As night approached, Frederic assembled the fragments of his army, exhausted and bleeding, upon some heights, and threw up redoubts for their protection. Twenty thousand of his troops were left upon the field or in the hands of the enemy. Every cannon he had was taken. Scarcely a general or an inferior officer escaped unwounded, and a large number of his most valuable officers were slain. It was an awful defeat and an awful slaughter.

Fortunately for Frederic the losses of the Russians had also been so terrible that they did not venture to pursue the foe. Early the next morning the Prussian king crossed the Oder; and the Russians, encumbered with the thousands of their own mutilated and dying troops, thought it not prudent to march upon Berlin. The war still raged furiously, the allies being inspirited by hope and Frederic by despair. At length the affairs of Prussia became quite hopeless, and the Prussian monarch was in a position from which no earthly energy or sagacity could extricate him. The Russians and Austrians, in resistless numbers, were spread over all his provinces excepting Saxony, where the great Frederic was entirely hemmed up.

The nephew of the empress, Peter III., who succeeded her on her throne, had long expressed his warm admiration of Frederic of Prussia, had visited his court at Berlin, where he was received with the most flattering attentions, and had enthroned the warlike Frederic in his heart as the model of a hero. He had even, during the war, secretly written letters to Frederic expressive of his admiration, and had communicated to him secrets of the Russian cabinet and their plans of operation. The elevation of Peter III. to the throne was the signal, not only for the withdrawal of the Russian troops from the Austrian alliance, but for the direct marching of those troops as allies into the camp of the Prussians. Thus sudden are the mutations of war; thus inexplicable are the combinations of destiny.

The empress was fond of music, and introduced to Russia the opera and the theater. She was as intolerent to the Jews as her father had been, banishing them all from the country. She lived in constant fear of conspiracies and revolutions, and, as a desperate safeguard, established a secret inquisitorial court to punish all who should express any displeasure with the measures of government. Spies and informers of the most worthless character filled the land, and multitudes of the most virtuous inhabitants of the empire, falsely accused, or denounced for a look, a shrug, or a harmless word, were consigned to mutilation more dreadful and to exile more gloomy than the grave.

———

PETER III. AND HIS BRIDE.

From 1728 to 1762.

Lineage of Peter III.—Chosen by Elizabeth as Her Successor.—The Bride Chosen for Peter.—Her Lineage.—The Courtship.—The Marriage.—Autobiography of Catharine.—Anecdotes of Peter.—His Neglect of Catharine and His Debaucheries.—Amusements of the Russian Court.—Military Execution of a Rat.—Accession of Peter III. to the Throne.—Supremacy of Catharine.—Her Repudiation Threatened.—The Conspiracy.—Its Successful Accomplishment.
 

When young Peter was fourteen years of age, the Empress Elizabeth, his maternal aunt, to the surprise and delight of the family, summoned the young prince to St. Petersburg, intimating her intention to transmit to him her crown. But Peter was a thoroughly worthless boy. All ignoble qualities seemed to be combined in his nature without any redeeming virtues. Elizabeth having thus provided twenty millions of people with a sovereign, looked about to find for that sovereign a suitable wife. Upon the banks of the Oder there was a small principality, as it was called, containing some thirteen hundred square miles, about the size of the State of Rhode Island. Christian Augustus, the prince of this little domain, had a daughter, Sophia, a child rather remarkable both for beauty and vivacity. She was one year younger than Peter, and Elizabeth fixed her choice upon Sophia as the future spouse of her nephew. Peter was, at this time, with the empress in Moscow, and Sophia was sent for to spend some time in the Russian capital before the marriage, that she might become acquainted with the Russian language and customs.

Catharine, in her memoirs, naively describes young Peter, when she first saw him, as "weak, ugly, little and sickly." From the age of ten he had been addicted to intoxicating drinks. It was the 9th of February, 1744, when Catharine was taken to Moscow. Peter, or, as he was then called, the grand duke, was quite delighted to see the pretty girl who was his destined wife, and began immediately to entertain Catharine, as she says, "by informing me that he was in love with one of the maids of honor to the empress, and that he would have been very glad to have married her, but that he was resigned to marry me instead, as his aunt wished it."

