21 
Dismissals at Court
22 Moscow and the Country
23 Choglokov Makes an Enemy and Peter Survives a Plot
24 A Bath Before Easter and a Coachman’s Whip
25 Oysters and an Actor
26 Reading, Dancing, and a Betrayal
PART III Seduction Motherhood, and Confrontation
27 Saltykov
28 The Birth of the Heir
29 Retaliation
30 The English Ambassador
31 A Diplomatic Earthquake
32 Poniatowski
33 A Dead Rat, an Absent Lover, and a Risky Proposal
34 Catherine Challenges Brockdorff; She Gives a Party
35 Apraksin’s Retreat
36 Catherine’s Daughter
37 The Fall of Bestuzhev
38 A Gamble
39 Confrontation
40 A Menage a Quatre
Photo Insert
PART IV “The Time Has Come!”
41 Panin, Orlov, and Elizabeth’s Death
42 The Brief Reign of Peter III
43 “Dura!”
44 “We Ourselves Know Not What We Did”
PART V Empress of Russia
45 Coronation
46 The Government and the Church
47 Serfdom
48 “Madame Orlov Could Never Be Empress of Russia”
49 The Death of Ivan VI
50 Catherine and the Enlightenment
51 The Nakaz
52 “All Free Estates of the Realm”
53 “The King We Have Made”
54 The First Partition of Poland and the First Turkish War
55 Doctors, Smallpox, and Plague
56 The Return of “Peter the Third”
57 The Last Days of the “Marquis de Pugachev”
PART VI Potemkin and Favoritism
58 Vasilchikov
59 Catherine and Potemkin: Passion
60 Potemkin Ascending
61 Catherine and Potemkin: Separation
62 New Relationships
63 Favorites
