too doubtful.

We must go from the philosophers to the men of affairs for a true
picture. These tell us that she offered an unprecedented mixture of
courage and weakness, of knowledge and incompetence, of firmness and
irresolution; passing in turn from the most opposite extremes, she
presented a thousand diverse surfaces, until at last the observer had to
content himself with putting her down as a consummate comedian. She had
no ready apprehension. Too refined a pleasantry was thrown away upon
her, and there was always a chance of her reversing its drift. No
playful reference to the finances, or the military force, or even to the
climate of her empire, was ever taken in good part.[73] The political
part was the serious part of her nature. Catherine had the literary
tastes, but not the literary skill, of Frederick. She is believed, on
good evidence, to have written for the use of her grandsons not only an
Abridgment of Russian History, but a volume of Moral Tales.[74] The
composition of moral tales was entirely independent of morality. Just
as Lewis XV. had a long series of Chateauroux, Pompadours, Dubarrys, so
Catherine had her Orloffs and Potemkins, and a countless host of obscure
and miscellaneous Wassiltchikows, Zavadowskys, Zoriczes, Korsaks. On the
serious side, Lewis XIV. was her great pattern and idol. She resented
criticism on that renowned memory, as something personal to herself. To
her business as sovereign--_mon petit menage_, as she called the control
of her huge formless empire--she devoted as much indefatigable industry
as Lewis himself had done in his best days. Notwithstanding all her
efforts to improve her country, she was not popular, and never won the
affection of her subjects; but she probably cared less for the opinion
and sentiment of Russia than for the applause of Europe. Tragedy
displeases her, writes the French Minister, and comedy wearies her; she
does not like music; her table is without any sort of exquisiteness; in
a garden she cares only for roses; her only taste is to build and to
drill her court, for the taste that she has for reigning, and for making
a great figure in the universe, is really not so much taste as a
downright absorbing passion.

[73] _Mem. du Prince de Ligne_, p. 101.

[74] Segur, 219.

Gunning, the English charge d'affaires, insists that the motive of all
her patriotic labours was not benevolence, but an insatiable and
unbounded thirst for fame. "If it were