117 



CATHARINA II. 



CATHARINE DE' MEDICI. 



118 



ways. Early in the 18th century the Dissidents applied to Peter the 

 (Jreat, who remonstrated in their behalf, and obtained by his influence 

 more equitable treatment for them. After Peter's death the Polish 

 Dissidents were again deprived of their political and civil rights; 

 they were excluded from all public offices, were forbidden to build 

 any new church, and many of them were exiled or otherwise perse- 

 cuted. In 1764, Russia, Prussia, England, and Denmark, as guarantees 

 of the peace of Oliva, remonstrated with the Diet, but to no purpose. 

 In the session of 1766 the Dissidents were finally subjected to the 

 jurisdiction of the Catholic bishops. In the following year they 

 formed an association, which was called the Confederacy of Thorn, 

 for their common protection, and they were joined by a party of 

 Catholics, who were called Malcontents, upon political grounds, and 

 who now advocated the claims of the Dissidents. The Dissidents 

 were also strongly supported by Russia, the population of which being 

 chiefly of the Greek Church felt a lively interest in the fate of their 

 co-religionists, who were very numerous, especially in the east pro- 

 vinces of Poland. In 1768 Russian troops entered Poland and sur- 

 rounded Warsaw. Several members of the Diet, and the Bishop of 

 Cracow among them, who were most violent against the Dissidents, 

 were arrested by the Russians and sent into Siberia, where they 

 remained five years. The Diet, being now intimidated, granted the 

 full claims of the Dissidents ; but several Catholic noblemen, espe- 

 cially on the south proviuces bordering on Turkey, raised the standard 

 of revolt on mixed religious and political grounds, and a civil war 

 ensued, in which the king's troops were defeated. The king and 

 senate at Warsaw petitioned the Russian minister not to withdraw 

 the Radian troops on this emergency, a request which was readily 

 complied with. The insurgents on their part applied to the Turks 

 for assistance; and a war between Turkey and Russia (1769) was the 

 consequence. During four years Poland was ravaged by civil and 

 religious war, and a dreadful pestilence in 1770 completed the miseries 

 of that country. The result of all this was the first partition of 

 Poland, concerted between Catharine, Frederic of Prussia, and 

 Joseph II. of Austria, which was effected in 1772, and was sanctioned 

 by a subservient Polish Diet. More than one-third of that kingdom 

 was divided among the three powers. Russia bad for its share the 

 governments of Polotsk and Mohilow, which include a great part of 

 Lithuania and Livonia. Meantime the war with the Turks had 

 proved highly successful to the Russian arms both by sea and land. 

 Romanzow defeated the Turks on the 1'ruth, mid the Russian fleet in 

 the Mediterranean defeated and burnt the Turkish fleet at Tschesmd 

 in 1770. By the peace of Kainarji, July 1774, Azof and Taganrog 

 were ceded to Rus-ia, and the Crimea was declared independent of 

 Turkey. Not many years after, the Russians took the Crimea for 

 themselves (1785), and mode it a province of their empire. In 

 January 1787, Catharine set off from St. Petersburg with great pomp 

 to visit her new acquisitions. Her journey was like a triumphal pro- 

 cassion. She was joined on the road by the emperor Joseph II., who 

 accompanied her into the Crimea, where they concerted measures for 

 a joint war against Turkey. At Cherron, on the Dnieper, she 

 inspected the docks constructed by her orders, and saw a ship of the 

 line and a frigate launched. Soon after, tbe Turks and the Swedes, 

 at the instigation of France and England, declared war against Russia. 

 The object of this war was to check the progress of Russia, but the 

 result was quite the contrary. The Turks were defeated everywhere : 

 they lost Ockznkow ; Suwarrow took from them Ismail by storm in 

 1790, with a dreadful massacre of the garrison; and another Russian 

 army entered Georgia. By the peace of Yassi, in 1792, the frontiers 

 of Russia were extended to the Dniester. The war between Russia 

 and Sweden had been already concluded by the peace of Warela in 

 1790. Meantime the Poles, taking advantage of the war, had shaken 

 oft" the influence of Russia, and abrogated the articles of the Diet of 

 1775, which had been dictated by Catharine. In 1791 they formed a 

 new constitution, making the crown hereditary, giving greater privi- 

 leges to the royal towns, and favouring in some degree the emanci- 

 pation of the peasants or serfs. But this constitution was far from 

 being acceptable to all the nobles ; many protested ngainst it, and so 

 did Catharine of Russia, as guarantee of tbe former constitution. 

 Prussia joined Catharine : and the result was a second partition of 

 Poland in 1793, by which Russia took the whole of Lithuania, Vol- 

 hyniii, and Podolin ; and the King of Prussia obtained Poscn, Guesen, 

 and the towns of Danzig and Thorn. In 1794 an insurrection broke 

 out at Warmw, the Russian garrison was almost entirely destroyed, 

 and the gallant Kosciusko placed himself at the head of the Poles, 

 who fought with the courage of despair. After being successful at 

 first, he was defeated, wounded, and taken prisoner. Suwarrow 

 stormed Praga, the suburb of Warsaw, with a dreadful slaughter of 

 the inhabitants. Warsaw surrendered, the king abdicated, and tbe 

 third ati'l lost partition of Poland took place in 1795. Austria bad 

 Oallicia, Prussia took Warsaw, and Russia the rest. Poland thus 

 became extinct as a state. Catharine finally annexed Courlaud also to 

 the Russian empire. 



Catharine began now to turn her attention towards France, and had 



promised to send troops to join the coalition against that country, 



when, on tiie 17th of November 1796, she died of an apoplectic fit, after 



a reign of thirty-five years. She was succeeded by her son Paul I. 



