Still not content with this pallid verdict, Peter turned to the 127 members of the secular court. He ordered them to judge his son fairly and objectively, "without flattering us, or being apprehensive. Do not be moved by the fact that you are to judge the son of your sovereign. For we swear to you by the Great God and His judgments that you have absolutely nothing to fear." On June 16, Peter specifically passed to the court the power to proceed against Alexis as it would against any other subject accused of treason, "in the form required and with the necessary examination"—i.e., torture.
Given these commands and assurances, the court summoned the Tsarevich to the Senate Hall and announced to him that "though they were much grieved by his past conduct," yet they were obliged to obey their orders and, without regard for"his person and his being the son of their most clement sovereign, interrogate him." First came examination under torture. On June 19, Alexis received twenty-five blows of the knout. No new confession was wrung from him by this pain, and on June 24 torture was applied again. With fifteen more strokes of the knout tearing the flesh off his back in bloody ribbons, Alexis admitted that he had told his confessor, "I wish for my father's death!" In that abject state, ready to admit anything, he told his interrogator, Tolstoy, that he would even have been willing to pay the Emperor to supply him with foreign troops to use in seizing the Russian throne from his father.
This was sufficent. That same evening, June 24, the high court, unanimously and without discussion, "with afflicted hearts and eyes full of tears," pronounced sentence. Alexis was to die for the "design of rebellion, the like of which was hardly ever heard of in the world, joined to that of a horrid double patricide, first against the Father of his country and next against his Father by nature." The signatures that followed constituted an almost complete roster of Peter's lieutenants: Menshikov's name came first, followed by General-Admiral Fedor Apraxin, Chancellor Golovkin, Privy Councilors Jacob Dolgoruky, Ivan Musin-Pushkin and Tikhon Streshnev, Senator Peter Apraxin, Vice Chancellor Shafirov, Peter Tolstoy, Senator Dmitry Golitsyn, Generals Adam Weide and Ivan Buturlin, Senator Michael Samarin, Ivan Romodanovsky, Alexis Saltykov, Prince Matthew Gagarin, Governor of Siberia, and Kyril Naryshkin, Governor of Moscow.
The sentence now lay in Peter's hands; it could not be carried out without his approval and signature. Peter hesitated to sign, but very soon thereafter events were lifted beyond his control. An account of the final day is given by Weber
The next day being Thursday, the 26th of June, early in the moming, the news was brought to the Tsar that the violent passions of the mind and the terrors of death had thrown the Tsarevich into an apoplectic fit. About noon, another messenger brought advice that the Prince was in great danger of his life, whereupon the Tsar sent for the principal men of his court, and caused them to stay with him until he was informed by a third messenger that the Prince, being past hopes, could not outlive the evening, and that he longed to see his father.
Then the Tsar, attended by the aforesaid company, went to see his dying son, who, at the sight of his father, burst into tears, and with his hands folded spoke to him to this effect: That he had grievously and heinously offended the Majesty of God Almighty and of the Tsar, that he hoped he would die of this sickness, and that even if he lived, he was unworthy of life, therefore he begged his father only to take from him the curse he laid upon him at Moscow; to forgive him all his heavy crimes, to give him his paternal blessing, and to cause prayers to be said for his soul.
During these moving words, the Tsar and the whole company almost melted away in tears; His Majesty returned a pathetic answer, and represented to him in a few words all the offenses he had committed against him, and then gave him his forgiveness and blessings, after which they parted with an abundance of tears and lamentations on both sides.
At five in the evening came a fourth messenger, a major of the Guards, to tell the Tsar that the Tsarevich was extremely desirous once more to see his father. The Tsar at first was unwilling to comply with his son's request, but was at last persuaded by the company, who represented to His Majesty how hard it would be to deny that comfort to a son who, being on the point of death, might probably be tortured by stings of guilty conscience. But when His Majesty had just stepped into his sloop to go over to the Fortress, a fifth messenger brought the news that the Prince had already expired.
How, in fact, did Alexis die? No one knew, and no one knows today. The death of the Tsarevich provoked rumor and controversy first in St. Petersburg, then across Russia and Europe. Peter, concerned about the unfavorable impression which this mysterious demise would create abroad, ordered a lengthy official explanation sent to all the courts of Europe. Especially worried about the court of France, which he had so recently visited, he sent a courier to Paris with a letter addressed to his ambassador, Baron de Schleinitz, for delivery to the King and the Regent. After giving a history of the affair and the trial, he concluded:
The secular court, according to all the laws divine and human, were obliged to condemn him [Alexis] to death, with the restriction that it depended on our sovereign power and our paternal clemency whether to pardon him his crimes or to execute the sentence. And of this we notified the Prince, our son.
Nevertheless, we were still undecided, and did not know how to determine an affair of such great importance. On one side paternal tenderness inclined us mostly to pardon him his crimes, on the other we considered the evils into which we would replunge our state and the misfortunes which could arrive if we gave grace to our son.
In the midst of uncertain and distressing agitation, it pleased Almighty God, whose Holy Judgments are always just, to deliver by His divine grace our person and all our empire from all fear and danger and to end the days of our son Alexis who died yesterday. As soon as he had convinced himself of the great crimes he had committed against us and all our empire, and had received the sentence of death, he was struck with a kind of apoplexy. When he recovered from this attack, having still his spirit and free word, he begged us to come to see him, which we did, accompanied by our ministers and senators, in spite of all the wrong he had done us. We found him with his eyes bathed in tears and marking a sincere repentance: He told us that he knew that the hand of God was on him and that he was at the point of accounting for all the actions of his life, and that he did not believe he would be able to be reconciled with God if he was not reconciled with his Sovereign Lord and father. After that he entered into new details of all that had passed, feeling himself guilty, confessed, received the Holy Sacraments, demanded our benediction and begged us to pardon all his crimes. We pardoned him as our paternal duty and the Christian religion obliged us to do.
This unexpected, sudden death has caused us a great sadness. However, we have found solace in believing that Divine Providence has wished to deliver us from all anxiety and to calm our empire. Thus we have found ourselves obliged to render thanks to God and to comport ourselves with all Christian humility in this sad circumstance.
We have judged it wise to give you knowledge of everything that has happened by express courier so that you will be sufficiently informed of it and that you will communicate it in the accustomed manner to His Most Christian Majesty [King Louis XV] and to his Royal Highness the Duke of Orleans, Regent of the Kingdom.