conceptions, and looked impatiently for a second manifesto
liberating them from the power of the proprietors. Reports were spread
that such a manifesto really existed, and was being concealed by the
nobles. A spirit of insubordination accordingly appeared among the rural
population, and local insurrections broke out in several parts of the
Empire.

At this critical moment Peter III. was dethroned and assassinated by a
Court conspiracy. The peasants, who, of course, knew nothing of the
real motives of the conspirators, supposed that the Tsar had been
assassinated by those who wished to preserve serfage, and believed
him to be a martyr in the cause of Emancipation. At the news of the
catastrophe their hopes of Emancipation fell, but soon they were revived
by new rumours. The Tsar, it was said, had escaped from the conspirators
and was in hiding. Soon he would appear among his faithful peasants, and
with their aid would regain his throne and punish the wicked oppressors.
Anxiously he was awaited, and at last the glad tidings came that he had
appeared in the Don country, that thousands of Cossacks had joined
his standard, that he was everywhere putting the proprietors to death
without mercy, and that he would soon arrive in the ancient capital!

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 prov