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to the Academy of Sciences, and he became almost aseminent in literature and history (and even the craft ofmosaic) as he was in the sciences (especially physicalchemistry, of which he is the father).By the eighties there had come into being small circleswho had learnt from the West to apply criticism andrationalism critically and in reason; who reacted againstslavish acceptance of anything and everything thatprofessed to have the hall-mark of France, againstadulation of Peter the Great and contempt of religionand the old Russia, and against mute acceptance ofexisting conditions and institutions in Russia, above allserfdom. 1 By the end of the century 'the consciencestricken'gentry had been born, and the beginnings are tobe found of the division of educated Russia between thegovernment and a critical opposition.Catherine herself had encouraged criticism and publicdiscussion, provided she could guide them. When shecould not, she frowned upon or suppressed them. Herearly addiction to the Encyclopaedists, especially Voltaire,gave a great vogue to rationalism and sceptical freethinking,and her dissolute amours and the spendthriftluxury of her court still further demoralized the aristocracy.She kept up a long correspondence with Voltaire(cf. p. 79, note), Diderot, D'Alembert, Grimm, and otherreigning intellectuals abroad, largely as a means ofpropaganda, partly as a form of self-flattery. She andher associates invited the great French lights of the day toview with their own eyes the splendours of' the Semiramisof the North' and her mighty realm. The only one of themajor lights to come was Diderot, " ambassador andminister plenipotentiary of the Republic of the Encyclopaedia," who professed to find in Catherine "Tame deBrutus avec les charmes de Cleopatre."The influence of the extreme rationalism of theEncyclopaedists did not go long unchallenged. Rousseau1See p. 145 for Radishchev. One of the most interesting conservativecritics of Catherine and Peter and the effects of Europe on Russia wasPrince Shcherbatov (1733-90). One of his writings is translated intoGerman, but not English, Ueber die Sittenverderbnis in Russland (Berlin,1932; written 1786-88; first published in 1858 by Herzen in London,in 1859 in Russia).346