The grand duke had the faculty of making himself excessively disagreeable to every one around him, and the affianced haters were in a constant quarrel. Peter could develop nothing but stupid malignity. Catharine could wield the weapons of keen and cutting sarcasm, which Peter felt as the mule feels the lash. Catharine's mother had accompanied her to Moscow, but the bridal wardrobe, for a princess, was extremely limited.

"I had arrived," she writes, "in Russia very badly provided for. If I had three or four dresses in the world, it was the very outside, and this at a court where people changed their dress three times a day. A dozen chemises constituted the whole of my linen, and I had to use my mother's sheets."

"I fully perceived," she writes, "his want of interest, and how little I was cared for. My self-esteem and vanity grieved in silence; but I was too proud to complain. I should have thought myself degraded had any one shown me a friendship which I could have taken for pity. Nevertheless I shed tears when alone, then quietly dried them up, and went to romp with my maids.

"I labored, however," writes Catharine, "to gain the affection of every one. Great or small I neglected no one, but laid it down to myself as a rule to believe that I stood in need of every one, and so to act, in consequence, as to obtain the good will of all, and I succeeded in doing so."

The 21st of August of this year was fixed for the nuptial day. Catharine looked forward to it with extreme repugnance. Peter was revolting in his aspect, disgusting in manners, a drunkard, and licentious to such a degree that he took no pains to conceal his amours. But the crown of Russia was in the eyes of Catharine so glittering a prize, though then she had not entered her sixteenth year, that she was willing to purchase it even at the price of marrying Peter, the only price at which it could be obtained. She was fully persuaded that Peter, with a feeble constitution and wallowing in debauchery, could not live long, and that, at his death, she would be undisputed empress.

"As the day of our nuptials approached," she writes, "I became more and more melancholy. My heart predicted but little happiness; ambition alone sustained me. In my inmost soul there was something which led me never to doubt, for a single moment, that sooner or later I should become sovereign empress of Russia in my own right."

"My beloved spouse," she writes, "did not trouble himself in the slightest degree about me; but was constantly with his valets, playing at soldiers, exercising them in his room, or changing his uniform twenty times a day. I yawned and grew weary, having no one to speak to."

Again she writes, "A fortnight after our marriage he confessed to me that he was in love with Mademoiselle Carr, maid of honor to her imperial majesty. He said that there was no comparison between that lady and me. Surely, said I to myself, it would be impossible for me not to be wretched with such a man as this were I to give way to sentiments of tenderness thus requited. I might die of jealousy without benefit to any one. I endeavored to master my feelings so as not to be jealous of the man who did not love me. I was naturally well-disposed, but I should have required a husband who had common sense, which this one had not."

For amusement, the grand duke played cruelly with dogs in his room, pretending to train them, whipping them from corner to corner. When tired of this he would scrape execrably on a violin. He had many little puppet soldiers, whom, hour after hour, he would marshal on the floor in mimic war. He would dress his own servants and the maids of Catharine in masks, and set them dancing, while he would dance with them, playing at the same time on the fiddle.

At one time there was a little hunchback girl in the court, upon whom the duke fixed his vagrant desires, and she became his unconcealed favorite. The duke was ever in the habit of talking freely with Catharine about his paramours and praising their excellent qualities.

"Madame Vladisma said to me," writes Catharine, "that every one was disgusted to see this little hunchback preferred to me. 'It can not be helped,' I said, as the tears started to my eyes. I went to bed; scarcely was I asleep, when the grand duke also came to bed. As he was tipsy and knew not what he was doing, he spoke to me for the purpose of expatiating on the eminent qualities of his favorite. To check his garrulity I pretended to be fast asleep. He spoke still louder in order to wake me; but finding that I slept, he gave me two or three rather hard blows in the side with his fist, and dropped asleep himself. I wept long and bitterly that night, as well on account of the matter itself and the blows he had given me, as on that of my general situation, which was, in all respects, as disagreeable as it was wearisome."

"The men," Catharine writes, "wore large whaleboned petticoats, with women's gowns, and the head-dresses worn on court days, while the women appeared in the court costume of men. The men did not like these reversals of their sex, and the greater part of them were in the worst possible humor on these occasions, because they felt themselves to be hideous in such disguises. The women looked like scrubby little boys, while the more aged among them had thick short legs which were any thing but ornamental. The only woman who looked really well, and completely a man, was the empress herself. As she was very tall and somewhat powerful, male attire suited her wonderfully well. She had the handsomest leg I have ever seen with any man, and her foot was admirably proportioned. She danced to perfection, and every thing she did had a special grace, equally so whether she dressed as a man or a woman."

