Authorities.—Frances,De ecclesiis cathredralibus(Venice, 1698); Bordenave,L’Estat des églises cathédrales(Paris, 1643); Van Espen,Supplement III., cap. 5; Hericourt,Les Loix ecclésiastiques de France(Paris, 1756);La France ecclésiastique(Paris, 1790); Daugaard,Om de Danske Klostre i Middelalderen(Copenhagen, 1830); Hinschius,Das Kirchenrecht der Katholiken u. Protestanten in Deutschland, ii. (Berlin, 1878); Walcott,Cathedralia(London, 1865); Freeman,Cathedral Church of Wells(London, 1870); Benson,The Cathedral(London, 1878); Bradshaw and Wordsworth,Lincoln Cathedral Statutes(Camb., 1894).
Authorities.—Frances,De ecclesiis cathredralibus(Venice, 1698); Bordenave,L’Estat des églises cathédrales(Paris, 1643); Van Espen,Supplement III., cap. 5; Hericourt,Les Loix ecclésiastiques de France(Paris, 1756);La France ecclésiastique(Paris, 1790); Daugaard,Om de Danske Klostre i Middelalderen(Copenhagen, 1830); Hinschius,Das Kirchenrecht der Katholiken u. Protestanten in Deutschland, ii. (Berlin, 1878); Walcott,Cathedralia(London, 1865); Freeman,Cathedral Church of Wells(London, 1870); Benson,The Cathedral(London, 1878); Bradshaw and Wordsworth,Lincoln Cathedral Statutes(Camb., 1894).
(T. M. F.)
Architecture.—From the architectural point of view there is no special treatment as regards dimensions or style for a cathedral other than that required for a church or abbey, as there are cases when the former are comparatively small buildings (like the old cathedral at Athens), and some parish churches and abbeys are larger than many cathedrals. In recent times, indeed, some English abbeys or minsters, such as those of Ripon, Manchester, St Albans and Southwell, partly on account of their dimensions, have been raised to the rank of cathedrals, in consequence of the demand for additional sees; others, such as those of Bristol, Gloucester, Oxford, Chester and Peterborough, became cathedrals only on the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII.
Under the headingsNave,Aisle,Choir,Apse,Chevet, andLady-chapel, the principal arrangements of the plan of a cathedral are dealt with, and its architectural features, such asTowerandSpire,Porch,Triforium,ClerestoryandVault, are separately defined; while in the articleArchitecturethe evolution of the various styles in England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, is set forth. It is only necessary here to deal with the development of the eastern end of English and foreign cathedrals, as it was in those that the greatest changes from the middle of the 11th century to the close of the 16th century took place.
The earliest extended development of the eastern end of the cathedral is that which was first set out in Edward the Confessor’s church at Westminster, probably borrowed from the ancient church of St Martin at Tours; in this church, dating probably from the 10th century, two new elements are found, (1) the carrying of the choir aisle round a circular apse so as to provide a processional aisle round the eastern end of the church, and (2) five apsidal chapels, constituting the germ of the chevet, which transformed the eastern terminations of the French cathedrals in the 12th and 13th centuries. It is only within recent times that the foundations of the early church at Tours with its choir aisle and chapels have been traced under the existing church. In Edward the Confessor’s church (1050) there were probably only three chapels and a processional aisle; in the next example at Gloucester (1089) were also three chapels, two of which, on the north and south sides of the aisle, still remain; the same is found in Canterbury (1096-1107) and Norwich (1089-1119), the eastern chapel in all three cases having been taken down to make way for the Lady-chapel in Gloucester and Norwich, and for the Trinity chapel in Canterbury cathedral (fig. 1). The semicircular aisle is said to have existed in the Anglo-Norman cathedral of Winchester, but the eastern end being square, two chapels were arranged filling the north and south ends, and an apsidal chapel projecting beyond the east wall. This semicircular processional aisle with chevet chapels was the favourite type of plan in the Anglo-Norman cathedrals, and was followed up to about the middle of the 12th century, when the English builders in some cases returned to the square east end instead of the semicircular apsidal termination. The earliest example of this exists in Romsey Abbey (c. 1130), where the processional path crosses behind the presbytery, there being eastern apsidal chapels in the axis of the presbytery aisle and a central rectangular chapel beyond. A similar arrangement is found in Hereford cathedral, and exists in Winchester, Salisbury (fig. 2), Durham, St Albans, Exeter, Ely, Wells and Peterborough, except that in all those cases (except Wells) the eastern chapels are square ended; in Wells cathedral the most eastern chapel (the Lady-chapel) has a polygonal termination; in Durham (fig. 3), the eastern chapels are all in one line, constituting the chapel of the nine altars, which was probably borrowed from the eastern end of Fountains Abbey. It should be noted that in some of the above the original design has been transformed in rebuilding; thus in St Albans, Durham, York and Exeter cathedrals, there was no eastern ambulatory but three parallel apses, in some cases rectangular externally. In Southwell, Rochester, Ely and Chester, there was no processional path or ambulatory round the east end; in Carlisle no eastern chapels; and in Oxford only one central apse. In Ely cathedral (fig. 4) the great central tower built by the first Norman abbot (1082-1094) fell down in 1321, carrying with it portions of the adjoining bays of the nave, transept and choir; instead of attempting to rebuild the tower,Alan of Walsingham conceived the idea of obtaining a much larger area in the centre of the cathedral, and instead of rebuilding the piers of the tower he took as the base of his design a central octagonal space, the width of which was equal to that of nave and aisles, with wide arches to nave, transepts and choir, and smaller arches across the octagonal sides; from shafts in the eight pier angles, ribs in wood project forward and carry a smaller octagon on which the lantern rests. Internally the effect of this central octagon is of great beauty and originality, and it is the only instance of such a feature in English Gothic architecture. (SeeArchitecture, Plate VIII., fig. 82.)
