In 1702 Catharine, then seventeen years of age, married a Swedish dragoon, one of the garrison of Marienburg. Her married life was a short one, her husband being obliged to leave her in two days to join his regiment. She never saw him again. She could neither read nor write, and, like Mentchikof, never learned those arts. She was, however, handsome and attractive, delicate and well formed, and of a most excellent temper, being never known to be out of humor, while she was obliging and civil to all, and after her exaltation took good care of the family of her benefactor Gluck. As for her first husband, she sent him sums of money until 1705, when he was killed in battle. It was a common fate of prisoners of war then to be sold as slaves to the Turks, but the beauty of Catharine saved her from this. After some vicissitudes, she fell into the hands of Mentchikof, at whose quarters she was seen by the czar. Struck by her beauty and good sense, Peter took her to his palace, where, finding in her a warm appreciation of his plans of reform and an admirable disposition, he made her his own by a private marriage. In 1711 this was supplemented by a public wedding. Catharine was soon able amply to reward the czar for the honor he had conferred upon her. He was at war with the Turks, and, through a foolish contempt for their generalship and military skill, allowed himself to fall into a trap from which there seemed no escape. He found himself completely surrounded by the enemy and cut off from all supplies, and it seemed as if he would be forced to surrender with his whole force to the despised foe. From this dilemma Catharine, who was in the camp, relieved him. Collecting a large sum of money and presents of jewelry, and seeking the camp of the enemy, she succeeded in bribing the Turkish general, or in some way inducing him to conclude peace and suffer the Russian army to escape. Peter repaid his able wife by conferring upon her the dignity of empress. The death of the czar was followed, as we have said, by the elevation of his wife to the vacant throne, principally through the aid of Mentchikof, her former lord and master, aided by the effect of her seemingly inconsolable grief and the judicious distribution of money and jewels as presents. For two years Catharine and Mentchikof, whose life had begun in the hovel, and who were now virtually together on the throne, were the unquestioned autocrats of Russia. Catharine had no genius for government, and left the control of affairs to her minister, who was to all intents and purposes sovereign of Russia. The empress, meanwhile, passed her days in vice and dissipation, thereby hastening her end. She died in 1727, at the age of about forty years. In the same year, as already stated, the man who had grown great with her fell from his high estate. _BUFFOONERIES OF THE RUSSIAN COURT._