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P44WwEi
1898
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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><aster.
Between the ninth and tenth centuries, when the earliest
French Kings, Charles le Gros and Louis le Begue, are
strug£jling painfull)* to defend their treasures from Norman
robbers, other Sea Kings land on the Baltic shore. Y'onder
lo PETER THE GREAT
the Xorman, lirolf, wrests the coast country, called after his
race, from Charles the Simple. Here, on the mighty plain
that stretches from the lialtic to the Black Sea, among the
scanty Finnish or Slavonic population which alone disturbs
the solitude, the Norman Rurik and his followers found
their Empire.^
A century and a half later, at the three farthest corners of
Europe, three heroic leaders affirm the supremacy of the
same race, covering it with the common glory of their
conquests. In Italy, Robert Guiscard founds the House
of Hauteville. William the Conqueror seats himself in
England. Jaroslav reigns in Russia.
But this Russia is not the Russia of Moscow. Moscow
does not exist, as yet. Jaroslav's capital is at Kief, a very
different place, far nearer to the Western world. Rurik's
descendants, dwelling there, keep up close relations with
Greece, with Italy, with Poland, with Germany. Byzantium
sends them monks, and learned men, and stately prelates.
Italy and German}- give them architects, artificers, merchants,
and the elements of Roman law. Towards the year ICXX),
Vladimar, the ' Red Sun ' of the Rhapsodes, commands his
lords to send their children to the schools he has established
near the churches ; he makes roads, and deposits test weights
and measures in the churches. His son Jaroslav (1015-
1054) coins money, builds palaces, adorns the open spaces
of his capital with Greek and Latin sculpture, and draws up
a code of laws. The five pictures preserved in the \'atican,
under the name of the Capponi Collection, are an authentic
proof, and a most curious specimen, of Russian art as it
flourished at Kief in the twelfth centur}'.^ The execution
is masterly, in no way inferior to the best work of the early
Italians, such as Andrea Rico di Candia. And these are
not the onK" signs of culture at Kief. In 1 170, at Smolensk,
we find the Kfiiaz, Roman Rostislavitch, busied with learned
* This conquest, although disputed by Slavophil historians, would seem to be
an undoubted fact, .'^cc Soloviefs refutation of Ilovai^ki's opinion (Collected
Works on Politics (Br- ' - - '. 1879), voL vii.), and the Studies of Father
Martynof (h'evue dcs Historiques, July 1875. Polyhtblton, 1S75).
Solovief at all events n.i^ts the admis-ion — a consolint: one to the national
▼anity — that the Slav tribes submitted voluntarily to a foreign Kniaz, whom they
callefi to rule over them.
' This collection was presented by Peter the Great to Count Capponi, in
acknowledgment of his share in obtaining the signature of a commercial treaty
with Genoa.
THE KREML, AND THE GERMAN FAUBOURG ll
subjects. He collects libraries, founds schools and seminaries,
where the classical lang^uagcs are taught. From one end to
the otiier of the huge Empire just beginning to take shape,
between the Don and the Carpathians, the Volga and the
Dvina, a busy trade is already carried on with Europe —
western, southern, and northern. Novgorod commands the
commerce of the Baltic. At Kief a motley crowd of
merchants — Norman, Slav, Hungarian, X'enetian, Genoese,
German, Arab, and Jew — fill the streets, and deal in every
kind of product In 102S there were a dozen markets in
the city. And these Dukes of Kief have no need to seek
their wives within their subjects' tenuis. Jaroslav espouses
a Swede, Ingegard, the daughter of King Olaf. He marries
his sister to King Casimir of Poland ; one of his sons,
Vsievolod, to the daughter of the Emperor Constantine
Monomachus of Byzantium ; another, Viatcheslaf, to a
Countess of Stade ; a third, Igor, to Kunigunde, Countess of
Orlamiinde. His eldest daughter, Elizabeth, weds King
Harold of Norway ; the third, Anastasia, King Andreas i. of
Hungary. Three Bishops, Gautier de Meaux. Gosselin de
Chalignac, and Roger de Chalons, come to Kief, in 1048, to
ask the hand of the second daughter, Anne, for Henry i. of
France.
Before the middle of the thirteenth century all this crumbles
and disappears, leaving no trace behind. The Empire had
not as yet really found its feet : it was not founded upon
the rock, firm to withstand any violent shock. Dukes of
Kief, of Novgorod, of Smolensk, though they were, these
Rurikovitch, in spite of their union of.,warlike instinct with
ver)' remarkable organising powers, bore about with them
the brand of their origin — a ferment of disorder and violence,
from which nothing but the action of time, bringing with
it long established submission to the customs of civilised
societies, and the laws of a strongly organised State, could
have delivered them. Time played them false. The blow
came in 1224, when Baty, with his Mongol hordes, appeared
upon the scene. At that moment, after some attempt, early
in the twelfth century, at concentration, under X'ladimir Mono-
machus, sixty petty princes were quarrelling over scraps
of power and rags of sovereignty between the Volga and the
Bug. Baty and Mangu, a grandson of Gcngis Khan, forced
them into reconciliation.
12 PETER THE GREAT
Centuries of endeavour and of civilising effort were thus
to disappear into the dust raised by the hoofs of a hundred
thousand horses. Of ancient Russia, Europeanised, indeed,
by its conquerors, but in no sense denationalised, — thanks
to the rapid absorption of the scanty Norman element — not
a trace remained. In the following century, between 13 19
and 1340, Kief and the neighbouring countries fell into the
hands of the future Kings of Poland, still Dukes of Lithuania.
After the reign of Giedymine, Jagellon, annexing all the
fragments of the ephemeral sovereignty of Monomachus —
Red Russia, White Russia, Black Russia, Little Russia — to
the new PoHsh-Lithuanian Empire, wielded the sceptre of
' all the Russias,' — as the time-honoured formula now runs.
And the countries he annexed were little more than deserts.
At this moment the history of the Rurikovitch sovereignty
seems utterly closed.
But it springs up afresh, eastward of the huge space
marked out by Fate as the dwelling-place of an innumer-
able population, and the scene of an immeasurable develop-
ment. In the upper basin of the Volga, on the banks of the
Moskva, in the midst of a sparse Finnish population, a poor
village, overlooked by a strong fortified castle, had, since the
twelfth century, been the home and appanage of one of the
descendants of Rurik. Destroyed, more than once, in the
course of incessant warfare with its Rurikovitch neighbours,
swept by the wave of invading Mongols, this village raised
its head again and again, increased in size, and, in the begin-
ning of the fourteenth century, already formed the nucleus
of a fresh agglomeration of Norman, Slav, and Finnish
elements. Taking docile submission to the yoke of the
Asiatic conquerors for his rule, the Kniaz of Moscow ended
by making that yoke serve as an organising instrument,
useful alike for internal government, and external expan-
sion. Humbly, patiently, adroitly, he undertook the duties
of an intermediary — welcomed by one side for his usefulness,
endured by the other as a necessity — between the conquerors
and the conquered ; stooping to play the part of tax-collector
for the common master, of police agent, of executioner, if
need be. Extending and strengthening, by slow degrees,
the superiority thus dearly bought, the wily Kniaz succeeded
each other, until the day should come — long waited, carefully
prepared — when one should be strong enough to break the
THE KREML, AND THE GERMAN FAUBOURG 13
infamous compact, which had served him and his forebears
as a tool for their own emancipation.
Thus well-nigh two centuries passed. Two centuries, in
the course of which the neighbouring Kniaz — of Pereiaslavl,
Riazan, Vladimir, Ouglitch, Halitch, Rostov, Jaroslavl,
Souzdal — became one by one, little by little, first of all
vassals, and finally mere chief subjects, boyards, of the Kniaz
of Moscow, whose power swelled visibly, while the Mongol
Hegemony, worn out and broken up by internal discord,
steadily declined. At last, somewhere about 1480, the
period of probation drew to a close, and astounded Europe
suddenly became aware that, between herself and Asia,
there lay a new Empire, whose chief had formally declared
its independence, having driven the Golden Horde beyond
the newly traced frontiers of the immense territory under
his rule, wedded at Rome, with a Greek Princess from Con-
stantinople, and taken the double-headed eagle for his
emblem. His name was Ivan, known by his subjects as
* Ivan the Great.'
But this new sovereignty was not that of Kief, and, but
for the dynastic origin of its Head, it would seem to have
nought in common with that which constituted the power
and glory of Jaroslav and Vladimir. The Grand Duke of
Moscow might indeed dub himself Sovereign of 'all the
Russias,' but the provinces he thus claimed, and called his
own, were not in his keeping. They belonged to Poland.
The country he actually held was quite independent, so far
as three-fourths of it were concerned, of that conquered by
the ancient Normans, and, everything, or almost everything,
both in his Empire and his Capital, was of newer origin, and
essentially different in character. Europe, so to speak, had
no place there.
The flood, receding from this soil, had left behind it, like
a heavy clay deposit, all its more stable elements — form of
government, customs, habits of thought. No germ of culture
remained, and for the best of reasons. Save for the traditions
of the Byzantine-Russian Church, preserved by Greek monks
and nuns, the state and the society which had struggled
into organised existence, under the tutelage of the successors
of Baty, were essentially Asiatic, and genuinely barbarous.
State and society alike, during their long separation from
Europe, had known nothing of the great school in which the
14 PETER THE GREAT
intellectual and moral unity of the West was shaped : of the
feudal system, the Crusades, chivalr>'. 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
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5e dili indesd . : ' . *- isr^- rsnn 1J> tfie oxeelBie
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•±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
<ir ne rrrrrmnaazcn. : : -^nnsi: giac^:
jy- SrcnisLS^ scK. snx jl^— ^ -^^^ — : - _L^v-e.
j tf ' i a i .agjgi "T^h rite "th'T rarreni u: ife : 2: : -rr. 2: me xirix
ne "nnTTit?rrE. ~ ~ — - -
-.: IT -^e KT^s:-: — .^r _ i.. ^
irr^r:^ r.: n^ r. . . .. -. - : . jest s-orr^ -
ne nurr '"-miiir -yjimr sicz::^ 1 jai<ir isar : nrr
:rrr Jer "v"":rL ier smntaus ji . -'^^ — - .-rrr.