The earliest example of the chevet is probably to be found in the church of St Martin at Tours; this was followed by others at Tournus, Clermont-Ferrand, Auxerre, Chartres, Le Mans and other churches built during the great church-building period of the 11th century. In the still greater movement in the 12th century, when the episcopacy, supported by the emancipated communes, undertook the erection of cathedrals of greater dimensions and the reconstruction of others, in some cases they utilized the old foundations, as in Chartres (fig. 5), Coutances and Auxerre cathedrals, while in others (as at Le Mans) they extended the eastern termination, much in the same way as in many of the early examples in England, with this important difference, that when the apsidal east end was given up (about the middle of the 12th century) in favour of the square east end in England, the French, on the other hand, developed it by doubling the choir aisles and adding to the number of extra chapels; thus in Canterbury, Norwich and Gloucester, there were only three apsidal chapels in the chevet, whereas in Noyon (1150), Soissons (1190), Reims (1212), Tours, Seez, Bayeux (1230), Clermont (1275), Senlis, Limoges, Albi and Narbonne cathedrals there were five; in Amiens, Le Mans and Beauvais, there were seven apsidal chapels, and in Chartres cathedral nine. Double aisles round the choir, of which there are no examples in England, are found in the cathedrals of Paris, Bourges and Le Mans; the cathedral of Sens (fig. 6) (1144-1168) possesses one feature which is almost unique, viz. the coupled columns of the alternate bays of nave and choir and of the apse; and these were introduced into the chapel of the Trinity in Canterbury cathedral, probably from the designs of William of Sens, by his successor William the Englishman. The square east end found no favour in France—Laon, Poiters and Dol being the only cathedral examples; and of the triapsal arrangement, viz. with apses in the axes of the choir aisle and a central apse, the only example is that of the cathedral of Autun. The immense development given to the eastern limb of the French cathedrals was sometimes obtained at the expense of the nave, so that, notwithstanding the much greater dimensions compared with English examples, in the latter the naves are much longer and consist of more bays than those in France.
In one of the French cathedrals, Bourges, there is no transept; on the other hand there are many examples in which this part of the church is emphasized by having aisles on each side, as at Laon, Soissons, Chartres, Reims, Amiens, Rouen and Clermont cathedrals. Transept aisles in England are found in Ely, York, Wells and Winchester cathedrals, in the last being carried round the south and north ends of the transept; aisles on the east side of the transept only, in some cases probably foradditional altars, exist in Durham, Salisbury, Lichfield, Peterborough and Ripon cathedrals; and on the north side only in Hereford cathedral. In Rouen cathedral, east of the transept aisles, there are apsidal chapels, which with the three chapels in the chevet make up the usual number. The cathedral of Poitiers has been referred to as an example of a square east end, but a sort of compromise has been made by the provision of three segmental apses, and there are no windows in the east front; the most remarkable divergence from the usual design is found here in the absence of any triforium or clerestory, owing to the fact that the vault of the aisles is nearly as high as that of the nave, so that it constitutes an example of what in Germany (where there are many) are calledHallen Kirchen; the light being obtained through the aisle windows only gives a gloomy effect to the nave. Another departure from the usual plan is that found in Albi cathedral (1350), in which there are no aisles, their place being taken by chapels between the buttresses which were required to resist the thrust of the nave vault, the widest in France. The cathedral is built in brick and externally has the appearance of a fortress. In the cathedrals of the south-west of France, where the naves are covered with a series of domes—as at Cahors, Angoulême and St Front de Périgueux— the immense piers required to carry them made it necessary to dispense with aisles. The cathedral of Angoulême (fig. 7) consists of a nave covered with three domes, a transept of great length with lofty towers over the north and south ends, and an apsidal choir with four chevet chapels. In St Front de Périgueux (1150), based on St Mark’s at Venice, the plan consists of nave, transept and choir, all of equal dimensions, each of them, as well as the crossing, vaulted over with a dome, while originally there was a simple apsidal choir.
Returning now to the great cathedrals in the north of France, we give an illustration (fig. 8) of Amiens cathedral (from Viollet le Duc’sDictionnaire raisonné) which shows the disposition of a cathedral, with its nave-arches, triforium, clerestory windows and vault, the flying buttresses which were required to carry the thrust of the vault to the outer buttresses which flanked the aisle walls, and the lofty pinnacles which surmounted them. In this case there was no triforium gallery, owing to the greater height given to the aisles. In Notre Dame at Paris the triforium was nearly as high as the aisles; in large towns this feature gave increased accommodation for the congregation, especially on the occasion of great fêtes, and it is found in Noyon, Laon, Senlis and Soissons cathedrals, built in the latter part of the 12th century; later it was omitted, and a narrow passage in the thickness of the wall only represented the triforium; at a still later period the aisles were covered with a stone pavement of slight fall so as to allow of loftier clerestory windows.
The cathedrals in Spain follow on the same lines as those in France. The cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is virtually a copy of St Sernin at Toulouse, consisting of nave and aisles, transepts and aisles, and a choir with chevet of five chapels; at Leon there is a chevet with five apsidal chapels, and at Toledo an east end with double aisles round the apse with originally seven small apsidal chapels, two of them rebuilt at a very late period. At Leon, Barcelona and Toledo the processional passage round the apse with apsidal chapels recalls the French disposition, there being a double aisle around the latter, but in Leon and Toledo cathedrals the east end is masked externally by other buildings, so that the beauty of the chevet is entirely lost. At Avila and Salamanca (old cathedral) the triapsal arrangement is adopted, and the same is found in the German cathedrals, with one important exception, the cathedral of Cologne, which was based on that of Amiens, the comparative height of the former, however, being so exaggerated that scale has been lost, and externally it has the appearance of an overgrown monster.
Under the headingsVault,Flying Buttress,Pinnacle,ClerestoryandTriforium, definitions are given of these chief components of a cathedral or church; but as their design varies materially in almost every example, without a very large number of drawings it would be impossible to treat them more in detail. The perspective view, taken from Viollet le Duc’s dictionary, of the interior of the nave of Amiens cathedral illustrates the principal features, viz. the vault (in this case quadripartite, with flying buttresses and pinnacle), the triforium (in this case limited to a narrow passage in the thickness of the wall), and the nave-arches, with the side aisles, beneath the windows of which is the decorative arcade.
Under the headingsVault,Flying Buttress,Pinnacle,ClerestoryandTriforium, definitions are given of these chief components of a cathedral or church; but as their design varies materially in almost every example, without a very large number of drawings it would be impossible to treat them more in detail. The perspective view, taken from Viollet le Duc’s dictionary, of the interior of the nave of Amiens cathedral illustrates the principal features, viz. the vault (in this case quadripartite, with flying buttresses and pinnacle), the triforium (in this case limited to a narrow passage in the thickness of the wall), and the nave-arches, with the side aisles, beneath the windows of which is the decorative arcade.
