, wasted to a shadow
by disease and starvation--"in a room cold and bare, whose only
furniture was a leather sofa, on which she lay in a high fever, coughing
convulsively." To such pathetic straits was "Elizabeth II." reduced when
Kristenef came with his fawning airs and lying tongue to tell her that
Alexis Orloff, the greatest man in Russia, had instructed him to offer
her the throne of the Tsars, and, as an earnest of his loyalty, to beg
her acceptance of a loan of eleven thousand ducats.

In vain did Domanski, who was still by her side, warn her against the
smooth-tongued envoy. She was flattered by such unexpected homage, her
eyes were dazzled by the near prospect of the coveted crown which was to
be hers, at last, just when hope seemed dead. She would accept Orloff's
invitation to go to Pisa to meet him. "As for you," she said, "if you
are afraid, you can stay behind. I am going where Destiny calls me."

This revolution in her fortunes acted like magic. New life coursed
through her veins, colour returned to her cheeks, and brightness to her
eyes, as one February day in 1775 she left Rome, with the devoted
Domanski for companion and a brilliant escort, for Pisa, where Orloff
greeted her as an Empress. He gave regal fetes in her honour and filled
her ears with honeyed and flattering words.

Affecting to be dazzled by her beauty, he even dared to make passionate
love to her, which no man of his day could do more effectively than this
handsomest of the Orloffs; and so infatuated was the poor Princess by
the adoration of her handsome lover and the assurance of the throne he
was to give her, that she at last consented to share that throne with
him, and by his side went through a marriage ceremony, at which two of
his officers masqueraded as officiating priests.

Nothing remained now between her and the goal of her desires, except to
make the journey to Russia as speedily as possible, and a few hours
after the wedding banquet we see her in the Admiral's launch, with
Orloff and Domanski and a brilliant suite of officers, leaving Leghorn
for the Russian flagship, where she was received with the blare of bands
and the booming of artillery. The crowning moment arrived when, as she
was being hoisted to the deck in a gorgeous chair suspended from the
yard-arm, her future sailors greeted her with thunders of shouts, "Long
live the Empress!"

The moment she set foot on deck she was seized, handcuffs were snapped
on her wrist