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Makers of History
PETER THE GREAT
by
JACOB ABBOTT
With Engravings
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF PETER THE GREAT.]
New York and London
Harper & Brothers Publishers
1902
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight
hundred and fifty-nine, by
Harper & Brothers,
In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Southern District of
New York.
Copyright, 1887, by Benjamin Vaughan Abbott, Austin Abbott, Lyman
Abbott, and Edward Abbott.
PREFACE.
There are very few persons who have not heard of the fame of Peter the
Great, the founder, as he is generally regarded by mankind, of Russian
civilization. The celebrity, however, of the great Muscovite sovereign
among young persons is due in a great measure to the circumstance of
his having repaired personally to Holland, in the course of his efforts
to introduce the industrial arts among his people, in order to study
himself the art and mystery of shipbuilding, and of his having worked
with his own hands in a ship-yard there. The little shop where Peter
pursued these practical studies still stands in Saardam, a
ship-building town not far from Amsterdam. The building is of wood,
and is now much decayed; but, to preserve it from farther injury, it
has been incased in a somewhat larger building of brick, and it is
visited annually by great numbers of curious travelers.
The whole history of Peter, as might be expected from the indications
of character developed by this incident, forms a narrative that is full
of interest and instruction for all.
[Transcriber's note: In the original book, each page had a header
summarizing the contents of that page. These headers have been
collected into introductory paragraphs at the start of each chapter.
The headers also contain the year in which the events on the page took
place. These dates have been placed between the chapter title and the
introductory paragraph, in the form of a date range, e.g., for Chapter
I, "1676-1684."]
CONTENTS.
Chapter
I. THE PRINCESS SOPHIA
II. THE PRINCESS'S DOWNFALL
III. THE CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH OF PETER
IV. LE FORT AND MENZIKOFF
V. COMMENCEMENT OF THE REIGN
VI. THE EMPEROR'S TOUR
VII. CONCLUSION OF THE TOUR
VIII. THE REBELLION
IX. REFORMS
X. THE BATTLE OF NARVA
XI. THE BUILDING OF ST. PETERSBURG
XII. THE REVOLT OF MAZEPPA
XIII. THE BATTLE OF PULTOWA
XIV. THE EMPRESS CATHARINE
XV. THE PRINCE ALEXIS
XVI. THE FLIGHT OF ALEXIS
XVII. THE TRIAL
XVIII. THE CONDEMNATION AND DEATH OF ALEXIS
XIX. CONCLUSION
ENGRAVINGS.
PORTRAIT OF PETER . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_.
THE ESCAPE
MENZIKOFF SELLING HIS CAKES
PETER AMONG THE SHIPPING
PETER TURNING EXECUTIONER
MAP OF THE RUSSIAN AND SWEDISH FRONTIER
STRATAGEMS OF THE SWEDES
SITUATION OF ST. PETERSBURG
FLIGHT OF THE KING OF SWEDEN
THE EMPRESS CATHARINE
THE CZAR'S VISIT TO ALEXIS IN PRISON
PETER THE GREAT.
CHAPTER I.
THE PRINCESS SOPHIA.
1676-1684
Parentage of Peter--His father's double marriage--Death of his
father--The princesses--Their places of seclusion--Theodore and
John--Sophia uneasy in the convent--Her request--Her probable
motives--Her success--Increase of her influence--Jealousies--Parties
formed--The imperial guards--Their character and
influence--Dangers--Sophia and the soldiers--Sophia's continued
success--Death of Theodore--Peter proclaimed--Plots formed by
Sophia--Revolution--Means of exciting the people--Poisoning--Effect of
the stories that were circulating--Peter and his mother--The Monastery of
the Trinity--Natalia's flight--Narrow escape of Peter--Commotion in the
city--Sophia is unsuccessful--Couvansky's schemes--Sophia's attempt to
appease the soldiers--No effect produced--Couvansky's views--His plan of
a marriage for his son--Indignation of Sophia--A stratagem--Couvansky
falls into the snare--Excitement produced by his
death--Galitzin--Measures adopted by him--They are successful
The circumstances under which Peter the Great came to the throne form a
very remarkable--indeed, in some respects, quite a romantic story.