(R. P. S.)
CATHELINEAU, JACQUES(1759-1793), French Vendean chieftain during the Revolution, was born at Tin-en-Manges, in the country now forming the department of Maine-et-Loire. He became well known in the country of Anjou, over which he travelled as a pedlar and dealer in contraband goods. His physical strength and his great piety gave him considerable ascendancy over the peasants, who surnamed him “the saint of Anjou.” In the first years of the Revolution, Cathelineau listened to the exhortations of Catholic priests and royalistémigrés, and joined the insurrection provoked by them against the revolutionary government. Collecting a band of peasants and smugglers, he took the chateau of Gallais, where he captured a cannon, christened by the Vendeans the “Missionary”; he then took the towns of Chemillé, Cholet, Vihiers and Chalonnes (March 1793). His companions committed atrocities which brought upon them terrible reprisals on the part of theRepublicans. Meanwhile Cathelineau’s troops increased, and he combined with the other Vendean chiefs, such as N. Stofflet and Gigot d’Elbée, taking the towns of Beaupréau, Fontenay and Saumur. The first successes of the Vendeans were due to the fact that the Republicans had not expected an insurrection. When the resistance to the insurgents became more serious, differences arose among their leaders. To avoid these rivalries, it is thought that Cathelineau was named generalissimo of the rebels, though his authority over the undisciplined troops was not increased by the new office. In 1793 all the Royalist forces tried to capture Nantes. Cathelineau entered the town in spite of the resistance of General J.B.C. Canclaux, but he was killed, and the Vendean army broke up. Numerous relatives of Cathelineau also perished in the war of La Vendée. His grandson, Henri de Cathelineau, figured in the war of 1870 between France and Germany (see alsoVendée;Chouans).
See C. Port,Vie de J. Cathelineau(1882); “La Légende de Cathelineau” in the reviewLa Révolution française,vol. xxiv.;Les Origines de la Vendée(Paris, 1888, 2 vols.);Dictionnaire historique de Maine-et-Loire; Cretineau-Joly,Histoire de la Vendée militaire, Th. Muret,Vie populaire de Cathelineau(1845).
See C. Port,Vie de J. Cathelineau(1882); “La Légende de Cathelineau” in the reviewLa Révolution française,vol. xxiv.;Les Origines de la Vendée(Paris, 1888, 2 vols.);Dictionnaire historique de Maine-et-Loire; Cretineau-Joly,Histoire de la Vendée militaire, Th. Muret,Vie populaire de Cathelineau(1845).
(R. A.*)
CATHERINE, SAINT.The Roman hagiology contains the record of six saints of this name. 1.St Catherine of Alexandria, Virgin and Martyr, whose day of commemoration recurs on the 25th of November, and in some places on the 5th of March. 2.St Catherine of Sweden, a daughter of St Bridget, who died abbess of Watzen in March 1381, and is commemorated on the 22nd of that month. 3.St Catherine of Siena, 1347-1380, whose festal day is observed on the 30th of April. 4.St Catherine of Bologna, 1413-1463, a visionary, abbess of the convent of the Poor Clares in Bologna, canonized by Pope Benedict XIII., and commemorated throughout the Franciscan order on the 9th of March. 5.St Catherine of Genoa,1who belonged to the noble family of Fieschi, was born about 1447, spent her life and her means in succouring and attending on the sick, especially in the time of the plague which ravaged Genoa in 1497 and 1501, died in that city in 1510, was beatified by Clement V. in 1675 and canonized by Clement XII. in 1737; her name was placed in the calendar on the 22nd of July by Benedict XIV. 6.St Catherine de’ Ricci, of Florence, daughter of a wealthy merchant prince, was born in 1522, became a nun in the convent of the Dominicans at Prato in 1536, and died in 1589. She was famous during her life-time for the weekly ecstasy of the Passion, during which in a trance she experienced the sufferings of the Holy Virgin contemplating the Passion of her Son. She was canonized in 1746 by Benedict XIV., who fixed her festal day on the 13th of February. In Celtic and English martyrologies (November 25) there is also commemorated St Catherine Audley (c.1400), a recluse of Ledbury, Hereford, who was reputed for piety and clairvoyance.
Of two of these saints, St Catherine of Alexandria,theSt Catherinepar excellence, and St Catherine of Siena, something more must be said. Of the former history has little or nothing to tell. The Maronite scholar, Joseph SimonSt Catherine, virgin and martyr.Assemani (1687-1768), first identified her with the royal and wealthy lady of Alexandria (Eusebius,Hist. Eccl.viii. 14) who, for refusing the solicitations of the emperor Maximinus, was deprived of her property and banished. But Rufinus (Hist. Eccl.viii. 17) called this lady Dorothea, and the old Catherine legend, as recorded in the Roman martyrology and by Simeon Metaphrastes, has quite other features. According to it Catherine was the daughter of King Konetos, eighteen years old, beautiful and wise. During the persecution under Maximinus she sought an interview with the emperor, upbraided him for his cruelties, and adjured him to give up the worship of false gods. The angry tyrant, unable to refute her arguments himself, sent for pagan scholars to argue with her, but they were discomfited. Catherine was then scourged and cast into prison, and the empress was sent to reason with her; but the dauntless virgin converted not only the empress but the Roman general and his soldiers who had accompanied her. Maximinus now ordered her to be broken on the wheel; but the wheel was shattered by her touch. The headsman’s axe proved more fatal, and the martyr’s body was borne by angels to Mount Sinai, where Justinian I. built the famous monastery in her honour. Another development of the legend is that in which, having rejected many offers of marriage, she was taken to heaven in vision and betrothed to Christ by the Virgin Mary.