3nrr^ "iijii je 'isr. ~ii ssie die _ _ -::- ~i-"'
j6 peter the great
suspicious, irresolute — he soon gives signs of dizziness and
distress. He would even draw back at the supreme moment,
but for Miedviedief and Hovanski. Miedviedief spurs the
conspirators onward, inspires them with his own passion,
his own feverish love of combat. Hovanski supplies the
formidable weapon he needs, for the successful carrying out
of his designs.
n
In 16S2 the Streltsy — called into existence by Ivan the
Terrible and his companion in arms, Adashef — had but a
short record and a somewhat tarnished glory behind them.
Yet. such as it was, they had contrived to turn it into a
capita], on which they lived in liberal fashion. Free men,
all of them, soldiers from father to son, they formed a
privileged military' class, in the midst of the general ser\'i-
tude, and their verv' privileges had won them an importance
quite out of proportion with their natural business and
service. They were lodged, equipped, and paid by the
state, in times of peace, while other free men were
forced to ser\e unpaid, and at their own charges, even in
time of war. They had a special administration of their
own, and a separate commandant, who was always an im-
portant boyard. In times of peace they kept order in the
streets, did patrol duty, furnished sentries, and guards of
honour, and ser\-ed as firemen. One regiment of picked
men {Strtmiannyi'), ('the spur regiment') attended the
Tsar whenever he went beyond the city walls. In war time
the Streltsy formed the vanguard and the backbone of his
army. There were twenty regiments at Moscow, eight
hundred to one thousand men in each, distinguished by the
colour of their uniforms — red, blue, or green kaftans with
broad red belts, yellow boots, and velvet fur trimmed caps, —
and a varving number in the provinces. Their military
duties not filling all their time, they went into trade and
manufactures; and. seeing they paid neither licence nor taxes,
they easily grew rich. Hence many well-to-do burgesses of
Moscow prayed for leave to be inscribed upon their lists, but
they were an exclusive set, and would have no intruders.^
It was to them that Boris Godunof owed his victory
* Onstrialof, voL L p. 17, etc Berg. Tlie Rtipt ef Tsar Feodor (Petersburg,
1S29), vol. iL p. 36, etc Herrmann, Gachuhte Russlands (Gotha, 1846- 1860),
ToL hr. p. I, etc
THE TSAREVNA SOPHIA «7
over the Samosvanuts Dimitri ; under Tsar Michael, they
captured Marina Mniszech and her last partisan, Zaroutski ;
they took Smolensk from the Poles under Alexis, and de-
fended Tshiguirin against the Turks, under Feodor. During
the long internal and external crisis of the seventeenth
centurj', they constantly took sides with the regular power,
they conquered Rasin, the rebel Cossack, and practically
saved the monarchy ; but the troubles of that time reacted
on them, set up the ferment of agitation in their ranks.
Idleness completed the work of corruption. These natural
champions of order had, for some time before the period of
which I write, been making common cause with insurgents
of all kinds, even giving the signal for riots. Riots, among
the lower classes, had indeed become the order of the
day. Official greed and corruption, and all their consequent
abuses, had revolted the popular souL Here, too, in this
half- formed societ>', 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<idief, all belong to Sophia's party. One of his tutors,
Zotof, who also belonged to it, was forced to flee, and never
was replaced. Left to himself, the child follows his own
fancy, leaning instinctively to foreigners. Thus he learns
many things, but hardly anything of military matters. He
will never be a great soldier, his mind is too practical, I
would even say too bourgeois. He is described, at an early
age, as having laid the Oroujctinaia palata, the court arsenal,
under contribution. But this seventeenth century Mus-
covite arsenal is only military in name. It really is a sort
of Eastern bazaar ; Peter sends there for watches, which he
amuses himself bv taking to pieces, and horticultural imple-
THE TSAREVNA SOPHIA 35
mcnts, the use of which he has explained to him. People
have chosen to exaggerate the extent of his boyish curiosity.^
Let us take any child — a fairly gifted one, of course — with a
bright intelligence, let us suppose him absolutcU- removed
from the ordinary course of systematic education, and at the
same time perfectly free to satisfy the needs of his awaken-
ing intelligence, and his naturally active imagination. His
instinctive desire for knowledge will evident!}' turn in a great
variety of directions. Peter is an avTohidaKTWi, as a diplomat
in his service, writing to Leibnitz, later expressed it-
It does not in the least follow that he was a precocious
student. His exercise-books are still in existence ; at the
age of sixteen, his writing was bad, his orthography lament-
able, and he had not progressed beyond the two first rules
in arithmetic. His tutor, the Dutchman, Franz Timmer-
maim, had some trouble, himself, in working out a sum in
multiplication b)- four figures. It should be added that in
his lessons, arithmetical problems alternated with theorems
of descriptive geometry.^
We who have a regular process of scholastic training, in-
variably and systematically graduated, shrink from seeing
an order of intellectual progress to which we arc accustomed,
and which may after all be merely arbitrary, thus inverted.
But such inversions are frequent, in less precise and rule-
bound intellectual spheres than ours. ^
It is a mere chance, too, which interested Peter, at this
early age, in a class of studies which have but little charm
for most very young minds. In 1686 his attention was
accidentally drawn in conversation to a wonderful instru-
ment brought back by Prince James Dolgorouki, from a
journc)'' abroad. With this instrument, he heard, distances
might be measured without moving a step. Nothing of the
sort had ever yet been seen in the Oroujennaia pnlata. And
forthwith the astrolabe was sent for. Alas ! Dolgorouki
came back empty-handed, the instrument had disappeared
from his house — stolen, no doubt. Luckily, the Prince was
' NasUof, The Early Education of Peter I. {A'tissian /I rehires, 1S75), vol. ii.
p. 47a Comp. Pogodin, Early Years of Peter the Great (Moscow, 1S75),
|). 17. etc.
- B.iron Urhich. i6th Nov. 1707, in Guerrier's Leibnitz in seineii Beziehun^en
sii /'.v 1S73), vnl. ii. p. 71.
* < 1 p. 430. Cii'iiKt of Peter I. {Imperial Archives), section u
Hook 38.
36 PETER THE GREAT
upon the pjint of startinfj once more for the countries where
such wonders p[rcw. Sophia and Galitzin were sending
him to Louis xiv., to ask his help ac^ainst the Turks. The
Most Christian Kini; ^^ve the Ambassador the reception
he might have expected, but the astrolabe was purchased.
When it reached Peter's hands, he was sorely puzzled, not
knowing iiow to use it. Somebody mentioned Timmer-
mann, and the Dutchman, who had been building houses
in the German quarter, became mathematical tutor at Prco-
brajenskole.
Peter had neither time nor wish — nor, with such a master,
had he the means — to make great progress in this branch of
knowledge. In his case, the astrolabe was evidently, and
simply, the accidental manifestation of that instinct of touch-
ing everything, which is at the bottom of all childish natures.
Doubtless, the excessive prominence, in his character, of this
itching curiosity, is in many ways unusual, and denotes not
only a particularly formed and serious-minded nature in the
child himself, but also the existence of very special external
circumstances which influenced his mind. His ultimate
destiny made it necessary that, in the surroundings amongst
which he was placed, the things which should most power-
fully attract his intelligence, ever on the alert for new sensa-
tions — the most attractive, the most curious things — should
also be the most useful and instructive points in the new
world, full of wonders, with which the circle of his own
existence was beginning to find contact.
For, it is clearly improbable — all legends notwithstanding
— that at ten years old, or even at sixteen, the future reformer
should have realised the advantage Russia would find, one
day, in being governed by a Prince who could ^\y fourteen
different trades. Fourteen is the number hallowed by tra-
dition ; but Peter never learnt fourteen trades. He did
study and practise a few, such as turning and dentistry, with-
out apparent profit to any one at all. By this dispersal of
his attention, in spite of the breadth of an eminently compre-
hensive intelligence, he ran the risk of superficiality — and he
did not escape it. In later years, following the example of
his peers, and converting his natural inclinations into reasoned
aptitudes, he will perceive that to say to his subjects (a lazy,
ignorant, and awkward-handed nation), ' Do this or that, be-
stir yourselves, learn ! ' has less effect on them, than the
THE TSAREVXA SOPHIA 37
powerful example of his own action. On principle, therefore,
but also and always by taste, by instinct, by temperament,
and in obedience to the pressure of the atmosphere around
him, he will ci^o on bestirrin^^ himself, gathering up here and
there, pell-mell, and at random, every sort of knowledge, every
kind of facility, working everywhere, and on every under-
taking, with his own hands. And these same influences,
again, drive him, early in life, into the only line in which he
succeeds in becoming a good practical, if not a master-hand,
at the same time providing him with an inexhaustible source
of pleasure, if not of positive and enduring benefit, to himself,
and to his country.
Every one knows the story, — amplified and adorned, of
course, by the tellers, — of the old English boat, found in the
village of Ismailof, in a store of cast-off possessions, once
belonging to the great- uncle of the young hero, Nikita
Ivanovitch Romanof The legend, ingenious to the last,
will have it that Peter, as a child, had such a horror of
water, that he grew pale and trembled at the sight of a
brook. This may, perhaps, have been the mere symbolic
expression of the natural difficulty felt by a landsman, an
inhabitant of the hugest continent in the world, about
entering into intimacy with that distant, invisible, unknown,
well-nigh unattainable, element. Peter will give Russia a
fleet before he gives her a sea. The whole character of his
life-work — precipitate, abnormal, paradoxical — is seen in this
one trait. When the old half-rotten wooden skiff, the
Ismailof boat, attracted the child's attention, it overcame
his instinctive repugnance, and confirmed him in his vocation
as a sailor.
No sufficient attempt has been made to explain the
presence of this boat, in a village close to Moscow, in the
very centre of terra Jirtiia. When, some time later, Peter
established a shipbuilding yard some hundreds of versts
away, on the lake of Perciaslavl, he merely followed a course
which had been already traced out, before him. That
strange thing, a navy without a sea, was his creation, but it
was not his invention. Properly speaking, indeed, he never
invented anything; this will be seen, as the scries of his
manifold realisations is unrolled. Attempts had been made
in this direction, even under the reign of Tsar Alexis ; a
yacht, The Eagle, having been built at Diedinof, on the banks
38 PETER THE GREAT
of the Oka, with the help of foreign carpenter?, brought in
for the purpose, Struys notices this yacht fully in his
Travels} The idea was floating in the air, confused as yet,
but clearly directed towards the desired goal.
The Ismallof boat, like the astrolabe, at first appeared a
■ous object in Peter's eyes. The peasants, in old
^.. . , . ,.ad seen it sailing against the wind, — wonderful indeed !
