very small
number of followers, nearly as was the case with the Pretender, in
Scotland, after the defeat at Culloden. If he comes to me, we will try
to polish him this winter, and, to take my revenge of him, I will make
him dance, and he shall go to the French comedy.

"Just as I was about to fold up this letter, I received yours of the
10th of July, in which you inform me of the adventure that happened to
my 'Instruction'[22] in France. I knew that anecdote, and even the
appendix to it, in consequence of the order of the Duke of Choiseul. I
own that I laughed on reading it in the newspapers, and I found that I
was amply revenged."

[Footnote 22: Her majesty's instruction for a code of laws.]

CHAPTER XXVI.

REIGN OF CATHARINE II.

From 1774 to 1781.

Peace with Turkey.--Court of Catharine II.--Her Personal Appearance
and Habits.--Conspiracy and Rebellion.--Defeat of the
Rebels.--Magnanimity of Catharine II.--Ambition of the Empress.--Court
Favorite.--Division of Russia into Provinces.--Internal
Improvements.--New Partition of Poland.--Death of the Wife of
Paul.--Second Marriage of the Grand Duke.--Splendor of the Russian
Court.--Russia and Austria Secretly Combine to Drive the Turks out of
Europe.--The Emperor Joseph II.

In 1774 peace was concluded with Turkey, on terms which added greatly
to the renown and grandeur of Russia. By this treaty the Crimea was
severed from the Ottoman Porte, and declared to be independent. Russia
obtained the free navigation of the Black Sea, the Bosporus and the
Dardanelles. Immense tracts of land, lying on the Euxine, were ceded
to Russia, and the Grand Seignior also paid Catharine a large sum of
money to defray the expenses of the war. No language can describe the
exultation which this treaty created in St. Petersburg. Eight days
were devoted, by order of the empress, to feasts and rejoicings. The
doors of the prisons were thrown open, and even the Siberian exiles
were permitted to return.

The court of Catharine II. at this period was the most brilliant in
Europe. In no other court was more attention paid to the most polished
and agreeable manners. The expenditure on her court establishment
amounted to nearly four millions of dollars a year. In personal
appearance the empress was endowed with the attractions both of beauty
and of queenly dignity. A cotemporary writer thus describes her:

"She is of that stature which is necessarily requisite to perfect
elegance of