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Since his mother was Jewish, under Hebrew law, Shmuel Rivilis is considered a Jew. And on his father's side…all of us, in the final analysis, are children of Noah. So, what is there to argue about?

There is not much to tell about his subsequent life. Shmuel grew up in the manner prescribed for boys from respectable Jewish families: he went to the synagogue, studied the Torah, married a girl from a Jewish family-Sara, my grandmother, who, though illiterate, nonetheless had sekhl-or, in Russian, «brains.»

Of his genealogy, he also knew little until a certain time, for his father, fearing exposure, carefully hid the truth from his children-his son and three daughters.

But, if Grigory Rivilis dreamed of being forgotten, the French Secret Service was conducting a careful search for the Emperor's vanished descendant-supposing that, possibly, they had gotten wind of him already in Petersburg, and were only waiting for the right time to play the card they held in their hands.

All the more so since, after the overthrow of Napoleon III-ending with the bloody Paris Commune-people in certain circles had begun to talk again about the necessity of restoring the monarchy.