"Catherine II" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... handled a gun in his life she made him Field-Marshal and head of her army; and, at her request, Charles VII. dubbed him Count of the Holy Roman Empire, a distinction which Gregory Orloff in later years prized more than all the honours Catherine II. showered on him; while the estates of which she made him lord were a small kingdom in themselves. Alexis, the shepherd's son, was now, beyond any question, the most powerful man in Russia. If he would, he might easily ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... after the death of Peter the Great, Russia fell into the hands of incompetent rulers. It only appears again as a European state when the great Catherine II came to the throne in 1762. From that time on, the western powers had always to consider the vast Slavic empire in all their great struggles. They had also to consider a new kingdom in northern Germany, which was just growing into a great power as Peter began his work. This was Prussia, whose ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... a charm of its own to Orshanski's writings. His brilliant analysis of "Russian Legislation concerning the Jews" [2] offers a complete anatomy of Jewish disfranchisement in Russia, beginning with Catherine II. ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... Serbs, Poles, Wends, and a medley of Slav and Celtic races which confound all claims to racial purity. Slavs settled in Teutonic countries and Teutons settled in Slavonic countries. The German colonists who invaded Russia at the invitation of Catherine II were imported to strengthen Russia, just as the Great Elector helped thousands of Huguenots fleeing from France to settle in Brandenburg, and gave them the rights of citizenship for the sake of the vitality which they would impart to ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... struck with her extraordinary beauty, to be literally gorged with gold and jewels and all the delights of excessive wealth,—flowers, carriages, pages, maids, palaces, pictures, journeys (like those of Catherine II.); in short, the life of a queen, despotic in her caprices and obeyed, often beyond her own imaginings. Then, without herself, or any one, chemist, physician, or man of science, being able to discover how her gold evaporated, she would find herself back in the streets, poor, denuded of ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... and a gold medal, in 1787, and sent him to France, Denmark, and Sweden, as agent for prize money. The same year he entered the Russian service with the rank of rear-admiral, and received from the Empress Catherine II. the cross of St. Anne. He had a command in the squadron stationed in the Black Sea, where he greatly distinguished himself, but embittered by slanderous calumnies, he left the Russian service and settled in Paris, where he died in poverty, July 18, 1792. The National Assembly of France, ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... acquaintance of two Russian personages of consideration. One of them was the Princess Dashkow, who was believed to have taken a prominent part in that confused conspiracy of 1762, which ended in the murder of Peter III. by Alexis Orloff, and the elevation of Catherine II. to the throne. Her services at that critical moment had not prevented her disgrace, if indeed they were not its cause, and in 1770 the Princess set out on her travels. Horace Walpole has described the curiosity of the London ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... while on the side of England a Russian alliance would, in the event of war, secure her Baltic trade and enable her fleet to act elsewhere, and would be a defence for Hanover. An alliance with Russia had already been discussed, but Catherine II. had far less interest in the matter than England, and insisted that any alliance should include her Turkish war, to which England would not consent. Catherine was in alliance with Frederick of Prussia, and Chatham, hoping that the adhesion of England would be welcomed, designed ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... superb at a review of the National Guard, where his protuberant paunch could be distinguished at fifty paces, and upon which glittered a gold chain and a bunch of trinkets, was under the yoke of this Catherine II. of commerce. Short and fat, harnessed with spectacles and a shirt-collar worn above his ears, he was chiefly distinguished for his bass voice and the richness of his vocabulary. He never said Corneille, but "the sublime Corneille"; Racine was "the gentle Racine"; Voltaire, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... Turkey. But Russia never insisted on the execution of the articles of the treaty, and the Greeks were everywhere subjected to increased oppression and cruelty. During the war from 1783 to 1792, caused by Catherine II. of Russia assuming sovereignty over the Crimea, Russia attempted to excite the Christians in Greece to take up arms against the Turks, but they were again abandoned to their fate on the conclusion of the Treaty of Yassi in 1792, which decided ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... the existing decrees in all their force. Peter III., on his accession to the throne in 1762, intended to strengthen the laws of his predecessors, and prepared some stringent measures; but his sudden death prevented them from being put into force. His widow, Catherine II. (1762), did not share his feelings in this matter, and immediately on obtaining sovereign power she removed every restriction relating to the beard. She invited the Raskolnicks, who had fled from the country to avoid the objectionable edicts, to return, and assigned ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews |
