Note 546 — CANTO THE TENTH.
Reading edition
The empress went to the Crimea, accompanied by the Emperor Joseph, in the year—I forget which.
[The Prince de Ligne, who accompanied Catherine in her progress through her southern provinces, in 1787, gives the following particulars: "We have crossed during many days vast, solitary regions, from which her Majesty has driven Zaporogua, Budjak, and Nogais Tartars, who, ten years ago, threatened to ravage her empire. All these places were furnished with magnificent tents for breakfasts, lunches, dinners, suppers, and sleeping-rooms ... deserted regions were at once transformed into fields, groves, villages: ... The Empress has left in each chief town gifts to the value of a hundred thousand roubles. Every day that we remained stationary was marked with diamonds, balls, fireworks, and illuminations throughout a circuit of ten leagues." —The Prince de Ligne, His Memoirs, etc., translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley, 1899, ii. 31.]