The story of a throne Author:Kazimierz Waliszewski Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE CHIEF MEN : THE ORLOFS, PATIOMKIN, THE ZUBOFS. I. -- THE ORLOFS. We may pass in review, as we have just done, the statesmen and sol... more »diers of whom Catherine made use for the accomplishment of her schemes, without touching, not merely on the really private life of the Empress, but even upon many of the most conspicuous episodes of her life and reign. The private and public history of this extraordinary reign are closely connected with the history of a series of episodes of passion, of which we have already given some glimpse, but to which we must return in some detail, though with a certain reserve, if we are not to leave the figure which we are endeavouring to evoke incomplete and incomprehensible. From 1762 to 1796, as we have said, the history of favouritism was something more in Russia than a corner of the private life of a sovereign who has an autocrat's privilege of giving free rein to her fancies : it played the part of an institution of state. And it is for this reason that this chapter, at the head of which we have inscribed three names, chosen out of a large list, is, independently of any romantic interest there may be in it, historically and scientifically an essential chapter of this book. The whole existence, not only of an exceptional woman, but, during the space of thirty-four years, of a great people with whom her destiny was inextricably linked, is to a large extent comprised in those three names : the Orlofs being the beginning, the radiant dawn, of the great reign, Patiomkin its noonday splendour, and Zubof its sad and gloomy ending. The Orlof family, if we must believe the records of heraldry, is of recent nobility and distinction. An Orlof is, indeed, seen in 1611, fighting against the Swedes under the walls of Novgorod ; but t...« less