To Friedrich, long before all this of Henri, indeed almost on the very day while he was writing so despondently to D'Argens, a new phasis had arisen. Hardly had he been five weeks at Breslau, in those gloomy circumstances, when,--about the middle of January, 1762 (day not given, though it is forever notable),--there arrive rumors, arrive news,--news from Petersburg; such as this King never had before! "Among the thousand ill strokes of Fortune, does there at length come one pre-eminently good? The unspeakable Sovereign Woman, is she verily dead, then, and become peaceable to me forevermore?" We promised Friedrich a wonderful star-of-day; and this is it,--though it is long before he dare quite regard it as such. Peter, the Successor, he knows to be secretly his friend and admirer; if only, in the new Czarish capacity and its chaotic environments and conditions, Peter dare and can assert these feelings? What a hope to Friedrich, from this time onward! Russia may be counted as the bigger half of all he had to strive with; the bigger, or at least the far uglier, more ruinous and incendiary;--and if this were at once taken away, think what a daybreak when the night was at the blackest! Pious people say, The darkest hour is often nearest the dawn. And a dawn this proved to be for Friedrich. And the fact grew always the longer the brighter;--and before Campaign time, had ripened into real daylight and sunrise. The dates should have been precise; but are not to be had so: here is the nearest we could come. January 14th, writing to Henri, the King has a mysterious word about "possibilities of an uncommon sort,"--rumors from Petersburg, I could conjecture; though perhaps they are only Turk or Tartar-Khan affairs, which are higher this year than ever, and as futile as ever. But, on JANUARY 19th, he has heard plainly,--with what hopes (if one durst indulge them)!--that the implacable Imperial Woman, INFAME CATIN DU NORD, is verily dead. Dead; and does not hate me any more. Deliverance, Peace and Victory lie in the word!--Catin had long been failing, but they kept it religiously secret within the Court walls: even at Petersburg nobody knew till the Prayers of the Church were required: Prayers as zealous as you can,--the Doctors having plainly intimated that she is desperate, and that the thing is over. On CHRISTMAS-DAY, 1761, by Russian Style, 5th JANUARY, 1762, by European, the poor Imperial Catin lay dead;--a death still more important than that of George II. to this King.