them in a genuine form; and instead of it we find only a hollow, glittering sham, which has but an outward semblance to real courtesy, and which itself even is produced only on occasions more or less public and for purposes more or less selfish. Russia in its most civilized parts was half barbarous in the days of Catharine's youth, and society at the Court of St. Petersburg seems to have been distinguished from that in the other circles of the empire only by an addition of the vices of civilization to those of barbarism. The women blended the manners and tastes of Indian squaws and French _marquises_ of the period; the men modelled themselves on Peter the Great, and succeeded in imitating him in everything except his wisdom and patriotism. The business of life was, first, to avoid being sent to Siberia or Astracan,--next and last, to get other people sent thither; its pleasure, an alternation of gambling and orgies. Catharine makes some excuse for her unrestrained sexual license, which shows that she wrote for posterity. For what need of extenuation in this regard for a woman whose immediate predecessors were Catharine I., and. Anne and Elizabeth, and who lived in a court where, on the simultaneous marriage of three of its ladies, a bet was made between the Hetman Count Rasoumowsky and the Minister of Denmark,--not which of the brides would be false to her marriage vows,--that was taken for granted with regard to all,--but which would be so first! It turned out that he who bet on the Countess Anne Voronzoff, daughter of the Vice-Chancellor of the Empire, and bride to Count Strogonoff, who was the plainest of the three and at the time the most innocent and childlike, won the wager. The bet was wisely laid; for she was likely to be soonest neglected by her husband. What semblance of courtesy these highborn gamblers, adulterers, and selfish intriguers showed in their daily life appears in their behavior to a M. Brockdorf, against whom Catharine had ill feelings, more or less justifiable. This M. Brockdorf, who was high in favor with the Grand Duke, was unfortunately ugly--having a long neck, a broad, flat head, red hair, small, dull, sunken eyes, and the corners of his mouth hanging down to his chin. So, among those court-bred people, "whenever M. Brockdorf passed through the apartments, every one called out after him 'Pelican,'" because "this bird was the most hideous we knew of." But what regard for the feelings of a person of inferior rank could be expected from his enemies, in a court where the dearest ties and the tenderest sorrows were dashed aside with the formal brutality recorded by Catharine in the following remarkable paragraph?--