One day her secretary, Charnomski, came to pay me a visit. He was a smart, elegantly-dressed man of about forty. He had once been very rich, had been a duellist and a Lovelace, had lost all his fortune at cards and in the affairs of the Confederation. He had not lost his fine manners, but was very conceited and insinuating, and--so rumour said--was serving the Princess because he was deeply in love with her. The conversation turned on the Princess. He was eloquent on the subject of her generosity, her fearlessness, and, having assured me on oath that all she had said of her past life was true, again renewed, in her name, an entreaty that I would side with her. “But whose daughter is she? who was her father?” I asked, rather drily. “You only speak in her favour, but there must be proofs. Everything is so very doubtful.”… Charnomski reddened, and was silent several minutes. It seemed to me at that time that this Princess’s Ganymede curled and pomatumed in the last fashion, with his diamond ear-rings, was rouged. “Good heavens! what doubts! Her father--do you not know it yourself?--was the Count Alexis Razoumovski,” said this wily diplomatist, regaining his composure. “But if you desire it, sir lieutenant, I can give you all the details. You see, the Empress Elizabeth, after her secret marriage with the count, had several children----” “Oh! all that’s nonsense; no one really knows anything about it,” I answered. “Of course it was a rather delicate affair, and was kept a great secret,” continued Charnomski. “You are right, how should every one know? But I relate all this because I have it from a true source. What became of the other children, and whether any are still living, … is not known. “The Princess Elizabeth, when a child of two years old, was brought to the relations of Razoumovski, the Cossacks Daragan, to their property in Oukraine, Daraganovka, which the neighbours, countrymen of the new _parvenus_, styled, in their own fashion, “Tarakanovka.” The Dowager Empress Elizabeth, and after her all the court, in fun called the child the Princess Tmoutarakanova.[17] At first she was not neglected. She was often inquired after. Everything that she needed was always sent to her. But afterwards, especially during her travels, she was lost sight of, and finally quite forgotten.”