The name of his father, who reigned as Emperor of Russia from 1645 to
1676, was Alexis Michaelowitz. In the course of his life, this Emperor
Alexis was twice married. By his first wife he had two sons, whose names
were Theodore and John,[1] and four daughters. The names of the
daughters were Sophia, Catharine, Mary, and Sediassa. By his second wife
he had two children--a son and a daughter. The name of the son was
Peter, and that of the daughter was Natalia Alexowna. Of all these
children, those with whom we have most to do are the two oldest sons,
Theodore and John, and the oldest daughter, Sophia, by the first wife;
and Peter, the oldest son by the second wife, the hero of this history.
The name of the second wife, Peter's mother, was Natalia.
Of course, Theodore, at his father's death, was heir to the throne. Next
to him in the line of succession came John; and next after John came
Peter, the son of the second wife; for, by the ancient laws and usages of
the Muscovite monarchy, the daughters were excluded from the succession
altogether. Indeed, not only were the daughters excluded themselves from
the throne, but special precautions were taken to prevent their ever
having sons to lay claim to it. They were forbidden to marry, and, in
order to make it impossible that they should ever violate this rule, they
were all placed in convents before they arrived at a marriageable age,
and were compelled to pass their lives there in seclusion. Of course,
the convents where these princesses were lodged were very richly and
splendidly endowed, and the royal inmates enjoyed within the walls every
comfort and luxury which could possibly be procured for them in such
retreats, and which could tend in any measure to reconcile them to being
forever debarred from all the pleasures of love and the sweets of
domestic life.
Now it so happened that both Theodore and John were feeble and sickly
children, while Peter was robust and strong. The law of descent was,
however, inexorable, and, on the death of Alexis, Theodore ascended to
the throne. Besides, even if it had been possible to choose among the
sons of Alexis, Peter was at this time altogether too young to reign, for
at his father's death he was only about four years old. He was born in
1672, and his father died in 1676.
Theodore was at this time about sixteen. Of course, however, being so
young, and his health being so infirm, he could not take any active part
in the administration of government, but was obliged to leave every thing
in the hands of his counselors and ministers of state, who managed
affairs as they thought proper, though they acted always in Theodore's
name.
There were a great many persons who were ambitious of having a share of
the power which the young Czar thus left in the hands of his
subordinates; and, among these, perhaps the most ambitious of all was the
Princess Sophia, Theodore's sister, who was all this time shut up in the
convent to which the rules and regulations of imperial etiquette
consigned her. She was very uneasy in this confinement, and wished very
much to get released, thinking that if she could do so she should be able
to make herself of considerable consequence in the management of public
affairs. So she made application to the authorities to be allowed to go
to the palace to see and take care of her brother in his sickness. This
application was at length complied with, and Sophia went to the palace.
Here she devoted herself with so much assiduity to the care of her
brother, watching constantly at his bedside, and suffering no one to
attend upon him or to give him medicines but herself, that she won not
only his heart, but the hearts of all the nobles of the court, by her
seemingly disinterested sisterly affection.
Indeed, it is not by any means impossible that Sophia might have been at
first disinterested and sincere in her desire to minister to the wants of
her brother, and to solace and comfort him in his sickness. But, however
this may have been at the outset, the result was that, after a time, she
acquired so much popularity and influence that she became quite an
important personage at court. She was a very talented and accomplished
young woman, and was possessed, moreover, of a strong and masculine
character. Yet she was very agreeable and insinuating in her manners;
and she conversed so affably, and at the same time so intelligently, with
all the grandees of the empire, as they came by turns to visit her
brother in his sick chamber, that they all formed a very high estimate of
her character.
She also obtained a great ascendency over the mind of Theodore himself,
and this, of itself, very much increased her importance in the eyes of
the courtiers. They all began to think that, if they wished to obtain
any favor of the emperor, it was essential that they should stand well
with the princess. Thus every one, finding how fast she was rising in
influence, wished to have the credit of being her earliest and most
devoted friend; so they all vied with each other in efforts to aid in
aggrandizing her.
Things went on in this way very prosperously for a time; but at length,
as might have been anticipated, suspicions and jealousies began to arise,
and, after a time, the elements of a party opposed to the princess began
to be developed. These consisted chiefly of the old nobles of the
empire, the heads of the great families who had been accustomed, under
the emperors, to wield the chief power of the state. These persons were
naturally jealous of the ascendency which they saw that the princess was
acquiring, and they began to plot together in order to devise means for
restricting or controlling it.
