The crowd entered the bedroom. Prince Zubow and General Benningsen--the latter a Hanoverian by birth, but of great authority in the army on account of his energy and reckless audacity--stepped up to the bed of the Czar, brandishing their swords. “Sire,” said Benningsen, “you are my prisoner!” The Emperor stared at them in speechless surprise. “Sire,” continued Benningsen, “it is a question of life or death for you! Yield to circumstances and sign this act of abdication!” The room was becoming filled up with drunken conspirators, all of whom wanted to see what was going on, and tried to get in. In a moment of confusion caused by this pushing and crowding in, which others tried to prevent, the Emperor sprang from his bed and took refuge behind the screen of a stove, where he staggered over some obstacle and fell to the ground. “Sire,” exclaimed Benningsen once more, “submit to the inevitable! Your life is at stake!” At this moment a new noise was heard from the anteroom, and Benningsen, who so far had been the only protector of Paul’s life, turned to the door, to see whether the new-comers were friends or enemies. Paul was, for the moment, alone with his assailants. His courage returned. He ran up to a table upon which lay several pistols. He reached for them, but some of the conspirators had watched the motion of his hand; one of them almost severed it from his arm by a stroke of his sword. Agonized with pain the Czar rushed upon his enemies. A short struggle, a heavy fall, and it was all over.
The murder of Peter the Third was brought about by the use of a napkin; his son, Paul the First, was strangled with an officer’s sash. There is another point of resemblance in the assassination of the two Czars, father and son. Alexis Orloff and Nicholas Zubow, the murderers of the two Czars, had both taken dinner with their victims on the day of the murder.
When the death of their father was reported to the Grand Dukes, Alexander especially, the heir to the crown, was almost overcome with emotion and terror. The details of the murder were carefully concealed from him; on the contrary, he was made to believe that a fit of apoplexy brought on by the excitement of the scene had caused the Czar’s death. After much lamentation he was finally persuaded to address a proclamation to the Russian people in which apoplexy was given as the cause of the sudden and unexpected death of Czar Paul the First during the night of the twenty-third of March. Quite early next day this proclamation was promulgated throughout the city of Petersburg by military heralds. But the people were not deceived by these official lies. Everybody knew in what manner Paul the First had died. The news of the murder in all its details had spread with lightning-like rapidity through the streets and alleys to the remotest corners of the city.