Portrait of Catherine II of Russia, known as “the Great”
Catherine II of Russia (1729-1796) is almost unanimously considered one of the greatest examples of enlightened despotism, so skilled in politics that he went down in history as “the Great” (see also https://www.pilloledistoria.it/9092/storia-moderna/caterina-russia-la-passione-le-serrature).
In private life however, the woman often behaved in an unscrupulous way, not hesitating to plot against the same husband to become a tsarina, and even from an intimate point of view she was far from blameless, so much so that her three children almost certainly had paternity different.
Catherine always surrounded herself with a crowd of lovers and her contemporaries considered her, perhaps not wrongly, a kind of nymphomaniac; when she got tired of a "bed friend", she got rid of him by showering him with expensive gifts and / or repaying him with charges and privileges (as it was for Grigorij Potemkin ).
In short, a woman who is sexually, it seems, insatiable, to the point of arriving at rather questionable behaviors, such as expecting her own lady-in-waiting to turn into a " Eprouveuse" , or “she who do the test ", Nickname with which she came, not without irony, renamed Praskovya Bruce :let's see why.
Entering the imperial alcove was not a luxury that could be granted to everyone, but a role to deserve on the pitch:how to do it then?
Simple:Mrs. Bruce personally tested the amateur skills of possible lovers and reported her impressions on the matter to the sovereign, after which the latter decided whether or not they had the right qualifications to amuse her under the royal sheets.