Memoirs of the Princess Daschkaw

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MEMOIRS PRINCESS DASCHKAW. CHAPTER I. Birth of Countess Catherine Worontzow (afterwards Princess Daschkaw)?Loses her mother in infancy?Her sisters appointed maids of honour?Her passion for reading?Tendency of her studies?Her opinion of Helvetius?Her early love of politics?M. Shouvaloff?Correspondence with...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MEMOIRS PRINCESS DASCHKAW. CHAPTER I. Birth of Countess Catherine Worontzow (afterwards Princess Daschkaw)?Loses her mother in infancy?Her sisters appointed maids of honour?Her passion for reading?Tendency of her studies?Her opinion of Helvetius?Her early love of politics?M. Shouvaloff?Correspondence with her brother, Count Alexander?First interview with Prince Daschkaw?Their mutual attachment?Visit of the Empress Elizabeth?Her kindness?First meeting with the grand duchess (afterwards Catherine the Second) ? Impression made by it?Marriage with Prince Daschkaw?Departure for Moscow. I Was born at St. Petersburg, in the year 1744, about the period of the Empress Elizabeth's return from Moscow, after the ceremony of her coronation. Her majesty held me at the baptismal font, and her nephew, the grand duke, afterwards emperor by the name of Peter the Third, was my godfather. I might have been honoured with this compliment in consideration of my uncle the grand Vol. i. B chancellor's marriage with a cousin-german of her majesty; but I rather attribute it to the sentiments of friendship which the empress entertained for my mother, who, during the former reign, with great generosity, and, I may add, with equal delicacy, supplied those pecuniary wants which her expensive taste, and then scanty allowance as princess, very frequently occasioned. I had the misfortune to lose my mother when I was only two years old, and I have learned to know her many amiable qualities only through the medium of friends, and of those individuals who held them in grateful remembrance. At the time of this event I was with my grandmother, at one of her beautiful estates in the country; and it was with difficulty even, when I was four years old, that she could be induced to part with me, in...