrasia (that district of France which lies between the Meuse and the Rhine) and son of Clotaire I. The “Biographie Universelle” says of her:  “This Princess, attractive by her beauty, her wit, and her carriage, had the misfortune to possess a great ascendency over her husband, and to have lost sight of the fact that even sovereigns cannot always avenge themselves with impunity.”  Her sister, Galswith, the wife of Chilperic, King of Neustria, between the Loire and the Meuse, had been assassinated by Fredegonde, and Brunehault, determined to avenge her, induced Sigebert to make war on Chilperic, who had married Fredegonde.  He gained a victory; but Fredegonde contrived to have him also assassinated, and Brunehault became Fredegonde’s prisoner.  But Murovee, son of Chilperic, fell in love with her, and married her, and escaping from Rouen, fled into Austrasia.  At last, in 595, Fredegonde died, and Brunehault subdued the greater part of Neustria, and ruled with great but unscrupulous energy.  She encouraged St. Augustine in his mission to England; she built hospitals and churches, earning by her zeal in such works a letter of panegyric from Pope Gregory the Great.  But, old as she was, she at the same time gave herself up to a life of outrageous license.  It was not, however, her dissolute life which proved fatal to her, but the design which she showed to erect a firm monarchy in Austrasia and Neustria, by putting down the overgrown power of the nobles.  They raised an army to attack her; she was defeated, and with four of her great-grandchildren, the sons of her grandson, King Theodoric, who had been left to her guardianship, fell into the hands of the nobles, who put her to death with every circumstance of cruelty and indignity. (See Kitchin’s “History of France,” i. 91.)]

I have seen Mr. Keith’s first despatch; in general, my account was tolerably correct; but he does not mention Ivan.  The conspiracy advanced by one of the gang being seized, though for another crime; they thought themselves discovered.  Orloff, one of them, hurried to the Czarina, and told her she had no time to lose.  She was ready for anything; nay, marched herself at the head of fourteen thousand men and a train of artillery against her husband, but not being the only Alecto in Muscovy, she had been aided by a Princess Daschkaw, a nymph under twenty, and sister to the Czar’s mistress.  It was not the latter, as I told you, but the Chancellor’s wife, who offered up the order of St. Catherine.  I do not know how my Lord Buckingham [the English Minister at St. Petersburg] feels, but unless to conjure up a tempest against this fury of the north, nothing could bribe me to set my foot in her dominions.  Had she been priestess of the Scythian Diana, she would have sacrificed her brother by choice.  It seems she does not degenerate; her mother was ambitious and passionate for intrigues; she went to Paris, and dabbled in politics with all her might.