A ruffian attempted to assassinate Catharine.  He was arrested in the palace, with a long dagger concealed in his dress, and without hesitation confessed his design.  Catharine had the assassin brought into her presence, conversed mildly with him, and seeing that there was no hope of disarming his fanaticism, banished him to Siberia.  But the innocent daughter of the guilty man she took under her protection, and subsequently appointed her one of her maids of honor.  In the year 1767, she sent a delegation of scientific men on a geological survey into the interior of the empire, with directions to determine the geographical position of the principal places, to mark their temperature, their productions, their wealth, and the manners and characters of the several people by whom they were inhabited.  Russia was then, as now, a world by itself, peopled by innumerable tribes or nations, with a great diversity of climates, and with an infinite variety of manners and customs.  A large portion of the country was immersed in the profoundest barbarism, almost inaccessible to the traveler.  In other portions vagrant hordes wandered without any fixed habitations.  Here was seen the castle of the noble with all its imposing architecture, and its enginery of offense and defense.  The mud hovels of the peasants were clustered around the massive pile; and they passed their lives in the most degrading bondage.

From all parts of Europe the most learned men were invited to the court of Catharine.  The renowned mathematician, Euler, was lured from Berlin to St. Petersburg.  The empress settled upon him a large annual stipend, and made him a present of a house.  Catharine was fully conscious that the glory of a country consists, not in its military achievements, but in advancement in science and in the useful and elegant arts.  The annual sum of five thousand dollars was assigned to encourage the translation of foreign literary works into the Russian language.  The small-pox was making fearful ravages in Russia.  The empress had heard of inoculation.  She sent to England for a physician, Dr. Thomas Dimsdale, who had practiced inoculation for the small-pox with great success in London.  Immediately upon his arrival the empress sent for him, and with skill which astonished the physician, questioned him respecting his mode of practice.  He was invited to dine with the empress; and the doctor thus describes the dinner party: 

“The empress sat singly at the upper end of a long table, at which about twelve of the nobility were guests.  The entertainment consisted of a variety of excellent dishes, served up after the French manner, and was concluded by a dessert of the finest fruits and sweetmeats, such as I little expected to find in that northern climate.  Most of these luxuries were, however, the produce of the empress’s own dominions.  Pineapples, indeed, are chiefly imported from England, though those of the growth of Russia, of which we had one that day, are of good flavor but generally small.  Water-melons and grapes are brought from Astrachan; great plenty of melons from Moscow; and apples and pears from the Ukraine.