CONQUESTS AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF PETER THE GREAT.
From 1702 TO 1718.
Peter takes Lake Lagoda and the Neva.--Foundation of St.
Petersburg.--Conquest of Livonia.--Marienburg Taken by Storm.--The
Empress Catharine.--Extraordinary Efforts in Building St.
Petersburg.--Threat of Charles XII.--Deposition of
Augustus.--Enthronement of Stanislaus.--Battle of Pultowa.--Flight of
Charles XII. to Turkey.--Increased Renown of Russia.--Disastrous
Conflict with the Turks.--Marriage of Alexis.--His Character.--Death
of his Wife.--The Empress Acknowledged.--Conquest of Finland.--Tour
of the Tzar to Southern Europe.
Charles XII., despising the Russians, devoted all his energies to the
humiliation of Augustus of Poland, resolving to pursue him until he
had driven him for ever from his throne. Peter was thus enabled to get
the command of the lake of Ladoga, and of the river Neva, which
connects that lake with the Baltic. He immediately laid the
foundations of a city, St. Petersburg, to be his great commercial
emporium, at the mouth of the Neva, near the head of the Gulf of
Finland. The land was low and marshy, but in other respects the
location was admirable. Its approaches could easily be defended
against any naval attack, and water communications were opened with
the interior through the Neva and lake Ladoga.
Livonia was a large province, about the size of the State of Maine,
nearly encircled by the Gulf of Riga, the Baltic, the Gulf of Finland
and Lake Tchude. The possession of this province, which contained some
five hundred thousand inhabitants, was essential to Peter in the
prosecution of his commercial enterprises. During the prosecution of
this war the small town of Marienburg, on the confines of Livonia,
situated on the shores of a lake, was taken by storm. The town was
utterly destroyed and nearly all the inhabitants slain, a few only
being taken prisoners. The Russian commanding officer saw among these
captives a young girl of extraordinary beauty, who was weeping
bitterly. Attracted by such rare loveliness and uncontrollable grief
he called her to him, and learned from her that she was born in a
village in the vicinity on the borders of the lake; that she had never
known her father, and that her mother died when she was but three
years of age. The protestant minister of Marienburg, Dr. Gluck,
chancing to see her one day, and ascertaining that she was left an
orphan and friendless, received her into his own house, and cherished
her with true parental tenderness.
The very evening before the town of Marienburg was assaulted and taken
by storm, she was married to a young Livonian sergeant, a very
excellent young man, of reputable family and possessing a little
property. In the horrors of the tempest of war which immediately
succeeded the nuptial ceremonies, her husband was slain, and as his
body could never be found, it probably was consumed in the flames,
which laid the town in ashes. General Boyer, moved with compassion,
took her under his protection. He ascertained that her character had
always been irreproachable, and he ever maintained that she continued
to be a pattern of virtue. She was but seventeen years of age when
Peter saw her. Her beauty immediately vanquished him. His wife he had
repudiated after a long disagreement, and she had retired to a
convent. Peter took the lovely child, still a child in years, under
his own care, and soon privately married her, with how much sacredness
of nuptial rites is not now known. Such was the early history of
Catharine, who subsequently became the recognized and renowned Empress
of Russia.
"That a poor stranger," says Voltaire, "who had been discovered amid
the ruins of a plundered town, should become the absolute sovereign
of that very empire into which she was led captive, is an incident
which fortune and merit have never before produced in the annals of
the world."
The city of Petersburg was founded on the 22d of May, 1703, on a
desert and marshy spot of ground, in the sixtieth degree of latitude.
The first building was a fort which now stands in the center of the
city. Though Peter was involved in all the hurry and confusion of war,
he devoted himself with marvelous energy to the work of rearing an
imperial city upon the bogs and the swamps of the Neva. It required
the merciless vigor of despotism to accomplish such an enterprise.
