■■V "sv i. -;.■'?. V ^^1 ^^k ^Ksi" ^^H ^^^Hf ' H: E t f ' -.•■'■.,x.. ','■ «■ \ LIBRARY OK THL U N IVERSITY or ILLINOIS 947.05 P44WwEi 1898 cop 2 CENTRAL CIRCULATION AND BOOKSTACKS The person borrowing this material is re- sponsible for its renewal or return before the Latest Date stanij)Cil below. You may be charged a minimum fee of $75.00 for each non-returned or lost item. niaft, mutllotion, or dtfacvmcnt of library maloriait can be couMi for tlud»nt diiclplinory action All maleriali owned by lh« Univ«rtity of llllnoii library or* th« proptrly of the Stole of lllinoit ond are protected by Article 16B of f/finoii Criminal law and Procedure. TO RENEW, CALL (217) 333-8400. Unlvsrtiry of lllinoit Library ol Urbano-Champaign When renewing by phone, write new due date below previous due date. L162 I PETER THE GREAT fiV THE SAME AUTHOR. In one volume, Itirffe Cro7vn 8:v, clolh, 6s. ecuh. TlIK ROMANCE OF AN EMPRESS (Catherine ii. OF Russia). With a Portrait. y -'This 1) ok is b.-ised on the confessions of the Kni- 'f ; it gives striking pictures of the condition of the t.iry Russia which she did so much to mould a« well as to . . . Kcw stories in history* are more romantic than that of I'alherine li. of Russia, with its mysterious incidents and thrilling episodes ; few characters present more ctirious problems. ' THE STORY OF A THRONE (Catherine ii. of Russia). With a Portrait. Tkt U'crld. — ' No novel that ever was written could compete trilh this historical monograph in absorbing interest.' London: WILLIAM IIEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Stkbet, W.C. U-ti PETER THE GREAT 15Y K. WALISZEWSKl Translated from the French by L A D V M A R Y L O Y D XUith n iportinit LONDON WILLI AM II LIN L.MANN 1898 Sf.coni> I'dition First Edition^ 2 Vols., May 1S97 All rights rttirrtti REMOTE STORAGE P. . E£ PREFACE * Measure thy powers on thine undertaking— and not the undertaking by thy powers. ' This bold advice, the dictum of a poet and fellow-country- man of my own, has been the almost indispensable inspira- tion of this historical work of mine. The figure which forms its subject — towering above the history, bound up, to this very hour, with the existence, of the Russian nation — is not one to be lightly approached. Therefore it is that I have come to him so late, that I have worked backwards, up the course of the years, from the great Inheritress to the creator of her inheritance. Have I dared, then, at last, to exchange glances with that great bronze giant, who, so the poets say, ' steps down, on twilight nights, from his granite pedestal, hard by the Neva river-bank, and rides through the sleeping city ' — triumphant even in death ? Have I indeed — oh, mighty ghost ! who, for well-nigh two hundred years, like some terrible and familiar demon, hauntest the places *:hou didst know in life, — have I, in good truth, happened on the magic formula which brings back speech to phantoms, and builds life up around them, out of the dust of bygone days? I have lived those dead hours over again, in fancy. I have seen the faces, I have felt the warmth, of the beings and the things that filled them. I have laid my finger on the miracle of that legendary reign — the realisation of the fabled grain of wheat which sprouts and straightway grows into a vi PETER THE GREAT plant on the palm of the Hindu Voghi's hand. And I have had speech with the Man of Miracles himself, — the one unique man, perhaps, in the history of the human race. Napoleon is the greatest of Frenchmen, or the greatest of Italians, according to the fancy of his historian. He is not France nor Italy incarnate. Peter is Russia — her flesh and blood, her temperament and genius, her virtues and her vices. With his various aptitudes, his multiplicity of effort, his tumultuous passions, he rises up before us, a collective being. This makes his greatness. This raises him far above the pale shadows which our feeble historical evoca- tion strives to snatch out of oblivion. There is no need to call his figure up. He stands before us, surviving his own existence, perpetuating himself — a continual actual fact. The face of the world he seems to have called out of chaos may have modified, but the principle of its existence is unchanged. The immeasurable force is there, which, these three centuries past, has defied all calculation, which has transformed Ivan's wretched patrimony, — a sparsely inha- bited patch of wild steppe land, — into the inheritance of Alexander and of Nicholas — into an empire exceeding in size and population every other known sovereignty in Europe, Asia, and Africa — surpassing those of Alexander the Great, or Ancient Rome, the realm of the Khaliphs, and even the present British Empire, with all its colonies — an area of some eight and a half millions of square miles, a population of one hundred and twenty million souls! Once upon a time that force was called ' Peter the Great.' The name is changed now. The characteristics are unchanged. It is still the soul of a great people — and the soul, too, of a great man, in whom the thoughts and wills of millions of human beings appear incarnate. That force is centred in him, and he in it. I have tried, in these pages of mine, to make it throb. Not, be sure, by mere dint of my imagination. Everything that could be drawn from documentary evidence — the only pass-key which can re-open the doors each passing hour PREFACE vii closes upon us — I have used. I hope I have been exact. I know I have been sincere ; I may have roused surprise, disappointment, even anger. I would urge my Russian readers to weigh their impressions carefully. Courage to acknowledge what one is, and even what one has been, is a very necessary quality. For Russia, this courage is a very easy one. I would pray my Russian readers too, and all others, not to misunderstand the nature of the object I have set before me. When Poushkin was collecting materials for his biography of the national hero, he spoke of raising a monu- ment — acre percnnius, which was to be too firmly set to be removed by human hand, and dragged from square to square. Some national grudge, it would appear, existed — some doubt was felt, as to the unchangeable stability of Falconnet's masterpiece. The poet's ambition, his care for his subject's reputation, common to most of my forerunners, not in Russia only, have never affected me. Peter — without any help of mine — already has the monument which, as I fain would think, befits him best. Not Poushkin's, nor yet the work of the P'rench sculptor's chisel. The monument of which I speak was begun by his own rugged hands. His suc- cessors will labour on it, yet, for many a year. The last stone set, and that a mighty one, is the Trans-Siberian railway. My object, as I say, has been very different. The eyes of the whole modern world have long been fixed — some in sympathy, others, again, dark with suspicion and hostility— on the mighty sea of physical and moral energy which surged up suddenly between Old Europe, wearied out with eager life, and Ancient Asia, wearied, too, with the stillness and stagnation of hers. Will the common destinies of the two Continents sink in that huge abyss ? Or will its waters prove another Fountain of Jouvence? The whole world hangs over the chasm, on either side, waiting in anxious apprehension, peering into the depths, striving to fathom them. My part is simply to offer certain information to this universal curiosity and dread. viii PETER THE GREAT Behold ! This may be the appointed hour ! The dawn of an unknown day whitens the sky. A mist, where phan- tom figures seem to float, rises over the broad river. Hark ! Was it a horse's hoof tiiat rang on llie silent stones? . . . K. W. C O N T E N T S PART \—HIS EDUCATION BOOK I — FROM ASIA TO EUROPE CHAP. PAGE I. THE KREML, AND THE GERMAN FAUBOURG, . 3 H. THE TSAREVNA SOPHIA, . . .21 III. THE MONASTERY OF THE TROITSA, . 43 BOOK II— THE LES.SONS OF THE CIVILISED WORLD I. ON CAMPAIGN — A WARLIKE APPRENTICESHIP — THE CREATION OF THE NAVY — THE CAPTURE OF AZOF, 53 II. THE JOURNEY — GERMANY — HOLLAND — ENGLAND — THE REIURN, . . . . . -74 PART U—TIIE MAN BOOK I— BODY AND MIND I. PHYSICAL PORTRAIT — CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS, . . 1 03 II. INTELLECTUAL TRAITS AND MORAL FE.\TURES, . . I28 III. IDE.VS, PRINCIPLES, AND SYSTEM OF GOVERN.MENT. 1 67 IV. PRIVATE LIFE, . , . . 187 rKTEF< Tin-: (.kkat BOUK II— TIIK tsar's ASSOCIATES ciiAr. I. COLLABORATORS, FRIENDS AND FAVOURITES, II. THE FEMININK ELEMENT, in. CATHERINE, . . . . . rACB 20I 263 PART in—mS WORK BOOK I— EXTERNAL STRUGGLE — WAR AND DIPLOMACY CHAf. PACB . 358 I. FROM NARVA TO POLTAVA, 170O-1709, . 11. FROM THE BALTIC TO THE CASPIAN, in. THE APOGEE — FRANCE, BOOK II— THE INTERNAL STRUGGLE — THE REFORMS 1. THE NEW REGIME — THE END OF THE STRELTSV — ST, PETERSBURG, .... II. MORALS — HABITS AND CUSTOMS, III. THE ECCLESIASTICAL REFORMS AND THE SUPPRESSION OF THE PATRIARCHATE, IV. THE SOCIAL REFORM — THE TABLE OF RANKS, . V. Peter's economic work, M. THE POLITICAL WORK OF PETER THE GREAT. . VIL THE ARMY AND THE NAVY, VIII. THE OPPOSITION — THE TSARKVITCH ALEXIS, IX, PETER THE GRE.\t's LAST WILL — CONCLUSION, 392 413 441 452 462 478 498 508 544 PART 1 HIS EDUCATION BOOK I— FRO?^I ASIA TO EUROPE CHAPTER I THE KREML,^ AND THE GERMAN FAUBOURG I. The marriage of Tsar Alexis — The choice of the bride — The crown to the fairest — The dormitory in the Kreml — Nathaiia Naryshkin — The birth of Peter — His paternity contested — The struggle between the Naryshkin and the Miloslavski— Exile. II. The Kreml : Crypt, Seraglio, and Gaol — Ten centuries of history — Russia of Moscow, and Russia of Kief — The Norman Conquest — Vanished glories — The sons of Rurik — Jaroslav the Great, and Henry the First of France — The Mongol invasion — Utter downfall — Recovery — Muscovite Hege- mony under a Mongol protectorate — Emancipation — Ivan the Great — Dawn of a new culture — European influences — Poles, Germans, English, and Dutchmen. III. The German Faubourg — Europe and Asia — A Muscovite Ghetto — The work of civilisation — Expansion — Thither Peter will go. IV. Times of trial — The last attempt at an Asiatic rigime — Deaths of Alexis and Feodor — An elected Tsar — The rSle of the Patriarchs — The victory of the Naryshkin — Peter proclaimed — A short-lived triumph — The revenge of the Miloslavski. Peter ALKKSlf.lKViTCH was born on the 30th of May 1672 — the year 7180, according to the calendar then used in his country. Two years and a half before his birth, the ancient Kreml of Moscow had beheld a strange sight. Dozens of young girls, chosen amongst the loveliest discoverable, drawn from the most distant provinces, from every rank and station, — gentle and simple, from castle and from hut, and even from religious houses, had entered the Tsar's palace, on a day * The name is thus spelt and pronounced in Russian. Kremlin is a spurious form, of Polish origin. 4 PETER THE GREAT appointed by himself. There, crowded haphazard into the six rooms appointed to their use, they had led the usual life of Muscovite wives and maidens of that age — the cloistered existence, idle and monotonous, of Eastern women, scarce broken by some slight manual task, scarce brightened, here and there, by an occasional song. Thus, all day long they dreamt, and pined, and sighed, and yawned over oft-repeated tales and legends, bristling with wonderful absurdities. But when night fell, ah ! then all the hours of weariness, and disgust, and impatient longing, were forgotten ; and each young creature, her every sense on the alert, felt her soul leap and tremble with the sudden palpitation of a tre- mendous chance, in the feverish but short-lived sensation, nightly recurring, of an exquisite terror, and anxiety, and hope. Masculine forms loomed on the threshold of the suite of rooms, which were converted into dormitories when darkness fell. Two men passed between the narrow beds, leisurely examining the lovely sleepers, exchanging signifi- cant words and gestures. And one of these was the Tsar Alexis MihaTlovitch — the Tsar himself — tn propria persona, accompanied by his doctor, and seeking, amongst those unknown beauties, his chosen wife, — ' the woman,' as the time-honoured formula has it. ' worthy to be the Sovereign's delight,' the woman whom, though she were the daui^hter of the me.ipest of his serfs, he might, on the morrow, make a Grand Duchess first, and then Tsarina of all the Russias. The custom, two centuries old already, had been borrowed from the Byzantines, partly for high political reasons, a little too, out of sheer necessity. Ivan Vassilevitch (' the Great,' 1435- 1505), had vainly sought a wife for his son among the princesses of foreign houses. The King of Denmark, the Margrave of Brandenbiurg. had alike rebuffed him scornfully. And he would have no more alliances wiih his neighbours and rivals, the Russian Dukes. So he caused fiftet-n hundred maidens to be gathered together at Moscow — the Grand Ducal coronet should be bestowed on the fairest, at all events, if not on the most nobly born. A century later, the Tsar Micliael Ft^odorovitch, who attempted matrimony with a foreign princess, met with no better success. The Danish King even went so far as to refuse to receive the Russian Envoys.^ From that time out. the custom had been ' Zabielin, Domestic Hi$lory of the Tsarincu (Moscow, 1S72), p. 245. THE KREML, AND THE GERMAN FAUBOURG 5 definitely established. Certain ladies and gentlemen of the Court were deputed to examine the young girls who came to Moscow, in answer to the Imperial call. Their inspection, minute and severe, extended to the most intimate details. Thus, by a process of selection, only the daintiest morsels were actually presented to the Tsar.' But occasionally, as in 1670, this custom became a mere formality. The dreams of the fair sleepers were doomed, this time, to disappointment ; their nocturnal wiles were to be displayed in vain. The Sovereign's choice had been fixed before their arrival in the city. The Tsar Alexis Mihailovitch was thirty-eight years of age when his first wife— a Miloslavski, who had borne him five sons and eight daughters — died, in the year 1667. Of these sons, three were already dead ; the survivors, Feodor and Ivan, were both sickly ; and the Tsar's evident duty was to consider the question of remarriage. He considered it seriously, when his eye fell, one day, in the house of Artamon Siergu^i^vitch Matvieief, on a beautiful brunette, whom he took, at first, for the daughter of his favourite counsellor. Nathalia Kirillovna Naryshkin was only his ward, confided by her father, an obscure and needy country gentleman, to the care of the rich and powerful boyard. The fair Nathalia could never have burst on her Sovereign's dazzled eyes in any true Muscovite house, where local custom was held in due respect. The young girl must have remained invisible, behind the impenetrable portals of the tcrem. But the Matvi<^ief house- hold was emancipated from the ordinary rule. Artamon had married a foreigner — a Hamilton. The tempest of revolution which had overwhelmed the^great Jacobite fami- lies, had cast up some branches of them, even upon the inhospitable shores of that distant and barbarous empire. Alexis welcomed the strangers, and Matvieief actually owed a portion of his master's favour to his alliance with one of them. His marriage had also given him a certain culture. He read much ; he had a library, a museum, a small chemical labor.itory. Nathalia had her place at her adopted parents' table — sometimes even amongst their guests. Alexis began by saying he would undertake to find the girl a hush.md 'who would ask for no fortune with her.' Then, suddenly, he made up his mind and spoke out. Artamon Siergu^- > Ziil)ielin, DomtUie I/hloiy of tht Jsatintu (Moscow, 1S72), p. 222, 6 PETER THE GREAT icvitch was more alarmed than pleased. His position as imperial favourite had already procured him numerous enemies. Sprung from a somewhat obscure family, he had pushed himself into the foremost rank, he was at the head of various departments ; he manai^ed Foreifrn Affairs, the Mint, he was Court Minister, Commander of the Stnltsy, Governor of Little Russia, of Kasan and of Astrakan. He begrjed, at all events, to be shielded by appearances. Nathalia had to show herself in the dormitory at the Krcml. All the rites were scrupulously observed. The uncle of one fair aspirant actually had to face the justice of the Tsar for having used fraudulent manoeuvres in his niece's favour, and was put to the question, ordinary and extraordinary, by the knout, by the strappado, and by fire. The marriage was solemnised on 22nd January 1671, and on 30th May (l2th June) 1672, Xatlialia Kirillovna bore a son. On that very day, Louis xiv, supplied Boileau with the subject of a famous epistle, as he watched his army, led by Conde and Turenne, pass over the Rhine. On tiiat very day, too, at the opposite end of Europe, the Turkish army passed the Dniester, to clasp hands across space with that of the Grand Monarqiic, and take the Empire in the rear. Neither of these events awoke much interest at Moscow, where all were rejoicing over the birth of the Tsarevitch. Life there was too circumscribed and obscure to be much affected by the great currents of European politics. Obscure and doubtful, too, to this very hour, is the birthplace of the greatest man Russia ever produced. Was it the Moscow KremI ? the neighbouring country house of KolomenskoYe, dubbed the Russian Bethlehem} Or was it Ismallovo? No absolute certainty exists. The dispute is carried further still. Peter bore no resemblance, physical or moral, to his elder brothers and sisters, — puny and feeble all of them, like F<^odor and Ivan, all, even the fair Sophia herself, bearing a taint in their blood. And could Alexis, worn out by illness, foredoomed to an early death, have bestowed, on any son of his, that giant stature, those iron muscles, that full life? Who then ? Was it the German surgeon, who replaced the daughter Nathalia really brought into the world, by his own son? Was it the courtier, Tihone Nikititch Streshnief, a man of humble birth, lately brought into prominence by the marriage of the Tsar Michael Romanof with the fair THE KREML, AND THE GERMAN FAUBOURG 7 Eudoxia ? Once upon a time, Peter, heated witli wine, sought (so at least the story goes) to peer into this shadow. ' That fellow,' he cried, pointing to one of the company, Ivan Mussin-Pushkin, ' knows, at all events, that he is my father's son! Whose son am I? Yours, Tihon Streshnicf? Obey me, speak, and fear nothing ! Speak ! or I '11 have you strangled ! ' ' Batiushka^ mercy I ' comes the answer. ' I know not what to say. ... I was not the only one ! '^ But every kind of story has been told ! The death of Alexis (1674) marks the beginning of a troubled period, out of which Peter's despotic power rises, storm-laden and blood-stained, like the times which gave it birth. This period makes its definite mark on the destiny of the future Reformer. From its very outset, he becomes the hero of a drama, the naturally indicated chief of an opposition party. Beside the yet warm corpse of their common Master, the two families, called out of their obscurity by the Tsar's two marriages, engage in desperate struggle. The Naryshkins of a later generation have claimed a relatively illustrious origin, in connection with a Czech family, the Narisci, which once reigned at Egra. But the Tartar Narish, noted by the historian Muller as one of the familiars of the Kniaz Ivan Vassiicvitch (1463), would appear a more authentic ancestor. The Miloslavski were the Muscovite branch of the Korsak, an ancient Lithuanian family, settled in Poland. Deprived by the new comers of their rank aiul influence, they felt themselves alike injured and humiliated. Nathalia's father, Kiril l^oluiektovitch, had risen, in a few years, to be one of the richest men in the country, Court Councillor {duutuyi dvorianin) and Grand Officer of the Crown {okolnitshyi). The bells that tolled for the funeral of Alexis rang out the hour of vengeance on his rival's ears, 'Miloslavski against Naryshkin ! ' For the next thirteen years that war-cry was to rule the fate of Russia, casting it into the blood- stained struggle between the two parties fighting for power. ' Vockerodt, Corrtipondence (published by Herrmann, Lcipsic, 1872), p. 108. Solovief, //li/. ^/"wjii'd (Moscow, 1864-187S), vol. xv. pp. 126-135. Siemievski, Study of the State Police in Russia (Sl(»vo i Iiiclo) (St. Petersburg, 1 885), p. 139. Dolgoroukof, Mimoires (Geneva, 1867), vol. i. p. 102. 8 PETER THE GREAT Matvit5icf, Nathalia's adoptive father, l)c.-\ten in his first skirmish, heads the h'st of victims, ilc was imprisoned, tortured, exiled to Pustoziersk in Siberia, where he almost died of huiifxcr.^ For a moment, there was some question of immurint:^ Nathalia in a cloister ; but the mother and son wore finally sent to PrcobrajenskoV^, a village near Mcjscow, where Alexis had built him a house. Thus Peter left the Kreml, never to return, save for a very short space of time, during which he was to endure the most cruel trials, the most odious outrages, to watch the murder of his own kinsfolk, to see the Sovereign's authority cast down into the lowest depths, to witness his own downfall. Then it was that he vowed relentless hatred to the gloomy palace. Even as Conqueror and all-powerful Master, he pointedly turned his back upon it. That rupture was the symbol of his life and of its work. II The Kreml of the present day — a crowded and haphazard collection of incongruous buildings, utterly devoid, for the most part, of style or character — conveys but a faint con- ception of the palace of Ale.xis Mihailovitch, as it appeared at the end of the seventeenth century. The fires of 1701 and 1737, and the reconstruction which took place in 1752,' have left the barest traces of the curious Italian Renaissance, introduced, at the close of the fifteenth century, by the daughter of a Paleologus, educated at Rome.' Some vestiges still exist of the struggle of the genius of Fioravante, of Solaro, of Alevise, with l^yzantine tradition ; a few- churches, a few fragments of pahces, and the outer walls — more like those of a fortified camp than of a royal residence, with their far-stretching low ramparts, and their brick towers showing in slim outline, here and there, like warriors on the watch. Without these walls, on the Red Square, the only edifice which powerfully conjures up the vanished past is the Church of Vassili the Blessed. \\'ithin them, doubtless, there was the same architectural confusion, — the same violent ' See History of hii CaMivity, puhlisheil at Moscow, 1 785, by Novikoff. ' Za'Mc'in. DomfStic History of the Tsars (Nfnscow, 1895). PP- IIO-I18. OusTislof. History of Pete) I. (St. PetcrslMirp, l8;S). vol. iv. p. 33. * P. Pierling, La Russit el U St. Siege (Paris, 1S96), p. 107. THE KREML, AND THE GERMAN FAUBOURr, 9 juxtaposition of the German gothic style with those of India, of Byzantium, and of Italy, — the same tangle of edifices, packed one within the other like a Chinese puzzle, — the same strange, wild org)- of decoration, of form, of colour — a delirium and fever, a veritable surfeit of plastic fancy. Small rooms, surbased vaulted roofs, gloomy corridors, lamps twinkling out of the darkness, on the walls the lurid glow of mingled ochres and vermilions, iron bars to every window, armed men at every door ; a swarming population of monks and warriors everywhere. The palace rubbed shoulders with the church and the monastery, and was scarcely distinguish- able from them. The Sovereign, on his throne, was like the neighbouring relic of some Saint, within its shrine. From one end to the other of that strange accumulation of build- ings, sacred and secular dwellings, cathedrals and convents b\' the score, confused noises, — dulled and stifled by massive walls, thick oriental hangings, and the heavy air imprisoned ivithin tliem, — rose and fell, their echoes intermingling in a vague harmony of sound. From within the churches sounded the voices of chanting priests ; from the tcrein came the singing of the women — now and again a sharper note would echo from some corner of the palace, scene of a secret orgy, and then a shriller cry, the plaint of some tortured prisoner in his dungeon. But, for the most part, silence reigned ; men whispered under their breath ; they stepped carefully, feeling their way. Each one watched his neighbour, and his neighbour him. It was a crypt, a seraglio, a gaol, in one. This being so, the Kreml was rrfore than the mere residence of the Tsar. All Russia was here concentrated and summed up, — a strange Russia, ten centuries old, and yet an infant ; a long historic past behind her, yet standing, apparently, on the threshold of her history. This Russia, severed from her F^uropcan neiijhbours, who know her not, yet has European blood of the purest in her veins, her annals teem with European traditions, alliances, relationships, ay, and with traces of a common fate, In good fortune and ill, in victory and dl>'. the study of Roman Law. out of wiiich the modern spirit has risen, stepping backwards from its first springs ; of the great struggle between the religious and the temporal powers, in which the spirit of freedom took its birth. When the Metropolitan of Moscow (only recently — 1325 or 13S1 — called into existence) refused the amalgamation with Rome, decided at the Council of Florence, and accepted by the Metropolitan of Kief, the city, voluntarily and deliberately, broke with the Western World. The obscure and remote Eastern schism, condemned by the Pope, withdrew itself beyond the pale of Christianity. When men had grown weary of disputing over it, they were to cast it into oblivion. But culture began to sprout afresh, pushing up slowly, through the thick crust of Asiatic mire. It came as best it could —from Europe always — and first of all from Poland, through the great Lithuanian lords, who had been Russians before they were Poles. Before the insurgent Kurbski, Ivan the Great's whilom helper, took refuge with his neigh- bours, he kept up close correspondence with the Czartoryski, Russian and orthodox still, to the backbone. Ivan himself, returning victorious from Poland, brought back, as booty and symbolic troph)', the first printing press ever seen in Moscow. The conquest of Novgorod (1475) had served to bring the new Empire into contact with the Hanse towns. In 1553 the English discovered the mouth of the Dvina. Next came the foundation of the town of Archangel, and the beginning of commerce in the Northern seas. Then fresh invasion — and the struggle for existence began once more. This time, happily, the invading wave came from a dificrent quarter. It rolled back from Europe, passing away more rapidly than the last, and leaving something more than mere mud behind it. The Polish armies brought the whole paraphernalia of Rome in their train. Jesuits and Sons of St. Bernard — Catholic propaganda, and the learning of the schools. After the Jesuits — learned, fluent, shrewd — come the mock Tsars, likewise of Polish origin, subtle and elegant. The Court of Dimitri and Marina Mniszcch is modelled on that of Sigismund. who had formed his after the counsel of his wife. Bone Sforza, whose Polish orchestra mingles its secular strains with the rites of the Orthodox Church ! At the THE KREML, AND THE GERMAN FAUBOURG 15 very moment of the definite triumph of the national cause, Western and Polisli influences arc atTirmcd, even in the very victories and re-cstabhshment of the Muscovite element in Poland, and in the West. When the armies of Tsar Alexis entered Kief, they found no sign, doubtless, of what the Mongol conquerors had found there — no trace of former splendours. Yet they found something better than the empti- ness and void at Moscow. Some schools of Polish origin, a printing press too, ready to replace that of Ivan (promptly anathematised and long since destroyed), and a Greco-Latin Ecclesiastical Academy. A modest capital of civilisation, easy of assimilation, stood ready to their hand. Ill From this time forward Moscow had power to turn her back on Asia, and re-enter Europe, without crossing the frontier. That Peter, driven out of the Kreml, and into the street, as it were, by the rival faction, felt no desire to return to his ancestral dwelling, must be written down to the fact that he had found another and a more attractive home in its close vicinity. When Ivan annexed Novgorod, — that stronghold of republicanism and insubordination, — he resolved to break its turbulent spirit by changing its population. Ten thousand families had tlius to be removed. Russia owns the secret of these successful administrative coups d'etat, whereby whole masses of humanity are set in physical motion. The exiled Novgorodians departed to Moscow, where room was made for them, by sending an equal number of faithful and docile Moscovians — their very docility their punishment — to Nov- gorod. These new arrivals included certain Hanseatic merchants, who formed the first nucleus of the foreign colony on the banks of the Moskva. But it .^oon became evident, to Russian eyes, that these foreigners profaned the place. Local patriotism found its interest, even at that date, in claiming that Moscow was a holy city, and then, as now, the whole of Muscovy joined in this beatification. Bcj'ond the gates of the old capital, towards the north-western corner of the modern city, in the quarter lying between Hasmannata Street antl PokrovskaTa Street, where, at the present day, most of the Protestant and Catholic churches stand, there i6 PETER THE GREAT arose, — on the banks of the laouza, a scanty affluent of the Moskva, — a kind of Ghetto, specially assigned to the Nievitsy, those who did not speak the tongue of the country, and who, in consequence, were Jiiemoi, dumb. The Hanse merchants prospered little here, but, in the sixteenth century, Tsar Vassili lodged his bodyguard of Poles, Lithuanians, and Germans in the quarter. Vassili's successors brought in not foreign soldiers only — they sent abroad for artisans and artists, and, before long, for schoolmasters. An engraving in Adelung's curious book depicts the primitive appearance of the suburb, where the immigrants were crowded together, shut up and hemmed in, by severe and successive edicts. It was still a mere village of wooden houses, roughly built with unbarked tree-trunks, — huge kitchen gardens surrounding each dwelling. But a rapid change was working both in the appearance of the place, and in the nature of its inhabitants. Under Tsar Alexis, the only German quality about the Niemietska'ia Sloboda was the name, or sobriquet, of Niemiets, which had clung to the suburb — a relic of the German origin of its original inhabitants. English and Scotchmen now held the foremost place, and among them — thanks to the proscriptions of Lord Protector Cromwell, there were many noble names — Drummonds, Hamiltons, Dalziels, Crawfurds, Grahams, Leslies, and, at a later period, Gordons. No Frenchmen as yet. They were coldly looked on, as Catholics, and, yet more, as Jansenists. The Jacobites were the only exceptions to this rule, — their proscribed condition being taken to vouch for their fidelity. Later on, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes was to earn the same confidence for the subjects of the Most Christian King. The Jacobites lived somewhat apart. They were no traders, nor in any way industrious. Yet they were a powerful factor in the budding prosperity of the Sloboda. Their education and demeanour inspired the Muscovites with a sense of respect. The German troopers of the first period had taught the natives nothing, save the manners of VVallenstein's camp. In the profe-sinnal class, soon to be added to this aristocratic one — merchants, teachers, physicians, apothecaries, traders, artists — the dominant ele- ment was Dutch ; but the quality of the German contingent, mingled with it, improved. Both nationalities brought with them, and exemplified, the special virtues of their race ; — a THE KREML, AND THE GERMAN FAUBOURG 17 spirit of enterprise, perseverance, piety, family affection, a common aspiration towards an ideal of order, of domestic peace, and fruitful toil. The Dutch had a Calvinist, the Germans, two Lutheran pastors ; but, face to face with the barbarians, religious dissension appears to have died away. Liberty reigned in the Sloboda, save in the case of the Catholics, who were forbidden to have a priest. Schools became numerous. Patrick Gordon, a Scotchman, followed the proceedings of the London Royal Society. English ladies sent for bales of novels and poetry by British writers. Pleasure was moderate and decent in its course. At German gatherings, the dance known as ' Grossvatertanz^ was considered the wildest form of entertainment. There was a theatre, frequented by Tsar Alexis, where he saw a performance of Orphee. Politics played a considerable part in the life of the colony. The members of the Diplomatic Corps, who all resided in it, the English, Dutch, Danish, and Swedish residents, represented the interests, or stirred the passions, of the various Protestant powers. The Dutch resident. Van Keller — rich, cultivated, cautious, and adroit — held quite a special position, before which the Muscovites themselves respectfully bowed. He sent a weekly messenger to the Hague, and the Western news he thus received made the Sloboda quiver to the echo of those great events which were then working out the political fate of the European world.^ The German traveller. Tanner,^ who visited the colony in 1678, carried away a most pleasing impression, confirmed and justified by an engraving dated early in the eighteenth century. This shows us the suburb utterly transformed. Comfort- able-looking brick houses, approached through flowery gardens, straight alleys planted with trees, fountains in the squares. The contrast with Russian towns of the period, Moscow not excepted, is very striking. It was not to escape the eye of Peter the Great. In spite of Polish influence, in spite of its near neighbour- hood to a country which brought Europe, so to speak, to its ^ Vulliemin, after Posselt, Revue Suisse, vol. xxix. p. 323. Bruckner, Cullur- historische Stiidieii (Ripja, 1878). ^ Tanner, Legatio Polono — Lilhuanica in Moscoviam (Nuremberg, 1689), p. 71, etc. B i8 PETER THE GREAT very gates, Moscow was still, take it all in all, what three centuries of Asiatic slavery had made it. Sonic signs there were, indeed, which clearly marked a bc.;inning of mental contact with the intellectual world of the West. Certain men here and there had cast ofT, physically and morally, the ancient Byzantine Tartar garb. Ideas were shooting up, some originating power had shown itself, a whole programme of reform, a more extended one, as will later on appear, than that which Peter himself undertook to execute, had been sketched out.^ The dawn of the new day was blushing in the sky ; but the growing light fell only on a chosen and restricted circle. Tsar Alexis did not, like Ivan, put out artists' eyes, on the plea of thus preventing them from reproducing their masterpieces ; but when Tsar Michael took it into his head to engage the services of the famous Oelschiager (Olearius), there was talk of throwing the 'sorcerer' into the river, the court mutinied, and the city was in an uproar. Another foreigner, who entertained .some prominent Russian lords at dinner, saw them, to his astonishment, lay violent hands on cver\'thing on the table, and fill their pockets ! "■^ Within the Kreml, after the Poles and mock Tsars were banished, nothing changed a jot Before Petei himself was driven out, he never saw any faces but those of his immediate circle. When he went to church, or to the bath, a double row of dwarfs, carrying red silken curtains, followed him, a moving prison, always with him.' The child was almost stifled. At Prcobrajenskoie he began to breathe again. One day — back in the open air at last, and free to move about at will — he will wander to the banks of the laouza, and once he has seen the Sloboda, he will not care to leave it. He will call all Russia to follow him thither. But dark times are before him yet, — the supreme test and ordeal of the Asiatic system. ' This point of view has led certain hislorians into paradoxical exaggeration, v. Rlioulchewski, Ltssons in If istory invert at the Afosfou) L'niverstty, 18S7-1S89 (liihiigraphed). I owe my knowledge of this wurk to the kindness of Mr. Strhukin, a young Russian savant living in Paris, to whom I hereby beg to lender my grateful thanks. ' Solovief, vol. xiv. p. 112. • Kotoshihin, Rusiiaduring tht Rct^n of AUxU (St. Pcteraburg. 188.11. r. 19. THE KKK.ML, AND THE GERMAN FAUBOURG 19 IV In 16S2 1-codor, eldest son and successor of Alexis, died childless. Who was to be his heir? Since the death of the last descendant of Rurik (1598) the throne had almost always been won by a revolution. Boris Godunof gained it by a series of assassinations. Dimitri conquered it by Polish swords. Vassili Shuiski owed it to his election by the nobles. Michael Romanof to the voice of the people. Although some shadow of dynastic title grew out of this last selection, the accession of Alexis is believed to have been preceded by an appeal to popular suffrage. Of F^odor's two younger brothers, one, fifteen years old, — Ivan, the son of the Miloslavski, — was sickly, three parts blind, and more than half an idiot. A communication addressed in 164S to the ministers of Louis XIV. mentions a 'growth on the eyelids, which prevents the young Prince from seeing anything, unless they are lifted up.' The great dignitaries of the Crown pronounced unanimously in fa\our of Peter, the son of the Naryshkin, younger than his brother by some five years. They shrank, so they averred, from being converted from court officials into sick-nurses. Doubtless the youth of the second brother gave them fair hope of a longer period of practical interregnum, during which the\' might continue to wield power. They swept the boyards, who chanced to be present at Feodor's death, and the patriarch Joachim, who ^ad given him the last sacraments, along with them. Here, as in Poland, a vacancy on the throne conferred a sort of intermediate sovereignty on the Head of the Church. Thus, in 1598, the patriarch Job ensured the triumph of Boris. There was nothing legal in what happened then, any more than in what took place now. The prelate harangued the officers and courtiers who chanced to be within the Kreml, and made a brief appeal for their votes, which were given by acclamation. The improvised electors appeared outside the palace, on the Red Staircase, before the crowd attracted by the rum(^ur of the great events which had set the Court aflame. A name flung to the mob, — and the thing was done. Russia had a Tsar, and that Tsar's name was Peter. Not a word of Ivan. Not an attempt to justify the 20 PETER THE GREAT violence done, in his person, to all the laws of heredity. The coup was nothini^, in fact, but a victory won by the Narysh- kin over the Miloslavski, — taken by surprise, no doubt, and left defenceless, by the suddenness of the crisis, and the swiftness of the denouement. An ephemeral triumph, indeed, which scarcely lasted a month. On the very morrow of defeat, the vanquished faction re-entered the lists, backed by two unforeseen allies, two new political factors, destined to change the whole face of the struggle — the Tsarevna Sophia, and the Streltsy} ^ Sumarokof, Dir Erstc Aufstand dtr Strelitzen (Riga, 1772), p. 10. CHAPTER II THE TSAREVNA SOPHIA I, The terem of the Kreml — Moscow and Byzantium — Memories of Pulcheria — By the Tsar's death-bed — Ambition and Love — Vassili Galitzin. II. The Streltsy — Their greatness and their downfall — Soldiers and Merchants — Symptoms and causes of revolt — Popular movements — Sophia and Galitzin desire to use the revolt to conquer power — The Kreml besieged — Three days of carnage — Sophia's bloodstained power — Peter's down- fall — Ivan's enthronement — A twin throne— The Regent. III. The real Regent— An Idyll, and a domestic Drama — Dreams for the future — The stumbling-block. IV. The childhood of Peter the Great — Exile — Open-air life — Studies and games — The Astrolabe — The English boat— Soldier and Sailor— Preo- brajenskoie camp, and the Lake of Pereiaslavl — His companions— The first-fruits of reform — Rough models of an Army, a Navy, a Society. V. Youth — Marriage— Eudoxia Lapouhine — Early widowhood — Peter returns to his pleasures — Swept on by the current— The maker carried away by his work — The instrument of a party— Aristocratic opposition — Peter its leader — Betwixt two civilisations — Roman Europe and Protestant Europe — The choice — Preparation for the struggle — The convulsion. In 1682, seven of Alexis' daughters were still living. One alone, Sophia, has left a name in history. Born, like Ivan, of the Miloslavski consort, she had already reached her twenty-sixth year, I have alluded to her beauty ; certain Russian writers, notably Sumarokof, and some foreigners even — such as Strahlenberg and Perry, — praise it very highly. None of them ever saw the Tsarevna. The testi- mony of the Franco- Polish diplomat, La Neuville, who had that privilege, is more conclusive. He spoils the romance in which Peter's childhood is supposed to have been mixed up, but that is no fault of mine. 'A shapeless body, monstrously fat, a head as big as a bushel measure, hair growing on her face, sores on her legs,' — so his description runs. The Little- Russian historian, Kostomarof, tries to 21 22 PETER THE GREAT soften matters. Foreigners, he hints, might think Sophia ugly, but she may still have possessed great charm for the Muscovites of her own time. Excessive corpulence, even as in the East at the present day, was not likely to offend their taste. But the silence, on this point, of the Monk Miedvie- dief, the Princess's confidant and devoted servant, coupled with his persistent praise of her moral qualities, is very significant. On this latter question, every one, even La Neuville, seems agreed. 'She is as acute, subtle, and shrewd in mind, as she is broad, short, and coarse in person. And though she has never read Machiavelli, nor learnt anything about him, all his maxims come naturally to her.' Up till the year 1682, Sophia's life had resembled, — outwardly, at all events, — that of all Russian girls of her time, aggravated, as in the case of persons of her great rank, by the increased severity of its retirement. The terem of the Kreml exceeded all others in this respect. It enforced solitude, minute and complicated acts of devotion, and frequent fasting. The Patriarch, and the nearest relations, were the only visitors. The physician was only admitted in cases of very serious illness. When he entered, the shutters were closed, and he had to feel his patient's pulse through a covering. The Tsaritsa and the Tsarevny passed through secret passages into the church, where the inevitable red silk curtains screened them from the curiosity of other worshippers. In 1674, two young lords, Butourlin and Dashkof, turning the corner of one of the inner courts of the palace, came suddenly upon a carriage, in which the Tsaritsa was driving, on pilgrimage to a monastery. This accident endangered their necks. There was a searching inquiry, which even took them as far as to the torture- chamber. The princesses had no allotted place in any of the solemnities, which, in the case of the rest of the Court, occasionally broke the hideous monotony of a life bound by rigid and unchanging etiquette. They never appeared, except at funerals, when they followed the bier, always impenetrably veiled. The nation knew nothing of them, save their names, spoken daily in the prayers of the official liturgy. They knew nothing of it — nothing, so to speak, of human life, beyond the narrow circle within which fate had imprisoned them. Unable, on account of their rank, to THE TSAREVNA SOPHIA 23 marry any subject, debarred, by their religion, from alliance with any foreign prince, they were doomed never to know love, nor marriage, nor maternity. So the law willed it. Probably, even at that date, some compromise was admitted. Otherwise Sophia would certainly never have been able to play, and at a moment's notice, the part in which we shall shortly see her appear. On 27th April 1682, Peter was proclaimed Tsar. On the 23rd of the following month, a revolt of the Streltsy had overthrown his sole rule, and associated his brother Ivan with him on the throne. Everything points to the fact that Sophia was the arch inspirer of this coup d'etat — nay, more, that, for the most part, it was her handiwork. The terein of the Kreml must have felt the direct influence of B}-zantine ideas, with all that historic mingling of asceticism and intrigue, which made up the life of the Lower Empire. Sophia and her sisters, watching by the bedside of their dying brother, must have called up memories of Pulcheria, the daughter of Arcadius, who seized the reins of power during the minority of Theodosius, and held them after his death, with the help of Martian, chief of the Imperial Guard. Some beating of wings against that barred cage there must have been, — body and soul alike rising in revolt, some dreams of liberty and love. Here, as elsewhere, doubt- less, most palace revolutions had their source in such hidden emotions. Sophia certainly saw some male faces within the Kreml, besides that of the Patriarch, or ever? those of her near kinsmen, the Miloslavski, — energetic men, but dull-minded. Feodor, who kept his bed long before the end, needed a woman's care. A member of his immediate circle was ready to incite him to break the terem rule, by taking his nurse from within its walls, and to recommend Sophia to his notice. That man was Vassili Galitzin. A remarkable man, in more ways than one. In con- temporary Russian history, in Peter's own life-history, he marks a period. Better, because more clearly than Mat- vieief, he indicates that slow preparation, that intellectual and moral evolution, the extent of which may indeed have been exaggerated since — but which certainly did precede the appearance of the great Reformer, and rendered his work possible. He personifies that elite of which I have already spoken, amongst whom such men as Morozof, 2^ Hf^' y^y TBHB*- GKEXT gwwi^inii iiiTtrritir tt» tisElt wimii «se «£ !» isa^assss, oo^k: lasC'iirm. : rn aBsbadam xd sn aoKiestszr tsS^ 1&^ sf^S feSmp- si&^srr — . ly'iiiiim^ an iiHiiiiTiirHntiifliftr ^dasi^dile Hd i«e^ - ill ^ rmrmft, am gnfnfifls smsscst v& -«eili3±DjA- XIE: aTT^irm TrT-f^ QfUff T-initfTTt Tt-ffc; Trmrrh !fj ii {> tf fl pikd - - ' 11 IE iiT^aiiffnT^ a. na^jiikBr aoanjp. T^tfgmaffiii^^ tto i_:.- ..". — Taxitepziiidxim'lliix^KilSfa'^ased; rr _: - f.. anfl making ifh frm ^eis ~ -. -^ tiff, in spite of iis isjra^ ' -^'' - . ::-- \ rn^heid ■1-f tlllt V 51 pyuiis. an unji: •SH3L Tigajia»3A gBlgffifV^ J^ ^ "j;^ WIT dZnuI9BDO£. 5e dili indesd . : ' . *- isr^- rsnn 1J> tfie oxeelBie - ' - ^ __ --^-: --^ — ::isiSL .^.„^ . : ^-::. — -le "Hr::!- :- . - - _ .: stEr ... -£ TT JS!7uis" "r-efi Ti T^ur 5-- : - .. . zizz:^:^ :i i ' '--- -rnTiT~r ii: . .israie: ::2LL-r.i iie 3isii:':vinr arEaacea: •±Le -ct-cirii ae juinn' 2 "- - tr ti rrrseit v.iS Jtnr ^. :ier -^^^ jisTL -vbn 'vns -jz --- . -- _ -_ - . - _ . Hb WES rnscrfecL t . .:i t&HEatncii, jesce . - iig: Tin . . j - . .:- i. ^ T— Tg La^MBKni -Ti-^Fgr: 3L TTSTT or ^itsi. ionwier^ rar "trrrH^ smr " " "d 51. "•'-.' z ?iTtrnKn TTiifnT iST" ■"' : Tcr „^ _ , „^. T Trriun. :iiEr -^errrfr--, .. •vTirrr msr^ i iaiAg ai": :_-tsvti x3Jf±LLier: axo: rrif= f°T jt ±te ', face to face with a rotting State, the way was prepared for Peter's coming. Though with less cause for complaint, the Streltsy raised their voices above those of all other grumblers. Their soldierly qualities, as was soon to be proved, had become, and were to remain, less than indifierent But they were terrible brawlers. A day of tempest was to convert them, ere long, into the fiercest of ruffians. Alarming symptoms were e\ndent among them before Feodor's death. The regiment of Siemion Griboiedof rose against its colonel, accusing him of peculation ; — of stealing their pay and forcing them to work on the building of a countr\- house of his, on Sundays. Thanks to the weakness of the Government, standing between a dying Sovereign, and heirs still in their childhood, the contagion spread. When the Xar>shkins came to power with Peter, they found si.vteen regiments in a flame. Sorely puzzled, they sent for the e.xiled Mat\-ieief, the founder of their fortunes, the e.xp>erienced statesman ; and, pending the arrival of their saviour, they sacrificed the colonels of the regiments. The praiu-je, a punishment reser\-ed for in- solvent debtors, was applied. Before the assembled troops, the incriminated officers were beaten with rods on the fleshy parts of their legs, until they disgorged all their really, or presumedly, ill-gotten gains. This torture lasted many hours, but did not kill the colonels. But all discipline was destroyed, and the wild beast thus unmuzzled in the ranks of this :8 PETER THE GREAT Prctorlan Guard, only waited the appearance of an easy prey to make its spring and use its claws. Sophia and her councillors ofiered it the Naryshkin party. The stroke was prepared, the insurrection planned, swiftly and boldly, — cynically too, almost openly. The Tsarevna's uncle, Ivan Miloslavski, denounced in later years by Peter as the chief author of the shameful deed, and hunted by him with savage hatred to his grave, made himself desper- ately busy, spreading lying tales, fanning the flames of rage. There was a story that the Naryshkins had poisoned Fcodor, that they were ill-using Peter's elder brother, the dispossessed Tsarevitch, that one of the family desired to mount the throne. A Naryshkin, followed by a troop of armed men, was seen ill-treating the wife of one of the Stnltsv. He was an agent of the Miloslavski in disguise. Feodora Rodinitsa, a confidant of Sophia's, went about the streets, slipped even into the soldier's quarters, sowing venomous words, and coin, and promises, broadcast. But the conspirators awaited their pre-arranged signal, Matvieiefs arrival. The Siniisy, perfect in their part, welcomed their former chief, and lulled his suspicions to rest. On May nth, 1682, a deputation from the twenty regiments brought him bread and salt. ' Honey on a dagger's point,' said, later, the son of the unhappy old man, condemned, doomed to his death, at that very moment. Four days later, at dawn, the alarm sounded in all the Slreltsy quarters, the twenty regiments flew to arms, and the Kreml was besieged. The gay-coloured kaftans had been put aside for the nonce, and the Sircltsy all wore their red shirts, with sleeves rolled elbow high, — fell sign of the work for which they had risen so early. Soldiers they were no more, — ^judges rather, and executioners. The\- had drunk deeply before starting, and wild with brandy, even before they grew mad with carnage, they yelled in fury, brandishing their halberts. They believed, or feigned it, that Ivan and Peter himself had been assassinated, and professed to desire to avenge their deaths. In vain were the Tsar and the Tsarevitch brought out to them, safe and sound, on the top of the Red Staircase. Desperate efforts were made to appease them, but they would hear nothing, recognise no one ; louder and louder they yelled, ' Death to the assassins.' The head of their own prikaz (ofTice of management, — depart men f,). the aged THE TSAKEVNA SOI'HIA 29 Dolgorouki, came out upon the steps to call them to order. Instantly two or three bolder spirits climbed the stairway, clutched the old man, and threw him into space, while others held up their pikes to catch him as he fell. ' Lioubo ! Ltoubo ! ' 'that's good, that pleases us,' shouted the mob. The massacre had becrun. It lasted three days. Souf^ht out one by one, hunted through the palace, tracked into the neighbouring houses, into churches, — the councillors and relatives of Nathalia, Matvieief, all the Xaryshkins, shared Dolgorouki's fate. Some were slowly tortured to their end, dragged by their hair across the squares, knouted, burnt with red-hot irons, chopped up piecemeal, at last, with halbert strokes. Nathalia made a desperate struggle before giving up Ivan, her favourite brother. He finally sur- rendered, of his own free will, at the prayer of old Prince Odoievski. sacrificing his life for those of his family, which the savage Streltsy undertook to spare. After having par- taken of holy communion, in one of the churches within the Kreml, he issued forth, clasping like a shield, in that supreme moment, a sacred Icon. Instantly the image was dashed from his grasp, and he sank in the sea of blood and fury which still beat against the walls of the old palace It raged further yet, dashing over the town, lapping round private dwellings and public edifices, wandering hither and thither in search of the supposed accomplices of an im- aginary crime, sacking and murdering everywhere as it Went. The rioters even fell upon the city archives, and here we may discern a political intef'.ition — the desire to endue their excesses with a popular character, — an impression existed at the time that their object was to destroy all documents bearing on the institution of serfdom. And Sophia? Historians have essa\'ed to clear her from p>ersonal responsibility.^ This is all against the evidence. Never was the maxim. Is fecit cut prodcst. better applied. Many vanquished there were, in those terrible days. One conqueror alone appears, Sophia. So thoroughly does she control the movement that she stops it, dams it up, the instant she is so minded. A few words from Tsikler, a mere lay figure, suffice to restrain the most furious of the rioters. This Tsikler will be seen, on the vcr\' morrow of the convulsion, in the Tsarevna's immediate circle. The ^ Aristof, Disturbances at Afoscou.', during the Regency of Sophia (Warsaw, I S7 1 ). y> PETER THE GREAT most important posts, too, fall to her former friends Hovanski, Ivan Miloslavski, Vassili Galitzin. After the hunt the quarry is divided. She takes her own share as a natural right. Peter still remaining titular Sovereign, she holds his power, as d£ facto Regent, till more come to her. Finally, she gives those who have done her such good service their reward. To the Sireltsy, ten roubles each for their pains, and, though the goods of their victims, which they claim, are not given them openly, means are found to afford them satisfaction, by putting the property up for sale, and reserving them the right of purchase. They are tenderly treated, for they will soon be needed afresh. And on May 23rd they are at the Kreml again, clamouring to have Ivan associated with Peter on the throne, which, thus divided, will be more easily held in subjection. Measures have been already taken to have the Patriarch and a few boyards at hand, there is talk of Joseph and Pharaoh, of Arcadius and Honorius, of Basil and Constantine. Michael and Philaretus, whose sovereignty left unpleasing memories behind it, are entirely overlooked. There is another mock election, and the famous double-seated throne is set up. Even this does not suffice. Ivan, infirm, an idiot, must have precedence. More rioting, yet another sham elective assembly. This time Sophia casts off the mask completely. When Ivan is proclaimed chief Tsar, the rioters are feasted, and the Tsarevna does the honours. Their hands, like their shirts, are bloodstained still, but she pours wine for them with her own. They prove their gratitude by returning on the 29th of May, and conferring on her the title of Regent III She has gained the summit at last ; but her sole object in reaching it. at the price of so many crimes, has been to taste the delights of power with, and through, the chosen one of her heart All others must bow before him. Her will is that /w should command. During her seven years of re;.:ency the real master of Russia — the real Regent — is Vassili Galitzin. The Tsarevna's virtue, like her political honesty, has found defenders ; but the amorous Princess has herself undertaken the task of enlightening us upon the point, and THE TSAREVNA SOPHIA 31 giving the facts their true historical values. Five years have gone by. She reigns at the Kreml, and Galitzin is bringing a disastrous Crimean campaign — she alone believes it to have crowned him with laurels — to its close. Within a short time he is to be with her at Moscow, and she writes — * Batiushka, my hope, my all, God grant thee many years of life. This is a day of deep gladness to me, for God our Saviour has glorified His name, and His Mother's, by thee, my all ! Never did divine grace manifest itself more clearly. Never did our ancestors see greater proof of it. Even as God used Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, so has He led us across the desert by thy hand ! Glory be to Him, who has showed us His infinite mercy by thee! What can I do, oh my love, to fitly recompense thy mighty toil I Oh my joy. oh delight of my eyes ! Dare I really believe, oh my heart, that soon I shall see thee again, who art all the world to me? That day will be a great one to me, which brings thee once more to my side, oh my soul ! if that were possible I would recall thee now, in a few moments, by some magic invocation. Thy letters all come safely, by God's mercy. The news of the battle of Perekop arrived on the nth. I was making a pilgrimage that day, on foot, to the monastery of the E.xaltation of the Holy Cross {Vozdvi- jenski). Just as I neared the convent of St. Sergius, thy messenger joined me. I hardly know how the rest of my journey was accomplished. I read as / walked along. How shall I prove my gratitude to God. to His Blessed Mother, to the merciful Saint Sergius, worker of miracles? Thou biddest me give alms to the convents, I have loaded them all with gifts. I have gone on pilgrimage to every one, on foot, as to the first. The medals are not ready yet. Have no care for them ; the moment they are ready I will send them. Thou wouldst have me pray ? I do pray, and God, who hears me, knows how 1 long to see thee, oh my world, oh my soul ! 1 trust in His mercy, which will grant me to see thee soon, oh all my hope ! As' for the army, thou shalt decide as thou wilt. For myself, I am well, thanks, doubtless, to thy prayers ; all here are well. When God shall permit me to see thee again. 1 will tell thte all. oh all my world! thou shalt know my life, my occupations ; but do not delay, come. — yet do not hurry over much, you must be weary. What shall 1 do to reward you for everything, and above all 52 PETER THE UKt.AT Others ? No other would have done what thou hast done ; and thou hast spent so much pains before thou couldst succeed.* SOPHIA.' This letter, though not precisely modelled on the style of Mile. Scuderi's heroines, is none the less conclusive. If La Neuville is to be believed, Sophia would have made no difficulty about bestowing the reward of which she held her hero worthy. But there was an obstacle to this expression of her transports of gratitude, — an obstacle called the Princess Galitzin ; and, unluckily, the hero refused to do what was necessary to get rid of it, — 'feeling naturally bound to her in honour, besides that he had received a great dowrj' with her, and that his children bv her were far dearer to him than those he had by the Princess {tJu Tsarez'na\ whom he only cared for on account of her fortune.' Yet, the chronicler proceeds, 'Women are ingenious, she (Sophia) contrived to i>ersuade him (Galitzin) to induce his wife to become a nun. which done, according to Muscovite law, any husband, on the excuse of the physical impossibility of his remaining in celibacy, could obtain permission to marry a::^ain. The good lady having freely consented, the Princess counted fully on the success of her plans.'* She was reckoning without another barrier, which rose suddenly between her and what had looked like the approaching realisation of her dearest hopes. IV As may well be imagined, the son of Nathalia Xar>'shkin played a merely passive part amidst the terrible convul- sions which more than once shook the heavy diadem of I\-an the Terrible on his young brow, and filled his eyes with bloody visions. Flattering legends have indeed pictured him, as startling the world, by a courage beyond his years, braving assassins, and driving them back under the fire and majesty of his glance. At the same time his opening genius, no less precocious, threw the exploits of Pic de la Mirandola quite into the shade. He is described, at three years old, as commanding a regiment, and present- ' Published by OostriaJof, toI. L p. 3S3. ' Despatch from the Frendi Agent, La Nle, dated Not. 10, 1718, quoting Peter's own words, in coofinnatioo of these details (Foreign Office, Paris). THE TSAREVNA SOPHIA 33 ing reports to his father. At eleven, under the tuition of a Scotchman, Menesius, he has sounded all the mysteries of military art, and has adopted personal and generally innovating views, concerning several. I value legends, but I do not shrink from the necessity of contradicting them when they seem historically incorrect. In this matter they are completely so. Physically, and intellectually, the great man's development would, as a matter of fact, appear to have been somewhat slow. The colossus had some trouble in getting on its legs : at three years old, he had not parted from his wet nurse ; at eleven he could neither read nor write. The baby strategian and his regiment {Pietrof- Polk\ on the subject of which another, and in most respects well-informed, historian, in what is otherwise a curious study, complacently dwells, are a pure and simple fiction.^ I go further : never, even at a more advanced age, does Peter give signs of great natural courage. He is far too ner\ous, too easily excited ; his first appearances on the stage which was to ring with the sound of his exploits, had nothing heroic about them. Courage, like wisdom, came to him late, and both were the result of one and the same effort of a will strengthened by repeated trials. The terrible experi- ences, the anguish, the terrors, which assailed his youth, left an indelible mark on his character and temperament ; — an evident proneness to the easy disturbance of the physical and moral faculties, by any violent shock, — an in^inctive recoil of his whole being, in face of danger, — an inclination to bewilderment, and loss of self-control. His will takes the upper hand at last, and nature, once conquered, is all the better servant ; but there the nature is, always, and un- changing. Hence, Peter will all his life be a timid man, and for that very reason, a violent one as well, — with a violence not invariably conscious, and frequently calculated, like that of Napoleon, but absolutely unreflecting, breaking away, momentarily, from the control of his reason and his will. This defect, to which I have already referred, this brand of the cripple, he will carry with him all his life, graven in his flesh ; — the fierce expression of his harsh imperious features twisted by a sudden convulsion. It has been said that an attempt to poison him thus left its mark : whether the poison were physical or moral matters little, its efiect is the im- » Zabiclin, The Ckildhc.