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always in opposition to France, worked very much as inPoland to maintain the impotence of the monarchy andto secure the position of her Holstein candidates to thethrone. At one moment (1743-44) Swedish politicaldissensions were so severe that a Russian fleet and armywere called in to suppress the opponents of the Russophilparty. During the first ten years of Catherine theGreat's reign (1762-72), when her foreign minister Paninwas manoeuvring his ' northern system,' the stream ofRussian gold reached its high-water mark in successfulrivalry with French subsidies.Russian influence was, however, shattered in 1772 bythe coup d'etat of the new king, Gustavus III, whichrestored much of the old power of the monarchy, and byGustavus's attachment to all things French. Catherinethe Great was too deeply involved in war with Turkeyand in Poland to take effective counter-action, but shedid all she could to win over the opposition in Swedenand Finland that developed to Gustavus III, who wasmore and more given over to a reckless foreign policy,and in particular war against Russia.Since the peace of Nystad Sweden had made only oneactual bid to regain her losses by renewing war withRussia (1741-43). That war had been largely due toFrench diplomacy, anxious to prevent Russia fromjoining Austria in the war of the Austrian succession.It entailed a series of defeats for Sweden who was luckynot to have to cede more than a small strip of Finland,which brought the Russian boundary to almost exactlythe same line as that in 1940 after the Soviet-Finnish war.Catherine's second Turkish war gave Gustavus thechance he wanted to attack her (1788). Ill-prepared inthe north, Catherine at first succeeded in staving off thenew enemy with the help of a Swedish-Finnish conspiracyagainst Gustavus. But the situation grew more andmore critical for Russia, when Denmark, her one ally,proved a broken reed. Great Britain was arming againsther, and Prussia seemed about to enter the war. "Onlya miracle," Catherine wrote, "or the mercy of God canend matters satisfactorily.'' In fact the internal difficultiesof Gustavus were even greater and, after the269