Brandon’s Reviews > Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman > Status Update

Catherine The Great writes to Voltaire that Ambrosius’ murder at the hands of Christian zealots shows the endurance of un-enlightenment in the 18th Century (683).

Serfs win freedom if they stop the plague (682)

Riot at Varvarsky Gate. A mob of pilgrims murders Archbishop Ambrosius for removing the icon of the virgin, whose feet they crowded around to kiss (681).

In 1763, Catherine establishes foundling hospitals to prevent infanticide (670).

Satire protected (604)

It is better to prevent them to punish crimes (Montesquieu and Beccaria 603)

When alcoholics start dying from “colic,” the rest of us learn to be sober” (484).

What a clever, cruel lie: “died while demanding a Lutheran priest” (483).

The impertinent Gregory Potemkin (457).