^i of Pettr the ^rwi/ (Moscow, 1S72). C 34 PETER THE GREAT portant matter. The venom instilled into the poor child's veins, when the Stn'ltsy drew his little feet through his uncle's blood, seems to me the most probable of the two. He was friijhtened, as any child in his position would have been frightened ; he hid himself, no doubt, in his mother's skirts, and once more, without a shadow of regret, he left the dreary palace, peopled with horrible nightmares. For Sophia's triumph condemned him to fresh exile — both him and his, — put him outside the law, at least, and, happily for him, outside the common rule. Exile, for this ten-year- old Sovereign who was to grow up such an extraordinarily turbulent man, meant room to stretch his limbs, air to breathe, health for body and mind ; exile here stands for freedom. He makes the most of it. Me does, indeed, return to the Kreml, on days of high ceremon)', to take his seat on the twin-throne, specially ordered in Holland — still to be seen in the Moscow Museum — but these are but transitory appear- ances. The rest of the time is spent at Preobrajenskoie, free from all the servitude and constraint of etiquette and sovereignty, and nothing could suit him better. It must not be forgotten that he is connected, on the maternal side, with a hotbed of relative independence. When Nathalie first arrived at the Krcml, her half Scotch habits caused a scandal. Did she not even dare to lift a corner of the curtain that screened her carriage window ? On his mother's side, too, he is linked to a centre of European culture, but fate has willed his separation from the Greco-Latin-Polish School, the influence of which has hitherto prevailed in Russia. The representatives of this school, led by Mied- vi' creation, the Russian army. Yes, this double point of departure — the pseudo-naval games on the lake of Perelaslavl, and the pseudo-military games on the PreobrajenskoT^ drill-ground — led to the double goal, — the Conquest of the Baltic, and the Battle of Polta\-a. But to realise all this, to fill up the space thus indicated, more was necessary than the passage of a unique personality, however exceptional, from childhood to ripe age ; more than 1 Amstodam, 1746. THE TSAREVNA SOPHIA 39 the humanly possible development of an individual genius ; there must have been a concourse of immense collective forces — prepared beforehand, but motionlessly awaiting the favourable hour, the man who should know how to use them — linked to the natural effort The hour and the man once arrived, these were to be suddenly revealed, to use the individual as much as he used them, to urge him onward, quite as much as he was to stimulate their action. The man himself was but the product of this latent energy, and thus it is that, at the proper moment, he appears, rising out of, and with, and by it Not only are the foundations of a fleet and an army laid, amidst the boyish undertakings, and the riotous companion- ships of the fiery youth. A whole new society is taking shape. All the old aristocracy, all the superannuated hier- archy of Moscow, will soon be crushed beneath the feet of the bold fellows, sprung from the stable and the kitchen, whom he will make Dukes and Princes, Ministers and Marshals. And in this again, he will only take up the broken thread of national tradition. He will improvise nothing, he will merely imitate his ancestors of the pre- Mongol epoch, chiefs of a droujina (fighting band) who fought beside their drouhy, drank with them, when the work was done, and refused to turn Mohammedan l^cause •drinking is the Russian's joy.' Peter will always be a convivial comrade, and a hea\y drinker ; always, too, he will keep the trace, an unpleasant one in some particulars, of his taste for the comradeship of the lowest of the population ; and he will leave something of it in his work, and in the national life he fashioned. The popular habits of the period preceding his accession have since found eager apologists. Such praise should surely be extended to the private personalit}' of the great reformer. This would be a hazardous undertaking. Un- cleanly habits, coarse manners, degrading vices, the musty smell of the wine-shop, a general atmosphere of cynicism, all that is most shocking in his character, Peter picked up in the street, in the common life of his country-, before the Reforms. He did wrong to keep these tastes, he did still more wrong in desiring that his subjects should keep them. 40 PETER THE GREAT The Tsarina Nathalia docs not appear to have reaHsed, until very late, the dangers her son ran among such com- panions. She herself had others, very little better chosen, who absorbed her. The origin of the 'pleasure' regiments {poticsJuiyn^ goes back, according to the most reliable information, to the year 1682 ; which fact suffices to deprive them, at the outset, of the serious character some people have attributed to them. Peter was then ten years old.^ But in 1687, the young Tsar's military games began to take on proportions which attracted general attention. A fortress was built at Prcobra- jenskoie, on the banks of the laouza, whence cannon was fired. The next year, the English skiff was discovered, and from that time forward, Peter, drawn to Perei'aslavl by the dual attraction of fire and water, escaped all domestic control. His life, it is reported, was frequently imperilled in these sports, during which accidents frequently occurred. To put a stop to them, Nathalia hit upon a plan which seemed to her a certain one. ' Marry and change,' says a Russian proverb. She looked about for a wife for her son. He let her have her way. Unlike his future adversary, the austere Charles xii., Peter was by no means indiftcrent to, nor scornful of, the fair sex. On the 27th of January 1689, he led Eudoxia Lapouhin, the daughter of a prominent Boyard, to the altar. But he set the proverb at nought. Three months later, the couple had parted. He was tacking about on the lake of Perei'aslavl, she, serving the apprentice- ship of a widowhood which was to last all her life. Naviga- tion has become more than a taste with the young Tsar, it is a jealous and exclusive passion. Some obscure atavism inherited from the ancient Varegians stirs his soul. He has never seen the sea, — he never ceases dreaming of it, — he will never know rest, till he has reached it. And this again is according to tradition. For two centuries, every war under- taken by his predecessors has had this object, — to reach the sea on the North-west, by driving back Poland or Sweden, or on the South-east, by driving back Turkey. Still, even for this, he will not part with his koniouliy. Already he plans * See Oustrialof, vol. ii. p. 329 ; conip. Memoin of MalvUief (Toumanski edition), vol. i. pp. 194-196. THE TSAREVNA SOPHIA 41 stratcfjical combinations, for using and combining the naval and land forces at his disposal ; and those same forces have grown with the )-outh, who has already reached a giant's stature. The tO)' has almost reached the proportions of a weapon. In September 1688, the young Tsar requisitions all the drums and fifes of a crack Strdtsy regiment for his war game. In November, greatly to the displeasure of Prince Vassili Galitzin, he takes two-thirds of the effective strength of another regiment, and draws the teams for his 'pleasure' artillery from the depot of the konioushcnnyi prikaz (stable department). There is a regular recruiting station at Prcobrajenskoie, and the grooms and cook boys are not the only recruits whose names appear on the lists. Those of 1688 contain the names of some of the greatest Muscovite families, such as Boutourlin and Galitzin. The presence of these aristocrats is in itself an absurdity, one of those ironical surprises with which history abounds. Peter, the unconscious artisan, as yet, of a great political and social renovation, who knows not whither he goes, save that he follows his own pleasure, has become the unconscious instrument of a party pursuing a very different aim. His work is confiscated, momentarily, for the benefit of tend- encies diametrically opposed to it. These new comers, who will shortly incite the future reformer to claim his/ stolen rights, will one day help to swell the army of the most resolute opponents of reform. But for the moment there is no question of reform — far from it. The means by which the Miloslavski, and, following them, Sophia, have ensured or obtained their power, — the abolition of the Micsfiiitc/iestvo, the appeal to popular insurrection, — have bound their cause up with that of the lower classes. The great nobilit}', that section, at least, which remains most opposed to progress, — wounded in its prerogatives and its ancient customs — has a natural tendency to rally, first round Matvieief and Nathalia, and then round Peter. So that the weapon, which amuses Peter, is, in the eyes of those who now help him to forge the blade, and sharpen its edge, destined to hasten the retalia- tion of conservative and anti-European ideas, on the most European-minded man Moscow has ever seen. ' Down with Vassili Galitzin' will be their war-cry. Preobrajenskoi'^ has simply become a natural rallying point for malcontents of every kind, and among these, the reactionaries, being the 42 PETER THE GREAT most important, take the foremost place. Peter, himself wounded, outraf^ed, and stripped, by the transitory rtfgiine, the close of which they so impatiently await, is their chosen leader, the future avenger, so they fain would hope, of the common injury. But of this he recks not. He only cares for amusing himself. He entertains himself, at Pereiaslavl, sailing boats whose canvas swells with no reforming breeze. Under cover of his name, and with his concurrence, a struggle is brewing between the silent Kreml and the noisy camp where he spends his youthful ardour, l^ut in this game, in which his fortune and that of Russia are at stake, the only prize he sees and covets, is larger scope for his schoolboy fancies. Years must go by yet, before he finds his true path. Till that time comes, careless of where the road may lie, he will obediently follow his chance guides. On the day chosen by them, he will march to the assault of power, and will leave them the chief benefits of his victory. Thus, he steps backwards into history, indifferent alike to his dcstinj' and to his glory. In July, 1689, the storm breaks. CHAPTER III THE -MONASTERY OF THE TROITSA L Government under the Res;ency— Its merits— Causes of weakness— Disap- pointments and bit lerness— Diversion to external matters— The Crimean campaigns— Disasters— Galitzin's return— Popular indignation— Peter's party takes advantage of it— The KremI and the Preobrajenskoie camp — Sophia faces the storm — The conflict. II. The night of the 7th of August— Attack or stratagem ?— Peter's flight— The convent of the Troitsa— The Archimandrite Vincent— Boris Galitzin— The struggle is organised. III. Parleys and mana-uvres— Which way will the army go?— Sophia's courage — Vassili Galitzin's weakness— Defection— The Regent submits— He comes to the Troitsa — Exile— Question and torture— Sophia acknowledges herself beaten— Her cloister— The new ;V^/w^— Peter's comrades^in power — The reaction — the Future. Sophia's regency, justified, at all events, as it was, by Inter's youth, if not its natural outcome, might, in 1689, have still hoped to endure, more or less legitimate!}', for several years. Peter was barely eighteen years old, and no Russian law — like that of Charles v. in France— has advanced the hour of political maturity in the case of sovereigns. Impatient ambition may indeed endeavour to hurry the march of time. But not Peter's own ambition ; he still cares so little about power, that, for many a day yet, the accomplishment of the great event will bring no change in his occupations. The government of Sophia and of her co-Regent, inaugu- rating a gynecocracy which, for almost a century— from the days of Catherine I. to those of Catherine li.— was to become the general rule in Russia, does not strike me as having deserved either the criticisms, or the praises,— all of them equally exaggerated,— which have been showered upon it. Neither Voltaire, who follows La Neuville in describing the Tsarevna as a second Lucrezia Borgia, nor Karamzin, following Leveque and Coxe, who calls her 'one of the 43 44 PETER THE GREAT greatest women the world has ever seen,'* has, in my opinion, done her justice. Among the old Russian historians, Miillcr in his criticisms of Voltaire's views,' lioltin in his notes of the History of Leclerc,^ and especially Kmin* with Aristof,^ among the moderns, have endeavoured, not altogether successfully, to reconcile these contradictory exaggerations. For my part, the government seems to mc to have had some- thing exceedingly Bj-zantine about it. No B}-zantiiie quality is lacking — Court intrigues, party struggles, Pretorian revolts, liturgical quarrels as to how the fingers should be crossed in prayer, how many times the word hallelujah should be repeated, and whether, perchance, the Trinity should not consist of four Persons, with a separate throne for the Saviour of the world. Yet, other elements appear, which raise it to a higher level. There is a continuation of that economic springtime, so to speak, already inaugurated under Ale.xis; a beginning too, of an intellectual spring-tide. While Galitzin was building houses in Moscow, Sophia was writing plays. She had them acted at the Kreml ; she even, so some people say, acted in them herself. The policy of the regency, internal and external, lacked neither energy nor skill. It made a bold struggle against the abettors of religious quarrels, who had taken the place of the rioters of former days, and who came to the Palace, even as the Strcltsy had once come, to seek the Patriarch, and wrangle with him. The chief of the raskoliiiks, Xikita, was put to death. It defended order with all its might, and, when the ^/nV/jj claimed the right to disturb it, did not hesitate to punish its former allies. It appealed from the rebellious soldiery, to the nation at large. When the Kreml was threatened, it removed the throne into the protecting shadow of the altar. In October 1682 Sophia and Galitzin took refuge in the convent of the TroTtsa. ' The Trinity,' standing some six leagues from Moscow, — the traditional refuge of the Royal house in hours of danger — still retained all the characteristics of the great Russian Obitids'. little fortified towns with a population of monks, novices, and serving brothers, numbering their thousands, * Karainzin, vol vii. p. 293. Leveque, Hist, de Russie (Paris, 1799), vol. iv. pp. 204-234. ' EitiJes, 1750-1764. » St. Petersburg. 17S8. * Lives pf (he Russian Sovereigtis (St. Petersburg, 1767-69). * Rebellions in Moscow during the Reign of Sophia (Warsaw, 1871). THE MONASTERY OF TIIK TROlTSA 45 churches by the dozen, not to mention shops, workshops, and trades of various kinds. Boris Godunof once sought shelter there ; and to this day the traces of the Polish balls which rained impotently on the ramparts of that holy spot are shown with pride. Thitiicr, in his turn, and shortly too, Peter was to come, to crave help and protection. The apjical of the ad interim government had been heard, and had procured it an army. Falling into an ambush at Vosdvijenskoie, midway between Moscow and the Trolftsa, Hovanski.now the hostile chief of the Strcl/sj,\os,\. his head ; his son shared his fate, and the rebellion, decapitated with its chiefs, collapsed. Abroad, — in the field of diplomacy, at all events — Galitzin proved himself a faithful and fortunate exponent of the traditional policy of territorial expansion, which had gradu- ally set the frontiers of Muscovy farther and farther back, towards the South and West. Taking skilful advantage of the difficulties into which, in spite of Sobieski's victories, their long war with Turkey had thrown the Poles, he snatched Kief out of their hands. In June, 1685, a new Metropolitan, duly installed in the ancient capital, consented to receive his investiture from the patriarch of Moscow. This was a decisive step on the road which was to lead to the recovery of the territories of Little-Russia and to the partition of the Republic. But these successes were compromised, unfortunately, by the fatal consequences of causes connected with the very origin of the Regent's power. When Sophia and Galitzin put down the partisans of disorder and anarchy, they turned their hands against the authors of their own prosperity. Between the disappointment thus caused, on one hand, and the bitterness rou.sed, on the other, their policy became an aimless struggle. It soon grew a hopeless one. The very next year they were at their wits' end. \\ hen the Boyards — ill-treated and deeply discontented — seemed in- clined to raise their heads, a mob was brought together on the Loubianka, the most crowded stjuare of the cit\'. An anonymous document had been found there, which coun- selled the people to hurry in their thousands to the Church of Our Lady of Kasan, where, behind the image of the Virgin, another paper which should guide their course would be discovered. Thither the crowd repaired, and a 46 PETER THE GREAT pamplilct, speaking evil of Sophia, and appealing to the people to rise and massacre the Boyards who supported the Tsarevna, was duly brought to light. This pamphlet, a mere farce, was the work of Shaklovityi, a new counsellor of Sophia's, a representative of ancient Muscovy, in the purest liyzantinc style — a fierce and cunning schemer. The Tsar- evna feigned terror, and her good people acclaimed her, and oftercd to rid her of her enemies.^ And now, even abroad, the luck began to turn. The Regent, having promised Poland the help of the Muscovite troops against the Turks, in exchange for Kief, made two expeditions into the Crimea ; this again was the traditional course. The Crimean Tartars formed a barrier between Moscow and Constantinople, which Russia was not to over- throw for another century. But there was nothing of the great general about Galitzin ; in each campaign he left an army, vast military stores, and the remnants of his reputa- tion, on the steppes. Starting for his second expedition, he found, before his palace door, a coffin, with the insulting legend, 'Try to be more fortunate!'- Returning to Moscow in June 1689, a wild clamour, yells, and threats of death saluted him. He was publicly accused of corruption ; barrels of French louis d'or were said to have been openly conveyed into his tent. Meanwhile the Prcobrajenskoie camp was daily filling with new recruits, and Sophia saw the ranks of her partisans melt before her eyes. Yet she faced the storm bravely ; her ambition, and her love, indeed, were at their very height. She had taken advantage of the conclusion of peace with Poland to get herself pro- claimed saDiodicrjitsa (autocrat), with equal rank to her brothers. This title figured, thenceforward, on all official documents, and on occasions of public ceremony the Tsar- evna took her place beside her brothers, or rather beside the elder one, for Peter hardly ever appeared. She caused her portrait, with the crown of Monomachus on her head, to be engraved in Holland. At the same time, and notwithstand- inty that, according to certain witnesses, she had given the absent Galitzin an obscure rival, in the person of Shak- lovityi,^ she pursued the supreme object of her early dreams 1 Shaklovityl's depositions, see Oiistrialof, vol. ii. p. 39. ' Avril, Voya<;e en divers Etats Pogodin, The Early Years of Petet the Great, pp. 183-226. THK MONASTEKN Ol- 1111, TROTTSA 49 friends, he puts spurs to his horse and tears off full gallop, towards the Troitsa. 1 Ic reaches it at six o'clock in the morn- in^j, tired-out in body, broken down in mind. He is offered a bed, but he cannot rest ; he sheds floods of tears, and sobs aloud, terrified, anxious, asking the Archimandrite Vincent, twenty times over, whether he may reckon on his protection. This monk had long been his devoted partisan, and even his banker, in those critical moments through which the deliberate parsimony of Sophia had caused him to pass.^ His firm and affectionate words reassured the young Tsar at last. Boris Galitzin, the Regent's cousin, Boutourlin, and the other chiefs of the Preobrajenskoid' camp, who join the fugitive at the Troitsa, do better still. The events which follow, like those already passed, give evident proof, both that measures had been taken long beforehand, by Peter's familiars, for the struggle now beginning, and that he himself was quite incapable of taking any personal initiative, or guiding part. His mind was wholly set on his lake at Pereiaslavl and the boats he meant to sail there, as soon as he could build as many as he chose. He left all the rest to his friends. And he will leave them, now, full masters of the situation they have created. Before the end of the day, the Monastery is invadec, the Tsarinas. Nathalia and Eudoxia, the Potieshny'ie, the Streltsy of the Souharef Regiment, long since won over to the younger Tsar's cause, arrive in quick succession. People who found a road so quickly, must, surely, have been prei)ared beforehand to take it. There is no sign of hasty concep- tion about the measures for which Boris Galitzin forthwith assumes responsibility. Everything- seems arranged and carried out according to a preconceived plan, and even the Tsar's own sudden flight, possibly a foreseen, and therefore, a prearranged event, would appear the signal designed to mark the opening of hostilities between the rival camps. As for the object of those hostilities, it is an understood thing ; it scared}' would ajjpear necessary to mention it. The fight, if fight there is, will be to decide who is the master. • Kotirakin Archives^ vol. i. p. 53. 50 PETER THE GREAT III They besT.-in by parleying. Peter wrote to Sophia to ask for explanations concerning the nocturnal arniaincnts at the Kreml. The Tsarevna sent an ambiguous reply. Both sides were trying to gain time. One important factor had not, as yet, taken any side in the struggle just beginning. The troops, native and foreign, tiic majority of the Strcltsy, and the regiments commanded by Gordon and Lefort, had made no sign. The question was, which party they would serve. On the i6th of August, Peter makes a forward step ; a ^/v^///r'/'rz (message) from the Tsar, convokes detachments from all tlicse troops, six men from each regiment, to attend him on the morrow. Sophia answers boldly. Her emis.saries, posted at convenient spots, stop the Tsar's messengers, while another (:;ramota, signed by the Regent, confines both troops and officers to their quarters, on pain of death. At first this measure seems successful ; the detachments do not answer to the call, and a story is spread that Peter's gramota was forged. Yet slowly, in- sensibly, the barracks empty, while the flow of soldiers and officers, of every arm, increases at the Troitsa. Symptoms of weakness are betrayed, even by those nearest to the Tsarevna. Vassili Galitzin is the first to show the white feather. He had thought for a moment, it is believed, of going over into Poland, bringing back an army of Poles, Tartars, and Cossacks, and then facing events ; but Sophia must have dissuaded him from a plan which would have separated her from her lover. Then, leaving her to her fate, he yields himself to his own, retires to his country house at Miedvicdkof, three leagues from Moscow, and declares he has no further part in the government. When foreign officers come to take his orders, he gives them evasive replies, — the irretrievable siirnal for cfeneral defection. l^ut the Regent herself will not, as yet, acknowledge that her brother has won ; she knows what she has to expect from him. Already the leaders of the insurgent Raskolniks, crowding into the Kreml, have shouted. ' It is high time that you should take the road to the convent.' She would far rather die. She sends messengers of peace, — the Patriarch himself, — to the TroTtsa. The august emissary takes the opportunity of making his private peace, and appears beside THE MONASTERY OF THE TROITSA 51 the Tsar at a solemn reception of the deserters, officers and soldiers, whose number daily increases. Then she resolves to play her last stake, and goes herself. Midway, at the village of VosdvijenskoT«5, where, seven years before, Hov- anski's head had fallen in an ambuscade, Boutourlin stops her. She is forbidden to proceed, and the Boyard's armed followers load their muskets. She beats a retreat, but still stands firm, and showers caresses on the Streltsy, most of whom, bound by past complicity, by fear of reprisals, by the temptation of fresh reward, remain faithful to her. They swear to die for her, but, turbulent and undisciplined as ever, they appear before the Kreml on the 6th of September, demanding the person of Shaklovityi", the Tsarevna's con- fidant, right hand, and temporary lover, that they may give him up to Peter, desiring, so they say, to make him a scape- goat, an expiatory victim, whose punishment shall appease the Tsar's wrath, and effect a general reconciliation. She gives in at last, after a desperate resistance, and from that time it becomes evident that she can depend on nothing, nor on any person. Shaklovityi is a terrible weapon in Peter's hands. ''Put to the question, under the lash, he supplies all the neces- sary elements of the charges which the Tsar's partisans desire to bring against Sophia and her adherents. The echo of his depositions draws Vassili Galitzin himself from his retreat, and leads him, submissive and repentant, to the Troitsa. This is the end. Peter refuses to receive him, but on the intervention of Boris, he consents to show him a measure of clemency. The ex-Regent is exiled to Kargopol, on the road to Archangel ; then, farther North, to larensk, a lonely village, where, all his wealth being con- fiscated, he will only have one rouble a day to support himself and his family of five persons. There he will dra«T on till 171 5 ; but the Tsar's half mercy goes no further. Shaklovityr and his accomplices, real or supposed, are con- demned to death. Micdviedief, shut up at first in a monas- ter)', after enduring the most horrible tortures, comes to the same end. The scaffold makes them all equal. As for Sophia, her fate is what she had foreseen — a convent, with some precautionary measures to increase the severity of the punishment. Peter's first care is to settle matters with his brother. In UNIVERSITY OF laiNOlS LiBRARt 52 PETER THE GREAT a carefully composed letter, he denounces their sister's misdeeds, but denies any intention of touching his elder brother's rii^hts, when he claimed those she had usurped from himself. He even expresses his inclination to respect Ivan's precedence; 'he will always love him, and respect him as a father.' He omits, nevertheless, to take his advice as to the treatment to be meted out to the usurper. Ivan Troiekourof, one of his early companions, is directly charged to order the Tsarevna to select a convent. After a short hesitation she too submits, and chooses the recently erected Convent of the Virgin (NovodievitchyT,) close to Moscow. The new regime has begun. It is still an intermediate riginic. Between Ivan, who holds his peace, accepts accomplished facts, remains a mere figure-head for ceremonial occasions, and Peter, who, the tumult once hushed, disappears behind those who helped him to pass victoriously through it, and returns to his own amusements, the power falls to the real conquerors of the moment. Boris Galitzin, a Muscovite of the old stamp, the living antithesis of his cousin Vassili, begins by holding the foremost place, occupied later, when he has compromised himself and roused Naryshkin jealousy by protecting his guilty kinsman, by the Xaryshkins themselves, and the other relatives of the Tsarina Mother. The future great man's hour has not yet struck. The serious strugcrle into which, for a moment, he has allowed himself to be drawn, has not carried him beyond the limits of the childish era of toy armies and sham fights. Yet, apart from its immediate results, it has not failed to exercise an all-important influence on Peter's destiny, on the develop- ment of his character and of his talents. The young Tsar does indeed leave business in the hands of his former com- rades, but he has found others, new comers these, who will rapidly oust the old ones from his affections, and who, if they do not actually join him in making the history of his great reign, are destined to point out the road and guide his feet upon it. BOOK II— THE LESSONS OF THE CIVILISED WORLD CHAPTER I ON CAMPAIGN — A WARLIKE APPRENTICESHIP— THE CREA- TION OF THE NAVY — THE CAPTURE OF AZOF I. Peter's new comrades — Patrick Gordon — Francis Lefort — The nature of their influence — Lefort's house in the Sloboda — A Russian Casino — The fair ladies of the Faubourg — The Tsar is entertained — The Governrr.ent of the Bo}-ard5 — Reactionary- spirit — Amusements at Preobrajenskoie — Wai^ke sports — Pleasures— Buflooner)' — The King of Presburg and the sham long of Poland — The Lake of Pereiaslavl — A fresh-water fleet — On the road to Archangel — The Sea — Death of the Tsarina Xathalia — A short mourn- ing — Peter goes back to his pleasures. II. Russia's precarious position — The Tsar's weariness — He seeks diversion and distraction — A foreign journey planned — Peter desires first to earn warlike glory — Fresh campaign against the Turks — First attempt on Azof — Com- plete failure — Peters genius is revealed — Perseverance. III. The greatness of Peter and the greatness of Russia — The result of the Mongol Conquest — Redoubled eff^orts — A second attempt — Repetition of the Siege of Troy — Success — Peter can face Europe — He decides on his journey. There has been a great deal of hair-splitting as to the foreign companions who now make their appearance in Peter's circle. Facts and dates have been pretty generally mixed up on this subject, even so far as to make Patrick Gordon one of the young Tsar's confidants and instructors long before Sophia's fall, and to indicate Lefort as the organ- iser and principal worker in the coup detat of 1689. As a matter of fact, neither came into contact with Peter till during the time of his residence at the Troitsa, and it was 63 54 PETER THE GREAT not till much later that they were admitted into his intimacy, and there played an important part. Gordon had been a follower of Vassili Galitzin. Lefort had no special position whatever, IJorn in Scotland, towards 1635, of a family of small Royal- ist and Catholic lairds, Patrick Gordon had spent twenty years of his life in Russia, vegetatinj^ as an officer of inferior rank, and far from happy in the process. Before ever coming to Russia, he had served the ICmperor, fought with the Swedes agamst the Poles, and the Poles against the Swedes. ' He was clearly,' say his English biographers, 'a genuine Dugald Dalgetty.'^ All his knowledge amounted to some recollec- tions of the village school he had attended in the neighbour- hood of Aberdeen, his native county, and to his military experiences, in command of a dragoon regiment, in Germany and Poland. In 1665, Alexis, and in 1685, Sophia, sent him on diplomatic service. He thus travelled to England twice, on commissions relative to the privileges of English mer- chants in Russia, fulhllcd his mission with success, but gained no reward save a tcharka (goblet) of brandy, which Peter, then a boy of fourteen, offered him, on his return from his second journey. He considered himself ill-treated, requested permission to retire, failed to obtain it, and was thenceforward inclined to make common cause with malcontents. He took part, however, in the disastrous Crimean campaigns, and there won the rank of General. But. being naturally intelli- gent, active, and well born, in his own country, he thought himself justified in aspiring to a yet higher position. Person- ally known to the Kings Charles and James of England, cousin to the Duke of Gordon, who was Governor of Edin- burgh in 1 686, he was the recognised chief of the Scotch Royalist Colony in the Sloboda. Speaking Russian, never shrinking from a bottle of wine, he was, to a certain extent, popular amongst the Muscovites themselves. His lively intelligence, his external appearance — redolent of civilisation — and his evident energy, were certain to attract Peter's attention. The Tsar was always to lean towards men of a robust temperament like his own. Patrick Gordon was, indeed, afflicted with an internal malady, which finally carried him off, but in 1697, at four-and-sixty years of age, he closes his journal with these words,' During the last few days I have ' Leslie Stephen and Sydney Lee, Duiionar}' of National Biography. ON CAMPAIGN 55 felt, for the first time, an evident diminution of my health and -strcn^'th." ' Francis Lcfort arrived at Moscow in 1675, with fifteen other forcifjn ofiTicers, who, like him, had come to seek their fortune. He belonged to a family of Swiss origin, of the name of Lifi'orti, which had left the town of Coni, and settled at Geneva. His father was a druggist, and thus belonged to the aristocracy of trade. The women of this class had obtained leave from the Chamber of Reformation, towards the \car 1649, to wear 'double woven flowered silk gowns.' At the age of eighteen, Francis departed for Holland, with sixty florins, and a letter of recommendation from Prince Charles of Courland, to his brother Casimir, in his pocket. Charles lived at Geneva : Casimir commanded a body of troops in the Dutch service. He made the young man his secretar\', giving him his cast-ofl" wardrobe, worth about three hundred crowns, and his card money, worth about fifty more per day, as salary.- This income, though large, was far from certain. Two years later, Lefort took ship for Archangel His first thought, when he set foot on Russian soil, was to leave it as quickly as possible ; but in those days, travellers could not leave the Tsar's Empire when and how they chose. F'oreigners were closel^ watched — those who went abroad were looked at askance, as possible spies. He spent two years at Moscow, where he nearly died of hunger. He contemplated disappearing into the relatively respectable obscurity of the household of some member of the Diplomatic Corps. He wandered from the Danish envoy's antechamber, to the English Envoy's kitchen, finding no permanent position anywhere. Yet, by degrees, he won friends amongst the inhabitants of the Sloboda. He found some kindly protectors, and even one fair protectress, the rich widow of a foreign Colonel. In 167S he definitely decided to settle in the country, and began by taking him a wife. This was an indispensable beginning, it being necessary, in order to disarm suspicion, to have a family and a roof-tree. He married Elizabeth Souha\', the daughter of a Metz burgher, a Catholic, with a fair fortune, ' Un])ul>lishc(l as yet, except in .1 (Icrman tr.insUition. The orijjinal is in the Arrbi\ cs «f the Si. retersburj;; W.nr ( )Oice. Some fragments ap|xarc(l at Al>erclcen in 1S59, |)ul>lishe(l by the Spalding Chib, * Vullicmin, hevue Suisse, vol. \xix. )). 33a 56 PETER THE GREAT and good connections. Two of Madame Souhay's brothers, of the name of Bockkoven, En^^h'shmen by birth, were highly placed in the army ; Patrick Gordon was son-in-law to one of them. This fact, doubtless, induced Lefort to enter the career of arms, for which he had otherwise neither taste nor inclination.^ It was not from these two foreigners, clearly, that Peter the Great and his army learnt what they had to learn before they won Poltava. As 1 have already indicated, their influence on the huge work of progress, of reform, and civilisation, which is bound up with Peter's name, was really very indirect. While it was yet in its infancy, they followed each other, in rapid succession, to the grave. P'or the moment, too, Peter cared for other things, and the lessons he learnt from the old Scotchman and the young Genevan had no connection with the science of Vauban and of Colbert. Lefort now owned a spacious house on the banks of the laouza, elegantly furnished in the French style, which had already, for some years, been the favourite meeting-place of the denizens of the Faubourg. Even during his absences, they habitually gathered there, to smoke and drink. Alexis had forbidden the use of tobacco, but in that respect, as in many others, the suburb was favoured ground. Nobody could organise a merrymaking so well as the Genevan, Jovial, full of lively imagination, with senses that were never jaded, he was a master in the art of setting people at their ease, a thoroughl}- congenial companion. The banquets to which he invited his friends generally lasted three days and three nights : Gordon was ill after every one of them, Lefort never appeared to feel the slightest evil effect. During Peter's first foreign journey, Lefort's drinking powers as- tounded even the Germans and the Dutch. In 1699, in the month of I'ebruary, after an unusually festive bout, he took a whim to finish his merrymaking in the open air. His folly cost him his life ; but, when the pastor came to offer him the last religious consolations, he dismissed him gaily, called for wine and for musicians, and passed away peacefully to the strains of the orchestra.- He was the perfect t}pe of the ' Korb, Diarium ititicris in Moscoriam (Vienna, 1700), p. 214 — Comp. Oustri- alof, vol. ii. p. 13 ; Alex. Gordon, History of Peter the Great, vol. i. p. 136, vol. ii. p. 154. Solovief, History of Russia, vol. xiv. p. 142. La Biographic de Posselt, transcriljcd in French by Vulliemin {Der General und Admiral Franz Lefort ^ Frankfort, 1866), is full of curious information, but devoid of the critical quality. ■•' Korb, p. 119. Oiistrialof, vol. iii. pp. 262, 263, ON CAMPAIGN 57 mij^hty reveller, a species now almost extinct, though it has left worthy descendants in Russia. Almost as tall in stature as Peter himself, and even more powerful than the Tsar, he excelled in everj' bodily exercise. He was a fine rider, a marvellous shot — even with the bow — an indefatigable hunter. Handsome in face, too, with charming manners ; his information was very limited, but he had a polyglot talent for languages, speaking Italian, Dutch, English, German, and Slav. Leibnitz, who tried to win his favour during his stay in Germany, declares that he drank like a hero, adding, that he was considered very witt)-.^ His house was no mere meeting-place for merry boon companions of his own sex. Ladies were to be seen there too, sharp -featured Scotch women, dreamy-eyed Germans, and Dutch women of ample charms. None of these fair dames bear any resemblance to the recluses of the Russian tcrcnts, hidden behind their iron bars and silken veils {faias). Their faces are uncovered, and they come and go, laughing and talking, singing the songs of their own country, and mingling gaily in the dance. Their simpler dresses, more becoming to the figure, make them seem more attractive than their Russian sisters. Some of them are of somewhat easy morals. All this it is which first attracts and captivates the future reformer. r* During the seven j-ears of the Regency, in spite of the tendencies common to Sophia and Vassili Galitzin, the history of Russian civilisation could boast but few days marked with a white stone. The government, ill at ease in its precarious situation, tormented, harried, fighting for exist- ence from its first day to its last, was scarcely in a position to take thought for an)-thing, save its own existence, l^ut during the seven years which followed on the coup d'etat of 1689, matters, as I have already hinted, grew even worst. This was a season of anti-liberal reaction, nay more, of frankly retrograde movement. Peter did not cause, but neither did he prevent it. He had no hand in the ukase which drove out the Jesuits, nor in the decree by virtue of which Kallmann, the Mystic, was burnt alive in the Red Scjuarc. These executions were the work of the Patriarch Joachim, and indeed, up till March 1690, when he died, the government was swayed by his authority. In his will, the prelate charged the young Tsar not to bestow ' CJucrricr. Letbnili in Seineii Jiesiehuttgen zu Kusstatid, p. 12. 58 PETER THE CREAT military commands on heretics, and to destroy the Pro- testant churclics in the S/obocia} I'cter was by no means inclined to obey; he even thought of providing the Patriarch with a more liberal-minded successor, in the person of Marcellus, Metropolitan of Pskof, but he lacked the power. Marcellus, so he declared, in later days, was not appointed for three reasons. P^irst, because he spoke barbarian tongtus (Latin and French), Secondly, because his beard was not long enough. Thirdly, because his coachman was allowed to sit on the box of his carriage instead of riding one of the horses harnessed to it. Peter was power- less. In July 1690 Gordon thus writes to one of his friends in London : ' I am still at this Court, where I have a great deal of anxiety and many expenses. I have been promised great rewards, but up to the present I have received nothing. I have no doubt that when the young Tsar himself takes the reins of government, I shall receive satisfaction.' But the young Tsar was in no hurry to take the reins of govern- ment, and indeed he never was where the interests of that government demanded his presence. Where was he then? Very frequently, after 1690, in the Sioboda, particularly in Lefort's house. Pie dined there constantly — as often as two or three times a week. Often, too, after spending the whole da\' with his friend, he would linger in his company till the following morning. Little by little, he brought his other boon companions with him. Soon they found themselves cramped for space, and then a palace, built of brick, replaced the favourite's former wooden house. Within it was a ball- room for 1500 persons, a dining-room hung with Spanish leather, and a yellow damask bedroom, ' with a bed three ells high, and bright red hangings'; there was even a picture- gallery.- All this luxury was not intended for Lefort alone, nor even for Peter, who cared but little for it. The young Tsar was thus beginning a system to which he was to remain faithful all his life. At St. Petersburg, many years later, while himself lodged in a mere hut, he insisted that Menshikof should possess a yet more splendid palace. But he ex- pected to be relieved, by him, of all court receptions and festivities. Lefort's palace, then, became, at one and the > O ' '. vol. ii. p. 496. ' \ p. 590. ON CAMTAICN 59 same time, a kind of auxiliary to tlic vcr)- shabby establish- ment kept up by the Sovereign at Prcobrajcnskoic, and a sort of casino. The furliicst gardens of the Slobodu bordered on tlic villa<;e where Peter and his fortunes had grown up together. There was dancing in Lcfort's house in the Sioboad, — there were dispiaj-s of fireworks at Prco- brajenskoie. This was a new mania of the young Tsar's. He endeavoured, in later years, to justify the excess to which he carried this pastime (originated by Gordon, who had some knowledge of pyrotcchny) by asserting the neces- sity of inuring his Russian subjects to the noise and smell of gunpowder. This, after Poltava, would appear somewhat superfluous ; still Peter went on firing rockets, and com- posing set pieces, with the same eagerness as ever. The truth is, that from first to last he delighted in fireworks. To the entl they were his favourite form of entertainment. He was no sportsman. Even as early as 1690 his predecessors' favourite hunting-box at Sokolniki was falling into ruin. Like his grandson, the unfortunate husband of the great Catherine, he loved noisy display, and he carried all things to extremes; the entertainment, to which a considerable part of his time was now devoted, involved considerable danger to himself and those about him, so incontinently did he sf: about the sport. Gordon's journal of P^cbruary 26th, 1G90, records the death of a gentleman, killed by the explosion of a rocket weighing five pounds. The same accident occurred on 27th January, in the following year. These displays of fireworks alternated with the mancL-uvres of the roticsluiyu\ also presided over b)' Gordon, and accompanied by serious risks. In a sham assault which took place on the 2nd of June 1691, Peter was burnt in the face by a grenade, and several ofllcers close to him wore seriously wounded. Shortly afterwards, Gordon himself was wounded in the leg. In October, 1691, Peter led a charge, waving his naked sword. Officers and soldiers, excited by the sight, fell on each other in real earnest, and Prince Ivan Dolgorouki was killed in the scuffle.^ The roughness and violence of these warlike games were not in themselves absolutely unusual ; the times were rougii and violent. Ciiarles XII., preparing for his career as .1 mighty warrior, outstripped his future adversary- in this r(^ ' Ouitrialol, vol. li. p. I SO 6o PETKR THE GREAT ^spect. Jkit there is a special and characteristic feature about the sham warfare in which I'cter so dchc^htcd, — the touch of comic butTooncry it invariably betrays, which indicates a special tendency, destined to be considerably developed in the youncj man's mind. The fort on the banks of the laouza had j^rown into a little fortified town, with a reg^ular f^arrison. a flotilla of boats, a Court of Justice, Adminis- trative Offices, and a Mctroj)olitan, — Zotof, a former tutor of the young Tsar's, whom he later created ' Pope ' or ' Patriarch of the Fools.' It even had a Kincj. This part was played by Romodanovski, who bore the title of Kinn^ of Presburg, (the name now given to the town), and, in this quality, warred against the King of Poland, represented by Boutourlin. In 1694. the King of Poland was called upon to defend a duly fortified place against a besieging army led by Gordon. At the very first attack, without waiting for the effect, reckoned on beforehand, of the operations prescribed by science — lines of circumvallation, approaches, mines, and so forth — the garrison and its commander threw down their arms and took to flight. Peter was in a fury ; the fugitives were ordered to return to the fort, and to fight to the bitter end. There was a tremendous expenditure of cannon fire, which, in spite of the blank cartridge, killed and wounded several people. P^inalK-, the King of Poland was made prisoner, and led into the conqueror's camp with his hands tied behind his back.^ It should not be forgotten, that at this period Russia was at peace, and even in actual alliance, with Poland, and that the real King of that friendly nation, whom all Europe ac- claimed, was called John Sobieski ! In a series of manoeuvres, carried out in 1692, I see mention of cavalry drills, in which a squadron of divarfs took part. In 1694, the church choristers, enrolled in some new military body, were fighting, under the command of the court fool, Tourgucnief, against the army clerks. Peter was given up to his amusements. During this tran- sition period, lasting nearly six years, the whole life of the future hero would seem to have been one perpetual merry- making, one orgy of noise and bustle, broken, indeed, by some useful and instructive exercises, but falling, for the most part, into puerility and licence of the worst kind. At * Jeliaboujski, Memoirs, p. 39. ON CAMPAIGN 6l one moment he was learning to throw bombs, and climbing to the top of masts ; the next he was singing in church, in a deep bass voice ; then, straight from divine service, he would go and drink till the morrow, with his boon com- panions. Von Kochen,a Swedish envoy, speaks of a yacht, entirely built, from stem to stern, by Karschten-Brandt's pupil ; and another foreigner mentions a note from the Tsar, inviting himself to his house, and warning him that he means to spend the night drinking,^ In the list of objects brought from Moscow to Preobrajenskoie for the Sovereign's use, I see mortars, engineering tools, artillery ammunition, and parrots' cages. Within the fortress of Presburg, engineer officers, pyrotechnists, skilled artisans of every kind, elbowed the douraks (court fools), who killed soldiers for a joke, and escaped all punishment.- Pcter's military pastimes had, for some time, taken on a more serious or would-be serious form. In 1690, a regiment of Guards, the Preobrajenski, was raised, with a Courlander, George Von Mengden, as colonel. This was soon followed by the Siemionovski regiment, — one-third of the effective strength, in both cases, consisting of French Protestants.^ But the approaching campaign of Azof was to teach ^e young Tsar the real value of these apparently warlike troops, and the danger of not approaching serious matters seriously. Peter gave himself a world of pains to build a fleet on the lake at Perefaslavl — the Pletcheievo-Oziero, but this work was not his only occupation there. It is a pretty spot, reached from Moscow by a pleasant road running through a succession of valleys, and over woody hills. The clear waters of the Viksa, pouring out of the western end of the lake, pass through the neighbouring lake of Somino, and fall into the Volga. Westward, the gilded cupolas of the twenty churches of the town of Pereiaslavl-Zaleski rise round the great Cathedral of the Transfiguration. Here Peter had built himself a one-storied wooden house, — the windows glazed with mica, — a double-headed eagle with a ' Oustri.ili)f, vol. ii. p. 360. ' Russian Archives, 1S75, vol. lii. p. 221. ' Details as to the orij^inal constitution of these rcfjinicnts, which were to play such an imjxirtant jxirt in the national history, will be found in the Saint Pcleisburg Jourtia!, April 177S. 63 1'ETP:R the (iKEAT gilded wooden crown, set over the entrance door, was the sole adornment of the humble dwelling; but life went cheerily within those walls. The ship\ard was but a few steps distant, but it is hardly likely that Peter worked in it during his frequent niichvinter visits to the shores of his 'little sea.' There was the greatest difficulty, in February 1692 in inducing him to leave it, to receive the envoy of the Shah of Persia in audience.^ The fact was, doubtless, that in that retired spot, far from the maternal eye, and from other less kindly curiosity, he felt himself more free to indulge in other pastimes. These were shared with numerous companions, frequently summoned from Moscow. Their carria<;cs often rolled past caravans, laden with hogsheads of wine, and beer, and hydromel, and kegs of brandy. There were ladies, too, amongst the visitors. In the spring, when the lake was open, shipbuilding and drill began again, but none of it was very serious. A year before the campaign of Azof, Peter has not made up his mind where, on what .sea, and against what enemies, he will utilise his future war- fleet ! But he has already decided that Lefort, who has never been a sailor, shall be his Admiral ; that the vessel on which he will hoist his flag shall be called the Elcp/iatit ; that the ship will be full of gilding, have an excellent Dutch crew, and a no less excellent captain — Peter himself !- The young Tsar's last journey to Pcrciaslavl took place in May 1693. He was not to look upon his lake and his ship- yard again for twenty years — till 1722, when he was on the road to Persia. The fresh-water flotilla, which had cost him so much pains, given him so much delight, and never served any useful purpose, was lying in utter decay, — hulls, masts, and rigging, all rotten and useless. He fell into a fury ; — these were sacred relics, and he gave the strictest orders for their preservation. All in vain. In 1803 but one boat remained, lying in a pavilion, itself fallen into ruin. There was not a sign of the house in which Peter had lived ; every- thing, even to the birch trees, under the shade of which the carpenter's apprentice once rested from his toil, had utterly disappeared.^ * Gordon's yoMrwa/, Feb. 16, 1692. ' Posselt, Der General umi Admiral Franz Lefort (Frankfort, 1866), vol. iL PP- 313-3' 5- • Ouslrialof, vol. u. p. I46. ON CAMPAIGN 63 In 1093 he fell iiiinsclf cramped on the Pletchcicvo- 0/icro, just as he had felt himself cramped, once before, on the ponds at Prcobrajenskoie. He extracted his mother's long^-refused consent, and started for Archangel. He was to see the real sea at last. He had been obliged to promise not to go on board any ship — he was only to look at them without leaving the shore. These vows, as may be imagined, were soon forgotten. He nearly drowned himself, going out on a miserable yacht, to meet a ship he had caused to be bought in Amsterdam. She was a warship, but she brought other things besides guns — rich furniture, French wines, apes, and Italian dogs. When Peter set his foot on board, he was transported with delight. ' Thou shalt command her,' he wrote to Lefort, ' and I will serve as common sailor.' And to Burgomaster Witsen, who had purchased the ship for him : ' Mix IIKR, all I can write you at this present moment is that John Flamm (the Pilot) is safely arrived, bringing forty-four guns, and forty sailors. Greet all our friends. I will write thee more fully by the ordinar}', for in this happy hour I do not feel inclined to write, but much rather to do honour to Bacchus, who, with his vine- leaves, is pleased to close the eyes of one who would other- wise send you a more detailed letter.'^ This is signed — ' Schipcr Fon schi ^' '/ santiis profet ' itics! which is intended to mean ' Captain of the .S7. Prophet! Peter, though already one-and-twenty, still treated ortho- graphy as a schoolboy joke, and, for the moment, he treated naval matters after much the same fashion — playing at being a sailor, as he had alread)' played at being a soldier, or a civilised man. In Lefort's house in the Sloboda, he dressed after the French fashion. He walked the streets of Archangel, in the garb of a Dutch sea-captain. Holland was his passion ; he adopted the Dutch flag, — red, white, and blue — merely changing the order of the colours, and he was to be seen sitting in the wine-shops, emptj'ing b(jttle after bottle, with the compatriots of Van Tromp and Van Ruyter. In January, 1694, he was back in Moscow, beside the dying bed of his mother, Nathalia. When the end came he showed great grief, weeping freely. But three days after- ' Lellers and Correspondence, vol. i. p. 23. 64 PETER THE GREAT wards he was back, merrymaking witli Lcfort. Was he then heartless, incapable of tender feeling? Not altogether; he showed nothing but kindness to Ivan, and, till the very end of that unhappy Sovereign's life, which occurred in 1696, he treated him with fraternal affection. Catherine was one day to find him something better than a passionate lover — a friend, and, later on, a husband, not absolutely without reproach indeed, but trusty, devoted, and deeply attached, if not over-refined nor impeccably faithful. At the time of his mother's death he was very young ; and he was, and always remained, impatient of all constraint. His recovery from the loss of a parent, who had been a certain restraint on his actions, was as rapid and complete as his utter obliviousness of the actual existence of his wife. On the 1st of May, he started once more for Archangel, and recommenced his whimsical sailoring existence. He made promotions in his fleet, just as he had previously made them in his army. Romodanovski, Boutourlin, and Gordon, became respectively, Admiral, Vice-Admiral, and Rcar-Admiral, without ever, the two first at least, having seen the sea, or set foot on the deck of any vessel. Peter himself remained a mere captain, just as he had remained a private of bombardiers in his own land forces. Determined efforts have been made to find some deep intention behind this deliberate appearance of modesty and self-effacement, which, in later years, was perpetuated, and developed into a system. I regally believe that the dates, the circumstances, the very origin and earliest manifestations of this pheno- menon, stamp it as a mere freak of fancy, which, like all freaks of that nature, have their logical explanation in some characteristic quality. It is the constitutional timidity of the man, masked, transfigured, idealised by the contradictory external appearances of a strong, self-willed, extravagant nature, and by the deceptive brilliance of his marvellous career, which is thus betrayed. There is nothing very deep, nor very serious, in all that constituted the existence of the future great man at the time of which I write. But all these pleasures and studies, the new fancy for foreign company, — the casino in the Sloboda, — the Pr<5obrajenskoie camp, and the Archangel wine-shops, — Lefort, Gordon, and the Dutch sailors, — all these, I say, had the effect of throwing him violently, and completely, out of the rut in which his ON CAMPAIGN 65 ancestors had run, — out of the />(tst, into a road of which tlic end was not yet evident, but which already gave promise of leading him towards a future, stuffed with surprises. II And how was Russia faring, while her appointed lord rushed hither and thither, according to his capricious and vagabond fancy ? Russia, so far as she was capable of understanding and reasoning over what befell her, was beginning to think she had gained but little by the coup d'etat of 1689. The young Sovereign's friendships among the Niemtsy, and his constant visits to the Sloboda, had caused his subjects little displeasure or alarm. Alexis had accus- tomed them to such practices. But the late Tsar's western tastes, though less pronounced than Peter's, had been f^ir more attractive in their results — industrial successes, legis- lative reforms, real progress, bearing evident fruit. The sole apparent harvest of Peter's firework displays, and mili- tary games, amounted to several dead men, and numerous maimed cripples. Besides, though the young Tsar carried his European amusements to an extreme point, the Boyards who governed in his name were, in all serious matters,. rather disposed to be retrograde. Added to which, they governed very ill. Galitzin's expedition against the Tartars had been a failure. But at all events he had been beaten far from the frontiers of his own country, on the plains of Perckop. Now these same Tartars threatened the very borders of Holy Russia! Alarming news, calls for assistance, reports of defeat, came pouring in from every side. Ma/.eppa was threatened in the Ukraine. Dositheus, patriarch of Constantinople, wrote letters filled with gloomy rumours. A French envoy, he averred, had met the I Ian of the Crimea, and the Grand Vizier, at Adrianople. lie had bestowed 10,000 ducats on the first, 70,000 on the second, on their promise that the Holy Places should be placed under French protection. The bargain had already been partl\- carried out. Catholic priests had taken the Holy Tomb, half Golgotha, the church at Bethlehem, and the Holy Grotto, out of the hands of the orthodox monks. They had destroyed the icons, and the Russian name had become a 66 PETER THE GREAT scorn in the eyes of the Sultan, and his subjects. The Sultan hatl omitted the two Tsars of Russia from his written announcement of iiis succession, to all the other European rulers. News came from Vienna, where the Russian envoys hat! boucjht over the Foreitjn Office translator, Adam Stille, that the l^mperor's ministers, and the Polish and the Turkish envoys, were in perpetual conference, to the utter exclusion of Russia. That country was completely put aside, and ran serious risk of being left alone to face the Tartar and the Turk. Public uneasiness and discontent, thus justified, grew louder day by day. Peter, meanwhile, had wearied of his toys. Archangel roads, and the White Sea, frozen for seven months out of twelv^e, were but a poor resource. He had thought of seeking a passage through the Northern Ocean, which might open the road to China and the Indies. But the lack of means for such an expedition was all too evident. On the Baltic, nothing was possible. The Swedes were there alrcad\', and did not seem likely to be easily dislodged. Lefort put forward another plan, and now it is, especially at this slippery corner in the young hero's life, that the Genevan adventurer's influence brings forth really important consequences. His position, for some years past has been pre-eminent. He is the first figure in the series, — carried on in the persons of Ostermann, Biihren, Munich, — of great pan'CNUs of foreign origin, who, for more than a centur}', were to sway the destinies of Russia. Two sentries mounted guard before his palace. The greatest lords in the country waited in his antechamber. Peter treated him, on every occasion, with a consideration hardly usual from a sovereign to a subject. He even publicly and soundly boxed the ears of his own brother-in-law, Abraham Fcodorovitch Lapouhin, who fell out with the favourite, and damaged his wig.^ During his absences, he wrote him letters, which breathed an exaggerated tenderness. He received, in return, missives revealing more unceremonious familiarity than affection.- In 1695, the Genevan began to reflect on the satisfaction he might find in showing off his prodigious good fortune ' Pyl.iief, Old Moscffw (St. Petersburg, 1891), p. 491. ' Peter the Great's Writim:! and Correspoudeme^ vol. i. p. 754. Compare Oustri:\lof, vol. iv. part i. pp. 553-611. ON CAMPAIGN 67 befi^rc his Swiss and Dutch friends. Peter h.id already sent certain of his yount^ comrades a!)road. Why not follow them in person, to sec, and study at first-hand, the wonders of which Timmermann and Karschten-lirandt had only given him a partial and mutilated idea? What delight for his eyes! What diversion in his budding boredom ! What instructive sights ! And what new pleasures ! But an objec- tion crops up. What kind of figure would the Tsar of all the Russias cut in Europe? He could only bring an unknown name, darkened and humbled by recent and by former defeats, which he had made no personal effort to retrieve. This thought, doubtless, it was, which forced Peter to reflect on his own life, on the sports and occupations which had hitherto absorbed all his activity, and to recognise their complete futility. A light flashed across his brain. Before presenting himself to the men of the western world, such great men, in his estimation, — should he not raise him- self to their level, carry them something more than a record of schoolboy prowess? But how to set about it? At this point the young Tsar's fervid imagination fell in with the mental distress of the Boyards, to whom he had hitherto left the cares of state. They, too, felt the urgency of doing something to help themselves out of the unpleasant quandary, internal and external, into which the carelessness and awkwardness of a hand-to-mouth policy had led therri^ The impulse of these varied motives led up, at this particular moment, to the first attempt on Azof, The intuitive genius of the future conqueror of Poltava, to whom, with many praises, the plan of campaign elaborated on this occasion has been ascribed, had, I believe, nothing to say to it. There was no necessity, indeed, for his taking that trouble. The plan, a traditional and classic one in the history of Russia's relations with her redoubtable southern neighbours, had been prepared long beforehand. Bathory, the great warrior borrowed by Poland from Transylvania, proposed it to Tsar Ivan in 1579.