to learn how ships were built. Here he saw fishing in the river one of
his old acquaintances of the foreign quarter of Moscow, a smith named
Gerrit Kist. Calling him from his rod, and binding him to secrecy, he
told him why he had come to Holland, and insisted on taking up quarters
in his house. This house, a small frame hut, is now preserved as a
sacred object, enclosed within a brick building, and has long been a
place of pilgrimage even for royal travellers. Emperors and kings have
bent their lofty heads to enter its low door.
Yet Peter lived in Zaandam only a week, and during that week did little
work at ship-building, spending much of his time in rowing about among
the shipping, and visiting most of the factories and mills, at one of
which he made a sheet of paper with his own royal hands.
One day the disguised emperor met with an adventure. He had bought a
hatful of plums, and was eating them in the most plebeian fashion as he
walked along the street, when he met a crowd of boys. He shared his
fruit with some of these, but those to whom he refused to give plums
began to follow him with boyish reviling, and when he laughed at them
they took to pelting him with mud and stones. Here was a situation for
an emperor away from home. The Czar of all the Russias had to take to
his heels and run for refuge to the Three Swans Inn, where he sent for
the burgomaster of the town, told who he was, and demanded aid and
relief. At least we may suppose so, for an edict was soon issued
threatening punishment to all who should insult "distinguished persons
who wished to remain unknown."
The end of Peter's stay soon came. A man in Zaandam had received a
letter from his son in Moscow, saying that the czar was with the great
Russian embassy, and describing him so closely that he could no longer
remain unknown. This letter was seen by Pomp, the barber of Zaandam, and
when Peter came into his place with his Russian comrades he at once knew
him from the description and spread the news.
From that time the czar had no rest. Wherever he went he was followed by
crowds of curious people. They grew so annoying that at length he
leaped in anger from his boat and gave one of the most forward of his
persecutors a sharp cuff on the cheek.
"Bravo, Marsje!" cried the crowd in delight: "you are made a knight."
The czar rushed angrily to an inn, where he shut himself up out of
sight. The next day a large ship was to be moved across the dike by
means of capstans and rollers, a difficult operation, in which Peter
took deep interest. A place was reserved for him to see it, but the
crowd became so great as to drive back the guards, break down the
railings, and half fill the reserved space. Peter, seeing this, refused
to leave his house. The burgomaster and other high officials begged him
to come, but the most he could be got to do was to thrust his head out
of the door and observe the situation.
"_Te veel volks, te veel volks_" ("too many people"), he bluntly cried,
and refused to budge.
The next day was Sunday, and all Amsterdam seemed to have come to
Zaandam to see its distinguished guest. He escaped them by fleeing to
Amsterdam. Getting to a yacht he had bought, and to which he had fitted
a bowsprit with his own hands, he put to sea, giving no heed to warnings
of danger from the furious wind that was blowing. Three hours after he
reached Amsterdam, where his ambassadors then were, and where they were
to have a formal reception the next day.
Receptions were well enough for ambassadors, but they were idle flummery
to the czar, who had come to see, not to be seen, and who did his best
to keep out of sight. He visited the fine town hall, inspected the
docks, saw a comedy and a ballet, consented to sit through a great
dinner, witnessed a splendid display of fireworks, and, most interesting
to him of all, was entertained with a great naval sham fight, which
lasted a whole day.
Zaandam has the credit of having been the scene of Peter the Great's
labor as a shipwright, but it was really at Amsterdam that his life as a
workman was passed. At his request he was given the privilege of working
at the docks of the East India Company, a house being assigned him
within the enclosure where he could dwell undisturbed, free from the
curiosity of crowds. As a mark of respect it was determined to begin the
construction of a new frigate, one hundred feet long, so that the
distinguished workman might see the whole process of the building of a
ship. With his usual impetuosity Peter wished to begin work immediately,
and could hardly be induced to wait for the fireworks to burn themselves
out. Then he set out for Zaandam on his yacht to fetch his tools, and
the next day, August 30, presented himself as a workman at the East
India Company's wharf.