But, besides these nobles, there was another very important power at the
imperial court at this time, namely, the army. In all despotic
governments, it is necessary for the sovereign to have a powerful
military force under his command, to maintain him in his place; and it is
necessary for him to keep this force as separate and independent as
possible from the people. There was in Russia at this time a very
powerful body of troops, which had been organized by the emperors, and
was maintained by them as an imperial guard. The name of this body of
troops was the Strelitz; but, in order not to encumber the narrative
unnecessarily with foreign words, I shall call them simply the Guards.
Of course, a body of troops like these, organized and maintained by a
despotic dynasty for the express purpose, in a great measure, of
defending the sovereign against his subjects, becomes in time a very
important element of power in the state. The officers form a class by
themselves, separate from, and jealous of the nobles of the country; and
this state of things has often led to very serious collisions and
outbreaks. The guards have sometimes proved too strong for the dynasty
that created them, and have made their own generals the real monarchs of
the country. When such a state of things as this exists, the government
which results is called a military despotism. This happened in the days
of the Roman empire. The army, which was originally formed by the
regular authorities of the country, and kept for a time in strict
subjection to them, finally became too powerful to be held any longer
under control, and they made their own leading general emperor for many
successive reigns, thus wholly subverting the republic which originally
organized and maintained them.
It was such a military body as this which now possessed great influence
and power at Moscow. The Princess Sophia, knowing how important it would
be to her to secure the influence of such a power upon her side, paid
great attention to the officers, and omitted nothing in her power which
was calculated to increase her popularity with the whole corps. The
result was that the Guards became her friends, while a great many of the
old nobles were suspicious and jealous of her, and were beginning to
devise means to curtail her increasing influence.
But, notwithstanding all that they could do, the influence of Sophia
increased continually, until the course of public affairs came to be, in
fact, almost entirely under her direction. The chief minister of state
was a certain Prince Galitzin, who was almost wholly devoted to her
interests. Indeed, it was through her influence that he was appointed to
his office. Things continued in this state for about six years, and
then, at length, Theodore was taken suddenly sick. It soon became
evident that he could not live. On his dying bed he designated Peter as
his successor, passing over his brother John. The reason for this was
that John was so extremely feeble and infirm that he seemed to be wholly
unfit to reign over such an empire. Besides various other maladies under
which he suffered, he was afflicted with epilepsy, a disease which
rendered it wholly unsuitable that he should assume any burdens whatever
of responsibility and care.
It is probable that it was through the influence of some of the nobles
who were opposed to Sophia that Theodore was induced thus to designate
Peter as his successor. However this may be, Peter, though then only ten
years old, was proclaimed emperor by the nobles immediately after
Theodore's death. Sophia was much disappointed, and became greatly
indignant at these proceedings. John was her own brother, while Peter,
being a son of the second wife, was only her half-brother. John, too, on
account of his feeble health, would probably never be able to take any
charge of the government, and she thought that, if he had been allowed to
succeed Theodore, she herself might have retained the real power in her
hands, as regent, as long as she lived; whereas Peter promised to have
strength and vigor to govern the empire himself in a few years, and, in
the mean time, while he remained in his minority, it was natural to
expect that he would be under the influence of persons connected with his
own branch of the family, who would be hostile to her, and that thus her
empire would come to an end.
So she determined to resist the transfer of the supreme power to Peter.
She secretly engaged the Guards on her side. The commander-in-chief of
the Guards was an officer named Couvansky. He readily acceded to her
proposals, and, in conjunction with him, she planned and organized a
revolution.
In order to exasperate the people and the Guards, and excite them to the
proper pitch of violence, Sophia and Couvansky spread a report that the
late emperor had not died a natural death, but had been poisoned. This
murder had been committed, they said, by a party who hoped, by setting
Theodore and his brother John aside, to get the power into their hands in
the name of Peter, whom they intended to make emperor, in violation of
the rights of John, Theodore's true heir. There was a plan also formed,
they said, to poison all the principal officers of the Guards, who, the
conspirators knew, would oppose their wicked proceedings, and perhaps
prevent the fulfillment of them if they were not put out of the way. The
poison by which Theodore had been put to death was administered, they
said, by two physicians who attended upon him in his sickness, and who
had been bribed to give him poison with his medicine. The Guards were to
have been destroyed by means of poison, which was to have been mixed with
the brandy and the beer that was distributed to them on the occasion of
the funeral.