It was soon launched on a neighbouring pond. But how to
sail it? Timmermann was completely at a loss. Luckily
the artisans. Dutchmen too, who had worked at Diedinof,
had not all disappeared. A few were living in the Faubourg.
Thus, Peter had two more teachers, Karschten-Brandt and
Kort, carjjenters both. They advised the removal of the
boat to Perelaslavl, where there was a huge sheet of water.
Peter took their advice, and set himself eagerlv to work
under their teaching ; but as a matter of fact, his principal
occupation at that moment was that of playing truant. He
did indeed learn some useful things, but chiefly he acquired
habits, and inclinations, — some of them deplorable. He
gained health, too, and vigour, iron muscles, a physical
temperament of extraordinarj' toughness, — save for, and in
spite of, his ner%-ous attacks, the outcome of his hereditary
stain. — and a moral organisation, of mar\ellous suppleness,
robust, enterprising, except in those occasional moments of
weakness.
He made himself friends, too, — quite a little tribe, collected
at random, in his large domestic circle, in the promiscuit\' of
his vagrant existence — grooms from the paternal stables
(koftiouJiy) who rode the little horses of the country with
him, barebacked, — scamps picked up in the streets. He
played soldiers with them, of course, and, naturally, he was
in command. Behold him then, at the head of a regiment!
Out of this childish play rose that might>' 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 <C Europe et cf Asie, p. 315.
8 Kmrakm Archivts {?i\.. Petersburg, 1890-1895), vol. i. p. 55.
THE MONASTERY OF THE TROITSA 47
— her marriage with the Regent and a common throne —
with ever-incrca.sin,f^ ardour. To attain this end, she chibo-
rated a very complicated plan, which called for the inter-
vention of the Pope himself Ivan was to be married, his
wife to be provided with a lover so as to ensure the birth of
children ; Teter, thus put on one side, would be got rid of
somehow. Then, tempted by a proposed reunion, to be dis-
cussed and negotiated, at any rate, between the Orthodox
and the Roman Church, the Pope was to be induced to pro-
claim the illegitimacy of Ivan's children. The ground thus
cleared, Sophia and Galitzin would only have to cccupy it.
Meanwhile the Tsarevna was resolved to brazen it out.
While Shaklovityi, relegated by the Regent's return to the
subaltern position of a partisan and a police agent, kept his
eye on those few of Peter's friends who dared already to
cast aside the mask, she defied public opinion, by decreeing
a distribution of rewards to the companions in arms of
Galitzin, whose victory she still persisted in proclaiming.
Peter, well advised by those about him, refused his sanction.
She did without it : — here was open conflict ! Generals and
officers, loaded with honours and with pensions, betook
themselves to PreobrajenskoTe to thank the Tsar. He re-
fused to see them : — here was public rupture !
II
The historic night of the 7th of August 16S9 closes in at
last. A luminous summer night, darkened, unhappily, by the
contradictions of legend and of history. This much seems
tolerably clear. Peter was suddenly roused from slumber,
by fugitives from the Kreml, who came to warn him that
the Tsarevna had collected an armed band to attack Preobra-
jenskoie and put him to death. Nothing is less clearly
proved than this attempt of hers, nothing indeed is less
probable. The evidence of documents collected by the best
informed of all Russian historians, Oustrialof,^ would rather
go to prove that Sophia neither thought, nor, at that moment,
dared to think, of attacking the camp at Preobrajenskoie.
She knew it to be well guarded, kept on a war footing,
secure against any surprise. She rather feared, or perhaps
* See vol. ii. u. ^b.
48 PETER THE GREAT
feigned to fear, an offensive movement on the part of
these 'pleasure rcfjimcnts,' full of spirit, all of them eager,
longing to distinguish themselves by some bold stroke. It
was a habit of hers, as we know, to feign terror, so as to
give the Streitsy or the Moscow populace a longing to
defend her. So little did she think of taking any action,
that until the next morning, she knew nothing of the warning
carried to her brother the night before, nor of its con-
sequences. For months past, PreobrajenskoYd and the
Krenil had both been on the qui vive, watching, suspecting,
and accusing each other of imaginary attempts. When
Sophia, in the previous month, had paid a visit to Peter in
his camp, on the occasion of the Blessing of the waters of
the laouza, she had brought three hundred Streltsy with
her. A few days later, when Peter went to the Kreml to
congratulate his aunt Anna on her fete-day, ShaklovityY
posted fifty reliable men near the Red Staircase, in case of
accidents.
An armed band was indeed collected within the Kreml,
on that fatal night. With what object? According to
Sophia's later assertion, to escort her, next morning, on a
pilgrimage. Among all those soldiers, several hundreds of
them, picked from the Tsarevna's most devoted followers,
there were only five who dropped a threatening word
against Peter or his mother. Two others, whose names have
gone down to posterity% Mielnof and Ladoguin, thought it a
good opportunity to desert, slip over to the Prdobrajenskoie
camp, and ensure their welcome, by giving the alarm. Some
historians have tal ii them for false zealots, who obeyed a
watchword, given by the party instigating Peter to action.^
This may have been. Let us get to the result, which is a
certainty.
Peter begins by running away. Without thinking of
verifying the reality of the danger threatening him, he
I'umps out of his bed, runs straight to the stables, throws
himself, bare-legged, in his shirt, on to a horse, and hides
himself in the neighbouring forest. A few of his Koniouhy
join him there, and bring him clothes. Then come officers
and soldiers — only a few as yet. The moment Peter sees
himself surrounded, and provided with a sufficient escort,
without waiting to warn his mother, his wife, or his other
> 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/<rr dfr Crosse als Afensch und Kei^ent (Riga, 1823), vol. i.
p. 256 (Russian edition, vol. i. p. 223, note).
to PETER THE GREAT
When he went out to walk the streets of Kocnigsberg, as
a simple tourist, every one took to their heels, to avoid
meeting him, for he had a fertile fancy for jokes of a far
from agreeable order. Meeting a lady of the court one day,
he stopped her with a sudden gesture, shouting 'Halt!' in
a voice of thunder. Then taking hold of the watch, which
hung at her waist, he looked at the hour and departed.^
The Elector, notwithstanding, continued to show his guest
a friendly face, and give him a hospitable welcome. His
love of show and ceremonial was flattered by the presence of
this extraordinary embassy, and he looked forward to the
conclusion of a defensive alliance against Sweden. Thus
he spent 150,000 crowns — it was wasted money. Peter
slipped through his fingers, his mind distracted, taken up
with other things. His attention, or rather that of his
counsellors, was absorbed by political matters, and by Polish
affairs. The death of Sobieski had been followed by the
rival candidatures of the Elector of Saxony and the Prince
de Conti. Peter sided with Augustus, — in other words,
against France, the ally of the Turk. Writing from
Koenigsberg to the Polish lords, he formally announced
his intention of interfering in the struggle. Prince Romo-
danovski should lead an army upon the frontiers of Lithuania.
He had got to threats already.
The embassy dallied at Koenigsberg, waiting on events.
Peter seized the opportunity of satisfying his curiosity, his
impatience to acquire knowledge — both of them as keen as
ever. Certain of these curiosities of his were more than
singular, as when he insisted on seeing a criminal broken on
the wheel, which instrument of torture he apparently dreamt
of introducing, as a matter of variety, into the criminal pro-
cedure of his own country. The authorities demurred, on
the score of the non-existence of any criminal deser\'ing such
a punishment. The Tsar was astounded. 'What, all that
fuss about killing a man ! Why not take one of the servants
of his own suite?'- He was working daily with the Master
of Artillery, Sternfeldt, and after a few weeks, was the
recipient of a regular diploma, which should not be too
seriously taken. Three years later, Peter was with the King
* Posselt, vol. ii. pp. 407, 600, 601 ; Thciner, Historical Mcnumenis {Romej
1859), p. 369 : HeiTinann, GesikuhU Kusslands, vol. iv. p. 67.
' Pbilnitz (Baron Charles Louis), Mitnoirs (Berlin, 1791I, vol. i. p. 179.
THE JOURNEY 8l
of Poland, at the Castle of liirzc, in Lithuania. The two
Sovercijjns, both of them given to eccentricities, amused
themselves by firincj heavy cannon at a mark. Augustus
made two hits, I'etcr never touched the target oncc.^
The young Tsar was already the strange creature with
whom the European world was destined, later, to make
acquaintance, and at whom it was long to marvel and to
tremble. Active beyond all description, turbulent, prying,
cheerful, as a rule, full of jokes and high spirits, good-natured
too, with sudden shifts of temper, fits of gloomy depression,
or violence, or melancholy, genial but wayward, restless and
disturbing. One night, as he sat at supper with the Elector,
in a low room floored with marble, one of the servants
dropped a plate. In a moment Peter had bounded to his
feet, with haggard eyes and features working ; he drew his
sword, and thrust in all directions, fortunately without
wounding any one. When he calmed down, he imperiously
demanded that punishment should be inflicted on the guilty
serving-man. The difficulty was got over by having some
poor devil, already sentenced for a different peccadillo,
whipped before his eyes.-
Early in July, Augustus seeming to be definitely taking
the upper hand in Poland, the embassy started forth afresh.
Vienna was the point on which the journey was to have
been first directed, in the hope of negotiating a treaty of
alliance. But the Tsar's envoy, Nefimof, desired, in appear-
ance at all events, to forestall its efforts. According to his
report, the alliance, offensive and defensi\ e, was already con-
cluded. Lefort, on the other hand, urged a direct move to
Holland, though his somewhat tepid Calvinistic zeal weighed
less in the matter than has been frequently supposed.
Chance had far more to do than has generally been imagined
with the direction of this journey, and even with the general
appearance finally impressed on it by circumstances.
It is strange that Peter did not pause at Berlin on his way
to Holland — he merely passed rapidly across the town. The
future capital of Frederick the Great appeared to him but a
barren field for the gratification of his curiosity. He had
the good fortune to behold, elsewhere, the most attractive
thing in all Prussia, and thus to make acquaintance with one
* Oustrialof, vol. iv. p. 90.
• Tollnitz. Memoirs. Pollniif i« not altogclher a rcliiMc witness.
V
83 TETER THE GREAT
of the fairest fruits of German civilisation and culture. The
Elcctrcss of Brandenburg, the future Queen Sophia of
Prussia, had not accompanied her husband to Koenigsbcrtj.
