OR, MEMOIRS OF ILLUSTRIOUS AND CELEBRATED WOMEN, OF ALL AGES AND COUNTRIES. Alphabetically arranged. BY MARY HAYS. IN SIX VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON: PRINTED FOR RICHARD PHILLIPS, 71, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD. By Thomas Davison, White-Friars MEMOIRS OF DISTINGUISHED WOMEN. CATHERINE II. (Concluded.) BESTUCHEFF, in the failure of his project, lost none of his influence, either with his mistress or her lover, from whom Vorontzoff daily experienced new instances of coldness, till, perceiving his decline certain, he demanded permission, under the pretence of recovering his health, impaired by the fatigues of his office, to travel two years in foreign countries. His request was readily granted: the empress, to whom his presence was irksome, saw him depart with satisfaction, yet with feigned tokens of respect and regret, while she entreated him to hasten his return, and to resume VOL. III. B the functions of his office, which, for the happiness of the empire, he had so successfully fulfilled. Apprehensive lest Catherine should raise to the throne the daring adventurer to whom the unfortunate Peter had in a great degree owed his destruction, the people loudly murmured: various plots were set on foot against the favourite, one of which was on the point of succeeding. A guard had been placed at the door of Orloff as at that of the empress: a sentinel was, by a bribe, induced to promise to deliver him, while asleep, to three of the conspirators. To a mistake made in the hour, Orloff owed his safety: before the conspirators appeared, the sentinel in their confidence had been already relieved by another, who, astonished at beholding three men apply for admittance to the chamber, summoned by an alarm the guards to his aid. The conspirators had scarcely time to escape under favour of the uniform they wore. Consternation spread over the palace: the empress was roused and alarmed; while, believing her life not secure, she hastened from Moscow, where this scene was transacted, to take shelter at Petersburg. Demonstrations of joy, full of insult, and approaching to rage, signalised her departure; her cypher was, by the populace, torn down from a triumphal arch on which it had been placed, and dragged through the mire. Catherine reached Petersburg on the day of the anniversary of her accession to the throne: to dazzle the eyes of the populace, she omitted nothing that might render her entrance impressive and solemn. But this spectacle, however splendid, failed in its effect, or rather tended to increase the public irritation. On every side conspiracies multiplied, in which names the most important in the empire were enrolled. Among the most distinguished of these were count Panin, his brother the general, and the hetman Razumoffsky. A point of union was only wanting to hurl Catherine from the throne. The conspirators differed respecting a successor; while some espoused the cause of the grand-duke, others were for recalling the unhappy Ivan, and restoring to him the rank of his ancestors. Catherine, apprised in secret of the designs forming against her, hesitated whether to arrest the hetman and Panin: yet, dreading by an ill-timed severity to provoke her fate, and doubtful of the evidence against them, she determined to have recourse to artifice and policy. The princess Dashkoff, whose courage and zeal had been re |