minions. With a sort of psychopathic perversity he would insist on giving Catharine the most minute and repulsive narratives of his amours, until she shrank from him with horror at his depravity and came to loathe the sight of his bloated face, with its little, twinkling, porcine eyes, his upturned nose and distended nostrils, and his loose-hung, lascivious mouth. She was scarcely less repelled when a wholly different mood would seize upon him and he would declare himself her slave, attending her at court functions in the garb of a servant and professing an unbounded devotion for his bride.

Catharine's early training and her womanly nature led her for a long time to submit to the caprices of her husband. In his saner moments she would plead with him and strive to interest him in something better than his dogs and rats and venal mistresses; but Peter was incorrigible. Though he had moments of sense and even of good feeling, these never lasted, and after them he would plunge headlong into the most frantic excesses that his half-crazed imagination could devise.

It is not strange that in course of time Catharine's strong good sense showed her that she could do nothing with this creature. She therefore gradually became estranged from him and set herself to the task of doing those things which Peter was incapable of carrying out.

She saw that ever since the first awakening of Russia under Peter the Great none of its rulers had been genuinely Russian, but had tried to force upon the Russian people various forms of western civilization which were alien to the national spirit. Peter the Great had striven to make his people Dutch. Elizabeth had tried to make them French. Catharine, with a sure instinct, resolved that they should remain Russian, borrowing what they needed from other peoples, but stirred always by the Slavic spirit and swayed by a patriotism that was their own. To this end she set herself to become Russian. She acquired the Russian language patiently and accurately. She adopted the Russian costume, appearing, except on state occasions, in a simple gown of green, covering her fair hair, however, with a cap powdered with diamonds. Furthermore, she made friends of such native Russians as were gifted with talent, winning their favor, and, through them, the favor of the common people.

It would have been strange, however, had Catharine, the woman, escaped the tainting influences that surrounded her on every side. The infidelities of Peter gradually made her feel that she owed him nothing as his wife. Among the nobles there were men whose force of character and of mind attracted her inevitably. Chastity was a thing of which the average Russian had no conception; and therefore it is not strange that Catharine, with her intense and sensitive nature, should have turned to some of these for the love which she had sought in vain from the half imbecile to whom she had been married.

Much has been written of this side of her earlier and later life; yet, though it is impossible to deny that she had favorites, one should judge very gently the conduct of a girl so young and thrust into a life whence all the virtues seemed to be excluded. She bore several children before her thirtieth year, and it is very certain that a grave doubt exists as to their paternity. Among the nobles of the court were two whose courage and virility specially attracted her. The one with whom her name has been most often coupled was Gregory Orloff. He and his brother, Alexis Orloff, were Russians of the older type—powerful in frame, suave in manner except when roused, yet with a tigerish ferocity slumbering underneath. Their power fascinated Catharine, and it was currently declared that Gregory Orloff was her lover.

When she was in her thirty-second year her husband was proclaimed Czar, after the death of the Empress Elizabeth. At first in some ways his elevation seemed to sober him; but this period of sanity, like those which had come to him before, lasted only a few weeks. Historians have given him much credit for two great reforms that are connected with his name; and yet the manner in which they were actually brought about is rather ludicrous. He had shut himself up with his favorite revelers, and had remained for several days drinking and carousing until he scarcely knew enough to speak. At this moment a young officer named Gudovitch, who was really loyal to the newly created Czar, burst into the banquet-hall, booted and spurred and his eyes aflame with indignation. Standing before Peter, his voice rang out with the tone of a battle trumpet, so that the sounds of revelry were hushed.

"Peter Feodorovitch," he cried, "do you prefer these swine to those who really wish to serve you? Is it in this way that you imitate the glories of your ancestor, that illustrious Peter whom you have sworn to take as your model? It will not be long before your people's love will be changed to hatred. Rise up, my Czar! Shake off this lethargy and sloth. Prove that you are worthy of the faith which I and others have given you so loyally!"

With these words Gudovitch thrust into Peter's trembling hand two proclamations, one abolishing the secret bureau of police, which had become an instrument of tyrannous oppression, and the other restoring to the nobility many rights of which they had been deprived.

The earnestness and intensity of Gudovitch temporarily cleared the brain of the drunken Czar. He seized the papers, and, without reading them, hastened at once to his great council, where he declared that they expressed his wishes. Great was the rejoicing in St. Petersburg, and great was the praise bestowed on Peter; yet, in fact, he had acted only as any drunkard might act under the compulsion of a stronger will than his.

As before, his brief period of good sense was succeeded by another of the wildest folly. It was not merely that he reversed the wise policy of his aunt, but that he reverted to his early fondness for everything that was German. His bodyguard was made up of German troops—thus exciting the jealousy of the Russian soldiers. He introduced German fashions. He boasted that his father had been an officer in the Prussian army. His crazy admiration for Frederick the Great reached the utmost verge of sycophancy.

As to Catharine, he turned on her with something like ferocity. He declared in public that his eldest son, the Czarevitch Paul, was really fathered by Catharine's lovers. At a state banquet he turned to Catharine and hurled at her a name which no woman could possibly forgive—and least of all a woman such as Catharine, with her high spirit and imperial pride. He thrust his mistresses upon her; and at last he ordered her, with her own hand, to decorate the Countess Vorontzoff, who was known to be his maitresse en titre.

It was not these gross insults, however, so much as a concern for her personal safety that led Catharine to take measures for her own defense. She was accustomed to Peter's ordinary eccentricities. On the ground of his unfaithfulness to her she now had hardly any right to make complaint. But she might reasonably fear lest he was becoming mad. If he questioned the paternity of their eldest son he might take measures to imprison Catharine or even to destroy her. Therefore she conferred with the Orloffs and other gentlemen, and their conference rapidly developed into a conspiracy.

The soldiery, as a whole, was loyal to the empress. It hated Peter's Holstein guards. What she planned was probably the deposition of Peter. She would have liked to place him under guard in some distant palace. But while the matter was still under discussion she was awakened early one morning by Alexis Orloff. He grasped her arm with scant ceremony.

"We must act at once," said he. "We have been betrayed!"

Catharine was not a woman to waste time. She went immediately to the barracks in St. Petersburg, mounted upon a charger, and, calling out the Russian guards, appealed to them for their support. To a man they clashed their weapons and roared forth a thunderous cheer. Immediately