She had taken advantage of his absence, to pay a visit to her
mother, the Klcctress Sophia of Hanover. Hut the arrival of
the ruler, — still a more or less fabulous monarch, — of
mysterious Muscovy, had not failed to arouse her interest.
Mother and daughter were numbered amongst the most well-
educated women of their day. Sophia Charlotte, at one time
the destined bride of the Due de Bourgogne, grandson of
Louis XIV., had spent two years at the court of Versailles.
Her French associations had clung to her. At the age of
barely nine-and-twenty, she had the reputation of being the
prettiest and the most witty woman in her country. Her
intimate circle was eminently intellectual. Leibnitz, who
was one of its members, had inspired it with the very
lively interest with which the event, which had so excited
the town of Koenigsberg, had personally filled him, open-
ing, as it did, before his versatile mind whole new horizons,
a fresh programme of study, ethnographical, linguistic, and
archxological, a huge scheme of great scientific enter-
prises, in the execution of which, the part of the great
German savant, aided by the Russian Sovereign, seemed
clearly indicated. He had already set himself to learn the
history and the language of the country. Long years before,
he had called Poland the natural rampart of Christianity
against barbarians of every kind, whether Muscovite or Turk.
All this was forgotten. Peter might indeed be a bar-
barian, but he was a barbarian with a great future before
him, and Leibnitz rejoiced over him. ranking him with Kam-
Ki-.Amalogdo-Khan, the Sovereign of China, and Yasok-
Adjan-Xugbad, the King of Abyssinia, his contemporaries,
who likewise seemed to be meditating mighty undertakings.'
Sophia Charlotte had caused circumstantial reports concern-
ing the Tsar's stay at Koenigsberg to be sent her. These,
while giving her no very high idea of the degree of culture
and education she might expect to find in the august
traveller, had not diminished her desire of seeing him. She
kept up an active correspondence on this subject with the
state minister, Fuchs. In May 1697, she wrote: 'I would
have him persuaded to come here, not to see, but to be seen,
' Guerrier, Leibnitz tn seincn Bczithungen zu Russland, pp. 8-20.
THE JOURNEY 83
and wc would willingly keep the money generally sf>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 <iu iioc ku'iw huw to talk ! *
84 PETER THE GREAT
his jesters, and as the silly bufTooncry of that individual
does not seem to please the ladies' taste, he seizes a hut^e
broom and sweeps him outside. But here again, take him
all in all, his attractiveness seems to have been stronger than
the astonishment he aroused. He was a lovable savage at
all events, and, better still, ' He is' (so writes the Electress's
mother) ' an altogether e.xtraordinary man — it is impossible
to describe him or even to imagine what he is, without
having seen him,' Neither the mother nor the daughter
had found those four hours at supper a moment too long.
Both of them would have willingly stayed longer yet, 'without
feeling an instant's weariness.' The younger Electress
closes her letter, recounting her impressions, to Fuchs with
this unfinished but very suggestive sentence : * I have said
enough to weary you, but I cannot do otherwise. I find
pleasure in speaking of the Tsar, and if I had only myself to
consider, I would tell you that ... I shall always have
real pleasure in being of service to you.'^
Leibnitz was not, unfortunately, present at this meeting.
He had reckoned on the passage of the embassy through
Minden, and had hastily sketched out a plan of work and of
reforms to be presented to the Tsar, He only succeeded in
gaining admittance to one of Lefort's nephews, who dismissed
him civilly. Peter remained utterly inaccessible. Learned
men who knew nothing of shipbuilding, and had no know-
ledge of the preparation of fireworks, possessed, as yet, no
interest for him. He panted to see the country of Karschten-
Brandt and Kort. At Schenkcnschen, a Dutch frontier
town, on the road to Amsterdam, a woman asked the
travellers whether they were Christians. There was a
rumour that the Muscovites were on their way to Clcves,
to receive Holy Baptism !
II
Saardam or Zaandam, and the shipwright-Tsar's cottage
in that charming little Low-Country village, to which so many
pilgrimages arc now made, never knew fame till towards the
middle of the eighteenth century. Baron Pollnitz, who
devotes five pages of his memoirs, written in 1726, to a
• Krm.inn, Memoirs bearing on the History of Sophia Charlotte (Berlin, l86i),
pp. 116-120. The details of the iiUervicw an, taken from the Correspondence of
the two Princesses with Fuchs.
THE JOURNEY 85
description of this out-of-the-way corner, makes no mention
of the illustrious guest to whom it lias owed its later
glory. The celebrated writer, Wagenaer, does not refer
to Zaandam, in his account of Peter's visit to Holland. ^
A curious example this, of the fashion in which popular
imagination will add its own marginal notes to a given page
of history. Historically speaking, we may be quite sure,
the ^^reatcr part of the time-honoured details of Peter's
residence in the neighbourhood of Amsterdam, have no
foundation in fact. It is not even absolutely certain that
he ever occupied the cottage now so piously preserved.
According to Scheltema, who quotes Noomen's diary, as
yet unpublished, the dwelling laelonged to a blacksmith
of the name of Gucrrit Kist. The records of the Lutheran
community of the place speak of a different proprietor
— Hoij Thijsen. All the workmen's houses lining the little
canal which falls into the V so absolutely resemble each
other, that some confusion may very well have arisen.
\'oltaire and his disciples have indeed followed the life of
the heroic apprentice step by step, and hour by hour, down
the whole course of his legendary freak ; they see him
making his bed in his humble cottage, cooking his food,
constructing first a model ship, and then a model windmill,
each of them four feet long, with his own hands. He fits a
mast into his sailing boat, spends long da\-s in the ship-
building yards, wielding the hatchet or the plane, and in
spite of all these multitudinous occupations he visits saw-
mills, spinning-mills, rope-walks, compass-makers' and lock-
smiths' workshops. Going into a paper-mill, he lays hands
on the apparatus for drawing the sheets, and performs
this delicate task with the most perfect success. How long
must it have taken him to do all these things? Almost two
years, Voltaire assures us.
The Tsar spent one -.ccek in the village of Saardam.-
What brought him there ? Chance, to a certain extent,
and, to a very great one, that ignorant simplicity which was
his constant companion throughout his first European tour.
Zaandam was, at that time, a fairly important shipbuilding
* Wn'^ffna^r, /fisfory <^f AmTtfrii<tm (.Amsterdam, 1750), p. 'z\. See also
Va -'.vol. xvi. pn. 377-579.
' \ liimsclf on this puint. Compare his
Works, 1853 edition, vol. iv. pp. S76 and 663.
86 PETER THE GREAT
centre, numbering some fifty ship-yards, but, whether as
regards the importance or the perfection of the work turned
out, none of these establishments could bear any comparison
with the shipbuilding yards at Amsterdam. Peter, leaving
the majority of his travelling companions at Koppenbriigge,
and accompanied by some dozen of his 'volunteers,' passed
through the Capital without a halt, and hurried straight to
the little village. Wherefore? because tiie best workmen
amongst the Dutch carpenters, none of them, of course, first-
rate, whom he had employed at PreobrajenskoTe, at P^reias-
lavl and at Voroneje had chanced to be natives of Zaandam.
Whence he had concluded, that to see fine ships, and learn
how to make them, it behoved him to go there, and not
elsewhere.
He established himself in the village inn. Faithful to his
mania for dressing-up, he forthwith sent for suits like those
worn bv the local boatmen — red waistcoats with large
buttons, short jackets, and wide breeches. Thus garbed, he
and his followers wandered through the streets, visiting the
work-yards, even entering the workmen's houses, to the
huge astonishment of their denizens. These houses bore a
strong resemblance to those Peter had been accustomed
to inhabit in his own countr>'. 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 P<ter the Great's First Jcitt tin- (Va.x'xs, 1S12), p. 59,
etc.; Nartof, A"' '"'■' of Feter the Great (St. rcters»>urg, 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<jen, in 1716, with a green cap on
his head, a black military cravat tightly buckled round his
neck, and his shirt collar fastened by a big silver button, set
with mock stones, such as his own officers were in the habit
of wearing. A brown overcoat with horn buttons, coarse
worsted stockings, full of darns, and very dirty shoes, com-
pleted his costume.^ He agreed to wear a wig, but insisted
on its being very short, so that he might be able to thrust it
into his pocket ; and his own hair, which he rarely cut,
showed far below it.
His hair grew naturally very long and thick. In 1722,
during his Persian Campaign, being inconvenienced by its
quantity, he had it cut, but, being very economical in mind,
he insisted on having a new wig made out of it, which wig
now figures on the lay figure in the Winter Palace. It is
indeed the only genuine thing about that figure ; the waxen
face, with its glass e)-es, was modelled on a cast taken after
death, and the weight of the plaster on the decomposing
flesh threw all proportions out. Peter's cheeks were
naturally full and round. He never wore the coat of pale
blue gros de Tours, silver-trimmed, nor the sword-belt
embroidered to match, and the silver-clocked poppy-coloured
stockings, in which the figure is dressed up, but once in all
his life. That was at Moscow, in 1724, on the day of
Catherine's Coronation. She had worked w ith her own hands
on the splendid garment, and he consented to wear it for
the occasion. But he kept to his old cobbled shoes. The
rest of his authentic and everyday garments are placed in
two wardrobes which surround the throne — itself a mock
one, on which the lay figure is seated. There is a thick cloth
cloak, worn threadbare, a hat devoid of lace, pierced by a
bullet at Poltava, and some grey woollen stockings, full of
darns. In the corner stands the famous doubina, a fairly
thick ivory-headed rattan cane, with which we shall make
closer acquaintance.
The sovereign's intimate circle frequently saw him in his
shirt-sleeves, for, even at table, he never scrupled to take off
his coat if he was too hot. Restraint, of any kind, he never
would endure.
' LundbLid, Life of Charles XII. (German Translation, Jensscn-Tuch,
Hamburg, 1S37), vol. 1. p. bO.
io8 PETER THE GREAT
II
' The soul's joy lies in doing.' The p^reatcst of northern
poets was swift to recognise the hero of that mighty series
of brilliant exploits, the image of which I would fain evoke,
and has summed him up — his temperament, his character,
and almost all his genius — in those few words. As Posselt
says, 'In Tliatcudtangc zvar scin zi'alircs Gcnic': — Yes; his
strength, his greatness, and his ultimate success, were all
of them due to that vital energy which made him, both
physically and morally, the most turbulent man, the most
indifferent to fatigue, the most intensely sensible of X\\Kt joy
of action, whom the world has ever seen. Nothing more
natural than that the legends should have described hiin as
a supposititious child, the son of foreign parents. His whole
nature appears utterly at variance with the surroundings
into which he was born. He has no prejudices, and his
Russian subjects brim over with them. They are fanatics in
their own religion ; he is almost a Free-thinker. They look
askance at every novelty ; he is never weary of innova-
tions. They are fatalists; he, an originating force. They
worshi[) form and ceremony ; he views all such things with
an almost cynical scorn. Finally, and above all. they are
indolent, lazy, emotionless, — frozen, as it were, into a per-
petual winter, or slumbering in some everlasting dream.