In ih" internal administration of her vast empire Catharine effected 



much real and more seeming good. She reformed the judicial system, 

 which was in a most confused state; organised proper courts, and gave 

 better salaries to the judges, in order, as she publicly told them, that 

 they might be placed above temptation. She to a certain extent 

 ameliorated the condition of the serfs or peasants. She encouraged 

 instruction, established schools in all the provinces, schools for teachers 

 after the model of those of Germany, and numerous special or higher 

 schools for the military and naval services, for the mining establish- 

 ment, for the study of medicine and surgery, for oriental languages, 

 &c. She also sought to promote communication and commerce 

 between the various countries subject to her sway and with foreign 

 states. She has been called the great regenerator of Russia after 

 Peter I., and she worked under more favourable circumstances. She 

 began several canals, among others the one called Severo Jekaterinski, 

 which uniting the Volga to the Dwiua, effects thus a communication, 

 between the Caspian and the White Sea. She founded numerous 

 towns, docks, arsenals, banks, and manufactories. She employed several 

 learned men, among others Pallaa, Falk, Gmelin, Blumayer, Billings, 

 and Edwards, to explore the interior and the remotest parts of her 

 empire. Her peculiar patronage of tbe arts and literature, and the 

 favour she showed to D'Alembert, Diderot, Euler, &o., are well known. 

 Her correspondence with Voltaire has been published, and forms half 

 a volume in the collected edition of Voltaire's works. She compiled 

 also a ' Bibliotheque d'Histoire et de Morale' for the instruction of 

 her grand-children Alexander and Constantino. But the most remark- 

 able of her works is her ' Instructions to the Commissioners appointed 

 to frame a new Code of Laws for the Russian Empire,' which were 

 translated into English by M. Tatischeff, London, 4to, 1768. For 

 details concerning her administration, see Tooke's ' History of the 

 Reign of Catharine II.;' Count Segur's 'Mdmoires,' and Rulhiere'fl 

 posthumous works. 



CATHARINK OF ARAQON. [HENRY VIII.] 

 CATHARINE OF BRAGANZA. [CHARLES II.] 

 CATHARINE PARR. [HENRY VIII.J 



CATHARI'NE DE' ME'DICI was the daughter of Lorenzo de' 

 Medici, duke of Urbino, the son of Piero, and grandson of Lorenzo 

 the Magnificent, and nephew of Leo X. Her mother Magdeleine de 

 Boulogne, of the royal house of France, died in giving birth to 

 Catharine, her only child, in 1519. Her father died soon after, and 

 Catharine was brought up under the care of her great uncle Cardinal 

 Giulio de' Medici, afterwards Pope Clement VII. She was remarkably 

 handsome, clever, and accomplished, but crafty, proud, and unprin- 

 cipled. In 1533 she was married to Henri, second son of Francis I. 

 of France. It was a political marriage, contracted between the pope 

 and the king, who met at Marseille on that occasion. In 1547, Henri 

 having ascended the throne upon tho death of his father and elder 

 brother, Catharine became queen of France. Her influence at court 

 was not very great during tbe reign of her husband, it being checked 

 by that of his mistress, Diana of Poitiers, and that of the powerful 

 family of the Guises. Catharine had by her husband five sons, of 

 whom three reigned successively over France Francis II., Charles IX., 

 and Henri III. During the short reign of Francis II., who succeeded 

 Henri II. in 1547, the chief influence at court was in the hands of the 

 Guises, whose niece Mary Stuart had married Francis II. But when 

 by the premature death of this young prince in 1560, his brother 

 Charles IX., then a minor, ascended the throne, Catharine as regent 

 became the real ruler of France, and remained its ruler after her sou 

 had attained his majority. She is therefore accountable for all tin 

 mismanagement, corruption, and atrocities of that calamitous reign, 

 and, above all, for the treacherous massacre of the Protestants in 

 August 1672, which is known by the name of La Saiute Barthe'lc'rni, 

 because it was perpetrated on the day dedicated to that saint by the 

 Roman calendar. The king of Navarre (afterwards Henri IV.) 

 luckily escaped, and the Protestants defended themselves in several 

 parts of the kingdom, to that the civil war raged again as fiercely as 

 ever. Ch.\rles IX. died in 1574, leaving the state in dreadful confusion. 

 His brother, Henry of Valois, was then in Poland, where he had been 

 elected king by the Diet. As soon as he heard of bis brother's death, 

 he left Poland in secret, and returned to France, where he was crowned 

 in 1576. Henri III. was, like his brother, a weak and corrupt 

 prince. Catharine had brought up her sons purposely in licentious- 

 ness and effeminacy, in order that she might more easily govern them. 

 The reign of Henri III. was distracted by the intrigues of his 

 favourites, of the queen-mother, and of the Guises ; by the civil wars 

 between Protestants and Catholics, and by the war between France 

 and Spain. Catharine, according to her usual policy, favoured some- 

 times one party and sometimes the other, for fear that any one of 

 them should become too powerful for her to manage. At last 

 assassination was resorted to again in order to get rid of the Guises. 

 The Duke of Guise and tbe cardinal his brother were murdered at 

 Blois in December 1588, by order of the king. On the 5th of January 

 1589, Catharine herself died at Blois, an object of aversion to all 

 parties. She was one of the worst sovereigns that ruled over France 

 since the times of the Merovingian dynasty. Even her ambition was 

 not of an enlarged kind ; it was narrow, wavering, treacherous, and 

 undecided, and it led to no final result. The country was in a state 

 of greater confusion at her death than it had been at any time during 

 her sway ; the monarchy was near its dissolution, and it required all 