^ The town of Azof, stand- ing some ten miles from the Don, — called Tanais before the Christian era, the Tana of the middle ages, — a Genoese trading factory, captured and fortified by the Turks in 1475, had long been the natural point of attack and defence, for the two nations who had stood face to face, in perpetual quarrel, ' P. Picrlint;, ro^es et Tsars (Paris, 1890), p. 204. 68 PETER THE GREAT for centuries. It w.is the key of the river-mouth on one hand, the key of the Black Sea on the other ; but the chief effort of the Muscovite army was not to be turned in this direction. The Boyards, with the greater part of the available Russian forces, — with all the old arm}-, that which had followed Galitzin in his disastrous undertakings against the Tartars, — were simply to follow in his steps, and fight his campaign over again, with much the same results. The attempt on Azof was a mere accessory, an isolated coup dc innifi, wherein the youncj Tsar's originating power was to find its scope. The leaders of the huge camp, moving slowly down to the Crimea, were heartily glad to be rid of liim. They let him work his own sweet will. Nor did he himself give much pains to his preparations. The undertaking, in his eyes (as one of his letters written at the outset of the expedition clearly proves), was a mere con- tinuation of the big man(uuvres round Presbursr.^ He reckoned on taking the town by surprise ; yet he refrained from confiding his 'pleasure' regiments to the improvised leaders he had given them during his sham battles on the banks of the laouza. These fights seem to have convinced him that the troops thus employed had developed into a real and serious military force, fit to face a great war ; but he also felt, ajjparently, that his present adventure, being very different in its nature, called for different precautions. The ' Kings ' of ' Poland ' and of ' Prcsburg ' were accordingly dismissed ; yet, faithful to a habit long since abandoned in western warfare, he determined to divide the supreme command. Three Generals-in-chief — Golovin, Gordon, and Lefort^ — rode at the head of his army, which numbered all his newly raised regiments, those of the Guard, Lefort's, and some detachments of troops drawn from the court and from the cities, St/r/fsj' and Tsarcdvortsy, thirty-one thousand men in all. The expedition thus organised still bears a close resemblance to a pleasure party. The Generals, one of whom at least, Lefort, has not a notion of what real war means, wrangle from the outset. The young Tsar cracks jokes, carries on his favourite games of masquerade and rough buffoonery, interferes in all directions, gives contra- ' letter to ApraxJn, .'Xpril l6, 1695. Writiiigz and Corrcspoiidetue, vol. i. p. 28. - Petrof, The Arvtcd Forces of Russia ("Slo^covi. 1892. Pul)lished under the auspices of the Ministry for War), vol. ii. p. 4. ON CAMPAIGN 69 dictory orders, assumes the pseudonym of Peter Alexiiiief and the rank of captain, so as to parade at the head of his bombardier company. Though he has stripped Romo- danovski of his prerogatives, he has left him his title, and in the middle of the campaign he writes : — *MlN Her Kknich,— Your Majesty's letter, dated from your capital of Presburg, has been duly delivered to me. Vour Majesty's condescension binds me, in return, to be ready to shed every drop of my blood, with which object I am just about to march, BOMBARDIER PETER.' ^ The end is what we might have expected. Peter, like Sophia and Galit/.in, is reduced to misleading opinion by reports of imaginary triumphs. Te Deums are sung at Moscow for the capture of a couple of insignificant forts. But all the world knows that the attack on the fortress of Azof has failed, twice over, with great loss and slaughter. The new army and its young founder have been tried, and found wanting. Seven years of youthful extemporisation, on the value of which judgment has been deferred, have ended in piteous and humiliating failure. Here the history of Peter the Great begins. Ill Peter was not a great man only — he was the most complete, the most comprehensive, and the most diversified personification of a great people that has ever appeared. Never, I should think, have the collective qualities of a nation, good and bad, the heights and the depths of its scale of morality, every feature of its physiognomy, been so summed up in a single personality, destined to be its historic type. Those same unsuspected powers of mind and soul, which drove Peter into sudden action, and raised him to greatness, were the very qualities which Russia has displayed from day to day, from year to year, these two centuries past, and which will make her greatness, as they made his. Beaten by the Turks, beaten by the Swedes, overrun by Europeans, as she had once been by Asiatics, after twenty defeats, twenty treaties of peace, forced on her by her conquerors, she was still to enlarge her frontiers at their expense, to dismember Turkey, Sweden, and Poland, to end by dictating * .May 19, 1695. Writingi aiui Correspondence ^ vol. i. p. 29. 70 PETER THE GREAT laws to the Continent of Europe. And all this because she persevered. Perseverance, obstinate determination to reach the J^oal, even wlien that seemed utterly impossible, — never to swerve from the path once chosen, however dangerous, never to chancre adopted measures, though they be defective, simply to double and treble effort, panting, like some wearied wood- cutter, to multiply blows and await their result, resolutely, patiently, stoically, — this is the secret hidden in the Russian soul, tempered to adamantine hardness by centuries of slavery and centuries of redeeming toil. The greatness of Peter, the greatness of Russia, are the outcome of the Mongol conquest, and of the patient genius of the Moscow A'//m:7, hardened on the anvil which wore out their conqueror's hammers. The Moscow grumblers had fine sport on the morrow of that first disastrous campaign, recalling the Patriarch Joachim's prophetic words and the anathemas he launched against the foreign soldiery, commanded by heretic generals. Nevertheless, Peter increased his calls on foreign science and industry. He sent to Austria and to Prussia for engineers, to Holland and to England for sailors and for shipwrights. The flotilla on the lake of P^rciaslavl had been utterly useless. He set about building another, at Voroneje, in the vallev of the Don. He met with enormous, well-nigh in- superablc, difficulties. The artisans engaged abroad first tarried in their coming, and then, when they saw the country and the proffered task, took to their heels. The native workmen, not understanding what was required of them, spoilt the work, and being punished, deserted, too, en »1(7ssl\ The forests where the timbers were cut caught fire, and hundreds of square leagues were burnt. The higher order of workers, officers, engineers, and doctors, imitated and exaggerated the freaks of conduct of which their master still set the example. There were scenes of orgy, quarrels, bloody scuffles. General and Lord High Admiral Lefort, being summoned by c(5i:ricr to render an account of certain details, connected with the administration of his Department, thus opens his report : — ' To-day Prince Boris Alexicievitch (Galitzin) is coming to dine with me, and we shall drink your health. I fear you have no good beer at Voroneje ; I will bring you some, and some Muscat wine as well.'^ No ' Solovief, voL xix. p. 227. Compare Ouslrialof, vuL iv. oart L d. sSSi elc. ON CAMTAIGN 71 matter! The work had been begun in the autumn of 1696. On the 3rcl of the following May, thrce-and-twcnty galleys anil four fireships were launched, and dropped down the river Don, on the way to the sea. At their head Captain Peter Alexid-ief on the g^Wey Prwa'pi in//, built, in great part, by his own hands, did duty as pilot. Lord High Admiral Lefort, Vice- Admiral Lima, a Venetian, and Rear-Admiral Balthasar de L'Osiere, a Frenchman, followed on board the other vessels. This time the Russian fleet was created in good earnest. 1 must at once acknowledge that it was not a very brilliant fleet, nor did the land army, commanded by its new Gcncral- lissimo, the Boyard Shcin, with which it was to co-operate in a new attempt on Azof, cover itself with laurels. The 'pleasure' regiments had fallen too much into the habit of joking. As for the Strr/tsy, they had grown fit for nothing but besieging palaces ; one cannon shot threw them into wild rout. Peter, as he watched them, must have meditated, even under the walls of the impregnable fortress, on the fate to which he destined them, in the near future. The appearance and behaviour of this camp, previous to the tardy arrival of the military men promised by the Emperor, call up memories of the siege of Troy. The Generals lost their heads, and Gordon, the most capable of them ail, having vainly tried to open a breach in the wall, the whole body of troops, officers and men, were called into council, and invited to give their opinion as to the operations to be undertaken. A Strelets suggested that a mound of earth should be raised against the enemy's ramparts, so as first to overlook and then to bury them. Vladimir the Great had, it appeared, adopted this expedient to reduce Kherson.^ This strategy was adopted with enthusiasm, with the sole result of causing the Turks some little alarm, and drawing smiles from the German engineers when they reached their destination, at last. Peter's own high spirits, cheerfulness, and boyish boldness were delightful. He writes jokingly to his sister Nathalia, who is alarmed at the dangers to which she fancies she is exposed ; ' It is not I who run after the bullets, they run after me. Will you not tell them to stop?' But steady as he was, even then, in his long prepared resolutions, he was specially subject to fits of dismay and momentary discouragc- • Pclrof, vol. ii. p. 6. 72 PETER THE GREAT ment, — very easily disconcerted, in fact. On the 20th of May, attcmptiiit; to reconnoitre the Turkish fleet, which he desired to prevent from entcrinij the Don, and re-victuaHing the fortress, he fell into a sudden terror of its formidable appearance, and beat a precipitate retreat with all his galleys. At ten o'clock the next morning he was in Gordon's tent, gloomy, depressed, full of the worst forebodings. At three in the afternoon, he was back again, beaming with joy. The Cossacks, without receiving any orders, following the inspira- tion of their own courage, had flown across the water in their tc/itiiki, frail leather skiffs, fleet as the bird whose name they bear {tchaika, seagull), had attacked the Sultan's huge vessels on the preceding night, and driven them into flight, with heavy loss.^ Here was a fine opportunity for Gordon's artillery to distinguish itself! For, though, the guns never being properly trained, not a single shell fell within the town, a tremendous amount of powder was burnt in triumphal salvos. The arrival of a fresh detachment of troops, the taking of a redoubt, the capture of one of the enemy's skiffs, — everything was made a pretext for a cannonade. But no matter ! The effort, this time, is so tremendous, the determination to conquer so intense, that, with the help of Cossacks and German engineers, the thing is done at last. On the i6th of July the guns at last open an efi'ective fire. On the 17th the Zaporojtsi (Dnieper Cossacks), who are as bold on land as on sea, carry part of the out- works of the fortress by a bold stroke, and on the iSth Peter writes to Romodanovski : ' Your Majesty will learn with joy that God has favoured your armies ; your Majesty's prayers, and your good fortune, have brought the people of Azof to surrender yesterday.' Now the young Tsar can dare to show himself to his western neighbours, and cruel experience has convinced him that he still has everything to learn from them. His mind appears broadened, and illuminated by a new bright- ness. He conceives a vast plan of naval policy, he fore- sees the share which the foreign element must have in its execution, and provides for it amply. lie desires to unite the Don with the Volga by a network of canals, but he does not propose to go blindly about such an undertaking. It is not enough to engage constructors in Venice, in Holland, ' Gordon 's_/<7«/-«j/, May lo, 1696. ON CAMPAIGN 73 in Denmark, and in Sweden. It is not enough to send fifty officers of his household into foreign countries — twcnty-ci^ht to Italy, twenty-two to Holland and to Knc^land.^ He must follow them, he must put himself to school, and in c^rim earnest this time, seriously, laboriously, in the sweat of his brow. There is something childish still, about this thirst for knowledge, and passion for work, — more than one sign of puerility will mark the studious pursuits of the future car- penter's apprentice at Saardam, — but the goal is marked out, the impulse has been given. The great journey, the grand tour of Europe, is to inaugurate one of the most wonderful careers in history. ' Sulovicf, vol. xix. p. 23S. CHAPTER II THE JOURNEY — GERMANY— HOLLAND -ENGLAND— THE RETURN I. Precedents — The Tsar's incognito — First disi;uise— The great embassy — I'etcr Mihailof — Impression in Moscow and in Europe — Departure de- layed — A conspiracy — Hloodstained ghosts — The woodcutter's hatchet and the axe of Ivan the Terrible— Sweden— Riga, a chilly reception— A future casus belli — In Germany — Koenigsherg — Curiosity and eccen- tricities — An artillery diploma — Koppenbrugge — Meeting with Charlotte Sophia of Prussia — Peter's first social appearances — Leibnitz. 11. Holland — Zaandam — Legend and history — The house at Krimpenburg — A fair Dutchwoman — Amsterdam — Serious study licgins — Shipwright and Sovereign — Weaknesses and oddities — The Russian Bacchus. III. England — An uncomfortable room — Peter at Kensington Palace — Unfavour- able impressions — liurnet — More legends — London and Dcptford — Toil and ple.-isure — Mrs. Cross, the actress — General initiation. IV. En route for Vienna — The arrival a failure — Austrian pride — Moral depression — The Emperor and the Tsar — The drawbacks of incognito^A diplomatic check — Failure of the journey to Venice — Alarming news from Russia — • The seed of the Miloslavski '—Hasty return— Interview with Augustus IL at Rawa— CIoM> uf the journey. To find any precedent, in Russian history, for Peter's journey, we must go back to the eleventh centuiy. In 1075 the Grand Duke of Kief, Izaslaf, paid a visit to the Emperor Henry IV. at Maycnce. Thtis once again, unconsciously, no doubt, Peter took up an old tradition. From the days of Ivan the Terrible, the mere desire, on the part of any sub- jects of the Tsar, to visit foreign countries had been held high treason. In Tsar Michael's reign, a certain Prince Hvorostinin was severely prosecuted on this very score. He had spoken, before some friends, of a journey to Poland and Rome, which he was much inclined to take, 'to find somebody to talk with.' Yet a little later, the son of Alexis' 74 THE JOURNEY 75 favourite councillor, Ordin-Nashtchokin, having secretly crossed the frontier, there was some question of his being put to death abroad.^ Peter himself did not venture to brave opinion to the extent of giving any oflicial character to his departure. All he dared permit himself was a kind of half clandestine frolic, and there is a sort of naive timidity about the precautions taken to ensure an incognito, which, with his constitutional petulance, he was to be the first to break. A great Embassy was organised, charged with a mission to request the Kmperor, the Kings of England and of Denmark, the Pope, the Low Countries, the Elector of Ikandenburg, and the Republic of Venice — the whole of Europe, in fact, save Erance and Spain — 'to renew the ancient bonds of friend- ship, *so as to weaken the enemies of the Christian name.' The ambassadors were three in number. Lefort, as ambassador-in-chicf, took precedence of his colleagues, Golovin and \'oznitsin. Their suite consisted of fifty-five gentlemen and ' volunteers,' amongst them a non-commis- sioned officer of the Preobrajenski regiment, who answered to the name of Peter Mihailof, — the Tsar himself. During the whole course of the journe}', letters intended for the Sovereign were to bear the simple superscription, 'To be given to Peter Mihailof This was mere childishness, — but there is something touching about one detail. The seal to be used by the mock non-commissioned officer represented a young carpenter, surrounded bj' his shipwright's tools, with this inscription : ' My rank is that of a scholar, and I need masters. "- At Moscow, opinion as to the real object of the journey was very different. The Tsar was generally believed to be going abroad to do much as he had done, hitherto, in the Sioboda, in other words, to amuse himself^ Did Peter himself, at that moment, perceive the distant horizon towards which his steps were tending? It is very doubtful. He did indeed, as he travelled through Livonia, talk of trimming his subjects' beards, and shortening their garments;* but, judging from the faces and habiliments of his travelling companions, this may fairly be taken for an idle jest. Lefort was garbed ' .Sulovief, vol. ix. p. 461 ; vol. xi. p. 93. ' Oustrialof, vnl. iii. p. 18. * Iln'if. p. 640. * Blomcbcrt;, An Account /"Z,»tv«/a (LondonJ, p. 332 (French edition, 1705). 76 PKTKR THK GREAT in the Tartar style, and the young Prince of Inierctia wore a splendid Persian costume. The journey indeed, in its earlier days, was very f.ir irom possessinj^ the importance, either from the Russian or from the European point of view, with which later events have invested it. It made, in fact, no sensation whatsoever. I regret to have to contradict, in this matter, another legend, very dear to the national vanity. Russians had already grown accustomed to see their Sovereign rushing hither and thither, or rather indeed to never seeing him at all ; European eyes were turned in quite a different direction. The moment Peter had pitched on, to make acquaintance with his western friends, and rouse their curiosity, was a solemn one for them. The Congress of Ryswick was just about to meet. It absorbed the attention of the whole world, political," com- mercial, and intellectual. Of this I will offer one proof only, — any one who goes to the Ouai d'Orsay, may there con- sult the eight volumes containing the correspondence of Louis XIV. with the plenipotentiaries who were engaged, in the course of the year 1697, in defending his interests before that great diplomatic gathering. I will undertake that Peter's name will be found to occur only once, and that once in a most casual manner. The Tsar had paused in his work and scientific pursuits at Amsterdam, and had travelled to the Hague, where his embassy was officially received. The jjlenipotcntiarics mention this fact, and that is all. He and they had been near neighbours for many months, they residing at Delft, he studying at Amsterdam, — yet they do not even seem to have suspected his existence. It is very doubtful whether they knew his name. Even in connection with Polish affairs, which constantly occupied their attention, they never refer to it. They have no suspicion, evidently, of the part which the future ally of Augustus II. aspires hence- forth to play. The appearance of the Russian Sovereign beyond the frontiers of his little-known Empire attracted interest in a special circle only. In the following year, it was to furnish the teaching body of Thorn with the subject of a public dis- putation.^ Learned men had already turned their attention to Muscovy. In England, Milton had written a book on the ' ConjecturiT aliquot polUua de susceptis magni Musiovut Ducts . . . ititt' criOus (Thorunii, 1698, St. Petcrsi>urg Library). THE JOURNEY 77 great Northern Empire, which had been followed by a whole literature devoted to the same subject. Leibnitz liad recently expressed his opinion that the Muscovites were the only people capable of frcciiii; Europe from the Turkish yoke. And it was with this learned world, especially, that Peter Miharlof desired to enter into relations. From this point of view, the brief interval of respite and relaxation which the exhaustion of France had [granted Europe, between the great crisis which had placed Louis XIV. face to face with the most formidable of coalitions, and the approaching struggle of the Spanish Succession, was a most propitious moment for a tour, ' on business or on pleasure bent,' through the old European Continent. The Tsar's departure, which had been fixed for the month of February 169", was delayed by the discovery of a plot against his life. .At the head of the conspirators we find an old acquaintance, Tsiklcr, Sophia's former henchman, who had joined Peter's party, but whom the Sovereign's scorn had turned into a malcontent. As for his accomplices, they are easily guessed, — the Strcltsy, again and always the Stre/(sy\ Was Peter doomed ever to find them in his path, breathing threats and hatred? This incident was quickly closed, a few heads were cut off, and at last, on the loth of March, the start was made. But a shadow had fallen across the brightness of the journey, and the feeling of intense bitterness rose higher and higher in the young Sovereign's heart. Were these Streltsy to haunt him for ever? Were they never to cease recalling the bloodstained ghosts that had hovered round his cradle? Well, war it should be, since they desired it ! Their account should be settled on the first favourable oppor- tunity. And he swore to be on his guard henceforth, to set steel against steel, unsleeping watchfulness against perpetual plotting, the scaffold waiting on the Red Square, against the dagger lurking ready in the shadow. The friends and the most faithful helpers of the Sovereign must see to it, till he returned to do the work himself But even from afar, he would stir up Romodanovski's zeal. Wheresoever he went, in Germany, in Holland, and in h'.ngland, through all the new and wonderful and dazzling sights he was to behold, his eyes were to carry with them the terrible vision, the anguished nightmare, of the mortal peril which seemed 78 PETER THE GREAT bound up with his destiny. Thus does the distrustful, fierce, implacable L;enius of liis ancestors revive and grow in him, wedding the splendour of his civilising work to the bloody shadows of a horrible carnage ; woodcutter and executioner at once, he wields alike the hatchet and the axe. The progress of the embassy was slow. There were 2 50 persons to transport. Lefort alone had ten gentlemen, seven pages, fifteen serving-men, two jewellers, six musicians, and four dwarfs in his train. At Riga, on Swedish ground, the reception was courteous, but cold. The Governor, Dahlberg, sent word that he was ill, and did not appear. Later on, Peter was to try to turn this fact into a casus belli, and talk of personal insult to himself. Officially speaking, his person- ality cannot have been in question. At Riga, as elsewhere, the ambassadors gave the word that the reported presence of the young Sovereign in their company was to be treated as an idle story. He was supposed to be at Voroneje, busy with his shipbuilding. There may have been a touch of malice about the literal manner in which Dahlberg accepted this assurance. And the Russians, following, in this respect, an inclination which, I am inclined to fear, has grown hereditary, demanded all the rights of hospitality after too familiar and exacting a fashion. Peter went so far as to endeavour to take plans of the fortress with his own hands. This attempt was instantly cut short. The Swedes can hardly be said to have done wrong, for Peter's father had besieged the place. The fault, at all events, if fault there was, was on both sides. At Mittau, the travellers' ill-humour passed away. The reigning Duke, Frederick Casimir, was an old acquaint- ance of Lefort's. He gave the embassy a cordial and magnificent reception. Peter forgot his incognito, and surprised his entertainers by the unexpectedness of his remarks, and by his jokes on the habits, prejudices, and barbarous laws of his own country. The West was begin- ning to take hold of him, but he was still the same extra- vagant fantastic youth. At Libau, he beheld the Baltic, the Varegians' Sea, for the first time. Bad weather prevented his going farther, at that moment, and he spent his days in the Wcinkdler, with the sailors of the port, drinking and joking, and insisting, this time, on passing himself off as a plain captain, who had been sent to arm a privateer for the THE JOURNEY 79 service of ihc Tsar. At last he reached Koenigsbcrf^, having outstripped his embassy, which travelled by land, while he made a short cut by sea, on a merchant vessel. He refused to receive the greeting of the Prince of Holstein-Beck, sent by the Elector of Brandenburg to meet him, made the master of the vessel vow he had no distinguished passenger, remained on board till dusk, and did not make up his mind to accept the lodging prepared for him till ten o'clock at night. There he found the Sovereign's Master of the Ceremonies, Johann von Besser, an accomplished courtier, a learned man, and a poet into the bargain. He rushed at him, snatched off his wig, and threw it into a corner. ' Who is he?' he asked his own people. The functions of the personage in question were explained to him as far as possible. ' Very good, let him bring me a ! ' This anecdote, I must acknowledge, although vouched for by a serious and a far from ill-natured historian, has a suspicious air.^ But the numberless analogous traits preserved by tradition, leave us in no doubt as to the reality of the general impression it produces. This much is clear, the reformer of the future was still a young savage. The next morning he paid a visit to the Elector, conversed in bad German, drank a great deal of Hungarian wine, but, having once more assumed the character of Peter Mihai'lof, refused to receive the Sovereign's return visit. Later on he changed his mind, and prepared what he considered a magnificent reception, capped with some fireworks of his own composi- tion. At the ver>^ last moment the Pllector begged to be excused. A sorry business, this, for the bearers of the unpleasant tidings, Count von Kreyzen and Provost von Schlacken : Peter was at table with Lefort and one of his dwarfs ; Lefort sat pipe in mouth, the Tsar, half drunk, and full of tenderness for his favourite, leaning across, from time to time, to kiss him. He invited the messengers to seat themselves beside him. Then suddenly, striking the table furiously with his fist, he cried : ' The Elector is a good man, but his counsellors are devils ! GeJie ! gcJie I (be off with you ! '), and rising, he seized one of the Branden- burgers by the throat, and dragged him towards the door, still shouting, ' Gehe ! Gehe ! ' * Bergman, /V/ent on rare animals for use on this occasion.' And a month later, * T! I am a great enemy of dirt, my curiosity, this time, is I . ..i;ong for mc.'^ Peter, interested in his turn, urged, doubtless, by his pleasant memories of the fair ladies in the Sloboda, willingly i to a meeting, to take place at Koppenbriigge. in 11.^ vjiand Duchy of Zell, a fief of the House of Branden- burg, belonging to the Prince of Nassau. At first the young Sovereign took fright at the number of people he noticed in the place, — the two Electresses having neglected to warn him they were bringing their whole family with them. He tried to steal away, hastily left the village, and more than an hour was spent in parleying before he could be induced to return. At last he made his appearance at the castle, but his only reply to the compliments addressed to him by the two Princesses, was to cover his face with his hands, repeating the words, ' Ich kann nicht sprechen.'- Shyness this, if you will, but constitutional timidity as well I hold to this opinion, and see a confirmation of it in the continuation of the interview. For the voune: Sovereign soon recovers from his agitation, and is, indeed, very quickly tamed. At supper he shows signs of awkwardness, and is guilty of some boorishness. He is puzzled with his napkin, which he does not know how to use, and eats in dirty and slovenly fashion. He forces the whole company to remain at table for four hours, drinking endless toasts to his health, and standing each time. But in spite of all, the impression he produces is not a bad one. He seems simple, with a great deal of natural wit, answers questions readily and promptly, and, once started, carries on the longest conversation without any difficulty. Asked if he cares for hunting, he answers by showing his hands, hardened by toil. He has no time for hunting. After supper, he agrees to dance, on condition that the two Princesses set the example. He desires to put on gloves, but finds he has none. The gentlemen of his suite take the whalebone stays of their partners for a natural physical feature, and loudly remark that ' the German ladies' backs are devilish hard.' The Tsar sends for one of . Li'dt tier Kvni^n van Prtuatit, ^/iU CAarU/u ^ ' I '. He found one that took his fancy, and settled down in it. He bought a boiejer or small sailing-boat, fitted it with a stepped mast, then a new invention, and spent his time sailing his little vessel on the Gulf. At the end of a week he had had enough of it The ships he had seen on the waters of the Y, or in the shipbuilding yards, were mere merchant vessels, of moderate tonnage. His presence had flurried the quiet population of the place, causing trouble to the local authorities, and some inconvenience to himself. Nobody, it is quite clear, was deceived by his disguise. His arrival had been foretold, and a description of his person given to one of the local workmen by a relation employed in Russia ; ' Tall, with a head that shakes, a right arm that is never quiet, and a wart on his face.' Some children, whom he had treated roughly, threw stones at him. He lost his temper, forthwith forgot his incognito, and loudly proclaimed his quality. He was given a hint that his departure would be hailed with satisfac- tion, and his Embassy having arrived at Amsterdam, he determined to rejoin it. THE JOURNEY 8? One week he spent at Zaandam, — sailing about in a boat, and making love to a servant-girl at the inn, to whom he presented fifty ducats.* But his strange behaviour and his carnival disguise had made their impression. He had sowed the seeds, in that out-of-the-way spot, of a crop of picturesque anecdotes, out of which the legend was to grow. Before the end of the eighteenth century, Joseph II., Gustavus III. and the Grand Duke Paul of Russia — early in the nine- teenth. Napoleon and Maria Louisa, were to visit the dwelling, authentic or non-authentic, within which the posthumous worship of a late-born religion had been set up. Napoleon it appears, showed little interest, and Marie Louise burst out laughing, when she saw how poor a spot it was.- But in 1814 Alexander I. decorated it with a commemorative slab of white marble. The poet Joukovski, going thither with the future Emperor Alexander II., pencilled the cottage walls with some enthusiastic lines, saluting the cradle of Russia under that humble roof. Modern tourists may read the following distich, beside a portrait of the great man : • Xichts IS den grooten man te Klein.' The cottage, which stands on the Krimp, in the western and somewhat retired quarter of the town, is a wooden structure on a brick-built foundation. Guerrit Kist, or Boij Thijsen, shared it, in the year 1697, with a widow, who relinquished her lodging to Peter in consideration of a rent of seven florins — which he omitted to pay ; he was always apt to forget such matters. There is one room only, a funnel- shaped chimney-corner, with wooden jambs and mantel- piece, a sort of wooden cupboard with folding doors, wire-latticed, and hung with curtains, in which the sleeping- mattress was placed {betsteede) and a ladder leading to the attic ; no other furniture which can have been used by the tenant in 1697, all the rest was bought by the Empress Elizabeth, and carried off to Russia. The house, which, after * Meermann, leiture on Purg, 1891), pp. 5-7: Noonien's unpu umal in the Utrecht Library. This journal is shortly to' '• ' , , , • ' ' • • iricf). Scheltcma relied on it al' :i \\- . ant. • Scheltcma, iiiitorical ^Meiu'oUs oj Ftter the Great (Lausanne, 1842), p. 409 88 PETER THE GREAT the Tsar's departure, was the home of several generations of artisans, was for a long time utterly forgotten ; it is just possible that it ma\' have been recognised. A sort of arched shed, built by the King of Holland, surrounds and preserves what now remains of it ; — the western side, that is to say, consisting of two rooms with a loft above them, all of them sinking under the weight of the ruined roof. The rieht side of the building and the chimney have utterly disappeared. The Dutch quite lately made over these relics to the Russian Government, and this has taken fresh measures for their preservation, which may be indispensable, but which are somewhat distressing to lovers of the picturesque. There is even a Calorifcre\ A picture of the Dutch school, once at the Mon Plaisir I'alace at Pcterhof, representing a man in a red waist- coat, clasping a girl of very opulent charms, long had the reputation of being a memento of the great man's visit to Saardam. This canvas, now at the Hermitage Palace, was certainly not painted from nature, for the artist, I. I. Hore- mans, was not born till 1715. Nartof, who was, in later years, a member of Peter's intimate circle, mentions the girl, who, he says, would not consent to accept Peter's advances, till a glance into the stranger's purse had convinced her he was no common boatman ; and in a fragment of a letter in Leibnitz's collection, which bears no indication of its origin, I find, under the date of 27th Nov. 1697, the following lines : — ' The Tsar has happened on a peasant girl of Saar- dam, who pleases his fancy, and on holidays, he betakes himself there alone in his boat, to take his pleasure with her, after the manner of Hercules.' ' Peter found better employment at Amsterdam. His arrival there was awaited by a friend, well-nigh a collabo- rator, the burgomaster of the town, Nicholas W'itsen. This official, who had visited Russia during the reign of Alexis, and written a celebrated book on Eastern and Southern Tartary, who was the constant correspondent of Lefort, and acted as his master's intermediary in the matter of the ships ordered, and other purchases made by him, in Holland, could not fail to offer the traveller the heartiest welcome. He lo.st no time in obtaining access for him to the great shipbuild- ing yards of the East Indian Company. This marks the * Guerrier, Leibnitz Cof-respottdetue (St. Petersburg, 1873), P- 3I» THE JOURNEY 89 opening of the serious work and usefulness of Peter's first journey. The man himself was still unchanged, with his fads and his oddities, his queer habits and grimaces. He still pre- tended to hide himself under the name of 'Master I'eter' {Pt'terbas) or ' Carpenter Peter of Zaandam,' shammed deaf- ness if he was addressed in any other manner, and thus contrived to make himself more remarkable than ever. When his Embassy went to the Hague, to be received in solemn audience, he refused to accompany it, but intimated his desire to watch the reception from a neighbouring room. Some company having entered this apartment, the Tsar desired to leave it, but, finding that, for this purpose, he was obliged to cross the audience-chamber, he requested that the members of the States-General should turn their faces to the wall, so that they might not see him ! ^ He reached the Hague at eleven o'clock at night. At the Amsterdam hotel, to which he was first conducted, he refused the fine bed prepared for him, in the best room, and insisted on climbing up to the roof, to choose some tiny chamber. Then changing his mind utterly, he resolved to seek a lodging elsewhere. Thus it came about that the Old Doelen Inn had the honour of his presence. One of his servants was there already, sleeping in a corner on his bear-skin. The Tsar kicked him to his feet ; ' Give me thy place ! '- He stopped his carriage twenty times between Amsterdam and the Hague, to measure the width of a bridge, go into a mill, which he had to reach by crossing a meadow, where the water was often up to his knees, or enter some middle- class house, v^hose inhabitants he caused, first of all, to be sent outside. Wherever he went, his insatiable curiosity and whimsicality went with him. He barely escaped maim- ing himself by suddenly stopping a saw-mill. He clung to the driving wheel in a silk factory, at the risk of being carried away by one of the secondary wheels ; he studied architecture with Simon Schynvoet of Leyden, mechanics with Van der Heyden, fortification with Coehorn, whom he tried hard to enlist in his own service, — printing with one of the Tessing brothers, — anatomy with Ru\-sch, natural history with Leuwenhoek. He took the gentlemen of his suite into the celebrated Boerhaavc's anatomical theatre, * Schcltema, pp. 140-142. * Ibid. 00 PETER THE GREAT and when they expressed some disirust at the preparations they saw there, he forced them to bite into the corpse which was bein'^ dissected. He learned to use compass, and sword, and plane, and even the instruments of a tooth-drawer, whom he saw, one day, operating in the open air, in a public square. He built a frigate, he made his own bed, did his own cooking, constructed a Russian bath for his own use;^ he took drawing lessons too, and learned to engrave on copper, frequented the studio of Kocrten Block, sat to her for his portrait, wrote his name in her album, and himself engraved a plate showing forth the triumph of the Christian religion over the Moslem faith." There is more feverish activity than reasoned application about all this, a great deal of caprice too, and even a touch of insanity. The notions of science and art thus picked up are somewhat disconcerting. ' If you want to build a ship,' we read in one of Peter's note-books belonging to this period, 'you must begin, after taking the superficial area, by making a right angle at each end.'^ Napoleon, with all the univer- sality of his genius, — the widest and the most comprehensive our modern world has ever known, — never pretended to be a great doctor or a skilful etcher. All his practical knowledge was specialised. Yet Peter was following an instinct which was not to play him false. He was giving himself the best of preparations for the real task wliich awaited him, — not the building of ships, or of factories, or of palaces (foreign specialists could always be brought in for such purpo.ses), but the inauguration of a whole plan of civilisation. He was, after all, carrying on the process which had begun with his first uncertain gropings amongst the exotic riches of the Oroujcnna'ia Palata, the inventory — inevitably hasty, and summary — of the various treasures, industrial, scientific, and artistic, which he proposed to borrow from the Western world. But as his field of curiosity enlarged, and, with it, his mind widened, the careless child, the inattentive youth, of former days, showed more and more of the qualities of the Sovereign. Often, at Pereiaslavl, or at Archangel, he had * Meermann, p. 60. ' Scheltema, Russia and the Low C<'«////-/>j (Amsterdam, 1S17), vol. i. p. 221 ; F. Miillcr, Attempt at a Russian-Netherland Bibliospaphy, pp. 164, 165 ; I'ickarski, Literature and Science in Russia (St. Petersburg, 1862), vol. i. p. 9. 1 lie enqravinf; referred to is in the Amsterdam Museum. » Oustrialof, vol. iii. p. 93. THE JOURNEY 91 Utterly forgotten Moscow, and the rest of his empire. Put tliis was past. Far as he was from his capital, and the frontiers of his country, he insisted on beinj^ kept informed of the smallest details in the management of those public affairs, which he had once so willingly neglected. He would know everything that happened, hour by hour ; and many things were happening. Iwen the momentary application of his energetic activity in that direction had borne fruit. Near Azof, the forts of Alexis and of Peter were in course of building, at Taganrog, two more forts, named after the Trinity and St. Paul, and a harbour, were being constructed. On the Dnieper, the Turkish attacks on the fortresses of Kazy- kermen and of Tavan had been victoriously repulsed. The navy, too, was making rapid progress. The King of Sweden had sent 300 cannon to arm the ships, either not dreaming they might ever be turned against himself, or heroically indifferent to that possibility. Augustus was strengthening his position in Poland. Of all these things Peter was informed ; he kept up an active correspondence with the persons charged to represent him at the head of the Government. Romodanovski gave him news of the Strclisy, Vinnius wrote to ask him for Dutch gunsmiths. He did even better than to send him these. He set about recruit- ing a whole staff, most numerous and varied, which was to second him in that work of transformation, the plan of which was growing clearer and clearer in his brain ; — a skilled boatswain, of Norwegian birth, Cornelius Cruys, whom he made an admiral ; several naval captains, three- and-twenty commanders, five-and-thirty lieutenants, seventy- two pilots, fifty physicians ; three hundred and forty-five sailors, and four cooks. These men would need special stores. He set himself to collect and send them off. Two hundred and sixty cases, filled with guns, pistols, cannon, sail-cloth, compasses, saws, cabinet-makers' tools, whale- bone, cork, and anchors, and marked with the letters P.M. (Peter Mihailof) were despatched to Moscow. One consign- ment — the germ of the future School of Fine Arts — consisted of eight blocks of marble, designed, no doubt, to rouse the inspiration of future artists. Another case contained a stuffed crocodile. Here we have the nucleus of a museum.^ There were occasional checks in this wonderful activity, — a * Oustrialof, vol. iii. pp. 104-IIO. 92 PETER THE GREAT pause, now and then, in the Sovereign's correspondence with his representatives. Peter's answers were sometimes slow in cominsf. He would soon excuse himself shvlv, almost humbly — the fault lay with Hmielnitski, the Russian Bacchus.^ Lefort's pupil had not — never was to — cast off the old man in this respect The weaknesses of the daily guest at the Sloboda banquets still clung to him. But, in spite of all, he found means, during those four months spent in Holland, to accomplish an enormous amount of work. He was left in perfect freedom for the purpose. His eieht davs' \-isit to Zaandam had revolutionised the vil- lage. At Amsterdam, once the first moment of surprise was past, his presence was almost unobserved. It was not till some years later that the greatness of the part he was called to play, and the frequency of his visits to Europe, drew public attention to his relatively obscure beginnings. And then, taken at a disadvantage, finding no trace of its hero in the turmoil of the g^eat maritime cit>% the legend was fain to seek its guiding marks in a more modest spot, and thus settled at Zaandam. The immediate impression left there, by the visit of Peter Mihaiiof and his noisy comrades, is clearly shown in the two following extracts from contemporary' chronicles. The Records of the Lutheran community' at Zaandam : — • He came incognito, with ver>- few followers, spent a week at Krimpenburg, in the house of a blacksmith, of the name of Boij Thijsen, and then went to Amsterdam, where his great Embassy had arrived. He was seven feet high, wore the dress of the peasants of Zaandam, worked in the admiralty dockyard, and is a great admirer of ship- building.' Noomen's Journal : — * Thus were the State and our little town of Westzaandam delivered and released from these celebrated, numerous, distinguished, e.xtraordinar)-, and ver>' costly visitors.' A resolution of the States General, dated 15th August 1698, informs us that the entertainment of the Embassy cost the State 100,000 florins. Neither this document, nor any 1 Hmielnitsld was the vktofioas Chief who led the Cossacks in their struggle against the Poles in the seventeenth century. Both in Rusian, and in Polish, the watd Hmid meaas it^, and also drmmJtetmesj. THE JOURNEY 93 of the other resolutions referrinjr to the stay of the Ambas- sadors at Atusterdani, contains any reference to Peter himself^ III In the seventeentli century, the Amsterdam shipbuilders had a well-deserved reputation, but they were more prac- tical than learned. Their processes differed in different ship-yards, but no consistent theory, no carefully thought- out justification of traditional proportions and methods, existed in any one of them. Peter, as his study of the craft advanced, became aware of this, and the fact distressed him. The why and the wherefore, and with that, all chance of making the principle his own, were beginning to escape him. An Englishman whom he met at the country house of the cloth-merchant, John Tessing, boasted of the superiority of English shipbuilders in this respect. ' In his country,' he said, 'theory and practice went hand in hand.' Thus it came about, that in January, 1698, the young Tsar was in- duced to cross the Channel. He had met William III. already, both at Utrecht and at the Hague, and was assured of a courteous welcome. A yacht belonging to the Royal Navy, with an escort of three battle-ships, was sent to fetch him from Amsterdam. Vice- Admiral ^Iitchell,and the Marquis of Caermarthen — this last an oddity, and almost as heroic a brandy-drinker as Lefort himself, — were attached to the person of the Imperial guest. Some uncertainty exists regarding the house inhabited by the Tsar, during his stay in London. Some believe it to have been 15 Buckingham Street, Strand, on the walls of which a commemorative inscription is now placed. Others opine that he lived in Norfolk Street. When the English King entered the room selected by Peter for his own use, and in which he slept, with three or four of his servants. His Majesty almost fainted. The air was foul, and quite un- breatheable ; in spite of the cold, all the windows had to be thrown open. Yet, when Peter returned William's visit at Kensington Palace, he gave proof of very evident progress, ' Dutch State Papers, The Ihijjuc. Sec, with reference to Peter's visit to Holland, besides the authorities already quoted, A. lazykof, l\!cr t/u Great at Zaaiidam ami Amsterdam (Berlin, 1S72). 94 PETER THE GREAT in many social matters. He had a long conversation in Dutch with the King, he was assiduously polite to Princess Anne, the heir to tlic throne, and was so much delighted with her conversation that, in writing to one of his friends, he described her as ' a true daughter of our church.' An apparatus for showing the direction of the wind, placed in the King's cabinet, interested him greatlv, but he onlv cast a careless glance on the marvels of art which filled the palace. His visit was, on the whole, a failure, the impression he pro- duced being far from favourable. The inhabitants of this home of culture, and refined elegance, were more difficult to please than the ladies of Koppenbriigge. A few years later, Burnet, in his memoirs, almost seems to apologise to his readers, for speaking of so sorry a personage.^ Was such a man likely to be fit to govern a great empire? The Bishop doubts it. A promising shipwright he might be. He had not been seen to interest himself in any other matter, and even in that, he was disposed to give too much attention to mere: detail. Thus does the great Whig historian lay his unerring finger on the weak points of a marvellous genius, without ever seeming to suspect the existence of those powers, which, in a future page, I shall endeavour to demonstrate. But these written impressions cannot have been absolutely fresh, and distance, doubtless, deceived him with an optical illusion, analogous to that the effects of which we have already noticed in Holland. Peter remained in England almost as long as he had tarried with the Dutch, and here, too, he gave his mind to many- things. With all his usual curiosity, minuteness, and practi- cal-mindedness, he made the tour of every public establish- ment likely to furnish him with useful information for his future creations — the Mint — the Observatory — the Royal Society. Though the pictures in Kensington Palace did not transport him with admiration, he had his portrait painted by Kneller, the pupil of Rembrandt and of Fer- dinand Bol. This picture, preserved at Hampton Court, is one of the best of him in existence. He took his pleasure too, giving free rein to his five-and-twenty years, and making practical acquaintance with local manners and customs. The servant-girl of the Zaandam inn was replaced by an actress, Mrs. Cross, who, so it would appear, had reason to * Vol. ii. p. 221, etc THE JOURNEY 95 complain of the Tsar's stinginess ; but he sharply reproved the persons who ventured to lecture him on this subject. ' I find plenty of men to serve me well, with all their heart and mind, for 500 guineas. This person has only served me tolerably, and what she has to give is worth much less.'^ He won back his 500 guineas, over a match, fought in the house of the Duke of Leeds, between a Grenadier of his own suite, and a celebrated native boxer. Six weeks out of the three months were devoted to pursuing — at Deptford, a village formerly on the outskirts of the capital, now merged within it — those studies for which the Amsterdam shipyard had not sufficed him. Here too he delighted in masquerading as a working apprentice, walking through the streets with his hatchet on his shoulder, and drinking beer and smoking a small Dutch pipe in a tavern, which, until the year 1S08, bore the name of the Tsar's Tavern, and showed his portrait on its signboard. Behold a new field for the legend-mongers, who did not fail to take advantage of it 1 Even Burnet's usually clear vision and faithful memory were thus led astray. But there is no uncertainty as to the residence occupied by Peter at Deptford. Its identity has been further established by witnesses, before a Court of Justice. When the owner, John Evelyn, re-took possession of his dwelling, which he had given up temporarily for the use of the Russian Sovereign, he found it in a condition which might have suggested the idea that Baty-Han himself had been there. Doors and windows had been torn out and burnt, hangings dragged down and soiled, valuable pictures utterly ruined, and their frames smashed to pieces. Evelyn claimed, and received, reimbursement of his loss from the public Treasury.- This mansion, Sayes Court, though half- ruined at the present day, standing in the middle of the docks, and used as a police-barrack and counting-house, — is still bound up with the memory of the illustrious guest it once sheltered. The street by which it is approached is even now called Tsar's Street. Peter toiled hard at Deptford, under the direction of the famous Anthony Dean, whose father had made himself unpopular by passing over into France, and there teaching the art of shipbuilding. In a letter dated March 4th, 1619, ' Nartof, p. g. The original expression is even coarser yet. " Shoubinski, Historical Sketches (St. Petersburg, 1S93), P« 30- 96 PETER THE GREAT referring to some excess committed at Moscow by one of his provisional representatives, while in a state of intoxication, he writes, not without a touch of melancholy regret, ' We run no risk of doing anything of that kind here, seeing we are immersed in study from morning till lu'ght.' But even at Deptford, his toil as an apprentice and his passion for all sea-faring matters did not completely absorb him. As in Holland, his interests and his studies took every possible direction. He kept adding recruits to the body of his future collaborators — workmen and overseers for his mines in the Ural, engineers who were to cut a canal which was to join the Caspian and the Black Sea by the Volga and the Don, He and Lord Caermarthen negotiated the concession of the Russian tobacco monopoly to a group of English capitalists, in return for the somewhat modest sum of 48,000 roubles, which he needed to balance the budget of his Em- bassy. Burnet forgot all that. Yet legend speaks of an uncut diamond, wrapped in a scrap of dirty paper, — the symbolic gift which Peter is said to have conferred on his royal host ere he departed. But at Koenigsberg, if the story-tellers arc to be believed, he tossed a huge ruby into the bosom of the Electress' low-cut gown, as he sat at table with her.^ Now the Electress did not go to Koenigsberg ! IV B)- the end of April, Peter was back in Holland, and before long he was on his way to Vienna. The request for aid against the Turks, addressed to the States General bv the Embassv, had not been favourably received. The States had even gone so far as to suggest to the King of ICncrland that he should mediate between the Ottoman Porte and Austria, so as to place that country in a position to turn all her forces against France, in the fresh struggle which was so evidently approaching, — for the health of Charles II. of Spain was rapidly declining. This blow must be parried. Unfortunately, the movements of the Russian monarch's huge Embassy were very slow. It must take ' Coxe's Travels (London, 1874), vol. iv. p. 87. Nicstroicf, ' Peter the Great's Visit to Holland and England,' in the Mcssa^er Universcf, 1871. THE JOURNEY q? three weeks to reach the capital of the Holy Empire According to German official sources, its retinue was thus composed : — One court marshal, one equerry, one major- domo, four chamberlains, four dwarfs, six pages, six trum- peters, one cup-bearer, one cook, one quarter-master, twcKe lacqueys, six coachmen and postillions, twcnt}'-four serving- men, thirty-two footmen, twenty-two carriage horses, thirty- two four-horsed carriages, and four six-horse waggons for the baggage, and twelve saddle-horses.^ Yet Peter pro- posed to enter Leopold's capital at eleven o'clock at night, and in the fourth coach, so as to pass unnoticed. At the very last moment the plan failed, and everything turned out ill for every one. The Embassy, with its end- less train of followers, was forced to kick its heels one whole long day, just without the approaches to the town. The road was blocked by a great march-past of troops, not to be interrupted for such a trifle. Peter, caring nothing for the troops, jumped into a post-cart, with a single servant, and pushed forward. Yet the incident annoyed him much, and gave him an equal sense of discomfort. He was sorely put out of countenance, and the appearance of the Imperial residence only deepened the impression. The whole place awed him, with its air of implacable pride, haughty etiquette, and inaccessible majesty. The Imperial ministers, already deeply engaged with Holland and with England, sought every pretext to delay the audience solicited by his Ambassadors. He, to cut things short, demanded a personal interview with the Emperor, and met with a prompt refusal. By what right ? it was inquired. Here was Peter Mihailof's first lesson in diplomacy. He> began to understand the inconvenience of discruises. Three times he returned to the charge. At last the Vicc-Chan- cellor of Bohemia, Czernini, was sent to him. 'What do you want?' 'To see the Emperor, and speak with him on urgent affairs.' 'What affairs? Are the Ambassadors of your country not here to see to them ? ' The poor dis- guised Tsar beat a hasty retreat; 'He would not even mention affairs,' he said. A meeting was appointed at the Favorita Palace. He was to enter by a private staircase, a small spiral one com- ' Wel>cr, Archiv fiir Sachsische Geschichte (Leipzig, 1S73), vol. xi. p. 338. G 98 PETER THE GREAT municatin;:;^ with the Park. He agreed to everything. Once in tlie ICmperor Leopold's presence, he forgot himself so far as to attempt to kiss his hand. lie evidently felt himself very small and inferior ; he kept putting his hat on, and pulling it off, nervously, and could not make up h;s mind to keep it on his head, in spite of the Emperor's repeated requests that he should do so. The interview, which lasted a quarter of an hour, was of the most commonplace descrip- tion. Lcfort interpreted, for Peter did not dare to fall back on his own bad Gennan. It was not till he had left the Palace that he regained his self-possession, and then, in an instant, all the natural and exuberant gaiety of the man returned. A boat lay moored on a little pond in the Park. He rushed to it, and rowed about till he was out of breath. He was like any school-boy, just escaped from the trials of a difficult examination.^ But the interview bore no fruit. The Emperor was quite resolved to respect Peter IMihailof's incognito. At the ban- quet which followed the audience at last granted to the Embassy, the young Sovereign, bitten afresh with his old mania, insisted on standing behind Lefort's chair. He was allowed to do so without protest. The political proposals he had come to make, by no means fell in with the decided intentions of the Austrian Court, which was bent on having peace with the Turks at any price. Yet Peter took great pains to give satisfaction in these new surroundings. He was much more circumspect than elsewhere. He paid a visit — at the Favorita, again, -ind almost secretly — to the Empress and the Imperial Princesses, and did his best to make himself pleasant. He even ventured some advances towards the dominant Church, and went so far as to rouse hopes among the Catholics, similar to those he had already roused amongst the Protestants. On St. Peter's Day he was present, with his whole Embassy, at a solemn service in the Jesuit Church, where he listened to a sermon preached in Slav by Father Wolff, and heard the preacher say 'that the keys would be bestowed a second time, upon a new Peter, that he might open another door! He composed, and lighted with his own hands, the fireworks which formed part of an entertainment given, that same day, by his Ambassadors, to ^ Vienna State Papers, Ceremoniall-ProtocoUe. Compare Oustrialof, vol. iii. pp. 126, 127 ; Sheiner, p. 372. THE JOURNEY 99 the cream of Viennese society, and which, according to the Tsar's testimony, wound up in very much the same fashion as the fetes in the Sloboda. According to one of his letters to X'innius, a great deal of wine was drunk, and there was considerable love-making in the gardens.^ Shortly afterwards, the Emperor invited the Ambassadors to a masked ball, at which Peter wore the dress of a Fricsland peasant. The I'-iujx'ror and Empress appeared as the host and hostess of an inn. Innkeeping {das WirtJiscJiaft) was as much in fashion, at that moment, as shepherds and shepherdesses and all pastoral matters were soon to be. But this enter- tainment had no official character whatever. At supper Peter sat between Freilin von Turn, who was his own pendant, as a Friesland peasant, and the wife of INIarshal von Staremberg, who wore a Swabian costume. A few days later the Embassy departed. The diplomatic object of the journey had utterly failed, and the scientific resources of Vienna had been no compensation for Peter's disappoint- ment in this respect. He desired to go to Venice, there to study a form of shipbuilding, new to him as yet — those oared galle>'s which were to play such a great part in the future of the Russian navy. Just as the travelling prepara- tions were completed, the Tsar was compelled to stop short. Serious news had arrived from Russia. • The seed of the Miloslavski has sprouted once again.' Thus he picturesquely describes it. There was a fresh mutiny amongst the Strelisy. Like a flash his mind was made up, and the direction of his journey changed from south to east. A few days later he was at Cracow. ' You will see me sooner than you think for,' he had written to Romodanovski, whom he accused of weakness and pusil- lanimity, liut more reassuring news awaited him in the old Polish capital : Sheni, his generalissimo, had put down the rebels ; Moscow was safe. He slackened his pace a little, halted at Rawa, and there spent three days with Augustus II. The history of this meeting, which was to give birth to the Northern War, belongs to another chapter of this book. As far as Peter's studies are concerned, his journey ended at Vienna, l^efore setting forth its conse- quences, distant and immediate — the creation, in other words, * Writings and Correspondence^ vol. i. p. 263. loo PETER THE GREAT on the confines of ancient Europe, of a new power, political, social, and economic, and the transformation, political, social, and economic too, of a certain area of the old European continent — I must fully describe the physical traits and mental characteristics of the man who was to be the in- strument to perform this revolution. Standing on the threshold of the work, I must endeavour to picture forth its maker. PART II THE MAN BOOK I- BODY AND MIND CHAPTER I PHYSICAL PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS I. Pen and pencil portraits — Kneller and Von Moor — St. Simon — Strength and !urvMii>iu--> — Twitcliings — Od<]ilies of dress — The lay figure in the SViiiter I'.il.iCL~\Vi,.