Workmen were marched by thousands from Kesan, from Astrachan, from the
Ukraine, to assist in building the city. No difficulties, no obstacles
were allowed to impede the work. The tzar had a low hut, built of
plank, just sufficient to shelter him from the weather, where he
superintended the operations. This hut is still preserved as one of
the curiosities of St. Petersburg. In less than a year thirty thousand
houses were reared, and these were all crowded by the many thousands
Peter had ordered to the rising city, from all parts of the empire.
Death made terrible ravages among them; but the remote provinces
furnished an abundant supply to fill the places of the dead. Exposure,
toil, and the insalubrity of the marshy ground, consigned one hundred
thousand to the grave during this first year.
The morass had to be drained, and the ground raised by bringing earth
from a distance. Wheelbarrows were not in use there, and the laborers
conveyed the earth in baskets, bags and even in the skirts of their
clothes, scooping it up with their hands and with wooden paddles. The
tzar always manifested great respect for the outward observances of
religion, and was constant in his attendance upon divine service. As
we have mentioned, the first building the tzar erected was a fort, the
second was a church, the third a hotel. In the meantime private
individuals were busily employed, by thousands, in putting up shops
and houses. The city of Amsterdam was essentially the model upon which
St. Petersburg was built. The wharves, the canals, the bridges and the
rectangular streets lined with trees were arranged by architects
brought from the Dutch metropolis. When Charles XII. was informed of
the rapid progress the tzar was making in building a city on the banks
of the Neva, he said,
"Let him amuse himself as he thinks fit in building his city. I shall
soon find time to take it from him and to put his wooden houses in a
blaze."
Five months had not passed away, from the commencement of operations
upon these vast morasses at the mouth of the Neva, ere, one day, it
was reported to the tzar that a large ship under Dutch colors was in
full sail entering the harbor. Peter was overjoyed at this realization
of the dearest wish of his heart. With ardor he set off to meet the
welcome stranger. He found that the ship had been sent by one of his
old friends at Zaandam. The cargo consisted of salt, wine and
provisions generally. The cargo was landed free from all duties and
was speedily sold to the great profit of the owners. To protect his
capital, Peter immediately commenced his defenses at Cronstadt, about
thirty miles down the bay. From that hour until this, Russia has been
at work upon those fortifications, and they can now probably bid
defiance to all the navies of the world.
Charles XII., sweeping Poland with fire and the sword, drove Augustus
out of the kingdom to his hereditary electorate of Saxony, and then,
convening the Polish nobles, caused Stanislaus Leszczynski, one of his
own followers, to be elected sovereign, and sustained him on the
throne by all the power of the Swedish armies.[13] The Swedish warrior
now fitted out a fleet for the destruction of Cronstadt and
Petersburg. The defense of the province was intrusted to Menzikoff.
This man subsequently passed through a career so full of vicissitudes
that a sketch of his varied life thus far seems important. He was the
son of one of the humblest of the peasants living in the vicinity of
Moscow. When but thirteen years of age he was taken into the service
of a pastry cook to sell pies and cakes about the streets, and he was
accustomed to attract customers by singing jocular songs. The tzar
chanced to hear him one day, and, diverted by his song and struck by
his bright, intelligent appearance, called for the boy, and offered to
purchase his whole stock, both cakes and basket.
[Footnote 13: See Empire of Austria, page 382.]
The boy replied,
"It is my business to sell the cakes, and I have no right to sell the
basket without my master's permission. Yet, as every thing belongs to
our prince, your majesty has only to give the command, and it is my
duty to obey."
This adroit, apt answer so pleased the tzar that he took the lad into
his service, giving him at first some humble employment. But being
daily more pleased with his wit and shrewdness, he raised him, step by
step, to the highest preferment. Under the tuition of General Le Fort,
he attained great skill in military affairs, and became one of the
bravest and most successful of the Russian generals.
