Note 30 — Chapter II
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Catherine, Grand Duchess of Russia, sister of the Emperor Alexander I., won golden opinions in England. "She was very clever, graceful, and elegant, with most pleasing manners, and spoke English well." Creevey says that the Emperor was much indebted to his sister, the Duchess of Oldenburg, for "keeping him in the course by her judicious interposition and observations." In 1808 Napoleon had wished for her as his bride, but, as she says in a letter to her brother, the Czar, "her heart would break as the intended wife of Napoleon before she could reach the limits of his usurped dominions, and she cannot but consider as frightfully ominous this offer of marriage from an Imperial Assassin to the daughter and grand-daughter of two assassinated Emperors" (see "Letters of Two Brothers," by Lady G. Ramsden). The marriage of the Grand Duchess Catherine to the Duke of Oldenburg was hastily arranged to enable her to escape the alliance. The Duke died in 1812, and she afterwards married her cousin, the Crown Prince of Wurtemberg, to whom she had been attached in early youth. The Duchess attracted great attention by wearing a large bonnet, which afterwards became the fashion and was called after her.