EMPIRE OF RUSSIA (continued 8)

"It is evident, from the whole conduct of the son of the tzar, that he intended to take the crown from the head of his father and place it upon his own, not only by a civil insurrection, but by the assistance of a foreign army which he had actually requested. He has therefore rendered himself unworthy of the clemency promised by the emperor; and, since all laws, divine, ecclesiastical, civil and military, condemn to death, without mercy, not only those who attempt rebellion against their sovereign, but those who are plotting such attempts, what shall be our judgment of one who has conspired for the commission of a crime almost unparalleled in history—the assassination of his sovereign, who was his own father, a father of great indulgence, who reared his son from the cradle with more than paternal tenderness, who, with incredible pains, strove to educate him for government, and to qualify him for the succession to so great an empire? How much more imperatively does such a crime merit death.

"It is therefore with hearts full of affliction, and eyes streaming with tears, that we, as subjects and servants, pronounce this sentence against the son of our most precious sovereign lord, the tzar. Nevertheless, it being his pleasure that we should act in this capacity, we, by these presents, declare our real opinion, and pronounce this sentence of condemnation with a pure conscience as we hope to answer at the tribunal of Almighty God. We submit, however, this sentence to the sovereign will and revisal of his imperial majesty, our most merciful sovereign."

This sentence was signed by all the members of the court, one hundred and eighty in number; and on the 6th of July it was read to the guilty prince in the castle where he was kept confined. The miserable young man, enfeebled in body and mind by debaucheries, was so overwhelmed with terror, as his death warrant was read, that he was thrown into convulsions. All the night long fit succeeded fit, as, delirious with woe, he moaned upon his bed. In the morning a messenger was dispatched to the tzar to inform him that his son was seriously sick; in an hour another messenger was sent stating that he was very dangerously sick; and soon a third messenger was dispatched with the intelligence that Alexis could not survive the day, and was very anxious to see his father. Peter, scarce less wretched than his miserable son, hastened to his room. The dying young man, at the sight of his father, burst into tears, confessed all his crimes, and begged his father's blessing in this hour of death. Tears coursed down the cheeks of the stern emperor, and he addressed his dying child in terms so pathetic, and so fervently implored God's pardon for him, that the stoutest hearts were moved and loud sobbings filled the room.

It was midday of the 7th of July, 1718. The prince was confined in a large chamber of a stone castle, which was at the same time a palace and a fortress. There lay upon the couch the dying Alexis, bloated by the excesses of a life of utter pollution, yet pale and haggard with terror and woe. The iron-hearted father, whose soul this sublime tragedy had-melted, sat at his side weeping like a child. The guards who stood at the door, the nobles and ecclesiastics who had accompanied the emperor, were all unmanned, many sobbing aloud, overwhelmed by emotions utterly uncontrollable. This scene stamps the impress of almost celestial greatness upon the soul of the tzar. He knew his son's weakness, incompetency and utter depravity, and even in that hour of agony his spirit did not bend, and he would not sacrifice the happiness of eighteen millions of people through parental tenderness for his debauched and ruined child.

About six o'clock in the evening the wretched Alexis breathed his last, and passed from the tribunals of earth to the judgment-seat of God. The emperor immediately seemed to banish from his mind every remembrance of his crimes, and his funeral was attended with all the customary demonstrations of affection and respect. Peter, fully aware that this most momentous event of his life would be severely criticised throughout the world, sent a statement of the facts to all the courts of Europe. In his letter, which accompanied these statements, he says:

"While we were debating in our mind between the natural emotions of paternal clemency on one side, and the regard we ought to pay to the preservation and the future security of our kingdom on the other, and pondering what resolution to take in an affair of so great difficulty and importance, it pleased the Almighty God, by his especial will and his just judgment, and by his mercy to deliver us out of that embarrassment, and to save our family and kingdom from the shame and the dangers by abridging the life of our said son Alexis, after an illness with which he was seized as soon as he had heard the sentence of death pronounced against him.

"That illness appeared at first like an apoplexy; but he afterwards recovered his senses and received the holy sacraments; and having desired to see us, we went to him immediately, with all our counselors and senators; and then he acknowledged and sincerely confessed all his said faults and crimes, committed against us, with tears and all the marks of a true penitent, and begged our pardon, which, according to Christian and paternal duty, we granted him; after which on the 7th of July, at six in the evening, he surrendered his soul to God."

The tzar endeavored to efface from his memory these tragic scenes by consecrating himself, with new energy, to the promotion of the interests of Russia. Utterly despising all luxurious indulgence, he lived upon coarse fare, occupied plainly-furnished rooms, dressed in the extreme of simplicity and devoted himself to daily toil with diligence, which no mechanic or peasant in the realm could surpass. The war still continued with Sweden. On the night of the 29th of November, of this year, 1718, the madman Charles XII. was instantly killed by a cannon ball which carried away his head as he was leaning upon a parapet, in the siege of Fredericshall in Norway. The death of this indomitable warrior quite changed the aspect of European affairs. New combinations of armies arose and new labyrinths of intrigue were woven, and for several years wars, with their usual successes and disasters, continued to impoverish and depopulate the nations of Europe. At length the tzar effected a peace with Sweden, that kingdom surrendering to him the large and important provinces of Livonia, Esthonia, Ingria and Carelia. This was an immense acquisition for Russia.

With the utmost vigilance the tzar watched the administration of all the internal affairs of his empire, punishing fraud, wherever found, with unrelenting severity. The enterprise which now, above all others, engaged his attention, was to open direct communication, by means of canals, between St. Petersburg and the Caspian Sea. The most skillful European engineers were employed upon this vast undertaking, by which the waters of Lake Ladoga were to flow into the Volga, so that the shores of the Baltic and distant Persia might be united in maritime commerce. The sacred Scriptures were also, by command of the emperor, translated into the Russian language and widely disseminated throughout the empire. The Russian merchants were continually receiving insults, being plundered and often massacred by the barbaric tribes on the shores of the Caspian. Peter fitted out a grand expedition from Astrachan for their chastisement, and went himself to that distant city to superintend the important operations. A war of twelve months brought those tribes into subjection, and extended the Russian dominion over vast and indefinite regions there.

Catharine, whom he seemed to love with all the fervor of youth, accompanied him on this expedition. Returning to St. Petersburg in 1724, Peter resolved to accomplish a design which he for some time had meditated, of placing the imperial crown upon the brow of his beloved wife. Their infant son had died. Their grandson, Peter, the son of Alexis, was still but a child, and the failing health of the tzar admonished him that he had not many years to live. Reposing great confidence in the goodness of Catharine and in the wisdom of those counselors whom, with his advice, she would select, he resolved to transmit the scepter, at his death, to her. In preparation for this event, Catharine was crowned Empress on the 18th of May, 1724, with all possible pomp.

The city of Petersburg had now become one of the most important capitals of Europe. Peter was not only the founder of this city, but, in a great measure, the architect. An observatory for astronomical purposes was reared, on the model of that in Paris. A valuable library was in the rapid progress of collection, and there were several cabinets formed, filled with the choicest treasures of nature and art. There were now in Russia a sufficient number of men of genius and of high literary and scientific attainment to form an academy of the arts and sciences, the rules and institutes of which the emperor drew up with his own hand.

While incessantly engaged in these arduous operations, the emperor was seized with a painful and dangerous sickness—a strangury—which confined him to his room for four months. Feeling a little better one day, he ordered his yacht to be brought up to the Neva, opposite his palace, and embarked to visit some of his works on Lake Ladoga. His physicians, vainly remonstrating against it, accompanied him. It was the middle of October. The weather continuing fine, the emperor remained upon the water, visiting his works upon the shore of the lake and of the Gulf of Finland, until the 5th of November. The exposures of the voyage proved too much for him, and he returned to Petersburg in a state of debility and pain which excited the greatest apprehensions.

The disease made rapid progress. The mind of the emperor, as he approached the dying hour, was clouded, and, with the inarticulate mutterings of delirium, he turned to and fro, restless, upon his bed. His devoted wife, for three days and three nights, did not leave his side, and, on the 28th of January, 1725, at four o'clock in the afternoon, he breathed his last, in her arms.

Before the dethronement of his reason, the tzar had assembled around his bed the chief dignitaries of the empire, and had requested them, as soon as he should be dead, to acknowledge the Empress Catharine as their sovereign. He even took the precaution to exact from them an oath that they would do this. Peter died in the fifty-third year of his age. None of the children whom he had by his first wife survived him. Both of the sons whom he had by the Empress Catharine were also dead. Two daughters still lived. After the Empress Catharine, the next heir to the throne was his grandson, Peter, the orphan child of the guilty Alexis.

