Terrible tsarinas

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Another Catherine! their pleasure and their trade. But Elizabeth was wary of their quibbles. Even as everyone around her was discussing her health, she intended to keep a tight grip on the destiny of her empire, as long as she had the strength to read her mail and say her prayers.

At times, she regretted being an old woman and unable, in that condition, to command her regiments in person.

In reality, in spite of the shifting winds in war and politics, things were not going so badly for Russia. These disturbing events ruffled the surface of the water, but deeper down, a strong current was flowing right along, maintained by the usual paperpushing in the state offices, the harvests at the agricultural estates, the output of the factories, artisans’ workshops and public building sites, and the comings and goings of boats in the ports and caravans in the steppes, bringing their cargos of exotic goods.

This quiet agitation went on, like an anthill, in spite of the tumult at the top; and Elizabeth interpreted it as a sign of the extraordinary vitality of her people. Come what may, she thought, Russia is so vast, so rich in good land and courageous men that it can never perish. If one could cure it of its subservience to Prussian models, the game would be half-won already. For her part, she could take pride in having, in just a few years’ time, removed most of the Germans who had run the Administration. Whenever her advisers had suggested a foreigner for an important position, her invariable answer was, “Don’t we have a Russian to put there?”

This systematic preference quickly became known to her subjects and led to the arrival of new statesmen and military men, eager to devote themselves to the service of the empire.

While bringing new blood into the hierarchy of civil servants, the empress had also set about boosting the country’s economy by removing the internal customs system, instituting banks of credit like those in other European states, encouraging the