Early in the spring of 1705 the Swedish fleet, consisting of
twenty-two ships of war, each carrying about sixty guns, besides six
frigates, two bomb ketches and two fire ships, approached Cronstadt.
At the same time a large number of transports landed a strong body of
troops to assail the forts in the rear. This was the most formidable
attack Charles XII. had yet attempted in his wars. Though the Swedes
almost invariably conquered the Russians in the open field, Menzikoff,
from behind his well-constructed redoubts, beat back his assailants,
and St. Petersburg was saved. The summer passed away with many but
undecisive battles, until the storms of the long northern winter
separated the combatants. The state of exasperation was now such that
the most revolting cruelties were perpetrated on both sides.
The campaign of 1706 opened most disastrously to Russia. In four
successive pitched battles the forces of the tzar had been defeated.
Augustus was humbled to the dust, and was compelled to write a letter
to Stanislaus congratulating him upon his accession to the throne. He
also ignominiously consented to deliver up the unfortunate Livonian
noble, Patgul, whose only crime was his love for the rights and
privileges of his country. Charles XII. caused this unhappy noble to
be broken upon the wheel, thus inflicting a stain upon his own
character which can never be effaced. The haughty Swedish monarch
seemed now to be sovereign over all of northern Europe excepting
Russia. Augustus, driven from the throne of Poland, was permitted to
hold the electorate of Saxony only in consequence of his abject
submission to Charles XII. Stanislaus, the new Polish sovereign, was
merely a vassal of Sweden. And even the Emperor Joseph of Germany paid
implicit obedience to the will of a monarch who had such terrible
armies at his command.
Under these circumstances some of the powers endeavored to secure
peace between Sweden and Russia. The French envoy at the court of
Sweden introduced the subject. Charles XII. proudly replied, "I shall
treat with the tzar in the city of Moscow."
Peter, being informed of this boast and threat, remarked, "My brother
Charles wants to act the part of Alexander, but he shall not find in
me a Darius."
Charles XII., from his triumphant invasion of Saxony, marched with an
army of forty-five thousand men through Poland, which was utterly
desolated by war, and crossing the frontiers of Russia, directed his
march to Moscow. Driving all opposition before him, he arrived upon
the banks of the Dnieper, and without much difficulty effected the
passage of the stream. Peter himself, with Menzikoff, now hastened to
the theater of conflict, and summoned his mightiest energies to repel
the foe. Battle after battle ensued with varying results. But the
situation of the Swedish conqueror was fast growing desperate. He was
far from home. His regiments were daily diminishing beneath the
terrible storms of war, while recruits were pouring in, from all
directions, to swell the ranks of the tzar. It was the month of
December. The villages had been all burned and the country turned into
a desert. The cold was so intense that on one particular march two
thousand men dropped down dead in their ranks. The wintry storms soon
became so severe that both parties were compelled to remain for some
time in inaction. Every poor peasant, within fifty miles, was robbed
by detachments of starving soldiers.
The moment the weather permitted, both armies were again in action.
Charles XII. had taken a circuitous route towards Moscow, through the
Ukraine, hoping to rouse the people of this region to join his
standards. This plan, however, proved an utter failure. About the
middle of June the two armies, led by their respective sovereigns, met
at Pultowa, upon the Worskla, near its point of junction with the
Dnieper, about four hundred miles south of Moscow. Several days were
passed in maneuvering and skirmishing in preparation for a decisive
struggle. It was evident to all Europe that the great battle to ensue
would decide the fate of Russia, Poland and Sweden. Thirty thousand
war-worn veterans were marshaled under the banners of Charles XII. The
tzar led sixty thousand troops into the conflict. Fully aware of the
superiority of the Swedish troops, he awaited the attack of his
formidable foe behind his redoubts. In one of the skirmishes, two days
before the great battle, a bullet struck Charles XII., shattering the
bone of his heel. It was an exceedingly painful wound, which was
followed by an equally painful operation. Though the indomitable
warrior was suffering severely, he caused himself to be borne in a
litter to the head of his troops, and led the charge. The attack upon
the intrenchments was made with all the characteristic impetuosity of
these demoniac fighters. Notwithstanding the storm of grape shot
which was hurled into their faces, covering the ground with the
mangled and the dead, two of the redoubts were taken, and shouts of
victory ran along the lines of the Swedes.
