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Years passed--falorious years for Russia Peace within

her borders, and splendid victories gained over foreign enes of jubilee the people praised

and blessed their elorious conclusion, and had ood Elizabeth! What had she to do with the victories of her

soldiers, with the happiness of her real of it, and

if peace prevailed throughout the Russian empire, it was absolutely

unknown in the i feud! There the young Catharine contended with her husband,

whom she hated and abhorred; with Elizabeth, who saw in her a dangerous

rival But it was an unequal struggle in which these toed, for Elizabeth had on her side the power and dominion, while

Catharine had only her youth, her beauty, and her tears!

Elizabeth hated Catharine because she dared to re and

handso old, and her

char; and Catharine hated Elizabeth because the latter

denied her a right which the eht to choose a lover, and to love hi as he pleased her

She hated Elizabeth because the latter surrounded her with spies

and watchers, and required of her a strict virtue, a never-violated

matrimonial fidelity--fidelity to the husband who so far derided and

insulted his wife as to demand that she should receive into her circle

and treat with respect and kindness his own mistress, the Countess

Woronzow--fidelity to this husband, who had never shown her any thing