The history of Russia proves only too conclusively that again and again the national interests of Russia have been sacrificed to the German dynastic influences. At the end of the Seven Years’ War, Frederick the Great was at his last gasp. Prussia was on the verge of ruin. _The Russian Army had entered Berlin_; the power of the new military monarchy had been totally broken at Kunersdorf. The death of Elizabeth and the accession of her mad nephew, Peter III., retrieved a desperate situation. For the mad nephew was a German Prince, a Duke of Holstein, and a passionate admirer of Frederick the Great. Peter III. was murdered in 1762. He only reigned a few months, but he reigned sufficiently long to save Prussia from destruction and to surrender all the advantages secured by Russian triumphs and dearly paid for by Russian blood. V. There is no more fantastic fairy-tale and there is no more fascinating drama than the life-story of Catherine the Great, which recently has been so brilliantly told by Mr. Francis Gribble. A Cinderella amongst German royalties, a pauper Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, Catherine became the mightiest potentate of her age. Although the nominee of Frederick the Great, she pursued consistently a national Russian policy. And she had good reasons for doing so. For no throne was less secure than the throne of the Romanovs. She had had to remove her husband by murder for fear of being removed herself. She continued to be surrounded by a rabble of unscrupulous adventurers and intriguers. Her only safety lay in becoming a patriotic Russian, and in seeking the support of Russian sentiment and Russian opinion. Whilst Frederick the Great surrounded himself with French advisers, and contemptuously refused even to speak the German language; whilst he declared to the German scholar who presented him with a copy of the “Nibelungen Lied” that this national German epic was not worth a pipe of tobacco, Catherine the Great systematically encouraged Russian literature. Whilst Frederick the Great remained the consistent Atheist on the throne, Catherine the Great professed the utmost zeal for Russian Orthodoxy. All through her reign she avoided as far as possible a conflict with Frederick and his successor. She divided with them the spoils of Poland, or, as Frederick the Great put it in his edifying theological language, she partook of the Eucharistic body of the Polish kingdom in unholy communion with Prussia and Austria. But Catherine saw to it that Russia secured the greater part of the spoils. VI.