The action continued with fiend-like ferocity for two hours. Charles
XII., with a pistol in his hand, was borne on his litter from rank to
rank, animating his troops, until a cannon ball, striking down one of
his bearers, also shattered the litter into fragments, and dashed the
bandaged monarch to the ground. With as much calmness as though this
were an ordinary, everyday occurrence, Charles ordered his guards
immediately to make another litter with their pikes. He was placed
upon it, and continued to direct the battle, paying no more attention
to bullets, balls and bombshells, than if they had been snow flakes.
Peter was equally prodigal of danger. Death in that hour was more
desirable to him than defeat, for Charles XII., victorious, would
march direct to Moscow, and Russia would share the fate of Poland. The
tzar was conspicuous at every point where the battle raged most
fiercely. Several bullets pierced his clothes; one passing through his
hat just grazed the crown of his head. At length, the Swedes,
overpowered by numbers, gave way, and fled in great confusion.
Charles, though agonized by his wound, was compelled to mount on
horseback as the only means of escape from capture. The black hour of
woe came, which sooner or later meets almost every warrior, however
successful for a time his career may be. The blow was fatal to Charles
XII. More than nine thousand of the Swedes were left dead upon the
field of battle. Eighteen thousand were taken prisoners. The Swedish
king, with a few hundred troops in his retinue, cut off from his
retreat towards Sweden, crossed the Dnieper and fled to Turkey. Peter
did not pursue him, but being informed of his desperate resolve to
seek refuge in the territory of the Turks, he magnanimously wrote a
letter to him, urging him not to take so perilous a step, assuring
him, upon his honor, that he would not detain him as a prisoner, but
that all their difficulties should be settled by a reasonable peace. A
special courier was dispatched with this letter, but he could not
overtake the fugitives. When the courier arrived at the river Boy,
which separates the deserts of Ukraine from the territories of the
Grand Seignor, the Swedes had already crossed the river. In the
character of Peter there was a singular compound of magnanimity and of
the most brutal insensibility and mercilessness. He ordered all the
Swedish generals, who were his captives, to be introduced to him,
returned to them their swords and invited them to dine. With a
gracefulness of courtesy rarely surpassed, he offered as a toast the
sentiment, "To the health of my masters in the art of war." And yet,
soon after, he consigned nearly all these captives to the horrors of
Siberian exile.
This utter defeat of Charles XII. produced a sudden revolution in
Poland, Sweden and Saxony. Peter immediately dispatched a large body
of cavalry, under Menzikoff, to Poland, to assist Augustus in
regaining his crown. Soon after, he followed himself, at the head of
an army, and entering Warsaw in triumph, on the 7th of October, 1709,
replaced Augustus upon the throne from which Charles XII. had ejected
him. The whole kingdom acknowledged Peter for their protector. Peter
then marched to the electorate of Brandenburg, which had recently been
elevated into the kingdom of Prussia, and performing the functions of
his own embassador, entered into a treaty with Frederic I.,
grandfather of Frederic the Great. He then returned with all eagerness
to St. Petersburg, and pressed forward the erection of new buildings
and the enlargement of the fleet.
A magnificent festival was here arranged in commemoration of the great
victory of Pultowa. Nine arches were reared, beneath which the
procession marched, in the most gorgeous array of civic and military
pageantry. The artillery of the vanquished, their standards, the
shattered litter of the king, and the vast array of captives, soldiers
and officers, all on foot, followed in the train of the triumphal
procession, while the ringing of bells, the explosion of an hundred
pieces of artillery, and the shouts of an innumerable multitude, added
to the enthusiasm which the scene inspired.