Immediately upon the death of the emperor, the senate assembled and unanimously declared Catharine Empress of Russia. In a body, they waited upon Catharine with this announcement, and were presented to her by Prince Menzikoff. The mourning for the tzar was universal and heartfelt. The remains were conveyed to the tomb with all the solemnities becoming the burial of one of the greatest monarchs earth has ever known. Over his remains the empress erected a monument sculptured by the most accomplished artists of Italy, containing the following inscription:

HERE LIETH ALL THAT COULD DIE OF A MAN IMMORTAL, PETER ALEXOUITZ; IT IS ALMOST SUPERFLUOUS TO ADD GREAT EMPEROR OF RUSSIA; A TITLE WHICH, INSTEAD OF ADDING TO HIS GLORY, BECAME GLORIOUS BY HIS WEARING IT. LET ANTIQUITY BE DUMB, NOR BOAST HER ALEXANDER OR HER CÆSAR. HOW EASY WAS VICTORY TO LEADERS WHO WERE FOLLOWED BY HEROES, AND WHOSE SOLDIERS FELT A NOBLE DISDAIN AT BEING THOUGHT LESS VIGILANT THAN THEIR GENERALS! BUT HE, WHO IN THIS PLACE FIRST KNEW REST, FOUND SUBJECTS BASE AND INACTIVE, UNWARLIKE, UNLEARNED, UNTRACTABLE, NEITHER COVETOUS OF FAME NOR FEARLESS OF DANGER-- CREATURES WITH THE NAMES OF MEN, BUT WITH QUALITIES RATHER BRUTAL THAN RATIONAL YET EVEN THESE HE POLISHED FROM THEIR NATIVE RUGGEDNESS, AND, BREAKING OUT LIKE A NEW SUN TO ILLUMINE THE MINDS OF A PEOPLE, DISPELLED THEIR NIGHT OF HEREDITARY DARKNESS, AND, BY FORCE OF HIS INVINCIBLE INFLUENCE, TAUGHT THEM TO CONQUER EVEN THE CONQUERORS OF GERMANY. OTHER PRINCES HAVE COMMANDED VICTORIOUS ARMIES; THIS COMMANDER CREATED THEM. EXULT, O NATURE! FOR THINE WAS THIS PRODIGY. BLUSH, O ART! AT A HERO WHO OWED THEE NOTHING;

———

CHAPTER XXII.

THE REIGNS OF CATHARINE I. ANNE, THE INFANT IVAN AND ELIZABETH.

From 1725 to 1162.

Energetic Reign of Catharine.—Her Sudden Death.—Brief Reign of Peter II.—Difficulties of Hereditary Succession.—A Republic Contemplated.—Anne, Daughter of Ivan.—The Infant Ivan Proclaimed King—His Terrible Doom.—Elizabeth, Daughter of Peter the Great Enthroned.—Character of Elizabeth.—Alliance with Maria Theresa.—Wars with Prussia.—Great Reverses of Frederic of Prussia.—Desperate Condition of Frederic.—Death of Elizabeth.—Succession of Peter III.

The new empress, Catharine I., was already exceedingly popular, and she rose rapidly in public esteem by the wisdom and vigor of her administration. Early in June her eldest daughter, Anne, was married with much pomp to the Duke of Holstein. It was a great novelty to the Russians to see a woman upon the throne; and the neighboring States seemed inspired with courage to commence encroachments, thinking that they had but little to apprehend from the feeble arm of a queen. Poland, Sweden and Denmark were all animated with the hope that the time had now come in which they could recover those portions of territory which, during past wars, had been wrested from them by Russia.

Catharine was fully aware of the dangers thus impending, and adopted such vigorous measures for augmenting the army and the fleet as speedily to dispel the illusion. Catharine vigorously prosecuted the measures her husband had introduced for the promotion of the civilization and enlightenment of her subjects. She took great care of the young prince Peter, son of the deceased Alexis, and endeavored in all ways to educate him so that he might be worthy to succeed her upon the throne. This young man, the grandson of Peter the Great, was the only prince in whose veins flowed the blood of the tzars.

The academy of sciences at St. Petersburg, which Peter had founded, was sedulously fostered by Catharine. The health of the empress was feeble when she ascended the throne, and it rapidly declined. She, however, continued to apply herself with great assiduity to public affairs until the middle of April, when she was obliged to take her bed. There is no "royal road" to death. After four weeks of suffering and all the humbling concomitants of disease and approaching dissolution, the empress breathed her last at nine o'clock in the evening of the 16th of May, 1727, after a reign of but little more than two years, and in the forty-second year of her age.

Upon her death-bed Catharine declared Peter II., the son of Alexis, her successor; and as he was but twelve years of age, a regency was established during his minority. Menzikoff, however, the illustrious favorite of Peter the Great, who had been appointed by Catharine generalissimo of all the armies both by land and sea, attained such supremacy that he was in reality sovereign of the empire. During the reign, of Catharine Russia presented the extraordinary spectacle of one of the most powerful and aristocratic kingdoms on the globe governed by an empress whose origin was that of a nameless girl found weeping in the streets of a sacked town—while there rode, at the head of the armies of the empire, towering above grand dukes and princes of the blood, the son of a peasant, who had passed his childhood the apprentice of a pastry cook, selling cakes in the streets of Moscow. Such changes would have been extraordinary at any period of time and in any quarter of the world; but that they should have occurred in Russia, where for ages so haughty an aristocracy had dominated, seems almost miraculous. Menzikoff; elated by the power which the minority of the king gave him, assumed such airs as to excite the most bitter spirit of hostility among the nobles. They succeeded in working his ruin; and the boy emperor banished him to Siberia and confiscated his immense estates. The blow was fatal. Sinking into the most profound melancholy, Menzikoff lingered for a few months in the dreary region of his exile, and died in 1729. Peter the Second did not long survive him. But little more than two years elapsed after the death of Catharine, when he, being then a lad of but fourteen years of age, was seized with the small-pox and died the 19th of January, 1730. One daughter of Peter the Great and of Catharine still survived.

Some of the principal of the nobility, seeing how many difficulties attended hereditary succession, which at one time placed the crown upon the brow of a babe in the cradle, again upon a semi-idiot, and again upon a bloated and infamous debauchee, conferred upon the subject of changing the government into a republic. But Russia was not prepared for a reform so sudden and so vast. After much debate it was decided to offer the crown to Anne, Duchess of Courland, who was second daughter of the imbecile Ivan, who, for a short time, had nominally occupied the throne, associated with his brother Peter the Great. She had an elder sister, Catharine, who was married to the Duke of Mecklenburg. So far as the right of birth was concerned, Catharine was first entitled to the succession. But as the Duke of Mecklenburg, whose grand duchy bordered upon the Baltic, and which was equal to about one half the State of Massachusetts, was engaged in a kind of civil war with his nobles, it was therefore thought best to pass her by, lest the empire should become involved in the strife in which her husband was engaged. As Ivan was the elder brother, it was thought that his daughters should have the precedence over those of Peter.

Another consideration also influenced the nobles who took the lead in selecting Anne. They thought that she was a woman whom they could more easily control than Catharine. These nobles accordingly framed a new constitution for the empire, limiting the authority of the queen to suit their purposes. But Anne was no sooner seated upon the throne, than she grasped the scepter with vigor which astounded all. She banished the nobles who had interfered with the royal prerogatives, and canceled all the limitations they had made. She selected a very able ministry, and gave the command of her armies to the most experienced generals. While sagacity and efficiency marked her short administration, and Russia continued to expand and prosper, no events of special importance occurred. She united her armies with those of the Emperor of Germany in resisting the encroachments of France. She waged successful war against the Turks, who had attempted to recover Azof. In this war, the Crimean Tartars were crushed, and Russian influence crowded its way into the immense Crimean peninsula. The energies of Anne caused Russia to be respected throughout Europe.

As the empress had no children, she sent for her niece and namesake, Anne, daughter of her elder sister, Catharine, Duchess of Mecklenburg, and married her to one of the most distinguished nobles of her court, resolved to call the issue of this marriage to the succession. On the 12th of August, 1740, this princess was delivered of a son, who was named Ivan. The empress immediately pronounced him her successor, placing him under the guardianship of his parents. The health of the empress was at this time rapidly failing, and it was evident to all that her death was not far distant. In anticipation of death, she appointed one of her favorites, John Ernestus Biron, regent, during the minority of the prince. Baron Osterman, high chancellor of Russia, had the rank of prime minister, and Count Munich, a soldier of distinguished reputation, was placed in the command of the armies, with the title of field marshal. These were the last administrative acts of Anne. The king of terrors came with his inevitable summons. After a few weeks of languor and suffering, the queen expired in October, 1740.

A babe, two months old, was now Emperor of Russia. The senate immediately met and acknowledged the legitimacy of his claims. The foreign embassadors presented to him their credentials, and the Marquis of Chetardie, the French minister, reverentially approaching the cradle, made the imperially majestic baby a congratulatory speech, addressing him as Ivan V., Emperor of all the Russias, and assuring him of the friendship of Louis XV., sovereign of France.

The regent, as was usually the case, arrogating authority and splendor, soon became excessively unpopular, and a conspiracy of the nobles was formed for his overthrow. On the night of the 17th of November the conspirators met in the palace of the grand duchess, Anne, mother of the infant emperor, unanimously named her regent of the empire, arrested Biron, and condemned him to death, which sentence was subsequently commuted to Siberian exile.

Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter, was now thirty-eight years of age. Though very beautiful, she was unmarried, and resided in the palace in a state of splendid captivity. A party now arose who secretly conspired to overthrow the regency of Anne, and to depose the infant Ivan and place Elizabeth upon the throne. The plot being fully matured, on the night of the 5th of December a body of armed men repaired to the palace, where they met Elizabeth, who was ready to receive them, and marched, with her at their head, to the barracks, where she was enthusiastically received by the soldiers. The spirit of her father seemed at once to inspire her soul. With a voice of authority, as if born to command, she ordered the regiments to march to different quarters of the city and to seize all the prominent officers of the government. Then leading, herself, a regiment to the palace, she took possession of the infant emperor and of his mother, the regent. They were held in captivity, though, at first, treated with all the consideration which became their birth.