Of all these marvellous incidents very little, by the universal admission of Catholic scholars, has survived the test of modern criticism. That St Catherine actually existed there is, indeed, no evidence to disprove; and it is possible that some of the elements in her legend are due to confusion with the story of Hypatia (q.v.), the neo-platonic philosopher of Alexandria, who was done to death by a Christian mob. To the men of the middle ages, in any case, St Catherine was very real; she was ranked with the fourteen most helpful saints in heaven, and was the constant theme of preachers and of poets. Her festival was celebrated in many places with the utmost splendour, and in certain dioceses in France was a holy day of obligation as late as the beginning of the 17th century. Numberless chapels were dedicated to her, and in nearly all churches her statue was set up, the saint being represented with a wheel, her instrument of torture, and sometimes with a crown and a book. The wheel being her symbol she was the patron saint of wheelwrights and mechanics; as the confounder of heathen sophistry she was invoked by theologians, apologists, preachers and philosophers, and was chosen as the patron saint of the university of Paris; as the most holy and illustrious of Christian virgins she became the tutelary saint of nuns and virgins generally. So late as the 16th century, Bossuet delivered a panegyric upon her, and it was the action of Dom Deforis, the Benedictine editor of his works, in criticizing the accuracy of the data on which this was based, that first discredited the legend. The saint’s feast was removed from the Breviary at Paris about this time, and the devotion to St Catherine has since lost its earlier popularity. See Leon Clugnet’s article in theCatholic Encyclopaedia, vol. iii. (London, 1908).
St Catherine of Siena was the youngest of the twenty-five children of Giacomo di Benincasa, a dyer, and was born, with a twin-sister who did not survive her birth, on the 25th of March 1347. A highly sensitive and imaginativeSt Catherine of Siena.child, she very early began to practise asceticism and see visions, and at the age of seven solemnly dedicated her virginity to Christ. She was attracted by what she had heard of the desert anchorites, and in 1363-1364, after much struggle, persuaded her parents to allow her to take the habit of the Dominican tertiaries. For a while she led at home the life of a recluse, speaking only to her confessor, and spending all her time in devotion and spiritual ecstasy. Her innate humanity and sound sense, however, led her gradually to return to her place in the family circle, and she began also to seek out and help the poor and the sick. In 1368 her father died, and she assumed the care of her mother Lapa. During the following years she became known to an increasingly wide circle, especially as a peacemaker, and entered into correspondence with many friends. Her peculiarities excited suspicion, and charges seem to have been brought against her by some of the Dominicans to answer which she went to Florence in 1374, soon returning to Siena to tend the plague-stricken. Here first she met the Dominican friar, Raimondo of Capua, her confessor and biographer.
The year 1375 found Catherine entering on a wider stage. At the invitation of Piero Gambacorti, the ruler of the republic of Pisa, she visited that city and there endeavoured to arouse enthusiasm for the proposed crusade, urging princes and presidents, commanders and private citizens alike to join in “the holy passage.” To this task was added that of trying to keep Pisa and Lucca from joining the Tuscan League against the pope. It was at Pisa, in the church of Santa Cristina, on the fourth Sunday in Lent (April 1), while rapt in ecstasy after the communion, that Catherine’s greatest traditional glory befell her, viz. thestigmataor impression on her hands, feet and heart, of the wounds corresponding with those received by Christ at hiscrucifixion. The marks, however, were at her prayer not made visible. There is no need to doubt the reality of Catherine’s exaltation, but it should be remembered that she and her circle were Dominicans, and that the stigmata of St Francis of Assisi were considered the crowning glory of the saint, and hitherto the exclusive boast of the Franciscans. The tendency observable in many of the austerities and miracles attributed to St Catherine to outstrip those of other saints, particularly Francis, is especially remarkable in this marvel of the stigmata, and so acute became the rivalry between the two orders that Pope Sixtus IV., himself a Franciscan, issued a decree asserting that St Francis had an exclusive monopoly of this particular wonder, and making it a censurable offence to represent St Catherine receiving the stigmata.
In the year 1376, the 29th of Catherine’s life, Gregory XI. was living and holding the papal court at Avignon. He was the last of seven French popes in succession who had done so, and had perpetuated for seventy-three years what ecclesiastical writers are fond of terming “the Babylonian captivity of the church.” To put an end to this absenteeism, and to bring back the papacy to Italy was the cherished and anxious wish of all good Italians, and especially of all Italian churchmen. Petrarch had urgently pressed Urban V., Gregory’s immediate predecessor, to accomplish the desired change; and Dante had at an earlier date laboured to bring about the same object. But these and all the other influences which Italy had striven to bring to bear on the popes had hitherto failed to induce them to return. In these circumstances Catherine determined to try her powers of persuasion and argument, attempting first by correspondence to reconcile Gregory and the Florentines, who had been placed under an interdict, and then going in person as the representative of the latter to Avignon, where she arrived on the 18th of June. Gregory empowered her to treat for peace, but the Florentine ambassadors were first tardy and then faithless. Nothing daunted, Catherine herself besought Gregory, who, indeed, was himself so minded, to return, and he did so, in September (taking the sea route from Marseilles to Genoa), though perhaps intending only to make a temporary stay in Italy. Catherine went home by land and stayed for a month in Genoa with Madonna Orietta Scotti, a noble lady of that city, at whose house Gregory had a long colloquy with her, which encouraged him to push on to Rome. To this year, 1376, belongs the admission to Catherine’s circle of disciples of Stefano di Corrado Maconi, a Sienese noble distinguished by a character full of charm and purity, and her healing of the bitter feud between his family and the Tolomei. Another family quarrel, that of the Salimbeni at Rocca D’Orcia, was ended by her intervention in 1377. This year also she turned the castle of Belcaro, which had been given to her, into a monastery.
Meanwhile the returned pope was not having an easy time. Besides perpetuating the strife with his enemies he was alienating his friends, and finding it increasingly difficult to pay his mercenaries. He vented his anger upon Catherine, who reproved him for minding temporal rather than spiritual things, but in the beginning of 1378 sent her on an embassy to Florence and especially to the Guelph party. While she was urging the citizens to make peace with the pope there came the news of his death. During the troubles that ensued in Florence Catherine nearly lost her life in a popular tumult, and sorely regretted not winning her heart’s desire, “the red rose of martyrdom.” Peace was signed with the new pope, Urban VI., and Catherine, having thus accomplished her second great political task, went home again to Siena. Thence on the outbreak of the schism Urban summoned her to Rome, whither, somewhat reluctantly, she journeyed with her now large spiritual family in November. Once arrived she gave herself heartily to Urban’s cause, and wore her slender powers out in restraining his impatient temper, quieting the revolt of the people of Rome, and trying to win for Urban the support of Europe. After prolonged and continual suffering she died on the 29th of April 1380.
