he Princess Elizabeth, daughter
of Peter the Great, to whom Alexis' beauty appealed even more strongly
than his sweet singing.

Elizabeth, true daughter of her father, had already, young as she was,
counted her lovers by the score--lovers chosen indiscriminately, from
Royal princes to grooms and common soldiers. She was already sated with
the licence of the most dissolute Court of Europe, and to her the young
Cossack of the beautiful face and voice, and rustic innocence, opened a
new and seductive vista of pleasure. She lost her heart to him, had him
transferred to her own Court as her favourite singer, and, within a few
years, gave him charge of her purse and her properties.

The shepherd's son was now not only lover-elect, but principal
"minister" to the daughter of an Emperor, who was herself to wear the
Imperial crown. And while Alexis was thus luxuriating amid the splendour
of a Court, he by no means forgot the humble relatives he had left
behind in his native village. His father was dead; his mother was
reduced for a time to such a depth of destitution that she had to beg
her bread from door to door. His sisters had found husbands for
themselves in their own rank; and the favourite of an Imperial Princess
had for brothers-in-law a tailor, a weaver, and a shepherd. When news
came to Alexis of his mother's destitution he had sent her a sum of
money sufficient to install her in comfort as an innkeeper: the first of
many kindnesses which were to work a startling transformation in the
fortunes of the Razoum family.

Events now hurried quickly. The Empress Anna died, and was succeeded on
the throne by the infant Ivan, her grand-nephew, who had been Emperor
but a few months when, in 1741, a _coup d'etat_ gave the crown to
Elizabeth, mistress of the Lemesh peasant. Alexis was now husband in all
but name of the Empress of all the Russias; honours and riches were
showered on him; he was General, Grandmaster of the Hounds, Chief
Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and lord of large estates yielding regal
revenues.

But all his grandeur was powerless to spoil the man, who still remained
the simple peasant who, so many years earlier, had left his low-born
mother with streaming eyes. His great ambition now was to share his
good-fortune with her. She must exchange her village inn for the
luxuries and splendours of a palace. And thus it was that one day a
splendid carriage, with gay-liveried postillions, dashed up to the door
of th