The campaign of 1706 opened most disastrously to Russia. In four successive pitched battles the forces of the tzar had been defeated. Augustus was humbled to the dust, and was compelled to write a letter to Stanislaus congratulating him upon his accession to the throne. He also ignominiously consented to deliver up the unfortunate Livonian noble, Patgul, whose only crime was his love for the rights and privileges of his country. Charles XII. caused this unhappy noble to be broken upon the wheel, thus inflicting a stain upon his own character which can never be effaced. The haughty Swedish monarch seemed now to be sovereign over all of northern Europe excepting Russia. Augustus, driven from the throne of Poland, was permitted to hold the electorate of Saxony only in consequence of his abject submission to Charles XII. Stanislaus, the new Polish sovereign, was merely a vassal of Sweden. And even the Emperor Joseph of Germany paid implicit obedience to the will of a monarch who had such terrible armies at his command.

Under these circumstances some of the powers endeavored to secure peace between Sweden and Russia. The French envoy at the court of Sweden introduced the subject. Charles XII. proudly replied, "I shall treat with the tzar in the city of Moscow."

Peter, being informed of this boast and threat, remarked, "My brother Charles wants to act the part of Alexander, but he shall not find in me a Darius."

Charles XII., from his triumphant invasion of Saxony, marched with an army of forty-five thousand men through Poland, which was utterly desolated by war, and crossing the frontiers of Russia, directed his march to Moscow. Driving all opposition before him, he arrived upon the banks of the Dnieper, and without much difficulty effected the passage of the stream. Peter himself, with Menzikoff, now hastened to the theater of conflict, and summoned his mightiest energies to repel the foe. Battle after battle ensued with varying results. But the situation of the Swedish conqueror was fast growing desperate. He was far from home. His regiments were daily diminishing beneath the terrible storms of war, while recruits were pouring in, from all directions, to swell the ranks of the tzar. It was the month of December. The villages had been all burned and the country turned into a desert. The cold was so intense that on one particular march two thousand men dropped down dead in their ranks. The wintry storms soon became so severe that both parties were compelled to remain for some time in inaction. Every poor peasant, within fifty miles, was robbed by detachments of starving soldiers.

The moment the weather permitted, both armies were again in action. Charles XII. had taken a circuitous route towards Moscow, through the Ukraine, hoping to rouse the people of this region to join his standards. This plan, however, proved an utter failure. About the middle of June the two armies, led by their respective sovereigns, met at Pultowa, upon the Worskla, near its point of junction with the Dnieper, about four hundred miles south of Moscow. Several days were passed in maneuvering and skirmishing in preparation for a decisive struggle. It was evident to all Europe that the great battle to ensue would decide the fate of Russia, Poland and Sweden. Thirty thousand war-worn veterans were marshaled under the banners of Charles XII. The tzar led sixty thousand troops into the conflict. Fully aware of the superiority of the Swedish troops, he awaited the attack of his formidable foe behind his redoubts. In one of the skirmishes, two days before the great battle, a bullet struck Charles XII., shattering the bone of his heel. It was an exceedingly painful wound, which was followed by an equally painful operation. Though the indomitable warrior was suffering severely, he caused himself to be borne in a litter to the head of his troops, and led the charge. The attack upon the intrenchments was made with all the characteristic impetuosity of these demoniac fighters. Notwithstanding the storm of grape shot which was hurled into their faces, covering the ground with the mangled and the dead, two of the redoubts were taken, and shouts of victory ran along the lines of the Swedes.

The action continued with fiend-like ferocity for two hours. Charles XII., with a pistol in his hand, was borne on his litter from rank to rank, animating his troops, until a cannon ball, striking down one of his bearers, also shattered the litter into fragments, and dashed the bandaged monarch to the ground. With as much calmness as though this were an ordinary, everyday occurrence, Charles ordered his guards immediately to make another litter with their pikes. He was placed upon it, and continued to direct the battle, paying no more attention to bullets, balls and bombshells, than if they had been snow flakes.

Peter was equally prodigal of danger. Death in that hour was more desirable to him than defeat, for Charles XII., victorious, would march direct to Moscow, and Russia would share the fate of Poland. The tzar was conspicuous at every point where the battle raged most fiercely. Several bullets pierced his clothes; one passing through his hat just grazed the crown of his head. At length, the Swedes, overpowered by numbers, gave way, and fled in great confusion. Charles, though agonized by his wound, was compelled to mount on horseback as the only means of escape from capture. The black hour of woe came, which sooner or later meets almost every warrior, however successful for a time his career may be. The blow was fatal to Charles XII. More than nine thousand of the Swedes were left dead upon the field of battle. Eighteen thousand were taken prisoners. The Swedish king, with a few hundred troops in his retinue, cut off from his retreat towards Sweden, crossed the Dnieper and fled to Turkey. Peter did not pursue him, but being informed of his desperate resolve to seek refuge in the territory of the Turks, he magnanimously wrote a letter to him, urging him not to take so perilous a step, assuring him, upon his honor, that he would not detain him as a prisoner, but that all their difficulties should be settled by a reasonable peace. A special courier was dispatched with this letter, but he could not overtake the fugitives. When the courier arrived at the river Boy, which separates the deserts of Ukraine from the territories of the Grand Seignor, the Swedes had already crossed the river. In the character of Peter there was a singular compound of magnanimity and of the most brutal insensibility and mercilessness. He ordered all the Swedish generals, who were his captives, to be introduced to him, returned to them their swords and invited them to dine. With a gracefulness of courtesy rarely surpassed, he offered as a toast the sentiment, "To the health of my masters in the art of war." And yet, soon after, he consigned nearly all these captives to the horrors of Siberian exile.

This utter defeat of Charles XII. produced a sudden revolution in Poland, Sweden and Saxony. Peter immediately dispatched a large body of cavalry, under Menzikoff, to Poland, to assist Augustus in regaining his crown. Soon after, he followed himself, at the head of an army, and entering Warsaw in triumph, on the 7th of October, 1709, replaced Augustus upon the throne from which Charles XII. had ejected him. The whole kingdom acknowledged Peter for their protector. Peter then marched to the electorate of Brandenburg, which had recently been elevated into the kingdom of Prussia, and performing the functions of his own embassador, entered into a treaty with Frederic I., grandfather of Frederic the Great. He then returned with all eagerness to St. Petersburg, and pressed forward the erection of new buildings and the enlargement of the fleet.

A magnificent festival was here arranged in commemoration of the great victory of Pultowa. Nine arches were reared, beneath which the procession marched, in the most gorgeous array of civic and military pageantry. The artillery of the vanquished, their standards, the shattered litter of the king, and the vast array of captives, soldiers and officers, all on foot, followed in the train of the triumphal procession, while the ringing of bells, the explosion of an hundred pieces of artillery, and the shouts of an innumerable multitude, added to the enthusiasm which the scene inspired.

The battle of Pultowa gave Peter great renown throughout Europe, and added immeasurably to the reputation of Russia. An occurrence had taken place in London which had deeply offended the tzar, who, wielding himself the energies of despotism, could form no idea of that government of law which was irrespective of the will of the sovereign. The Russian embassador at the court of Queen Anne had been arrested at the suit of a tradesman in London, and had been obliged to give bail to save himself from the debtor's prison. Peter, regarding this as a personal insult, demanded of Queen Anne satisfaction. She expressed her regret for the occurrence, but stated, that according to the laws of England, a creditor had a right to sue for his just demands, and that there was no statute exempting foreign embassadors from being arrested for debt. Peter, who had no respect for constitutional liberty, was not at all satisfied with this declaration, but postponed further action until his conflict with Sweden should be terminated.

Now, in the hour of victory, he turned again to Queen Anne and demanded reparation for what he deemed the insult offered to his government. He threatened, in retaliation, to take vengeance upon all the merchants and British subjects within his dominions. This was an appalling menace. Queen Anne accordingly sent Lord Whitworth on a formal embassy to the tzar, with a diplomatic lie in his mouth. Addressing Peter in the flattering words of "most high and mighty emperor," he assured him, that the offending tradesman had been punished with imprisonment and rendered infamous, and that an act of Parliament should be passed, rendering it no longer lawful to arrest a foreign embassador. The offender had not been punished, but the act was subsequently passed.

The acknowledgment, accompanied by such flattering testimonials of respect, was deemed satisfactory. The tzar had demanded the death of the offender. Every Englishman must read with pride the declaration of Queen Anne in reference to this demand.

"There are," said she, "insuperable difficulties with respect to the ancient and fundamental laws of the government of our people, which we fear do not permit so severe and rigorous a sentence to be given, as your imperial majesty first seemed to expect in this case. And we persuade ourselves that your imperial majesty, who are a prince famous for clemency and exact justice, will not require us, who are the guardian and protector of the laws, to inflict a punishment on our subjects which the law does not empower us to do."

The whole of Livonia speedily fell into the hands of the tzar and was reannexed to Russia. Pestilence, which usually follows in the train of war, now rose from the putridity of battle fields, and sweeping, like the angel of death, over the war-scathed and starving inhabitants of Livonia, penetrated Sweden. Whole provinces were depopulated, and in Stockholm alone thirty thousand perished. The war of the Spanish Succession was now raging, and every nation in Europe was engaged in the work of destruction and butchery. Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, the German empire, England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, were all in arms, and hundreds of millions of men were directly or indirectly employed in the work of mutual destruction. The fugitive king, Charles XII., was endeavoring to enlist the energies of the Ottoman Porte in his behalf, and the Grand Seignor had promised to throw his armies also, two hundred thousand strong, into the arena of flame and blood, and to march for the conquest of Russia.

