dom. But little more
than a year had passed after their marriage ere she was brought to bed
of a son. Her heart was already broken, and she was quite unprepared
for the anguish of such an hour. Though the sweetness of her
disposition and the gentleness of her manners had endeared her to all
her household, her husband treated her with the most brutal neglect
and cruelty. Unblushingly he introduced into the palace his
mistresses, and the saloons ever resounded with the uproar of his
drunken companions. The woe-stricken princess, then but twenty years
of age, covered her face with the bed clothes, and, weeping bitterly,
refused to take any nourishment, and begged the physicians to permit
her to die in peace. Intelligence was immediately sent to the tzar of
the confinement of his daughter in-law, and of her dangerous
situation. He hastened to her chamber. The interview was short, but so
affecting that the tzar, losing all self-control, burst into an agony
of grief and wept like a child. The dying princess commended to his
care her babe and her servants, and, as the clock struck the hour of
midnight, her spirit departed, we trust to that world "where the
wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest." The orphan
babe was baptized as Peter Alexis, and subsequently, on the death of
the Empress Catharine, became Emperor of Russia.

On the 20th of February, 1712, Peter, who had previously acknowledged
his private marriage with Catharine, had the marriage publicly
solemnized at St. Petersburg with the utmost pomp. Soon after this, to
the inexpressible joy of both parents, Catharine gave birth to a son.
The war with Sweden still continued, notwithstanding Charles XII. was
a fugitive in Turkey unable to return to his own country. Finland, a
vast realm containing one hundred and thirty-five thousand square
miles and almost embraced by the Gulfs of Bothnia and of Finland, then
belonged to Sweden. Peter fitted out an expedition from St. Petersburg
for the conquest of that country. With three hundred ships, conveying
thirteen thousand men, he effected a landing in the vicinity of Abo
notwithstanding the opposition of the Swedish force there, and,
establishing his troops in redoubts with ample supplies, he returned
to St. Petersburg for reinforcements. He soon returned, and, with an
army augmented to twenty thousand foot and four thousand horse, with a
powerful train of artillery, commenced a career of conquest. The city
of Abo