Enervating and degrading pleasure and ambitious or revengeful wars, engrossed the whole attention of the Russian court during the reign of Elizabeth. The welfare of the people was not even thought of. The following anecdote, illustrative of the character of Peter III., is worthy of record in the words of Catharine:

It is not surprising that a woman, young, beautiful and vivacious, living in a court where corruption was all around her, where an unmarried empress was rendering herself notorious by her gallantries, stung to the quick by the utter neglect of her husband, insulted by the presence of his mistresses, and disgusted by his unmitigated boobyism, should have sought solace in the friendship of others. And it is not strange that such friendships should have ripened into love, and that one thus tempted should have fallen. Catharine in her memoirs does not deny her fall, though she can not refrain from allowing an occasional word to drop from her pen, evidently intended in extenuation. Much which is called virtue consists in the absence of temptation.

Catharine's first son, Paul, was born on the 20th of September, 1753. He was unquestionably the son of Count Sottikoff, a nobleman alike distinguished for the graces of his person and of his mind. Through a thousand perils and cunning intrigues, Catharine and the count prosecuted their amour. Woe was, as usual, to both of them the result. The empress gives a very touching account of her sufferings, in both body and mind, on the occasion of the birth of her child.

"As for me," she writes, "I did nothing but weep and moan in my bed. I neither could or would see anybody, I felt so miserable. I buried myself in my bed, where I did nothing but grieve. When the forty days of my confinement were over, the empress came a second time into my chamber. My child was brought into my room; it was the first time I had seen him since his birth."

"Only think! she writes me a letter of four whole pages, and expects that I should read it, and, what is more, answer it also; I, who have to go to parade, then dine, then attend the rehearsal of an opera, and the ballet which the cadets will dance at. I will tell her plainly that I have not time, and, if she is vexed, I will quarrel with her till next winter."

"That will certainly be the shortest way," Catharine coolly replied. "These traits," she very truly adds in her narrative, "are characteristic, and they will not therefore be out of place."

Fortunately for the imbecile Peter, he had enough sense to appreciate the abilities of Catharine; and a sort of maudlin idea of justice, if it were not, perhaps, utter stupidity, dissuaded him from resenting her freedom in the choice of favorites. Upon commencing his reign, he yielded himself to the guidance of her imperial mind, hoping to obtain some dignity by the renown which her measures might reflect upon him. Catharine advised him very wisely. She caused seventeen thousand exiles to be recalled from Siberia, and abolished the odious secret court of chancery—that court of political inquisition which, for years, had kept all Russia trembling.

For a time, Russia resounded with the praises of the new sovereign, and when Peter III. entered the senate and read an act permitting the nobility to bear arms, or not, at their own discretion, and to visit foreign countries whenever they pleased, a privilege which they had not enjoyed before, the gratitude of the nobles was unbounded. It should, however, be recorded that this edict proved to be but a dead letter. It was expected that the nobles, as a matter of courtesy, should always ask permission to leave, and this request was frequently not granted. The secret tribunal, to which we have referred, exposed persons of all ranks and both sexes to be arrested upon the slightest suspicion. The accused was exposed to the most horrible tortures to compel a confession. When every bone was broken and every joint dislocated, and his body was mangled by the crushing wheel, if he still had endurance to persist in his denial, the accuser was, in his turn, placed upon the wheel, and every nerve of agony was tortured to force a recantation of the charge.

Though Peter III. promulgated the wise edicts which were placed in his hands, he had become so thoroughly imbruted by his dissolute life that he made no attempt to tear himself away from his mistresses and his drunken orgies.

There was no end to the caprices of Peter the drunkard. At one time he would leave the whole administration of affairs in the hands of Catharine, and again he would treat her in the most contemptuous and insulting manner. In one of the pompous ceremonials of the court, when the empress, adorned with all the marks of imperial dignity, shared the throne with Peter, the tzar called one of his mistresses to the conspicuous seat he occupied with the empress, and made her sit down by his side. Catharine immediately rose and retired. At a public festival that same evening, Peter, half drunk, publicly and loudly launched at her an epithet the grossest which could be addressed to a woman. Catharine was so shocked that she burst into tears. The sympathy of the spectators was deeply excited in her behalf, and their indignation roused against the tzar.

