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a-a-ra-s-s-s-s-a-s-s-a-s-a-s- Welcome to the Russian rulers podcast, episode 49, the maturing Catherine.

Last week we introduced you to the love of Catherine's life, Grigori Potemkin.

We also recounted the tragic death of Grand Duke Paul's wife Natalia during childbirth

and the introduction of his new wife, Sophia Dorothea of Vertenberg. The body of Natalia was barely cold when Catherine began the new search

for bride for her son Paul. She needed a child from him to continue the line of the Romanovs, and in the back of her mind

an air to bypass her growingly annoying son, the Grand Duke. Catherine again turns to her friend Frederick II of Prussia

who offers the princess Sophia who was all of 16 years of age and quite a beauty.

Catherine says of the young girl in a letter to her friend,

Madame de Bilke, quote, I confess to you that I am infatuated with this charming princess, but literally infatuated.

She is precisely what one would have wished. The figure of a nymph, a lillian rose complexion, the loveliest

skin in the world, tall and well built. She is graceful. Sweetness, kindness, and innocence are reflected in

her face. Quickly, the young woman was baptized into the Russian Orthodox religion with the name

Maria Fyodorovna. The future Tsarina was overjoyed with things, even with the

boorish Paul. She writes, I swear by this letter, to love and

adore you all my life and to be always attached to you and nothing in the world will make me change with respect

to you.

Those are the sentiments of your ever affectionate and faithful betrothed. A year away from burying Natalia, Paul and Maria were married.

Catherine hoped that Paul would mature now and become ready to learn how to handle the affairs of state.

Instead, much to her chagrin, he became obsessed with his Prussian heritage, his father's

heritage.

He began to order soldiers around, much like Peter the

...