For more than four months, with occasional breaks, Peter worked
diligently as a ship-carpenter, ten of his Russian companions--probably
much against their will--working at the wharf with him. He was known
simply as Baas Peter (Carpenter Peter), and, while sitting on a log at
rest, with his hatchet between his knees, was willing to talk with any
one who addressed him by this name, but had no answer for those who
called him Sire or Your Majesty. Others of the Russians were put to work
elsewhere, to study the construction of masts, blocks, sails, etc., some
of them were entered as sailors before the mast, and Prince Alexander of
Imeritia went to the Hague to study artillery. None of them was allowed
"to take his ease at his inn."
Peter insisted on being treated as a common workman, and would not
permit any difference to be made between him and his fellow-laborers. He
also demanded the usual wages for his work. On one occasion, when the
Earl of Portland and another nobleman came to the yard to have a sight
of him, the overseer, to indicate him, called out, "Carpenter Peter of
Zaandam, why don't you help your comrades?" Without a word, Peter put
his shoulders under a log which several men were carrying, and helped to
lift it to its place.
His evenings were spent in studying the theory of ship-building, and his
spare hours were fully occupied in observation. He visited everything
worth seeing, factories, museums, cabinets of coins, theatres,
hospitals, etc., constantly making shrewd remarks and inquiries, and
soon becoming known from his quick questions, "What is that for? How
does that work? That will I see."
He went to Zaandam to see the Greenland whaling fleet, visited the
celebrated botanical garden with the great Boerhaave, studied the
microscope at Delft under Leuwenhoek, became intimate with the military
engineer Coehorn, talked with Schynvoet of architecture, and learned to
etch from Schonebeck. An impression of a plate made by him, of
Christianity victorious over Islam, is still extant.
He made himself familiar with Dutch home life, mingled with the
merchants engaged in the Russian trade, went to the Botermarkt every
market-day, and took lessons from a travelling dentist, experimenting on
his own servants and suite, probably not much to their enjoyment. He
mended his own clothes, learned enough of cobbling to make himself a
pair of slippers, and, in short, was insatiable in his search for
information of every available kind.
His work on the frigate whose keel he had helped to lay was continued
until it was launched. It was well built, and for many years proved a
good and useful ship, braving the perils of the seas in the East India
trade. But with all this the imperial carpenter was not satisfied. The
Dutch methods did not please him. The ship-masters seemed to work
without rules other than the "rule of thumb," having no theory of
ship-building from which the best proportions of a vessel could be
deduced.
Learning that things were ordered differently in English ship-yards,
that there work was done by rule and precept, Peter sent an order to the
Russian docks not to allow the Dutch shipwrights to work as they
pleased, but to put them under Danish or English overseers. For himself,
he resolved to go to England and follow up his studies there. King
William had sent him a warm invitation and presented him a splendid
yacht, light, beautifully proportioned, and armed with twenty brass
cannon. Delighted with the present, he sailed in it to England,
escorted by an English fleet, and in London found an abiding-place in a
house which a few years before had been the refuge of William Penn when
charged with treason. Here he slept in a small room with four or five
companions, and when the King of England came to visit him, received his
fellow-monarch in his shirt-sleeves. The air of the room was so bad
that, though the weather was very cold, William insisted on a window
being raised.
In England the czar, though managing to see much outside the ship-yards,
worked steadily at Deptford for several months, leaving only when he had
gained all the special knowledge which he could obtain. His admiration
for the English ship-builders was high, he afterwards saying that but
for his journey to England he would have always remained a bungler.
While here he engaged many men to take service in Russia, shipwrights,
engineers, and others; he also engaged numerous officers for his navy
from Holland, several French surgeons, and various persons of other
nationality, the whole numbering from six to eight hundred skilled
artisans and professional experts. To raise money for their advance
payment he sold the monopoly of the Russian tobacco trade for twenty
thousand pounds. Sixty years before, his grandfather Michael had
forbidden the use of tobacco in Russia under pain of death, and the
prejudice against it was still strong. But in spite of this the use of
tobacco was rapidly spreading, and Peter thus threw down the bars.
