At the close of the ceremonies the skiff was deposited with great ceremony in the place which had been prepared to receive it in the Castle of Cronstadt, and there, when one more day had been spent in banquetings and rejoicings, the company left the Little Grandfather to his repose, and returned in their yachts to the town. Not many days after the death of Peter, Catharine, in accordance with the arrangements that Peter had previously made, was proclaimed empress by a solemn act of the senate and ministers of state, and she at once entered upon the exercise of the sovereign power. She signalized her accession by a great many acts of clemency--liberating prisoners, recalling exiles, removing bodies from gibbets and wheels, and heads from poles, and delivering them to friends for burial, remitting the sentence of death pronounced upon political offenders, and otherwise mitigating and assuaging sufferings which Peter's remorseless ideas of justice and retribution had caused. Catharine did not, however, live long to exercise her beneficial power. She died suddenly about two years after her husband, and was buried with great pomp in a grand monumental tomb in one of the churches of St. Petersburg, which she had been engaged ever since his death in constructing for him.