CATHERINE IL DE RUSSIE

Thème.

Catherine II., whom her people hâve surnamed the mother of her country, was not a Russian. She was born in Ponierania and only came to the throne through events very seldom met with in history. She was a learned woman and liked reading and studying. P. Bayle, Plutarch, Tacitus, and Voltaire were her favorite writers. When, after the death of Elizabeth, her husband, Peter III., ascended the throne, there was between the husband and wife a profound antipathy. She soon organized a conspiracy, in which, being helped by the Orloffs and some other noblemen, she succeeded in having her husband sent as a prisoner to a palace near Saint Petersburg. She was made empress on the 9th of July, 1792. As a ruler, she showed herself equal to the task which confronted her, and in spite of conspiracies and the discontent of some of the people and of the army, she succeeded in holding the power for thirty-four years.

She did the Russian nation a great deal of good. She granted amnesty to many political exiles, and founded hospitals, cities, schools, manufactories, etc.

In her foreign policy, she endeavorecl to carry out Peter the Great' s plans, that is to say, the annexation of Poland and the re-establishment of the Byzantine empire. Through her wars with Turkey, she gained the peninsula of Crimea and

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thé freedoni of the Black Sea for the Eussian navy. She also fostered arts and literature, and called to lier court philosophers and tliinkers from ail countries. She died in 1796, and lier son, Paul I., succeeded lier.