This was in January, 1744. The young lady, with her mother, by express invitation, and with this object in view, visited the Russian court. Sophia embraced the Greek religion, received in baptism the new name of Catharine, and on the 1st of September, 1745, was married to her second cousin Peter. “And with invocation of the Russian heaven and Russian earth they were declared to be one flesh, though at last they turned out to be two fleshes, as my reader well knows.”[171]
THE EMPRESS CATHARINE.
About a year before this, on the 17th of July, 1744, Frederick’s sister Ulrique had been married to Adolf Frederick, the heir-apparent to the throne of Sweden. Eighteen years of this weary world’s history, with its wars and its woes, had since passed away. On the 5th of April, 1751, the old king of Sweden died. Thus Adolf became king, and Frederick’s sister Ulrique Queen of Sweden. And now, on the 5th of January, 1762, the Empress of Russia died, and Peter III., with his wife Catharine, ascended the throne of that majestic empire.
The withdrawal of Russia from the alliance against Frederick, though hailed by him with great joy, still left him, with wasted armies and exhausted finances, to struggle single-handed against Austria and France united, each of which kingdoms was far more powerful than Prussia. The winter passed rapidly away without any marked events, each party preparing for the opening of the campaign in the ensuing spring. On the 8th of June, 1762, Frederick wrote to D’Argens:
“In fine, my dear marquis, the job ahead of me is hard and difficult, and nobody can say positively how it will all go. Pray for us; and don’t forget a poor devil who kicks about strangely in his harness, who leads the life of one damned.”
Peter III. was a drunken, brutal, half-crazed debauchee. Catharine was a beautiful, graceful, intellectual, and dissolute woman. They hated each other. They did not even pretend to be faithful to each other. Catharine formed a successful conspiracy, dethroned her husband, and was proclaimed by the army sole empress. After a series of the wildest scenes of intrigue, corruption, and crime, the imbecile Peter III., who had fled to the remote palace of Ropscha, was murdered, being first compelled to drink of poison, and then, while writhing in pain, he was strangled with a napkin. Whether Catharine were a party to this assassination is a question which can now probably never be decided. It is certain that she must have rejoiced over the event, and that she richly rewarded the murderers.
ASSASSINATION OF PETER III.
In the following curious proclamation, the Empress Catharine II. announced to her subjects the death of her husband: