Catharine
the name of several Christian saints: (1) St.
Catharine proper, a virgin of royal descent in Alexandria, who publicly confessed the Gospel at a sacrificial feast appointed by the Emperor Maximinus, and was therefore put to death, after they had Emperor Maximinus, and was therefore put to death, vainly attempted to torture her on to torture her toothed wheels, 307 A. D. Hence the D. name of Catharine wheel. St. Cath- Catharine wheel . St. Catharine's festival falls on Nov. 25. (2) St. Catharine of Sienna, one of the most famous saints of Italy, was the daughter of a dyer in Sienna, and was born there in 1347. While yet a child she practiced extraordinary mortifications, and devoted herself to perpetual virginity. She became a Dominican, and therefore afterward a patron saint of the Dominicans. She was given, it was said, extraordinary tokens of favor by Christ, whose Stigmata were imprinted upon her body. She wrote devotional pieces, letters, and poems, an edition of which is Tomasseo's (Florence, 1860). Her festival falls on April 30. St. Catharine of Genoa (1447-1510 ), festival March 22 or Sept. 5; St. Catharine of Boof Bologna (1413-1463), festival March 9; and St. Catharine of Sweden (1331-1381), festival March 22, are of less note.
CATHARINE I., Empress of Russia and wife of Peter the Great, was a woman of humble origin, who, having become mistress to Prince Menschikoff , was relinquished by him to the Czar.
In 1708 and 1709 she bore the Emperor the Princesses Anna and Elizabeth, the first of whom became the Duchess of Holstein by marriage, and mother of Peter III. The second became Empress of Russia. In 1711 the Emperor publicly acknowledged Catharine as his Catharine as wife, and she was subsequently prosubsequently proclaimed empress, and crowned in Moscow in 1724. When Peter with his army seemed irreparably lost on the Pruth in 1711 Catharine secured the relief of her husband by bribing the Turkish general.
At Peter's death in 1725 Catharine was proclaimed Empress and autocrat of all the Russias, and the oath of allegiance to her was taken anew. Catharine died suddenly in 1727, her death having been hastened by dissipation.
CATHARINE II., Empress of Russia, was born in 1729, her father being Christian Augustus, Prince of Anhalt- CATHARINE II.
Zerbst. In 1745 she was married to Peter, nephew and successor of the Russian Empress Elizabeth. In danger of being supplanted by his mistress, the Countess Woronzoff, Catharine, with the assistance of her lover, Gregory Orloff, and others, won over the guards and was proclaimed monarch (July, 1762).
Peter attempted no resistance, abdicated almost immediately, and was strangled in prison a few days later, apparently without Catharine's knowledge. By bribes and threats she readily secured her position, and at once entered upon CATHARINE II. OF RUSSIA الرادي CATHARINE OF ARAGON ameliorated the condition of the serfs, constructed canals, founded the Russian Academy, and in a variety of ways contributed to the enlightenment and prosperity of the country. Her enthusiasm for reform, however, was summarily checked by the events of the French revolution; and the dissipation and extravagance of her court were such that there was even a danger of its exhausting the empire. Of her many lovers Potemkin was longest in favor, retaining his influence from 1775 till his death in 1791, directing Russian politics throughout that period in all essential matters. She died in 1796.
CATHARINE DE' MEDICI (dā-med' ē-chē), wife of Henry II., King of France, born at Florence in 1519, the only daughter of Lorenzo de' Medici, duke of Urbino, and the niece of Pope Clement VII. She was married to the Duke of Orleans, afterward Henry II., in 1533, but had little or no influence at the French court either during the reign of her husband, who was under the influence of his mistress Diana de Poitiers, or during the reign of her eldest son, Francis II., who, in consequence of his marriage with Mary Stuart, was devoted to the party of the Guises. The death of Francis placed the reins of government during the minority of her son, Charles IX., in her hands. Wavering between the Guises on one side, who had put themselves at the head of the Catholics, and Condé and Coligny on the other, who had become very powerful by the aid of the Protestants, she played off one faction against the other in the hope of increasing her own power; and the 30 years of civil war which followed were mainly due to her. Her influence with Charles IX. was throughout of the worst kind, and the massacre of St. Bar. tholomew's Day was largely her work.
After the death of Charles IX., in 1574, her third son succeeded as Henry III., and her mischievous influence continued. sassination of Henry III. Of her two She died in 1589, shortly before the asdaughters, Elizabeth married Philip II. of Spain, and Margaret of Valois married Henry of Navarre, afterward Henry IV. the administration with great and farseeing activity. On the death of Augustus III. of Poland she caused her old lover, Poniatowski, to be placed on the throne with a view to the extension of her influence in Poland, by which she profited in the partition of that country in the successive dismemberments of 1772, 1793, and 1795. By the war with the Turks, which occupied a considerable part of her reign, she conquered the Crimea and opened the Black Sea to the Russian navy. Her dream, however, of driving the Turks from Europe and restoring the Byzantine Empire was not to be fulfilled. Her relations with Poland and with other European powers induced her to make peace with Turkey in 1792 and accept Dniester as the boundary line between the two countries.
She succeeded, at least partially, in improving the administration of justice,