Great numbers of anecdotes are afloat about Peter's doings in Holland
and England,--many of them, doubtless, invented. The sight of a great
monarch going about in workman's clothes and laboring like a common
ship-carpenter was apt to aid the imagination of story-tellers and give
rise to numerous tales with little fact to sustain them.
In May, 1698, Peter left England and proceeded to Amsterdam, where his
embassy had remained, often in great distress about him, for the winter
was cold and stormy and at one time no news was received from him for a
month. From Amsterdam he made his way to Vienna, whence he proposed to
go to Venice and Rome, but was prevented by disturbing news from Moscow,
which turned his steps homeward. Here he was to show a new phase of his
varied character, as will be seen in the following tale.
_THE FALL OF THE STRELITZ._
History presents us with four instances of an imperial soldiery who took
the power into their own hands and for a time ruled as the tyrants of a
nation. These were the Pretorian Guards of Rome, the Mamelukes of Egypt,
the Janissaries of Turkey, and the Strelitz of Russia. Of these, the
Pretorian Guards remained pre-eminent, and made emperors at their will.
The other three came to a terrible end. History elsewhere records the
tragic fate of the Mamelukes and the Janissaries: we are here concerned
only with that of the Strelitz corps of Russia.
The Strelitz were the first regular military force of Russia, a
permanent militia of fusileers, formed during the early reign of Ivan
the Terrible, and themselves in time becoming a terror to the nation.
The first serious outbreak of this dangerous civic guard was on the
nomination of Peter I. to the throne of the czar. They did not dream
then of the terrible revenge which this despised boy would take upon
them.
Two days after the funeral of the czar Theodore the insurrection began,
the Strelitz marching in an armed body to the Kremlin, where they
accused nine of their colonels of defrauding them of their pay. The
frightened ministers hastened to dismiss these officers, but this did
not satisfy the savage soldiery, who insisted on their being delivered
into their hands. This done, the unfortunate officers were sentenced to
be scourged, some of them by that fearful Russian whip called the knout.
Their success in this outbreak led the Strelitz to greater outrages. The
tiger in their savage natures was let loose, and only blood could
appease its rage. Marching to the Kremlin, they declared that the late
czar had been poisoned by his doctor, and demanded the death of all
those in the plot. Breaking into the palace, they seized two of the
suspected princes and flung them from the windows, to be received upon
the pikes of the soldiers in the street below. The next victim was one
of the Narishkins, the uncles of Peter the Great. He was massacred in
the same brutal manner and his bleeding body dragged through the
streets. Three of the proscribed nobles had fled for sanctuary to a
church, but were torn from the altar, stripped of their clothing, and
cut to pieces with knives.
The next victim was a friend and favorite of the Strelitz, who was
killed under the belief that he was one of the Narishkins. Discovering
their error, the assassins carried the mangled body of the young
nobleman to the house of his father for interment. The old man, timid by
nature, did not dare to complain of the savage act, and even rewarded
them for bringing him the body of his son. For this weakness he was
bitterly reproached by his wife and daughters and the weeping wife of
the victim.
"What could I do?" pleaded the helpless father; "let us wait for an
opportunity to be revenged."
A revengeful servant overheard these words and repeated them to the
soldiers. In a sudden fury the savages returned, dragged the old man
from the room by the hair of his head, and cut his throat at his own
door.
Meanwhile some of the Strelitz, seeking the Dutch physician Vongad, who
had attended the dying czar and was accused of poisoning him, met his
son and asked where his father was. "I do not know," replied the
trembling youth. His ignorance was instantly punished with death.
In a few minutes a German physician fell in their way. "You are a
doctor," they cried. "If you have not poisoned our master Theodore, you
have poisoned others. You deserve death." And in a moment the unlucky
doctor fell a victim to their blind rage.
The Dutch physician was at length discovered and dragged to the palace.
