ll the young men were
seized and sent to the Prussian army. The same general course was
pursued by Russia. That the Polish population might be incorporated
with that of Russia, and all national individuality lost, the Poles
were removed into ancient Russia, while whole provinces of Russians
were sent to populate Poland.

The vast wealth which at this time the Russian court was able to
extort from labor, may be inferred from the fact, that while the
empress was carrying on the most expensive wars, her disbursements to
favorites, generals and literary men--in encouraging the arts,
purchasing libraries, pictures, statues, antiques and jewels, vastly
exceeded that of any European prince excepting Louis XIV. A diamond of
very large size and purity, weighing seven hundred and seventy-nine
carats, was brought from Ispahan by a Greek. Catharine purchased it
for five hundred thousand dollars, settling at the same time a
pension of five thousand dollars for life, upon the fortunate Greek of
whom she bought it.

The war still raged fiercely in Turkey with the usual vicissitudes of
battles. The Danube at length became the boundary between the hostile
armies, its wide expanse of water, its islands and its wooded shores
affording endless opportunity for surprises, ambuscades, flight and
pursuit. Under these circumstances war was prosecuted with an enormous
loss of life; but as the wasting armies were continually being
replenished, it seemed as though there could be no end to the strife.

Catharine had for some time been meditating a marriage for her son,
the Grand Duke Paul. There was a grand duchy in Germany, on the Rhine,
almost equally divided by that stream, called Darmstadt. It contained
three thousand nine hundred square miles, being about half the size of
the State of Massachusetts, and embraced a population of nearly a
million. The Duke of Darmstadt had three very attractive daughters,
either one of whom, Catharine thought, would make a very suitable
match for her son. She accordingly invited the three young ladies,
with their mother, to visit her court, that her son might, after a
careful scrutiny, take his pick. The brilliance of the prospective
match with the tzar of all the Russias outweighed every scruple, and
the invitation was eagerly accepted. Paul was cold as an iceberg,
stubborn as a mule and crack-brained, but he could place on the brow
of his spouse the crown of an empress. Catharine received her guests
with t