Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/249

Rh The nuptials were soon after solemnized, and they lived some time in an apparently good understanding, which Catharine compelled herself to support as long as she conceived it necessary, though more and more dissatisfied with her husband. Peter had sense, but his education had been totally neglected. He possessed an excellent heart, but he wanted politeness, and was become very ugly. He frequently blushed at the superiority of his wife, and his wife as often at seeing him so little worthy of her. Hence arose that mutual dislike which soon became but too visible, and which was daily increasing.

The principal families had beheld Peter with jealousy from the instant of his arrival, as a man who would share with them the power they had now long enjoyed, or perhaps entirely deprive them of it. Among those who strove most to injure him, was the great chancellor Bestucheff. His foresight was too great to allow him to flatter himself with the expectation of seeing Peter completely disinherited, but he hoped at least to banish him to the camps and armies, and to place Catharine at the head of affairs.

Soon after his marriage, his aunt had made Peter a present of Oranienbaum, a country palace; and, as soon as the fair weather permitted him to leave Petersburg, where he lived more like a state prisoner than the heir of a throne, thither he used to retire, amuse himself with the practice of the Prussian military exercise, and give way to habits which his enemies had first been the occasion of practising, by persuading him, that it was in drinking, smoking, and gaming, that the Prussian officers spent their leisure hours.

Catharine, all this time, was pursuing a conduct totally different. She was employed solely in gaining partizans