Peter, conscious of the danger of an attack from Turkey, raised an army of one hundred and twenty-five thousand men, when he was informed that the Turks, with a combined army of two hundred and ten thousand troops, were ravaging the province of Azof. Urging his troops impetuously onward, he crossed the Pruth and entered Jassi, the capital of Moldavia. The grand vizier, with an army three times more numerous, crossed the Danube and advanced to meet him. For three days the contending hosts poured their shot into each other's bosoms. The tzar, outnumbered and surrounded, though enabled to hold his position behind his intrenchments, saw clearly that famine would soon compel him to surrender. His position was desperate.

Catharine had accompanied her husband on this expedition, and, at her earnest solicitation, the tzar sent proposals of peace to the grand vizier, accompanied with a valuable present of money and jewels. The Turk, dreading the energies which despair might develop in so powerful a foe, was willing to come into an accommodation, and entered into a treaty, which, though greatly to the advantage of the Ottoman Porte, rescued the tzar from the greatest peril in which he had ever been placed. The grand vizier good-naturedly sent several wagons of provisions to the camp of his humbled foes, and the Russians returned to their homes, having lost twenty thousand men.

Alexis, the oldest son of Peter, had ever been a bad boy, and he had now grown up into an exceedingly dissolute and vicious young man. Indolent, licentious, bacchanalian in his habits, and overbearing, his father had often threatened to deprive him of his right of succession, and to shave his crown and consign him to a convent. Hoping to improve his character, he urged his marriage, and selected for him a beautiful princess of Wolfenbuttle, as the possessions of the dukes of Brunswick were then called. The old ducal castle still stands on the banks of the Oka about forty miles south-east of Hanover. The princess of Wolfenbuttle, who was but eighteen years of age, was sister to the Empress of Germany, consort of Charles VI. The young Russian prince was dragged very reluctantly to this marriage, for he wished to be shackled by no such ties. He was the son of Peter's first wife, not of the Empress Catharine, whom the tzar had now acknowledged. Peter and Catharine attended these untoward nuptials, which were celebrated in the palace of the Queen of Poland, in which a princess as lovely in character as in person was sacrificed to one who made the few remaining months of her life a continued martyrdom. But little more than a year had passed after their marriage ere she was brought to bed of a son. Her heart was already broken, and she was quite unprepared for the anguish of such an hour. Though the sweetness of her disposition and the gentleness of her manners had endeared her to all her household, her husband treated her with the most brutal neglect and cruelty. Unblushingly he introduced into the palace his mistresses, and the saloons ever resounded with the uproar of his drunken companions. The woe-stricken princess, then but twenty years of age, covered her face with the bed clothes, and, weeping bitterly, refused to take any nourishment, and begged the physicians to permit her to die in peace. Intelligence was immediately sent to the tzar of the confinement of his daughter in-law, and of her dangerous situation. He hastened to her chamber. The interview was short, but so affecting that the tzar, losing all self-control, burst into an agony of grief and wept like a child. The dying princess commended to his care her babe and her servants, and, as the clock struck the hour of midnight, her spirit departed, we trust to that world "where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest." The orphan babe was baptized as Peter Alexis, and subsequently, on the death of the Empress Catharine, became Emperor of Russia.

On the 20th of February, 1712, Peter, who had previously acknowledged his private marriage with Catharine, had the marriage publicly solemnized at St. Petersburg with the utmost pomp. Soon after this, to the inexpressible joy of both parents, Catharine gave birth to a son. The war with Sweden still continued, notwithstanding Charles XII. was a fugitive in Turkey unable to return to his own country. Finland, a vast realm containing one hundred and thirty-five thousand square miles and almost embraced by the Gulfs of Bothnia and of Finland, then belonged to Sweden. Peter fitted out an expedition from St. Petersburg for the conquest of that country. With three hundred ships, conveying thirteen thousand men, he effected a landing in the vicinity of Abo notwithstanding the opposition of the Swedish force there, and, establishing his troops in redoubts with ample supplies, he returned to St. Petersburg for reinforcements. He soon returned, and, with an army augmented to twenty thousand foot and four thousand horse, with a powerful train of artillery, commenced a career of conquest. The city of Abo, on the coast, the capital of Finland, fell unresistingly into his hands with a large quantity of provisions. There was a flourishing university here containing a valuable library. Peter sent the books to St. Petersburg, and they became the foundation of the present royal library in that place.

The tzar, leaving the prosecution of the war to his generals, returned to St. Petersburg. Many and bloody battles were fought in those northern wilds during the summer, in most of which the Russians had the advantage, gaining citadel after citadel until winter drove the combatants from the field.

With indefatigable zeal Peter pressed forward in his plan to give splendor and power to his new city of Petersburg. One thousand families were moved there from Moscow. Very flattering offers were made to induce foreigners to settle there, and a decree was issued declaring Petersburg to be the only port of entry in the empire. He ordered that no more wooden houses should be built, and that all should be covered with tile; and to secure the best architects from Europe, he offered them houses rent free, and entire exemption from taxes for fourteen years. The campaign of another summer, that of 1714, rendered the tzar the master of the whole province of Finland.

In the autumn of this year, Charles XII., escaped from Turkey, where he had performed pranks outrivaling Don Quixote, and had finally been held a prisoner. He traversed Hungary and Germany in disguise, and traveling day and night, in such haste that but one of his attendants could keep up with him, arrived, exhausted and haggard, in Sweden. He was received with the liveliest demonstrations of joy, and immediately placed himself again at the head of the Swedish armies.

The tzar, however, conscious that he now had not much to fear from Sweden, left the conduct of the desultory war with his generals, and set out on another tour of observation to southern Europe. The lovely Catharine, who, with the fairy form and sylph-like grace of a girl of seventeen, had won the love of Peter, was now a staid and worthy matron of middle life. She had, however, secured the abiding affection of the tzar, and he loved to take her with him on all his journeys. Catharine, though on the eve of again becoming a mother, accompanied her husband as far as Holland. Through Stralsund, Mecklenburg and Hamburg, they proceeded to Rostock, where a fleet of forty-five galleys awaited him. The emperor took the command, and hoisting his flag, sailed to Copenhagen. Here he was entertained for two months with profuse hospitality by the King of Denmark, during which time he studied, with sleepless vigilance, the institutions and the artistic attainments of the country.

About the middle of December he arrived at Amsterdam. The city gave him a splendid reception, and he was welcomed by the Earl of Albemarle in a very complimentary speech, pompous and flowery. The uncourteous tzar bluntly replied,

"I thank you heartily, though I don't understand much of what you say. I learned my Dutch among ship-builders, but the sort of language you have spoken I am sure I never learned."

Some of his old companions, who were ship-builders, and had acquired wealth, invited him to dine. They addressed him as "your majesty." Peter cut them short, saying,

"Come, brothers, let us converse like plain and honest ship-carpenters."

A servant brought him some wine. "Give me the jug," said he laughing, "and then I can drink as much as I please, and no one can tell how much I have taken."

He hastened to Zaandam, where he was received with the utmost joy by his old friends from whom he had parted nineteen years before. An old woman pressed forward to greet him.

"My good woman," said the tzar, "how do you know who I am?"

"I am the widow," she said, "of Baas Pool, at whose table your majesty so often sat nineteen years ago."

The emperor kissed her upon the forehead and invited her to dine with him that very day. One of his first visits was to the little cottage, or rather hut, which he had occupied while residing there. The cottage is still carefully preserved, having been purchased in 1823 by the sister of the Emperor Alexander, and enclosed in another building with large arched windows. The room was even then regarded as sacred. In the center stood the oaken table and the three wooden chairs which constituted the furniture when Peter occupied it. The loft was ascended by a ladder which still remains.

With all the roughness of Peter's exterior, he had always been a man of deep religious feelings, and through all his life was in habits of daily prayer. This loft had been his place of private devotion to which he daily ascended. Upon entering the cottage and finding every thing just as he had left it, the tzar was for a moment much affected. He ascended the ladder to his closet of prayer in the loft, and there remained alone with his God for a full half hour. Eventful indeed and varied had his life been since there, a young man of twenty-five, he had daily sought divine guidance.



CHAPTER XXI.

THE TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION OF ALEXIS AND DEATH OF THE TZAR.

From 1718 to 1725.

The Tzar's Second Visit to Holland.—Reception in France.—Description of Catharine.—Domestic Grief.—Conduct of Alexis.—Letters from His Father.—Flight To Germany.—Thence to Naples.—Envoys Sent to Bring Him Back.—Alexis Excluded from the Succession.—His Trial for Treason.—Condemnation and Unexpected Death.—New Efforts of the Tzar for the Welfare of Russia.—Sickness of Peter.—His Death.—Succession of the Empress Catharine.—Epitaph to the Emperor.

From Holland the tzar went to Paris. Great preparations were made there for his reception, and apartments in the Louvre were gorgeously fitted up for the accommodation of him and his suite. But Peter, annoyed by parade, declined the sumptuous palace, and, the very evening of his arrival, took lodgings at the Hotel de Lesdiguieres. To those who urged his acceptance of the saloons of the Louvre he replied,

"I am a soldier. A little bread and beer satisfy me. I prefer small apartments to large ones. I have no desire to be attended with pomp and ceremony, nor to give trouble to so many people."

Every hour of his stay in Paris was employed in studying the institutions of the realm, and the progress made in the arts and sciences. Standing by the tomb of Richelieu, which is one of the finest pieces of sculpture in Europe, he exclaimed,

"Thou great man! I would have given thee one half of my dominions to learn of thee how to govern the other half."

