political calculation. Its
purposes, as has been said, were partly those to which in our own times
some governments devote a Reptile-fund. There is a letter from the
Duchesse de Choiseul to Madame du Deffand, her intimate friend, and the
friend of so many of the literary circle, in which the secret of the
relations between Catherine and the men of letters is very plainly told.
"All that," she writes--protection of arts and sciences--"is mere luxury
and a caprice of fashion in our age. All such pompous jargon is the
product of vanity, not of principles or of reflection.... The Empress of
Russia has another object in protecting literature; she has had sense
enough to feel that she had need of the protection of the men of
letters. She has flattered herself that their base praises would cover
with an impenetrable veil in the eyes of her contemporaries and of
posterity, the crimes with which she has astonished the universe and
revolted humanity.... The men of letters, on the other hand, flattered,
cajoled, caressed by her, are vain of the protection that they are able
to throw over her, and dupes of the coquetries that she lavishes on
them. These people who say and believe that they are the instructors of
the masters of the world, sink so low as actually to take a pride in the
protection that this monster seems in her turn to accord to them, simply
because she sits on a throne."[78]

[78] _Corresp. Complete de Mdme. du Deffand_, i. 115. (Ed. 1877.)
June, 1767.

In short, the monarchs of the north understood and used the new forces
of the men of letters, whom their own sovereign only recognised to
oppress. The contrast between the liberalism of the northern sovereigns,
and the obscurantism of the court of France, was never lost from sight.
Marmontel's _Belisarius_ was condemned by the Sorbonne, and burnt at
the foot of the great staircase of the Palace of Justice; in Russia a
group of courtiers hastened to translate it, and the Empress herself
undertook one chapter of the work. Diderot, who was not allowed to enter
the French Academy, was an honoured guest at the Russian palace. For all
this Catherine was handsomely repaid. When Diderot visited St.
Petersburg, Voltaire congratulated the Empress on seeing that unique
man; but Diderot is not, he added, "the only Frenchman who is an
enthusiast for your glory. We are lay missionaries who preach the
religion of Saint Catherine, and we can boast that our church is
tolera