Here the princesses begged hard for his life, declaring that he was a
skilful doctor and a good man and had worked hard to save their
brother's life. They answered that he deserved to die as a sorcerer as
well as a physician, for they had found the skeleton of a toad and the
skin of a snake in his cabinet.
The next victim demanded was Ivan Narishkin, who they were sure was
somewhere concealed in the palace. Not finding him, they threatened to
burn down the building unless he were delivered into their hands. At
this terrifying threat the young man was taken from his place of
concealment and brought to them by the patriarch, who held in his hands
an image of the Virgin Mary which was said to have performed miracles.
The princesses surrounded the victim, and, kneeling to the soldiers,
prayed with tears for his life.
All their supplications and the demands of the venerable patriarch were
without effect on the savage soldiery, who dragged their captives to the
bottom of the stairway, went through the forms of a mock trial, and
condemned them to the torture. They were sentenced to be cut to pieces,
a form of punishment to which parricides are condemned in China and
Tartary. This tragedy went on until all the proscribed on whom they
could lay their hands had perished and Sophia felt secure in her power.
In the end, Ivan and Peter were declared joint sovereigns (1682), and
their sister Sophia was made regent. The acts of the Strelitz were
approved and they rewarded, the estates of their victims were
confiscated in their favor, and a monument was erected on which the
names of the victims were inscribed as traitors to their country.
The Strelitz had learned their power, and took frequent occasion to
exercise it. Twice again they broke out in revolt during the regency of
Sophia. After the accession of Peter their hostility continued. He had
sent them to fight on the frontiers. He had supplanted them with
regiments drilled in the European manner. He had organized a corps of
twelve thousand foreigners and heretics. He had ordered the construction
of a fleet of a hundred vessels, which would add to the weight of taxes
and bring more foreigners into the country. And he proposed to leave
Russia, to journey in the lands of the heretics, and to bring back to
their sacred land the customs of profane Europe.
All this was too much for the leaders of the Strelitz, who represented
old Russia, as Peter represented new. They resolved to sacrifice the
czar to their rage. Tradition tells the following story, which, though
probably not true, is at least interesting. Two leaders of the Strelitz
laid a plot to start a fire at night, feeling sure that Peter, with his
usual activity, would hasten to the scene. In the confusion attending
the fire they meant to murder him, and then to massacre all the
foreigners whom he had introduced into Moscow.
[Illustration: DINING-ROOM IN THE PALACE OF PETER THE GREAT. MOSCOW.]
The time fixed for the consummation of this plot was at hand. A banquet
was held, at which the principal conspirators assembled, and where they
sought in deep potations the courage necessary for their murderous work.
Unfortunately for them, liquor does not act on all alike. While usually
giving boldness, it sometimes produces timidity. Two of the villains
lost their courage through their potations, left the room on some
pretext, promising to return in time, and hastened to the czar with the
story of the plot.
Peter knew not the meaning of the words timidity and procrastination.
His plans were instantly laid. The time fixed for the conflagration was
midnight. He gave orders that the hall in which the conspirators were
assembled should be surrounded exactly at eleven. Soon after, thinking
that the hour had come, he sought the place alone and boldly entered
the room, fully expecting to find the conspirators in the hands of his
guards.
To his consternation, not a guard was present, and he found himself
alone and unarmed in the midst of a furious band who were just swearing
to compass his destruction.
The situation was a critical one. The conspirators, dismayed at this
unlooked-for visit, rose in confusion. Peter was furious at his guards
for having exposed him to this peril, but instantly perceived that there
was only one course for him to pursue. He advanced among the throng of
traitors with a countenance that showed no trace of his emotions, and
pleasantly remarked,--
"I saw the light in your house while passing, and, thinking that you
must be having a gay time together, I have come in to share your
pleasure and drain a cup with you."
Then, seating himself at the table, he filled a cup and drank to his
would-be assassins, who, on their feet about him, could not avoid
responding to the toast and drinking his health.
