the
Russians by appointing numerous Poles, who had swelled his train, to
the highest posts in the empire, to the exclusion of meritorious
officers, who not only deserved well of their country, but also had
claims upon himself for services which they had rendered. These Polish
officers misconducted themselves sadly, and the people murmured sore.
The czar, too, made no secret of his attachment to the Catholic faith;
and while by so doing he irritated the clergy, he provoked the boyards
by his haughty patronage, and disgusted the common people by his
cruelty and lewdness. At last the murmurs grew so loud and
threatening, that some means had to be devised to quiet the popular
discontent, and Dimitri had recourse to a strange stratagem. The widow
of Ivan, who had long before been immured in a convent by the orders
of Boris, and had been kept there by his successor, was released from
her confinement, and was induced publicly to acknowledge Dimitri as
her son. The widowed empress knew full well that her life depended
upon her obedience; but notwithstanding her outward consent to the
fraud, the people were not satisfied, and demanded proofs of Dimitri's
birth, which were not forthcoming. Discontent continued to spread, and
at length the popular fury could no longer be restrained. According to
his promise, the sham czar married Marina, the daughter of the Polish
boyard. The very fact that she was a Pole made her distasteful to the
Russians; but that fact was rendered still more offensive by the
manner of her entrance into the capital, and the treatment which the
Muscovites received at the bridal ceremony. The bride was surrounded
by a large retinue of armed Poles, who marched through the streets of
Moscow with the mien of conquerors; the Russian nobles were excluded
from all participation in the festivities; and the common people were
treated by their emperor with haughty insolence, and held up to the
scorn of his foreign guests. A report also became rife that a timber
fort, which Dimitri had erected opposite the gates of the city, had
been constructed solely for the purpose of giving the bloodthirsty
Marina a martial spectacle, and that, sheltered behind its wooden
walls, the Polish troops and the czar's bodyguard would throw
firebrands and missiles among the crowds of spectators below. This
idle rumour was carefully circulated; the clergy, who had long been
disaffected, went from house to house denouncing the czar as a
hereti