The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-12-07
NUid Van1ps Of History
 Vamp Catherine the Great, Who Even Made Eyes at Potatoes
 JORDAN

friends the empress began to have her
 watched. She didn't approve of looking at men from beneath the eyelashes. Do you think little thing like a watcher stopped Catherine? Never, She just vamped the watchers. like this: Dearest, of all the men l know, can you believe all of these wild tales they
 are telling on little me? I am lonely, l
 hate Peter and never would look at Stan islas if you would but pause for a cigar
 cite and a glass of vodka"
 Then she would send them back to ! tell the empress that she was a perfect ] lady
 Peter was scared to death of Madam | Quick Wit" as Catherine was called. Whenever he got into a scrape he would
 run to her to get him oIH but when | he was safe again he would treat her
 cruelty, kick at her and hurt her dignity | in every possible way. He made her and all of the court ladies pay court to Mile Vorontsof a low-born favorite of his, and although Russia had only finished scrap l ping with Germany, he kept an army of Holsteiners that he held up to the army | of Russia as a pattern of military per lection He was about as popular in Russia as a bottle of moonshine whisky at a temperance meeting.
 The Russian court was a wild and woolly one. Catherine. when not quar- reling with Peter. had herself good time. Shimmy partners were hanging around everywhere. And she proved her ability to choose her friends by vamping Gregory Orlov, head of the regimental guards, with three brothers all in service
 One evening, when the old empress was on her last legs, Catherine cuddled up real close to Gregory and whispered through his sideburns
 ''Big boy, when Aunt Liz dies, I'm going to have an awful time with Peter He is going to try to divorce me and marry this Mile. Vorontsof, and make her the empress of Russia. Then where will you be, my Gregory? You know what he thinks of his Holsteiners7'
 Wait till the old lady kicks the buck ct, replied Gregory, deeply touched wen fix things then"
 Elizabeth was hardly cold fin her coffin before Gregory started fixing things.
 Peter decided to go ermine hunting out at Orandienbaum Che didn't have the slightest regard for the game laws and hunted all summer), taking with him his Holsteiners to bring in the skins and Mile Vorontsof for company As soon as he was gone Gregory start ed street row, called it a revolution quieted it, and made his guards call Catherine empress, as Catherine IT.
 When Peter was awakened in the cen ter of his slumbers to hear the news he trembled so he shook the wrinkles out of his nightie. Soon after one of Gregory's brothers called on Peter, and the news was given out that he had died of official Apoplexy."
 And now. with no mother to guide her, Catherine did enjoy herself. She tried to keep pace with Louis XV of France She vamped men for politics she vamped men for fun, and when not busy vamping for one of these reasons she vamped 'em to keep her hand in She even vamped the clergy, and gave them back the gold and the rights that Peter had taken away from them in the six months that he held the sceptre When one squeamish brother timidly asked her about her morals, she laughed and remarked:
 and as frank and original as any Eng 1ishman.
 If Catherine liked Co guy, nothing was too good for him. She didn't give a tinker's rap what it cost Russia She spent nearly s60, 900, 900 showing these
 lads a good time
 When Stanislas Poniatovski, one of her first suitors hinted that he would like to be a king, thinking perhaps she would marry him and let him rule with her, Catherine said, anything to be agreeable, but no men to meddle in my household accounts. She sent her armies down into Poland, where they fought
 like hungry hounds, and took the king