of Peter.--His
Neglect of Catharine and His Debaucheries.--Amusements of the Russian
Court.--Military Execution of a Rat.--Accession of Peter III. to the
Throne.--Supremacy of Catharine.--Her Repudiation Threatened.--The
Conspiracy.--Its Successful Accomplishment.

Peter the Third was grandson of Peter the Great. His mother, Anne, the
eldest daughter of Peter and Catharine, married the Duke of Holstein,
who inherited a duchy on the eastern shores of the Baltic containing
some four thousand square miles of territory and about three hundred
thousand inhabitants. Their son and only child, Peter, was born in the
ducal castle at Kiel, the capital of the duchy, in the year 1728. The
blood of Peter the Great of Russia, and of Charles the Twelfth of
Sweden mingled in the veins of the young duke, of which fact he was
exceedingly proud. Soon after the birth of Peter, his mother, Anne,
died. The father of Peter was son of the eldest sister of Charles
XII., and, as such, being the nearest heir, would probably have
succeeded to the throne of Sweden had not the king's sudden death, by
a cannon ball, prevented him from designating his successor. The
widowed father of Peter, thus disappointed in his hopes of obtaining
the crown of Sweden, which his aunt Ulrica, his mother's sister,
successfully grasped, lived in great retirement. The idea had not
occurred to him that the crown of imperial Russia could, by any
chance, descend to his son, and the education of Peter was conducted
to qualify him to preside over his little patrimonial duchy.

When young Peter was fourteen years of age, the Empress Elizabeth, his
maternal aunt, to the surprise and delight of the family, summoned the
young prince to St. Petersburg, intimating her intention to transmit
to him her crown. But Peter was a thoroughly worthless boy. All
ignoble qualities seemed to be combined in his nature without any
redeeming virtues. Elizabeth having thus provided twenty millions of
people with a sovereign, looked about to find for that sovereign a
suitable wife. Upon the banks of the Oder there was a small
_principality_, as it was called, containing some thirteen hundred
square miles, about the size of the State of Rhode Island. Christian
Augustus, the prince of this little domain, had a daughter, Sophia, a
child rather remarkable both for beauty and vivacity. She was one year
younger than Peter, and Elizabeth fixed her choice upon Sophia as the
future spouse of her nephe