[237] This narrative of the dethronement of Peter the Third has been confirmed in many essential points by later writers.--Tooke’s Catherine the Second.--Castera.--Levesque, Hist. de Russie, vol. v. 298. The precise extent of the guilt of the Empress is still a subject of dispute. The dethronement of her husband might be an act of self-defence, for he seems to have contemplated raising his mistress to the throne. His murder certainly had her ready forgiveness, if not her acquiescence, and there is nothing in her character to controvert its having been committed at her instigation. The attempt to exculpate her in the recently published Memoirs of the Princess Dashkau is very far from satisfactory, though it in some degree elevates the character of the authoress above the level of her contemporaries at the Court of St. Petersburgh, a court in those days without a parallel for the prevalence of the crimes and vices of a semi-barbarous age.--E. [238] George third Earl, Augustus, and William, sons of William Anne second Earl of Albemarle. Frederick, the fourth son, was on this occasion promoted to the Bishoprick of Exeter. Of Augustus (afterwards Lord Keppel) see more in the preceding reign, under the History of Admiral Byng.--Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 174. [A very interesting account of his life was lately published by his kinsman, the Honourable and Reverend Thomas Augustus Keppel.--E.] [239] Madame Geoffrin was proprietor of a great manufacture of glass; yet by her wit, parts, riches, and cabals, and by patronizing authors, and the modern philosophers and painters, statuaries and architects, and by keeping an open house for foreigners of all nations, she was much considered, and had great respect paid to her by persons of the first rank in France. [Marmontel draws a spirited portrait of her in his Memoirs.--E.]