Catherine of Siena lived on not only in her writings but in her disciples. During her short course she gathered round her a devoted company of men and women trained to labour for the reformation of the individual, the church and the state. Her death naturally broke up the fellowship, but its members did not cease their activity and kept up what mutual correspondence was possible. Among them were Fra Raimondo, who became master-general of the Dominicans, William Flete, an ascetically-minded Englishman from Cambridge, Stefano Maconi, who joined the Carthusians and ultimately became prior-general, and the two secretaries, Neri di Landoccio and Francesco Malavolti. The last of her band, Tommaso Caffarini, died in 1434, but the work was taken up, though in other shape, by Savonarola, between Francis of Assisi and whom Catherine forms the connecting link.Catherine’s works consist of (l) a treatise occupying a closely-printed quarto volume, which Fra Raimondo describes as “a dialogue between a soul, which asked four questions of the Lord, and the same Lord, who made answer and gave instruction in many most useful truths,” (2) letters, and (3) prayers. The dialogue is entitled,The Book of Divine Doctrine, given in person by God the Father, speaking to the mind of the most glorious and holy virgin Catherine of Siena, and written down as she dictated it in the vulgar tongue, she being the while entranced, and actually hearing what God spoke in her. The work is declared to have been dictated by the saint in her father’s house in Siena, a little before she went to Rome, and to have been completed on the 13th of October 1378. The book opens with a passage on the essence of mysticism, the union of the soul with God in love, and the bulk of it is a compendium of the spiritual teachings scattered throughout her letters. There is more monologue than dialogue. The book has a significant place in the history of Italian literature. “In a language which is singularly poor in mystical works it stands with theDivina Commediaas one of the two supreme attempts to express the eternal in the symbolism of a day, to paint the union of the soul with the supra-sensible while still imprisoned in the flesh.” The prayers (twenty-six in all) are mostly mystical outpourings repeating the aspirations found in her other writings. Of more interest are the letters, nearly four hundred in number, and addressed to kings, popes, cardinals, bishops, conventual bodies, political corporations and private individuals. Their historical importance, their spiritual fragrance and their literary value combine to put their author almost on a level with Petrarch as a 14th century letter-writer. Her language is the purest Tuscan of the golden age of the Italian vernacular, and with spontaneous eloquence she passes to and fro between spiritual counsel, domestic advice and political guidance.Authorities.—The sources for the personal life of Catherine of Siena are (l) theVitaorLegenda, Fra Raimondo’s biography written 1384-1395, first published in Latin at Cologne, 1553, and widely translated; (2) theProcessus, a collection of testimonies and letters by those of her followers who survived in 1411, and had to justify the reverence paid to the memory of one yet uncanonized; (3) theSupplementumto Raimondo’sVita, compiled by Tommaso Caffarini in 1414; (4) theLegenda abbreviata, Caffarini’s summary of theVita, translated into beautiful Italian by Stefano Maconi; (5) theLetters, of which the standard edition is that of Girolamo Gigli (2 vols., Siena, 1713, Lucca, 1721). A selection of these has been published in English by V.D. Scudder (London, 1905). A complete bibliography is given in E.G. Gardner’sSaint Catherine of Siena(London, 1907), a monumental study dealing with the religion, history and literature of the 14th century in Italy as they centre “in the work and personality of one of the most wonderful women that have ever lived.”
Catherine of Siena lived on not only in her writings but in her disciples. During her short course she gathered round her a devoted company of men and women trained to labour for the reformation of the individual, the church and the state. Her death naturally broke up the fellowship, but its members did not cease their activity and kept up what mutual correspondence was possible. Among them were Fra Raimondo, who became master-general of the Dominicans, William Flete, an ascetically-minded Englishman from Cambridge, Stefano Maconi, who joined the Carthusians and ultimately became prior-general, and the two secretaries, Neri di Landoccio and Francesco Malavolti. The last of her band, Tommaso Caffarini, died in 1434, but the work was taken up, though in other shape, by Savonarola, between Francis of Assisi and whom Catherine forms the connecting link.
Catherine’s works consist of (l) a treatise occupying a closely-printed quarto volume, which Fra Raimondo describes as “a dialogue between a soul, which asked four questions of the Lord, and the same Lord, who made answer and gave instruction in many most useful truths,” (2) letters, and (3) prayers. The dialogue is entitled,The Book of Divine Doctrine, given in person by God the Father, speaking to the mind of the most glorious and holy virgin Catherine of Siena, and written down as she dictated it in the vulgar tongue, she being the while entranced, and actually hearing what God spoke in her. The work is declared to have been dictated by the saint in her father’s house in Siena, a little before she went to Rome, and to have been completed on the 13th of October 1378. The book opens with a passage on the essence of mysticism, the union of the soul with God in love, and the bulk of it is a compendium of the spiritual teachings scattered throughout her letters. There is more monologue than dialogue. The book has a significant place in the history of Italian literature. “In a language which is singularly poor in mystical works it stands with theDivina Commediaas one of the two supreme attempts to express the eternal in the symbolism of a day, to paint the union of the soul with the supra-sensible while still imprisoned in the flesh.” The prayers (twenty-six in all) are mostly mystical outpourings repeating the aspirations found in her other writings. Of more interest are the letters, nearly four hundred in number, and addressed to kings, popes, cardinals, bishops, conventual bodies, political corporations and private individuals. Their historical importance, their spiritual fragrance and their literary value combine to put their author almost on a level with Petrarch as a 14th century letter-writer. Her language is the purest Tuscan of the golden age of the Italian vernacular, and with spontaneous eloquence she passes to and fro between spiritual counsel, domestic advice and political guidance.
Authorities.—The sources for the personal life of Catherine of Siena are (l) theVitaorLegenda, Fra Raimondo’s biography written 1384-1395, first published in Latin at Cologne, 1553, and widely translated; (2) theProcessus, a collection of testimonies and letters by those of her followers who survived in 1411, and had to justify the reverence paid to the memory of one yet uncanonized; (3) theSupplementumto Raimondo’sVita, compiled by Tommaso Caffarini in 1414; (4) theLegenda abbreviata, Caffarini’s summary of theVita, translated into beautiful Italian by Stefano Maconi; (5) theLetters, of which the standard edition is that of Girolamo Gigli (2 vols., Siena, 1713, Lucca, 1721). A selection of these has been published in English by V.D. Scudder (London, 1905). A complete bibliography is given in E.G. Gardner’sSaint Catherine of Siena(London, 1907), a monumental study dealing with the religion, history and literature of the 14th century in Italy as they centre “in the work and personality of one of the most wonderful women that have ever lived.”
