while assisting to repel the attack, was killed. The city was at last carried by assault; when General Bauer, seeing Catharine among the prisoners, and being smitten with her youth and beauty, took her to his house, where she superintended his domestic affairs. Soon afterwards she was removed into the family of Prince Menzhikoff, who was no less struck with the attractions of the fair captive, and she lived with him till 1704; when in the seventeenth year of her age, she became the mistress of Peter the Great, and won so much on his affections, that he married her on the 29th. of May, 1712. The ceremony was secretly performed at Yaverhof, in Poland, in presence of General Brure; and on the 20th. of February, 1724, it was publicly solemnized with great pomp at St. Petersburgh, on which occasion she received the diadem and sceptre from the hands of her husband. Peter died the following year, and she was proclaimed sovereign Empress of all the Russias. She showed herself worthy of this high station by completing the grand designs which the Czar had begun. The first thing she did on her accession was to cause every gallows to be taken down, and all instruments of torture destroyed. She instituted a new order of knighthood, in honour of St. Alexander Nefski; and performed many actions worthy of a great mind. She died the 17th. of May, 1727, at the age of thirty-eight.
Catharine was much beloved for her great humanity; she saved the lives of many, whom Peter, in the first impulse of his naturally cruel temper, had resolved to have executed. When fully determined on the death of any one, he would give orders for the execution during her absence. The Czar was also subject to terror and depression of spirits sometimes amounting to frenzy. In these moments, Catharine alone dared to approach him; her presence, the sound of her voice, had an immediate effect upon him, and calmed the agony of his mind. Her temper was very gay and cheerful, and her manners winning. Her habits were somewhat intemperate, which is supposed to have hastened her end; but we must not forget in judging her for this gross appetite, that drunkenness was then the conmon habit of the nobles of Russia.
CATHARINE II., ALEXIEONA,
Empress of Russia, born May 2nd., 1729, was the daughter of the Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, Governor of Stettin, in Prussian Pomerania. Her name was Sophia Augusta von Anhalt. She married in 1745 her cousin Charles Frederic, Duke of Holstein Gottorp, whom his aunt, the Empress Elizabeth of Russia, had chosen for her successor. In adopting the Greek communion, the religion of the Russians, he took the name of Peter, afterwards Peter the Third, and his consort that of Catharine Alexieona. It was an ill-assorted and unhappy match. Catharine was handsome, fond of pleasure, clever, ambitious, and bold. Her husband, greatly her inferior in abilities, was irresolute and imprudent. Catharine soon became disgusted with his weakness, and bestowed her affections upon Soltikoff, chamberlain to the Grand-duke. This intrigue was discovered, but Catharine contrived to blind the Empress Elizabeth to her frailty. Soltikoff was, however, sent to Hamburgh, as minister-plenipotentiary from Russia. Stanislaus Poniatowski, afterwards King of Poland, succeeded the chamberlain in the favour of the Grand-duchess; and Elizabeth, who became daily more openly devoted to pleasure