This revolution was accepted by the people with the loudest demonstrations of joy. The memory of Peter the Great was enshrined in every heart, and all exulted in placing the crown upon his daughter's brow. The next morning, at the head of the royal guards and all the other troops of the metropolis, Elizabeth was proclaimed Empress of Russia. In one week from this time, the deposed infant emperor, Ivan, who was then thirteen months old, was sent, with his parents, from Petersburg to Riga, where they were for a long time detained in a castle as prisoners. Two efforts which they made for escape were frustrated.

This conspiracy, which was carried to so successful a result, was mainly founded in the hostility with which the Russians regarded the foreigners who had been so freely introduced to the empire by Peter the Great, and who occupied so many of the most important posts in the State. Thus the succession of Elizabeth was, in fact, a counter revolution, arresting the progress of reform and moving Russia back again toward the ancient barbarism. But Elizabeth soon expended her paroxysm of energy, and surrendered herself to luxury and to sensual indulgence unsurpassed by any debauchee who ever occupied a throne. Jealous of sharing her power, she refused to take a husband, though many guilty favorites were received to her utmost intimacy.

The doom of the deposed Ivan and his parents was sad, indeed. They were removed for safe keeping to an island in the White Sea, fifty miles beyond Archangel, a region as desolate as the imagination can well conceive. Here, after a year of captivity, the infant Ivan was torn from his mother and removed to the monastery of Oranienburg, where he was brought up in the utmost seclusion, not being allowed to learn either to read or write. The bereaved mother, Anne, lingered a couple of years until she wept away her life, and found the repose of the grave in 1746. Her husband survived thirty years longer, and died in prison in 1775. It was an awful doom for one who had committed no crime. The whole course of history proves that in this life we see but the commencement of a divine government, and that "after death cometh the judgment."

A humane monk, taking pity upon the unfortunate little Ivan, attempted to escape with him. He had reached Smolensk, when he was arrested. The unhappy prince was then conveyed to the castle of Schlusselburg, where he was immersed in a dungeon which no ray of the sun could ever penetrate. A single lamp burning in his cell only revealed its horrors. The prince could not distinguish day from night, and had no means of computing the passage of the hours. Food was left in his cell, and the attendants, who occasionally entered, were prohibited from holding any conversation with the child. This treatment, absolutely infernal, soon reduced the innocent prince to a state almost of idiocy.

Twice Elizabeth ordered him to be brought to Petersburg, where she conversed with him without letting him know who she was; but she did nothing to alleviate his horrible doom. After the death of Elizabeth, her successor, Peter III., made Ivan a visit, without making himself known. Touched with such an aspect of misery, he ordered an apartment to be built in an angle of the fortress, for Ivan, who had now attained the age of manhood, where he could enjoy air and light. The sudden death of Peter defeated this purpose, and Ivan was left in his misery. Still weary years passed away while the prince, dead to himself as well as to the world, remained breathing in his tomb. Catharine II., after her accession to the throne, called to see Ivan. She thus describes her visit:

"After we had ascended the throne, and offered up to Heaven our just thanksgivings, the first object that employed our thoughts, in consequence of that humanity which is natural to us, was the unhappy situation of that prince, who was dethroned by divine Providence, and had been unfortunate ever since his birth; and we formed the resolution of alleviating his misfortunes as far as possible.

"We immediately made a visit to him in order to judge of his understanding and talents, and to procure him a situation suitable to his character and education. But how great was our surprise to find, that in addition to a defect in his utterance, which rendered it difficult for him to speak, and still more difficult to be understood, we observed an almost total deprivation of sense and reason. Those who accompanied us, during this interview, saw how much our heart suffered at the contemplation of an object so fitted to excite compassion; they were also convinced that the only measure we could take to succor the unfortunate prince was to leave him where we found him, and to procure him all the comforts and conveniences his situation would admit of. We accordingly gave our orders for this purpose, though the state he was in prevented his perceiving the marks of our humanity or being sensible of our attention and care; for he knew nobody, could not distinguish between good and evil, nor did he know the use that might be made of reading, to pass the time with less weariness and disgust. On the contrary, he sought pleasure in objects that discovered with sufficient evidence the disorder of his imagination."

Soon after this poor Ivan was cruelly assassinated. An officer in the Russian army, named Mirovitch, conceived an absurd plan of liberating Ivan from his captivity, restoring him to the throne, and consigning Catharine II. to the dungeon the prince had so long inhabited. Mirovitch had command of the garrison at Schlusselburg, where Ivan was imprisoned. Taking advantage of the absence of the empress, on a journey to Livonia, he proceeded to the castle, with a few soldiers whose coöperation he had secured through the influence of brandy and promises, knocked down the commandant of the fortress with the butt end of a musket, and ordered the officers who had command of the prisoner to bring him to them. These officers had received the secret injunction that should the rescue of the prince ever be attempted, they were to put him to death rather than permit him to be carried off. They accordingly entered his cell, and though the helpless captive made the most desperate resistance, they speedily cut him down with their swords.

History has few narratives so extraordinary as the fate of Ivan. A forced marriage was arranged that a child might be generated to inherit the Russian throne. When this child was but a few days old he was declared emperor of all the Russias, and received the congratulations of the foreign embassadors. When thirteen months of age he was deposed, and for the crime of being a king, was thrown into captivity. To prevent others from using him as the instrument of their purposes, he was thrown into a dungeon, and excluded from all human intercourse, so that like a deaf child he could not even acquire the power of speech. For him there was neither clouds nor sunshine, day nor night, summer nor winter. He had no employment, no amusement, no food for thought, absolutely nothing to mark the passage of the weary hours. The mind became paralyzed and almost idiotic by such enormous woe. Such was his doom for twenty-four years. He was born in 1740, and assassinated under the reign of Catharine II., in 1764. The father of Ivan remained in prison eleven years longer until he died.

From this tragedy let us turn back to the reign of Elizabeth. It was the great object of this princess to undo all that her illustrious father had done, to roll back all the reforms he had commenced, and to restore to the empire its ancient usages and prejudices. The hostility to foreigners became so bitter, that the queen's guard formed a conspiracy for a general massacre, which should sweep them all from the empire. Elizabeth, conscious of the horror such an act would inspire throughout Europe, was greatly alarmed, and was compelled to issue a proclamation, in defense of their lives.

"The empress," she said in this proclamation, "can never forget how much foreigners have contributed to the prosperity of Russia. And though her subjects will at all times enjoy her favors in preference to foreigners, yet the foreigners in her service are as dear to her as her own subjects, and may rely on her protection."

In the mean time, Elizabeth was prosecuting with great vigor the hereditary war with Sweden. Russia was constantly gaining in this conflict, and at length the Swedes purchased peace by surrendering to the Russians extensive territories in Finland. The favor of Russia was still more effectually purchased by the Swedes choosing for their king, Adolphus Frederic, Duke of the Russian province of Holstein, and kinsman of Elizabeth. The boundaries of Russia were thus enlarged, and Sweden became almost a tributary province of the gigantic empire.

Maria Theresa was now Empress of Austria, and she succeeded in enlisting the coöperation of Elizabeth in her unrelenting warfare with Frederic of Prussia. Personal hostility also exasperated Elizabeth against the Prussian monarch, for in some of his writings he had spoken disparagingly of the humble birth of Elizabeth's mother, Catharine, the wife of Peter the First; and a still more unpardonable offense he had committed, when, flushed with wine, at a table where the Russian embassador was present, he had indulged in witticisms in reference to the notorious gallantries of the empress. A woman who could plunge, into the wildest excesses of licentiousness, still had sensibility enough to resent the taunts of the royal philosopher. In 1753, Elizabeth and Maria Theresa entered into an agreement to resist all further augmentation of the Prussian power. In the bloody Seven Years' War between Frederic and Maria Theresa, the heart of Elizabeth was always with the Austrian queen, and for five of those years their armies fought side by side. In the year 1759, Elizabeth sent an army of one hundred thousand men into Prussia. They committed every outrage which fiends could perpetrate; and though victorious over the armies of Frederic, they rendered the country so utterly desolate, that through famine they were compelled to retreat. Burning villages and mangled corpses marked their path.

The next year, 1758, another Russian army invaded Prussia, overran nearly the whole kingdom, and captured Konigsburg. The victorious Russians thinking that all of Prussia was to be annexed to their dominions, began to treat the Prussians tenderly and as countrymen. An order was read from the churches, that if any Prussian had cause of complaint against any Russian, he should present it at the military chancery at Konigsburg, where he would infallibly have redress. The inhabitants of the conquered realm were all obliged to swear fealty to the Empress of Russia. The Prussian army was at this time in Silesia, struggling against the troops of Maria Theresa. The warlike Frederic soon returned at the head of his indomitable hosts, and attacking the Russians about six miles from Kustrin, defeated them in one of the most bloody battles on record, and drove the shattered battalions, humiliated and bleeding, out of the territory.

The summer of 1759 again found the Russian troops spread over the Prussian territory. In great force the two hostile armies soon met on the banks of the Oder. The Russians, posted upon a line of commanding heights, numbered seventy thousand. Frederic fiercely assailed them through the most formidable disadvantages, with but thirty thousand men. The slaughter of the Prussians was fearful, and Frederic, after losing nearly eight thousand of his best troops in killed and wounded and prisoners, sullenly retired. The Russian troops were now strengthened by a reinforcement of twelve thousand of the choicest of the Austrian cavalry, and still presenting, notwithstanding their losses, a solid front of ninety thousand men. Frederic, bringing every nerve into action, succeeded in collecting and bringing again into the field fifty thousand troops.[16] Notwithstanding the disparity in numbers, it seemed absolutely necessary that the King of Prussia should fight, for the richest part of his dominions was in the hands of the allied Prussians and Austrians, and Berlin was menaced. The field of battle was on the banks of the Oder, near Frankfort.

