There was no end to the caprices of Peter the drunkard.  At one time he would leave the whole administration of affairs in the hands of Catharine, and again he would treat her in the most contemptuous and insulting manner.  In one of the pompous ceremonials of the court, when the empress, adorned with all the marks of imperial dignity, shared the throne with Peter, the tzar called one of his mistresses to the conspicuous seat he occupied with the empress, and made her sit down by his side.  Catharine immediately rose and retired.  At a public festival that same evening, Peter, half drunk, publicly and loudly launched at her an epithet the grossest which could be addressed to a woman.  Catharine was so shocked that she burst into tears.  The sympathy of the spectators was deeply excited in her behalf, and their indignation roused against the tzar.

While Peter III. was developing his true character of brute and buffoon, gathering around him the lowest profligates, and reveling in the most debasing and vulgar vices, Catharine, though guilty and unhappy, was holding her court with dignity and affability, which charmed all who approached her.  She paid profound respect to the external observances of religion, daily performing her devotions in the churches, accosting the poor with benignity, treating the clergy with marked respect, and winning all hearts by her kindness and sympathy.

One of the mistresses of Peter III., the Countess Vorontzof, had gained such a boundless influence over her paramour, that she had extorted from him the promise that he would repudiate Catharine, marry her, and crown her as empress.  Elated by this promise, she had the imprudence to boast of it.  Her father and several of the courtiers whose fortunes her favor would secure, were busy in paving her way to the throne.  The numerous friends of Catharine were excited, and were equally active in thwarting the plans of the tzar.  Peter took no pains to conceal his intentions, and gloried in proclaiming the illegitimacy of Paul, the son of the empress.  Loathsome as his own life was, he seemed to think that his denunciations of Catharine, whose purity he had insulted and whose heart he had crushed, would secure for him the moral support of his subjects and of Europe.  But he was mistaken.  The sinning Catharine was an angel of purity compared with the beastly Peter.

It was necessary for Peter to move with caution, for Catharine had ability, energy, innumerable friends, and was one of the last women in the world quietly to submit to be plunged into a dungeon, and then to be led to the scaffold, and by such a man as her despicable spouse.  Peter III. was by no means a match for Catharine.  About twelve miles from St. Petersburg, on the southern shore of the Bay of Cronstadt, and nearly opposite the renowned fortresses of Cronstadt which command the approaches to St. Petersburg, was the imperial summer palace of Peterhof, which for some time had been the favorite residence of Catharine.