" But
certainly nothing at the time could have pleased her better.

CHAPTER XVIII

PARTITION OF POLAND--DEATH OF CATHERINE

European diplomacy at this period was centered about the perishing
state of Poland. That kingdom, once so powerful, was becoming every
year more enfeebled.

It was a defective social organization and an arrogant nobility that
ruined Poland. There existed only two classes--nobles and serfs. The
business and trade of the state were in the hands of Germans and Jews,
and there existed no national or middle class in which must reside the
life of a modern state. In other words, Poland was patriarchal and
mediaeval. She had become unsuited to her environment. Surrounded by
powerful absolutisms which had grown out of the ruins of mediaeval
forces, she in the eighteenth century was clinging to the traditions of
feudalism as if it were still the twelfth century. It was in vain that
her sons were patriotic, in vain that they struggled for reforms, in
vain that they lay down and died upon battlefields. She alone in
Europe had not been borne along on that great wave of centralization
long ago, and she had missed an essential experience. She was out of
step with the march of civilization, and the advancing forces were
going to run over her.

The more enlightened Poles began too late to strive for a firm
hereditary monarchy, and to try to curb the power of selfish nobles.
Not only was their state falling to pieces within, but it was being
crushed from without. Protestant Prussia in the West, Greek Russia in
the East, and Catholic Austria on the South, each preparing to absorb
all it could get away--not from Poland, but from each other. It was
obvious that it was only a question of time when the feeble kingdom
wedged in between these powerful and hungry states must succumb; and
for Russia, Austria, and Prussia it was simply a question as to the
share which should fall to each.

Such was the absorbing problem which employed Catherine's powers from
the early years of her reign almost to its close. Europe soon saw that
it was a woman of no ordinary ability who was sitting on the throne of
Russia. In her foreign policy, and in the vigor infused into the
internal administration of her empire, the master-hand became apparent.

As a counter-move to her designs upon Poland, the Turks were induced to
harass her by declaring war upon Russia. There was a great surprise in
store for Europe as wel