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HANDBOUND 
AT  THE 


UNIVERSITY  OF 
TORONTO  PRESS 


?%3 


PETER  THE  GREAT 


i 


BY  'THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 
In  one  volume,  large  Crown  Svo,  cloth,  6s.  each. 

THE  ROMANCE  OF  AN  EMPRESS  (Catherine  ii. 
of  Russia).     With  a  Portrait. 

The  Times. — 'This  book  is  based  on  the  confessions  of  the 
Empress  herself  ;  it  gives  striking  pictures  of  the  condition  of  the 
contemporary  Russia  which  she  did  so  much  to  mould  as  well  as  to 
expand.  .  .  .  Few  stories  in  history  are  more  romantic  than  that 
of  Catherine  n.  of  Russia,  with  its  mysterious  incidents  and 
thrilling  episodes  ;  few  characters  present  more  curious  problems.' 

THE  STORY  OF  A  THRONE  (Catherine  ii.  of 
Russia).     With  a  Portrait. 

The  World. — '  No  novel  that  ever  was  written  could  compete 
with  this  historical  monograph  in  absorbing  interest.' 

London:   WILLIAM  HEINEMANN,  21  Bedford 
Street,  W.C 


u^ 


S'ii-,,1    ii  /ur/ ////'////    /■//  ■    /n      /fc//r,i/-Ain//i'/ 


PETER  THE  GREAT 


& 


BY 


K.    WALISZEWSKI 

AUTHOR  OF  '  THE  ROMANCE  OF  AN  EMPRESS  ' 
'  THE  STORY  OF  A  THRONE,'  ETC. 


Translated  from  the  French 
By    LADY    MA  RY    LO  YD 


Timitb  a  portrait 

IN  TWO  VOLUMES 
VOL.   I. 


LONDON 
WILLIAM     HEINEMANN 

1897 

All  rights  reserved 


t)K 

v.  I 

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SEEU  BY 
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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  thou  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  Yoghi'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 


vn 


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  perennius,  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  French  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  that  rang    on    the   silent 

stones?  .  .  . 

K.  W. 


CONTENTS 
PART  I— HIS  EDUCATION 

BOOK   I — FROM   ASIA   TO    EUROPE 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.    THE    KREML,    AND   THE   GERMAN    FAUBOURG,  .  .  3 

II.   THE   TSAREVNA    SOPHIA,      .  .  .  .  .21 

III.   THE    MONASTERY    OF   THE  TROITSA,  .  .  -43 

BOOK   II — THE   LESSONS   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 

RETURN,  .  .  .  .  .  -74 


PART  U—THE  MAN 

BOOK   I — BODY   AND   MIND 

I.    PHYSICAL    PORTRAIT — CHARACTERISTIC   TRAITS,     .  .          103 

II.    INTELLECTUAL   TRAITS    AND    MORAL    FEATURES,      .  .          12S 

-III.    IDEAS,    PRINCIPLES,    AND    SYSTEM    OF    GOVERNMENT,  .           167 

IV.    PRIVATE    LIFE,        .                   .                   .                   .                   .  .           187 

VOL.  I.  b 


PETER  THE  GREAT 
BOOK   II— THE   TSAR'S   ASSOCIATES 


I'AGE 


I.  COLLABORATORS,    FRIENDS   AND    FAVOURITES,  .  .  201 

II.  THE    FEMININE    ELEMENT,  ....  234 
III.    CATHERINE,             ......          263 


PART    I 


HIS    EDUCATION 


VOL.  I. 


BOOK    I— FROM    ASIA    TO    EUROPE 
CHAPTER    I 

THE  KREML,1  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 — Nathalia  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,  anil  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 
ami  Feodor — An  elected  Tsar — The  rile  ^(  the  Patriarchs — The  victory 
of  the  Naryshkin — Peter  proclaimed — A  short-lived  triumph — The 
revenge  of  the  Miloslavski. 


Peter  ALEKSIEIEVITCH  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 

1  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  Mihailovitch — the  Tsar  himself — in  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  daughter  of 
the  meanest  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  with 
his  neighbours  and  rivals,  the  Russian  Dukes.  So  he  caused 
fifteen  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  Michael  Feodorovitch,  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.1  From  that  time  out,  the  custom  had  been 
]  Zabielin,  Domestic  History  of the  Tsarinas  (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.1 

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 
Mihai'lovitch  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  Siergueievitch 
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  terem.  But  the  Matvieief  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 
laboratory.  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  husband 
'  who  would  ask  for  no  fortune  with  her.'  Then,  suddenly, 
he  made  up  his  mind  and  spoke  out.  Artamon  Siergue- 
]  Zabielin,  Domestic  History  of  the  Tsarinas  (Moscow,  1872),  p.  222. 


6  PETER  THE  GREAT 

ievitch  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  managed  Foreign  Affairs,  the 
Mint,  he  was  Court  Minister,  Commander  of  the  Streltsy, 
Governor  of  Little  Russia,  of  Kasan  and  of  Astrakan.  He 
begged,  at  all  events,  to  be  shielded  by  appearances.  Nathalia 
had  to  show  herself  in  the  dormitory  at  the  Kreml.  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  (12th 
June)  1672,  Nathalia  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  that  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  Monarque,  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 
Kreml  ?  the  neighbouring  country  house  of  Kolomenskoi'e, 
dubbed  the  Russian  Bethlehem  ?  Or  was  it  Ismai'lovo?  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 
Feodor  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  with  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  Streshnief?  Obey 
me,  speak,  and  fear  nothing !  Speak  !  or  I  '11  have  you 
strangled  ! ' 

'  Batiushka,  mercy  ! '  comes  the  answer.  '  I  know  not 
what  to  say.  ...  I  was  not  the  only  one  ! ' l 

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  Vassilevitch  (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  and  influence,  they  felt 
themselves  alike  injured  and  humiliated.  Nathalia's  father, 
Kiril  Poluiektovitch,  had  risen,  in  a  few  years,  to  be  one  of 
the  richest  men  in  the  country,  Court  Councillor  (dunmyi 
dvorianin)  and  Grand  Officer  of  the  Crown  (okolnitshyl). 
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. 

1  Vockerodt,  Correspondence  (published  by  Herrmann,  Leipsic,  1872),  p.  10S. 
So\ox\tf,  Hist,  of  Russia  ( Moscow,  1864-1878),  vol.  xv.  pp.  126-135.  Siemievski, 
Study  of  the  State  Police  in  Kitssia  (Slovo  i  Dido)  (St.  Petersburg,  1885),  p.  139. 
Dolgoroukof,  Mimoires  (Geneva,  1867),  vol.  i.  p.  102. 


8  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Matvieief,  Nathalia's  adoptive  father,  beaten  in  his  first 
skirmish,  heads  the  list  of  victims.  He  was  imprisoned, 
tortured,  exiled  to  Pustoziersk  in  Siberia,  where  he  almost 
died  of  hunger.1  For  a  moment,  there  was  some  question  of 
immuring  Nathalia  in  a  cloister  ;  but  the  mother  and  son 
were  finally  sent  to  Preobrajenskoie,  a  village  near  Moscow, 
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  Alexis  Mihai'lovitch,  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.3  Some 
vestiges  still  exist  of  the  struggle  of  the  genius  of  Fioravante, 
of  Solaro,  of  Alevise,  with  Byzantine  tradition  ;  a  few 
churches,  a  few  fragments  of  palaces,  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.  Within  them,  doubtless, 
there  was  the  same  architectural  confusion, — the  same  violent 

1  See  History  of  his  Captivity,  published  at  Moscow,  1785,  by  Novikofi. 

2  Zabielin,    Domestic   History  of  the   Tsars  (Moscow,    1895),    PP-    no-118. 
Oustrialof,  History  of  Peter  I.  (St.  Petersburg,  1S5S),  vol.  iv.  p.  33. 

a  P.  Pierling,  La  Kussie  et  le  St.  Siege  (Paris,  1896),  p.  107. 


THE  KREML,  AND  THE  GERMAN  FAUBOURG     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  orgy  of  decoration,  of  form,  of  colour — a  delirium 
and  fever,  a  veritable  surfeit  of  plastic  fancy.  Small  rooms, 
surbased  vaulted  roots,  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 
by  the  score,  confused  noises, — dulled  and  stifled  by  massive 
walls,  thick  oriental  hangings,  and  the  heavy  air  imprisoned 
within  them, — rose  and  fell,  their  echoes  intermingling  in  a 
vague  harmony  of  sound.  From  within  the  churches 
sounded  the  voices  of  chanting  priests  ;  from  the  tercm 
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  more  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  European  neighbours,  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  disaster. 

Between  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries,  when  the  earliest 
French  Kings,  Charles  le  Gros  and  Louis  le  Begue,  are 
struggling  painfully  to  defend  their  treasures  from  Norman 
robbers,  other  Sea  Kings  land  on  the  Baltic  shore.     Yonder 


lo  PETER  THE  GREAT 

the  Norman,  Hrolf,  wrests  the  coast  country,  called  after  his 
race,  from  Charles  the  Simple.  Here,  on  the  mighty  plain 
that  stretches  from  the  Baltic  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.1 

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  Germany  give  them  architects,  artificers,  merchants, 
and  the  elements  of  Roman  law.  Towards  the  year  iooo, 
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  Vatican, 
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  century.2  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  only  signs  of  culture  at  Kief.  In  1 170,  at  Smolensk, 
we  find  the  Kniaz,  Roman  Rostislavitch,  busied  with  learned 

1  This  conquest,  although  disputed  by  Slavophil  historians,  would  seem  to  be 
an   undoubted   fact.      See    Solovief's  refutation  of  Ilova'iski's  opinion  {Collected 

Works  on  Politics  (Bezobrazof,  1879),  vol.  vii. ),  and  the  Studies  of  Father 
Martynof  {Revue  des  Questions  Historiques,  July  1875.  Polybiblion,  1875). 
Solovief  at  all  events  makes  the  admission — a  consoling  one  to  the  national 
vanity — that  the  Slav  tribes  submitted  voluntarily  to  a  foreign  A'nia:,  whom  they 
called  to  rule  over  them. 

2  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    n 

subjects.  He  collects  libraries,  founds  schools  and  seminaries, 
where  the  classical  languages  are  taught.  From  one  end  to 
the  other  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,  Venetian,  Genoese, 
German,  Arab,  and  Jew — fill  the  streets,  and  deal  in  every 
kind  of  product.  In  1028  there  were  a  dozen  markets  in 
the  city.  And  these  Dukes  of  Kief  have  no  need  to  seek 
their  wives  within  their  subjects'  terems.  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  1.  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  1.  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 
very  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  Vladimir  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  Gengis  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  Polish-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  Kitiaz  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,  chivalry,  the  study  of  Roman 
Law,  out  of  which  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  1381 — 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  trophy,  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 
different  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  Mniszech  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  Polish  influences  are  affirmed,  even  in  the  very 
victories  and  re-establishment  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  thus  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  soon  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.  Beyond 
the  gates  of  the  old  capital,  towards  the  north-western  corner 
of  the  modern  city,  in  the  quarter  lying  between  BasmannaTa 
Street  and  PokrovskaTa  Street,  where,  at  the  present  day, 
most  of  the  Protestant  and  Catholic  churches  stand,  there 


16  PETER  THE  GREAT 

arose, — on  the  banks  of  the  Iaouza,  a  scanty  affluent  of  the 
Moskva, — a  kind  of  Ghetto,  specially  assigned  to  the  Niemtsy, 
those  who  did  not  speak  the  tongue  of  the  country,  and  who, 
in  consequence,  were  niemoi,  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 
Niemietskaia  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  Wallenstein's  camp.  In  the  professional  class, 
soon  to  be  added  to  this  aristocratic  one — merchants,  teachers, 
physicians,  apothecaries,  traders,  artists — the  dominant  cle- 
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  OrpJiee. 

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.1 
The  German  traveller,  Tanner,2  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 

1  Vulliemin,  after  Posselt,  Revue  Suisse,  vol.  xxix.  p.  323.     Bruckner,  Cultur- 
historische  Studien  (Riga,  1S7S). 

-Tanner,   Legatio  Polouo  —  Lithuania!  in  Moscoviam   (Nuremberg,   16S9), 
p.  71,  etc. 

VOL.  I.  B 


1 8  PETER  THE  GREAT 

very  gates,  Moscow  was  still,  take  it  all  in  all,  what  three 
centuries  of  Asiatic  slavery  had  made  it.  Some  signs  there 
were,  indeed,  which  clearly  marked  a  beginning  of  mental 
contact  with  the  intellectual  world  of  the  West.  Certain 
men  here  and  there  had  cast  off,  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.1 

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  Oelschlager  (Olcarius), 
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 
everything  on  the  table,  and  fill  their  pockets  ! 2  Within 
the  Kreml,  after  the  Poles  and  mock  Tsars  were  banished, 
nothing  changed  a  jot.  Before  Peter  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.3  The  child  was  almost 
stifled.  At  Preobrajenskoi'e  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  Iaouza, 
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. 

1  This  point  of  view  has  led  certain  historians  into  paradoxical  exaggeration. 
V.  Klioutchewski,  Lessons  in  History  given  at  the  Moscoiv  University,  1SS7-1SS9 
(lithographed).  I  owe  my  knowledge  of  this  work  to  the  kindness  of  Mr. 
Stchukin,  a  young  Russian  savant  living  in  l'aris,  to  whom  I  hereby  beg  to 
tender  my  grateful  thanks. 

-  Solovief,  vol.  xiv.  p.  112. 

3  Kotoshihin,  Russia  during  the  Reign  of  Alexis  (St.  Petersburg,  1SS4),  p.  19. 


THE  KREML,  AND  THE  GERMAN  FAUBOURG    19 


IV 

In  1682  Feodor,  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  Shui'ski  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  Feodor'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  1648  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  favour 
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  they  might  continue  to  wield  power.  They 
swept  the  boyards,  who  chanced  to  be  present  at  Feodor's 
death,  and  the  patriarch  Joachim,  who  had  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  rumour  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  nothing,  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}    . 

1  Sumarokof,  Def  Ersle  Aufstand  der  Strelitzen  (Riga,  1772),  p.  10. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE   TSAREVNA   SOPHIA 

I.  The  terem  of  the  Kreml — Moscow  and  Byzantium — Memories  of  Fulcheria 

— 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. 

in.  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  terem  of  the  Kreml  must  have  felt  the  direct  influence 
of  Byzantine  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  even 
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, 


24  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Ordin  Nashtshokin,  and  the  Patriarch  Nicone  himself,  had 
already,  in  preceding  reigns,  inaugurated  a  new  period, 
an  era  of  revolution.  After  playing  an  important  part,  for 
several  years,  in  the  government  of  his  country,  Vassili  was 
concerned  in  the  abolition  of  the  Miestnitchestvo — an  essen- 
tially Asiatic  custom,  in  virtue  of  which  no  subject  of  the 
Tsar  could  occupy,  with  regard  to  a  fellow-subject,  any 
position  inferior  to  that  which  one  of  his  forebears  might 
have  occupied,  in  relation  to  an  ancestor  of  the  said  fellow- 
subject — thus  forming  an  insurmountable  obstacle  to  any 
wise  selection  by  merit,  an  endless  source  of  wrangling, 
whereby  the  action  of  the  Government  was  much  enfeebled. 

He  thought  of  organising  a  regular  army.  According  to 
La  Neuville,  he  carried  his  plans  for  the  future  further  yet, 
and  had  dreams — far  beyond  anything  Peter  dared  attempt — 
of  freeing  the  serfs,  and  making  them  peasant  proprietors. 
Father  Avril  himself,  in  spite  of  his  having  been  detained 
in  Moscow,  and  prevented  from  going  to  China,  during  the 
period  when  the  future  Regent  was  all-powerful,  pays  homage 
to  his  liberal-mindedness.  The  other  boyards,  in  their 
hatred  for  Catholicism,  overruled  their  colleague's  decision.1 

Galitzin  spoke  and  wrote  Latin  with  elegance  and  ease. 
He  was  constantly  in  the  German  suburb,  and  was  in  close 
relations  with  its  inhabitants ;  he  received  Gordon  the 
Scotchman  at  his  own  table,  and  was  himself  attended  by 
a  German  doctor,  Blumentrost.  The  Greek,  Spafari,  who 
constantly  appears  in  his  circle,  and  who,  by  his  favour,  held 
a  prominent  position  in  the  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs 
(Posolskii  Prikaz),  was  quite  a  modern  type  of  courtier-like 
diplomacy,  and  cosmopolitan  experience,  who  had  travelled 
the  whole  of  Europe,  and  into  China,  who  drew  out  plans 
for  the  navigation  of  the  great  Asiatic  rivers,  and  corre- 
sponded with  Witsen,  the  Burgomaster  of  Amsterdam. 

Galitzin's  palace,  within  and  without,  bore  every  resem- 
blance to  an  important  European  dwelling,  full  of  valuable 
furniture,  Gobelins  tapestries,  pictures,  tall  mirrors.  He 
had  a  library  of  Latin,  Polish,  and  German  books.  This 
library  was  later  to  contain  the  manuscripts  of  Krijanitch, 
a  Servian,  and  apostle  of  reforms,  to  whom  Peter,  very 
probably,  may  have  owed  his  inspiration.  He  had  three 
thousand  houses  built  in  Moscow,  and  even  built  a  stone 
1   Voyagi  en  divers  pays  de  /' ^Europe  (Paris,  1692),  p.  314. 


THE  TSAREVNA  SOPHIA  25 

bridge, — the  first  ever  seen  in  the  country, — for  which  a  Polish 
monk  supplied  the  plan.  He  had  a  passionate  affection  for 
France,  and  caused  his  son  constantly  to  wear  a  portrait  of 
Louis  XIV.1 

His  fall,  and  Peter's  accession,  ensuing  on  it,  are  honestly 
held  by  La  Neuville,  to  be  a  catastrophe  for  civilisation. 
He  did  indeed  still  cling,  to  a  certain  extent,  to  the  era  he 
was  striving  to  abolish.  He  was  not  free  from  superstition. 
He  put  a  peasant,  whom  he  suspected  of  trying  to  cast  an 
evil  spell  on  him,  to  the  torture.2  He  was  accused,  in  later 
days,  of  having  tried  to  gain  Sophia's  favours  by  means  of 
a  love-philter,  and  of  having  caused  the  man  who  prepared 
the  potion  to  be  burnt.;i  But  Peter  himself  was  not  altogether 
free  from  weaknesses  of  this  kind.  Take  him  altogether, 
this  man,  who  was  to  end  by  being  one  of  the  young  Tsar's 
adversaries,  began  by  being  his  worthy  forerunner. 

Born  in  1643,  Vassili  Galitzin  was  thirty-nine  years  old 
when  Feodor's  illness  brought  him  into  Sophia's  company. 
He  was  married,  with  tall  children  of  his  own.  With  him 
there  stood,  beside  the  dying  man's  pillow,  Simon  Polotski,  a 
Little-Russian  priest,  a  man  of  great  knowledge  for  those 
times,  Silvester  Miedviedief,  a  learned  monk,  a  bibliographer 
and  court  poet,  and  Hovanski,  a  soldier,  much  favoured 
by  the  Streltsy.  Thus  a  political  group,  the  elements  of 
which  may  have  previously  drawn  together,  and  fused  in  the 
dark  shadow,  was  here  assembled.  Miedviedief  was  the  soul 
of  the  combination,  but  Galitzin  held  the  foremost  place 
by  Sophia's  side,  and  held  it  by  the  power  of  love. 

The  Tsarevna  was  twenty-five,  and,  to  La  Neuville's  eyes, 
looked  forty.  Naturally  hot-blooded  and  passionate,  she  had 
never,  as  yet,  felt  the  full  current  of  life  ;  and  when,  at  one  and 
the  same  moment,  her  mind  and  heart  awoke,  she  cast  her- 
self into  the  stream  fearlessly,  furiously, — surrendered  herself 
utterly  to  the  mighty  flood  which  carried  her  along  with  it. 
Ambition  came  to  her  with  love.  She  naturally  associated 
the  man  without  whom  success  would  have  had  no  charm 
for  her,  with  her  ambitious  projects.  She  incited  him, 
more  than  he  her,  to  scale  the  heights  of  fortune  they 
might  share  together.      Personally,  he  appears  to  us  timid, 

1   Solovicf,  History  of  Russia,  vol.  xiv.  p.  97.     Avril,  p.  296. 

-  Jeliaboujski,  ]\Jeiiioirs  (Tazykop  edition),  p.  21. 

J  Oustrialof,  History  of  Peter  the  Great,  vol.  ii.  pp.  4S,  344. 


26  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. 

II 

In  1682  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 
capital,  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  servi- 
tude, and  their  very  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  serve  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  served  as  firemen.  One  regiment  of  picked 
men  {Stremiannyi),  ('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  varying  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.1 

It  was  to  them  that  Boris   Godunof  owed    his  victory 

1  Oustrialof,  vol.  i.  p.  17,  etc.  Berg,  The  Reign  of  Tsar  Feodor  (Petersburg, 
1829),  vol.  ii.  p.  36,  etc.  Herrmann,  Geschichte  Russlands  (Gotha,  1846-1860), 
vol.  iv.  p.  1,  etc. 


THE  TSAREVNA  SOPHIA  27 

over  the  Samozvaniets  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 
century,  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  society,  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  indifferent.  But  they  were  terrible  brawlers.  A  day 
of  tempest  was  to  convert  them,  ere  long,  into  the  fiercest 
of  ruffians.  Alarming  symptoms  were  evident  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  country  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  Naryshkins  came  to  power  with  Peter, 
they  found  sixteen  regiments  in  a  flame.  Sorely  puzzled, 
they  sent  for  the  exiled  Matvieief,  the  founder  of  their 
fortunes,  the  experienced  statesman  ;  and,  pending  the 
arrival  of  their  saviour,  they  sacrificed  the  colonels  of  the 
regiments.  The  pravieje,  a  punishment  reserved  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 


28  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Pretorian  Guard,  only  waited  the  appearance  of  an  easy 
prey  to  make  its  spring  and  use  its  claws.  Sophia  and  her 
councillors  offered  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 
Feodor,  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 
Streltsy.  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, 
Matvieief's  arrival.  The  Streltsy,  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 
Streltsy  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  Streltsy  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.  They  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  gelled,  'Death  to  the  assassins.'  The  head  of  their 
own  prikas  (office  of  management, — department,),  the  nged 


THE  TSAREVNA  SOPHIA  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 ! 
Lionbo ! "  'that's  good,  that  pleases  us,'  shouted  the  mob. 
The  massacre  had  begun.  It  lasted  three  days.  Sought 
out  one  by  one,  hunted  through  the  palace,  tracked  into  the 
neighbouring  houses,  into  churches, —  the  councillors  and 
relatives  of  Nathalia,  Matvieief,  all  the  Naryshkins,  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  intention — 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  essayed  to  clear  her  from 
personal  responsibility.1  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  very  morrow 
of  the  convulsion,  in  the  Tsarevna's  immediate  circle.     The 

1  Aristof,  Disturbances  at  Moscoiv,  during  the  Regency  of  Sophia  (Warsaw,  1S7 1 ). 


3o  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  de  facto  Regent,  till  more  come  to  her. 
Finally,  she  gives  those  who  have  done  her  such  good 
service  their  reward.  To  the  Slreltsy,  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. 

Ill 

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  he  should  command.  During  her  seven  years  of 
regency  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 !  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  Exaltation  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  I  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  I  long  to  see  thee,  oh  my 
world,  oh  my  soul !  I  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,  I  will  tell  thee  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  I  do  to  reward  you  for  everything,  and  above  all 


32  PETER  THE  GREAT 

others?  No  other  would  have  done  what  thou  hast  done; 
and  thou  hast  spent  so  much  pains  before  thou  couldst 
succeed.1  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  dowry 
with  her,  and  that  his  children  by  her  were  far  dearer  to 
him  than  those  he  had  by  the  Princess  {the  Tsarevna\ 
whom  he  only  cared  for  on  account  of  her  fortune.'  Yet, 
the  chronicler  proceeds,  'Women  are  ingenious,  she  (Sophia) 
contrived  to  persuade  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 
again.  The  good  lady  having  freely  consented,  the  Princess 
counted  fully  on  the  success  of  her  plans."2 

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  Naryshkin 
played  a  merely  passive  part  amidst  the  terrible  convul- 
sions which  more  than  once  shook  the  heavy  diadem  of 
Ivan  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  laMirandola  quite  into  the  shade.  He  is  described, 
at  three  years  old,  as  commanding  a  regiment,  and  present- 

1   Published  by  Oustrialof,  vol.  i.  p.  383. 

-  Despatch  from  the  French  Agent,  La  Vie,  dated  Nov.  10,  171S,  quoting 
Peter's  own  words,  in  confirmation  of  these  details  (Foreign  Ollice,  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.1 
I  go  further  :  never,  even  at  a  more  advanced  age,  does  Peter 
give  signs  of  great  natural  courage.  He  is  far  too  nervous, 
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  instinctive 
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  effect  is  the  im- 

1   Zabielin,  '/'he  Childhood  of  Peter  the  Great  (Moscow,  1S72). 
VOL.  I.  C 


34  PETER  THE  GREAT 

portant  matter.  The  venom  instilled  into  the  poor  child's 
veins,  when  the  Streltsy  drew  his  little  feet  through  his 
uncle's  blood,  seems  to  me  the  most  probable  of  the  two. 

He  was  frightened,  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.  He  does,  indeed,  return  to  the 
Kreml,  on  days  of  high  ceremony,  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  Preobrajenskoi'e, 
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  Kreml,  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- 
viedief,  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  Oroujennaia 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  by  taking  to  pieces,  and  horticultural  implc- 


THE  TSAREVNA  SOPHIA  35 

ments,  the  use  of  which  he  has  explained  to  him.  People 
have  chosen  to  exaggerate  the  extent  of  his  boyish  curiosity.1 
Let  us  take  any  child — a  fairly  gifted  one,  of  course — with  a 
bright  intelligence,  let  us  suppose  him  absolutely  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  evidently  turn  in  a  great 
variety  of  directions.  Peter  is  an  avTo8i'8atcTo<;,  as  a  diplomat 
in  his  service,  writing  to  Leibnitz,  later  expressed  it.2 

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- 
mann,  had  some  trouble,  himself,  in  working  out  a  sum  in 
multiplication  by  four  figures.  It  should  be  added  that  in 
his  lessons,  arithmetical  problems  alternated  with  theorems 
of  descriptive  geometry.3 

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  are  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 
journey  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  Oroitjeiinaia  palata.  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 

1  Nastrof,  The  Early  Education  of  Peter  I.  (Russian  Archives,  1875),  vol.  ii. 
]).  470.  Comp.  I'ogodin,  Early  Years  of  Peter  the  Great  (.Moscow,  1S75), 
]>.  17,  etc. 

-  Baron  Urbich,  16th  Nov.  1707,  in  Guerrier's  Leibnitz  in  scinen  Beziehungen 
zu  Russland (Leipzig,  1873),  vol.  ii.  p.  71. 

3  Oustrialof,  vol.  ii.  p.  439,  Cabinet  of  Peter  I.  [Imperial  Archives),  section  i. 
1  Ii  n  >k  38. 


36  PETER  THE  GREAT 

upon  the  point  of  starting  once  more  for  the  countries  where 
such  wonders  grew.  Sophia  and  Galitzin  were  sending 
him  to  Louis  XIV.,  to  ask  his  help  against  the  Turks.  The 
Most  Christian  King  gave  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  how  to  use  it.  Somebody  mentioned  Timmer- 
mann,  and  the  Dutchman,  who  had  been  building  houses 
in  the  German  quarter,  became  mathematical  tutor  at  Preo- 
brajenskoi'e. 

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  ply  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  TSAREVNA  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  go  on  bestirring  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  firma.  When,  some  time  later,  Peter 
established  a  shipbuilding  yard  some  hundreds  of  versts 
away,  on  the  lake  of  Pereiaslavl,  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  series  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  carpenters,  brought  in 
for  the  purpose.  Struys  notices  this  yacht  fully  in  his 
Travels.1  The  idea  was  floating  in  the  air.  confused  as  yet, 
but  clearly  directed  towards  the  desired  goal. 

The  Ismai'lof  boat,  like  the  astrolabe,  at  first  appeared  a 
mysterious  object  in  Peter's  eyes.  The  peasants,  in  old 
days,  had  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,  carpenters  both.  They  advised  the  removal  of  the 
boat  to  Perei'aslavl,  where  there  was  a  huge  sheet  of  water. 
Peter  took  their  advice,  and  set  himself  eagerly  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  extraordinary  toughness, — save  for,  and  in 
spite  of,  his  nervous  attacks,  the  outcome  of  his  hereditary 
stain, — and  a  moral  organisation,  of  marvellous  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  promiscuity  of 
his  vagrant  existence — grooms  from  the  paternal  stables 
{koniouhy)  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  mighty  creation,  the 
Russian  army.  Yes,  this  double  point  of  departure — the 
pseudo-naval  games  on  the  lake  of  Perei'aslavl,  and  the 
pseudo-military  games  on  the  Preobrajenskoi'e  drill-ground 
— led  to  the  double  goal, — the  Conquest  of  the  Baltic,  and 
the  Battle  of  Poltava. 

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   Amsterdam,  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  drouliy,  drank  with  them,  when  the 
work  was  done,  and  refused  to  turn  Mohammedan  because 
'drinking  is  the  Russian's  joy.' 

Peter  will  always  be  a  convivial  comrade,  and  a  heavy 
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  personality  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. 


4o  PETER  THE  GREAT 


The  Tsarina  Nathalia  does  not  appear  to  have  realised, 
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  (pothshnyie)  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.1     But   in    1687,   the  young 
Tsar's  military  games  began  to  take  on  proportions  which 
attracted  general  attention.    A  fortress  was  built  at  Preobra- 
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  indifferent  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  kouiouhy.      Already  he  plans 

1  See  Oustrialof,  vol.  ii.   p.   329  ;  comp.   Memoirs  of  Matvieief  (Toumanski 
edition),  vol.  i.  pp.  194-196. 


THE  TSAREVNA  SOPHIA  41 

strategical  combinations,  for  using  and  combining  the  naval 
and  land  forces  at  his  disposal ;  and  those  same  forces  have 
grown  with  the  youth,  who  has  already  reached  a  giant's 
stature.  The  toy  has  almost  reached  the  proportions  of  a 
weapon.  In  September  1688,  the  young  Tsar  requisitions 
all  the  drums  and  fifes  of  a  crack  Streltsy  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  konioushenny'i 
prikaz  (stable  department).  There  is  a  regular  recruiting 
station  at  Preobrajenskoie,  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  Miestnitdiestvo, 
the  appeal  to  popular  insurrection, — have  bound  their  cause 
up  with  that  of  the  lower  classes.  The  great  nobility,  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.  Preobrajenskoie 
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,  outraged,  and  stripped,  by  the  transitory  regime, 
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  Perei'aslavl,  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.  But  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  destiny  and  to  his  glory. 

In  July,  1689,  the  storm  breaks. 


CHAPTER    III 

THE   MONASTERY   OF   THE   TROITSA 

I.  Government  under  the  Regency — Its  merits — Causes  of  weakness — Disap- 
pointments and  bitterness — Diversion  to  external  matters — The  Crimean 
campaigns — Disasters — Galitzin's  return — Popular  indignation — Peter's 
party  takes  advantage  of  it — The  Kreml  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. 
111.  Parleys  and  manoeuvres — Which  way  will  the  army  go? — Sophia's  courage 
— Vassili  Galitzin's  weakness — Defection — The  Regent  submits — lie 
comes  to  the  Troitsa — Exile — Question  and  torture — Sophia  acknowledges 
herself  beaten — Her  cloister — The  new  regime — Peter's  comrades  in 
power — The  reaction — the  Future. 


SS' 


I 

SOPHIA'S  regency,  justified,  at  all  events,  as  it  was,  by  Peter's 
youth,  if  not  its  natural  outcome,  might,  in  1689,  have  still 
hoped  to  endure,  more  or  less  legitimately,  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  II. — 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    Lcveque   and    Coxe,   who   calls   her  '  one   of  the 

43 


44  PETER  THE  GREAT 

greatest  women  the  world  has  ever  seen,'1  has,  in  my 
opinion,  done  her  justice.  Among  the  old  Russian  historians, 
Muller  in  his  criticisms  of  Voltaire's  views,2  Boltin  in  his 
notes  of  the  History  of  Leclerc,3  and  especially  Emin  4  with 
Aristof,5  among  the  moderns,  have  endeavoured, not  altogether 
successfully,  to  reconcile  these  contradictory  exaggerations. 

For  my  part,  the  government  seems  to  me  to  have  had  some- 
thing exceedingly  Byzantine  about  it.  No  Byzantine  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 
Alexis;  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  Streltsy  had  once  come, 
to  seek  the  Patriarch,  and  wrangle  with  him.  The  chief  of 
the  raskolniks,  Nikita,  was  put  to  death.  It  defended  order 
with  all  its  might,  and,  when  the  Streltsy  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  Troi'tsa. 

'  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 
Obitieh  :  little  fortified  towns  with  a  population  of  monks, 
novices,  and   serving  brothers,  numbering  their  thousands, 

1  Karamzin,  vol  vii.  p.  293.     Leveque,  Hist,  de  Russie  (Paris,  1799),  vol.  iv. 
pp.  204-234. 

-  Ei iiiics,  1 7 50- 1 764. 

:;  St.  Petersburg,  1788. 

4  Lives  of  the  Russian  Sovereigns  [St.  Petersburg,  1767-69). 

:'  Rebellions  in  Moscow  during  the  Reign  of Sophia  (Warsaw,  1S71). 


THE  MONASTERY  OF  THE  TROITSA  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.  Thither,  in  his  turn,  and  shortly  too, 
Peter  was  to  come,  to  crave  help  and  protection. 

The  appeal  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  Troi'tsa, 
Hovanski,  now  the  hostile  chief  of  the  Streltsy,  lost  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  roused,  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.  When  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  square  of  the  city.  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 

pamphlet,  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  ShaklovityV,  a  new  counsellor  of 
Sophia's,  a  representative  of  ancient  Muscovy,  in  the  purest 
Byzantine  style — a  fierce  and  cunning  schemer.  The  Tsar- 
evna feigned  terror,  and  her  good  people  acclaimed  her,  and 
offered  to  rid  her  of  her  enemies.1 

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  Preobrajenskoie 
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 samodierjitsa  (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- 
ing that,  according  to  certain  witnesses,  she  had  given  the 
absent  Galitzin  an  obscure  rival,  in  the  person  of  Shak- 
lovityT,3  she  pursued  the  supreme  object  of  her  early  dreams 

1  Shaklpvity'i's  depositions,  see  Oustrialof,  vol.  ii.  p.  39. 

2  Avril,   Voyage  en  divers  Etats  if  Europe  et  tfAsie,  p.  315. 

;;  Koitrakin  Archives  (St,  Petersburg,  1S90-1S95),  vol.  i.  p.  55. 


THE  MONASTERY  OF  THE  TROITSA  47 

— her  marriage  with  the  Regent  and  a  common  throne — 
with  ever-increasing  ardour.  To  attain  this  end,  she  elabo- 
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  ;  Peter,  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  ShaklovityT,  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  Preobrajenskoi'e  to  thank  the  Tsar.  He  re- 
fused to  see  them  : — here  was  public  rupture  ! 


II 

The  historic  night  of  the  7th  of  August  1689  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- 
jenskoi'e 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,1  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 

1  See  vol.  ii,  p.  56, 


4S  PETER  THE  GREAT 

feigned  to  fear,  an  offensive  movement  on  the  part  of 
these  '  pleasure  regiments,'  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  Streltsy  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,  Preobrajensko'i'e  and  the 
Kreml  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  Iaouza,  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,  Shaklovity'i 
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  Jive  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  Preobrajensko'i'e 
camp,  and  ensure  their  welcome,  by  giving  the  alarm.  Some 
historians  have  taken  them  for  false  zealots,  who  obeyed  a 
watchword,  given  by  the  party  instigating  Peter  to  action.1 
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 
jumps  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 

1   I'ogodin,   The  Early  Years  of Peter  the  Great,  pp.  1S3-226. 


THE  MONASTERY  OF  THE  TROITSA  49 

friends,  he  puts  spurs  to  his  horse  and  tears  off  full  gallop, 
towards  the  Troi'tsa.  He  reaches  it  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing-, 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.1 
His  firm  and  affectionate  words  reassured  the  young  Tsar 
at  last.  Boris  Galitzin,  the  Regent's  cousin,  Boutourlin, 
and  the  other  chiefs  of  the  PreobrajenskoTe  camp,  who 
join  the  fugitive  at  the  Troi'tsa,  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 
Perei'aslavl  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  invaded,  the 
Tsarinas,  Nathalia  and  Eudoxia,  the  Potieshnyie,  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  prepared 
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  scarcely  would  appear  necessary  to  mention  it.  The  fight, 
if  fight  there  is,  will  be  to  decide  who  is  the  master. 

1   Kourakin  Archives,  vol.  i.  p.  53. 


VOL.  I.  •» 


5o 


PETER  THE  GREAT 


III 


They  began  by  parleying.  Peter  wrote  to  Sophia  to  ask 
for  explanations  concerning  the  nocturnal  armaments  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,  the  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  16th  of  August,  Peter  makes  a  forward  step  ; 
a  gramota  (message)  from  the  Tsar,  convokes  detachments 
from  all  these  troops,  six  men  from  each  regiment,  to 
attend  him  on  the  morrow.  Sophia  answers  boldly.  Her 
emissaries,  posted  at  convenient  spots,  stop  the  Tsar's 
messengers,  while  another  gramota,  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 
Miedviedkof,  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  signal  for  general  defection. 

But  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  Raskohiiks, 
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  Troitsa.  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  Vosdvijenskoi'e,  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 
Iarensk,  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  drag 
on  till  17 1 5  ;  but  the  Tsar's  half  mercy  goes  no  further. 
Shaklovityi'  and  his  accomplices,  real  or  supposed,  are  con- 
demned to  death.  Miedviedief,  shut  up  at  first  in  a  monas- 
tery, 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 


52  PETER  THE  GREAT 

a  carefully  composed  letter,  he  denounces  their  sister's 
misdeeds,  but  denies  any  intention  of  touching  his  elder 
brother's  rights,  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 
TroTekourof,  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  (Novodievitchyi,)  close  to  Moscow. 
The  new  regime  has  begun. 

It  is  still  an  intermediate  regime.  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  Naryshkins  themselves,  and  the 
other  relatives  of  the  Tsarina  Mother. 

The  future  great  man's  hour  has  not  yet  struck.  The 
serious  struggle  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  Government  of  the 
Boyards — Reactionary  spirit — Amusements  at  Preobrajensko'ie — Warlike 
sports — Pleasures — Buffoonery — The  King  of  Presburg  and  the  sham  King 
of  Poland — The  Lake  of  Pereiaslavl— A  fresh-water  fleet — On  the  road 
to  Archangel — The  Sea — Death  of  the  Tsarina  Nathalia— A  short  mourn- 
ing— Peter  goes  hack  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— Peter's  genius  is  revealed — Perseverance, 
in.  The  greatness  of  Peter  and  the  greatness  of  Russia — The  result  of  the  Mongol 
Conquest — Redoubled  efforts — 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  d'etat  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 


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. 

Born  in  Scotland,  towards  1685,  of  a  family  of  small  Royal- 
ist and  Catholic  lairds,  Patrick  Gordon  had  spent  twenty 
years  of  his  life  in  Russia,  vegetating  as  an  officer  of  inferior 
rank,  and  far  from  happy  in  the  process.  Before  ever  coming 
to  Russia,  he  had  served  the  Emperor,  fought  with  the  Swedes 
against  the  Poles,  and  the  Poles  against  the  Swedes.  '  He 
was  clearly,'  say  his  English  biographers, '  a  genuine  Dugald 
Dalgetty.'1  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,  fulfilled  his  mission  with  success,  but  gained 
no  reward  save  a  tdiarka  (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  1686,  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 
1  Leslie  Stephen  and  Sydney  Lee,  Dictionary  of  National  Biography. 


ON  CAMPAIGN  55 

felt,  for  the  first  time,  an  evident  diminution  of  my  health 
and  strength.' 1 

Francis  Lefort  arrived  at   Moscow  in    1675,  with  fifteen 
other  foreign  officers,  who,  like  him,  had  come  to  seek  their 
fortune.     He  belonged  to  a  family  of  Swiss  origin,  of  the 
name   of   Lifforti,   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  year    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  secretary,  giving  him  his  cast-off  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.     Foreigners  were  closely 
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 
1678  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  Souhay,  the 
daughter  of  a  Metz  burgher,  a  Catholic,  with  a  fair  fortune, 

1  Unpublished  as  yet,  except  in  a  German  translation.  The  original  is  in  the 
Archives  of  the  St.  Petersburg  War  Office.  Some  fragments  appeared  at  Aberdeen 
in  1S59,  published  by  the  Spalding  Club. 

-  Vulliemin,  Revue  Suisse,  vol.  \\i\.  p.  330. 


56  PETER  THE  GREAT 

and  good  connections.  Two  of  Madame  Souhay's  brothers, 
of  the  name  of  Bockkoven,  Englishmen  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.1  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  I  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.  For  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 

Iaouza,  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,  Sut  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  thoroughly  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,  his  drinking  powers  astounded 

even  the  Germans  and  the  Dutch.     In  1699,  m  tne  month 

of  February,  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.2     He  was  the  perfect  type  of  the 

1  Korb,  Diarium  itineris in  Moscoviam  (Vienna,  1700),  p.  214— (\>nip.  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.  I.a  Biographic  de  Posselt, 
transcribed  in  French  by  Vulliemin  (Der  General  uud  Admiral  Franz  Lefort, 
Frankfort,  1S66),  is  full  of  curious  information,  but  devoid  of  the  critical  quality. 

-  Korb,  p.  119.     Oustrialof,  vol.  iii.  pp.  262,  263. 


ON  CAMPAIGN  57 

mighty  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  every  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  witty.1  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  terems,  hidden  behind  their  iron 
bars  and  silken  veils  (Jatas).  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. 

During  the  seven  years  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  anything,  save  its  own  existence.  Rut 
during  the  seven  years  which  followed  on  the  coup  d\:tat 
of  1689,  matters,  as  I  have  already  hinted,  grew  even 
worse.  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  Kullmann,  the  Mystic,  was  burnt  alive  in 
the  Red  Square.  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 
1  Guerrier,  Leibnitz  in  Semen  Beziehungen  zu  A'ussiand,  p.  i~. 


58  PETER  THE  GREAT 

military  commands  on  heretics,  and  to  destroy  the  Pro- 
testant churches  in  the  Sloboda}  Peter  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.  First,  because  he  spoke  barbarian 
tongues  (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  Sloboda,  particularly  in 
Lefort's  house.  He  dined  there  constantly — as  often  as  two 
or  three  times  a  week.  Often,  too,  after  spending  the  whole 
day  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.2 

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 

1  Oustrialof,  vol.  ii.  p.  496. 
-  Vulliemin,  p.  590. 


ON  CAMPAIGN  59 

same  time,  a  kind  of  auxiliary  to  the  very  shabby  establish- 
ment kept  up  by  the  Sovereign  at  Preobrajensko'i'e,  and 
a  sort  of  casino.  The  furthest  gardens  of  the  Sloboda 
bordered  on  the  village  where  Peter  and  his  fortunes  had 
grown  up  together.  There  was  dancing  in  Lefort's  house 
in  the  Sloboda, — there  were  displays  of  fireworks  at  Preo- 
brajensko'i'e. 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  pyrotechny)  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  end  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  set 
about  the  sport.  Gordon's  journal  of  February  26th,  1690, 
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  manoeuvres 
of  the  Potieshnyie,  also  presided  over  by  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  officers  close  to  him  were 
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.1 

The  roughness  and  violence  of  these  warlike  games  were 
not  in  themselves  absolutely  unusual  ;  the  times  were  rough 
and  violent.  Charles  XII. ,  preparing  for  his  career  as  a 
mighty  warrior,  outstripped  his  future  adversary  in  this  re- 

1   <  (ustrialof,  vol.  ii.  p.  1S6. 


60  PETER  THE  GREAT 

spect.  But  there  is  a  special  and  characteristic  feature  about 
the  sham  warfare  in  which  Peter  so  delighted, — the  touch  of 
comic  buffoonery  it  invariably  betrays,  which  indicates  a 
special  tendency,  destined  to  be  considerably  developed  in 
the  young  man's  mind.  The  fort  on  the  banks  of  the  Iaouza 
had  grown  into  a  little  fortified  town,  with  a  regular 
garrison,  a  flotilla  of  boats,  a  Court  of  Justice,  Adminis- 
trative Offices,  and  a  Metropolitan, — Zotof,  a  former  tutor  of 
the  young  Tsar's,  whom  he  later  created  *  Pope '  or  '  Patriarch 
of  the  Fools.'  It  even  had  a  King.  This  part  was  played 
by  Romodanovski,  who  bore  the  title  of  King  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.  Finally,  the  King  of  Poland  was 
made  prisoner,  and  led  into  the  conqueror's  camp  with  his 
hands  tied  behind  his  back.1 

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  dwarfs  took  part.  In  1694,  the  church 
choristers,  enrolled  in  some  new  military  body,  were  fighting, 
under  the  command  of  the  court  fool,  Tourguenief,  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 

1  Jeliaboujski,  Memoirs,  p.  39. 


ON  CAMPAIGN  61 

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.1  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.- 

Peter'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.3 
But  the  approaching  campaign  of  i\zof  was  to  teach  the 
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  Perei'aslavl — 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  Perei'aslavl-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 

1  Oustrialof,  vol.  ii.  p.  360. 

-  Russian  Archives,  1875,  vol.  iii.  p.  221. 

3  Details  as  to  the  original  constitution  of  these  regiments,  which  were  to  play 
such  an  important  part  in  the  national  history,  will  be  found  in  the  Saint 
Petersburg  Journal,  April  1778. 


62  PETER  THE  GREAT 

gilded  wooden  crown,  set  over  the  entrance  door,  was  the  sole 
adornment  of  the  humble  dwelling;  but  life  went  cheerily 
within  those  walls.  The  shipyard  was  but  a  few  steps 
distant,  but  it  is  hardly  likely  that  Peter  worked  in  it  during 
his  frequent  midwinter  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.1  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 
carriages  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  ElepJiant ; 
that  the  ship  will  be  full  of  gilding,  have  an  excellent 
Dutch  crew,  and  a  no  less  excellent  captain — Peter  himself!2 
The  young  Tsar's  last  journey  to  Perei'aslavl  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/5 

1  Gordon's  Journal,  Feb.  16,  1692. 

-  Posselt,  Der  General  11  ml  Admiral  Franz  Lefort  (Frankfort,  1866),  vol.  ii. 

PP-  3I3-3I5- 
6  Oustrialof,  vol.  ii.  p.  146. 


ON  CAMPAIGN  63 

In  1693  he  felt  himself  cramped  on  the  Pletcheievo- 
Oziero,  just  as  he  had  felt  himself  cramped,  once  before, 
on  the  ponds  at  Preobrajenskoi'e.  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  :  '  MlN  HER,  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  ordinary, 
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.'1     This  is  signed — 

'  ScJiiper  Foil  schi 

i  p  santus  profet 
'  i ties' 
which  is  intended  to  mean  '  Captain  of  the  St.  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  already  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,  emptying  bottle  after 
bottle,  with  the  compatriots  of  Van  Tromp  and  Van  Ruyter. 

