THE TRIAL.
1717-1718
His father's manifesto on his return--Interview between Alexis and his
father--Anger of the Czar--Substantial cause for Peter's
excitement--Grand councils convened--Scene in the hall--Conditional
promise of pardon--Alexis humbled--Secret conference--Alexis
disinherited--The new heir--Oaths administered--Alexis
imprisoned--Investigation commenced--Prisoners--The torture--Arrest of
Kikin--The page--He fails to warn Kikin in time--Condemnation of
prisoners--Executions--Dishonest confessions of Alexis--His
excesses--Result of the examinations--Proofs against Alexis--An
admission--Testimony of Afrosinia
As soon as Alexis arrived in the country, his father issued a
manifesto, in which he gave a long and full account of his son's
misdemeanors and crimes, and of the patient and persevering, but
fruitless efforts which he himself had made to reclaim him, and
announced his determination to cut him off from the succession to the
crown as wholly and hopelessly irreclaimable. This manifesto was one
of the most remarkable documents that history records. It concluded
with deposing Alexis from all his rights as son and heir to his father,
and appointing his younger brother Peter, the little son of Catharine,
as inheritor in his stead; and finally laying the paternal curse upon
Alexis if he ever thereafter pretended to, or in any way claimed the
succession of which he had been deprived.
This manifesto was issued as soon as Peter learned that Alexis had
arrived in the country under the charge of the officers who had been
appointed to bring him, and before the Czar had seen him. Alexis
continued his journey to Moscow, where the Czar then was. When he
arrived he went that same night to the palace, and there had a long
conference with his father. He was greatly alarmed and overawed by the
anger which his father expressed, and he endeavored very earnestly, by
expressions of penitence and promises of amendment, to appease him.
But it was now too late. The ire of the Czar was thoroughly aroused,
and he could not be appeased. He declared that he was fully resolved
on deposing his son, as he had announced in his manifesto, and that the
necessary steps for making the act of deposition in a formal and solemn
manner, so as to give it full legal validity as a measure of state,
would be taken on the following day.
It must be confessed that the agitation and anger which Peter now
manifested were not wholly without excuse, for the course which Alexis
had pursued had been the means of exposing his father to a great and
terrible danger--to that, namely, of a rebellion among his subjects.
Peter did not even know but that such a rebellion was already planned
and was ripe for execution, and that it might not break out at any
time, notwithstanding his having succeeded in recovering possession of
the person of Alexis, and in bringing him home. Of such a rebellion,
if one had been planned, the name of Alexis would have been, of course,
the watch-word and rallying-point, and Peter had a great deal of ground
for apprehension that such a one had been extensively organized and was
ready to be carried into effect. He immediately set himself at work to
ferret out the whole affair, resolving, however, in the first place, to
disable Alexis himself from doing any farther mischief by destroying
finally and forever all claims on his part to the inheritance of the
crown.
Accordingly, on the following morning, before daybreak, the garrison of
the city were put under arms, and a regiment of the Guards was posted
around the palace, so as to secure all the gates and avenues; and
orders were sent, at the same time, to the principal ministers, nobles,
and counselors of state, to repair to the great hall in the castle, and
to the bishops and clergy to assemble in the Cathedral. Every body
knew that the occasion on which they were convened was that they might
witness the disinheriting of the prince imperial by his father, in
consequence of his vices and crimes; and in coming together in
obedience to the summons, the minds of all men were filled with solemn
awe, like those of men assembling to witness an execution.
When the appointed hour arrived the great bell was tolled, and Alexis
was brought into the hall of the castle, where the nobles were
assembled, bound as a prisoner, and deprived of his sword. The Czar
himself stood at the upper end of the hall, surrounded by the chief
officers of state. Alexis was brought before him. As he approached he
presented a writing to his father, and then fell down on his knees
before him, apparently overwhelmed with grief and shame.
The Czar handed the paper to one of his officers who stood near, and
then asked Alexis what it was that he desired. Alexis, in reply,
begged that his father would have mercy upon him and spare his life.
The Czar said that he would spare his life, and forgive him for all his
treasonable and rebellious acts, on condition that he would make a full
and complete confession, without any restriction or reserve, of every
thing connected with his late escape from the country, explaining fully
all the details of the plan which he had formed, and reveal the names
of all his advisers and accomplices. But if his confession was not
full and complete--if he suppressed or concealed any thing, or the name
of any person concerned in the affair or privy to it, then this promise
of pardon should be null and void.
