w. Peter was, at this time, with the empress
in Moscow, and Sophia was sent for to spend some time in the Russian
capital before the marriage, that she might become acquainted with the
Russian language and customs.

Both of these children had been educated Protestants, but they were
required to renounce the Lutheran faith and accept that of the Greek
church. Children as they were, they did this, of course, as readily as
they would have changed their dresses. With this change of religion
Sophia received a new name, that of Catharine, and by this name she
was ever afterward called. When these children, to whom the government
of the Russian empire was to be intrusted, first met, Peter was
fifteen years of age and Catharine fourteen. Catharine subsequently
commenced a minute journal, an autobiography of these her youthful
days, which opens vividly to our view the corruptions of the Russian
court. Nothing can be more wearisome than the life there developed. No
thought whatever seemed to be directed by the court to the interests
of the Russian people. They were no more thought of than the jaded
horses who dragged the chariots of the nobles. It is amazing that the
indignation of the millions can have slumbered so long.

Catharine, in her memoirs, naively describes young Peter, when she
first saw him, as "weak, ugly, little and sickly." From the age of ten
he had been addicted to intoxicating drinks. It was the 9th of
February, 1744, when Catharine was taken to Moscow. Peter, or, as he
was then called, the grand duke, was quite delighted to see the pretty
girl who was his destined wife, and began immediately to entertain
Catharine, as she says, "by informing me that he was in love with one
of the maids of honor to the empress, and that he would have been very
glad to have married her, but that he was resigned to marry me
instead, as his aunt wished it."

The grand duke had the faculty of making himself excessively
disagreeable to every one around him, and the affianced _haters_ were
in a constant quarrel. Peter could develop nothing but stupid
malignity. Catharine could wield the weapons of keen and cutting
sarcasm, which Peter felt as the mule feels the lash. Catharine's
mother had accompanied her to Moscow, but the bridal wardrobe, for a
princess, was extremely limited.

"I had arrived," she writes, "in Russia very badly provided for. If I
had three or four dresses in the world, it was the very outside, and
this at a cou