He, driven by the feverish love of movement and of labour,
which I have already described, wakes them roughly from
their torpor, and their sluggish inactivity, with downright
blows, falling on them with sticks, and, not unfrequently,
with axes. It would be interesting to follow his perpetual
comings and goings, even during the space of a few months.
Cast a mere glance over the list of his correspondence with
Catherine — some 223 letters, published, in 1 861. by the Minis-
try for Foreign Affairs. The various dates— from Lemberg
in Galicia, from Marienwcrdcr in Prussia, from Tsaritsin on
the Volga, — in the south of his empire, from Vologda, in the
north, from Berlin, Paris, Copenhagen — make the brain reel.
One moment he is in the depths of Finland inspecting
forests ; then again in the Ural inspecting mines. Soon he
is in Pomerania, taking part in a siege ; in the Ukraine,
where he is occupied in breeding sheep ; at the brilliant
PHYSICAL PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS 109
Court of some German prince, where lie acts as his own
Ambassador ; and then, suddenly, in the Bohemian moun-
tains, where he enacts the part of a private tourist. On the
6th of July, 1715, I find him at St. I'etcrsburG^, about to put
to sea with his fleet. On the 9th he is back again in his
capital, sendinL; the Montenegrins a consolatory letter con-
cerning the excesses committed on them by the Turks,
signing a convention with the Prussian Minister, and giving
Menshikof instructions as to the preservation of the timber
in the neighbourhood of the town. On the 12th he is at
Revel : on the 20th he has rejoined his fleet at Kronstadt,
and has forthwith embarked with it.^ And so on, year in
and year out, from the beginning to the end of his life. He
is always in a hurr\- : he makes his coachman drive full
gallop ; when he is on foot he never walks — he runs.
When did he take his rest, then ? It is not easy to con-
ceive. He would sit far into the night, glass in hand, but
even then he was discussing, holding forth, trying his guests
sorely, horn time to time, with his sudden changes from
gaiety to ill-humour, his sallies, his ill-bred jokes, and fits of
fury ; and he would give audiences at four o'clock in the
morning. This was the hour for which he summoned his
two Ambassadors, Ostermann and Boutourlin, before send-
ing them to Stockholm, after the conclusion of peace with
Sweden, in 172 1. He received them, garbed in a short
dressing-gown, below which his bare legs were exposed, a
thick nightcap, lined with linen, on his head — for he per-
spired violently — and his stockings dropped down over
his slippers. According to his orderly officer, he had been
walking about for a considerable time, awaiting the arrival
of the two gentlemen. Forthwith he fell upon them, ques-
tioned them closely, and in every direction, to make sure
they thoroughly knew what they were about, and then, having
dismissed them, dressed hastily, swallowed a glass of vodka
(Russian brandy), and hurried off to his dockyards.-
ICven the pleasures he permitted himself — banquets, illumi-
nations, masquerades — imposed extra labour on him ; he
took more pains than actual relaxation, letting off his own
fireworks, directing the order of processions, beating the big
drum — for he was drum-major among other things — and
leading the dances, for he had made a study of the chore-
* Golikof, vol. vi. pp. 33, 35, 321. * Sclierer, vol. iii. p. 267.
no PETER THE GREAT
graphic art. In 1722 at Moscow, at the wedding of Count
Golovin with the daughter of Prince Romodanovski, he
performed the duties of the house-steward. The heat
having become oppressive, he had the necessary tools for
opening a window brought to him, and thus employed him-
self for half an hour. He went about gravel\% carrving the
staff, which was his sign of office, pirouetted before the
bride, remained standing during the feast, directing the
waiting, and ate nothing himself until all was over.^ He
gave personal and active attention to the treatment of his
negro page, who suffered from taenia.-
But indeed his favourite occupation, even in his hours of
recreation, was v.-ork, perpetual work. Thus he engraved
on copper, and turned in ivory. In May 171 1, the French
envoy Baluze, to whom he had granted audience at Jaworow,
in Poland, found him in the garden, in the company of a
fair lady. He was pushing his suit with a charming Pole,
Madame Sieniawska, and meanwhile, saw and plane in hand,
he was busily engaged in building a boat !^
Nothing but illness, and consequent sheer inability to
move, would induce him to cease, or even diminish, this wild
expenditure of strength. And if this did occur, he was full
of distress and regret, showering apologies on those who
worked under him. ' Let them not,' so he writes, ' fancy he
was idle ; he was really incapable of moving, quite worn
out.' And even while complaining and chafing against this
condition of enforced inaction, — as, for example, in 1708,
during a violent attack of scorbutic fever, — he would per-
sonally direct the repression of a Cossack revolt on the Don,
the victualling of his armies, the building operations of
various kinds already begun in his capital, and a mass of
other details of every kind.*
Not one escapes him. At Archangel, on the Dvina, he
takes it into his head to inspect every one of the boats
which carry the rustic pottery, made in the neighbourhood,
to the market. So vigorously does he set about it, that he
ends by tumbling into the hold of one vessel, and smashing
- Bergholz's Joumat, Biischingz-Magazin, vol. xx. p. 462 ; Hj-nerof, Tlu
Countess Golovkin (St. Petersburg, 1867), p. 102, etc.
' For this anecdote, with its coarse details, see Poushkin's Works, 1878
edition, vol. v. p. 278.
» Despatch from Baluze to the King, May 12, 171 1, French Foreign Ofiice.
* Golikof, vol. ill. p. 301.
PHYSICAL PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS in
a whole cargo of the fragile ware.^ In Januar>-, 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<Ki
some living specimens of the human race : a man with
some monstrous infirmity, and children afflicted with fdiysi-
cal malconformaticMis.' The great man bdieved that sndi
exhibitions as these might serve the cause of sctertce.
n
His mind was clear, perspicuous, exact, gmng straight to
its p(Mnt, unhe^tatingly and unswervingly — ^Uke a tool
wielded by a sure hand. In this respect, his conespcHMieiice
is exceedingly charactenstic. He never writes IcMig letters,
like his heiress, Catherine IL — he has no time for that. He
has no style, no rhetoric — he fauLs both in cal^raf^qr and in
spelling. His handwriting is generally as illegible as that
of Napoleon. In most of his words thoe axe letters missing.
.A. note addressed to Menshikc^ begins thus: — 'Ma kcs
brude in Kamamara^ which is intended to mean ' llein Herz-
bruder und Kamarad ' (my heart's brother, and comrade ?'.
Even in his s^nature, jj[ej&4', he introduces a whim-
sical abbreviaticMi, borrowed firom die Slavmic alphabet.
But he says wliat he has to say, well and quickly,
finding the right ex|Hession. the words which best con-
vey and sum up his thoi^^ts, widKNit any delay or
apparent effort He is rather food of a joking style of
composition, and the great Catherine's peoiliarity in this
respect may have been a mere imitation <^ lus. Thus, for
example, he writes to Menshikof in the character of a d<^ of
which his favourite b particularly food. Very often he will
* GolikaC, ToL vn. 9-84. * B Muki ^ gi-M a ^ 1 ■'■ , voL zix. p. 115.
136 PETER THE GREAT
break out into sallies, often carried much too far, both in
thought and in expression ; but oftener still, he is incisive
and sarcastic. Vice- Admiral Cruys sent him a Report, in
which ho complained of his officers, and complimented the
Tsar himself, saying, that Peter, ' himself an accomplished
sailor, would know better than any one how indispensable
discipline was in the Nav}-.' He replied, 'The Vice-
Admiral chose his own Subordinates, he can therefore blame
none but himself for their faults. On quite a recent occasion,
he appeared less convinced of the qualities which he now
attributes to the Sovereign. His criticisms and his com-
mendations were doubtless made after he had been drinking.
They have not a leg to stand on. Either he must cease to
include vie in his list of skilful sailors, or he must no longer
say ivhite ivhen I say black! ^
There is something oriental in the natural imagery and
picturcsqueness of his style. Referring to his alliance with
Denmark, and the disappointment it had caused him, I find
this reflection, written in his hand, ' Two bears in the same
lair never agree.' And another, 'Our alliance is like two
young horses harnessed to a carriage.' - Speaking of Poland,
where the public mind is in a state of continual ferment, he
writes, 'Affairs there are just like new braha' (a drink made
of barley and millet). A man who talks idly is compared to
' a bear who talks about gelding a mare.' Even as a
legislator, he makes use of this sort of language. When he
creates the post of Attorney-General in the Senate, he de-
clares his desire to prevent that body from ' playing at cards
with the law.s, and sorting them, according to their colours,'
adding that the Attorney-General is to be ' his eye.'
Though a poor historian, from the artistic point of view,
he was far from lacking the historic sen.se. He described
events very ill, but he understood their meaning and their
bearing very well indeed. Even in his letters to Catherine,
which arc of the most confidential kind, his comments are
exceedingly correct. He evidently had the clearest compre-
hension of what he was doing, and of what was happening
to him.
His fancy was naturally attracted by what was large, and
even by what was exaggeratedly huge — a very oriental
* Oustrialof, vol. iv. p. 272.
■•' 1 7 12, and 1 7 16, loiters to Catherine I. (186 1 edition), pp. 29 and 49.
INTELLECTUAL TRAITS AND MORAL FEATURES 137
quality, again. In his last years ho meditated a sort of
reconstruction of the Colossus of Rhodes. A huge tower
was to have been set astride over the strait, between Kron-
stadt and Kronsloot. It was to be crowned by a fortress
and a lighthouse, and below it the largest vessels were to
pass with ease. The foundations were actually laid in 1724.^
He would fall into fits of feverish enthusiasm, epic or tragic,
and this, with freaks of eccentricity, and stains of coarseness,
which have puzzled many excellent judges. There is some-
thing Shakespearian about some of his inspirations. In
1697, when his departure for Europe was delayed by the
discovery of Tsikler's plot — struck by the link existing
between the criminality of the present and that of the past
— he caused the corpse of Ivan Miloslavski, which had been
rotting in the tomb for twelve years past, to be disinterred.
