The empress, thwarted in her designs upon Turkey, now turned to Poland. War was soon declared, and her armies were soon sweeping over that ill-fated territory. Kosciusko fought like a hero for his country, but his troops were mercilessly butchered by Russian and Prussian armies. In triumph the allies entered the gory streets of Warsaw, sent the king, Stanislaus Augustus, to exile on a small pension, and divided the remainder of Poland between them. Catharine now entered into the coalition of the European powers against republican France. She consented to a treaty with England and Austria, by which she engaged to furnish an army of eighty thousand men to crush the spirit of French liberty, on condition that those two powers should consent to her driving Turks out of Europe. Catharine was highly elated with
this treaty. It was drawn up and was to be signed on the 6th of November, 1796.
On the morning of that day the empress, in her usual health and spirits, rose from the breakfast table, and retired to her closet. Not returning as soon as usual, some of her attendants entered and found her on the floor senseless. She had fallen in a fit of apoplexy, and died at ten o'clock in the evening of the next day without regaining consciousness or uttering a word, in the sixty-seventh year of her age, and after a reign of thirty-five years.
Paul, who was at his country palace, being informed of his mother's death, and of his accession to the throne, hastened to St. Petersburg. He ordered the tomb of Peter III. to be opened and placed the coffin by the side of that of the empress, with a true love knot reaching from one to the other, containing the inscription, under the circumstances supremely ridiculous, "divided in life—united in death." They were both buried together with the most sumptuous funeral honors.
The character of Catharine II. is sufficiently portrayed in her marvelous history. The annals of past ages may be searched in vain for her parallel. Two passions were ever predominant with her, love and ambition. Her mind seemed incapable of exhaustion, and notwithstanding the number of her successive favorites, with whom she entered into the most guilty connections, no monarch ever reigned with more dignity or with a more undisputed sway. Under her reign, notwithstanding the desolating wars, Russia made rapid advances in power and civilization. She protected commerce, excited industry, cultivated the arts, encouraged learning, promoted manufactures, founded cities, dug canals, and developed in a thousand ways the wealth and resources of the country. She had so many vices that some have consigned her name to infamy, and so many virtues, that others have advocated her canonization.
By the most careful calculation it is estimated that during the thirty five years of the reign of Catharine, she added over four hundred thousand square miles to the territory of Russia, and six millions of inhabitants. It would be difficult to estimate the multitude of lives and the amount of treasure expended in her ambitious wars. We know of no more affecting comment to be made upon the history of our world, than that it presents such a bloody tragedy, that even the career of Catharine does not stand out in any peculiar prominence of atrocity. God made man but little lower than the angels. He is indeed fallen.
THE REIGN OF PAUL I.
From 1796 to 1801.