1See the study in Baron Fr. von Hügel’sMystical Element in Religion(1909).
1See the study in Baron Fr. von Hügel’sMystical Element in Religion(1909).
CATHERINE I.(1683-1727), empress of Russia. The true character and origin of this enigmatical woman were, until quite recently, among the most obscure problems of Russian history. It now appears that she came of a Lithuanian stock, and was one of the four children of a small Catholic yeoman, Samuel Skovronsky; but her father died of the plague while she was still a babe, the family scattered, and little Martha was adopted by Pastor Glück, the Protestant superintendent of the Marienburg district. Frau Glück finally rid herself of the girl by marrying her to a Swedish dragoon called Johan. A few months later, the Swedes were compelled by the Russians to evacuate Marienburg, and Martha became one of the prisoners of war of Marshal Sheremetev, who sold her to Prince Menshikov, at whose house, in the German suburb of Moscow, Peter the Great first beheld and made love to her in his own peculiar fashion. After the birth of their first daughter Catherine, Peter made no secret of their relations. He had found, at last, the woman he wanted, and she soon became so indispensable to him that it was a torment to be without her. The situation was regulated by the reception of Martha into the Orthodox Church, when she was rechristened under the name of Catherine Alekseyevna, the tsarevich Alexius being her godfather, by the bestowal upon her of the titleGosudaruinyaor sovereign (1710),and, finally (1711), by her public marriage to the tsar, who divorced the tsaritsa Eudoxia to make room for her. Henceforth the new tsaritsa was her husband’s inseparable companion. She was with him during the campaign of the Pruth, and Peter always attributed the successful issue of that disastrous war to the courage and sang-froid of his consort. She was with him, too, during his earlier Caspian campaigns, and was obliged on this occasion to shear off her beautiful hair and wear a close-fitting fur cap to protect her from the rays of the sun.
By theukazof 1722 Catherine was proclaimed Peter’s successor, to the exclusion of the grand-duke Peter, the only son of the tsarevich Alexius, and on the 7th of May 1724 was solemnly crowned empress-consort in the Uspensky cathedral at Moscow, on which occasion she wore a crown studded with no fewer than 2564 precious stones, surmounted by a ruby, as large as a pigeon’s egg, supporting a cross of brilliants. Within a few months of this culminating triumph, she was threatened with utter ruin by the discovery of a supposedliaisonwith her gentleman of the bedchamber, William Mons, a handsome and unscrupulous upstart, and the brother of a former mistress of Peter. A dangerously familiar but perfectly innocent flirtation is, however, the worst that can fairly be alleged against Catherine on this occasion. So Peter also seemed to have thought, for though Mons was decapitated and his severed head, preserved in spirits, was placed in the apartments of the empress, she did not lose Peter’s favour, attended him during his last illness, and closed his eyes when he expired (January 28, 1725). She was at once raised to the throne by the party of progress, as represented by Prince Menshikov and Count Tolstoy, whose interests and perils were identical with those of the empress, before the reactionary party had time to organize opposition, her great popularity with the army powerfully contributing to her success. The arch-prelates of the Russian church, Theodosius, archbishop of Novgorod, and Theophanes, archbishop of Pskov, were also on her side for very much the same reason, both of them being unpopular innovators who felt that, at this crisis, they must stand or fall with Tolstoy and Menshikov.
The great administrative innovation of Catherine’s reign was the establishment of theVerkhovny Tainy Sovyet, or supreme privy council, by way of strengthening the executive, by concentrating affairs in the hands of a few persons, mainly of the party of Reform (UkazoiFebruary 26, 1726). As to the foreign policy of Catherine I. (principally directed by the astute Andrei Osterman), if purely pacific and extremely cautious, it was, nevertheless, dignified, consistent and independent. Russia, by the mere force of circumstances, now found herself opposed to England, chiefly because Catherine protected Charles Frederick, duke of Holstein, and George I. found that the Schleswig-Holstein question might be reopened to the detriment of his Hanoverian possessions. Things came to such a pass that, in the spring of 1726, an English squadron was sent to the Baltic and cast anchor before Reval. The empress vigorously protested, and the fleet was withdrawn, but on the 6th of August Catherine acceded to the anti-English Austro-Spanish league. Catherine died on the 16th of May 1727. Though quite illiterate, she was an uncommonly shrewd and sensible woman, and her imperturbable good nature under exceptionally difficult circumstances, testifies equally to the soundness of her head and the goodness of her heart.
See Robert Nisbet Bain,The Pupils of Peter the Great, chs. ii.-iii. (London, 1897);The First Romanovs, ch. xiv. (London, 1905).
See Robert Nisbet Bain,The Pupils of Peter the Great, chs. ii.-iii. (London, 1897);The First Romanovs, ch. xiv. (London, 1905).
(R. N. B.)
