Marienburg
district. Frau Gluck finally rid herself of the girl by marrying her to
a Swedish dragoon called Johan. A few months later, the Swedes were
compelled by the Russians to evacuate Marienburg, and Martha became one
of the prisoners of war of Marshal Sheremetev, who sold her to Prince
Menshikov, at whose house, in the German suburb of Moscow, Peter the
Great first beheld and made love to her in his own peculiar fashion.
After the birth of their first daughter Catherine, Peter made no secret
of their relations. He had found, at last, the woman he wanted, and she
soon became so indispensable to him that it was a torment to be without
her. The situation was regulated by the reception of Martha into the
Orthodox Church, when she was rechristened under the name of Catherine
Alekseyevna, the tsarevich Alexius being her godfather, by the bestowal
upon her of the title _Gosudaruinya_ or sovereign (1710), and, finally
(1711), by her public marriage to the tsar, who divorced the tsaritsa
Eudoxia to make room for her. Henceforth the new tsaritsa was her
husband's inseparable companion. She was with him during the campaign of
the Pruth, and Peter always attributed the successful issue of that
disastrous war to the courage and sang-froid of his consort. She was
with him, too, during his earlier Caspian campaigns, and was obliged on
this occasion to shear off her beautiful hair and wear a close-fitting
fur cap to protect her from the rays of the sun.

By the _ukaz_ of 1722 Catherine was proclaimed Peter's successor, to the
exclusion of the grand-duke Peter, the only son of the tsarevich
Alexius, and on the 7th of May 1724 was solemnly crowned empress-consort
in the Uspensky cathedral at Moscow, on which occasion she wore a crown
studded with no fewer than 2564 precious stones, surmounted by a ruby,
as large as a pigeon's egg, supporting a cross of brilliants. Within a
few months of this culminating triumph, she was threatened with utter
ruin by the discovery of a supposed _liaison_ with her gentleman of the
bedchamber, William Mons, a handsome and unscrupulous upstart, and the
brother of a former mistress of Peter. A dangerously familiar but
perfectly innocent flirtation is, however, the worst that can fairly be
alleged against Catherine on this occasion. So Peter also seemed to have
thought, for though Mons was decapitated and his severed head, preserved
in spirits, was placed in the apartments of the empress, she did not
los