-it his dress really was — Darned stockings and cobbled shoes — The Doubina. II. Temperament — The delight of action — An audience at 4 o'clock in the morning — A working day of 14 hours — Ubiquity and universality — states- man, drum-major, dancing-master, fireman, major-domo, physician — The Tsar and his negro boy — The individual and the race — Russian indolence — Agreement of physical and moral phenomena — Long winters, and short- lived springs — Periods of inertia, and fits of feverish activity — The heroes of the National Legend. III. Wnsl'eter brave? — Narva and Poltava — The ideaof duty — Contradictions — Moral energy and weakness — Inconstancy and versatility in detail — S'.c.Ldiness and perseverance in the whole undertaking — Peter's impulsive- re-^— Traits of the national character — Brain and heart — Want of feeling — Cheery and sociable disposition — Boyish pranks — Why he was disliked — Frecuent fits of violence and rage — Sword thrusts. IV. Drinking excesses — A scene of bloodshed in the Monastery of the Basilian Fathers — The Tsar not sober — Habitual drunkenness — Its results. V, Coarse pleasures — Bantpiets and orgies — Female drunkards — A regular tippler — Theological controversies at table — Peter's tastes are those of the public-house and the servants' hall — Was he cruel ? — Judge and execu- tioner — Reasons of State — Idealism and sensuality — The bondage of the Law. The picture of Peter, painted in London by Sir Godfrey Kneller, in 1698, shows us a fine young fellow of gracious and manly presence. The features are refined and regular, the expression full of dignity and pride ; the wide-open eyes and somewhat full, half-smiling, lips, are instinct with beauty and intelligence. The physical mark discreetly indicated on the right cheek — the wart of the description sent to the Zaandam workman — rouses confidence in the artist's fidelity. 103 I04 . PETER THE GREAT Yet this same fidelity has been much disputed. Not to mention the hideous waxen figure which dishonours the gallery of the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg, Leroi and Caravaque, as also Dannhauer, and even Karl Von Moor — with whose work Peter himself was so well pleased, that he sent the portrait from the Hague to Paris, in 17 17, to have it reproduced at the Gobelins Factory — were all of them far less flattering.^ The portraits painted on the spot, and at the same period (17 17) by Nattier and Rigaud, pleased the Tsar less. They have a somewhat arch expression, and give nothing of that fierce, and almost savage look of power, which Moor so successfully indicated. True it is, indeed, that twenty years — and what eventful ones ! — had passed over the Tsar, between the date of Kneller's picture and that of Moor's. But Noomen saw the great man before Kneller met him, and in his Journals, I find this rough and evidently frank description : — ' Tall and robust, of ordinary corpulence, lively and quick in all his movements, the face round, the expression rather severe, the eyebrows dark, like the short curling hair ... he walks with long steps, swinging his arms, grasping a new hatchet haft in his hand.' The vanished hero stands before us ! Again, about the same period, under the hand of Cardinal Kollonitz, Primate of Hungary, who met the Tsar at Vienna in 1698, and was rather benevolently inclined towards him than otherwise — I read as follows : — ' Neither in his person, his aspect, nor his manners, is there anything to specially distinguish him, and betray his princely quality.' ^ St. Simon's portrait is well known. I should be disposed to adopt it, as indicating a happy medium — for all the contemporary documents on which I have been able to lay my hand, agree with it in every essential point. H*ere are two, deposited amongst the papers of the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs, during the Tsar's residence in Paris in 1717. 'His features were rather handsome, they even showed a certain gentleness, and no one would have thought, on looking at him, that he would occasionally take to cutting off the heads of those of his subjects who displeased him. He would have ^ 'R.Qv'msW, Diciionary of En^aved Portraits, Y>. 1572. The whereabouts of the original of this portrait is unknown. 2 Theiner, p. 372. Compare Ruzini's Account sent from Ve7iice to Vienna; Ponies reruin Austriacarum (Vienna, 1S67), Part n. vol. xxvii. p. 429. PHYSICAL PORTRAIT-CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS 105 been a very well-built prince, but that he carried himself so badly. He walked with round shoulders, worse than any Dutch sailor, whose ways he seemed to copy. He had large eyes, a good nose and mouth, a pleasant face, though some- what pale, and light brown hair kept rather short. He made endless grimaces. One of his commonest tricks was to try to look at his sword by bending his head backwards over his shoulder, and to raise one of his legs and stretch it out behind him. He sometimes turned his head as if he desired to bring his face above the middle of his shoulders. Those who waited on him asserted that this kind of convulsion always came upon him when his thoughts were very earnestly fixed on any special subject.'^ And again 'The Tsar is exceedingly tall, somewhat bowed, his head generally bent down, he is very dark, and there is a something wild in his look. His mind appears bright, and his understanding very ready. There is a sort of grandeur in his manners, but this is not always kept up,' ^ The disagreement as to the colour of Peter's hair may be put down to the fault of the wig- makers, he having adopted the style of hair-dressing pecu- liar to the European dress of that date. All are agreed as to his grimaces, and nervous tricks, the perpetual shaking of his head, the round-shoulderedness which struck the Emperor's Ministers in 169S, when he was only 24, and the fierce expression of his eyes. The Archbishop of Novgorod, lanovski, admitted to audience to kiss the hands of Ivan and of Peter, when the two brothers shared the throne, felt no alarm when he approached the elder sovereign. But when he met the younger Tsar's glance, he felt his knees shake under him, and, from that day forward, the presentiment that he would be done to death by that second hand, which his trembling lips had scarcely touched, was always with him. ' It is well known,' says Staehlin, ' that this monarch, from his early youth until his death, was subject to short but frequent brain attacks, of a somewhat violent kind. A sort of convulsion seized him, which for a certain time, and some- times even for some hours, threw him into such a distressing condition, that he could not bear the sight of any one, not even his nearest friends. This paroxysm was always pre- ^ Memoires et Doaiments (Russie), vol. ii. p. 117. - Despatch from M, de Liboy— sent to Dunkirk to receive ihe Tsar, April 23. 1717. io6 PETER THE GREAT ceded bv a stronfj contortion of the neck towards the left side, and by a violent contraction of the muscles of the face.' ^ Hence arose, doubtless, Peter's perpetual recourse to remedies, some of them occasionally very strange, as for instance, a certain powder, compounded of the interior and the wings of a magpie.- Hence too, his habit of sleeping with his two hands clasping the shoulders of an orderly officer.' Some people have tried to believe this last fact to have given rise to the malevolent suppositions which have hovered round the private morals of this sovereign. Hut this explana- tion is, unfortunately, far from being sufficient. In 1718, while at table with the Queen of Prussia, Peter began to wave one of his hands — that holding his knife — in so violent a fashion, that Sophia Charlotte took fright and would have left her seat. He, to reassure her, seized her arm, but squeezed it so tightly, that she cried out He shrugged his shoulders. ' Catherine's bones are not so tender ! ' he was heard to remark aloud.* These traits of nervous delicacy had alread\' appeared in the case of Ivan the Terrible,and probably arose from the same cause — the excess and violence of the shocks undergone in infancy and childhood. It was the legacy of old Russia — re- presented by the Strcltsy, and doomed to death already — to her great Reformer. But with the poison, happily,she bestowed the antidote — that mighty work whicii was to purify his blood and invigorate his ner\es. Ivan had no such good fortune. To sum it up, Peter may be described, physically, as a fine man, exceedingly tall (his exact height was 6 ft. SA in.),^ dark — 'extremely dark, as if he had been born in Africa/ says one of his contemporaries^ — powerful in frame, with a good deal of majesty about him, marred by certain faults of deportment, and a painful infirmity, which spoilt the general effect. He dressed carelessly, put on his clothes awry, frequently appeared in a most untidy condition, was always changing his garments, military or civil, and would occasion- ally select a garb of the most grotesque description. I le had • /♦wA-ji'/f^x (Richou's translation, Strasburg, 17S7), p. 80. ' Scherers Anudoles (I'aris, 1792), vol. ii. p. S2. ' Nartof, p. 29- • :.' . ..-, w •/■ of Baireuth. _» 1 en Verchoks, Golikof, History of Peter the Great (Moscow, 1 642*, vol. X. p. I/O. • Louville's Memoirs (Paris, 1S18), vol. ii. p. 239. PHYSICAL PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS 107 no sense whatever of proprict)' in dress. lie showctl himself to the Danes, at Copciiha-, 1722, at Moscow, after a night in carnival time, spent in driving from house to house in his sledge, singing carols after the manner of his countr)-, and gathering a harvest of small coins, besides swallowing numerous glasses of wine, beer, and vodka, he hears, early in the morning, that a fire has broken out in a distant quarter. Thither he flies at once, and for two whole hours does fireman's duty ; after which he mounts his sledge again, and is seen tearing along as if he really desired to break his horses down. Be it remarked that he is occupied, at that same moment, with a serious change in the higher administration of his empire. He is about to break up his 'council of revision,' the duties of which are to be trans- ferred to the Senate, besides which, he must shortl}' give orders concerning the funeral of a regimental major.- In 1 72 1, when he undertook the work of drawing up his Navy Regulations, he laid out a plan for the employment of his time, to which he closelv adhered. According: to his Journal, he wrote, during four days of the week, for fourteen hours a day, — from five in the morning till noon, and from four in the afternoon till eleven at night. This lasted from January to December 1721.^ The MS. of these Regula- tions, entirely in his hand, and full of corrections, is now amongst the Moscow archives. These also contain rough copies, written by the Tsar, which prove that a great number of the diplomatic documents respecting the Northern war, signed by the Chancellor Golovin, were directly inspired, and originally written, by his master. And the same may be said of the majority of the memorandums and important despatches signed by hi^ ordinarj' political col- laborators, Golovin, Sheremetief, and General Weyde, and yet more so in regard to the legislative and administrative work of his whole reign — the creation of the army and the fleet, the development of commerce and industn.% the establishment of mills and factories, the organisation of justice, the repression of official corruption, the constitution of the national economy. He wrote all minutes, often several times over, drew up all schemes, and frequently * Staehlin's An^'.JoUi, p. i la - Tx^:g\o.z% JcumaJ, BuukiM^-MagaxxM^ vol. xx. p. 360; IVrilitigs mmd CcrrcJToidiiuc, vol. L p. 8 1 1. ' Golikof, vol. ii. p. 27. 112 PETER THE GREAT several editions of the same scheme. This did not prevent him from attendins: to all the details of the management of his own house, and even of the houses of his kinsfolk : as when, for example, he fixed the quantity and quality of the brandy to be supplied to his sister-in-law, the Tsarina Prascovia.^ And yet in spite, and even because of it all, he was the true son of his country and of his race, and I, for my part, would readily stake my reputation on my certainty of his Russian origin. He corresponded to a certain phase of the national life, which clearly seems to betray the in- fluence of the special conditions of physical existence in these latitudes. In Russia, after long and cruel winters, there come late and sudden springs, which instantly cover the waking earth with verdure, in a sudden explosion, as it were, of vernal forces. The same springtime awakenings, the same rushes of energetic growth, stir the souls of the men who inhabit these countries. The length and rigour of the winter season, which condemns them to a certain slothfulness of existence, make them indolent, without, as in hot Eastern countries, making them effeminate. Mind and spirit are braced, rather, by the enforced struggle with inclement and ungrateful nature. When the sun returns, the swiftly work- ing elements must be swiftly followed, so as to crowd the work of several months into the space of a few weeks. This fact brings forth special physical and moral habits, — special aptitudes too ; and of these habits and aptitudes Peter is simply a particularly powerful expression. Such exceptional extremes as he may betray in these respects are doubtless the survival of the savage eldmentary forces, peculiar to the epic heroes of the Russian legend, — superhuman giants all, who bore the heavy burden of an excess of vigour they could not use, — wearied out by their own strength ! Peter, when he passes out of our sight, will leave the RaskolnikSy who seek to relieve themselves of the same burden by galloping to and fro, on January nights, barefoot and in their shirts, and rolling in the snow.- ' Siemiev^ki, Tht- Tsarina Prascovia (St. Petersburg, 18S3), note to p. 58. - Solovief, His'..-'ry of Russia, vol. xiii. p. 166, etc. PHYSICAL PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS u III Did Peter's energy^, and his enterprising — nay, his extra- ordinarily venturesome — genius, equal his courage? He never sought danger, like his great Swedish adversary, — never found pleasure in it. In his earlier days, he gives us the impression of being a downright coward. My readers will not have forgotten his precipitate flight, on the night of August 6th, 1689, and his far from heroic appearance at the Troitsa. The same thing came to pass in 1700, under the walls of Narva : — In spite of the most ingenious explanations and apologies, the hideous fact remains. At the news of the unexpected approach of the King of Sweden, the Tsar left his arm}-, made over the command to an as yet untried, and newl\--enlistcd Chief, to whom he gave written instructions, which bore traces, according to all competent judges, not of ignorance only, but of the greatest perturbation of mind. ' He is no soldier,' was the outspoken comment of the Saxon General Haliart, who saw him on this occasion, in the tent of the new Commander-in-Chief, the Prince de Croy, scared out of his wits, and half distracted, making loud laments, and drinking bumper after bumper of brandy to pull himself together, — forgetting to date his written orders, or to have his official seal affixed to them.^ Peter, in his own journal, has given us to understand that he was unaware of Charles xn.'s rapid march, and this flagrant falsehood amounts to an acknowledgment of his weakness. Yet, he did his duty bravely at Poltava, exposing his person in the hottest of the struggle.- To this he made up his mind beforehand, as to any other trying and painful experience, showing no eagerness, but yet betraying no weakness, coldly, almost mournfully. There was nothing of the paladin about him, not a spark of the spirit of chivalr\' ; and, in that point also, he was essentially Russian. Ill, and confined to his bed, early in that same year, he wrote to Mcnshikof, in a somewhat melancholy strain, desiring to be ' Documents published by Herrmann, in his History of Russia, vol. iv. p. ii6 ; Vockerodt's Journal, puljlished by Herrmann, A'tissland utiter Peter d. G. (1S72), p. 42; and Kelch, LiefUindische Gcschichte (1S75), vol. ii. p. 156. All agree on this head. - This is acknowledged even by Swedish historians. See Lundblad, vol, iL p. 141. H 114 PKTKR THE GREAT warned whenever there was any certainty of a decisive action, for he 'could not expect,' he said, 'to escape that sort of affair.' His mind once made up, all the risks of tiic adventure, personal and other, seem equalised in his mind. He calculated them all, with the same composure, and accepted whatever came, with the same calmness of mind. When, in 17 13, Vice-Admiral Cruys, desirin;^ to prevent the Sovereign from exposing his person in a dangerous cruise, referred to recent catastrophes, and instanced the story of a Swedish Admiral who had been blown up with his ship, Peter wrote on the margin of his report, ' The okolnitchyi Zassickin strangled himself with a pig's ear ... I neither advise nor order any one to run into danger ; but to accept money, and then not to give service, is a shameful action.' The idea of service owed, of duty, was always before him, like a landmark, — beckoning him to climb the steep and rugged slope of virile virtue, and heroic sacrifice. ]?ut his progress towards the summit was alwaj's slow. This man, who proved himself, in the end, one of the most intrepid, the most resolute, and the most stubborn in the world, was also, at certain moments, one of the most easily discouraged, and, on some critical occasions, one of the most chicken- hearted. Napoleon, — another great man, compact of nerves, — was subject, in moments of failure, to the same sudden and passing fits of weakness, and the same quick revulsions of spirit, which brought him back, like a flash, to self-possession, and to the power of using his faculties and resources, still all aflame with excitement, and thus multiplied tenfold. I^ut, in Peter's case, the proportions of the phenomenon were far more marked. When he heard of the defeat of his army under the walls of Xarva, he disgui.sed himself as a peasant, so as the more easily to escape from the enemy, which he fancied already on his heels. He shed floods of tears, and fell into such a prostrate condition, that no one dared mention military matters to him. He was ready to submit to any conditions of peace, even the most humiliating.^ Two years later, he was before Noteburg, a paltry town to which he had laid siege with his whole army. An assault, led by him- self in person, not being so successful, at the outset, as he ' Vock- ---ene, may li \:erater1. but the multi- plicity of . . . cnce wuuUl . 10 me conclusive in his £avo«r. PHYSICAL PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS 115 had hoped, he hastily t:javc orders to retreat. ' Tell the Tsar,' rc{)lied Michael Galit/.in, a Lieutenant-Colonel in command of a detachment of the Stcmionovski, ' that at this moment 1 belong to Peter no lon;^er, but to God ! ' According to some other witnesses, the Tsar's order was never delivered ; but with it or without it, and, it may even be, without havinpj dropped the heroic sentence enshrined in legend, Galitzin continued the attack, and carried the jjlacc.^ To a much later date, and even after Poltava, Peter was uiichaiiL^ed, in this respect. The occurrence on the Prutli, to which I shall later have to refer, proves it. lie was an almost parodoxical mixture of strength and weakness, in which the conflict of contradictory constituent elements may be clearly traced. Unflinching in his attachment to the great lines of a life and work, which, for unity and con- sistency, form one of the marvels of history, he was inconstancy and versatility personified, in all matters of detail. His ideas and resolutions, like his temper, changed suddenly, like a gust of wind. He was essentially a man of impulse. During his French journey, in 17 17, a chorus of complaint rose from all those who had dealings with him, concerning his perpetual change of plans. No one ever knew what he might take it into his head to do on the morrow, or even within the next hour, — whither he might choose to go, — and how to travel. Nowhere could the length of his stay be reckoned on, never could the pro- gramme be laid out in advance, even for a single da)-. This tjuality is eminently characteristic of the Slavonic race, that most composite product of diflerent and various origins, cultures, and influences, both European and Asiatic. To these, perhaps, it partly owes that power of resistance and extraordinary .^r/V, of which it has given proof in unticr- takings which have necessarily been of considerable duration. The frequent relaxing of the spring relieves it, and prevents its wearing out. But this mixture of suppleness and rigidity may also exist as an individual characteristic. It has been very evident in the case of some historical imitators of the great Reformer, and would almost .seem destined by Provi- dence, as a means of husbanding their strength. It rendered Peter admirable service, even in matters involving most important interests. The facility with which he would • Oustrialof, vol. iv. \w, 197-202. ii6 PETER THE GREAT change front, — turning his back on Turkey, to face Sweden, — abandoning his projects in the Sea of Azof, to turn his mind towards tlic Baltic, — but throwing himself, always and everywhere, thoroughly into the matter in hand, without ever dispersing his efforts, — certainly proceeded from it. So, too, did the very great facility with which — in matters of detail — he would acknowledge a personal error of judgment, or fault in practice. When, in 1722. he revoked the Ukase by which he had introduced the Presidents of the Adminis- trative Bodies into the Senate, which was a legislative assembly, he unaffectedly described it as 'an ill-considered measure.' This did not prevent him, on other occasions, from holding out against wind and tide, against all other opinions, and all extraneous influences. No man ever knew better what he wanted, and how to have it done. The inscription ' Facta puto qmccuuique jiibco ' which some student of Ovid placed on one of the medals struck in commemora- tion of the great events of this reign, was the most appropriate motto the Tsar could have chosen. It should be noted, that in his mistakes and in his failures, it was his brain alone, always, that was at fault — feeling had nothing at all to do with it. Peter was absolutely devoid of sentiment. That weakness for Menshikof and other favourites, which so offends us, would appear to be simply the outcome of miscalculation. He had a very high opinion of the intellectual standard of certain of his collaborators. His opinion of their moral standard, in the case of every one, was of the very lowest. Menshikof was a rascal, in his eyes, but a rascal who was also a geniu.s. in the case of the others, whose genius was not sufficient to compensate him for their peccadilloes, he could, even when they were his closest friends, prove himself very firm, and even exceedingly harsh. He coolly informed one of them, Andrew Vinnius, that he had removed him from his position at the head of the Postal Administration, because he felt convinced that he had, while occupying that post, enriched himself and cheated the State, more than was fair and reasonable. But this implied no change in his favour, ' No favourite of mine shall lead me by the nose.' he asserted on this occasion.^ I have never seen any instance of such absolute insensi- bility of feeling. During the course of the trial of his son * LeUer, dated April 16, 1701, Writings and Corrtspondtme, vol. i. p. 444. PHYSICAL PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS 117 Alexis — the incidents of which niif^jht well have movcrl him — he had strcni^th, time, and inclination to give his attention both to his usual amusements, and to other State business, which demanded all his clearness of mind. A great number of Ukases relating to the preservation of the Forests, the management of the Mint, the organisation of various industrial establishments, the Customs, the Rnskol, and Agriculture, bear dates coeval with those of some of the gloomiest episodes in that terrible judicial drama. And at the same time, none of the anniversaries which the Tsar was accustomed to celebrate, with much pomp and noise, were forgotten or neglected. Banquets, masquerades and fireworks, all pursued their course. He had an immense fund of unalterable gaiety, and a great love of social intercourse. In certain respects, his character and temperament remained that of a child, even in his ripe age. He had all the naive cheerfulness, the effusive- ness, and the simplicity of youth. Whenever any lucky event happened to him, he could not refrain from announcmg his delight to all those who, as he thought, should take an interest in it. Thus he would write fifty letters at a sitting, about a military achievement of very second-rate import- ance — as, for example, the taking of Stettin in 1713.^ All his life he was easily amused. He was seen at Dresden in 171 1, mounted on a hobby horse, shouting ' Quicker I quicker ! * and laughing till he cried when one of his companions turned giddy and fell off.'- At the popular rejoicings which followed the conclusion of the l^cace of Nystadt, in 1720, he behaved like a schoolboy on a holiday. He pranced and gesticulated in the middle of the crowd, jumped on the tables, and sang at the top of his voice. To the last days of his life, he loved teasing and rough play, delighted in coarse pleasantries, and was always ready for a practical joke. In 1723, he caused the tocsin to be sounded in the night, turned all the inhabitants of St. Petersburg — where fires were frequent, and terrible in their results — out of their beds, and could not contain himself for joy, when, rushing half dis- tracted in the direction of the sujjposcd disaster, they came upon a brazier, lighted, by his orders, in a public square, by soldiers, who laughed in their faces, and greeted them * (Jolikof, vol. V. p. 543. " Archivfiir Sdchsisihe Geschichte, vol. xi. p. 345. Ii8 PETER THE GREAT with shouts of 'April fool's day!'* One day, when sitting at table with the Duke of Holstein, he praised the curative qualities of the waters of Oloncts, which he had used for several years. The duke's minister, Hasscwitz, expressed his intention of following his example. The Tsar, with a mighty blow upon the diplomat's fat round back, cried out, ' What ! pour water into such a cask ! Come, come ! ' ' ' How was it then, in spite of his cheerful qualities, that he inspired more fear than affection ? How was it that his death came as a relief to all around him ? — the end of a painful nightmare, of a reign of terror and constraint. In the first place, on account of those habits of his, which bore the mark of the society in which he had lived since child- hood, and of the occupations in which he had always found the most delight. To the roughness of a Russian barin, he joined all the coarseness of a Dutch sailor. Further, he was violent, and frequently hasty, just as he was often cowardly ; and this arose from the same cause, the same radical vice of his moral constitution — his total lack of self-control. The power of his will was, more often than not, inferior to the impetuosity of his temperament, and that will, which always met with prompt obedience in external matters, could not, consequently perhaps, sufficiently restrain the surging tumult of his instincts and his passions. The extreme ser\ility of those about him contributed to the development of this innate disposition. 'He has never been over polite,' writes the Saxon Minister Lefort,-' in his Journal, in May 1721, 'but he grows more and more intolerable every day. Happy is the man who is not obliged to approach him.' * The progress of this fault was so gradual as to be almost insensible. In September 169S, at a banquet given in honour of the Emperor's Envoy, Guarient, the Tsar lost his temper with his Generalissimo, Shein, in the matter of certain army promotions, of which he disapproved. He struck the table with his naked sword, exclaiming. ' Thus I will cut the whole of thy regiment to pieces, and 1 will pull thine own skin over thine ears ! ' When Romodanovski and Zotof attempted to ' Bergholr. Joumai, Buschin^-Atagazin^ vol. x\\. p. 238. - Ihii., vol. XX. p. 3S7. ' This Lefort must not be confounded with the favourite, who will be referred to later ; the relation.«;hip between the two is somi utcd. * Collected IVorki of th< hr.'-.rtal Russian . 1 Sockly (Sbornik), vol. iiL p. 333. PHYSICAL PORTRAIT-CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS 119 interfere, he flew at them. One had his fincjers almost cut off, the other received several wounds on the head. Lcfort — or, as some other witnesses declare, Menshikof — was the only person who could succeed in calming him.^ But, only a few days later, when supping with Colonel Tchambers, he knocked that same Lcfort down, and trampled on him, and when Menshikof ventured, at some entertainment, to wear his sword, while he was dancing, he boxed his ears so soundly that the favourite's nose began to bleed.- In 1703, taking offence at the remarks addressed to him, in public, by the Dutch Resident, he gave immediate proof of his displeasure, by a blow from his fist, and several more with the flat of his sword.^ No notice was taken of this outburst ; the Diplomatic Corps in the Tsar's capital having long since learnt to make a virtue of necessity. The Raab family, resident in Esthonia, still preserves a cane with which Peter, enraged at not finding horses at the neighbouring posting- house, wreaked his fury on the back of the proprietor of the country-house. This gentleman, having demonstrated his innocence, was permitted to keep the cane by way of com- pensation.* And again, Ivan Savitch Brykin, the ancestor of the celebrated archaeologist Sneguiref, used to tell a story that he had seen the Tsar kill a servant, who had been slow about uncovering in his presence, with blows from his cane.^ Even in his correspondence, the Sovereign would occasionally get into a fury, and lose all self-control ; as, for example, when he fell on the unfortunate competitor of Augustus il., Leszczynski, and called him 'traitor, and son of a thief,' in a letter which ran more than the ordinary risk of not being treated as confidential.® IV The drinking-bouts in which the Tsar habitually indulged had a great deal to do with the frequency of these outbreaks. ' He never passed a single day without being the worse ' Oustrialof, vol. Hi. p. 625 ; vol. iv. \\ 211. » Korh. pp. 84, 86. » Dot atch from iialuze, Nov. 28, 1703, French Foreign OfTice. * A'ussi.m Stati Paferf, vol. ii. pp. 249 .and 390. ' I'opof, Tati hi chef and his Ziw^J (.Moscow, 1S61), p. 531. • Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 66. I20 PETER THE GREAT for drink,' so Baron Pollnitz affirms, in iiis account of the Sovereign's visit to Berlin in 17 17. On the mornin<; of the nth July 1705, Peter, who was paying a visit to the Monastery of the Basilian Fathers at Pologk, paused before the statue of the illustrious martyr of the Order, the blessed Jehosaphat, who was represented with a hatchet sticking in his skull. He desired an explana- tion. 'Who put that holy man to death?' said he. The monks answered, ' The Schismatics.' That single word drove him beside himself. He thrust with his sword at Father Kozikowski, the Superior, and killed him. His officers threw themselves on the other monks. Three were killed outright ; two others, mortally wounded, died a few days later. The monastery was sacked, the church was dese- crated and used as a military store. A contemporary description sent from Polock to Rome, and published in the Uniate Churches there, gave various horrible and disgusting details. The Tsar was described as having called his Eng- lish mastiff to worry the first victim. He was said to have ordered the breasts of certain women, whose sole crime had consisted in being present at the horrible scene and having testified their terror and emotion, to be cut off. There was a certain amount of exaggeration about this, but the facts I have already indicated are quite unshaken. A first draft of the Journal of the Swedish War. prepared by Makarof, the Tsar's Secretary, contained this laconic mention of the incident: 'Went on the 30th of June (iith July) to the Uniate Church at Polock, and killed six monks for having spoken of our generals as heretics.' Peter struck the entry out with his own hand, and thus strengthened the acknow- ledgment of the fact. On one point every description of the incident is agreed. Peter, when he went to the Basilian Church, was in a state of intoxicatiou. He had only just quitted some nocturnal orgy.^ He never failed indeed, once the wine had died out in him, to regret the harm done, and endeavour to repair it. His repentance was as easy as his wrath was swift. In May 1703 I find these significant lines, written by his own hand, in a billet addressed to Fcodor Apraxin : ' I know not how I left you, for I was too much overwhelmed by the gifts ^ See, on this subject, Theiner, Moriunuuts, p. 412; Dom Guepin, Vie de Josa/hai (V3.US, 1874), vol. ii. p. 430; Oustrialof, vol. iv. p. 373. PHYSICAL PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS i2! of Bacchus ; wherefore I beg you all to forc^ive me if I caused distress to any of you, . . . and to forget all that is past.' He frequently drank to excess, and insisted that those who had the honour of sitting at table with him should do the same. At Moscow, and, in later years, at St. Petersburg, the complaints of the Diplomatic Body on this subject were never-ending. It was a positive danger to life. Even the very women of the Tsar's circle were subject to the common rule, and Peter would find unanswerable arguments to force them to bear him company, glass in hand. The daughter of Shafirof, his Vice-Chancellor, a baptized Jew, refused a goblet of brandy. ' Vile Hebrew spawn,' he shouted, ' I '11 teach thee to obe)- ! ' and he punctuated his remarks with two hearty boxes on the ear.^ He was always in the forefront of the revel, but so robust was his constitution, that though, in the end, his health broke down, his excesses often left him steady in body, and clear in mind, while legs were trembling, and senses reeled, in the case of every one around him. On this fact another legend has been built. This perpetual and almost s}'stematic debauch was, we are told, an instrument of government, a means of reading the most secret thoughts of his guests, to which the great man deliberately resorted. A somewhat shady expedient, if indeed, this were true. In any other country the Sovereign who attempted such a game would have risked his authority, and his prestige. And even in Russia, the political benefit would not have outweighed the moral loss, — that degradation of the whole of society, of which local customs still bear some trace. My readers will remember the story of the toast, 'A toi ! France!' proposed in the presence of Louis X\'. by a guest who had been carried away by the freedom of some too familiar merrymaking. 'Gentlemen, the King is here!' answered the monarch, thus recalled to a sense of his dignity. And no more such festivities took place. But Peter allowed himself to be addressed in the second person singular, every day of his life, in a con.stant succession of such entertainments. If any one went too far, and it suited him to take notice of the fact, the only means of repression he would ever resort to took the shape of an enormous bumper of brandy, which the * Weber's Corres/oudence {puhVishcd by Herrmann, lS8o), p. 173. 123 PETER THE GREAT offender was forced to swallow at a sinjjle draught. This was perfectly certain to put an end to his pranks, for, as a general rule, it sent him under the tablc.^ I should be sorry, indeed, to admit that all this shows any trace of a deep-seated idea or deliberate design. I can see nothing that would lead to such an opinion. I am, on the contrary, struck by the fact, that, especially towards the end of his reign, the more and more frequent recurrence of the prolonged and extravagant orgies in which the Sovereign so delighted did not fail to considerably prejudice the conduct of State affairs. ' The Tsar,' writes the Saxon Minister, Lefort, on the 22d of August 1724, 'has kept his room for the last six days, being ill in consequence of the debauches which took place at the Tsarska'i'a-Mysa (the Tsarskoie- Sielo of the present day) on the occasion of his baptizing a church, with 3000 bottles of wine. This has delayed his journey to Kronstadt."- In January, 1725, the negotiations for the first Franco-Russian alliance received a sudden check. The French Envoy, Campredon, much disturbed, pressed the Russian Chancellor, Ostermann, and ended by dragging from him this expressive admission : ' It is utterly impossible, at the present moment, to approach the Tsar on serious subjects ; lie is altogether given up to his amuse- ments, which consist in going every day to the principal houses in the town, with a suite of 200 persons, musicians and so forth, who sing songs on every sort of subject, and amuse themselves by eating and drinking at the expense of the persons they visit.''' Even at an earlier period, during the most active and heroic epoch in his life, Peter would make these temporary disappearances, and thus bear testi- mony to the faults of his early education. In December 1707, when Charles XII. was making his preparations for the decisive campaign which was to carry him into the very heart of Russia, the defensive efforts of the whole country were paralysed, because the Tsar was at Moscow amusing himself Courier after courier did Mcnshikof despatch, entreating him to rejoin his army. lie never even broke » Soberer, vol. v. p. 2S. 2 Sbornik, vol. iii. p. 382. ' Despatch, d.-itcd J.-in. 9, 1725, French Foreign Office. See also, in .nnjree- ment, a letter from the Dutch Resident, De Bic, to the Secretary of the States- General, Fagel, dated Dec. 3, 1717, Dutch Archives. i PHVSICAT. PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS 123 the seals of the packets, and went on making mcrry.^ He could stop himself short in a moment, it must be allowed, and he had a genius for making up for lost time. But it can hardly be said that it was for the sake of the internal affairs of his country that he thus forgot, during many weeks, to make war against his terrible adversary. Coarse tastes naturally go hand-in-hand with public- house morals. In the society of women, to which he was always partial, what Peter seems to have cared for most, was mere vulgar debauchery. And especially he loved to see his female companions drunk. Catherine herself, according to Bassewitz, was ' a first-rate toper,' and owed much of her success to that fact. On gala days, at Court, the sexes were generally separated, and Peter always reserved to himself the privilege of entering the ladies' banqueting-room, where the Tsarina presided, and where nothing that she could do to render the spectacle agreeable to the master's eye was neglected. But in more intimate gatherings, the meal was shared by both sexes, and then the close of the festivi- ties took a character worthy of the feasts of Sardanapalus. The clergy, too, had their place in these banquets, at which they were frequently to be seen. Peter had a particular liking for sitting near these ecclesiastical dignitaries. He would mingle the most unexpected theological discussions, with his most copious libations, and would apply the regulation punishment of a huge bumper of brandy, to the errors of doctrine which he loved to detect, — whereupon, now and again, the controversialists would come to blows, to his huge delight. His favourite guests — Dutch sea-captains and merchants — were by no means the humblest of the com- panions with whom he would sit at table, and familiarly clink his glass. At Dresden, in 171 1, at the Golden Ring, his favourite lounge was the serving-men's room, and he breakfasted with them in the courtyard.- There was nothing delicate, nothing refined, about Peter. At Amsterdam, during his first visit there, he fell in love * Essipof. Life of Menshikof^Ruiuan Slate Papers^ 1S75), p. 52. • Archiv fiir Sdchsische Geschichte, vol. xi. p. 345. 124 PETER THE GREAT with Tcstjc-Rocn, a celebrated clown, who g;a\'C open-air performances, and whose silly jokes were the delight of the lowest populace, and would have carried him off with him to Russia.* He was a boor. In certain respects, he never, to his last da)-, lost an\' of his native savagery. But was he a cruel savage ? This has been affirmed. Nothing, apparently, could be more clearly established, than his reputation for ferocit}- ; }-et, this matter should be looked into. He was frequently i)rosent in the torture-chamber — where prisoners were submitted to the question, the strappado, or the knout — and also at executions in the public squares, when all the apparatus for inflicting the most revolting torments was openh' displayed. It is even believed that he did not always play the part of a mere spectator. I shall have occasion to return to this point, with reference to the terrible scenes which closed the existence of the Strcltsy. 13ut any dis- cussion on this matter strikes me as idle. He may occasion- all\' have acted the part of executioner. Why not ? He was already familiar with the sailor's trade, and with the carpenter's, and he did not feci — he was not capable of feeling — any difference. He was merely the man in whose person the greatest number of functions were united, in a country where the accumulation of functions was a feature of public life. The name of the executor of his principal works in St. Petersburg, also figures on the lists of his Court Jesters ! - Did Peter, then, actuall}' cut off men's heads ? It may be But did he find pleasure in the act? That, too, is probable; — the pleasure he found in doing anything, the joy of action, — but there it ends. I do not believe one word of the story told by hVederick the Great to \'oltaire, about the meal during which, in presence of the King of Prussia's Envoy, Baron Von Printzen, the Tsar amused himself by decapitating twenty Strcltsy, emiit}-ing as many glasses of brandy between each stroke, and finalK* inviting the Prussian to follow his example.^ Round every trait of Peter's character, and every chapter of his history, innumerable tales have thus clustered, which should be put aside a priori, for no other reason but that of their evident absurdity. As * Scheltema, Anecdotes, p. 157. ' Sieniievski, Slovo i Dielo, p. 262. ' Voltaire's IVorks, vol. x. p. 71. PHYSICAL PORTRAIT -CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS 125 regards the rest, they deserve careful investigation. I have already referred to my own habitual guide — an agreement of general data, which, in spite of some diversity in detail, all tend steadily, and precisely, in the same direction. Now, I can discover nothing, in Peter's case, which would point to the authentic mark of the real wild beast — the greedy delight in indicting suffering, the downright taste for blood. He shows no sign of anything of this kind ; there is not even any appearance of an habitual condition of sanguinary fury. He is hard, rough, and unfeeling. Suffering, in his eyes, is a mere fact — like health or sickness — and has no more effect on him than these ; — therefore I am ready to follov/ the legend so far as to believe that he pursued the men he had doomed to death, on to the very scaffold, with reproaches and invectives — that he jeered at them, even in their death-agony.^ But inaccessible as he is to pity, he is moved, and easily moved, by scruple, when reasons of State do not seem to him to be involved. That famous axiom which has been ascribed, with so much praise, to Catherine II. ' It is better to set six guilty persons free, than to condemn one innocent man to death, ' is no part of the historic legacy of that great Sovereign. Before her days, Peter had written it with his own hand, and on the page of a Military Regulation ! ' - Some of his contemporaries have, indeed, admitted the impossibility of explaining many of his actions, otherwise than by the pleasure he seems to find in doing disagreeable things to other people, or even by causing actual pain. Thus they quote the story of one of his favourites. Admiral Golovin, who refused to eat salad because he hated the taste of vinegar, which always made him ill. Peter immedi- ately emptied a great llask of it down his throat, and almost choked him.^ I am disposed to believe this anecdote, because I have heard so many others of the same nature : — delicate young girls forced to drink a Grenadier's ration of brandy — decrepit old men obliged to prance about the streets, dressed up like mountebanks. These things were matters of daily occurrence all through Peter's reign. But this fact may bear a different interpretation. Peter had adopted certain * Siemievski, Slm>o i Dielo, p. 260. " Kosenhcini, Military Lf<^isliilioii in Russia (St. Pctcrshurg, 1S7S), p. 155. Sec also P'ilippof, I'ctcr the Great's Ke/orm, and his Penal Laws, p. 143, clc. ' Korb, as c|uoted above, p. S8. 126 PETF.R THE GREAT fashions in dress, in food, and in amusement, which he judged fitting, and which, because they suited him, must, so he argued, suit everybody else. This was his fashion of under- standing his autocratic functions, and his duties as a Reformer. On tliat he took iiis stand. Vinegar, looked at from this point of view, was part of the national law, and what happened to Golovin, with respect to that condiment, was repeated, in the case of others, with regard to cheese, oysters, or olive oil — the Tsar never losing an occasion of forcing them down the throats of any persons in whom he noticed a shrinking from his gastronomic novelties.^ In the same wa\', having chosen to set his capital in a marsh, and to call it 'his Paradise,' he insisted that every one else should build houses in the city, and delight, or appear to delight in it, as much as he himself. Clearly he was not a man of very tender feeling. In January 1694, when his mother was lying seriously, and even dangerously, ill, he fretted furiously at being kejDt in Moscow, would not endure it, and fixed the day for his departure. At the very hour when he should have started, her death-agony began, and he lost no time about burying her. Neither must I overlook the blood-stained ghost of Alexis, and the weeping shadow of Eudoxia. But, even here, the circumstances, which, morally speaking, went so far to make up the man's character, and certain other facts, — such as the tcrriijlc events inseparable from any revolutionary period, and the rebellious instincts of a nature which would brook no contradiction, not forgetting the uncompromising nature of his whole policy, the most personal and most self- willed that ever existed, — must be taken into account. He adored his second son, and his correspondence with Catherine — always most affectionate, as far as she is con- cerned — teems with expressions proving his constant soli- citude for the health and happiness of his two daughters, Anne and Elizabeth, whom he jokingly described as 'thieves,' because they took up his time, but whom he also calls 'his bowels ' {Eingciveidc). He went every day to their school-room, and looked over their lessons. He did not shrink from entering the cell of a prisoner, one oi his former favourites, and informing him that he very much regretted being obliged to have his head cut off * Vockerodt, according to Herrmann, p. 19. PHYSICAL PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS 127 on the following morning. This he did to Mons, in 1724. But, so long as his friends appeared to him worthy of his friendship, he was not only affectionate, he was coaxing and caressing, even to excess. In August 1723, at the Fete in commemoration of the creation of the Russian Navy — in presence of the 'Ances- tress ' {DieJous/ika) of his fleet, the English boat found in a barn in 1CS8 — Peter, not altogether sober, it is true, kissed the Uuke of Holstein on the neck, on the forehead, on the head — having first pulled off his wig — and finally, according to Bergholz, embraced him in a yet more tender manner.^ Even from the point of view with which we are now engaged, these peculiarities can hardly be taken to mark him as a mere imitation of an Asiatic despot. Something better he surely is. both as a Sovereign and as a private individual — something quite different, at all events, removed, in many respects, from common humanity, above it, or below it, but never, either instinctively, or intentionally, inhuman. A series of Ukases which bear his signature prove that his mind, if not his heart, was open to ideas, if not to sentiments, of a gentler kind. In one of these, he claims the title of ' Protector of Widows, of Orphans, and of the Defenceless.' ^ The moral centre of gravity, in the case of this great uncon- scious idealist, who was also (and his was not a unique case) a mighty sensualist, must be sought for on the intellectual side. In sjiite of the natural heat of his temperament, he succeeded, on the whole, in the majority of instances, in subordinating his sensations to that common law of which he had proclaimed himself the Chief Slave — believing that he thus acquired the right of bringing all other wills, all other intelligences and passions, without distinction, and without favour, under its rule. * Biischings-Magazin, vol. xxi. p. 301. 2 Collected Laws, pp. 337, 462, 777, 839, 3279, 3290, 329S, 3608. CHAPTER II INTELLECTUAL TRAITS AND MORAL FEATURES I. Mental capacity — Power and elasticity — Comparison with Napoleon i. — Slavonic acceptivity — Intercourse with the Quakers — Law — Curiosity and impatience for knowledge — A night spent in a museum — Incoherent and rudimentary nature of the knowledge thus acquired — Peter's diplomacy — Was he a great leader? — Lack of proportion — Mixture of gravity and puerility — Peter as surgeon and dentist — Scientific and artistic creations — Peter and the Abbe Bignon. II. His clearness and perspicuity of mind — His epistolaiy style — The Oriental touch — Proposal to reconstruct the Colossus of Rhodes — Contradictory features — Generosity and meanness — Loyalty and roguery — Modesty and love of bragging — History and tradition — The Western spirit of chivalry, and the Byzantine influence in Russia — ^Joan of Arc and Queen Olga — Bayard and St. Alexander Nevski — Peter's morality — Lack of scruple and scorn for convention — Causes and results. III. Strength and narrowness of insight — Intellectual short-sightedness — Absence of the psychological sense — Disinclination for abstract conception — Want of comprehension of the ideal elements of civilisation — Yet he was an idealist. IV. Love of disguises — Buffoonery — Moral debauch, or political intention — The Court jesters — Popular manners — The Tsar's amusements — The ugly side of these recreations — Mingling of masquerade and of real life — A jester made Keeper of the Seals — Masked senators sit in council. V. Tile mock Patriarchate — -The object of its establishment — Pope or Patriarch ? — Did Peter intend to cast ridicule on his clerg)'? — Origin and develop- ment of the institution — The mock Pope and his conclave — Grotesque ceremonies and processions — P'ather Caillaud's habit — -The marriage of the Knes-papa — The Princess Abbess — Synthesis and explanation of the phenomenon — Local causes and foreign influences — Byzantine asceticism and Western Satanic practices- — Moral compression and reaction — Ori- ginality, despotic fancy, and levelling tendencies — Peter and Ivan the Terrible — Louis xi. and Falstaff. The brain of Peter the Great was certainly a phenomenal organism. Irresistibly, both by its nature and by its force, it enforces a comparison with that of Napoleon I. We note the same power of continuous effort, without apparent weari- 128 INTELLECTUAL TRAITS AND MORAL FEATURES 129 ness, the same spring and flexibility, the same faculty of applying itself, at one and the same time, to an indefinite number of subjects, all absolutely dissimilar and of most unequal importance, without the smallest visible scattering of the mental faculties, or any diminution of the attention devoted to each particular object. At Stockerau, near Vienna, in 1698, when the Russian Ambassadors were in conflict with the Imperial officials over the details of their solemn entry into the capital, Peter Mihailof, while sharing in all the discussions, which cause him not a little irrita- tion, writes orders, to Vinnius, concerning the building of a Russian church at Pekin ! In one of his letters to Admiral Apraxin, dated September 1706, I find instruc- tions for the campaign then in course, directions as to the translation of a cargo of Latin books, and advice as to the education of a couple of puppies, with the following details of what they are to be taught : — ' First, to retrieve ; second, to pull off their hats ; third, to present arms ; fourth, to jump over a stick ; fifth, to sit up and beg for food.' On the 15th of November 1720, writing to lagoujinski, whom he had sent on a mission to Vienna, he holds forth on the retrocession of Schleswig to the Duke of Holstein, mentions the picture of a pig-faced girl, brought back to Russia by Peter Alexieievitch Tolstoi, desiring to know where the girl is, and whether it is possible to see her ; and speaks of two or three dozen bottles of good tokay, which he would like to possess, desiring to know the price and the expense of transport, before he gives the order for purchase.^ His was a mind open to every perception, with that eminently Slav faculty, which Herzen describes under the name of acceptivity, carried to the extremest point of develop- ment. Until he arrived in London he had probably never heard of the Quakers, nor of their doctrine. By a mere chance, the house he inhabited was that in which the famous William Penn had lived during that critical time in his stormy existence, when he was prosecuted as a traitor, and as a conspirator. This fact sufficed to throw the Tsar into almost intimate relations with Penn himself, and his co-religionists, Thomas Story and Gilbert Mollyson. He accepted their pamphlets, and listened devoutly to their ^ Writings and Correspondence, vol. i. p. 253 ; Golikof, vol. ii. p. 296 ; vol. viii. p. 120. I30 PETER THE GREAT sermons. When, some nineteen years later, he arrived at Friederichstadt, in Holstein, with a body of troops who were to assist the Danes against the Swedes, his first question was as to whether there were any Quakers in the town. Their meeting-places having been pointed out to him, he duly attended their gatherings.^ He did not understand much of Law's system, nor of finance in general, yet Law himself, his system, and his fate, interested him deeply, from the first moment when he had any knowledge of him. He corresponded with the adventurous banker, and followed his course with curious eves — delighted at first, indulgent after- wards, but always sympathetic, even in the speculator's hour of darkest disgrace.- The moment there is a question of seeing or learning anything, his eagerness and anxiety of mind make Napoleon appear a comparatively patient man. Arriving at Dresden one evening, after a day of travelling which had reduced all his suite to a state of utter exhaustion, he insisted, the moment he had supped, on being conducted to the Kimst- kainera, or museum of the town. He reached it at one o'clock in the morning, and spent the night there, feeding his curiosity by torchlight.^ And indeed, this curiosity, as has already been made evident, was as universal and as indefatigable as it was devoid of taste and of propriety. When the Tsarina, Marfa Apraxin, Feodor's widow, died, in 1715, at the age of fifty-one years, he desired to verify the truth of a general public belief, which had its foundation in the sickly constitution of the late Tsar, and the austere habits of his widow. To attain this object, he insisted on performing the autopsy of the corpse with his own hands, and satisfied himself completely, so it would appear, as to his sister-in-law's virtue.* The sum of his knowledge and qualifications, thus per- petually increased, preserved, in spite of its prodigious variety, a certain incoherent and rudimentary quality. Russian was the only language he could speak fluently ; his Dutch would only carry him through conversations with seafaring men and on naval subjects. In November 1721, * Clarkson, Lift of William Perm (1S13), p. 253. ' Russian Slate Paf^n (1874), p. 1578. * Archivfiir S>iihsisc/u Geschichte, vol. xi. p. 345. * Doljjoroukof's Memoirs^ vol. i. p. 14. INTELLECTUAL TRAITS AND MORAL FEATURES 131 finding it necessary to hold a secret conversation with the French Envoy, Campredon, who had resided in Holland and made himself familiar with the language of that country, he was fain to have recourse to an interpreter, and made a somewhat unlucky choice.* He was scantily acquainted, indeed, with the usual methods of Western diplomacy. In May 1 7 19, La Vie, the French Resident at St. Petersburg, remarked ' that he had allowed the Conferences at Aland to proceed without insisting on " the preliminary points," ' thus allowing the Swedes to mislead him by means of a most compromising sham negotiation, the only result of which was to separate him from his allies. In his foreign policy, he worked on a system peculiar to himself, or to his nation. He combined Slavonic shrewdness with Asiatic cunning. He threw foreign negotiators off their guard, by a manner peculiar to himself, by unexpected acts of famili- arity or of rudeness, by sudden caresses. He would inter- rupt a speaker by kissing him on the brow ; he would make long speeches, really intended for the galler>', of which his hearers could not understand a word, and would then dis- miss them before they had time to ask for an explanation.- He has passed, and does still pass, even in the eyes of certain militar>' historians, for a great militar}- leader. Cer- tain new and happy ideas as to the duty of Reser\-es, the part to be played by cavalry, the principles of the mutual support to be rendered by isolated bodies of troops, simpli- fication of military formation, and the employment of impro- vised fortifications, have been ascribed to him. The Battle of Poltava, so we are assured, furnishes an unique example, and one which aroused the admiration of Maurice de Saxe, of the use of redoubts in offensive warfare, — which redoubts are said to have been Peter's own invention. W'e are further told that he personally conducted the numerous siege opera- tions which took place during the Northern War, and that this direct intervention on his part ensured their success.' I am not qualified to enter into any controversy on such a subject, and I should have been disposed to bow unquestion- ingly before the admiring testimony of Maurice de Saxe. But a contradictory witness stops me short — the Journal of 1 Camprcdon's Despatch. Dec. i, 1721, French Foreign Office. ' De T " ' 1712, Dutch State Papers, ' Pcii i, etc 132 PETER THE GREAT the Northern War, to which I have already referred. This record, drawn up under Peter's personal superintendence, does not make him appear either a great historian or a good strategian. The descriptions of battles which I find in these pages — and there is indeed little else to be found — are de- plorably scant>% as in the case of the battle of Narva, or, when they enter into detail, flagrantly inexact. I know not whether the great man was the real inventor of the redoubts which played such an important part at Poltava, but all the world knows that he contented himself, in that battle, by leading a regiment, leaving the chief command, as always, to his generals. He studied military' engineering with some care, and took measures to put his new acquisitions on the Baltic shores into a due state of defence. But the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul at St Petersburg can hardly be called a masterpiece of engineering skill ; and even his ereatest admirers admit that not one of the other works of this kind, commenced under his direction, has ever been completed.^ As to the sieges, the success of which may have been ascribed to him, they appear to me to have invariably ended in an assault, all the credit for which was due to the brilliant qualities, the courage, and the discipline of the new Russian army. These qualities strike me as forming the only increase in this particular line which may be written downi to the undisputed personal credit of the great creator. He did, as I shall elsewhere show, create almost ever\' portion of that wonderful instrument by which the power and prestige of his countn,- have been ensured. He was an unrivalled organiser, and I am even willing to admit, with some of his apologists, that he outstripped his own time — in recruiting matters, for instance — in the application of cer- tain principles which had been proclaimed and theoretically affirmed in Western countries, long before, but which had been pushed to one side by established routine, and elbowed out of practical experience. What prevented him from acquiring a real mastery of any particular branch of knowledge was not only his lack of a sense of proportion, but also a radical defect which, from the beginning to the end of his life, led him to joke, as it were, with serious things, and take childish matters seriously. Of this fact, his studies and pretensions, in matters of > Petrof, as already quoted, voL ii. p. 84, etc INTELLECTUAL TRAITS AND MORAL FEATURES 133 surgery and dentistry', are a more than sufficient proof. After the date of his return from Holland he always carried a case of surgical instniments upon his person, and never allowed an opportunity of using them to slip through his fingers. The officials connected with the St. Petersburg hospitals had orders to warn him whenever an interesting surgical case occurred. He was almost always present at the operations, and frequently wielded the surgeon's knife with his own hand. Thus one day he tapped a woman afflicted with dropsy, who died a few days later. The poor creature had done her best to defend herself, if not against the operation, at all events against the operator. He made a point of attending her funeral. A bag full of teeth, extracted by the august pupil of the travelling Amsterdam dentist, is still preser\ed in the Museum of Arts at St. Petersburg. One of the surest methods of paying court to the Sovereign was to claim his assistance for the extraction of a grinder. He not unfrequently pulled out a sound tooth. His valet de chambre, Polouboiarof, complained to him one day that his wife, under pretext of a bad tooth, had long refused to perform her conjugal duties. He sent for her, operated on her then and there, in spite of her tears and screams, and warned her that if she continued obdurate he would pull out every tooth in her two jaws. But it is only fair to recollect that Moscow owes him the first military hospital, built in 1706, to which he successively added a school of surger>', an anatomical collection, and a Botanical Garden, in which he himself planted a certain number of specimen trees. In that same year, too, dispensaries were established, by his care, in St. Petersburg, Kazan, Glouhof, Riga, and Revel.