The Czar also said that Alexis must renounce the succession to the
crown, and must confirm the renunciation by a solemn oath, and
acknowledge it by signing a declaration, in writing, to that effect
with his own hand. To all this, Alexis, who seemed overwhelmed with
contrition and anguish, solemnly agreed, and declared that he was ready
to make a full and complete confession.
The Czar then asked his son who it was that advised him and aided him
in his late escape from the kingdom. Alexis seemed unwilling to reply
to this question in the midst of such an assemblage, but said something
to his father in a low voice, which the others could not hear. In
consequence of what he thus said his father took him into an adjoining
room, and there conversed with him in private for a few minutes, and
then both returned together into the public hall. It is supposed that
while they were thus apart Alexis gave his father the names of some of
those who had aided and abetted him in his absconding, for immediately
afterward three couriers were dispatched in three different directions,
as if with orders to arrest the persons who were thus accused.
As soon as Alexis and his father had returned into the hall, the
document was produced which the prince was to sign, renouncing the
succession to the crown. The signature and seal of Alexis were affixed
to this document with all due formality. Then a declaration was made
on the part of the Czar, stating the reasons which had induced his
majesty to depose his eldest son from the succession, and to appoint
his younger son, Peter, in his place. This being done, all the
officers present were required to make a solemn oath on the Gospels,
and to sign a written declaration, of which several copies had
previously been prepared, importing that the Czar, having excluded from
the crown his son Alexis, and appointed his son Peter his successor in
his stead, they owned the legality and binding force of the decree,
acknowledged Peter as the true and rightful heir, and bound themselves
to stand by him with their lives against any or all who should oppose
him, and declared that they never would, under any pretense whatsoever,
adhere to Alexis, or assist him in recovering the succession.
The whole company then repaired to the Cathedral, where the bishops and
other ecclesiastics were assembled, and there the whole body of the
clergy solemnly took the same oath and subscribed the same declaration.
The same oath was also afterward administered to all the officers of
the army, governors of the provinces, and other public functionaries
throughout the empire.
When these ceremonies at the palace and at the Cathedral were
concluded, the company dispersed. Alexis was placed in confinement in
one of the palaces in Moscow, and none were allowed to have access to
him except those whom the Czar appointed to keep him in charge.
Immediately after this the necessary proceedings for a full
investigation of the whole affair were commenced in a formal and solemn
manner. A series of questions were drawn up and given to Alexis, that
he might make out deliberate answers to them in writing. Grand courts
of investigation and inquiry were convened in Moscow, the great
dignitaries both of Church and state being summoned from all parts of
the empire to attend them. These persons came to the capital in great
state, and, in going to and fro to attend at the halls of judgment from
day to day, they moved through the streets with such a degree of pomp
and parade as to attract great crowds of spectators. As fast as the
names were discovered of persons who were implicated in Alexis's
escape, or who were suspected of complicity in it, officers were
dispatched to arrest them. Some were taken from their beds at
midnight, without a moment's warning, and shut up in dungeons in a
great fortress at Moscow. When questioned, if they seemed inclined to
return evasive answers, or to withhold any information of which the
judges thought they were possessed, they were taken into the
torturing-room and put to the torture.
One of the first who was arrested was Alexander Kikin, who had been
Alexis's chief confidant and adviser in all his proceedings. Kikin had
taken extreme precautions to guard against having his agency in the
affair found out; but Alexis, in the answers that he gave to the first
series of questions that were put to him, betrayed him. Kikin was
aware of the danger, and, in order to secure for himself some chance of
escape in case Alexis should make disclosures implicating him, had
bribed a page, who was always in close attendance upon the Czar, to let
him know immediately in case of any movement to arrest him.
The name of this page was Baklanoffsky. He was in the apartment at the
time that the Czar was writing the order for Kikin's arrest, standing,
as was his wont, behind the chair of the Czar, so as to be ready at
hand to convey messages or to wait upon his master. He looked over,
and saw the order which the Czar was writing. He immediately contrived
some excuse to leave the apartment, and hurrying away, he went to the
post-house and sent on an express by post to Kikin at Petersburg to
warn him of the danger.