All the trades and manufactures of the capital he examined with the greatest care, and took back with him to St. Petersburg a large number of the most skillful artists and mechanics. Leaving France he returned to Amsterdam, where he rejoined Catharine, and proceeded with her to Berlin. A haughty German lady, piqued, perhaps, that a woman not of noble birth should be an empress, thus describes the appearance of Catharine at that time:

"The tzarina is short and lusty, remarkably coarse, without grace and animation. One need only see her to be satisfied of her low birth. At the first blush one would take her for a German actress. Her clothes looked as if bought at a doll shop; every thing was so old fashioned and so bedecked with silver and tinsel. She was decorated with a dozen orders, portraits of saints, and relics, which occasioned such a clatter that when she walked one would suppose that an ass with bells was approaching. The tzar, on the contrary, was tall and well made. His countenance is handsome, but there is something in it so rude that it inspires one with dread. He was dressed like a seaman, in a frock, without lace or ornament."[14]

[Footnote 14: Memoires de la Margrave de Bareith.]

On Peter's return to Russia, he was compelled to meet and grasp a trouble which for fifteen years had embittered his life. His son, Alexis, had ever been a thorn in his father's side. He was not only indolent and dissipated, but he was utterly opposed to all his father's measures for reform, and was continually engaged in underhand measures to head a party against him. Upon the death of the unhappy princess of Wolfenbuttle, wife of this worthless prince, the grieved and indignant father wrote to him as follows:

"I shall wait a little while longer to see if there be any hopes of your reform. If not, I shall cut you off from the succession as one lops off a dead branch. Do not think that I wish to intimidate you; and do not place too much reliance upon the fact that you are my only son.[15] If I am willing to lay down my own life for Russia, do you think that I shall be willing to sacrifice my country for you? I would rather transmit the crown to an entire stranger worthy of the trust, than to my own child unworthy of it."

[Footnote 15: The empress gave birth to a son shortly after this letter was written.]

This letter produced no effect upon the shameless debauchee. He continued unchecked in his career of infamy. In acknowledging the receipt of his father's letter, he contemptuously replied that he had no wish for the crown, and that he was ready at any time to take an oath that he would renounce it for ever. Matters were in this position when the tzar left for Denmark. He had hardly arrived in Copenhagen when he received dispatches informing him that his son was gathering around him all the disaffected, and was seriously endangering the tranquillity of the State. Once more the anxious father wrote to him in these words:

"I observe in your letter that you say not a word of the affliction your conduct has caused me for so many years. A father's admonitions seem to produce no impression upon you. I have prevailed on myself to write you once more, and for the last time. Those bushy beards bind you to their purposes. They are the persons whom you trust, who place their hopes in you; and you have no gratitude to him who gave you life. Since you were of age have you ever aided your father in his toils? Have you not opposed every thing I have done for the good of my people? Have I not reason to believe that should you survive me you will destroy all that I have accomplished? Amend your life. Render yourself worthy of the succession, or turn monk. Reply to this either in person or in writing. If you do not I shall treat you as a criminal."

The reply of Alexis, was laconic indeed. It consisted of just four lines, and was as follows:

"Your letter of the 19th I received yesterday. My illness prevents me from writing at length. I intend to embrace the monastic life, and I request your gracious consent to that effect."

Seven months passed away, during which the tzar heard nothing directly from his son, though the father kept himself informed of his conduct. As Peter was returning from France he wrote to his son reproaching him for his long silence, and requesting him, if he wished to amend his ways and secure his father's favor, to meet him at Copenhagen; but that if, on the contrary, he preferred to enter a convent, which was the only alternative, he should inform him by the return courier, that measures might be adopted to carry the plan immediately into effect.

This brought matters to a crisis. The last thing the bloated debauchee wished was to enter a convent. He was equally averse to a sober life, and dared not meet his father lest he should be placed under arrest. He consequently made no reply, but pretending that he was to set out immediately for Copenhagen, he secured all the treasure he could lay his hands upon and fled to Germany, to the court of the Emperor Charles VI., who, it will be remembered, was his brother-in-law, having married a sister of his deceased wife. Here he told a deplorable story of the cruelty of his father, of the persecutions to which he was exposed, and that to save his life he had been compelled to flee from Russia.

The emperor, knowing full well that the young man was an infamous profligate, was not at all disposed to incur the displeasure of Peter by apparently espousing the cause of the son against the father. He consequently gave the miscreant such a cold reception that he found the imperial palace any thing but a pleasant place of residence, and again he set out on his vagabond travels. The next tidings his father heard of him were that he was in Naples, spending, as ever, his substance in riotous living. A father's heart still yearned over the miserable young man, and compassion was blended with disappointment and indignation. He immediately dispatched two members of his court, M. Romanzoff, captain of the royal guards, and M. Toltoi, a privy counselor, to Naples, to make a last effort to reclaim his misguided son. They found the young man in the chateau of Saint Elme, and presented to him a letter from his father. It was dated Spa, July 1, 1717, and contained the following words:

"I write to you for the last time. Toltoi and Romanzoff will make known to you my will. If you obey me, I assure you, and I promise before God, that I will not punish you, but if you will return to me I will love you better than ever. But if you will not return to me, I pronounce upon you, as your father, in virtue of the power I have received from God, my eternal malediction; and, as your sovereign, I assure you that I shall find means to punish you, in which I trust God will assist me."

It required the most earnest persuasion, and even the intervention of the viceroy of Naples, to induce Alexis to return to Russia. The miserable man had a harem of abandoned women with him, with whom he set out on his return. They arrived in Moscow the 13th of February, 1718, and on that very day Peter had an interview with his son. No one knows what passed in that interview. The rumor of the arrival of Alexis spread rapidly through the city, and it was supposed that a reconciliation had taken place. But the next morning, at the earliest dawn, the great bell of Moscow rang an alarm, the royal guards were marshaled and the privy counselors of the emperor were summoned to the Kremlin.

Alexis was led, without his sword and as a prisoner, into the presence of his father. At the same time, all the high ecclesiastics of the church were assembled, in solemn conclave, in the cathedral church. Alexis fell upon his knees before his father, confessed his faults, renounced all claim to the succession and entreated only that his life might be spared. The tzar led his son into an adjoining room, where they for some time remained alone. He then returned to his privy council and read a long statement, very carefully drawn up, minutely recapitulating the conduct of Alexis, his indolence, his shameless libertinism, his low companionship, his treasonable designs, and exhibiting his utter unfitness, in all respects, to be entrusted with the government of an empire. This remarkable document was concluded with the following words:

"Now although our son, by such criminal conduct, merits the punishment of death, yet our paternal affection induces us to pardon his crimes and to exempt him from the penalty which is his due. But considering his unworthiness, as developed in the conduct we have described, we can not, in conscience, bequeath to him the throne of Russia, foreseeing that, by his vicious courses, he would degrade the glory of our nation, endanger its safety and speedily lose those provinces which we have recovered from our foes with so much toil and at so vast an expense of blood and treasure. To inflict upon our faithful subjects the rule of such a sovereign, would be to expose them to a condition worse than Russia has ever yet experienced. We do therefore, by our paternal authority, in virtue of which, by the laws of our empire, any of our subjects may disinherit a son and give his succession to such other of his sons as he pleases, and, in quality of sovereign prince, in consideration of the safety of our dominions, we do deprive our son, Alexis, for his crimes and unworthiness, of the succession after us to our throne of Russia, and we do constitute and declare successor to the said throne after us our second son, Peter.

"We lay upon our said son, Alexis, our paternal curse if ever, at any time, he pretends to, or reclaims said succession, and we desire our faithful subjects, whether ecclesiastics or seculars, of all ranks and conditions, and the whole Russian nation, in conformity to this, our will, to acknowledge our son Peter as lawful successor, and to confirm the whole by oath before the holy altar upon the holy gospel, kissing the cross. And all those who shall ever oppose this, our will, and shall dare to consider our son, Alexis, as successor, we declare traitors to us and to their country. We have ordered these presents to be everywhere promulgated, that no person may pretend ignorance. Given at Moscow, February 3d, 1718."

This document was then taken to the cathedral, where all the higher ecclesiastics had been assembled, and was read to them. Nothing was omitted which could invest the act with solemnity, There is every evidence that the heart of the father was rent with acutest anguish in all these proceedings. Nothing could have been more desirable to him than to transmit the empire his energies had rendered so illustrious, to his own son to carry on the enterprises his father had commenced. But to place eighteen millions of people in the hands of one who had proved himself so totally unworthy, would have been the greatest cruelty. The exclusion of Alexis from the succession was the noblest act of Peter's life.

But new facts were soon developed which rendered it impossible for the unhappy father to stop even here. Evidence came to light that Alexis had been plotting a conspiracy for the dethronement of his father, and for the seizure of the crown by violence. His mother, whom the tzar had repudiated, and his energetic aunt, Mary, both of whom were in a convent, were involved in the plot. He had applied to his brother-in-law, the Emperor of Germany, for foreign troops to aid him. There were many restless spirits in the empire, turbulent and depraved, the boon companions of Alexis, who were ready for any deeds of desperation which might place Alexis on the throne. The second son of the emperor, the child of Catharine, was an infant of but a few months old. The health of Peter was infirm and his life doubtful. It was manifest that immediately upon the death of the tzar, Alexis would rally his accomplices around him, raise the banner of revolt against the infant king, and that thus the empire would be plunged into all the horrors of a long and bloody civil war.