On the 12th of June, 1759, at two o'clock in the morning, the King of Prussia formed his troops in battle array, behind a forest which concealed his movements from the enemy. The battle was commenced with a fierce cannonade; and in the midst of the thunderings and carnage of this tempest of war, solid columns emerged from the ranks of the Prussians and pierced the Russian lines. The attack was too impetuous to be resisted. From post to post the Prussians advanced, driving the foe before them, and covering the ground with the slain. For six hours of almost unparalleled slaughter the victory was with the Prussians. Seventy-two pieces of cannon fell into the hands of the victors, and at every point the Russians were retreating. Frederic, in his exultation, scribbled a note to the empress, upon the field of battle, with the pommel of his saddle for a tablet, and dispatched it to her by a courier. It was as follows:

"Madam: we have beat the Russians from their entrenchments. In two hours expect to hear of a glorious victory."

But in less than two hours the tide of victory turned. The day was one of excessive heat. An unclouded sun poured its burning rays upon the field, and at midday the troops and the horses, having been engaged for six hours in one of the severest actions which was ever known, were utterly beat out and fainting with exhaustion. Just then the whole body of the Russian and Austrian cavalry, some fourteen thousand strong, which thus far had remained inactive, came rushing upon the plain as with the roar and the sweep of the whirlwind. The foe fell before them as the withered grass before the prairie fire. Frederic was astounded by this sudden reverse, and in the anguish of his spirit plunged into the thickest of the conflict. Two horses were shot beneath him. His clothes were riddled with balls. Another courier was dispatched to the empress from the sanguinary field, in the hottest speed. The note he bore was as follows:

"Remove from Berlin with the royal family. Let the archives be carried to Potsdam, and the capital make conditions with the enemy."

As night approached, Frederic assembled the fragments of his army, exhausted and bleeding, upon some heights, and threw up redoubts for their protection. Twenty thousand of his troops were left upon the field or in the hands of the enemy. Every cannon he had was taken. Scarcely a general or an inferior officer escaped unwounded, and a large number of his most valuable officers were slain. It was an awful defeat and an awful slaughter.

Fortunately for Frederic the losses of the Russians had also been so terrible that they did not venture to pursue the foe. Early the next morning the Prussian king crossed the Oder; and the Russians, encumbered with the thousands of their own mutilated and dying troops, thought it not prudent to march upon Berlin. The war still raged furiously, the allies being inspirited by hope and Frederic by despair. At length the affairs of Prussia became quite hopeless, and the Prussian monarch was in a position from which no earthly energy or sagacity could extricate him. The Russians and Austrians, in resistless numbers, were spread over all his provinces excepting Saxony, where the great Frederic was entirely hemmed up.

The Prussian king was fully conscious of the desperation of his affairs, and, though one of the most stoical and stern of men, he experienced the acutest anguish. For hours he paced the floor of his tent, absorbed in thought, seldom exchanging a word with his generals, who stood silently by, having no word to utter of counsel or encouragement. Just then God mysteriously interposed and saved Prussia from dismemberment, and the name of her monarch from ignominy. The Empress of Russia had been for some time in failing health, and the year 1762 had but just dawned, when the enrapturing tidings were conveyed to the camp of the despairing Prussians that Elizabeth was dead. This event dispelled midnight gloom and caused the sun to shine brightly upon the Prussian fortunes.

The nephew of the empress, Peter III., who succeeded her on her throne, had long expressed his warm admiration of Frederic of Prussia, had visited his court at Berlin, where he was received with the most flattering attentions, and had enthroned the warlike Frederic in his heart as the model of a hero. He had even, during the war, secretly written letters to Frederic expressive of his admiration, and had communicated to him secrets of the Russian cabinet and their plans of operation. The elevation of Peter III. to the throne was the signal, not only for the withdrawal of the Russian troops from the Austrian alliance, but for the direct marching of those troops as allies into the camp of the Prussians. Thus sudden are the mutations of war; thus inexplicable are the combinations of destiny.

Elizabeth died in the fifty-second year of her age, after a reign of twenty years. She was during her whole reign mainly devoted to sensual pleasure, drinking intoxicating liquors immoderately, and surrendering herself to the most extraordinary licentiousness. Though ever refusing to recognize the claims of marriage, she was the mother of several children, and her favorites can not easily be enumerated. Her ministers managed the affairs of State for her, in obedience to her caprices. She seemed to have some chronic disease of the humane feelings which induced her to declare that not one of her subjects should during her reign be doomed to death, while at the same time, with the most gentle self complacency, she could order the tongues of thousands to be torn out by the roots, could cut off the nostrils with red hot pincers, could lop off ears, lips and noses, and could twist the arms of her victims behind them, by dislocating them at the shoulders. There were tens of thousands of prisoners thus horridly mutilated.

The empress was fond of music, and introduced to Russia the opera and the theater. She was as intolerent to the Jews as her father had been, banishing them all from the country. She lived in constant fear of conspiracies and revolutions, and, as a desperate safeguard, established a secret inquisitorial court to punish all who should express any displeasure with the measures of government. Spies and informers of the most worthless character filled the land, and multitudes of the most virtuous inhabitants of the empire, falsely accused, or denounced for a look, a shrug, or a harmless word, were consigned to mutilation more dreadful and to exile more gloomy than the grave.

———

CHAPTER XXIII.

PETER III. AND HIS BRIDE.

From 1728 to 1762.

Lineage of Peter III.—Chosen by Elizabeth as Her Successor.—The Bride Chosen for Peter.—Her Lineage.—The Courtship.—The Marriage.—Autobiography of Catharine.—Anecdotes of Peter.—His Neglect of Catharine and His Debaucheries.—Amusements of the Russian Court.—Military Execution of a Rat.—Accession of Peter III. to the Throne.—Supremacy of Catharine.—Her Repudiation Threatened.—The Conspiracy.—Its Successful Accomplishment.

Peter the Third was grandson of Peter the Great. His mother, Anne, the eldest daughter of Peter and Catharine, married the Duke of Holstein, who inherited a duchy on the eastern shores of the Baltic containing some four thousand square miles of territory and about three hundred thousand inhabitants. Their son and only child, Peter, was born in the ducal castle at Kiel, the capital of the duchy, in the year 1728. The blood of Peter the Great of Russia, and of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden mingled in the veins of the young duke, of which fact he was exceedingly proud. Soon after the birth of Peter, his mother, Anne, died. The father of Peter was son of the eldest sister of Charles XII., and, as such, being the nearest heir, would probably have succeeded to the throne of Sweden had not the king's sudden death, by a cannon ball, prevented him from designating his successor. The widowed father of Peter, thus disappointed in his hopes of obtaining the crown of Sweden, which his aunt Ulrica, his mother's sister, successfully grasped, lived in great retirement. The idea had not occurred to him that the crown of imperial Russia could, by any chance, descend to his son, and the education of Peter was conducted to qualify him to preside over his little patrimonial duchy.

When young Peter was fourteen years of age, the Empress Elizabeth, his maternal aunt, to the surprise and delight of the family, summoned the young prince to St. Petersburg, intimating her intention to transmit to him her crown. But Peter was a thoroughly worthless boy. All ignoble qualities seemed to be combined in his nature without any redeeming virtues. Elizabeth having thus provided twenty millions of people with a sovereign, looked about to find for that sovereign a suitable wife. Upon the banks of the Oder there was a small principality, as it was called, containing some thirteen hundred square miles, about the size of the State of Rhode Island. Christian Augustus, the prince of this little domain, had a daughter, Sophia, a child rather remarkable both for beauty and vivacity. She was one year younger than Peter, and Elizabeth fixed her choice upon Sophia as the future spouse of her nephew. Peter was, at this time, with the empress in Moscow, and Sophia was sent for to spend some time in the Russian capital before the marriage, that she might become acquainted with the Russian language and customs.

Both of these children had been educated Protestants, but they were required to renounce the Lutheran faith and accept that of the Greek church. Children as they were, they did this, of course, as readily as they would have changed their dresses. With this change of religion Sophia received a new name, that of Catharine, and by this name she was ever afterward called. When these children, to whom the government of the Russian empire was to be intrusted, first met, Peter was fifteen years of age and Catharine fourteen. Catharine subsequently commenced a minute journal, an autobiography of these her youthful days, which opens vividly to our view the corruptions of the Russian court. Nothing can be more wearisome than the life there developed. No thought whatever seemed to be directed by the court to the interests of the Russian people. They were no more thought of than the jaded horses who dragged the chariots of the nobles. It is amazing that the indignation of the millions can have slumbered so long.

Catharine, in her memoirs, naively describes young Peter, when she first saw him, as "weak, ugly, little and sickly." From the age of ten he had been addicted to intoxicating drinks. It was the 9th of February, 1744, when Catharine was taken to Moscow. Peter, or, as he was then called, the grand duke, was quite delighted to see the pretty girl who was his destined wife, and began immediately to entertain Catharine, as she says, "by informing me that he was in love with one of the maids of honor to the empress, and that he would have been very glad to have married her, but that he was resigned to marry me instead, as his aunt wished it."

The grand duke had the faculty of making himself excessively disagreeable to every one around him, and the affianced haters were in a constant quarrel. Peter could develop nothing but stupid malignity. Catharine could wield the weapons of keen and cutting sarcasm, which Peter felt as the mule feels the lash. Catharine's mother had accompanied her to Moscow, but the bridal wardrobe, for a princess, was extremely limited.