In  January,  1694,  fte  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- 

1   Letters  and  Correspondence,  vol.  i.  p.  23. 


64  PETER  THE  GREAT 

wards  he  was  back,  merrymaking  with  Lefort.  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 
clay  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 
Rear-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  really  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  Preobrajenskoie  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  past,  into  a  road  of  which  the 
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'etatoi  1689.  The  young  Sovereign's  friendships  among  the 
Nicmtsy,  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  far 
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 
Perekop.  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.  Mazeppa 
was  threatened  in  the  Ukraine.  Dositheus,  patriarch  of 
Constantinople,  wrote  letters  filled  with  gloomy  rumours. 
A  French  envoy,  he  averred,  had  met  the  Han  of  the  Crimea, 
and  the  Grand  Vizier,  at  Adrianople.  He  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  partly  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 

VOL.  I.  E 


66  PETER  THE  GREAT 

scorn  in  the  eyes  of  the  Sultan,  and  his  subjects.  The  Sultan 
had  omitted  the  two  Tsars  of  Russia  from  his  written 
announcement  of  his  succession,  to  all  the  other  European 
rulers.  News  came  from  Vienna,  where  the  Russian  envoys 
had  bought  over  the  Foreign  Office  translator,  Adam  Stille, 
that  the  Emperor'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  twelve,  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  already,  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,  Buhren,  Miinich, 
— of  great  parvenus  of  foreign  origin,  who,  for  more  than 
a  century,  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 
Feodorovitch  Lapouhin,  who  fell  out  with  the  favourite, 
and  damaged  his  wig.1  During  his  absences,  he  wrote 
him  letters,  which  breathed  an  exaggerated  tenderness.  He 
received,  in  return,  missives  revealing  more  unceremonious 
familiarity  than  affection.2 

In  1695,  the  Genevan  began  to  reflect  on  the  satisfaction 
he  might  find   in  showing  off  his  prodigious  good  fortune 

1  Pylaief,  Old  Moscow  (St.  Petersburg,  1891),  p.  491. 

2  Peter  the  Great's  Writings  and  Correspondence ',  vol.  i.  p.  754.  Compare 
Ouslrialof,  vol.  iv.  part  i.  pp.  553-61 1. 


ON  CAMPAIGN  67 

before  his  Swiss  and  Dutch  friends.  Peter  had  already  sent 
certain  of  his  young  comrades  abroad.  Why  not  follow 
them  in  person,  to  see,  and  study  at  first-hand,  the  wonders 
of  which  Timmermann  and  Karschten-Brandt  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  them. 
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  1579.1  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, 
1    I',  l'ierling,  Popes  ct  Tsars  (Paris,  1S90),  p.  204. 


68  PETER  THE  GREAT 

for  centuries.  It  was  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  army,  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  de  main,  wherein  the  young  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  him.  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  manoeuvres  round  Presburg.1  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  Iaouza.  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,  apparently,  that  his  present  adventure,  being 
very  different  in  its  nature,  called  for  different  precautions. 
The  '  Kings '  of '  Poland  '  and  of  '  Presburg  '  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 
Lefort2 — 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,  Streltsy  and  Tsaredvortsy,  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- 

1  Letter  to  Apraxin,  April  16,  1695.    Writings  and  Correspondence,  vol.  i.  p.  28. 
'-'  Petrof,   The  A rmed  Forces  of  Russia  (Moscow.  1S92.      Published  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Ministry  for  War),  vol.  ii.  p.  4. 


ON  CAMPAIGN  69 

dictory  orders,  assumes  the  pseudonym  of  Peter  Alexieief 
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  : — 

'  Min  Her  Kenich, — Your  Majesty's  letter,  dated  from 
your  capital  of  Presburg,  has  been  duly  delivered  to  me. 
Your  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.' 1 

The  end  is  what  we  might  have  expected.  Peter,  like 
Sophia  and  Galitzin,  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 
1  May  19,  1695.      Writings  and  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  goal, 
even  when  that  seemed  utterly  impossible, — never  to  swerve 
from  the  path  once  chosen,  however  dangerous,  never  to 
change  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  Kniaz,  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  Pereiaslavl  had  been  utterly 
useless.  He  set  about  building  another,  at  Voroneje,  in  the 
valley  of  the  Don.  He  met  with  enormous,  well-nigh  in- 
superable, 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  masse.  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  courier  to  render  an  account  of  certain 
details,  connected  with  the  administration  of  his  Department, 
thus  opens  his  report : — '  To-day  Prince  Boris  Alexieievitch 
(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.'1     No 

1  Solovief,  vol.  xix.  p.  227.     Compare  Oustrialof,  vol.  iv.  part  i.  p.  5S5,  etc. 


ON  CAMPAIGN  71 

matter !  The  work  had  been  begun  in  the  autumn  of  1696. 
On  the  3rd  of  the  following  May,  three-and-tvventy  galleys 
and  four  fireships  were  launched,  and  dropped  down  the 
river  Don,  on  the  way  to  the  sea.  At  their  head  Captain 
Peter  Alexieief  on  the  galley  Principium,  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. 

I  must  at  once  acknowledge  that  it  was  not  a  very  brilliant 

fleet,  nor  did  the  land  army,  commanded  by  its  new  General- 

lissimo,  the  Boyard   Shein,  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  Streltsy,  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.1     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  discourage- 

1   Petrof,  vol.  ii.  p.  6. 


72  PETER  THE  GREAT 

ment, — very  easily  disconcerted,  in  fact.  On  the  20th  of 
May,  attempting  to  reconnoitre  the  Turkish  fleet,  which  he 
desired  to  prevent  from  entering  the  Don,  and  re-victualling 
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 
tcJiaiki,  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.1  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  16th  of  July  the  guns  at  last  open  an  effective 
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  18th 
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.  He  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, 

1  Gordon's  Journal,  May  10,  1696. 


ON  CAMPAIGN  73 

in  Denmark,  and  in  Sweden.  It  is  not  enough  to  send  fifty 
officers  of  his  household  into  foreign  countries — twenty-eight 
to  Italy,  twenty-two  to  Holland  and  to  England.1  He  must 
follow  them,  he  must  put  himself  to  school,  and  in  grim 
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. 

1  Solovief,  vol.  xix.  p.  238. 


CHAPTER    II 

THE   JOURNEY — GERMANY — HOLLAND— ENGLAND— THE 

RETURN 


Tsar's  incognito — First  disguise — The  great  embassy — 
Peter  Mihailof — Impression  in  Moscow  and  in  Europe  — Departure  de- 
layed— A  conspiracy — Bloodstained  ghosts — The  woodcutter's  hatchet 
and  the  axe  of  Ivan  the  Terrible — -Sweden — Riga,  a  chilly  reception — A 
future  casus  belli — In  Germany — Koenigsberg — Curiosity  and  eccen- 
triciiies — An  artillery  diploma — Koppenbrugge — Meeting  with  Charlotte 
Sophia  of  Prussia — Peter's  first  social  appearances — Leibnitz. 

II.  Holland — Zaandam — Legend  and  history — The  house  at  Krimpenburg — A 
fair  Dutchwoman — Amsterdam — Serious  study  begins — Shipwright  and 
Sovereign — Weaknesses  and  oddities — The  Russian  Bacchus, 
in.  England — An  uncomfortable  room — Peter  at  Kensington  Palace — Unfavour- 
able impressions — Burnet — More  legends — London  and  Deptford — Toil 
and  pleasure — 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  II. 
at  Rawa — Close  of  the  journey. 


To  find  any  precedent,  in  Russian  history,  for  Peter's  journey, 
we  must  go  back  to  the  eleventh  century.  In  1075  the 
Grand  Duke  of  Kief,  Izaslaf,  paid  a  visit  to  the  Emperor 
Henry  IV.  at  Mayence.  Thus  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.1 

Peter  himself  did  not   venture  to  brave   opinion   to   the 
extent  of  giving  any  official  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 
Emperor,  the  Kings  of  England  and  of  Denmark,  the  Pope, 
the  Low  Countries,  the   Elector  of  Brandenburg,  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-chief,    took    precedence    of    his    colleagues, 
Golovin  and  Voznitsin.     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  journey,  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  by  his  shipwright's  tools,  with 
this  inscription  :     '  My  rank  is  that  of  a  scholar,  and  I  need 
masters.' 2 

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 
Sloboda,  in  other  words,  to  amuse  himself.3  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;4  but,  judging 
from  the  faces  and  habiliments  of  his  travelling  companions, 
this  may  fairly  be  taken  for  an  idle  jest.      Lefort  was  garbed 

1  Solovief,  vol.  ix.  p.  461  ;  vol.  xi.  p.  93. 

-  Oustrialof,  vol.  iii.  p.  18.  :;  Ibid.  p.  640. 

4  Blomeberg,  An  Account  of  Livonia  (London  1,  p.  y3z  (French  edition,  1705). 


76  PETER  THE  GREAT 

in  the  Tartar  style,  and  the  young  Prince  of  Imeretia  wore  a 
splendid  Persian  costume. 

The  journey  indeed,  in  its  earlier  days,  was  very  far  from 
possessing  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  Quai  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 
plenipotentiaries  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.1 Learned  men  had  already  turned  their  attention 
to  Muscovy.     In  England,  Milton  had  written  a  book  on  the 

1  Conjectures  aliquot  politico  de  susceptis  magni  Muscovite  Ducis  .   .   .   itin- 
eridus  (Thorunii,  169S,  St.  Petersburg  Library). 


THE  JOURNEY  77 

great  Northern  Empire,  which  had  been  followed  by  a  whole 
literature  devoted  to  the  same  subject.  Leibnitz  had 
recently  expressed  his  opinion  that  the  Muscovites  were  the 
only  people  capable  of  freeing  Europe  from  the  Turkish 
yoke.  And  it  was  with  this  learned  world,  especially,  that 
Peter  Mihailof  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  1697,  was  delayed  by  the  discovery  of  a  plot 
against  his  life.  At  the  head  of  the  conspirators  we  find  an 
old  acquaintance,  Tsikler,  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  Streltsy,  again  and  always  the 
Streltsy\  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  10th  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  England,  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  genius  of  his  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  250 
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  Weinkeller,  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  the  Tsar.  At  last  he  reached  Koenio-sbersr,  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.1  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  very  last  moment  the  Elector  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  !  Gehe  !  gehe  ! 
(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  !  ' 

1  Bergman,  Peter  der  Grosse  als  Mensch   unci  Regent  (Riga,   1823),  vol.   i. 
p.  256  (Russian  edition,  vol.  i.  p.  223,  note). 


80  PETER  THE  GREAT 

When  he  went  out  to  walk  the  streets  of  Koenigsberg,  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.1 

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  deserving  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?'2  He  was  working  daily  with  the  Master 
of  Artillery,  Stern feldt,  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 

1   Posselt,  vol.  ii.  pp.  407,  600,  601  ;  Theiner,  Historical  Monuments  (Rome, 
1859),  p.  369  ;  Herrmann,  Geschichte  Russlands,  vol.  iv.  p.  67. 
-  Pollnitz  (Baron  Charles  Louis),  Memoirs  (Berlin,  1 791 ),  vol.  i.  p.  179. 


THE  JOURNEY  8t 

of  Poland,  at  the  Castle  of  Birze,  in  Lithuania.  The  two 
Sovereigns,  both  of  them  given  to  eccentricities,  amused 
themselves  by  firing  heavy  cannon  at  a  mark.  Augustus 
made  two  hits,  Peter  never  touched  the  target  once.1 

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.2 

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  defensive,  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 

1  Oustrialof,  vol.  iv.  p.  90. 

2  Pollnitz,  Memoirs.      Pollnitz  is  not  altogether  a  reliable  witness. 
VOL.  I.  F 


82  PETER  THE  GREAT 

of  the  fairest  fruits  of  German  civilisation  and  culture.  The 
Electress  of  Brandenburg,  the  future  Queen  Sophia  of 
Prussia,  had  not  accompanied  her  husband  to  Koenigsberg. 
She  had  taken  advantage  of  his  absence,  to  pay  a  visit  to  her 
mother,  the  Electress  Sophia  of  Hanover.  But  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  niue-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 
archaeological,  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-Nugbad,  the  King  of  Abyssinia,  his  contemporaries, 
who  likewise  seemed  to  be  meditating  mighty  undertakings.1 
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, 

1  Gucrrier,  Leibnitz  in  seincn  Bezichungen  zu  Russland,  pp.  8-20. 


THE  JOURNEY  83 

and  we  would  willingly  keep  the  money  generally  spent  on 
rare  animals  for  use  on  this  occasion.'  And  a  month  later, 
'  Though  I  am  a  great  enemy  of  dirt,  my  curiosity,  this  time, 
is  too  strong  for  me.' 1 

Peter,  interested  in  his  turn,  urged,  doubtless,  by  his 
pleasant  memories  of  the  fair  ladies  in  the  Sloboda,  willingly 
agreed  to  a  meeting,  to  take  place  at  Koppenbriigge,  in 
the  Grand  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.'2 
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  young  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 

1  Varnhagen  von  Ense,  Leben  der  Kottigin  van  Preussen,  Sophie  Charlotte 
(Berlin,  1837),  pp.  74,  76. 

2  '  I  do  not  know  how  to  talk  !  ' 


84  PETER  THE  GREAT 

his  jesters,  and  as  the  silly  buffoonery  of  that  individual 
does  not  seem  to  please  the  ladies'  taste,  he  seizes  a  huge 
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  extraordinary  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.'1 

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  Schenkenschen,  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  Cleves, 
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  are  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 

1  Ermann,  Afemoirs  bearing  on  the  History  of  Sophia  Charlotte  (Berlin,  1861), 
pp.  1 16-120.  The  details  of  the  interview  arc  taken  from  the  Correspondence  of 
the  two  Princesses  with  Fui  h  1. 


THE  JOURNEY  85 

description  of  this  out-of-the-way  corner,  makes  no  mention 
of  the  illustrious  guest  to  whom  it  has  owed  its  later 
glory.  The  celebrated  writer,  Wagenaer,  does  not  refer 
to  Zaandam,  in  his  account  of  Peter's  visit  to  Holland.1 
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  greater  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  belonged  to  a  blacksmith 
of  the  name  of  Guerrit  Kist.  The  records  of  the  Lutheran 
community  of  the  place  speak  of  a  different  proprietor 
— Boij  Thijsen.  All  the  workmen's  houses  lining  the  little 
canal  which  falls  into  the  Y  so  absolutely  resemble  each 
other,  that  some  confusion  may  very  well  have  arisen. 
Voltaire  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  days  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  ojte  week  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 

1  Wagenaer,   History  of  Amsterdam  (Amsterdam,    1750),   p.   721.      See  also 
Vaderlandsche  Historie  (Amsterdam,  1757),  vol.  xvi.  pp.  377"379- 

2  Voltaire  has  somewhat   contradicted   himself  on   this   point.     Compare  his 
Works,  1S53  edition,  vol.  iv.  pp.  576  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  the  best  workmen 
amongst  the  Dutch  carpenters,  none  of  them,  of  course,  first- 
rate,  whom  he  had  employed  at  Preobrajenskoie,  at  Pereias- 
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  by  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  country.  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  87 

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.1     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.2     But  in  18 14 
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  : 

'  Nichts  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 

1  Meermann,  Lecture  on  Peter  the  Great's  First  Journey  (Paris,  1S12),  p.  59, 
etc.;  Nartof,  Anecdotes  of  Peter  the  Great  (St.  Petersburg,  1891),  pp.  5-7: 
Noomeri 's  unpublished 'Journal  in  the  Utrecht  Library.  This  journal  is  shortly 
to  be  published  by  Professor  Kort,  of  Dorpat  (Iourief).  Scheltema  relied  on  il 
absolutely.     Noomen  was  a  Zaandam  cloth-merchant. 

-  Scheltema,  Historical  Anecdotes  of  Peter  the  Great  (Lausanne,  1S42),  y.  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  may  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  right  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  Calorifere\ 

A  picture  of  the  Dutch  school,  once  at  the  Mon  Plaisir 
Palace  at  Peterhof,  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  171 5.  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.' x 

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  Witsen.  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  lost 
no  time  in  obtaining  access  for  him  to  the  great  shipbuild- 
ing yards  of  the  East  Indian  Company.  This  marks  the 
1  Guerrier,  Leibnitz  Correspondence  (St.  Petersburg,  1873),  p.  31, 


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  Peter' 
(Peterbas)  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  I1  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  ! ' 2 

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,  whose  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  Ruysch,  natural 
history  with  Leuwenhoek.  He  took  the  gentlemen  of  his 
suite  into  the  celebrated  Boerhaave's  anatomical  theatre, 
1  Scheltema,  pp.  140-142.  '-'  Ibid. 


9° 


PETER  THE  GREAT 


and  when  they  expressed  some  disgust  at  the  preparations 
they  saw  there,  he  forced  them  to  bite  into  the  corpse  which 
was  being  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  ; l 
he  took  drawing  lessons  too,  and  learned  to  engrave  on 
copper,  frequented  the  studio  of  Koerten  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.2 

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.'3     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  which  awaited  him, — not 
the  building  of  ships,  or  of  factories,  or  of  palaces  (foreign 
specialists  could   always  be  brought  in  for  such  purposes), 
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 
Oroujennaia   Pa  lata,  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 

1  Meermann,  p.  60. 

-  Scheltema,  Russia  and  the  Low  Countries  (Amsterdam,  1S17).  vol.  i.  p.  221  ; 
F.  Miiller,  Attempt  at  a  Russian-Netherland  Bibliography,  pp.  164,  165  ; 
Piekarski,  Literature  and  Science  in  Russia  (St.  Petersburg,  1S62),  vol.  i.  p.  9. 
The  engraving  referred  to  is  in  the  Amsterdam  Museum. 

3  Oustrialof,  vol.  iii.  p.  93. 


THE  JOURNEY  91 

utterly  forgotten  Moscow,  and  the  rest  of  his  empire.     But 
this   was   past.     Far  as   he  was   from   his   capital,  and   the 
frontiers  of  his  country,  he  insisted  on  being  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.    Even  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  Streltsy, 
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.1 
There  were  occasional  checks  in  this  wonderful  activity, —  a 

1   Oustrialof,  vol.  iii.  pp.  104- 1 10. 


92  PETER  THE  GREAT 

pause,  now  and  then,  in  the  Sovereign's  correspondence 
with  his  representatives.  Peter's  answers  were  sometimes 
slow  in  coming.  He  would  soon  excuse  himself  shyly, 
almost  humbly — the  fault  lay  with  Hmielnitski,  the  Russian 
Bacchus.1  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 
eight  days'  visit  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  great  maritime  city,  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  Mihailof  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  very  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,  extraordinary,  and  very  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  Hmielnitski  was  the  victorious  Chief  who  led  the  Cossacks  in  their  struggle 
against  the  Poles  in  the  seventeenth  century.  Both  in  Russian,  and  in  Polish,  the 
word  Ilmiel  means  hops,  and  also  drunkcmies s. 


THE  JOURNEY  93 

of  the  other  resolutions  referring  to  the  stay  of  the  Ambas- 
sadors at  Amsterdam,  contains  any  reference  to  Peter 
himself.1 


Ill 

In  the  seventeenth  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  Mitchell,  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, 

1  Dutch  Stale  Papers,  The  Hague.  See,  with  reference  to  Peter's  visit  l" 
Holland,  besides  the  authorities  already  <|uoted,  A.  Iazykof,  Peter  the  Ureal  at 
Zaandam  and  Amsterdam  (Berlin,  1872). 


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  the  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  greatly,  but  he  only  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  Koppenbrligge.  A  few  years  later, 
Burnet,  in  his  memoirs,  almost  seems  to  apologise  to  his 
readers,  for  speaking  of  so  sorry  a  personage.1  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 

1  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.'1 
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  1808, 
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 !  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.'2  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, 

1  Nartof,  ]>.  9.     The  original  expression  is  even  coarser  yet. 
-  Shuubinski,  Historical  Sketches  (St.  Petersburg,  1S93),  P<  3°- 


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  night,'  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  are  to  be  believed,  he  tossed  a  huge  ruby  into 
the  bosom  of  the  Electress'  low-cut  gown,  as  he  sat  at  table 
with  her.1     Now  the  Electress  did  not  go  to  Koenigsberg ! 


IV 

By  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 
by  the  Embassy,  had  not  been  favourably  received.  The 
States  had  even  gone  so  far  as  to  suggest  to  the  King 
of  England  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 

1  Coxe's  Travels  (London,  1874),  V(J1-  iv-  P-  $7-      Niestroicf,  '  Peter  the  Great's 
Visit  to  Holland  and  England,'  in  the  Messpger  Universe!,  1871. 


THE  JOURNEY  97 

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,  twelve 
lacqueys,  six  coachmen  and  postillions,  twenty-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.1  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.  Pie,  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  Mihai'lof's  first  lesson  in  diplomacy.  He 
began  to  understand  the  inconvenience  of  disguises.  Three 
times  he  returned  to  the  charge.  At  last  the  Vice-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- 

1  Weber,  Arckiv fiir  Sdchsische  Geschichte  (Leipzig,  1873),  vol.  xi.  p.  338. 
VOL.  I.  ('. 


98  PETER  THE  GREAT 

municating  with  the  Park.  He  agreed  to  everything.  Once 
in  the  Emperor  Leopold's  presence,  he  forgot  himself  so  far 
as  to  attempt  to  kiss  his  hand.  He  evidently  felt  himself 
very  small  and  inferior ;  he  kept  putting  his  hat  on,  and 
pulling  it  off,  nervously,  and  could  not  make  up  his  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. Lefort  interpreted,  for  Peter  did  not  dare  to  fall  back 
on  his  own  bad  German.  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.1 

But  the  interview  bore  no  fruit.     The  Emperor  was  quite 
resolved  to  respect  Peter  Mihai'lof'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,  and  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 

1  Vienna  State  Papers,  Cercmoniall-rrotocolle.     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  Vinnius,  a  great  deal  of  wine  was  drunk,  and  there  was 
considerable  love-making  in  the  gardens.1  Shortly  afterwards, 
the  Emperor  invited  the  Ambassadors  to  a  masked  ball,  at 
which  Peter  wore  the  dress  of  a  Friesland  peasant.  The 
Emperor  and  Empress  appeared  as  the  host  and  hostess  of 
an  inn.  Innkeeping  (das  Wirthschaft)  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  Marshal 
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  galleys  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  Streltsy.  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. But  more  reassuring  news  awaited  him  in  the 
old  Polish  capital  :  SheTn,  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.  Before  setting  forth  its  conse- 
quences, distant  and  immediate — the  creation,  in  other  words, 

1   Writings  and  Correspondence,  vol.  i.  p.  263. 


ioo  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.  1'en  and  pencil  portraits — Kneller  and  Von  Moor — St.  Simon — Strength  and 

nervousness — Twitchings — Oddities  of  dress — The  lay  figure  in  the  Winter 
Palace — What  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, 
in.  Was  Peter  brave  ? — Narva  and  Poltava — The  idea  of  duty — Contradictions — 
Moral  energy  and  weakness — Inconstancy  and  versatility  in  detail  — 
Steadiness  and  perseverance  in  the  whole  undertaking — Peter's  impulsive- 
ness— Traits  of  the  national  character — Brain  and  heart  —  Want  of 
feeling — Cheery  and  sociable  disposition — Boyish  pranks — Why  he  was 
disliked — Frequent  fits  of  violence  and  rage — Sword  thrusts. 
[V.  Drinking  excesses — A  scene  of  bloodshed  in  the  Monastery  of  the  Basilian 
Fathers — The  Tsar  not  sober — Habitual  drunkenness— Its  results. 
V.  Coarse  pleasures — Banquets  and  orgies — Female  drunkards — A  regular 
tippler — Theological  controversies  at  table — Peter's  tastes  are  those  of  the 
public-house  and  the  servants'  had-  -Was  he  cruel  ? — Judge  and  execu- 
tioner— Reasons  of  State— Idealism  and  sensuality — The  bondage  of  the 
Law. 


TlIE  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  check — the  wart   of  the   description   sent  to  the 

Zartndam  workman — rouses  confidence  in  the  artist's  fidelity. 

'  103 


104  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  1717,  to  have  it 
reproduced  at  the  Gobelins  Factory — were  all  of  them  far 
less  flattering.1  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.' 2  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.  Here  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 

1  Rovinski,  Dictionary  of  Engraved  Portraits,  y>  lS72-  The  whereabouts  of 
the  original  of  this  portrait  is  unknown. 

2  Theiner,  p.  372.  Compare  Ruzini's  Account  sent  from  Venire  lo  Vienna', 
Fontesrerum  Austriacarum  (Vienna,  1867),  Fart  11.  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.'1  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.' 2  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  1698,  when  he  was  only  24,  and  the  fierce 
expression  of  his  eyes.  The  Archbishop  of  Novgorod, 
Ianovski,  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 
(le  would  be  done  to  death  by  that  second  hand,  which  his 
-embling  lips  had  scarcely  touched,  was  always  with  him. 
'  It  is  well  known,'  says  Staehlin,  '  that  this  monarch,  from 
I11V.  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- 

1  Mimoirei  et  Documents  (Russie),  vol.  ii.  p.  1 1 7- 

2  Despatch  from  M.  de  Liboy— sent  to  Dunkirk  to  receive  the  Tsar,  April 

23.  I7I7- 


i 


1 06  PETER  THE  GREAT 

ceded  by  a  strong  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.2  Hence  too,  his  habit  of  sleeping  with 
his  two  hands  clasping  the  shoulders  of  an  orderly  officer.3 
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.  But  this  explana- 
tion is,  unfortunately,  far  from  being  sufficient.  In  17 18, 
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.4 

These  traits  of  nervous  delicacy  had  already  appeared  in 
the  case  of  Ivan  the  Terrible, and  probably  arose  from  the  same 

f  cause — the  excess  and  violence  of  the  shocks  undergone  in 
infancy  and  childhood.  It  was  the  legacy  of  old  Russia — re- 
presented by  the  Streltsy,  and  doomed  to  death  already — to 
her  great  Reformer.  But  with  the  poison,  happily,she  bestowed 
the  antidote — that  mighty  work  which  was  to  purify  his  blood 
and  invigorate  his  nerves.     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.  8\  in.),5  dark 

'  extremely  dark,  as  if  he  had  been  born  in  Africa,'  says 
one  of  his  contemporaries  c — 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.     He  had 

1   Anecdotes  (Richou's  translation,  Strasburg,  1787),  p.  80. 
-  Scherer's  Anecdotes  (Paris,  1792),  vol.  ii.  p.  82. 
:i  Nartof,  p.  29. 

4  Memoirs  of  the  Margravine  of  Baireuth, 

5  Two  Archines,  and  fourteen  Verchoks,  Golikof,  History  of  Peter  the  Great 
(Moscow,  1842).  vol.  x.  ]>.  170. 

''  Louville's  Memoirs  (Paris,  1818),  vol.  ii.  p.  239. 


PHYSICAL  PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC  TRAITS     107 

no  sense  whatever  of  propriety  in  dress.  He  showed  himself 
to  the  Danes,  at  Copenhagen,  in  17 16,  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.1  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  eyes,  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  with  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. 

1  Lundblad,  Life  of  Charles  XII.  (German  Translation.  Jenssen-Tuch, 
Hamburg,  1837),  vol.  i.  p.  86. 


io8  PETER  THE  GREAT 


II 


'  The  soul's  joy  lies  in  doing.'     The  greatest  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   TJiatendrange  war  sein  wahres  Genie'': — Yes;  his 
strength,  his  greatness,   and  his  ultimate   success,  were   all 
of  them   due   to   that  vrtal__energy  which   made  him,  both 
physically  and  morally,  the  most  turbulent  man,  the  most 
indifferent  to  fatigue,  the  most  intensely  sensible  of  the  joy 
of  action,  whom   the  world  has  ever  seen.     Nothing  more 
natural  than  that  the  legends  should  have  described  him  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^preju dices,  and   his 
Russian  subjects  brim  over  with  them.     THeyare  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 
worship  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  1861,  by  the  Minis- 
try for  Foreign  Affairs.     The  various  dates — from  Lemberg 
in  Galicia,  from  Marienwerder  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  he  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,  171 5,  I  find  him  at  St.  Petersburg,  about  to  put 
to  sea  with  his  fleet.  On  the  9th  he  is  back  again  in  his 
capital,  sending  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.1  And  so  on,  year  in 
and  year  out,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his  life.  He 
is  always  in  a  hurry :  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,  from  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  1721.  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.2 

Even  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- 

1  Golikof,  vol.  vi.  pp.  33,  35,  321.  "  Scherer,  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  gravely,  carrying  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.1  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  work,  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  lad\'.  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 ! 3 

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.4 

Not  one  escapes  him.  At  Archangel,  on  the  Dvina,  lie 
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 

1  Bergholz's  Journal,  Biischings-Magasin,  vol.  xx.  p.  462  ;  Ilyncrof,  The 
Countess  Golovkin  (St.  Petersburg,  1S67),  p.  102,  etc. 

-  For  this  anecdote,  with  its  coarse  details,  see  Poushkin's  Works,  1S7S 
edition,  vol.  v.  p.  27S. 

J  Despatch  from  Baluze  to  the  King,  May  12,  1711,  French  Foreign  Office. 

4  Golikof,  vol.  iii.  p.  301. 


PHYSICAL  PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC  TRAITS     in 

a  whole  cargo  of  the  fragile  ware.1  In  January,  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  country,  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  shortly  give 
orders  concerning  the  funeral  of  a  regimental  major.2 

In  172 1,  when  he  undertook  the  work  of  drawing  up  his 
Navy_Fiegulations,  he  laid  out  a  plan  for  the  employment 
of  his  time,~tcTwhich  he  closely  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  1721.3  The  MS.  of  these  Regula- 
tions, entirely  in  his  hand,  and  full  of  corrections,  is  now 
amonest  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  his  ordinary  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  industry,  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 

1  Staehlin's  Anecdotes,  p.  1 10. 

2  Bergholz's  Journal,  Busckings-Magazin,  vol,    xx.   p.    360;    Writings  ami 
Correspondence,  vol.  i.  p.  81 1. 

3  Golikof,  vol.  ix.  p.  27. 


U2  PETER  THE  GREAT 

several  editions  of  the  same  scheme.  This  did  not  prevent 
him  from  attending  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.1 

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  elementary  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 
Raskohiiks,  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.'2 

1   Siemievski,  The  Tsarina  Prascovia  (St.  Petersburg,  1 883),  note  to  p.  5S. 
'-'  Solovief,  History  of  Russia,  vol,  >;iii,  p.  166,  etc, 


PHYSICAL  PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC  TRAITS 


III 

Did  Peter's  energy,  and  his  enterprising — nay,  his  extra- 
ordinarily venturesome — genius,  equal  his  coiifagc? 

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  Troltsa.  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  army,  made  over  the  command  to  an  as  yet 
untried,  and  newly-enlisted  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  Hallart,  who  saw  him  on  this  occasion, 
in  the  tent  of  the  new  Commander-in-Chief,  the  Prince  de 
Croy,  sca£e_d_put  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.1  Peter,  in  his  own 
journal,  has  given  us  to  understand  that  he  was  unaware 
of  Charles  Xll.'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.2  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  chivalry  ; 
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 

1  Documents  published  by  Herrmann,  in  his  History  of  Russia,  vol.  iv.  p.  1 16  ; 
Vockerodl's  Journal,  published  by  Herrmann,  Russland  unter  Peter  </.  G. 
(1872),  p.  42;  and  Kelch,  Lieflandische  Gcscliichtc  (1875),  vol.  ii.  p.  156.  All 
agree  on  this  head. 

2  This  is  acknowledged  even  by  Swedish  historians.  See  Lundblad,  vol.  ii. 
p.  141. 

VOL.  I.  II 


H4  PETER  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  the 
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,  desiring  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  okolnitcJiyi 
Zassiekin  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.  But  his 
progress  towards  the  summit  was  always  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.  -Na-puLeon, — 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.  But, 
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  Narva,  he  disguised  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.1  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 

1  Voekerodt,  who  describes  this  scene,  may  have  exaggerated,  but  (he  multi- 
plicity of  analogous  traits  in  existence  would  appear  to  me  conclusive  in  his 
favour. 


PHYSICAL  PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC  TRAITS     115 

had  hoped,  he  hastily  gave  orders  to  retreat.  '  Tell  the  Tsar,' 
replied  Michael  Galitzin,  a  Lieutenant-Colonel  in  command 
of  a  detachment  of  the  Siemionovski,  '  that  at  this  moment 
I  belong  to  Peter  no  longer,  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  having 
dropped  the  heroic  sentence  enshrined  in  legend,  Galitzin 
continued  the  attack,  and  carried  the  place.1 

To  a  much  later  date,  and  even  after  Poltava,  Peter  was 
unchanged,  in  this  respect.  The  occurrence  on  the  Pruth,  to 
which  I  shall  later  have  to  refer,  proves  it.  He  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  day.  This 
quality  is  eminently  characteristic  of  the  Slavonic  race,  that 
most  composite  product  of  different  and  various  origins, 
cultures,  and  influences,  both  European  and  Asiatic.  To 
these,  perhaps,  it  partly  owes  that  power  of  resistance  and 
extraordinary  grit,  of  which  it  has  given  proof  in  under- 
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 
1  Oiutrialof,  vol.  iv.  pp.  197-202. 


n6  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  the  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  qucecumque  jubeo  '  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  genius.  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.1 

I  have  never  seen  any  instance  of  such  absolute  insensi- 
bility of  feeling.     During  the  course  of  the  trial  of  his  son 

1  Letter,  dated  April  16,  1701,   Writings  and  Correspondence,  vol.  i.  p.  444. 


PHYSICAL  PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC  TRAITS     117 


Alexis — the  incidents  of  which  might  well  have  moved 
him — he  had  strength,  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  Raskol, 
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  gjuety,  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  announcing 
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  1 7 1 3.1  All  his 
life  he  was  easily  amused.  He  was  seen  at  Dresden  in  171 1, 
mounted  on  a  hobby  horse,  shouting  '  Quicker  !  quicker  !  ' 
and  laughing  till  he  cried  when  one  of  his  companions 
turned  giddy  and  fell  off.2  At  the  popular  rejoicings  which 
followed  the  conclusion  of  the  Peace  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  supposed  disaster,  they  came 
upon  a  brazier,  lighted,  by  his  orders,  in  a  public  square, 
by  soldiers,  who  laughed  in  their  faces,  and  greeted  them 

1  ( lolikof,  vol.  v.  p.  543. 

-  Archiv fUr  Sacksiscke  Gesckickte,  vol.  xi.  p.  345. 


I  iS  PETER  THE  GREAT 

with  shouts  of  '  April  fool's  day  ! ' 1  One  day,  when  sitting 
at  table  with  the  Duke  of  Holstein,  he  praised  the  curative 
qualities  of  the  waters  of  Olonets,  which  he  had  used  for 
several  years.  The  duke's  minister,  Bassevvitz,  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  mere  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  occ-upattons  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  ; 
ancftrTis  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  servility  of 
those  about  him  contributed  to  the  development  of  this 
innate  disposition.  '  He  has  never  been  over  polite,'  writes 
the  Saxon  Minister  Lefort,3  in  his  Journal,  in  May  172 1,  'but 
he  grows  more  and  more  intolerable  every  day.  Happy  is 
the  man  who  is  not  obliged  to  approach  him.' 4  The  progress 
of  this  fault  was  so  gradual  as  to  be  almost  insensible.  In 
September  1698,  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  I  will  pull  thine  own  skin  over 
thine  ears  ! '     When  Romodanovski  and  Zotof  attempted  to 

1  Bergholz,  Journal,  Biischings-Magazin,  vol.  xxi.  p.  238. 

2  Ibid.,  vol.  xx.  p.  387. 

3  This  Lefort  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  favourite,  who  will  be  referred 
to  later  ;  the  relationship  between  the  two  is  somewhat  disputed. 

4  Collected    Woi'ks   of   the    Imperial   Russian    Historical    Society   (Sbornik), 
vol.  iii.  p.  333. 


PHYSICAL  PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC  TRAITS     119 

interfere,  he  flew  at  them.     One  had  his  fingers  almost  cut 
off,  the  other  received  several  wounds  on  the  head.     Lefort 
— or,  as  some  other  witnesses  declare,  Menshikof — was  the 
only  person  who  could  succeed  in  calming  him.1     But,  only 
a  few  days  later,  when  supping  with  Colonel  Tchambers,  he 
knocked  that  same  Lefort  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.2     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  fiat  of 
his  sword.3     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.4    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  II., 
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.0 


IV 

The  dxinidngrbouts  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 

1  Oustrialof,  vol.  iii.  p.  625  ;  vol.  iv.  p.  211. 

2  Korb,  pp.  84,  86. 

:;  Despatch  from  Baluze,  Nov.  28,  1703,  French  Foreign  Office. 
4  Russian  State  Papers,  vol.  ii.  pp.  249  and  390. 
"'  Popof,  Tatihtehef  and  his  7 imes  (Moscow,  1861).  p.  531. 
,;  Memoirs,  vol.  ii.  p.  66. 


120  PETER  THE  GREAT 

for  drink,'  so  Baron  Pollnitz  affirms,  in  his  account  of  the 
Sovereign's  visit  to  Berlin  in  17 17. 

On  the  morning  of  the  nth  July  1705,  Peter,  who  was 
paying  a  visit  to  the  Monastery  of  the  Basilian  Fathers  at 
Polock,  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  (nth  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  intoxication.  He  had  only  just 
quitted  some  nocturnal  orgy.1 

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  Feodor  Apraxin  :  '  I  know  not  how 
I   left  you,  for  I  was  too  much  overwhelmed  by  the  gifts 

1  See,  on   this  subject,  Theiner,  Monuments,  p.   412  ;  Dom  (hu'pin,   Vie  de 
Josaphat  (Paris,  1S74),  vol.  ii.  p.  430;  Oustrialof,  vol.  iv.  p.  y]^. 


PHYSICAL  PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC  TRAITS     121 

of  Bacchus  ;  wherefore  I  beg  you  all  to  forgive  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  obey ! '  and  he  punctuated  his  remarks  with 
two  hearty  boxes  on  the  ear.1 

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  systematic 
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  xv.  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  constant  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 
1   Weber's  Correspondence  (published  by  Herrmann,  1S80),  p.  173. 


122  PETER  THE  GREAT 

offender  was  forced  to  swallow  at  a  single  draught.  This 
was  perfectly  certain  to  put  an  end  to  his  pranks,  for,  as  a 
general  rule,  it  sent  him  under  the  table.1 

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  Tsarskai'a-Mysa  (the   TsarskoTe- 
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.'2     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  ;  he  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.'3     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    Menshikof    despatch, 
entreating  him  to  rejoin  his  army.     He  never  even  broke 

1  Scherer,  vol.  v.  p.  28. 

-  Sbornik,  vol.  iii.  p.  382. 

::  Despatch,  dated  Jan.  9,  1725,  French  Foreign  Office.  See  also,  in  agree- 
ment, a  letter  from  the  Dutch  Resident,  De  Bie,  to  the  Secretary  ol  the  Slates- 
General,  Fagel,  dated  Dec.  3,  17 17,  Dutch  Archives. 


PHYSICAL  PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC  TRAITS     123 

the  seals  of  the  packets,  and  went  on  making  merry.1  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. 


V 

Coarse  tastes  naturally  go  hand-in-hand  with  public- 
house  morals.  In  the  society  of  women,  to  which  he  was 
always  partial,  what  PeteFseems  tcThave  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  theologicaluiscussions, 
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.'2 

There  was  nothing  delicate,  nothing  refined,  about  Peter. 
At  Amsterdam,  during  his  first  visit  there,  he  fell  in   love 

1  Essipof,  Life  of  Menshikof  (Russian  State  Papers,  t  S 7 5 ) .  p.  52. 

2  Archiv  fiir  Sachsische  Gesckickte,  vol.  xi.  p.  345. 


124  PETER  THE  GREAT 

with  Testje-Roen,  a  celebrated  clown,  who  gave  open-air 
performances,  and  whose  silly  jokes  were  the  delight  of  the 
lowest  populace,  and  would  have  carried  him  off  with  him 
to  Russia.1 

He  was  a  boor.  In  certain  respects,  he  never,  to  his  last 
day,  lost  any  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 
ferocity ;  yet,  this  matter  should  be  looked  into.  He  was 
frequently  present  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 
openly  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  Streltsy.  But  any  dis- 
cussion on  this  matter  strikes  me  as  idle.  He  may  occasion- 
ally 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  feel — 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 ! 2 

Did  Peter,  then,  actually  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  Qction^—-h\\t  there  it  ends.  I  do  not  believe  one  word  of 
the  story  told  by  Frederick  the  Great  to  Voltaire,  about  the 
meal  during  which,  in  presence  of  the  King  of  Prussia's 
Envoy,  Baron  Von  Printzen,  the  Tsar  amused  himself  by 
decapitating  twenty  Streltsy,  emptying  as  many  glasses  of 
brandy  between  each  stroke,  and  finally  inviting  the  Prussian 
to  follow  his  example.3  Round  every  trait  of  Peter's 
character,  and  every  chapter  of  his  history,  innumerable  tales 
have  thus  clustered,  which  should  be  put  aside  a  prion,  for 
no  other  reason  but  that  of  their  evident    absurdity.     As 

1   Scheltema.  Anecdotes,  p.  157.  -  Siemievski,  S/oro  i  Dielo,  p.  262. 

:;  Voltaire's  Works,  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  reaj__wi]d__±i£ast — the  greedy 
delight  in  inflicting  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— ancT  has  no  more 
effect  on  him  than  these  ; — therefore  I  am  ready  to  follow  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.1 
But  inaccessible  as  he  is  to  pity,  he  is  moved,  and  easily 
moved,  by  scruple,  when  reasbhs  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 v 
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  ! ' 2 

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  flask  of  it  down  his  throat,  and  almost 
choked  him.3  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 

1   Sicmievski,  Sloi'o  i  Dielo,  p.  260. 

-   Rosenheim,  Military  Legislation  in  Russia  (St.    Petersburg,  187S),  p.  155. 
Sec  also  Filippof,  Pel cr  the  Great's  Reform,  and  his  Penal  Laws,  p.   143,  etc. 
;;  Korb,  as  quoted  above,  p.  SS. 


126  PETER  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  that  he  took  his  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.1  In  the 
same  way,  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  kept 
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  terrible  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 '  (Eingeweide).  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  of  his  former  favourites,  and   informing  him  that  he 
very  much  regretted  being  obliged  to  have  his  head  cut  off 
1  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 '  (Diedoushka)  of  his  fleet,  the  English  boat  found  in  a 
barn  in  1688 — Peter,  not  altogether  sober,  it  is  true,  kissed 
the  Duke  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.1 

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."-2 
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  spite  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. 

1  Buschings-Magazin,  vol.  xxi.  p.  301. 

-  Collated  Laws,  pp.  337,  462,  777,  S39,  3279,  3290,  3298,  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  epistolary  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, 
in.  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. 

iy.  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.  The  mock  Patriarchate —  1'heobject  of  its  establishment — Pope  or  Patriarch  ? 
— Did  Peter  intend  to  cast  ridicule  on  his  clergy? — Origin  and  develop- 
ment of  the  institution — The  mock  Pope  and  his  conclave— Grotesque 
ceremonies  and  processions — lather  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  practice-;  —  Moral  compression  and  reaction — Ori- 
ginality, despotic  fancy,  ami  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  J.  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  anv  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  Mihai'lof,  while  sharing 
in  ail  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  Iagoujinski,  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.1 

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  Perm  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 

1  Writings  and  Correspondence,  vol.  i.  p.  253;  Golikof,  vol.  ii.  p.  296; 
vol.  viii.  p.  120. 

VOL.  I.  I 


130  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.1  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  eyes — delighted  at  first,  indulgent  after- 
wards, but  always  sympathetic,  even  in  the  speculator's 
hour  of  darkest  disgrace.2 

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  Kunst- 
kamera,  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.3  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  171 5,  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.4 

The  sum  of  his  knowledge  and  qualifications,  thus  per- 
petually increased,  preserved,  in  spTteof  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, 

1  Clarkson,  Life  of  William  Penn  (1S13),  p.  253. 
-  Russian  State  Papers  (1874),  p.  1578. 
:!  Arckivfiir  Sdchsische  Gcschichtc,  vol.  xi.  p.  345. 
4  Dolgoroukof'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.1  He  was  scantily  acquainted, 
indeed,  with  the  usual  methods  of  Western  diplomacy.  In 
May  17 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  gallery,  of  which  his 
hearers  could  not  understand  a  word,  and  would  then  dis- 
miss them  before  they  had  time  to  ask  for  an  explanation.2 

He  has  passed,  and  does  still  pass,  even  in  the  eyes  of 
certain  military  historians,  for  a  great  militaryleader.  Cer- 
tain new  and  happy  ideas  as  to  the  duty  oT~Keserves,  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.  We  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.3  I 
am  not  qualified  to  enter  into  any  controversy  on  such  a 
subject,  and  I  should  have  been  disposed  to  bowunquestion- 
ingly  before  the  admiring  testimony  of  Maurice  de  Saxe. 
But  a  contradictory  witness  stops  me  short — the  Journal  of 

1  Campredon's  Despatch,  Dec.  I,  1721,  French  Foreign  Office. 

2  De  Bie,  to  the  States  General,  May  3,  1712,  Dutch  State  Papers. 

3  Petrof,  as  already  quoted,  vol.  ii.  p.  84,  etc. 


I32  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 scanty,  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 
greatest  admirers  admit  that  not  one  of  the  other  works  of 
this  kind,  commenced  under  his  direction,  has  ever  been 
completed.1  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 
down  to  the  undisputed  personal  credit  of  the  great  creator. 
He  did,  as  I  shall  elsewhere  show,  create  almost  every 
portion  of  that  wonderful  instrument  by  which  the  power 
and  prestige  of  his  country  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  radicaLdefect  which,  from  the 

\beginning  to  the  end  of  his  life,  led  him  to  joke,  as  it  were, 

v^with    serious   things,   and    take  childish    matters   seriously. 

Of  this    fact,  his  "  studies    and    pretensions,   in   matters   of 

1   Petrof,  as  already  quoted,  vol.  ii.  p.  S4,  elc. 


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  instruments  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_J\ill  of  teeth, 
extracted  by  the  august  pupil  of  the  travelling  Amsterdam 
dentist,  is  still  preserved  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,  Polouboi'arof,  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  surgery,  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.1 

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  St.  Peters- 
burg. Yet  he  held  it  proper  to  build  palaces  for  his  col- 
laborators to  dwell  in.  But  building  operations  flagged  at 
1  Shoubinski,  Historical  Sketches,  p.  n,  elc. 


