To other men she made munificent gifts, either because they
pleased her for the moment or because they served her on one
occasion or another; but to Potemkin she opened wide the whole
treasury of her vast realm. There was no limit to what she would
do for him. When he first knew her he was a man of very moderate
fortune. Within two years after their intimate acquaintance had
begun she had given him nine million rubles, while afterward he
accepted almost limitless estates in Poland and in every province
of Greater Russia.

He was a man of sumptuous tastes, and yet he cared but little for
mere wealth. What he had, he used to please or gratify or surprise
the woman whom he loved. He built himself a great palace in St.
Petersburg, usually known as the Taurian Palace, and there he gave
the most sumptuous entertainments, reversing the story of Antony
and Cleopatra.

In a superb library there stood one case containing volumes bound
with unusual richness. When the empress, attracted by the
bindings, drew forth a book she found to her surprise that its
pages were English bank-notes. The pages of another proved to be
Dutch bank-notes, and, of another, notes on the Bank of Venice. Of
the remaining volumes some were of solid gold, while others had
pages of fine leather in which were set emeralds and rubies and
diamonds and other gems. The story reads like a bit of fiction
from the Arabian Nights. Yet, after all, this was only a small
affair compared with other undertakings with which Potemkin sought
to please her.

Thus, after Taurida and the Crimea had been added to the empire by