Excerpt from The Russian Court in the Eighteenth Century, Vol. 2 Come, come, enough has passed. What I have said was for your hastiness, but this is for your services, and with that she flung the discarded red ribbon of the Order of St. Catherine over the Princess's shoulder. The latter, instead of receiving it on her knees, as she proudly states, replied, Your Majesty must pardon me for saying that the time is almost come when truth must necessarily be banished from your presence; yet let me entreat that I may not receive this decoration which as an ornament I do not prize, and which as a recompense is of no value to one whose services, however estimated in the eyes of some people, never were and never can be purchased in reply to which superfine speech her much-enduring Majesty embraced her affectionately saying, At least friendship has some rights, and may I not be allowed in this instance to share its pleasures? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.