154  PETER  THE  GREAT 

last.  Once  more  he  saw  the  necessity  for  setting  a  personal 
example,  and  so  he  ended  by  having  a  Winter  and  a  Summer 
Palace  of  his  own.  These  were  a  somewhat  clumsy  imitation 
of  Western  models — for  he  insisted,  too,  on  being  his  own 
architect.  The  main  body  of  the  buildings  clashed  with  the 
wings,  and  formed  ungraceful  angles.  Further,  he  would 
have  double  ceilings  in  the  rooms  reserved  for  his  own  use, 
so  that  he  might  still  fancv  he  was  living  in  a  wooden  cabin. 
But  the  impulse  had  been  given,  and  in  course  ot  time, 
the  French  architect,  Leblond,  retained  at  the  heavy  salary 
of  40,000  livres  a  year,  succeeded  in  correcting  past  errors, 
and  in  giving  the  new  capital  that  monumental  and  decora- 
tive appearance  appropriate  to  its  dignity.  Peter  took  pains 
also,  to  add  to  the  small  collection  of  works  of  art  made 
during  his  first  stay  in  Holland.  When  he  reappeared  in 
Amsterdam  in  17 17,  he  had  learnt  to  put  on  the  airs  of  an 
enlightened  amateur.  He  ended  by  possessing  works  by 
Rubens,  Vandyck,  Rembrandt,  Jan  Steen.  Van  der  Werf, 
Lingelbach,  Bergheim,  Mieris,  Wouvermann,  Breughel. 
Ostade,  and  Van  Huyssen.  He  had  a  collection  of  sea 
pictures  in  his  Summer  Palace.  In  his  country  house  at 
Peterhof  there  was  a  whole  gallery  of  paintings.  A  talented 
engraver  and  draughtsman,  Picard,  and  a  curator  named 
Gsell,  of  Swiss  origin,  formerly  a  picture-dealer  in  Holland, 
were  engaged  to  look  after  these  collections,  the  first  ever 
seen  in  Russia. 

But  there  was  not  a  touch  of  pej^QJial-Lnterest  in  these 
matters.  We  may  venture  to  doubt  whether  the  Tsar  took 
much  pleasure  in  his  correspondence  with  the  Abbe  Bignon, 
the  King's  librarian,  and  a  member  of  the  Academie  des 
Sciences,  of  which  Peter  had  become  an  honorary  member 
after  his  stay  in  Paris  in  17 17.  In  1720  he  sent  his  librarian, 
— for  by  this  time  he  had  provided  himself  with  a  library — 
a  German,  Schuhmacher  by  name,  to  the  Abbe  with  a 
manuscript,  written  in  gold  on  vellum,  which  had  been 
found  at  Siemipalatinsk,  in  Siberia,  in  the  vaults  of  a  ruined 
church.  He  desired  to  have  the  document  deciphered,  and 
to  know,  first  of  all,  in  what  language  it  was  written.  He 
appears  to  have  been  greatly  delighted  when  the  Abbe, 
having  called  in  the  assistance  of  the  King's  regular 
translator,  Fourmont,  informed  him  that  the  mysterious 
language  was  that  of  the  Tangouts,  a  very  ancient  Kalmuk 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES      135 

tribe.  It  was  not  till  after  his  death  that  it  occurred  to  two 
Russians  whom  he  had  sent  to  Pekin  to  study  Chinese,  and 
who  had  remained  there  for  sixteen  years,  to  look  more 
closely  into  this  scientific  process,  and  thus  to  make  a  dis- 
covery which  somewhat  compromised  the  reputation  of  the 
Parisian  Orientalists.  The  manuscript  was  of  Manchurian 
origin,  and  the  text  was  absolutely  different  from  that  given 
by  Fourmont.1  But  Peter  died  in  the  conviction  that  he 
had  elucidated  an  important  point  in  the  national  paleo- 
graphy and  ethnography,  and  thus  conscientiously  performed 
his  duty  as  a  Sovereign. 

Among  the  curiosities  collected  by  him  in  his  Museum  of 
Art  and  of  Natural  History,  contemporary  writers  mention 
some  living  specimens  of  the  human  race  :  a  man  with 
some  monstrous  infirmity,  and  children  afflicted  with  physi- 
cal malconformations.'2  The  great  man  believed  that  such 
exhibitions  as  these  might  serve  the  cause  of  science. 

II 

His  mind  was  clear,  perspicuous,  exact,  going  straight  to 
its  point,  unhesitatingly  and  unswervingly — like  a  tool 
wielded  by  a  sure  hand.  In  this  respect,  his  correspondence 
is  exceedingly  characteristic.  He  never  writes  long  letters, 
like  his  heiress,  Catherine  IT. — he  has  no  time  for  that.  He 
has  no—style,  no  rhetoric — he  fails  both  in  caligraphy  and  in 
spelling.  His  handwriting  is  generally  as  illegible  as  that 
of  Napoleon.  In  most  of  his  words  there  afeletters  missing. 
A  note  addressed  to  Menshikof  begins  thus: — ( Met  hez 
brude  in  Kamamara'  which  is  intended  to  mean  'Mein  Herz- 
bruder  unci  Kamarad '  (my  heart's  brother,  and  comrade  !). 
Even  in  his  signature,  'Tie. pi ." ,  he  introduces  a  whim- 
sical abbreviation,  borrowed  from  the  Slavonic  alphabet. 
But  he  says  what  he  has  to  say,  well  and  quickly, 
finding  the  right  expression,  the  words  which  best  con- 
vey and  sum  up  his  thoughts,  without  any  delay  or 
apparent  effort.  He  is  rather  fond  of  a  joking  style  of 
composition,  and  the  great  Catherine's  peculiarity  in  this 
respect  may  have  been  a  mere  imitation  of  his.  Thus,  for 
example,  he  writes  to  Menshikof  in  the  character  of  a  dog  of 
which  his  favourite  is  particularly  fond.     Very  often  he  will 

1  Golikof,  vol.  viii.  p.  84.  -  Biischings-AIagazin,  vol.  xix.  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  he  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  Navy.'  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  white  when  I  say  black!  x 

There'  is  something  oriental  in  the  natural  imagery  and 
picturesqueness  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.' 2  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  laws,  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  sense.  He  described 
events  very  ill,  but  he  understood  their  meaning  and  their 
bearing  very  well  indeed.  Even  in  his  letters  to  Catherine, 
which  are  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 

1  Oustrialof,  vol.  iv.  p.  272. 

-  1712,  and  1 716,  Letters  to  Catherine  I.  (1S61  edition),  pp.  29  and  49. 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES      137 

quality,  again.  In  his  last  years  he  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  1724.1 
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  Preobrajenskoi'e  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."2  In  1723,  another  scene,  less  hideous,  but  quite 
as  extraordinary,  was  enacted  at  Preobrajenskoi'e.  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  Holstein — 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 

1  <  rolikof,  vol.  x.  p.  425. 

-  Jeliaboujski's   Memoirs,  p,   112:  Gordon's  Journal,  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  daft'} 

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  whose  scope  was  widest.  In  17 12,  Stephen 
Iavorski,  the  Little-Russian  monk  whom  he  had  brought 
from  Kief  to  Moscow,  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  Iavorski  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.2  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.3  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  Iavorski,  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 

1  Bergholz,  Btuchings-Magazin,  vol.  xxi.  p.  202. 

2  Solovief,  vol.  xvi.  p.  324.  :;  (iolikof,  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 !'  Nieplouief,  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. 
Nieplouief  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  ? '     (Kto  babie  nie  vnouk  ?) 1 

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  pose,  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  Derbent  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  forlis,  sed  fortior  hanc  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.2  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 

1   Nieplouiet's  Memoirs  (St.  Petersburg,  1893),  p.  106. 

-  Lundblad,  vol.  i.  p.  17  ;  Adlerfeld,  Histoire  militaire  de  Charles  XII. 
(Paris,  1 74 1),  vol.  ii.  p.  224. 


140  PETER  THE  GREAT 

at  Riga.1  Yet  this  same  man,  after  the  battle  of  Twaer- 
mynde  (in  July  17 14),  embraced  Ehrenskold,  a  naval  captain, 
and  declared  himself  proud  of  having  had  to  struggle  with 
such  an  adversary.  He  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, Knipercron,  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  8th  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  Envoy,  Prince  Hilkof, 
was  received  in  audience  by  Charles  XII.,  and  gave  him  fresh 
assurances  of  his  master's  pacific  intentions.2 

The  essentially  practical  turn  of  his  mind  not  unfrequently 
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.3  But  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 

1  Polevoi,  History  of  Peter  the  Great  (St.  Petersburg,  1845).  vol.  iii.  pp.  79,  S9. 
Compare  Peter's  Writings  and  Correspondence^  vol.  iii.  pp.  09,  and  III. 

2  Oustrialof,  vol.  iii.    p.  369;  vol.  iv.    Pari  ii.  pp.    159-161  ;   Fryxell,  History 
of  Charles  XII.,  translated  by  Jensen  (Brunswick,  1S61),  vol,  i.  p.  78. 

3  Baer,  Peters  Verdienste  urn  die  Erweiterung  der  Geographischen  Kentnisse 
(St.  Petersburg,  1S68),  p.  56. 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES      141 

to  absolute  stinginess.  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  gave  his  chief  cook, 
Velten,  he  turned  the  meals  to  which  he  invited  his  friends 
into  picnics,  at  a  ducat  a  head.1  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.2  He  gave  thirty 
roubles  to  a  pilot  named  Antip  Timofieief,  who  saved  his 
life  in  a  hurricane  on  the  White  Sea  in  1694.3  And  this 
was  a  great  effort  of  generosity  on  his  part. 

And  yet  I  believe  he  was  always,  and  everywhere,  per- 
fectly sjncere  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  which  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  I.  Rather,  with  their  patriarchal  customs,  they  V 
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 

1  Scherer,  vol.  iii.  p.  254.  -  Ibid.  '•  Oustrialof,  vol.  ii.  p.  367. 


142  PETER  THE  GREAT 

without  knowing  much  of  Greek  or  Roman  art.1  The  time 
and  distance  thus  lost  have  indeed  been  successfully  re- 
couped, but  the  fact  remains  that  for  many  years  the  country 
knew  nothing  of  that  brilliant  and  noble-hearted  line  which, 
from  the  days  of  Roland  to  those  of  Bayard,  made  the  word 
honour  synonymous,  in  Western  Europe,  with  fidelity  to  a 
plighted  promise ;  and  further,  that  it  underwent  the  contrary 
influence  of  the  Greek  Empire,  from  which  it  imbibed  not 
only  arts  and  sciences,  habits,  religion,  and  form  of  policy, 
but  also  all  the  Greek  traditions  of  fraud  and  wily  cunning. 
Even  the  legendary  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,2  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  Campredon,  the  French  Envoy,  writing 
in  1725,  concerning  one  of  the  Tsar's  collaborators  in  his 
work,  described  him  thus  :  '  He  is  far  from  upright,  and 
this  it  is  which  acquired  him  the  confidence  of  the  late 
Sovereign.'  3 

The  same  apparent  contradictions  are  noticeable  in  Peter's 
daily  morals  and  religion.  Was  he  a  believer?  It  would 
seem  almost  doubtfuT7  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  breath  of  chivalry  never  stirred  the  depths  of  Russia '  (Pierling,  Russia 
and  the  Holy  See,  p.  189).  The  chapter  in  this  interesting  work,  entitled,  'The 
Renaissance  in  Moscow,'  is  quite  conclusive,  as  regards  my  view  of  this  subject. 

2  Russia,  vol.  i.  p.  265. 

J  May  3,  1725,  Sbornik.  vol.  lviii.  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 
drearfrsT1  The"  English  Envoy,  Whitworth,  in  his  despatch 
of  25th  March  17 12,  speaks  of  a  victorious  struggle  with  a 
tiger  during  tJie  Tsars  sleep,  which  has  strengthened  him  in 
ftis- warlike  intentions.2  At  the  same  time,  all  propriety, 
morals,  good  or  bad,  civility,  and  decency,  seem  to  have  been 
a  dead-letter  to  him.  In  1723,  Iajoujinski,  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.3 
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  objet 
(Tart,  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 

1  Siemievski,  Slovo  i  Die/o,  p.  273,  etc. 

2  Sbornik,  vol.  lxi.  p.  167. 

A  Campredon's  Despatch,   dated   .March   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 
large  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, saying,  '  Now  you  may  keep  it  ! ' x  On  his  departure 
from  the  Golden  Ring  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  17 16,  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.2 

I  do  not  believe  that  Baron  von  Printzen  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  Voltaire3 — 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  Printzen 
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  172 1,  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 

1  Scherer,  vol.  ii.  p.  15. 

2  Polevoi,  vol.    iv.    p.  4.     There  are  several  versions  of  this  anecdote  ;  see 
Scherer,  vol.  ii.  p.  77- 

8  Voltaire's  Works,  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  something  beyond  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  worthy  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  logically,  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. 
Shei'n  and  Saltykof,  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  wildly,  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. 


Ill 

His  genius,  indisputable  as  it  is,  and  huge  as  was  its  field 
of  action,  does  not  give  us  the  impression  of  taking  in  vast 
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- 

\ •(  IL.  I.  K 


146  PETER  THE  GREAT 

taneously  fixed  on  a  variety  of  objects.  And,  indeed, 
Peter's  general  ideas,  when  such  become  apparent  to  us, 
always  strike  us  as  being  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 
reflection  to  a  later  date — without  taking  time  to  discuss 
projects,  so  long  as  they  seemed  attractive,  nor  weigh  means, 
provided  these  lay  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  eyes — those  summary  processes  which  roused  the  ad- 
miration of  even  so  serious  an  historian  as  Solovief1 — 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  Empress  ; 
and,  forthwith,  he  proposed  to  make  the  schoolmaster 
the  founder  of  the  national  education.  That  is  the  plain 
story  of  Catherine  and  of  Gllick.  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 

1  Studies  (1882),  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  years  we  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  Don,  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.  But  Peter  had  not  an 
original  idea  of  his  own,  and  cared  little  for  originality  in 
other  people.  He  did  not  even  attempt  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,  French,  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  traffic,  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 — 
by  the  general  subordination  of  his  thought,  and  the  constant 
sacrifice  of  his  own  person,  to  an  end  without  any  material 
or  immediate  tangibility.  I  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 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES     149 

may  be,  filled  with  the  clatter  of  armed  men,  or  else  a  busy 
fruitful  hive — a  centre  of  life,  at  all  events — industrial, 
intelligent,  even  artistic.  He  dreamed  indeed,  but  with 
wide-open  eyes  ;  and,  with  all  the  positiveness  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  destiny,  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  him  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  Messiah,  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  strong  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 
imperious  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  tragedy.  This 
is  betrayed  very  early,  quite  in  the  dawn  of  Peter's  reign,  by 
the   disguises  adopted    by  the   young   ruler,  from  the  very 


150  PETER  THE  GREAT 

outset,  for  himself,  and  imposed,  by  him,  on  his  friends  and 
collaborators.  So  early  as  1695,  Prince  Feodor  Romodan- 
ovski  united  the  title  of  King  of  Presbursr  with  that  of 
General.  And  even  when  writing  to  him  on  the  most  serious 
subjects,  Peter  never  failed  to  address  him  as  '  Min  Her 
Kciiich, '  and  to  sign  himself  '  Your  Majesty's  very  obedient 
Slave,  KnecJi  Piter  Komondor,'  or  else,  '  Ir  Daheleix  Knek,' 
which  last  formula  was  unintelligible  to  any  one  but  himself. 
He  lost  no  opportunity  of  expressing  his  resolution  to  shed 
the  last  drop  of  his  blood  in  the  service  of  this  mock 
sovereign.  Meanwhile  he  had  created  Zotof,  his  former  tutor, 
Archbishop  of  Presburg,  Patriarch  of  the  banks  of  the 
Iaouza,  and  of  the  whole  Koukoul  (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  or  official  reports,  were,  by 
order,  couched  in  the  same  style.  Romodanovski  addressed 
his  letters  to  '  Bombardier  Peter  Alexieievitch,'  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 
Sheremetief,  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  Feodor  Romodanovski  died,  the 
title  and  privileges  of  his  imaginary  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.' 1 

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  Oranienburg — 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.  Menshikof's  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  victory  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  Majesty,  I  have  overcome 
the  Swedish  army.'  '  By  the  grace  of  God,  and  the  good 
fortune  of  your  Caesarean  Majesty,'  said  Menshikof,  in  his 
turn,  '  I  have  taken  General  Loewenhaupt  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  Alexie- 
ievitch  to  his  own  table,  closed  the  ceremony.1 

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, 

1  Golikof,  vol.  xi.  p.  567,  elc. 


152  PETER  THE  GREAT 

by  his  own  example,  the  principle  of  subordination  which  he 
desired  to  instil  into  his  subjects.  Others,  that  it  was  an 
attempt  to  destroy  all  memory  of  the  Miestnitchestvo,  by  a 
deliberate  confusing  of  all  ranks,  and  every  precedence. 
Such  ideas  may,  indeed,  have  occurred  to  him.  He  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  enduring  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  disguises  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  bacchantes,  their  heads  adorned  with  bundles  of 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES     153 

lighted  tobacco  instead  of  vine-leaves.1  Here,  of  course, 
we  have  an  allusion  to  the  monopoly,  lately  acquired  by 
the  Marquis  of  Caermarthen,  and,  therefore,  a  political 
intention.  But  the  manner  selected  for  intimating  this  does 
not  strike  us  as  being  any  the  less  objectionable.  In  the  same 
year,  on  the  very  day  after  that  on  which  one  hundred  and 
fifty  Streltsy  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  buffoonery,  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.2 

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, 
Nadajinski),  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 
country,  constituted  a  regular  brotherhood,  which  met  on 
fixed  days,  under  the  name  of  '  Council  which  knows  no 
sadness'  {Bezpietchalnyi  sobor),  and  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,  eighty  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.3 

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. 

1  Korb,  p.  115.  -  Ibid.,  p.  1  iS. 

::  Dolgoroukof,  Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  136. 


r54  PETER  THE  GREAT 

When  the  dwarf  died,  Peter  ranged  maskers  round  his 
coffin,  even  as  he  had  already  ranged  them  round  his 
marriage-bed.  Every  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,  drawn  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.1 

Peter  had  a  great  number  of  Court  jesters  or  fools. 
Strahlenberg2  gives  a  list,  which  contains  many  names 
possessing  other  claims  to  importance.  Zotof,  Tourguenief, 
Shansko'i,  Lanin,  ShahofskoY,  Tarakanof,  Kirsantievitch, 
and  Oushakof,  the  most  admired  of  all.  These  names  can 
be  accounted  for.  Flogel,  in  his  history  of  Court  jesters,3 
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  important  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    police   force.      They    boldly    and 

1   Bergholz,  Biischmgs-Magazin,  vol.  xxii.  p.  436,  etc. 

-  J~)as  Nord  and  Oestliche  Theil  von  Europa  and  Asia  (Stockholm,   1730), 
P-  235. 

-  Geschichte  der  Hofndrren  (Liegnitz,  1789),  p.  409. 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES 


3D 


loudly  reported  the  evil  deeds  of  his  ministers,  at  his  table, 
relating  their  thefts  and  their  embezzlements.  Peter  even 
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.1  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  organiser  of  the  revels,  and  Head  of  the 
staff  employed  in  them.  In  17 13  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,  with  a  huge  pair  of  stag's  horns 
on  his  head,  and  girt  with  a  yellow  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  two  of  his  fingers,  with  a 
symbolic  gesture,  above  his  forehead.2 

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 
nerves,  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  behaviour 
was  atoned  for  by  the  unconstrained  gaiety  and  large- 
hearted  good-humour  which  usually  marked  it.  Half  a 
century  later,  Christian  VII.  of  Denmark  caused  a  certain 
Count  Brandt,  who  had  been  set  upon  on  the  score  of  his 

1  Kourahin  Papers,  vol.  i.  p.  73. 

-  Scherer,  vol.  iii.  p.  56;  Bergholz,  Buschings-Magazhi)  vol.  xix.  p.  87. 


156  PETER  THE  GREAT 

conjugal  misfortunes,  to  be  tried  and  condemned  to  death, 
because,  in  his  fury,  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.1  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  humour 
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  Koniouhy,  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 
Slavlenic ' {Chris ta  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_cqunts  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.  £otof 
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. 

1   Bergholz,  BUschings-Magazin,  vol.  xix.  p.  St. 
-   lvorli,  p.  101. 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES     157 

whenever  they  drank  Ivan  Mihailovitch's  health,  they  called 
his  family, — 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^miot  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 
clergy,  but  the  very  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  Knes-papa  and  Patriarch.  And,  when  Peter  set  the 
mock  Caesar,  Romodanovski,  beside  the  Knes-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  early  education, 
to  whimsical  eccentricities.  1  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  Knes-papa  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  correspondence  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,  Ivashka 
(drunkenness)  and  Ieremka,  (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.1  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.' 
This  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. 

'   Sec    Paper,    by    M.    Ivan    Nossovitch,   in    Russian    Antiquities    (1S74).    p. 
735- 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES     159 

Peter    replaced    this    solemn    procession    by    the    burlesque 
cortege   of  his    Kues-papa,    who    rode    on    an    ox,    and    was 
followed  by  an  army  of  vehicles  drawn  by  hogs,  bears,  and 
goats.1     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."2     Yet  this  phenomenon  calls  for  another 
explanation.     Its  depth,  its  extent,  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.3     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  mystifying  performances  of  modern 
disciples  of  the  occult  arts  are  but  a  pale  reflection.4     The 
analogy  of  causes  would  here  seem  to  confirm  the  analogy 
of  facts.     Both  in  Russia  and  in  France  we  have  a  revolt, 
physical   and   mental,  against  the  ordinary  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. 

1   Hergholz,  Buschin^s-Magazin,  vol.  \i\.  p.  12S. 

-  Vockerodt.     See  Herrmann,  p.  19. 

:;  Zabielin,  Lives  of  the  Tsarinas,  p  426. 

*  See  Michelet,  Histoire  de  France  (Flammarion  edition),  vol.  \i.  p.   54. 


l6o  PETER  THE  GREAT 

I   must  now  proceed  to  facts,  and  these,  I  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  Vsic'sJwntchie- 
idiyi  or  Vsicpiianieicliyl  Sobor,  'the  Conclave  or  Council  of 
the  maddest  or  the  most  drunken  ' — a  fixed  institution,  almost 
official  in  its  character.  The  Tsar  worked  out  its  organisa- 
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.1  Its  members  consisted  of  the  most 
dissolute  of  his  boon  companions,  with  whom, — either  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  Knes-papa,  called  the  Vaticanum,  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  Hall  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  Knes-papa. 
One  by  one  the  cardinals  defiled  before  him,  each  receiving 
a  glass  of  brandy,  and  listening  to  this  formula:  ' Reverend- 
issime,  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 
Knes-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 

1  Sec  Nossovilch'b  Paper.     Compare  Siemievski,  S/ovo  i  Dido,  p.  281. 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES     161 

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  energetic  opposition  of  the 
French  minister.  He  himself,  dressed  as  a  Dutch  sailor, 
generally  ordered  the  march  of  the  procession.  A  spacious 
gallery,  lined  with  narrow  beds,  awaited  the  members  of  the 
conclave  ;  between  the  beds  casks  sawn  in  half  were  ranged, 
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.  When 
there  was  no  question  of  electing  a  new  Pope,  the  time 
was  employed  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  1714  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  17 1 5,  performers 
and  costumes  were  duly  inspected  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 
VOL.  I,  L 


162  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,  by  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  Preo- 
brajenskoi'e,  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.1 

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  Csesar,  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  very  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 
1  Dolgoioukof,  Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  75. 


I 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  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  violins  ;  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  orgy,  during  which  a  flock  of  trembling 
octogenarians  acted  as  cupbearers.  The  festivities  continued 
the  next  day,  and  lasted  well  into  February.1 

But  it  would  be  very  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  very 
day,  and  dealing  with  Polish  affairs.  He  also  received 
Bassewitz,  and  talked  over  the  Duke  of  Holstein's  business 
with  him.2  This  incident,  in  itself  worthy  of  all  admiration, 
will  not  diminish  the  disgust  inspired  by  the  circumstances 
which  surrounded  it. 

When  Zotof  died,  in  17 17,  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 

1  Golikof,  vol.  vi.  pp.  279-290.  Letter  from  De  Bie  to  the  Secretary  of  the 
States-General,  St.  Petersburg,  Feb.  1,  1715,  Dutch  Stale  Papers;  Dolgoroukof, 
Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  141. 

-  GoliUof,  vol.  vi.  pp.  279-290. 


164  PETER  THE  GREAT 

famous  Pope  Joan.  We  must  not  forget  that,  just  at  that 
moment,  he  was  expecting  the  return  of  his  son  Alexis, 
and  was  making  ready  to  begin  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  yet.  The  new 
candidate  was  called  Peter  Ivanovitch  Boutourlin.  He  had 
hitherto  borne  the  title  of  Archbishop  of  St.  Petersburg 
'  in  the  diocese  of  drunkards,  gluttons,  and  madmen.'  He 
was  a  member  of  one  of  the  most  illustrious  families  in  the 
country.  This  time  Peter  kept  the  part  of  Subdeacon  to 
the  Conclave  for  himself.  The  members  of  this  Conclave 
received  their  ballot  balls,  or  rather  the  eggs  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.1  A  few  months 
later  the  unhappy  Alexis  was  agonising  in  the  Question 
Chamber  under  the  torture  of  the  whip,  and  yet  his  father 
sat  gaily  at  table  with  the  new  Knes-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  Zotofs  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  Knes-papa  opened  his  Ponti- 
ficate, by  giving  his  blessing  after  the  fashion  of  the  Russian 
priests,  to  a  procession  of  maskers,  who  waited  on  him  at 
his  house.2 

This  Pontificate  was  of  very  short  duration.  On  the  10th 
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 

Siemievski,  Slovo  i  Dielo,  p.  28 1,  etc.  ;  Scherer,  vol.  ii.  p.  163. 
2  Despatch  from  the  French  Resident,  La  Vie,  St.  Petersburg,  Oct.  4,  1720, 
French  Foreign  Office  ;  Bergholz,  /> 'inching- Magazin,  vol.  xix.  p.  127, 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES     165 

island  near  Preobrajenski,  on  which  there  is  a  peasants' 
cottage.  The  mock  cardinals  will  there  assemble  on  the 
appointed  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.' 1 

There  can  be  no  t^o_^pjnions  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  pej^onal  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- 
doury,'  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  XI.,  and  own 
cousin  to  Sir  John  Falstaff.  Very  plebeian  too,  as  I  have 
already  said — a  close  neighbour  of  those  fewer  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  shopkeeperTtlTrashed  his  wife 
like  a  peasant,  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 
leveUjng__42rocess — 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 

1  French  Foreign  Office. 


1 66  PETER  THE  GREAT 

when  we  recollect  the  urgent  need,  that,  as  I  have  said 
already,  must  from  time  to  time  have  stung  him,  to  violently 
cast  off  the  realities  of  existence,  because,  in  the  long-run, 
they  grew  unendurable,  even  to  such  a  man  as  he  was — 
this  strange  aspect  of  the  great  Tsar's  moral  character  will 
surely  be  sufficiently  explained. 


CHAPTER    III 

IDEAS,   PRINCIPLES   AND   SYSTEM    OF   GOVERNMENT 

I.  Abundance  of  ideas — Aids  to  memory — These  ideas  mostly  suggested — Peter 
haunted  by  the  West — Inadequacy  of  certain  essential  notions — Justice, 
religion,  morality — Intellectual  incoherence — Utilitarian  spirit. 
II.  General  conception  of  the  Sovereign's  duty — Contradictory  principles 
mingled  with  it — Individual  abnegation,  and  absorption  of  the  common 
•life — Introduction  of  the  social  principle  into  the  organisation  of  the 
country,  and  acceptance  of  its  extreme  consequences — The  first  servant 
of  the  State — Peter  relinquishes  the  wealth  amassed  by  his  predecessors — 
The  patrimony  of  the  Romanofs — Peter  Mihailofs  pay — His  account 
book — 366  roubles  a  year — The  reverse  of  the  medal — Whimsicality  and 
despotism — The  servant's  hand  raised  against  his  master. 

in.  The  causes  of  this  contradiction — Revolutionary  nature  of  the  Reform — 
Asiatic  elements — -The  Regime  of  terror  aggravated  by  them — Historical 
connection — Arbitrary  Government  and  the  Inquisition — A  dilettante  in 
Torture — Universal  espionage — 'The  tongues' — The  Secret  Police  and 
the  Tribunals  of  the  Convention — Duration  of  this  regime,  and  patience  of 
the  country  under  it — Suited  to  the  National  habits. 

iv.  A  system  of  perpetual  threats — Summary  executions — The  Doubina — The 
executioner's  axe — Desertion — Attempts  to  repress  it — The  brand — Out- 
lawry— None  of  these  measures  suffice — A  general  sauve-qtii-peiit — '  Near 
the  Tsar,  near  death  ' — Absenteeism  of  the  great  families — Parvenus — 
The  system  thus  rendered  still  more  oppressive — Favouritism — Ancestral 
traditions — Their  share  in  the  Reform,  and  their  influence  on  its  scope. 


I  HAVE  already,  in  the  course  of  my  remarks  on  the  intellec- 
tual gifts  of  the  great  reformer,  described  them  in  acjixc 
operation, — for  action  was  his  invariable  condition.  It  now 
remains  for  me  to  show  them  in  more  direct  connection  with 
the  realities  of  life,  and  of  practical  government. 

Peter's  ideas  came  to  him  in  shoals.  Their  abundance  is 
proved  by  the  means  he  employed  to  protect  the  daily  pro- 
duct of  his  active  brain  against  the  weakness  of  his  own 
memory.  He  always  caiTJed_tablets  with  him,  which  he 
constantly  drew  from   his  pocket  and   covered   with   hasty 


107 


i68  PETER  THE  GREAT 

notes.  When  these  were  filled — and  this  was  all  too  soon — 
he  would  lay  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  margin  of  a  report  on  the  proposed 
establishment  of  the  St.  Petersburg  Academy,  and  following 
certain  notes  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.' x 

These  ideas,  if  we  look  into  them  closely,  are  no  more 
than  suggestions,  coming  directly  from  without,  and  but 
slightly  moclirled  by  any  internal  intellectual  process ;  and 
they  are  more  remarkable  for  their  number  than  for  their 
amplitude.  Peter  thxiught,  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. 
Probably  the  poor  philosopher  suffered  from  the  fact,  that  he 
%vas  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  encyclopaedia — to  his  sovereign. 
In  vain  did  he  even  recommend  himself  to  his  notice  in  that 
domain  of  practical  performance,  which  Peter  so  particularly 
appreciated.  Possoshkoff  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 

1  Staehlin,  p.  170. 


PRINCIPLES  AND  SYSTEM  OF  GOVERNMENT       169 

of  the  States  General,1  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  Apolcipomena 
of  Francis  Lee,2  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' 3  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  iu^Hrp  .  In 
171 5,  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  Helsingfors  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  Swedish  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.4  I  have  already 
spoken  of  the  incojiiiistency  and  confusion  of  mind,  betrayed 
in  all  his  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 

1  Schcltema,  Russia  and  the  Lmu  Countries,  vol.  i.  p.  175-183. 

2  London,  1752. 

:!  Russian  Archives,  1S74,  p.  1579. 

4  Bcrgholz,  Biischings-Magazin,  vol.  xix.  p.  67. 


170  PETER  THE  GREAT 

in  the  church  choirs,  and  each  of  his  victories  was  celebrated 
by  a  service  which  lasted  at  least  five  hours.  The  thanks- 
giving for  the  victory  of  Poltava  lasted  seven,  so  as  to  give 
good  measure  to  the  God  of  armies.  Poor-boxes  were 
placed  in  all  the  churches  he  usually  frequenTeTT7to~receive 
the  fines  he  inflicted  on  any  members  of  the  congregation 
whom  he  caught  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  ! 1 

Yet,  at  other  moments,  both  his. words  and  actions  seemed 
to  indicate  a  leaning  towards  Protestanism.  He  would  sur- 
round himself  with  Calvinists  and  Lutherans,  would  hold 
long  doctrinal  discussions,  in  which  his  oxthodoxy  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,  Theiner  has  published  a  series  of  documents 
proving  the  hopes  felt  at  JRome — 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  copper  coin.'  Notwithstanding  which, 
only  eight  years  later,  the  Jesuit  Fathers  had  colleges,  both 
at  Moscow,  St.  Petersburg,  and  at  Archangel.  This  went  on 
till  17 19,  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 protigis.  All  his  principles, whether 
in  religion  or  in  politics,  were  of  a  piece  with  this  sorry  per- 
formance.2 

1  Scherer,  vol.  iii.  p.  23b!. 

2  Golikof,  vol.  vii.  pp.  237,  431.     Weber,  Last  Anecdotes,  p.  34S. 


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  Meyer,  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,  sitting  on 
his  right,  even  at  the  deliberations  of  the  Senate,  and  treated 
with  every  respect  and  consideration.1 

The  fact  is,  that  in  everything,  and  above  all  things,  Peter 
was  iitilitarinii,  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  ? ' 2  One 
day,  at  Vichnyi'-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  unhappy  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 
openly  declared  his  pleasure  at  the  thought  that  he  would 
some  day  be  a  good  soldier.  He  kissed  the  mother,  gave 
her  a  handful  of  roubles,  and  promised  not  to  lose  sight  of 
heiv5  He  bestowed  10,000  ducats,  and  an  order  for  banish- 
ment, on  Tolstoi',  the  President  of  the  commercial  depart- 
ment of  his  Government,  to  help  him  to  get  rid  of  an  Italian 
courtesan  ;  but,  that  the  money  might  not  be  altogether 
wasted,  he  contrived  a  secret '  negotiation  at  Vienna  and 
at  Rome,  in  which  the  fair  lady  was  expected  to  act  as  a 
decoy.4 

1  Staehlin,  p.  333.  2  Ibid.  :t  Staehlin,  p.  233. 

4  Camprcdnirs  Despatches,  17111  Aug.  1722  (French  Foreign  Office). 


172  PETER  THE  GREAT 


II 

Peter  had,  as  I  have  endeavoured  to  show,  a  general  con- 
ception of  his  duties,  of  the  part  he  had  to  play,  and  of 
the  rights  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.  He  not  only  claimed  that  the  Sovereign  was  the 
.State,  but  that  the  whole  life  of  the  nation,  past,  present, 
ancTTuture,  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  existence  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  dudes,  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  faniily^ 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 
sociaL42rinciple,  which  he  put  forward  with  all  his  usual 
determination  and  exaggeration.  He  proclaimed  himself 
the  fksLservaiit  of  his  country,  and  carried  this  idea  to  an 
extreme  and  fantastic  point.  In  1709  he  wrote  to  Field- 
Marshal  Shercmctief,  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,  humbly  pleading  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.1  He  built  himself  a  country  house  near  Revel,  which 
he  christened  Catharinenthal,  and  expressed  astonishment, 
on  the  occasion  of  his  first  visit  to  it,  at  seeing  the  park  quite 
empty.  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.2  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  Alexis  had  accumulated  10,734  diessiatines  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  use.3  The  only  increase  of  income 
he  would  accept,  was  the  usual  pay  of  the  various  grades  he 
successively  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  Voroneje  shipyards, 
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  Bartenief,  for 
a  very  important  errand,  50  roubles.'4     Going  one  day  round 

1  Sbornik,  vol.  xxv.  p.  152.     Golikof,  vol.  v.  p.  257.     Bergholz,  Busc/iings- 
Magazin,  vol.  xxi.  p.  2S1.  -  Scherer,  vol.  iii.  p.  65. 

:;  Karnovitch,  Great  Russian  Fortunes  (St.  Petersburg),  18S5,  p.  27. 
4  Cabinet,  Series  I.,  No.  64,  Writings  and  Correspondence,  vol.  iii.  p.  31. 


174  PETER  THE  GREAT 

the  forges  at  Istie,  in  the  Government  of  Riazan,  he  mingled 
with  the  workmen,  toiled,  hammer  in  hand,  for  several  hours, 
and  then  counted  up  his  gains.  He  had  earned  18  altines 
(copper  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  Moscow  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.1 

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  171 3,  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.' 2  Nartof's  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,  '  Mein  gnlidiger  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  your  Tartar  dress,'  was  Peter's  reply.3 
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'  (Peter  was  then  in 
Holland)  '  the  wretches  you  have  maimed  come  to  me.     Let 

1  Nartof,  p.  55. 

a  Correspondence,  1S61  edition,  p.  34.  :i  Narlof,  p.  93. 


PRINCIPLES  AND  SYSTEM  OF  GOVERNMENT       175 

there  be  an  end  to  your  too  great  intimacy  with  Ivashka 
(drunkenness) ! ' l 

Another,  and  a  much  more  serious,  fault  appears.  All 
this  false  humility,  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,  was  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.'2  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.3  If  any  man  failed  in 
his  functions,  or  tried  to  slip  out  of  their  performance,  his 
punishment,  at  the  very  least,  was  civil  death. 

But  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  rcpre- 

1  Correspondence,  Dec.  22,  1697,  vol.  i.  p.  226.     Compare  Oustrialof,  vol.  iii. 

P-  95- 

-  Ukase,  dated  Dec.  6,  1722.     Gulikuf,  vol.  ix.  p.  83. 

3  Golikof,  vol.  ii.  p.  513. 


176  PETER  THE  GREAT 

sented  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  they  had  to  shave  their  beards,  because  his  beard  grew 
sparsely.  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.  Any  resistance,  any  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  Kamynin  underwent  the  same 
punishment  for  having  refused  to  share  in  the  delights  of  the 
Slavlcnic} 


III 

These  contradictions,  flagrant  as  they  are,  can  be  ex- 
plained. Peter_was  a  violent  reformer.  His  reform  was 
revolutionary  in  character,  and  his~  government  consequently 
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  Jvan  theJTerrible.  This  idea  emanated  from  the 
Duke  of  Holstein.  The  uncle  seems  to  sanction  the 
nephew's  action,  and  thus  to  claim  an  historical  connection, 
1  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  thought.1  But,  though  principles  might 
differ,  practice  daily  gave  the  lie  to  theory.  Theory,  in 
this  case,  was  frequently  fiberal  in  the  extreme  ;  practice 
almost  always  stood  for  despotism,  arbitrary  rule,  inquisi- 
tion, downright  terrorism.  Peters  reign  was  a  reign  of 
terxor,  as  Cromwell's  had  been,  as  Robespierre'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 
tcherniets  (monk)  had  heard  the  Ex-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  bezoumia]  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.  He 
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,  spying  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  strappado  and  the 
knout,  and  he  cheerfully  related  all  the  grisly  incidents  of  the 
business  to  the  Duke  of  Holstein,that  very  evening.2  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^, 
and   loosened  their  tongues.     He  would  set  men  to  watch 

1  Staehlin,  p.  217. 

-  Siemievski,  The  Empress  Catherine  II.  (St.  Petersburg,  1SS4),  p.  154. 
VOL.  I.  M 


178  PETER  THE  GREAT 

and  supervise  those  officials,  civil  or  military,  who  were 
stationed  too  far  from  him  to  be  under  his  personal  eye. 
He  corresponded  with  these  spies,  and  gave  them  very 
extensive  powers.  Field-Marshal  Sheremetief,  who  was 
employed  to  put  down  a  revolt  in  Astrakhan,  was  thus 
watched  by  a  sergeant  of  the  guard,  Shtchepotief.  Baron 
Von  Schleinitz,  the  Tsar's  minister  in  Paris,  was  spied  on 
by  one  of  his  own  copying  clerks,  named  Iourine.1  My 
readers  will  recognise  the  methods  which  sent  Bellegarde, 
Dubois,  and  Delmas,  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.2  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  unfrequently,  at  random.  When  his 
memory  failed  him,  a  sort  of  coarse  canvas  hood  was  put 
over  his  head,  and  he  was  led  through  the  streets,  in  search 
of  passers-by,  whom  he  might  point  out  to  the  officers  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  sauve  qui  petit?  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.4  The  usual  bounty  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, 

1  Golikof,  vol.  viii.  p.  406.  -  Jeliaboujski,  p.  26. 

::  Ibid.,  p.  274  (Editor's  note). 

4  Nov.  1st,  1705;  March  2nd,  1711;  Aug.  25th  and  Oct.  25th,  1715:  Jan. 
25th,  Sept.  26th,  and  Dec.  24th,  1716 ;  April  16th  and  19th,  17 17  ;  Jan.  19th, 
1718;  April  i6th,  1719;  Feb.  9th  and  July  22nd,  1720;  Feb.  19th,  1721  ; 
Jan.  nth,  1722. 


PRINCIPLES  AND  SYSTEM  OF  GOVERNMENT       179 

placed  on  the  same  spot,  were  to  belong  to  any  person 
who  should  give  information  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,  Slovo  i  dielo  (literally  '  word  and  action  '),  and  thus 
to  affirm  his  knowledge  or  suspicion  of  any  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  probably  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  quote  from  official  documents, 
from  the  minutes  of  the  Russian  Star  Chamber,1  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  any  idea  of 
clemency.  He  is  superior,  in  this  matter,  to  the  ordinary 
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  insurrection,  who  should 
willingly  make  their  submission,  with  indulgence.  When 
Dolgorouki  betrays  his  astonishment,  the  Tsar  insists, 
pointing  out  the  necessity  of  distinguishing  cases  in  which 
severity  was  indispensable  from  those  in  which  it  may  be 
1  Siemievski,  Glovo  i  Dielo,  p.  51. 


i  So  PETER  THE  GREAT 

relaxed.       But    Dolgorouki's    wonder     proves     the     settled 
ferocity  of  the  general  tendency  of  Peter's  rule. 

This  severity  lasted  till  the  end  of  his  reign.  How  came 
it  to  have  been  so  long  patiently  endured  ?  Surely  because 
it  corresponded  with  the  national  customs.  The  whole 
nation  was  a  party  to  it.  There  was  no  public  sentiment  of 
dislike  to  the  person  or  the  act  of  an  informer.  A  century 
and  a  half  later,  this  condition  of  mind  remained  almost  un- 
changed. The  most  popular  lines,  probably,  of  the  most 
popular  of  all  the  national  poets,  describe  a  Cossack's  ride 
across  the  Steppes,  carry  an  accusation  to  the  Tsar.1 


IV 

A  special  characteristic  of  the  great  Reformer's  methods  is 
his  incessant  use  of  threats.  When  Nieplouief,  his  Resident 
at  Constantinople,  was  taking  his  final  leave,  he  addressed 
him  by  the  name  of  Father.  The  Tsar  interrupted  him,  '  A 
father  I  will  be  to  thee  if  thy  conduct  is  good — if  not,  I  will 
be  thy  merciless  judge!"2  He  ordered  General  Repnin  to 
prevent  wood,  sent  from  Poland,  from  being  admitted  into 
Riga,  adding,  '  If  a  single  faggot  gets  through,  I  swear  by 
God,  thy  head  shall  be  cut  off!'3  And  this  was  no  empty 
threat.  When  he  wrote  to  his  friend  Vinnius,  in  1696,  in 
reference  to  a  careless  correspondent,  '  Tell  him  I  will  lay 
what  he  fails  to  put  on  paper  on  his  own  back,' 4  we  feel  he 
used  no  figure  of  speech.  He  would  often  send  for  officials, 
high  and  low,  with  whom  he  had  to  find  fault,  into  his 
cabinet,  and  would  there  indicate  his  displeasure  by  a  sound 
drubbing  with  his  doubina.  This,  indeed,  was  considered  a 
mark  of  favour — it  being  the  sovereign's  will  that,  on  such 
occasions,  fault  and  punishment  alike  should  be  kept  secret. 
The  only  persons  present  were  such  faithful  servants  as 
Nartof,  and  the  culprits  composed  their  countenances  as  best 
they  could,  before  leaving  the  Imperial  presence,  so  that  no 
sign  of  the  occurrence  might  appear.  As  a  general  rule,  to 
complete  the  illusion,  they  were  commanded  to  dinner  on  the 

1  Poushkin,  Poltava,  Canto  I.  (Collected  Works,  1887  edition),  vol.  iii.  p.  118. 

-  Golikof,  vol.  viii.  p.  132. 

:;  19th  May  1705,   Writings  and  Correspondence,  vol.  iii.  p.  346. 

4  15th  July  169b,  Writings  and  Correspondence,  vol.  i.  p.  90. 


PRINCIPLES  AND  SYSTEM  OF  GOVERNMENT       1S1 

same  day.  But  occasionally  the  doubina  did  its  work  in 
public,  in  the  offices  of  some  administrative  body,  or  even  in 
the  open  street.  Sometimes — and  this  was  a  great  proof  of 
the  sovereign's  esteem  and  friendship  for  the  person  so  com- 
missioned— a  third  party  was  deputed  to  administer  the 
extra-judicial  correction.  When  Captain  Sieniavin  took 
the  two  first  Swedish  vessels  which  fell  into  Russian  hands, 
he  at  once  became  the  chief  favourite  of  the  moment.  Peter 
sent  for  him,  and  said,  '  To-morrow  you  will  dine  in  the  house 
of  such  a  person ;  during  the  meal  you  will  pick  a  quarrel  with 
him,  and  you  will  give  him,  in  my  presence,  fifty  blows  with 
your  stick,  neither  more  nor  less.'  And  the  sovereign  evi- 
dently considered  this  participation  in  the  punishment  in- 
flicted by  the  Imperial  will,  which  chastised  one  man  and 
rewarded  another,  as  reflecting  considerable  honour  on  both.1 
During  the  Persian  campaign,  another  temporary  favourite, 
Wolynski,  was  accosted  one  night,  close  to  the  Imperial  tent, 
and,  without  a  word  of  explanation,  overwhelmed  by  a  shower 
of  blows.  All  at  once,  the  Tsar  held  his  hand.  The  dark- 
ness and  a  chance  resemblance  had  misled  him  ;  there  had 
been  a  miscarriage  of  justice.  All  he  vouchsafed  was  coolly 
to  remark,  '  No  matter  !  Thou  art  sure  one  day  to  deserve 
what  I  have  given  thee  now  ;  thou  wilt  only  have  to  remind 
me,  then,  that  the  debt  is  paid.'  And  the  opportunity  was 
not  long  in  comincf.2 

The  Tsar's  irascibility,  and  habitual  fits  of  rage,  certainly 
had  something  to  do  with  these  summary  chastisements,  but 
they  were  also  the  outcome  of  a  certain  deliberate  system. 
Coming  one  day,  unexpectedly,  into  a  naval  captain's  cabin, 
Peter  noticed  an  open  book,  which  the  officer  vainly  en- 
deavoured to  conceal.  Glancing  at  the  page,  he  read  the 
following  aphorism  aloud  :  '  Russia  is  like  a  cod-fish  ;  unless 
you  beat  it  constantly,  you  can  do  nothing  with  it.'  The 
Tsar  smiled,  and  departed,  saying,  '  That  is  well  !  The  books 
you  read  are  useful  books.     You  shall  be  promoted  ! ' 3 

The  doubina,  as  I  have  said,  was  kept  for  those  he  loved, 
and  would  fain  spare  ;  the  rest  had  to  do  with  a  very  different 
form  of  the  judicial  power.  Uniformity  of  punishment  is  one 
of  the  chief  characteristics  of  the  criminal  legislation  of  that 
period.     The  legislator   never  measured  his  severity  by  the 

1  Memoirs  (published  by  Prince  Galitzin,  Paris,  iS62s,  p.  133. 

2  Scherer,  vol.  iii.  p.  32.  ::  Ibid.,  vol.  i.  p.   15. 


j82  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  case.1 

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  diplomatic  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 
Chartres  ;  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  observation.2 

Two  years  before,  in  the  midst  of  the  negotiations  begun 

1  Peter  I.'s   Writings  and  Correspondence,  vol.  iii.  p.  77.      Filippof,    Peter  the 
Great  and  the  Penal  Lazos,  page  283,  etc. 
-  Campredon's  Despatches,  Feb.  12,  1723  (French  Foreign  Office). 


