ina was graciousness
itself, and within eighteen months the young Princess had been received
into the Greek Church as Catharine, and married to the Grand Duke,
himself only seventeen years old.

But already she had learned not to expect happiness. He was, if we
believe the accounts of him, senseless and boorish in the extreme.
Certainly he did not pretend to the least affection for Catharine. A few
days after her arrival, he had confided to her, "as his cousin," that he
was "ardently in love with one of the maids-of-honor; since, however,
the Empress desired it, he had resigned himself, and was willing to
marry her instead!" She was forced, according to her assertion, to
listen to confidences of a like nature during many years. His
puerilities and eccentricities, we are told, amounted almost to madness.
He was fond of drilling dogs and tin soldiers, together with his
disgusted suite. But, like everyone else about the court, he lived in
terror of the strong-willed, strong-drinking Czarina. His kennel must be
kept a secret, and was accordingly located in his wife's bedroom. He
would spend hours indoors cracking whips or emitting weird sounds on
musical instruments. At night, after Madame Tchoglokoff, who was charged
with the surveillance of the grand-ducal _menage_, had retired, under
the impression that she had locked everyone up safely, he would call for
lights again, like a schoolboy, and make Catharine and her attendants
play with marionettes on the counterpane till one, two, three o'clock in
the morning.

He had been more or less drunk, to credit his enemies, since the age of
ten; and Catharine declares he had a mortal aversion to the bath, which
it seems was then a Russian, not a German, observance. When ordered by
the Empress to take one as penance during Lent, he replied that it was
repugnant to his moral nature and unsuited to his physical constitution:
nothing, he said, but the most vital considerations could induce him to
risk the Empress' displeasure, but he was not prepared to die; and life
was dearer to him than her majesty's approbation. Both were obstinate,
and the dispute led to the most terrific outburst of rage on the part of
the Czarina that Catharine had yet witnessed.

On another occasion his wife discovered him presiding over a
court-martial in full regimentals, with a large rat in the centre of the
room, which had just been suspended with all the formalities of a
military execution. It appeared