THE TRIUMPHAL ARCH OF NARVA
While he was thus winning glory a shadow was clouding his life. As it were by main force he had accomplished his reforms; he destroyed the ancient nobility and established the Order of Rank based on service to the state; he brought woman from the seclusion of the terem into society; he replaced the ancient Council of boyars by the Senate; he divided the Empire into governments and provinces with a foreign system of laws and justice; he established the Secret Police; regulated taxes; formed a regular army by conscription; he established the Patriarchate and gave its power to the Holy Synod; he allowed foreigners to work mines and start manufactories; he made a new alphabet and established the Moscow Gazette; he founded schools, academies, and colleges, in which the sciences excluded the classics; he built hospitals, and sent out exploring expeditions; he built a new capital, and made Russia a European state.
All these reforms he saw endangered by the conduct of his only son. Alexis was eight years old when his mother was sent to the convent. She had soon thrown off the habit of a nun, and lived in her cell with all the state of a princess. The young Alexis often visited her and fell under her narrowing influence. His father tried in vain to instill into his mind his own ideas, and married him to Charlotte of Brunswick, but it was too late. The young man was indolent and wayward; he neglected his bride because she was a foreigner; the anxious father saw that his son was the hope of those who hated his reforms. He wrote him: "Disquiet for the future destroys the joy caused by our present successes, for I see that you despise all that can make you worthy to reign after me. To whom shall I leave what I have established and done? If you do not alter your conduct, know that I shall cut you off from the succession. I have not spared my own life for my country and my people; do you think I shall spare yours? Better a worthy stranger than an unworthy relation."
While Peter was in the West Alexis fled to the Court of Charles VI. at Vienna, and was finally concealed in a castle near Naples. He was tracked and brought back to Moscow, where his father obliged him to sign a formal renunciation of the throne. It was found that Alexis had openly wished for his father's death, and had promised as soon as he was Tsar to abandon St. Petersburg and the Swedish conquests, and bring the court back to Moscow. Twice he was knouted, and a tribunal of the highest officials condemned him to death. Two days after the sentence was passed he was again knouted and died under the torture.
This was Peter's last conflict with the forces of the past. All his life long he had allowed nothing to stand in the way of his "terrible task;" comfort, luxury, pleasure, sister, wife, son, everything, was sacrificed to the one great idea. And what was his reward? He was so feared and hated by boyar and serf that there was scarcely one to be found in all Russia who did not devoutly wish for his death. Some said that he was bewitched by the Germans; others declared that he was not the son of the Tsar Alexis, but a changeling, that Natalia's child was a girl, and that the midwives had changed her for a son of Lefort. Others believed that the real Tsar had been killed while among the foreigners, who sent one of their own men to oppress Russia and turn the orthodox from the faith. The stories grew. It was whispered about that the Tsar Peter had gone into the realm of glass, where a woman reigned who mocked the Tsar and put him into a hot frying-pan and then threw him into prison. Others varied the legend by declaring that Peter had been nailed up in a cask lined with spikes and thrown into the sea. "This is not our lord," they said; "this is a German; "and they wanted to kill him.
MAZEPPA.
Meanwhile Peter's health became broken by his toils and excesses. After the death of Alexis he issued the famous decree that the Russian Emperor had the right to name his successor. This right. Peter himself failed to use, although he solemnly crowned Catherine as Empress. His death was brought on by a series of exposures. He flung himself into ice-cold water to save a crew of shipwrecked sailors. He recovered from the fever thus brought upon him, but soon afterwards drank to excess at one of his unworthy festivities. His cold was increased at the "Blessing of the Neva," and before he expressed his last wishes he became unconscious and died.
How the Russian Throne
PASSED FROM HAND TO HAND
Once more Old and New Russia were brought face to face, but Peter's "eaglets" were all powerful in the Council and in the army; they straightway gave the throne to Catherine, the "heroine of the Pruth." The two years of her reign were mainly occupied with Peter's favorite schemes; the Academy of Sciences was founded; new exploring expeditions were sent out; St. Petersburg and the fleet were fostered. At Catherine's death the High Council undertook to govern in the name of Peter II., the young son of the unfortunate Alexis. As in the preceding reign, Prince Menshikof was at first the leading spirit, but his overweening arrogance led to his disgrace. The conservative party got the young Emperor under their influence, and began to undo the reforms of the "Giant Tsar." The court returned to Moscow; the poor little Peter was led into all sorts of idle follies; the courtiers cared only for their own interests; "They never obey me," he cried to his aunt Elizabeth, "but I will break my chains yet." It was death which broke his chains. Like his grandfather, he caught cold at the "Blessing of the Waters," and died suddenly in his fifteenth year. His last words were: "Get ready the sledge! I want to go to my sister."
There were now five candidates for the vacant throne: Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great; his grandson, Peter of Holstein; his divorced wife, and his two nieces, Catherine, Duchess of Mecklenburg, and Anna, Duchess of Kurland: The leading nobles took upon themselves to offer the crown to the Duchess Anna. She signed an agreement to consult the High Council on all government affairs, and to make neither war nor peace without its consent, nor to impose taxes, nor punish any noble without trial, nor marry, nor name a successor. Anna came to Moscow, but she soon found that the "Constitution" which she had agreed to fulfil was not the will of the whole nation, "Let her be an autocrat like her predecessors," was the popular cry. She then seized the power and suppressed the High Council. She put Germans into all the chief offices; she had no pity upon her subjects; taxes were collected mercilessly; "the peasants beheld their last head of cattle, their last tool, seized by the Government for payment."
CHATEAU OF PETERHOFF.
The spies of the Secret Court of Police were everywhere; a hint was enough to bring a Russian noble under suspicion; thousands of the upper classes were banished and beheaded. Anna's low-born lover, Biren, whom she made Duke of Kurland, was brutal and cordially hated; the discontent became universal; famines and fires drove the people to despair; they thought that these woes had come upon them because a woman reigned; "Cities ruled by women endure not; the walls built by women are never high," was their proverb. They longed for the staff of Peter to chastise "Biren, the cursed German." For greater safety the court returned to St. Petersburg. "No one here dares to murmur against the will of the Empress," wrote Lefort, "and the evil-minded have been so effectually put out of the way that scarce a trace can be found of the Russian whose unfriendly designs are to be feared."
The succession to the Polish throne soon interested Anna. Twenty thousand Russian entered Poland and proclaimed Augustus III. King, although the nobles had elected the candidate of France. The French met the Russians in battle for the first time, and were beaten near Danzig. Then the war was transferred to the Rhine and Italy. Russia came to the aid of Austria, and for the first time also Western Germany saw a Russian army in its borders. France, in order to avenge itself on Russia, persuaded Turkey to declare war. Anna took the offensive and sent a great expedition across the steppes of the South. The lines of Perekop were forced, the capital of the Krim kans was pillaged, the Western Crimea was laid waste. Azof was again captured; the next year the conquests continued. The Russians crossed the Pruth and entered the capital of Moldavia. Austria grew jealous and obliged its Russian allies to make peace. The sacrifice of a hundred thousand men was rewarded with only the fortress of Azof and a little tongue of land between the Bug and the Dnieper. The terrible cost in men and money of this campaign still further increased the discontent. The Secret Police discovered that the Dalgoruki family was heading a conspiracy to remove the Empress, make way with Biren and the Germans, and raise Elizabeth to the throne.