PRINCIPLES  AND  SYSTEM  OF  GOVERNMENT       183 

in  December  172 1,  to  guarantee  his  own  succession,  the 
Tsar's  interviews  with  Campredon  had  taken  place  in  the 
house  of  Jagoujinski,  and  without  Ostermann's  knowledge. 
The  first  thing  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,  begun,  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.' l 

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  1712, 
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  powder  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  poor  tatooed 
fellows,  during  their  long  marches  to  rejoin  their  depots.1 
The  practical -mindedness  of  the  great  Reformer  is  clearly 
shown  in  this  contradictory  epistle — a  practical-mindedness 

1  Campredon's  Despatches,  Dec.  21,  1721. 
-  Russian  Archives,  1873,  PP-  2°67  and  2296. 


1 84  PETER  THE  GREAT 

suggesting  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  capturer  was  the  serf  of  the 
captured  man.  The  other  half  went  to  the  Treasury.1  And 
still  the  desertions  went  on. 

'  Near  the  Tsar,  near  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,  Troi'ekourof,  Vladimirof,  Sklaief,  Pos- 
pielof, — is  explained,  independently  of  his  personal  prefer- 
ences, by  this  general  sauve  qui  pent  amongst  the  great 
Russian  families.2  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  unfrequently  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  unfrequently  settled 
by  the  executioner.  But,  living  as  they  did,  like  every  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, 
1  Goliknf,  vol.  ix.  ]>.  48.  -  See  Strahlenberg,  p.  23S,  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 
17 13,  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.1  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 
very  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.'2 

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  Der  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- 

1  Golikof,  vol.  v.  ]).  536. 

'-'  llergholz,  Bitschings- Magazin ,  vol.  xx.  p.  385. 


1 86  PETER  THE  GREAT 

self,  been  mutilated  by  the  Swedes.  Peter  made  this  the  text 
of  a  long  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  enemy.'  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.1  But  the  whole  incident  is  thoroughly 
Byzantine  in  its  nature. 

This  peculiarity  it  was,  in  part,  which  bound  the  Tsar 
so  closely  and  so  firmly  to  the  flesh  and  spirit  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. 

1  Despatch,  dated  2nd  May  1705.     Sbornik,  vol.  xxxix.  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 — Tsarko'ie-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  Teter  ate  and 
drank — Court  luxury  and  domestic  simplicity — Menshikof's  coach  and 
the  Tsar's  cabriolet— His  dress — His  roughness  and  coarse  habits — 
Cockroaches. 

in.  His  amusements — Neither  a  sportsman  nor  a  gambler — The  water  his  chief 
delight — Winter  cruises — All  St  Petersburg  at  sea — 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  coucher — 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  crew.1  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 

1  Oustrialof,  vol.  iv.  part  i.  p.  252. 

187 


1 88  PETER  THE  GREAT 

better  than  you  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  em- 
broidery, 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.1 

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  1S50  ;  a 

1  Boulhakovski,  Peter's  House  (St.  Petersburg,  1891).  Roubnne,  Topographical 
Description  of  Si,  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- 
pavloska'ia  Kritpost ;  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  very   dear   to  its 
master.     He  regretted  it  deeply,  when  he  felt  his  duty  was 
to  leave  it  for  a  palace,  itself  a  very  modest  one.     Though 
he    loved    to    build    towns,    he   had    little    taste    for    dwell- 
ing in  them.     In    1708,  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  un frequently  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  its  picturesque  Russian  name,  came,  like 
everything  else,  from   Holland.1     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 
{PtttrovskiU  Pitomtsy).      He   planted    them  himself.      He 
also  grew,   from   seed   gathered  by  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, 

1  The  meaning  of  the  Russian  word  samovar  is  '  that  which  boils  of  itself.' 


igo  PETER  THE  GREAT 

in  1702,  and  departed  to  Peterhof.1  Alas!  the  Imperial 
Court  and  Courtiers  pursued  him,  and  a  yet  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. 
Though  a  very  modest  residence,  it  betrayed  a  certain 
amount  of  Flemish  luxury,  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  Tsarkoi'e-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-mojs,  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  (banid),  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  dienslitchiks 
(orderlies),  charged  with  watching  over  their  master  and 
mistress's  slumbers,  were  permitted  to  stretch  themselves. 


II 
Peter  was  never  a  great  sleeper ;  he  was  generally  up  by 

1  Pylaief,  The  Forgotten  Past  of  the  Neighbourhood  of  St.  Petersburg  (St.  Peters- 
burg, 1889),  p.  210. 


PRIVATE  LIFE  191 

five   o'clock,  and  even   an   hour  or  two  before,  if  he   had 
pressing  business — a  secret  council  to  hold,  a  courier  to  send 
off  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,  Makarof,  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  very  modest 
cabriolet  with  one  horse.     He  went  to  the  naval  dockyards, 
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  servants  during  a  meal. 
And   this  peculiarity  was   exceedingly  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 
servants  were  ordered  to  withdraw.1 

These  dinners  were  quite  uncerefitemotis ;  no  others  were 
ever  given  in  the  Tsar's  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  200 
courses,  cooked  by  French  cooks,  and  served  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  17 14,  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, 

1  Staehlin,  p.  109.     Nartof,  p.  53. 


192  PETER  THE  GREAT 

that  the  haziaika  (mistress  of  the  house;  might  be  able  to 
look  after  the  oven  comfortably,  and  even  occasionally  pre- 
pare dishes  of  her  own.1  Catherine,  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 
17 12,  we  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.  Manteuffel, 
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  shtchi  and  kasha,  pre- 
ferred black  bread,  and  never  ate  sweet  things  nor  fish,  which 
always  disagreed  with  him.  On  special  Fast  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 
kislyic-shtchi  (sour  kvass)  flavoured  with  English  small  beer,3 
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.4 

The  Tsar's  stable  arrangements  were  simple.     The  palace 

1  Golikof,  vol.  v.  p.  570  (note). 

2  Letter  to  Count  Flemming,  Sbornik,  vol.  \x.  p.  59. 

:<  This  would  appear  to  be  a  probable  translation  of  '  baume  d'Angleterre.' 
1  Staehlin,  p.  272,  etc. 


PRIVATE  LIFE  193 

coach-houses  only  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  hung 
very  low.  It  was  replaced,  in  winter,  by  a  small  sledge. 
Peter  never  got  into  a  coach,  unless  he  was  called  upon  to 
do  honour  to  some  distinguished  guest,  and  then  he  always 
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.1 

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  proteges,  a  silk  waistcoat,  woollen  stockings, — generally, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  full  of  darns, — heavy,  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  except  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  copper 
buttons  ;  with  it  a  thick  doe-skin  waistcoat  was  worn.  The 
hat  had  no  lace  on  it,  the  sword  had  an  ungilt  copper  guard, 
and  black  sheath,  and  the  stock  was  of  plain  black  leather. 
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  which,  I  am 
disposed  to  believe,  was  inspired  by  a  very  conscientious 

1  Pylaief,  p.  379. 
VOL.  I.  N 


194  PETER  THE  GREAT 

feeling  for  economy.  When  Catherine  showed  him  the 
splendid  coronation  dress  to  which  I  have  referred  on  a 
previous  page,  his  first  expression  was  one  of  extreme 
annoyance.  He  laid  an  angry  hand  on  the  silvery  em- 
broidery and  shook  it  so  violently,  that  several  of  the 
spangles  fell  to  the  ground.  '  Look  at  that,  Katinka,'  he 
said,  '  those  will  all  be  swept  away,  and  they  would  nearly 
make  up  the  pay  of  one  of  my  grenadiers.' 1 

He  never  acquired  the  Dutch  taste  for  cleanliness  and 
domestic  order.  At  Berlin,  in  1 718,  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  desolation  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 !  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  doufrina, 
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  induced  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 

1  Pylaief,  p.  379. 


PRIVATE  LIFE  195 

the  conventional  nature  of  their  sport.  The  hounds,  bereft  of 
huntsmen  and  whippers-in,  became  unmanageable,  dragged 
at  their  leashes,  and  pulled  the  riders  from  their  saddles,  so 
that  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 
sorely  knocked  about,  and  some,  indeed,  obliged  to  stay  in 
bed,  who  demurred  to  his  proposition.1 

He  hated  cards,  which  he  called  a  game  for  cheats.  His 
military  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  Koppenbrugge,  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.2  Arriving  in  his  capital  in  1706,  he  found  the  streets 
flooded,  and  two  feet  of  water  in  his  private  rooms.  He 
clapped  his  hands  like  a  child.3  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  always  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 
example,  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 

1  Golikof,  vol.  i.  p.  28.  -  Pylaief,  p.  379. 

:!  Russian  Archives,  1875,  vol.  ii.  p.  47 


196  PETER  THE  GREAT 

were  more  modestly  provided,  according  to  their  tchin.  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.1 

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  Preobrnjcnski  Prikaz,  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,  Finettc,  had 
bounded  into  her  master's  carriage,  and  was  rubbing  her 
muzzle  against  his  moustaches  without  anv  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  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  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  succe?.sT 
and  their  example  largely  followed.  But  Peter  speed ily 
discouraged  all  imitators.3 


*&>v 


1  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  everyone  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,  barely  sixteen  years  of  age,  in 
whose  house  dancing  went  on  till  five  o'clock  every  morning.1 
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 

1  IJergholz,  Biischings-AIagazin,  vol.  xxi.  p.  1S3. 


ig8  PETER  THE  GREAT 

soldier,  two  DienshtcJiiks,  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.' x 

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  dienshtchiks  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.2 

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  doubina!  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.3  His  personal  service  was  per- 
formed by  six  dienshtchiks,  amongst  whose  names  we  notice 
those  of  Tatishtchef,  Orlof,  Poutourlin  and  Souvarof,  two 
couriers    to    go    distant    messages,    one    valet  -de-chambre, 

1  Golikof,  vol.  iii.  p.  94.  '-'  Scherer,  vol.  ii.  p.  81. 

:i  Memoirs,  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  >>|  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,  '  Nitcliemou  nie  byvat ! ' 
(no  good  at  all)  turned  on  his  heel,  and  departed.  The  next 
day,  meeting  Roumiantsof,  he  repeated  '  NitcMmou  nie  by- 
vat ! '  adding,  '  I  will  find  thee  something  better,  and  that 
bv  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  PETER  THF  GREAT 

liminary,  Matvi&ef's  daughter  became  Roumiantsof's  wife. 
According  to  certain  accounts,  she  had  already,  at  the  age  of 
nineteen,  been  the  mistress,  and  the  fickle  mistress,  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  guarding  her  fragile 
virtue,  having  previously,  with  his  own  hands,  administered 
healthy  correction  to  the  fair  lady.1 

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. 

1  Pylaief,  Old  Moscow,  p.  52. 


BOOK   II— THE  TSAR'S  ASSOCIATES 
CHAPTER    I 

COLLABORATORS,   FRIENDS   AND    FAVOURITES 

I.  The  Aristocracy  and  the  Popular  Element — The  Dieiatiels — The  great 
Favourites — Komodanovski — The  Prince  Ccesar — The  Secret  Police — The 
Red  Square  at  Moscow — Old  Russia— A  bear  as  house  steward — Loyalty, 
energy,  and  ferocity — Oriental  suppleness — Sheremetief — A  poor  leader 
and  a  fine  soldier — Menshikof — The  pastry  cook'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-born  Russian  Diplomat  of  the  new  school — 
Boris  Knurakin — Some  great  Dieiatiels — Neplouief  and  Tatishtchef — 
The  Tsar's  Confessor,  Nadajinski — A  match  with  the  Abbe  Dubois' 
secretary, 
in.  The  Agents  of  a  lower  order — Iagoujinski  and  Shafirof — Polish  Tews — The 
Viesselovski — The  Prybylshtchiks — Kourbatof  and  Solovief — Possoshkof, 
the  first  Rus-ian  Economist — The  fortunes  of  the  Demidofs — Lomonossuf. 

iv.  Foreign  Collaborators — They  often  did  the  work,  but  remained  in  the 
shadow — Sheremetief  and  Ogilvy — Vinnius— James  Bruce — Ostermann  — 
Devier,  a  Portuguese  Jew — The  invariable  close  of  brilliant  careers — The 
final  crash — Frenchmen — De  Villebois — A  scene  in  the  Imperial  bed- 
room— Englishmen — Perry  and  Fergusson — Poushkins's  negro  ancestor, 
Abraham  Hannibal. 

v.    General  summing  up — Peter  and  Leibnitz — The  great  German's  posthumous 
role. 


'  ALONE,  or  almost  alone,  our  Tsar  struggles  to  raise  the 
country,  millions  of  individual  efforts  drag  it  down.' 

When  Possoshkof  thus  picturesquely  described  Peter's 
isolation,  and  the  difficulties  he  met  with,  in  carrying  out 
his    reforms,    he    indulged    in    a    slight    exaggeration.     The 

20 1 


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  ot 
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    Iagoujinksi,  to    replace    a 
Matvieief,  or  a  Troubetzkoi.     Thus   a  school  of  statesmen 
rose  around  him,  men  of  peculiar  stamp,  the  prototypes  of 
the  Dieiaticls  (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  responsibility.     They  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      203 

their  intrigues  and  secret  enmities  will  foil  any  negotiations, 
even  those  which  might  be  of  most  service,  and  bring  most 
credit  to  their  master.  I  notice  proofs  of  this  truth  every- 
day of  my  life.' x  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,  Sheremetief,  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  Tcherkaski,  Troubetzko'i,  Galitzin,  Repnin,  Ourussof, 
Sheremetief,  and  Saltikof,  equal  to  that  of  the  Kourakin, 
Dolgorouki,  Volkonski,  and  Lobanof  families. 2  A  younger 
branch  of  one  of  the  younger  branches  of  the  great  Norman 
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  Alexis 
established  an  office  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  Ivanoviich  was  the  Prince  Coesar,  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 

1  July  24,  1722  (Paris  Foreign  Office). 

2  Kotochihin,  Memoirs  (St.  Petersburg,  1884),  p.  25,  etc. 


204  PETER  THE  GREAT 

this  strange  title.  It  was  a  mere  joke,  but  we  know  how 
whimsically  the  great  man  would  mingle  pleasantry  with 
serious  matters.  It  is  not  easy  to  understand  how  such  a 
man  as  the  Prince  Feodor  Iourievitch  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  eves,  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  scoffed  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  earlv  years 
— the  old  Burg  at  Vienna,  and  the  majesty  of  the  Roman 
Caesars,  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  faithful,  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.  upright,  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  sharplv 
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  Ivashka.  Here  we  have  other  things  to  do 
than  to  gorge  ourselves  with  wine,  we  wash  ourselves  every- 
day in  blood ! '  x 

Notwithstanding  this,  I  remark  a  certain  Oriental  strain 
of  suppleness  in  his  character.  He  does  indeed  thwart  the 
sovereign  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  ^heremetief  announced  the  victory  at  Pol- 
tava, he  addressed  him  as  Sire  and  Your  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.  [(  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  hydromel  on  a  DiensJitehik  of  the  name 
of  Pospiclof,  a  great  drunkard,  and  a  prime  favourite  of  the 
Tsar's.3 

Shcrcmetief  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,  drawn  up  in  1718,  he  confided  his  sinful  soul  to 
the  Tsar.4  That  one  trait  describes  the  man.  He  was  simple, 
candid,  and  very  ignorant.  '  What  rank  did  you  hold  before 
you  came  here?'  he  enquired  of  a  non-commissioned  officer, 
just  arrived  from  Germany.  'Master  at  arms.'  'Arm,  does 
not  that  mean  poor,  in  German  ?     In  your  own  country  you 

1  Peter  I.'s  Writings  and  Correspondence,  vol.  i.  pp.  226,  671. 

2  Hymrof,  Countess  Goloz'kin  and  the  levies  she  Lived  in,  p.  76,  etc. 
:;  I  )olgoroukof,  Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  55. 

4  Russian  Archives,  1875,  V)'-  '■  P-  ^6. 


206  PETER  THE  GREAT 

were  poor  ;  here  you  shall  have  the  same  rank,  and  be  rich 
into  the  bargain.' x 

But  he  was  a  splendid  soldier:  always  in  the  forefront  of 
the  battle,  tranquil  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  through  the  streets  of  Moscow, 
he  never  failed  to  leave  his  coach,  as  richly  gilt  as  Men- 
shikofs  own,  and  clasp  his  old  comrade's  hand.  Generous, 
open-hearted,  and  hospitable,  he  fed  an  army  of  beggars, 
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  Boyard. 

Alexander  Danilovitch  Menshikof  was  another  and  very 
different  type.  He  opens  the  long  series  of  great  parvenus, 
the  creatures  of  the  Russian  Sovereign'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.2  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.  But 
already,  at  that  period,  the  young  man  was  supposed  to  stand 
high  in  the  Tsar's  good  graces.  The  Sovereign  always  called 
him  by  a  pet  name  (Alexashka),  and,  even  in  public,  lavished 
proofs  of  an  almost  passionate  tenderness  upon  him.3  My 
readers  will  recollect  the  story  of  the  part  he  is  said  by  some 
persons  to  have  played  in  a  violent  scene  at  the  house  of 
SheTn,  during  which  Peter  had  to  be  recalled  to  reason.4 
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  Boyard,  was  accosted  by 

1  Bruce's  Memoirs  (London,  1782),  p.  113. 

2  Sentimental  Journey,  chapter  headed  'The  Fastrycook.' 

:i  See  Solovief,  vol.  xiv.  p.  267.  *  See  ante,  p.  12S. 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES      207 

the  Pirojuik.  Pleased  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  Alexashka  s  astonishing  career  began.1 

Born  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.2  According  to  Catherine  II.,  who 
should  have  had  good  opportunities  for  learning  the  truth, 
he  never  had  'one  clear  idea  on  any  subject  whatsoever.'3 
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 
Streltsy,  and  is  said  to  have  boasted  that,  with  his  own  hand, 
he  had  shorn  off  the  heads  of  twenty  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  HerzenskincP  (child  of  my  heart),  '  Min  tester 

1  Bruee's  Memoirs,  p.  76. 

2  The  instances  quoted  by  Oustrialof  (vol.  iv.  p.  210)  in  support  of  his  contrary 
assertion  of  signatures  to  which  the  favourite  is  said  to  have  added  such  post- 
scripts as  vzial  (received),  or  prinial  i  spisahia  (received  and  answered)),  are  not 
conclusive.  Catherine's  testimony  is  far  more  convincing.  See  also  Essipofs 
Biography  (Russian  Archives,  1875,  vo'  ■"•  P-  5^9),  and  Kourakin  (Archives, 
■vol.  i.  p.  76).  3  Letter  to  Grimm,  Jan.  20th,  1776  (Sbornik). 


2o8  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Frant '  (my  best  friend),  or  even  '  Miu  Bruderl  forms  which 
he  never  used  in  addressing  any  other  person.  The  favour- 
ite's answers  are  couched  in  equally  familiar  terms,  and — 
this  detail  is  very  significant — he  never  adds  any  formula  of 
respect  before  his  signature,  although  Sheremetief  himself 
always  signed.  '  Naiposliddnieishyi  rab  tvoi '  (the  lowest  of 
your  slaves).1 

According  to  general  contemporary  opinion,  there  was 
something  more  than  mere  friendship  in  this  connection. 
I'eter's  indifference  to  imputations  of  a  vicious  nature  was, 
and  always  remained,  very  singular.  A  master-at-arms,  in 
the  Preobrajenski  regiment,  convicted,  in  1702,  of  having 
spoken  in  the  most  open  manner  on  this  odious  subject, 
was  merely  relegated  to  a  distant  garrison.  Such  incidents 
happened  several  times  over.2 

Yet  the  favourite  certainly  had  mistresses — two  sisters, 
Daria  and  Barbara  Arsenief — both  of  them  maids  of  honour 
to  the  Tsarevna  Nathalia,  the  Sovereign's  favourite  sister. 
He  wrote  them  common  letters,  and  they  may  be  concluded 
to  have  thought  it  better  not  to  betray  any  sign  of  jealous)-. 
He  ended  by  marrying  the  eldest,  in  connection  with  whom 
Peter  appears  to  have  had  some  personal  obligation  of  a 
doubtful  character.  When  Menshikof  led  Daria  to  the  altar, 
he  did  so  in  obedience  to  a  sort  of  order  from  his  august 
friend,  inspired  by  some  mysterious  scruple.  Here  we  have 
an  unexplained  case  of  conscience,  a  confused  and  darkly- 
shadowed  corner  in  the  Tsar's  personal  history,  full  of 
dubious  secrets  and  strange  promiscuities,  which  tempt  and 
yet  repel  the  enquiring  student.  In  1703,  the  two  friends, 
'  although  unworthy,' — so  runs  Peter's  letter  to  Apraxin, — 
were  made  Knights  of  St  Andrew,  on  the  very  same  day/' 
And  then  Alexashkd s  wonderful  fairy  tale  began. 

In  1706,  he  was  a  Prince  of  the  Holy  Empire  ;  the  follow- 
ing year,  after  his  victory  over  the  Swedish  general  Marde- 
feldt,  at  Kalisz,  he  assumed  the  rank  of  a  sovereign  Russian 
prince  (  Vladictielnyl  rousskii  Kniaz\  with  the  title  of  Duke 
of  Ijora,  and  the  whole  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 ;   Marshal  of 

1   Writings  and  Correspondence  of  Peter  the  Great,  vol.  iii.  pp.  7^°"7^-" 
-  Russian  Archives,  1875,  vol.  ii.  p.  236.  -;  Ibid. 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES      209 

the  Empire  ;  President  of  the  Military  Administration ; 
Admiral  of  the  Red  ;  Governor-General  of  St  Petersburg ; 
Lieutenant-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  White  and  the 
Black  Eagle. 

Even  this  did  not  suffice  him.  In  171 1,  he  was  negotiat- 
ing with  the  Dowager  Duchess  of  Courland  to  buy  up  her 
title  and  her  Duchy.  The  next  year,  being  confident  of 
success,  he  caused  the  officials  of  the  country  to  make  their 
subjection  to  him.1  Though  obliged,  by  the  indignation  of 
the  Polish  Court,  to  delay  taking  definite  possession  of  the 
Duchy,  he  would  not  renounce  his  hope  of  ultimate  success, 
and  revenged  himself  on  the  Polish  lords,  by  forcing  them 
to  sell  him  huge  tracts  of  country  at  an  enormous  sacrifice. 
He  added  enormous  wealth  to  all  his  other  splendours.  In 
the  Ukraine  he  bargained  with  Mazeppa  for  the  whole  dis- 
trict of  Potchep,  and  even  took  possession  of  property  there, 
which  actually  belonged  to  Cossack  officers.  A  stake  adorned 
with  his  arms,  set  up  in  any  village,  equalled  a  proprietory 
title.  Pie  had  no  hesitation,  in  case  of  necessity,  about 
adding  a  gallows.  He  undertook  commercial  speculations, 
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  arbitrary  privileges.2 

The  only  limit  his  power  knew,  was  the  Sovereign's 
periodical  repentances,  which  were  always  followed  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  Menchikof's  case,  by  any  higher  considerations. 
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  Tsarevitch  in  his  father's  presence,  seizing 
him  by  the  hair  and  throwing  him  on  the  ground.  The 
Tsarevny  all  bowed  down  before  him.3 

What  was  the  real  value  of  the  man,  and  how  was  it  that 

1  Despatch  from  de  Bie  to  the  States  General,  26th  April,  1712  (Archives  of 
the  Hague).  2  Karnovitch,  Great  Russian  Fortunes,  p.  120,  etc. 

:i  Oustrialof.  vol.  iv.  part  ii.  pp.  613,  628,  656. 
VOL.  I.  O 


210  PETER  THE  GREAT 

he  dared  and  possessed  so  much  ?  From  the  military  point 
of  view,  he  had  neither  knowledge  nor  even  bravery.  '  He 
lacked  experience,  knowledge,  and  courage,'  to  quote  Whit- 
worth.1  But  he  showed  great  endurance  in  bad  fortune,  was 
full  of  dash  when  the  fickle  goddess  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."2 
That  strange  mixture  of  serious-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, — I 
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.  manoeuvred  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    he 

1  Despatch,  Sept.  17,  1708  (Sbornik,  vol.  i.  p.  64). 

2  May  3rd,  1725  (French  Foreign  Office). 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES     211 

carried  his  depredations  did,  indeed,  bring  about  an  enquiry, 
which  dragged  on  indefinitely.  But  he  was  crafty.  He 
produced  old  accounts,  according  to  which  the  Treasury 
owed  him  far  larger  sums  than  those  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  are  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  you  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  pouring  in.  A  credit  of  21,000 
roubles,  assigned  in  1706,  for  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  diplomatic  friction.  The 
Dutch   Resident  accused   Zotof,  the  governor  of  Revel,  of 


212  PETER  THE  GREAT 

squeezing  the  merchants  belonging  to  his  country,  and 
dividing  the  produce  of  his  exactions  with  Menshikof. 
Year  by  year  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,  unvarying, 
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  Peter  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  empty.  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  have  the  favourite  arrested.  He  faced 
the  storm  bravely,  and  had  no  difficulty,  when  the  Tsar  re- 
turned, in  justifying  his  action.  His  bold  stroke  had  saved 
the  troops  in  Finland. 

And  lastly,  the  unworthiness  of  his  accusers  was  in  his 
favour.  One  of  them,  Kourbatof,  was  himself  convicted  of 
fraud  in  172 1,  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- 
ing his  head  cut  off.'     The  old  affection  had  quite  died  out. 


COLLABORATORS,  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, 
buy  them  back,  or  I  will  double  the  fine.' 

The  charm  was  broken.  Menshikof  was  removed  from 
the  presidency  of  the  military  administration  ;  he  was  forced 
to  disgorge  the  15,000  serfs  he  had  stolen  in  Mazeppa's 
former  domains.1  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  openly  rejoiced.2 
Peter  did  not  complain.  He  always  had  a  secret  leaning 
towards  those  of  his  servants  who  could  not  rely  on  any- 
thing, or  any  person,  save  himself. 

1  For  Menshikof s  biography  see  Essipof,   Solovief,   vol.    xvi,   p.    231,  etc.  ; 
Golikof,  vol.  vi.  p.  407,  etc.  ;  Nartof,  p.  47,  etc.  ;  Posselt,  vol.  i.  p.  545,  etc. 
-  Russian  Archives,  1875,  Part  "•  P-  49  (Essipof). 


214  PETER  THE  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  Alexieievitch  Golovin,  who  was 
called,  after  Lefort's  death,  to  the  chief  place  at  the  Admiralty, 
and  to  the  head  of  the  Office  of  Foreign  Envoys  {Posolskoi 
Prikaz), — 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  Iagou- 
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  opportunity  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  Admiralty  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  FAVOURITES      215 

was  related  to  him  through  the  Naryshkin,  had  a  fine 
aptitude  for  taking  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 
1 71 4,  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.1 

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  anything  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 
property.  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.'2 

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  whom,  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 
every  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, 

1  De  Bie  to  the  States  General,  Dec.  21,  1714  (Archives  of  the  Hague). 

2  Popof,  Study  0/  '1  olsto'i  {Old  and  Nezv  Russia),  1875. 


216  PETER  THE  GREAT 

later  on,  to  cause  it  to  be  forgotten.  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  diHatiel 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  Nieplouief,  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.' x 

1  NieplouiePs  Memoirs,  p.  103.      Piekarski's  Science  an  i  Literature  in  Russia, 
pp.  141,  142. 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES      217 

Thus  prepared,  Nieplouief  served  his  country  as  a  diplomat 
in  Turkey,  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-learnt  lesson.  Like  his  master,  he  was  per- 
petually on  the  move,  and  had  his  finger  everywhere, — in 
military  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  Dieiatiel,  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 


2l8  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  history,  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  by  the  eighteenth  century  historians, 
led  by  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.1 

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  ;'2  a  man  whose  drinking  powers 
he  backed,  while  in  Paris,  against  those  of  Dubois'  secretary, — 
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,  happily,  helped  Peter  to  lay  the  foundations  of  his 
country's  greatness. 

Ill 

Tatishtchef's  character  and  origin  have  both  earned  him 
a  special  place  in  the  list  of  the  contemporary  'makers'  of 
the  great  reign. 

1  Popof,  Tatishtchef  and  his  limes.  Restoujet-Rioumin,  Study  in  Old  and 
New  Russia,  1875.  -  Pollnitz's  Memoirs,  1791,  vol.  ii.  p.  66. 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES      219 

Iagoujinski,  the  son  of  an  organist  and  schoolmaster, 
employed  by  the  Lutheran  community  in  Moscow,  began 
by  performing  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.' x  Thus  it  came  about 
that  Count  Golovin,  one  of  his  employers,  bethought  him 
of  placing  the  boot-black  in  Peter's  service,  with  the  object 
of  counteracting  Menchikof's  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  thievery, 
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 
betrayed  the  cause  which  his  protector  had  sent  him  to 
champion.  He  fought  resolutely  against  Menshikof,  and 
was  not  afraid  to  enter  into  open  struggle  with  the 
favourite's  great  protectress,  Catherine  herself.  His  cour- 
age, far  exceeding  his  talents, — which  indeed  appear  to 
have  been  very  moderate, — was  his  only  claim  to  his 
position  as  Public  Prosecutor  ;  one  in  which  he  showed  a 
world  of  energy,  and  a  severity  for  other  people's  weak- 
nesses, only  equalled  by  the  indulgence  he  claimed  for  his 
own.  But  the  great  favourite,  who  felt  his  own  omni- 
potence encroached  on,  had  his  revenge  at  last,  and,  after 
Peter's  death,  Iagoujinski  was  seen  in  a  state  of  intoxica- 
tion— for  he  practised  every  kind  of  excess — stretched 
upon  the  newly-closed  coffin,  tearing  the  funeral  pall  with 
his  finger  nails,  and  calling  up  the  avenging  shade  of  the 
mighty  dead. 

Like  Iagoujinski,  Shafirof  (Peter  Pavlovitch)  was  of 
Polish-Lithuanian  origin,  but  his  antecedents  are  more 
shadowy  and  obscure.  His  grandfather,  who  had  settled 
at  Orsha,  in  the  Province  of  Smolensk,  was  called  Shafir, 
and  bore  the  surname  common  amongst  his  Jewish  kindred, 
down  to  the  present  day,  of  Shaia  or  Shai'oushka.  He  was 
a  broker,  an  individual  who  even  now  would  seem  an 
indispensable  adjunct  to  the  surroundings  of  most  Russian 
country  gentlemen.  The  long  greasy  gaberdine  he  wore, 
unmistakably    indicated    the    functions    he    performed,    and 

1  H.  Hermann,  Peter  der  Grosse  und.der  Tsarroitch  Alexei,  18S0,  p.  17S. 


22o  PETER  THE  GREAT 

the  race  from  whence  he  sprung.  Peter  Pavlovitch  dis- 
carded the  gaberdine,  but  he  preserved  all  the  other  dis- 
tinctive qualities  of  the  type.  The  Tsar  took  him  out  of  a 
shop  at  Moscow,  and  bestowed  him  on  Golovkin,  to  assist 
him  with  his  correspondence; — all  Jews,  Polish  or  otherwise, 
have  a  talent  for  languages.  When,  after  the  Battle  of 
Poltava,  Golovkin  was  made  Chancellor,  his  assistant  rose 
with  him,  and  the  former  cloth-merchant's  clerk  became 
Vice-Chancellor.  He  really  directed  all  the  foreign 
relations  of  the  country.  And  he  did  his  work  well.  In 
that  perilous  business  on  the  Pruth,  his  talents  worked  a 
miracle,  and  saved,  or  something  very  like  it,  both  the  Tsar 
and  his  Empire.  This  put  him  on  the  pinnacle  of  his 
glory.  Pie  had  grown  rich,  of  course, — he  had  been  made 
a  baron, — equally  of  course, — he  had  married  five  of  his 
daughters  into  the  greatest  families  in  the  country,  Dol- 
gorouki,  Golovin,  Gagarin,  Hovanski,  and  Soltykof. 
Suddenly,  there  came  a  gust  of  wind, — and  he  was  swept 
away.  Menshikof,  whose  own  harvest  he  had  prematurely 
reaped,  the  Chancellor  Golovkin,  whose  accession  he  had 
too  openly  coveted,  and  Ostermann, — himself  a  parvenu, 
who  desired  to  stand  in  the  Vice-Chancellor's  shoes,  took 
advantage  of  one  of  Peter's  prolonged  absences,  to  plot  his 
ruin.  On  the  15th  of  February,  1723,  he  was  actually  on 
the  scaffold,  his  head  already  laid  on  the  block,  and  '  the 
executioner's  assistants  pulling  at  his  feet,  so  that  his  great 
belly  might  touch  the  ground.' l  But  he  escaped  death. 
One  of  Peter's  secretaries  arrived,  just  in  time,  with  a  letter 
commuting  his  sentence  to  perpetual  banishment.  He 
attended  the  Senate  for  the  ratification  of  this  letter,  and, 
according  to  the  testimony  of  an  eye-witness,  '  trembling 
still,  and  with  death  in  his  face,'  he  received  the  congratu- 
lations and  hand-clasps  of  his  colleagues,  who  had  un- 
animously sentenced  him  to  execution.  He  took  measures, 
of  course,  which  resulted  in  his  not  being  sent  to  Siberia, 
was  imprisoned  at  Novgorod,  and  there  patiently  awaited 
Peter's  death.  The  moment  this  event  took  place,  he 
recovered  his  liberty,  re-entered  political  life,  as  President 
of  what  we  should  call  the  Board  of  Trade,  and,  by  means 
of  new  commercial  operations,  soon  recovered  his  confiscated 
fortune. 

1  Biischings-Magazin,  vol.  xxi.  p.  195.     Solovief,  vol.  xviii.  p.  141. 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES      221 

His  father's  sister  married  another  baptized  Jew,  who, 
under  a  borrowed  name,  became  the  progenitor  of  another 
family  of  agents,  which  played  a  prominent  part  in  the 
diplomatic  history  of  the  reign,  the  Viesselovski. 

The  Prybylslitchiks, — agents  specially  connected  with  the 
Exchequer,  and  inventors  of  new  sources  of  revenue 
(Prybyle,  profit) — form  a  class  apart  in  the  great  category  of 
the  Dielatiels.  Of  this  class,  Kourbatof  was  the  most 
eminent  representative.  His  figure,  a  new  one  then  to 
Russia,  and  even  to  Europe  in  general,  is  that  of  the  true 
modern  financier,  greedy  of  gain,  but  always  desirous  of 
preserving  a  nice  balance  in  fiscal  matters.  Peter  himself 
could  not  always  rise  to  the  level  of  this  advocate  of  wise 
economic  formulas,  and  ended  by  sacrificing  him  to  the 
spite  of  that  fierce  Inquisitor,  Romodanovski,  whose 
sanguinary  excesses  Kourbatof  had  ventured  to  disapprove. 
The  man  was  certainly  not  immaculate,  and  his  conduct 
in  the  unimportant  position  of  Vice -Governor  of  Arch- 
angel, to  which  he  was  finally  relegated,  even  appears  to 
have  justified  his  disgrace.  None  the  less,  he  appears  before 
us  as  the  victim  of  that  struggle  between  two  worlds, 
two  conceptions  of  the  State,  and  two  ideas  of  social 
existence,  the  right  side  of  which  the  great  Sovereign  him- 
self did  not  always  succeed  in  keeping. 

This  struggle  is  even  more  sharply  and  more  dramatically 
defined  in  the  story  of  the  unfortunate  Joseph  Alexieievitch 
Solovief,  the  son  of  an  Archangel  merchant,  whom  Peter 
first  of  all  appointed  a  Director  of  Customs,  and  afterwards, 
his  commercial  agent  and  banker  in  Holland.  Solovief, 
whose  financial  operations  had  attained  considerable  im- 
portance, was  involved,  in  1717,  in  the  disgrace  which  befel 
one  of  his  brothers,  who  filled  a  modest  position  in  Men- 
shikofs  household.  He  was  prosecuted,  extradited,  given 
over  to  the  Secret  Police,  and  finally  acknowledged 
innocent.  But  his  legs  and  arms  had  been  broken  in  the 
Torture  Chamber,  and  all  his  fortune,  somewhere  about  a 
million  of  roubles,  had  utterly  disappeared. 

Solovief  was  but  a  '  common  fellow.'  Possoshkof,  who 
shared  this  disability,  gives  an  amusing,  though  a  sad 
enough  description  of  the  relations  of  people  of  his  own 
class  with  the  mighty  ones  of  the  day.  Here  is  his  own 
story  of  his    adventures   with   Prince   Dimitri   Mihai'lovitch 


222  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Galitzin,  from  whom  he  requested  permission,  in  17 19,  to 
establish  a  brandy  distillery.  At  that  period  the  Russian 
Montesquieu,  who  had  some  private  property,  possessed 
influential  relations,  and  was  Kourbatof's  partner  in  several 
industrial  enterprises,  had  already  attained  a  certain  im- 
portance. Yet  no  one,  to  judge  by  the  answer  his 
petition  received,  would  dream  it.  Without  a  word  of 
explanation,  he  was  laid  violent  hands  on,  and  cast  into 
prison.  At  first  he  was  astounded,  then  he  bewailed  his 
fate,  and  finally,  after  a  week,  ventured  to  recall  the  fact  of 
his  existence  to  the  absent-minded  Boyard.  '  Why  am  I 
in  prison?'  he  asked.  'Why  the  devil  is  this  man  in 
prison?'  enquired  Galitzin;  and  as  no  one  could  answer 
the  question,  he  signed  an  order  for  Possoshkof's  release. 

This   love   of  summary   methods,  and   haughty  scorn   of 
individual  rights,  was  equally  acceptable  to  the  old  Russian 
spirit,  and   to  the  revolutionary  tendencies  of  the   modern 
party.     Possoshkof  himself  was  their  accomplice.     He  was 
a    violent     partizan,    both    of    Peter's    reforms    and    of    the 
extreme  measures  he  employed  to  ensure  their  success.     He 
would  gladly,  even,  have  increased   their  merciless  severity. 
In  his  eagerness  to  inculcate  the  theories  of  that  economic 
school,  of  which  the  Prybylshtchiks,  led  by  Kourbatof,  were 
the  practical  exponents,  he  would   fain  have  called   all  that 
intolerance,  over-haste,  and   excessive    zeal,  so   dear  to  all 
sectarians,  to  his  aid.      His  fate  resembled  that  of  most  of 
his  fellows.     Nothing,  he  believed,  but  the  iron  ploughshare 
and  the  devouring  fire  could  suffice  to  open  the  soil  of  his 
native  land,  which  for  ages  had  lain  fallow  and  briar-grown. 
The  terrible   machine  he  helped   to   set  in  motion  crushed 
and  destroyed  himself.    How  did  it  come  about  that,  although 
from  one  end  to  the  other  of  his  career,  and   by  the  solitary 
effort   of  a  thought  which  evidently  sprang  from  the  same 
source,  he  walked,  as    it  were,  on    Peter's    flank,  he    never 
succeeded,  even  temporarily,  in  entering  into  close  relations 
with  him  ?     In  this  respect  his  case  was  an  altogether  special 
one.     He  had  ideas  to  dispose  of,  and  Peter  seems  to  have 
had  a  settled  determination  never  to  accept  anything  of  the 
kind  from  his  own  people.     Apart  from   that,  the  general 
tendency  of  the  reign  was   towards  equality,  and  the  great 
Tsar  would  have  had  no  scruple  about  taking  a  moujik  to  be 
his  helper,  and  even   his  closest  companion.     Of  this  the 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES     223 

story  of  the  Demidofs  gives  clear  proof.  The  history  of  the 
besinnino-s  of  the  Demidof  fortune — the  doubtful  anecdote  of 
the  pistol  marked  with  the  name — in  those  days  a  celebrated 
one — of  Kuchenreiter,  and  confided  to  a  workman  at  Toula, 
who  had  undertaken  to  mend  it,  and  the  Tsar's  colloquy 
with  the  young  gunsmith, — is  in  common  knowledge. 

The   Tsar:    'Ah!    if   we  could    only    make    pistols    like 
that.' 

The  Gunsmith  :  '  That's  no  very  difficult  matter.' 

The  Tsar  (with  an  oath  and  a  box  on  the  ear) :  '  Do  the 
work  first,  rascal,  and  then  you  may  boast.' 

The  Locksmith  :  '  Look  closely  first,  Batioushka,  and  see. 
The  pistol  you  admire  is  of  my  making.     Here  is  its  fellow.' 

The  gunsmith   was  then  known  as  Antoufief ;  his  father, 
Demid   Grigorevitch,   a    serf  of  the    Crown,   working   as   a 
blacksmith    in    a    village    of    Parshimo,    in    the    district    of 
Alexin,   and   province   of  Toula,  had   settled    in    the    prin- 
cipal   town    of  his  province   towards  the   year    1650.       In 
1694 — the  date  usually  assigned  to   this   first   meeting  with 
the  Sovereign,  the  reputed  source  of  the  proverbial  riches  of 
the  Demidof  family,  and  of  the  present  development  of  the 
mineral    industry    in     Russia,  —  the    old    blacksmith's    son, 
Nikita,  was  nearing   his  fortieth  year.1     He  was   a  married 
man,  and  Peter,  so  we  are  told,  after  having  duly  apologised, 
invited  himself  to  dinner  in  his  cottage.     The  meal  was  a 
cheerful  one,  and  the  Tsar  paid  the  reckoning  with  a  conces- 
sion of  ground  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Toula,  in  which  an 
iron  mine  was  to  be  opened  and  worked.     This  was  a  mere 
beginning.     By  degrees  the  activity  and  enterprising  spirit 
of  Nikita  and  his  son  Akinfy  (Hyacinth)  were  welcomed  in 
all  the  mines  in  the   Ural.     In    1707,  Nikita  was  personally 
ennobled  under  the  name  of  Demidof.     In  1720  his  honour 
was  made  hereditary,  but  he  kept  to  his  peasant  dress  ;  and 
Peter,  though  he  always  treated  him  with  the  greatest  con- 
sideration,   continued    to    address    him    by    his    rustic    and 
familiar  name   of  Demidytch.     It   was   not  only  as  a  com- 
mercial and  business  man,  the  founder  of  numerous  works  at 
Shouralinsk,  Vynorsk,   Viershnietagilsk    Nijnietagilsk,   and 
Douhomsk,  that    the    Tsar   valued    Nikita.      His    gay    and 
jovial  character,  his  turn  for  satire,  and  his  biting  wit,  made 

1  Russian  Archi%-es,  1878,  vol.  ii.  p.  120.    Karnovitch,  Great  Russian  Fortunes, 
p.  163,  etc. 


224  PETER  THE  GREAT 

him  a  worthy  follower  of  Lefort.  He  died  at  Toula  in  1725, 
at  the  age  of  68,  leaving  behind  him  an  immense  fortune, 
and — a  prodigious  and  almost  unique  fact  in  those  surround- 
ings, and  at  that  period — a  reputation  for  perfect  honesty. 
Russian  industry  has  more  reason  to  congratulate  itself  on 
this  forefather  than  the  Russian  navy  on  the  ancestor  with 
with  which  it  pleased  Peter  to  endow  it,  in  the  person  of 
Golovin. 

Another  peasant's  name,  one  of  the  greatest  in  modern  Rus- 
sian history — equally  eminent  in  literature  and  science,  but  con- 
nected also  with  much  industrial  endeavour  and  success — here 
rises  to  my  memory.  When  Poushkin  asserted  that  Lomon- 
ossof — historian,  rhetorician,  mechanic,  chemist,  mineralogist, 
artist,  and  poet — was  '  the  first  Russian  University,'  he  hardly 
said  enough.  The  active  period  of  Lomonossofs  life  (he 
was  born  in  171 1)  was  not  actually  contemporary  with 
Peter's.  Yet  he  belongs  to  that  great  period  ;  he  was  its 
direct  outcome  and  its  worthy  fruit — the  very  personification 
of  its  genius,  with  all  its  civilising  virtues,  its  deficiencies, 
and  its  contradictions.  His  humble  origin,  though  he  never 
forgot  it,  and  rather  took  pride  in  it,  did  not  prevent  his  prais- 
ing even  the  laws  of  serfdom,  the  rigour  of  which  the  Reformer 
greatly  increased,  and  from  claiming — peasant  as  he  was 
himself— 200  peasants  for  the  perpetual  service  of  a  factory 
he  had  founded.  Son  of  the  people  though  he  was,  the 
songs  and  ceremonies  and  popular  legends  of  his  country 
were  nothing  to  him  but  a  remnant  of  a  distant  past,  long 
since  gone  by,  and  devoid  of  any  save  an  historic  interest. 
One  of  the  deepest  and  most  expressive  forms  of  the  national 
poetry,  the  Bylines,  traces  of  which  may  even  now  be  dis- 
covered in  some  of  the  northern  provinces,  entirely  escaped 
this  poet's  notice.  He  had  no  ear  nor  soul  for  anything  but 
the  classic  poetry  of  the  west,  with  its  strict  forms,  so  soon 
to  fall  out  of  date — the  ode,  the  panegyric,  the  heroic  poem, 
the  tragedy,  and  the  didactic  epistle.  In  literature,  as  in 
science,  he  was  very  apt  to  consider  his  activity  as  a  duty  to 
be  performed  in  the  Tsar's  service,  a  kind  of  official  task. 
The  universal  process  of  requisitioning  and  enrolment,  which 
Peter's  system  tended  to  carry  even  into  matters  of  indi- 
vidual intellect,  and  activity,  is  clearly  denoted  in  this 
peculiarity. 

Yet  Lomonossof  played  an   important  part  in   that  swift 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES 


-y 


and  general  transformation,  out  of  which  modern  Russia 
rose.  He  imparted  a  powerful  and  definite  impulse  to  that 
mighty  effort  whereby  the  broken  links  of  a  chain  which 
parted  in  the  thirteenth  century,  were  welded  afresh,  and 
his  native  country  re-endowed  with  the  intellectual  patri- 
mony common  to  the  whole  civilised  world.1 


IV 

Most  of  Peter's  foreign  collaborators, — so  far,  at  least,  as 
appearances  went, — were  mere  subalterns.  The)'  often  did 
all  the  work,  but  they  generally  remained  in  obscurity. 
Peter  would  never  have  committed  a  fault,  the  crushing  re- 
sponsibility of  which  the  Empress  Anne  was  to  assume  in 
later  days, — that  of  putting  his  country  under  the  direct 
power  of  such  a  man  as  Buhren.  As  long  as  the  great  Tsar 
reigned,  Ogilvy,  the  Scotchman,  might  plan  the  battles,  which 
ended  by  checkmating  Charles  XIL,  but  it  was  Sheremetief 
who  won  them. 

These  foreigners,  whether  Scotchmen,  Germans,  or  Dutch, 
assimilated  themselves  to  their  local  surroundings, — became 
Russianized,  in  fact, — with  the  most  extraordinary  facility. 
That  shifty  and  eminently  porous  soil  rapidly  absorbed  all 
their  native  originality.  The  only  thing  which  distinguished 
Andrew  Vinnius,  the  Russian-born  son  of  a  Dutch  emigrant, 
from  his  Muscovite  surroundings,  was  his  superior  education. 
He  professed  the  religion  of  the  country,  he  spoke  its  lan- 
guage, he  had  even  adopted  its  moral  habits.  He  might  be 
Menshikof's  superior  in  such  particulars  as  the  casting  of 
cannon,  and  the  manufacture  of  gunpowder, — but  in  the 
matter  of  filling  his  own  pocket,  he  was  very  little  better 
indeed.  And  his  fellows  in  the  tumultuous  stream  of  foreign 
adventurers,  which  Peter  let  loose  upon  his  country,  belonged, 
as  a  general  rule,  to  the  same  order,  and  betrayed  all  the 
defects  of  their  profession.  The  germs  of  corruption  and 
degradation,  which  the  Tartar  conquest  had  sown  in  the 
national  soul,  sprang  into  life,  in  answer  to  their  touch. 

