THREE:��Take, then,�� she exclaimed, ��the Grand Turk or the Great Mogul for your husband. Follow your own caprice. Had I known you better I would not have brought so many sorrows upon myself. You may follow the king��s bidding. It is henceforth your own affair. I will no longer trouble myself about your concerns. And spare me, if you please, the sorrows of your odious presence. I can not stand it.��
THREE:
THREE:PREFACE.Frederick made several unavailing efforts during the winter to secure peace. He was weary of a war which threatened his utter destruction. The French were also weary of a struggle in which they encountered but losses and disgraces. England had but little to hope for from the conflict, and would gladly see the exhaustive struggle brought to a close.
THREE:Peter III. was a drunken, brutal, half-crazed debauchee. Catharine was a beautiful, graceful, intellectual, and dissolute woman. They hated each other. They did not even pretend to be faithful to each other. Catharine formed a successful conspiracy, dethroned her husband, and was proclaimed by the army sole empress. After a series of the wildest scenes of intrigue, corruption, and crime, the imbecile Peter III., who had fled to the remote palace of Ropscha, was murdered, being first compelled to drink of poison, and then, while writhing in pain, he was strangled with a napkin. Whether Catharine were a party to this531 assassination is a question which can now probably never be decided. It is certain that she must have rejoiced over the event, and that she richly rewarded the murderers.
THREE:��It is true, sire,�� Bielfeld replied, ��but I know very well what you have gained in getting a kingdom. Your loss is great, but your motives for consolation are very powerful.��