insult and unkindness; and, while he created himself new enemies, by the most unpopular and foolish excesses, the empress acted a very different part, and conciliated the good-will of the public, while she attached to herself men of talents and courage.
When her dissimulation and her judgment thus rendered her more powerful, the czar began seriously to think of divorcing her, declaring the illegitimacy of her son, and raising his mistress to the throne. Acquainted with the intentions of her husband, Catherine was more than doubly careful in her outward conduct, and kept a new lover, Orloff, so much in the back ground, that her most intimate friends suspected not the attachment, though he was one of the conspirators against Peter, whose downfal alone, the indignities he had heaped upon the empress, and the measures he was now pursuing, it was plain, could ensure her safety.
The young princess Dashkoff, sister of the emperor's mistress, was one of the fast friends of Catherine. Bold and intriguing, the latter contrived to make her talents useful. She herself kept in the back ground, while her several agents were busy in detaching from Peter any friend who yet remained, or any who had power to injure him, and might be influenced by venal or ambitious motives. Her arrest was to take place in two days; her adherents were many, and the plot liable to be betrayed by some one, in which she had every thing to fear. Some of them wished her to be regent only during the minority of her son, who was to be declared emperor; but Catherine persisted in claiming the imperial dignity; and July 9th, 1762, entered Petersburgh with Orloff and a few soldiers, the number of which were soon augmented, by whom she was proclaimed Czarina: amidst the acclamations of all
