The personality of Pougatchev had by this time become entirely merged in that of Peter III. Perhaps deluded by some strange doctrine of transsubstantiation, he appeared to have persuaded himself of the actual truth of his claims. His supporters among the Raskolniki enabled him to adopt the role of prophet as well as Tsar. Dressed in gorgeous pontifical robes he distributed absolution and blessings on his wild followers reduced to a state of reverential awe by these mummeries. (Pushkin's "The Captain's Story," a piece of brilliant fiction founded on profound historical research, deals with these events.)
On his banners was inscribed in letters of gold the legend ''Redivivus et ultor" (Resurrected and avenging). About his person high-titled officers and attendants exercised their offices real and imaginary. At meals Polish noblemen, of authentic lineage, served him as lackeys. To the sound of trumpet:^ and the beating of drums royal toasts were drunk — to the future of the "popular cause." In the government of his strange dominions a council of ministers, with the title of hoyarSy carried out his orders and issued ukases in due form. An order of chivalry was established which conferred grandiloquent titles upon Cossack peasants and Kalmouck braves. Pougatchev even succeeded in issuing a rough coinage bearing his effigy with the title "Peter III Emperor of all the Russias."
Had Pougatchev possessed the strength of character necessary to maintain the role he had first affected — that of a religious and social reformer — the forces of discontent might have gathered from all over Russia to his banners. The long-promised reforms, demanded by the peasants, had been but the amusement of Catherine's leisure. The endless formal enquiries and reports which she had caused to be drawn up with reference to taxation and peasant emancipation, and the "Congress" to which delegates were dragged, sometimes in chains, to listen to adulation of their mistress, were only intended by her courtiers to flatter the Tsarina's "liberalism.'* The signs of a deep-rooted discontent with the established order was everjnvhere apparent.
In spite of the grotesque pretensions which attended his career, Pougatchev's crusade against the nobles and landlords might have gathered a formidable following. Like the "False Dmitri," he now dreamed of Moscow and a throne in the Kremlin. The gravity of the situation which confronted Catherine was, to a certain degree, admitted. Proclamations in which she at last condescended to notice, and even argue, with respect to Pougatchev's claims to be Peter III now appeared. Although she wrote to Voltaire of the doings of "Monsieur de Pougatchev,"* she was, nevertheless, careful at the same time to warn her subjects "to obey only the laws signed by my own hand.'* An appeal was
* Letters of Catherine to Voltaire.
also made to the Cossacks of the Jaik to return to their true allegiance.*
A measure far more dangerous to the cause of the pretender was an offer of a tremendous reward (100,000 roubles) to be paid for his person or proof of his death. Pougatchev, who could neither read nor write, caused a series of manifestos to be issued in answer to these ukases promising among other reforms freedom of the serfs and restoration of all Cossack privileges. This was a political move of no little sagacity. Even in the distant parts of European Russia Pougatchev's "program" was everywhere greeted with enthusiasm. T' The chief danger to Pougatchev's cause was now to arise from his own natiu*al ferocity of character and the unbreakable chains of brutal passions. Imagining that his kingly state was now assured, he allowed himself to indulge with impunity in the most outrageous debauchery. His conduct soon became a cause for scandal among the Raskolnik elders who had formed his first disciples. The "unco guid" of the Cossack community — rigid followers of the text of the ancient Scriptures — might condone acts of freebooting and piracy which could be considered in accordance with the divane ordinance to "spoil the Egyptians," but the spectacle which their leader soon afforded them, and especially his amorous subjection to a notorious harlot of Jaikskoi, lost him the support of these
* Lesur, page 221.