"I had arrived," she writes, "in Russia very badly provided for. If I had three or four dresses in the world, it was the very outside, and this at a court where people changed their dress three times a day. A dozen chemises constituted the whole of my linen, and I had to use my mother's sheets."

Soon after Catharine's arrival, the grand duke was taken with the small-pox, and his natural ugliness was rendered still more revolting by the disfigurement it caused. On the 10th of February, 1745, when Catharine had been one year at Moscow, the grand duke celebrated his seventeenth birthday. In her journal Catharine writes that Peter seldom saw her, and was always glad of any excuse by which he could avoid paying her any attention. Though Catharine cared as little for him, still, with girlish ambition, she was eager to marry him, as she very frankly records, in consideration of the crown which he would place upon her brow, and her womanly nature was stung by his neglect.

"I fully perceived," she writes, "his want of interest, and how little I was cared for. My self-esteem and vanity grieved in silence; but I was too proud to complain. I should have thought myself degraded had any one shown me a friendship which I could have taken for pity. Nevertheless I shed tears when alone, then quietly dried them up, and went to romp with my maids.

"I labored, however," writes Catharine, "to gain the affection of every one. Great or small I neglected no one, but laid it down to myself as a rule to believe that I stood in need of every one, and so to act, in consequence, as to obtain the good will of all, and I succeeded in doing so."

The 21st of August of this year was fixed for the nuptial day. Catharine looked forward to it with extreme repugnance. Peter was revolting in his aspect, disgusting in manners, a drunkard, and licentious to such a degree that he took no pains to conceal his amours. But the crown of Russia was in the eyes of Catharine so glittering a prize, though then she had not entered her sixteenth year, that she was willing to purchase it even at the price of marrying Peter, the only price at which it could be obtained. She was fully persuaded that Peter, with a feeble constitution and wallowing in debauchery, could not live long, and that, at his death, she would be undisputed empress.

"As the day of our nuptials approached," she writes, "I became more and more melancholy. My heart predicted but little happiness; ambition alone sustained me. In my inmost soul there was something which led me never to doubt, for a single moment, that sooner or later I should become sovereign empress of Russia in my own right."

The marriage was celebrated with much pomp; but a more cold and heartless union was perhaps never solemnized. Catharine very distinctly intimates that her husband, who was as low in his tastes and companionship as he was degraded in his vices, left her at the altar, to return to his more congenial harem.

"My beloved spouse," she writes, "did not trouble himself in the slightest degree about me; but was constantly with his valets, playing at soldiers, exercising them in his room, or changing his uniform twenty times a day. I yawned and grew weary, having no one to speak to."

Again she writes, "A fortnight after our marriage he confessed to me that he was in love with Mademoiselle Carr, maid of honor to her imperial majesty. He said that there was no comparison between that lady and me. Surely, said I to myself, it would be impossible for me not to be wretched with such a man as this were I to give way to sentiments of tenderness thus requited. I might die of jealousy without benefit to any one. I endeavored to master my feelings so as not to be jealous of the man who did not love me. I was naturally well-disposed, but I should have required a husband who had common sense, which this one had not."

For amusement, the grand duke played cruelly with dogs in his room, pretending to train them, whipping them from corner to corner. When tired of this he would scrape execrably on a violin. He had many little puppet soldiers, whom, hour after hour, he would marshal on the floor in mimic war. He would dress his own servants and the maids of Catharine in masks, and set them dancing, while he would dance with them, playing at the same time on the fiddle.

"With rare perseverance," writes Catharine, "the grand duke trained a pack of dogs, and with heavy blows of his whip, and cries like those of the huntsmen, made them fly from one end to the other of his two rooms, which were all he had. Such of the dogs as became tired, or got out of rank, were severely punished, which made them howl still more. On one occasion, hearing one of these animals howl piteously and for a long time, I opened the door of my bed-room, where I was seated, and which adjoined the apartment in which this scene was enacted, and saw him holding this dog by the collar, suspended in the air, while a boy, who was in his service, a Kalmuck by birth, held the animal by the tail. It was a poor little King Charles spaniel, and the duke was beating him with all his might with the heavy handle of a whip. I interceded for the poor beast; but this only made him redouble his blows. Unable to bear so cruel a scene, I returned to my room with tears in my eyes. In general, tears and cries, instead of moving the duke to pity, put him in a passion. Pity was a feeling that was painful and even insupportable in his mind."

At one time there was a little hunchback girl in the court, upon whom the duke fixed his vagrant desires, and she became his unconcealed favorite. The duke was ever in the habit of talking freely with Catharine about his paramours and praising their excellent qualities.

"Madame Vladisma said to me," writes Catharine, "that every one was disgusted to see this little hunchback preferred to me. 'It can not be helped,' I said, as the tears started to my eyes. I went to bed; scarcely was I asleep, when the grand duke also came to bed. As he was tipsy and knew not what he was doing, he spoke to me for the purpose of expatiating on the eminent qualities of his favorite. To check his garrulity I pretended to be fast asleep. He spoke still louder in order to wake me; but finding that I slept, he gave me two or three rather hard blows in the side with his fist, and dropped asleep himself. I wept long and bitterly that night, as well on account of the matter itself and the blows he had given me, as on that of my general situation, which was, in all respects, as disagreeable as it was wearisome."

One of the ridiculous and disgraceful amusements of the vulgar men and women collected in the court of Elizabeth, was what was called masquerade balls, in which all the men were required to dress as women, and all the women as men, and yet no masks were worn.

"The men," Catharine writes, "wore large whaleboned petticoats, with women's gowns, and the head-dresses worn on court days, while the women appeared in the court costume of men. The men did not like these reversals of their sex, and the greater part of them were in the worst possible humor on these occasions, because they felt themselves to be hideous in such disguises. The women looked like scrubby little boys, while the more aged among them had thick short legs which were any thing but ornamental. The only woman who looked really well, and completely a man, was the empress herself. As she was very tall and somewhat powerful, male attire suited her wonderfully well. She had the handsomest leg I have ever seen with any man, and her foot was admirably proportioned. She danced to perfection, and every thing she did had a special grace, equally so whether she dressed as a man or a woman."

Enervating and degrading pleasure and ambitious or revengeful wars, engrossed the whole attention of the Russian court during the reign of Elizabeth. The welfare of the people was not even thought of. The following anecdote, illustrative of the character of Peter III., is worthy of record in the words of Catharine:

"One day, when I went into the apartments of his imperial highness, I beheld a great rat which he had hung, with all the paraphernalia of an execution. I asked what all this meant. He told me that this rat had committed a great crime, which, according to the laws of war, deserved capital punishment. It had climbed the ramparts of a fortress of card-board, which he had on a table in his cabinet, and had eaten two sentinels, made of pith, who were on duty in the bastions. His setter had caught the criminal, he had been tried by martial law and immediately hung; and, as I saw, was to remain three days exposed as a public example. In justification of the rat," continues Catharine, "it may at least be said, that he was hung without having been questioned or heard in his own defense."

It is not surprising that a woman, young, beautiful and vivacious, living in a court where corruption was all around her, where an unmarried empress was rendering herself notorious by her gallantries, stung to the quick by the utter neglect of her husband, insulted by the presence of his mistresses, and disgusted by his unmitigated boobyism, should have sought solace in the friendship of others. And it is not strange that such friendships should have ripened into love, and that one thus tempted should have fallen. Catharine in her memoirs does not deny her fall, though she can not refrain from allowing an occasional word to drop from her pen, evidently intended in extenuation. Much which is called virtue consists in the absence of temptation.

Catharine's first son, Paul, was born on the 20th of September, 1753. He was unquestionably the son of Count Sottikoff, a nobleman alike distinguished for the graces of his person and of his mind. Through a thousand perils and cunning intrigues, Catharine and the count prosecuted their amour. Woe was, as usual, to both of them the result. The empress gives a very touching account of her sufferings, in both body and mind, on the occasion of the birth of her child.

"As for me," she writes, "I did nothing but weep and moan in my bed. I neither could or would see anybody, I felt so miserable. I buried myself in my bed, where I did nothing but grieve. When the forty days of my confinement were over, the empress came a second time into my chamber. My child was brought into my room; it was the first time I had seen him since his birth."

One day Peter brought into his wife's room, for her amusement, a letter which he had just received from one of his mistresses, Madame Teploff. Showing the letter to Catharine, he said,

"Only think! she writes me a letter of four whole pages, and expects that I should read it, and, what is more, answer it also; I, who have to go to parade, then dine, then attend the rehearsal of an opera, and the ballet which the cadets will dance at. I will tell her plainly that I have not time, and, if she is vexed, I will quarrel with her till next winter."

"That will certainly be the shortest way," Catharine coolly replied. "These traits," she very truly adds in her narrative, "are characteristic, and they will not therefore be out of place."

Such was the man and such the woman who succeeded to the throne of Russia upon the death of the Empress Elizabeth. She had hardly emitted her last breath, ere the courtiers, impatiently awaiting the event, rushed to the apartments of the grand duke to congratulate him upon his accession to the crown. He immediately mounted on horseback and traversed the streets of St. Petersburg, scattering money among the crowd. The soldiers gathered around him exclaiming, "Take care of us and we will take care of you," Though the grand duke had been very unpopular there was no outburst of opposition. The only claim Peter III. had to the confidence of the nation was the fact that he was grandson of Peter the Great. Conspiracies were, however, immediately set on foot to eject him from the throne and give Catharine his seat. Catharine had a high reputation for talent, and being very affectionate in her disposition and cordial in her manners, had troops of friends. Indeed, it is not strange that public sentiment should not only have extenuated her faults, but should almost have applauded them. Forgetting the commandments of God, and only remembering that her brutal husband richly merited retaliation, the public almost applauded the spirit with which she conducted her intrigues. The same sentiment pervaded England when the miserable George IV. goaded his wife to frenzy, and led her, in uncontrollable exasperation, to pay him back in his own coin.