One of the mistresses of Peter III., the Countess Vorontzof, had gained such a boundless influence over her paramour, that she had extorted from him the promise that he would repudiate Catharine, marry her, and crown her as empress. Elated by this promise, she had the imprudence to boast of it. Her father and several of the courtiers whose fortunes her favor would secure, were busy in paving her way to the throne. The numerous friends of Catharine were excited, and were equally active in thwarting the plans of the tzar. Peter took no pains to conceal his intentions, and gloried in proclaiming the illegitimacy of Paul, the son of the empress. Loathsome as his own life was, he seemed to think that his denunciations of Catharine, whose purity he had insulted and whose heart he had crushed, would secure for him the moral support of his subjects and of Europe. But he was mistaken. The sinning Catharine was an angel of purity compared with the beastly Peter.

"Your majesty has not a moment to lose. Rise and follow me!"

Catharine, alarmed, called her confidential attendant, dressed hurriedly in disguise, and entered a carriage which was waiting for her at the garden gate. The horses were goaded to their utmost speed on the road to St. Petersburg, and so inconsiderately that soon one of them fell in utter exhaustion. They were still at some distance from the city, and the energetic empress alighted and pressed forward on foot. Soon they chanced to meet a peasant, driving a light cart. Count Orloff, who was a reputed lover of Catharine, and was guiding in this movement, seized the horse, placed the empress in the cart, and drove on. These delays had occupied so much time that it was seven o'clock in the morning before they reached St. Petersburg. The empress, with her companions, immediately proceeded to the barracks, where most of the soldiers were quartered, and whose officers had been gained over, and threw herself upon their protection.

Such an appeal from a woman, beautiful, beloved and imploring protection from the murderous hands of one who was hated and despised, inspired every bosom with indignation and with enthusiasm in her behalf. With one impulse they took an oath to die, if necessary, in her defense; and cries of "Long live the empress" filled the air. In two hours Catharine found herself at the head of several thousand veteran soldiers. She was also in possession of the arsenals; and the great mass of the population of St. Petersburg were clamorously advocating her cause.

Accompanied by a numerous and brilliant suite, the empress then repaired to the metropolitan church, where the archbishop and a great number of ecclesiastics, whose coöperation had been secured, received her, and the venerable archbishop, a man of imposing character and appearance, dressed in his sacerdotal robes, led her to the altar, and placing the imperial crown upon her head, proclaimed her sovereign of all the Russias, with the title of Catharine the Second. A Te Deum was then chanted, and the shouts of the multitude proclaimed the cordiality with which the populace accepted the revolution. The empress then repaired to the imperial palace, which was thrown open to all the people, and which, for hours, was thronged with the masses, who fell upon their knees before her, taking their oath of allegiance.

THE CONSPIRACY; AND ACCESSION OF CATHARINE II.

From 1762 to 1765.

Peter III. at Oranienbaum.—Catharine at Peterhof.—The Successful Accomplishment of the Conspiracy.—Terror of Peter.—His Vacillating and Feeble Character.—Flight to Cronstadt.—Repulse.—Heroic Counsel of Munich.—Peter's Return to Oranienbaum.—His Suppliant Letters to Catharine.—His Arrest.—Imprisonment.—Assasination.—Proclamation of the Empress. Her Complicity in the Crime.—Energy of Catharine's Administration.—Her Expansive Views and Sagacious Policy.—Contemplated Marriage with Count Orlof.
 

It was the morning of the 19th of July, 1762. Peter, at Oranienbaum, had passed most of the night, with his boon companions and his concubines, in intemperate carousings. He awoke at a late hour in the morning, and after breakfast set out in a carriage, with several of his women, accompanied by a troop of courtiers in other carriages, for Peterhof. The gay party were riding at a rapid rate over the beautiful shore road, looking out upon the Bay of Cronstadt, when they were met by a messenger from Peterhof, sent to inform them that the empress had suddenly disappeared during the night. Peter, upon receiving this surprising intelligence, turned pale as ashes, and alighting, conversed for some time anxiously with the messenger. Entering his carriage again, he drove with the utmost speed to Peterhof, and with characteristic silliness began to search the cupboards, closets, and under the bed for the empress. Those of greater penetration foresaw what had happened, but were silent, that they might not add to his alarm.

