CATHERINE PARE, Queen of England. See PARE.
CATHERINE I., Empress of Russia, was the natural daughter of a country girl, and was born at Ringen, a small village upon the Lake Vircierv, near Dorpt in Livonia, in 1687. Her original name was Martha, which she changed for Catherine. Count Rosen, who owned the village of Ringen, supported both the mother and the child, and was for that reason supposed to have been the father. When only three years old, by the death of her mother and Count Rosen she was left in so destitute a situation that the parish-clerk of the village received her into his house. Soon afterwards Gluck, Lutheran minister of Marienburg, took her under his protection, and employed her in attending his children. In 1701, when she had attained the fourteenth year of her age, the romance of her life began with her espousal to a dragoon of the Swedish garrison of Marienburg. According to one account, the bride and bridegroom remained together eight days after marriage; and another asserts that on the morning of the nuptials her husband was sent with a detachment to Riga, and the marriage was never consummated. This much is certain, that the dragoon was absent from Marienburg when it surrendered to the Russians, and Catherine, who was reserved for a higher destiny, never saw him more.
Upon the taking of Marienburg, General Bauer saw Catherine among the prisoners, and took her to his house, where she superintended his domestic affairs, and was supposed to be his mistress. From his house she passed into the family of Prince Menzikof, who was no less struck with the attractions of the fair captive. With him she lived until 1704; when, in the seventeenth year of her age, she became the mistress of Peter the Great, whose affections she succeeded so completely in gaining that he married her on the 29th of May 1711. The ceremony was secretly performed at Yaverhof, in Poland, in the presence of General Bruce; and on the 20th of February 1712 was solemnized with great pomp at Petersburg.
Peter expired on the 28th of January 1725. Immediately after his death, the senate and nobility assembled to proclaim his successor, and the address of Menzikof and his party, who had gained over the imperial guards and provided witnesses of Peter's expressed intentions in regard to Catherine, overcame the hesitation of some of the nobles and softened the hostility of others so as to procure the appointment of his former housekeeper on the spot. The matter having been thus successfully managed in the assembly, she next presented herself at the window to the guards and the people, who shouted "Long live
Catherine. Catherine!" whilst Menzikof scattered among them handfuls of money. Thus, says a contemporary, the empress was raised to the throne by the guards, in the same manner as the Roman emperors were by the praetorian cohorts, without either the appointment of the people or of the legions.
The reign of Catherine may be considered as the reign of Menzikof; for that empress having neither inclination nor abilities to direct the helm of government, placed the most implicit confidence in a man who had been the original author of her good fortune, and the sole instrument of her elevation to the throne. During her short reign her life was exceedingly irregular; she was extremely averse to business; would frequently, when the weather was fine, pass whole nights in the open air; and was particularly intemperate in the use of tokay. These irregularities, joined to a cancer and a dropsy, hastened her end; and she expired on the 17th of May 1727, a little more than two years after her accession to the throne, and in about the fortieth year of her age.