Fortunately for the imbecile Peter, he had enough sense to appreciate the abilities of Catharine; and a sort of maudlin idea of justice, if it were not, perhaps, utter stupidity, dissuaded him from resenting her freedom in the choice of favorites. Upon commencing his reign, he yielded himself to the guidance of her imperial mind, hoping to obtain some dignity by the renown which her measures might reflect upon him. Catharine advised him very wisely. She caused seventeen thousand exiles to be recalled from Siberia, and abolished the odious secret court of chancery—that court of political inquisition which, for years, had kept all Russia trembling.

For a time, Russia resounded with the praises of the new sovereign, and when Peter III. entered the senate and read an act permitting the nobility to bear arms, or not, at their own discretion, and to visit foreign countries whenever they pleased, a privilege which they had not enjoyed before, the gratitude of the nobles was unbounded. It should, however, be recorded that this edict proved to be but a dead letter. It was expected that the nobles, as a matter of courtesy, should always ask permission to leave, and this request was frequently not granted. The secret tribunal, to which we have referred, exposed persons of all ranks and both sexes to be arrested upon the slightest suspicion. The accused was exposed to the most horrible tortures to compel a confession. When every bone was broken and every joint dislocated, and his body was mangled by the crushing wheel, if he still had endurance to persist in his denial, the accuser was, in his turn, placed upon the wheel, and every nerve of agony was tortured to force a recantation of the charge.

Though Peter III. promulgated the wise edicts which were placed in his hands, he had become so thoroughly imbruted by his dissolute life that he made no attempt to tear himself away from his mistresses and his drunken orgies.

Peter III. was quite infatuated in his admiration of Frederic of Prussia. One of his first acts upon attaining the reins of government was to dispatch an order forbidding the Russian armies any longer to coöperate with Austria against Prussia. This command was speedily followed by another, directing the Russian generals to hold themselves and their troops obedient to the instructions of Frederic, and to coöperate in every way with him to repel their former allies, the Austrians. It was the caprice of a drunken semi-idiot which thus rescued Frederic the Great from disgrace and utter ruin. The Emperor of Prussia had sufficient sagacity to foresee that Peter III. would not long maintain his seat upon the throne. He accordingly directed his minister at St. Petersburg, while continuing to live in great intimacy with the tzar, to pay the most deferential attention to the empress.

There was no end to the caprices of Peter the drunkard. At one time he would leave the whole administration of affairs in the hands of Catharine, and again he would treat her in the most contemptuous and insulting manner. In one of the pompous ceremonials of the court, when the empress, adorned with all the marks of imperial dignity, shared the throne with Peter, the tzar called one of his mistresses to the conspicuous seat he occupied with the empress, and made her sit down by his side. Catharine immediately rose and retired. At a public festival that same evening, Peter, half drunk, publicly and loudly launched at her an epithet the grossest which could be addressed to a woman. Catharine was so shocked that she burst into tears. The sympathy of the spectators was deeply excited in her behalf, and their indignation roused against the tzar.

While Peter III. was developing his true character of brute and buffoon, gathering around him the lowest profligates, and reveling in the most debasing and vulgar vices, Catharine, though guilty and unhappy, was holding her court with dignity and affability, which charmed all who approached her. She paid profound respect to the external observances of religion, daily performing her devotions in the churches, accosting the poor with benignity, treating the clergy with marked respect, and winning all hearts by her kindness and sympathy.

One of the mistresses of Peter III., the Countess Vorontzof, had gained such a boundless influence over her paramour, that she had extorted from him the promise that he would repudiate Catharine, marry her, and crown her as empress. Elated by this promise, she had the imprudence to boast of it. Her father and several of the courtiers whose fortunes her favor would secure, were busy in paving her way to the throne. The numerous friends of Catharine were excited, and were equally active in thwarting the plans of the tzar. Peter took no pains to conceal his intentions, and gloried in proclaiming the illegitimacy of Paul, the son of the empress. Loathsome as his own life was, he seemed to think that his denunciations of Catharine, whose purity he had insulted and whose heart he had crushed, would secure for him the moral support of his subjects and of Europe. But he was mistaken. The sinning Catharine was an angel of purity compared with the beastly Peter.

It was necessary for Peter to move with caution, for Catharine had ability, energy, innumerable friends, and was one of the last women in the world quietly to submit to be plunged into a dungeon, and then to be led to the scaffold, and by such a man as her despicable spouse. Peter III. was by no means a match for Catharine. About twelve miles from St. Petersburg, on the southern shore of the Bay of Cronstadt, and nearly opposite the renowned fortresses of Cronstadt which command the approaches to St. Petersburg, was the imperial summer palace of Peterhof, which for some time had been the favorite residence of Catharine. A few miles further down the bay, which runs east and west, was the palace of Oranienbaum, in the decoration of which many succeeding monarchs had lavished large sums. This was Peter's favorite resort, and its halls ever echoed with the carousings of the prince and his boon companions. Every year, on the 8th of July, there is a grand festival at Peterhof in honor of Peter and Paul, the patron saints of the imperial house. This was the time fixed upon by Catharine and her friends for the accomplishment of their plans. The tzar, on the evening of the 8th of July, was at Oranienbaum, surrounded by a bevy of the most beautiful females of his court. Catharine was at Peterhof. It was a warm summer's night, and the queen lodged in a small cottage orné called Montplaisir, which was situated in the garden. They had not intended to carry their plot into execution that night, but an alarm precipitated their action. At two o'clock in the morning Catharine was awoke from a sound sleep, by some one of her friends entering her room, exclaiming,

"Your majesty has not a moment to lose. Rise and follow me!"

Catharine, alarmed, called her confidential attendant, dressed hurriedly in disguise, and entered a carriage which was waiting for her at the garden gate. The horses were goaded to their utmost speed on the road to St. Petersburg, and so inconsiderately that soon one of them fell in utter exhaustion. They were still at some distance from the city, and the energetic empress alighted and pressed forward on foot. Soon they chanced to meet a peasant, driving a light cart. Count Orloff, who was a reputed lover of Catharine, and was guiding in this movement, seized the horse, placed the empress in the cart, and drove on. These delays had occupied so much time that it was seven o'clock in the morning before they reached St. Petersburg. The empress, with her companions, immediately proceeded to the barracks, where most of the soldiers were quartered, and whose officers had been gained over, and threw herself upon their protection.

"Danger," she said to the soldiers, "has compelled me to fly to you for help. The tzar had intended to put me to death, together with my son. I had no other means of escaping death than by flight. I throw myself into your arms!"

Such an appeal from a woman, beautiful, beloved and imploring protection from the murderous hands of one who was hated and despised, inspired every bosom with indignation and with enthusiasm in her behalf. With one impulse they took an oath to die, if necessary, in her defense; and cries of "Long live the empress" filled the air. In two hours Catharine found herself at the head of several thousand veteran soldiers. She was also in possession of the arsenals; and the great mass of the population of St. Petersburg were clamorously advocating her cause.

Accompanied by a numerous and brilliant suite, the empress then repaired to the metropolitan church, where the archbishop and a great number of ecclesiastics, whose coöperation had been secured, received her, and the venerable archbishop, a man of imposing character and appearance, dressed in his sacerdotal robes, led her to the altar, and placing the imperial crown upon her head, proclaimed her sovereign of all the Russias, with the title of Catharine the Second. A Te Deum was then chanted, and the shouts of the multitude proclaimed the cordiality with which the populace accepted the revolution. The empress then repaired to the imperial palace, which was thrown open to all the people, and which, for hours, was thronged with the masses, who fell upon their knees before her, taking their oath of allegiance.

The friends of Catharine were, in the meantime, everywhere busy in putting the city in a state of defense, and in posting cannon to sweep the streets should Peter attempt resistance. The tzar seemed to be left without a friend. No one even took the trouble to inform him of what was transpiring. Troops in the vicinity were marched into the city, and before the end of the day, Catharine found herself at the head of fifteen thousand men; the most formidable defenses were arranged, strict order prevailed, and not a drop of blood had been shed. The manifesto of the empress, which had been secretly printed, was distributed throughout the city, and a day appointed when the foreign embassadors would be received by Catharine. The revolution seemed already accomplished without a struggle and almost without an effort.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE CONSPIRACY; AND ACCESSION OF CATHARINE II.

From 1762 to 1765.

Peter III. at Oranienbaum.—Catharine at Peterhof.—The Successful Accomplishment of the Conspiracy.—Terror of Peter.—His Vacillating and Feeble Character.—Flight to Cronstadt.—Repulse.—Heroic Counsel of Munich.—Peter's Return to Oranienbaum.—His Suppliant Letters to Catharine.—His Arrest.—Imprisonment.—Assasination.—Proclamation of the Empress. Her Complicity in the Crime.—Energy of Catharine's Administration.—Her Expansive Views and Sagacious Policy.—Contemplated Marriage with Count Orlof.