The battle of Pultowa gave Peter great renown throughout Europe, and
added immeasurably to the reputation of Russia. An occurrence had
taken place in London which had deeply offended the tzar, who,
wielding himself the energies of despotism, could form no idea of that
government of law which was irrespective of the will of the sovereign.
The Russian embassador at the court of Queen Anne had been arrested at
the suit of a tradesman in London, and had been obliged to give bail
to save himself from the debtor's prison. Peter, regarding this as a
personal insult, demanded of Queen Anne satisfaction. She expressed
her regret for the occurrence, but stated, that according to the laws
of England, a creditor had a right to sue for his just demands, and
that there was no statute exempting foreign embassadors from being
arrested for debt. Peter, who had no respect for constitutional
liberty, was not at all satisfied with this declaration, but postponed
further action until his conflict with Sweden should be terminated.
Now, in the hour of victory, he turned again to Queen Anne and
demanded reparation for what he deemed the insult offered to his
government. He threatened, in retaliation, to take vengeance upon all
the merchants and British subjects within his dominions. This was an
appalling menace. Queen Anne accordingly sent Lord Whitworth on a
formal embassy to the tzar, with a diplomatic lie in his mouth.
Addressing Peter in the flattering words of "most high and mighty
emperor," he assured him, that the offending tradesman had been
punished with imprisonment and rendered infamous, and that an act of
Parliament should be passed, rendering it no longer lawful to arrest
a foreign embassador. The offender had not been punished, but the act
was subsequently passed.
The acknowledgment, accompanied by such flattering testimonials of
respect, was deemed satisfactory. The tzar had demanded the death of
the offender. Every Englishman must read with pride the declaration of
Queen Anne in reference to this demand.
"There are," said she, "insuperable difficulties with respect to the
ancient and fundamental laws of the government of our people, which we
fear do not _permit_ so severe and rigorous a sentence to be given, as
your imperial majesty first seemed to expect in this case. And we
persuade ourselves that your imperial majesty, who are a prince famous
for clemency and exact justice, will not require us, who are the
_guardian and protector of the laws_, to inflict a punishment on our
subjects which the law does not empower us to do."
The whole of Livonia speedily fell into the hands of the tzar and was
reannexed to Russia. Pestilence, which usually follows in the train of
war, now rose from the putridity of battle fields, and sweeping, like
the angel of death, over the war-scathed and starving inhabitants of
Livonia, penetrated Sweden. Whole provinces were depopulated, and in
Stockholm alone thirty thousand perished. The war of the Spanish
Succession was now raging, and every nation in Europe was engaged in
the work of destruction and butchery. Spain, Portugal, Italy, France,
the German empire, England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, were all
in arms, and hundreds of millions of men were directly or indirectly
employed in the work of mutual destruction. The fugitive king, Charles
XII., was endeavoring to enlist the energies of the Ottoman Porte in
his behalf, and the Grand Seignor had promised to throw his armies
also, two hundred thousand strong, into the arena of flame and blood,
and to march for the conquest of Russia.
Peter, conscious of the danger of an attack from Turkey, raised an
army of one hundred and twenty-five thousand men, when he was informed
that the Turks, with a combined army of two hundred and ten thousand
troops, were ravaging the province of Azof. Urging his troops
impetuously onward, he crossed the Pruth and entered Jassi, the
capital of Moldavia. The grand vizier, with an army three times more
numerous, crossed the Danube and advanced to meet him. For three days
the contending hosts poured their shot into each other's bosoms. The
tzar, outnumbered and surrounded, though enabled to hold his position
behind his intrenchments, saw clearly that famine would soon compel
him to surrender. His position was desperate.
