The chief nobles assembled when the death of the czar was made known, and proclaimed his son Feodor emperor in his stead; but the lad’s reign was very brief.  The greater part of the army and the people declared in favour of Dimitri, and the citizens of Moscow having invited him to assume the reins of power, Dimitri made a triumphal entry into the capital, and was crowned with great pomp.  At first he ruled prudently, and, had he continued as he began, might have retained his strangely acquired throne.  But after a time he gave himself up to the gratification of his own wild passions, and lost the popularity which he really had succeeded in gaining.  He disgusted the Russians by appointing numerous Poles, who had swelled his train, to the highest posts in the empire, to the exclusion of meritorious officers, who not only deserved well of their country, but also had claims upon himself for services which they had rendered.  These Polish officers misconducted themselves sadly, and the people murmured sore.  The czar, too, made no secret of his attachment to the Catholic faith; and while by so doing he irritated the clergy, he provoked the boyards by his haughty patronage, and disgusted the common people by his cruelty and lewdness.  At last the murmurs grew so loud and threatening, that some means had to be devised to quiet the popular discontent, and Dimitri had recourse to a strange stratagem.  The widow of Ivan, who had long before been immured in a convent by the orders of Boris, and had been kept there by his successor, was released from her confinement, and was induced publicly to acknowledge Dimitri as her son.  The widowed empress knew full well that her life depended upon her obedience; but notwithstanding her outward consent to the fraud, the people were not satisfied, and demanded proofs of Dimitri’s birth, which were not forthcoming.  Discontent continued to spread, and at length the popular fury could no longer be restrained.  According to his promise, the sham czar married Marina, the daughter of the Polish boyard.  The very fact that she was a Pole made her distasteful to the Russians; but that fact was rendered still more offensive by the manner of her entrance into the capital, and the treatment which the Muscovites received at the bridal ceremony.  The bride was surrounded by a large retinue of armed Poles, who marched through the streets of Moscow with the mien of conquerors; the Russian nobles were excluded from all participation in the festivities; and the common people were treated by their emperor with haughty insolence, and held up to the scorn of his foreign guests.  A report also became rife that a timber fort, which Dimitri had erected opposite the gates of the city, had been constructed solely for the purpose of giving the bloodthirsty Marina a martial spectacle, and that, sheltered behind its wooden walls, the Polish troops and the czar’s bodyguard would throw firebrands and missiles among the crowds of spectators below.  This idle rumour