Afrosina also recast her own role; only because of her continual urging, she said, had Alexis agreed to return to Russia. Further, she declared that she had accompanied him on his flight only because he had drawn a knife and threatened to kill her if she refused. Even when she slept with him, she declared, it had been the result of threats and force.
Afrosina's testimony strengthened many of Peter's suspicions. Writing later to the Regent of France, Peter declared that his son had "admitted nothing of his designs" until he was confronted with the letters found in the hands of his mistress. "By these letters, we have known clearly about the rebellious designs of a conspiracy against us, all the circumstances of which the said mistress has publicly, voluntarily, confessed without much examination."
Peter's next move was to summon Alexis and confront him with his lover's accusations. The scene at Mon Plaisir is portrayed in the famous nineteenth century painting by Nikolai Ge: The Tsar, wearing boots which are still in the Kremlin, is seated at a table on the black-and-white-tiled floor of the main hall, His face is stern, yet an eyebrow is raised; he has asked a question and is waiting for an answer. Alexis stands before him, tall, thin-faced, dressed in black like his father. He is worried, sullen and resentful. He looks not at his father but down to the floor while his hand, resting on the table, gives him support. It is a moment of decision.
Under his father's gaze, Alexis struggled to get free of the coils slowly crushing him: He had written to the Emperor complaining of his father, he admitted, but he had not sent the letter. He also admitted writing to the Senate and the archbishops, but declared that he had been forced to do so by the Austrian authorities on threat of expulsion from their protection. Peter then brought in Afrosina, and, to the Tsarevich's face, she repeated her accusations.* As his world crumbled around him, Alexis' explanations became feebler. It was true, he admitted, that the letter to the Emperor had been sent. He had spoken ill of his father, but he had been drunk. He had spoken about the succession and about returning to Russia, but only after his father's natural death. This he explained at length: "I believed my father's death was near when I heard that he had had a sort of epilepsy. As they said that older people who have had it can hardly live long, I believed he would die in two years at the furthest. I thought that after his death I might go out of the Emperor's dominions to Poland and from Poland into the Ukraine, where I did not question but everyone would declare for me. And I believed that at Moscow the Tsarevna Maria and the greater part of the archbishops would do the same. And as for the common people, I heard many persons say that they loved me.
"As for what remains, I was resolved absolutely not to return in my father's lifetime, except in the case I did; that is, when he recalled me."
Peter was not satisfied. He remembered that Afrosina had told him that Alexis had rejoiced when he heard rumors of a Russian army revolt in Mecklenburg. This suggests, the Tsar went on, that if the troops in Mecklenburg really had revolted, "you would have declared for the rebels even in my lifetime."
Alexis* answer to this question was disconnected but honest, and it did enormous damage: "If this news had been true and if they had called me, I would have joined the malcontents, but I had
*Afrosina was released, pardoned, and Peter allowed her to keep an assortment of his son's possessions. She lived her remaining thirty years in St. Petersburg, where she eventually married an officer of the Guards.
no formed design whether I should go and join them or not untill I was called. On the contrary, if they had not sent for me, I should have been afraid of going thither. But if they had, I would have gone.
"I believed they would not call for me but when you were no more, because they designed to take away your life, and I did not believe that they would dethrone you and let you live. But if they had called me, even in your lifetime, probably I should have gone, if they had been strong enough."
A few days later, a further piece of damning evidence was laid before the Tsar. Peter had written to Veselovsky, his ambassador in Vienna, to demand of the Emperor why his son had been forced to write to the Senate and the archbishops. On May 28, Veselovsky's answer came. There had been a major uproar at the Austrian court. The Vice Chancellor, Count Schonborn, had been examined about the matter in the presence of the entire ministry, after which Prince Eugene of Savoy had reported to Veselovsky that neither the Emperor nor Count Schonborn had ever ordered the Tsarevich to write the letters. The truth was that Alexis had written them himself and sent them to Count Schonborn for forwarding to Russia. Schonborn, in his discretion, had not forwarded the letters, and they remained in Vienna. In sum, the Tsarevich had lied and in this lie had involved the Imperial court.
Peter needed to hear no more. The Tsarevich was arrested and placed in the Trubetskoy Bastion of the Peter and Paul Fortress. Two high courts of justice, one ecclesiastical, the other secular, were convoked to consider what should be done with the prisoner. The ecclesiastical court was to consist of all the leaders of the Russian church, the secular court of all ministers, senators, governors, generals and many officers of the Guards. Before the two courts began their sessions, says Weber, Peter spent several hours a day, for a period of eight days, on his knees praying to God to instruct him what his honor and the welfare of the nation required. Then, on June 14, the proceedings began in the Senate Hall in St. Petersburg. Peter arrived accompanied by the ecclesiastical and secular judges, and a solemn religious service was held, asking for divine guidance. The whole assembly took places at a row of tables, and the doors and windows were flung open. The public was invited to enter; Peter wanted the affair to be heard by everyone. The Tsarevich was brought in under guard of four young officers, and the proceedings against him commenced.
Peter reminded his listeners that over the years he had never sought to deny the succession to his son; on the contrary, he had tried "by powerful exhortations to force [Alexis] to lay claim to it by endeavoring to make himself worthy of it." But the Tsarevich, turning his back on his father's efforts, had "made his escape and fled to the Emperor for refuge, claiming his assistance and protection in succoring and assisting him even with armed force ... [to gain] the crown of Russia." Alexis, said Peter, had admitted that if rebellious troops in Mecklenburg had summoned him to be their leader, he would have gone to them even in his father's lifetime. "So that one may judge by all those circumstances that he had a mind for the succession, not in the manner his father- would leave it to him, but in his own way, by foreign assistance or by the strength of rebels, even in his father's lifetime." Further, throughout the investigations Alexis had continually lied and evaded telling the whole truth. As the pardon promised by the father had been conditional on total and honest confession, this pardon was now invalid. At the end of Peter's denunciation, Alexis "confessed to his father and his lord, in the presence of the whole assembly of the states ecclesiastical and secular, that he was guilty of everything described."
Peter asked the ecclesiastical court—three metropolitans, five bishops, four archimandrites and other high churchmen—to advice him what a royal father ought to do with this modem Absalom. Desperately, the churchmen tried to avoid giving a direct answer. The case, they argued, was inappropriate for an ecclesiastical court. Pressed by Peter for a more substantial answer, they proceeded to show that if the Tsar desired to punish his son, he had the authority of the Old Testament to do so (Leviticus XX: "Everyone that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death," and Deuteronomy xxi: "If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son which will not obey the voice of his father . . . then shall his father ... lay hold on him and bring him out unto the elders of his city. . . . And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die.") On the other hand, the churchmen said, if the Tsar wished to be merciful, there were many examples in the teachings of Christ, most notably the parable of the Prodigal Son.