^ Artistic or scientific studies and creations were far from being, in his case, simple matters of taste or natural inclina- tion. It is a well-known fact that he possessed no artistic sense, no taste for painting, nor even for architecture. His low wooden cottage at Preobrajenskoie, soon so sunken in the soil that he could touch the roof with his hand, amply sufficed for his own personal needs. For many years, he would not live in any other kind of house, even at Sl Peters- burg. Yet he held it proper to build palaces for his col- laborators to dwell in. But building operations flagged at ' Shoubinski, HistorUal SkeUkAs^ p> iii etc 134 PETER THE GREAT won be saw the necessiu* for setting a p>ers(Mial e-^ ' >o he ended by having a V. .nd a Summer I — .. »-^ These were a somew. .. . -msy imitation ot \ ]? — for he insisted, too. on being his own an± dy of the bu - dashed with the vii^s, iTKi 1 refill angles, t-' he would have - "-■- ... L^e room- —-- ^ ---^ i^^e, sotl fancy he w£. . -:r. c;ib:n. Bat the : been given, ar_ urse of time, the French architect, Leblood, retained at the hea\y salary of 4apoo Ihnes a year, socoeeded in corrcctir 5, and in givii^ the new capital that monuments. :,^- tive a|^>saranoe apprc^riate to its dignitj*. Peter took pains also, to add to the ^lall ocdlection of works of art made dniii^ his first stay in Holland. When he ared in Amsterdam in 17 17, he had learnt to put - ~ -f an ail^^itened amateur. He ended by pes- s by Rubens, Vandyck, Remlwandt, Jan Steen, Van der Werf, Ui^tdbach, Bergheim, Mieris, Wouvermann, Breughel, Qstade, and Van Hojrssen. He had a co'."--' — ^ sea ptctmes in his Summer Palace. In his cor ..: ^e at PelExfaof tihcre was a whole gallery of paintings. .A talented eo gfAva and diaa^ifatsman, Picard, and a curator named Gsril, of Swiss origin, formerly a picture-dealer in F i, were engaged to look after these collections, the f.: .. . . er seen in Russia. But there was not a tooch of personal interest in these matters. We may venture to doabt whether the Tsar took much {Measure in his ocMrespondence with the Abbe Bignon, the King's librarian, and a member of the Academic des Scieoces, of which Peter had become an honorary member after his stay in Paris in 1717. In 1720 he sent his librarian, — for b>- this time he had prxjvided himself with a library — a German, Schnhmacher by name, to the .Abbe with a manuscript, written in gold on vellum, which had been foand at Siemipalatinsk, in Siberia, in the vaults of a ruined chnrdL He desired to have the document d ed, and to know, Brst of all, in what language it wa^ v%i...cn. He appears to have been greatly dd^fated when the Abbe, having called in the assistance of the King's regular translator, Fonrmont, informed him that the mysterious lai^nage was that of the Tangouts, a very ancient Kalmuk INTELLECT LAL TRAITS AXDMORAL FE.\TL'RES 135 tribe. It vas not till alter his death that it occurred to two Russians whom he had sent to Pekin to study Chinese, and who had remained there (or sixteen years, to look more closely into this scientific process, and thus to make a dis- cov6r>' which somewhat compromised the reputation of the Parisian Orientalists. The manuscript was of Bffandmrian origin, and the text was absolutely difierent firom that given by Fourmont^ But Peter died in the conviction that he had elucidated an impcvtant point in the national paleo- gnjihy and ethnc^raphy, and thus coasdentionsty performed his dut>' as a Sovereign. AmcHig the curiosities collected by him in his Museum of Art and of Natural Histcnry, ccmtemporary wr it er s menti Schcrcr, vol. iii. p. 254. » /diJ. » Oustrialof, vol. ii. p. 367. 143 PETER THE GREAT without knowincr much of Greek or Roman art.^ The time and distance thus lost have indeed been successfully re- couped, but the fact remains that for many years the country knew nothinf^ of that brilliant and noblc-hcartcd line which, from the days of Roland to those of Bayard, made the word honour synonymous, in Western Europe, with fidelity to a pH;:jhtcd promise; and further, that it underwent the contrary influence of the Greek Empire, from which it imbibed not only arts and sciences, habits, reh\s[ion, and form of policy, but also all the Greek traditions of fraud and wily cunning. Even the lec^endary type of womanhood in Russia has no heroically ideal quality. She is no Joan of Arc, the inspired virgin, driving a whole people to victory through the im- pulse of her faith ; nor is she Wanda, the gentle Polish martyr, who preferred death to espousing a foreign prince offensive to the national instinct. She is Olga, a brisk and bold-hearted lady, who hunts, and fights, and trades, triumphs over her enemies as much by cunning as by strength, and, when the Greek Emperor would marry her against her will, dismisses him in most uncompromising fashion. Peter, like Alexander Nevski, — that Ulysses among saints, as Custine called him,- a prince more wise than valiant, a model indeed of prudence, but no type of gener- osity and good faith, — was her true descendant ; and so it came to pass that Camprcdon, the French Envoy, writing in 1725, concerning one of the Tsar's collaborators in his work, described him thus: 'lie is far from upright, and this it is which acquired him the confidence of the late Sovereign.' ^ The same apparent contradictions are noticeable in Peter's daily morals and religion. Was he a believer? It would seem almost doubtful, so off-handedly did he sometimes treat the ceremonies and ministers of a religion which, at other times, he would practise with the greatest fervour. When his sister Maria lay dying, he drove away the monks, who hastened about her to perform the traditional cere- monies, such as offering the dying woman food and drink 1 ' The bre.ith of chivalrj- never stirred the depths of Russia' (Pierling, Kussia and the Holy See, p. 1S9). The chapter in this interesting work, entitled, |The Renaissance in Moscow,' is quite conclusive, as regards my view of this subject. ' Russia, vol. i. p. 265. * May 3, 1725, Sbornik. vol. hnii. p. 255, INTELLECTUAL TRAITS AND MORAL FEATURES 143 of various kinds, and inquiring plaintively whether she desired to leave life because she had not enough to eat ! He would do away with all such mummeries ! Let it be admitted, then, that he clings to simple faith, and will have no superstitions. But yet I note his habit of writing down his dreams.^ The English Envoy, Whitworth, in his despatch of 25th March 17 12, speaks of a victorious struggle with a tiger duriug tlic Tsars sleep, which has strengthened him in his warlike intentions.- At the same time, all propriety, morals, good or bad, civility, and decency, seem to have been a dead-letter to him. In 1723, lajoujinski, one of the par- venus by whom he was surrounded, took it into his head to cast off his wife, with whom he had no fault to find, and by whom he had grown-up children, to marry the daughter of the Chancellor, Golovkin. As the wife on one side, and the Chancellor on the other, objected violently, Peter, who liked the plan, because it lowered the ancient aristocracy for the benefit of the new, intervened without hesitation. The woman was thrown into a convent ; the father was ordered to give his consent. The Tsar declared the first marriage null and void, and undertook to bear all the expenses of the second. From the respect thus shown for family ties his regard for the rest of the moral law may easily be argued.^ At Berlin in 1718, during a visit to a collection of ancient medals and statues, his attention was attracted to the figure of a heathen divinity, one of those with which the ancient Romans frequently adorned the nuptial-chamber. He beckoned to the Tsarina, and commanded her to kiss the figure. When she appeared to object, he shouted brutally, ' Kop ab ' ('Head off'), giving her to understand the risk entailed by disobedience ; after which he requested the King, his host, to present him with that rare cbjet d'art, as well as with several other curiosities, includ- ing an amber cabinet, which, according to the Margrave of Baireuth, had cost an enormous sum of money. In the same way, having remarked a mummy in a Natural History Museum at Copenhagen, he manifested his inten- tion of appropriating it. The head of the museum referred ^ Sicmicvski, Slovo i Dielo, p. 273, etc ' Sbomjk, vol. Ixi. p. 167. Camprcdon's Despatch, dated M.irch 22, 1723, French Foreign Office^ Dolgorouki's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 17. 144 PETER THE GREAT the matter to his royal master, who answered by a polite refusal. The mummy was an exceptionally handsome and lar^e one : there was not another like it in Germany. Peter went back to the museum, fell on that mummy, tore off its nose, mutilated it in all directions, and then took his de- parture, sayincj, ' Now you may keep it ! ' ^ On his departure from the Golden Rinfj Hotel at Dresden, in 171 1, he took down with his own hands, and would have carried off, in spite of the servants' opposition, the valuable curtains sent by the Saxon Court, to decorate his apartments. At Dantzic, in 1716, finding himself inconvenienced by a draught of cold air during the performance of divine service, he stretched out his hand, without a word, snatched the wig off the head of the Burgomaster, who stood beside him, and put it on his own.- I do not believe that Baron von Printzcn was ever obliged to climb to the top of a mast to present his credentials to the Russian sovereign, who was busy in the rigging, and would not allow any interruption of that work. This anecdote — also related by the great Frederick to Voltaire ^ — appears to me to stamp one of its tellers — I know not which — as a downright liar. Baron von Printzen arrived in Russia in 1700. At that period, St. Petersburg — the only place where he could have met with such a reception — had no existence. There was no shipbuilding there till 1704, when von Printzcn had already been succeeded in his office by Keyserling. Further, the envoy of the Elector of Brandenburg, and future King of Prussia, having started from Berlin on the 1 2th of October, must have arrived at his post in the very heart of a Russian winter, a season which reduces all rigging operations in the open air to a condition of forced idleness. On the other hand, Campredon's assertion that when, on the occasion of the peace negotiations with Sweden, in 1 721, he asked for an audience of the Tsar, Peter came from the Admiralty to receive him, wearing a sailor's blouse, seems to me worthy of belief. This entire absence of scruple, this disdain for the usual rules of conduct, and scorn of propriety, were accompanied * Scherer, vol. ii. p. 15. •, ' Polevoi, vol. iv. p. 4. There .ire several versions of this anecdote; see Scherer, vol. ii. p. 77- 8 Volt.-iire's fVoris, vol. x. p. 71. INTELLECTUAL TRAITS AND MORAL FEATURES 145 by a very deep feeling, and absolute respect, for law, for duty, and for discipline. Why and how did this come to pass? Doubtless because, in this case, we have somethincf bcvond a mere unthinking; negation of the indispensable foundations of any social edifice; in spite of a large amount of caprice and whimsicality, which gave birth to many inconsistencies, a more worth)- motive did exist in Peter's mind. He had undertaken to reform the existence of a whole people, whose scruples and prejudices made up a good half of their religion and morality. He regarded these, with a good deal of correctness, as the principal obstacle to any progress, and therefore, very logicalK', he never lost an opportunity of warring against them. When piloting his flotilla of galleys on the waters of the Don, in 1699, he noticed a Dutch sailor enjoying a fricassee of tortoises, caught in the river. He mentioned it to his Russians, and there was a general outcry of disgust. Such food appeared to them abominable and unclean. Straightway his cook had orders to serve the horrid dish at his own table, under the guise of chicken. Shem and Salt\-kof, who dined on it. fainted away when, by their master's order, the plumage of the bird they believed themselves to have devoured was respectfully presented to them. Peter felt himself called to clear the national conscience of the dross left by centuries of barbarous ignorance. But he was too impetuous, too rough and coarse, personally, and, above all, too passionately eager, to perform this work with real discernment. He hit out wildlv, in all directions. Thus, even while he corrected, he depraved. The mighty teacher was one of the greatest demoralisers of the human species. Modern Russia, which owes him all its greatness, owes him most of its vices also. ni His genius, indisputable as it is, and huge as was its field of action, does not give us the impression of taking in va^t spaces and mighty wholes in one swift lightning glance. It rather gives us the idea — so great is its comprehension of, and passion for, detail — of a multitude of glances, simul- K ,^6 PETER THE r.RKAT tancously fixed on a variety of objects. And, indeed, Peter's general ideas, when such become apparent to us, always strike us as beini^ somewhat vague and inconsistent. His plans and combinations are very apt to lack accuracy and precision, and, when his gaze turns on a distant object, his sight would seem to grow confused. Intellectually speaking, he suffered from short-sight. Of this the building of St. Petersburg is sufficient proof. Here execution came before conception. The plans were left for future considera- tion ; and thus there came to be quarters without streets, streets without issue, and a port without water. The usual instinct of that lightning mind was to act at once— leaving retlcction to a later date— without taking time to discuss projects, so long as they seemed attractive, nor weigh means, provided thcseMay close at hand. Peter's power of judg- ing his collaborators, which, according to his panegyrists, amounted to a sort of divination, would seem to be open to much discussion. The means he employed, such as taking hold of the hair of the individuals he thought of selecting, lifting their heads, and gazing for an instant straight into their"eycs — those summary processes which roused the ad- miration of even so serious an historian as Solovief^— are only an additional proof of that superficiality which I have already pointed out, as being the essence of all his know- ledge and all his aptitudes. He had not the smallest knowledge of psychology. One day he found, in the house of a schoolmaster, a servant girl, who took his fancy. He made her his mistress, until he could make her his Lmpress ; and, forthwith, he proposed to make the schoolmaster the founder of the national education. That is the plain story of Catherine and of Gliick. The woman began by wandering from camp to camp, the prey of the officers and soldiers of her future lord ; the man, a humble pastor in a Livonian village, began by teaching the little Russians confided to his care to sing the Lutheran Psalms. The Tsar, on becoming aware of it, closed the school and dis- missed the master. But the national education proceeded no further. One day, at the launch of a new ship, a sight which always heated his imagination. Peter fell to descanting on historical philosophy. Recalling the march of civilising > studies (18S2), p. 205. INTELLECTUAL TRAITS AND MORAL FEATURES 147 culture in Europe, from its Greek cradle, and on through its Italian glories, he finally expressed his conviction that Russia's turn had come. ' Let us hope,' he said, ' that within a few jears wc shall be able to humiliate neighbouring countries by placing our own on the highest pinnacle of glory.' His conception of civilisation is here clearly be- trayed — the sentiment of a manufacturer in strong competi- tion with the factory over the way. He had too little cultivation to analyse and understand the elements of the superiority of those foreign rivals whom he envied, and desired to excel. All he saw was the exterior, and therefore he esteemed the whole below its value. His intelligence, vast and comprehensive though it was, shows, on one side, a certain quality of limitation. It is radically inaccessible to any abstract conception. Hence he was very unskilful in judging any series of events, in deducing the consequences of a particular point of departure, in tracing effects back to their causes. He was quick to seize the practical advan- tages of civilisation, but he never had any suspicion of the necessary premises of all civilising undertakings. He was like a man who would begin to build a house from the roof, or who would work at the foundations and summit of an edifice, at one and the same time. His being a good carpenter, or even a fair naval engineer, did not suffice to set the moral forces of his people in organic motion. To sum it up, Peter possessed more ingenuity than actual genius. His government was the handiwork of an artisan rather than that of an artist, of an active official rather than of a statesman. He had an extraordinary gift of manipulating men and things ; and his surprising dexterity in this respect, coupled with a marvellous power of assimila- tion, is still noticeable in almost any modern Russian, who will come from the banks of the Uon, where he never saw a machine nor a factory, and, after a few weeks spent in some western industrial centre, will be perfectly informed on the latest improvements of modern machinery, and well able to apply them in his own country, liut Peter had not an original idea of his own, and cared little for originality in other people. He did not even attemj)t to put the elements, external or internal, which he used in his attempts at political or social construction, into independent motion. 148 PETER THE GREAT His work was a mosaic, a mere patchwork. Even this imitation of the foreigner was not, in itself, his own original invention. It had been the constant rule in Russia since the days of Boris Godunof. All he did was to substitute a torrent, a cataract, a perfect avalanche, of German, Dutch, English, F"rcnch, and Italian products, for the little stream of importation which had passed from Poland and slowly filtered into the arid Russian soil. His work — I say it again — was a mechanical performance, — superficial always, and far from intelligent, sometimes, — directed solely to external ends, without a thought of internal possibilities. It had been begun with so much carelessness as to the real nature, and inner values, of the materials selected, that its end and object perforce escaped the understanding of the nation called upon to perform it. It was heterogeneous, incongruous, and ill-arranged, useless in many particulars, harmful in others : a Dutch fleet, a German army, and a Swedish Government, the morals of Versailles, and the lagoons of Amsterdam — all included in the same series of borrowed treasures. Not a perception of the ideal side of the undertaking, nothing but a perpetual bondage to the tyranny of preconceived ideas. When he was informed that the canals he had cut through the Island of St. Basil (^Vassili-Ostrof) — the only scrap of firm ground in his new capital — were useless, and too narrow for traflFic, his first thought was to hurry off to the Dutch Resident, borrow a map of Amsterdam, and compare the dimensions, compass in hand. Yet I have said he was an idealist, and I hold to that opinion. An idealist he was, in virtue of that part of his nature which escaped from the chances and incoherence of his daily inspiration. An idealist — after his own fashion — bv the general subordination of his thought, and the constant sacrifice of his own person, to an end without any material or immediate tangibility. 1 mean the splendid destiny to which he believed his country appointed. Not, indeed, that, in the limited range of his mental sight, and amid the passion and perpetual tumult of his career, this end ever took very precise shape. That famous Will, which has been the theme of so many ingenious politicians, was, as I shall later prove, a mere hoax, with which he had nothing to do. The far horizon towards which his course was shaped loomed up before him, uncertain and confused : like a camp, it INTELLFXTUAL TRAITS AND MORAL FEATURES 149 ma>- be, filled with the clatter of armed men, or else a busy fruitful hive — a centre of life, at all events — industrial, intellii^cnt, even artistic. He dreamed indeed, but with wide-open eyes ; and, with all the positivcness of his mind and nature, he ended — so great was his effort, so mighty his faith — by almost touching and possessing this phantom dream of his. He went a step farther. He would ensure the continuity of this hallucination of what was to be, that far-distant, tremendous destin}-, and, like the splendid despot that he was, he drove it into the very marrow of his subjects' bones — beat it in mercilessly, with blows of sticks, and hatchet strokes. He evolved a race of eager vision- aries out of a people of mere brutes. He left something better behind liim than a mere legend. He left a faith, which, unlike other faiths, is spiritualised, instead of material- ised, in the simple minds which have enshrined it. ' Holy Russia' of this present day — practical, brutal, and mystic, above all things, even as he was, — standing ready, like a many-headed ]\Iessiah, to regenerate Ancient Europe, even by submerging her, is Peter's child. An idealist, yes ! A dreamer too, a great poet in active life, was this horny-handed woodcutter! Napoleon, the soldier mathematician, with conceptions less extravagant than Peter's, with a more judicious sense of possibilities, and a more real grasp of the future, was an idealist too. IV One of the most sharply marked and peculiar traits in Peter's character — a character offering contrasts so stroncr as to endue it, from certain points of view, with an appearance of absolute deformity — is the intense and never-ceasing strain of buffoonery, which sets an harlequin's cap on that imj)erious brow, twists those harsh features into a merry- andrew's grin, and everywhere and always — through all the vicissitudes of a career crammed with great events and mighty actions — mingles the solemn with the grotesque, and carries farce even into the region of absolute tragcd)'. This is betraj'cd very early, quite in the dawn of Peter's reign, by the disguises adopted by the young ruler, from the very 15© PETER THE GREAT outset, for himself, and imposed, by him, on his friends and collaborators. So early as 1695, Prince Fcodor Romodan- ovski united the title of King of Presburg with that 01 General. And even when writing to him on the most serious subjects, Peter never failed to address him as ' Min Her Kenurh,' and to sign himself 'Your Majesty's ver\' obedient Slave, Knech Piter Komondor, ' or else, ' Ir Dahelcix Ktieh, ' which last formula was unintelligible to any one but himself He lost no opportunity of expressing fais resolution to shed the last drop of his blood in the service of this mock sovereign. ^Icanwhile he had created Zotof, his former tutor, Archbishop of Presburg, Patriarch of the banks of the laouza, and of the whole Koukoui (a name of German origin given to the quarter known as the German suburb). Tihon Nikititch Streshnief was made Pope. He was addressed as ' Most Holy Father.' and ' Your Holiness,' and all his replies, whether they were business letters orofacial reports, were, by order, couched in the same style. Romodanovski addressed his letters to ' Bombardier Peter Alcxui&citch,^ and closed them with a simple formula of politeness, appropriate from a sovereign to a subject In May 1703, after the taking of Nienschanz. Peter, acting as secretary to Field-Marshal Shcremetief, drew up, with his own hands, a report to the King — in other words, to Romodanovski — informing him that the Field-Marshal had promoted him and Menshikof to be Knights of St. Andrew, 'subject to His Majesty's appro- bation.' And so settled was the determination to take this burlesque seriously, that it actually survived the original actors in it. In 1719, when F<^odor Romodanovski died, the title and privileges of his imaginar>- sovereignty passed to his son Ivan, and Peter, in an autograph letter con- gratulating Captain Sieniavin upon a victor}- won at sea, assures him of the satisfaction this success will cause 'His Majesty.' ^ On the 3rd of February 1703, he writes to Menshikof — calling him ' My heart ' — to inform him of the opening of a fort, built on a property he had lately bestowed on him, and christened under the name of Oranicnburg — the present Ranenburg, in the Government of Riazan. The Metropolitan of Kief presided at the ceremony. This mock Metropolitan was Mussine- Pushkin, one of the real 1 Golikof, vol. vii. p. 264. INTELLECTUAL TRAITS AND MORAL FEATURES 151 sovereign's boon companions, and by no means one of the least debauched. A plan of the fortress, showing the names given to the bastions, was enclosed in this letter. The first bastion was baptized with brandy, the second with lemonade, the third with Rhine wine, the fourth with beer, and the fifth with hydromel. The score, or thereabouts, of persons who made up the party, amongst whom were the Prussian and Polish Envoys, Keyserling and Koenigseck, an English merchant named Stiles, and several important Russians, appended their signatures to this letter, substituting joking sobriquets for their real names. MenshikoPs reply was couched in a serious strain, for the Swedes were giving him much trouble, and he was in no laughing mood ; but he did not forget to express his thanks to his august friend for the honour he had done him, by getting drunk upon his property. In 1709, when the victor)- of Poltava was to be celebrated at Moscow, a huge wooden palace was built on the Tsaritsine Lougue ; Romodanovski, enthroned in the Hall of Audience, and surrounded by the principal dignitaries of the Court, summoned the leaders of the victorious army to present their reports on the incidents and happy issue of the battle. The first to advance was Sheremetief: ' By the grace of God and the good fortune of your Caesarean Majest>', I have overcome the Swedish army.' * By the grace of God, and the good fortune of your Caesarean Majest>',' said Menshikof, in his turn, ' I have taken General Lx>ewenhaupt and his army prisoners at Perevolotchna.' Last of all came Peter : ' By the grace of God, and the good fortune of your Caesarean Majesty, I and my regiment have fought and conquered at Poltava.' All three presented the mock Caesar with the regulation reports, and retired, bowing. After which, the astounded Swedish prisoners were brought in, and marched past the throne. A banquet, presided over by this strange substitute for the Sovereign, who was seated upon a raised dais, and condescended to summon Colonel Peter Alexi«5- i^vitch to his own table, closed the ceremony.^ Efforts have been made to justify these pasquinades — almost revolting, at such a moment, and in such serious cir- cumstances — by various interpretations of their meaning. Some will have it that this was Peter's method of inculcating, > Colikof, Tol. zi p. 567, etc 153 PETER THE GREAT by his own cxam[)Ic, the principle of subordination which he desired to instil into his subjects. Others, that it was an attempt to destroy all memory of the MicstnitcJiesiio, by a deliberate confusing of all ranks, and every precedence. Such ideas may, indeed, have occurred to him. Me always showed the deepest intuition of the true foundation of all real discipline — the sense that he who will be obeyed must know how to obey — that he who desires service must him- self learn how to serve. The expressions, ' I serve,' * since I have been in the service,' were very habitual with him ; and not less evident and endurinc; was his constant desire to familiarise his subjects, to fill their eyes and their souls, with that great ideal, to which he sacrificed his own life, and to which everything was to be sacrificed — to which all things must bow, and, in comparison with which, all else, even the Tsar himself, was to be accounted nothing. Such a design may have existed, at the back of such scenic effects as I have just described. But the means used by Peter for the furtherance of this object, proceeded solely and directly from his whimsicality, his love of disguises, of humbug and mystification, and from a licence of imagination which no sentiment of propriety, of respect, or even of self-respect, could keep within bounds. It should not be forgotten that masquerades were at that time a great fashion in western countries, and they had long had a settled home in Russia. Ivan the Terrible delighted in them. Peter thus merely followed the prevailing custom, which his inherent prone- ness to exaggeration, of view and of practical action, led him to carry to so extreme a pitch, that the means he employed finally far exceeded, and even ran counter to, his original intention. Nothing but the extreme docility of a national tempera- ment, long since broken in to every form of despotism, saved the very idea of sovereignty from fading out of the public mind at this period. This will appear especially true when we consider that certain of the wildest and least justi- fiable of the sovereign's disgui.^cs lowered human dignity, in his own person, to the most abject and shameful level. In 1698, just after his first foreign journey, he took part in a procession, in which the mock patriarch, Zotof, wearing a mitre decorated with a figure of Bacchus, led a troop of disorderly baccliantcs. their licads adorned with bundles of INTELLECTUAL TRAITS AND MORAL FEATURES 153 lighted tobacco instead of vine-leaves.^ Here, of course, ue have an allusion to the monopoly, lately acquired by '"' Marquis of Caermarthen, and, therefore, a political i-icntion. But the manner selected for intimatin^r this docs not strike us as being any the less objectionable. In the same \ear, on the very day after that on which one hundred and fifty Strtlisy had died, in horrible tortures, Peter's cheerfulness was unabated. He kept the Brandenburg Envoy, whom he had received in farewell audience, to dinner, and regaled him, at dessert, with a scene of buffoonerj-, during which the mock patriarch, having bestowed his benediction on all present, with two crossed pipes, gave the signal for the dances to begin. The Tsarevitch Alexis, and his sister Nathalia, watched this entertainment from behind a hanging which was pushed aside for their convenience.- Twenty years later the same thing was going on. During the carnival of 1724, a troop of sixty or seventy individuals — gentlemen, officers, priests (including the Tsar's Confessor, -Vadajinski), burghers, and common people, amongst whom one. a sailor, walked on his hands with his head down, making strange faces and wild contortions, attended the Sovereign through the streets. These people, chosen from amongst the greatest drunkards and vilest debauchees in the countr>-, constituted a regular brotherhood, which met on fixed days, under the name of 'Council which knows no sadness' ( Bccpit'ichaluyi sobor), aivxd indulged in orgies which occasionally lasted for twenty-four hours. Ladies were invited to these gatherings, and the most important officials, ministers, generals, and grave and aged men, were frequently obliged to take part in them. In January 1725, Matthew Golovin, a man of illustrious family, eight}- years of age, was ordered to appear in one of these processions, dressed as a devil. He refused, and, at a word from Peter, he was seized, stripped naked, a cap with pasteboard horns was put upon his head, and he was forced to sit, for a full hour, on the frozen Neva. He caught a violent fever, of which he died.^ Not an event, during the whole course of the reign, from the Peace of Nystadt, to the wedding of a favourite dwarf, but was made the pretext for fresh doings of the kind. » Korh. p. lie. • /Ud., p. iiS. • DolRoroukof, Afemoirt, »ol. \. p. 136. 154 PETER THE GREAT When the dwarf died, Peter ranged maskers round his cofnn, even as he had already ranged them round his marriage-bed. Ever\- dwarf in St. Petersburg thus appeared, in 1724, at the funeral of one of their number, all of them dressed in black, and following a tiny hearse, drawm by six little Spanish horses. The same year, during a masquerade which lasted a week, senators were forbidden to unmask, even in the council chamber, during the hours devoted to important business.^ Peter had a great number of Court jesters or fools. Strahlenberg - gives a list, which contains many names possessing other claims to importance. Zotof, Tourgucnicf, Shanskol, Lanin, ShahofskoT, Tarakanof, Kirsantievitch, and Oushakof, the most admired of alL These names can be accounted for. Flogel, in his history of Court jesters,* divides those who surrounded the Tsar into four categories. Firstly, fools by natural infirmity, in whom the Sovereign finds amusement Secondly, fools by punishment, con- demned to play the part, for having failed in wisdom, in their former functions, — this was the case of Oushakof, who, as a captain in a guard regiment, had been sent from Smolensk to Kief with imp>ortant despatches, reached the town during the night, found the gates shut, and, when there was some delay about opening them, turned round, rode back to Smolensk, and complained of his discomfiture to his commanding officer. Thirdly, simulated fools, who shammed mental disturbance to escape death, after having been implicated in some plot — a stratagem which did not always impose upon Peter, who, however, judged the self-chosen punishment of the poor wretches sufficient Fourthly, fools by lack of education. Peter, who was in the habit of sending a great number of young men abroad, examined them, when they came back, as to the information acquired. Those who did not give him satisfaction escaped severer punishment by assuming the cap and bells. In the great Tsar's time these private jesters had a certain part assigned them, and a political importance of their own. They supplemented his p6lice force. They boldly and ^ Bergholr, Busckingi-Magaxin, vol. xxiL p. 436, etc » Das Xffrd mid Otstluhe Thai vcn Europa mnd Aua (Stockholm, 1730), p. 235. • G*jtki* and large- hearted good-humour which usually marked it. Half a centu^^• later, Christian vn. of Denmark caused a certain Count Brandt, who had been set upon on the score of his * Komrakin Papers, toI. L p. 7J. * Scfaocr, ToL tiL pw 56 ; BcfipwlK, BmKkJmjfMtiim 1 1'n, voL xix. p. 87. 156 PETER THE GREAT conjugal misfortunes, to be tried and condemned to death, because, in his fur\-. he had raised his hand against the Sovereign. Peter bore the hearty blows showered upon him by Catherine's head cook, when that functionary was not in a joking humour, without a word of complaint.^ It may be said that he should have chosen the subjects of his jests elsewhere than in the kitchen, but that was his style. He was no aristocrat. He was essentially vulgar, on the con- trary — as much allied, by certain traits of rustic liumour and childish gaiety, with the plebs of every country, as he was distinguished and widely separated, by the general tendency of his mind and character, from the native plebeian element. His earliest comrades, the Koniouliv, had made him thoroughly acquainted with the manners and habits of the Russian populace, and to that, in part, he owed his knowledge of the masses, and his gift for ruling them. I have described him during the Christmas festivities as fol- lowing the practice, traditional in the lower classes, of the Slavlcnie {Christa slavit, ' praising Christ ') — that is, of sing- ing the Saviour's praises before the doors of houses, and claiming the gifts usually bestowed. One day the richest merchant in Moscow, Filadief, refused to be sufficiently generous in his donation. Peter forthwith collected the inhabitants of the whole quarter before his house, and forced him to pay a ransom of one rouble for every head in the crowd." Here a certain quality of his genius appears : his aptitude for stirring the mob by appealing to its lowest instincts. The really dangerous side of these pleasures and relaxa- tions resided in the deliberate confusion, kept up by Peter, of madness with reason, of mere masquerade with serious existence. These sham counts and patriarchs, these buffoons and harlequins, constantly added to their carnival dignities and functions, and mingled with them, others, which made, or should have made, them, very serious personages. Zotof was Keeper of the Seals; Ivan Golovin, who, though he had been with Peter in Holland, knew nothing of naval matters, was, for that very reason, created head of the Admiralty, The Sovereign and his friends found this a very pretty sub- ject for jesting, but the fleet, — which, amongst themselves. ' Berffholc, BuschtMgs-MagauH, vol. xix. p. 87. Korb, p. lOI. INTELLECTUAL TRAITS AND MORAL FEATURES 157 whenever they drank Ivan Mihallovitch's health, they called his /ijffii/y, — was far from being the better for it No justification nor excuse can be offered for these dis- orders. They were the clear and evident weak point of a most superior mind, — too far removed from the common track, too completely bereft of the balance which education, tradition, and social surroundings, generally enforce, even in the most independent natures, — to be able to maintain its equilibrium in that huge space wherein it moved, and traced out its own path. It will naturally be inquired whether the public and official institution of the mock Patriarchate, to which I have already referred, really was intended, as some think, to prepare the way for the suppression of the real one. I would willingly admit this, were it not for my sense of the evident dangers such an indirect course would have involved. Would not Peter have thus risked, not only the dignity of the whole cierg>'. but the verj- idea of religion? Some people have looked on this burlesque as a mere parody of the Papacy. I cannot share their opinion. I find Zotof alternately desig- nated Kncs-papa and Patriarch. And, when Peter set the mock Caesar, Romodanovski, beside the Kms-papa, whose rank was it, whose title, whose function, that he sought to ridicule and roll in the mud? I am rather disposed to believe his chief desire was to divert a mind predisposed by certain hereditary* germs of Eastern despotism, certain constitutional vices, and certain faults of earlv education, to whimsical eccentricities. I will not deny that more serious intentions may have occasionally existed, and may even have been at the root of this wild and licentious debauch of fancy. But these soon disappeared — carried away, and fairly drowned, in the muddy waves of that tumultuous stream. This is by no means the opinion of a recent apologist, so convinced in his own opinion as to express astonishment that no one before him had become aware of the real and abiding depth of the plans and calculations thus set in 158 PETER THE GREAT motion by the great sovereign. How is it, he wonders, that no one has perceived that this was the Tsar's manner of hiding the forces secretly prepared, and the work of de- struction to which he had already doomed them, from the eyes of his enemies? The Kncs-piipa and his Conclave, so we are told, drunk, or seemingly drunk, as they may have been in the daytime, spent their nights in unrelent- ing toil. The corres{X)ndence of the mock Pontiff with his Deacon (the title taken by Peter himself), with all its apparent ravings, and its filthy jokes, was a mere matter of cypher. Thus, in Zotofs letter to the Tsar, dated 23rd February 1697, Carnival, with his companions, Ivashica (drunkenness) and Icrcnika, (debauchery), against whom Peter was warned, are said to stand for cunning and servile Poland, with her allies, the Hetman of the Cossacks, and the Han of the Tartars.^ This interpretation has not even the virtue of ingenuity. Is it likely that, in 1697, Peter or his collaborators would have taken so much pains to convince the Swedes or the Poles of the poverty of their resources? It was only too apparent, at that moment, and the optical delusion they would have desired to produce was a very different one. As for the laborious nights of such a man as Zotof, my imagination rebels at the very thought. In a despatch from the French envoy Campredon, dated 14th March 1721, I find the following words : 'The Patriarch, of whom I have spoken above, and who is here known as Kncs-papa, is a professional drunkard, chosen by the Tsar himself, with the purpose of turning his clergy into ridicule.' Ihis is a true description, so far, at least, as the moral identity of the personage is concerned, although the indivi- dual actually referred to was Zotofs successor. Did Peter really think of turning his own clergy into ridicule? He may, indeed, have desired to lower the Patriarchate, as being a rival authority to his own. Up till this time, the Tsar, according to immemorial custom, had always walked in the solemn Palm-Sunday procession at Moscow, leading the Patriarch's mule. Thus, from year to year, the supre- macy of the ecclesiastical power, dating from the prepon- derating part played by the Patriarch Philaretus during the reign of the first of the Romanoffs, was formally affirmed. ^ See Paper, by M. I%an Nossovitch, in Rmsian Antiquities (1S74), P* 735. INTELLECTUAL TRAITS AND MORAL FEATURES 159 I'ctcr replaced this solemn procession by the burlesque cortege of his Kncs-papa, who rode on an ox, and was followed by an army of vehicles drawn by hogs, bears, and goats.^ The political intention is here quite manifest. But it is equally clear that this intention rapidly faded, and became more and more debased, in the prolonged course of the huge and irreverent parody, which a very sensible eye-witness, Vockerodt, described as a ' mere mental and physical debauch.'- Yet this phenomenon calls for another explanation. Its depth, its e.xtent, its duration, were all so remarkable, that I cannot accept it as the outcome of a single individual inspiration, however fanciful and licentious. And, indeed, I remark a very general tendency, during the period immediately preceding Peter's accession, to irony, to satire, and to the comic representation, or caricature, of all the important acts of life. This may be the mere rebound from the asceticism to which I have already referred, and which, as I have pointed out, had led to a denial of every outward manifestation of social existence.^ As to the form which Peter gave, or, perhaps, only contributed to give, this tendency, it may bear some relation to the excesses in which popular imagination and passion indulged, in other countries, under the action of so-called demoniac influences. My readers will recollect the orgies of the nocturnal revels and messes noires so common in France early in the seventeenth century, of which the m\-stifying performances of modern disciples of the occult arts are but a pale reflection.* The analogy of causes would here seem to confirm the analog^' of facts. Both in Russia and in France we have a revolt, physical and mental, against the ordinar)' course of life, which compressed and wounded body and spirit alike; and human beings, seeking for momentary relief, dashed at a bound beyond the pale of reality, outside the limits of law, and religion, and society. The strange thing is that Peter should have presided at these Saturnalia. But surely he — the first and willing prisoner within the iron circle of his own Ukases — sharing, as he did, the common condition, may well have felt the common need. * Bergholz, Biisehin^i-.\fa:;azin, vol. xix. p. 128 ' Vockerodt. See Herrmann, p. 19. * Zabiclin, /,/tvj of the Tsarina!, p 426. * Sec Michclet, Histoire de France (Flammorion edition), vol. xi. p. $4. l6o PETER THE GREAT I must now proceed to facts, and these, 1 believe, will strike my readers as being conclusive. The origin of the scenes of desecration in which the Pope or Patriarch Zotof and his successors played their part, dates, as I have said, from the earliest years of this reign. But its decorative accessories were successively developed. Peter, after he had created a pontiff, proceeded to appoint him cardinals and a conclave. This was the Vsicslioutchic- icliyi or Vsicpiianiclchyi Sobor^'X^xc Conclave or Council of the maddest or the most drunken ' — a fixed institution, almost official in its character. The Tsar worked out its orcranisa- tion from year to year, inventing statutes and regulations, which he drew up with his own hand, even on the very eve of the battle of Poltava.^ Its members consisted of the most dissolute of his boon companions, with whom, — cither out of mere brutal and despotic caprice, or in the idea of debasing, so as the more easily to control them, — he associated a certain number of men of serious mind, and rigid morals. The members' first duty was to present themselves at the house of the Kncs-papa, called the Vaticaniim, and there offer him their homage and their thanks. Four stutterers, conducted by one of the Tsar's footmen, were spokesmen on this occasion, in the course of which the new arrivals were invested with the red robe which was to be their future official costume. Thus garbed, they entered an apartment called the Mall of the Consistory, the only furniture of which consisted of casks ranged round the walls. At the end of the room, on a pile of emblematic objects, such as barrels, bottles, and glasses, was the throne of the Kties-papa. One by one the cardinals defiled before him, each receiving a glass of brandy, and listening to this formula: 'Reverend- issivic, open thy mouth, swallow what thou art given, and thou shalt tell us fine things.' After which, all being seated on the casks, the sitting was opened, and continued many hours, during which copious libations were mingled with low jests. The Conclave was held in a neighbouring house, to which the members went in procession, headed by the Kncs-papa, sitting astride on a wine-butt drawn by four oxen. He was attended by mock monks — Jacobins, Fran- ciscans, and so forth. The habit of Father Cailleau, a French Franciscan, resident in Moscow, had supplied the * Sec Nossovitch's Paper. Compare Siemievski, Slcvo i Die/o, p. 2S1. INTELLFXTUAL TRAITS AND MORAL FEATURES i6i pattern for their dresses. Peter went so far as to try to force the monk himself to take part in the procession, and only desisted in face of the encrq^ctic opposition of the I'Vench minister. He himself, dressed as a Dutch sailor, generally ordered the march of the procession. A spacious fjallcr)', lined with narrow beds, awaited the members of the conclave ; between the beds casks sawn in half were ranched, filled with food. The sham cardinals were forbidden to leave their beds before the close of the Conclave. Certain conclavists, attached to the person of each, were charged with the duty of inciting them to drink, urging them to the wildest extravagances, to the most filthy jests, and also, so we are told, to talk unreservedly. The Tsar was always present, listening, and noting things down on his tablets. The Conclave lasted three days and three nights. W'hen there was no question of electing a new Pope, the time was emplo}'ed in discussions relative to such matters as the quality of some particular brand of wine, with which one of the cardinals had found fault. In 1 714 Peter took it into his head to vary the monotony of this programme by celebrating the wedding of the Knes- papa Zotof, an old man of eighty-four, whose sons were distinguished officers in the army. One of these vainly besought the Tsar to spare this shame to his father's old age. The bride was a noble lady, Anna Pashkof, nearly sixty years of age. Immense preparations were made for the celebration of this extraordinary wedding. We must not forget that the Northern War, with all its dreary array of daily sacrifice and mourning, which sucked the resources of the country dry, was then in progress. Yet, four months in advance, all the lords and ladies of the Court had orders to be ready to play their part in the ceremony, and to send detailed descriptions of their chosen disguises to the Chan- cellor, Count Golovkin, so that there might not be more than three of any character. Twice over, on the 12th of December 1714, and the 15th of January 171 5, performers and costumes were duly insjjccted by Peter himself. With his own hand he wrote out all the instructions and arrange- ments for the ceremonial, specially invented for the occasion. On the appointed day, at a signal given by a cannon, fired from the fortress of St. Petersburg, the male and female participators in the masquerade gathered — the former in L i62 PETER THE GREAT the Chancellor's house, the latter in the dwelling of the Princess- Abbess, a lady of the name of Rjevski, ' an active and compliant, but exceedingly drunken body,' as one of her contemporaries described her. She was replaced, after her death, b}- Princess Anastasia Galitzin, the daughter of Prince Prozorovski, a great friend of Peter's, whom he treated like his own sister, until he had her publicly whipped in the courtyard of the offices of the Secret Police at Prco- brajenskoie, she having been accused of complicity with Alexis, after having been commissioned to watch and spy upon him. She bought back the Tsar's favour by accepting the post of Princess-Abbess.^ The procession formed up in front of the Tsar's Palace, and, crossing the frozen Neva, took its way to the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, on the opposite bank, where a priest of over ninety years of age, actually brought from Moscow for the purpose, awaited the bride and bridegroom. At its head was Romodanovski, the mock Caesar, dressed as King David, carrying a lyre, draped in a bearskin. Four bears were harnessed to his sledge, and a fifth followed it like a footman. These creatures screamed in the most frightful manner under the blows which were rained upon them from start to finish. King David was followed by the bride and bridegroom, seated on a ver>' high sledge, sur- rounded by Cupids, a stag with huge horns on the coach- man's box, and a goat seated behind them. The mock Patriarch wore his pontifical robes. All the greatest people in the capital — ministers, aristocrats, and diplomatic corps, — followed the procession, some of them more than a little constrained and uncomfortable ; but for that Peter did not care a jot. Prince Menshikof, Admiral Apraxin, General Bruce, and Count Vitzthum, the Envoy of Augustus II., costumed as Hamburg burgomasters, played on the hurdy- gurdy. The Russian Chancellor, the Princes James and Gregory Dolgorouki, the Princes Peter and Demetrius Galitzin, dressed as Chinamen, played on the flute. The Austrian Resident, Pleyer, the Hanoverian Minister, Weber, the Dutch Resident, De Bie, as German shepherds, blew the bagpipes. Certain gentlemen, Michael Glebof, Peter and Nikita Hitrof, had been dispensed from performing on a musical instrument on account of their age, but they had to * Dolgoroukof, Memoirs, vol. i. p. 75. INTELLECTUAL TRAITS AND MOR.\L FEATURES 163 put in an appearance. The Tsarevitch, garbed as a hunts- man, blew his horn ; Catherine, with eight of her ladies, wore Finnish costume ; the old Tsarina Marfa, the widow of Tsar Feodor, appeared in Polish dress. The Princess of Ost-Friesland had an old German costume. All these ladies played the flute. Peter, dressed, as usual, as a sailor, rattled on the drum. He was surrounded by a noisy and motley crew of Venetians blowing shrill whistles ; Honduras savages, who waved their lances ; Poles, scraping \iolios ; Kalmuks, tinkling the balalaika (Russian guitar) ; Norwegian peasants, Lutheran pastors, monks ; Catholic bishops with stags' horns on their heads ; Raskolniks, whale-fishers, Armenians, Japanese, Lapps, and Tungouses. The noise of the instru- ments, the screams of the bears, the clang of the bells that rang out of every church tower, and the acclamations of the thousands of onlookers, rose in an infernal cacophony of sound. ' This is the Patriarch's wedding ! ' shouted the spec- tators ; ' Long live the Patriarch and his wife ! ' The cere- mony closed, as may be imagined, with a banquet, which soon became an org}-, during which a flock of trembling octogenarians acted as cupbearers. The festivities continued the next day, and lasted well into February-.* But it would be ver\- unbecoming on my part to omit one detail. On the very day of the wedding, Peter, still in his sailor's costume, contrived, between the masquerade and the banquet, to give an audience to Count Vitzthum, during which, after having discussed most important matters, he charged him with a letter for his master, dated that \ery day, and dealing with Polish affairs. He also received Bassewitz, and talked over the Duke of Holstein's business with him.- This incident, in itself worthy of all admiration, will not diminish the disgust inspired by the circumstances which surrounded iL When Zotof died, in 1717, Peter drew up fresh regulations for the election of his successor — quite a little volume of grotesque contrivances, in which he particularly insisted on the verification of the candidate's sex, according to the custom established at Rome since the days of the • Golikof, ToL tL pp. 279- 29a Letter from De Bie to the Sccretuj of the States-General, St. Peten^xn^ Feb. 1, 1715, Datch State Papers; Dolgpcouko^ Meatoin, toL L p. 141. * Golikof, vol. vL pp. 279- 29a l64 PETER THE GREAT famous Pope Joan. \Vc must not forcjct that, just at that moment, he was cxpcctincj the return of his son Alexis, and was makinpj ready to bcj^in that terrible trial which was to cast such a painful shadow over the last years of his life. No symptom of that shadow was apparent as )-et. The new candidate was called Peter Ivanovitch Boutourlin. He had hitherto borne the title of Archbishop of St. Petersburg 'in the diocese of drunkards, c^luttons, and madmen.' He was a member of one of the most illustrious families in the country. This time Peter kept the part of Subdcacon to the Conclave for himself. The members of this Conclave received their ballot balls, or rather the ce^frs which repre- sented them, from the hands of the Princess-Abbess, whose breasts they kissed ... I pass over details, which are either indescribable or uninteresting;.^ A few months later the unhappy Ale.xis was agonisinf^ in the Question Chamber under the torture of the whip, and yet his father sat gaily at table with the tiew Kucs-papa — 'the Patriarch, or rather the burlesque of a Patriarch,' as Vockerodt calls him — and presided over scenes of the vilest and most disgusting debauchery. In 1720 Peter took it into his head to marry Boutourlin to Zotof's widow ; and once more we see him lavishing the strangest drolleries, obscenities, and unheard-of profanities, in all directions. A bed was set up within a pyramid, which had been built, in 17 14, before the Palace of the Senate, in commemoration of a victory over the Swedes. He must needs scoff at his soldiers' victories, at the blood spilt in defence of the country, even at his own glory ! The newly married couple were put to bed dead drunk, and subjected to the grossest indignities at the hands of the populace. The next morning, the new Kncs-papa opened his Ponti- ficate, by giving his blessing after the fasJnon of the Russian priests, to a procession of maskers, who waited on him at his house.- This Pontificate was of very short duration. On the loth of September 1723, 1 read in one of Campredon's despatches : 'The ceremony of the installation of the new Patriarch will take place at Moscow ; the Conclave will be held in a small ' Sit'nicvski, Slorv i Dielo, p. 281, etc ; Scherer, vol. ii. p. 163. ' Despatch from the French Resident, La Vie, St. Petersburg, Oct. 4, 1720, French Foreign Office ; Bergholz, Bidschinjp-Magazin, vol. xix. p. 127. INTEM.ECTUAL TRAITS AND MORAL FEATURES 165 island near I'rcobrajcnski, on which there is a peasants' cottage. The mock cardinals will there assemble on the appoHited day ; they will have to drink wine and brandy, for four-and-twenty hours, without going to sleep, and after that fine preparation, they will choose their Patriarch.' ^ There can be no two opinions concerning these shameful scenes and aberrations from decency. The only possible disagreement is as to what explanation may be given of them. I hold to that I have already indicated. Peter was the representative of a society in process of formation, into which historical premisses, and his own personal initiative, had introduced, and continued to maintain, diverse and opposing elements of fermentation — a society in which nothing stable, nothing consecrated, and, therefore, nothing sacred, existed. From the days of Ivan the Terrible, all the remarkable men in this society had been eccentrics — ' Samo- douty,' according to the expressive national term — and this fact is explained by the absence of a common fund of national culture. Peter was the same. He was a huge Mastodon, and his moral proportions were all colossal and monstrous, like those of the antediluvian flora and fauna. He was full of elementary forces and instincts — the true primi- tive man, close and thick-growing like a virgin forest, bursting with sap, and infinitely diverse. Man, as he was before a long course of natural selection developed him into a special type of the human species — like no one else, and still full of the most incongruous resemblances, mighty, capricious, tragicomic, a kinsman of Louis XL, and own cousin to Sir John Falstaff. Very plebeian too, as I have already said — a close neighbour of those lower strata, out of which a chosen circle was slowly rising. He chose his friends and collaborators among the common herd, looked after his household like any shopkeeper, thrashed his wife like a j^easant, and sought his pleasure where the lower populace generally finds it. When, to all this, we add the incessant clash, within his brain, of ideas and inspirations, which, though often contradictory in themselves, generally tended to a deliberate upheaval and a consequent universal levelling process — when we consider that he consciously possessed the most absolute power, over the men and things around him, that any human being has ever known — and * French Foreign Office. i«6 PETER THE GRE.\T vben we recollect the urgent need, that, as I have said already, most from time to time have stung him, to ^^olently cast off the realities of existence, because, in the long-run, tfa^ grew aneDdiuable, even to such a man as he was — this strange a-'^?'rt of the great Tsar's moral character will surdy be suf: _. explained. CHAPTER III IDEAS, PROrCEPLES ASH SYSTEM OF GO¥ERMMEST m. IT. A I HAVE already, in the course of m}- reoiaiks oo the iotrilec- tual gifts - the means be employed to p ro te c t the duly pro- duct of his active brain against the weakness of his own memory. He alwa>-s carried tablets with him, which he constantly drew firom his podoet and c o v ered with has^ i68 PETER THE GREAT notes. When these were filled — and this was all too soon — he would la\' hands on the first piece of paper that came handy, and would even use the smallest clear space on any document within his reach, — whether its contents bore any relation to the subject of his momentary preoccupation or not. Thus, on the mart^in of a report on the proposed establishment of the St. Petersburg Academy, and following certain ntjtes of his, respecting this particular business, the following lines, also in his handwriting, appear : — ' I must send orders to Roumiantsof, in the Ukraine, to exchange all the oxen he can get in the province for sheep, and to send some one abroad to learn how to take care of that sort of animal, how they are shorn, and how the wool is prepared for use.' ^ These ideas, if we look into them closely, are no more than suggestions, coming directly from without, and but slightly modified by any internal intellectual process; and they are more remarkable for their number than for their amplitude. Peter thought, just as he looked at things, in detail, and the chief quality of his mind was a marvellous reflecting power. But the mirror of his intellect would appear to us to be broken up into too many, and too strangely disposed, facets. A certain number of the sur- rounding objects, — and these often the nearest ones, — escaped his perception altogether. He spent years in the near vicinity of such a man as Possoshkof, and utterly ignored the existence of that profound and original thinker. ProbabK- the poor philosopher suffered from the fact, that he was neither a German nor a Dutchman. In vain did he send some of his writings — his treaty on poverty and wealth, a huge and astonishing political encyclopa:dia — to his sovereign. In vain did he even recommend himself to his notice in that domain of practical performance, which Peter so particularly appreciated. I'ossoshkoff was the first person to open salt- petre works in Russia. Prince Boris Galitzin gave him fourteen roubles for his discovery, and that was all he ever made by it. When, long after Peter's death, people began to read his work, he was shut up in prison, and there died. No publisher touched it till half a century later — in 1799. Peter had no use for his knowledge and his talents. Yet, during his first visit to the Hague, he applied to the Secretary ' Staehlin, p. 170. PRINCIPLES AND SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 169 of the States General,^ Fagel, to find him a man who would undertake to organise and direct his State Chancery, — another Dutch boatswain to erect another machine, and set it going ! A short time later, in London, he took the advice of a Pro- testant ecclesiastic on the same subject. The Apolcipomcna of Francis Lee,- show clear traces of this consultation, and some of his readers have discovered, beside a learned dis- sertation on the plan of Noah's Ark, the principle of those future administrative bodies, on which the working of Peter's Government was to hinge. That looking-glass of his was invariably turned westward. The Memoirs of Ostermann, unpublished as yet, are indeed said to contain this sally, ascribed to the Tsar: 'Europe is necessary to us for a few decades ; after that, we will turn our back on it.' ^ I have not been able to verify the quotation, but even the fact of its correctness would not convince me of the authenticity of the remark. Failing clear proof of that, I should be much more inclined to take it as the dictum of some modern Slavophile. Action — with this man of perpetual motion — often pre- ceded thought, or, at all events, followed immediately on it; and the number of his acts for this reason far exceeds the quantity of his ideas. Certain very essential notions he ab- solutely lacked, especially in matters of mere justice. In 1715, some of his sailors burnt certain Dutch ships, which they had taken for Swedish ones. He vowed it was Sweden's business to pay the damage, because the incident had occurred near Helsingfors ; and Ilelsingfors stood on Swedish soil. And he really believed he was within his right. He forced the Swedish Chancellor, Piper, whom he had taken prisoner at Poltava, to sign a draft for 30,000 crowns on Stockholm, and, when the Swedisl\ Government refused to pay, he threw the Chancellor, — a sick man, over 70 years of age, — into a dungeon, where he died the following year.