It was the morning of the 19th of July, 1762. Peter, at Oranienbaum, had passed most of the night, with his boon companions and his concubines, in intemperate carousings. He awoke at a late hour in the morning, and after breakfast set out in a carriage, with several of his women, accompanied by a troop of courtiers in other carriages, for Peterhof. The gay party were riding at a rapid rate over the beautiful shore road, looking out upon the Bay of Cronstadt, when they were met by a messenger from Peterhof, sent to inform them that the empress had suddenly disappeared during the night. Peter, upon receiving this surprising intelligence, turned pale as ashes, and alighting, conversed for some time anxiously with the messenger. Entering his carriage again, he drove with the utmost speed to Peterhof, and with characteristic silliness began to search the cupboards, closets, and under the bed for the empress. Those of greater penetration foresaw what had happened, but were silent, that they might not add to his alarm.

In the meantime some peasants, who had come from St. Petersburg, related to a group of servants rumors they had heard of the insurrection in that city. A fearful gloom oppressed all, and Peter was in such a state of terror that he feared to ask any questions. As they were standing thus mute with confusion and dismay, a countryman rode up, and making a profound bow to the tzar, presented him with a note. Peter ran his eyes hastily over it, and then read it aloud. It communicated the appalling intelligence which we have just recorded.

The consternation into which the whole imperial party was thrown no language can describe. The women were in tears. The courtiers could offer not a word of encouragement or counsel. One, the king's chancellor, with the tzar's consent, set off for St. Petersburg to attempt to rouse the partisans of the tzar; but he could find none there. The wretched Peter was now continually receiving corroborative intelligence of the insurrection, and he strode up and down the walks of the garden, forming innumerable plans and adhering to none.

The tzar had a guard of three thousand troops at his palace of Oranienbaum. At noon these approached Peterhof led by their veteran commander, Munich. This energetic officer urged an immediate march upon St. Petersburg.

"Believe me," said Munich, "you have many friends in the city. The royal guard will rally around your standard when they see it approaching; and if we are forced to fight, the rebels will make but a short resistance."

While he was urging this energetic measure, and the women and the courtiers were trying to dissuade him from the step, and were entreating him to go back to Oranienbaum, news arrived that the troops of the empress, twenty thousand in number, were on the march to arrest him.

"Well," said Munich to the tzar, "if you wish to decline a battle, it is not wise at any rate to remain here, where you have no means of defense. Neither Oranienbaum nor Peterhof can withstand a siege. But Cronstadt offers you a safe retreat. Cronstadt is still under your command. You have there a formidable fleet and a numerous garrison. From Cronstadt you will find it easy to bring Petersburg back to duty."

The fortresses of Cronstadt are situated on an island of the same name, at the mouth of a bay which presents the only approach to St. Petersburg. This fortress, distant about thirty miles west of St. Petersburg, may be said to be impregnable. In the late war with Russia it bade defiance to the combined fleets of France and England. As we have before mentioned, Peterhof and Oranienbaum were pleasure-palaces, situated on the eastern shore of the Bay of Cronstadt, but a few miles from the fortress and but a few miles from each other. The gardens of these palaces extend to the waters of the bay, where there are ever riding at anchor a fleet of pleasure-boats and royal yachts.

The advice of Munich was instantly adopted. A boat was sent off conveying an officer to take command of the fortress, while, in the meantime, two yachts were got ready for the departure of the tzar and his party. Peter and his affrighted court hastened on board, continually looking over their shoulders fearing to catch a sight of the troops of the queen, whose appearance they every moment apprehended. But the energetic Catharine had anticipated this movement, and her emissaries had already gained the soldiers of the garrison, and were in possession of Cronstadt.

As the two yachts, which conveyed Peter and his party, entered the harbor, they found the garrison, under arms, lining the coast. The cannons were leveled, the matches lighted, and the moment the foremost yacht, which contained the emperor, cast anchor, a sentinel cried out,

"Who comes there?"

"The emperor," was the answer from the yacht.

"There is no emperor," the sentinel replied.

Peter III. started forward upon the deck, and, throwing back his cloak, exhibited the badges of his order, exclaiming,

"What! do you not know me?"

"No!" cried a thousand voices; "we know of no emperor. Long live the Empress Catharine II."

They then threatened immediately to sink the yacht unless the tzar retired.

The heroic Munich urged the tzar to an act of courage of which he was totally incapable.

"Let us leap on shore," said he; "none will dare to fire on you, and Cronstadt will still be your majesty's."

But Peter, in dismay, fled into the cabin, hid himself among his women, and ordered the cable instantly to be cut, and the yacht to be pulled out to sea by the oars. They were soon beyond the reach of the guns. It was now night, serene and beautiful; the sea was smooth as glass, and the stars shone with unusual splendor in the clear sky. The poltroon monarch of all the Russias had not yet ventured upon deck, but was trembling in his cabin, surrounded by his dismayed mistresses, when the helmsman entered the cabin and said to the tzar,

"Sire, to what port is it your majesty's pleasure that I should take the vessel?"

Peter gazed, for a moment, in consternation and bewilderment, and then sent for Munich.

"Field marshal," said he, "I perceive that I was too late in following your advice. You see to what extremities I am reduced. Tell me, I beseech you, what I ought to do."

About two hundred miles from where they were, directly down the Gulf of Finland, was the city of Revel, one of the naval depots of Russia. A large squadron of ships of war was riding at anchor there. Munich, as prompt in council as he was energetic in action, replied,

"Proceed immediately to join the squadron at Revel. There take a ship, and go on to Pomerania.[17] Put yourself at the head of your army, return to Russia, and I promise you that in six weeks Petersburg and all the rest of the empire will be in subjection to you."

The women and the courtiers, with characteristic timidity, remonstrated against a measure so decisive, and, believing that the empress would not be very implacable, entreated the tzar to negotiate rather than fight. Peter yielded to their senseless solicitations, and ordered them to make immediately for Oranienbaum. They reached the dock at four o'clock in the morning. Peter hastened to his apartment, and wrote a letter to the empress, which he dispatched by a courier. In this letter he made a humble confession of his faults, and promised to share the sovereign authority with Catharine if she would consent to reconciliation. The empress was, at this time, at the head of her army within about twenty miles of Oranienbaum. During the night, she had slept for a few hours upon some cloaks which the officers of her suite had spread for her bed. Catharine, knowing well that perjury was one of the most trivial of the faults of the tzar, made no reply, but pressed forward with her troops.

Peter, soon receiving information of the advance of the army, ordered one of his fleetest horses to be saddled, and dressed himself in disguise, intending thus to effect his escape to the frontiers of Poland. But, with his constitutional irresolution, he soon abandoned this plan, and, ordering the fortress of Oranienbaum to be dismantled, to convince Catharine that he intended to make no resistance, he wrote to the empress another letter still more humble and sycophantic than the first. He implored her forgiveness in terms of the most abject humiliation. He assured her that he was ready to resign to her unconditionally the crown of Russia, and that he only asked permission to retire to his native duchy of Holstein, and that the empress would graciously grant him a pension for his support.

Catharine read the letter, but deigning no reply, sent back the chamberlain who brought it, with a verbal message to her husband that she could enter into no negotiations with him, and could only accept his unconditional submission. The chamberlain, Ismailof, returned to Oranienbaum. The tzar had with him there only his Holstein guard consisting of six hundred men. Ismailof urged the tzar, as the only measure of safety which now remained, to abandon his troops, who could render him no defense, and repair to the empress, throwing himself upon her mercy. For a short time the impotent mind of the degraded prince was in great turmoil. But as was to be expected, he surrendered himself to the humiliation. Entering his carriage, he rode towards Peterhof to meet the empress. Soon he encountered the battalions on the march for his capture. Silently they opened their ranks and allowed him to enter, and then, closing around him, they stunned him with shouts of, "Long live Catharine."

The miserable man had the effrontery to take with him, in his carriage, one of his mistresses. As she alighted at the palace of Peterhof, some of the soldiers tore the ribbons from her dress. The tzar was led up the grand stair-case, stripped of the insignia of imperial power, and was shut up, and carefully guarded in one of the chambers of the palace. Count Panin then visited him, by order of the empress, and demanded of him the abdication of the crown, informing him that having thus abdicated, he would be sent back to his native duchy and would enjoy the dignity of Duke of Holstein for the remainder of his days. Peter was now as pliant as wax. Aided by the count, he wrote and signed the following declaration:

"During the short space of my absolute reign over the empire of Russia, I became sensible that I was not able to support so great a burden, and that my abilities were not equal to the task of governing so great an empire, either as a sovereign or in any other capacity whatever. I also foresaw the great troubles which must thence have arisen, and have been followed with the total ruin of the empire, and my own eternal disgrace. After having therefore seriously reflected thereon, I declare, without constraint, and in the most solemn manner, to the Russian empire and to the whole universe, that I for ever renounce the government of the said empire, never desiring hereafter to reign therein, either as an absolute sovereign, or under any other form of government; never wishing to aspire thereto, or to use any means, of any sort, for that purpose. As a pledge of which I swear sincerely before God and all the world to this present renunciation, written and signed this 29th day of June, O.S. 1762."[18]

Peter III., having placed this abdication in the hands of Count Panin, seemed quite serene, fancying himself safe, at least from bodily harm. In the evening, however, an officer, with a strong escort, came and conveyed him a prisoner to Ropscha, a small imperial palace about fifteen miles from Peterhof. Peter, after his disgraceful reign of six months, was now imprisoned in a palace; and his wife, whom he had intended to repudiate and probably to behead, was now sovereign Empress of Russia. In the evening, the thunderings of the cannon upon the ramparts of St. Petersburg announced the victory of Catharine. She however slept that night at Peterhof, and in the morning received the homage of the nobility, who from all quarters flocked around her to give in their adhesion to her reign.

