From Feudal Anthill to the Court of Russia

Engagement and wedding

Early married life

Catherine grows up

Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams and Stanislas Poniatowski

Empress of all the Russias

Murder, coronation and conspiracy

Catherine sets to work

Laws, smallpox and war

The heroic Orlov

Confusion and unrest

Passion and pretenders

New lovers and a new daughter-in-law

Grandsons and other acquisitions

The empress and the emperor

The failures of physicians

Convalescence and recovery

The great Crimean Voyage, and 'proverbs' in Petersburg

The beginning of the end

Last years

Death and burial