* I have already spoken of the inconsistency and confusion of mind, betra\'ed in all liis behaviour, as regards religious matters. The Registers of the Confessional, about which Catherine was later to make such a mystery to Voltaire, and the penalties for refractory persons, were all of his invention. He used to sing ' Scheltcma, A'ussia attd tfit Low Countrus, vol. i. p. iZS-'Sj. '■* Londiiii, 1752. ' Kusbiaii Archives, 1874, p. 1579. * IkrglioU, I}uschinj;s-Ma^aiin, vol. xix. p. 67. I70 PETER THE GREAT ill the church choirs, and each of his victories was celebrated by a service which lasted at least five hours. The thauks- givins:; for the victory of Poltava lasted seven, so as to j^jve ^ood measure to the God of armies. Poor-boxes were placed in all the churches he usually frequented, to receive the fines he inflicted on any members of the congregation whom he cauf^ht in unseemly attitudes, talking or sleeping. And an iron collar, which the severity of the Sovereign reserved for hardened offenders, is still preserved in the Convent of St. Alexander Nevski. Such persons heard their Mass, the following Sunday, firmly fastened by the neck to one of the pillars of the sacred edifice ! ^ Yet, at other moments, both his words and actions seemed to indicate a leaning towards Protcstanism. He would sur- round himself with Calvinists and Lutherans, would hold long doctrinal discussions, in which his orthodoxy often appeared very questionable, and would listen, with ap- parent devotion, to sermons that reeked of heresy. An edict, published in 1706, and approved by him, granted all Protestants free exercise of their worship. But again, Thciner has published a series of documents proving the hopes felt at Rome — both before, and after, this decision — as to a possible reunion between the two churches. The Sovereign went so far, at certain moments, as to be gracious even to the Jesuits. He began, it must be confessed, by expelling them, in 1689, and the opinion he expressed of them at Vienna, in 1698, was far from friendly. ' The Emperor,' he was heard to say, ' must know those people are much richer than he is, yet during the whole of his last war with Turkey, he never forced them to send him a man, or even a cojjper coin.' ISotwithstanding which, only eight years later, the Jesuit Fathers had colleges, both at Moscow, St. Petersburg, and at Archangel. This went on till 1719, then, all of a sudden, they were driven out again. Why ? Because of a quarrel with the Austrian Court, the natural protector of the disciples of Loyola. Peter, not finding himself able to injure the Emperor, wreaked his bad temper on the Emperor's/;v/<^/j. All his principles, whether in religion or in politics, were of a piece with this sorry per- form an ce.- ' Scherer, vol. iii. p. 238. ^Golikof, vol. vii. pp. 237, 431. Weber, Last AmccbUs, p. 348. PRINCIPLES AND SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 171 As regards the Jews, he would seem to have had a settled determination of a sort. He could not abide them. He would not have them in his empire at any price. And yet, I find in his inner circle a Mc\cr, a most undoubted Jew, who, with his brother-in-law, Lups, served the Tsar in various operations connected with army finance and supply. The contractor was to be seen, close to his employer, sittint^ on his ri;^ht, even at the deliberations of the Senate, and treated with every respect and consideration.^ The fact is, that in everything, and above all things, Peter^ was utilitarian, and thus it came about, that, in matters of morality, his opinions and his line of conduct generally led him into practical cynicism. He made a law whereby infanticide was punished with death, but the lawgiver was astounded to find that Charles v. had visited adultery with the same penalty. 'Had he too many subjects?'- One day, at Vichnyf-Volotchok, in the Government of Nov- gorod, whither he had gone to inspect some canals in course of construction, he noticed, in the crowd, a young girl, whose pretty face, and air of embarrassment, both struck him. He beckoned to her. She came at once, but all abashed, hiding her face in her hands. He said something about finding her a husband. Her young companions burst out laughing. He inquired the reason, and was told the unhajjpy child had gone astray, and that her lover, a German officer, had left her with a baby in her arms. No crime this, in the Tsar's eyes ! Sharply he took the girl's companions to task, sent for the infant, and openl)' declared his pleasure at the thought that he would some day be a good soldier. He kissed the mother, gave her a handful of njubles, and promised not to lose sight of her.^ He bestowed 10,000 ducats, and an order for banish- ment, on Tolstor, the President of the commercial dejiart- ment of his Government, to help him to get rid of an Italian courtesan ; but, that the money might not be altogether wa.sted, he contrived a secret negotiation at Vienna and at Rome, in which the fair lady was expected to act as a decoy.* > .Stachlin, p. 333, a Ibid. » St.ichlin, p. 233. « Camprcdun'i Despatches, I7lh Au^. 1722 (French Foreign Olfice). 173 PETER THE GREAT II Peter had, as I have endeavoured to show, a j^eneral con- ception of his duties, of tlic part he had to play, and of the rii^hts it conferred on him. Yet, unconsciously, he mingled two principles, which — though he neither knew it nor cared — were in radical contradiction to each other. Starting from his own absolute individual sacrifice on the altar of the common interest, he arrived at the complete absorption of the whole community into his own all-engross- ing individuality. Louis XIV'.'s pretensions were nothing to his. lie not only claimed that the Sovereign was the State, but that the whole life of the nation, past, present, and future, was identical with his own. He firmly believed that the intellectual and economic renewal — over which he did indeed preside, but which certainly proceeded, in part, from causes anterior to, and independent of, his action — was his personal work, his creation, his chattel, devoid of any reason for, or possibility of, existence, apart from him. He doubtless believed in a prolongation of this work, beyond the probable term of his own existence. All his efforts, in fact, were directed to this object. But, at the bottom of his heart, he could not conceive its e.xistence without any parti- cipation of his. Hence his indifference in the matter of the dynastic question. It is no deluge that he foresees, after his own departure : he sees something not far removed from utter void. His rights and duties, as he understood them, were quite a novelty to Russia. Until his time, the whole organisation of the country, including its political life, had been founded on the family idea. His father, the Tsar Alexis, had been no more than the chief of a race, and of a household ; there was no society in his days, no suspicion of a reciprocity of rights and duties. This was the true Oriental conception of exist- ence. Peter returned from the west, bringing with him a social principle, which he put forward with all his usual determination and exaggeration. He proclaimed himself the first servant of his countr>', and carried this idea to an extreme and fantastic point. In 1709 he wrote to Field- Marshal Sheremetief, asking him to support his application to the sovereign — that is to say, to Romodanovski — to be PRINCIPLES AND SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 173 promoted rear-admiral, humbl)' plcadincj his own cause, and reciting his services. In 17 14 he received, and uncomplain- ingly accepted, the refusal of the Admiralty to his re- quest for promotion. In 1723, when he was with the fleet at Revel, he asked for a doctor's certificate to enable him to get leave from the Lord High Admiral to sleep on shore.^ He built himself a country house near Revel, which he christened Cathariticntltal, and expressed astonishment, on the occasion of his first visit to it, at seeing the park quite emjjty. Did people think that he had set so many hands to work, and spent so much money, for no one's benefit but his own? The very next morning the town crier informed the inhabitants of Revel that the park was theirs, for their free and unrestricted use.- Immediately after his accession to the throne, he divided the considerable fortune amassed by his father and his grandfather into two parts. By means of the privileges and monopolies assigned to the sovereign, the Tsar Ale.vis had accumulated 10,734 dicssiatines of cultivated land and 50,000 houses, bringing in a revenue of 200,000 roubles. Peter would keep none of this. He made all his wealth over to the State, only reserving the modest patri- mony of the Romanofs, '800 souls' in the Government of Novgorod, for his private usc.^ The only increase of income he would accept, was the usual pay of the various grades he successivel}' held in the army and in the fleet. Receipts, signed by his hand, are still preserved, acknowledging the sum of 366 roubles, the amount of his annual pay as a chief carpenter. We also have his account book, which, though not very regularly kept, is full of curious details. ' In 1705 I earned 366 roubles for my work in the Voroncje ship\'ards, and 40 roubles as my captain's pay; in 1706, 156 roubles altogether, received at Kief; in 1707, received at Grodno, my colonel's pay, 460 roubles. Expenses — In 1707, gave at Vilna, for a monastery, 150 roubles ; for stuffs bought in the same town, 39 roubles ; to Anisia Kirillovna, for wearing apparel, 26 roubles ; to Prince George Shahofskoi for wear- ing apparel, 41 roubles ; to the aide-de-camp I^artenicf, for a very important errand, 50 roubles.' * Going one day round ' Slornik. vol. xxv, p. 152. Golikof, vol. v. p. 257. Hcrjjliolz, liuschingS' AtaQa:t», vol. xxi. p. 2S1. '' .Schcrcr, vol. iii. p. 65. * Karnovilch, Great Russian Fortunes (St. Petersburg), 1SS5, p. 27. * Qibinct, Scries I.. No. O4, Writim^s anii Corrtspondtnee, vol. iii. p. 31. 174 PETER THE GREAT the forges at Isti<^>, in the Government of Riazan, he mincrlcd w ith the workmen, toiled, hammer in hand, for several hours, and then counted up his chains. lie had earned iS altincs (cdpper coins of 3 kopecks each) for a corresponding number of poods of metal, on which he had spent his strength. He drew the money, and gleefully announced that as soon as he got back to ^Ioscow he should go to the Riady (a sort of bazaar), and there spend it on a pair of shoes, those he had on his feet being quite worn out.^ Something there was, at once touching and imposing, about this attitude of mind, but it had another side. To begin with, there was a good deal of whim about it, and of this the great man himself was well aware. Writing to Catherine from Helsingfors, in 17 13, he says, ' On the 6th of this month the Admiral promoted me to the rank of General, whereupon I beg to congratulate the General's wife. A strange business ! I was made a Rear-Admiral while I was campaigning on the Steppes, and here I am a General while I am at sea.' ^ Nartofs story of the Tsar's meeting with Romodanovski, on the Preobrajenskoie Road, throws a comical light on the perpetual ambiguity which it pleased him to keep up, between the reality of his rank, and the fiction of his assumed position. Peter, seated, as usual, in his unpretending vehicle, saluted the mock sovereign, giving him his title, ' Alcin gmidigcr Her Kaiser,' but forgetting to uncover. Romodanovski — in a splendid carriage, surrounded by a numerous suite, and preceded by a footman, who drove back the crowd with a heavy whip, shouting * Stand back ! hats off!' — swept by like a whirlwind, casting a furious glance on the real sovereign. An hour later he sent for Peter Mihailof, and without himself rising, or offering him a seat, roughly addressed him, inquiring what he meant by not baring his head when he saluted him. ' I did not recog- nise your Majesty in )-our Tartar dress,' was Peter's reply." And his Majesty did not press the matter, remembering, doubtless, a certain letter received from Peter Mihailof in consequence of a complaint made by James Bruce, and thus beginning : ' Wild beast ! {Zvier) how long will you go on ill-treating people thus .^ Even here' (Peicr was then in Holland) * the wretches you have maimed come to me. Let 1 Nartof, p. 55. • Liirt ^pondeiutt 1861 edition, p. 34- » Nartof, p. 93. rRIN'CIPLES AND SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 175 there be an end to your too great intimacy with Ivashka (drunkenness)! ' ^ Another, and a much more serious, fault appears. All this false humilit}-, and all the very real self-sacrifice which goes with it, do not prevent the relations of this man with the nation he professes to serve — and for which, indeed, he strips himself and sacrifices his whole existence — from being not only of the most exacting — that might be justified — but of the most arbitrarily despotic nature. He evidently looks on all service and sacrifice as being only the due of that towering and merciless ideal, to which every one, like him- self, is bound to contribute. But, granting this, he might have been expected to make some allowance for natural lack of aptitude, for weakness, for mental inadequacy, and indi- vidual incapacity. He would not even admit the existence of such failings. The man who did not take up his appointed place, and there perform the task assigned him, was held a traitor, a relapser, and, as such, was forthwith outlawed. His property, if he had any, w^as sequestrated, — for, being good for nothing, he was not worthy to possess anything. He was allotted a small subsistence out of his own income, the rest passed to his relations, and their mere declaration, confirmed by him, and presented to the Senate, sufficed for the transfer. If he was old enough to marry, he was for- bidden to take a wife, lest his children should be like him- self, — for the State had no need of such persons.- At Moscow, in December 1704, Peter himself inspected all the staff at his disposal, Bo'iars, Stolniks, Dvorianin, and other officials of every kind. Against each name he wrote with his own hand some special duty to be performed.^ If any man failed in his functions, or tried to slip out of their performance, his punishment, at the very least, was civil death. iiut was the toiler free when once his task was finished? No, indeed ; for the principle, in virtue of which he had been called upon to labour, claimed him altogether. His body and his soul, his thoughts, his occupations, his very pleasures belonged to the Tsar. And here we see the consequence of the confusion between the idea itself and the man who repre- ' Correspondente, Dec. 22, 1697, v<.l. i. p. 226. Comjxire Ouslrialof, vol. iii. P-95- * Ukase, d.itcd Dec. 6, 1722. Golikof, vol. ix. p. 83. * Golikof, vol. ii. p. ^13. 176 PETER TMK GREAT sciitcd it. There was only one goal, and one road which led to it. The Tsar led the van, and all the rest must follow. His subjects had to do what he did, think as he thought, believe what he believed, and even take their amusements when, and as, he took his. They had to do without bridges across the Neva, because he liked crossing the river in a boat, and the)' had to shave their beards, because his beard grew sparse!)-. They must even get drunk when he got drunk ; dress themselves up as cardinals, or as monkeys, if that pleased him ; scoff at God and His saints, if the fancy took him ; and very likely spend seven hours with him in church on the following day. An)' resistance, an)- weakness, a mere lack of comprehension, a sign of visible effort, a symptom of disgust, or a mere failure in understanding instructions, was punished with the rod, the lash, or even the headsman's axe. The so-called servant would raise his hand upon his master, to strike, and often to kill him. In March 1704, Prince Alexis Bariatinski was whipped in the public square for having failed to bring up a few recruits for inspection. In that very same year Gregory Kam)-nin unrlcrwent the same punishment for having refused to share in the delights of the III These contradictions, flagrant as they are, can be ex- /^lained. Peter was a violent reformer. His reform was J revolutionary in character, and his government consequently "S partook of those conditions of existence, and of action, which ^ have always been the inseparable concomitants of a political and social state of revolution. Again, his government, in spite of its revolutionary character, was the outcome, to a certain extent, of the former course of the national history, customs, and traditions. Of this fact Peter himself was evidently conscious. On one of the triumphal arches, raised at Moscow, on the occasion of the peace with Sweden, in 1 72 1, the effigy of the reigning Tsar was associated with that of Ivan the Terrible. This idea emanated from the Duke of Holstein. The uncle seems to sanction the nephew's action, and thus to claim an historical connection, * Jeliaboujski, Memoirs, pp. 214, 225. PRINCIPLES AND SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 177 which is, indeed, constantly confirmed by all that nephew's acts and ways of thou^i^ht.^ liut, thout^h principles might dift'er, practice daily gave the lie to theory. Theory, in this case, was frequently liberal in the extreme ; practice almost always stood for despotism, arbitrary' rule, inquisi- tion, downright terrorism. Peter's reign was a reign of terror, as Cromwell's had been, as RobesjMcrre's was to be, but with a special stamp of savagery of its own, derived from his Asiatic origin. In 1691, Basil Galitzin, Sophia's unfortunate political partner, was visited, even in his distant and cruel exile, by a fresh criminal prosecution. A tchcniicts (monk) had heard the Kx-regent foretell the Tsar's approaching death. Put to the question, several times over, he still adhered to his denunciation. The proofs seemed clear enough, yet the enquiry ended by establishing that the monk had never seen the exile, and had never travelled to larensk, where he was interned. The whole story had been invented ' ot bezouuiia,' in a fit of frenzy, a form of mental alienation common both in Ivan's reign and in Peter's, resulting from the constant and haunting terror of the secret police, and of the torture chamber. The whole system was a part of the national tradition. The Russian proverb, ' The knout is no angel, but it teaches men to tell the truth,' contains at once its sanction and its apology. Of that fact Peter was deeply convinced. lie was himself the most eager of inquisitors, delighting in the monstrous art, drawing up manuscript notes for the conduct of examinations, in which he frequently took a personal share, watching the smallest details, laying stress on every word, sp)'ing the slightest gesture. He caused a private jeweller, suspected of misappropriation, to be brought to his palace for examination. Twice over, for an hour each time, he put him to the combined tortures of the strapi)ado and the knout, and he cheerfully related all the grisly incidents of the business to the Duke of Ilolstein.that very evening.- With an army of spies and detectives already at his beck and call, he would personally supplement their efforts, listening behind doors, and moving about amongst the tables during banquets, when enforced libations had heated men's head.'i, and loosened their tongues. He would set men to watch ' St.ichlin, p. 217. • Si' one else, from hand to mouth, subject to the common terror and the universal bewilderment, they took full advantage of their short hours of freedom, and thus increased the overwhelming weight and cruel pressure of the terrible Juggernaut which, sooner or later, was to crush them all. The system of favour- itism which has cost Russia so much gold, so many tears, ' Golikof, vol. ix, p. 48. * See Strahlenberg, p. 238, etc PRINCIPLES AND SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 185 and such streams of blood, was not indeed of Peter's own creation. It was a legacy from the past, which he had not courage to repudiate, which indeed he consecrated, and the tradition of which he developed, by his own adherence to it. He was, in some respects, even in that economic depart- ment, wherein, at first sight, he would appear to have worked such a radical change, the true heir and follower of his an- cestral traditions. He did away with that system of mono- polies and royal privileges which had made his predecessors the foremost merchants in their country. But, in September 171 3, having to fetch a sum of money from Lubeck to St. Petersburg, he ordered the cargo of the galliot, which was to be sent on this errand, to be completed with merchandise likely to sell at a good profit in St. Petersburg.^ This is quite in the manner of the old rulers of the Kreml, all of them greedy of every kind of profit, and by no means scorning the ver)' smallest. At a masquerade, during the fetes given at Moscow in 1722, I notice the description of a bearded Neptune who played quite a special part. The Tsar's faithful subjects were invited to fasten golden ducats to the hairs of that symbolic beard, which was shortly to fall under the scissors of a barber, — none other than Peter himself A captain of the Guard, accompanied by a clerk, followed the sea-god through the streets, and carefully registered the ducats, and the names of those who gave them.'- Even his wonderful knowledge of stage effect was con- nected, in a way, with the spirit of bygone times. 'Whenever the smallest advantage is gained,' observes the Dutch Resi- dent, Van Dcr Hulst, in 1700, * there is a noise made about it here, as if the whole universe had been overthrown.' Dur- ing the disastrous period of the Swedish war, salvoes of cannon, fireworks, extra promotion lists, and distributions of rewards, followed each other in quick succession. This was an endeavour, no doubt, and a laudable one, to mislead public opinion, so as to prevent discouragement, and also, perhaps, to put heart into the Tsar himself But it was quite in Sophia's manner, and thoroughly Oriental in spirit. The English Envoy Whitworth, when at table with the Tsar, in 1705, was confronted with a Russian soldier, who, so he averred, had, with forty-four comrades, prisoners like him- * GolJkof, vol. V. p. 536. ■* Bergholz, Buschingi-Magatin, vol. xx. p. 385. l86 PETER THE GREAT self, been mutilated by the Swedes. Peter made this the text of a lonc^ sermon on the barbarity of his enemies, which, he declared, far exceeded that of the nation over which he ruled. ' Never,' he vowed, ' had any Swedish prisoner been so treated in Russia, and he would forthwith send these forty-five mutilated men into his different regiments, to warn their comrades of what they had to expect from such a treacherous encm\'.' The Tsar's trick failed. Whitworth was convinced that he was being made game of, all the more as he had naturally not understood a word of the Russian soldier's story.^ But the whole incident is thoroughly liy/.antine in its nature. Tiiis peculiarity it was, in part, which bound the Tsar so closely and so firmly to the flesh and sj^irit of his people, to their past and to their present, — and which has made him so permanent a factor in their very existence. Had his despotism been more logical, less influenced by the very air of the country he was sent to rule, its results would have been more short-lived. ^ Despatch, dated 2nd May 1705. Sbornik, vol. x.xxix. p. 79. CHAPTER IV PRIVATE LIFE I. The cottage at St. Petersburg — The pilot's dinner — Katia — Palaces and country houses — The lime tree at Strielna — Peterhof — Tsarkoie-Sielo — Revel. II. A day in the great man's life — His morning work — His table — Private meals and State dinners — Catherine's kitchen — What Peter ate and drank — Court luxury and domestic simplicity — Menshikof's coach and the Tsar's cabriolet — His dress — His roughness and coarse habits — Cockroaches. III. His amusements — Neither a sportsman nor a gambler — The water his chief delight — Winter cruises — All St Petersburg at sua — Animals — Finette and Lisette — A dog's part in politics. IV. Social habits — Meeting with the Margravine of Baireuth — In the German suburb — Boon companions — The Tsar's coticher — His pillow — His intimate circle — The Dienshtchiks — A favourite's marriage — Maria Matvieief. In November, 1703, the first merchant vessel, a Dutch galliot, laden with salt and wine from Friesland, entered the mouth of the Neva. The Governor of St Petersburg invited the captain to a banquet, and lavished presents on him and on his crcw.^ But before this entertainment took place, he had to accept the hospitality of the pilot, who had directed the course of his ship into harbour. He dined with him and with his wife in a modest cottage on the river bank. The fare con- sisted of national dishes, to which a few dainties, peculiar to his own country, had been added. At dessert, not desiring to be behindhand in politeness and generosity, the worthy captain drew from his wallet, first of all, a delicious cheese, and then a piece of linen, which he presented to the mistress of the house, with the request that he would permit him to kiss her cheek, • Let him have his way, Katia,' said the pilot, ' the linen is of the finest, and will make you chemises ' Oustrialof, vol. iv. part i. p. 252. 187 |88 PETER THE GREAT better than }ou ever dreamt of wearing in your youth.' Just at that moment the Dutchman, hearing a door open behind him, turned round, and almost fainted. A man, evidently an important personage, covered with gold cm- broider}-, and starred with decorations, stood on the threshold, and bowed to the ground as he replied to the words of welcome addressed to him by Katia's husband. I am half afraid this story is not true ; in any case, it must have occurred some years later than 1703. Catherine does not appear, at that date, to have taken up her residence with her future husband. But, otherwise, there is an air of likelihood about it. It is very characteristic of Peter's general behaviour, and of his most intimate surroundings. He was always piloting ships, Dutch or others, receiving sea captains at his own table, and taking them in by the extreme simplicity of his manners and of his surroundings. As for the cottage on the river bank, it may still be seen at St Petersburg. It was built by Dutch workmen, on the model of those seen by the sovereign at Zaandam, in 1697. A framework of roughly -hewn tree trunks supports a low roof, on which the gay, red, Dutch tiles are replaced by wooden shingles. It contains two ground-floor rooms, of very modest proportions, separated by a narrow passage, and a kitchen, with a garret above. There are only seven windows. The exterior is painted in the Dutch style, red and green. On the apex of the roof, and at its two corners, a martial-looking decoration has been superadded — a mortar and lighted shells, all carved in wood. Within, the walls are hung with white canvass, and the door and window-frames painted with bouquets of flowers. The room on the right hand side was used as a working and a reception room. That on the left served at once for dining-room and bed- chamber.' This latter apartment has now been turned into a chapel, where the faithful pray, and burn candles, before an image of our Lord, below which Elizabeth caused the first words of the Lord's Prayer to be inscribed. I have never seen it otherwise than closely crowded. In the other room a few souvenirs have been collected — wooden furniture made by the great man's own hands, and "done up," alas ! in 1850 ; a ^ Boulhakovski, Peter's House (St. Petersburg, 1891). Roubane, Topographical Description of St. Petersburg (St. Petersburg, 1799). PRIVATE LIFE 189 cupboard, two chests of drawers, a table, a bench on which he often sat outside his door to breathe the fresh air, and watch his standard floating over the ramparts of the Petro- pavloskala Kriipost ; utensils, and tools, which he once used. This cottage, small and far from luxurious as it was, hardly measuring more than 18 yards by 6, was verj- dear to its master. He regretted it deeply, when he felt his dutj- was to leave it for a palace, itself a ver}' modest one. Though he loved to build towns, he had little taste for dwell- ing in them. In 170S, he began to look about for a more rural residence, in the far from attractive neighbourhood of his chosen capital. His first choice fell on a retired spot on the banks of a cool and rapidly-running stream, the Strielka. Here, in one season, and not unfrequently putting his own hand to the work, he built himself a rather more comfortable dwelling, with two living-rooms and eight bed-chambers. Catherine was with him by this time, and children were beginning to come. No trace of this house remains ; but we are still shown a huge lime tree, in the branches of which an arbour was built, reached by a staircase. Here Peter often sat smoking, and drinking tea out of Dutch cups, to the hissing of a samovar, also brought from Holland — for this utensil, now become so thoroughly national, and known all over Europe under it; picturesque Russian name, came, like everything else, from Holland.^ The only change made in its constitution by the Russians was the substitution of charcoal, a far cheaper mode of heating, for the original system of burning spirits of wine. Close by the lime tree, there are some majestic oaks, known as the Tsar's nurselings {Piitrovskiie Pitomtsy). He planted them himself. He also grew, from seed gathered b\- his own hands in the Hartz Mountains, the fir trees which stand at a little dis- tance, and shade the approaches to the castle. For a castle there was, at last, in this hermitage at Strielna. When Catherine became an empress, the demands of her new rank had, perforce, to be considered, and accommodation found for her Court. But Peter soon took a sudden dislike to this country residence. It had grown too closely in- habited, and too noisy for his taste. He rid himself of it, bestowing it on his daughter, the Grand Duchess Anne, ^ The mriring of the Russian word mmanx ia ' Uut which boils at i I90 PETER THE GREAT in 1702, and departed to Peterhof.- Alas! the Imperial Court and Courtiers pursued him, and a )-et more sumptu- ous palace, with a park in the French style, and fountains, copied on those of Versailles, soon rose at Peterhof. Peter refused, at all events, to live in it himself. He had his Dutch house, which even now bears that name, close by. ThouG^h a very modest residence, it betrayed a certain amount of Flemish luxurj', which removed it very far from the roughness of his earliest homes. The walls of the bed- room, a very small one, were covered with well-varnished white tiles, the floor with a flowered waxcloth, and the chimneypiece was adorned with the most magnificent speci- mens of Delft china. As Peter lay in bed, he could see Kronsloot, and count the vessels in his fleet. A few steps brought him to a little harbour, whence he could go by boat, down a canal, to the mouth of the Neva. The number of the Tsar's country houses constantly in- creased, in consequence of his nomadic habits. He had one, a wooden building, like all the others, at TsarkoTe-Sielo. This contained six rooms, which he occasionally shared with Catherine. According to a somewhat doubtful legend, the name of this locality, since so celebrated, is derived from that of a lady called Sarri, to whose house Peter would occasionally come, and drink a draught of milk. The Finnish name of the place, Saari-jnojs, meaning * high ' or ' raised ' village, would seem a more probable derivation. The Tsar possessed a little wooden house at Revel, before he built the ugly and heavy-looking palace which was erected towards the close of his reign. He always kept clear of palaces, as far as he found that possible. The Revel cottage, which has been preserved, contains a bedroom, a bathroom {ba?tia), a dining-room, and a kitchen. In the sleeping-chamber there is a double bed of somewhat narrow proportions, with a sort of platform at the foot, on which the three dicnslitchiks (orderlies), charged with watching over their master and mistress's slumbers, were permitted to stretch themselves. IT Peter was never a great sleeper ; he was generally up by * Pylaiet, The Forgotten Past oj the Neighbourhood oj St. Petersburg {Su I'eters- burg, 1889), p. 210. PRIVATE LIFE I91 five o'clock, and even an hour or two before, if he had pressing business — a secret council to hold, a courier to send ofT in a hurry, or a departing ambassador, who needed extra instructions. When the Tsar left his bed, he would walk about his room for half an hour, wearing a short dressing- gown, which exposed his bare legs, and a white cotton night- cap trimmed with green ribbons. This, no doubt, was his moment for ruminating over, and preparing, the day's work. When he was ready, his secretary. ^lakarof, appeared, and read him the daily reports of the different heads of depart- ments. Then he breakfasted quickly, but heartily, and went out, — on foot, if it were fine, otherwise in a ver\- modest cabriolet with one horse. He went to the naval dockvards, inspected the ships in course of construction, and invariably wound up by a visit to the Admiralty. Here, he would swallow a glass of brandy, and lunch off a biscuit, and then work on till one o'clock, when he dined. The kitchen of the little palace, which now stands in the Summer Garden at St. Petersburg, is next the dining-room, with a hatch through which the dishes were passed. Peter never could endure the presence of numerous ser\-ants durinij a meal. And this peculiarity was exceedingl\- Dutch. When he dined alone with his wife, as was his usual habit, they were waited upon by a single page, chosen from amongst the youngest in his service, and the Empress's most confidential waiting- woman. If the party was increased by the presence of a few guests, the chief cook, Velten, assisted by one or two dienshtchiks, handed the dishes. Once dessert was on the table, and a bottle placed before each guest, all the ser\ants were ordered to withdraw.^ These dinners were quite unceremonious : no others were ever given in the Tsars house. All State dinners were given in Menshikof's Palace, and he it was who presided over the sumptuous repasts, consisting of as many as 2(X> courses, cooked by French cooks, and ser\ed on quantities of gold plate and priceless china. There were two dining- rooms in the great Summer Palace, one on the ground floor, and another on the first, each with its own kitchen beside it. .Peter found time, in 1714, to give his most minute attention to the arrangement of these kitchens. He insisted on their being comparatively spacious, with tiled walls, so, he said, ^ Siaehlin, p. 109. Nartof, p. 53. 193 TETKK THE GREAT that the haziaXka (mistress of the house) might be able to look after the oven comfortably, and even occasionally pre- pare dishes of her own.' C'athcrinc, though no cordon bleu — she was supposed to have given most of her attention to the washing, in her former master's household — was not without culinary talents. Peter himself was a very large eater. At Berlin, in October 1712, wc find him supping with the Prince Royal, after having already supped with his own chancellor, Golovkin, and eat- ing, at both tables, with the heartiest appetite. Manteufiel, the King of Poland's minister, in the description of the second of these repasts, gives great praise to the Tsar, who, he declares, ' behaved himself with perfect decorum, so far at all events, as I could see or hear.' And before offering his hand to the Queen, he even put on 'a rather dirty glove.' ^ The Tsar carried his knife and spoon and fork about with him. The spoon was made of wood mounted in ivory. The knife and fork were iron, with green bone handles. He liked the simple dishes of his country, such as sJitcJii and kasha, pre- ferred black bread, and never ate sweet things nor fish, which always disagreed with him. On special P^ast days, he lived on fruit and farinaceous foods. During the three last years of his life, he would, from time to time, in obedience to his doctor's entreaties, give up the use, or at all events the abuse, of wine. Hence that reputation for sobriety ascribed to him by certain travellers, who visited Russia at that period, — amongst others by Lang, who accompanied the sovereign during his Persian Campaign. On these occasions, he drank kis/jit'-s/iU/i I (sour kvass) flavoured with P2nglish small beer,^ but was never able to resist the temptation of indulging in a few glasses of brandy. But indeed these fits of abstinence never lasted long. He soon went back to his old habits, save that he avoided any mixture of alcoholic beverages, and restricted himself to drinking Medoc and Cahors. At the very end, by the advice of a Scotch doctor, Erskine, who treated him for diarrhoea, he drank Hermitage.* The Tsar's stable arrangements were simple. The palace ' Golikof, vol. V. p. 570 (note). ^ Letter to Count Fleniming, Sbornik, vol. xx. p. 59. • This would appear to be a probable translation of ' baume d'Angleterre.* * Staehlin, p. 273, etc. I'RIVATE LIFE 193 coach-houses onl>' contained two coaches, with four places in each, for the use of the Empress, and the Emperor's cabriolet, with which we have already made acquaintance. Nothing more. This cabriolet was painted red, and huncj vcr>' low. It was replaced, in winter, by a small sledije. Peter never got into a coach, unless he was called upon to do honour to some distinguished guest, and then he alwa)'s made use of Menshikof's carriages. These were magnificent. Even when the favourite went out alone, he drove in a gilded fan-shaped coach, drawn by six horses, in crimson velvet trappings, with gold and silver ornaments ; his arms crowned with a prince's coronet, adorned the panels; lacqueys and running footmen in rich liveries ran before it ; pages and musicians, dressed in velvet, and covered with gold em- broideries, followed it. Six gentlemen attended it at each door, and an escort of dragoons completed the procession.^ Peter never indulged in luxury of this kind. When he was not in uniform, his dress was not unlike that of one of his own peasants. In summer he wore a kaftan, made of stout dark-coloured cloth, manufactured by Serdioukof, one of his prott-gts, a silk waistcoat, woollen stockings, — generall}', as we have already seen, full of darns, — heav)-, thick-soled shoes, with very high heels, and steel or copper buckles. His head-covering was a three-cornered felt hat, or a velvet cap. In winter the velvet cap was replaced by one made of sheep-skin, and the shoes by soft deer-skin boots, with the hair turned outwards. A fur lining, — sable in front, and squirrel for the back and sleeves, — was put into his kaftan. His uniform, which he never wore e.xcept on active service, was that of Colonel of the Preobrajenski regiment of the Guard. The coat was of rather coarse dark green Dutch cloth, lined with silk of the same colour (now faded to a blue shade;, edged with narrow gold braid, and with large copjier buttons ; with it a thick doe-skin waistcoat was w orn. The hat had no lace on it, the sword had an ungilt copper guartl, and black sheath, and the stock was of plain black le.ither. Yet Peter loved fine and well-bleached linen, such as was then made in Holland, and this was the only point on which he could be induced to compromise with the deliberate and determined simplicity of his life, — a simplicity w hich, I am disposed to believe, was inspired by a very conscientious * Pyi-iicf, p. 379. N 194 PRTER TIIF. GREAT I'ecHnfT for economy. When Catherine showed him the splendid coronation dress to which I have referred on a previous pajjjc, his first expression was one of extreme annoN'ancc. He laid an ant;ry hand on the silvery em- broidery and shook it so violently, that several of the spanf^lcs fell to the ground. ' Look at that, Katinka,' he said, ' those will all be swept awaj-, and they would nearly make up the pay of one of m>- grenadiers.'^ ' He never acquired the Dutch taste for cleanliness and domestic order. At Berlin, in 1718, the Queen caused all the furniture to be removed from the house (Mon Bijou) intended for him, and her precaution seems to have been a wise one. He left it in such a condition that it almost had to be rebuilt. ' The de.solation of Jerusalem reigned within it,' says the Margravine of Baireuth. In one detail only did an instinctive repugnance clash with the sordid habits which Oriental associations had perpetuated in Russian domestic life. He had a horror of certain parasites, which then, as now, alas I too often swarmed in Muscovite dwellings. The sight of a cockroach almost made him faint. One day an officer, with whom he had invited himself to dinner, showed him one, which, thinking to give his guest pleasure, he had nailed to the wall in a conspicuous spot. Peter rose from the table, fell on the unlucky wight, gave him a sound thrashing with his (ioubina^ and made for the door. Ill His pleasures were like his tastes, not over remarkable for elegance. Unlike his ancestors, — all of them great slayers of bears and wolves, and passionate devotees of the art of falconry, — he cared nothing for sport. That imitation of war gave offence to his practical mind ; not that he cared for real war, he only resigned himself to it for the sake of the profit he hoped it might bring him. Once, indeed, and once only, early in his reign, he was mduced to go out coursing, but first he made his own conditions. No hunts- man or whipper-in was to put in an appearance. His con- ditions were accepted, and he thus played his friends a sorry trick, and gave himself the satisfaction of making them feel • Pylaiel, p. 379- PRIVATE LIFE 195 the conventional nature of their sport. The hounds, bereft of huntsmen and \vhij)i)ers-in, became unmanai^cable, dragged at their leashes, and pulled the riders from their saddles, so tiiat the next moment half the company was lying on the ground, and the hunt came to an end, amidst a scene of general confusion. The next day it was Peter who suggested another coursing party, and the sportsmen, most of them sorel}' knocked about, and some, indeed, obliged to stay in bed, who demurred to his proposition.^ He hated cards, which he called a game for cheats. His militarx' and naval officers were forbidden, under the severest penalties, to lose more than one rouble in an evening. Some- times, to please the foreign sailors, whom he entertained, he would take part in a game of Dutch gravias. He was fond of chess, and played it well. He both smoked and snuffed. At Koppenbriigge, in 1697, he exchanged snuff-boxes with the Electress of Brandenburg. His chief pleasure — his master-passion, in fact — was boating in all its branches. At St Petersburg, when the Neva was three-parts frozen, even when the clear space of water did not measure a hundred feet square, he would go upon it in any boat he could lay his hands on. Often, in mid-winter, he would have a narrow passage cut in the ice, and there indulge in his favourite sport.- Arriving in his capital in 1706, he found the streets flooded, and two feet of water in his private rooms. He clapixid his hands like a child.^ He was never really happy except on board a ship. Nothing but serious illness could keep him on shore, if he was near any port ; and, indeed, he averred that, in case of illness, he was better if he went to sea. At Riga, in 1723, in the midst of a violent attack of tertian fever, which had already driven him on shore, he had his bed carried on board a frigate, fought through the illness, and alwa\'s attributed his recovery to this expedient. To- wards the end of his life, even for his after-dinner siesta, he stretched himself out in the bottom of a boat, which was generally provided for the purpose. All the inhabitants of St Petersburg, either following his exami)le, or by his care, possessed means of aquatic locomo- tion. All his chief officials were given a yacht, and two boats, one of twelve and another of four oars. Other officials * Ciolikof, vol. i. p. 28. " Pylaicf, p. 379. * ku»sian Archives, 1875, vol. ii. p. 47. I9< PETER THE GREAT were more modestly provided, according; to their tchin. The regulations for the use of these boats were written out by his o\\ti liand. On certain fixed days, when the Tsar's standard had been hoisted at the four corners of the city, the whole flotilla was expected, on pain of a heavy penalty, to collect in the neighbourhood of the fortress. At the signal given by a salvo of artillery, Admiral Apraxin led the way on his yacht dressed with red aiid white Hags. The Tsar's boat followed — Peter, in his white sailor's dress, and generally accompanied by Catherine, holding the rudder. Some of the boats, which were richly decorated, had musicians on board. Thus the procession took its way to Strielna, to Peterhof, or to Oranienbaum, where a banquet awaited the party.^ Peter, like Catherine II., in later days, was a great lover of animals, especially of dogs. In 1708, a poor country priest, of the name of Kozlovski, was put to the torture at the Priobrajtuski Pn'kaz, for having spoken improperly of the Tsar's person. He had hccn heard to say that he had seen the Sovereign at Moscow in the act of kissing a bitch.^ There was no doubt about the fact. The un- lucky priest had happened to pass down the street just at the moment when the Tsar's favourite dog, Finette, had bounded into her master's carriage, and was rubbing her muzzle against his moustaches without any resistance on his part. P^inette, called Lisette by some contemporaries, who have confused her, doubtless, with a very favourite mare, competed for the Tsar's favour with a great Danish dog, whose stuffed body now has its place amongst the souvenirs so piously preserved in the gallery of the Winter Palace. This honour is shared by the mare, a present from the Shah of Persia — a small animal, but with muscles of steel. Peter rode her at Poltava. There is a story that Finette once played a part in politics. An edict had been published, for- bidding the presentation of petitions to the Tsar, on pain of death. The friends of an (jfticial who had been sentenced to the knout for some breach of trust, fastened an ingeniously drawn-up appeal to the Sovereign's clemency, to the pretty creature's collar. Their stratagem was crowned with success, and their example largely followed. But Peter speedily discouraged all imitators.^ * P)-1aief, p. 210. " Documents of the Preobrajenskoie Secret Chancery, ' Scherer, vol. iii. p. 294. TKIVATE LIKK 197 IV The great man often souf^ht his pleasures and relaxations in very inferior company. It must be admitted that his acquaintance with i^ood society was but limited. The Mar- gravine of Baireuth was a terrible gossip, and owned the worst tongue, perhaps, that ever wagged in the eighteenth century. Yet there must be a certain amount of truth in her rather amusing story of her meeting with the Tsar during that sovereign's stay at Berlin in 17 18. Peter had already met her five \ears jircviously. The moment he recognised her, he rushed at her, seized her in his arms, and scratched her face with his rough kisses. She struggled, slapped him in the face, but still he held her tight ; she complained, was told she would have to make up her mind to it, and so sub- mitted. But she took her revenge by jeering at the brutal monarch's wife and suite. ' She had with her 400 so-called ladies. Most of these were German servant girls, who per- formed the duties of ladies-in-waiting, serving-women, cooks and laundresses. Almost every one of these creatures carried a richly-dressed child in her arms, and if any one enquired to whom the children belonged, they answered, with all sorts of Russian salaams, " The Tsar has done me the honour of making me the mother of this child.'" The habits and the friendships contracted by Peter in the German suburb, superior as they were to the social level of old Russia, were not calculated to fit him for the Courts and elegant circles of the West. And with these old associations he never broke. When he was in Moscow, in 1723, he spent his evenings between an old friend of his, the wife of an official named Fadenbrecht, to whose house he had his meals carried, Bidlau, a doctor, Gregori, an apothecary, Tamsen. Ktjnau and Mejer, tradesmen, and a certain joung lady of the name of Amnion, barely sixteen years of age, in whose house dancing went on till five o'clock every morning.^ And even this is a stjiiiewhat favourable specimen. On Kaster Day, the 24th of March 1706, Peter causes his letter to Menshikof to be signed, and a postscript added to it, by the friends gathered round him to celebrate that solemn day. In that intimate circle, I notice a private ' Bcrgholz, liuSihittj^s-Ma^aim^ \-clovski — The Prybyhhtchiks — Kourbatof and Solovief — Possoshkof, the first Russian Economist — The fortunes of the Demidofs — Lomonossof, IV. Foreign Collaborators — They often did the work, but remained in the shadow — Sher^melief and Ogilvy — Vinnius— James Bruce — Ostermann — Devier, a Portuguese Jew — The invariable close of brilliant careers — The final crash — Frenchmen — De Villelxiis — A scene in the Imperial bed- room — Englishmen — I'erry and Fergusson — Poushkins's negro ancestor, Abraham Ilunnilml. V. General summing up — Peter and Leibnitz — The great German's posthumous role. * Alone, or almost alone, our T.sar struggles to raise the country, millions of individual efforts dray[ it down.' When Po.ssoshkof thus j)icturesquely described Peter's isolation, and the difficiilties he met with, in carrying out his reforms, he indulj^ed in a slight exaggeration. The 201 202 PETER THE GREAT very accession of the great reformer was, as I have already shewn, the result of a party triumph. His first revolu- tionary attempts were inspired by those about him, and he certainly would never have been able to compress the work of several centuries into twenty years, unless he had been assisted by a very considerable amount of extraneous energy and intelligence. The country which he ruled so proudly, and which indeed he watered with the sweat of his own brow, yielded a fruitful harvest of effort and capability, rough-hewn, no doubt, but not the less gallant for that. On the heels of the earliest workers — Lefort and the Naryshkin— came others, native or foreign, none of them indeed great leaders, nor very profound politicians, but men of action like Peter himself, like him hastily and superficially educated, yet possessing a remarkable and varied power of initiative, of endeavour, and of resource. When the old aristocracy failed him, and this soon came to pass (the old nobility, alarmed by the boldness of his measures, outraged by the roughness of his manners, and bewildered by the giddy rapidity of his movements, soon began to hang back and even steal away), he went below it, "down even into the lowest strata of the populace, and thence took a Demidof and a lagoujinksi, to replace a Matvieief, or a Troubetzkoi. Thus a school of statesmen rose around him, men of peculiar stamp, the prototypes of the Diliatiels (agents) of a later date ; soldiers, diplomatists, or political economists, turn about, with no defined speciality (a trifle amateurish in that matter), who knew neither pre- judice nor scruple, without fear, if not without reproach, who marched straight forward, without a backward glance, always ready for strong measures, wonderfully fitted for the rapid performance of every kind of duty, and for the bold assump- tion of any and every responsibilit}-. Thc>- answered Peter's purpose, and the purpose of the work which they were to do with him. He did not, and in that he was right, expect them to be paragons of virtue. In 1722, Campredon writes to Cardinal Dubois,—' I have the honour of pointing out to your Eminence, that unless, with my diplomatic powers, I am provided with means of giving money to the Russian ministers, no success can be expected, however advantageous an alliance with France may appear to the Tsar ; for, if his ministers do not perceive their own personal benefit in it, COLLABORATORS, FRIENDS AND FAVOURITES C03 their intri<;ues and secret enmities will foil any negotiations, even those which might be of most service, and bring most credit to their master. 1 notice proofs of this truth every- day of my life.'^ The ministers here referred to were Bruce and Ostermann, and the proofs, very solid ones, perhaps, of which the French Envoy boasts, had not prevented them in the preceding year, at Nystadt, from outstripping Peter himself in the defence of his interests, and obtaining condi- tions of peace which he had not dared to hope for. Three men, Romodanovski, Shcrcmetief, and Menshikof, tower above all others in the great monarch's personal circle, The two first were the only human beings to enjoy a privi- lege denied to Catherine herself, that of being received by the sovereign, unannounced, whenever they chose to appear in his presence. When he dismissed them, he always con- ducted them himself to the door of his cabinet. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, none of the princely families descended from Rourik equalled the Romo. danovski in rank and influence. Yet only a century before, this family held quite a secondary position, inferior to that of the Tchcrkaski, Troubetzkoi", Galitzin, Repnin, Ourussof, Shcrcmetief, and Saltikof, equal to that of the Kourakin, Dolgorouki, Volkonski, and Lobanof families. ^ A younger branch of one of the younger branches of the great Xorman house, that of the Princes of Starodoub, it took its name, somewhere in the fifteenth century, from a property called Romodanof in the Government of Vladimir. The prominent rank it subsequently held, was attained in virtue of a kind of hereditary function, which in itself would hardly be looked on as a claim to much distinction. When the Tsar Ale.xis established an oflfice of the secret police at Preobrajenskoie, with subterranean dungeons and question chambers, all com- plete, its management was confided to Prince George (or louri) Ivanovitch Romodanovski. After his death, his son inherited the post, and finally transmitted it to his own heir. The son of George Ivanovitch was the Prince Ccesar, with whom we have already made acquaintance. It was, it seems, in 1694, and as a reward for a victory gained by him over the mock King of Poland, represented by Boutourlin, that Peter took it into his head to dress Romodanovski up in * July 24, 1722 (Paris Foreign OfTicc). ' Kotochihin, Memoirs (St. Petersburg, 1884), p. 25, etr. 204 I'ETER THE GREAT this straiifjc title. It was a mere joke, but we know how whimsically the great man would minp^lc pleasantry with serious matters. It is not easy to understand how such a man as the Prince Feodor lourievitch could consent to act such a farce, his whole life long. There was nothing of the buffoon about him, neither the necessary docility, nor the indispensable love of frolic. Perhaps, in his barbarian sim- plicity, he never realised the insulting and degrading reality so apparent under the mockery. In Peter's eyes, evidently, he represented a sort of huge compromise with a state of things he himself had doomed to destruction. Therefore it was, that the reformer endured his long moustaches and his Tartar or Polish garments. But, even while Peter set up and worshipped this strange idol, in whose person he seemed to commemorate and atone for the past, he scofied at and spurned that hated past itself, and all the ideas and memories he associated with, and loathed in, it. The old Kreml of Moscow, and the semi-Asiastic pomp of the Tsars, the ex- vassals of the great Han, which had crushed his early years — the old Burg at Vienna, and the majesty of the Roman Ca.\sars, which had crushed him too, in that never-to-be- forgotten moment during his earliest appearance on the European stage, all these things he desired to cover with ridicule, and cast into oblivion. The person chosen to. play this dubious part, was not devoid of merits of his own. Placed apparently, at all events, above any possibility of attack, he set himself, in all reality and truth, above suspicion. His loyalty was unshake- able ; he was fait^hful, honest, and unswerving. His heart was flint, his hand was iron. Amidst all the intrigues, the meannesses and the cupidity which seethed around the sovereign's person, he stands out, ujjright, haughty, clean- handed. When an insurrection threatened at Moscow, he cut it short, after his own fashion. He picked 200 rioters, at hazard, from the crowd, and hung them by their ribs on iron hooks on the Red Square (so appropriately named), in the old city. Even in his own house, he had dungeons and instruments of torture, and when Peter, during his absence in Holland, reproached him for some abuse of his terrible power, committed while in a .state of drunkenness, he sharply replied, — ' It is only people who have plenty of leisure and can spend it in foreign countries, who can afford to waste COLLABORATORS, FRIENDS AND FAVOURITES 205 their time with Ivas/ikn. Here we have other thinijs to do than to ijorge ourselves with wine, we wns/i ourselves every- day in blood ! ' ^ Notwithstandini^ this, I remark a certain Oriental strain of suppleness in his character. He does indeed thwart the soverei<;n secretly, and even occasionally goes so far as to censure him openly, so that in 17 13, the self-willed despot himself does not seem to know how to manage * this devil of a fellow who will do nothing but what he chooses himself.' Romodanovski appears to have taken his sovereignty very seriously, and never permitted any jesting on the subject. When Shcrcmctief announced the victory at Pol- tava, he addressed him as Sire and Vour Majesty. No one entered the courtyard of his palace except on foot and bare- headed: even Peter himself left his cabriolet at the outer door. He was surrounded with all the luxuries of an Asiatic monarch, and his personal freaks were quite of a piece with them. When he went out hunting, he was attended by 500 persons, and every visitor, of whatever rank, who entered his presence, was forced to empty a huge glass of coarse brandy, seasoned with pepper, served by a tame bear, which growled threateningly. If the brandy was refused, the bear forthwith dropped his tray, and hugged the visitor.- Yet this very same man took good care not to forget that Menshikof was a great lover of fish, and never failed to send him the best in his own fishponds, and he bestowed many a barrel of wine and hj-dromel on a BiensJitcJiik of the name of Pospiclof, a great drunkard, and a prime favourite of the Tsar's.^ Shcrcmctief was also, after his own fashion, a representa- tive of former times. At Narva, like everybody else, he lost his head. At Poltava, like the rest, he did his duty bravely. In his will, tlrawn up in 17 18, he confided his sinful soul to the Tsar.* That one trait describes the man. He was simple, candid, and very ignorant. ' What rank did you hold before you came here?' he encjuired of a non-commissioned officer, just arrived from German)'. 'Master at arms.' 'ylr/u, docs ncjt that mean /t^t?;-, in German .' In \'our own country )ou * /'f.'rr y.'s IVrilings ami Corxspondiiue, vnl. i. p|). 226, 671. ' Ilymrof, Countess Color kin and the Times ihe Lived in, p. 76, etc. ' Dulj^oroiikof, Memoirs, vol. i. p. 55. * Kus.'>ian Arcliivc-;, 1S75, vol. i. p. ti6. -!o6 PETKR THE GREAT were poor; here you shall have the same rank, and be rich intd the barcjain.' ' Hut he was a splciifh'cl soldier: always in the forefront of the battle, traiuiuil and calm under a hail of bullets, adored by all his men. If he happened to see any officer, who had served under him, passing; throucjh the streets of Moscow, he never failed to leave his coach, as richly cjilt as Mcn- shikofs own, and clasp his old comrade's hand. Generous, open-hearted, and hospitable, he fed an army of bci^i^ars,' and kept open house for fifty persons every day. He was one of the last specimens of the best and most attractive type of the old Russian Royard. Alexander Danilovitch Nicnshikof was another and very different type. He opens the lonp^ series of great parvenus, the creatures of the Russian Sovereic^^n's caprice. The story goes, that, in his youth, he had been a pastry-cook's boy. Ac- cording to family documents, he should be descended from an ancient Lithuanian family. There may be truth in both these versions. The son of a needy gentleman in the neighbour- hood of Smolensk may very well have sold pastry in the Moscow streets. A knight of St Louis certainly sold cakes at Versailles, in Sterne's days.- In any case, his father never was more than a corporal in the Preobrajenski regiment, and he himself was serving in it as a sergeant, somewhere about 1698. He may have combined his military duties with the sale of pirogui. Even in Peter's newly-raised regi- ments a very curious commercial element, the outcome of traditions inherited from the Strcltsy, long survived. lUit already, at that period, the youn;:; man was supposed to stand high in the Tsar's good graces. The Sovereign always called him by a pet name {Ahxashka), and, even in public, lavished proofs of an almost passionate tenderness upon him.^ My readers will recollect the story of the part he is said by some persons to have pla>-ed in a violent scene at the house of Shein, during which Peter had to be recalled to reason.* According to other stories, his favour was originally due to a different, though an equally salutary and important, inter- vention in the Sovereign's destiny. Peter, we are told, while on his way to dine with a certain Hoyard, was accosted by ' Brucc's i1/<-wcirj (I^inHon, 17S2), p. 113. * Smlimental Journey, ch.iptcr headefl 'The Pastrj-cook.' » See .Solovief, vol. xiv. p. 267. « .See ante, p. 128. COLLARORATORS. FRIENDS AND FAVOURITES 207 the Pirojiiik. I'lcasccl with his countenance, he took him with him. and desired him to stand behind his chair during the meal. Just as the Tsar stretched out his hand to help himself to a dish, a gesture, and a few low words, from the pastry cook, suddenly checked him. Some hours previously the Pirojuik had been in the Boyard's kitchen, and had observed preparations for an attempt to poison the chief guest. The dish was forthwith given to a dog, the truth of the allegation proved, the Boyard and his accomplices arrested, and thus Alcxaslika s astonishing career began. ^ liorn in 1763, a year before Peter himself, tall, well-built, and handsome, Menshikof, unlike his master and the great majority of contemporary Russians, had a pronounced taste for cleanliness, and even for personal elegance. The repre- sentative part which he was later called upon to play was the result, to a certain extent, of this peculiarity. Yet he was quite uneducated ; he never learnt to read, nor to write, beyond signing his name.