Peter the Great Part 6

Directly opposite to Portsmouth, and within this inclosed sea, is a place where the water is just of the right depth, and the bottom of just the right conformation for the convenient anchoring of ships of war. This place is called Spithead, and it forms one of the most famous anchoring grounds in the world. It is here that the vast fleets of the English navy a.s.semble, and here the ships come to anchor, when returning home from their distant voyages. The view of these grim-looking sea-monsters, with their double and triple rows of guns, lying quietly at their moorings, as seen by the spectator from the deck of the steamer which glides through and among them, on the way from Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight, is extremely imposing. Indeed, when considered by a mind capable of understanding in some degree the vast magnitude and extension of the power which lies thus reposing there, the spectacle becomes truly sublime.

In order to give Peter a favorable opportunity to see the fleet at Spithead, the King of England commissioned the admiral in command of the navy to accompany him to Portsmouth, and to put the fleet to sea, with the view of exhibiting a mock naval engagement in the Channel.

Nothing could exceed the pleasure which this spectacle afforded to the Czar. He expressed his admiration of it in the most glowing terms, and said that he verily believed that an admiral of the English fleet was a happier man than the Czar of Muscovy.

At length, when the time arrived for Peter to set out on his return to his own dominions, the King of England made him a present of a beautiful yacht, which had been built for his own use in his voyages between England and Holland. The name of the yacht was the Royal Transport. It was an armed vessel, carrying twenty-four guns, and was well-built, and richly finished and furnished in every respect. The Czar set sail from England in this yacht, taking with him the companions that he had brought with him into England, and also a considerable number of the persons whom he had engaged to enter into his service in Russia. Some of these persons were to be employed in the building of ships, and others in the construction of a ca.n.a.l to connect the River Don with the River Wolga. The Don flows into the Black and the Wolga into the Caspian Sea, and the object of the ca.n.a.l was to allow Peter's vessels to pa.s.s from one sea into the other at pleasure. As soon as the ca.n.a.l should be opened, ships could be built on either river for use in either sea.

The persons who had been engaged for these various purposes were promised, of course, very large rewards to induce them to leave their country. Many of them afterward had occasion bitterly to regret their having entered the service of such a master. They complained that, after their arrival in Russia, Peter treated them in a very unjust and arbitrary manner. They were held as prisoners more than as salaried workmen, being very closely watched and guarded to prevent their making their escape and going back to their own country before finishing what Peter wished them to do. Then, a large portion of their pay was kept back, on the plea that it was necessary for the emperor to have security in his own hands for their fidelity in the performance of their work, and for their remaining at their posts until their work was done. There was one gentleman in particular, a Scotch mathematician and engineer, who had been educated at the University of Aberdeen, that complained of the treatment which he received in a full and formal protest, which he addressed to Peter in writing, and which is still on record. He makes out a very strong case in respect to the injustice with which he was treated.

But, however disappointed these gentlemen may have been in the end, they left England in the emperor's beautiful yacht, much elated with the honor they had received in being selected by such a potentate for the execution of important trusts in a distant land, and with high antic.i.p.ations of the fame and fortune which they expected to acquire before the time should arrive for them to return to their own country.

From England the yacht sailed to Holland, where Peter disembarked, in order to join the emba.s.sy and accompany them in their visits to some other courts in Central Europe before returning home.

He first went to Vienna. He still nominally preserved his incognito; but the Emperor Leopold, who was at that time the Emperor of Germany, gave him a very peculiar sort of reception. He came out to the door of his antechamber to meet Peter at the head of a certain back staircase communicating with the apartment, which was intended for his own private use. Peter was accompanied by General Le Fort, the chief emba.s.sador, at this interview, and he was conducted up the staircase by two grand officers of the Austrian court--the grand chamberlain and the grand equerry. After the two potentates had been introduced to each other, the emperor, who had taken off his hat to bow to the Czar, put it on again, but Peter remained uncovered, on the ground that he was not at that time acting in his own character as Czar. The emperor, seeing this, took off his hat again, and both remained uncovered during the interview.

After this a great many parades and celebrations took place in Vienna, all ostensibly in honor of the emba.s.sy, but really and truly in honor of Peter himself, who still preserved his incognito. At many of these festivities Peter attended, taking his place with the rest of the subordinates in the train of the emba.s.sy, but he never appeared in his own true character. Still he was known, and he was the object of a great many indirect but very marked attentions. On one occasion, for example, there was a masked ball in the palace of the emperor; Peter appeared there dressed as a peasant of West Friesland, which is a part of North Holland, where the costumes worn by the common people were then, as indeed they are at the present day, very marked and peculiar.