These stories produced a great excitement among the Guards, and also
among a considerable portion of the people of Moscow. The guards came
out into the streets and around the palaces in great force. They first
seized the two physicians who were accused of having poisoned the
emperor, and killed them on the spot. Then they took a number of nobles
of high rank, and officers of state, who were supposed to be the leaders
of the party in favor of Peter, and the instigators of the murder of
Theodore, and, dragging them out into the public squares, slew them
without mercy. Some they cut to pieces. Others they threw down from the
wall of the imperial palace upon the soldiers' pikes below, which the men
held up for the purpose of receiving them.
Peter was at this time with his mother in the palace. Natalia was
exceedingly alarmed, not for herself, but for her son. As soon as the
revolution broke out she made her escape from the palace, and set out
with Peter in her arms to fly to a celebrated family retreat of the
emperor's, called the Monastery of the Trinity. This monastery was a
sort of country palace of the Czar's, which, besides being a pleasant
rural retreat, was also, from its religious character, a sanctuary where
fugitives seeking refuge in it might, under all ordinary circumstances,
feel themselves beyond the reach of violence and of every species of
hostile molestation.
Natalia fled with Peter and a few attendants to this refuge, hotly
pursued, however, all the way by a body of the Guards. If the fugitives
had been overtaken on the way, both mother and son would doubtless have
been cut to pieces without mercy. As it was, they very narrowly escaped,
for when Natalia arrived at the convent the soldiers were close upon her.
Two of them followed her in before the doors could be closed. Natalia
rushed into the church, which formed the centre of the convent inclosure,
and took refuge with her child at the foot of the altar. The soldiers
pursued her there, brandishing their swords, and were apparently on the
point of striking the fatal blow; but the sacredness of the place seemed
to arrest them at the last moment, and, after pausing an instant with
their uplifted swords in their hands, and uttering imprecations against
their victims for having thus escaped them, they sullenly retired.
In the mean time the commotion in the city went on, and for several days
no one could foresee how it would end. At length a sort of compromise
was effected, and it was agreed by the two parties that John should be
proclaimed Czar, not alone, but in conjunction with his brother Peter,
the regency to remain for the present, as it had been, in the hands of
Sophia. Thus Sophia really gained all her ends; for the retaining of
Peter's name, as nominally Czar in conjunction with his brother, was of
no consequence, since her party had proved itself the strongest in the
struggle, and all the real power remained in her hands. She had obtained
this triumph mainly through Couvansky and the Guards; and now, having
accomplished her purposes by means of their military violence, she
wished, of course, that they should retire to their quarters, and resume
their habits of subordination, and of submission to the civil authority.
But this they would not do. Couvansky, having found how important a
personage he might become through the agency of the terrible organization
which was under his direction and control, was not disposed at once to
lay aside his power; and the soldiers, intoxicated with the delights of
riot and pillage, could not now be easily restrained. Sophia found, as a
great many other despotic rulers have done in similar cases, that she had
evoked a power which she could not now control. Couvansky and the troops
under his command continued their ravages in the city, plundering the
rich houses of every thing that could gratify their appetites and
passions, and murdering all whom they imagined to belong to the party
opposed to them.
Sophia first tried to appease them and reduce them to order by
conciliatory measures. From the Monastery of the Trinity, to which she
had herself now retreated for safety, she sent a message to Couvansky and
to the other chiefs of the army, thanking them for the zeal which they
had shown in revenging the death of her brother, the late emperor, and in
vindicating the rights of the true successor, John, and promising to
remember, and in due time to reward, the great services which they had
rendered to the state. She added that, now, since the end which they all
had in view in the movement which they had made had been entirely and
happily accomplished, the soldiers should be restrained from any farther
violence, and recalled to their quarters.