James   Bruce,  a   Scotchman,  who   passed   at   Court  for  a 
chemist  and  astronomer  of  genius,  and  was  held  in  the  city 

1  Biliarski,    Materials  for  Lomonossofs   Biography   (St.    Petersburg,    lS65), 
Lamanski,  Lomonossof,  Biogaphical  Studies  (St.  Petersburg,  1864). 

VOL.  I.  P 


226  PETER  THE  GREAT 

for  a  sorcerer,  had  none  of  the  qualities  of  a  Newton  or  of 
a  Lavoisier,  but  many  of  the  peculiarities  of  an  ordinary 
sharper.  Endless  lawsuits, — for  abuse  of  authority,  pecula- 
tion, dishonesty  in  the  supply  of  his  department  (he  was  at 
the  head  of  the  artillery), — brought  him  to  loggerheads  with 
justice.  The  Tsar  always  ended  by  forgiving  him.  There 
was  a  certain  dilettantism,  and  self-taught  quality  about  the 
rascal's  knowledge,  which  was  irresistibly  attractive  to  Peter, 
and  which,  in  those  surroundings,  possessed  a  certain  value 
of  its  own.  A  whole  legend  had  grown  up  round  the  light 
which  streamed,  on  long  winter  nights,  from  the  windows  of 
his  laboratory  in  the  Souharef  Tower.  His  astronomical 
discoveries  bordered  closely  on  astrology,  and  his  celebrated 
Calendar,  published  in  171 1,  is  all  moonshine.  But  it  was 
Bruce  who  organized  and  directed  the  Tsar's  schools  of 
navigation,  artillery,  and  military  engineering  ;  he  presided 
over  the  Board  of  manufactures  and  of  mines  ;  he  was  the 
real  inspirer  of  the  learned  correspondence  which  Peter 
made  believe  to  keep  up  with  Leibnitz,  and,  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  Treaty  of  Nystadt,  he  gave  proof  of  remarkable 
diplomatic  powers. 

They  were  all  much  alike,  ready  for  anything,  doing  many 
useful  things  indifferently  well,  and  remarkable,  especial!}", 
for  cunning  and  energy. 

At  Nystadt,  Bruce,  whose  success  won  him  the  title  of 
Count,  and  the  grade  of  Marshal,  had  a  colleague,  Oster- 
mann,  a  Westphalian,  whose  two  years  at  the  University  of 
Vienna  had  given  him  a  reputation  for  learning.  Campredon, 
writing  in  1725,  thus  sums  up  his  capabilities:  'He  knows 
German,  Italian  and  French,  and  thus  makes  himself  indis- 
pensable ;  otherwise,  his  principal  cleverness  consists  in  petti- 
fogging chicanery,  cunning,  and  dissimulation.'  These 
talents  sufficed, — in  a  country  where  Golovkin  was  chan- 
cellor,—  to  obtain  him  the  dignity  of  vice-chancellor,  in 
succession  to  Shafirof,  in  1723.  But  Campredon  overlooks 
one  of  his  qualities  —  a  most  remarkable  power  of  work. 
Ostermann,  to  humour  his  master's  suspicious  instincts, 
would  cypher  and  decipher  his  own  despatches,  sitting  at 
them  whole  days  and  nights,  without  ever  going  out  of  doors, 
or  taking  off  the  red  velvet  dressing-gown,  which  he  wore 
even  on  the  18th  of  January,  1724,  when  he  ascended  the 
scaffold   which    his    predecessor   had    mounted    before  him. 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES      227 

Like  that  predecessor,  he  was  pardoned,  and  ended  his  days 
in  exile 

Beside  the  Polish  Jew,  Shafirof,  we  perceive  the  grotesque 
outline  of  the  Portuguese  Jew,  Devier.     Peter  picked  him  up 
in  Holland,  where  he  was  serving  as  cabin  boy  on  board  a 
merchant  ship,  in    1697.     In    1705,  he  was  an  officer  in  the 
Guard;  in  1709,  he  was  Camp  Commandant.    In  171 1,  desir- 
ing to  marry  well,  he  fixed  his  choice  on  one  of  Menshikofs 
sisters,  who  was  both  old  and  ugly.     The  favourite,  looking 
on  his  request  for  this   lady's   hand   as  a  deliberate  insult, 
ordered  his  lacqueys  to  thrash  the  insolent  suitor.     Three 
days  later,  the  little  Jew  led  the  betrothed  of  his  choice  to 
the  altar.      He  had  got  out  of  the  scrape,  no  one  quite  knew 
how,  alive,  though  sorely  damaged  in  person,  and  covered 
with  blood  as  he  was,  had  carried  his  complaint  before  the 
Tsar,    who    promptly    avenged    him.      Yet,    crafty,    supple, 
humorous,  and  intensely  servile  as  he  was,  he  did  not  suc- 
ceed in  escaping  fresh  reverses.     He  was  evidently  predes- 
tined to  physical  chastisement.     In    17 18,  he  was  the  first 
holder  of   a  post, — then   a  new  one  in  St.   Petersburg, — of 
general  chief  of  police,  and,  in  this  quality,  he  had  to  accom- 
pany Peter  on  a  tour  of  inspection  through  the  streets  of  the 
capital.     A  broken-down   bridge  (Peter  had  consented  to 
have  bridges  built  over  the  numerous  canals,  which  he  had 
caused   to   be   cut    through    the    town)    stopped    the  Tsar's 
carriage.     He  alighted,  and  sent  for  materials  with  which  to 
repair  the  breach.     He  even  put  his  hand  to  the  work  him- 
self, then,  when  it  was  finished,  laying  down  his  tools,  he 
seized  his  donbina,  and,  without  a  word,  bestowed  a  hearty 
thrashing  on  the  chief  of  his  police.     This  done,  the  sove- 
reign returned  to  his  carriage,  beckoned  to  Devier  to  take 
his  place  beside  him, — '  Sadis  brat',  (sit  down,  brother), — and 
quietly  took  up  the  thread  of  a  conversation  which  had  been 
interrupted  by  the  incident.     And,  yet  again,  that  scarred 
back   was   to   feel   the   lash.      In    1727,  after   Peter's  death, 
Menshikof,  the  Jew's  unwilling  brother-in-law,  was  to  write 
his  vengeance  there  in  bloody  stripes.      At  the  foot  of  the 
decree  which  condemned  the  former  chief  of  police  to  exile, 
he  added  the  words,  '  Bit  knoutontj  (let  him  be  knouted).1 
My   readers   will    remark    the    uniform    and    monotonous 

1  Shouhinski,    Historical  Sketches,    p.    77.       Loupakof,    Monograph,    in    the 
journal  of  the  Mosccno  Polytechnic  Exhibition,  1872,  No.  99. 


228  PETER  THE  GREAT 

tendency  of  all  these  brilliant  careers,  towards  the  same  final 
and  inevitable  crash,  in  which  some  great  historical  verdict 
and  punishment  would  always  seem  to  overshadow  mere 
personal  revenge  and  petty  spite.  Whatever  their  origin, 
whatever  the  line  they  took,  these  men,  who  none  of  them 
cared  for  law  or  gospel,  or  for  any  principle  of  rule,  save 
that  of  their  own  interest  and  ambition,  invariably  ended  by 
falling  into  the  same  abyss. 

They  came  from  every  corner  of  Europe.  Munich,  a 
Bavarian,  who  began  his  extraordinary  career  as  the  con- 
structor of  the  Ladoga  Canal,  elbowed  Francois  Guillemotte 
de  Villebois,  a  gentleman  from  Lower  Brittany,  who  had 
begun  his  career  in  France  as  a  smuggler.  Villebois' 
Memoirs,  which  are  full  of  exaggerations,  and  of  assertions, 
the  falsehood  of  which  have  been  clearly  proved,  are  of  little 
value,  either  as  regards  Peter's  history  or  his  own.1  Accord- 
ing to  his  story,  he  saved  the  vessel  which  carried  the  Tsar 
from  Holland  to  England  from  shipwreck.  The  Russian 
Sovereign,  '  who  loved  extraordinary  men,'  at  once  engaged 
his  services,  and,  from  the  subaltern  position  he  then  occu- 
pied, Villebois,  at  a  bound,  became  aide-de-camp,  and  captain 
in  the  navy.  I  will  not  undertake  to  follow  him  too  closely 
through  the  details  of  the  adventure  for  which,  two  years 
later,  he  was  condemned  to  the  galleys.  Having  been  sent 
by  Peter,  during  very  cold  weather,  from  Strelna  to  Kron- 
stadt,  with  a  message  to  Catherine,  and  having  drunk  a  great 
deal  of  brandy  on  the  road  to  warm  himself,  the  sudden 
change  of  temperature,  when  he  entered  the  Tsarina's  bed- 
chamber, completely  overcame  him.  At  the  sight  of  the  dis- 
ordered couch  and  of  the  beautiful  woman  stretched  upon  it, 
he  lost  his  head  and  all  his  self-control,  and  calmly  recounts 
the  consequences  of  his  frenzy,  which  even  the  Sovereign's 
screams,  and  the  presence  of  her  ladies  in  an  adjoining 
chamber,  could  not  avert.  Catherine  is  said  to  have  suffered 
severely  from  this  outrage.  As  for  Peter, — in  spite  of  his 
wife's  condition,  which  necessitated  careful  surgical  treatment, 
—he  appears  to  have  taken  the  catastrophe  very  philosophic- 
ally. '  The  brute,'  he  said,  'did  not  know  what  he  was  doing, 
so  he  is  innocent ;  but  we  must  make  an  example  of  him, — 
let  him  go  to  the  galleys  for  a  couple  of  years.' 

'  Published,   with  certain  omissions,  in  the  Revue  Retrospective,  3rd  series, 
vol.  xviii.  j).  351,  etc.     The  manuscript  is  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale,  Paris. 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES      229 

The  only  absolutely  certain  historical  point  about  this 
story  is  the  condemnation  to  the  galleys.  Yet  Villebois 
does  not  seem  to  have  stayed  there  more  than  six  months. 
At  the  end  of  that  time  he  was  pardoned,  married,  by  the 
Tsar's  good  offices,  to  the  daughter  of  Gltick,  the  former 
pastor  of  Marienburg,  and  thus  brought  into  close  connection 
with  the  Sovereigns.  In  Elizabeth's  reign  he  was  rear- 
admiral,  and  commandant  of  the  port  of  Kronstadt. 

Two  other  well-born  Frenchmen,  Andre  and  Adrien  de 
Brigny,  fought  beside  this  Corsair  in  the  ranks  of  the  Tsar's 
army  ;  but,  brave  as  they  were,  they  were  quite  devoid  of 
the  spirit  of  intrigue  indispensable,  in  those  days,  to  success, 
and  never  rose  to  any  prominent  position.  Englishmen, — 
perhaps  on  account  of  the  fastidiousness,  angular-minded- 
ness,  and  lack  of  adaptability  of  the  race, — were  in  a  minority 
in  the  motley  crowd  of  foreigners,  through  whose  means 
Peter  endeavoured  to  inoculate  his  subjects  with  western 
culture.  The  celebrated  Perry,  who  entered  the  Tsar's 
service  as  an  engineer,  and  soon  left  it  in  disgust,  only  spent 
a  few  years  in  the  vicinity  of  his  comrade  in  misfortune, 
Fergusson.  This  last  had  been  engaged  to  direct  a  mathe- 
matical school,  and  never  succeeded  in  getting  one  kopeck 
paid  him  for  his  services.1  Otherwise  every  nationality  was 
represented.     There  was  even  a  negro. 

This  dusky  henchman  of  the  Tsar,  who  was  born  about 
the  year  1696,  was  carried  off  from  his  own  country  at  the 
age  of  seven  years,  and  taken  to  Constantinople,  where 
Count  Tolstoi',  the  Russian  ambassador,  purchased,  him  in 
1705.  Through  all  the  course  of  a  singularly  active  life  he 
was  haunted  by  a  painful  vision,  the  memory  of  his  beloved 
sister  Lagane,  who  had  cast  herself  into  the  sea,  and  swum 
for  a  considerable  distance  behind  the  ship  which  was  bearing 
him  from  her.  On  the  shores  of  the  Bosphorus  he  received 
the  surname  of  Ibrahim.  During  the  Tsar's  visit  to  Vilna, 
in  1707,  he  was  baptised, — Peter  standing  godfather,  and  the 
Queen  of  Poland  godmother, — and  was  thenceforward  known 
as  Abraham  Petrovitch  Hannibal.  He  began  his  Russian 
life  as  page  to  the  Sovereign,  and,  though  he  made  intimate 
acquaintance  with  the  doitbina,  he  gained  his  master's  favour 
both  by  his  pretty  tricks,  and  his  singularly  bright  intelli- 
gence.    He  was  a  negro  prodigy.     In  17 16,  he  was  sent  to 

1  Perry,  Present  Condition  of  Russia,^.  257,  French  edition  (Amsterdam,  17  iS). 


230  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Paris  to  complete  his  education.  He  had  already  learnt 
Dutch,  and  soon  won  himself  a  reputation  in  the  French 
army,  in  the  ranks  of  which  he  at  once  took  service.  During 
the  campaign  against  the  Spaniards,  in  1720,  in  the  course  of 
which  he  received  a  wound  on  the  head,  he  was  promoted 
lieutenant.  When  he  returned  to  Paris,  he  found  himself  a 
kind  of  celebrity,  much  sought-for  in  drawing-rooms,  where 
he  is  said  to  have  had  considerable  success.  But  his  serious 
tastes  soon  drew  him  away  from  frivolous  gaiety.  He 
entered  the  School  of  Engineering,  and  did  not  leave  it 
until  1726,  when  he  returned  to  Russia,  was  made  lieutenant 
in  the  Bombardier  Company,  which  Peter  once  commanded, 
and  shortly  married.  His  wife,  a  very  beautiful  woman,  the 
daughter  of  a  Greek  merchant,  brought  a  fair-haired  child 
into  the  world.  He  forced  her  to  take  the  veil,  had  the 
child  brought  up  with  every  care,  found  her  a  husband,  gave 
her  a  fortune,  but  never  would  see  her  face.  A  very  jealous, 
violent,  loyal,  upright,  and  exceedingly  avaricious  man. 
After  Peter's  death,  he  fell  out,  like  everybody  else,  with 
Menshikof.  Like  almost  everybody  else,  he  was  sent  into 
exile,  and  did  not  return  from  Siberia  till  Elizabeth's  time, 
when  he  became  a  full  general,  and  died  in  1 781,  at  the  age  of 
eighty-three  years.1  Another  glory  has  added  itself,  since 
those  days,  to  his  name  and  history.  He  was  Poushkin's 
paternal  great-grandfather. 


V 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Tsar's  circle,  whether  native  or 
foreign,  was  almost  entirely  made  up  of  '  utility  men '  and 
'  lay  figures.'  We  do  not  find  one  really  great  name,  or 
towering  figure.  The  principal  actor,  and  the  part  he 
played,  probably  took  up  so  much  room  on  the  stage,  that 
this  was  inevitable.  My  opinion  is  confirmed  by  what  I 
notice  of  the  sovereign's  relations  with  the  only  man  in  the 
contemporary  European  world  of  equal  stature  with  himself, 

1  Helhig,  Russische  Gunstlinge  (Tubingen,  1809),  p.  135.  Bantich-Kamienski, 
Biographical  Dictionaiy.  Zazykof,  Lexicographical  Encyclopccaia,  1S38,  vol. 
xiv.  p.  289.  Longuinof,  Russian  Archives,  1864,  pp.  1S0,  1S1.  Opatovitch, 
The  First  Wije  of  Abraham  Hannibal.  Russian  Antiquities,  1S77,  vol.  xviii. 
p.  69.  Poushkin,  Genealogy  op  the  Ponshkin  and  Hannibal  Families,  collected 
works  (1S87  edition),  vol.  v.  p.  148. 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES      231 

with  whom  he  had  intercourse.  I  have  already  had  occasion 
to  mention  Leibnitz's  first  attempts  to  attract  the  Tsar's 
attention,  and  the  hopes  he  built  on  their  success.  Yet 
these  relations, when  once  he  succeeded  in  establishing  them, 
brought  no  particular  good  fortune  to  either  party, — both 
indeed  would  seem  to  have  somewhat  lost  dignity  by  them. 

From  the  moment  when  Peter's  first  journey  through 
Germany  revealed  him  to  the  eyes  of  Europe,  Leibnitz 
seemed  possessed  with  a  perfect  monomania.  All  his  talk 
was  of  Russia  and  of  the  Tsar.  He  was  in  a  state  of  perpetual 
excitement,  and  full  of  endless  plans,  all  more  or  less  un- 
reasonable, and  all  tending  to  the  same  object,  that  of  attrac- 
ting the  monarch's  attention,  and  winning  his  esteem.  This 
feverish  restlessness  may  be  very  naturally  explained.  The 
great  savant,  as  is  well-known,  claimed  Slavonic  origin,  of 
an  ancient  and  noble  nature,  common  with  that  of  the 
Polish  family  of  Lubieniecki.  He  himself  inserted,  in  an 
autobiographical  notice,  the  following  words: — 'Leibnitiorum, 
sive  Lubenecziorum,  nomen  slavonicum,  familia  in  Polonia.' 
When  he  quarrelled  with  the  town  of  Leipzig,  he  published 
the  following  protest:  —  'Let  Germany  lower  her  pride! 
The  genius  that  was  born  with  me  is  not  exclusively 
Teutonic,  it  is  the  genius  of  the  Slavonic  race,  which 
woke  in  my  person,  in  this  Fatherland  of  the  Scholastics.' 
And  to  this  distant  bond  of  consanguinity  he  appealed, 
when  he  first  addressed  Peter,  at  Torgau,  in  171 1.  '  Sire,'  he 
is  reported  to  have  said,  '  our  point  of  departure  is  a  common 
one.  Slavs,  both  of  us,  belonging  to  a  race,  the  destinies  of 
which  no  man  can  foresee, — we  are  both  of  us  the  apostles  of 
future  centuries.'  l  This  conversation,  unfortunately,  turned 
off  to  other  subjects,  and  the  intercourse  thus  begun,  ended 
by  falling  to  a  much  less  elevated  standpoint.  In  1697, 
when  Leibnitz  was  meditating  a  scientific  plan  of  campaign 
for  Russia,  he  still  kept  at  a  dignified  level.  But  there 
was  a  great  come-down  in  this  very  year,  171 1,  when  his 
chief  anxiety  was  to  get  himself  accepted  as  the  Tsar's 
representative  at  the  Court  of  Hanover.  A  taste  foi 
diplomacy    was    one    of    his    weaknesses,    and    it    increased 

1  A  letter  from  Count  John  Lubieniecki,  lately  published  in  the  'Kraj,'a 
Polish  review,  confirms,  by  information  drawn  from  family  documents,  the  truth 
of  Leibnitz's  Polish  origin,  which  even  the  German  editors  of  the  great  savant's 
works,  Klopp,  Guhrauer,  and  Fertz,  have  not  attempted  to  deny. 


232  PETER  THE  GREAT 

with  age.  We  see  him  piling  application  on  application, 
and  intrigue  on  intrigue, — worrying  Peter's  minister  at 
Vienna,  Baron  Urbich, — tormenting  the  Duke  of  Wolfen- 
biittel,  whose  grand -daughter  had  just  been  affianced  to 
the  Tsarevitch  Alexis.  All  he  was  able  to  get  was  the 
promise  of  a  trfiin  and  of  a  pension.  The  fulfilment  of  this 
promise  was  long  in  coming,  and  at  Karlsbad,  in  1712, 
he  came  back  to  the  charge,  offering  his  good  offices 
to  reconcile  Austria  with  Russia,  a  magnetic  globe  of  the 
world,  which  he  had  caused  to  be  constructed  for  the 
Tsar,  and  an  instrument  to  be  used  in  planning  fortifica- 
tions. This  time  he  contrived  to  obtain  the  title  of  Privy 
Councillor,  and  a  gift  of  500  ducats,  which  satisfied 
him  until  17 14,  when  a  vacancy  in  the  Russian  Diplo- 
matic Service  at  Vienna  once  more  threw  him  into  a  state 
of  agitation.  In  1716,  he  was  at  the  springs  of  Pyrmont,  to 
which  the  Russian  sovereign  had  betaken  himself,— with  a 
bundle  of  half-scientific,  half-political  memoranda  in  one 
hand,  and  a  wooden  apparatus  for  the  Tsar's  paralysed  arm 
in  the  other, — calling  out  about  his  pension,  which  had  never 
been  paid,  '  although  it  had  been  talked  of  all  over  Europe,' 
piling  up  expressions  of  admiration  and  proofs  of  devotion, — 
altogether  a  wonderful,  and  pitiable,  and  most  insufferable 
beggar.  Peter  strikes  me  as  having  been  almost  indifferent 
always  to  the  brightness  of  this  great  intelligence,  which 
never  seems  to  have  succeeded  in  coming  into  contact  with 
his  own.1  Within  a  few  months  of  the  visit  to  Pyrmont, 
Leibnitz  was  dead. 

A  considerable  share  in  the  establishment  of  the  Collegial 
Administration  of  Russia  has  been  ascribed  to  him.  A  letter 
on  which  this  organisation  was  based,  was  long  believed  to 
be  his  composition.  But  this  is  far  from  being  true.  The 
original  document,  which  is  preserved  in  the  Moscow- 
archives,  is  not  in  his  handwriting,  and  other  authentic 
writings  of  his  do  not  mention  it.  Three  other  documents 
on  the  same  subject,  which  have  also  been  attributed  to 
him,  are  certainly  not  his  work.  He  never,  whatever  may 
be  said  to  the  contrary,  had  anything  to  do  with  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Academy  of  Sciences  at  St.  Petersburg.     Peter 

1  See  preface  of  Guerrier's  Selections  (St.  Petersburg,  1873),  P-  23>  ar>d  com- 
pnre  Fouchcr  de  Careil  on  Peter  the  Great  and  Leibnitz  (Reports  of  the 
'  Academie  des  Sciences,  Morales,  el  1'olitiques,' June  1S74). 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES     .733 

requested  another  German,  Christian  Wolff,  to  organise  and 
direct  this  institution,  but  met  with  a  curt  refusal.  Wolff 
thought  the  climate  of  St  Petersburg  too  cold,  and  the  pay 
offered  to  the  Director  of  the  Academy  altogether  too  small  ; 
besides  which,  he  was  all  for  replacing  the  Academy  by  a 
university.  '  Berlin,'  he  said,  '  has  an  i\cademy  of  Sciences, 
the  only  thing  lacking  is  the  learned  men.'1  He  refused  to 
act  in  the  matter,  and  restricted  himself  to  recommending 
some  of  his  friends,  Bernoulli,  Biilfinger,  and  Martini,  to 
the  Tsar.  This  circle  of  hardworking,  if  not  transcendently 
brilliant,  men,  surrounded  the  cradle  of  knowledge  in  Russia, 
to  the  great  ultimate  advantage  of  the  country. 

The  plan  finally  adopted  by  Peter  for  his  Academy,  was 
based  on  a  report  written  by  an  obscure  personage  of  the 
name  of  Fick,  a  former  secretary  to  the  Duke  of  Luxemburg. 
Leibnitz's  plans  went  much  too  far,  they  extended  beyond 
the  Tsar's  line  of  vision,  and  also,  probably,  beyond  the  pos- 
sibilities of  the  time  and  place.  Peter  never  adopted  any  of 
the  great  savant's  extreme  views.  Absorbed  as  he  was,  till 
1 7 16,  by  the  anxieties  connected  with  his  struggle  with 
Sweden,  all  Leibnitz's  proposals  fell  on  an  inattentive  ear. 
He  never  went  beyond  some  appearance  of  intellectual 
intimacy,  and  a  scientific  correspondence,  which  he  kept  up 
with  the  assistance  of  Bruce.  Perhaps,  too,  the  doubtful 
and  undignified  side  of  his  would-be  helper's  attitude  dis- 
pleased him,  and  put  him  on  his  guard.  The  man  of 
genius  may  have  been  utterly  hidden,  under  the  courier, 
and  the  hungry  petitioner. 

Yet  Leibnitz,  that  great  sower  of  ideas,  did  not  pass  in 
vain  down  the  furrow  traced  by  the  great  reformer's  plough. 
The  seed  he  so  lavishly  cast  in  all  directions,  may  have  been 
carried  away  by  the  winds,  and  lost  in  space, — but,  in  due 
time,  it  reappeared.  I  see  fruitful  traces  of  it,  in  the  great 
work  accomplished,  at  a  much  later  date,  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Russian  Government,  with  regard  to  the  study  of  the 
Slavonic  languages  ;  and  Alexander  Humboldt's  researches 
on  terrestrial  magnetism,  carried  right  across  Russia,  into 
Central  Asia,  were  certainly  inspired  by  his  illustrious  pre- 
decessor. The  influence  of  such  men  as  Leibnitz,  and  Peter 
the  Great,  is  not  measured  by  the  limits  of  their  earthly  life. 

1  P-riefe  von   Christian  Wolff  (St.    Petersburg,    1S60.)     Piekarski,  History  of 
Science  and  Literature  in  Russia,  vol.  i.  p.  33. 


CHAPTER    II 

THE   FEMININE    ELEMENT 

I.  The  King's  Mistress  and  the  Tsar's — Peter  a  Don  Juan — His  indifference  to 
propriety — A  daring  uncle — The  women  of  his  circle — Princess  Galitzin 
—  brutality  and  cynicism — Bestiality  and  debauchery — Another  side  of  his 
relations  with  women. 
II.  His  marriage — Eudoxia  Lapouhin — The  honeymoon — Disagreements — 
An  ill-assorted  couple — Separation — The  cloister — The  recluse's  icmance 
— Major  Glebof — Lovers'  correspondence — The  investigation — The  trial 
— The  lover's  fate — The  mistress'  punishment — Catherine's  jealousy — 
Prison — Eudoxia's  turn  at  last. 

III.  The   earliest   favourite — Anna   Mons — Peter's    liberality — Deception — Con- 

solations— Menshikof's  gynieceum — The  Favourite's  sisters — The  Arseniefs 
— Catherine  Vassilevska. 

IV.  Maids    of    Honour — Madame    Tchernichof — Eudoxia — Mar.'e    Matvieief — 

Terem  and  Harem — Marie  Hamilton — Lover  and  executioner — A  lesson 
in  anatomy  at  the  foot  of  the  scaffold — Catherine's  last  rival,  Marie 
Kantemir — The  wife  and  sovereign  triumphs — A  friend — The  Polish  lady 
— Madame  Sieniawska. 
v.  The  influence  of  women  on  Peter's  life,  and  his  own  influence  on  the  destiny 
of  Russian  women — Russian  feeling  in  the  seventeenth  century — Hatred 
of  women — Causes  and  effects — The  National  genius  and  foreign  influ- 
ences— Byzantium  and  the  East — The  current  of  asceticism — Family 
life — Marriage — The  Domostro'i — Barbarous  habits — When  woman  is 
sacrificed,  man  grows  vile — The  current  of  emancipation — Peter's  reforms 
— His  failures — The  importance  of  his  work — A  saviour. 


THE  King :  '  Ah,  brother,  so  I  hear  you  too  have  a 
mistress? ' 

The  Tsar :  '  Brother,  My  ....  do  not  cost  me  much, 
but  yours  costs  you  millions  of  crowns,  which  might  be 
better  spent.' 

This  scene,  which  occurred  in  1716,  at  Copenhagen,  whither 
Peter  had  gone  to  visit  his  ally  the  King  of  Denmark,  is 
reported  in  a  grave  diplomatic  document.1  At  first  sight, 
it  would  appear  to  give  a  very  fair  idea  of  the  part  played 

1  Despatch  from  Loss  to  Manteuffel,  Copenhagen,  14th  Aug.  1716.     Shornik, 
vol.  xx.  p.  62. 

284 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  235 

by  women  in  the  great  Reformer's  life.  He  was  too  busy, 
and  too  coarse,  to  be  a  lover  worthy  of  the  name — or  even  a 
decent  husband.  He  fixed  the  price  of  the  favours  bestowed 
on  his  soldiers  in  St.  Petersburg  at  one  kopeck  for  three  kisses  ; 
and,  after  his  first  interview  with  Catherine,  the  future 
Empress,  he  enriched  her  with  a  solitary  ducat.1  Not  that 
he  was  altogether  incapable  of  appreciating  the  more  delicate 
charm  to  be  found  in  the  society  of  the  fair  sex.  We  must 
never  forget  that  Russian  feminine  society  was  one  of  his 
creations.  The  presence  of  ladies  at  the  Sloboda  gatherings, 
was  the  first  and  most  powerful  attraction  which  drew  him 
there.  In  1693,  when  two  of  the  fair  guests,  at  a  fete  given 
by  Lefort,  ventured  to  leave  the  company  unobserved,  he 
sent  his  soldiers  to  bring  them  back  by  force.'2  In  1701, 
when  his  care  for  his  budding  navy  kept  him  at  Voroneje,  a 
great  number  of  these  ladies  joined  him  there,  for  the  Easter 
festivities,  and  were  most  graciously  received.  When  one  or 
two  of  them  fell  ill,  he  gallantly  put  off  his  own  return  to 
Moscow/'  If  the  historical  interest  of  this  chapter  depended 
on  the  memory  of  such  gallantries,  my  respect,  both  for 
women  and  for  history,  would  lead  me  to  suppress  it.  But 
there  is  another  question.  In  such  a  character  as  Peter's, 
— so  hugely  complex,  from  the  moral  point  of  view, — surprises 
burst  on  us  at  every  turn.  As  far  as  external  matters  go, 
this  side  of  his  personality,  in  spite  of  his  sociableness, 
stamps  him  a  boor  and  a  cynical  debauchee.  He  has  no 
care  for  the  woman's  dignity,  or  his  own,  and  he  is  too 
ill-bred  to  have  the  smallest  regard  for  propriety.  Observe 
this  anecdote,  related  by  Baron  Pollnitz,  as  to  the  Sovereign's 
visit  to  Magdeburg  in  1 7 1 7  :  '  As  the  King  (of  Prussia)  had 
given  orders  that  he  was  to  be  treated  with  every  imaginable 
honour,  the  different  State  bodies  waited  upon  him  with 
their  presidents.  When  Cocceji,  the  brother  of  the  High 
Chancellor,  who  was  at  the  head  of  the  Regency,  went,  with 
his  colleagues,  to  pay  his  respects  to  the  Tsar,  he  found  him 
leaning  on  two  Russian  ladies,  and  caressing  them  in  the  most 
familiar  manner.  This  he  continued  to  do  during  the  whole 
time  of  Cocceji's  address.'4  And  here  is  another,  describing 
his  meeting  with  the  Duchess  of  Mecklenburg,  his  niece,  at 
Berlin.     '  1  he  Tsar  rushed  to  meet  the  Princess,  kissed  her 

1  Duclos'  Memoirs  (1839  edition),  p.  615.  2  Korb,  p.  77. 

3  Oustiialof,  vol.  iv.  part  ii.  pp.  555,  562.  4  Memoirs,  1791,  vol.  ii.  p.  65. 


236  PETER  THE  GREAT 

tenderly,  and  drawing  her  into  an  adjoining  room,  indulged 
in  everybody's  presence — even  in  that  of  the  Duke  of  Meck- 
lenburg— in  the  grossest  familiarities.' x  Pollnitz,  who  declares 
that  he  received  this  information  both  from  the  King  himself, 
and  from  two  other  eye-witnesses,  adds  many  not  less  ex- 
pressive details,  as  to  the  great  man's  habitual  intercourse 
with  the  female  element  at  his  Court.  '  Princess  Galitzin 
was  his  dour  a,  or  female  fool.  Everybody  vied  in  teasing 
her.  She  often  dined  with  the  Tsar,  he  would  throw  the 
remains  of  his  food  at  her  head,  and  would  make  her  stand 
up  so  that  he  might  pinch  her.'  According  to  some  other 
witnesses,  the  shameful  vices  of  the  Princess  may  have 
justified,  to  some  extent,  the  ignominy  of  the  treatment  to 
which  she  was  subjected.  A  letter  from  the  Prussian 
Envoy,  Mardefield,  contains  a  curious  reference,  in  this 
connection,  to  the  French  Duchesses  and  the  pages  in  whom 
they  took  such  great  delight, — congratulating  them  on  their 
being  content  with  these  alone.  Princess  Galitzin  had  no 
page, — I  will  not  go  the  length  of  repeating  Mardefeld's 
explanation  of  how  she  supplied  this  wantr 

According  to  Nartof — generally  a  fairly  reliable  witness 
as  to  the  Tsar's  private  life — Peter  was  of  a  very  amorous 
disposition,  but  the  fit  never  lasted  more  than  half  an  hour. 
He  would  not,  as  a  rule,  force  a  woman's  inclinations,  but,  as 
he  was  apt  to  cast  his  choice  on  servant  girls,  he  very  seldom 
met  with  any  resistance.  Nartof  mentions  one  rebel,  a 
laundress  ;  but  Bruce  relates,  in  much  more  dramatic  fashion, 
the  story  of  the  daughter  of  a  foreign  merchant  at  Moscow, 
who,  to  escape  the  sovereign's  amorous  pursuit,  was  obliged 
to  fly  her  parents'  house,  and  hide  herself  in  the  forest.3  One 
of  the  documents  published  by  Prince  Galitzin  describes 
the  Tsar's  struggle  with  a  gardener  in  Holland,  who  used  his 
rake  to  drive  away  the  monarch  from  the  neighbourhood  of 
a  garden-girl,  whose  work  he  was  interrupting. 

These  details,  to  which  I  refer  with  much  diffidence — 
believing  such  reference  to  be  part  of  a  historian's  duty — 
repugnant  as  they  are,  are  not  the  worst.  The  Tsar's  inter- 
course with  Menshikof  was  even  more  revolting.  And 
Menshikofwas  not  the  only  favourite. 

1  Memoirs,  179 1,  vol.  ii.  p.  65. 

3  Herrmann,  Peter  der  Grosse  und  der  Tsarez'itch  Alexei,  p.  209. 

:;  Memoirs,  p.  93. 


THE   FEMININE  ELEMENT  237 


II 


Peter's  first  beginnings  were  commonplace  enough, — a  very 
early  marriage,  followed  by  some  years  of  tolerably  happy 
married  life,  and  then  a  gradual  cooling  of  mutual  affection. 
The  honeymoon  once  over,  the  husband  and  wife  saw  but 
little  of  each  other,  for  the  Tsar  was  almost  always  away. 
But  the  letters  which  passed  between  them  were  fairly  affec- 
tionate, and  the  pet  names  in  which  lovers  delight  may 
frequently  be  noticed  on  their  pages.  Lapoushka,  (little 
hand)  was  the  sobriquet  bestowed  on  Peter,  and  willingly 
accepted  by  him.  He  was  not  to  be  the  last  person  to  bear 
it.  Two  children  came  into  the  world,  Alexander,  who  died 
in  infancy,  and  Alexis,  born  under  an  unlucky  star.  After 
the  death  of  Nathalie  in  1694,  things  began  to  go  wrong. 
Peter,  who  then  had  been  married  for  five  years,  had  already 
contracted  some  extra-conjugal  intimacies  in  the  Sloboda,  or 
elsewhere.  But  he  had  conducted  these  affairs  with  a  certain 
amount  of  prudence.  He  was  a  dutiful  son,  and  Nathalia  a 
very  vigilant  parent.  When  her  influence  was  replaced  by  that 
of  Lefort,  two  female  forms,  members  of  the  group  of  beauties, 
—  none  of  them,  probably,  over  strict  in  conduct, — which 
surrounded  the  young  sovereign  at  the  Sloboda  gatherings, 
rose  like  stars  on  the  horizon  of  his  reign.  Both  these  ladies 
sprang  from  the  middle  class :  one  was  the  daughter  of 
Botticher,  a  goldsmith  ;  the  other,  the  child  of  a  wine-mer- 
chant, named  Mons.  Political  disagreements  helped  to 
disturb  the  harmony  between  Peter  and  his  wife.  Eudoxia 
belonged  to  a  violently  Conservative  family  ;  her  relations, 
who  were  all  inclined  to  oppose  the  new  order  of  things, 
then  just  coming  into  existence,  soon  fell  into  disgrace,  lost 
their  positions  at  Court,  and  underwent  all  kinds  of  ill-treat- 
ment. One  of  them,  the  Tsarina's  own  brother,  who  ven- 
tured to  insult  the  favourite,  was  publicly  beaten  by  the 
Tsar  ;  another  was  put  to  the  torture,  and  horrible  things 
were  reported  concerning  the  sufferings  he  endured.  Peter, 
it  was  said,  soaked  his  garments  with  spirits  of  wine,  and 
then  set  him  on  fire.  One  point,  at  all  events,  is  certain, — 
he  died  in  prison.1  When  the  Tsar  started  on  his  first 
Kuropean  tour,  Eudoxia's  father,  and  her  two  brothers,  were 
sent  into  practical  exile,  as  the  governors  of  remote  provinces. 

1  Jeliaboujski's  Memoirs,  p.  40.     Solovief,  \ol.  xiv.  p.  6  (annexed  matter). 


238  PETER  THE  GREAT 

In  the  course  of  his  journey,  Peter  ceased  corresponding 
with  his  wife,  and  suddenly,  while  he  was  in  London,  two 
of  his  confidants,  L.  K.  Naryshkin  and  T.  N.  Streshnief, 
were  charged  with  a  mission  which  clearly  explained  his 
silence.  They  were  to  induce  Eudoxia  to  take  the  veil. 
This  was  the  usual  expedient,  at  that  period,  in  the  case 
of  ill-assorted  marriages,  and  Peter  would  appear  to  have 
set  his  heart  upon  it.  His  intercourse  with  the  West  had 
settled  the  poor  forsaken  lady's  fate.  She  belonged  to  a 
very  different  world,  and  was  doomed  to  disappear. 

Yet  she  was  not  without  a  certain  amount  of  charm.  She 
may  not  have  been  pretty, — and  even  on  that  subject  it  is 
not  easy  to  come  to  any  decision.  Catherine  herself,  her 
future  rival — judging  by  the  pictures,  flattered,  no  doubt, 
which  still  exist,  and  which  made  a  very  different  impression 
upon  Peter — would  appear  to  us  a  perfect  monster  of  ugli- 
ness. Eudoxia  was  certainly  not  a  fool.  When  she  re- 
appeared at  Court,  after  her  merciless  husband's  death,  she 
struck  those  who  met  her  as  a  kind-hearted  old  lady,  fairly 
well  informed  on  interesting  subjects,  and  not  altogether 
ignorant  of  State  affairs.1  Her  correspondence  with  Glebof, 
of  which  some  extracts  are  given  on  a  later  page,  prove  her 
to  have  been  a  tender,  passionate,  and  loving  woman.  Intel- 
lectually speaking,  she  resembled  the  generality  of  Muscovite 
women  of  that  period,  who  had  grown  up  within  the  Terem; 
she  was  ignorant,  simple  -  minded  and  superstitious.  And 
this  was  the  rock  on  which  her  fate  was  to  be  wrecked. 
Evidently  she  was  no  fit  companion  for  Peter,  incapable 
as  she  was  of  understanding  him,  following  his  ideas,  and 
sharing  his  existence. 

When  Peter  reached  Moscow,  on  his  return  from  his  great 
journey,  at  six  o'clock  on  the  evening  of  the  26th  of  August 
1698,  he  went  to  see  some  of  his  friends — Gordon,  amongst 
others — and  then  paid  a  visit  to  the  Mons  household.  But 
he  did  not  see  his  wife  for  some  days,  and  then  only  in  the 
house  of  a  third  person,  that  of  Vinnius,  the  postmaster- 
general.  The  sole  object  of  this  meeting  was  to  give  his 
verbal  confirmation  of  the  decision  already  announced 
through  Naryshkin  and  Streshnief.  Eudoxia's  answer  was 
what  her  husband  might  have  expected — an  uncompromising 
refusal.     'What  had  she  done?'  she  demanded,  '  to  deserve 

1  Lady  Rondeau's  letters  (Letters  from  an  English  Lady),  1 776. 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  239 

such  a  fate?  What  fault  had  he  to  find  with  her?'  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  she  does  not  even  appear  to  have  been  sus- 
pected of  any  participation  in  the  political  intrigues  in  which 
the  Tsarevna  Sophia  and  the  Tsar's  other  sisters  were  impli- 
cated. The  revolt  of  the  Streltsy,  which  Peter  was  then 
preparing  to  drown  in  a  sea  of  blood,  broke  out  without  the 
smallest  complicity,  moral  or  otherwise,  on  her  part.  But 
the  Tsar's  mind  was  finally  made  up.  If  he  could  find  no 
pretext,  he  was  resolved  to  do  without  one.  He  angrily  re- 
pulsed the  Patriarch's  intervention  in  favour  of  his  lawful 
wife,  and,  after  three  weeks  of  parleying,  he  cut  the  Gordian 
knot.  A  closed  carriage,  drawn  by  two  horses,  (contem- 
porary chroniclers  lay  special  stress  on  this  detail,  which,  in 
a  country  where  the  smallest  country  gentleman  never  left 
his  house  without  the  escort  of  a  whole  troop  of  horsemen, 
cruelly  aggravated  the  injustice  and  hardship  of  the  whole 
proceeding) — a  hackney  coach,  in  fact,  carried  the  unhappy 
Tsarina  to  Souzdal,  where  the  doors  of  the  nunnery  of  the 
Intercession  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  {Pokrovskii  Dievitshyi 
Monastyr)  closed  upon  her. 

Innocent  though  she  was,  she  was  more  severely  treated 
than  others  who  had  been  guilty.  When  Peter  imprisoned 
her  sisters,  whose  connivance  with  the  rebels  had  been 
generally  recognised,  if  not  absolutely  established,  he  left 
each  of  them  an  income  and  a  certain  household.  He  gave 
his  wife  nothing  at  all  ;  she  was  his  wife  no  longer.  She  had 
ceased  to  be  the  Tsarina  ;  she  had  lost  her  very  name.  She 
was  nothing  but  Helen,  the  nun,  with  only  one  maid  to  wait 
on  her,  and  she  was  forced  to  appeal  to  the  charity  of  her 
own  relations,  to  save  her  from  starvation.  She  writes  to  her 
brother  Abraham,  '  I  do  not  need  a  great  deal,  still  I  must 
eat ;  I  drink  neither  wine  nor  brandy,  yet  I  fain  would  be 
able  to  offer  .  .  .  .'  This  last  touch  is  a  curious  one,  elo- 
quently expressive  of  one  of  the  most  attractive  qualities  of 
the  old  patriarchal  mode  of  life  in  Russia.  Personal  suffer- 
ing was  a  misfortune  of  a  kind,  but  inability  to  show  the 
accustomed  hospitality  was  a  supreme  distress.  The  letter 
continues :  '  There  is  nothing  here,  everything  is  rotting 
away.  I  know  I  am  a  trouble  to  you,  but  what  can  I  do  ? 
As  long  as  I  live,  for  pity's  sake,  give  me  meat  and  drink  ! 
■•Give  garments  to  the  beggar  ! ' 1 

1  Oustrialof,  vol.  iii.  p.  1S7,  etc.     Compare  Korb,  p.  74. 


2_|o  PETER  THE  GREAT 

She  was  only  six-and-twenty,  and  for  twenty  years  yet  she 
was  to  beat  her  anguish  and  despair  against  the  walls  of  the 
convent  cell,  where  her  life  and  passion  had  been  entombed. 
When  she  left  it,  with  her  youth  blighted  and  her  heart 
broken,  it  was  only  to  endure  a  still  more  cruel  fate. 

Twenty  years  later,  in  \J  18,  the  trial  of  the  Tsarevitch 
Alexis  quickened  Peter's  inquisitorial  zeal.  It  occurred  to 
him  that  Eudoxia's  influence  might  have  been  one  of  those 
which  had  incited  his  son  to  rebellion.  Forthwith,  he  ordered 
a  descent  upon  the  nunnery,  and  an  enquiry.  The  secret 
police  drew  the  cover  blank,  as  far  as  Alexis  was  concerned, 
but  this  disappointment  was  atoned  for  by  another  discovery. 
Innocent  as  she  was,  politically,  Eudoxia  was  first  suspected, 
and  then  found  guilty,  of  a  criminal  love  affair  with  Major 
Glebof.  She  had  broken  down  at  last.  In  her  downfall  and 
her  misery,  she  had  sought  for  consolation.  Major  Glebof, 
who  had  been  sent  to  Souzdal  on  recruiting  duty,  had  been 
touched  by  her  sad  fate.  She  suffered  from  the  cold  of  her 
cell :  he  sent  her  some  furs,  and  her  deeply-grateful  letter  of 
thanks  paved  the  way  for  a  dangerous  intimacy.  Pie  went 
to  see  her,  to  receive  her  personal  thanks,  returned  again  and 
again,  and  so  they  fell  in  love — she,  with  an  enthusiastic, 
ardent,  and  all-absorbing  passion  ;  he,  far  more  cautiously, 
with  an  affection  full  of  ambiguous  reservations.  The  young 
man  was  probably  very  ambitious  ;  he  reckoned  on  some 
distant  change  of  fortune,  thought  of  changing  his  own 
career,  and  entering  the  world  of  politics.  He  was  in  money 
difficulties  too, — he  was  married,  and  found  his  wife  a  great 
encumbrance.  Eudoxia,  poor  lady,  would  have  had  him 
leave  the  service,  so  that  he  might  remain  near  her,  and  be- 
long to  her  alone.  She  was  always  endeavouring  to  satisfy 
his  needs,  and  relieve  the  straits  she  more  than  suspected. 
She  was  ever  ready  to  bestow  the  paltry  sums  which  she 
contrived  to  wring  from  the  parsimony  or  the  poverty  of  her 
own  relations  upon  him.  Who  could  refuse  to  help  him  ? 
She  sent  him  money.  Did  he  need  more,  and  yet  more  ? 
'  Where  thy  heart  is,  my  batko,'  (a  still  more  caressing  form 
of  Batioushka — Little  Father)  '  there  too  is  mine  ;  where  thy 
tongue  is,  there  is  my  head  ;  thy  will  is  always  mine.' 