Peter having commenced the work of self-sacrifice for the salvation of Russia, was not disposed to leave that work half accomplished. All knew that the infamous Alexis would shrink from no crime, and there was ample evidence of his treasonable plots. The father now deliberately resolved to arraign his son for high treason, a crime which doomed him to death. Aware of the awful solemnity of such a moment, and of the severity with which his measures and his motives would be sifted by posterity, he proceeded with the greatest, circumspection. A high court of justice was organized for the trial, consisting of two chambers, the one ecclesiastical, the other secular. On the 13th of June, 1718, the court was assembled, and the tzar presented to them the documentary evidence, which had been carefully obtained, of his son's treasonable designs, and thus addressed them:

"Though the flight of Alexis, the son of the tzar, and a part of his crimes be already known, yet there are now discovered such unexpected and surprising attempts, as plainly show with what baseness and villainy he endeavored to impose on us, his sovereign and father, and what perjuries he hath committed against Almighty God, all which shall now be laid before you. Though, according to all laws, civil and divine, and especially those of this empire, which grant fathers absolute jurisdiction over their children, we have full power to judge our son according to our pleasure, yet, as men are liable to prejudice in their own affairs, and as the most eminent physicians rely not on their own judgment concerning themselves, but call in the advice of others, so we, under the awful fear of displeasing God, make known our disease, and apply to you for a cure. As I have promised pardon to my son in case he should declare to me the truth, and though he has forfeited this promise by concealing his rebellious designs, yet, that we may not swerve from our obligation, we pray you to consider this affair with seriousness, and report what punishment he deserves without favor or partiality either to him or me. Let not the reflection that you are passing sentence on the son of your prince have any influence on you, but administer justice without respect of persons. Destroy not your own souls and mine, by doing any thing which may injure our country or upbraid our consciences in the great and terrible day of judgment."

The evidence adduced against the young prince, from his own confession, and the depositions which had been taken, were very carefully considered, nearly a month being occupied in the solemnities of deliberation. A verdict was finally rendered in the form of a report to the emperor. It was a long, carefully-worded document, containing a statement of the facts which the evidence substantiated against the culprit. The conclusion was as follows:

"It is evident, from the whole conduct of the son of the tzar, that he intended to take the crown from the head of his father and place it upon his own, not only by a civil insurrection, but by the assistance of a foreign army which he had actually requested. He has therefore rendered himself unworthy of the clemency promised by the emperor; and, since all laws, divine, ecclesiastical, civil and military, condemn to death, without mercy, not only those who attempt rebellion against their sovereign, but those who are plotting such attempts, what shall be our judgment of one who has conspired for the commission of a crime almost unparalleled in history—the assassination of his sovereign, who was his own father, a father of great indulgence, who reared his son from the cradle with more than paternal tenderness, who, with incredible pains, strove to educate him for government, and to qualify him for the succession to so great an empire? How much more imperatively does such a crime merit death.

"It is therefore with hearts full of affliction, and eyes streaming with tears, that we, as subjects and servants, pronounce this sentence against the son of our most precious sovereign lord, the tzar. Nevertheless, it being his pleasure that we should act in this capacity, we, by these presents, declare our real opinion, and pronounce this sentence of condemnation with a pure conscience as we hope to answer at the tribunal of Almighty God. We submit, however, this sentence to the sovereign will and revisal of his imperial majesty, our most merciful sovereign."

This sentence was signed by all the members of the court, one hundred and eighty in number; and on the 6th of July it was read to the guilty prince in the castle where he was kept confined. The miserable young man, enfeebled in body and mind by debaucheries, was so overwhelmed with terror, as his death warrant was read, that he was thrown into convulsions. All the night long fit succeeded fit, as, delirious with woe, he moaned upon his bed. In the morning a messenger was dispatched to the tzar to inform him that his son was seriously sick; in an hour another messenger was sent stating that he was very dangerously sick; and soon a third messenger was dispatched with the intelligence that Alexis could not survive the day, and was very anxious to see his father. Peter, scarce less wretched than his miserable son, hastened to his room. The dying young man, at the sight of his father, burst into tears, confessed all his crimes, and begged his father's blessing in this hour of death. Tears coursed down the cheeks of the stern emperor, and he addressed his dying child in terms so pathetic, and so fervently implored God's pardon for him, that the stoutest hearts were moved and loud sobbings filled the room.

It was midday of the 7th of July, 1718. The prince was confined in a large chamber of a stone castle, which was at the same time a palace and a fortress. There lay upon the couch the dying Alexis, bloated by the excesses of a life of utter pollution, yet pale and haggard with terror and woe. The iron-hearted father, whose soul this sublime tragedy had-melted, sat at his side weeping like a child. The guards who stood at the door, the nobles and ecclesiastics who had accompanied the emperor, were all unmanned, many sobbing aloud, overwhelmed by emotions utterly uncontrollable. This scene stamps the impress of almost celestial greatness upon the soul of the tzar. He knew his son's weakness, incompetency and utter depravity, and even in that hour of agony his spirit did not bend, and he would not sacrifice the happiness of eighteen millions of people through parental tenderness for his debauched and ruined child.

About six o'clock in the evening the wretched Alexis breathed his last, and passed from the tribunals of earth to the judgment-seat of God. The emperor immediately seemed to banish from his mind every remembrance of his crimes, and his funeral was attended with all the customary demonstrations of affection and respect. Peter, fully aware that this most momentous event of his life would be severely criticised throughout the world, sent a statement of the facts to all the courts of Europe. In his letter, which accompanied these statements, he says:

"While we were debating in our mind between the natural emotions of paternal clemency on one side, and the regard we ought to pay to the preservation and the future security of our kingdom on the other, and pondering what resolution to take in an affair of so great difficulty and importance, it pleased the Almighty God, by his especial will and his just judgment, and by his mercy to deliver us out of that embarrassment, and to save our family and kingdom from the shame and the dangers by abridging the life of our said son Alexis, after an illness with which he was seized as soon as he had heard the sentence of death pronounced against him.

"That illness appeared at first like an apoplexy; but he afterwards recovered his senses and received the holy sacraments; and having desired to see us, we went to him immediately, with all our counselors and senators; and then he acknowledged and sincerely confessed all his said faults and crimes, committed against us, with tears and all the marks of a true penitent, and begged our pardon, which, according to Christian and paternal duty, we granted him; after which on the 7th of July, at six in the evening, he surrendered his soul to God."

The tzar endeavored to efface from his memory these tragic scenes by consecrating himself, with new energy, to the promotion of the interests of Russia. Utterly despising all luxurious indulgence, he lived upon coarse fare, occupied plainly-furnished rooms, dressed in the extreme of simplicity and devoted himself to daily toil with diligence, which no mechanic or peasant in the realm could surpass. The war still continued with Sweden. On the night of the 29th of November, of this year, 1718, the madman Charles XII. was instantly killed by a cannon ball which carried away his head as he was leaning upon a parapet, in the siege of Fredericshall in Norway. The death of this indomitable warrior quite changed the aspect of European affairs. New combinations of armies arose and new labyrinths of intrigue were woven, and for several years wars, with their usual successes and disasters, continued to impoverish and depopulate the nations of Europe. At length the tzar effected a peace with Sweden, that kingdom surrendering to him the large and important provinces of Livonia, Esthonia, Ingria and Carelia. This was an immense acquisition for Russia.

With the utmost vigilance the tzar watched the administration of all the internal affairs of his empire, punishing fraud, wherever found, with unrelenting severity. The enterprise which now, above all others, engaged his attention, was to open direct communication, by means of canals, between St. Petersburg and the Caspian Sea. The most skillful European engineers were employed upon this vast undertaking, by which the waters of Lake Ladoga were to flow into the Volga, so that the shores of the Baltic and distant Persia might be united in maritime commerce. The sacred Scriptures were also, by command of the emperor, translated into the Russian language and widely disseminated throughout the empire. The Russian merchants were continually receiving insults, being plundered and often massacred by the barbaric tribes on the shores of the Caspian. Peter fitted out a grand expedition from Astrachan for their chastisement, and went himself to that distant city to superintend the important operations. A war of twelve months brought those tribes into subjection, and extended the Russian dominion over vast and indefinite regions there.

Catharine, whom he seemed to love with all the fervor of youth, accompanied him on this expedition. Returning to St. Petersburg in 1724, Peter resolved to accomplish a design which he for some time had meditated, of placing the imperial crown upon the brow of his beloved wife. Their infant son had died. Their grandson, Peter, the son of Alexis, was still but a child, and the failing health of the tzar admonished him that he had not many years to live. Reposing great confidence in the goodness of Catharine and in the wisdom of those counselors whom, with his advice, she would select, he resolved to transmit the scepter, at his death, to her. In preparation for this event, Catharine was crowned Empress on the 18th of May, 1724, with all possible pomp.

The city of Petersburg had now become one of the most important capitals of Europe. Peter was not only the founder of this city, but, in a great measure, the architect. An observatory for astronomical purposes was reared, on the model of that in Paris. A valuable library was in the rapid progress of collection, and there were several cabinets formed, filled with the choicest treasures of nature and art. There were now in Russia a sufficient number of men of genius and of high literary and scientific attainment to form an academy of the arts and sciences, the rules and institutes of which the emperor drew up with his own hand.

While incessantly engaged in these arduous operations, the emperor was seized with a painful and dangerous sickness—a strangury—which confined him to his room for four months. Feeling a little better one day, he ordered his yacht to be brought up to the Neva, opposite his palace, and embarked to visit some of his works on Lake Ladoga. His physicians, vainly remonstrating against it, accompanied him. It was the middle of October. The weather continuing fine, the emperor remained upon the water, visiting his works upon the shore of the lake and of the Gulf of Finland, until the 5th of November. The exposures of the voyage proved too much for him, and he returned to Petersburg in a state of debility and pain which excited the greatest apprehensions.