^ According to Catherine II., who should have had good opportunities for learning the truth, he never had ' one clear idea on any subject whatsoever.' ^ But, like Peter, though in a very inferior degree, he had a talent for appropriating notions on every subject, including the habits of the great world. He was his Sovereign's shadow ; he was with him under the walls of Azof, and shared his tent ; he accompanied him abroad, and shared his studies there. He took part in the destruction of the Strcltsy, and is said to have boasted that, with his own hand, he had shorn off the heads of twcnt\- of the rebels. After having allowed Peter himself to clip his beard, he performed the barber's office on all the members of the Moscow Munici- pality, and then led them into the presence of the Tsar, thus symbolising his future co-operation in the great man's work. As early as 1700, he seems to have performed the duties of major-domo in the Sovereign's house, and to have occupied a quite special place in his affections. In his letters Peter calls him ' Min Herzenskind' (child of my heart), ' Min bcsdr ' UrucL-'i Memoirs, p. 76. " The inslancL-s quoted by Oustrialof (vol. iv. p. 210) in support of his contrary a&sertion of siriuitures to which tlie fuvourilc is said to h.ivc adtlcd such post- : Vital (received), or f'rittial i ipiiahia (received and .answered)), are not e . Cilherinc's testimony is far more C()n\incin<;. Sec also lissipoPs /iu'^iufJiy (KussLin Archives, 1S75. vul .11. p. 569), and KouraLin (.Archives, vol. i. p. 76). ' Letter to (Jrimm, Jan. 20th, 177O (Sbornik). PETER THE GREAT Frmmt^ (my best (riendi, cr e. en *Mim Brmdtr^ forms which he never i^ed in addressing any other person. The favxMir- ite's answers are coochad in equally familiar term% and — fhi< detail is veiy s^nificant — he never adds any foroaula of reelect before his signature^ altfaoi]^ Sh^remetief himself always s^ned * Nw^^oslii^dmieiskyi rob tvci' (the lowest of jpour slaves).^ Accordii^ to general contemporary o(Mnion, there was somethu^ more than mere firiendship in this connection. Peter s indifierenoe to imputations of a vicious nature was, and always remained, vay sii^alar. A master-at-anns, in the Pr6obrajensld regimen^ convicted, in 1702, of ha\-ing ^x>ken in the most open manner on this odious subject, was merety r^egated to a distant garrison. Such incidents happened several times over.* Yet the £ivourite certainly had mistresses — two sisters, Daria and Barbara Acsenief — both of them maids of honoor to die Tsarevna NathaUa, the Sovereign's fa\x>urite sister. He wrote them common letters, and th^ may be omcluded to have thoi^ht it better not to betray any sign of jealousy. He ended by marrjii^ the eldest, in connection with whom Peter appears to have had some personal obligation of a doubtful character. When Mendiikof led Daria to the altar, he did so in obedience to a sort of order £rom his august friend, inqwed by some mysterious scruple. Here we have an unexplained case of conscience, a confused and darkly- diadowed ooroer in the Tsar^s personal history, full <^ dubious secrets and strange promiscnities, which tempt and yet i^kI the enquirii^ stndenL In 1703, the two friends, 'although unworthy,' — so runs Peter's letter to Apraxin, — were made Kn^ts of St Andrew, on the very same day.' And then AUxashkds wonderful £airy tale began. In 1706, he was a Prince of the Holy Empire ; the follow- ii^ year, after his victory over the Swedish general ^larde- fddt, at Kalisz, be avaimed the rank of a sovere^ Russian ^tmtx {yiadiAudmyi romsska Kmmbx), with the title of Ehike of Ijoca, and the whc^ of Ingria as his hereditary appanage: He was also Count of Dubrovna, of Gorki, and of Potchep ; hereditary Sovereign of Oranienbaum and of Batourin ; Generalissimo ; Member of the Chief Council ; M a rsh al of xmtdCmiwfmaAmwai Filer thtGrtai, «vL ii. pp. 780-782. *-^=-— 187s. ««L il p. 216. *au. COLLABORATORS, FRIENDS AND FAVOURITES 309 the Empire ; President of the Mi3a:ar\- Administratioa ; A Jmiral of the Red ; Govemor-Generai of St Petersburg; Licutenant-Colonel of the Preobrajenski Regiment, and also of the two regiments of the Body Guard ; Captain of the Bombardier Company; and Knight of the Orders of St Andrew, St Alexander, the Elephant, the WTiite and die Black Eagle. Even this did not suffice him. In 171 1, he was negotiat- ing with the Dowager Duchess of Couriand to buy up her title and her Duchy. The next >'ear, being coofideot c^ success, he caused the officials of the country to make their subjection to him.^ Though obliged, by the ind^nation of the Polish Court, to delay taking d^nite possessicHi of the Duch}-, he would not renounce his hope of ultimate success, and revenged himself on the Polish l<»ds, by forcing them to sell him huge tracts of country at an encMmous sacrifice. He added enormous wealth to all his other splendours, in the Ukraine he bargained with Mazeppa fcv the iriiole dis- trict of Potchep, and even took possession of (»operty tfaere^ which actually beloi^ed to Cossack officers. A stake adorned with his arms, set up in any village, equalled a propritbory title. He had no hesitation, in case of necessity, about adding a gallowsw He undertook commercial specolatioos, too, which, backed as they were by his almost absolute power, could not fail to be lucrative. In conjunction with Tolstoi and the Jew Shafirof. he set up factories, which he endowed with arbitrar>' prixileges.* The only limit his power knew, was the Sovereign's periodical repentances, which were always fc^owed by measures of repression directed against the favourite's abuses. With these exceptions, his dictatorship was, in a sense, more absolute than Peter's own, for it was never limited, in Menchikofs case, by any higher consideiatioas. If the Imperial resident, Pleyer, is to be believed, he even went so far as to countermand the Tsar s own orders. He would ill-treat the Tsare\-itch in his father's presence, seizing him by the hair and throwing him on the ground. The Tsarcny all bowed down before him.* W hat was the real value of the man. and how was it that * Despatch firofD de Bie :^:> tac ^'-i.:e9 \jitsxni, Acn Acpi, i;u i^Amnves os tlie Hapie). » Kanwritch, Gnat RaaatmFmtmmi, p. lao^ dc. ' Oartndoi; voL rr. put n. pp. 613. 628; 6si&. O 2IO PETER THE GREAT he dared and possessed so much? From the military point of view, he had neither knowledtjc nor even bravery. ' He lacked experience, knowledge, and coura;^e,' to quote Whit- worth.^ Ikit he showed c:^reat endurance in bad fortune, was full of dash when the fickle Ljoddess smiled, and in any case his energy never failed him. ' Active, enterprising,' says Campredon, adding, ' far from discreet, inclined to falsehood, ready to do anything for the sake of money.'* That strange mixture of scrious-mindedness and puerility, which was so characteristic of Peter, was equally evident in the case of his alter ego. In August 1708, — when just about to cross the Beresina, and to fight a battle, which the Swedes ardently desired, and which he himself desired to avoid, — 1 find him absorbed in the new liveries for the German ser- vants he was sending to his wife. This matter of detail seems to have had enormous importance in his eyes. While he measured gold lace and sketched out pocket flaps, Charles XII. manceuvred in such a manner that the battle became inevitable. Yet, in the result, it was less disastrous for the Russian troops than might have been expected. The steadi- ness with which they resisted the shock gave presage of their future victory. The favourite had pulled himself together. In later years, Patiomkin would appear to have been much of the same school. At Poltava he wasted twenty-four hours before under- taking a pursuit, which, if it had followed more immedi- ately on the defeat of the Swedes, would infallibly have left Charles and the remnants of his beaten army in their conqueror's hands. By the time he came up with Lowen- haupt on the banks of the Dnieper, the king had reached the other bank, and the favourite, who only had a strong body of cavalry with him, found himself in a somewhat awkward position. But his lucky star and his audacity combined to save him. He made as though the whole victorious army were close upon his heels. The enemy, already beaten and demoralised, allowed itself to be deceived, and Lowenhaupt capitulated. In the administrative department he chiefly used his talents to enrich himself. He was a bold and, for the most part, unchecked thief. In 17 14, the excess to which lie ' Despatch, Sept. 17, 170S (Stwmik, vol. i. v. O4J. " May 3rd, 1725 (French Foieign Office). COLLAHORATORS. FRIENDS AND FAVOURITKS 211 carried his depredations did, indeed, bring about an enquiry, which dragy;cd on indefinitely. But he was crafty. He produced old accounts, accordin'g to which the Treasury owed him far larger sums than tiiose claimed from him. And when, after four whole years, he found himself without an answer to a fresh accusation, he betook himself to Peter's presence, and addressed him somewhat after the following fashion : — ' These accusers and examiners of mine, none of them know what they are talking about, nor what they do ; they are making a fuss about trifles. If they choose to call the personal use I may have made of certain sums, of which I had the handling, a robbery, they arc out of their reckon- ing altogether. Yes, I stole the 100,000 roubles of which Nieganovski speaks. I have stolen a great deal more, — how much, I do not know myself. After Poltava I found con- siderable sums of money in the Swedish camp. I took some 20,000 roubles for my own use. Your steward, Kour- batof, a very honest man, has several times over given me other sums, drawn from your exchequer, both in coin and bullion. At Lubeck I received 5000 ducats, and double that sum at Hamburg ; in Mecklenburg and the German Swedish possessions, 12,000 thalers ; at Dantzig, 20,000, and more that I have forgotten. I have used the authority you gave me after my own fashion. I have done, on a large scale, what other men about )'OU do on a small one. If I have been wrong, I should have been warned before.' Peter was disarmed. He felt the blame was partly his, and once more he passed the sponge across the slate. But fresh accusations came jiouring in. A credit of 21,000 roubles, assigned in 1706, f(jr cavalry remounts, had utterly disappeared. The same thief had done the work. This time the military authorities interfered, and the favourite was condemned to loss of his military rank and functions. Once more Peter forgave him. But the original enquiry went on, and others were added to it, arising out of the Imperial minion's breaches of trust in Poland, in Pomerania, in the government of St. Petersburg, — everywhere, in fact, where he could lay his hand, and there was hardly a pro- vince or an administrative department which escaped it. The Tsar grew weary at last. His favourite's insati- able greed threatened to cause diphjmatic friction. The Dutch Resident accused Zolof, the governor of Revel, of 212 ricTKK TiiK c;reat squeezing the merchants belonging to his country, and dividing the produce of his exactions with Menshikof. Year by \'ear Peter's regard grew colder. Little by little the old familiar intercourse died away. One day at last, in a fit of displeasure, he threatened to send the incorrigible thief back to his old life. That very evening, Menshikof entered his presence, dressed as a pastry-cook, with a basket on his head, calling out, ' I sell fresh-baked piroguis! The Tsar burst out laughing. The traitor had more than one string to his bow. He had Catherine's constant, unvar>Mng, faithful support. She had been his mistress, and she never forgot it. He also played on the Tsar's passionate affection for his second wife's son, little I'eter Petrovitch. He never neglected, during the sovereign's absences, to send him con- stant news of his ' priceless treasure,' telling how he played at soldiers, repeating his childish phrases, and going into ecstasies over his charms. But, above all things, he was the one man on whom, putting integrity apart, Peter could ab- solutely reckon to second him, or supply his place, with a vigour, a resolution, and resourcefulness which never failed. An army sent into Finland, under Apraxin, was in danger of being starved to death. Peter was away. The Senate, when appealed to, came to no decision ; the merchants re- fused to deliver food, unless it was paid for ; and the treasury was cniptv. Menshikof ordered the stores to be broken open, laid hands on all the provisions he could find, and sent them off to Abo. There was a desperate outcry; the senators, who were all more or less interested in the corn trade, threatened to ha\e the favourite arrested. He faced the storm bravel>', and had no difficult}-, when the Tsar re- turned, in justifying his action. His bold stroke had saved the troops in P'inland. And lastly, the unworthiness of his accusers was in his favour. One of them, Kourbatof, was himself convicted of fraud in I72i,and heavily fined. Thus, till the end, Men- shikof held his own, more and more closely threatened, but always contriving to float. In 1723, when for the twentieth time, Catherine ventured to take up the cudgels for him, Peter broke in roughly, ' Menshikof came into the world just as he has lived, his mother bore him in sin, and he will die a knave. If he does not amend his ways, he will end by hav- in<^ his head cut off.' The old affection had quite died out COLLARORATOKS, FRIENDS AND FAVOURITES 213 Even the favourite's wit, which had so often wrung the Tsar's forgiveness from him, no longer served him as it once had done. Peter, coming into his palace, saw the walls bare, and the great rooms stripped of furniture. He enquired the reason of this desolation. ' I have had to sell my hangings and my furniture to pay the fines imposed upon me.' ' Well, bu\' thorn back, or I will double the fine.' The charm was broken. Mcnshikof was removed from the presidency of the military administration ; he was forced to disgorge the 15,000 serfs he had stolen in Mazcppa's former domains.^ At the time of Peter's death, he was living in semi - disgrace. When Catherine succeeded, he attained to yet greater position and power, saw his daughter on the very steps of the throne, and then, on the eve of that supreme triumph, his fortune crumbled be- neath his feet, and he ended his days in exile, on a daily pittance of a few copecks. I have no concern, in this place, with that latter half of his career ; I may perhaps return to it on a future occasion, I cannot, whatever may have been imagined and asserted on this subject, accept this collaborator of the Tsar's as a man of great intelligence ; but he must be recognised and appreciated as a force which, — used by Peter, serving as it did the mightiest will known in modern history before Napoleon's time, and so sent whirling across the wild uncultivated steppes of the Russia of those days, to open up that wilderness, — had a special value of its own. It overthrew all obstacles, it broke down all resistance, and, like some fiercely- rushing, muddy river, it carried fruitful germs in its mire-stained and turbid waters. The man himself, haughty, brutal, covetous, and cruel, was neither loveable nor loved. When, in 1706, his house at Moscow was burnt down, the whole town openl)' rejoiced.- Peter did n(jt complain. He always had a secret leaning towards those of his servants who could not rely on any- thing, or any person, save himself. * For McnshikoPs biography see Essipof, .Sulovicf, vol. xvi, p. 2^1, etc. ; Golikof, vol. vi. p. 407, etc. ; Nartnf, p. 47, etc. ; Posselt, vol. i. p. 545, etc. * KuhsiaD Archives, 1875, part ii. p. 49 (Kssipof). ;i4 pi:ti:r tiik great II I now come to the second order of the Tsar's collaborators. Some of them, and these not the most interesting, belong to the old nobility. Feodor Alexicicvitch Golovin, who was called, after Lcfort's death, to the chief place at the Admiralty, and to the head of the Office of Foreign Envoys {Posolskoi J'*rik-aa), — the Foreign Office of those days, — was neither a sailor nor a diplomat. His only claims to distinction con- sisted in the fact that his brother Alexis had married one of Menshikof's sisters, that one of his minions, named lagou- jinski, was later to be specially favoured by the Tsar, and that he wore the distinctive symbol of his naval dignity, a compass, with a most majestic air. Apraxin, who suc- ceeded him as Lord High Admiral, in 1706, possessed more serious qualities, but a great part of his success and superi- ority was due to the presence of the Norwegian sailor, Cruys, at the Admiralty Board. He was heartily jealous of his subaltern, and seized an ojiportunity of getting rid of him, which presented itself in 1713, with shameful eagerness. A court martial, presided over by the Lord High Admiral, condemned the foreign sailor to death, in consequence of the loss of a ship caused by some misunderstanding about a signal. This ancestor of a noble family, the aristocratic pretensions of which are, it must be confessed, disputed by many genealogists, was anything but chivalrous ! Cruys, whose sentence was commuted by Peter to one of perpetual banishment, was soon back in St. Petersburg ; nothing went right at the Admiralt)- after he left it. The Presidency of the Posolskoi Prikaz^ with the title of Chancellor, passed from Golovin to another mere figurehead, Gabriel Ivanovitch Golovkin. Peter, who in- augurated the .system which Catherine II. was largely to develop, had a fondness for separating titles from their functions, and found this an easy means of gratifying his taste for low-born favourites. Having reduced the titular minister to a mere dummy, he caused the actual work of his foreign policy to be performed by such men as Ostermann and lagoujinski. Gabriel Ivanovitch, who had been one of the Sovereign's childish playfellows, and later one of his most constant boon companions, and, who, it may be added, COLLABORATORS. FRIENDS AND FAVOURITF.S 215 w«is related to him through the Naryshkin, had a fine aptitude for takin^j his master's tone. He thus addresses him in an official letter — 'Your Majesty has condescended to insinuate that my gout was the result of too much devotion to Venus. I owe it to your Majesty to inform you of the real truth, which is, that in my case the trouble rather arises from excess in drinking.' In the matter of honesty he was no better than his fellows. He was gener- ally supposed to be in Mazeppa's pay, and in December 17 14, Peter reproached him, before the assembled Senate, with the frauds, of which he had been convicted in conjunc- tion with Menshikof, with regard to military supplies.^ Peter found some better servants, as far, at all events, as intelligence went, among the ranks of the old aristocracy. Tolstoi, who belonged to this class, fully justified the Tsar's remark — ' Any one who has an)thing to do with him had better put a stone in his pocket with which to draw his teeth.' And this other, dropped with a kiss on the for- midable politician's brow, ' Oh ! head, head, if I had not known you to be so clever, I should have cut you off long ago ! ' Tolstoi's services, shameful, some of them, but all of them remarkable in their way, — he acted at one time as a diplomat at Vienna and Constantinople, at another as a spy on the unhappy Alexis, — earned him the blue ribbon of knighthood, a seat in the Senate, and an enormous landed proj>erty. His teeth were not drawn until after Peter's death. When he was eighty-two years old, he came into conflict with Menshikof, and ended by tasting the bitterness of exile, on the inhospitable shores of the White Sea.- Another aristocrat, Boris Ivanovitch Kourakin, appears on the threshold of the eighteenth century, — the earliest and already supremely attractive incarnation of the high-born Russian diplomatist, with whcjm, since those days, Europe has grown familiar, — full of Oriental cunning and Slavonic adaptability, — as much in love with literature as a frequenter of the Hotel Rambouillet, — and as passionately fond of ever)' kind of elegance as a Versailles courtier. He entered the Tsar's family by his marriage with Xenia Lapouhin, the sister of Peter's first wife. He contrived to make the most of this relationship, at the favourable moment, and, ' De Hie to the States Gcm-ral, Dec. 21, 1714 (.\rchivcs of the Hague). " Popof, Study 0/ lohtoi {OU anJ Nnv Kussia), 1875. 2l6 PETER THE GREAT later on, to cause it to be forf^otten. He began his career at a very early age — first of all as the representative of Russia in London, at the Court of Queen Anne, then in Hanover, at that of the future King of England, and finally in Paris, during the Regency, and the early years of Louis XV.'s reign. He died in 1727, before he had reached the age of fifty. In the course of his diplomatic career he strikes us as having been sorely puzzled, more than once, as to his personal behaviour, but he always contrived to maintain his own dignity and that of his country, hiding his ignorance and awkwardness under a mantle of pride and charm, which never failed him. But I must keep this list within limits. The most interest- ing figure in the group is certainly that of Basil Nikititch Tatishtchef, descended from Rourik, through the Princes of Smolensk, and the progenitor of a race of men as turbulently active as himself Here we have the dieiatiel par excellence^ — Peter's best pupil. He was brought up in a school at Moscow, kept by a Frenchman. When he left it, Peter sent him abroad, with Nieplouicf, and a number of other young men, to complete his education. Some of these, Nieplouief amongst the number, were already married. Travelling by Revel, Copenhagen and Hamburg, they went to Amsterdam, where they found a whole colony of Russian students. Twenty-seven of their number were forthwith despatched to Venice, where they were to take service with the fleets of the Republic. Thus Nieplouief took part in an expedition against the Island of Corfu. The whole of the [Mediterranean and the Atlantic coast from Cadiz to Genoa was dotted, in those days, with these Russian student apprentices. Special agents, — Beklemishef for Southern Europe, Prince Ivan Lvof for Holland, and one of the Zotofs for France, — were deputed to overlook and direct their travels, and their work. When they returned home, Peter awaited them in his cabinet, and at six o'clock in the morning, candle in hand, — for it was mid-winter and the sun had not risen — he verified their geographical knowledge, by the map, treating them very roughly, if they did not do themselves credit, and showing them his toil-worn hands, which he had hardened purposely ' as an example to all the world.' ^ ^ Nieplouief s Memoirs, p. 103. Piekarski's Science and Literature in Russia, pp. 141, 142. COLLABORATORS, FRIENDS AND FAVOURITES 217 Thus prepared, Nicplouief served his country as a diplomat in Turkc)', as Chief of the Administration in Little Russia, and as Director of Mines in the Ural. Tatishtchef far sur- passed him in many-sidedness, in the ease with which he applied his powers to every kind of duty, and in untiring activity. He was a model pupil, who spent his whole life reciting his well-lcarnt lesson. Like his master, he was per- petually on the move, and had his finger everywhere, — in militar)' matters, diplomacy, finance, administration, science, trade and manufactures. Like him, he was an eager worker, deeply sensible of his own responsibility. Like him, he lived a life of perpetual activity, and was perpetually stirring others up to action. Like him, he was universal, superficial, and minute ; like him too, — though bound to the East with bonds that still held him closely, — he deliberately turned his face, and mind, in the very opposite direction. He was present at the taking of Narva in 1704. In 171 1, while accompanying Peter along that fatal road which was to lead them to the banks of the Pruth, he made all sorts of en- quiries and archaeological excavations, in the hope of dis- covering the tomb of Igor, Rourik's legendary son. Then, going abroad again, he spent several years in Berlin, Breslau and Dresden, immersed in fresh studies, and busily collect- ing a library. A little later, I find him peforming diplomatic functions at the Congress of Aland, Then, again, he engages in a huge undertaking — that of preparing a general atlas of the Russian dominions. And later yet, Peter, just starting for his Persian Campaign, is offered a book to peruse on the journey, a 'Chronicle of Mourom,' written by the Di^iatlel, who suddenly appears in the character of a historian. And even this did not suffice. He was sent into the Ural, where the search for copper mines had not been crowned with complete success. He started without delay, reported serious flaws in the local administration, denounced the oppression which the native tribes had suffered at the hands of the agents of the Central Power, founded the town of Ekaterinenburg — destined to play such an important part in the future development of the mining industry — established schools for the people, and yet found time to learn French, with the help of a grammar received during his stay at Aland. At the time of Peter's death he was still a young man. He continued to take an active and personal share in affairs :iS PETER THE GREAT of the most varied kind, and at his death, left behind him a considerable literary work, which has been published by Muller. It comprises three volumes of Russian histor\', to which — thanks to a discovery of Pogodin — two others were later added, and an Encyclopaedic Dictionary, carried up to the letter L. The value of these literary efforts, which was sharply attacked b\' the eit:[hteenth century historians, led b\^ Schlozer, has been considerably vindicated since their time. Tatishtchef was no exception to the common rule. He was removed from his offices by his master in 1722, in con- sequence of accusations brought against him by Nikita Demidof, and, like so many others, died in exile, though more stoically than most of his fellows. When he was seventy years old, feeling his end approaching, he mounted his horse, rode to the parish church, heard Mass, went on to the graveyard, chose his own place there, and bespoke the priest's attendance for the following day. He breathed his last at the very hour he had foretold, just as the last sacraments were being administered to him.^ Peter was honoured, and singularly fortunate, in having a man of so much real worth and moral character about him, at a period when he was surrrounded by such beings as Zotof and Nadajinski. that strange Confessor, whose hand he would kiss at the close of Mass, and whose nose he would pull five minutes afterwards ;- a man whose drinking powers he backed, while in Paris, against those of Dubois' secretar)', — also a priest, and a noted toper. When, within an hour, the French Abbe rolled under the table, Peter cast his arms about the victor's neck, and congratulated him on having ' saved the honour of Russia.' This Nadajinski left enormous wealth behind him. Other men. and of a very different stamp, happih', helped Peter to lay the foundations of his country's greatness. Ill Tatishtchefs character and origin have both earned him a special place in the list of the contemporary 'makers' of the great reign. ' Popof, Tatishtchef and his Times. Bestoujet-Rioumin, Sfitdy in Old and Ntto Russia, 1875. ' rbllniu'3 Afemoirs, 1791, vol. ii. p. 66. COLLARORATORS, FRIENDS AND FAVOURITES 219 laL^oujinski, the son of an organist and schoolmaster, emplu>cd by the Lutheran community in Moscow, began by pcrft>rming the functions of a boot-black, to which he added others on the subject of which 'decency,' so Weber puts it, 'forbids' him 'to enlarge.'* Thus it came about that Count Golovin, one of his employers, bethought him of placing the boot-black in Peter's ser\-ice, with the object of counteracting Menchikofs influence. The new comer was superior, in one respect, to the old favourite. Like him he was a thief, but he made no secret of his thieverj', and kept it, too, within more reasonable limits. When the Sovereign spoke, in his presence, of having every peculator hanged, he made that celebrated answer, ' Does your Majesty desire to get rid of all your subjects ? ' He was faithful, too, after a fashion of his own ; he never betra\-ed the cause which his protector had sent him to champion. He fought resolutely against Menshikof, and was not afraid to enter into open struggle with the favourite's great protectress, Catherine herself His cour- age, far exceeding his talents, — which indeed appear to have been very moderate, — was his only claim to his position as Public Prosecutor ; one in which he showed a world of energy, and a severity for other people's weak- nesses, only equalled by the indulgence he claimed for his own. But the great favourite, who felt his own omni- potence encroached on, had his revenge at last, and, after Peter's death, lagoujinski was seen in a state of intoxica- tion — for he practised every kind of excess — stretched upon the newly-closed coffin, tearing the funeral pall with his finger nails, and calling up the avenging shade of the mighty dead. Like lagoujinski, Shafirof (Peter Pavlovitch) was of Polish-Lithuanian origin, but his antecedents are more shadowy and obscure. His grandfather, who had settled at Orsha, in the Province of Smolensk, was called Shafir, and bore the surname common amongst his Jewish kindred, down to the present day, of Shaia or Shaloushka. He was a broker, an individual who even now would seem an indispensable adjunct to the surroundings of most Russian country gentlemen. The long grea.sy gaberdine he wore, unmistakably indicated the functions he performed, and ' II. Hermann, Peter der Groae unJ dtr TiamiUh Alexei, iSSo, p. 178. 2:o PETKR THE GREAT the race from whence he sprung. Peter Pavlovitch dis- carded the gaberdine, but he preserved all the other dis- tinctive qualities of the type. The Tsar took him out of a shop at Moscow, and bestowed him on Golovkin, to assist him with his correspondence; — all Jews, Polish or otherwise, have a talent for langua^rcs. When, after the Battle of Poltava, Golovkin was made Chancellor, his assistant rose with him, and the former cloth-merchant's clerk became Vice-Chanccllor. He really directed all the foreign relations of the country. And he did his work well. In that perilous business on the Pruth, his talents worked a miracle, and saved, or something very like it, both the Tsar and his Empire. This put him on the pinnacle of his glory. He had grown rich, of course, — he had been made a baron, — equally of course, — he had married five of his daughters into the greatest families in the countr)-, Dol- gorouki, Golovin, Gagarin, Hovanski, and Soltykof. Suddenly, there came a gust of wind, — and he was swept away. Mcnshikof, whose own harvest he had prematurely reaped, the Chancellor Golovkin, whose accession he had too openly coveted, and Ostcrmann, — himself a parvenu, who desired to stand in the Vice-Chancellor's shoes, took advantage of one of Peter's prolonged absences, to plot his ruin. On the 15th of February, 1723, he was actually on the scaffold, his head already laid on the block, and ' the executioner's assistants pulling at his feet, so that his great belly might touch the ground.'^ But he escaped death. One of Peter's secretaries arrived, just in time, with a letter commuting his sentence to perpetual banishment. He attended the Senate for the ratification of this letter, and, according to the testimony of an eye-witness, 'trembling still, and with death in his face,' he received the congratu- lations and hand-clasps of his colleagues, who had un- animously sentenced him to execution. He took measures, of course, which resulted in his not being sent to Siberia, was imprisoned at Novgorod, and there patiently awaited Peter's death. The mf>ment this event took place, he recovered his liberty, re-entered political life, as President of what we should call the Board of Trade, and, by means of new commercial operations, soon recovered his confiscated fortune. * Biiuhings-Magasin, vol. xxi. p. 195. Solovief, vol. xviii. p. 14 1. COLI.An(1R ATORS. IRIKNDS AND FAVOURITES 221 His father's sister married another baptized Jew, who, under a borrowed name, became the proi^^enitor of another famil)' of ai^cnts, whicli pia>ed a prominent part in the diplomatic history of the reign, the Viesselovski. The Frybylshtcliiks, — agents specially connected with the Exchequer, and inventors of new sources of revenue {Ptybyle, profit) — form a class apart in the great category of the Ditiatiels. Of this class, Kourbalof was the most eminent representative. His figure, a new one then to Russia, and even to Europe in general, is that of the true modern financier, greedy of gain, but always desirous of preserving a nice balance in fiscal matters. Peter himself could not always rise to the level of this advocate of wise economic formulas, and ended by sacrificing him to the spite of that fierce Inquisitor, Romodanovski, whose sanguinary excesses Kourbatof had ventured to disapprove. The man was certainly not immaculate, and his conduct in the unimportant position of Vice-Governor of .Arch- angel, to which he was finally relegated, even appears to have justified his disgrace. None the less, he appears before us as the victim of that struggle between two worlds, two conceptions of the State, and two ideas of social existence, the right side of which the great Sovereign him- self did not alwa)'s succeed in keeping. This struggle is even more sharply and more dramatically defined in the story of the unfortunate Joseph Alexieievitch Solovief, the son of an Archangel merchant, whom Peter first of all appointed a Director of Customs, and afterwards, his commercial agent and banker in Holland. Solovief, whose financial operations had attained considerable im- portance, was involved, in 1717, in the disgrace which befel one of his brothers, who filled a modest position in Men- shikofs household. He was prosecuted, extradited, given over to the Secret Police, and finally acknowledged innocent. Hut his legs and arms had been broken in the Torture Chamber, and all his fortune, somewhere about a million of roubles, had utterly disaj)])eared. Solovief was but a ' common fellow.' Possoshkof, who .shared this disability, gives an amusing, though a sad enough description of the relations of people of his own class with the might)' ones of the da\'. Here is his own story of h:s adventures witii Prince Dimitri Mihailovitcb 2 22 I'KTF.R Till-: r.RPIAT Galit/iii. from whom he requested permission, in 17 19, to establish a brandy distillery. At that period the Russian Montescjuicu, who had some private property, possessed influential relaticjiis, and was Kourbatof's partner in several industrial enterprises, had already attained a certain im- portance. Vet no one, to judj^c by the answer his petition received, would dream it. Without a word of explanation, he was laid violent hands on, and cast into prison. At first he was astounded, then he bewailed his fate, and finally, after a week, ventured to recall the fact of his existence to the absent-minded Boyard. ' Why am I in prison?' he asked. 'Why the devil is this man in prison ? ' enquired Galitzin ; and as no one could answer the question, he signed an order for Possoshkof's release. This love of summary methods, and hauj^hty scorn of individual rii^hts, was equally c-i;ccptablc to the old Russian spirit, and to the revolutionary tendencies of the modern party. Possoshkof himself was their accomplice. He was a violent partizan, both of Peter's reforms and of the extreme measures he employed to ensure their success. He would gladly, even, have increased their merciless severity. In his eairerness to inculcate the theories of that economic school, of which the Prybylshtchiks, led by Kourbatof, were the practical exponents, he would fain have called all that intolerance, over-haste, and excessive zeal, so dear to all sectarians, to his aid. His fate resembled that of most of his feHows. Nothing, he believed, but the iron ploughshare and the devouring fire could suffice to open the soil of his native land, which for ages had lain fallow and briar-grown. The terrible machine he helloed to set in motion crushed and destroyed himself. How did it come about that, although from one end to the other of his career, and by the solitary effort of a thought which evidently sprang from the .same source, he walked, as it were, on Peter's flank, he never succeeded, even temporarily, in entering into close relations with him ? In this respect his case was an altogether special one. He had ideas to dispose of, and Peter seems to have had a settled determination never to accept anything of the kind from his own people. Apart from that, the general tendency of the reign was towards equality, and the great Tsar would have had no scruple about taking a vioujik to be his helper, and even his closest companion. Of this the COLLAHORATORS, FRIENDS AND FAVOURITES 223 story of the Dcmidofs j^ivcs clear proof. The history of the bei^inniiiL^s of the Dcmidof fortune — the doubtful anecdote of the pistol marked with the name — in those days a celebrated one — of Kuchenreiter, and confided to a workman at Toula, who had undertaken to mend it, and the Tsar's colloquy with the youn^^ f^unsmith, — is in common knowled<;e. The Tsar: '.Ah! if we could only make pistols like that.' The Gunsmith : ' That's no very difficult matter.' The Tsar (with an oath and a box on the ear) : ' Do the work first, rascal, and then )'Ou ma)' boast.' The Locksmith : ' Look closely first, Batioushka, and see. The pistol you admire is of my making. Here is its fellow.' The <;unsmith was then known as Antoufief ; his father, Demid Grigorevitch, a serf of the Crown, working as a blacksmith in a village of Parshimo, in the district of Alexin, and province of Toula, had settled in the prin- cipal town of his province towards the year 1650. In 1694 — the date usually assigned to this first meeting with the Sovereign, the reputed source of the proverbial riches of the Demidof family, and of the present development of the mineral industry in Russia, — the old blacksmith's son, Nikita, was nearing his fortieth year.^ He was a married man, and Peter, so we are told, after having duly apologised, invited himself to dinner in his cottage. The meal was a cheerful one, and the Tsar paid the reckoning with a conces- sion of ground m the neighbourhood of Toula, in which an iron mine was to be opened and worked. This was a mere beginning, lly degrees the activity' and enterprising spirit of Nikita and his son Akinfy (Hyacinth) were welcomed in all the mines in the Ural. In 1707, Nikita was personally ennobled under the name of Demidof. In 1720 his honour was made hereditary, but he kept to iiis peasant tlress ; and Peter, though he always treated him with the greatest con- sideration, continued to address him by his rustic and familiar name of Demid\'tch. It was not only as a com- mercial and business man, the founder of numerous works at Shouralinsk, Vynorsk, Viershnic-tagilsk Nijnietagilsk, and Douhomsk, that the Tsar valued Nikita. His gay and jovial character, his turn for satire, and his biting wit, made * ku.s5i:in Archives, 1878, vol. ii. p. 120. Karnovitch, Great Kmsian Fot tutus, p. 163, etc. ;:4 PETKR THE GREAT him a worthy follower of Lefort. He died at Toula in 1725, at the age of 68, leaving behind him an immense fortune, and — a prodigious and almost unique fact in those surround- ings, and at that period — a reputation for perfect honesty. Russian industry has more reason to congratulate itself on this forefather than the Russian navy on the ancestor with \\ ith which it pleased Peter to endow it, in the person of Guiovin. Another peasant's name, one of the greatest in modern Rus- sian history* — equallyeminent in literature and science, but con- nected also with much industrial endeavour and success — here rises to my memory-. When Poushkin asserted that Lomon- ossof — historian, rhetorician, mechanic, chemist, mineralogist, artist, and poet — was ' the first Russian University,' he hardly said enough. The active period of Lomonossofs life (he was born in 171 1) was not actually contemporary with Peter's. Yet he belongs to that great period ; he was its direct outcome and its worthy fruit — the ver>* personification of its genius, with all its civilising virtues, its deficiencies, and its contradictions. His humble origin, though he never foiT^ot it, and rather took pride in it, did not prevent his prais- ing even the laws of serfdom, the rigour of which the Reformer greatly increased, and from claiming — peasant as he was himself — 300 peasants for the perpetual service of a factory he had founded. Son of the people though he was, the songs and ceremonies and p>opular legends of his country were nothing to him but a remnant of a distant past, long since gone by, and devoid of any save an historic interest One of the deepest and most expressive forms of the national poctr}-, the Bylines, traces of which may even now be dis- covered in some of the northern provinces, entirely escaped this jxjet's notice. He had no ear nor soul for anything but the classic poetry of the west, with its strict forms, so soon to fall out of date— the ode, the panegyric, the heroic poem, the tragedy, and the didactic epistle. In literature, as in science, he was very apt to consider his activity as a duty to be performed in the Tsar's service, a kind of official task. The universal process of requisitioning and enrolment, which Peter's system tended to carr>- even into matters of indi- vidual intellect, and activity, is clearly denoted in this peculiarity. Yet Lomonossof played an important part in that swift COLLABORATORS, FRIENDS AND FAVOURITES ^- -5 and fjcncral transformation, out of which modern Russia rose. He imparted a powerful and definite impulse to that mighty effort whereby the broken links of a chain which parted in the thirteenth century, were welded afresh, and his native country re-cndowcd with the intellectual patri- mony common to the whole civilised world. ^ IV Most of Peter's foreign collaborators, — so far, at least, as appearances went, — were mere subalterns. They often did all the work, but they generally remained in obscurity. Peter would never have committed a fault, the crushing re- sponsibility of which the Empress Anne was to assume in later days, — that of putting his country under the direct power of such a man as Buhren. As long as the great Tsar reigned, Ogilvy, the Scotchman, might plan the battles, which ended by checkmating Charles XII., but it was Shcrcmctief who won them. These foreigners, whether Scotchmen, Germans, or Dutch, assimilated themselves to their local surroundings, — became Russianized, in fact, — with the most extraordinary facility. That shifty and eminently porous soil rapidly absorbed all their native originality. The only thing which distinguished Andrew Vinnius, the Russian-born son of a Dutch emigrant, from his Muscovite surroundings, was his superior education. He professed the religion of the country, he spoke its lan- guage, he had even adopted its moral habits. He might be Menshikof's .sup>erior in such particulars as the casting of cannon, and the manufacture of gunpowder, — but in the matter of filling his own pocket, he was very little better indeed. And his fellows in the tumultuous stream of foreii;n adventurers, which Peter let loose upon his countrj-, belonged, as a general rule, to the same order, and bctra\ed all the defects of their profession. The germs of corruption and degradation, which the Tartar conquest had sown in the national soul, sprang into life, in answer to their touch. James Hruce, a Scotchman, who passed at Court for a chemist and astronomer of genius, and was held in the city ' Hiliarski, Materials / ' " " r-!)urg, 1865), Lanian>ki, Lomonossof, />'. t). 226 PETKK THE GREAT for a sorcerer, had none of the qualities of a Newton or of a Lavoisier, but many of the peculiarities of an ordinary sharper. ImkUcss lawsuits, — for abuse of authority, pecula- tion, dishonesty in the supply of his department (he was at the head of the artilleiy), — broui:^ht him to loj^gerheads with justice. The Tsar always ended by forgivinfr him. There was a certain dilettantism, and .self-taut^ht quality about the rascal's knowledije, which was irresistibly attractive to Peter, and which, in those surroundings, possessed a certain value of its own. A whole legend had grown up round the light which streamed, on long winter nights, from the windows of his laboratory in the Souharef Tower. His astronomical discoveries bordered closely on astrology, and his celebrated Calendar, published in 171 1, is all moonshine. But it was Bruce who organized and directed the Tsar's schools of navigation, artillery, and military engineering ; he presided over the Board of manufactures and of mines ; he was the real inspirar of the learned correspondence which Peter made believe to keep up with Leibnitz, and, on the occa- sion of the Treaty of Nystadt, he gave proof of remarkable diplomatic powers. They were all much alike, ready for anything, doing many u.seful things indifferently well, and remarkable, especially, for cunning and energy. At Xystadt, Bruce, who.se success won him the title of Count, and the grade of Marshal, had a colleague, Oster- mann, a Westphalian, whose two years at the University of Vienna had given him a reputation for learning. Campredon, writing in 1725, thus sums up his capabilities: 'He knows German, Italian and French, and thus makes himself indis- pensable ; otherwise, his principal cleverness consists in petti- fogging chicanery, cunning, and dissimulation.' These talents sufficed, — in a country where Golovkin was chan- cellor, — to obtain him the dignity of vice-chancellor, in succession to Shafirof, in 1723. But Campredon overlooks one of his qualities — a most remarkable power of work. Ostermann, to humour his master's suspicious instincts, would cypher and decipher his own despatches, sitting at them whole days and nights, without ever going out of doors, or taking off" the red velvet dressing-gown, which he wore even on the iSth of January, 1724, when he ascended the scaffold which his predecessor had mounted before him, COLLARORATORS, FRIENDS AND FAVOURITES 227 Like that predecessor, he was pardoned, and ended his days in exile Hesidc the l*olish Jew, Shafnof, we perceive the ^n'otesc|ue outUne of the Portuijuesc Jew, Uevier. Peter picked him up in Holland, where he was serving as cabin boy on board a merchant siiip, in 1697. In 1705, he was an officer in the (jiiard ; in 1709, he was Camp Commandant. In 171 1, desir- ing to marry well, he fixed his choice on one of Menshikofs sisters, who was both old and ugly. The favourite, looking on his request for this lady's hand as a deliberate insult, ordered his lacqueys to thrash the insolent suitor. Three da)-s later, the little Jew led the betrothed of his choice to the altar. He had got out of the scrape, no one quite knew how, alive, though sorely damaged in person, and covered with blood as he was, had carried his complaint before the Tsar, who promptly avenged him. Yet, crafty, supple, humorous, and intensely servile as he was, he did not suc- ceed in escaping fresh reverses. He was evidently predes- tined to physical chastisement. In 17 18, he was the first holder of a post, — then a new one in St. Petersburg, — of general chief of police, and, in this quality, he had to accom- pany Peter on a tour of inspection through the streets of the capital. A broken - down bridge (Peter had consented to have bridges built over the numerous canals, which he had caused to be cut through the town) stopped the Tsar's carriage. He alighted, and sent for materials with which to repair the breach. He even put his hand to the work him- self, then, when it was finished, laying down his tools, he seized his donbina, and, without a word, bestowed a hearty thrashing on the chief of his police. 1 his done, the sove- reign returned to his carriage, beckoned to Devier to take his place beside him, — ' Sadis brat', (sit down, brother), — and quietl)' took up the thread of a conversation which had been interrupted by the incident. And, yet again, that scarred back was to feel the lash. In 1727, after Peter's death, Menshikof, the Jew's unwilling brother-in-law, was to write his vengeance there in blood)- stri;)es. At the foot of the decree which condemned the former chief of police to e.xile, he added the words, 'Bit knoutotiil (let him be knouted).^ My readers will remark the uniform and monotonous ' Sluiuhinski, lliilorital SkeUhts, u. 77. Ix)U|)akof, Monograph, in the fournal of the A/oscoiv Polytechnic Exhibition, 1872, No. 99. 228 PETER THE GREAT tendency of all these brilliant careers, towards the same final and inevitable crash, in which some great historical verdict and punishment would always seem to overshadow mere personal revenge and petty spite. Whatever their origin, whatever the line they took, these men, who none of them cared for law or gospel, or for any principle of rule, save that of their own interest and ambition, invariably ended by falling into the same abyss. They came from every comer of Europe. Munich, a Bavarian, who began his extraordinary career as the con- structor of the Ladoga Canal, elbowed Francois Guillemotte de Villebois, a gentleman from Lower Brittany, who had begun his career in France as a smuggler. Villebois' Memoirs, which are full of exaggerations, and of assertions, the falsehood of which have been clearly proved, are of little value, either as regards Peter's histor)' or his own.^ Accord- ing to his stor>-, he saved the vessel which carried the Tsar from Holland to England from shipwreck. The Russian Sovereign, * who loved extraordinary' men,' at once engaged his ser\-ices, and, from the subaltern position he then occu- pied, Villebois, at a bound, became aide-de-camp, and captain in the navy. I will not undertake to follow him too closely^ through the details of the adventure for which, two years later, he was condemned to the galleys. Having been sent by Peter, during very cold weather, from Strelna to Kron- stadt, with a message to Catherine, and having drunk a great deal of brandy on the road to warm himself, the sudden change of temperature, when he entered the Tsarina's bed- chamber, completely overcame him. At the sight of the dis- ordered couch and of the beautiful woman stretched upon it, he lost his head and all his self-control, and calmly recounts the consequences of his frenzy, which even the Sovereign's screams, and the presence of her ladies in an adjoining chamber, could not avert. Catherine is said to have suffered severely from this outrage. As for Peter, — in spite of his wife's condition, which necessitated careful surgical treatment, — he appeal b to have taken the catastrophe very philosophic- ally. ' The brute,' he said, ' did not know what he was doing, so he is innocent ; but we must make an example of him, — let him go to the galleys for a couple of years.' • Published, with certain omissions, in the Revut Rrtrosptclive, 3rd series, ». 230 PKTER THK (.KKAT Paris to complete his oflucation. He had already learnt Dutch, and soon won himself a reputation in the French army, in the ranks of which he at once took service. Durinj; the camj)aii(n against the Spaniards, in 1720, in the course of which he received a wound on the head, he was promoted lieutenant. When he returned to Paris, he found himself a kind of celebrity, much sought-for in drawing-rooms, where he is said to have had considerable success, liut his serious tastes soon drew him away from frivolous gaiety. He entered the School of Engineering, and did not leave it until 1726, when he returned to Russia, was made lieutenant in the Bombardier Compan)-, which Peter once commanded, and shortly married. His wife, a very beautiful woman, the daughter of a Greek merchant, brought a fair-Jiaircd child into the world. He forced her to take the veil, had the child brought up with every care, found her a husband, gave her a fortune, but never would .see her face. A very jealous, violent, loyal, upright, and exceedingly avaricious man. After Peter's death, he fell out, like everybody else, with Menshikof. Like almost everybody else, he was sent into exile, and did not return from Siberia till Elizabeth's time, when he became a full general, and died in I78i,at the age of eighty-three years.* Another glory has added itself, since those days, to his name and history. He was Poush kin's paternal great-grandfather. As a matter of fact, the Tsar's circle, whether native or foreign, was almost entirely made up of 'utility men' and 'lay figures.' We do not find one really great name, or towering figure. The principal actor, and the part he played, probabl\- took up so much room on the stage, that this was inevitable. My opinion is confirmed by what I notice of the sovereign's relations with the only man in the contemporary European world of equal stature with himself, ' Helbig, Russische (;«/»f///«<7 (Tubingen, 1809), p. 135, Bantich-Kamienski, Biopaphical Ditticnary. Zazykof, LexHOgtaf-hical Encydopa.tia, 1S38, vol. xiv. p. 289. Longiiinf^f, Russian Archives, 1864. pp. 180, 181. Opato\'itch, Th( First Wife of Abraham Hannibal. Russian Antiquities, 1877, vol. xviii. p. 69. Poushkin, Genealo::y of the Poushkin and Hannibal Families, collecled works (1S87 edition), vol. v. p. 148. COLLAHORATORS, KRIKNDS AND FAVOURITES 231 with whom he h.id intercourse. I have already had occasion to mention Leibnitz's first attempts to attract the Tsar's attention, and the hopes he built on their success. Yet these rclations.when once he succeeded in establishing them, brought no particular good fortune to either party, — both indeed would seem to have somewhat lost dignity by them. I'Vom the moment when Peter's first journey thrtnigh Germany revealed him to the eyes of Europe, Leibnitz seemed possessed with a perfect monomania. All his talk was of Russia and of the Tsar. He was in a state of perpetual excitement, and full of endless plans, all more or less un- reasonable, and all tending to the same object, that of attrac- ting the monarch's attention, and winning his esteem. This feverish restlessness may be very naturally explained. The great savant, as is well-known, claimed Slavonic origin, of an ancient and noble nature, common with that of the Polish family of Lubieniecki. He himself inserted, in an autobiographical notice, the following words: — 'Leibnitiorum, sive Lubenecziorum, nomen slavonicum, familia in Polonia.' When he quarrelled with the town of Leipzig, he published the following protest: — 'Let Germany lower her pride! The genius that was born with me is not exclusively Teutonic, it is the genius of the Slavonic race, which woke in my person, in this Fatherland of the Scholastics.' And to this distant bond of consanguinitj' he appealed, when he first addressed Peter, at Torgau, in 171 1. ' Sire,' he is reported to have said, ' our point of departure is a common one. Slavs, both of us, belonging to a race, the destinies of which no man can foresee, — we are both of us the apostles of future centuries.' ^ This conversation, unfortunately, turned ofif to other subjects, and the intercourse thus begun, ended by falling to a much less elevated standjjoint. In 1697, when Leibnitz was meditating a scientific plan of campaign for Russia, he still kept at a dignified level. But there was a great come-down in this very year, 1711, when his chief anxiety was to get himself accepted as the Tsar's representative at the Court of Hanover. A taste foi diplomacy was one of his weaknesses, and it increased •a letter from Count John Lul>i, (juhraucr, .nnil I'crt/, have not attempted to deny. -J- PETER THE GREAT with A^c. We see him i">ilingj apph'cation on application, and intrifjue on intrigue, — worrying Peter's minister ai Vienna, Baron Urbich, — tormenting the Duke of Wolfen- biittel, whose grand -daughter had just been affianced to the Tsarcvitch Alexis. All he was able to get was the promise of a /r///// and of a pension. The fulfilment of this promise was long in coming, and at Karlsbad, in 1712, he came back to the charge, offering his good offices to reconcile Austria with Russia, a magnetic globe of the world, which he had caused to be constructed for the Tsar, and an instrument to be used in planning fortifica- tions. This time he contrived to obtain the title of Privy Councillor, and a gift of 500 ducats, which satisfied him until 17 14, when a vacancy in the Russian Diphj- matic Service at Vienna once more threw him into a state of agitation. In 1 7 16, he was at the springs of Pyrmont, to which the Russian sovereign had betaken himself, — with a bundle of half-scientific, half-political memoranda in one hand, and a wooden apparatus for the Tsar's paralysed arm in the other, — calling out about his pension, which had never been paid, ' although it had been talked of all over Europe,' piling up expressions of admiration and proofs of devotion, — altogether a wonderful, and pitiable, and most insufferable beggar. Peter strikes me as having been almost indifferent always to the brightness of this great intelligence, which never seem.s to have succeeded in coming into contact with his own.^ Within a few months of the visit to Pyrmont, Leibnitz was dead. A considerable share in the establishment of the Collegial Administration of Russia has been ascribed to him. A letter on which this organisation was based, was long believed to be his composition. But this is far from being true. The original document, which is preserved in the Moscow archives, is not in his handwriting, and other authentic writings of his do not mention it. Three other documents on the same subject, which have also been attributed to him, are certainly not his work. He never, whatever may be said to the contrary, had an\'thing to do with the founda- tion of the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg. Peter '&■ ' See preface of C.uerrier's 5Jr/cf//^Mj (St. Petersburg, 1873), P 23, and com- pare Foucher de Careil on PeUr the Great and Leibnitz (Reports of the •Academic des Sciences, Morales, et I'olitiques,' June 1S74). COLLABORATORS, FRIENDS AND FAVOURITES 233 requested another German, Christian Wolff, to organise and direct this institution, but met with a curt refusal. Wolff thought the climate of St Petersburg too cold, and the pay offered to the Director of the Academy altogether too small ; besides which, he was all for replacing the Academy by a university. ' Berlin,' he said, 'has an Academy of Sciences, the only thing lacking is the learned men.' ^ He refused to act in the matter, and restricted himself to recommending some of his friends, Bernoulli, BUlfinger, and Martini, to the Tsar. This circle of hardworking, if not transcendently brilliant, men, surrounded the cradle of knowledge in Russia, to the great ultimate advantage of the country. The plan finally adopted by Peter for his Academy, was based on a report written b>' an obscure personage of the name of Fick, a former secretary to the Duke of Luxemburg. Leibnitz's plans went much too far, they extended bej-ond the Tsar's line of vision, and also, probabK, bej'ond the pos- sibilities of the time and place. Peter never adopted any of the great savant's extreme views. Absorbed as he was, till 1 7 16, by the anxieties connected with his struggle with Sweden, all Leibnitz's proposals fell on an inattentive ear. He never went beyond some appearance of intellectual intimacy, and a scientific correspondence, which he kept up with the assistance of Bruce. Perhaps, too, the doubtful and undignified side of his would-be helper's attitude dis- pleased him, and put him on his guard. The man of genius may have been utterly hidden, under the courtier, and the hungry petitioner. Yet Leibnitz, that great sower of ideas, did not pass in vain down the furrow traced by the great reformer's plough. The seed he so lavishly cast in all directions, ma\' have been carried away by the winds, and lost in space, — but, in due time, it reappeared. I see fruitful traces of it, in the great work accomplished, at a much later date, under the auspices of the Russian Government, with regard to the stud)- of the Slavonic languages ; and Alexander Humboldt's researches on terrestrial magnetism, carried right across Russia, into Central Asia, were certainly inspired b\' his illustricjus pre- decessor. The influence of such men as Leibnitz, and Peter the Great, is not measured b>' the limits of their earthly life. * IJriefe von Christian Wolff (St Petersburg, i860.) Piekarski, History of Scinue and Literature in Russia, voL i. p. 33. CHAPTER II THK FEMININE ELEMENT I. Tlie King's Mistress and the Tsar's — Peter a Don Juan — His indifference to propriety — A darinp uncle — The women of his circle — Princess Galitzin — brutality and cynicism — Bestiality and debauchery — Another side of his relations with women. II. His marriage — Eudoxia Lapouhin — The honeymoon — Disagreements — An ill-assorted couple — Separation — The cloister — The recluse's romance — Major Glebof — Lovers' correspondence — The investigation — The trial — The lover's fate — The mistress' punishment— Catherine's jealousy — Prison — Eudoxia's turn at last. III. The earliest favourite — Anna Mons — Peter's liberality — Deception — Con- solations — Menshikof's gynoeceum — The Favourite's sisters — The Arseniefs — Catherine Vassilevska. IV. Maids of Honour — Madame Tchernichof — Eudoxia — Marie Matvi^ief — Terem and Harem — Marie Hamilton — Lover and executioner — A lesson in anatomy at the foot of the scaffold — Catherine's last rival, Marie Kantemir — The wife and sovereign triumphs — \ friend — The Polish lady — Madame Sieniawska. V. The influence of women on Peter's life, and his own influence on the destiny of Russian women — Russian feeling in the seventeenth century — Hatred of women — Causes and effects — The National genius and foreign influ- ences — By/.-intium and the East — The current of asceticism — Family life — Marriage — The Domostroi — Harliarous habits — When woman is sacrificed, man grows vile — The current of emancipation — Peter's reforms — His failures — The importance of his work — A saviour. Tin: King: 'Ah, brother, so I hear you too have a mistress? ' The Tsar : ' Brother, My .... do not cost me much, but yours costs you miUions of crowns, which might be better spent.' This scene, which occurred in 1 716, at Copenhagen, whither Peter had gone to visit his ally the King of Denmark, is reported in a grave diplomatic document.