Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/254

240 among such credulous people, would have been a very suspicious affair, had she died without seeing them; Panin therefore prevailed on the confessor of Elizabeth, to urge her to forgive, in the hope of being forgiven. She consented, the grand duke and duchess entered, and received a blessing pronounced with carelessness and languor.

Elizabeth died on Christmas-day, 1761, and the grand-duke ascended the throne without the least mark of discontent or ill-will. He was thought too fond of the Germans; but to the astonismentastonishment [sic] of those who knew him only by his vices, his first measures were popular and auspicious: to CatherineCatharine [sic], he seemed to forget the wrongs he had received, passed a great part of the day in her apartments, discoursed with her on the most friendly footing, and consulted her on all delicate and important affairs. He affranchised the nobles, and put an end to a cruel form of law, which oppressed the people: but he soon began to sink into intoxication and all his old habits. What prevented him most from gaining the confidence of the people, was their firm persuasion that he preferred the Lutheran to the Greek religion. He took the treasures of the church into his own hands, put the clergy on yearly salaries, and did many things obnoxious to the religious prejudices of the Russians, such as taking down the figures of the saints, &c.: and, at the same time, by a number of unpopular acts, got out of favour with the army.

His behaviour to his wife was equally inconsistent; at the very moment when he was doing homage to the superiority of her mind, he would let slip some plain insinuations of the indignation his wrongs had inspired. He began to treat her, on every occasion, with marked insult