vassalage, and placed on an equality with those in other countries; and the laborers were, to some extent, relieved from the burden of taxation. But being a Lutheran, Peter shocked the clergy by his contempt for the Greek Church, while he offended the army by his partiality for the Holstein Guards, and thus raised up a host of foes. The unfortunate Emperor had made another enemy, still more uncompromising. Before coming to the throne he had espoused Catharine, a princess of Anhalt Zerbst, a woman of great ability and boundless ambition. Their tastes, habits, and dispositions, were, however, utterly dissimilar; and fierce quarrels arising between them, Peter became so deeply enamored of the Countess of Woronzoff, that ere long a rumor crept about of his intention to shut up the Empress in prison and raise the Countess to share his throne. The rumor cost him dear; for while he was seeking consolation in the society of the lady of his heart, Catharine marched against the devoted Czar at the head of a strong party, proclaimed that he had ceased to reign, and threw him into prison, where he soon after breathed his last, under suspicious circumstances.
The masculine Empress then ascended the Russian throne with the title of Catharine II, and commenced her reign by flattering the prejudices which her illfated husband had so fatally wounded. But a large share of her attention was speedily bestowed upon the affairs of Poland. When Augustus, king of that illfated country, expired at Dresden in 1763, the Empress, by the influence of Russian bayonets, procured the election of Stanislaus Augustus, one of her former favorites. Almost from the opening of the reign, Poland was the scene of disorder and desolation; for Catherine, having transported to Siberia a number of senators hostile to her designs, roused the indignant spirit of the nation. A band of patriotic Poles, seizing on Cracow and Bar, formed a league for their deliverance from a foreign yoke, and implored assistance from Louis XV. Fifteen hundred Frenchmen, under Dumouriez, marched to the assistance of the confederates, and Turkey took part in the quarrel. But the Russians were completely victorious; Bender was captured; the Turkish fleet was destroyed; and the Crimea was annexed to Catherine's dominions. Flushed with success, and unscrupulous by nature, the Empress projected the dismemberment of Poland, forced her scheme upon Maria Theresa, and in 1772 entered into a treaty of partition with the rulers of Austria and Prussia. The Polish Diet was intimidated by menaces; and the several provinces, about one-third of the Polish territory, which had been allotted to the spoilers, were surrendered.
Scarcely had the Russian Empress perpetrated this piece of ruthless injustice, when she was alarmed by the serious rebellion of a Cossack, who, assuming the name and character of her dead husband, pretended that he had escaped from the hands of those employed to assassinate him. The Cossack bore a striking resemblance to the deceased Czar, and was successful in arraying a considerable band of followers under his banner. He boldly took the field, and, possessing both skill and valor, was for a time victorious over the generals of Catherine. But at length he was totally defeated, taken prisoner, carried to Moscow in an iron cage, and beheaded as a traitor.
Danger soon arose from another quarter. After undertaking one of the most pompous processions on record to be crowned at Cherson, Catharine, on her return to St. Petersburg, was disturbed by a declaration of war on