The remains were taken to Preobrajenskoie on a sledge,
dragged by twelve hogs, and placed in an open coffin under
the scaffold on which Tsikler and his accomplice Sokovnin
were to die by inches — cut to pieces, hacked slowly limb
from limb. At every knife-thrust the blood of the con-
demned men was to flow, in an avenging stream, on all that
remained of the hated enemy, who had been snatched from
his silent grave, to undergo the ghastly reprisals of his
conqueror.- In 1723, another scene, less hideous, but quite
as extraordinary, was enacted at Preobrajenskoie. Peter
caused his wooden cottage, which — (it had been temporarily
removed) — had been replaced, by his orders, in its original
position, to be burnt. In those days, and in a country, the
inhabitants of which were so little removed from the nomadic
form of existence, dwellings were looked upon as furniture.
It was a symbolic and commemorative conflagration. Under
that roof— as Peter confided to the Duke of Holstcin — he
had conceived the plan of his terrible duel with the Swedish
monarch, now brought to a happy close ; and in his joy over
the peace thus restored, he desired to efface every memory of
the anguish of the past. But he took it into his head to
heighten the solemnity of this pacific demonstration by a
display of fireworks. He kindled the half-rotten timbers of
his cottage with Roman candles, and set the roof alight
* Golikof, vol. X. p. 425.
• Jcliaboujski's Memoirs, p. 112; Gordon's /('wrwa/, March 4, 1697; Ous-
trialof, vol. iii. p. 22.
138 PETER THE GREAT
with many-coloured fires, beating the drum himself, mean-
while, from the beginning to the end of the auto da ft'}-
Now and again, even in a far more elevated sphere of con-
ception and of feeling, he seems to rise without an effort, and
hover with those choicest souls in history, whose flight soared
highest, and wiiose scope was widest. In 17 12, Stephen
lavorski, the Little-Russian monk whom he had brought
from Kief to ^loscow, and raised to a bishopric, publicly
found fault with him, thundering reproaches, in one of his
sermons, against husbands who forsook their wives, and
men who would not fast at the appointed seasons. This was
rank high treason, and a report to this effect was sub-
mitted to the Sovereign. Peter merely made this note on
the margin of the document : ' First of all, face to face, — then
before witnesses.'
When lavorski made as though he would retire into a
monastery, he would not hear of it ; but he caused the
Patriarch of Constantinople to send him a dispensation,
which relieved him from the necessity of observing the
Russian Lent.- A fanatic attempted, one day, to murder
him, firing two pistol shots at him in his sleep. The weapon
missed fire each time, and the would-be assassin, overcome
with terror, woke the Tsar, and told him what had happened.
' God,' he said, ' must have sent him to give the monarch a
miraculous sign of His protection,' adding, 'now kill me!'
' Nobody kills Envoys,' responded Peter calmly, and he let
the fellow go.^ This anecdote may not be absolutely
authentic ; and it was somewhat unlike Peter, I confess, to
allow such a fine opportunity for judicial proceedings — with
all the paraphernalia of examination, search for accomplices,
and sittings in the Torture Chamber — to escape him. He
may, indeed, have allowed lavorski, if he were the only
person clearly implicated, to go free. But the adventure, — a
pure invention, possibly, or at all events an arrangement of
facts, — corresponds to an attitude of mind very characteristic
of the Sovereign, and especially of his later manner. I
frequently notice him giving himself airs of superior-minded-
ness, and of a scornful philosophy as regards his own person,
and this under the most varied circumstances. When he
returned from Warsaw, after his disastrous campaign on the
' Bergholr, Biischingz- Magazin, vol. xxi. p. 202.
' Solovief, vol. xvi. p. 324. ' Golikof, vol. x. p. 176.
INTELLECTUAL TRAITS AND MORAL FEATURES 139
Pruth, he was complimented on his happy return. ' My
happiness,' was his reply, 'amounts to this — that instead of
having received a hundred strokes with a rod, I have only
been given fifty.' Then, speaking to himself, ' I came, I
saw, I conquered,' and as if correcting himself, * hardly that !
hardly that !' Nicplouief, one of his favourite pupils, arrived
late for a morning appointment with the Tsar, in one of
the naval workshops. The Sovereign was waiting for him.
Nieplouicf made his excuses. He had sat up late the night
before with friends. ' Very well, I forgive thee, because thou
hast told the truth ; and besides ' — here Peter would seem
to have reverted to his own peculiarities, and applied one of
the national proverbs to the incident — ' is not every man the
grandson of a woman } ' (K^o babie nic vtiouk f) ^
Were these methods of thought, of speech, of action
natural to the Tsar? Did they really correspond to his
innate qualities of mind and character? Were they not
rather a deliberate post\ which he would occasionally cast
aside, through inadvertence, caprice, or downright weari-
ness? The idea is admissible, at all events, so frequently
did he belie and contradict his own behaviour. When he
made his entry into Dcrbent in 1723 he was heard to say,
' Alexander built this town ; Peter has taken it ! ' On his
return from his Persian campaign he caused his easy con-
quest to be thus described on one of the innumerable
triumphal arches already erected at Moscow, even before the
victory of Poltava :
• Struxerat fortis, sed fortior banc cepit urbem.*
That day, evidently, he had quite forgotten to be modest !
At the taking of Narva, in 1704, he forgot even to be
generous — struck the enemy's commandant, Horn, whose
only fault was that he had defended the place too bravely ;
and caused the corpse of his wife, who had been killed in the
assault, to be cast into the water.* In 17 10, at the taking of
Wiborg, he granted the honours of war to the besieged, and
then, when the capitulation was signed, he kept the garrison
prisoners. This incident occurred again both at Derpt and
» NiJ,^loM;cl'5 ^'emoirs (Sk. Petersburg, 1893), p. 106.
- Lundblad, vol. i. p. 17 : Adlcrfcld, Histoire militaire dt Charles XII.
(Paris, 1 74 1), vol. ii. p. 234.
I40 PETER THE GREAT
at Riga.* Yet this same man, after the battle of Twaer-
myndc (in July 1714), embraced Ehrenskcjld, a naval captain,
and declared himself proud of havini^ had to strugc^le with
such an adversary, fie carried out the conditions of peace
signed with Sweden, in 172 1, loyally enough, but the fashion
in which he had opened hostilities on that occasion was
a very pattern of knavery. In May 1700, returning to
Moscow from Voroneje, he reproached the Swedish Resi-
dent, Knipcrcron, in the most friendly terms, with the alarm
apparently felt by his daughter, then paying a visit to
Voroneje, as to the imminence of a conflict between the two
countries. He had done his best to calm her. ' Silly child,*
he had said, 'how can you imagine that I would be the first
to make an unjust war, and break a peace which I have
sworn shall be eternal ? ' He embraced Knipercron before
witnesses, and made him the most reassuring protestations,
vowing that if the King of Poland were to seize Riga, he,
Peter, would take it back, and restore it to the Swedes.
At that very moment he had actually undertaken to join
Augustus against Sweden. The common plan of attack
was prepared, and the partition of the expected booty duly
arranged. On the Sth of the following August, having heard
from Oukraintsof, his Envoy at Constantinople, that the
signature of peace with the Porte, which he had been await-
ing before throwing off the mask, was an accomplished fact,
his troops were instantly set in motion, and marched towards
Narva. At that very instant his other Knvo)-, Prince Hilkof,
was received in audience by Charles Xll., and gave him fresh
assurances of his master's pacific intentions.-
The essentially practical turn of his mind not unfrcquently
rendered it narrow and mean. When Leibnitz proposed to
him to establish magnetic observatories all over his Em-
pire, the great savant very nearly forfeited the Tsar's good
graces.^ IJut this did not prevent him from endeavouring
to discover the strait which was later to bear the name of
Behring. That was an evident commercial outlet, and there-
fore a desirable end to be attained. His economy amounted
* Polevoi, History of Pcier the Greai (St. Petersburg, 1843), vol. iii. pp. 79, 89.
Compare Peter's U'niini^ and Corresfiotttience, vol. iii. pp. pg, and III.
' Oustri.ilof, vol. iii. p. 369: vol. iv. P.art ii. pp. 159-161 ; Frjxeli, History
of Charles XII., ' ! tjy Jensen (Brunswick, 1S61), vol. i. p. 78.
' Baer, Peters I ti/n die E}-j.<eiterung der Gcograpkischen Kctttnisse
(St. Petersburg, 1S68), p. 56.
INTELLECTUAL TRAITS AND MORAL FEATURES 141
to absolute stincjincss. He would use the mathematical
instruments, which never left his person, to measure the
daily consumption of the cheese served up to him ; and to
make amends for the shabby salary he i;ave his chief cook,
Veltcn, he turned the meals to which he invited his friends
into picnics, at a ducat a head.^ His love of interfering
with everybody and everything made him always willing
to act as godfather, but the present he bestowed on the
child's mother, when, according to the custom of the
country, he kissed her cheek, never exceeded a ducat slipped
below her pillow, in the case of an officer's wife, or a rouble,
in that of the wife of a private soldier.^ He gave thirty
roubles to a pilot named Antip Timofieief, who saved his
life in a hurricane on the White Sea in 1694.2 And this
was a great effort of generosity on his part.
And yet I believe he was always, and everywhere, per-
fectly sincere with himself, and perfectly natural, even in his
most contradictory moments. He was naturally diverse in
character, for reasons to which I shall have to refer again,
and both his constitution and his moral education were per-
fectly different from those to which we are accustomed.
