eth in 1761. With Peter III. it is a German Dynasty which
ascends the throne. Peter III., son of a Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, is
a Romanov in the proportion of one-half; Paul, son of a Princess of
Anhalt-Zerbst, in the proportion of one-fourth; Alexander I. and
Nicholas I., sons of a Princess of Wuertemberg, in the proportion of
one-eighth; Alexander II., son of a Princess of Hohenzollern, to the
extent of one-sixteenth; Alexander III., son of a Grand Duchess of
Hesse-Darmstadt, to the extent of one thirty-second; and the late
ruler, Nicholas II., who married a Princess of the House of Oldenburg,
to the extent of one sixty-fourth. One sixty-fourth of the blood of
the late Tsar is Russian Romanov blood. In the proportion of
sixty-three sixty-fourths it is the blood of Holstein, of Anhalt, of
Oldenburg, of Hesse, of Wuertemberg, of Hohenzollern, which flows
through the veins of the late Emperor of all the Russias.

IV.

The history of Russia proves only too conclusively that again and
again the national interests of Russia have been sacrificed to the
German dynastic influences. At the end of the Seven Years' War,
Frederick the Great was at his last gasp. Prussia was on the verge of
ruin. _The Russian Army had entered Berlin_; the power of the new
military monarchy had been totally broken at Kunersdorf. The death of
Elizabeth and the accession of her mad nephew, Peter III., retrieved a
desperate situation. For the mad nephew was a German Prince, a Duke of
Holstein, and a passionate admirer of Frederick the Great. Peter III.
was murdered in 1762. He only reigned a few months, but he reigned
sufficiently long to save Prussia from destruction and to surrender
all the advantages secured by Russian triumphs and dearly paid for by
Russian blood.

V.

There is no more fantastic fairy-tale and there is no more fascinating
drama than the life-story of Catherine the Great, which recently has
been so brilliantly told by Mr. Francis Gribble. A Cinderella amongst
German royalties, a pauper Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, Catherine became
the mightiest potentate of her age. Although the nominee of Frederick
the Great, she pursued consistently a national Russian policy. And she
had good reasons for doing so. For no throne was less secure than the
throne of the Romanovs. She had had to remove her husband by murder
for fear of being removed herself. She continued to be surrounded by a
rabble of unscrupulous adventurers and intriguers. H