e satisfied by dipping into a great number of books. She had a passion
for writing, and produced not only a mass of letters written in French,
but pamphlets and plays, comic and serious, in French and Russian. One
on the history of Oleg, the more or less legendary Varangian, who was
guardian to the son of Rurik, was described by her as an "imitation of
Shakespeare." The scheme is not unlike that of a "chronicle play." Her
letters are full of vivacity, of colour, and at times of insight and
wit, but she never learnt to write either French or German correctly.
The letters to Voltaire attributed to her are not hers, and were
probably composed for her by Andrei Shuvalov. The philosophers and
encyclopaedists who, by the mouth of Diderot, complimented Catherine on
being superior to such female affectations as modesty and chastity,
flattered her to some extent even here. She enforced outward decency in
her household, was herself temperate in eating and drinking, and was by
no means tolerant of disorderly behaviour on the part of the ladies of
her court. They flattered her much more when they dwelt on her
philanthropy and her large share of the enlightenment of the age. She
was kind to her servants, and was very fond of young children. She was
rarely angry with people who merely contradicted her or failed to
perform their service in her household. But she could order the use of
the knout and of mutilation as freely as the most barbarous of her
predecessors when she thought the authority of the state was at stake,
and she did employ them readily to suppress all opinions of a heterodox
kind, whether in matters of religion or of politics, after the beginning
of the French Revolution. Her renowned toleration stopped short of
allowing the dissenters to build chapels, and her passion for
legislative reform grew cold when she found that she must begin by the
emancipation of the serfs. There were exceptions even to her personal
kindness to those about her. She dropped her German relations. She kept
a son born to her shortly before the palace revolution of 1762, whose
paternity could not be attributed to Peter, at a distance, though she
provided for him. He was brought up in a private station under the name
of Bobrinski. She was a harsh mother to her son Paul. It seems highly
probable that she intended to exclude him from the succession, and to
leave the crown to her eldest grandson Alexander, afterwards the emperor
Alexander I. Her harsh