But this state of affairs did not long continue. The courage of the
conspirators returned, and they began to exchange looks and signs. The
opportunity had fallen into their hands; now was the time to avail
themselves of it. One of them leaned over to Sukanim, one of their
leaders, and said, in a low tone,--
"Brother, it is time."
"Not yet," said Sukanim, hesitating at the critical moment.
At that instant Peter heard the footsteps of his guards outside, and,
starting to his feet, knocked the leader of the assassins down by a
violent blow in his face, exclaiming,--
"If it is not yet time for you, scoundrel, it is for me."
At the same moment the guards entered the room, and the conspirators,
panic-stricken by the sight, fell on their knees and begged for pardon.
"Chain them!" said the czar, in a terrible voice.
Turning then to the commander of the guards, he struck him and accused
him of having disobeyed orders. But the officer proving to him that the
hour fixed had just arrived, the czar, in sudden remorse at his haste,
clasped him in his arms, kissed him on the forehead, proclaimed his
fidelity, and gave the traitors into his charge.
And now Peter showed the savage which lay within him under the thin
veneer of civilization. The conspirators were put to death with the
cruellest of tortures, and, to complete the act of barbarity, their
heads were exposed on the summit of a column with their limbs arranged
around them as ornaments.
Satisfied that this fearful example would keep Russia tranquil during
his absence, Peter set out on his journey, visiting most of the
countries of Western Europe. He had reached Vienna, and was on the point
of setting out for Venice, when word was brought him from Russia that
the Strelitz had broken out in open insurrection and were marching from
their posts on the frontier upon Moscow.
The czar at once left Vienna and journeyed with all possible speed to
Russia, reaching Moscow in September, 1698. His appearance took all by
surprise, for none knew that he had yet left Austria.
He came too late to suppress the insurrection. That had been already
done by General Gordon, who, marching in all haste, had met the rebels
about thirty miles from Moscow and called on them to surrender. As they
refused and attacked the troops, he opened on them with cannon, put them
to flight, and of the survivors took captive about two thousand. These
were decimated on the spot, and the remainder imprisoned.
This was punishment enough for a soldier, but not enough for an
autocrat, whose mind was haunted by dark suspicions, and who looked upon
the outbreak as a plot to dethrone him and to call his sister Sophia to
the throne. In his treatment of the prisoners the spirit of the monster
Ivan IV. seems to have entered into his soul, and the cruelty shown,
while common enough in old-time Russia, is revolting to the modern mind.
The trial was dragged out through six weeks, with daily torture of some
of the accused, under the eyes of the czar himself, who sought to force
from them a confession that Sophia had been concerned in the outbreak.
The wives of the prisoners, all the women servants of the princesses,
even poor beggars who lived on their charity, were examined under
torture. The princesses themselves, Peter's sisters, were questioned by
the czar, though he did not go so far as to torture them. Yet with all
this nothing was discovered. There was not a word to connect Sophia with
the revolt.
The trial over, the executions began. Of the prisoners, some were
hanged, some beheaded, others broken on the wheel. It is said that those
beheaded were made to kneel in rows of fifty before trunks of trees laid
on the ground, and that Peter compelled his courtiers and nobles to act
as executioners, Mentchikof specially distinguishing himself in this
work of slaughter. It is even asserted that the czar wielded the axe
himself, though of this there is some doubt. The opinion grew among the
people that neither Peter nor Prince Ramodanofsky, his cruel viceroy,
could sleep until they had tasted blood, and a letter from the prince
contains the following lurid sentence: "_I am always washing myself in
blood._"
The headless bodies of the dead were left where they had fallen. The
long Russian winter was just beginning, and for five months they lay
unburied, a frightful spectacle for the eyes of the citizens of Moscow.
Of those hanged, nearly two hundred were left depending from a large
square gallows in front of the cell of Sophia at the convent in which
she was confined, and with a horrible refinement of cruelty three of
these bodies were so placed as to hang all winter under her very window,
one of them holding in his hand a folded paper to represent a petition
for her aid.