Besides these examples, many women were frequently detected, disguised, in the American armies; and as they endured the same privations, with even less murmuring than the men, there was nothing, save accident, to reveal their sex. The instances are numerous of women and girls who aided in the defence of private houses. Their names, however, have very seldom reached Europe. * * * * * When Catherine the Second of Russia was conspiring to dethrone her husband, Peter III., she based her hopes of success almost entirely on the belief that the Imperial Guard would declare in her favour. On the 26th of June, 1762, she was seated in her palace at St. Petersburg, taking a slight repast in company with her early friend and confidant Catherine Romanowna, Princess of Daschkow, or Daschkova. The latter was born in 1744, a descendant of the noble family of Woronzoff, and became a widow at the early age of eighteen. She applied all her woman's wit to place Catherine on the throne. When their repast was concluded, Catherine proposed that they should ride at the head of their troops to Peterhoff; and to make themselves more popular with the soldiers, the Empress borrowed the uniform of Talitzen, a captain in the Preobraginsky Guards, while the Princess Daschkova donned the regimentals of Lieutenant Pouschkin, in which, she says, she looked "like a boy of fifteen." It chanced by good luck that these uniforms were the same which had been worn from the time of Peter the Great until superseded by the Prussian uniform introduced by Peter III. On the 29th July the Empress and her friend, still in uniform, passed in review twelve thousand soldiers, besides numberless volunteers. As Catherine rode along the ranks, amidst the cheers of the soldiers, a young ensign, observing that she had no tassel on her sword, untied his own and presented it. Thirty years afterwards, this man died a field-marshal and a Prince of the Russian Empire. His name was Potemkin. It is said the Princess (though she makes no mention of it in her memoirs) requested, as the reward of her services, to be given the command of the Imperial Guard. The Empress refused; and the Princess, finding her inflexible, gave up her military aspirations and devoted herself to study. After her return from abroad in 1782, she was appointed Director of the Academy of Sciences, and President of the newly-established Russian Academy. She wrote much in her native tongue; amongst other works, several comedies. She died at Moscow in 1810. * * * * *