The Emperor of Germany appeared also at this ball in a feigned character--that of a host at an entertainment, and he had thirty-two pages in attendance upon him, all dressed as butlers. In the course of the evening one of the pages brought out to the emperor a very curious and costly gla.s.s, which he filled with wine and presented to the emperor, who then approached Peter and drank to the health of the peasant of West Friesland, saying at the same time, with a meaning look, that he was well aware of the inviolable affection which the peasant felt for the Czar of Muscovy. Peter, in return, drank to the health of the host, saying he was aware of the inviolable affection he felt for the Emperor of Germany.

These toasts were received by the whole company with great applause, and after they were drunk the emperor gave Peter the curious gla.s.s from which he had drunk, desiring him to keep it as a souvenir of the occasion.

These festivities in honor of the emba.s.sy at Vienna were at length suddenly interrupted by the arrival of tidings from Moscow that a rebellion had broken out there against Peter's government. This intelligence changed at once all Peter's plans. He had intended to go to Venice and to Rome, but he now at once abandoned these designs, and setting out abruptly from Vienna, with General Le Fort, and a train of about thirty persons, he traveled with the utmost possible dispatch to Moscow.

[1] William, Prince of Orange, was descended on the female side from the English royal family, and was a Protestant. Accordingly, when James II., and with him the Catholic branch of the royal family of England, was expelled from the throne, the British Parliament called upon William to ascend it, he being the next heir on the Protestant side.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE REBELLION.

1698

Precautions taken by the Czar--His uneasiness--His fury against his enemies--His revolting appearance--Imperfect communication--Conspiracy--Arguments used--Details of the plot--Pretext of the guards--They commence their march--Alarm in Moscow--General Gordon--A parley with the rebels--Influence of the Church--The clergy on the side of the rebels--Conservatism--The Russian clergy--The armies prepare for battle--The insurgents defeated--Ma.s.sacre of prisoners--Confession--Peter's arrival at Moscow--His terrible severity--Peter becomes himself an executioner--The Guards--Gibbets--The writer of the address to Sophia--The old Russian n.o.bility--Arrival of artisans--Retirement of Sophia--Her death

It will be recollected by the reader that Peter, before he set out on his tour, took every possible precaution to guard against the danger of disturbances in his dominions during his absence. The Princess Sophia was closely confined in her convent. All that portion of the old Russian Guards that he thought most likely to be dissatisfied with his proposed reforms, and to take part with Sophia, he removed to fortresses at a great distance from Moscow. Moscow itself was garrisoned with troops selected expressly with reference to their supposed fidelity to his interests, and the men who were to command them, as well as the great civil officers to whom the administration of the government was committed during his absence, were appointed on the same principle.

But, notwithstanding all these precautions, Peter did not feel entirely safe. He was well aware of Sophia's ambition, and of her skill in intrigue, and during the whole progress of his tour he anxiously watched the tidings which he received from Moscow, ready to return at a moment's warning in case of necessity. He often spoke on this subject to those with whom he was on terms of familiar intercourse. On such occasions he would get into a great rage in denouncing his enemies, and in threatening vengeance against them in case they made any movement to resist his authority while he was away. At such times he would utter most dreadful imprecations against those who should dare to oppose him, and would work himself up into such a fury as to give those who conversed with him an exceedingly unfavorable opinion of his temper and character. The ugly aspect which his countenance and demeanor exhibited at such times was greatly aggravated by a nervous affection of the head and face which attacked him, particularly when he was in a pa.s.sion, and which produced convulsive twitches of the muscles that drew his head by jerks to one side, and distorted his face in a manner that was dreadful to behold. It was said that this disorder was first induced in his childhood by some one of the terrible frights through which he pa.s.sed. However this may have been, the affection seemed to increase as he grew older, and as the attacks of it were most decided and violent when he was in a pa.s.sion, they had the effect, in connection with his coa.r.s.e and dreadful language and violent demeanor, to make him appear at such times more like some ugly monster of fiction than like a man.

