FAMOUS AFFINITIES OF HISTORY
THE ROMANCE OF DEVOTION
BY
LYNDON ORR
VOLUME II of IV.
CONTENTS
[THE EMPRESS CATHARINE AND PRINCE POTEMKIN]
[MARIE ANTOINETTE AND COUNT FERSEN]
[THE STORY OF AARON BURR]
[GEORGE IV. AND MRS. FITZHERBERT]
[CHARLOTTE CORDAY AND ADAM LUX]
[NAPOLEON AND MARIE WALEWSKA]
[THE STORY OF PAULINE BONAPARTE]
[THE STORY OF THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE AND COUNT NEIPPERG]
THE EMPRESS CATHARINE AND PRINCE POTEMKIN
It has often been said that the greatest Frenchman who ever lived was in reality an Italian. It might with equal truth be asserted that the greatest Russian woman who ever lived was in reality a German. But the Emperor Napoleon and the Empress Catharine II. resemble each other in something else. Napoleon, though Italian in blood and lineage, made himself so French in sympathy and understanding as to be able to play upon the imagination of all France as a great musician plays upon a splendid instrument, with absolute sureness of touch and an ability to extract from it every one of its varied harmonies. So the Empress Catharine of Russia—perhaps the greatest woman who ever ruled a nation—though born of German parents, became Russian to the core and made herself the embodiment of Russian feeling and Russian aspiration.