occur (says she) despite her caution for them to await the moment, Passek and his friend were the ones who themselves spoke of the conspiracy to fellow soldiers, whereupon "Major Vokeikov of the Preobrajenski Guards immediately placed Captain Passek under arrest" (Dashkov, 1995, p. 69). Catherine, like Dashkov's, cites the arrest of Passek, who was certainly a partisan of Catherine's. She also cites the fact that Passek's part in the conspiracy against Peter III was revealed by a fellow partisan to another officer who was not part of it and who therefore reported it to a superior, who arrested Passek (Bain, 1902e, pp. 192-3). The reason for the revelation, declares Catherine in the letter written soon after the coup, was a rumor among her coup partisans that she had been arrested by Peter III. In her memoirs (1935, p. 277) she states simply that Passek was arrested because he was known to be devoted to her; it must be understood that public knowledge of that fact would have been sufficient for arrest because at the time the Russian military was nomina
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