The disease made rapid progress. The mind of the emperor, as he approached the dying hour, was clouded, and, with the inarticulate mutterings of delirium, he turned to and fro, restless, upon his bed. His devoted wife, for three days and three nights, did not leave his side, and, on the 28th of January, 1725, at four o'clock in the afternoon, he breathed his last, in her arms.

Before the dethronement of his reason, the tzar had assembled around his bed the chief dignitaries of the empire, and had requested them, as soon as he should be dead, to acknowledge the Empress Catharine as their sovereign. He even took the precaution to exact from them an oath that they would do this. Peter died in the fifty-third year of his age. None of the children whom he had by his first wife survived him. Both of the sons whom he had by the Empress Catharine were also dead. Two daughters still lived. After the Empress Catharine, the next heir to the throne was his grandson, Peter, the orphan child of the guilty Alexis.

Immediately upon the death of the emperor, the senate assembled and unanimously declared Catharine Empress of Russia. In a body, they waited upon Catharine with this announcement, and were presented to her by Prince Menzikoff. The mourning for the tzar was universal and heartfelt. The remains were conveyed to the tomb with all the solemnities becoming the burial of one of the greatest monarchs earth has ever known. Over his remains the empress erected a monument sculptured by the most accomplished artists of Italy, containing the following inscription:

HERE LIETH ALL THAT COULD DIE OF A MAN IMMORTAL,

PETER ALEXOUITZ;

IT IS ALMOST SUPERFLUOUS TO ADD GREAT EMPEROR OF RUSSIA; A TITLE WHICH, INSTEAD OF ADDING TO HIS GLORY, BECAME GLORIOUS BY HIS WEARING IT. LET ANTIQUITY BE DUMB, NOR BOAST HER ALEXANDER OR HER CAESAR. HOW EASY WAS VICTORY TO LEADERS WHO WERE FOLLOWED BY HEROES, AND WHOSE SOLDIERS FELT A NOBLE DISDAIN AT BEING THOUGHT LESS VIGILANT THAN THEIR GENERALS! BUT HE, WHO IN THIS PLACE FIRST KNEW REST, FOUND SUBJECTS BASE AND INACTIVE, UNWARLIKE, UNLEARNED, UNTRACTABLE, NEITHER COVETOUS OF FAME NOR FEARLESS OF DANGER-CREATURES WITH THE NAMES OF MEN, BUT WITH QUALITIES RATHER BRUTAL THAN RATIONAL YET EVEN THESE HE POLISHED FROM THEIR NATIVE RUGGEDNESS, AND, BREAKING OUT LIKE A NEW SUN TO ILLUMINE THE MINDS OF A PEOPLE, DISPELLED THEIR NIGHT OF HEREDITARY DARKNESS, AND, BY FORCE OF HIS INVINCIBLE INFLUENCE, TAUGHT THEM TO CONQUER EVEN THE CONQUERORS OF GERMANY. OTHER PRINCES HAVE COMMANDED VICTORIOUS ARMIES; THIS COMMANDER CREATED THEM. EXULT, O NATURE! FOR THINE WAS THIS PRODIGY. BLUSH, O ART! AT A HERO WHO OWED THEE NOTHING;



CHAPTER XXII.

THE REIGNS OF CATHARINE I. ANNE, THE INFANT IVAN AND ELIZABETH.

From 1725 to 1162.

Energetic Reign of Catharine.—Her Sudden Death.—Brief Reign of Peter II.—Difficulties of Hereditary Succession.—A Republic Contemplated.—Anne, Daughter of Ivan.—The Infant Ivan Proclaimed King—His Terrible Doom.—Elizabeth, Daughter of Peter the Great Enthroned.—Character of Elizabeth.—Alliance with Maria Theresa.—Wars with Prussia.—Great Reverses of Frederic of Prussia.—Desperate Condition of Frederic.—Death of Elizabeth.—Succession of Peter III.

The new empress, Catharine I., was already exceedingly popular, and she rose rapidly in public esteem by the wisdom and vigor of her administration. Early in June her eldest daughter, Anne, was married with much pomp to the Duke of Holstein. It was a great novelty to the Russians to see a woman upon the throne; and the neighboring States seemed inspired with courage to commence encroachments, thinking that they had but little to apprehend from the feeble arm of a queen. Poland, Sweden and Denmark were all animated with the hope that the time had now come in which they could recover those portions of territory which, during past wars, had been wrested from them by Russia.

Catharine was fully aware of the dangers thus impending, and adopted such vigorous measures for augmenting the army and the fleet as speedily to dispel the illusion. Catharine vigorously prosecuted the measures her husband had introduced for the promotion of the civilization and enlightenment of her subjects. She took great care of the young prince Peter, son of the deceased Alexis, and endeavored in all ways to educate him so that he might be worthy to succeed her upon the throne. This young man, the grandson of Peter the Great, was the only prince in whose veins flowed the blood of the tzars.

The academy of sciences at St. Petersburg, which Peter had founded, was sedulously fostered by Catharine. The health of the empress was feeble when she ascended the throne, and it rapidly declined. She, however, continued to apply herself with great assiduity to public affairs until the middle of April, when she was obliged to take her bed. There is no "royal road" to death. After four weeks of suffering and all the humbling concomitants of disease and approaching dissolution, the empress breathed her last at nine o'clock in the evening of the 16th of May, 1727, after a reign of but little more than two years, and in the forty-second year of her age.

Upon her death-bed Catharine declared Peter II., the son of Alexis, her successor; and as he was but twelve years of age, a regency was established during his minority. Menzikoff, however, the illustrious favorite of Peter the Great, who had been appointed by Catharine generalissimo of all the armies both by land and sea, attained such supremacy that he was in reality sovereign of the empire. During the reign, of Catharine Russia presented the extraordinary spectacle of one of the most powerful and aristocratic kingdoms on the globe governed by an empress whose origin was that of a nameless girl found weeping in the streets of a sacked town—while there rode, at the head of the armies of the empire, towering above grand dukes and princes of the blood, the son of a peasant, who had passed his childhood the apprentice of a pastry cook, selling cakes in the streets of Moscow. Such changes would have been extraordinary at any period of time and in any quarter of the world; but that they should have occurred in Russia, where for ages so haughty an aristocracy had dominated, seems almost miraculous. Menzikoff; elated by the power which the minority of the king gave him, assumed such airs as to excite the most bitter spirit of hostility among the nobles. They succeeded in working his ruin; and the boy emperor banished him to Siberia and confiscated his immense estates. The blow was fatal. Sinking into the most profound melancholy, Menzikoff lingered for a few months in the dreary region of his exile, and died in 1729. Peter the Second did not long survive him. But little more than two years elapsed after the death of Catharine, when he, being then a lad of but fourteen years of age, was seized with the small-pox and died the 19th of January, 1730. One daughter of Peter the Great and of Catharine still survived.

Some of the principal of the nobility, seeing how many difficulties attended hereditary succession, which at one time placed the crown upon the brow of a babe in the cradle, again upon a semi-idiot, and again upon a bloated and infamous debauchee, conferred upon the subject of changing the government into a republic. But Russia was not prepared for a reform so sudden and so vast. After much debate it was decided to offer the crown to Anne, Duchess of Courland, who was second daughter of the imbecile Ivan, who, for a short time, had nominally occupied the throne, associated with his brother Peter the Great. She had an elder sister, Catharine, who was married to the Duke of Mecklenburg. So far as the right of birth was concerned, Catharine was first entitled to the succession. But as the Duke of Mecklenburg, whose grand duchy bordered upon the Baltic, and which was equal to about one half the State of Massachusetts, was engaged in a kind of civil war with his nobles, it was therefore thought best to pass her by, lest the empire should become involved in the strife in which her husband was engaged. As Ivan was the elder brother, it was thought that his daughters should have the precedence over those of Peter.

Another consideration also influenced the nobles who took the lead in selecting Anne. They thought that she was a woman whom they could more easily control than Catharine. These nobles accordingly framed a new constitution for the empire, limiting the authority of the queen to suit their purposes. But Anne was no sooner seated upon the throne, than she grasped the scepter with vigor which astounded all. She banished the nobles who had interfered with the royal prerogatives, and canceled all the limitations they had made. She selected a very able ministry, and gave the command of her armies to the most experienced generals. While sagacity and efficiency marked her short administration, and Russia continued to expand and prosper, no events of special importance occurred. She united her armies with those of the Emperor of Germany in resisting the encroachments of France. She waged successful war against the Turks, who had attempted to recover Azof. In this war, the Crimean Tartars were crushed, and Russian influence crowded its way into the immense Crimean peninsula. The energies of Anne caused Russia to be respected throughout Europe.

As the empress had no children, she sent for her niece and namesake, Anne, daughter of her elder sister, Catharine, Duchess of Mecklenburg, and married her to one of the most distinguished nobles of her court, resolved to call the issue of this marriage to the succession. On the 12th of August, 1740, this princess was delivered of a son, who was named Ivan. The empress immediately pronounced him her successor, placing him under the guardianship of his parents. The health of the empress was at this time rapidly failing, and it was evident to all that her death was not far distant. In anticipation of death, she appointed one of her favorites, John Ernestus Biron, regent, during the minority of the prince. Baron Osterman, high chancellor of Russia, had the rank of prime minister, and Count Munich, a soldier of distinguished reputation, was placed in the command of the armies, with the title of field marshal. These were the last administrative acts of Anne. The king of terrors came with his inevitable summons. After a few weeks of languor and suffering, the queen expired in October, 1740.

A babe, two months old, was now Emperor of Russia. The senate immediately met and acknowledged the legitimacy of his claims. The foreign embassadors presented to him their credentials, and the Marquis of Chetardie, the French minister, reverentially approaching the cradle, made the imperially majestic baby a congratulatory speech, addressing him as Ivan V., Emperor of all the Russias, and assuring him of the friendship of Louis XV., sovereign of France.

