And each letter is accompanied by a present--now a watch, now some costly lace, and again a lock of his hair, or a simple bunch of dried flowers, while she returns some such homely gift as a little fruit or a fur-lined waistcoat. On both sides, too, a vein of jocularity runs through the letters, as when Catherine addresses him as "Your Excellency, the very illustrious and eminent Prince-General and Knight of the crowned Compass and Axe"; and when Peter, after the Peace of Nystadt, writes: "According to the Treaty I am obliged to return all Livonian prisoners to the King of Sweden. What is to become of thee, I don't know." To which she answers, with true wifely (if affected) humility: "I am your servant; do with me as you will; yet I venture to think you won't send _me_ back." Quite idyllic, this post-nuptial love-making between the great Emperor and his low-born Queen, who has so possessed his heart that no other woman, however fair, could wrest it from her. And in her exalted position of Empress she practised the same diplomatic arts by which she had won Peter's devotion. Politics she left severely alone; she turned a forbidding back on all attempts to involve her in State intrigues, but she was ever ready to protect those who appealed to her for help, and to use her influence with her husband to procure pardon or lighter punishment for those who had fallen under his displeasure. Nor did she forget her poor relations in Livonia. One brother, a postillion, she openly acknowledged, introduced to her husband, and obtained a liberal pension for him; and to her other brothers and sisters she sent frequent presents and sums of money. More she could not well do during her husband's lifetime, but when she in turn came to the throne, she brought the whole family--postillion, shoemaker, farm-labourer and serf, their wives and families--to her capital, installed them in sumptuous apartments in her palaces, decked them in the finest Court feathers, and gave them large fortunes and titles of nobility. When the Tsar's quarrel with his eldest son came to its tragic _dénouement_ in Alexis' death, her own son became heir presumptive to the throne of Russia. And thus the chain that bound Peter to his Empress received its completing link. It only remained now to place the crown formally on the head of the mother of the new heir, and this supreme honour was hers in the month of May, 1729.