Excerpt from Memoirs of the Court and Reign of Catherine the Second, Empress of Russia: With a Brief Survey of the Romanoff Dynasty; Embracing the Reign of Nicholas, Fall of Sevastopol, Etc The sources from which the following pages have been prepared, are the most valuable and authentic works in European literature which treat of this subject. In the present publication, everything connected with both the public and private life of Catherine II., the truthfulness of which could be relied upon, has been introduced. Nothing of value, which appertains to the history of herself, and of her reign, has been overlooked. It had been easy for the author to introduce much gross and in delicate scandal, such as is to be found in some French works upon the subject; but as this work pretends to be an authentic and reliable history, such details were necessarily excluded. A rigid adherence to facts has been retained throughout; nor has the colouring of fancy been allowed, in any one instance, to pervert the text from the simple truth, for the purpose of presentino' either a more attractive, or a more startling picture. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.