Love affairs of the Courts of Europe

by Thornton Hall

When she returned to Oberstein he was swift to follow her and to install himself under her castle walls, where he could catch an occasional glimpse of her, or, by good-fortune, have a few blissful moments in her company. Indeed, it was not long before stories began to be circulated among the good folk of Oberstein of strange meetings between the mysterious young stranger who had come to live in their midst and an equally mysterious lady. "The postman," it was rumoured, "often sees him on the road leading to the castle, talking in a shadow with someone enveloped in a long, black, hooded cloak, whom he once thought he recognised as the Princess."

No wonder tongues wagged in Oberstein. What could be the meaning of these secret assignations between the Princess, who was the destined bride of their Duke, and the obscure young refugee? It was a delicious bit of scandal to add to the many which had already gathered round the "adventuress."

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.

Here indeed was a valuable pawn to play in Radziwill's game of vengeance and ambition. But the Prince was by no means disposed to snatch the bait hurriedly. Experience had taught him caution. He must count the cost carefully before taking the step, and while writing to the Princess, "I consider it a miracle of Providence that it has provided so great a heroine for my unhappy country," he took his departure to Venice, suggesting that the Princess should meet him there, where matters could be more safely and successfully discussed. Thus it was that the Princess said her last good-bye to her ducal lover, full of promises for the future when she should have won her throne, and as "Countess of Pinneberg" set forth with a retinue of followers to Venice, where she was regally received at the French embassy.

Here she tasted the first sweets of her coming Queendom—holding her Courts, to which distinguished Poles and Frenchmen flocked to pay homage to the Empress-to-be, and having daily conferences with Radziwill, who treated her as already a Queen. That her purse was empty and the bankers declined to honour her drafts was a matter to smile at, since the way now seemed clear to a crown, with all it meant of wealth and power. When the Venetian Government grew uneasy at the plotting within its borders, she went to Ragusa, where she blossomed into the "Princess of all the Russias," assumed the sceptre that was soon to be hers, issued proclamations as a sovereign, and crowned these regal acts by sending a ukase to Alexis Orloff, the Russian Commander-in-Chief, "signed Elizabeth II., and instructing him to communicate its contents to the army and fleet under his command."

Once more, however, fortune played the Princess a scurvy trick, just when her favour seemed most assured. One night a man was seen scaling the garden-wall of the palace she was occupying. The guard fired at him, and the following morning Domanski was found, lying wounded and unconscious in the garden. The tongues of scandal were set wagging again, old suspicions were revived, and once again the word "adventuress"—and worse—passed from mouth to mouth. The men who had fawned on her now avoided her; worse still, Radziwill, his latent suspicions thoroughly awakened, and confirmed by a hundred stories and rumours that came to his ears, declined to have anything more to do with her, and returned in disgust to Germany.

But even this crushing rebuff was powerless to damp the spirits and ambition of the "adventuress," who shook the dust of Ragusa off her dainty feet, and went off to Rome, where she soon cast her spell over Sir William Hamilton, our Ambassador there, who gave her the warmest hospitality. "For several days," we learn, "she reigns like a Queen in the salon of the Ambassador, out of whose penchant for beautiful women she has no difficulty in wiling a passport that enables her to enter the most exclusive circles of Roman society."