From the acclaimed author of Grandes Horizontales comes a book that the Washington Post calls �a vivid portrait of a sensual and intellectual woman.� Dutiful daughter, passionate lover, doting grandmother, tireless legislator, generous patron of artists and philosophers---Empress Catherine II was all these things, and more. Her reign, the longest in Russian imperial history, lasted from 1762 until her death in 1796; during these years she realized Peter the Great�s ambition to establish Russia as a major European power and to transform its new capital, St. Petersburg, into a city to rival Paris and London. Yet Catherine was not Russian by birth and had no legitimate claim to the Russian throne; she seized it and held on to it, through wars, rebellions, and plagues, by the force of her personality and an unshakable belief in her own destiny. Using Catherine�s own correspondence, as well as contemporary accounts by courtiers, ambassadors, and foreign visitors, Virginia Rounding penetrates the character of this powerful, fascinating, and surprisingly sympathetic eighteenth-century figure.