This message had no effect. Indeed, Couvansky, finding how great the
power was of the corps which he commanded, began to conceive the idea
that he might raise himself to the supreme command. He thought that the
Guards were all devoted to him, and would do whatever he required of
them. He held secret conferences with the principal officers under his
command, and endeavored to prepare their minds for the revolution which
he contemplated by representing to them that neither of the princes who
had been proclaimed were fit to reign. John, he said, was almost an
imbecile, on account of the numerous and hopeless bodily infirmities to
which he was subject. Peter was yet a mere boy; and then, besides, even
when he should become a man, he would very likely be subject to the same
diseases with his brother. These men would never have either the
intelligence to appreciate or the power to reward such services as the
Guards were capable of rendering to the state; whereas he, their
commander, and one of their own body, would be both able and disposed to
do them ample justice.
Couvansky also conceived the design of securing and perpetuating the
power which he hoped thus to acquire through the army by a marriage of
his son with one of the princesses of the imperial family. He selected
Catharine, who was Sophia's sister--the one next in age to her--for the
intended bride. He cautiously proposed this plan to Sophia, hoping that
she might be induced to approve and favor it, in which case he thought
that every obstacle would be removed from his way, and the ends of his
ambition would be easily and permanently attained.
But Sophia was perfectly indignant at such a proposal. It seemed to her
the height of presumption and audacity for a mere general in the army to
aspire to a connection by marriage with the imperial family, and to a
transfer, in consequence, of the supreme power to himself and to his
descendants forever. She resolved immediately to adopt vigorous measures
to defeat these schemes in the most effectual manner. She determined to
kill Couvansky. But, as the force which he commanded was so great that
she could not hope to accomplish any thing by an open contest, she
concluded to resort to stratagem. She accordingly pretended to favor
Couvansky's plans, and seemed to be revolving in her mind the means of
carrying them into effect. Among other things, she soon announced a
grand celebration of the Princess Catharine's fête-day, to be held at the
Monastery of the Trinity, and invited Couvansky to attend it.[2]
Couvansky joyfully accepted this invitation, supposing that the occasion
would afford him an admirable opportunity to advance his views in respect
to his son. So Couvansky, accompanied by his son, set out on the
appointed day from Moscow to proceed to the monastery. Not suspecting
any treachery, he was accompanied by only a small escort. On the road he
was waylaid by a body of two hundred horsemen, whom Galitzin, Sophia's
minister of state, had sent to the spot. Couvansky's guard was at once
overpowered, and both he and his son were taken prisoners. They were
hurried at once to a house, where preparations for receiving them had
already been made, and there, without any delay, sentence of death
against them both, on a charge of treason, was read to them, and their
heads were cut off on the spot.
The news of this execution spread with great rapidity, and it produced,
of course, an intense excitement and commotion among all the Guards as
fast as it became known to them. They threatened vengeance against the
government for having thus assassinated, as they expressed it, their
chief and father. They soon put themselves in motion, and began
murdering, plundering, and destroying more furiously than ever. The
violence which they displayed led to a reaction. A party was formed,
even among the Guards, of persons that were disposed to discountenance
these excesses, and even to submit to the government. The minister
Galitzin took advantage of these dissensions to open a communication with
those who were disposed to return to their duty. He managed the affair
so well that, in the end, the great body of the soldiers were brought
over, and, finally, they themselves, of their own accord, slew the
officers who had been most active in the revolt, and offered their heads
to the minister in token of their submission. They also implored pardon
of the government for the violence and excess into which they had been
led. Of course, this pardon was readily granted. The places of
Couvansky and of the other officers who had been slain were filled by new
appointments, who were in the interest of the Princess Sophia, and the
whole corps returned to their duty. Order was now soon fully restored in
Moscow, rendering it safe for Sophia and her court to leave the monastery
and return to the royal palace in the town. Galitzin was promoted to a
higher office, and invested with more extended powers than he had yet
held, and Sophia found herself finally established as the real sovereign
of the country, though, of course, she reigned, in the name of her
brothers.
[1] The Russian form of these names is Foedor [Transcriber's note:
Feodor?] and Ivan.
[2] These celebrations were somewhat similar to the birthday celebrations
of England and America, only the day on which they were held was not the
birth-day of the lady, but the fête-day, as it was called, of her patron
saint--that is, of the saint whose name she bore. All the names for
girls used in those countries where the Greek or the Catholic Church
prevails are names of saints, each one of whom has in the calendar a
certain day set apart as her fête-day. Each girl considers the saint
from whom she is named as her patron saint, and the fête-day of this
saint, instead of her own birth-day, is the anniversary which is
celebrated in honor of her.