The result, in respect to the conduct of his enemies during his absence, was what he feared. After he had been gone away for some months they began to conspire against him. The means of communication between different countries were quite imperfect in those days, so that very little exact information came back to Russia in respect to the emperor's movements. The n.o.bles who were opposed to him began to represent to the people that he had gone n.o.body knew where, and that it was wholly uncertain whether he would ever return. Besides, if he did return, they said it would only be to bring with him a fresh importation of foreign favorites and foreign manners, and to proceed more vigorously than ever in his work of superseding and subverting all the good old customs of the land, and displacing the ancient native families from all places of consideration and honor, in order to make room for the swarms of miserable foreign adventurers that he would bring home with him in his train.

By these and similar representations the opposition so far increased and strengthened their party that, at length, they matured their arrangements for an open outbreak. Their plan was, first, to take possession of the city by means of the Guards, who were to be recalled for this purpose from their distant posts, and by their a.s.sistance to murder all the foreigners. They were then to issue a proclamation declaring that Peter, by leaving the country and remaining so long away, had virtually abdicated the government; and also a formal address to the Princess Sophia, calling upon her to ascend the throne in his stead.

In executing this plan, negotiations were first cautiously opened with the Guards, and they readily acceded to the proposals made to them. A committee of three persons was appointed to draw up the address to Sophia, and the precise details of the movements which were to take place on the arrival of the Guards at the gates of Moscow were all arranged.

The Guards, of course, required some pretext for leaving their posts and coming toward the city, independent of the real cause, for the conspirators within the city were not prepared to rise and declare the throne vacant until the Guards had actually arrived. Accordingly, while the conspirators remained quiet, the Guards began to complain of various grievances under which they suffered, particularly that they were not paid their wages regularly, and they declared their determination to march to Moscow and obtain redress. The government--that is, the regency that Peter had left in charge--sent out deputies, who attempted to pacify them, but could not succeed. The Guards insisted that they would go with their complaints to Moscow. They commenced their march. The number of men was about ten thousand. They pretended that they were only going to the city to represent their case themselves directly to the government, and then to march back again in a peaceable manner. They wished to know, too, they said, what had become of the Czar. They could not depend upon the rumors which came to them at so great a distance, and they were determined to inform themselves on the spot whether he were alive or dead, and when he was coming home.

The deputies returned with all speed to Moscow, and reported that the Guards were on their march in full strength toward the city. The whole city was thrown into a state of consternation. Many of the leading families, antic.i.p.ating serious trouble, moved away. Others packed up and concealed their valuables. The government, too, though not yet suspecting the real design of the Guards in the movement which they were making, were greatly alarmed. They immediately ordered a large armed force to go and meet the insurgents. This force was commanded by General Gordon, the officer whom Peter had made general-in-chief of the army before he set out on his tour.

General Gordon came up with the rebels about forty miles from Moscow. As soon as he came near to them he halted, and sent forward a deputation from his camp to confer with the leaders, in the hope of coming to some amicable settlement of the difficulty. This deputation consisted of Russian n.o.bles of ancient and established rank and consideration in the country, who had volunteered to accompany the general in his expedition.

General Gordon himself was one of the hated foreigners, and of course his appearance, if he had gone himself to negotiate with the rebels, would have perhaps only exasperated and inflamed them more than ever.

The deputation held a conference with the leaders of the Guards, and made them very conciliatory offers. They promised that if they would return to their duty the government would not only overlook the serious offense which they had committed in leaving their posts and marching upon Moscow, but would inquire into and redress all their grievances. But the Guards refused to be satisfied. They were determined, they said, to march to Moscow. They wished to ascertain for themselves whether Peter was dead or alive, and if alive, what had become of him. They therefore were going on, and, if General Gordon and his troops attempted to oppose them, they would fight it out and see which was the strongest.

In civil commotions of this kind occurring in any of the ancient non-Protestant countries in Europe, it is always a question of the utmost moment which side the Church and the clergy espouse. It is true that the Church and the clergy do not fight themselves, and so do not add any thing to the physical strength of the party which they befriend, but they add enormously to its moral strength, that is, to its confidence and courage. Men have a sort of instinctive respect and fear for const.i.tuted authorities of any kind, and, though often willing to plot against them, are still very apt to falter and fall back when the time comes for the actual collision. The feeling that, after all, they are in the wrong in fighting against the government of their country, weakens them extremely, and makes them ready to abandon the struggle in panic and dismay on the first unfavorable turn of fortune. But if they have the Church and the clergy on their side, this state of things is quite changed. The sanction of religion--the thought that they are fighting in the cause of G.o.d and of duty, nerves their arms, and gives them that confidence in the result which is almost essential to victory.

