But there was a greater surprise in store for the Obersteiners, as for the world outside their walls. Soon it began to be rumoured that the Duke's bride-to-be was no obscure Circassian Princess; this was merely a convenient cloak to conceal her true identity, which was none less than that of daughter of an Empress! She was, in fact, the child of Elizabeth, Tsarina of Russia, and her peasant husband, Razoum; and in proof of her exalted birth she actually had in her possession the will in which the late Empress bequeathed to her the throne of Russia. How these rumours originated none seemed to know. Was it Domanski who set them circulating? We know, at least, that they soon became public property, and that, strangely enough, they won credence everywhere. The very people who had branded her "adventuress" and hissed her in the streets, now raised cheers to the future Empress of Russia; while the Duke, delighted at such a wonderful transformation in the woman he loved, was more eager than ever to hasten the day 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.