The pecuniary results to the state, enormous as was the plunder, was perhaps the least of the evils sustained through this system of iniquity. The registered gifts to the twelve favorites amounted to upward of one hundred million dollars.[278] Lanskoi, who had held no political offices, and the whole of whose fortune was drawn from the flagitious profits of his post of dishonor, died, after less than four years of office, worth, in cash only, and exclusive of valuables, seven millions of rubles. Potemkin's wealth, which was accumulated from all sources of public robbery and private extortion, was fabulous. At his death he owned two hundred thousand serfs; he had whole cupboards filled with gold coin, jewels, and bank-bills; he held thirty-two orders, and his fortune was estimated at sixty million dollars.[279] In the closing days of Catharine's reign she found a lower deep into which to plunge. When upward of sixty, she took into office, as her favorite, Zuboff, who was not quite twenty-five. She now formed the Society of the Little Hermitage. This was a picked company of wits and libertines, of both sexes, over whose scenes of debauchery and revelry the empress presided. An inner penetralia even of these orgies was established, and called the Little Society. The pernicious influence of such an example, set for so long a period of time by a sovereign distinguished for ability, and whose reign had been rendered famous by its successful foreign enterprises, was the almost universal corruption of the Russian court and aristocracy of both sexes. The women, in imitation of her majesty, kept men, with the title and office of favorites. This was as customary as any other piece of fashion, and was recognized by husbands. Tender intrigues were unknown; strong passion was still more rare; marriage was merely an association. There was a club, called the club of natural philosophers, which was a society of men and women of the highest classes, the object of whose meetings was indiscriminate sexual intercourse. The members met to feast, and after the banquet they retired in pairs chosen by lot. This club was afterward put down by the Russian police, in common with all other secret societies. A hospital was founded by Catharine for fifty ladies affected with venereal disease. These were all to be taken care of; no question was permitted as to name or quality, and the linen of the establishment was marked with the significant word "discretion."