ently
succeeded to an estate worth L5000 a year; and with him she spent a few
years, made wretched by continual quarrels, in one of which she stabbed
him. When he was "found drowned" at Lisbon she drifted to Paris, and
later to the United States, which she toured with a drama entitled "Lola
Montez in Bavaria." There she made her third appearance at the altar,
with a bridegroom named Hull, whom she divorced as soon as the honeymoon
had waned.

Thus she carried her restless spirit through a few more years of
wandering and growing poverty, until a chance visit to Spurgeon's
Tabernacle revolutionised her life. She decided to abandon the stage and
to devote the remainder of her days to penitence and good works. But the
end was already near. In New York, where she had gone to lecture, she
was struck down by paralysis, and a few weeks before she had seen her
forty-second birthday she died in a charitable institution, joining
fervently in the prayers of the clergyman who was summoned to her
death-bed.

"When she was near the end, and could not speak," the clergyman says,
"I asked her to let me know by a sign whether she was at peace. She
fixed her eyes on mine and nodded affirmatively. I do not think I ever
saw deeper penitence and humility than in this poor woman."

CHAPTER XIV

AN EMPRESS AND HER FAVOURITES

When Sophie Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst was romping on the
ramparts or in the streets of Stettin with burghers' children for
playmates, he would have been a bold prophet who would have predicted
that one day she would be the most splendid figure among Europe's
sovereigns, "the only great man in Europe," according to Voltaire, "an
angel before whom all men should be silent"; and that, while dazzling
Europe by her statesmanship and learning, she would afford more material
for scandal than any woman, except perhaps Christina of Sweden, who ever
wore a crown.

There is much, it is true, to be said in extenuation of the weakness
that has left such a stain on the memory of Catherine II. of Russia.
Equipped far beyond most women with the beauty and charms that fascinate
men, and craving more than most of her sex the love of man, she was
mated when little more than a child to the most degenerate Prince in all
Europe.

The Grand Duke Peter, heir to the Russian throne, who at sixteen took to
wife the girl-Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, was already an expert in
almost every vice. Imbecile in mind, he found his c