The consternation into which the whole imperial party was thrown no language can describe. The women were in tears. The courtiers could offer not a word of encouragement or counsel. One, the king's chancellor, with the tzar's consent, set off for St. Petersburg to attempt to rouse the partisans of the tzar; but he could find none there. The wretched Peter was now continually receiving corroborative intelligence of the insurrection, and he strode up and down the walks of the garden, forming innumerable plans and adhering to none.

The tzar had a guard of three thousand troops at his palace of Oranienbaum. At noon these approached Peterhof led by their veteran commander, Munich. This energetic officer urged an immediate march upon St. Petersburg.

"Believe me," said Munich, "you have many friends in the city. The royal guard will rally around your standard when they see it approaching; and if we are forced to fight, the rebels will make but a short resistance."

While he was urging this energetic measure, and the women and the courtiers were trying to dissuade him from the step, and were entreating him to go back to Oranienbaum, news arrived that the troops of the empress, twenty thousand in number, were on the march to arrest him.

The fortresses of Cronstadt are situated on an island of the same name, at the mouth of a bay which presents the only approach to St. Petersburg. This fortress, distant about thirty miles west of St. Petersburg, may be said to be impregnable. In the late war with Russia it bade defiance to the combined fleets of France and England. As we have before mentioned, Peterhof and Oranienbaum were pleasure-palaces, situated on the eastern shore of the Bay of Cronstadt, but a few miles from the fortress and but a few miles from each other. The gardens of these palaces extend to the waters of the bay, where there are ever riding at anchor a fleet of pleasure-boats and royal yachts.

The advice of Munich was instantly adopted. A boat was sent off conveying an officer to take command of the fortress, while, in the meantime, two yachts were got ready for the departure of the tzar and his party. Peter and his affrighted court hastened on board, continually looking over their shoulders fearing to catch a sight of the troops of the queen, whose appearance they every moment apprehended. But the energetic Catharine had anticipated this movement, and her emissaries had already gained the soldiers of the garrison, and were in possession of Cronstadt.

As the two yachts, which conveyed Peter and his party, entered the harbor, they found the garrison, under arms, lining the coast. The cannons were leveled, the matches lighted, and the moment the foremost yacht, which contained the emperor, cast anchor, a sentinel cried out,

"Who comes there?"

"The emperor," was the answer from the yacht.

"There is no emperor," the sentinel replied.

"What! do you not know me?"

"No!" cried a thousand voices; "we know of no emperor. Long live the Empress Catharine II."

They then threatened immediately to sink the yacht unless the tzar retired.

The heroic Munich urged the tzar to an act of courage of which he was totally incapable.

"Let us leap on shore," said he; "none will dare to fire on you, and Cronstadt will still be your majesty's."

But Peter, in dismay, fled into the cabin, hid himself among his women, and ordered the cable instantly to be cut, and the yacht to be pulled out to sea by the oars. They were soon beyond the reach of the guns. It was now night, serene and beautiful; the sea was smooth as glass, and the stars shone with unusual splendor in the clear sky. The poltroon monarch of all the Russias had not yet ventured upon deck, but was trembling in his cabin, surrounded by his dismayed mistresses, when the helmsman entered the cabin and said to the tzar,

"Sire, to what port is it your majesty's pleasure that I should take the vessel?"

Peter gazed, for a moment, in consternation and bewilderment, and then sent for Munich.

"Field marshal," said he, "I perceive that I was too late in following your advice. You see to what extremities I am reduced. Tell me, I beseech you, what I ought to do."

About two hundred miles from where they were, directly down the Gulf of Finland, was the city of Revel, one of the naval depots of Russia. A large squadron of ships of war was riding at anchor there. Munich, as prompt in council as he was energetic in action, replied,

Catharine read the letter, but deigning no reply, sent back the chamberlain who brought it, with a verbal message to her husband that she could enter into no negotiations with him, and could only accept his unconditional submission. The chamberlain, Ismailof, returned to Oranienbaum. The tzar had with him there only his Holstein guard consisting of six hundred men. Ismailof urged the tzar, as the only measure of safety which now remained, to abandon his troops, who could render him no defense, and repair to the empress, throwing himself upon her mercy. For a short time the impotent mind of the degraded prince was in great turmoil. But as was to be expected, he surrendered himself to the humiliation. Entering his carriage, he rode towards Peterhof to meet the empress. Soon he encountered the battalions on the march for his capture. Silently they opened their ranks and allowed him to enter, and then, closing around him, they stunned him with shouts of, "Long live Catharine."

