Austria accepted the scheme, and Russian agents were sent to agitate in the Slav provinces of Turkey. In 1787 Catherine herself made an imposing journey in the south. Turkey clearly saw the threat to its Empire, and in 1787 it declared war. Potiamkin, Catherine’s favourite at the time, was entrusted with the supreme command, and marched south. Then the ever-ready Swede fell upon the flank of Russia, and Catherine, who could from St. Petersburg hear the roar of the Swedish guns on the Baltic, had a momentary fright. She called up all her energy and stirred her commanders, and in the following year she had peace with Sweden and was free to attack Turkey, in conjunction with the Austrians. The details do not concern us. The war lasted five years, and a little more of the coast of the Black Sea was brought within the Russian Empire. It may be added, briefly, that continued internal trouble in Poland, of which Catherine took as mean an advantage as any, led to the second and third partitions of that country. Poland ceased to exist; the once great kingdom, ruined by the quarrels and obstinate conservatism of its nobles, was divided between Russia, Prussia, and Austria. The vast addition to her territory which Catherine obtained from the spoils of Poland will not be regarded by the modern mind as a title to glory. More creditable was the wresting of territory from the Turks, but her chief merit lies in the reform-edicts (she counted 211 of her ukases under that head) with which she sought to uplift Russia. Against this we have her personal repute as it is given in many historians. There were those at the time who called her “the Messalina of the north,” and writers on her still differ in their estimate of her moral personality. That she was, in the narrow sense of the word, flagrantly immoral no one questions. We may recall that Europe at large was still very far from the standard of these matters which adorns our generation. Paris under Louis XV, or the Directorate, or even Napoleon; London under the Georges; even Rome under the Popes of the period would not pass modern scrutiny. Russia was a little more mediæval than the others, and Catherine inherited a court in which an Empress of advanced years and conspicuous piety had given an example of wild debauch. To a woman of Catherine’s views and strong personality there would seem to be no reason for restraint; and she observed none.