CATHERINE II.(1729-1796), empress of Russia, was the daughter of Christian Augustus, prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, and his wife, Johanna Elizabeth of Holstein-Gottorp. The exact date and place of her birth have been disputed, but there appears to be no reason to doubt that she was right in saying that she was born at Stettin on the 2nd of May 1729. Her father, who succeeded to the principality of Anhalt-Zerbst in 1746 and died in 1747, was a general in the Prussian service, and, at the time of her birth, was military commandant at Stettin. Her baptismal name was Sophia Augusta Frederica. In accordance with the custom then prevailing in German princely families, she was educated chiefly by French governesses and tutors. In 1744 she was taken to Russia, to be affianced to the grand-duke Peter, the nephew of the empress Elizabeth (q.v.), and her recognized heir. The princess of Anhalt-Zerbst was the daughter of Christian Albert, bishop of Lübeck, younger brother of Frederick IV., duke of Holstein-Gottorp, Peter’s paternal grandfather. The choice of her daughter as wife of the future tsar was the result of not a little diplomatic management in which Frederick the Great took an active part, the object being to strengthen the friendship between Prussia and Russia, to weaken the influence of Austria and to ruin the chancellor Bestuzhev, on whom Elizabeth relied, and who was a known partisan of the Austrian alliance. The diplomatic intrigue failed, largely through the flighty intervention of the princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, a clever but very injudicious woman. But Elizabeth took a strong liking to the daughter, and the marriage was finally decided on. The girl had spared no effort to ingratiate herself, not only with the empress, but with the grand-duke and the Russian people. She applied herself to learning the language with such zeal that she rose at night and walked about her bedroom barefoot repeating her lessons. The result was a severe attack of congestion of the lungs in March 1744. During the worst period of her illness she completed her conquest of the good-will of the Russians by declining the religious services of a Protestant pastor, and sending for Simon Todorskiy, the orthodox priest who had been appointed to instruct her in the Greek form of Christianity. When she wrote her memoirs she represented herself as having made up her mind when she came to Russia to do whatever had to be done, and to profess to believe whatever she was required to believe, in order to be qualified to wear the crown. The consistency of her character throughout life makes it highly probable that even at the age of fifteen she was mature enough to adopt this worldly-wise line of conduct. Her father, who was a convinced Lutheran, was strongly opposed to his daughter’s conversion, and supplied her with books of controversy to protect her Protestantism. She read them, and she listened to Todorskiy, and to other advisers who told her that the Russian crown was well worth a mass, or that the differences between the Greek and Lutheran churches were mere matters of form. On the 28th of June 1744 she was received into the Orthodox Church at Moscow, and was renamed Catherine Alexeyevna. On the following day she was formally betrothed, and was married to the archduke on the 21st of August 1745 at St Petersburg.
At that time Catherine was essentially what she was to remain till her death fifty-one years later. It was her boast that she was as “frank and original as any Englishman.” If she meant that she had a compact character, she was right. She had decided on her line in life and she followed it whole-heartedly. It was her determination to become a Russian in order that she might the better rule in Russia, and she succeeded. She acquired a full command of all the resources of the language, and a no less complete understanding of the nature of the Russian people. It is true that she remained quite impervious to religious influences. The circumstances of her conversion may have helped to render her indifferent to religion, but their influence need not be exaggerated. Her irreligion was shared by multitudes of contemporaries who had never been called upon to renounce one form of Christianity and profess belief in another in order to gain a crown. Her mere actions were, like those of other and humbler people, dictated by the conditions in which she lived. The first and the most important of them was beyond all question the misery of her married life. Her husband was a wretched creature. Nature had made him mean, the smallpox had made him hideous, and his degraded habits made him loathsome. And Peter had all the sentiments of the worst kind of small German prince of the time. He had the conviction that his princeship entitled him to disregard decency and the feelings of others. He planned brutal practical jokes, in which blows had always a share. His most manly taste did not rise above the kind of military interest which has been defined as “corporal’smania,” the passion for uniforms, pipeclay, buttons, the “tricks of parade and the froth of discipline.” He detested the Russians, and surrounded himself with Holsteiners. For ten years the marriage was barren, and the only reason for supposing that the future tsar Paul (q.v.), who was born on the 2nd of October 1754, was the son of Peter, is the strong similarity of their characters. Living in the grossly animal court of the empress Elizabeth, bound to a husband whom she could not but despise and detest, surrounded by suitors, and entirely uninfluenced by religion, Catherine became and remained perfectly immoral in her sexual relations to men. The scandalous chronicle of her life was the commonplace of all Europe. Her male favourites were as openly paraded as the female favourites of King Louis XV. It may be said once and for all that her most trusted agents while she was still grand-duchess, and her chief ministers when she became empress, were also her lovers, and were known to be so.
For some time after the marriage, the young couple were controlled by the empress Elizabeth, who appointed court officials to keep a watch on their conduct; but before long these custodians themselves had become the agents of Catherine’s pleasures and ambition. After the birth of Paul she began to take an active part in political intrigues. Her abilities forced even her husband to rely on her judgment. When in difficulty he ran to her and flattered her with the name of Madame La Ressource—Madame Quick Wit—which did not prevent him from insulting and even kicking her when the immediate need of her help was over. In 1758 he endeavoured to turn the empress Elizabeth against her, and for a time Catherine was in danger. She faced the peril boldly, and reconquered her influence over the sovereign, but from this time she must have realized that when the empress was dead she would have to defend herself against her husband. That Peter both hated and dreaded her was notorious. The empress Elizabeth died on the 5th of January 1762. The grand duke succeeded without opposition as Peter III. His behaviour to his wife continued to be brutal and menacing, and he went on as before offending the national sentiment of the Russian people. In July he committed the insane error of retiring with his Holsteiners to Oranienbaum, leaving his wife at St Petersburg. On the 13th and 14th of that month a “pronunciamiento” of the regiments of the guard removed him from the throne and made Catherine empress. The history of this revolt is still obscure. It has naturally been said that she organized the mutiny from the first, and some plausibility is conferred on this belief by the fact that the guards were manipulated by the four Orlov brothers. The eldest, Gregory, was her recognized chief lover, and he was associated with his brother Alexis in the office of favourite. On the other hand, there does not appear to have been any need for organization. The hatred felt for Peter III. was spontaneous, and Catherine had no need to do more than let it be known that she was prepared to profit by her husband’s downfall. Peter, who behaved with abject cowardice, was sent to a country house at Ropcha, where he died on the 15th or 18th of July of official “apoplexy.” The truth is not known, and Frederick the Great at least professed long afterwards to believe that Catherine had no immediate share in the murder. She had no need to speak. Common-sense must have shown the leaders of the revolt that they would never be safe while Peter lived, and they had insults to avenge.
The mere fact that Catherine II., a small German princess without hereditary claim to the throne, ruled Russia from 1762 to 1796 amid the loyalty of the great mass of the people, and the respect and admiration of her neighbours, is sufficient proof of the force of her character. Her title to be considered a great reforming ruler is by no means equally clear. Voltaire and the encyclopaedists with whom she corresponded, and on whom she conferred gifts and pensions, repaid her by the grossest flattery, while doing their best to profit by her generosity. They made her a reputation for “philosophy,” and showed the sincerity of their own love of freedom by finding excuses for the partition of Poland. There is a very great difference between Catherine II. as she appears in the panegyrics of the encyclopaedists and Catherine as she appears in her correspondence and in her acts. Her foreign admirers amused her, and were useful in spreading her reputation. The money they cost her was a small sum in comparison to the £12,000,000 she lavished on her long series of lovers, who began with Soltykov and Stanislaus Poniatowski (q.v.) before she came to the throne, and ended with the youthful Platon Zubov, who was tenant of the post at her death. She spent money freely on purchasing works of art and curios. Yet she confessed with her usual candour that she had no taste for painting, sculpture or music. Her supposed love of literature does not appear to have amounted to more than a lively curiosity, which could be 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 harshness to Paul was probably as much due to political distrust as to what she saw of his character. Whatever else Catherine may have been she was emphatically a sovereign and a politician who was in the last resort guided by the reason of state. She was resolved not to allow her authority to be disputed by her son, or shared by him.