Catharine had accompanied her husband on this expedition, and, at her
earnest solicitation, the tzar sent proposals of peace to the grand
vizier, accompanied with a valuable present of money and jewels. The
Turk, dreading the energies which despair might develop in so powerful
a foe, was willing to come into an accommodation, and entered into a
treaty, which, though greatly to the advantage of the Ottoman Porte,
rescued the tzar from the greatest peril in which he had ever been
placed. The grand vizier good-naturedly sent several wagons of
provisions to the camp of his humbled foes, and the Russians returned
to their homes, having lost twenty thousand men.
Alexis, the oldest son of Peter, had ever been a bad boy, and he had
now grown up into an exceedingly dissolute and vicious young man.
Indolent, licentious, bacchanalian in his habits, and overbearing, his
father had often threatened to deprive him of his right of succession,
and to shave his crown and consign him to a convent. Hoping to improve
his character, he urged his marriage, and selected for him a beautiful
princess of Wolfenbuttle, as the possessions of the dukes of Brunswick
were then called. The old ducal castle still stands on the banks of
the Oka about forty miles south-east of Hanover. The princess of
Wolfenbuttle, who was but eighteen years of age, was sister to the
Empress of Germany, consort of Charles VI. The young Russian prince
was dragged very reluctantly to this marriage, for he wished to be
shackled by no such ties. He was the son of Peter's first wife, not of
the Empress Catharine, whom the tzar had now acknowledged. Peter and
Catharine attended these untoward nuptials, which were celebrated in
the palace of the Queen of Poland, in which a princess as lovely in
character as in person was sacrificed to one who made the few
remaining months of her life a continued martyrdom. But little more
than a year had passed after their marriage ere she was brought to bed
of a son. Her heart was already broken, and she was quite unprepared
for the anguish of such an hour. Though the sweetness of her
disposition and the gentleness of her manners had endeared her to all
her household, her husband treated her with the most brutal neglect
and cruelty. Unblushingly he introduced into the palace his
mistresses, and the saloons ever resounded with the uproar of his
drunken companions. The woe-stricken princess, then but twenty years
of age, covered her face with the bed clothes, and, weeping bitterly,
refused to take any nourishment, and begged the physicians to permit
her to die in peace. Intelligence was immediately sent to the tzar of
the confinement of his daughter in-law, and of her dangerous
situation. He hastened to her chamber. The interview was short, but so
affecting that the tzar, losing all self-control, burst into an agony
of grief and wept like a child. The dying princess commended to his
care her babe and her servants, and, as the clock struck the hour of
midnight, her spirit departed, we trust to that world "where the
wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest." The orphan
babe was baptized as Peter Alexis, and subsequently, on the death of
the Empress Catharine, became Emperor of Russia.
On the 20th of February, 1712, Peter, who had previously acknowledged
his private marriage with Catharine, had the marriage publicly
solemnized at St. Petersburg with the utmost pomp. Soon after this, to
the inexpressible joy of both parents, Catharine gave birth to a son.
The war with Sweden still continued, notwithstanding Charles XII. was
a fugitive in Turkey unable to return to his own country. Finland, a
vast realm containing one hundred and thirty-five thousand square
miles and almost embraced by the Gulfs of Bothnia and of Finland, then
belonged to Sweden. Peter fitted out an expedition from St. Petersburg
for the conquest of that country. With three hundred ships, conveying
thirteen thousand men, he effected a landing in the vicinity of Abo
notwithstanding the opposition of the Swedish force there, and,
establishing his troops in redoubts with ample supplies, he returned
to St. Petersburg for reinforcements. He soon returned, and, with an
army augmented to twenty thousand foot and four thousand horse, with a
powerful train of artillery, commenced a career of conquest. The city
of Abo, on the coast, the capital of Finland, fell unresistingly into
his hands with a large quantity of provisions. There was a flourishing
university here containing a valuable library. Peter sent the books to
St. Petersburg, and they became the foundation of the present royal
library in that place.
The tzar, leaving the prosecution of the war to his generals, returned
to St. Petersburg. Many and bloody battles were fought in those
northern wilds during the summer, in most of which the Russians had
the advantage, gaining citadel after citadel until winter drove the
combatants from the field.
