ABSTRACT
Catherine II fainted at the news, withdrew from the public gaze, and relapsed, as Khrapovitskii recorded, into days of 'tears and desperation'. In April 1792, her secretary came across an undated testament giving instructions in the event of her death. When Catherine collapsed in her dressing room at the Winter Palace on 5 November 1796, it took no fewer than six footmen to manoeuvre her palpitating frame into the adjoining bedchamber. Privileges she had taken away were restored to the Baltic German elites; privileges she had guaranteed to the Russian nobility in the charter of 1785 were simply overridden; militarism was restored to the heart of Russian government. Tsar Paul opted for a flagrantly coercive model of power and paid the price with his life. Flattered and rewarded at every turn, Russian nobles offered no corporate threat to Catherine. She retained almost to the end a masterly ability to juggle and defuse factional politics in St Petersburg.