It was so in this case. There was no cla.s.s in the community more opposed to the Czar's proposed improvements and reforms than the Church. Indeed, it is always so. The Church and the clergy are always found in these countries on the side of opposition to progress and improvement. It is not that they are really opposed to improvement itself for its own sake, but that they are so afraid of change. They call themselves Conservatives, and wish to preserve every thing as it is. They hate the process of pulling down. Now, if a thing is good, it is better, of course, to preserve it; but, on the other hand, if it is bad, it is better that it should be pulled down. When, therefore, you are asked whether you are a Conservative or not, reply that that depends upon the character of the inst.i.tution or the usage which is attacked. If it is good, let it stand. If it is bad, let it be destroyed.

In the case of Peter's proposed improvements and reforms the Church and the clergy were Conservatives of the most determined character. Of course, the plotters of the conspiracy in Moscow were in communication with the patriarch and the leading ecclesiastics in forming their plans; and in arranging for the marching of the Guards to the capital they took care to have priests with them to encourage them in the movement, and to a.s.sure them that in opposing the present government and restoring Sophia to power they were serving the cause of G.o.d and religion by promoting the expulsion from the country of the infidel foreigners that were coming in in such numbers, and subverting all the good old usages and customs of the realm.

It was this sympathy on the part of the clergy which gave the officers and soldiers of the Guards their courage and confidence in daring to persist in their march to Moscow in defiance of the army of General Gordon, brought out to oppose them.

The two armies approached each other. General Gordon, as is usual in such cases, ordered a battery of artillery which he had brought up in the road before the Guards to fire, but he directed that the guns should be pointed so high that the b.a.l.l.s should go over the heads of the enemy.

His object was to intimidate them. But the effect was the contrary. The priests, who had come into the army of the insurgents to encourage them in the fight, told them that a miracle had been performed. G.o.d had averted the b.a.l.l.s from them, they said. They were fighting for the honor of his cause and for the defense of his holy religion, and they might rely upon it that he would not suffer them to be harmed.

But these a.s.surances of the priests proved, unfortunately for the poor Guards, to be entirely unfounded. When General Gordon found that firing over the heads of the rebels did no good, ho gave up at once all hope of any adjustment of the difficulty, and he determined to restrain himself no longer, but to put forth the whole of his strength, and kill and destroy all before him in the most determined and merciless manner. A furious battle followed, in which the Guards were entirely defeated. Two or three thousand of them were killed, and all the rest were surrounded and made prisoners.

The first step taken by General Gordon, with the advice of the Russian n.o.bles who had accompanied him, was to count off the prisoners and hang every tenth man. The next was to put the officers to the torture, in order to compel them to confess what their real object was in marching to Moscow. After enduring their tortures as long as human nature could bear them, they confessed that the movement was a concerted one, made in connection with a conspiracy within the city, and that the object was to subvert the present government, and to liberate the Princess Sophia and place her upon the throne. They also gave the names of a number of prominent persons in Moscow who, they said, were the leaders of the conspiracy.

It was in this state of the affair that the tidings of what had occurred reached Peter in Vienna, as is related in the last chapter. He immediately set out on his return to Moscow in a state of rage and fury against the rebels that it would be impossible to describe. As he arrived at the capital, he commenced an inquisition into the affair by putting every body to the torture whom he supposed to be implicated as a leader in it. From the agony of these sufferers he extorted the names of innumerable victims, who, as fast as they were named, were seized and put to death. There were a great many of the ancient n.o.bles thus condemned, a great many ladies of high rank, and large numbers of priests. These persons were all executed, or rather ma.s.sacred, in the most reckless and merciless manner. Some were beheaded; some were broken on the wheel, and then left to die in horrible agonies. Many were buried alive, their heads only being left above the ground. It is said that Peter took such a savage delight in these punishments, that he executed many of the victims with his own hands. At one time, when half intoxicated at a banquet, he ordered twenty of his prisoners to be brought in, and then, with his brandy before him, which was his favorite drink, and which he often drank to excess, he caused them to be led, one after another, to the block, that he might cut off their heads himself. He took a drink of brandy after each execution while the officers were bringing forward the next man. He was just an hour, it was said, in cutting off the twenty heads, which allows of an average of three minutes to each man. This story is almost too horrible to be believed, but, unfortunately, it comports too well with the general character which Peter has always sustained in the opinion of mankind in respect to the desperate and reckless cruelty to which he could be aroused under the influence of intoxication and anger.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Peter turning executioner.]