The country v.hich gave him birth, the race to which he
belonged, the tradition from which he proceeded, must
never be forgotten. Rurik, Oleg, Saint Vladimir, Sviato-
polk, and Monomachus, those heroes of Russian history and
legend, are great figures indeed, but they must not be con-
founded with the historic and legendary glories of ancient
Europe. They are as different from these, in character, as
they are in name. There is nothing about them of Bayard
or of Francis 1. Rather, with their patriarchal customs, they
bear a moral resemblance to the kings of Scripture. The
Russians of the present day will not, I am sure, consider
this assertion either as a gratuitous insult, nor as an unjusti-
fiable denial of their possession of the instinct of chivalry ;
I would just as soon deny the immense knowledge, and the
admirable education, by which so many of them are distin-
guished. But not the less true is it that, in Peter's days,
most Russians could not read, and that, no knightly lance
having ever been broken in their country, they passed
through the Middle Ages without any knowledge of chivalry,
just as later they passed through the Renaissance period
> 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<kU dtr Htfftarrtn (Licgnitx, 1789), P- 409
INTELLECTUAL TRAITS AND MORAL FEATURES 155
loudly ref)orted the evil deeds of his ministers, at his table,
relating their thefts and their embezzlements. Peter e\-en
occasionally deputed them to avenge him. On these occa-
sions they would carefully contrive to make the guilty
person drunk, would pick a quarrel with him, and then
thrash him soundly.* Strahlenberg's list does not give the
names of the two most famous members of this burlesque
and pitiful legion : the Russian, Balakiref, and the Portu-
guese, D' Acosta, a relation, doubtless, of the celebrated con-
vert Uriel. To this last, Peter confided the functions of
director-general and oi^niser of the revels, and Head of the
staff employed in them. In 1713 he gave him the title of
Count and Han of the Samoyedes. This last promotion
was made the occasion of a series of burlesque ceremonies,
in which several families of real Samoyedes, brought for
the purpose from the depths of Siberia, were forced to figure.
Amongst them appeared one of the Empress's cooks, dis-
guised as a Samoyede, wnth a huge pair of stag's hcMns
on his head, and girt with a jeliow ribbon, to which was
suspended a medal, bearing the name ' Actaeon ' engraved
upon it Peter occasionally associated this man with
Oushakof and Balakiref, and frequently made him his
favourite butt. The poor wretch had a wife, whose reputa-
tion was of the lightest, and the Tsar never failed, when he
saw him before company, to lift tn-o of his fingers, with a
symbolic gesture, above his forehead.*
These forms of amusement, coarse as they seem, especially
in these days, might have passed almost uncriticised. They
were the natural, and, in a sense, the indispensable, rebound
of an existence devoted to a toil, which, without them, would
have exceeded the limit of human strength, even in the case
of such an exceptionally robust nature as Peter's. The great
man thus instinctively sought relief for his overstrained
ner\-es, and, extreme as he was in all particulars, inevitably
fell into the worst excesses. It might even be urged that
the disgusting, cynical, or inhuman side of his beha\nour
was atoned for by the unconstrained gaiet>* 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 <tf tfaie great rdbmier, described than in actiw
operatioa, — for actkm was his in¥ariable cooditioo. It ncnr
remains for me to sliov diem in more direct ooonectioa with
the realities of lile, and of practical gawe ram ent-
Peter's ideas came to him in dkoals. Their abundance is
proved b>- 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<Jmievski, Tht
Empress Catheiittt II. (St. Pelcrsburj;, 1684), p. 154.
M
178 PETER THE GREAT
and supervise those officials, civil or military, who were
stationed too far friMii him to be under his personal eye.
He corresponded with these spies, and gave them very
extensive powers. Field-Marshal Shcrcmctief, who was
emploNed to put down a revolt in Astrakhan, was thus
watched by a sergeant of the guard, Shtchcpotief. Baron
\'on Schleinitz, the Tsar's minister in Paris, was spied on
by one of his own copying clerks, named lourine.^ My
readers will recognise the methods which sent Hellegarde,
Dubois, and Dclmas, to represent the convention in the camp
of General Dumouriez. There is a close family resemblance
between all revolutions.
A contemporary memoir writer describes a single year
of the great Russian reign, as being hardly more than an
enumeration of tortures and executions.- The arrest of
one culprit brought about the arrest of ten, twenty, or even
a hundred more. The man was first of all put to the torture,
to force him to give the names of his accomplices, which
names he gave, not unfrequcntly, at random. When his
memor)- failed him, a sort of coarse canvas hood was put
over his he.ad, and he was led through the streets, in search
of passers-by, whom he might point out to the oflficcrs of
justice. Then a shout would rise, more terrible even than the
call of 'fire,' and the most populous quarters would straight-
way become a desert. ' The tongue, the tongue,' thus the
populace designated the involuntary, but generally docile
instrument of this hunt for culprits, and forthwith there was
a general saiivc qui pent? Secret accusations were of common
occurrence. A series of ukases provided for them, offering
encouragement and bounties to informers, and threatening
any persons knowing anything affecting the safety of the
Tsar or of the empire, who hesitated to come forward, with
the most terrible chastisements.* The usual bount)' was a
sum of six roubles, but in special circumstances, it rose much
higher. In 1722, ten bags, each containing 100 roubles,
were laid, with a lantern beside them, in one of the Moscow
squares. The contents, according to an announcement,
' Golikof, vol. viii. p. 406. "^ Jeliaboujski, p. 26.
' //'/</., p. 274 (Kditor 8 note).
* Nov. 1st, 1705; March 2nd, 1711; Aug. 25th and Oct. 25th, 1715: Jan.
25th, Sept. 26th, and Dec. 24th, 1716; April i6th and 19th, 1717 ; Jan. 19th,
171S: April i6lh, 1719; Feb. 9th and July 22nd, 1720; Feb. 19th, 1721 ;
Jan. nth, 1722.
PRINCIPLES AND SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 179
placed on the same sjiot, were to belong to any person
who should give infi)rni;ition as to the author of a pamphlet
against the Tsar, which had been found in one of the
churches within the Kreml. The informer was further
promised a gift of land, and a post in the public service.
Any man who chose to pronounce the time-honoured
formula, S/o:-o i dido (literally ' wcn'd and action '), and thus
to affirm his knowledge or suspicion of an)' act punishable
by the secret police, could call for a criminal enquiry. And
a very small thing, an imprudent word or even less, was
held to justify suspicion. A peasant was put to the torture,
and condemned to hard labour for life, for having, when in a
state of intoxication, done obeisance to the Tsar ' in an un-
usual manner.' Another shared his fate for not having been
aware that the Tsar had assumed the title of Emperor. A
priest who had spoken of the sovereign's illness, and had
appeared to admit the possibility of his death, was sent as
a convict to Siberia. A woman found letters, traced by an
unknown hand, and in an unknown tongue, on a barrel of
beer in her own cellar. She was examined, could give no
explanation, and died under the knout. Another woman's
screams and wild convulsions disturbed the service in church.
She was blind, and jjrobably epileptic, but there was just a
chance that she might have deliberately attempted to cause
scandal. She was put to the question. A tipsy student who
had spoken some unseemly words, was given thirty lashes
with the knout ; his nostrils were torn out, and he was sent
to hard labour for life. I c]uote from official documents,
from the minutes of the Russian Star Chamber,^ and, save
for the knout, I could easily have mistaken them for the
minutes of the Courts presided over by Couthon, and St
Just.
Peter was not, indeed, altogether devoid of anj- idea of
clemency, lie is superior, in this matter, to the ordinar)'
type of revolutionists, and justifies the idea I have formed of
his character. In 1708, I find him desiring Dolgorouki to
treat those members of Boulavin's insiuTcction, who should
willingly make their submission, with indulgence. When
Dolgorouki betrays his astonishment, the Tsar insists,
pointing out the necessity of distinguishing ca.ses in which
severity was indispensable from those in which it may be
* Sicmicvski, Glovo t Ditto, p. 51.
i82 PETER THE GREAT
degree of culpability inherent to the crimes to be suppressed
— all he thought of was his personal interest in their repres-
sion. Now as this interest, which was also the interest of
the State, admitted of no gradation, neither did the punish-
ments to be inflicted admit of any. The civil ukases and
regulations were just as ferocious as those applied to military
matters. Death to the soldier marching to the assault, who
shall give vent to ' wild cries,' or stop to pick up a wounded
man, 'even his own father.' Death to the office clerk, who
should not complete a given piece of work within the time
the law prescribed. Death, in almost every imaginable casc.^
Towards the end of the reign, the mutual dread and dis-
trust had grown so universal, that life in the Tsar's imme-
diate circle was really intolerable. He watched every one,
and every one watched him, and watched his neighbour, with
anxious and suspicious eyes. He concealed his smallest
plans, and every one else did the same. Every business
matter, whether d'iplomatic or other, was shrouded in im-
penetrable mystery. Conversation was carried on in whispers ;
correspondence was crammed with ambiguous terms. At a
gathering in the house of Prince Dolgorouki, in February
1723, Ostermann addressed Campredon, and drew him
gradually and cautiously into a window. He had a message
for him, he said, for the Tsar. Campredon was all ears,
when, suddenly, the expected disclosure died on the Chan-
cellor's lips, and he would utter nothing but commonplaces.
A third party had, as he fancied, drawn too near them. Then
came the Tsar himself. He made the French Minister sit
familiarly beside him, and lavished compliments upon him.
But when the envoy tried to come to the point, he pretended
not to hear him, drowned his voice with noisy exclamations,
and then left him, whispering the words, ' I will give orders
to have terms arranged with you.' All this fuss was over the
marriage of the Grand Duchess Elizabeth with the Duke de
Chartrcs ; and the first appointment to talk the matter over,
made subsequently by Ostermann with Campredon, was
fixed for six o'clock in the morning, as being more likely to
escape obser\ation.-
Two years before, in the midst of the negotiations begun
^ Pder I.'s Writin-s ,itiJ Conesf^otiicfue, vol. iii. p. 77. Filippof, Peter the
Great and the Fatal LuIk s, page 2S3, etc.
* Campredon 's Despatches, Feb. 12, 1723 (French Foreign OfHce).
PRINCIPLES AND SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 183
in December 1721, to guarantee his own succession, the
Tsar's interviews with Campredon had taken place in the
house of Jagoujinski, and without Ostermann's knowlcd;4e.
The first thintj^ Peter then demanded, was to be enlightened
on a point which was of the utmost importance to himself,
but which had no relation whatsoever to the subject under
discussion. He had, it would appear, during his visit to
Paris, l)cgun, and personally carried on, some other negoti-
ation, the secret of which had been betrayed. How and by
whom ? Campredon was desired to send a courier to the
Regent, with orders to bring back a prompt reply to these
questions. The Regent, according to his wont, carefully sent
the despatch on to the King of England, who, quite unmoved,
wrote on the margin, * All this convinces me that the Tsar's
ministers, who are endeavouring to destroy each other, have
found means to inspire him with suspicions as to some of
their number, and that he is dying to find a pretext to have
them impaled as soon as possible. I believe this to be the
sole reason for his curiosity.' And further on he writes, ' This
confirms me in my conviction that the Tsar desires to impale
somebody.' ^
It is a curious fact, that all the rigorous penalties by
which the implacable ruler endeavoured to enforce that
universal service, which he desired to impose, on his subjects,
did not succeed in preventing numerous and constantly in-
creasing desertions. In vain did he answer these by increased
severity. A regulation of the War Department, dated 17 12,
decreed the use of the brand for military recruits, as well as
for convicts. There is even a legend connected with this
matter, according to which the Tsar, in his contempt for the
ancient faith, marked his soldiers with the sign of Antichrist.