The regent, as was usually the case, arrogating authority and splendor, soon became excessively unpopular, and a conspiracy of the nobles was formed for his overthrow. On the night of the 17th of November the conspirators met in the palace of the grand duchess, Anne, mother of the infant emperor, unanimously named her regent of the empire, arrested Biron, and condemned him to death, which sentence was subsequently commuted to Siberian exile.

Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter, was now thirty-eight years of age. Though very beautiful, she was unmarried, and resided in the palace in a state of splendid captivity. A party now arose who secretly conspired to overthrow the regency of Anne, and to depose the infant Ivan and place Elizabeth upon the throne. The plot being fully matured, on the night of the 5th of December a body of armed men repaired to the palace, where they met Elizabeth, who was ready to receive them, and marched, with her at their head, to the barracks, where she was enthusiastically received by the soldiers. The spirit of her father seemed at once to inspire her soul. With a voice of authority, as if born to command, she ordered the regiments to march to different quarters of the city and to seize all the prominent officers of the government. Then leading, herself, a regiment to the palace, she took possession of the infant emperor and of his mother, the regent. They were held in captivity, though, at first, treated with all the consideration which became their birth.

This revolution was accepted by the people with the loudest demonstrations of joy. The memory of Peter the Great was enshrined in every heart, and all exulted in placing the crown upon his daughter's brow. The next morning, at the head of the royal guards and all the other troops of the metropolis, Elizabeth was proclaimed Empress of Russia. In one week from this time, the deposed infant emperor, Ivan, who was then thirteen months old, was sent, with his parents, from Petersburg to Riga, where they were for a long time detained in a castle as prisoners. Two efforts which they made for escape were frustrated.

This conspiracy, which was carried to so successful a result, was mainly founded in the hostility with which the Russians regarded the foreigners who had been so freely introduced to the empire by Peter the Great, and who occupied so many of the most important posts in the State. Thus the succession of Elizabeth was, in fact, a counter revolution, arresting the progress of reform and moving Russia back again toward the ancient barbarism. But Elizabeth soon expended her paroxysm of energy, and surrendered herself to luxury and to sensual indulgence unsurpassed by any debauchee who ever occupied a throne. Jealous of sharing her power, she refused to take a husband, though many guilty favorites were received to her utmost intimacy.

The doom of the deposed Ivan and his parents was sad, indeed. They were removed for safe keeping to an island in the White Sea, fifty miles beyond Archangel, a region as desolate as the imagination can well conceive. Here, after a year of captivity, the infant Ivan was torn from his mother and removed to the monastery of Oranienburg, where he was brought up in the utmost seclusion, not being allowed to learn either to read or write. The bereaved mother, Anne, lingered a couple of years until she wept away her life, and found the repose of the grave in 1746. Her husband survived thirty years longer, and died in prison in 1775. It was an awful doom for one who had committed no crime. The whole course of history proves that in this life we see but the commencement of a divine government, and that "after death cometh the judgment."

A humane monk, taking pity upon the unfortunate little Ivan, attempted to escape with him. He had reached Smolensk, when he was arrested. The unhappy prince was then conveyed to the castle of Schlusselburg, where he was immersed in a dungeon which no ray of the sun could ever penetrate. A single lamp burning in his cell only revealed its horrors. The prince could not distinguish day from night, and had no means of computing the passage of the hours. Food was left in his cell, and the attendants, who occasionally entered, were prohibited from holding any conversation with the child. This treatment, absolutely infernal, soon reduced the innocent prince to a state almost of idiocy.

Twice Elizabeth ordered him to be brought to Petersburg, where she conversed with him without letting him know who she was; but she did nothing to alleviate his horrible doom. After the death of Elizabeth, her successor, Peter III., made Ivan a visit, without making himself known. Touched with such an aspect of misery, he ordered an apartment to be built in an angle of the fortress, for Ivan, who had now attained the age of manhood, where he could enjoy air and light. The sudden death of Peter defeated this purpose, and Ivan was left in his misery. Still weary years passed away while the prince, dead to himself as well as to the world, remained breathing in his tomb. Catharine II., after her accession to the throne, called to see Ivan. She thus describes her visit:

"After we had ascended the throne, and offered up to Heaven our just thanksgivings, the first object that employed our thoughts, in consequence of that humanity which is natural to us, was the unhappy situation of that prince, who was dethroned by divine Providence, and had been unfortunate ever since his birth; and we formed the resolution of alleviating his misfortunes as far as possible.

"We immediately made a visit to him in order to judge of his understanding and talents, and to procure him a situation suitable to his character and education. But how great was our surprise to find, that in addition to a defect in his utterance, which rendered it difficult for him to speak, and still more difficult to be understood, we observed an almost total deprivation of sense and reason. Those who accompanied us, during this interview, saw how much our heart suffered at the contemplation of an object so fitted to excite compassion; they were also convinced that the only measure we could take to succor the unfortunate prince was to leave him where we found him, and to procure him all the comforts and conveniences his situation would admit of. We accordingly gave our orders for this purpose, though the state he was in prevented his perceiving the marks of our humanity or being sensible of our attention and care; for he knew nobody, could not distinguish between good and evil, nor did he know the use that might be made of reading, to pass the time with less weariness and disgust. On the contrary, he sought pleasure in objects that discovered with sufficient evidence the disorder of his imagination."

Soon after this poor Ivan was cruelly assassinated. An officer in the Russian army, named Mirovitch, conceived an absurd plan of liberating Ivan from his captivity, restoring him to the throne, and consigning Catharine II. to the dungeon the prince had so long inhabited. Mirovitch had command of the garrison at Schlusselburg, where Ivan was imprisoned. Taking advantage of the absence of the empress, on a journey to Livonia, he proceeded to the castle, with a few soldiers whose cooeperation he had secured through the influence of brandy and promises, knocked down the commandant of the fortress with the butt end of a musket, and ordered the officers who had command of the prisoner to bring him to them. These officers had received the secret injunction that should the rescue of the prince ever be attempted, they were to put him to death rather than permit him to be carried off. They accordingly entered his cell, and though the helpless captive made the most desperate resistance, they speedily cut him down with their swords.

History has few narratives so extraordinary as the fate of Ivan. A forced marriage was arranged that a child might be generated to inherit the Russian throne. When this child was but a few days old he was declared emperor of all the Russias, and received the congratulations of the foreign embassadors. When thirteen months of age he was deposed, and for the crime of being a king, was thrown into captivity. To prevent others from using him as the instrument of their purposes, he was thrown into a dungeon, and excluded from all human intercourse, so that like a deaf child he could not even acquire the power of speech. For him there was neither clouds nor sunshine, day nor night, summer nor winter. He had no employment, no amusement, no food for thought, absolutely nothing to mark the passage of the weary hours. The mind became paralyzed and almost idiotic by such enormous woe. Such was his doom for twenty-four years. He was born in 1740, and assassinated under the reign of Catharine II., in 1764. The father of Ivan remained in prison eleven years longer until he died.

From this tragedy let us turn back to the reign of Elizabeth. It was the great object of this princess to undo all that her illustrious father had done, to roll back all the reforms he had commenced, and to restore to the empire its ancient usages and prejudices. The hostility to foreigners became so bitter, that the queen's guard formed a conspiracy for a general massacre, which should sweep them all from the empire. Elizabeth, conscious of the horror such an act would inspire throughout Europe, was greatly alarmed, and was compelled to issue a proclamation, in defense of their lives.

"The empress," she said in this proclamation, "can never forget how much foreigners have contributed to the prosperity of Russia. And though her subjects will at all times enjoy her favors in preference to foreigners, yet the foreigners in her service are as dear to her as her own subjects, and may rely on her protection."

In the mean time, Elizabeth was prosecuting with great vigor the hereditary war with Sweden. Russia was constantly gaining in this conflict, and at length the Swedes purchased peace by surrendering to the Russians extensive territories in Finland. The favor of Russia was still more effectually purchased by the Swedes choosing for their king, Adolphus Frederic, Duke of the Russian province of Holstein, and kinsman of Elizabeth. The boundaries of Russia were thus enlarged, and Sweden became almost a tributary province of the gigantic empire.

Maria Theresa was now Empress of Austria, and she succeeded in enlisting the cooeperation of Elizabeth in her unrelenting warfare with Frederic of Prussia. Personal hostility also exasperated Elizabeth against the Prussian monarch, for in some of his writings he had spoken disparagingly of the humble birth of Elizabeth's mother, Catharine, the wife of Peter the First; and a still more unpardonable offense he had committed, when, flushed with wine, at a table where the Russian embassador was present, he had indulged in witticisms in reference to the notorious gallantries of the empress. A woman who could plunge, into the wildest excesses of licentiousness, still had sensibility enough to resent the taunts of the royal philosopher. In 1753, Elizabeth and Maria Theresa entered into an agreement to resist all further augmentation of the Prussian power. In the bloody Seven Years' War between Frederic and Maria Theresa, the heart of Elizabeth was always with the Austrian queen, and for five of those years their armies fought side by side. In the year 1759, Elizabeth sent an army of one hundred thousand men into Prussia. They committed every outrage which fiends could perpetrate; and though victorious over the armies of Frederic, they rendered the country so utterly desolate, that through famine they were compelled to retreat. Burning villages and mangled corpses marked their path.

