y when he could call her
his own. As for the Princess, she accepted her new dignities with the
complaisance to be expected from the daughter of a Tsarina. There was
now no need to refer the sceptics to Circassia for proof of her station
and her potential wealth. As heiress to one of the greatest thrones of
Europe, she could at last reveal herself in her true character, without
any need for dissimulation.

The curtain was now ready to rise on the crowning act of her life-drama,
an act more brilliant than any she had dared to imagine. Russia was
seething with discontent and rebellion; the throne of Catherine II. was
trembling; one revolt had followed another, until Pugatchef had led his
rabble of a hundred thousand serfs to the very gates of Moscow--only,
when success seemed assured, to meet disaster and death. If the
ex-bandit could come so near to victory, an uprising headed by
Elizabeth's own daughter and heiress could scarcely fail to hurl
Catherine from her throne.

It would have been difficult to find a more powerful ally in this daring
project than Prince Charles Radziwill, chief of Polish patriots, who was
then, as luck would have it, living in exile at Mannheim, and who hated
Russia as only a Pole ever hated her. To Radziwill, then, Domanski went
to offer the help of his Princess for the liberation of Poland and the
capture of Catherine's throne.

Here indeed was a valuable pawn to play in Radziwill's game of vengeance
and ambition. But the Prince was by no means disposed to snatch the bait
hurriedly. Experience had taught him caution. He must count the cost
carefully before taking the step, and while writing to the Princess, "I
consider it a miracle of Providence that it has provided so great a
heroine for my unhappy country," he took his departure to Venice,
suggesting that the Princess should meet him there, where matters could
be more safely and successfully discussed. Thus it was that the Princess
said her last good-bye to her ducal lover, full of promises for the
future when she should have won her throne, and as "Countess of
Pinneberg" set forth with a retinue of followers to Venice, where she
was regally received at the French embassy.

Here she tasted the first sweets of her coming Queendom--holding her
Courts, to which distinguished Poles and Frenchmen flocked to pay homage
to the Empress-to-be, and having daily conferences with Radziwill, who
treated her as already a Queen. That her purse was empty