notion of the real history of their own times, or of the real
forces that were moulding Europe. The French Revolution, which
made such short work of Catherine's Voltairean principles,
surprised and scandalized her as much as it surprised and
scandalized any provincial governess in the French chateaux.

The main difference between her and our modern Liberal
Governments was that whereas she talked and wrote quite
intelligently about Liberal principles before she was frightened
into making such talking and writing a flogging matter, our
Liberal ministers take the name of Liberalism in vain without
knowing or caring enough about its meaning even to talk and
scribble about it, and pass their flogging Bills, and institute
their prosecutions for sedition and blasphemy and so forth,
without the faintest suspicion that such proceedings need any
apology from the Liberal point of view.

It was quite easy for Patiomkin to humbug Catherine as to the
condition of Russia by conducting her through sham cities run up
for the occasion by scenic artists; but in the little world of
European court intrigue and dynastic diplomacy which was the only
world she knew she was more than a match for him and for all the
rest of her contemporaries. In such intrigue and diplomacy,
however, there was no romance, no scientific political interest,
nothing that a sane mind can now retain even if it can be
persuaded to waste time in reading it up. But Catherine as a
woman with plenty of character and (as we should say) no morals,
still fascinates and amuses us as she fascinated and amused her
contemporaries. They were great sentimental comedians, these
Peters, Elizabeths, and Catherines who played their Tsarships as