n. And a dawn
this proved to be for Friedrich. And the fact grew always the longer the
brighter;--and before Campaign time, had ripened into real daylight and
sunrise. The dates should have been precise; but are not to be had so:
here is the nearest we could come. January 14th, writing to Henri,
the King has a mysterious word about "possibilities of an uncommon
sort,"--rumors from Petersburg, I could conjecture; though perhaps they
are only Turk or Tartar-Khan affairs, which are higher this year
than ever, and as futile as ever. But, on JANUARY 19th, he has heard
plainly,--with what hopes (if one durst indulge them)!--that the
implacable Imperial Woman, INFAME CATIN DU NORD, is verily dead. Dead;
and does not hate me any more. Deliverance, Peace and Victory lie in the
word!--Catin had long been failing, but they kept it religiously secret
within the Court walls: even at Petersburg nobody knew till the Prayers
of the Church were required: Prayers as zealous as you can,--the Doctors
having plainly intimated that she is desperate, and that the thing is
over. On CHRISTMAS-DAY, 1761, by Russian Style, 5th JANUARY, 1762,
by European, the poor Imperial Catin lay dead;--a death still more
important than that of George II. to this King.

Peter III., who succeeded has lang been privately a sworn friend and
admirer of the King; and hastens, not too SLOWLY as the King had feared,
but far the reverse, to make that known to all mankind. That, and much
else,--in a far too headlong manner, poor soul! Like an ardent, violent,
totally inexperienced person (enfranchised SCHOOL-BOY, come to the
age of thirty-four), who has sat hitherto in darkness, in intolerable
compression; as if buried alive! He is now Czar Peter, Autocrat, not
of Himself only, but of All the Russias;--and has, besides the complete
regeneration of Russia, two great thoughts: FIRST, That of avenging
native Holstein, and his poor martyr of a Father now with God, against
the Danes;--and,

SECOND, what is scarcely second in importance to the first, and indeed
is practically a kind of preliminary to it, That of delivering the
Prussian Pattern of Heroes from such a pattern of foul combinations, and
bringing Peace to Europe, while he settles the Holstein-Danish business.
Peter is Russian by the Mother's side; his Mother was Sister of the late
Catin, a Daughter, like her, of Czar Peter called the Great, and of the
little brown Catharine whom we saw transiently long ago. His Ho