It was in 1794, that this battle took place and gave the signal, too, for an effort to restore Poland. But Austria, Prussia, and Russia combined, and Poland was lost. Heroic children were made to pay for the sins of their fathers. Poland expired in 1795. Prussia took Eastern Poland, including Warsaw; Austria annexed Cracow, Sandomir, Lublin, and Selm, and Russia took what remained. The patriots dispersed; most of them took service with the French, hoping for an opportunity to revive their country. Catherine took especial pains to prevent the ideas, which alone made the French revolution possible, from entering into Russia. There was no occasion for this prudence. The great majority of the Russian people did not know of any world beyond Russia; most of them knew (p. 193) nothing beyond the narrow horizon of their own village, and could neither read nor write. The harrowing tales brought by the fugitive French nobles did not tend toward inspiring the Russian aristocracy with sympathy for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. Satisfied that Russia was beyond the sphere of what she regarded as pernicious doctrines, Catherine determined to make the greatest possible profit out of the disturbed condition of Europe. She never ceased to incite Prussia and Austria against the French Republic, but carefully refrained from spending a dollar or risking a man. She pleaded first her war with Turkey, and afterwards the Polish insurrection. She said to Osterman, one of her ministers: "Am I wrong? For reasons that I cannot give to the Courts of Berlin and Vienna, I wish to involve them in these affairs, so that I may have my hands free. Many of my enterprises are still unfinished, and they must be so occupied as to leave me unfettered." While Europe was engaged in the hopeless task of establishing and maintaining the divine rights of kings, Catherine began a war with Persia. One of her "unfinished enterprises" was interrupted by her death in November, 1796, at the age of sixty-seven. She left the throne to her son Paul. XXII--RUSSIA DURING THE WARS OF NAPOLEON. (p. 194)