The miserable man had the effrontery to take with him, in his carriage, one of his mistresses. As she alighted at the palace of Peterhof, some of the soldiers tore the ribbons from her dress. The tzar was led up the grand stair-case, stripped of the insignia of imperial power, and was shut up, and carefully guarded in one of the chambers of the palace. Count Panin then visited him, by order of the empress, and demanded of him the abdication of the crown, informing him that having thus abdicated, he would be sent back to his native duchy and would enjoy the dignity of Duke of Holstein for the remainder of his days. Peter was now as pliant as wax. Aided by the count, he wrote and signed the following declaration:

"Field marshal, it was you, then, who wanted to fight me?"

"I am disgusted," he wrote, "with the wickedness of mankind, and am resolved henceforth to devote myself to a philosophical life."

"By the Grace of God, Catharine II., Empress of all the Russias, to our loving Subjects, Greeting:

"The seventh day after our accession to the throne of all the Russias, we received information that the late emperor, Peter III., was attacked with a most violent colic. That we might not be wanting in Christian duty, or disobedient to the divine command by which we are enjoined to preserve the life of our neighbor, we immediately ordered that the said Peter should be furnished with every thing that might be judged necessary to restore his health by the aids of medicine. But, to our great regret and affliction, we were yesterday evening apprised that, by the permission of the Almighty, the late emperor departed this life. We have therefore ordered his body to be conveyed to the monastery of Nefsky, in order to its interment in that place. At the same time, with our imperial and maternal voice, we exhort our faithful subjects to forgive and forget what is past, to pay the last duties to his body, and to pray to God sincerely for the repose of his soul, wishing them, however, to consider this unexpected and sudden death as an especial effect of the providence of God, whose impenetrable decrees are working for us, for our throne, and for our country things known only to his holy will.

"Done at St. Petersburg, July 7th (N.S., July 18th), 1762."

"That she was resolved to observe inviolably the peace recently concluded with Prussia; but that nevertheless she had decided to bring back to Russia all her troops in Silesia, Prussia and Pomerania."

All the sovereigns of Europe acknowledged the title of Catharine II., and some sent especial congratulations on her accession to the throne. Maria Theresa, of Austria, was at first quite delighted, hoping that Catharine would again unite the Russian troops with hers in hostility to her great rival, Frederic. But in this expectation she was doomed to bitter disappointment. The King of Prussia, in a confidential note to Count Finkenstein, wrote of Catharine and the new reign as follows:

"The Emperor of Russia has been dethroned by his consort. It was to be expected. That princess has much good sense, and the same friendly relations towards us as the deceased. She has no religion, but acts the devotee. The chancellor Bestuchef is her greatest favorite, and, as he has a strong propensity to guinées I flatter myself that I shall be able to retain the friendship of the court. The poor emperor wanted to imitate Peter I., but he had not the capacity for it."

"Why are you alarmed?" said she. "Think you that I fear to face this danger; or rather do you apprehend that I know not how to overcome it? Recollect that you have seen me, in moments far more terrible than these, in full possession of all the vigor of my mind; and that I can support the most cruel reverses of fortune with as much serenity as I have supported her favors. Think you that a few mutinous soldiers are to deprive me of a crown that I accepted with reluctance, and only as the means of delivering the Russian nation from their miseries? They cause me no alarm. That Providence which has called me to reign, will preserve me for the glory and the happiness of the empire. That almighty arm which has hitherto been my defense will now confound my foes!"

The revolt was speedily quelled. The celebrity of her administration soon resounded from one end of Europe to the other. She presided over the senate; assisted at all the deliberations of the council; read the dispatches of the embassadors; wrote, with her own hand, or dictated the answers, and watched carefully to see that all her orders were faithfully executed. She studied the lives of the most distinguished men, and was emulous of the renown of those who had been friends and benefactors of the human race. There has seldom been a sovereign on any throne more assiduously devoted to the cares of empire than was Catharine II. In one of her first manifestoes, issued the 10th of August of this year, she uttered the words, which her conduct proved to be essentially true,

"Not only all that we have or may have, but also our life itself, we have devoted to our dear country. We value nothing on our own account. We serve not ourself. But we labor with all pains, with all diligence and care for the glory and happiness of our people."