^ At first sight, it would appear to give a very fair idea of the part played ^ Despatch from Loss to Manteuffel, Copenhagen, I4lh .Aug. 1716. Sbornik, ▼ol. XX. p. 62. 234 THK FEMININE ELEMENT 235 by women in the great Reformer's life. He was too busy, and too coarse, to be a lover worthy of the name — or even a decent husband. He fixed the price of the favours bestowed on his soldiers in St. Petersburg at one kopeck for three kisses; and, after his first interview with Catherine, the future Empress, he enriched her with a solitary ducat.^ Not that he was altogether incapable of appreciating the more delicate charm to be found in the society of the fair sex. We must never forget that Russian feminine society was one of his creations. The presence of ladies at the Sloboda gatherings, was the first and most powerful attraction which drew him there. In 1693, when two of the fair guests, at d^fite given by Lefort, ventured to leave the company unobserved, he sent his soldiers to bring them back by force.- In 1701, when his care for his budding navy kept him at Voroneje, a great number of these ladies joined him there, for the Easter festivities, and were most graciously received. When one or two of them fell ill, he gallantly put off his own return to Moscow.^ If the historical interest of this chapter depended on the memory of such gallantries, my respect, both for women and for history, would lead me to suppress it. But there is another question. In such a character as Peter's, — so hugely complex, from the moral point of view, — surprises burst on us at every turn. As far as external matters go, this side of his personality, in spite of his sociablcness, stamps him a boor and a cynical debauchee. He has no care for the woman's dignity, or his own, and he is too ill-bred to have the smallest regard for propriety. Observe this anecdote, related by Baron Pollnitz,as to the Sovereign's visit to Magdeburg in 1717 : 'As the King (of Prussia) had given orders that he was to be treated with every imaginable honour, the different State bodies waited upon him with their presidents. When Cocceji, the brother of the High Chancellor, who was at the head of the Regency, went, with his colleagues, to pay his respects to the Tsar, he found him leaning on two Russian ladies, and caressing them in the most familiar manner. 1 his he continued to do during the whole time of Cocceji's address.'* And here is another, describing his meeting with the Duchess of Mecklenburg, his niece, at Berlin. ' The Tsar rushed to meet the Princess, kisscil her ' Duclos' Mfinoirs (1839 edition), p. 615. • Korh. p. 77. • OusUblof, vol. iv. part ii. pp. 555, 562, * Memoirs, 1791, vol. ii. p. 65. 236 PETER THE C.REAT tenderly, and drawing her into an adjoinincf room, indulged in cver\bo(ly's presence — even in that of the Duke of Meck- lenburg — in the grossest familiarities.' ^ Pollnitz, who declares that he received this information both from the King himself, and from two other eye-witnesses, adds many not less ex- pressive details, as to the great man's habitual intercourse with the female element at his Court. ' Princess Galitzin w;is his doiiriU or female fool. Everybody vied in teasing her. She often dined with the Tsar, he would throw the remains of his food at her head, and would make her stand up so that he might pinch her.' According to some other witnesses, the shameful vices of the Princess may have justified, to some extent, the ignominy of the treatment to which she was subjected. A letter from the Prussian Envoy, Mardefield, contains a curious reference, in this connection, to the Ercnch Duchesses and the pages in whom they took such great delight, — congratulating them on their being content with these alone. Princess Galitzin had no page, — I will not go the length of repeating Mardefeld's explanation of how she supplied this want.- According to Nartof — generally a fairly reliable witness as to the Tsar's private life — Peter was of a very amorous disposition, but the fit never lasted more than half an hour. He would not, as a rule, force a woman's inclinations, but, as he was apt to cast his choice on servant girls, he very seldom met with any resistance. Nartof mentions one rebel, a laundress; but Bruce relates, in much more dramatic fashion, the story of the daughter of a foreign merchant at Moscow, who, to escape the sovereign's amorous pursuit, was obliged to fly her parents' house, and hide herself in the forest."* One of the documents jHiblished by Prince (ialitzin describes the Tsar's struggle with a gardener in Holland, who used his rake to drive away the monarch from the neighbourhood of a garden-girl, whose work he was interrupting. These details, to which I refer with much diffidence — believing such reference to be part of a historian's duty — repugnant as they arc, are not the worst. The Tsar's inter- course with Menshikof was e\en more revolting. And Menshikof was not the only favourite. ' ^ft■rnotrs, I "01, vol. ii. p. 65. " Herrmann. i\tcr der Grosse tnui der Tsarrjitch AUxei, p. 209. ' Memoirs, p. 93. THE FEMININE ELEMENT 237 II Tclcr's first bcp^innings were commonplace enouf^h, — a very early marriage, followed by some years of tolerably happ)- married life, and then a gradual cooling of mutual affection. The honeymoon once over, the husband and wife saw but httle of each other, for the Tsar was almost always away. Hut the letters which passed between them were fairly affec- tionate, and the pet names in which lovers delight may frequently be noticed on their pages. Lapoushka, (little hand) was the sobriquet bestowed on Peter, and willingl)' accepted hy him. He was not to be the last person to bear it. Two children came into the world, Alexander, who died in infancy, and Alexis, born under an unlucky star. After the death of Nathalie in 1694, things began to go wrong. Peter, who then had been married for five years, had already contracted some extra-conjugal intimacies in the Sloboda, or elsewhere. But he had conducted these affairs with a certain amount of prudence. He was a dutiful son, and Nathalia a very vigilant parent. When her influence was replaced by that of Lefort, two female forms, members of the group of beauties, — none of them, probably, over strict in conduct, — which surrounded the young sovereign at the Sloboda gatherings, ro.se like stars on the horizon of his reign. Both these ladies sprang from the middle class: one was the daughter of Botticher, a goldsmith ; the other, the child of a wine-mer- chant, named Mons. Political disagreements helped to disturb the harmony between Peter and his wife. luidoxia belonged to a violently Conservative family ; her relations, who were all inclined to oppose the new order of things, then just coming into existence, soon fell into disgrace, lost their positions at Court, and underwent all kinds of ill-treat- ment. One of them, the Tsarina's own brother, who ven- tured to insult the favourite, was publicly beaten by the Tsar; another was put to the torture, and horrible things were reported concerning the sufferings he endured. Peter, it was said, soaked his garments with spirits of wine, and then set him on fire. One point, at all events, is certain, — he died in prison.* When the Tsar started on his first Kuropcan tour, Kufloxia's father, and her two brothers, were sent into practical exile, as the governors of remote provinces. ' Jeliaboujski's Memoirs, \i. 40. .Solovicf, vol. xiv. p. 6 (annexed matter). 23S PETER THE GREAT In the course of liis journey, I'ctcr ceased corrc.spondni|T with his wife, and suddenly, while he was in London, two of his confidants, L. K. Xar}shkin and T. N. Strcshnief, were charged with a niis.sii)n which clearly explained his silence. They were to induce Eudoxia to take the veil. This was the usual expedient, at that period, in the case of ill -assorted marriages, and Peter would appear to have set his heart upon it. His intercourse with the West had settled the poor forsaken lady's fate. She belonged to a very different world, and was doomed to disappear. Yet she was not without a certain amount of charm. She may not have been pretty, — and even on that subject it is not easy to come to any decision. Catherine herself, her future rival — judging by the pictures, flattered, no doubt, which still exist, and which made a very different impression upon Peter — would appear to us a perfect monster of ugli- ness. Eudoxia was certainly not a fool. When she re- appeared at Court, after her merciless husband's death, she struck those who met her as a kind-hearted old lady, fairly well informed on interesting subjects, and not altogether ignorant of State affairs.^ Her correspondence with Glebof, of which some extracts are given on a later page, prove her to have been a tender, passionate, and loving woman. Intel- lectually speaking, she resembled the generality of Muscovite women of that period, who had grown up within the Tcrem; she was ignorant, simple - minded and superstitious. And this was the rock on which her fate was to be wrecked. Evidently she was no fit companion for Peter, incapable as she was of understanding him, following his ideas, and sharing his existence. When Peter reached Moscow, on his return from his great journey, at six o'clock on the evening of the 26th of August l69tS, he went to see some of his friends — Gordon, amongst others — and then paid a visit to the Mons household. But he did not sec his wife for some days, and then only in the house of a third person, that of Vinnius, the postmaster- general. The sole object of this meeting was to give his verbal confirmation of the decision already announced through Naryshkin and Strcshnief. Eudo.xia's answer was what her husband might have expected — an uncompromising refusal. 'What had she done?' she demanded, ' to deserve ' Lady Rondeau's letters (Letters trom an English Lady), 1776. THE FEMININE ELEMENT 239 such a fate? What fault had he to find with her?' As a matter nf fact, she docs not even apj^car to have been sus- pected of any participation in the political intrigues in which the Tsarevna Sophi.i and the Tsar's other sisters were imi)li- cated. The revolt of the Stnitsy, which Peter was then preparing to drown in a sea of blood, broke out without the smallest complicity, moral or otherwise, on her part. But the Tsar's mind was finally made up. If he could find no pretext, he was resolved to do without one. He angrily re- pulsed the Patriarch's intervention in favour of his lawful wife, and, after three weeks of parleying, he cut the Gordian knot. A closed carriage, drawn by two horses, (contem- porary chroniclers lay special stress on this detail, which, in a country where the smallest country gentleman never left his house without the escort of a whole troop of horsemen, cruelly aggravated the injustice and hardship of the whole proceeding) — a hackney coach, in fact, carried the unhappy Tsarina to Souzdal, where the doors of the nunnery of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin {Pokrovsktl Di^vitshyi Monastyr) closed upon her. Innocent though she was, she was more severely treated than others who had been guilty. When Peter imprisoned her sisters, whose connivance with the rebels had been generally recognised, if not absolutely established, he left each of them an income and a certain household. He gave his wife nothing at all ; she was his wife no longer. She had ceased to be the Tsarina ; she had lost her very name. She was nothing but Helen, the nun, with only one maid to wait on her, and she was forced to appeal to the charit\' of her own relations, to save her from starvation. She writes to her brother Abraham, ' I do not need a great deal, still I must eat ; I drink neither wine nor brandy, yet I fain would be able to offer . . . .' This last touch is a curious one, elo- quently expressive of one of the most attractive qualities of the old patriarchal mode of life in Russia. Personal suffer- ing was a misfortune of a kind, but inability to show the accustomed hospitality was a supreme distress. The letter continues: 'There is nothing here, ever)'thing is rotting away. I know I am a trouble to you, but what can I do ? As long as I live, for pity's sake, give me meat and drink ! Give garments to the beggar ! ' ' ' Oustrialof, vol. iii. p. 1S7, etc. Compare Korl), p. 74. 2AO PETER THE GREAT She was only six-and-twcnty, and for twenty years yet she was to beat her ani^uish and despair a,L,^-linst the walls of the convent cell, where her life and passion had been entombed. When she left it, with her youth bli^dited and her heart broken, it was only to endure a still more cruel fate. Twenty years later, in 1718, the trial of the Tsarevitch Alexis ciuickened Peter's inquisitorial zeal. It occurred to him that Hudoxia's inlluence might have been one of those which had incited his son to rebellion. Forthwith, he ordered a descent upon the nunnery, and an enquiry. The secret police drew the cover blank, as far as Alexis was concerned, but this disappointment was atoned for by another discovery. Innocent as she was, politically, Kudoxia was first suspected, and then found i^uilty, of a criminal love affair with Major Glebof. She had broken down at last. In her downfall and her misery, she had sought for consolation. Major (Mebof, who had been sent to Souzdal on recruiting dul>-, had been touched by her sad fate. She suffered from the cold of her cell : he sent her some furs, and her deeply-grateful letter of thanks paved the way for a dangerous intimacy. lie went to see her, to receive her personal thanks, returned again and again, and so they fell in love — she, with an enthusiastic, ardent, and all-absorbing passion ; he, far more cautiously, with an affection full of ambiguous reservations. The young man was probably very ambitious ; he reckoned on some distant change of fortune, thought of changing his own career, and entering the world of politics. He was in money ditliculties too, — he was married, and found his wife a great encumbrance. Eudoxia. poor lady, would have had him leave the service, so that he might remain near her, and be- long to her alone. She was always endeavouring to .satisfy his needs, and relieve the straits she more than suspected. She was ever ready to bestow the paltry sums which she contrived to wring from the parsimony or the poverty of her own relations upon him. Who could refuse to help him ? She sent him money. Did he need more, and yet more? 'Where thy heart is, my lujlko' (a still more caressing form of Batiouslika — Little Father) ' there too is mine ; where thy tongue is, there is my head ; thy will is always mine.' Hut, bound by his duties, military or conjugal, and perhaps a little tired of her already, Batko's visits grew rarer. Then came despairing and distracted appeals. Had he forgotten THE FEMININE ELEMENT 241 her already? Had she not been able to please him? Had she not done enough? Had not her tears watered his face, his hands, every limb of his body, and every joint of his feet and of his fingers ? She has a language of her own, of the most exuberantly pathetic description, which, in the most strange and floweiy style, expresses feelings often enough fantastic, and almost incoherent, but alwa\s throbbing with evident sincerity, — the brilliant colours of the East, mingled with the rustic tints of her Russian home. ' My light, my batioushka, my soul, my joy, has the cruel hour of separation indeed struck already? Rather would I see my soul parted from m}- body ! O my light ! how can I live on earth apart from thee? How can I endure existence? My unhappy heart had long foreseen this moment : long have I wept over it, and now it has come, and I suffer, and God alone knows how dear thou art to me ! Why do I love thee so much, my adored one, that without thee life has no value for me? Why, O my soul! art thou angrj' witli me? Ves, so angry that thou dost not write to me. At least, O my heart ! wear the ring I gave thee, and love me a little — just a little! I have had another ring like it made for myself But what \ it is by thy will that we are parted ? Ah ! it is long since I began to see a change in thy love. Hut why, O my Batko ! why comest thou not to see me .' Has anything happened to thee.' Has any one spoken evil of me to thee ? O my friend ! O my light ! my lioubonka ' (from Lioubit, to cherish), 'have pity on me ! Have pity on me, O my lord ! and come to see me to-morrow ! O my whole world, my adored one, my iapoushka' (it will be recollected that she had originally applied this name to another jierson), 'answer me, let me not die of grief! I have sent thee a cravat ; wear it, O my soul! — thou wilt not wear anything thouhin, in the ' .Messagcr Kusse,' l8s9, vol. xxi. pp. 219-265. Also, i860, vol. xxx. pp. 559-599; 1859, vol. xxiii. pp. 299-300, ^tudy by Sni^giref. * Dolgoroukof, vol. j. p. 32. Lady Rondeau, p. 3a. 144 PETER THE GREAT still more lonely nunnery, on the shores of Lake Ladoga, where she was yet more closely watched. According to one authorit)', she was condemned, before being sent to her new prison, to be whipped, by a Court of Bishops, Archimandrites, and other ecclesiastics, and this sentence was carried out by two monks, in presence of the whole Chapter.^ What can have inspired Peter to bring his consort and her lover to trial, and more especially, to treat them with such ferocity ? We cannot suppose him to have been jealous of the wife he had repudiated and forgotten, and left to grow old in the loneliness of her convent. And his habitual indulgence for weaknesses of that particular nature, — especially in cases which bore no reference to political matters, — is well known. Now political matters do not appear to have had the slightest connection with this business. Eudoxia's correspondence with her lover, which never refers to anjthing but her love, is a clear proof of their perfect innocence in this respect. The Ex-Tsarina had indeed allowed herself to be tempted to resume her worldly garb, and had even permitted those about her to encourage her in the hope of a return, more or less distant, to her former splendours. But there was never more than a hope of this, in any quarter.- May not Eudoxia have been the victim of the jealousy and hatred of a third person ? Let us pass over the next seven years. Peter died at last, and this event, instead of being a happy one for the prisoner, was the signal for a fresh aggravation of her cruel fate. She was dragged from her convent, taken to the fortress of Schlusselburg, and there cast into a subterranean dungeon, which swarmed with rats. She fell ill, and the only person she had to wait on her, was an old dwarf woman, her.self in need of service and assistance. Thus two years passed. Who did this thing? Catherine I., the reigning Sovereign. And here, perhaps, we may find the answer to my question regarding Peter. At the end of the two years, a change came. Suddenly, as though in a dream, the door of the dungeon was thrown open, gentlemen ' French Foreign Office, Mimoirts d Documents, vol. i. p. 129. "^ De Bie does indeed mention a plot and a cyphered correspondence, the key to which Glebof refused to give up ; but this is a mere rejietition of stories current at the time. THE FEMININE ELEMENT 245 in court dress appeared upon the threshold, and bowing to the ground, requested the captive to follow them. Thus led, she entered a luxurious aj^artment, prepared, so they informed her, for her special use, in the house of the Commandant of the Fortress. A bed, with sheets of the finest Dutch linen, replaced the damp straw pallet she had latel)' occupied ; the walls were hung with splendid stuffs, the table was covered with £!^old plate, 10,000 roubles awaited her in a casket, courtiers stood in her antechamber, carriages and horses were at her orders. \\ hat did it mean? It meant that Catherine I. was dead, and that the new Tsar, Peter II., was the son of Alexis, and the i^randson of PLudoxia. The poor grandmother, whose hair had whitened in her prison, went to Moscow to be present at the Coronation of the new monarch. There she took precedence of all the other princesses ; she was surrounded with pomp, and treated with the deepest consideration and respect. But it was all too late ; her life was broken, and of her own free will, she went back to her nunnery. She ended her days, in 1 73 1, in the Novodi&i'itsJiy'i Mouastyr, that refuge for great misfortunes, where Sophia spent her life after the day which saw all her ambitions crumble into dust. According to another tradition, Eudoxia spent her last years in the family residence of the Lapouhin, at Serebrianoie, but even there, she had access, by a gallery, to the neighbouring cloister of St. George.^ Her tomb is in the Moscow Monaster\', and her memory lives even in the present day, in the popular legends and songs of the countr}'.- In spite of all her down- fall and disgrace, she has kept the sorrow ful s\'mpath)' of those humble ones of the earth whf) are all too well acfjuaiiited with bitter suffering. Ill The moment Kudoxia was safely interned in her convent, Peter installed his first ' maitresse en litre.' This positon was occupied b}' Anna Mons, or Monst, or Munst, — Poiiiice/la Mojisitinii, as Korb calls her. Her father, before he came • Ku<;^i.-\n Archives, 1S73, p. 652. ' Mdiioires of th( ' Acadhnie Jes Scictues* at Si, Peteriburi;, 1S64, vol. v. liouk ii. p. 206 (Todsossof). 346 PETER THE GREAT to Moscow, had been a w ine merchant, or, as others say, a jeweller, at Minden. The family, therefore, was really of Westphalian origin, although, in later years, it tried to boast of Flemish ancestors, and affixed the particle ' de ' before the name it added to its original appellation, — ' Mons,' or 'Moens, de la Croix.'^ The young lady, who began her career as Lefort's mistress, soon forsook the favourite for his master. She accompanied the Sovereign even on occasions of public ceremonial. Neither he nor she shrank from attracting attention. When he stood godfather to the Danish envoy's .son, he desired that she should be godmother.- He had a fine house built for her in the Sloboda, and the dreary archives of the Preobrajctiski Prikaz bear witness to the too loudly e.xpressed astonishment of a German tailor named Flank, concerning the glories of a bedroom which was the chief ornament of the dwelling, and in which the Tsar, as it was well known, frequently appeared.^ In 1703, somewhat unwillingly and remorsefully it must be said, he endowed the lady with a property of considerable extent, called Doubino, in the district of Kozielsk. She was a most barefaced beggar, perpetually soliciting the somewhat un- ready generosity of the Sovereign, in a succession of notes, written by a secretary, to which she added postscripts in bad German. She backs one of these requests by calling on the name of a person whose good offices she could hardly have expected. ' F'or the love of your son, Alexis I'etro- vitch, give mc that estate!' * Now, Alexis, as my readers will recollect, was Eudoxia's child. Her letters were occasionally accompanied by very modest gifts. Thus she .sent her lover, then detained at the siege of Azof, four lemons and as many oranges. He had serious thoughts of marrj'ing her, even although he was carrying on doubtful relations with one of her friends, Helen Fademrecht, from whom he received letters, too, addressed, ' To my Universe, — to my little darling Sun, — my beloved, with black eyes and eyebrows of the same colour.' The Mons affair — a very commonplace one, — lasted till 1703, and closed in an equally commonplace fashion. The Saxon Envoy Konigseck, who had only lately ' Mordovtsef, Russian Women (St. Petersburg), p. 3, portfolio No. Ixxxvi. in Peter's 'Cabinet.' The documents of the .Minden Municipality here pre- ser^cd give %-arious spellings of the name. ■'' Korb, p. 84. ^ Nos. 1243, 1258. * See e.\iracts from this correspondence in Mordovtsefs work. THE FEMININE ELEMENT 247 arrived at the Tsar's Court, was accidentally drowned, at the beginning of a campaign. In his pockets certain notes were found, the writing and the style of which, Peter easily recog- nised. He was simple-minded enough to lose his temper, the Domicella Monsiana went to prison, and only came out by dint of urgent prayers, and cunning wiles. On recovering her liberty she was forced to content herself with becoming the mistress of Kesserling, the Prussian Envoy, who ended by marrying her. She had a taste for diplomacy, and not sufficient prudence to keep herself out of difficulties. She found herself back in prison, and only contrived to save a few poor remnants of the monarch's former liberalit)-. Amongst these was his portrait, with which she sharply refused to part, on account — some people hinted — of the diamonds in which it was framed. Peter kept his grudge against her for )-ears. The enquiry in connection with this sorry business was still going on in 1707, and Romodanovski had thirty prisoners implicated in it — how, neither the}' nor he could fairly explain, — under lock and key. A year later, Keyserling, who had already married the lady, took advan- tage of a moment of good humour to intercede with the Tsar in favour of one of her brothers, who was petitioning for employment. His remarks were very ill-received. Peter cut him short roughly, and spoke his mind with his usual frankness. *I brought up Mons for mj'self; I meant to marr>' her ; you have seduced her, and you can keep her. liut never dare to speak to me of her or of her relations again.' When the Prussian would have persisted, Men- shikof intervened : ' Your Mons is a ; she has been my mistress, and yours, and every one's. Don't let us hear any more about her.' This scene took place, it is only fair to say, after supper, at an entertainment given by a Polish nobleman in the neighbourhood of Lublin. It ended unpleasant!}- for Keyserling. Peter and Menshikof fell on him with their fists, turned him out of the room, and threw him dciwn stairs. He made a formal complaint, but the business was decided against him, and ended with excuses, — which he was obliged to make.^ 1 Sl><-thin<:j, — both the thefts by which he had profited, and the infanticide at which he had connived. There was a fresh enquiry and a trial. The unhappy girl was convicted, besides her other crimes, (and this last was a mortal one), of having made spiteful remarks about her Sovereign lady, and jokingly referred to the pimples on the imperial countenance. Catherine, whatever her faults may have been, showed considerable kindness on this occasion. She interceded for the culprit, and induced the Tsarina Prascovia, who enjoyed considerable credit, and whose intervention was all the more weighty, because, as a rule, she was little inclined to indulgence, to follow her example. According to ancient Russian ideas, infanticide was a crime which circumstances might easily be held to palliate, and the Tsarina Prascovia was in many respects an old-fashioned Russian, l^ut Peter was inexorable. ' He would not,' he said, ' be either Saul or Ahab, nor violate the Divine Law by an excess of kindness.' Had he then such a mighty respect for Divine Law? My own belief is that he scoffed at it, but — and this, in his eyes, was an unpardon- able fault — he fancied himself cheated of several soldiers. After having been put to the question time after time, in the Tsar's own presence, and having steadily refu-^ed to give up the name of her accomplice, whose only thought had been to clear himself by casting the guilt on her — he was but a poor creature, that ancestor of the great Catherine's future favourite — Mary Hamilton mounted the scaffold, on the 14th March 1719, THK FEMININE ELEMENT 253 dressed, so Staehlin tells us, ' in a white silk c^own, trimmed with black ribbons.* Peter, with his love of tlieatrical cflect, certainly had somcthini^ to do with this last piece of ghastly coquetr)*. I le was present at the execution, and even, — passive he never could be, anywhere, — had courage to play an active part in it. He embraced the condemned woman at the foot of the scaffold, exhorted her to pra\-, and supported her in his arms when she bent forward, fainting. Then he stepped aside. When she raised her head, the headsman had taken the Tsar's place. Scherer adds some terrible details to the story. The Tsar, according to him, reappeared when the axe had done its work, and picking up the bloody head, which had rolled into the mud, he calmK- began an anatomi- cal discourse, drawing the attention of those present to the number and nature of the organs severed by the steel, especially pointing out the section of the spine. When this was over, he touched the pale lips he had so often kissed before, with his own, let the head drop, crossed himself, and departed.^ I am not at all inclined to believe that there is an\' truth in the assertion that Menshikof thought it wise to push on the prosecution and sentence of this unhapp\' woman, in the interests of his own protectress, the Empress Catherine. This rival never was a dangerous one. A short time after- wards, the Tsarina had much more serious cause for alarm. In one of Campredon's despatches, dated 8th June 1722, the following lines appear: — 'The Tsarina fears that if the Princess bears a son. the Tsar may be induced by the Prince of W'allachia to repudiate his wife and marry his mistress.' The mistress in question was Maria Kantcmir."- Prince Dimitri Kantemir, who had been one of Peter's allies during the unfortunate campaign against the Turks in 171 1, had lost his sovereignty b\- tlie treaty of the Pruth. He had been given hospitality at St. Petersburg, and there waited wearily for the compensation he had been given reason to expect. For a considerable time his daughter appeared more than likely to obtain this for him. When * Sicmicvski, Slato 1 Dulo, p. 1S5. Korobanof, S/ui/y in A'ltssian Anli,fui- ties, 1 87 1, vol. iii. p. 465. Golikof, vol. vi. p. 68. Tatishtchef, Notes on the SoudUhnik (Code) of Ivan Vassilcvitch. Herrmann, Peter Jer Groat und der Ttarevitch Alexei, p. 207. Mordovtsof, Ktissian ll\^men, p. 57. Scherer, vol. U. p. 272 ; the account given by Lubomirski {Tsar, Archduchesses, etc.) is a mere work of iina;inalion. • French Foreign Olficc. 254 PETER THE GREAT Peter started for his Persian Campaign in 1722. this love affair had already lasted several years, and seemed to threaten a d.ciioucmi'nt which might be fatal to Catherine's interests. Both the ladies started with the Tsar, but Maria, who was near her confinement, was obliged to stop at Astrakhan. Her condition increased the confidence felt by her partisans. Since the death of little Peter Petrovitch, in 17 19, Catherine had no son whom Peter could make his heir, and it was generally believed that if his mistress bore him one, during this expedition, he would not hesitate to get rid of his second wife, as he had got rid of his first. Catherine's friends, if Scherer is to be believed, took means to avert this danger.^ \\'hen Peter returned, he found his mistress in bed, after a miscarriage, which had seriously threatened her life. Thus Catherine triumphed, and the love affair which had so nearly overthrown her for- tune, ended in the same commonplace manner as so many of its predecessors. A short time before the Sovereign's death, a complaisant individual, belonging to the same class as Tchemishof, and Roumiantsof, was found, ready to be- come the nominal husband of the Princess, who, though still much courted, had forfeited all her ambitious hop>es.- Catherine came victoriously out of all her difficulties, and a solemn coronation finally set her above all attack. The mistress, wife, and sovereign, rehabilitated by marriage, the \*igilant guardian of the conjugal hearth, who shared all the honours of the supreme rank, won the day at last, and took her place above the mob of female figures in which we see 5er\-ant-girls elbowing the daughters of Scotch lairds, and Moldo-Wallachian princesses. And a yet more unexpected figure now appears in that strange throng — a chaste and respected friend. Yes, even ''---^ --"'--te flower bloomed in the miry slough! The :.._ . ' played this part, was that most seductive of all human creatures — a well-bom Pole — Slav by her birth, Latin by her education. I have already described Peter as sj>ending long hours in the Gardens of laworow in the company of Eliiabeth Sieniawska. They built a boat together, rowed on the water, and talked endlessly. It ' Vol jiL p. 259. * Mf moires U Documenis, voL L jx 119, etc. (Ministry for Foreign Afiairs, Paris). THE FEMININE ELEME?rr «55 was a perfect idylL This lady, a Lxiboaiifska, vlio had manied agreat Omrt d^nitaiy-and e^er partisan of Aogustiis against Leszczynsld, flits across die tnrfaolent life of the bnital cooqaeror, without being assailed by any breath of scandaL It was not so modi her beanl^, — diat was far firom remarkable^ — ^whicfa attracted Peter, it was her imnsnal in- tell^ence. He delighted in her society, he listened to her advice, not alwa>-5 very oonvenienl^ for die s up por t ed Lesz- cz>-nski against the Tsars own pnOegi^ and against her husband's master. He talked of his fJan for dismissii^ all the fore^n officers in his service; she forUiwilli tai^jhthim a lesson fay dismissii^ the German leader of an ordbestiai of Perish musicians, which at once gave forth sncb discordant sounds that even the Tsai's iax firom sensitnne ear sufieredL He spoke of tumii^ the pro'vinces; Russian or Poli^ through which Charles XIl. would have to pass^ to reach Moscow, into deserts ; and she intemqited him with a story of the gentleman wbo, to disoH^e \sa& wife, had him- self made into a ennndi.^ Sie was a diaimii^ woman, and he was swayed, fascinated and tamed by her charm; he grew nobler in her company, transfigured, as it were; by contact with her pure and delicate, tender, and yet lestJut^ nature. Women played a large and xcty varied part in Peter's lifei But far more important, firom the historical point of view, was the part he liim«a»lf played in the destinies <^ Russian women in general In justice to die great man, this part must be summarily described. The Tsar Alexis once gave scJemn audience; in his castle at Kolomenskoie, near Moscow, to the ambassador of a fore^^ power. A murmur c^ soft voices^ and a rasdii^ of silken stuffs, coming firom a half-open dkx)r, attracted the difdomat's attention. The ceremony was bei^ watched by invisible spectators, — ^the inhabitants of the mysterious ienmt, driven by curiosity into a sort ci semi-violation of their retirement Suddenly, with a violent push, the door flew open, and a handsome, dark-eyed woman, blushu^ and con- fused, with a little boy clinging to her ddrts, appeared, and 256 PETER THE GREAT straightway vanished, to the courtiers' general astonishment and alarm. The dark -haired beauty was the Tsarina Natli.ilia, and the httle three-year old boy, so rough and impetuous alreatl}-, that heavy doors flew open at his toucii,was one day to overthrow the walls of the tcnui itself. In later years, this picturesque scene was taken to be an omen.^ In the seventeenth century, national feeling in Russia was full of suspicion, almost of hatred, of the weaker sex. This is proved by many popular proverbs of the period : * A woman's hair is long, but her understanding is short. — A woman's mind is like a house without a roof. — A man should flee a woman's beauty, just as Noah fled the deluge. — A horse must be managed by the bit, and a woman by threats. — The woman who is visible is made of copper, the woman who is invisible is made of gold.' Modern Russian historians are inclined to hold this peculiarit}- as one of foreign origin, quite contrary to the natural tendency of the national spirit, which is rather in- clined to proclaim the equality of the sexes. As a matter of fact, Russian legislation and the present habits of the country, arc altogether opposed to that subjection of women, which still characterises Western laws and customs. A Russian wife, in the absence of any special stipulation in the marriage contract, has the sole control of her fortune. The ideas in vogue before Peter's accession, and the corresponding institutions and habits, including the tcrcm itself, were prob- ably of Byzantine origin, the outcome of that great current of monkish and religious asceticism, which left such an indelible mark on the intellectual and moral development of the country. The tcrcm was no liarcvi. The confinement of women within its walls was the result of a very different .sentiment, dictated, not by jealousy, but by the fear of sin and scandal, by a religious conception of human life, according to which the cloistered existence was the ideal one, that which was most pleasing in God's sight. The idea, if not the actual form, of the tereui was absolutely Byzantine.- This is m\- theory. But, however that may have been, the prison was a prison, and a severe one. Women, young girls especially, * Oustrialof, vol. i. pp. lo and 261. " Zabiclin, Priiatt Life of the Kussian Tsarinas, p. 83, etc Ko^tomarof, History 0/ Riusia, vol. ii. p. 475. THE FEMININK ELEMENT 257 were mere captives ; they vegetated, deprived of li^jht and air, in rooms which were half dun^jeon and half cell, behind windows covered with thick curtains, and heavily patllockcd doors. There was no means of separate exit. The only way of gettini^ out was through the father's or the husband's room, and the father or husband kept the keys in his pocket, or under his pillow. On festival occasions, when the guests were at table and the round ' pirogiii' had made their appearance, the wife of the host stood, for a moment, on the threshold of the women's apartment. Then the men rose and kissed her, but she retired immediately. As for the unmarried daughters, no male c)'c, not even that of an affianced husband, saw them till the}- were married. A bride married without ever beholding her husband or being seen by him. A betrothal strongly resembled the game of hot cockles. There was indeed an individual, called the Suiotriltchitsa, generally a relation of the suitor, who inspected the girl, and reported accordingly, — but she only acted for the suitor. Xo young girl permitted herself to wonder what her future husband might be like. Her father, when he informed her that her marriage was arranged, showed her a whip, fit emblem of the authority he was about to transmit to her husband, and the only glimpse of him she was permitted, before being led to the altar. She went to church in deep silence, covered with a heavy \cil ; not a gesture, not a word, except to answer the priest, and then onl)', for the first time, the husband heard her voice. At the repast which followed the ceremony, the couple were separated by a curtain. The bride's conjugal existence did not begin until the first part of the feast was concluded. Then her bridesmaids led her to the nuptial chamber, undressed her, and assisted her to bed. There she waited, till tiic husband was sufficiently drunk. The groomsmen, when they thought this point attained, led him to the bride's apartment, carr\'ing torches, which they planted rcumd the bed, in barrels fiUecl with wheat, barley, and oats. The bed itself was laid on sheaves of rye. Then came the crucial moment. The bride's face was seen at last. To welcome her new master, she rose from her bed, wrapped herself in a furred rolK-, went .several paces towards him, bending respectfully, and dropped her veil. A man who may have believed himself to be marr)ing a R 258 PETER THE GREAT beautiful ^h\, would sometimes see that she was humpbacked, sickly, or fritjhtfuil)- ucjly. Kven if the go-between had done her duty conscientious!)-, there was always the chance of her havini; been deceived, by the substitution of another ^\r\ for the real one ; such cases not unfrequcntly occurred. The husband's only resource, in such an event, was to invite his new-made bride, upon the spot, to rid him of her person by strait^htway takiiiL,^ the veil. But bcint;, in all probability, far from sober, he did not look too closely, and this fact probably accounts for the habit of making the bridegroom intoxicated on such occasions. He did not realise his mis- fortune until after the marriage .was consummated, and become an accomplished fact. The result of such marriages may easily be conceived. The chronicles of the scandal-mongers, and the judicial records of the period, teem with information on the subject. Husbands would leave their homes, and take refuge in the peace of the cloister ; wives, driven distracted by ill-treat- ment, would use steel and poison to free themselves from an unendurable yoke. The punishment allotted to such crimes, terrible as it was, did not, as we may judge by the engravings of that period, prevent their frequent occurrence. The guilty woman was buried in the earth up to her waist, and there left till death came to release her. The culprit would sometimes have to wait ten daj-s, before her agony was ended, — tortured all the time by hunger and thirst, and half devoured by worms.^ All these customs were cither connected with, or the direct outcome of, a social condition defined by the Domostfot, a code of laws drawn up, if not actually written out, by the Russian pope Sylvester, Ivan the Terrible's chief confidant, during the closing \ears of his life. Whether the details owed their origin to Tartar, Byzantinc,- or native sources, the same indelible mark, the brand of barbarism, was on them all. Woman was sacrificed, and man thereby debased. To amuse themselves in their cloistered loneliness, ladies of the higher ranks dressed themselves up like idols, painted themselves to their very ' Sec illustrations to Korh's l)ook. Also the description jjivcn by Wel)er, in IIernn.-inn's Peter dcr Grosse, p. 98 (Aug. I3lh, I7'7)' "According to M. N'tkrassof {Origin of the Donuntrc), Moscow. 1872), only portions of the work can be ascril^d to Svlve-tcr. The manuscript was not published by Golovastof till 184P. THE FEMININE ELEMENT 259 eyeosition. He did his best, at all events, to secure them some teaching, and set the example in his own family. He j^ave his daughters. Anne and Elizabeth, a French governess. He was occasionally present at their lessons, and took care they should assume a European appearance, and that their dresses and head-coverings should be copied from Parisian fashions. When his sister-in-law I'rascovia ventured to criticise these innovations, he told her that ' her house was an asylum for fools and weak- minded persons,' and finally carried her along with him. Tsar Ivan's widow thus ended by personifying a sort of transition type in the history of Russian women, the direct outcome of Peter's reform. She gave her daughters French masters, and she had a German tutor for herself. But she kept her Russian custome, and with it, her savage instincts. She used to beat her maids-of-honour, and one day. — to force one of her servants to plead guilty to some trifling fault, — she poured the bottle of brandy she always kept in her carriage over his head, set it on fire, and then struck the poor wretch with her cane, on the horrible wounds the burning brandy had made.^ The road before I'cter was too long for him to reach the goal he had, doubtless, set before him. And indeed his native coarseness and depravity did not, it must be ac- knowledged, make him the best of guides. He often forgot himself, lost sight of the real object of his journey, — and such digressions were fatal to his end. He was too apt to behave like a trooper, and a rough one, in the drawing rooms he had called into existence, and before the eves of the recluses he had released from the bondage of the tcrem. The moral character of Russian women will long bear traces of the strange fashion in which Peter the Great introduced the sex into social life.- The same reproach must be applied to the whole of the great man's work, and certainly detracts both from its merit * S i. Thi Tsarina P'ascoz'ia, p. 1 51. «b X 's study of Aujjiuft il'juun iu tkt Days oj VtUr ikt Crtat. Novosd, 1672, No 152. 20l PETER THE GREAT and his fjlory. Yet the female world, now- a -days, in its more or less Iccjitimate revolt, not in Russia only, against the injustice and cruelty, real or imai^inary, of its fate, must recoLjnise Peter the Great as one of its most effectual saviours, — just as civilization in general must acknowled^je him one of its most powerful makers. Pirulal and cynical though he was, woman was more to him than mere beautiful flesh. His conception of her part in the faniil}-, and in societ}-, was so high as to apjjroach within measurable distance of our modern ideal. And, even if the woman of whom I am now about to speak had never appeared in his feminine circle, this fact, alone, would atone for many faults. CHAPTER III CATHERINE I. Her arrival in Russia — The siege of Marienluirg — Her origin — Pastor ('iliick's family — Shc'rcmctiefs camp — Menshikofs house — Catherine Trouliatshof — Pictroushkas mother — The marriage — The servant girl l>ecomes the sovereign. II. Contenifxirary opinion— Harun Von Ptillnitz — The Margravine of Baireuth — Campredon — ^The portraits in the Romanof (iallery — Neither pretty nor distinguished looking — An active temperament and a well-balanced mind — .An ofhcer's wife — Her inlluence over Peter — She fascinated and tameiees' of St. Petersburg, 1877, vol. xviii. CATHERINE 265 in the district of Derpt (now known as louricf).^ In 17 iS, on the I ith of October, the anniversary of the capture of Note- burcf, a Swedish town, Peter wrote. — * Katcriuouslika^ greet- injjf! greeting on the occasion of this happy day, on which Russia first set foot on your native soil ! ' Yet, Catherine would rather seem to have come of some Polish family. Her brothers and sisters, who appeared on the scene in later years, were called Skovoroshtchenko or Skovorotski, which for the sake of euphony, doubtless, has been turned into Skovronski.- We may suppose these emi:_;rants, as they may have been — mere peasants, in any case— to have fled the yoke of serfdom, grown intolerable in their native land, to seek some less oppressive servi- tude elsewhere. In 1702, Catherine was seventeen years old, and an orphan. Her mother is believed to have been the serf, and the mistress, of a high-born Livonian named Alvendhal. Of this connection — possibly a very tem- porary one — Catherine was the fruit. Her legitimate father and mother died, her real father disowned her, and when still a mere child, she was received and sheltered by Pastor Gluck. He taught her the catechism, but she did not learn her alphabet. She never could do more, in later years, than just sign her name. She grew up in her protector's house, making herself useful, as she grew older, sharing the household duties, and taking care of the children. Gluck received foreign pupils, and she helped to wait on them ; ' two of these pupils declared, in later years, that she always stinted them in their bread and butter. This instinct of economy never deserted her. In certain other matters, according to some historians, and from a very early age, she was more than liberal. A Lithuanian gentleman of the name of Tiesenhausen, and other lodgers in the pastor's house, are rcix/rted to have enjo\-ed her favours. She is even said to have brought a girl into the world, who died when only a few mtmths old. Not long before the siege, her master thought it best to put a stop to these irregularities, by finding her a husband. The husband or the betrothed — * A paj>ir w.t; ; I in Westermann's Illustrirte /I/ ' '. in 1857, with the ol'jcct of j,i ^ ihat Catherine was Ixirn at Kiga, -x. .^ed to the Badendik family, from which the writer of the paper, Ilcrr Tvcrscn, was dcscendid. ^ Arscnief, Catherine s Reign, vol. i. pp. 74, 75. Andreicf, Tlu Jiepresenta- tites of Authority in Russia, after Ptter I. (St. Petersburg, 1870), p. 5. 266 PETER THE GREAT there is some uncertainty on this point — a Swedish Life- guardsman named Krusc, disappeared after the cajjturc of the town, having been taken prisoner by the Russians, and sent far away, or. according to a better estabh'shcd version, he cscaix."d the catastro{)he, having been sent towards Riga, with his regiment, cither just before, or just after, the con- summation of the marriage. Catherine, after she became Tsarina, sought him out, and gave him a pension.* Meanwhile, she was the joy of that portion of the Russian army wiiich was engaged in the Livonian campaign. She began as the mistress of a non-commissioned officer, who beat her, and final!}-, passed into the possession of the general himself, who soon grew weary of her. The question of how she came into Menshikofs household is one on which opinions vary. Some authorities declare she was first engaged to wash the favourite's shirts. She would seem, in one of her letters to Peter, after she had become his wife, to allude to this fact in her past career : ' Though you doubtless have other laundresses about you, the old one never forgets you.' And Peter answers gallantly, 'You are mistaken, you must be thinking of Shafirof, who mixes up his love affairs with his clean linen. That is not my way, and besides, I am growing old.' One thing is certain, her original position in her new protector's house was a some- what humble one. When Menshikof wrote, in March 1706, to his own sister Anne, and to the Arsenief sisters, to come and meet him at Witebsk for the Easter festivities, foresee- ing that their fear of the bad roads might prevent them from obeying his call, he begged them, at all events, to send him Catherine Troubatshof and two other girls.^ This !iame of Troubatshof ma)- be an allusion to Catherine's husband or betrothed, for the Russian word Trotiba means in I VI pet. But an important event had already occurred in the exis- tence of the person thus so unceremoniously disposed of. * Arsenief, ' . 1S75, vol. ii. p. 240. 2 OuslriaUu : that ihis letter can refer to the future Tsarina, and appeals to the testimony of Gordon, according to whom the girl bore the name of Catherine Vasileina until it was converted, on her conversion to the Greek Church, into that of Catherine Altxitievna, but Peter himself, and other con- ; • ; iHarv authorities, give her different and verj" varied names, in perfectly rei.ible documents (Ou.stiialof, vol. iv. pxart. iL p. 329. Compare Peter's ' IVritings and CorresfottiUtice,' vol. iii. p. 283. CATHERINE 86; Peter had seen her, and had proved himself far from indifferent to her charms. There are many different stories as to this first meelini^. The Tsar, we are told, paid a visit to Men- shikof, after the capture of Narva, and was astonished by the air of cleanliness visible in the favourite's person and surroundings. He enquired how he contrived to have his house so well kept, and to wear such fresh and dainty linen. Menshikofs only answer was to open a door, through which the sovereign perceived a handsome girl, aproned, and sponge in hand, bustling from chair to chair, and going from window to window, scrubbing the window panes.^ The picture is a pleasing one, but I notice one drawback. Narva fell in August 1704, and at that date, Peter had alrcad)' made Catherine the mother of at least one child. During the month of March, in the following year, she bore him a son, the little Piiirouslihii, of whom Peter speaks in one of his letters. Eight months later, she had two boys.'- These children were certainly dear to the great man, for, he thought of them even among the terrible anxieties which then devoured him. Ikit he does not appear, as yet, to ha\ c cared much for their mother. There has been a world of hair-splitting over the circumstances of Catherine's removal from the favourite's household, to that of the Tsar. All sorts of dramatic incidents have been invented. According to one stor)', the lady, after an agreement between the two friends, and a formal cession of Menshikofs rights to his master, took up her residence in her new home, where her eye shortly fell on certain magnificent jewels. P'orthwith, burst- ing into tears, she addressed her new protector : ' Who put th<»s(j ornaments here.'' If they come from the other one, I will keep nothing but this little ring ; but if they come from you, how could you think 1 needed them to make me love you ?' In all human probability, matters were arranged after a far simpler fashion. I cannot conceive any such disinterested- ness on her part, nor such prodigality on his. This scene, too, is supposed to have occurred at a period when the fair Livonian and her august lover were already bound together by the existence of two children. During the succeeding ' Mimoires et Documrttls, vol. i. p. 163 (Paris Foreign OfTice). '■* Sec letter sit;ncd 'Catherine and two oUicrs,' OcU 1705 ; also sec H^iitin^ and Cjrrispondtnte, vol. iii. p. 2S3. aS PETER THE GRIL\T jpeacs; I can pcromie aiK> erodeot daaiige in the duinami ■fflUBaitrrm o nLUf^ed by^her in ttol coomnoa harem, ■iKJic Rettcr and ^cw^takxif were wssst, entiier tnmaboiit, or tDgedKT, to talK tibeir TJk^^^^rnr^ Sog nrtiijra es she vas vith the Tsair, sxui smsKSiaa^ due fef^ofoiite. At St. Pders- boBg, doe Evcd, midi aii dae ooher ladSes, ia Mensiukors bast«c S3ae vas stiul sw mcsc dnaai an obscsac andcmn- 3>--'^--^ QBSlbKss. PeOer had waaasy odbeis, and she never li . 1 to db^edL She vent so &r as to pander villia^i}- to ahe iasalts, and ceca to the iaafidelities of her ioaaJke rivals, and made sp, W her ovn onfaalliaig cheedblness, for their at temapfT. Unaas^ sSo«%, and akraost insenabiy, rnt ^ tt Mnv^ heradlf to the Soscsesgn, and above aE, she gicvr into at habit vith him. She took root in his heart rabnKhed l w ' «i f llf there^ aaul ended hy ntskmg heiseif ii1li^j[mii1hilr In ipo6i, he v^ooM seem to have iicaied, for a ^iw wm- u it ^ that ^ne m^^ s&p thio i^i his fin ger s^ afier the fexSw"— at Anna Moos. He began to cxmsader the drav- faac3s Bkefy to lesnUi firami the pnMniscnitfr in vhidb, op to that time^ he and Jim^hibof had mingifd their pHeasares and their n^^iAs. I notice a sort of dim noeasiness about faioii, and pncks of conscience vhich may have been nothing bat fainas of aDoasBciaaiB jealbassr. He had jolked far jeais over llenshibof s paomise to many Dtaiia AxseziSeC and held it waM and Tcid. In 1706I, he dediaied it valid and svxed, and vnote to his ^iScr^p^ 'For God's salxL for siy sool''s sakeu- xcmcmber voosr injiBh and Ikf^pp it! "Ui-wTwh^nf set Mm the erampBr, and Peter faUoved it, iho ^^ ' 'ex. Cathexine is, indeed, said to have -lis time, b;^ a secret marriage. Afier the jear 1709, ^^^ never le& him, and an Poland and 4 > « iiMi ii j y m ft in a i ajf ^ite aM-irinmjMWMirf the Tsaj. ^Dc vas tieatod ■aAamn^^ fflse a Soveresgn. Xvo other childTeQ, daughters holh, had boomd her still more doseSsr to her lover. Bat, cficiaJDj' s^Kakiii^ ^ae vas iwi*fc"»g bat a mistress. In Janoaiy \7tA, vhen Peter d ep aite d from MoscxMr to rgoin his anaiir, and taJbe psal in vdiat promised to be a decisive I Mil iTL". l^ie^ t^^ note behind him: ' U bjr God's viD, aaifAiag shooAd haanim to me, let the t.od? raobles vbSch vill be fioand in llcnsiuloof's honse, b: to Catherine her dai^fatec. Pilcr. They had not CATHZRIXE a69 travelled vay fstr bejxodd zhc dnsrat hestz-ved aiii-j ihttr £rsr meeting!^ Hov then, and when, did Peter finally decide on the apparent}' wild and impoaableiiJly of making tdiisMnoianl^ legitimate wife and Empress? The icsohrtion is said to have been taken ia ijii, after the eamfMog n of the PkndL Catherine's imfailmg devxitaon, her com^i^ and her presence of mind at critical mome nts , had OMacom e his last hesita- ttoQ. 9ie oonqnered him, arid he; at the same lime; per- ceived the means by which the choioe of snch a p a iB ami and such a Sovere^n mig|it be exmspd in his snbj ec t^ eyes. The intervnentsoxi] of the former senrant girl had saivd the Russian army aiod its leader fmaa mnreparabBe dfia5trr, and inextfa^nishabfie shame. Peter, if he led her to the altar, and i^aced the I mp erial diadem on her brow, wooid only be rq)a3rii^ the oonmion ddit. And this was c£earl]r expressed in the marnfesto he addressed to Ins own peof?>e. and to the whole of Eorope. Bat here, again, alas ! we have nothii^ bat an is^enaoos hypothesis, ooabadicted b;^ all the fects and every date. Tike part pl^red fay Catheriiie on the banks cif the Moldavian rix-er, when the RiBsian army was saiion i Mlrd by the Turks and the Tartars, dates — if it ever took fdlace at afl, and the b very doabtfnl — somewhere in the month of Jane IJII ; at that moment die had aheady, for oc^er sx mooths^ been pablidy acknowledged as Peter's wife. The Tsar's son Alexis, who was then staying in Germany, had heard the news early in May, and had aiitlen his stepmother a ooo- gratnlatory letter.' The great refonraer was not likriy to seek more or leas valid excuses for any decEiioa or act of his. Later, it is trae; — Saajoars later, — on the orrasion of Catherine''s cxmnatiaa, he thought fit to recall the already distant mcmocy of the peril she had helped to avert m 171 1. Bat, it nay be £ari|y bdieved, that his object in so dot^ was to indicate the sense and beaJrii^ of dus anasoal ceremony, whereby, failing a direct soccessor to the Crown, he desired to invest her, in a manner, with his inheritance; and to ensme the execntioo, after bis own death, of a wiU which, in his lifetime owed no 270 PETER THE GREAT account to any one. It was at this moment that the manifesto to which I have already referred was published, and by it Peter condescended to reckon with those who might survive him. It is my duty to add, that the very fact of this marriajre has been denied ;^ but we possess very reliable testimony on the subject, in the shape of a despatch written from Moscow on the 20th February (2nd March) 171 2, by Whitworth, the British envoy. ' Yesterday, the Tsar publicly celebrated his marriacije with his wife, Catherine Alexieievna. Last winter, about two hours before his Czarisch Majesty left Moscow, he summoned the Empress Dowai^er, his sister the Tsarevna Nathalia, and two other half-sisters, to whf)m he declared this lady to be his empress, and that they should pay her the respect due to that quality, and in case any mis- fortune mii^ht happen to him in the campaign, should allow her the same rank, privileges, and revenue as was usual to the other dowagers, for that she was his real wife, though he had not the time to perform the ceremonies according to the custom of his countrj^ which should be done at the first opportunity. The preparations have been making for four or five days, and on the iSth Mons. Kykin, a Lord of the Admiralty, and Adjutant-General lagusinski, two per- sons in a good degree of favour, were sent about to invite the company to his Majesty's old zvcddiug (for these were the terms they were ordered to use). 'The Tsar was married in his quality of rear-admiral, and for that reason, not his Ministers and nobility, but his sea officers, had the chief employments, the Vice-Admiral Cruys and the rear- admiral of the galleys being the bridegroom's fathers, and the Empress Dowager, with the vice-admiral's lady, were the bride's mothers. The bridesmaids were two of the Empress Catherine's own daughters, one above five, and the other three years old. The wedding was performed privately, at seven o'clock in the morning, in a little chapel belonging to Prince Menshikof, where no one assisted but those who were obliged to do it through their offices.- In spite of this, Whitworth tells us that in the course of the day, there was a great reception at the Palace, a State dinner, a ball, and a display of fireworks. And the Dutch Resident, De Bie, mentions an entertainment given in honour * Dolgoroukof's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 38. '• London Record? Office. CATHERINE 271 of the occasion b)- Trincc Mcnsliikof.' Thus the event was marked by a certain amount of pubh'city. I'ctcr's motives, and tlic proL^ressive course of ideas and sentiments which led up to the extraordinary denouement of this liaison, would seem to me clearly proved by a comparison of the Eni^dish Miiu'ster's despatch with those I have already quested. His evident desire was to ensure the future of his partner and his children, atul his duty in this respect appeared to him clearer and more pressinj^, in proportion, doubtless, to the increase of his afTcction for his children, and his tenderness and rei^ard for her. liefore the campai tunes, p. 179. 283 PETER THE GREAT a secondary place. Since those days, no Tsarina had been more than the Tsar's wife, none had ever received any poli- tical investiture or prerogative. But the death, in 17 19, of the sole heir to the crown, had raised the (juestion of the succession. Durin<4 the following years it was constantly to the front. When, in 1721, the Peace of Nystadt conferred some leisure on the Sovereign, this cjucstion became, for a time, his chief anxiety. Shafirnf and Ostcrmann, in obedience to his commands, held several private conferences with Camprcdon, in the course of which they proposed an alliance with France, based on a guarantee as to the succession to the Russian throne to be given by the French king. For whose benefit? Camprcdon imagined Peter had chosen his eldest daughter, whom he was supposed to intend to marry to one of his subjects and near relations, — probably to a Xar}-shkin. This opinion was confirmed by Shafirof.^ The most varied suppositions on the subject were current amongst the general public, up to the period of the corona- tion. The novel nature of that event seemed, in the eyes of the majority, to settle the question in Catherine's favour. This idea was finally shared by Camprcdon himself.- The crown, which was specially ordered for the occasion, was far more magnificent than any used by former Tsars. It was adorned with diamonds and pearls ; there was an enor- mous ruby on the top ; it weighed four pounds, and was valued at one and a half millions of roubles. It was made at St. Petersburg, by a Russian jeweller, but the new capital was quite unequal to supplying the Tsarina's dress. This was sent from Paris, and cost 4000 roubles. Peter himself set the crown on his wife's head. Catherine knelt before the altar, weeping, and would have embraced the Tsar's knees. He raised her smilingly, and invested her with the orb, the .symbol of .sovereignty {(iicrjaia). But he kept the sceptre, the token of power, in his own hand. When the Tsarina left the church, she entered a coach, sent, like her dress, from Paris, richly gilt and painted, and surmounted bjan Imperial crown.^ This ceremony was performed on the 7th — 19th — May. Just six months later, an event tf)ok place in the Winter Palace, which set the Tsarina, crowned and anointed * Campredon's Despatches, Oct 29, Nov. 17 and 21, 1721 (P'rench lorcign Office). ■•* DcsiKitch, datf