About two thousand of the Guards were beheaded. The bodies of these men were laid upon the ground in a public place, arranged in rows, with their heads lying beside them. They covered more than an acre of ground. Here they were allowed to lie all the remainder of the winter, as long, in fact, as the flesh continued frozen, and then, when the spring came on, they were thrown together into a deep ditch, dug to receive them, and thus were buried.

There were also a great number of gibbets set up on all the roads leading to Moscow, and upon these gibbets men were hung, and the bodies allowed to remain there, like the beheaded Guards upon the ground, until the spring.

As for the Princess Sophia, she was still in the convent where Peter had placed her, the conspirators not having reached the point of liberating her before their plot was discovered. Peter, however, caused the three authors of the address, which was to have been made to Sophia, calling upon her to a.s.sume the crown, to be sent to the convent, and there hung before Sophia's windows. And then, by his orders, the arm of the princ.i.p.al man among them was cut off, the address was put into his hand, and, when the fingers had stiffened around it, the limb was fixed to the wall in Sophia's chamber, as if in the act of offering her the address, and ordered to remain so until the address should drop, of itself, upon the floor.

Such were the horrible means by which Peter attempted to strike terror into his subjects, and to put down the spirit of conspiracy and rebellion. He doubtless thought that it was only by such severities as these that the end could be effectually attained. At all events, the end was attained. The rebellion was completely suppressed, and all open opposition to the progress of the Czar's proposed improvements and reforms ceased. The few leading n.o.bles who adhered to the old customs and usages of the realm retired from all connection with public affairs, and lived thenceforth in seclusion, mourning, like good Conservatives, the triumph of the spirit of radicalism and innovation which was leading the country, as they thought, to certain ruin. The old Guards, whom it had been proved so utterly impossible to bring over to Peter's views, were disbanded, and other troops, organized on a different system, were embodied in their stead. By this time the English ship-builders, and the other mechanics and artisans that Peter had engaged, began to arrive in the country, and the way was open for the emperor to go on vigorously in the accomplishment of his favorite and long-cherished plans.

The Princess Sophia, worn out with the agitations and dangers through which she had pa.s.sed, and crushed in spirit by the dreadful scenes to which her brother had exposed her, now determined to withdraw wholly from the scene. She took the veil in the convent where she was confined, and went as a nun into the cloisters with the other sisters. The name that she a.s.sumed was Marpha.

Of course, all her ambitious aspirations were now forever extinguished, and the last gleam of earthly hope faded away from her mind. She pined away under the influences of disappointment, hopeless vexation, and bitter grief for about six years, and then the nuns of the convent followed the body of sister Marpha to the tomb.

CHAPTER IX.

REFORMS.

1700-1701

Peter begins his proposed reforms--Remodeling the army--Changes of dress--The officers--New appointments--Motives and object of the Czar--Means of revenue--Mysterious power--The secret of it--Management of a standing army--Artful contrivances--Despotism _versus_ freedom--Policy of the American people--Standing armies--The American government is weak--The people reserve their strength--Peter's policy--The Church--Conservatism of the clergy--The patriarch--Ancient custom--The emperor on the procession--Emblems--Peter's reflections on the subject--Peter's determination--He proceeds cautiously--Contest with the bishops--Peter is victorious--Other reforms--Collection of the revenues--New revenue system--Manners and customs of the people--Mustaches and beards--The long dresses suppressed--Effect of ridicule--The jester's marriage--Curious sleeves--Mode of manoeuvring the sleeve--The boyars in the streets--Long trains of attendants--Peter changes the whole system--Motives of the Czar--Ultimate effect of his reforms

As soon as Peter had sufficiently glutted his vengeance on those whom he chose to consider, whether justly or unjustly, as implicated in the rebellion, he turned his attention at once to the work of introducing the improvements and reforms which had been suggested to him by what he had seen in the western countries of Europe. There was a great deal of secret hostility to the changes which he thus wished to make, although every thing like open opposition to his will had been effectually put down by the terrible severity of his dealings with the rebels. He continued to urge his plans of reform during the whole course of his reign, and though he met from time to time with a great variety of difficulties in his efforts to carry them into effect, he was in the end triumphantly successful in establishing and maintaining them. I shall proceed to give a general account of these reforms in this chapter, notwithstanding that the work of introducing them extended over a period of many years subsequent to this time.