Peter III. was in reality in his grave, but there was a terrible element of truth in these reports.  A pretender, a Cossack called Pugatchef, had really appeared on the Don, and had assumed the role which the peasants expected the late Tsar to play.  Advancing through the country of the Lower Volga, he took several places of importance, put to death all the proprietors he could find, defeated on more than one occasion the troops sent against him, and threatened to advance into the heart of the Empire.  It seemed as if the old troublous times were about to be renewed—­as if the country was once more to be pillaged by those wild Cossacks of the southern steppe.  But the pretender showed himself incapable of playing the part he had assumed.  His inhuman cruelty estranged many who would otherwise have followed him, and he was too deficient in decision and energy to take advantage of favourable circumstances.  If it be true that he conceived the idea of creating a peasant empire (muzhitskoe tsarstvo), he was not the man to realise such a scheme.  After a series of mistakes and defeats he was taken prisoner, and the insurrection was quelled.*

Whilst living among the Bashkirs of the province of Samara in 1872 I found some interesting traditions regarding this pretender.  Though nearly a century had elapsed since his death (1775), his name, his personal appearance, and his exploits were well known even to the younger generation.  My informants firmly believed that he was not an impostor, but the genuine Tsar, dethroned by his ambitious consort, and that he never was taken prisoner, but “went away into foreign lands.”  When I asked whether he was still alive, and whether he might not one day return, they replied that they did not know.

Meanwhile Peter III. had been succeeded by his consort, Catherine II.  As she had no legal right to the throne, and was by birth a foreigner, she could not gain the affections of the people, and was obliged to court the favour of the Noblesse.  In such a difficult position she could not venture to apply her humane principles to the question of serfage.  Even during the first years of her reign, when she had no reason to fear agrarian disturbances, she increased rather than diminished the power of the proprietors over their serfs, and the Pugatchef affair confirmed her in this line of policy.  During her reign serfage may be said to have reached its climax.  The serfs were regarded by the law as part of the master’s immovable property—­as part of the working capital of the estate—­and as such they were bought, sold, and given as presents** in hundreds and thousands, sometimes with the land, and sometimes without it, sometimes in families, and sometimes individually.  The only legal restriction was that they should not be offered for sale at the time of the conscription, and that they should at no time be sold publicly by auction, because such a custom was considered as “unbecoming