Catharine’s first son, Paul, was born on the 20th of September, 1753.  He was unquestionably the son of Count Sottikoff, a nobleman alike distinguished for the graces of his person and of his mind.  Through a thousand perils and cunning intrigues, Catharine and the count prosecuted their amour.  Woe was, as usual, to both of them the result.  The empress gives a very touching account of her sufferings, in both body and mind, on the occasion of the birth of her child.

“As for me,” she writes, “I did nothing but weep and moan in my bed.  I neither could or would see anybody, I felt so miserable.  I buried myself in my bed, where I did nothing but grieve.  When the forty days of my confinement were over, the empress came a second time into my chamber.  My child was brought into my room; it was the first time I had seen him since his birth.”

One day Peter brought into his wife’s room, for her amusement, a letter which he had just received from one of his mistresses, Madame Teploff.  Showing the letter to Catharine, he said,

“Only think! she writes me a letter of four whole pages, and expects that I should read it, and, what is more, answer it also; I, who have to go to parade, then dine, then attend the rehearsal of an opera, and the ballet which the cadets will dance at.  I will tell her plainly that I have not time, and, if she is vexed, I will quarrel with her till next winter.”

“That will certainly be the shortest way,” Catharine coolly replied.  “These traits,” she very truly adds in her narrative, “are characteristic, and they will not therefore be out of place.”

Such was the man and such the woman who succeeded to the throne of Russia upon the death of the Empress Elizabeth.  She had hardly emitted her last breath, ere the courtiers, impatiently awaiting the event, rushed to the apartments of the grand duke to congratulate him upon his accession to the crown.  He immediately mounted on horseback and traversed the streets of St. Petersburg, scattering money among the crowd.  The soldiers gathered around him exclaiming, “Take care of us and we will take care of you,” Though the grand duke had been very unpopular there was no outburst of opposition.  The only claim Peter III. had to the confidence of the nation was the fact that he was grandson of Peter the Great.  Conspiracies were, however, immediately set on foot to eject him from the throne and give Catharine his seat.  Catharine had a high reputation for talent, and being very affectionate in her disposition and cordial in her manners, had troops of friends.  Indeed, it is not strange that public sentiment should not only have extenuated her faults, but should almost have applauded them.  Forgetting the commandments of God, and only remembering that her brutal husband richly merited retaliation, the public almost applauded the spirit with which she conducted her intrigues.  The same sentiment pervaded England when the miserable George IV. goaded his wife to frenzy, and led her, in uncontrollable exasperation, to pay him back in his own coin.