EMPRESS’S BARNYARD MANIA

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 19 April 1934, Page 11

EMPRESS’S BARNYARD MANIA

An autocrat of the most traditional type was the Russian Empress, Ann. She had a kind of barnyard-mania. On Sundays, after church, she would listen to her cross-legged line of jesters, who were ordered to cluck like hens. Even a princely member of the aristocracy was confined for a slight offence in a straw-lined nest, set in one of the Court rooms, and lie was made to sif; on eggs and emit hen-cackles on pain of death. Anne’s jest was even more unpleasant when a courtier angered her by marrying a woman who was not of the orthodox Russian faith. He was immediately degraded to a Court buffoon and page-boy. As soon as his wife died the Empress betrothed him to a hideous Mongol woman. Representatives of the whole empire were summoned to the nuptials, and the extraordinary pair were taken to the church in a cage on an elephant’s hack. Late at night the couple were taken to a house made of solid ice, with ice furniture, ice clocks, and even ice curtains and toilet requisites.