Field Marshal Munich, who with true fealty had stood by Peter III. to the last, urging him to unfurl the banner of the tzar and fight heroically for his crown, appeared with the rest. The noble old man with an unblushing brow entered the presence of Catharine. As soon as she perceived him she called aloud,

"Field marshal, it was you, then, who wanted to fight me?"

"Yes, madam," Munich answered, in a manly tone; "could I do less for the prince who delivered me from captivity? But it is henceforth my duty to fight for you, and you will find in me a fidelity equal to that with which I had devoted my services to him."[19]

In the afternoon, the empress returned to St. Petersburg. She entered the city on horseback, accompanied by a brilliant retinue of nobles, and followed by her large army of fifteen thousand troops. All the soldiers wore garlands of oak leaves. The immense crowds in the city formed lines for the passage of the empress, scattered flowers in her path, and greeted her with constant bursts of acclaim. All the streets through which she passed were garlanded and spanned with triumphal arches, the bells rang their merriest peals, and military salutes bellowed from all the ramparts. As the high ecclesiastics crowded to meet her, they kissed her hand, while she, in accordance with Russian courtesy, kissed their cheeks.

Catharine summoned the senate, and presided over its deliberations with wonderful dignity and grace. The foreign ministers, confident in the stability of her reign, hastened to present their congratulations. Peter found even a few hours in the solitude of the palace of Ropscha exceedingly oppressive; he accordingly sent to the empress, soliciting the presence of a negro servant to whom he was much attached, and asking also for his dog, his violin, a Bible and a few novels.

"I am disgusted," he wrote, "with the wickedness of mankind, and am resolved henceforth to devote myself to a philosophical life."

After Peter had been six days at Ropscha, one morning two nobles, who had been most active in the revolution which had dethroned the tzar, entered his apartment, and, after conversing for a time, brandy was brought in. The cup of which the tzar drank was poisoned! He was soon seized with violent colic pains. The assassins then threw him upon the floor, tied a napkin around his neck, and strangled him. Count Orlof, the most intimate friend of the empress, and who was reputed to be her paramour, was one of these murderers. He immediately mounted his horse, and rode to St. Petersburg to inform the empress that Peter was dead. Whether Catharine was a party to this assassination, or whether it was perpetrated entirely without her knowledge, is a question which now can probably never be decided. It is very certain that the grief she manifested was all feigned, and that the assassins were rewarded for their devotion to her interests. She shut herself up for a few days, assuming the aspect of a mourner, and issued to her subjects a declaration announcing the death of the late tzar. When one enters upon the declivity of crime, the descent is ever rapid. The innocent girl, who, but a few years before, had entered the Russian court from her secluded ancestral castle a spotless child of fifteen, was now most deeply involved in intrigues and sins. It is probable, indeed, that she had not intended the death of her husband, but had designed sending him to Holstein and providing for him abundantly, for the rest of his days, with dogs and wine, and leaving him to his own indulgences. It is certain, however, that the empress did not punish, or even dismiss from her favor, the murderers of Peter. She announced to the nation his death in the following terms:

"By the Grace of God, Catharine II., Empress of all the Russias, to our loving Subjects, Greeting:

"The seventh day after our accession to the throne of all the Russias, we received information that the late emperor, Peter III., was attacked with a most violent colic. That we might not be wanting in Christian duty, or disobedient to the divine command by which we are enjoined to preserve the life of our neighbor, we immediately ordered that the said Peter should be furnished with every thing that might be judged necessary to restore his health by the aids of medicine. But, to our great regret and affliction, we were yesterday evening apprised that, by the permission of the Almighty, the late emperor departed this life. We have therefore ordered his body to be conveyed to the monastery of Nefsky, in order to its interment in that place. At the same time, with our imperial and maternal voice, we exhort our faithful subjects to forgive and forget what is past, to pay the last duties to his body, and to pray to God sincerely for the repose of his soul, wishing them, however, to consider this unexpected and sudden death as an especial effect of the providence of God, whose impenetrable decrees are working for us, for our throne, and for our country things known only to his holy will.

"Done at St. Petersburg, July 7th (N.S., July 18th), 1762."

The news of the revolution soon spread throughout Russia, and the nobles generally acquiesced in it without a murmur. The masses of the people no more thought of expressing or having an opinion than did the sheep. One of the first acts of the empress was to send an embassy to Frederic of Prussia, announcing,

"That she was resolved to observe inviolably the peace recently concluded with Prussia; but that nevertheless she had decided to bring back to Russia all her troops in Silesia, Prussia and Pomerania."

All the sovereigns of Europe acknowledged the title of Catharine II., and some sent especial congratulations on her accession to the throne. Maria Theresa, of Austria, was at first quite delighted, hoping that Catharine would again unite the Russian troops with hers in hostility to her great rival, Frederic. But in this expectation she was doomed to bitter disappointment. The King of Prussia, in a confidential note to Count Finkenstein, wrote of Catharine and the new reign as follows:

"The Emperor of Russia has been dethroned by his consort. It was to be expected. That princess has much good sense, and the same friendly relations towards us as the deceased. She has no religion, but acts the devotee. The chancellor Bestuchef is her greatest favorite, and, as he has a strong propensity to guinées I flatter myself that I shall be able to retain the friendship of the court. The poor emperor wanted to imitate Peter I., but he had not the capacity for it."

The empress, taking with her her son Paul, and a very brilliant and numerous suite of nobles, repaired to Moscow, where she was crowned with unusual splendor. By marked attention to the soldiers, providing most liberally for their comfort, she soon secured the enthusiastic attachment of the army. By the most scrupulous observance of all the external rites of religion, she won the confidence of the clergy. In every movement Catharine exhibited wonderful sagacity and energy. It was not to be supposed that the partisans of Peter III. would be ejected from their places to give room for others, without making desperate efforts to regain what they had lost. A very formidable conspiracy was soon organized, and the friends of Catharine were thrown into the greatest state of alarm. But her courage did not, for one moment, forsake her.

"Why are you alarmed?" said she. "Think you that I fear to face this danger; or rather do you apprehend that I know not how to overcome it? Recollect that you have seen me, in moments far more terrible than these, in full possession of all the vigor of my mind; and that I can support the most cruel reverses of fortune with as much serenity as I have supported her favors. Think you that a few mutinous soldiers are to deprive me of a crown that I accepted with reluctance, and only as the means of delivering the Russian nation from their miseries? They cause me no alarm. That Providence which has called me to reign, will preserve me for the glory and the happiness of the empire. That almighty arm which has hitherto been my defense will now confound my foes!"

The revolt was speedily quelled. The celebrity of her administration soon resounded from one end of Europe to the other. She presided over the senate; assisted at all the deliberations of the council; read the dispatches of the embassadors; wrote, with her own hand, or dictated the answers, and watched carefully to see that all her orders were faithfully executed. She studied the lives of the most distinguished men, and was emulous of the renown of those who had been friends and benefactors of the human race. There has seldom been a sovereign on any throne more assiduously devoted to the cares of empire than was Catharine II. In one of her first manifestoes, issued the 10th of August of this year, she uttered the words, which her conduct proved to be essentially true,

"Not only all that we have or may have, but also our life itself, we have devoted to our dear country. We value nothing on our own account. We serve not ourself. But we labor with all pains, with all diligence and care for the glory and happiness of our people."

Catharine found corruption and bribery everywhere, and she engaged in the work of reform with the energies of Hercules in cleansing the Augean stables. She abolished, indignantly the custom, which had existed for ages, of attempting to extort confession of crime by torture. It is one of the marvels of human depravity that intelligent minds could have been so imbruted as to tolerate, for a day, so fiend-like a wrong. The whole system of inquisitorial investigations, in both Church and State, was utterly abrogated. Foreigners were invited to settle in the empire. The lands were carefully explored, that the best districts might be pointed out for tillage, for forest and for pasture. The following proclamation, inviting foreigners to settle in Russia, shows the liberality and the comprehensive views which animated the empress:

"Any one who is destitute shall receive money for the expenses of his journey, and shall be forwarded to these free lands at the expense of the crown. On his arrival he shall receive a competent assistance, and even an advance of capital, free of interest, for ten years. The stranger is exempted from all service, either military or civil, and from all taxes for a certain time. In these new tracts of land the colonists may live according to their own good-will, under their own jurisdiction for thirty years. All religions are tolerated."

Thus encouraged, thousands flocked from Germany to the fresh and fertile acres on the banks of the Volga and the Samara. The emigration became so great that several of the petty German princes issued prohibitions. In the rush of adventurers, of the indolent, the improvident and the vicious, great suffering ensued. Desert wilds were, however, peopled, and the children of the emigrants succeeded to homes of comparative comfort. Settlers crowded to these lands even from France, Poland and Sweden. Ten thousand families emigrated to the district of Saratof alone.

"The world," said Catharine one day to the French minister, "will not be able properly to judge of my administration till after five years. It will require at least so much time to reduce the empire to order. In the mean time I shall behave, with all the princes of Europe, like a finished coquette. I have the finest army in the world. I have a greater taste for war than for peace; but, I am restrained from war by humanity, justice and reason. I shall not allow myself, like Elizabeth, to be pressed into a war. I shall enter upon it when it will prove advantageous to me, but never from complaisance to others."