But the Czar, noticing his absence, sent some one off after him, and
thus his errand at the post-house was discovered, but not until after
the express had gone. Another express was immediately sent off with
the order for Kikin's arrest, and both the couriers arrived in
Petersburg very nearly at the same time. The one, however, who brought
the warning was a little too late. When he arrived the house of the
commissioner was surrounded by a guard of fifty grenadiers, and
officers were then in Kikin's apartment taking him out of his bed.
They put him at once in irons and took him away, scarcely allowing him
time to bid his wife farewell.
The page was, of course, arrested and sent to prison too. A number of
other persons, many of whom were of very high rank, were arrested in a
similar manner.
The arrival of Alexis at Moscow took place early in February, and
nearly all of February and March were occupied with these arrests and
the proceedings of the court in trying the prisoners. At length,
toward the end of March, a considerable number, Kikin himself being
among them, were condemned to death, and executed in the most dreadful
manner in a great public square in the centre of Moscow. One was
impaled alive; that is, a great stake was driven through his body into
the ground, and he was left in that situation to die. Others were
broken on the wheel. One, a bishop, was burnt. The heads of the
principal offenders were afterward cut off and set up on poles at the
four corners of a square inclosure made for the purpose, the impaled
body lying in the middle.
The page who had been bribed by Kikin was not put to death. His life
was spared, perhaps on account of his youth, but he was very severely
punished by scourging.
During all this time Alexis continued to be confined to his prison, and
he was subjected to repeated examinations and cross-examinations, in
order to draw from him not only the whole truth in respect to his own
motives and designs in his flight, but also such information as might
lead to the full development of the plans and designs of the party in
Russia who were opposed to the government of Peter, and who had
designed to make use of the name and position of Alexis for the
accomplishment of their schemes. Alexis had promised to make a full
and complete confession, but he did not do so. In the answers to the
series of questions which were first addressed to him, he confessed as
much as he thought was already known, and endeavored to conceal the
rest. In a short time, however, many things that he had at first
denied or evaded were fully proved by other testimony taken in the
trial of the prisoners who have already been referred to. Then Alexis
was charged with the omissions or evasions in his confession which had
thus been made to appear, and asked for an explanation, and thereupon
he made new confessions, acknowledging the newly-discovered facts, and
excusing himself for not having mentioned them before by saying that he
had forgotten them, or else that he was afraid to divulge them for fear
of injuring the persons that would be implicated by them. Thus he went
on contradicting and involving himself more and more by every fresh
confession, until, at last, his father, and all the judges who had
convened to investigate the case, ceased to place any confidence in any
thing that he said, and lost almost all sympathy for him in his
distress.
The examination was protracted through many months. The result of it,
on the whole, was, that it was fully proved that there was a powerful
party in Russia opposed to the reforms and improvements of the Czar,
and particularly to the introduction of the European civilization into
the country, who were desirous of effecting a revolution, and who
wished to avail themselves of the quarrel between Alexis and his father
to promote their schemes. Alexis was too much stupefied by his
continual drunkenness to take any very active or intelligent part in
these schemes, but he was more or less distinctly aware of them; and in
the offers which he had made to enter a monastery and renounce all
claims to the crown he had been utterly insincere, his only object
having been to blind his father by means of them and gain time. He
acknowledged that he had hated his father, and had wished for his
death, and when he fled to Vienna it was his intention to remain until
he could return and take possession of the empire in his father's
place. He, however, solemnly declared that it was never his intention
to take any steps himself toward that end during his father's lifetime,
though he admitted, at last, when the fact had been pretty well proved
against him by other evidence, that, in case an insurrection in his
behalf had broken out in Russia, and he had been called upon, he should
have joined the rebels.
A great deal of information, throwing light upon the plans of Alexis
and of the conspirators in Russia connected with him, was obtained from
the disclosures made by Afrosinia. As has already been stated, she had
been taken by Alexis as a slave, and forced, against her will, to join
herself to him and to follow his fortunes. He had never admitted her
into his confidence, but had induced her, from time to time, to act as
he desired by telling her any falsehood which would serve the purpose.
She consequently was not bound to him by any ties of honor or
affection, and felt herself at liberty to answer freely all questions
which were put to her by the judges. Her testimony was of great value
in many points, and contributed very essentially toward elucidating the
whole affair.