The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1897-05-26
A STRANGE STORY.
Daughter-l Law of Peter the Great
Said to Rest In Alabama.

Daughter-In Law of Peter the Great
Said to Rest In Alabama.
Does a daughter-in-law of Peter the
Great rest beneath the soil Of Ala
bama {? Of all places Alabama, nearly
two hundred years ago, would seem tc
have been the most unlikely as a resi-
dence for a Russian Imperial Prin'
cess. Yet that there she came, lived
and died seems so well established
hat the improbable becomes the prob.
able. Here are the details of hel
most strange and romantic story:
1t was in the early years Of the
eighteenth century. Peter the Great
was Car of Russia and had establish.
ed his new capital, St. Petersburg
amid the frozen marshes of Neva
There he laid out streets and parks,
and made his people come and build
their houses, had himself erected great
buildings and palaces, and had col
lected the nobility about him in a
brilliant Court. In constant attcn-
dance at the ceremonies and festivi-
ties Of this fanta' tic, semi-barbarous
Court was a Frenchman, the Chevaliel
D'Aubont, young, handsome, of noble
birth and a member of the French en-.
bassy.
There were pretty women at that
Court, and the chevalier was by nc
means unmindful of them.
Above all these beauties, however,
there was one who shone %resplendent,
matchless and supreme in unrivalled
loneliness. She was the perfect type
of what a great Princess should be,
tall, stately and fair. And she was a
great Princess, for she was the Cart.
"a, the young wife of the Czarewitz.
Alexis Petrowitz. During his stay at
St.. Petersburg D'Aubont often saw
her, spoke with her and even danced
with her at Court balls, all the while
admiring her at such distance as was
proper to their respective stations,
When or where lived the man who, in
the Chevalier' place, could forget her
features or ever mistake another for
her =? When, after two years sojourn,
he went away to France he carried
forever fixed in his memory the image
of the beautiful Russian so far above
him, an image that neither years MOI
change Of circumstances could ever
dim.
After leaving Russia the Chevalier'
stay in France was but brief. Some
escapade brought down upon him the
wrath of the powers that we're. It
was not bad enough to ear him a cell
in the Bastile, or any deprivation Of
rank, but as a polite form Of punish
ment he was sent in command Of a
body of troops in the French posses.
sions on the north shore of the Gulf
of Mexico, an effective Punishment
under the disguise Of duty. After a
long voyage D'Aubont landed with
his soldiers at Mobile, and took charge
of the post. Out in that wilderness,
cut off from civilization, living the
rough life of a pioneer, he perhaps
often thought of the gala days in St.
Petersburg and of the lovely Imperial
Princess there but, with half the
world between them, his widest
dreams could have suggested nc
thought Of seeing her again.
While the fetes were thus dealing
with the Chevalicr they were no less
busy with the Czaritza. There came
a look Of sorrow in her eyes, as time
went on, for her life became most un-
happy. Her husband treated her bru-
tally. He was little less than a saw
age, with a superficial veneer Of civil.
cation, and he had a touch of insanity
which caused his ancestor, Gar Ivan,
to murder his own son. History re-
lates that, crushed beneath the daily
burden Of indignities, too heavy to be
borne, the Princess pinned away and
died that, after a grand funeral, she
was laid away within the Imperial
vaults, where she is supposed to rest
to-day. But legend, that Eighty sis
ter Of history, who sometimes speaks
truth when the other babbles, has it
that the death of the Czaritza was a
pretence, in order that she might es-
cape from so much misery and sorrow;
that the Court physician, an accom-
plice, administered to her a potion
which put her in a deep trance, re-
sembling death while in this condi-
ton the funeral services were held
over her, and she vas laid away that
in the night, after the obsequies, this
physician and certain others penetra-
ted into the vaults, revived her, and
assisted her in a flight to the frontier,
beyond which she disappeared, an
atom lost in the universe Of humanity.
About this time John Law, an ex-
patriated Scotchman, was playing
ducks and brakes with French inan
ces, and was also engineering real
estate schemes after a fashion that
would put to shame the puny opera
tions Of our modern boomers. He
dealt in States and Empires instead Of
acre tracts and city lots. He had OBJ,
tanned large grants Of land in the Mis-
sissippi Valley, and was energetically
engaged in inducing people to 60 as
colonists and settle there. In the
spring of 1721 a ship, with some two
hundred %emigrants on board left
France for Mobile, from whence they
were to journey over land to their new
country. These emigrants were al,
most wholly Of the lower classes, peas,
ants who had lost their holdings, pau,
pers, convicts who were given freedom
to become colonists and those with
broken fortunes or damaged characters
seeking to begin a new life in the viii
derness. On board this ship were two
women, one of whom at once attracted
attention by reason of her beauty and
evident superiority over her surround
ings; the other seemed to be a servant
or attendent. 1t was queer that any
one of that molly crowd should have
a servant but in the case of that
q~ueenly woman it seemed appropriate.
During alluthe long voyage she held
herself aloof from the rest, and carri-
ed herself with such calm dignity that
everyone treated her with unfailing
respect and Difference.
Late in the summer the cmigrant
ship dropped anchor in Mobile Bay.