The lot of the _skoptzi_ was not a happy one, but they were upheld and consoled by their belief in the imperial origin of their faith. According to them, Selivanoff, the prophet and founder of the sect, was no other than the Tsar Peter the Third himself (1728-1762). They did not believe in his assassination by the Empress Catherine, but declared that she, discovering to what initiation he had submitted, was seized by so violent a passion of rage that she caused him to be incarcerated in the fortress of Petropavlovsk. From there they believed that he had escaped, with the help of his gaoler, Selivanoff, and had assumed the latter's name. What strengthened them in this belief was the marked favour shown by the Tsar Alexander I for Selivanoff. Alexander being naturally inclined to mysticism, was impressed by this strange character, and requested him to foretell the issue of the war with Napoleon. He was equally well disposed to the sect of Madame Tartarinoff, which closely resembled that of the self-mutilators, and, influenced by his attitude, all the Russian high officials felt themselves bound to pay court to the new religions. One of the Imperial councillors, Piletzky, who was supposed to be writing a book refuting the doctrines of the _skoptzi_, defended them, on the contrary, with such warmth that his volume--obviously inspired by the opinions of the Court--was prohibited by the Bishop Filarete as Anti-Christian. But though they could talk volubly of the illustrious origin of their leader Selivanoff, "the second Christ," and of their "divine mother," Akoulina Ivanovna, their doctrines were in fact obscure and nebulous, and they avoided--with good reason--all religious argument. They insisted, however, upon the sacredness of their initiation ceremony--which invariably ended in deportation for life, or the delights of the prison-cell. From the physiological point of view, the _skoptzi_ resembled the Egyptian eunuchs, described by M. Ernest Godard. Those who had undergone the initiation at the age of puberty attained extraordinary maxillary and dental proportions. Giants were common among them, and there was frequently produced the same phenomenon that Darwin discovered in the animal world--enlargement of the pelvic regions. This doctrine, which ought to have repelled the populace, attracted them irresistibly. The young, the brave, and the wealthy, in the full flower of their strength, abandoned at its call the religion of life and yoked themselves to that of death. It seemed to fascinate them. After conversion they despised all human passions and emotions, and when persecuted and hunted down they took their revenge by expressing profoundest pity for those who were powerless to accomplish the act of sacrifice which had brought them "near to divinity."