The next year, 1758, another Russian army invaded Prussia, overran nearly the whole kingdom, and captured Konigsburg. The victorious Russians thinking that all of Prussia was to be annexed to their dominions, began to treat the Prussians tenderly and as countrymen. An order was read from the churches, that if any Prussian had cause of complaint against any Russian, he should present it at the military chancery at Konigsburg, where he would infallibly have redress. The inhabitants of the conquered realm were all obliged to swear fealty to the Empress of Russia. The Prussian army was at this time in Silesia, struggling against the troops of Maria Theresa. The warlike Frederic soon returned at the head of his indomitable hosts, and attacking the Russians about six miles from Kustrin, defeated them in one of the most bloody battles on record, and drove the shattered battalions, humiliated and bleeding, out of the territory.

The summer of 1759 again found the Russian troops spread over the Prussian territory. In great force the two hostile armies soon met on the banks of the Oder. The Russians, posted upon a line of commanding heights, numbered seventy thousand. Frederic fiercely assailed them through the most formidable disadvantages, with but thirty thousand men. The slaughter of the Prussians was fearful, and Frederic, after losing nearly eight thousand of his best troops in killed and wounded and prisoners, sullenly retired. The Russian troops were now strengthened by a reinforcement of twelve thousand of the choicest of the Austrian cavalry, and still presenting, notwithstanding their losses, a solid front of ninety thousand men. Frederic, bringing every nerve into action, succeeded in collecting and bringing again into the field fifty thousand troops.[16] Notwithstanding the disparity in numbers, it seemed absolutely necessary that the King of Prussia should fight, for the richest part of his dominions was in the hands of the allied Prussians and Austrians, and Berlin was menaced. The field of battle was on the banks of the Oder, near Frankfort.

[Footnote 16: Some authorities give the Russians eighty thousand and the Prussians forty thousand.]

On the 12th of June, 1759, at two o'clock in the morning, the King of Prussia formed his troops in battle array, behind a forest which concealed his movements from the enemy. The battle was commenced with a fierce cannonade; and in the midst of the thunderings and carnage of this tempest of war, solid columns emerged from the ranks of the Prussians and pierced the Russian lines. The attack was too impetuous to be resisted. From post to post the Prussians advanced, driving the foe before them, and covering the ground with the slain. For six hours of almost unparalleled slaughter the victory was with the Prussians. Seventy-two pieces of cannon fell into the hands of the victors, and at every point the Russians were retreating. Frederic, in his exultation, scribbled a note to the empress, upon the field of battle, with the pommel of his saddle for a tablet, and dispatched it to her by a courier. It was as follows:

"Madam: we have beat the Russians from their entrenchments. In two hours expect to hear of a glorious victory."

But in less than two hours the tide of victory turned. The day was one of excessive heat. An unclouded sun poured its burning rays upon the field, and at midday the troops and the horses, having been engaged for six hours in one of the severest actions which was ever known, were utterly beat out and fainting with exhaustion. Just then the whole body of the Russian and Austrian cavalry, some fourteen thousand strong, which thus far had remained inactive, came rushing upon the plain as with the roar and the sweep of the whirlwind. The foe fell before them as the withered grass before the prairie fire. Frederic was astounded by this sudden reverse, and in the anguish of his spirit plunged into the thickest of the conflict. Two horses were shot beneath him. His clothes were riddled with balls. Another courier was dispatched to the empress from the sanguinary field, in the hottest speed. The note he bore was as follows:

"Remove from Berlin with the royal family. Let the archives be carried to Potsdam, and the capital make conditions with the enemy."

As night approached, Frederic assembled the fragments of his army, exhausted and bleeding, upon some heights, and threw up redoubts for their protection. Twenty thousand of his troops were left upon the field or in the hands of the enemy. Every cannon he had was taken. Scarcely a general or an inferior officer escaped unwounded, and a large number of his most valuable officers were slain. It was an awful defeat and an awful slaughter.

Fortunately for Frederic the losses of the Russians had also been so terrible that they did not venture to pursue the foe. Early the next morning the Prussian king crossed the Oder; and the Russians, encumbered with the thousands of their own mutilated and dying troops, thought it not prudent to march upon Berlin. The war still raged furiously, the allies being inspirited by hope and Frederic by despair. At length the affairs of Prussia became quite hopeless, and the Prussian monarch was in a position from which no earthly energy or sagacity could extricate him. The Russians and Austrians, in resistless numbers, were spread over all his provinces excepting Saxony, where the great Frederic was entirely hemmed up.

The Prussian king was fully conscious of the desperation of his affairs, and, though one of the most stoical and stern of men, he experienced the acutest anguish. For hours he paced the floor of his tent, absorbed in thought, seldom exchanging a word with his generals, who stood silently by, having no word to utter of counsel or encouragement. Just then God mysteriously interposed and saved Prussia from dismemberment, and the name of her monarch from ignominy. The Empress of Russia had been for some time in failing health, and the year 1762 had but just dawned, when the enrapturing tidings were conveyed to the camp of the despairing Prussians that Elizabeth was dead. This event dispelled midnight gloom and caused the sun to shine brightly upon the Prussian fortunes.

The nephew of the empress, Peter III., who succeeded her on her throne, had long expressed his warm admiration of Frederic of Prussia, had visited his court at Berlin, where he was received with the most flattering attentions, and had enthroned the warlike Frederic in his heart as the model of a hero. He had even, during the war, secretly written letters to Frederic expressive of his admiration, and had communicated to him secrets of the Russian cabinet and their plans of operation. The elevation of Peter III. to the throne was the signal, not only for the withdrawal of the Russian troops from the Austrian alliance, but for the direct marching of those troops as allies into the camp of the Prussians. Thus sudden are the mutations of war; thus inexplicable are the combinations of destiny.

Elizabeth died in the fifty-second year of her age, after a reign of twenty years. She was during her whole reign mainly devoted to sensual pleasure, drinking intoxicating liquors immoderately, and surrendering herself to the most extraordinary licentiousness. Though ever refusing to recognize the claims of marriage, she was the mother of several children, and her favorites can not easily be enumerated. Her ministers managed the affairs of State for her, in obedience to her caprices. She seemed to have some chronic disease of the humane feelings which induced her to declare that not one of her subjects should during her reign be doomed to death, while at the same time, with the most gentle self complacency, she could order the tongues of thousands to be torn out by the roots, could cut off the nostrils with red hot pincers, could lop off ears, lips and noses, and could twist the arms of her victims behind them, by dislocating them at the shoulders. There were tens of thousands of prisoners thus horridly mutilated.

The empress was fond of music, and introduced to Russia the opera and the theater. She was as intolerent to the Jews as her father had been, banishing them all from the country. She lived in constant fear of conspiracies and revolutions, and, as a desperate safeguard, established a secret inquisitorial court to punish all who should express any displeasure with the measures of government. Spies and informers of the most worthless character filled the land, and multitudes of the most virtuous inhabitants of the empire, falsely accused, or denounced for a look, a shrug, or a harmless word, were consigned to mutilation more dreadful and to exile more gloomy than the grave.



CHAPTER XXIII.

PETER III. AND HIS BRIDE.

From 1728 to 1762.

Lineage of Peter III.—Chosen by Elizabeth as Her Successor.—The Bride Chosen for Peter.—Her Lineage.—The Courtship.—The Marriage.—Autobiography of Catharine.—Anecdotes of Peter.—His Neglect of Catharine and His Debaucheries.—Amusements of the Russian Court.—Military Execution of a Rat.—Accession of Peter III. to the Throne.—Supremacy of Catharine.—Her Repudiation Threatened.—The Conspiracy.—Its Successful Accomplishment.

Peter the Third was grandson of Peter the Great. His mother, Anne, the eldest daughter of Peter and Catharine, married the Duke of Holstein, who inherited a duchy on the eastern shores of the Baltic containing some four thousand square miles of territory and about three hundred thousand inhabitants. Their son and only child, Peter, was born in the ducal castle at Kiel, the capital of the duchy, in the year 1728. The blood of Peter the Great of Russia, and of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden mingled in the veins of the young duke, of which fact he was exceedingly proud. Soon after the birth of Peter, his mother, Anne, died. The father of Peter was son of the eldest sister of Charles XII., and, as such, being the nearest heir, would probably have succeeded to the throne of Sweden had not the king's sudden death, by a cannon ball, prevented him from designating his successor. The widowed father of Peter, thus disappointed in his hopes of obtaining the crown of Sweden, which his aunt Ulrica, his mother's sister, successfully grasped, lived in great retirement. The idea had not occurred to him that the crown of imperial Russia could, by any chance, descend to his son, and the education of Peter was conducted to qualify him to preside over his little patrimonial duchy.

When young Peter was fourteen years of age, the Empress Elizabeth, his maternal aunt, to the surprise and delight of the family, summoned the young prince to St. Petersburg, intimating her intention to transmit to him her crown. But Peter was a thoroughly worthless boy. All ignoble qualities seemed to be combined in his nature without any redeeming virtues. Elizabeth having thus provided twenty millions of people with a sovereign, looked about to find for that sovereign a suitable wife. Upon the banks of the Oder there was a small principality, as it was called, containing some thirteen hundred square miles, about the size of the State of Rhode Island. Christian Augustus, the prince of this little domain, had a daughter, Sophia, a child rather remarkable both for beauty and vivacity. She was one year younger than Peter, and Elizabeth fixed her choice upon Sophia as the future spouse of her nephew. Peter was, at this time, with the empress in Moscow, and Sophia was sent for to spend some time in the Russian capital before the marriage, that she might become acquainted with the Russian language and customs.

