THREE:On the morning of the 9th of November Frederick set out for Berlin, visiting Glogau by the way. On the 11th he entered Berlin, where he was received by the whole population with enthusiastic demonstrations of joy. For a short time he probably thought that through guile he had triumphed, and that his troubles were now at an end. But such victories, under the providence of God, are always of short duration. Frederick soon found that his troubles had but just begun. He had entered295 upon a career of toil, care, and peril, from which he was to have no escape until he was ready to sink into his grave.Peter III. was a drunken, brutal, half-crazed debauchee. Catharine was a beautiful, graceful, intellectual, and dissolute woman. They hated each other. They did not even pretend to be faithful to each other. Catharine formed a successful conspiracy, dethroned her husband, and was proclaimed by the army sole empress. After a series of the wildest scenes of intrigue, corruption, and crime, the imbecile Peter III., who had fled to the remote palace of Ropscha, was murdered, being first compelled to drink of poison, and then, while writhing in pain, he was strangled with a napkin. Whether Catharine were a party to this531 assassination is a question which can now probably never be decided. It is certain that she must have rejoiced over the event, and that she richly rewarded the murderers.
