ad
meditated, of placing the imperial crown upon the brow of his beloved
wife. Their infant son had died. Their grandson, Peter, the son of
Alexis, was still but a child, and the failing health of the tzar
admonished him that he had not many years to live. Reposing great
confidence in the goodness of Catharine and in the wisdom of those
counselors whom, with his advice, she would select, he resolved to
transmit the scepter, at his death, to her. In preparation for this
event, Catharine was crowned Empress on the 18th of May, 1724, with
all possible pomp.

The city of Petersburg had now become one of the most important
capitals of Europe. Peter was not only the founder of this city, but,
in a great measure, the architect. An observatory for astronomical
purposes was reared, on the model of that in Paris. A valuable library
was in the rapid progress of collection, and there were several
cabinets formed, filled with the choicest treasures of nature and art.
There were now in Russia a sufficient number of men of genius and of
high literary and scientific attainment to form an academy of the arts
and sciences, the rules and institutes of which the emperor drew up
with his own hand.

While incessantly engaged in these arduous operations, the emperor was
seized with a painful and dangerous sickness--a strangury--which
confined him to his room for four months. Feeling a little better one
day, he ordered his yacht to be brought up to the Neva, opposite his
palace, and embarked to visit some of his works on Lake Ladoga. His
physicians, vainly remonstrating against it, accompanied him. It was
the middle of October. The weather continuing fine, the emperor
remained upon the water, visiting his works upon the shore of the lake
and of the Gulf of Finland, until the 5th of November. The exposures
of the voyage proved too much for him, and he returned to Petersburg
in a state of debility and pain which excited the greatest
apprehensions.

The disease made rapid progress. The mind of the emperor, as he
approached the dying hour, was clouded, and, with the inarticulate
mutterings of delirium, he turned to and fro, restless, upon his bed.
His devoted wife, for three days and three nights, did not leave his
side, and, on the 28th of January, 1725, at four o'clock in the
afternoon, he breathed his last, in her arms.

Before the dethronement of his reason, the tzar had assembled around
his bed the chief dignitaries of the empire, and h