Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/239

Rh In 1701, and about the fourteenth year of her age, she espoused a dragoon, of the Swedish garrison of Marienburgh. Many different accounts are given of this transaction: one author of great credit affirms, that the bride and bridegroom remained together eight days after their marriage; another, of no less authority, asserts, on the contrary, that the morning of their nuptials, her husband was sent with a detachment for Riga. Thus much is certain, that the dragoon was absent when Marienburgh surrendered to the Russians, and that Catherine never saw him more.

General Bauer, upon the taking of the place, saw Catherine among the prisoners; and being smitten with her youth and beauty, took her to his house, where she superintended his domestic affairs, as a sort of house-keeper. Soon after she was removed, still acting in the same capacity, into the family of prince Menzikoff, who was no less struck with the attractions of the fair captive: with him she lived until 1704, when, in the seventeenth year of her age, she became the servant, or as some say, the mistress of Peter the Great, and won so much upon his affections, that he espoused her on the 29th of May, 1711. The ceremony was secretly performed at Jawerof, in Poland, in the presence of general Bruce; and, on the 20th of February, 1712, it was publicly solemnized with great pomp at Petersburgh.

Catherine, by the most unwearied assiduity and unremitted attention, by the softness and complacency of her disposition, but, above all, by an extraordinary liveliness and gaiety of temper, acquired a wonderful ascendancy over the mind of Peter. The latter was subject to occasional horrors, which at times rendered him gloomy and suspicious, and raised his passions to such a height, as to