The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1892-11-10
and Bs.ons here at st. Petersburg who are liv-
sng On their wits.

1t ia not much now to be q noble in Russia
There are in the neighborhood of q million
people who have right to call themselves a part
Of the Russian nobility, and IL is said that there
are Princes and Counts here whom you would
hardly care TO ask to your dinner table, and
sone Of whom would not know how to act if
they came.
The Russian nobility OF to-day was organized
by Peter the Great He made nearly every
man who served under him q noble, and fixed
d certain number of grades OF nobility, accord
ing 20 their service. These grades were such
that Russia kept manufacturing mobiles right
along from the time of Peter the Great down
until couple of years ago, and the result is
now that one Russian in every hundred be-
longs 10 the nobility. Peter made the mobiles
educate their children, and he tried to eiyilize
his country by beginning at the top.
Among other orders that he issued 10 the
mobiles was that none of them should lie down
In bed without first taking off his boots, and
the children of the mobiles had to 20 through
eertainseries denominations at different periods
Of their lives He gave his mobiles grants of land,
End the wealth of the Russian nobility largely
came from the gifts Of the Gar. These gifts
consisted OF vast estates and presents of serfs,
and during p very short time the Cars gave
more than million peasants to their mobiles
for slaves.
One of The most generous in this respect was
Cetharine H.. who WIS the most extravagant
Empress who ever sat upon o throne. She
gave presents to her mobiles of more than $780,
e00, 600 during her reign, and some of the big
Fest estates Of Russia, including that of the
novelist Tolstoi, dates buck to her. She was
foreigner and usurper, and she had to do
everything she could TO strengthen her crown.
She made SO many mobiles that il was COM
mon saying that every man in Russia from the
cobbler 70 the merchant aimed to become
noble, and, IN fact some Of the most famous of
che Russian families of to-day originated in the
lowest classes. The Menchikofs have candy
maker for their ancestor, and thu first Count
ANONYMOUSLY wss singer. The head of the
fouks family was a chef in the palace kitchen,
and Baron Shafrof was Jew.
Catharine II had number OF lovers and
abe sbowered titles upon them. She supplied
each of them with Sl2. 900 month for SPEND
ing money while he continued in her favor and
when she COZ tired Of one lover she gave him
fortune and palace and picked up another
She had in ali 40 lovers. whom she ennobied,
and she had children by IL OF them, and built
more than dozen palaces for them. She made
NO bones Of letting her love be known and she
bEilt the magnificent palace of TsaTskoe- Selo
near ST. Petersburg, in order that she might
leave the Capital and enjoy herself there with
them. The rooms of this palace were fitted up
90 accommodate The tastes OF her different lovers
and the Prince Potemkin, who was one Of her
most beloved. had floor in his apartments
made of the finest kind of Italian mosaic and
IL cost ii is said, $50 square inch. 1t was
Gone by Catbarine when the Prince was away
in the army, as q surprise for her lover when
he returned.
Another Of Cstharine's lovers ves an artist
She lavished titles and money upon him, and
when she grew tired Of his attentions she sent
him of 10 travel over Russia, and ordered him
10 paint the pictures Of the most beautiful
DRidens he could find. She kept him busy at
this az long as she lived, and she hung his pic
tures in one room of this palace, and you can
sse the pictures there to-day. Thsre are 500
Of them. aud they represent every type Of Rus
sian beauty.
Catharine had q way of giving men TO her
mobiles well as lands. During her time, serfs
were bought and sold in Russia, and the no.
bility of that time gave Russia the bad name
which it has to-day. Mobiles sold their serfs
and young peasant girls were bought and sold.
and some were carried to Turkey.
The historian Semevsky describes the
horrors Of this time in bis book about the peas
anita of Catharine IL, and his stories are
worse than those of the slave days Of the
South. One noble he records ordered the soiei
OF the feet OF one of his serfs to b burned Il
punish the serf for drowning TIVE small dogi
which the noble had ordered the serfss wife &c
suckle. The Princess Kozlosky was wont te
erder her lackeys to be stripped naked and tied
- post, and then she eompalled young girll