The long reign of Catherine II (the Great) was a turning point in Russian history. She received the fruit of half a century’s evolution since Peter the Great’s reforms. A prolific writer herself, Catherine corresponded regularly with the foremost men of her age, including Voltaire, Diderot, Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, Baron Friedrich Melchior de Grimm and others, not to speak of fellow potentates such as Frederick II, Maria Theresa, and Joseph II. She wished to make her reign brilliant and herself an ideal enlightened monarch. She began her reforms by compiling from Montesquieu and Cesare Bonesana, marchese di Beccaria, an Instruction (Nakaz) on the basis of which a new code of laws was to be composed. In order to discuss it, she gathered an elective assembly of 564 deputies chosen from all classes except the clergy and the serfs, and from all parts of the empire. However, she met with opposition on the part of the gentry to her schemes to fix within definite limits their power over the serfs. Far from engaging in a struggle with the ruling class she yielded to their desires; their power was increased and a number of crown estates were distributed among the ranks of her favourites, thus turning their peasant population into serfs.