The brand chosen was, in fact, a cross, tatooed on the left
hand ; the outline was pricked into the skin, and covered
with a pinch of pcnvder which was set alight. It is worthy
of remark, that one of Peter's letters, with reference to this
barbarous custom, is also filled with directions, which prove
the greatest solicitude for the comfort of the jioor tatooed
fellows, during their long marches to rejoin their dep6ts.*
The practical -mindedness of the great Reformer is clearly
shown in this contradictory epistle — a practical-mindedness
* Camprcdon's Dcsjiatchcs, Dec. 21, 1721.
• Russian Archives, 1873, pp. 2067 and 2296.
i84 PETER THE GREAT
sujTfTcstini; the employment of the most healthy, and there-
fore the most paying, methods of treating those human forces
which his merciless eagerness led him. at the same time,
cruelly to overtax. In civil matters, desertion, as I have
already said, was punished with infamy and outlawry. 'If,'
so runs a ukase, published in 1722, 'any man should rob one
of these deserters, wound him, or kill him, he is not liable to
punishment.' The names of the outlaws were made known
to the public by means of lists hung upon gallows. The half
of a deserter's goods was promised to the person who should
take him alive, even if the capturei was the serf of the
captured man. The othei half went to the Treasury.* And
still the desertions went on.
' Near the Tsar, neat death,' says a Russian proverb.
Many people preferred safety of any kind. The presence,
in Peter's circle, of so many parvenus of low extraction, —
Menshikof, Loukin, Troiekourof, Vladimirof, Sklaief, Pos-
pielof, — is explained, independently of his personal prefer-
ences, by this general sauve qui pent amongst the great
Russian families,- And the part played by these parvenus,
in the political system of which they formed an integral part,
made it still more oppressive. Peter's personal government
was often the hardest, the most overwhelming, the most dis-
quieting of realities. But it not unfrcquently became a mere
fiction, and the change brought no improvement. In spite
of his huge expenditure of labour and of energy, in spite of
all his constant goings and comings, the Tsar could not see
everything with his own eyes, and do everything with his
own hands. During his absences with his army, when he
was travelling abroad, or through the huge provinces of his
own realm, power passed into the hands of Menshikof and
his fellows. They used it, and more frequently abused it,
after their own fashion. They were called on, periodically,
to render up an account, which was not unfrcquently settled
by the executioner. But, living as they did, like ever>' 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^ \<j1. x.\i. p. 183.
19<5 PETER THE GREAT
were more modestly provided, according to their tchiti. The
regulations for the use of these boats were written out by his
own hand. 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 and white flags. 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 Preobrojc7iski Prikas, for having spoken improperly of
the Tsar's person. He had heen heard to say that he
had seen the Sovereign at Moscow in the act of kissing
a bitch.2 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. Finette, 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 P"inette 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 official 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.^
^ Pylaief, p. 210. '^ Documents of the Preobrajenskoie Secret Chancery,
^ Scherer, vol. iii. p. 294.
PRIVATE LIFE 197
IV
The great man often sought his pleasures and relaxations
in very inferior company. It must be admitted that his
acquaintance with good 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 years previously. 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, Konau and Meyer, tradesmen, and a certain young
lady of the name of Ammon, barel}^ sixteen years of age, in
whose house dancing went on till five o'clock every morning.^
And even this is a somewhat favourable specimen.
On Easter 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
^ Bergholz, Biischings-AJagasin, vol. xxi. p. 183.
198 PETER THE GREAT
soldier, two DienshtchikSy and finally a peasant, who, not
knowing how to write, replaces his signature by a cross,
affixed to an intimation that he had been given leave ' to get
drunk for three whole days.' ^
Peter never slept alone. His bed was generally shared
by Catherine, very rarely by a mistress. He sought his couch
for purposes of slumber. He was sensual, but not voluptuous,
and his love affairs, like all his other affairs, were got
through as quickly as possible. I have already (page 106)
explained his dislike to sleeping alone, and in the absence
of his wife, he would avail himself of the company of the
first dienshtchik he could lay his hand on. This individual
had orders to lie exceedingly quiet, under pain of being
well thrashed. Peter generally woke in a bad temper. In
the country, when the hour for his daily siesta came, he
made one of these dienslitcJiiks lie down on the ground, and
used his stomach for a pillow. This man did wisely, unless
his digestion was an exceptionally quick and easy one, to be
in a fasting condition, for, on the slightest movement, or
sound, the Tsar would spring to his feet and fall upon him.^
All this notwithstanding, he was really exceedingly in-
dulgent and easy-going, in all matters connected with his
personal service. Nartof has given us the story of the
cupboards invented by the Tsar, in which he would lock up,
beds and all, certain of his orderlies who, in spite of his
reiterated orders and threats, persisted in spending their
nights in houses of ill-fame. He kept the keys under his
pillow, and used to get up, after midnight, to inspect these
dormitory cells. One night he found them all empty. His
astonishment and rage were terrible. ' So the rascals have
made themselves wings,' he cried, ' I'll cut them to-morrow
with my doubma.' But when morning came, and the culprits
appeared before him, he contented himself with promising
them a better watched and less comfortable prison, if they
relapsed into misbehaviour.^ His personal service was per-
formed by six dieiishtchikSy amongst whose names we notice
those of Tatishtchef, Orlof, Boutourlin and Souvarof, two
couriers to go distant messages, one valet -de-chambre,
^ Golikof, ajdI. iii. p. 94. 2 Scherer, vol. ii. p. 81.
^ I\lemoirs, p. 36. The personal portion of Nartof s recollections deserves a
certain amount of credence, but the remainder of the work is a later compilation,
the only value of which, and that a doubtful one, resides in the various anecdotic
sources from which it has been drawn.
PRIVATE LIFE
199
Polouboiarof, one secretary, Makarof, and two under-
secretaries, Tcherkassof and Pamiatin. Nartof also be-
longed to the household, in his quality of assistant in the
Tsar's ivory and wood-turning, at which he spent several
hours a day. The whole household formed an exception to
the general rule, according to which every one who had to
do with the sovereign, whether closely or not, detested as much
as they feared him. Peter the Great, like the great Catherine,
was always adored by his personal servants.
This was far from being the case with his collaborators,
who, for a certain period, were generally his favourites as
well. With the exception of Menshikof, none of them
maintained this last position for any length of time. Where
they were concerned, phases of condescension, and even of
extreme partiality, invariably led up to a swift veering of
the Tsar's humour, and a terrible change of fortune. So
long as things went well, they were treated like spoilt
children. Peter's care for their health and comfort was
unflagging. He even found them wives. When the
calamities which overtook the Tsar's unhappy son, brought
one of the myrmidons of the law, named Alexander Roumi-
antsof, who had been employed to capture him, into high
favour, a Boyard offered him his daughter, who had a con-
siderable dowry, in marriage. Roumiantsof, the son of a needy
gentleman, in the Government of Kostroma, was himself a poor
man. ' Hast thou seen the girl .-• ' asked Peter. ' No, but 1
hear she is a sensible girl.' ' That's something, but I want to
see her.' He went that evening to a gathering at which he
knew the young girl was to be present, had her pointed out
to him as soon as he arrived, shrugged his shoulders, said
very loud, as if speaking to himself, ' NitcJiemou nie byvat I '
(no good at all) turned on his heel, and departed. The next
day, meeting Roumiantsof, he repeated ' Nitch^niou nie by-
vat ! ' adding, ' I will find thee something better, and that
by this evening. Be here at five o'clock.' Roumiantsof
naturally kept the appointment, and, at Peter's order, seated
himself in his cabriolet. He was more than astonished
when he saw the carriage stop before the house of Count
Matvieief, one of the noblest and richest subjects of the
Tsar. Entering, Peter addressed the Count familiarly, kissed
him, and said point blank, ' You have a daughter whom you
want to marry. Here is a husband.' Without further pre-
200 PKTER TUF GREAT
liminary, IMatvit'icf's daiifjhtcr became Roumiantsofs wife.
Accordintj to certain accounts, she had ah'eady, at the age of
nineteen, been the mistress, and the fickle inistress, of her
sovereign. Peter, who had lately surprised her in circum-
stances which left no doubt of this unfaithfulness, is sup-
posed to have selected this means of guardin;^ her fra^^ile
virtue, having previously, with his own hands, administered
health}- correction to the fair lady.^
But the following chapters will give my readers fuller
information as to the most certain and probable facts con-
cerning this obscure corner in the Tsar's personal history.
* Pylaief, Old Moscow, p. 52.
BOOK II— THE TSAR'S ASSOCIATES
CHAPTER I
COLLABORATORS, FRIENDS AND FAVOURITES
L The Aristocracy and the Popular Element — The Dicintiels — The great
Favourites — Roinodanovski — Tlie Prince Casar — The Secret Police — The
Red Square at Moscow — Old Russia — A bear as house steward — Ix)yalty,
energy, and ferocity — Oriental suppleness — Shefeniutief — A poor leader
and a fine soldier — ^Menshikof — The pastry c<Jok's boy — The Tsar's
minion — Peter's indifference to scandal on some subjects — Alexashka — a
Prince — Profusion of titles and functions — Omnipotence — Abuse of power
— A military leader — An administrator — Faults and virtues — An apology
for theft — Peter's indulgence worn out — Semi-disgrice.
II, Collaborators of the second rank — Golovin — An Admiral who was no
sailor, and a Foreign Minister who was no diplomat — Russian sailors and
foreign sailors — Apraxin and Cruys — Politicians and police agents —
Golovkin — Tolstoi — A high-lwrn RussiAn Diplomat of the new school —
Boris Kourakin — Some great Dieiaticls — Ncplouief and Tatishtchef —
The Tsar's Confessor, Nadajinski — A match with the Abbe Dubois'
secretary.
III. The At'L-nts of a lower order — Ligoujinski and Shafimf — Polish Jews — The
\'ic>-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 whic 
