many kindnesses which were to work a startling transformation in the
fortunes of the Razoum family.

Events now hurried quickly. The Empress Anna died, and was succeeded on
the throne by the infant Ivan, her grand-nephew, who had been Emperor
but a few months when, in 1741, a _coup d'état_ gave the crown to
Elizabeth, mistress of the Lemesh peasant. Alexis was now husband in all
but name of the Empress of all the Russias; honours and riches were
showered on him; he was General, Grandmaster of the Hounds, Chief
Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and lord of large estates yielding regal
revenues.

But all his grandeur was powerless to spoil the man, who still remained
the simple peasant who, so many years earlier, had left his low-born
mother with streaming eyes. His great ambition now was to share his
good-fortune with her. She must exchange her village inn for the
luxuries and splendours of a palace. And thus it was that one day a
splendid carriage, with gay-liveried postillions, dashed up to the door
of the Lemesh inn and carried off the simple peasant woman, her youngest
son, Cyril, and one of her daughters, to the open-mouthed amazement of
the villagers. At the entrance to the capital she was received by a
magnificently attired gentleman, in whom she failed to recognise her son
Alexis, until he showed her a birthmark on his body.

Picture now the peasant-woman sumptuously lodged in the Moscow palace,
decked in all the finery of silks and laces and jewels, receiving the
respectful homage of high Court officials, caressed and petted by an
Empress, while her splendid son looks smilingly on, as proud of his
cottage-mother as if she were a Princess of the Blood Royal. That the
innkeeper was not happy in her gilded cage, that her thoughts often