But,  bound  by  his  duties,  military  or  conjugal,  and  perhaps 
a  little  tired  of  her  already,  Batko's  visits  grew  rarer.  Then 
came  despairing  and  distracted  appeals.     Had  he  forgotten 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  241 

her  already?  Had  she  not  been  able  to  please  him?  Had 
she  not  done  enough  ?  Had  not  her  tears  watered  his  face, 
his  hands,  every  limb  of  his  body,  and  every  joint  of  his  feet 
and  of  his  fingers  ?  She  has  a  language  of  her  own,  of  the 
most  exuberantly  pathetic  description,  which,  in  the  most 
strange  and  flowery  style,  expresses  feelings  often  enough 
fantastic,  and  almost  incoherent,  but  always  throbbing  with 
evident  sincerity, — the  brilliant  colours  of  the  East,  mingled 
with  the  rustic  tints  of  her  Russian  home.  '  My  light,  my 
batioitshka,  my  soul,  my  joy,  has  the  cruel  hour  of  separation 
indeed  struck  already  ?  Rather  would  I  see  my  soul  parted 
from  my  body !  (J  my  light !  how  can  I  live  on  earth 
apart  from  thee?  How  can  I  endure  existence?  My 
unhappy  heart  had  long  foreseen  this  moment :  long  have  I 
wept  over  it,  and  now  it  has  come,  and  I  suffer,  and  God 
alone  knows  how  dear  thou  art  to  me  !  Why  do  I  love  thee 
so  much,  my  adored  one,  that  without  thee  life  has  no  value 
for  me?  Why,  O  my  soul!  art  thou  angry  with  me? 
Yes,  so  angry  that  thou  dost  not  write  to  me.  At  least,  O 
my  heart !  wear  the  ring  I  gave  thee,  and  love  me  a  little — 
just  a  little!  I  have  had  another  ring  like  it  made  for 
myself.  But  what !  it  is  by  thy  will  that  we  are  parted  ? 
Ah  !  it  is  long  since  I  began  to  see  a  change  in  thy  love. 
But  why,  O  my  Batko  !  why  comest  thou  not  to  see  me? 
Has  anything  happened  to  thee?  Has  any  one  spoken  evil 
ot  me  to  thee  ?  O  my  friend  !  O  my  light !  my  lioubonka ' 
(from  Lioubit,  to  cherish),  '  have  pity  on  me  !  Have  pity  on 
me,  O  my  lord  !  and  come  to  see  me  to-morrow  !  O  my 
whole  world,  my  adored  one,  my  lapoushka '  (it  will  be 
recollected  that  she  had  originally  applied  this  name  to 
another  person),  'answer  me,  let  me  not  die  of  grief!  I 
have  sent  thee  a  cravat ;  wear  it,  O  my  soul! — thou  wilt  not 
wear  anything  that  I  send  thee  ;  is  that  a  sign  that  I  cannot 
please  thee?  But  forget  thy  love, — I  cannot  do  it !  I 
cannot  live  without  thee  ! ' 

But  Batko  continues  hard-hearted,  and  her  complaints 
grow  more  and  more  distracted.  They  are  like  the 
continuous  monotonous  cry  of  a  wounded  creature. 

'  Who  has  done  me  this  wrong,  poor  wretch  that  I  am  ! 
who  has  stolen  my  treasure?  who  has  shut  out  the  light 
from  my  eyes  ?  for  whom  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?  to  whom 
hast  thou  abandoned  me  ?  how  is  it  that  thou  hast  no  pity 

vol.  1.  Q 


242  PETER  THE  GREAT 

for  me  ?  Can  it  be  that  thou  wilt  never  return  to  me  ? 
Who  has  parted  thee  from  me,  unhappy  that  I  am  ?  What 
have  I  done  to  thy  wife?  how  have  I  harmed  her?  how 
have  I  offended  you  ?  Wherefore,  O  dear  soul !  didst  thou 
not  tell  me  how  I  had  displeased  thy  wife  ?  and  why  didst 
thou  listen  to  her?  Why  hast  thou  forsaken  me? 
Assuredly  I  would  never  have  separated  thee  from  thy  wife. 
O  my  light !  how  can  I  live  without  thee  ?  how  can  I 
remain  in  this  world  ?  Why  hast  thou  caused  me  this 
anguish?  Have  I  been  guilty  without  knowing  it?  Why 
didst  thou  not  tell  me  of  my  fault  ?  Why  not  have  struck 
me,  to  punish  me, — chastised  me  in  any  way,  for  this  fault  1 
have  committed  in  my  ignorance  ?  In  Gods  name,  do  not 
forsake  me  !     Come  to  me  !  without  thee  I  shall  die  ! ' 

And  some  days  later  : — 

'  Why  am  1  not  dead  ?  Would  that  thou  hadst  buried 
me  with  thy  own  hands  !  Forgive,  forgive  me,  O  my  soul  ! 
do  not  let  me  die!  I  will  kill  myself!  Send  me,  O  my 
heart !  send  me  the  waistcoat  thou  hast  often  worn.  W hy 
hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?  Send  me  a  morsel  of  bread  into 
which  thou  hast  bitten  with  thy  teeth  !  How  utterly  hast 
thou  forsaken  me  !  what  have  I  done  to  displease  thee,  that 
thou  shouldst  leave  me  thus,  orphaned,  broken-hearted  .  .  .  ' 

Nine  of  these  letters  were  produced  at  the  enquiry.  They 
were  not  written  by  Eudoxia  herself.  She  had  dictated 
them  to  a  nun  named  Kaptelina,  her  confidant,  who  added 
postcripts,  in  which  she  endeavoured  to  induce  the  faithless 
swain  to  take  pity  on  the  sufferings  of  the  Matoushka. 

But  the  imprudent  lover  had  endorsed  every  one  of  them, 
'  Letter  from  the  Tsarina  Eudoxia.'  The  two  rings  were  also 
found  in  the  possession  of  the  guilty  couple.  The 
depositions  of  the  nuns  and  the  servants  in  the  Convent, 
many  of  whom  were  examined,  were  quite  conclusive. 
Glebof  had  constantly  visited  the  Tsarina,  both  in  the  day- 
time and  at  night  ;  they  had  frequently  kissed  each  other  in 
the  presence  of  witnesses,  and  were  often  alone  together  for 
many  hours.     Finally  Eudoxia  confessed  everything. 

And  Glebof?  The  popular  legend  describes  him  as 
having  behaved  like  a  hero,  deliberately,  in  the  midst  of 
the  most  frightful  tortures,  taking  every  other  sort  of  crime 
upon  his  shoulders,  and  even  confessing  imaginary  faults, 
while  steadily  refusing  to  admit  anything  that  could  sully 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  243 

Eudoxia's  honour.1  But  the  minutes  of  the  enquiry,  which 
are  still  preserved  in  the  Moscow  archives,  prove  the  exact 
contrary.2  Glebof  was  dumb  as  to  all  the  other  matters 
whereof  he  was  accused.  The  only  absolute  confession  he 
seems  to  have  made  concerned  this  love  affair,  which  dated 
eight  years  back.     Eudoxia  was  then  38  years  old. 

I  hasten  to  say  that  none  of  these  depositions  nor 
confessions  really  prove  anything.  Skorniakof-Pissaref,  the 
Examining  Judge  sent  by  Peter  to  Souzdal,  caused  fifty 
nuns,  some  of  whom  died  under  the  lash,  to  be  flogged. 
They  said  anything  and  everything  he  desired.  Eudoxia 
and  Glebof  were  both  of  them  examined  in  the  question 
chamber.  Such  frightful  tortures  were  inflicted  on  the 
unfortunate  officer  that  it  was  decided  to  put  him  to  death 
on  the  i6-27th  of  March,  17 18, — the  doctors  declaring 
they  could  not  prolong  his  life  for  more  than  twenty-four 
hours.3  A  story  was  current,  that  the  poor  wretch  had  been 
imprisoned  in  a  dungeon,  the  floor  of  which  was  covered 
with  sharp  spikes,  made  of  very  hard  wood,  on  which  he  was 
forced  to  walk  barefoot.  The  final  form  of  execution  selected 
by  Peter  was  impalement.  As  there  were  twenty  degrees  of 
frost,  the  unhappy  man  was  wrapped  in  a  fur  pelisse,  and 
given  fur  boots,  and  a  warm  cap,  so  as  to  make  his  torture 
last  as  long  as  possible.  It  began  at  three  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  and  continued  till  half-past  seven  o'clock  on  the 
evening  of  the  following  day.4  A  story,  which  does  not 
appear  altogether  credible,  relates  that  when  the  victim  had 
suffered  several  hours,  Peter  approached,  and  endeavoured 
to  draw  fresh  confessions  from  him.  The  only  answer  Glebof 
vouchsafed,  was  to  spit  in  the  monarch's  face.5 

Eudoxia  escaped  with  her  life,  but  she  was  placed  in  a 

1  Allainval's  Anecdotes,  1745,  p.  31.  The  reports  of  the  foreign  diplomats 
resident  at  Moscow,  which  echo  current  opinion,  are  all  in  the  same  sense. 
Herrmann,  Peler  der  Grosse  und  der  Tsarevitch  Alexei,  pp.  135  and  207.  Des- 
patch from  De  Bie  to  Fagel,  March  28.  17 18  (Archives  at  the  Hague). 
Mimoirts  et  Documents  (French  Foreign  Office),  vol.  i.  p.  129,  etc.  Manuscript 
Reports  in  the  Got  ha  Library,  etc.,  etc. 

2  Partially  published  in  Oustrialof,  vol    vi.  p.  469,  etc. 

3  Despatch  quoted  by  De  Bie. 

4  Auifuhrliche  Beschreibung  der  in  der  Haupstadt  Afoscoiv  .  .  .  vollzogenen 
grotsen  Execution  (Riga,  1 7 18).  See  also  the  romantic  siory  of  Eudoxia  and 
Glebof,  as  told  by  Siemievski,  Eudoxia  Laponhin,  in  the  '  Messager  Russe,' 
18159,  vol.  xxi.  pp.  219-265.  Also,  i860,  vol.  xxx.  pp.  559-599;  1859,  vol. 
xxiii.  pp.  299-300,  Study  by  Sniigiref. 

5  Dolgoroukof,  vol.  i.  p.  32.     Lady  Rondeau,  p.  32. 


244  PETER  THE  GREAT 

still  more  lonely  nunnery,  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Ladoga, 
where  she  was  yet  more  closely  watched.  According  to 
one  authority,  she  was  condemned,  before  being  sent  to 
her  new  prison,  to  be  whipped,  by  a  Court  of  Bishops, 
Archimandrites,  and  other  ecclesiastics,  and  this  sentence 
was  carried  out  by  two  monks,  in  presence  of  the  whole 
Chapter.1 

\\  hat  can  have  inspired  Peter  to  bring  his  consort  and  her 
lover  to  trial,  and  more  especially,  to  treat  them  with  such 
ferocity  ?  We  cannot  suppose  him  to  have  been  jealous  of 
the  wife  he  had  repudiated  and  forgotten,  and  left  to  grow 
old  in  the  loneliness  of  her  convent.  And  his  habitual 
indulgence  for  weaknesses  of  that  particular  nature,— 
especially  in  cases  which  bore  no  reference  to  political 
matters, — is  well  known.  Now  political  matters  do  not 
appear  to  have  had  the  slightest  connection  with  this 
business.  Eudoxia's  correspondence  with  her  lover,  which 
never  refers  to  anything  but  her  love,  is  a  clear  proof  of 
their  perfect  innocence  in  this  respect.  The  Ex-Tsarina 
had  indeed  allowed  herself  to  be  tempted  to  resume  her 
worldly  garb,  and  had  even  permitted  those  about  her  to 
encourage  her  in  the  hope  of  a  return,  more  or  less  distant, 
to  her  former  splendours.  But  there  was  never  more  than  a 
hope  of  this,  in  any  quarter.2  May  not  Eudoxia  have  been 
the  victim  of  the  jealousy  and  hatred  of  a  third  person  ? 
Let  us  pass  over  the  next  seven  years.  Peter  died  at  last, 
and  this  event,  instead  of  being  a  happy  one  for  the 
prisoner,  was  the  signal  for  a  fresh  aggravation  of  her  cruel 
fate.  She  was  dragged  from  her  convent,  taken  to  the 
fortress  of  Schlusselburg,  and  there  cast  into  a  subterranean 
dungeon,  which  swarmed  with  rats.  She  fell  ill,  and  the 
only  person  she  had  to  wait  on  her,  was  an  old  dwarf 
woman,  herself  in  need  of  service  and  assistance.  Thus  two 
years  passed.  Who  did  this  thing  ?  Catherine  I.,  the 
reigning  Sovereign.  And  here,  perhaps,  we  may  find  the 
answer  to  my  question  regarding  Peter.  At  the  end  of  the 
two  years,  a  change  came.  Suddenly,  as  though  in  a 
dream,  the  door  of  the  dungeon  was  thrown  open,  gentlemen 

1  French  Foreign  Office,  Manoires  et  Documents,  vol.  i.  p.  129. 

-  I)e  Bie  does  indeed  mention  a  plot  and  a  cyphered  correspondence,  the  key 
to  which  Glebof  refused  to  give  up  ;  but  this  is  a  mere  repetition  of  stories  current 
at  the  time. 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  245 

in  court  dress  appeared  upon  the  threshold,  and  bowing  to 
the  ground,  requested  the  captive  to  follow  them.  Thus  led, 
she  entered  a  luxurious  apartment,  prepared,  so  they 
informed  her,  for  her  special  use,  in  the  house  of  the 
Commandant  of  the  Fortress.  A  bed,  with  sheets  of  the 
finest  Dutch  linen,  replaced  the  damp  straw  pallet  she  had 
lately  occupied  ;  the  walls  were  hung  with  splendid  stuffs, 
the  table  was  covered  with  gold  plate,  10,000  roubles  awaited 
her  in  a  casket,  courtiers  stood  in  her  antechamber, 
carriages  and  horses  were  at  her  orders.  What  did  it  mean? 
It  meant  that  Catherine  I.  was  dead,  and  that  the  new  Tsar, 
Peter  II.,  was  the  son  of  Alexis,  and  the  grandson  of 
Eudoxia.  The  poor  grandmother,  whose  hair  had  whitened 
in  her  prison,  went  to  Moscow  to  be  present  at  the 
Coronation  of  the  new  monarch.  There  she  took  precedence 
of  all  the  other  princesses  ;  she  was  surrounded  with  pomp, 
and  treated  with  the  deepest  consideration  and  respect.  But 
it  was  all  too  late  ;  her  life  was  broken,  and  of  her  own  free 
will,  she  went  back  to  her  nunnery.  She  ended  her  days,  in 
1731,  in  the  NovodievitsJiyi  Monastyr,  that  refuge  for  great 
misfortunes,  where  Sophia  spent  her  life  after  the  day  which 
saw  all  her  ambitions  crumble  into  dust.  According  to 
another  tradition,  Eudoxia  spent  her  last  years  in  the  family 
residence  of  the  Lapouhin,  at  SerebrianoTe,  but  even  there, 
she  had  access,  by  a  gallery,  to  the  neighbouring  cloister  of 
St.  George.1  Her  tomb  is  in  the  Moscow  Monastery,  and 
her  memory  lives  even  in  the  present  day,  in  the  popular 
legends  and  songs  of  the  country.2  In  spite  of  all  her  down- 
fall and  disgrace,  she  has  kept  the  sorrowful  sympathy  of 
those  humble  ones  of  the  earth  who  are  all  too  well 
acquainted  with  bitter  suffering. 


Ill 

The  moment  Eudoxia  was  safely  interned  in  her  convent, 
Peter  installed  his  first  '  maitresse  en  titre.'  This  positon 
was  occupied  by  Anna  Mons,  or  Monst,  or  Munst, — Domicclla 
Alonsiana,  as   Korb  calls  her.     Her  father,  before  he  came 

1  Russian  Archives,  1873,  p.  652. 

-  Memoircs  of  the  '  A cade '•» <iie  dcs  Sciences'  at  St.  Petersbm-g,  1864,  vol.  v.  book 
ii.  p.  206  (Podsossof). 


246  PETER  THE  GREAT 

to  Moscow,  had  been  a  wine  merchant,  or,  as  others  say,  a 
jeweller,  at  Minden.  The  family,  therefore,  was  really  of 
Westphalian  origin,  although,  in  later  years,  it  tried  to  boast 
of  Flemish  ancestors,  and  affixed  the  particle  '  de  '  before 
the  name  it  added  to  its  original  appellation, — '  Mons,' or 
'  Moens,  de  la  Croix.'1  The  young  lady,  who  began  her  career 
as  Lefort's  mistress,  soon  forsook  the  favourite  for  his  master. 
She  accompanied  the  Sovereign  even  on  occasions  of  public 
ceremonial.  Neither  he  nor  she  shrank  from  attracting 
attention.  When  he  stood  godfather  to  the  Danish  envoy's 
son,  he  desired  that  she  should  be  godmother.2  He  had  a 
line  house  built  for  her  in  the  Sloboda,  and  the  dreary 
archives  of  the  Prcobrajeuski  Prikaz  bear  witness  to  the 
too  loudly  expressed  astonishment  of  a  German  tailor 
named  Flank,  concerning  the  glories  of  a  bedroom  which 
was  the  chief  ornament  of  the  dwelling,  and  in  which  the 
Tsar,  as  it  was  well  known,  frequently  appeared/5  In  1703, 
somewhat  unwillingly  and  remorsefully  it  must  be  said,  he 
endowed  the  lady  with  a  property  of  considerable  extent, 
called  Doubino,  in  the  district  of  Kozielsk.  She  was  a  most 
barefaced  beggar,  perpetually  soliciting  the  somewhat  un- 
ready generosity  of  the  Sovereign,  in  a  succession  of  notes, 
written  by  a  secretary,  to  which  she  added  postscripts 
in  bad  German.  She  backs  one  of  these  requests  by  calling 
on  the  name  of  a  person  whose  good  offices  she  could  hardly 
have  expected.  '  For  the  love  of  your  son,  Alexis  Petro- 
vitch,  give  me  that  estate!' 4  Now,  Alexis,  as  my  readers  will 
recollect,  was  Eudoxia's  child.  Her  letters  were  occasionally 
accompanied  by  very  modest  gifts.  Thus  she  sent  her  lover, 
then  detained  at  the  siege  of  Azof,  four  lemons  and  as  many 
oranges.  He  had  serious  thoughts  of  marrying  her,  even 
although  he  was  carrying  on  doubtful  relations  with  one  of 
her  friends,  Helen  Pademrecht,  from  whom  he  received 
letters,  too,  addressed, '  To  my  Universe, — to  my  little  darling 
Sun, — my  beloved,  with  black  eyes  and  eyebrows  of  the 
same  colour.'  The  Mons  affair — a  very  commonplace  one, 
— lasted  till  1703,  and  closed  in  an  equally  commonplace 
fashion.     The  Saxon  Envoy  Konigseck,  who  had  only  lately 

1  Mordovtsef,  Russian  Women  (St.  Petersburg),  p.  3,  portfolio  No.  lxxxvi. 
in  Peter's  'Cabinet.'  The  documents  of  the  Minden  Municipality  here  pre- 
served give  various  spellings  of  the  name. 

2  Korb,  p.  84.  ::  Nos.  1243,  125S. 
4  See  extracts  from  this  correspondence  in  Mordovtsef s  work. 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  247 

arrived  at  the  Tsar's  Court,  was  accidentally  drowned,  at  the 
beginning  of  a  campaign.  In  his  pockets  certain  notes  were 
found,  the  writing  and  the  style  of  which,  Peter  easily  recog- 
nised. He  was  simple-minded  enough  to  lose  his  temper, 
the  Domicella  Monsiana  went  to  prison,  and  only  came  out 
by  dint  of  urgent  prayers,  and  cunning  wiles.  On  recovering 
her  liberty  she  was  forced  to  content  herself  with  becoming 
the  mistress  of  Keyserling,  the  Prussian  Envoy,  who  ended 
by  marrying  her.  She  had  a  taste  for  diplomacy,  and  not 
sufficient  prudence  to  keep  herself  out  of  difficulties.  She 
found  herself  back  in  prison,  and  only  contrived  to  save  a 
few  poor  remnants  of  the  monarch's  former  liberality. 
Amongst  these  was  his  portrait,  with  which  she  sharply  refused 
to  part,  on  account — some  people  hinted — of  the  diamonds 
in  which  it  was  framed.  Peter  kept  his  grudge  against 
her  for  years.  The  enquiry  in  connection  with  this  sorry 
business  was  still  going  on  in  1707,  and  Romodanovski 
had  thirty  prisoners  implicated  in  it — how,  neither  they  nor 
he  could  fairly  explain, — under  lock  and  key.  A  year'later, 
Keyserling,  who  had  already  married  the  lady,  took  advan- 
tage of  a  moment  of  good  humour  to  intercede  with  the 
Tsar  in  favour  of  one  of  her  brothers,  who  was  petitioning 
for  employment.  His  remarks  were  very  ill-received.  Peter 
cut  him  short  roughly,  and  spoke  his  mind  with  his 
usual  frankness.  'I  brought  up  Mons  for  myself;  I  meant 
to  marry  her  ;  you  have  seduced  her,  and  you  can  keep  her. 
But  never  dare  to  speak  to  me  of  her  or  of  her  relations 
again.'       When   the   Prussian   would   have   persisted,    Men- 

shikof  intervened  :   '  Your  Mons  is  a ;  she  has  been  my 

mistress,  and  yours,  and  every  one's.  Don't  let  us  hear  any 
more  about  her.'  This  scene  took  place,  it  is  only  fair  to  say, 
after  supper,  at  an  entertainment  given  by  a  Polish  nobleman 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Lublin.  It  ended  unpleasantly  for 
Keyserling.  Peter  and  Menshikof  fell  on  him  with  their 
fists,  turned  him  out  of  the  room,  and  threw  him  down  stairs. 
He  made  a  formal  complaint,  but  the  business  was  decided 
against  him,  and  ended  with  excuses, — which  he  was  obliged 
to  make.1 

1  Sbornik,  vol.  xxxix.  p.  410  (Whit worth's  Despatches).  Siemievski,  The 
Empress  Catherine  (St.  Petersburg,  1884),  p.  33,  etc.  (Keyserling's  Despatches). 
Essipof,  Life  of  Menshikof  (Russian  Archives,  1875).  Kostomarof,  Russian 
History  told  in  Biographies  (St.  Petersburg,  1S81),  vol.  ii.  p.  61S.  Oustrialof, 
vol.  iv.  p.  145,  etc.     Solovief,  vol.  xvi.  p.  67.     Lady  Rondeau,  p.    11.     Kosto- 


248  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Madame  Keyserling,  who  became  a  widow  in  171 1,  in- 
spired a  fresh  passion — the  admirer,  this  time,  was  a  Swedish 
officer  named  Miller,— but  she  died  only  a  few  years  after 
her  husband,1 

Peter  may  have  been  a  rancorous,  but  he  was  by  no  means 
an  inconsolable  lover.  Menshikof,  who  took  Lefort's  place  in 
his  intimate  circle,  was  as  skilful  as  his  predecessor  in  supply- 
ing his  master  with  consolations.  Like  Lefort,  he  had  his 
own  female  following — his  two  sisters,  Marie  and  Anne, 
whom  he  had  placed  in  the  household  of  Peter's  favourite  sister 
Xathalia,  and  two  young  ladies,  Daria  and  Barbara  Arsenief, 
who  also  belonged  to  the  Tsarevna's  Court,  which  Court 
bore  a  strong  resemblance  to  a  harem.  A  daughter  of  the 
Tolstoi'  family  completed  this  group,  and,  about  1703, 
a  sixth  recruit  appeared,  who  was  to  take  a  place  apart  in 
the  Sovereign's  life,  and  give  quite  an  unexpected  turn  to 
the  hitherto  trivial  history  of  his  love  affairs.  The  real  name 
of  this  young  girl  is  as  uncertain  as  her  origin.  In  the  first 
authentic  documents  which  mention  her,  she  is  sometimes 
called  Catherine  Troubatshof,  sometimes  Catherine  Vassi- 
levska,  and  sometimes  Catherine  Mihailof.  Menshikof  took 
her  for  his  mistress,  while,  at  the  same  time,  he  made  love 
to  Daria  Arsenief,  whose  sister  had  attracted  Peter's  atten- 
tion. His  plan  was  to  make  Barbara  Tsarina,  and  himself 
thus  become  the  Tsar's  brother-in-law.  With  this  object, 
he  gave  himself  much  trouble  about  the  education  of  the 
new  favourite.  '  For  heaven's  sake,'  he  wrote  to  Daria, 
1  induce  your  sister  to  study  both  Russian  and  German 
closely,  she  has  no  time  to  lose.'  Villebois  describes 
Barbara  as  a  plain  woman,  full  of  wit,  and  as  spiteful  as 
she  was  clever.  He  thus  relates  the  beginning  of  her  inter- 
course with  the  Tsar.  Peter,  who  was  dining  with  her  and 
her  companions,  thus  addressed  her  :  '  Thou  art  so  ugly,  my 
poor  Barbara,  that  I  do  not  believe  any  one  has  ever  thought 
of  making  love  to  thee.  But  strange  exploits  are  those 
which  please  me  best,  and  I  will  not  have  thee  die  without 
— '  and  forthwith  he  suited  the  action  to  the  word.  The 
loose  morals  of  the  Tsar's  circle  give  us  reason  to  believe  in  the 
truth  of  the  story.     I  have  already  indicated  the  ambiguous 

marof  comes  nearest  the  truth,  though  he  is  mistaken  as  to  the  date  of  Konig- 
seck's  death.  (Sec  Peter's  letter  to  Apraxin,  April  17th,  1703,  in  Writings  and 
Correspondence,  vol.  ii.  p.  152.)  :  Siemievski,  ibid.  p.  60. 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  249 

nature  of  the  intercourse  between  these  lovers  and  their 
mistresses — the  strange  confusion  and  community  of  senti- 
ments and  intimate  relations.  Peter  and  Menshikof  per- 
petually appear  as  taking  each  other's  place,  or  cumulating 
rights  which  might  have  been  held  the  exclusive  property  of 
one  or  of  the  other.  During  their  absences,  this  condition  of 
things  is  perpetuated  in  collective  messages,  which  carry 
tender  recollections  and  endearing  words,  pell-mell,  from  one 
group  to  the  other,  frequently  accompanied  by  presents, — 
cravats,  shirts,  and  dressing-gowns,  made  by  the  fair  ladies' 
own  hands.  Daria  Arsenief  adds  to  her  signature  the  words 
'  the  Fool.'  Anna  Menshikof  adds,  '  the  very  thin  one.'  As 
for  Catherine,  she  signs,  in  1705,  '  with  two  others,'  a  sentence 
explained  by  a  passage  in  the  common  letter,  '  Peter  and 
Paul  salute  you,  and  ask  your  blessing.'  Peter  and  Paul 
were  the  two  children  she  had  already  borne  the  Tsar.  In 
1706,  the  Tsar  gathered  the  whole  gay  company  at  Narva, 
where  the  Easter  festival  was  spent,  and  then  brought  the 
ladies  back  with  him  to  St  Petersburg,  where,  as  he  wrote  to 
Menshikof,  '  he  was  in  paradise,  in  such  fair  company.'  But 
Menshikof,  who  was  kept  in  the  south  with  the  army,  and 
found  it  very  dull,  would  gladly  have  shared  that  paradise. 
He  wrote  to  Peter,  that  as,  when  he  left  St  Petersburg,  he 
could  not  well  travel  about  with  such  a  company  of  ladies, 
he  miq-ht  as  well  send  them  to  his  friend.  But  Peter  decided 
otherwise.  He  brought  the  whole  party  in  his  train  from  St 
Petersburg  to  Smolensk,  and  from  Smolensk  to  Kief,  and  it 
was  not  until  the  month  of  August  that  he  suffered  his 
favourite  to  meet  him  in  the  latter  town,  where  he  had  a 
surprise  in  store  for  him.  Menshikof  had  promised  marriage 
to  Daria  Arsenief,  and  he  was  now  to  keep  that  engagement, 
—Peter  having  decided,  on  his  part,  to  carry  out,  at  a  future 
date,  his  own  promise  to  the  mother  of  the  '  two  others.'  The 
favourite  was  expected  to  set  him  an  example,  and  was  not 
to  leave  Kief  until  the  deed  was  done.  When  the  ceremony 
was  over,  the  common  treasure  was  divided.  Peter  took  his 
way  back  to  St  Petersburg  with  Catherine  Vassilevska  and 
A nisia  Tolstoi'.  Menshikof  was  left  at  Kief  with  his  wife,  his 
sister  Anne,  and  his  sister-in-law  Barbara.1 

1  Essipof,  p.  244,  etc.,  Peter  th?  Great's  Writings  and  Correspondence,  vol.  iii. 
pp.  283,  322,  540,  770,  816,  1058.     Solovief,  vol.  xvi.  p.  68. 


PETER  THE  GREAT 


IV 


A  separate  chapter  of  this  work  is  devoted  to  Catherine 
Vassilevska.     She  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  legion  of 
chance  mistresses,  who  flit    across    the    personal    history  of 
Peter  the  Great.     Even  after  her  marriage,  and  her  elevation 
to    the    throne,  she   had   a  daily  struggle  with  rivals,  who 
sometimes     threatened     her    very    existence,    as    wife    and 
sovereign.     This  occurred  in   1706,  during    Peter's    visit    to 
Hamburg,    when,    a    Lutheran    pastor    having    refused    to 
sacrifice  his  daughter  to  the  Tsar's  passion,  the  monarch  pro- 
mised to  repudiate  Catherine,  and   marry  the  girl.     Shafirof, 
it  is  said,  actually  received  orders  to  prepare  the  wedding 
contract.     But,  unluckily  for  herself,  the  too  confiding  maiden 
consented  to  grant  her  admirer  an  instalment  on  account  of 
the  promised  wedding  joys,  before  the  hymeneal  torch  was 
actually  lighted, — and  was  shortly  dismissed,  with  a  gift  of  a 
thousand  ducats.1     The  heroine  of  another  and  less  passing 
fancy  is  also  currently  believed  to  have  approached  very  near 
to    definite    triumph,    and    corresponding    rank.      Eudoxia 
Rjevski  was  the  daughter  of  one  of  Peters  earliest  partizans, 
who,  in  spite  of  that  fact,  came  of  a  family  which  claimed  the 
same  ancient  and  illustrious  origin  as  the  Tatishtchef,  and 
was  devotedly  attached  to  Sophia  and  her  interests.     The  girl 
had  been  the  Tsar's  mistress  before  she  was  fifteen.     At  six- 
teen, Peter  married  her  to  Tchernishof,  an  officer    seeking 
advancement,  but  this  did  not  interrupt  his  own  relations  with 
her.     She  had  four  daughters  and  three  sons  by  him.     Pie 
passed,  at  all  events,  as  their  father,  but  the  mother's  loose  con- 
duct rendered  the  paternity  of  her  children  more  than  doubt- 
ful, and  compromised  her  own  chances  with  the  Tsar.     Her 
crowning  feat,  so  the  scandal-mongers  averred,  was  to  call 
forth  the  celebrated  order  given  to  her  husband  by  her  lover, — 
who  had  fallen  ill,  and  was  inclined  to  ascribe  his  sufferings  to 
her, — '  to  go  and  flog  Eudoxia.'     The  Tsar's  usual  name  for 
her  was  'Avdotia  boi  baba'  (Eudoxia  'the  fighter'.)       Her 
mother  was  the  famous  '  Princess- Abbess. "- 

Her  case,  if  it  were  an  isolated  one,  would  be  hardly  worth 
relating.     Unluckily, — and  here  comes  in  the  interest,  sad  as 

1  Report  by  Count   Rabutin,   Envoy  of  the    German    Emperor,    BuschingS' 
Magazin,  vol.  xi.  p.  490.  -  Dolgoroukof's  Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  1 75- 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  251 

it  is,  of  this  particular  page  of  history, — she  is  a  typical  figure, 
representing  a  period,  and  a  state  of  society.  Her  story  was 
much  the  same  as  that  of  Maria  Matvieief,  the  daughter  of 
one  of  the  greatest  noblemen  of  that  time,  who,  as  I  have 
already  said,  ultimately  became  the  wife  of  Roumiantsof. 
More  beautiful  than  Eudoxia  Rjevski,  and  more  loveable, 
full  of  wit  and  charm  of  every  kind,  Maria  Matvieief,  like 
her,  became  one  of  the  Empress's  maids-of-honour.  The 
position,  such  an  honoured  one  in  our  days,  almost  amounted, 
at  that  time,  to  a  vocation  of  shame.  Catherine's  female 
associates  had  replaced  Nathalia's  feminine  circle.  The 
terein  no  longer  existed  in  the  Imperial  palaces  ;  the  harem 
remained,  a  legacy  from  the  Oriental  past.  Complaisant 
husbands  had  taken  the  place  of  complaisant  fathers.  Shortly 
after  Peter's  death,  Maria  Roumiantsof  bore  a  son,  who 
was  to  be  the  hero  of  the  next  great  reign,  the  victorious 
General  of  Catherine  II., — recognised  by  every  one  as  the 
son  of  the  great  Tsar. 

Peter's  illegitimate  posterity  was  almost  as  numerous  as 
that  of  Louis  XIV.  It  may,  indeed,  have  been  somewhat 
exaggerated  ;  there  is  no  historical  certainty,  for  instance, 
of  the  illegitimacy  of  Madame  Strogonof's  three  sons.  The 
mother,  a  daughter  of  the  house  of  Novossiltsof,  would 
appear  to  have  been  no  more  to  the  Tsar  than  an 
entertaining,  and  hard-drinking,  boon  companion. 

I  he  usual  story  begins  again  with  another  maid  of  honour, 
Mary  Hamilton.  There  is  no  truth  whatever,  1  need  hardly 
say,  in  the  sentimental  stories  in  which  certain  writers  have 
indulged  respecting  this  lady.  She  seems  to  have  been  a 
somewhat  commonplace  being,  and  Peter's  particular  style 
c;f  love-making  would  not  appear  to  have  been  unsuited  to 
her.  My  readers  are  aware  that  a  branch  of  the  great 
Scotch  family  of  Hamilton,  the  rival  of  the  house  of 
Douglas,  had  settled  in  Russia  at  a  period  considerably 
preceding  the  emigration  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and 
dating  from  the  reign  of  Ivan  the  Terrible.  This  branch, 
which  had  married  into  several  of  the  great  families  of  the 
country,  was  almost  completely  Russianised,  before  the 
young  Tsar's  accession.  Mary  Hamilton,  the  grand- 
daughter of  Artamon  Matvieief,  Nathalia  Naryshkin's 
adopted  father,  went  to  Court,  like  other  girls  of  her  class, 
and,   being   a   pretty   girl,  she   shared   the   usual   fate.     Put 


252  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Peter's  passion  for  her  was  of  the  most  ephemeral  descrip- 
tion. He  forsook  her  after  the  shortest  acquaintance.  She 
consoled  herself  with  his  Dienshtchiks,  and,  several  times 
over,  she  secretly  got  rid  of  the  children  who  were  the 
results  of  these  intimacies.  In  her  desire  to  keep  her  hold 
on  one  of  her  faithless  lovers,  young  Orlof, — a  very  sorry 
fellow,  who  ill-treated  and  fleeced  her, — she  stole  the 
Tsarina's  money  and  jewels.  A  mere  chance  brought  about 
the  discovery  of  these  crimes,  both  small  and  great.  A 
somewhat  important  document  disappeared  from  the  Tsar's 
cabinet ;  suspicion  fell  on  Orlof,  who  had  been  aware  of  its 
existence,  and  who  had  spent  the  night  abroad.  When  he 
was  brought  into  the  Sovereign's  presence,  and  questioned, 
he  lost  his  head,  fancied  that  his  intercourse  with  Hamilton 
was  the  real  object  of  the  enquiry,  fell  on  his  knees,  crying 
'  Vinovat*  (pardon),  and  confessed  everything, — both  the 
thefts  by  which  he  had  profited,  and  the  infanticide  at  which 
he  had  connived.  There  was  a  fresh  enquiry  and  a  trial. 
The  unhappy  girl  was  convicted,  besides  her  other  crimes, 
(and  this  last  was  a  mortal  one),  of  having  made  spiteful 
remarks  about  her  Sovereign  lady,  and  jokingly  referred  to 
the  pimples  on  the  imperial  countenance.  Catherine,  whatever 
her  faults  may  have  been,  showed  considerable  kindness  on 
this  occasion.  She  interceded  for  the  culprit,  and  induced 
the  Tsarina  Prascovia,  who  enjoyed  considerable  credit,  and 
whose  intervention  was  all  the  more  weighty,  because,  as  a 
rule,  she  was  little  inclined  to  indulgence,  to  follow  her 
example.  According  to  ancient  Russian  ideas,  infanticide 
was  a  crime  which  circumstances  might  easily  be  held  to 
palliate,  and  the  Tsarina  Prascovia  was  in  many  respects  an 
old-fashioned  Russian.  But  Peter  was  inexorable.  '  He 
would  not,'  he  said,  '  be  either  Saul  or  Ahab,  nor  violate  the 
Divine  Law  by  an  excess  of  kindness.'  Had  he  then  such  a 
mighty  respect  for  Divine  Law?  My  own  belief  is  that 
he  scoffed  at  it,  but — and  this,  in  his  eyes,  was  an  unpardon- 
able fault — he  fancied  himself  cheated  of  several  soldiers. 
After  having  been  put  to  the  question  time  after  time,  in  the 
Tsar's  own  presence,  and  having  steadily  refused  to  give  up  the 
name  of  her  accomplice,  whose  only  thought  had  been  to  clear 
himself  by  casting  the  guilt  on  her— he  was  but  a  poor  creature, 
that  ancestor  of  the  great  Catherine's  future  favourite — Mary 
Hamilton    mounted  the  scaffold,  on   the    14th   March    1719, 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  253 

dressed,  so  Staehlin  tells  us,  'in  a  white  silk  gown,  trimmed 
with  black  ribbons.'  Peter,  with  his  love  of  theatrical  effect, 
certainly  had  something  to  do  with  this  last  piece  of  ghastly 
coquetry.  He  was  present  at  the  execution, and  even, — passive 
he  never  could  be,  anywhere, — had  courage  to  play  an  active 
part  in  it.  He  embraced  the  condemned  woman  at  the  foot 
of  the  scaffold,  exhorted  her  to  pray,  and  supported  her  in  his 
arms  when  she  bent  forward,  fainting.  Then  he  stepped 
aside.  When  she  raised  her  head,  the  headsman  had  taken 
the  Tsar's  place.  Scherer  adds  some  terrible  details  to  the 
story.  The  Tsar,  according  to  him,  reappeared  when  the 
axe  had  done  its  work,  and  picking  up  the  blood}-  head, 
which  had  rolled  into  the  mud,  he  calmly  began  an  anatomi- 
cal discourse,  drawing  the  attention  of  those  present  to  the 
number  and  nature  of  the  organs  severed  by  the  steel, 
especially  pointing  out  the  section  of  the  spine.  When  this 
was  over,  he  touched  the  pale  lips  he  had  so  often  kissed 
before,  with  his  own,  let  the  head  drop,  crossed  himself,  and 
departed.1 

I  am  not  at  all  inclined  to  believe  that  there  is  any  truth 
in  the  assertion  that  Menshikof  thought  it  wise  to  push  on 
the  prosecution  and  sentence  of  this  unhappy  woman,  in  the 
interests  of  his  own  protectress,  the  Empress  Catherine. 
This  rival  never  was  a  dangerous  one.  A  short  time  after- 
wards, the  Tsarina  had  much  more  serious  cause  for  alarm. 
In  one  of  Campredon's  despatches,  dated  8th  June  J  722,  the 
following  lines  appear : — '  The  Tsarina  fears  that  if  the 
Princess  bears  a  son,  the  Tsar  may  be  induced  by  the 
Prince  of  Wallachia  to  repudiate  his  wife  and  marry  his 
mistress.'     The  mistress  in  question  was  Maria  Kantemir."2 

Prince  Dimitri  Kantemir,  who  had  been  one  of  Peter's 
allies  during  the  unfortunate  campaign  against  the  Turks  in 
171 1,  had  lost  his  sovereignty  by  the  treaty  of  the  Pruth. 
He  had  been  given  hospitality  at  St.  Petersburg,  and  there 
waited  wearily  for  the  compensation  he  had  been  given 
reason  to  expect.  For  a  considerable  time  his  daughter 
appeared  more  than  likely  to  obtain   this  for  him.     When 

1  Siemievski,  Slovo  i  Dielo,  p.  1S5.  Korobanof,  Study  in  Russian  Antiqui- 
ties, 1 87 1,  vol.  iii.  p.  465.  Golikof,  vol.  vi.  p.  68.  Tatishtchef,  Notes  on  the 
Soudiebnik  (Code)  of  Ivan  Vassilevitch.  Herrmann,  Peter  der  Grosse  und  der 
7 sai-evitch  Alexei,  p.  207.  Mordovtsof,  Russian  Women,  p.  57.  Scherer,  vol. 
ii.  p.  272  ;  the  account  given  by  Lubomirski  {Tsar,  Archducliesses,  etc.)  is  a  mere 
work  of  imagination.  -  French  Foreign  Office. 


254  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Peter  started  for  his  Persian  Campaign  in  1722,  this 
love  affair  had  already  lasted  several  years,  and  seemed  to 
threaten  a  denouement  which  might  be  fatal  to  Catherine's 
interests.  Both  the  ladies  started  with  the  Tsar,  but 
Maria,  who  was  near  her  confinement,  was  obliged  to  stop 
at  Astrakhan.  Her  condition  increased  the  confidence 
felt  by  her  partisans.  Since  the  death  of  little  Peter 
Petrovitch,  in  17 19,  Catherine  had  no  son  whom  Peter  could 
make  his  heir,  and  it  was  generally  believed  that  if  his 
mistress  bore  him  one,  during  this  expedition,  he  would  not 
hesitate  to  get  rid  of  his  second  wife,  as  he  had  got  rid 
of  his  first.  Catherine's  friends,  if  Scherer  is  to  be  believed, 
took  means  to  avert  this  danger.1  When  Peter  returned, 
he  found  his  mistress  in  bed,  after  a  miscarriage,  which  had 
seriously  threatened  her  life.  Thus  Catherine  triumphed, 
and  the  love  affair  which  had  so  nearly  overthrown  her  for- 
tune, ended  in  the  same  commonplace  manner  as  so  many 
of  its  predecessors.  A  short  time  before  the  Sovereign's 
death,  a  complaisant  individual,  belonging  to  the  same  class 
as  Tchernishof,  and  Roumiantsof,  was  found,  ready  to  be- 
come the  nominal  husband  of  the  Princess,  who,  though  still 
much  courted,  had  forfeited  all  her  ambitious  hopes.2 

Catherine  came  victoriously  out  of  all  her  difficulties,  and 
a  solemn  coronation  finally  set  her  above  all  attack.  The 
mistress,  wife,  and  sovereign,  rehabilitated  by  marriage,  the 
vigilant  guardian  of  the  conjugal  hearth,  who  shared  all  the 
honours  of  the  supreme  rank,  won  the  day  at  last,  and  took 
her  place  above  the  mob  of  female  figures  in  which  we  see 
servant-girls  elbowing  the  daughters  of  Scotch  lairds,  and 
Moldo-Wallachian  princesses. 

And  a  yet  more  unexpected  figure  now  appears  in  that 
strange  throng — a  chaste  and  respected  friend.  Yes,  even 
that  delicate  flower  bloomed  in  the  miry  slough !  The 
woman  who  played  this  part,  was  that  most  seductive  of  all 
human  creatures — a  well-born  Pole — Slav  by  her  birth, 
Latin  by  her  education.  I  have  already  described  Peter  as 
spending  long  hours  in  the  Gardens  of  Jaworow  in  the 
company  of  Elizabeth  Sieniawska.  They  built  a  boat 
together,    rowed    on    the  water,    and    talked  endlessly.      It 

1  Vol.  iii.  p.  259. 

-  Mimoires  cl  Documents,  vol.  i.  p.   119,  etc.    (Ministry  for  Foreign  Affairs, 
Paris). 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT 


-0  3 


was   a  perfect   idyll.      This   lady,  a   Lubomirska,   who    had 
married  agreat  Court  dignitary  and  eager  partisan  of  Augustus 
against   Leszczynski,   flits   across    the    turbulent   life  of  the 
brutal   conqueror,  without  being  assailed  by  any  breath   of 
scandal.     It  was  not  so  much  her  beauty, — that  was  far  from 
remarkable, — which  attracted   Peter,  it  was   her  unusual  in- 
telligence.    He  delighted  in  her  society,  he  listened  to  her 
advice,  not  always  very  convenient,  for  she  supported   Lesz- 
czynski   against    the    Tsar's    own  protege,  and    against    her 
husband's  master.     He  talked  of  his  plan  for  dismissing  all 
the  foreign  officers  in  his  service  ;  she  forthwith  taught  him 
a.  lesson  by  dismissing  the  German  leader  of  an  orchestra  of 
Polish  musicians,  which  at  once  gave  forth  such  discordant 
sounds  that  even  the  Tsar's  far  from  sensitive  ear  suffered. 
He    spoke    of   turning    the    provinces,    Russian    or    Polish, 
through    which     Charles     XII.     would    have    to    pass,     to 
reach  Moscow,  into  deserts  ;  and  she  interrupted  him  with  a 
story  of  the  gentleman  who,  to  disoblige  his  wife,  had  him- 
self made  into  a  eunuch.1     She  was  a  charming  woman,  and 
he  was   swayed,  fascinated   and   tamed   by  her  charm  ;   he 
grew  nobler   in   her  company,   transfigured,   as   it  were,  by 
contact  with  her  pure  and  delicate,  tender,  and  yet  resolute, 
nature. 

V 

Women  played  a  large  and  very  varied  part  in  Peter's  life. 
But  far  more  important,  from  the  historical  point  of  view, 
was  the  part  he  himself  played  in  the  destinies  of  Russian 
women  in  general.  In  justice  to  the  great  man,  this  part 
must  be  summarily  described. 

The  Tsar  Alexis  once  gave  solemn  audience,  in  his  castle 
at  Kolomenskoi'e,  near  Moscow,  to  the  ambassador  of  a 
foreign  power.  A  murmur  of  soft  voices,  and  a  rustling  of 
silken  stuffs,  coming  from  a  half-open  door,  attracted  tin- 
diplomat's  attention.  The  ceremony  was  being  watched  by 
invisible  spectators, — the  inhabitants  of  the  mysterious  terem, 
driven  by  curiosity  into  a  sort  of  semi-violation  of  their 
retirement.  Suddenly,  with  a  violent  push,  the  door  flew 
open,  and  a  handsome,  dark-eyed  woman,  blushing  and  con- 
fused, with  a  little  boy  clinging  to  her  skirts,  appeared,  and 

1  Staehlin,  p.  119,  etc. 


256  PETER  THE  GREAT 

straightway  vanished,  to  the  courtiers'  general  astonishment 
and  alarm.  The  dark -haired  beauty  was  the  Tsarina 
Nathalia,  and  the  little  three-year  old  boy,  so  rough  and 
impetuous  already,  that  heavy  doors  flew  open  at  his  touch,  was 
one  day  to  overthrow  the  walls  of  the  terem  itself.  In  later 
years,  this  picturesque  scene  was  taken  to  be  an  omen.1 

In  the  seventeenth  century,  national  feeling  in  Russia  was 
full  of  suspicion,  almost  of  hatred,  of  the  weaker  sex.  This 
is  proved  by  many  popular  proverbs  of  the  period  :  '  A 
woman's  hair  is  long,  but  her  understanding  is  short. — A 
woman's  mind  is  like  a  house  without  a  roof. — A  man  should 
flee  a  woman's  beauty,  just  as  Noah  fled  the  deluge. — A  horse 
must  be  managed  by  the  bit,  and  a  woman  by  threats. — The 
woman  who  is  visible  is  made  of  copper,  the  woman  who  is 
invisible  is  made  of  gold.' 

Modern  Russian  historians  are  inclined  to  hold  this 
peculiarity  as  one  of  foreign  origin,  quite  contrary  to  the 
natural  tendency  of  the  national  spirit,  which  is  rather  in- 
clined to  proclaim  the  equality  of  the  sexes.  Asa  matter  of 
fact,  Russian  legislation  and  the  present  habits  of  the  country, 
are  altogether  opposed  to  that  subjection  of  women,  which 
still  characterises  Western  laws  and  customs.  A  Russian  wife, 
in  the  absence  of  any  special  stipulation  in  the  marriage 
contract,  has  the  sole  control  of  her  fortune.  The  ideas  in 
vogue  before  Peter's  accession,  and  the  corresponding 
institutions  and  habits,  including  the  terem  itself,  were  prob- 
ably of  Byzantine  origin,  the  outcome  of  that  great  current 
of  monkish  and  religious  asceticism,  which  left  such  an 
indelible  mark  on  the  intellectual  and  moral  development  of 
the  country.  The  terem  was  no  harem.  The  confinement 
of  women  within  its  walls  was  the  result  of  a  very  different 
sentiment,  dictated,  not  by  jealousy,  but  by  the  fear  of  sin 
and  scandal,  by  a  religious  conception  of  human  life, 
according  to  which  the  cloistered  existence  was  the  ideal 
one,  that  which  was  most  pleasing  in  God's  sight.  The 
idea,  if  not  the  actual  form,  of  the  terem  was  absolutely 
Byzantine.2     This  is  my  theory. 