As a ruler, Catherine professed a great contempt for system, which she said she had been taught to despise by her master Voltaire. She declared that in politics a capable ruler must be guided by “circumstances, conjectures and conjunctions.” Her conduct was on the surface very unstable. In a moment of candour she confessed that she was a greatcommenceuse—that she had a mania for beginning innumerable enterprises which she never pursued. This, however, is chiefly true of her internal administration, and even there it should be qualified. Many of her beginnings were carried on by others and were not barren. Her foreign policy was as consistent as it could be considering the forces she had to contend against. It was steadily aimed to secure the greatness and the safety of Russia. There can be no question, that she loved her adopted country sincerely, and had an affection for her people, and an opinion of their great qualities which she did not hesitate to express in hyperbolical terms. Her zeal for the reputation of the Russianswas almost comically shown by the immense trouble she took to compile an answer to theVoyage en Sibérieof the French astronomer Chappe d’Auteroche. The book is in three big quartos, and Catherine’s answer—which was never finished—is still larger. Chappe d’Auteroche had discovered that Siberia was not a paradise, and had observed that the Russians were dirty in their habits, and that masters whipped their servants, male and female. Her patriotism was less innocently shown by her conquests. Yet it may be doubted whether any capable ruler of Russia could have abstained from aggressions at the expense of the rights of the Saxon family in Courland, of Poland, and of Turkey (seeRussia:History). It does seem now to be clearly proved that the partition of Poland was not suggested by her, as has been frequently asserted. Catherine would have preferred to control the country through a vassal sovereign of the type of Stanislaus Poniatowski, the old lover whose election she secured in 1763. Poland was incapable of maintaining its independence at the time of the first partition (1772), and the division of the unhappy country was forced on by Austria and Prussia. In the case of the second partition in 1793, she did show herself to be very unscrupulous. Her opposition to the reform of the Polish government was plainly due to a wish to preserve an excuse for further spoliation, but her conduct was less cruel and base than that of Prussia.
Catherine had adhered to her husband’s policy of a Prussian alliance. While Frederick the Great lived she was impressed by his ability. But the Prussian alliance became hateful to her, and her later correspondence with Grimm overflows with contempt of his successor Frederick William II., who is always spoken of by her as “Brother Gu.” Her exasperation with the affectations of the Prussian king was unquestionably increased by her discovery that he would not be induced to apply himself to a crusade against the French Revolution, which by employing all his forces would have left Russia free to annex the whole of what remained of Poland. But at least she did not enter into a solemn engagement to defend the Poles who were engaged in reforming their constitution, and then throw them over in order to share in the plunder of their country.
Catherine’s Turkish policy was at first marked by a certain grandiosity. When the Turks declared war in 1768 in order to support Poland, which they looked upon as a necessary buffer state, she retaliated by the great Greek scheme. For a time it was a pet idea with her to revive the Greek empire, and to plant the cross, with the double-headed Russian eagle, at Constantinople. She formed a corps of Greek cadets, caused her younger grandson to be christened Constantine, and began the policy of presenting Russia to the Christian subjects of the Porte as their deliverer. In pursuit of this heroic enterprise, which excited the loud admiration of Voltaire, she sent a fleet under Alexis Orlov into the Mediterranean in 1770. Orlov tempted the Greeks of the Morea to take up arms, and then left them in the lurch. When Catherine found herself opposed by the policy of France and England, and threatened by the jealousy of Prussia and Austria, she dropped the Greek design, observing to Voltaire that the descendants of the Spartans were much degenerated. The introduction into the treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji of 1774 of a clause by which the Porte guaranteed the rights of its Christian subjects, and of another-giving Russia the right to interfere on behalf of a new Russian church in Constantinople, advertised the claim of the tsars to be the natural protectors of the Orthodox in the Ottoman dominions; but when she took up arms again in 1788 in alliance with Joseph II. (q.v.), it was to make a mere war of conquest and partition. The Turkish wars show the weak side of Catherine as a ruler. Though she had mounted the throne by a military revolt and entered on great schemes of conquest, she never took an intelligent interest in her army. She neglected it in peace, allowed it to be shamefully administered in war, and could never be made to understand that it was not in her power to improvise generals out of her favourites. It is to her credit that she saw the capacity of Suvarov, yet she never had as much confidence in him as she had in Potemkin, who may have been a man of genius, but was certainly no general. She took care never to have to deal with a disciplined opponent, except the Swedes, who beat her, but who were very few.
It was the misfortune of Catherine that she lived too long. She disgraced herself by living with her last lover, Zubov, when she was a woman of sixty-seven, trusting him with power and lavishing public money on him. The outbreak of the French Revolution stripped off the varnish of philosophy and philanthropy which she had assumed in earlier years. She had always entertained a quiet contempt for the French writers whom she flattered and pensioned, and who served her as an advertising agency in the west. When the result of their teaching was seen in Paris, good-natured contempt was turned to hatred. She then became a persecutor in her own dominions of the very ideas she had encouraged in former years. She scolded and preached a crusade, without, however, departing from the steady pursuit of her own interests in Poland, while endeavouring with transparent cunning to push Austria and Prussia into an invasion of France with all their forces. Her health began to break down, and it appears to be nearly certain that towards the end she suffered from hysteria of a shameful kind. It is plain that her intellect had begun to fail just before her death, for she allowed the reigning favourite, Platon Zubov, to persuade her to despatch his brother Valerian, with the rank of field marshal and an army of 20,000 men, on a crack-brained scheme to invade India by way of Persia and Tibet. The refusal of the king of Sweden to marry into her family unless the bride would become a Lutheran is said to have thrown her into a convulsion of rage which hastened her death. On the 9th of November 1796, she was seized by a fit of apoplexy, and died on the evening of the 10th.