Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/240

226 to produce a temporary madness. In these dreadful moments, she was the only person who durst venture to approach him; and such was the kind of fascination she had acquired over his senses, that her presence had an instantaneous effect, and the first sound of her voice composed his mind and calmed his agonies. From these circumstances, she seemed necessary, not only to his comfort, but even to his existence: she became his inseparable companion in his journeys into foreign countries, and even in all his military expeditions.

Peter, in his campaign of 1711, against the Turks, having imprudently led his troops into a disadvantageous situation, where they were not only desitutedestitute [sic] of forage and provisions, but even of the means of quenching their thirst, the grand vizier determined to reduce the czar and his exhausted army by famine. In this desperate extremity, when the loss of his army seemed the least evil that could befal him, the czar, on the approach of night, retired to his tent in violent agitation of mind; giving positive orders, that no person whatever, upon pain of death, should be admitted to disturb his privacy, to behold his exquisite distress, or shake a resolution he had formed of attempting, next morning, to force his way through the enemy with fixed bayonets. Catherine, boldly exposing her person to every danger, thought proper to break through these orders. She ventured for once to disobey, but it was to save him and his whole camp from death or slavery. Entering the melancholy abode of her husband, and throwing herself at his feet, she entreated the czar to permit her to offer, in his name, proposals of peace to the grand vizier. Peter, after some hesitation, consented, signed the letter she presented to him, which Shafirof, the chancellor, and the generals, had before concerted, and the peace of Pruth