grew
powerful during her reign, largely through the able work of her
generals, and she forgave Potemkin a thousand insults and unblushing
robberies in view of his successful statesmanship. Potemkin possessed,
in addition to his ability as a statesman, the faculty of a spectacular
artist, and arranged a show for the empress which stands unrivalled amid
the triumphs of the stage. It is the tale of this spectacle which we
propose to tell.

Catharine had literary aspirations, one of her admirations being
Voltaire, with whom she corresponded, and on whom she depended to
chronicle the glory of her reign. The poet had his dreams, in which the
woman shared, and between them they contrived a scheme of a modern
Utopia, a Russo-Grecian city of whose civilization the empress was to be
the source, and which a decree was to raise from the desert and an idea
make great. This fancy Potemkin, who stood ready to flatter the empress
at any price, undertook to realize, and he built her a city in the
fashion in which cities were built in the times of the Arabian Nights,
and made it flourish in the same unsubstantial fashion. The magnificent
Potemkin never hesitated before any question of cost. Russia was rich,
and could bleed freely to please the empress's whim. He therefore
ordered a city to be built, with dwellings and edifices of every
description common to the cities of that date,--stores, palaces, public
halls, private residences in profusion. The buildings ready, he sought
for citizens, and forcibly drove the people from all quarters to take up
a temporary residence within its walls. It was his one purpose to make a
spectacle of this theatrical city to enchant the eyes of the empress. So
that it had an appearance of prosperity during her visit, he cared not a
fig if it fell to pieces and its inhabitants vanished as soon as his
supporting hand was removed. He only required that the scenes should be
set and the actors in place when the curtain rose.

And the city grew, on the banks of the Dnieper, eighteen million rubles
being granted by the empress for its cost,--though much of this clung to
the bird-lime of avarice on Potemkin's fingers. It was named Kherson.
The desert around it was erected into a province, entitled by the wily
minister _Catharine's Glory_ (Slava Ekatarina). Another province,
farther north, he named after his imperial mistress Ekatarinoslaf. And
thus, by fraud and violence, a city to order was brought into existenc