Napoleon Bonaparte, to return to France. She eagerly complied; and Napoleon allotted her a pension of 6000 francs per annum, upon condition, as a message through Lavalette informed her, that she "wrote something every fortnight, whether of politics, literature, morality—anything that came into her head." As her harp had charmed the Queen of Naples into according her an annuity of one thousand crowns, Madame was now in easy circumstances, whilst her powers of intellect and fascination had, she declares, suffered no diminution !

Instead of pursuing further the course of this vainglorious, factitious life, let us revert to a past episode thereof, by the light of which the "Mémoires Inédits," of which we have so largely availed ourselves, may be studied with unerring accuracy.

About the year 1786, a charming little English girl was received into the family of Madame de Genlis, who named her Pamela, and educated her with care. This girl, who had grown up a beautiful young woman, accompanied Madame de Genlis in her continental wanderings, and was seen, whilst they were in Hamburg, by the unfortunate Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who forthwith solicited her in marriage. Madame de Genlis could have no possible objection, provided the consent of the Duchess of Leinster was first obtained, which having been done, Pamela, who in the marriage-register is called "Citoyenne Anne Caroline Stephanie Sims, daughter of William de Brixey," became Lady Edward Fitzgerald, and forthwith left Hamburg with her husband for Dublin. The parentage and history of Pamela is circumstantially set forth as follows, in Madame de Genlis's memoirs :-" Her father, whose name was Seymour, married, at Christchurch, in Hampshire, one Mary Sims, with whom

he embarked for a place called Fogo, in Newfoundland, where Pamela, baptized Nancy, was born. Seymour died; and the mother, with her child, returned to Christchurch, where M. Forth, an agent of the Duke of Orleans, saw her; and, having been charged by the Duke to procure him an English girl, he obtained Nancy of Mr. Sims, and brought her to Paris. As she grew up and became daily more attached and precious to Madame la Comtesse, her patroness was alarmed lest the mother should reclaim her; and, having consulted some eminent English jurisconsults, Madame was advised that the only mode by which she could secure the child was by inducing the mother to apprentice her daughter to Madame de Geulis for the whole term of Pamela's or Nancy's minority. "This was done," proceeds Madame, "according to the ordinary legal forms. mother was cited before the grand banc (grand bench), then presided over by the grand juge, Lord Mansfield; the mother and Lord Mansfield signed the apprenticeship-paper, and Pamela could no longer be torn from me."

The

This tissue of absurdities could not have been precisely that which was palmed off upon Lord Edward Fitzgerald and the Duchess of Leinster, forasmuch that Pamela's father is called in the marriage-register William de Brixey, instead of William Seymour. "The indisputable truth being," remarks Thomas Moore, in his "Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald," "that Pamela was the daughter of Madame de Genlis by the Duke of Orleans!"

Madame de Genlis died on the 31st December, 1830, aged eighty-four, a few months after Louis-Philippe, her former pupil, ascended the French throne over the barricades of Paris.

244

CATHERINE II., EMPRESS OF RUSSIA.

NEITHER Ivan the Terrible, nor Peter the Great, held

the sceptre of all the Russias with a firmer grasp, or wielded it with more unscrupulous energy, than did the woman whose sole title to the Muscovite throne was the dethronement and murder of her husband,-whose flaming sword, during the first days of triumphant treason, was the terror which that bloody and unnatural deed inspired. Contemporary history, according to its wont, when recording the acts of successful living despots, has sought to conceal the crimes of this Semiramis of the North beneath the dazzling veil of military glory, and material progress:—a bootless task, for the crimson spots would not out; and were sure to ultimately pierce through and quench the overlaying glitter, by which they were partially hidden for a time. There are

many examples in imperial and royal history of this retributive, though tardy justice. The English Richard III., though unquestionably a wise lawgiver for his age, lives only in the national mind as the assassin of his nephews; the brilliant Catherine de Medicis has come down to posterity, grimed with the infamy of the successful St. Bartholomew; and the story of the Russian Catherine's accession to power will cling to, and curse her memory, when the echoes of the applausive shouts that proclaimed her victories shall have ceased to offend the ears of, in their respect, a charitablyoblivious future generation. It is fortunate that nations possess a conscience, though too often a tardily awakened one, or the maxim, that it is lawful to do evil that good may

come, would obtain a wider sanction than it does at present. It is enough that the devil is permitted to have partial power over the present: the future of the present, so to speak, lies happily beyond his jurisdiction and control.

Sophia-Augusta Von Anhalt, by subsequent baptism in the Greek faith, and usurpation of the Muscovite throne, Catharina-Alexowena, Empress of all the Russias, was born at Stettin, in Prussian Pomerania, on the 23rd of May, 1729; and her father was the Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, and a Major in the Prussian service. If we may believe the adulating story told of her early youth, her respect and demeanour did not then afford any indication, save in a certain imperiousness of air and tone, of the in-dwelling tigress-spirit which awaited but its hour and opportunity to spring upon, and rend whatever impeded the gratification of its brutal passions. "Her deportment, from her earliest years," writes one of her pensioned parasites, "was always remarkably good. She grew to be uncommonly handsome, and was a great girl for her age. Her countenance was very agreeable, to which the peculiar gaiety and friendliness which she ever displayed gave additional charms. Her education was conducted by her mother alone, who kept her strictly, and never suffered her to show the least symptom of pride, to which she had some propensity, accustoming her from infancy to salute the ladies of distinction who came to visit the Princess with the marks of respect that became a girl!"

The young Sophia-Augusta, we are also told, was fond of reading, took pleasure in shooting at marks with common burgesses; and whilst upon a lengthened visit, at Brunswick, won golden opinions from all good people by her eagerness for instruction in vital religion by the learned and pious Dové.

Thus passed her life, till shortly after her sixteenth birthday, when, thanks to her mother's wiles, aided by her own matchless powers of dissimulation and self-control, the crownmatrimonial of all the Russias came within the clutch of her high-reaching ambition. The opportunity was thuswise brought about.

Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, being herself unmarried and childless, had adopted, in 1742, Charles Frederich, Duke of Anhalt, and son of a daughter of Peter the Great, as her successor on the Muscovite throne. He was fourteen years of age when summoned to St. Petersburgh, made to abjure the Lutheran for the Greek faith, and change his name from Charles Frederich to that of Peter Ferdorovitch-which done, he was created Grand Duke of Russia; and by the fiat of the Czarina, formally registered by the Senate, declared heir to the crown. Three years afterwards, the Empress bethought her of providing him with a wife; a proclaimed intention which sent an anxious flutter through all the host of German Princesses, and agitated none more profoundly than Sophia-Augusta Von Anhalt, and her mother, the Princess Anhalt-Zerbst. The Empress Elizabeth, who, when by the help of the revolted guards she usurped the Russian throne, was a beauteous and graceful woman, had by then, 1745, become a prematurely-withered debauchee; yet, albeit sunk in sensuality, and fierce, merciless as a wild beast, was known to cherish a tender remembrance of the Prince of Holstein, brother to the Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, to whom she had been in youth contracted, and who died a few days only previous to that fixed upon for their nuptials.

To that one womanly sentiment, uneffaced by the demoralising habits of lawless power, the Princess of Anhalt- Zerbst determined to appeal in furtherance of her own and daughter's