Both of these children had been educated Protestants, but they were required to renounce the Lutheran faith and accept that of the Greek church. Children as they were, they did this, of course, as readily as they would have changed their dresses. With this change of religion Sophia received a new name, that of Catharine, and by this name she was ever afterward called. When these children, to whom the government of the Russian empire was to be intrusted, first met, Peter was fifteen years of age and Catharine fourteen. Catharine subsequently commenced a minute journal, an autobiography of these her youthful days, which opens vividly to our view the corruptions of the Russian court. Nothing can be more wearisome than the life there developed. No thought whatever seemed to be directed by the court to the interests of the Russian people. They were no more thought of than the jaded horses who dragged the chariots of the nobles. It is amazing that the indignation of the millions can have slumbered so long.

Catharine, in her memoirs, naively describes young Peter, when she first saw him, as "weak, ugly, little and sickly." From the age of ten he had been addicted to intoxicating drinks. It was the 9th of February, 1744, when Catharine was taken to Moscow. Peter, or, as he was then called, the grand duke, was quite delighted to see the pretty girl who was his destined wife, and began immediately to entertain Catharine, as she says, "by informing me that he was in love with one of the maids of honor to the empress, and that he would have been very glad to have married her, but that he was resigned to marry me instead, as his aunt wished it."

The grand duke had the faculty of making himself excessively disagreeable to every one around him, and the affianced haters were in a constant quarrel. Peter could develop nothing but stupid malignity. Catharine could wield the weapons of keen and cutting sarcasm, which Peter felt as the mule feels the lash. Catharine's mother had accompanied her to Moscow, but the bridal wardrobe, for a princess, was extremely limited.

"I had arrived," she writes, "in Russia very badly provided for. If I had three or four dresses in the world, it was the very outside, and this at a court where people changed their dress three times a day. A dozen chemises constituted the whole of my linen, and I had to use my mother's sheets."

Soon after Catharine's arrival, the grand duke was taken with the small-pox, and his natural ugliness was rendered still more revolting by the disfigurement it caused. On the 10th of February, 1745, when Catharine had been one year at Moscow, the grand duke celebrated his seventeenth birthday. In her journal Catharine writes that Peter seldom saw her, and was always glad of any excuse by which he could avoid paying her any attention. Though Catharine cared as little for him, still, with girlish ambition, she was eager to marry him, as she very frankly records, in consideration of the crown which he would place upon her brow, and her womanly nature was stung by his neglect.

"I fully perceived," she writes, "his want of interest, and how little I was cared for. My self-esteem and vanity grieved in silence; but I was too proud to complain. I should have thought myself degraded had any one shown me a friendship which I could have taken for pity. Nevertheless I shed tears when alone, then quietly dried them up, and went to romp with my maids.

"I labored, however," writes Catharine, "to gain the affection of every one. Great or small I neglected no one, but laid it down to myself as a rule to believe that I stood in need of every one, and so to act, in consequence, as to obtain the good will of all, and I succeeded in doing so."

The 21st of August of this year was fixed for the nuptial day. Catharine looked forward to it with extreme repugnance. Peter was revolting in his aspect, disgusting in manners, a drunkard, and licentious to such a degree that he took no pains to conceal his amours. But the crown of Russia was in the eyes of Catharine so glittering a prize, though then she had not entered her sixteenth year, that she was willing to purchase it even at the price of marrying Peter, the only price at which it could be obtained. She was fully persuaded that Peter, with a feeble constitution and wallowing in debauchery, could not live long, and that, at his death, she would be undisputed empress.

"As the day of our nuptials approached," she writes, "I became more and more melancholy. My heart predicted but little happiness; ambition alone sustained me. In my inmost soul there was something which led me never to doubt, for a single moment, that sooner or later I should become sovereign empress of Russia in my own right."

The marriage was celebrated with much pomp; but a more cold and heartless union was perhaps never solemnized. Catharine very distinctly intimates that her husband, who was as low in his tastes and companionship as he was degraded in his vices, left her at the altar, to return to his more congenial harem.

"My beloved spouse," she writes, "did not trouble himself in the slightest degree about me; but was constantly with his valets, playing at soldiers, exercising them in his room, or changing his uniform twenty times a day. I yawned and grew weary, having no one to speak to."

Again she writes, "A fortnight after our marriage he confessed to me that he was in love with Mademoiselle Carr, maid of honor to her imperial majesty. He said that there was no comparison between that lady and me. Surely, said I to myself, it would be impossible for me not to be wretched with such a man as this were I to give way to sentiments of tenderness thus requited. I might die of jealousy without benefit to any one. I endeavored to master my feelings so as not to be jealous of the man who did not love me. I was naturally well-disposed, but I should have required a husband who had common sense, which this one had not."

For amusement, the grand duke played cruelly with dogs in his room, pretending to train them, whipping them from corner to corner. When tired of this he would scrape execrably on a violin. He had many little puppet soldiers, whom, hour after hour, he would marshal on the floor in mimic war. He would dress his own servants and the maids of Catharine in masks, and set them dancing, while he would dance with them, playing at the same time on the fiddle.

"With rare perseverance," writes Catharine, "the grand duke trained a pack of dogs, and with heavy blows of his whip, and cries like those of the huntsmen, made them fly from one end to the other of his two rooms, which were all he had. Such of the dogs as became tired, or got out of rank, were severely punished, which made them howl still more. On one occasion, hearing one of these animals howl piteously and for a long time, I opened the door of my bed-room, where I was seated, and which adjoined the apartment in which this scene was enacted, and saw him holding this dog by the collar, suspended in the air, while a boy, who was in his service, a Kalmuck by birth, held the animal by the tail. It was a poor little King Charles spaniel, and the duke was beating him with all his might with the heavy handle of a whip. I interceded for the poor beast; but this only made him redouble his blows. Unable to bear so cruel a scene, I returned to my room with tears in my eyes. In general, tears and cries, instead of moving the duke to pity, put him in a passion. Pity was a feeling that was painful and even insupportable in his mind."

At one time there was a little hunchback girl in the court, upon whom the duke fixed his vagrant desires, and she became his unconcealed favorite. The duke was ever in the habit of talking freely with Catharine about his paramours and praising their excellent qualities.

"Madame Vladisma said to me," writes Catharine, "that every one was disgusted to see this little hunchback preferred to me. 'It can not be helped,' I said, as the tears started to my eyes. I went to bed; scarcely was I asleep, when the grand duke also came to bed. As he was tipsy and knew not what he was doing, he spoke to me for the purpose of expatiating on the eminent qualities of his favorite. To check his garrulity I pretended to be fast asleep. He spoke still louder in order to wake me; but finding that I slept, he gave me two or three rather hard blows in the side with his fist, and dropped asleep himself. I wept long and bitterly that night, as well on account of the matter itself and the blows he had given me, as on that of my general situation, which was, in all respects, as disagreeable as it was wearisome."

One of the ridiculous and disgraceful amusements of the vulgar men and women collected in the court of Elizabeth, was what was called masquerade balls, in which all the men were required to dress as women, and all the women as men, and yet no masks were worn.

"The men," Catharine writes, "wore large whaleboned petticoats, with women's gowns, and the head-dresses worn on court days, while the women appeared in the court costume of men. The men did not like these reversals of their sex, and the greater part of them were in the worst possible humor on these occasions, because they felt themselves to be hideous in such disguises. The women looked like scrubby little boys, while the more aged among them had thick short legs which were any thing but ornamental. The only woman who looked really well, and completely a man, was the empress herself. As she was very tall and somewhat powerful, male attire suited her wonderfully well. She had the handsomest leg I have ever seen with any man, and her foot was admirably proportioned. She danced to perfection, and every thing she did had a special grace, equally so whether she dressed as a man or a woman."

Enervating and degrading pleasure and ambitious or revengeful wars, engrossed the whole attention of the Russian court during the reign of Elizabeth. The welfare of the people was not even thought of. The following anecdote, illustrative of the character of Peter III., is worthy of record in the words of Catharine:

"One day, when I went into the apartments of his imperial highness, I beheld a great rat which he had hung, with all the paraphernalia of an execution. I asked what all this meant. He told me that this rat had committed a great crime, which, according to the laws of war, deserved capital punishment. It had climbed the ramparts of a fortress of card-board, which he had on a table in his cabinet, and had eaten two sentinels, made of pith, who were on duty in the bastions. His setter had caught the criminal, he had been tried by martial law and immediately hung; and, as I saw, was to remain three days exposed as a public example. In justification of the rat," continues Catharine, "it may at least be said, that he was hung without having been questioned or heard in his own defense."

It is not surprising that a woman, young, beautiful and vivacious, living in a court where corruption was all around her, where an unmarried empress was rendering herself notorious by her gallantries, stung to the quick by the utter neglect of her husband, insulted by the presence of his mistresses, and disgusted by his unmitigated boobyism, should have sought solace in the friendship of others. And it is not strange that such friendships should have ripened into love, and that one thus tempted should have fallen. Catharine in her memoirs does not deny her fall, though she can not refrain from allowing an occasional word to drop from her pen, evidently intended in extenuation. Much which is called virtue consists in the absence of temptation.

Catharine's first son, Paul, was born on the 20th of September, 1753. He was unquestionably the son of Count Sottikoff, a nobleman alike distinguished for the graces of his person and of his mind. Through a thousand perils and cunning intrigues, Catharine and the count prosecuted their amour. Woe was, as usual, to both of them the result. The empress gives a very touching account of her sufferings, in both body and mind, on the occasion of the birth of her child.

"As for me," she writes, "I did nothing but weep and moan in my bed. I neither could or would see anybody, I felt so miserable. I buried myself in my bed, where I did nothing but grieve. When the forty days of my confinement were over, the empress came a second time into my chamber. My child was brought into my room; it was the first time I had seen him since his birth."

One day Peter brought into his wife's room, for her amusement, a letter which he had just received from one of his mistresses, Madame Teploff. Showing the letter to Catharine, he said,