With indefatigable zeal Peter pressed forward in his plan to give
splendor and power to his new city of Petersburg. One thousand
families were moved there from Moscow. Very flattering offers were
made to induce foreigners to settle there, and a decree was issued
declaring Petersburg to be the only port of entry in the empire. He
ordered that no more wooden houses should be built, and that all
should be covered with tile; and to secure the best architects from
Europe, he offered them houses rent free, and entire exemption from
taxes for fourteen years. The campaign of another summer, that of
1714, rendered the tzar the master of the whole province of Finland.
In the autumn of this year, Charles XII., escaped from Turkey, where
he had performed pranks outrivaling Don Quixote, and had finally been
held a prisoner. He traversed Hungary and Germany in disguise, and
traveling day and night, in such haste that but one of his attendants
could keep up with him, arrived, exhausted and haggard, in Sweden. He
was received with the liveliest demonstrations of joy, and immediately
placed himself again at the head of the Swedish armies.
The tzar, however, conscious that he now had not much to fear from
Sweden, left the conduct of the desultory war with his generals, and
set out on another tour of observation to southern Europe. The lovely
Catharine, who, with the fairy form and sylph-like grace of a girl of
seventeen, had won the love of Peter, was now a staid and worthy
matron of middle life. She had, however, secured the abiding affection
of the tzar, and he loved to take her with him on all his journeys.
Catharine, though on the eve of again becoming a mother, accompanied
her husband as far as Holland. Through Stralsund, Mecklenburg and
Hamburg, they proceeded to Rostock, where a fleet of forty-five
galleys awaited him. The emperor took the command, and hoisting his
flag, sailed to Copenhagen. Here he was entertained for two months
with profuse hospitality by the King of Denmark, during which time he
studied, with sleepless vigilance, the institutions and the artistic
attainments of the country.
About the middle of December he arrived at Amsterdam. The city gave
him a splendid reception, and he was welcomed by the Earl of Albemarle
in a very complimentary speech, pompous and flowery. The uncourteous
tzar bluntly replied,
"I thank you heartily, though I don't understand much of what you
say. I learned my Dutch among ship-builders, but the sort of language
you have spoken I am sure I never learned."
Some of his old companions, who were ship-builders, and had acquired
wealth, invited him to dine. They addressed him as "your majesty."
Peter cut them short, saying,
"Come, brothers, let us converse like plain and honest
ship-carpenters."
A servant brought him some wine. "Give me the jug," said he laughing,
"and then I can drink as much as I please, and no one can tell how
much I have taken."
He hastened to Zaandam, where he was received with the utmost joy by
his old friends from whom he had parted nineteen years before. An old
woman pressed forward to greet him.
"My good woman," said the tzar, "how do you know who I am?"
"I am the widow," she said, "of Baas Pool, at whose table your majesty
so often sat nineteen years ago."
The emperor kissed her upon the forehead and invited her to dine with
him that very day. One of his first visits was to the little cottage,
or rather hut, which he had occupied while residing there. The cottage
is still carefully preserved, having been purchased in 1823 by the
sister of the Emperor Alexander, and enclosed in another building with
large arched windows. The room was even then regarded as sacred. In
the center stood the oaken table and the three wooden chairs which
constituted the furniture when Peter occupied it. The loft was
ascended by a ladder which still remains.
With all the roughness of Peter's exterior, he had always been a man
of deep religious feelings, and through all his life was in habits of
daily prayer. This loft had been his place of private devotion to
which he daily ascended. Upon entering the cottage and finding every
thing just as he had left it, the tzar was for a moment much
affected. He ascended the ladder to his closet of prayer in the loft,
and there remained alone with his God for a full half hour. Eventful
indeed and varied had his life been since there, a young man of
twenty-five, he had daily sought divine guidance.