He was at war with the Turks, and, through a foolish
contempt for their generalship and military skill, allowed himself to
fall into a trap from which there seemed no escape. He found himself
completely surrounded by the enemy and cut off from all supplies, and
it seemed as if he would be forced to surrender with his whole force to
the despised foe.

From this dilemma Catharine, who was in the camp, relieved him.
Collecting a large sum of money and presents of jewelry, and seeking the
camp of the enemy, she succeeded in bribing the Turkish general, or in
some way inducing him to conclude peace and suffer the Russian army to
escape. Peter repaid his able wife by conferring upon her the dignity of
empress.

The death of the czar was followed, as we have said, by the elevation of
his wife to the vacant throne, principally through the aid of
Mentchikof, her former lord and master, aided by the effect of her
seemingly inconsolable grief and the judicious distribution of money and
jewels as presents.

For two years Catharine and Mentchikof, whose life had begun in the
hovel, and who were now virtually together on the throne, were the
unquestioned autocrats of Russia. Catharine had no genius for
government, and left the control of affairs to her minister, who was to
all intents and purposes sovereign of Russia. The empress, meanwhile,
passed her days in vice and dissipation, thereby hastening her end. She
died in 1727, at the age of about forty years. In the same year, as
already stated, the man who had grown great with her fell from his high
estate.

_BUFFOONERIES OF THE RUSSIAN COURT._

Amid the serious matters which present themselves so abundantly in the
history of Russia, buffooneries of the coarsest character at times find
place. Numerous examples of this might be drawn from the reign of Peter
the Great, whose idea of humor was broad burlesque, and who, despite the
religious prejudices of the people, did not hesitate to make the church
the subject of his jests. One of the broadest of these farces was that
known as the Conclave, the purpose of which was to burlesque or treat
with contumely the method of selecting the head of the Roman Catholic
Church.

At the court of the czar was an old man named Sotof, a drunkard of
inimitable powers of imbibition, and long a butt for the jests of the
court. He had taught the czar to write, a service which he deemed worthy
of being rewarded by the highest dignities of t