But,  however  that  may  have  been,  the  prison  was  a 
prison,  and  a  severe  one.     Women,  young  girls  especially, 

1  Oustrialof,  vol.  i.  pp.  10  and  261. 

-  Zabielin,   Private  Life  of  the  Russian   Tsarinas,  p.  S3,  etc.     Kostomarof, 
History  of  Russia,  vol.  ii.  p.  475. 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  257 

were  mere  captives  ;  they  vegetated,  deprived  of  light  and 
air,  in  rooms  which  were  half  dungeon  and  half  cell,  behind 
windows  covered  with  thick  curtains,  and  heavily  padlocked 
doors.  There  was  no  means  of  separate  exit.  The  only 
way  of  getting  out  was  through  the  father's  or  the  husband's 
room,  and  the  father  or  husband  kept  the  keys  in  his  pocket, 
or  under  his  pillow.  On  festival  occasions,  when  the  guests 
were  at  table  and  the  round  ' pirogui'  had  made  their 
appearance,  the  wife  of  the  host  stood,  for  a  moment,  on  the 
threshold  of  the  women's  apartment.  Then  the  men  rose 
and  kissed  her,  but  she  retired  immediately.  As  for  the 
unmarried  daughters,  no  male  eye,  not  even  that  of  an 
affianced  husband,  saw  them  till  they  were  married.  A 
bride  married  without  ever  beholding  her  husband  or 
being  seen  by  him.  A  betrothal  strongly  resembled  the 
game  of  hot  cockles.  There  was  indeed  an  individual,  called 
the  Smotriltchitsa,  generally  a  relation  of  the  suitor,  who 
inspected  the  girl,  and  reported  accordingly, — but  she 
only  acted  for  the  suitor.  No  young  girl  permitted 
herself  to  wonder  what  her  future  husband  might  be  like. 
Her  father,  when  he  informed  her  that  her  marriage  was 
arranged,  showed  her  a  whip,  fit  emblem  of  the  authority  he 
was  about  to  transmit  to  her  husband,  and  the  only  glimpse 
of  him  she  was  permitted,  before  being  led  to  the  altar.  She 
went  to  church  in  deep  silence,  covered  with  a  heavy  veil ; 
not  a  gesture,  not  a  word,  except  to  answer  the  priest,  and  then 
only,  for  the  first  time,  the  husband  heard  her  voice.  At  the 
repast  which  followed  the  ceremony,  the  couple  were  separated 
by  a  curtain.  The  bride's  conjugal  existence  did  not  begin 
until  the  first  part  of  the  feast  was  concluded.  Then  her 
bridesmaids  led  her  to  the  nuptial  chamber,  undressed  her, 
and  assisted  her  to  bed.  There  she  waited,  till  the  husband 
was  sufficiently  drunk.  The  groomsmen,  when  they  thought 
this  point  attained,  led  him  to  the  bride's  apartment,  carrying 
torches,  which  they  planted  round  the  bed,  in  barrels  filled 
with  wheat,  barley,  and  oats.  The  bed  itself  was  laid  on 
sheaves  of  rye.  Then  came  the  crucial  moment.  The 
bride's  face  was  seen  at  last.  To  welcome  her  new  master, 
she  rose  from  her  bed,  wrapped  herself  in  a  furred  robe,  went 
several  paces  towards  him,  bending  respectfully,  and  dropped 
her  veil. 

A  man  who  may  have  believed  himself  to  be  marrying  a 
VOL.  I.  R 


258  PETER  THE  GREAT 

beautiful  girl,  would  sometimes  see  that  she  was  humpbacked, 
sickly,  or  frightfully  ugh'.  Even  if  the  go-between  had  done 
her  duty  conscientiously,  there  was  always  the  chance  of  her 
having  been  deceived,  by  the  substitution  of  another  girl  for 
the  real  one  ;  such  cases  not  unfrequently  occurred.  The 
husband's  only  resource,  in  such  an  event,  was  to  invite  his 
new-made  bride,  upon  the  spot,  to  rid  him  of  her  person  by 
straightway  taking  the  veil.  But  being,  in  all  probability, 
far  from  sober,  he  did  not  look  too  closely,  and  this  fact 
probably  accounts  for  the  habit  of  making  the  bridegroom 
intoxicated  on  such  occasions.  He  did  not  realise  his  mis- 
fortune until  after  the  marriage  was  consummated,  and 
become  an  accomplished  fact. 

The  result  of  such  marriages  may  easily  be  conceived. 
The  chronicles  of  the  scandal-mongers,  and  the  judicial 
records  of  the  period,  teem  with  information  on  the  subject. 
Husbands  would  leave  their  homes,  and  take  refuge  in  the 
peace  of  the  cloister ;  wives,  driven  distracted  by  ill-treat- 
ment, would  use  steel  and  poison  to  free  themselves  from  an 
unendurable  yoke.  The  punishment  allotted  to  such  crimes, 
terrible  as  it  was,  did  not,  as  we  may  judge  by  the  engravings 
of  that  period,  prevent  their  frequent  occurrence.  The 
guilty  woman  was  buried  in  the  earth  up  to  her  waist, 
and  there  left  till  death  came  to  release  her.  The  culprit 
would  sometimes  have  to  wait  ten  days,  before  her  agony  was 
ended, — tortured  all  the  time  by  hunger  and  thirst,  and  half 
devoured  by  worms.1 

All  these  customs  were  either  connected  with,  or  the 
direct  outcome  of,  a  social  condition  defined  by  the 
Domostroi,  a  code  of  laws  drawn  up,  if  not  actually  written 
out,  by  the  Russian  pope  Sylvester,  Ivan  the  Terrible's 
chief  confidant,  during  the  closing  years  of  his  life. 
Whether  the  details  owed  their  origin  to  Tartar,  Byzantine,'2 
or  native  sources,  the  same  indelible  mark,  the  brand  of 
barbarism,  was  on  them  all.  Woman  was  sacrificed,  and 
man  thereby  debased.  To  amuse  themselves  in  their 
cloistered  loneliness,  ladies  of  the  higher  ranks  dressed 
themselves  up  like  idols,  painted  themselves  to  their  very 

1  See  illustrations  to  Korb's  book.  Also  the  description  given  by  Weber,  in 
Herrmann's  Peter  der  Grosse,  p.  98  (Aug.  13th,  17 1 7). 

-According  to  M.  Nekrassof  (Origin  of  the  Domostroi,  Moscow,  1872),  only 
portions  of  the  work  can  be  ascribed  to  Sylvester.  The  manuscript  was  not 
published  by  Golovastof  till  1849. 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  259 

eyes,  and  drank  to  excess.  When  an  Embassy  was  sent 
to  Copenhagen,  in  1630,  to  negotiate  the  marriage  of 
Princess  Irene,  the  daughter  of  the  Tsar  Michael  Feo- 
dorovitch,  with  the  Prince  of  Denmark,  the  Envoys  laid 
particular  stress  on  the  fact  that  the  Tsarevna  '  did  not 
drink  brandy.'  The  poorer  women,  who  could  not  afford 
to  dress  up,  consoled  themselves  with  drink  alone, — and 
all  these  wives  were  the  mothers  of  many  children.  With 
this  condition  of  things  Peter  was  resolved  to  do  away. 
And  to  have  succeeded  in  that  matter,  alone,  would  have 
covered  him  with  glory. 

Before  his  time,  it  is  true,  a  steadily  widening  breach 
had  been  made  in  the  old  tradition.  Alexis'  second  marriage, 
with  its  touch  of  romance,  proves  the  existence  of  a  new 
current  of  ideas  and  feeling.  Nathalia  appears  beside  the 
husband  whom  she  had  won  by  her  own  beauty  and 
grace,  in  a  very  different  position  from  that  of  former 
Tsarinas, — frozen,  all  of  them,  into  a  traditional  attitude, 
shut  up  in  the  dreariness  of  their  lofty  isolation.  She  took 
a  certain  share  in  her  husband's  external  occupations.  She 
sometimes  went  out  hunting  with  him,  and  she  was  present 
at  the  performances  given  by  foreign  actors,  drawn  thither  by 
Matvieief,  under  the  very  walls  of  the  ancient  Kreml. 
She  even  drove  with  the  Tsar  in  an  open  carriage,  and 
thereby  almost  caused  a  revolution.  Under  the  rule  of 
Alexis'  feeble  and  sickly  successor,  the  current  of  freedom 
ran  yet  stronger.  Feodor's  sisters  did  not  fail  to  take 
advantage  of  his  weakness,  and  of  the  general  confusion 
resulting  from  it.  And  then  Sophia  came  into  power, 
and  inaugurated  an  era  of  feminine  government  in  this 
stronghold  of  female  slavery. 

Peter  did  more,  and  better  still, — or  tried  to,  at  all  events. 
His  Ukases  with  reference  to  marriage  were  directed  against 
an  abuse  of  power,  and  against  defects  of  domestic  organiza- 
tion, amongst  the  lower  classes,  which  had  grown  intoler- 
able. Until  his  time,  only  a  few  days, — sometimes  only 
a  few  hours, — had  been  allowed  to  elapse  between  the 
betrothal  and  the  actual  marriage.  He  decreed  an  interval 
of  at  least  six  weeks,  so  as  to  give  the  betrothed  couple 
time  to  make  acquaintance.  This  remedy  was,  of  course, 
neither  absolutely,  nor  immediately,  efficacious.  Only  a  few 
decades  before  our  own  time,  according  to  Mielnikof's  novel 


260  PETER  THE  GREAT 

1  In  the  Forests,'  the  ancient  traditions  still  survived,  and 
were  clung  to,  in  certain  circles,  with  the  most  unconquerable 
tenacity.  .Nevertheless,  an  immense  amount  of  good  was 
done.  According  to  the  laws  in  existence  before  Peter's 
time,  the  head  of  the  household,  father  or  husband,  had 
absolute  power — short  of  capital  punishment,  at  all  events, — 
over  the  women  of  his  household,  whether  wife  or  daughters. 
A  high-born  lady,  Princess  Saltykof,  the  sister-in-law  of 
the  1  sarina  Prascovia,  was  driven,  after  a  long  martyrdom, 
during  which  she  had  been  beaten  over  and  over  again, 
and  tortured  by  hunger  and  by  cold,  to  take  refuge  in 
the  house  of  her  father,  a  Dolgorouki.  Enquiry  proved  that 
she  had  reached  it  half  dead,  and  covered  with  wounds, — 
yet  her  husband  and  tyrant  claimed  her,  and  all  she  could 
obtain,  after  a  long  and  weary  trial,  was  leave  to  bury 
herself,  for  the  rest  of  her  life,  in  a  cloister.1  My  readers  may 
argue,  from  this  case,  as  to  the  condition  of  things  in  the 
lower  classes.  The  strongest  resistance  of  the  old  Russian 
party  was  made  on  this  point.  The  autocratic  and  despotic 
feeling  was  so  profoundly  enrooted  in  the  national  soul,  that 
Peter  himself  dared  not  make  any  direct  attack  upon  it. 
Some  of  the  laws,  made  between  March  and  October  1716, 
would  seem  to  betoken  his  approval  of  the  old-fashioned 
customs  ;  but  the  new  spirit  which  he  bore  with  him,  and 
spread  around  him,  was  so  utterly  opposed  to  it,  that,  by 
degrees,  this  iniquitous  law  fell  into  disuse,  was  treated  as 
null  and  void,  and  finally  disappeared  from  the  written 
code  of  the  country.  The  Svod  Zakonov  does  not  refer  to 
it,  and  quite  latterly,  it  was  utterly  abolished,  by  the  Court 
of  Appeal.2 

In  the  upper  classes  of  society,  Peter,  so  to  speak,  took 
women  by  the  hand,  led  them  into  the  circle  of  common  life, 
whether  in  private  or  in  general  society,  and  there  gave 
them  their  own  special  and  well-defined  position.  He 
was  resolved  the  feminine  element  should  be  present  in 
all  future  gatherings.  He  would  have  women  show  their 
beauty,  talk,  dance,  and  make  music.  In  December  1704, 
astounded  Moscow  witnessed  an  extraordinary  sight.  On 
an  occasion  of  public  rejoicing,  young  girls,  scattering  flowers, 
and  singing  odes,  took  part  in  a  procession  through  the 
public  streets.3 

1  Mordovstef,  p.  133.         -  1869,  Sokolowski  trial.         :;  Golikof,  vol.  ii.  p.  512. 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  261 

The  Reformer  even  endeavoured  to  do  as  much  for  his 
Boyard's  daughters,  as  he  was  doing  for  their  sons.  He 
would  have  sent  them  abroad  to  complete  their  education, 
but  he  was  forced  to  relinquish  this  point  in  face  of  the 
parents'  fierce  opposition.  He  did  his  best,  at  all  events, 
to  secure  them  some  teaching,  and  set  the  example  in  his 
own  family.  He  gave  his  daughters,  Anne  and  Elizabeth, 
a  French  governess.  He  was  occasionally  present  at  their 
lessons,  and  took  care  they  should  assume  a  European 
appearance,  and  that  their  dresses  and  head-coverings  should 
be  copied  from  Parisian  fashions.  When  his  sister-in-law 
Prascovia  ventured  to  criticise  these  innovations,  he  told 
her  that  '  her  house  was  an  asylum  for  fools  and  weak- 
minded  persons,'  and  finally  carried  her  along  with  him. 
Tsar  Ivan's  widow  thus  ended  by  personifying  a  sort  of 
transition  type  in  the  history  of  Russian  women,  the  direct 
outcome  of  Peter's  reform.  She  gave  her  daughters  French 
masters,  and  she  had  a  German  tutor  for  herself.  But  she 
kept  her  Russian  custome,  and  with  it,  her  savage  instincts. 
She  used  to  beat  her  maids-of-honour,  and  one  day, — to 
force  one  of  her  servants  to  plead  guilty  to  some  trifling 
fault, — she  poured  the  bottle  of  brandy  she  always  kept  in 
her  carriage  over  his  head,  set  it  on  fire,  and  then  struck  the 
poor  wretch  with  her  cane,  on  the  horrible  wounds  the 
burning  brandy  had  made.1 

The  road  before  Peter  was  too  long  for  him  to  reach  the 
goal  he  had,  doubtless,  set  before  him.  And  indeed  his 
native  coarseness  and  depravity  did  not,  it  must  be  ac- 
knowledged, make  him  the  best  of  guides.  He  often  forgot 
himself,  lost  sight  of  the  real  object  of  his  journey, — and  such 
digressions  were  fatal  to  his  end.  He  was  too  apt  to  behave 
like  a  trooper,  and  a  rough  one,  in  the  drawing  rooms  he  had 
called  into  existence,  and  before  the  eyes  of  the  recluses  he 
had  released  from  the  bondage  of  the  terem.  The  moral 
character  of  Russian  women  will  long  bear  traces  of  the 
strange  fashion  in  which  Peter  the  Great  introduced  the  scm 
into  social  life.2 

The  same  reproach  must  be  applied  to  the  whole  of  the 
great  man's  work,  and  certainly  detracts  both  from  its  merit 

1  Siemievski,  The  Tsarina  Prascovia,  p.  1 5 t.  - 

-'See   M.    N 's  study  of  Russian  Women   in  the  Days  of  Teter  the  Great. 

Novosti,  1872,.  No.  152. 


262  PETER  THE  GREAT 

and  his  glory.  Yet  the  female  world,  now- a- days,  in  its 
more  or  less  legitimate  revolt,  not  in  Russia  only,  against 
the  injustice  and  cruelty,  real  or  imaginary,  of  its  fate,  must 
recognise  Peter  the  Great  as  one  of  its  most  effectual  saviours, 
— just  as  civilization  in  general  must  acknowledge  him  one 
of  its  most  powerful  makers. 

Brutal  and  cynical  though  he  was,  woman  was  more  to 
him  than  mere  beautiful  flesh.  His  conception  of  her  part 
in  the  family,  and  in  society,  was  so  high  as  to  approach 
within  measurable  distance  of  our  modern  ideal.  And,  even 
if  the  woman  of  whom  I  am  now  about  to  speak  had  never 
appeared  in  his  feminine  circle,  this  fact,  alone,  would  atone 
for  many  faults. 


CHAPTER    III 

CATHERINE 

I.  Her  arrival  in  Russia — The  siege  of  Marienburg — Her  origin — Pastor 
Gliick's  family — Sheremetiefs  camp  —  Menshikofs  house  —  Catherine- 
Troubatshof — Pietroushka's  mother — The  marriage — The  servant  girl 
becomes  the  sovereign. 
II.  Contemporary  opinion—  Baron  Von  Pollnitz— The  Margravine  of  Baireuth 
— Campredon — The  portraits  in  the  Romanof  Gallery — Neither  pretty 
nor  distinguished  looking — An  active  temperament  and  a  well-balanced 
mind — An  officer's  wife — Her  influence  over  Peter — She  fascinated  and 
tamed  him  —  Their  correspondence  —  Their  conjugal  intimacy  —  The 
Tsarina's  share  in  politics — Her  good  actions  and  her  faults— Clouds  on  the 
domestic  horizon, 
m.  These  clouds  are  dispersed— The  steady  tise  of  Catherine's  fortune— The 
death  of  Alexis— The  mother  of  the  heir — She  brings  in  her  family — The 
Riga  postilion — The  Revel  courtesan — The  shoemaker — All  of  them  are 
given  titles — The  pinnacle  of  glory — Catherine's  coronation— The  succes- 
sion to  the  crown — On  the  edge  of  the  abyss— A  criminal  intimacy — The 
Chamberlain  Mons — The  punishment — Inquiries  and  threats— A  dubious 
reconciliation— Peter's  death— and  Catherine's  triumph— She  does  not  turn 
it  to  the  best  account — Reign  of  sixteen  months — A  Comedy  Queen. 


At  the  beginning  of  the  Swedish  war,  in  July  1702,  General 
Sheremetief,  whose  orders  were  to  occupy  Livonia,  and  take 
up  a  strong  position  in  that  country,  laid  siege  to  Marien- 
burg. The  town  was  reduced,  after  a  few  weeks  of  gallant  re- 
sistance, to  the  last  extremity,  and  the  commandant  resolved 
to  blow  himself  up  with  the  fortress.  He  called  some  of 
the  inhabitants  together,  and  privately  warned  them  of  his 
decision,  advising  them  to  decamp  forthwith,  unless  they 
desired  to  share  his  fate,  and  that  of  his  troops.  Amongst 
the  persons  thus  warned,  was  the  Lutheran  pastor  of  the 
place.  He  fled  at  once,  with  his  wife,  his  children,  and  his 
servant  maid,  carrying  nothing  with  him  but  a  Slavonic 
Bible,  which  he  hoped  might  serve  as  safe  conduct  through 

26:5 


264  PETER  THE  GREAT 

the  enemy's  lines.  When  he  was  stopped  by  the  Russian 
outposts,  he  brandished  his  book,  proved  his  linguistic  talent 
by  quoting  several  passages,  and  offered  to  serve  as  an  inter- 
preter. The  authorities  agreed,  and  undertook  to  send  him 
to  Moscow  with  his  family.  But  how  about  the  servant 
girl  ?  Sheremetief  had  cast  an  approving  eye  on  her  fair 
and  opulent  beauty.  With  a  knowing  smile,  he  gave  orders 
that  she  should  stay  in  camp,  where  her  society  would  be 
more  than  welcome.  Peter  had  not  yet  thought,  as  he  did 
later,  of  forbidding  the  presence  of  the  fair  sex  with  his 
armies.  The  attack  was  to  be  made  on  the  morrow,  but  in 
the  mean  time  the  troops  were  taking  what  pleasure  the)' 
could  find.  The  new  comer  was  soon  seated  at  table,  in  gay 
company :  she  was  cheerful,  anything  but  shy.  and  was 
received  with  open  arms.  A  dance  was  just  about  to  begin, 
and  the  hautboys  were  tuning  up.  Suddenly,  a  fearful  ex- 
plosion overthrew  the  dancers,  cut  the  music  short,  and  left 
the  servant  maid,  fainting  with  terror,  in  the  arms  of  a 
dragoon.  The  commandant  of  Marienburg  had  kept  his  word. 
Thus  it  was, — to  a  noise  like  thunder,  and  close  clasped  in  a 
soldier's  embrace — that  Catherine  I.  made  her  first  appear- 
ance in  Russian  history.1 

She  was  not,  at  that  time,  called  'Catherine'  at  all,  and 
no  one  knows  what  name  she  really  bore,  nor  whence  she 
came,  nor  how  she  had  reached  Marienburg.  Roth  as 
regards  her  family,  and  the  country  of  her  birth,  history  and 
legend  are  at  variance.  The  onlv  point  on  which  docu- 
ments, more  or  less  authentic,  and  traditions,  more  or  less 
worthy  of  credit,  unite  in  agreeing,  is  in  a  general  affir- 
mation that  her  life  and  destiny  were  the  most  extraordinary 
to  which  any  woman  was  ever  called — no  romance  of  an 
empress,  some  story,  rather,  out  of  the  Arabian  Nights.  I 
will  try  to  relate — not  the  certainties,  for  there  are  hardly 
any  certainties — but  the  most  probable  facts,  in  this  unique 
career. 

She  was  born  in  a  Livonian  village,  whether  in  Swedish 
or  Polish  Livonia,  no  one  knows,  some  say  in  that  of  Vvshki- 
Oziero,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Riga,  others,  at   Ringen, 

1  Weber,  Memoirs  of  the  Reign  of  the  Empress  Catherine,  1 7  28,  pp.  605-613  ; 
Oustrialof,  vol.  iv.  p.  128,  etc.  ;  Grot,  Examination  of  the  Origin  of  the  Empress 
Catherine,  in  the  Memoirs  of  the  '  Acadimie  des  Sciences'  of  St.  Petersburg,  1S77, 
Vol.  xviii. 


CATHERINE  265 

in  the  district  of  Derpt  (now  known  as  Iourief).1     In  17 18,  on 
the  1  ith  of  October,  the  anniversary  of  the  capture  of  Note- 
burg,  a  Swedish  town,  Peter  wrote, — '  Katerinoushka,  greet- 
ing !     greeting    on  the    occasion    of    this    happy    day,    on 
which    Russia    first    set    foot    on    your   native    soil ! '      Yet, 
Catherine  would  rather  seem  to  have  come  of  some  Polish 
family.      Her    brothers    and   sisters,   who    appeared   on   the 
scene    in    later    years,   were    called     Skovoroshtchenko     or 
Skovorotski,  which  for  the  sake  of  euphony,  doubtless,  has 
been    turned    into    Skovronski.'2      We    may   suppose    these 
emigrants,  as  they  may  have  been — mere  peasants,  in  any 
case — to  have  fled     the  yoke  of  serfdom,  grown  intolerable 
in   their   native   land,   to  seek   some    less   oppressive   servi- 
tude elsewhere.      In    1702,   Catherine  was  seventeen  years 
old,    and    an    orphan.      Her    mother    is    believed    to    have 
been   the  serf,   and   the   mistress,   of  a  high-born   Livonian 
named  Alvendhal.     Of  this  connection — possibly  a  very  tem- 
porary one — Catherine  was  the  fruit.     Her  legitimate  father 
and  mother  died,  her  real  father  disowned   her,  and  when 
still  a  mere  child,  she  was  received  and  sheltered  by  Pastor 
Gliick.     He  taught  her  the  catechism,  but  she  did  not  learn 
her  alphabet.     She  never  could  do  more,  in  later  years,  than 
just  sign  her  name.     She  grew  up  in  her  protector's  house, 
making  herself  useful,  as  she  grew  older,  sharing  the  household 
duties,   and    taking  care  of  the   children.      Gliick   received 
foreign   pupils,   and   she  helped   to   wait   on   them  ;    two   of 
these  pupils  declared,  in  later  years,  that  she  always  stinted 
them  in  their  bread  and  butter.     This  instinct  of  economy 
never  deserted  her.     In  certain  other  matters,  according  to 
some  historians,  and  from  a  very  early  age,  she  was  more 
than    liberal.       A    Lithuanian    gentleman    of  the    name   of 
Tiesenhausen,  and  other  lodgers  in  the  pastor's  house,  are 
reported  to  have  enjoyed  her  favours.     She  is  even  said  to 
have  brought  a  girl  into  the  world,  who  died  when  only  a 
few  months   old.     Not    long  before    the    siege,   her    master 
thought   it   best  to   put    a    stop   to    these   irregularities,    by 
finding  her  a  husband.     The  husband  or  the   betrothed — 

1  A  paper  was  published  in  Westermann's  Illustrirte  Monatschrift,  in  1857, 
with  the  object  of  proving  that  Catherine  was  born  at  Riga,  and  belonged  to  the 
Badendik  family,  from  which  the  writer  of  the  paper,  Herr  Tversen,  was 
descended. 

1  Arsenief.  Catherine's  Reign,  vol.  i.  pp.  74,  75.  Anrlreief,  The  Representa- 
tives of  Authority  in  Russia,  after  Peter  I.  (St.  Petersburg,  1870),  p.  5. 


266  PETER  THE  GREAT 

there  is  some  uncertainty  on  this  point — a  Swedish  Life- 
guardsman  named  Kruse,  disappeared  after  the  capture  of 
the  town,  having  been  taken  prisoner  by  the  Russians,  and 
sent  far  away,  or,  according  to  a  better  established  version, 
he  escaped  the  catastrophe,  having  been  sent  towards  Riga, 
with  his  regiment,  either  just  before,  or  just  after,  the  con- 
summation of  the  marriage.  Catherine,  after  she  became 
Tsarina,  sought  him  out,  and  gave  him  a  pension.1 

Meanwhile,  she  was  the  joy  of  that  portion  of  the  Russian 
army  which  was  engaged  in  the  Livonian  campaign.  She 
began  as  the  mistress  of  a  non-commissioned  officer,  who  beat 
her,  and  finally,  passed  into  the  possession  of  the  general 
himself,  who  soon  grew  weary  of  her.  The  question  of  how 
she  came  into  Menshikof's  household  is  one  on  which 
opinions  vary.  Some  authorities  declare  she  was  first 
engaged  to  wash  the  favourite's  shirts.  She  would  seem,  in 
one  of  her  letters  to  Peter,  after  she  had  become  his  wife,  to 
allude  to  this  fact  in  her  past  career  :  '  Though  you  doubtless 
have  other  laundresses  about  you,  the  old  one  never  forgets 
you.'  And  Peter  answers  gallantly,  'You  are  mistaken, 
you  must  be  thinking  of  Shafirof,  who  mixes  up  his  love 
affairs  with  his  clean  linen.  That  is  not  my  way,  and 
besides,  I  am  growing  old.'  One  thing  is  certain,  her 
original  position  in  her  new  protector's  house  was  a  some- 
what humble  one.  When  Menshikof  wrote,  in  March  1706, 
to  his  own  sister  Anne,  and  to  the  Arsenief  sisters,  to  come 
and  meet  him  at  Witebsk  for  the  Easter  festivities,  foresee- 
ing that  their  fear  of  the  bad  roads  might  prevent  them 
from  obeying  his  call,  he  begged  them,  at  all  events,  to 
send  him  Catherine  Troubatshof  and  two  other  girls.'2  This 
name  of  Troubatshof  may  be  an  allusion  to  Catherine's 
husband  or  betrothed,  for  the  Russian  word  Troubct  means 
trumpet. 

But  an  important  event  had  already  occurred  in  the  exis- 
tence of  the  person   thus  so   unceremoniously  disposed   of. 

1  Arsenief,  Russian  Archives,  1S75,  v°l-  "•  P-  24°- 

2  Oustrialof  refuses  to  admit  that  this  letter  can  refer  to  the  future  Tsarina,  and 
appeals  to  the  testimony  of  Gordon,  according  to  whom  the  girl  bore  the  name 
of  Catherine  Vasilevna  until  it  was  converted,  on  her  conversion  to  the  Greek 
Church,  into  that  of  Catherine  Alexieievna,  but  Peter  himself,  and  other  con- 
temporary authorities,  give  her  different  and  very  varied  names,  in  perfectly 
reliable  documents  (Oustrialof,  vol.  iv.  part.  ii.  p.  329.  Compare  Peter's 
'  Writings  and  Correspondence?  vol.  iii.  p.  283. 


CATHERINE  267 

Peter  had  seen  her,  and  had  proved  himself  far  from  indifferent 
to  her  charms.  There  are  many  different  stories  as  to  this 
first  meeting.  The  Tsar,  we  are  told,  paid  a  visit  to  Men- 
shikof,  after  the  capture  of  Narva,  and  was  astonished  by 
the  air  of  cleanliness  visible  in  the  favourite's  person  and 
surroundings.  He  enquired  how  he  contrived  to  have  his 
house  so  well  kept,  and  to  wear  such  fresh  and  dainty  linen. 
Menshikof  s  only  answer  was  to  open  a  door,  through  which 
the  sovereign  perceived  a  handsome  girl,  aproned,  and  sponge 
in  hand,  bustling  from  chair  to  chair,  and  going  from  window 
to  window,  scrubbing  the  window  panes.1  The  picture  is 
a  pleasing  one,  but  I  notice  one  drawback.  Narva  fell  in 
August  1704,  and  at  that  date,  Peter  had  already  made 
Catherine  the  mother  of  at  least  one  child.  During;  the 
month  of  March,  in  the  following  year,  she  bore  him  a  son, 
the  little  Pietronshka,  of  whom  Peter  speaks  in  one  of  his 
letters.     Eight  months  later,  she  had  two  boys.2 

These  children  were  certainly  dear  to  the  great  man,  for, 
he  thought  of  them  even  among  the  terrible  anxieties  which 
then  devoured  him.  But  he  does  not  appear,  as  yet,  to  have 
cared  much  for  their  mother.  There  has  been  a  world  of 
hair-splitting  over  the  circumstances  of  Catherine's  removal 
from  the  favourite's  household,  to  that  of  the  Tsar.  All  sorts 
of  dramatic  incidents  have  been  invented.  According;  to  one 
story,  the  lady,  after  an  agreement  between  the  two  friends, 
and  a  formal  cession  of  Menshikof's  rights  to  his  master, 
took  up  her  residence  in  her  new  home,  where  her  eye 
shortly  fell  on  certain  magnificent  jewels.  Forthwith,  burst- 
ing into  tears,  she  addressed  her  new  protector :  '  Who  put 
those  ornaments  here?  If  they  come  from  the  other  one,  I 
will  keep  nothing  but  this  little  ring  ;  but  if  they  come  from 
you,  how  could  you  think  I  needed  them  to  make  me  love 
you  ?' 

In  all  human  probability,  matters  were  arranged  after  a 
far  simpler  fashion.  I  cannot  conceive  any  such  disinterested- 
ness on  her  part,  nor  such  prodigality  on  his.  This  scene, 
too,  is  supposed  to  have  occurred  at  a  period  when  the  fair 
Livonian  and  her  august  lover  were  already  bound  together 
by  the  existence  of  two  children.     During   the    succeeding 

*  Memoires  et  Documents,  vol.  i.  p.  163  (Paris  Foreign  Office). 
'-See  letter  signed  '  Catherine  and  two  others,'  Oct.  1705;  also  see  Writings 
and  Correspondence,  vol.  iii.  p.  2S3. 


26S  PETER  THE  GREAT 

years,  I  can  perceive  no  evident  change  in  the  humble  and 
dubious  situation  occupied  by  her  in  that  common  harem, 
where  Peter  and  Menshikof  were  wont,  either  turnabout,  or 
together,  to  take  their  pleasure.  Sometimes  she  was  with 
the  Tsar,  and  sometimes  with  the  favourite.  At  St.  Peters- 
burg, she  lived,  with  all  the  other  ladies,  in  Menshikof's 
house.  She  was  still  no  more  than  an  obscure  and  com- 
plaisant mistress.  Peter  had  many  others,  and  she  never 
ventured  to  object.  She  went  so  far  as  to  pander  willingly 
to  the  faults,  and  even  to  the  infidelities  of  her  female  rivals, 
and  made  up,  by  her  own  unfailing  cheerfulness,  for  their 
caprices  of  temper.  Thus,  slowly,  and  almost  insensibly, 
she  endeared  herself  to  the  Sovereign,  and  above  all,  she 
grew  into  a  habit  with  him.  She  took  root  in  his  heart, 
entrenched  herself  there,  and  ended  by  making  herself 
indispensable.  Tn  1706,  he  would  seem  to  have  feared, 
for  a  moment,  that  she  might  slip  through  his  fingers,  after 
the  fashion  of  Anna  Mons.  He  began  to  consider  the  draw- 
backs likely  to  result  from  the  promiscuity  in  which,  up  to 
that  time,  he  and  Menshikof  had  mingled  their  pleasures 
and  their  rights.  I  notice  a  sort  of  dim  uneasiness  about 
him,  and  pricks  of  conscience  which  may  have  been  nothing 
but  hints  of  unconscious  jealousy.  He  had  joked  for  years 
over  Menshikof's  promise  to  marry  Daria  Arsenief,  and  held 
it  null  and  void.  In  1706,  he  declared  it  valid  and  sacred, 
and  wrote  to  his  alter  ego,  'For  God's  sake,  for  my  soul's  sake, 
remember  your  oath  and  keep  it !' l 

Menshikof  set  him  the  example,  and  Peter  followed  it, 
though  not  till  much  later.  Catherine  is,  indeed,  said  to  have 
been  united  to  him,  at  this  time,  by  a  secret  marriage.  After 
the  year  1709,  she  never  left  him,  and  in  Poland  and 
Germany,  whither  she  accompanied  the  Tsar,  she  was  treated 
almost  like  a  Sovereign.  Two  other  children,  daughters 
both,  had  bound  her  still  more  closely  to  her  lover.  But, 
officially  speaking,  she  was  nothing  but  a  mistress.  In 
January  1708,  when  Peter  departed  from  Moscow  to  rejoin 
his  army,  and  take  part  in  what  promised  to  be  a  decisive 
campaign,  he  left  this  note  behind  him  :  '  If,  by  God's  will, 
anything  should  happen  to  me,  let  the  3,000  roubles  which 
will  be  found  in  Menshikof's  house,  be  given  to  Catherine 
Vassilevska   and   her    daughter.      Piter!      They    had    not 

1  Russian  Archives,  1875,  vol.  ii.  p.  245. 


CATHERINE  269 

travelled  very  far  beyond  the  ducat  bestowed  after  their  first 
meeting ! l 

How  then,  and  when,  did  Peter  finally  decide  on  the 
apparently  wild  and  impossible  folly  of  making  this  woman  his 
legitimate  wife  and  Empress  ?  The  resolution  is  said  to 
have  been  taken  in  171 1,  after  the  campaign  of  the  Pruth. 
Catherine's  unfailing  devotion,  her  courage,  and  her  presence 
of  mind  at  critical  moments,  had  overcome  his  last  hesita- 
tion. She  conquered  him,  and  he,  at  the  same  time,  per- 
ceived the  means  by  which  the  choice  of  such  a  partner  and 
such  a  Sovereign  might  be  excused  in  his  subjects'  eyes. 
The  intervention  of  the  former  servant  girl  had  saved  the 
Russian  army  and  its  leader  from  irreparable  disaster,  and 
inextinguishable  shame.  Peter,  if  he  led  her  to  the  altar, 
and  placed  the  Imperial  diadem  on  her  brow,  would  only  be 
repaying  the  common  debt.  And  this  was  clearly  expressed 
in  the  manifesto  he  addressed  to  his  own  people,  and  to  the 
whole  of  Europe. 

But  here,  again,  alas !  we  have  nothing  but  an  ingenious 
hypothesis,  contradicted  by  all  the  facts  and  every  date. 
The  part  played  by  Catherine  on  the  banks  of  the  Moldavian 
river,  when  the  Russian  army  was  surrounded  by  the  Turks 
and  the  Tartars,  dates — if  it  ever  took  place  at  all,  and  this  is 
very  doubtful — somewhere  in  the  month  of  June  1711;  at 
that  moment  she  had  already,  for  over  six  months,  been 
publicly  acknowledged  as  Peter's  wife.  The  Tsar's  son 
Alexis,  who  was  then  staying  in  Germany,  had  heard  the 
news  early  in  May,  and  had  written  his  stepmother  a  con- 
gratulatory letter.2 

The  great  reformer  was  not  likely  to  seek  more  or  less 
valid  excuses  for  any  decision  or  act  of  his.  Later,  it  is  true, 
— ten  years  later, — on  the  occasion  of  Catherine's  coronation, 
he  thought  fit  to  recall  the  already  distant  memory  of  the 
peril  she  had  helped  to  avert  in  171 1.  But,  it  may  be  fairly 
believed,  that  his  object  in  so  doing  was  to  indicate  the  sense 
and  bearing  of  this  unusual  ceremony,  whereby,  failing  a 
direct  successor  to  the  Crown,  he  desired  to  invest  her,  in  a 
manner,  with  his  inheritance,  and  to  ensure  the  execution, 
after  his  own  death,  of  a  will  which,  in  his  lifetime,  owed  no 

1  Russian  Archives,  1S75,  v°l-  >*•  P-  $• 

-  Oustrialof,  vol.  vi.  p.  312.     Juel,  En  Rejse  til  Knsland  (Copenhagen,  1893^, 
p.  422. 


270  PETER  THE  GREAT 

account  to  any  one.  It  was  at  this  moment  that  the  manifesto 
to  which  I  have  already  referred  was  published,  and  by  it 
Peter  condescended  to  reckon  with  those  who  might  survive 
him. 

It  is  my  duty  to  add,  that  the  very  fact  of  this  marriage 
has  been  denied  ; x  but  we  possess  very  reliable  testimony  on 
the  subject,  in  the  shape  of  a  despatch  written  from  Moscow 
on  the  20th  February  (2nd  March)  1712,  by  Whitworth, 
the  British  envoy.  'Yesterday,  the  Tsar  publicly  celebrated 
his  marriage  with  his  wife,  Catherine  Alexieievna.  Last 
winter,  about  two  hours  before  his  Czarisch  Majesty  left 
Moscow,  he  summoned  the  Empress  Dowager,  his  sister  the 
Tsarevna  Nathalia,  and  two  other  half-sisters,  to  whom  he 
declared  this  lady  to  be  his  empress,  and  that  they  should 
pay  her  the  respect  due  to  that  quality,  and  in  case  any  mis- 
fortune might  happen  to  him  in  the  campaign,  should  allow 
her  the  same  rank,  privileges,  and  revenue  as  was  usual  to 
the  other  dowagers,  for  that  she  was  his  real  wife,  though 
he  had  not  the  time  to  perform  the  ceremonies  according  to 
the  custom  of  his  country,  which  should  be  done  at  the 
first  opportunity.  The  preparations  have  been  making  for 
four  or  five  days,  and  on  the  18th  Mons.  Kykin,  a  Lord  of 
the  Admiralty,  and  Adjutant-General  Iagusinski,  two  per- 
sons in  a  good  degree  of  favour,  were  sent  about  to  invite 
the  company  to  his  Majesty's  old  zvedding  (Tor  these  were 
the  terms  they  were  ordered  to  use).  'The  Tsar  was 
married  in  his  quality  of  rear-admiral,  and  for  that  reason, 
not  his  Ministers  and  nobility,  but  his  sea  officers,  had  the 
chief  employments,  the  Vice- Admiral  Cruys  and  the  rear- 
admiral  of  the  galleys  being  the  bridegroom's  fathers,  and 
the  Empress  Dowager,  with  the  vice-admiral's  lady,  were 
the  bride's  mothers.  The  bridesmaids  were  two  of  the 
Empress  Catherine's  own  daughters,  one  above  five,  and 
the  other  three  years  old.  The  wedding  was  performed 
privately,  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  in  a  little  chapel 
belonging  to  Prince  Menshikof,  where  no  one  assisted  but 
those  who  were  obliged  to  do  it  through  their  offices.2 

In  spite  of  this,  Whitworth  tells  us  that  in  the  course  of 
the  day,  there  was  a  great  reception  at  the  Palace,  a  State 
dinner,  a  ball,  and  a  display  of  fireworks.  And  the  Dutch 
Resident,  De  Bie,  mentions  an  entertainment  given  in  honour 

1  Dolgoroukof's  Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  38.  -  London  Records  Office 


CATHERINE  271 

of  the  occasion  by  Prince  Menshikof.1  Thus  the  event  was 
marked  by  a  certain  amount  of  publicity.  Peter's  motives, 
and  the  progressive  course  of  ideas  and  sentiments  which  led 
up  to  the  extraordinary  denouement  of  this  liaison,  would 
seem  to  me  clearly  proved  by  a  comparison  of  the  English 
Minister's  despatch  with  those  I  have  already  quoted.  His 
evident  desire  was  to  ensure  the  future  of  his  partner  and  his 
children,  and  his  duty  in  this  respect  appeared  to  him  clearer 
and  more  pressing,  in  proportion,  doubtless,  to  the  increase 
of  his  affection  for  his  children,  and  his  tenderness  and  regard 
for  her.  Before  the  campaigns  of  1708  and  171 1,  he  simply 
endeavoured  to  set  things  in  order,  and  clear  his  own  con- 
science, without  any  regard  to  the  effect  his  action  might 
produce.  In  the  first  instance,  a  gift  of  3000  roubles  appeared 
to  him  sufficient ;  in  the  second,  he  thought  it  right  to  ensure 
Catherine  the  benefits  of  a  reputed  marriage.  Finally,  feel- 
ing himself  bound,  in  honour, — but  not  until  another  year  had 
passed  away,  and  until,  probably,  he  had  undergone  some 
pressure  both  from  Catherine  herself  and  from  some  of  the 
persons  cognisant  of  the  circumstances  of  this  domestic 
drama,  among  whom,  doubtless,  the  ci-devant  Livonian 
peasant  had  made  herself  a  certain  number  of  friends, — he  kept 
his  word,  without,  however,  surrounding  the  event  with  any 
remarkable  lustre  or  display. 

It  may  be  objected  that  as  no  ecclesiastical  authority  had 
broken  Peter's  first  marriage  with  Eudoxia,  and  as  the  ex- 
Tsarina  was  still  alive,  this  second  alliance  was  radically 
void.  I  fully  admit  it ;  but  Catherine  was  accepted,  none 
the  less,  as  a  legally  married  woman.  Let  us  pass  on  to 
what  her  contemporaries  thought  and  said  of  the  new 
Empress. 

II 

Baron  Von  Pollnitz,  who  saw  her  in  17 17,  thus  describes 
her  : — '  The  Tsarina  was  in  the  prime  of  life,  and  showed  no 
signs  of  having  possessed  beauty.  She  was  tall  and  strong, 
exceedingly  dark,  and  would  have  seemed  darker  but  for  the 
rouge  and  whitening  with  which  she  covered  her  face.  There 
was  nothing  unpleasant  about  her  manners,  and  any  one  who 
remembered  the  princess's  origin  would  have  been  disposed 

1  Despatch,  dated  March  5th,  1712  (Archives  at  the  Hague). 


172  PETER  THE  GREAT 


to  think  them  good.  There  is  no  doubt  that  if  she  had  had 
any  sensible  person  about  her  she  would  have  improved 
herself,  for  she  had  a  great  desire  to  do  well.  But  hardly 
anything  more  ridiculous  than  the  ladies  of  her  Court  can 
well  be  imagined.  It  was  said  that  the  Tsar,  a  most  extra- 
ordinary prince,  had  taken  pleasure  in  choosing  out  these 
persons,  so  as  to  mortify  other  ladies  of  his  Court  more 
worthy  to  fill  such  offices.  ...  It  might  fairly  be  said  that 
if  this  princess  had  not  all  the  charms  of  her  sex  she  had  all 
its  gentleness.  .  .  .  During  her  visit  to  Berlin,  she  showed 
the  queen  the  greatest  deference,  and  let  it  be  understood 
that  her  own  extraordinary  fortune  did  not  make  her  forget 
the  difference  between  that  princess  and  herself 

The  Margravine  of  Baireuth,  whose  recollections  date 
from  a  year  later,  shows,  as  might  be  expected,  less  good 
nature  : 

4  The  Tsarina  was  short  and  huddled  up,  very  much  tanned, 
and  quite  devoid  of  dignity  or  grace.  The  very  sight  of  her 
proved  her  low  birth.  She  was  muffled  up  in  her  clothes 
like  a  German  comedy  actress.  Her  gown  had  been  bought 
in  some  old  clothes'  shop,  it  was  very  old-fashioned,  covered 
with  heavy  silver  embroidery,  and  with  dirt.  The  front  of 
her  skirt  was  adorned  with  jewels,  the  design  was  very 
peculiar.  It  was  a  double  eagle,  the  feathers  of  which  were 
covered  with  tiny  diamonds.  She  had  a  dozen  orders,  and  as 
many  portraits  of  saints  and  relics,  fastened  all  along  the 
facings  of  her  dress,  so  that  when  she  walked  she  jingled 
like  a  mule.' 

But  the  Margravine  was  a  perfect  viper. 

Campredon,  who  is  by  no  means  over-disposed  to  in- 
dulgence, acknowledges  the  Tsarina's  political  instinct  and 
insight.  Whether  or  not  she  saved  the  army,  in  the  campaign 
of  the  Truth,  she  certainly  served  it  well  during  the  Persian 
expedition.  The  story,  as  told  by  the  French  Minister,  is 
not  very  flattering  to  Peter.  During  the  great  summer 
heats,  the  Tsar  gave  his  troops  orders  to  march,  and  would 
then  go  to  sleep  himself.  When  he  woke,  he  found  that  not 
a  man  had  moved,  and  when  he  asked  what  general  had 
dared  to  countermand  his  orders :  '  I  did  it,'  said  the 
princess,  coming  forward,  '  because  your  men  would  have 
died  of  heat  and  of  thirst.' l 

1  January  6th,  1723. 


CATHERINE  273 

I  have  already  said  that  the  portraits  of  Catherine,  pre- 
served in  the  Romanof  Gallery  in  the  Winter  Palace,  give  no 
indication  of  the  physical  charms  which  made  her  fortune. 
They  betray  no  sign  either  of  beauty  or  distinction.  The 
face  is  large,  and  round,  and  common  ;  the  nose  hideously 
turned  up.  She  has  goggle  eyes,  an  opulent  bust,  and  all  the 
general  appearance  of  a  servant  girl  in  a  German  inn.  The 
sight  of  her  shoes,  which  are  piously  preserved  at  Peterhof, 
was  to  inspire  the  Comtesse  de  Choiseul-Goufher  with  the 
reflection  that  the  Tsarina's  earthly  life  had  been  spent '  on  a 
good  footing.' x  The  secret  of  her  success  must  be  sought 
elsewhere.  This  coarse- looking,  and,  to  us,  unattractive 
woman,  possessed  a  physical  organisation,  as  robust  and 
indifferent  to  fatigue  as  Peter's  own,  and  a  moral  tempera- 
ment far  better  balanced  than  the  Tsar's.  Between  1704 
and  1723  she  bore  the  lover,  who  ultimately  became  her 
husband,  eleven  children,  most  of  whom  died  in  infancy. 
Yet  her  physical  condition  scarcely  affected  her  exterior  life, 
and  never  prevented  her  from  following  the  Sovereign  whither- 
soever he  went.  She  was  a  typical  officer's  wife — Pahodnaia 
Ofitscrskaiajcna,  is  the  Russian  expression — well  able  to  go 
on  active  service,  lie  on  the  hard  ground,  live  in  a  tent,  and 
make  double  or  treble  stages  on  horseback.  On  the  Persian 
campaign  she  shaved  her  head,  and  wore  a  grenadier's  cap. 
She  would  review  the  troops ;  she  would  pass  down  the 
ranks,  before  a  battle,  dropping  cheering  words,  and  be- 
stowing bumpers  of  brandy.  A  "bullet  struck  one  of  the  men 
in  close  attendance  on  her,  but  she  never  blenched.'2  When, 
after  Peter's  death,  the  town  of  Revel  was  threatened  by  the 
allied  squadrons  of  England  and  of  Denmark, she  would  herself 
have  embarked  on  one  of  her  warships  to  drive  them  back. 

