Catherine II of Russia and Joseph II of Austria Connive

Finally they got to Ekaterinoslav, which Potemkin had named for Catherine and designated as the capitol of New Russia. It was a newly-founded city later named by Paul I as Novorossiisk, and still later by the communists, Dnepropetrovsk. Here Catherine was joined by Joseph II, Emperor of Austria, Catherine's power equivalent in Europe. They laid the cornerstone of a cathedral Potemkin envisioned as greater than Rome's St. Peter's.

The cathedral was built years later but on a more modest scale. Joseph traveled with the troupe for the journey down through the Crimean peninsula and back out, leaving them at Kharkov. These two CEOs of great empires had a chance to visit and plot, and sometimes they managed to escape the nonstop surveillance of the day by riding alone together in her coach. Would Joseph agree to join Catherine in the military venture they had plotted tentatively when Catherine visited him seven years before?

Back then they had agreed how they would partition Turkey, and Joseph would acquire Bosnia, Serbia, and Herzegovina. Catherine had obsessed for years about Russia's taking over Greece and the Byzantine peninsula and installing her grandson Constantine at Constantinople. After all, that is why she had given him that name when he was born. Could she convince Joseph to favor Russia over England as a trading partner?

The trip from Ekaterinoslav to the Crimea took them overland again, and Catherine had the chance to look over the vast, rich, but thinly-populated steppe.