About the year 1721, a body of German colonists reached Mobile, and settled in the region adjoining. Among them was a woman of unusual personal beauty and of rare charm of manner. Her dress, and especially her jewels, indicated not only her station, but her wealth. She caused it to be understood that she was the daughter of the Duke of Brunswick Wolfenbuttel and the wife of Alexis Petrowitz, the son of Peter the Great, and accounted for her strange presence in the wilds of south Alabama, as due to the fact that she had been cruelly treated by the heir to the Russian throne; that she had fled the dominion of the great Peter, and for security, had sought the most distant region known to her. She furthermore asserted that the younger Peter had duly advertised the death of his wife, but insisted that the monstrous Muskovite had done this in order to conceal the scandal of her forced flight from his castle, and in order, too, to explain her absence from the court circles of St. Petersburg. All this she explained to be a mere ruse, and that she was the real princess who had escaped his tyranny, preferring the inhospitable wilderness of a distant continent, to the royal palace with its tyrannous cruelty. The story received general credence, since the splendor of her attire and her familiarity with the inner secrets of the Russian court proved that she was no ordinary personage. Besides all this, there was increased evidence afforded by her conduct. Her beautiful face was saddened by some evident trouble over which she seemed to brood, as with a far-away look she would sit and muse for hours together. How else could all this be explained, save by the story which she related? This is just the evidence one would look for in substantiation of a story of cruelty. The prepossessing manner of the princess, her immense fortune, and her ability to discuss Russian affairs, served to win not alone the confidence of all, but their sympathy as well. Her wrongs were the burden of her conversation, and her own reported station in life elicited much deference, which was duly and promptly accorded by all alike. Great as the credence was, as a result of the recital of her wrongs, it received a reinforcement from another source that seemed to place it beyond question. Chevalier d'Aubant, a young French officer, had seen the wife of the Russian prince, and he declared that this was none other than she. He could not be mistaken, for he had seen her at St. Petersburg. This insistence settled the identity of the princess in the estimation of all.