She  was  not  devoid  of  vanity  ;  she  dyed  her  fair  hair 
black,  to  increase  the  brilliancy  of  her  high-coloured  com- 
plexion. She  forbade  the  ladies  of  her  court  to  copy  her 
dresses  ;  she  was  a  beautiful  dancer,  a  first-class  performer  of 
the  most  complicated  pirouettes,  especially  when  the  Tsar 
himself  was  her  partner.  With  others  she  generally  con- 
tented herself  with  walking  through  her  steps.  She  was  a 
mixture    of  subtle  womanliness,   and   of  almost   masculine 

1  Reminiscences,  1S62,  p.  340. 

'-'  Pylaief,  '1  he  Forgotten  Past,  p.  441.     Mimoires  et  Documents  (Paris  Foreign 
Office),  vol.  ii.  p.  119. 

VOL.  I.  S 


274  PETER  THE  GREAT 

activity.  She  could  make  herself  most  amiable  to  those  who 
approached  her,  and  she  knew  how  to  control  Peter's  savage 
outbreaks.  Her  low  extraction  caused  her  no  embarrass- 
ment. She  never  forgot  it,  and  frequently  spoke  of  it  to 
those  who  had  known  her  before  her  elevation, — to  a  German 
tutor,  who  had  been  employed  by  Gluck  when  she  had  been 
a  servant  in  the  pastor's  house,1  and  to  Whitworth, — who  may 
indeed  have  been  carried  away  by  vanity  when  he  insinuates 
that  he  had  been  in  her  closest  intimacy,  but  whom  she  cer- 
tainly invited  one  day  to  dance  with  her,  enquiring  whether 
he  had  not  '  forgotten  the  Katierinoushka  of  former  days.' 2 

The  very  considerable  influence  which  she  exercised  over 
her  husband  was  partly  due, — according  to  contemporary 
opinion,  —  to  her  power  of  calming  his  fits  of  nervous 
irritation,  which  were  always  attended  by  excruciating  head- 
aches. At  such  moments  the  Tsar  would  pass  alternately 
from  a  state  of  prostration  to  one  of  fury,  not  far  removed 
from  downright  madness,  and  every  one  fled  his  presence. 
Catherine  would  approach  him  fearlessly,  address  him  in  a 
language  of  her  own,  half  tender  and  half  commanding,  and 
her  very  voice  seemed  to  calm  him.  Then  she  would  take 
his  head,  and  caress  it  tenderly,  passing  her  fingers  through 
his  hair.  Soon  he  grew  drowsy,  and  slept,  leaning  against 
her  breast.  For  two  or  three  hours  she  would  sit  motion- 
less, waiting  for  the  cure  slumber  always  brought  him.  He 
always  woke  cheerful  and  refreshed. 

She  endeavoured  to  curtail  the  excesses  of  all  sorts,  the 
night  orgies  and  drinking  bouts,  to  which  he  was  addicted. 
In  September,  1724,  the  launch  of  a  new  ship  was,  as  usual, 
made  the  pretext  for  an  endless  banquet.  She  went  to  the 
door  of  the  cabin  in  which  Peter  had  shut  himself  up  to 
drink  undisturbed  with  his  boon  companions,  and  called  out, 
'  Pora  domo'i,  batioushka  ! '  (it  is  time  to  come  home,  little 
father),  he  obeyed,  and  departed  with  her.3 

She  would  appear  to  have  been  full  of  real  affection  and 
devotion,  although  the  somewhat  theatrical  manifestation  of 
her  «rief  after  the  great  man's  death,  cast  a  certain  doubt  on 
her  sincerity.  Villebois  mentions  two  Englishmen,  who  went 
every  day  for  six  weeks  to  watch  the  Tsarina  in  the  chapel 

1  Coxe,  Travels,  1785,  vol.  i.  p.  511. 

2  Whitworth,  An  Account  of  Russia  (London,   1 77 1 ),  preface,  p.  xx. 
:;  Biischings-Magnzin,  vol.  xxii.  p.  492. 


CATHERINE  275 

where  the  corpse   of  the  Tsar  was   laid   in   state ;    and   he 
declared   the    sight  touched    his    own    feelings    like    a    per- 
formance of  the   Andromache.     This  sorrow   did   not  pre- 
vent the  Tsarina   from   claiming  her  right  to  inherit  from 
the   Tsar,  with   the   utmost  vigour,  and   the   most   absolute 
presence  of  mind.     Peter's  affection  is  less  dubious.     It  may 
have  been  coarse  in  fibre,  but  there  is  no  doubt  about  its 
strength.     His   letters   to  Catherine,  on   the    rare  occasions 
when  they  were  separated,  express  the  deep  attachment  of 
the  '  old   fellow,'  as  he  was  pleased  to  call   himself,  for  his 
KatierinousJika — for  the  friend  of  his  heart  (dronh  serdesli- 
nioukii)  (sic),  for  the  mother  of  his  dear  Shishenka  (the  little 
Peter)  with  most  evident  sincerity.     Their  usual  tone  is  cheery 
and  even  joking.     There  are  no  fine  sentences,  nothing  but 
heartfelt  words  ;  no  passion,  much  tenderness  ;  no  blazing 
heat,  a  gentle,  equal  warmth,  never  a  discordant  note,  and 
always  a  longing  to  return,  on  the  first  opportunity,  to  the 
beloved  wife,  and,  yet  more,  to  the  friend  and  companion,  in 
whose  society  he  feels  so  happy.     He  is  longing  to  get  back 
to  her,  he  writes  in   1708,  'because  he  is   dull  without  her, 
and  there  is  nobody  to  take  care  of  his  shirts.'     Her  answer 
expresses  her  conviction    that    his    hair    must    be  very  ill- 
combed  in  her  absence.     He  answers  that  she  has  guessed 
aright,  but  that  if  she  will  only  come  he  will  find  some  old 
comb  or  other  with  which  to  put  things  in  order,  and  mean- 
while he  sends  her  a   lock   of  his   hair.     Frequently,  as   in 
former   years,  his    letters   were  accompanied   by  gifts.      In 
171 1,  there   is   a   watch   bought   at   Dresden;  in    17 17,  lace 
from  Mechlin  ;  on  another  occasion,  a  fox  and  two  pairs  of 
doves  sent  from  the  Gulf  of  Finland  ;  writing  from    Kron- 
stadt  in   1723,  he  apologises,  on  the  score  that  he  has  no 
money,   for  sending  her  nothing.      While  passing  through 
Antwerp,  he  sends  a  packet  covered  with  seals,  and  addressed 
to  Her  Majesty,  the   Tsarina  Catherine  Alexie'ievna.     When 
the  box  was  opened,  all  Shishenha's  mother  found  in  it  was  a 
slip   of  paper  with   these  words  written   in   capital   letters  : 
'April   1st,  1717!'     Catherine    too  would   occasionally  send 
trifling  gifts,  such   as   fruit,  or   a  warm  waistcoat.     In    17 19, 
one  of  Peter's  letters  closes  with  the  expression   of  a  hope 
that  this  summer  will  be  the  last  they  will  have  to  spend 
apart.     Some   time  after,   he  sends   her  a    bunch    of  dried 
flowers,  and  a  newspaper  cutting,  containing  an  account  of 


276  PETER  THE  GREAT 

an  aged  couple,  a  husband  who  had  reached  the  age  of  126 
years,  and  a  wife  only  a  year  younger.  In  1724,  the  Tsar, 
arriving  in  St.  Petersburg  in  the  summer  season,  and  finding 
that  Catherine  had  gone  to  one  of  his  many  country  houses, 
forthwith  sent  a  yacht  to  bring  her  back,  and  wrote,  '  When 
I  went  into  my  rooms,  and  found  them  deserted,  I  felt  as  if 
I  must  rush  away  at  once.     It  is  all  so  empty  without  thee  ! ' 

His  absence  would  seem  to  have  affected  her  to  the  same 
extent.  Princess  Galitzin,  who  was  in  attendance  on 
her  at  Revel,  in  July  17 14,  addresses  the  following  ex- 
pressive note  to  the  Sovereign :  —  'Sire,  my  dear  Baii- 
oushka,  we  long  for  your  return  at  the  earliest  possible 
moment,  and  truly,  if  your  Majesty  delays  much  longer, 
my  life  will  grow  very  hard.  The  Tsarina  will  never 
deign  to  fall  asleep  before  three  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
and  I  never  leave  her  Majesty,  and  Kirillovna  stands  beside 
her  bed  and  dozes.  From  time  to  time  the  Tsarina  conde- 
scends to  say,  "Art  thou  asleep,  TictousJika?  "  (little  aunt),  she 
answers,  "  No,  I'm  not  asleep,  I'm  looking  at  my  slippers," 
and  Maia  comes  and  goes  in  the  room,  and  makes  her  bed 
in  the  middle  of  the  room,  and  Matrena  walks  about  the 
rooms,  and  squabbles  with  everybody,  and  Krestianovna 
stands  behind  the  chair  and  looks  at  the  Tsarina.  Thy 
return  will  release  me  from  the  sleeping  chamber  ! ' 1 

The  only  letters  belonging  to  the  first  period  of  the  liaison, 
which  have  been  preserved,  are  those  addressed  by  the 
Sovereign,  in  common,  to  Catherine  and  to  Anisia  Kiril- 
lovna Tolstoi',  on  whom  he  bestowed  the  nickname  of  '  Aunt/ 
Catherine  he  called  '  Mother.'  He  wrote  the  Dutch  word 
Muder,\\\  Russian  characters.  Catherine  kept  that  nickname 
till  171 1,  after  which  Peter  speaks  of  her  in  more  and  more 
familiar,  affectionate,  and  personal  terms  ;  Katierinoushka, 
Hcrzensfreundchcii,  etc.  She  did  not  venture,  until  much 
later,  to  imitate  him  in  this  respect.  She  called  him  '  Your 
Majesty'  until  1718,  and  then  he  too  becomes  her  Herzens- 
freundcJien,  her  Batioushka,  or  simply  mein  Freund  (my 
friend).  On  one  occasion  she  even  goes  so  far  as  to  imitate 
his  waggish  ways,  and  address  her  letter,  in  German,  to 
'  His  Excellency,  the  very  illustrious  and  very  eminent 
Prince- General,  Inspector- General,  and  Knight  of  the 
crowned  Compass  and  Axe.' 

1  Peter's  Cabinet  papers,  portfolio  ii.  No.  20. 


CATHERINE  277 

This  correspondence  never  has  been,  and  never  can  be, 
published  in  its  integrity.  Certain  portions  of  it  are  far  too 
coarse.  Peter  unscrupulously  indulged  in  obscenities  of 
thought  and  language,  which  are  quite  impossible  in  print  ; 
and  Catherine  followed  his  example  with  an  air  of  the  most 
perfect  unconcern.  '  If  you  were  with  me  here,'  she  writes  dur- 
ing one  of  his  absences,  '  there  would  very  soon  be  another 
Shishenka  ! '  This  is  the  general  tone  of  the  correspondence, 
but  its  actual  expression  is  frequently  far  less  modest.1 

In  1724,  when  Peter  was  celebrating  the  anniversary  of  his 
marriage  at  Moscow,  he  himself  composed  the  set  piece  of 
fireworks,  to  be  lighted  under  the  Empress's  windows.  This 
displayed  his  cypher  and  hers  entwined,  within  a  heart,  sur- 
mounted by  a  crown,  and  surrounded  by  emblems  of  love. 
A  winged  figure,  intended  to  represent  Cupid,  bearing  a 
torch  and  all  his  other  symbols,  except  the  bandage  across 
the  eyes,  shot  across  the  darkness,  and  ignited  the  rockets. 
The  special  Cupid  which  would  seem  to  have  habitually 
presided  over  the  intercourse  of  these  two  lovers,  was  a 
wingless  one.  But  commonplace,  and  even  debased,  as  their 
affection  would  occasionally  appear,  it  still  has  certain 
sympathetic  and  touching  qualities.  It  is  replete  with 
artless,  full-flavoured  good  nature.  After  the  Peace  of 
Nystadt,  Peter  joked  his  wife  about  her  Livonian  origin, 
saying, '  According  to  the  terms  of  this  treaty,  I  am  to  return 
all  prisoners  to  the  King  of  Sweden  ;  I  don't  know  what  is 
to  become  of  thee?'  She  kissed  his  hand  and  answered: 
'  I  am  your  servant,  do  with  me  as  you  will,  yet  I  do  not 
think  you  are  inclined  to  send  me  back.'  '  I  will  try,'  he 
replied,  '  to  settle  it  with  the  King  ! ' 2  This  anecdote  may 
not  be  absolutely  true,  but  it  certainly  typifies  the  real 
nature  of  their  relations.  Yet  there  seems  to  have  been 
some  slyness,  and  a  certain  amount  of  feminine  cunning,  about 
Catherine.  We  are  assured  that  when  she  was  staying  at 
Riga  with  the  Tsar,  she  contrived  to  show  him  an  old  parch- 
ment, drawn  from  the  archives  of  the  town,  containing  a 
prophecy  that  the  Russians  would  never  have  possession  of 
that  country  until  a  most  improbable  event — a  marriage 
between  a  Tsar  and  a  Livonian — had  taken  place.  Often  too,  as 

1  See  Siemievski,  The  Empress  Catherine,  p.  So.    Bruckner,  Peter's  d.  Grossen 
Briefiueehsel  mit  Catharina  (Raumers  Taschenbuch,  5th  Series). 
-  Oustrialof,  vol.  iv.  p.  132. 


278  PETER  THE  GREAT 

I  notice,  she  would  draw  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  success 
never  came  to  him  until  he  knew  her,  whereas,  since  that  event, 
he  had  gone  from  victory  to  victory.  This  was  firm,  histori- 
cal ground,  and  the  fact  was  much  more  likely  to  impress 
the  Tsar's  sturdy  mind,  than  the  prophecy  above  referred  to. 

He  had  no  desire,  indeed,  to  send  back  the  prisoner  he  had 
taken  at  Marienburg.  In  a  thousand  ways,  she  made  her- 
self agreeable,  useful,  indispensable.  As  in  past  years,  she 
watched  her  lord's  amorous  caprices  with  a  vigilant,  though 
far  from  jealous,  eye,  solely  desirous  of  staving  off  too  serious 
consequences,  always  interposing  at  the  right  moment.  Nar- 
tof  tells  the  story  of  a  fellow  country-woman  of  Catherine's, 
a  laundress  belonging  to  Narva,  whose  attraction  for  the 
Sovereign  took  on  alarming  proportions.  Peter,  to  his  astonish- 
ment, beheld  the  girl,  one  day,  in  the  Tsarina's  room.  He 
pretended  not  to  recognise  her,  and  enquired  whence  she  came. 
Catherine  calmly  replied,  '  1  heard  so  much  of  her  beauty  and 
of  her  wit,  that  1  made  up  my  mind  to  take  her  into  my  ser- 
vice, without  consulting  you.'  The  Tsar  was  dumb,  and 
turned  his  attention  to  quite  a  different  quarter. 

Catherine  never  aspired  to  interfering  in  State  affairs,  she 
had  no  taste  for  intrigue.  '  As  for  the  Tsarina,'  writes  Campre- 
don,  in  172 1,  'although  the  Tsar  is  most  attentive  to  her,  and 
is  full  of  tenderness  for  the  Princesses,  her  daughters,  she  has 
no  power  as  regards  public  business,  in  which  she  never  inter- 
feres. She  applies  herself  solely  to  keeping  the  Tsar's 
good  graces,  to  restraining  him,  to  the  best  of  her  ability, 
from  those  drinking  and  other  excesses  which  have  greatly- 
weakened  his  health,  and  to  calming  his  anger  when  it  seems 
ready  to  break  forth  against  any  particular  person.' 

Her  intervention  in  the  catastrophe  on  the  Pruth,  if  it  ever 
did  occur,  was  quite  an  isolated  case.  Her  correspondence 
with  her  husband  proves,  that  though  she  was  aware  of  his 
anxieties,  her  information  was  of  a  very  general  nature.  He 
writes  to  her  about  trifling  commissions,  such  as  buying  wine 
or  cheese,  which  he  desires  to  give  away,  or  the  engagement 
of  foreign  artists  or  artisans.  His  tone  is  frequently  very  con- 
fidential, but  he  keeps  to  generalities,  and  very  seldom  enters 
into  detail.  In  1712,  he  writes:  'We  are  well,  thank  God, 
but  it  is  a  hard  life ;  I  cannot  do  much  with  my  left  hand, 
and  my  right  has  to  hold  sword  and  pen  at  once.  Now 
thou  knowest  on  how  many  persons  I  can  reckon  for  help.' 


CATHERINE  279 

She  took  a  line,  and  assumed  an  office,  her  choice  of  which 
proves  that  this  peasant-born  woman  had  a  most  wonderful 
and  instinctive  comprehension  of  her  true  position.  There 
is  a  hint  of  this,  in  the  French  diplomatic  document  which  I 
have  just  quoted.  She  realised  that, — beside  the  great  Re- 
former playing  out  his  part  as  a  merciless  judge,  to  the  bitter 
end, — there  was  another  accessory  and  necessary  role,  instinct 
with  pity  and  mercy,  to  which  she,  the  humble  serf,  who  had 
sounded  every  depth  of  human  misery,  was  clearly  called.  She 
saw  that  if  she  did  this  work,  if  she  strove  to  win  pardon  for 
others,  her  own  sudden  elevation  would  be  more  willingly 
forgiven  her  ;  and  that  if,  amidst  the  spite  and  hatred  raised 
against  the  Tsar  by  the  violent  nature  of  his  reforms,  she  could 
gather  a  circle  of  grateful  sympathy  round  her  own  person, 
she  might  one  day,  if  some  change  of  fortune  overtook  her, 
find  in  it  a  protection  and  a  welcome  shelter.  She  came  to 
need  it,  and  did  thus  find  a  shelter,  and  more  than  a  shelter, 
after  Peter's  death. 

Like  Lefort,  in  the  old  days,  but  with  infinitely  more 
consistency  and  tact,  she  constantly  interposed  in  the  sanguin- 
ary conflict  which  the  Tsar's  chosen  work  had  roused  between 
himself  and  his  subjects  ; — a  conflict  marked  by  the  daily  use 
of  the  axe,  the  gallows,  and  the  knout.  Peter  was  occasion- 
ally reduced  to  concealing  the  punishments  he  decreed  from 
his  wife's  knowledge.  Unfortunately,  as  it  would  seem,  she 
did  not  continue  satisfied  with  the  distant  and  ultimate  re- 
ward this  line  of  conduct  promised.  She  began,  after  a  time, 
to  seek  for  more  immediate  profit.  She  grew  to  imagine,  or 
she  was  made  to  believe,  that  she  must  settle  her  fortunes  on 
a  firm  financial  basis.  She  was  convinced,  or  allowed  herself 
to  be  persuaded,  that  the  day  would  come  when  she  would 
need  money — and  a  great  deal  of  money — to  pay  for 
necessary  co-operation,  or  anticipate  probable  failure.  And 
then  she  began  to  fleece  all  those  who  sought  her  protection. 
An)-  one  who  desired  to  escape  exile  or  death,  through  her 
intervention,  was  forced  to  open  his  purse.  Thus  she  amassed 
large  sums,  which,  after  Menshikof's  example,  and  probably  by 
his  advice,  she  invested,  under  assumed  names,  at  Amsterdam 
and  Hamburg.  This  intrigue  soon  attracted  Peter's  atten- 
tion, and  his  discovery  of  it  was  probably  not  unconnected 
with  the  clouds  that  darkened  the  close  of  their  conjugal 
existence.       In    17 18,  Catherine    undertook   to   save   Prince 


280  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Gagarin,  the  Governor  -  General  of  Siberia,  who  had 
been  found  guilty  of  enormous  peculations,  from  the 
gallows.  He  paid  her  considerable  sums,  part  of  which 
were  employed  in  corrupting  Prince  Volkonski,  to  whom  the 
enquiry  had  been  entrusted, — a  scarred  old  soldier,  who,  in 
spite  of  his  glorious  career,  was  not  proof  against  such  vile 
temptations.  When  Volkonski  was  arrested,  he  defended 
himself  by  alleging  that  he  had  not  dared  to  repulse  the 
Tsarina's  advances,  for  fear  of  making  a  quarrel  between  her 
and  the  Tsar.  To  this,  Peter  is  said  to  have  made  the 
following  characteristic  reply  :  '  Idiot !  you  would  have  made 
no  quarrel  between  us  !  1  should  only  have  given  my  wife  a 
sound  conjugal  punishment.  She  will  get  it  now,  and  you 
will  be  hung  ! ' 1 

in 

The  tragic  close  of  the  quarrel  between  the  Tsar  and  his 
eldest  son  was,  to  the  stepmother  of  the  unhappy  Prince,  a 
crowning  victory,  a  sudden  impulse  towards  the  giddiest 
heights  of  destiny.  She  has  been  accused,  and  not  unnatur- 
ally, of  having  had  a  more  or  less  direct  share  in  bringing 
about  this  denouement.  To  this  point  I  shall  have  to  refer 
in  a  later  chapter.  It  was  her  own  son  who  thus  became 
heir  presumptive  to  the  throne,  and  another  bond  was  forged 
between  herself  and  the  father  of  the  boy.  She  even  suc- 
ceeded, to  a  certain  extent,  in  forcing  her  family,  obscure 
Lithuanian  serfs,  upon  the  Tsar.  Chance  is  reported  to  have 
helped  her  in  this  matter.  A  postillion,  working  on  the  road, 
between  St.  Petersburg  and  Riga,  having  been  ill-treated  bv 
a  traveller,  loudly  complained,  and  affirmed  his  close  connec- 
tion with  persons  in  the  highest  quarters.  He  was  arrested, 
and  the  facts  laid  before  the  Tsar,  who  ordered  enquiry  to 
be  made,  and  found  himself  unexpectedly  enriched  with  a 
whole  tribe  of  brothers  and  sisters-in-law,  nephews  and 
nieces,  whom  Catherine  had  somewhat  too  easily  forgotten. 
The  postillion,  Feodor  Skovronski,  was  her  eldest  brother. 
He  had  married  a  peasant  woman,  by  whom  he  had  three 
sons  and  three  daughters.  Another  brother,  still  a  bachelor, 
worked  in  the  fields.  The  eldest  sister  was  called  Catherine, 
— the  second,  who  had  been  raised  to  the  throne  under  that 

1  Dolgoroukof's  Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  31. 


CATHERINE  28 1 

name,  had  formerly  been  known  as  Martha.  The  real 
Catherine,  it  was  said,  lived  at  Revel,  and  there  carried  on  a 
shameful  trade.  A  third  sister,  Anne,  was  the  wife  of  an 
honest  serf,  Michael-Joachim,  a  fourth  had  married  a  freed 
peasant,  Simon- Henry,  who  had  settled  at  Revel,  and  worked 
as  a  shoemaker. 

Peter  caused  the  postillion  to  be  brought  to  St.  Petersburg, 
confronted  him  with  his  sister,  in  the  house  of  a  diensJitcliik, 
named  Shepielof,  and  when  his  identity  had  been  established, 
gave  him  a  pension,  and  sent  him  back  to  the  country.  He 
took  measures  to  ensure  a  modest  competence  to  each 
member  of  the  familv,  and  made  a  bargain  that  he  was  to 
hear  no  more  of  them.  The  Revel  sister-in-law,  who  was 
too  compromising  to  be  endured,  was  put  under  lock  and 
key.  Catherine  had  to  wait  for  the  Tsar's  death,  before  she 
could  do  anything  more  for  her  own  people.  When  that 
occurred,  the  ex-postillion,  the  ex-shoemaker,  and  all  the 
other  peasants,  male  and  female,  appeared  at  St.  Petersburg, 
disguised  under  new  names  and  titles,  and  dressed  in  court 
apparel.  Simon-Henry  became  Count  Simon  Leontievitch 
Hendrikof,  Michael-Joachim  was  called  Count  Michael 
Efimovitch  Efimovski,  and  so  with  the  rest.  All  were  given 
large  fortunes.1  A  Count  Skovronski  made  a  great  figure  in 
the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  and  married  his  daughter  to  a  Prince 
Sapieha,  a  member  of  an  illustrious  Polish  family,  well 
known  in  France. 

But  meanwhile,  Catherine's  fortunes  rose  steadily  higher. 
A  collective  vote  of  the  Senate  and  the  Synod,  given  on  the 
23rd  of  December  1728,  endowed  her  with  the  title  of 
Empress.  Two  years  later,  Peter  himself  decided  on  the 
formal  coronation  of  the  ci-devant  servant  girl.  This  cere- 
mony was  quite  a  novel  one  in  Russia,  and  surrounding 
circumstances  imparted  considerable  importance  to  it.  The 
history  of  the  country  only  furnishes  one  precedent  for  such 
a  step — the  coronation  of  Marina  Mniszech  just  before  her 
marriage  with  Dimitri.  But  the  object,  in  that  case,  was  to 
give  a  kind  of  presumptive  consecration  to  the  rights  of  the 
haughty  daughter  of  the  Polish  magnate,  imposed  on  the 
Russian  nation  by  the  victorious  policy  of  the  Waza. 
Dimitri,  who  was  supported  by  the  armies  of  the  Republic, 
merely  as,  and  because  he  was,  Marina's  husband,  took  quite 
1  Kafnovitch,  Great  Russian  Fortunes^  p.  179. 


282  PETER  THE  GREAT 

a  secondary  place.  Since  those  days,  no  Tsarina  had  been 
more  than  the  Tsar's  wife,  none  had  ever  received  any  poli- 
tical investiture  or  prerogative.  .But  the  death,  in  17 19,  of 
the  sole  heir  to  the  crown,  had  raised  the  question  of  the 
succession.  During  the  following  years  it  was  constantly  to 
the  front.  When,  in  1721,  the  Peace  of  Nystadt  conferred 
some  leisure  on  the  Sovereign,  this  question  became,  for 
a  time,  his  chief  anxiety.  Shafirof  and  Ostermann,  in 
obedience  to  his  commands,  held  several  private  conferences 
with  Campredon,  in  the  course  of  which  they  proposed 
an  alliance  with  France,  based  on  a  guarantee  as  to  the 
succession  to  the  Russian  throne  to  be  <jiven  bv  the  French 
king.  For  whose  benefit  ?  Campredon  imagined  Peter  had 
chosen  his  eldest  daughter,  whom  he  was  supposed  to  intend 
to  marry  to  one  of  his  subjects  and  near  relations,— probably 
to  a  Naryshkin.  This  opinion  was  confirmed  by  Shafirof.1 
The  most  varied  suppositions  on  the  subject  were  current 
amongst  the  general  public,  up  to  the  period  of  the  corona- 
tion. The  novel  nature  of  that  event  seemed,  in  the  eyes  of 
the  majority,  to  settle  the  question  in  Catherine's  favour. 
This  idea  was  finally  shared  by  Campredon  himself.  - 

The  crown,  which  was  specially  ordered  for  the  occasion, 
was  far  more  magnificent  than  any  used  by  former  Tsars.  It 
was  adorned  with  diamonds  and  pearls  ;  there  was  an  enor- 
mous ruby  on  the  top  ;  it  weighed  four  pounds,  and  was 
valued  at  one  and  a  half  millions  of  roubles.  It  was  made 
at  St.  Petersburg,  by  a  Russian  jeweller,  but  the  new  capital 
was  quite  unequal  to  supplying  the  Tsarina's  dress.  This 
was  sent  from  Paris,  and  cost  4000  roubles.  Peter  himself 
set  the  crown  on  his  wife's  head.  Catherine  knelt  before  the 
altar,  weeping,  and  would  have  embraced  the  Tsar's  knees. 
He  raised  her  smilingly,  and  invested  her  with  the  orb,  the 
symbol  of  sovereignty  (dierjava).  But  he  kept  the  sceptre, 
the  token  of  power,  in  his  own  hand.  When  the  Tsarina  left 
the  church,  she  entered  a  coach,  sent,  like  her  dress,  from  Paris, 
richly  gilt  and  painted, and  surmounted  byan  Imperial  crown.3 

This  ceremony  was  performed  on  the  /th  —  19th  — 
May.  Just  six  months  later,  an  event  took  place  in  the 
Winter  Palace,  which  set  the  Tsarina,  crowned  and  anointed 

1  Campredon's  Despatches,  Oct.  29,  Nov.  17  and  21,  1721  (French  Foreign 
Office).  -  Despatch,  dated  May  26th,  1724. 

:;  Bi'tschings-Magazin,  vol.   xxii.  pp.  447,  463.      Golikot,  vol.  x.  p.  64. 


CATHERINE  283 

as  she  was,  on  the  very  brink  of  a  precipice.  Peter,  on  his 
return  from  an  excursion  to  Revel,  received  warning  of  a 
suspicious  intimacy  which  had  existed  for  some  time  be- 
tween Catherine  and  one  of  her  chamberlains.  It  is  curious 
that  this  warning  should  not  have  reached  him  sooner,  for  the 
Tsarina's  liasou  with  voungj  William  Mons  had,  according 
to  reliable  witnesses,  long  been  in  public  knowledge.1  Peter 
might  easily  have  gathered  this  fact  from  a  secret  examina- 
tion of  the  chamberlain's  correspondence.  He  would  have 
found  letters  signed  by  the  greatest  persons  in  the  country, 
Ministers,  ambassadors,  and  even  bishops,  who  all  addressed 
the  young  man  in  terms  which  clearly  indicated  the  place 
they  believed  him  to  hold  in  the  imperial  household.2  But  the 
inquisitorial  policy  of  the  great  Tsar  had  begun  to  bear  its 
final  fruit, — the  consequence  and  penalty  of  the  excess  to 
which  it  had  been  carried.  Universal  espionage  had  engen- 
dered universal  watchfulness  against  possible  spies.  Men 
did  as  they  were  done  by,  and  Peter  paid  for  his  too  great 
eagerness  to  know  the  secrets  of  other  houses,  by  being  left 
in  ignorance  of  what  was  occurring  in  his  own. 

Mons  was  the  brother  of  Peter's  former  mistress.  He  was 
one  of  that  race  of  bold  and  successful  adventurers  of  whom, 
so  far  as  Russia  was  concerned,  Lefort  was  the  historical  an- 
cestor. His  education  was  of  the  most  scanty  description, 
but  he  was  intelligent,  shrewd,  a  gay  companion,  and,  occa- 
sionally, something  of  a  poet.  He  was  very  superstitious, 
and  wore  four  rings  :  one  of  pure  gold,  one  of  lead,  one  of 
iron,  and  the  last  of  copper.  These  were  his  talismans,  and 
the  gold  ring  stood  for  love.  One  of  his  sisters,  Matrena, 
had  married  Feodor  Nikolaievitch  Balk,  who  belonged  to  a 
branch  of  the  ancient  Livonian  house  of  the  Balken,  which 
had  been  settled  in  Russia  since  1650.  This  Balk  held  the 
rank  of  Major-General,  and  was  Governor  of  Riga,  and  his 
wife,  who  had  gained  great  favour  with  Catherine,  had  been 
one  of  her  ladies  of  honour  and  her  closest  confidant,  ever 
since  the  coronation.  Matrena  looked  after  her  brother's 
interests,  and  arranged  the  meetings  between  the  lovers. 
Nor  was  this  all.  She  had  contrived,  with  the  assistance 
of  Anna  Feodorovna  Ioushkof,  another  great  favourite  of 
the   Tsarina's,  of  Princess  Anne  of  Courland,  and  of  some 

1  Campredon's  Despatch,  Dec.  9th,  1724  (Paris  Foreign  Office). 
-  Siemievski,  The  Empress  Catherine,  p.  109. 


284  PETER  THE  GREAT 

other  ladies,  to  set  up  a  kind  of  camarilla,  and  little  by  little 
the  Tsar  had  been  hemmed  in  with  moving  quicksands  of 
jobbery  and  intrigue,  of  hidden  influences,  and  obscure 
machinations.  Weakened  as  he  was  by  illness,  and  harried 
by  haunting  suspicion,  his  actions  were  literally  paralysed. 
William  Mons  was  the  soul  of  this  circle,  and  himself  took 
a  woman's  name  to  veil  his  correspondence  with  a  certain 
lady  named  Soltykof,  who  was  one  of  its  members.1 

Female  government  was  already  beginning  to  take  up  its 
place  in  Russia. 

Peter's  powers,  both  as  judge  and  as  inquisitor,  failed  him 
here,  completely  and  simultaneously.  He  long  remained  in 
ignorance  of  what  he  ought  to  have  known,  and  even  when 
he  was  warned,  he  could  not  strike,  and  mete  out  just  punish- 
ment for  the  most  unpardonable  offence  which  could  have 
been  offered  him.  The  first  intimation  reached  him  from  an 
anonymous  source.  A  long-prepared  trap  was  laid,  so  some 
people  assert.  Catherine  is  supposed  to  have  dallied,  one 
lovely  moonlight  night,  within  an  arbour  in  her  garden,  be- 
fore which  Matrena  Balk  mounted  guard,  and  there  Peter 
discovered  her.'-  I  regret  to  have  to  point  out  that  this 
summer  scene  is  at  variance  with  the  season  of  the  year 
imposed  by  historical  accuracy, —  the  month  of  November, 
and,  in  all  probability,  at  least  twenty  degrees  of  frost. 
According  to  official  documents,  Peter  learnt  the  fact 
on  the  5th  of  November.  The  informer,  a  subordinate 
of  Mons,  who  was  quickly  discovered,  was  at  once 
arrested.  The  Tsar  held  a  hasty  enquiry  in  the  torture- 
chamber  of  the  fortress  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  but,  con- 
trary to  the  general  expectation,  he  failed  to  act  with  his 
usual  lightning  rapidity.  Though  both  his  honour  and  his 
life  were  affected, — for  the  informer  had  spoken  of  a  plot, 
and  intended  attempt  on  his  life, — he  seemed  to  hesitate. 
He  concealed  his  rage.  It  almost  looked  as  though  this 
man, — impatient  and  impulsive  beyond  all  others,  as  a  rule, 
—were  seeking  to  gain  time.  On  the  20th  of  November,  he 
returned  to  the  palace  without  a  sign  of  perturbation  on  his 
countenance,  supped  as  usual  with  the  Empress,  and  held  a 
long  and  familiar  conversation  with  Mons,  who,  like  everv- 
one  else,  felt  quite  reassured.  At  a  somewhat  early  hour  he 
complained  of  weariness  and  enquired  the  hour.  Catherine 
J  Mordovtsef,  p.  130.  2  Scherer,  vol.  iv.  p.  78. 


CATHERINE  285 

consulted  her  repeating  watch  —  the  one  he  had  sent  her 
from  Dresden — and  replied,  '  Nine  o'clock.'  With  a  sudden 
flash  of  anger — his  first — he  took  the  watch,  opened  the  case, 
gave  the  hands  three  turns,  and,  in  the  well-known  tone 
which  no  one  ever  dared  to  answer,  he  replied,  '  You  are 
quite  mistaken  !  It  is  midnight,  and  every  one  will  go  to 
bed!' 

The  lion  was  awake  again,  with  his  mighty  roar  and  cruel 
claws, — the  tyrant  who  claimed  to  rule  every  one  and  every- 
thing, and  even  time  itself! 

The  company  separated,  and,  a  few  moments  later,  Mons 
was  arrested  in  his  own  room,  Peter  himself,  so  we  are  told, 
acting  as  his  jailor  and  his  examining  judge.  But  through- 
out all  the  examination,  Catherine's  name  was  never  men- 
tioned. He  deliberately  put  her  outside  the  question.  The 
enquiry  resulted  in  the  culprit's  conviction  of  other  guilty 
practices, — of  abuse  of  influence  and  criminal  traffic,  in  which 
Matrena  Balk  was  also  involved.  For  two  successive  days, 
on  the  13th  and  14th  of  November,  a  crier  passed  through 
the  streets  of  St.  Petersburg,  calling  upon  all  those  persons 
who  had  paid  bribes  to  declare  them,  under  pain  of  the  most 
heavy  punishment.  But  Mons  himself  gave  full  information. 
In  later  years,  he  was  described,  like  Glebof,  as  having  stoic- 
ally poured  forth  every  other  sort  of  avowal,  in  his  desire  to 
protect  his  mistress's  honour.  Such  heroism,  had  it  really 
existed,  can  scarcely  have  been  of  the  finest  temper.  Even 
in  Peter's  reign,  there  was  less  risk  for  the  man  who  acknow- 
ledged embezzlement,  than  for  him  who  posed  as  the  Tsar's 
rival  in  love.  This  fact  had  been  proved  by  Glebofs  terrible 
end,  and  William,  handsome  as  he  was,  seems  to  have  had 
nothing  of  the  hero  about  him.  According  to  the  minutes 
of  the  official  enquiry,  he  fainted  away  as  soon  as  he  was 
arrested  and  brought  into  the  Tsar's  presence,  and  he  ended 
by  confessing  whatever  he  was  desired  to  confess.  There 
cannot  possibly  have  been  any  difficulty  about  drawing  in- 
formation from  him,  for,  as  we  are  significantly  informed,  he 
was  never  put  to  the  question.  As  for  Matrena  Balk,  she 
made  some  resistance  at  first,  but  the  first  blow  from  the 
knout  quite  broke  it  down. 

Mons  was  beheaded  on  the  28th  of  November,  1724.  The 
Saxon  Resident  in  St.  Petersburg  declares  that,  before  the 
execution,  Peter  went  to  see  him,  and  expressed  his  great 


286  PETER  THE  GREAT 

regret  at  being  obliged  to  part  with  him.  The  young  man 
went  bravely  to  the  scaffold.  The  great  Tsar's  reign,  like 
another  and  later  reign  of  terror,  at  all  events  taught  men 
how  to  die.  The  story  that  the  guilty  man  begged  his  exe- 
cutioner to  take  a  miniature  framed  in  diamonds  from  his 
pocket,  to  destroy  the  picture  (Catherine's  portrait)  and  to 
keep  the  setting,  is  an  evident  and  clumsy  invention.1  We 
may  take  it  for  certain  that  prisoners,  in  those  days,  were 
searched  within  their  prisons.  Matrena  Balk  was  given 
eleven  blows  with  the  knout,  did  not  die  under  them  (which 
proves  that  she  was  tough),  was  sent  for  life  to  Siberia,  and 
returned  after  Peter's  death.  Nothing  was  perpetual  at  that 
period.  Once  a  culprit  escaped  with  life,  he  or  she  had  a 
fair  chance  of  rising  again,  even  out  of  the  darkest  depths. 
Around  the  place  of  execution,  placards,  bearing  the  names 
of  all  the  persons  with  whom  Mons  and  his  sister  had  done 
business,  were  fixed  on  posts.  The  whole  hierarchy  of 
Russian  official  life,  headed  by  the  High  Chancellor  Golov- 
kin,  was  there  represented,  coupled  with  the  names  of 
Prince  Menshikof,  the  Duke  of  Holstein,  and  the  Tsarina 
Prascovia  Feodorovna.'2 

Catherine  behaved,  all  through  this  ordeal,  with  a  courage 
which  is  almost  terrifying.  On  the  day  of  the  execution,  she 
affected  the  greatest  cheerfulness.  In  the  evening,  she  sent 
for  the  princesses,  summoned  their  dancing  -  master,  and 
practised  the  minuet  with  them.  But  in  one  of  Campredon's 
despatches  I  find  these  words  :  '  Although  the  Princess  hides 
her  grief,  as  far  as  that  is  possible,  it  is  clearly  written  on  her 
countenance  ...  so  much  so  that  all  the  world  wonders 
what  is  going  to  happen  to  her.'  3 

On  that  very  day,  she  had  a  somewhat  disagreeable  surprise. 
A  ukase  written  by  the  Tsar's  own  hand,  and  addressed  to 
all  the  Administrative  Bodies,  forbade  them,  in  consequence 
of  the  abuses  which  had  arisen  zvithout  the  Tsarina 's  know- 
ledge, to  obey  any  order  or  recommendation  of  hers  in  future. 
At  the  same  time  the  offices  through  which  her  private 
affairs  were  directed,  were  laid  under  an  interdict ;  her 
fortune  was  taken  from  her,  under  pretext  of  its  being 
managed  for  her,  and  she  found  herself  so  pinched  for 
money,  that  when  she  wanted  to  give  a  thousand  ducats  to  a 

1  Crusenstolpe,  Der  Russische  //('/"(Hamburg,  1857),  p.  68. 

2  Mordovtsef,  pp.  48,  49.         J  St.  Petersburg,  Dec.  9th,  1724  (Foreign  Office). 


CATHERINE  287 

dienshtchik,  named  Vassili  Petrovitch,  who  was  in  possession, 
for  the  moment,  of  the  Tsar's  ear,  she  was  obliged  to  borrow 
it  from  her  ladies.1 

And  the  next  day  brought  her  fresh  misery.  The  Tsar, 
we  are  told,  took  his  wife  out  with  him  in  a  sledge,  and  the 
Imperial  couple  were  seen  to  pass  close  to  the  scaffold  on 
which  Mons'  corpse  still  lay  exposed.  The  Tsarina's  dress 
brushed  the  dead  body.  Catherine  never  turned  her  head 
nor  ceased  to  smile.  Then  Peter  went  further.  The  dead 
man's  head,  enclosed  in  a  vessel  of  spirits  of  wine,  was  placed 
in  a  prominent  position  in  the  empress'  apartment.  Cathe- 
rine endured  its  horrible  proximity,  and  preserved  her  ap- 
parent calm.  In  vain  the  Tsar  raged.  He  broke  a  magnifi- 
cent Venetian  glass  with  his  fist,  saying, — '  Thus  will  I  treat 
thee  and  thine!'  She  answered,  quite  unmoved,  'You  have 
destroyed  one  of  the  chief  ornaments  of  your  dwelling.  Do 
you  think  you  have  increased  its  charm  ? '  She  contrived 
thus  to  subdue  and  control  him,  but  their  relations 
continued  strained.  On  the  19th  of  December,  1724,  Lefort 
wrote  in  a  despatch,  '  They  hardly  speak  to  each  other  ;  they 
no  longer  eat  nor  sleep  together.'  And  at  the  same  time, 
public  attention  was  generally  attracted  to  Maria  Kantemir. 
Peter  was  with  her  every  day.  Then  it  was,  so  the  world 
believed,  that  he  learned  the  truth  of  what  had  happened  at 
Astrakhan,  where,  as  my  readers  will  recollect,  the  hopes  of 
the  Princess,  and,  it  may  be,  of  her  lover  as  well,  had  been 
overthrown  by  a  mysterious  miscarriage.  The  doctor  who 
had  attended  the  young  girl,  a  Greek  named  Palikala,  had 
been  bribed;  'By  whose  hand?'  he  enquired — and  the 
answer  rose  of  itself  to  the  outraged  husband's  lips. 

Catherine,  according  to  general  opinion,  was  utterly  lost. 
Villebois  declares  that  Peter  planned  a  trial,  modelled  on 
that  of  Henry  VIII.,  and  only  temporised  so  as  to  ensure 
the  future  of  his  children  by  his  unfaithful  wife.  He  hurried 
on  the  marriage  of  his  elder  daughter,  Anne,  with  the  Duke 
of  Holstein,  and  caused  overtures  to  be  made  for  the  union 
of  the  second,  Elizabeth,  with  a  French  prince,  or  even  with 
the  King  of  France  himself  But  this  plan,  which  seemed  to 
be  taking  shape,  and  was  irresistibly  attractive  to  the  Tsar, 
furnished  an  all-powerful  argument   for  sparing  Catherine. 

1  Biischings-Magazin,   vol.  xi.   p.  494.     Description  sent  by  the   Emperor's 
Envoy,  Rabutin. 


2S8  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Tolstoi  and  Ostermann,  who  were  in  negotiation  with 
Campredon,  laid  the  strongest  stress  upon  it.  The  King  of 
France,  they  said,  would  never  be  induced  to  marry  the 
daughter  of  a  second  Anne  Boleyn  ! x 

But  Catherine's  lucky  star  was  to  carry  her  through.  On 
the  1 6th  of  January,  1725,  signs  of  a  reconciliation,  only 
skin-deep,  perhaps,  and  somewhat  ungracious,  on  Peter's 
side,  but  yet  significant  enough,  were  generally  observed. 
Lefort  writes,  '  The  Tsarina  has  made  a  long  and  ample 
Fussfall  (genuflection)  before  the  Tsar,  to  obtain  remission 
of  her  faults.  The  conversation  lasted  three  hours,  and 
they  even  supped  together,  after  which  they  parted.'  Less 
than  a  month  afterwards,  Peter  was  dead,  and  carried  with 
him  to  his  tomb,  the  secret  of  his  anger,  and  of  the  venge- 
ance which  he  may  have  been  nursing,  and  preparing  in 
secret.  I  must  not,  in  this  place,  dilate  upon  the  political 
use  Catherine  made  of  this  event.  Her  subsequent  private 
life  justified,  only  too  clearly,  the  jealous  anxiety  which 
poisoned  the  last  days  of  the  great  Tsar.  We  must  suppose 
that  after  twenty  years  of  continuous  effort,  and  never- 
ceasing  watchfulness,  during  which  all  her  faculties  were 
incessantly  concentrated  on,  and  strained  towards,  the  one 
end  and  aim,  which  she  at  last  attained,  there  was  a  sort 
of  sudden  weakening  of  the  moral  spring,  and  a  simultaneous 
leaping  up  of  her  long  repressed  taste  for  coarse  sensuality , 
love  of  vulgar  debauch,  and  vile  instincts,  physical  and 
moral.  She,  who  had  done  so  much  to  restrain  her  husband 
from  nocturnal  orgies,  ended  by  drinking  all  night  long,  and 
till  9  o'clock  in  the  morning,  with  her  casual  lovers, — Loewen- 
walde,  Devier,  and  Sapieha.  Her  reign,  which,  happily  for 
Russia,  only  lasted  sixteen  months,  was  a  mere  casting 
of  the  sovereign  power  to  Menshikof,  and  to  short-lived 
favourites,  who  scrambled  with  him  for  every  morsel  of 
profit.  The  whilom  devoted,  helpful,  and  even  heroic 
partner  of  the  great  Tsar,  became  a  mere  Comedy  Queen, 
a  base-born  peasant,  carried  by  some  improbable  chance  up 
to  the  throne,  and  there  taking  her  pleasure  after  her  own 
low  fashion. 

1  See  for  all  this  episode,  Solovief,  vol.  xviii.  p.  245  ;  Scherer,  vol.  iv.  p.  18, 
etc.  ;  Sbornik,  vol.  iii.  p  90  (Leport) ;  Biischings-Magazin,  vol.  xi.  p.  490,  etc. 
(Rabutin)  ;  Villebois'  Memoirs  (manuscript,  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nalionale, 
Paris). 


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