The Empress had chosen for her successor her nephew Peter, son of her only sister and the Duke of Holstein.  The far-seeing Frederick had brought about a marriage between this youth and a German Princess, Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst.  Then the Future Emperor Peter III. and his German bride took up their abode in the palace at St. Petersburg, she having been rechristened Catherine, upon adopting the Greek faith.  A mutual dislike deepened into hatred between this brilliant, clever woman and her vulgar and inferior husband; and there is little doubt that the treacherous conduct of the Russian commander was part of a plan to place her infant son Paul upon the throne instead of his father, and make her Regent.  Elizabeth’s death was apparently at hand and the general mistrust of Peter’s fitness for the position opened the way for such a conspiracy—­which, however, is not known, but only suspected.

The one merciful edict which adorns this reign is the “abolishing of the death penalty.”  But as the knout became more than ever active, we are left to infer that by a nice distinction in the Russian mind death under that instrument of torture was not considered “capital punishment.”

It is said that when the daughter of the austere Peter died, she left sixteen thousand dresses, thousands of slippers, and two large chests of silk stockings—­a wardrobe which would have astonished her mother at the time she was serving the table of the Pastor Glueck.  Elizabeth expired in 1761, and the throne passed to Peter III., grandson of Peter the Great and Catherine I.

The first act of the new Tsar was a delightful surprise to the nobility.  He published a manifesto freeing the nobles from the obligation of service imposed by Peter the Great, saying that this law, which was wise at the time it was enacted, was no longer necessary, now that the nobility was enlightened and devoted to the service of their ruler.  The grateful nobles talked of erecting a statue of gold to this benign sovereign, who in like manner abolished the Secret Court of Police and proclaimed pardon to thousands of political fugitives.  The Birons were recalled from Siberia, and the old Duke of Kurland and his wife came back like shades from another world, after twenty years of exile.

But this pleasant prelude was very brief.  The nobles soon found that their golden idol would have to be made instead of very coarse clay.  Nothing could exceed the grossness and the unbalanced folly of Peter’s course.  He reversed the whole attitude of the state toward Germany.  So abject was his devotion to Frederick the Great that he restored to him the Russian conquests, and reached the limit which could be borne when he shouted at one of his orgies:  “Let us drink to the health of our King and master Frederick.  You may be assured if he should order it, I would make war on hell with all my empire.”  He was also planning to rid himself of Catherine and to disinherit her child Paul in favor of Ivan VI.; and with this in view that unfortunate youth, who after his twenty years’ imprisonment was a mental wreck, was brought to St. Petersburg.