ness to Paul was probably as much due to political
distrust as to what she saw of his character. Whatever else Catherine
may have been she was emphatically a sovereign and a politician who was
in the last resort guided by the reason of state. She was resolved not
to allow her authority to be disputed by her son, or shared by him.

As a ruler, Catherine professed a great contempt for system, which she
said she had been taught to despise by her master Voltaire. She declared
that in politics a capable ruler must be guided by "circumstances,
conjectures and conjunctions." Her conduct was on the surface very
unstable. In a moment of candour she confessed that she was a great
_commenceuse_--that she had a mania for beginning innumerable
enterprises which she never pursued. This, however, is chiefly true of
her internal administration, and even there it should be qualified. Many
of her beginnings were carried on by others and were not barren. Her
foreign policy was as consistent as it could be considering the forces
she had to contend against. It was steadily aimed to secure the
greatness and the safety of Russia. There can be no question, that she
loved her adopted country sincerely, and had an affection for her
people, and an opinion of their great qualities which she did not
hesitate to express in hyperbolical terms. Her zeal for the reputation
of the Russians was almost comically shown by the immense trouble she
took to compile an answer to the _Voyage en Siberie_ of the French
astronomer Chappe d'Auteroche. The book is in three big quartos, and
Catherine's answer--which was never finished--is still larger. Chappe
d'Auteroche had discovered that Siberia was not a paradise, and had
observed that the Russians were dirty in their habits, and that masters
whipped their servants, male and female. Her patriotism was less
innocently shown by her conquests. Yet it may be doubted whether any
capable ruler of Russia could have abstained from aggressions at the
expense of the rights of the Saxon family in Courland, of Poland, and of
Turkey (see RUSSIA: _History_). It does seem now to be clearly proved
that the partition of Poland was not suggested by her, as has been
frequently asserted. Catherine would have preferred to control the
country through a vassal sovereign of the type of Stanislaus
Poniatowski, the old lover whose election she secured in 1763. Poland
was incapable of maintaining its independence at the time of the first
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