She later wrote that she stayed at one end of the castle, and Peter at the other.[10]. Very few members of the nobility entered the church, which became even less important than it had been. [63] Catherine was worried that Potemkin's poor health would delay his important work in colonising and developing the south as he had planned. While Peter was boorish [and] totally immature, says historian Janet Hartley, Catherine was an erudite lover of European culture. But the actual story of the monarchs death is far simpler: On November 16, 1796, the 67-year-old empress suffered a stroke and fell into a coma. He was strongly in favour of the adoption of the Austrian three-tier model of trivial, real, and normal schools at the village, town, and provincial capital levels. Catherine the Great was worried that her son, Paul, was not emotionally fit to rule so she planned to replace him with his son, Alexander, as her heir. [52], Catherine made public health a priority. Catherine and her new husband had a rocky marriage from the start. She levied additional taxes on the followers of Judaism; if a family converted to the Orthodox faith, that additional tax was lifted. Catherine wanted to become an empress herself and did not want another heir to the throne; however, Empress Elizabeth blackmailed Peter and Catherine to produce this heir. [139][140] According to lisabeth Vige Le Brun: "The empress's body lay in state for six weeks in a large and magnificently decorated room in the castle, which was kept lit day and night. Cartoons drawn by foreign press perpetuated them, consistently degrading Catherine and exaggerating her apparent promiscuity. All of this was true before Catherine's reign, and this is the system she inherited. As Robert K. Massie writes in Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman, [F]rom the beginning of her husbands reign, her position was one of isolation and humiliation. Four years later, in 1766, she endeavoured to embody in legislation the principles of Enlightenment she learned from studying the French philosophers. Her face was left uncovered, and her fair hand rested on the bed. In doing so, she ruffled the feathers of men around the world. She called together at Moscow a Grand Commission almost a consultative parliament composed of 652 members of all classes (officials, nobles, burghers, and peasants) and of various nationalities. They disliked the power she wielded over them as few other women in the world at that time could claim to have such authority. "Did Orlov Buy the Orlov". [120] By separating the public interests from those of the church, Catherine began a secularisation of the day-to-day workings of Russia. [73] In 1779, she hired the Scottish architect Charles Cameron to build the Chinese Village at Tsarskoye Selo (modern Pushkin, Saint Petersburg). Her hunger for fame centred on her daughter's prospects of becoming empress of Russia, but she infuriated Empress Elizabeth, who eventually banned her from the country for spying for King Frederick. Peter, however, supported Frederick II, eroding much of his support among the nobility. She made use of the social theory ideas of German cameralism and French physiocracy, as well as Russian precedents and experiments such as foundling homes. Catherine I of Russia. She read widely and corresponded with many of the prominent thinkers of the era, including Voltaire and Diderot. [115] Their place in government was restricted severely during the years of Catherine's reign. //-->