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 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 
 
 AND OF 
 
 PETER THE GREAT.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY S. AND R. BENTI-EY, 
 
 Dorset Street, Fleet Street.
 
 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 
 
 AND OF 
 
 PETER THE GREAT; 
 
 BY 
 
 GENERAL COUNT PHILIP DE SEGUR, 
 
 .AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF NAPOLEON's EXPEDITION TO 
 
 RUSSIA IN 1812. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 TRRU TTEL AND WUIITZ, TREUTTKL, JCJN. AND lUCIlTER. 
 
 SOHO-SQUARE. 
 
 1«29.
 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Statistical sketch of Russia. Extent of its territory. Its actual 
 and possible population, and the annual increase of it. Division of 
 Russia into two parts, the one, Asiatic, the other, European. The 
 Asiatic Part. Its slope. Cause of the severity of its climate. 
 Another cause. Total extent of its surface. Extent of surface which 
 is capable of cultivation. Causes of the barrenness of three-fifths of 
 this vast country. Its productiveness in fish, game, furs, and metals. 
 The European Part. The different climates. Its population. 
 Its division into three regions. Their relative population. Com- 
 parison of their climate with that of other European States situated 
 under the same parallel of latitude. Causes of their difference. 
 Description of the summit-level whence flow the large rivers which 
 intersect this part of Russia. The riches of its soil. Page 1—4. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Division of the history of Europe into its ancient and modern 
 history. Combat of the East and the North on that immense field of 
 battle over which passed the inundations of the Norman and Asiatic 
 hordes. Sketch of the history of Russia, divided into five great 
 periods, two dynastiesj twelve remarkal)le Princes, and five capitals. 
 Pinumeration and character of those twelve Princes ; the manner in 
 wliidi they were divided among those periods ; those periods charac- 
 terized according to the si)irit of their history. Description of the 
 five capitals of this empire. Causes of these great changes of resi- 
 dence. 'I'hey at length carry back the seat of power to the same 
 coast, where, eight centuries and a half before, it had begun by 
 estaldibhing itself. Page 5 — 12.
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER 111. 
 
 Fabulous origin of the first inhabitants of Russia. Doubts upon 
 this subject acknowledged. The assertion of the Scandinavian origin 
 of the Russian Varangians is supported by numerous proofs, collected 
 in a note at the end of the volume. The course of the great inunda- 
 tions of the Asiatic barbarians, and of those of northern Europe 
 ])ointed out. Novgorod, situated between those inundations, acquires 
 from this period yery considerable importance. Summary of its 
 history of that period, drawn from a Russian chronicle of disputed 
 authority. Internal dissensions between a monarchical party and a 
 republican party. The first party calls in the Varangian princes, 
 who, from their local situation, were masters of a part of the Novgo- 
 rodian commerce. The republican party revolts against this foreign 
 domination, but Rurik crushes it, and fixes himself as master in this 
 first capital of the nascent Russian empire. First conquest of Kief. 
 First seeds of Christianity. Page 12 — 16. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Rapid and prodigious aggrandizement of the Russian empire, in 
 consequence of the union of the Varangians with the Novgorodians ; 
 of the genius of Oleg, whose most memorable actions are related ; of 
 the absolute devotion of the Varangians to the descendants of Rurik ; 
 of their military manners and their conquering spii-it ; and lastly, of 
 their superior arms and discipline, and of their acting in concert; op- 
 posed to the pacific and independent manners of the Slavonians, and 
 their being scattered in tribes. Page 16 — 22. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Continuation of the causes of the sudden aggrandizement of this 
 empire. The Slavonians called in the Varangians to their assist- 
 ance. Time and marriages blended these two people, Varangians 
 and Slavonians, into one. The descendants of Rurik at length even 
 prefer the Slavonians to the Varangiaii's. The same love of plunder 
 unites all these tribes under the standards of the Russian Grand- 
 I'rinces. Page 22 — 25, 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 New causes of the extraordinary aggrandizement of this empire. 
 Continuation of the influx of the Varangians into Russia. Invasive
 
 CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 forms and customs of their government. Long duration and various 
 merits of the first reigns. Obstacles which these barbarians meet 
 with in their conquests, and which prevent them from being diiFused 
 and lost in the other parts of Europe. Direct inheritance among the 
 early princes of this first dynasty, in consequence of there being no 
 opportunity for a partition. Commencement of those partitions. 
 Good fortune of the empire, which twice gave the north, or most 
 warlike part of Russia, to the two princes who were most capable of 
 turning this circumstance to advantage. Page 25 — 29. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Reign of Vladimir the Great. His conquests, his manners, his 
 despotism. How Russia becomes Christian. Madimir introduces 
 there the light of Christianity. He divides the empire between his 
 children. Political, niond, physical, and religious causes of these 
 partitions. Crimes of Sviatopolk. Commencement of Yaroslaf's 
 reign. He takes Kief. First Polish invasion. Yaroslaf a second 
 time becomes master of Russia. Extent of this empire. Partition 
 of it between Yaroslaf and Mstislaf. Yaroslaf a third time sole 
 master of Russia. His zeal for the instruction of the Russians ; his 
 tolerance. Alliance of his family with the other royal families of 
 Europe. Page 30 — 36. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Causes which appear to have induced Yaroslaf to give his Code. 
 Code of Yaroslaf. It is imj)osed by despotism. Scale of punish- 
 ments. Division of the Russians into three classes. Slavery. Legal 
 interest of money. Collective responsibility. Scandinavian laws. 
 Source of the nobility. Law regulating the rent and dues to be paid 
 by the farmers to the land-owners, bondage to the soil being then un- 
 known. The Grand-Prince subsists on tlie income from his posses- 
 sions, and on fines. No traces of taxation to be found. Military 
 service requirable. Judges. Jurors. Page 37 — 44. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Largess made by Yaroslaf to his army ; it proves the importance of 
 Novgorod. Causes of the power of that republic; its singular ex- 
 tent. Its government. Its franchises. Its military pr>wer. 
 
 Page H— 47.
 
 -Vlii CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 CHArTER I. 
 
 The first rays of Russian glory about to be eclipsed. It endeavours 
 to effect its interior organization, and to become civilized. A sum- 
 mary of its means of civilization, derived from its connection with 
 southern Asia, with the Greeks and Italians, and from its Christian- 
 ity, the genius of Vladimir and Yaroslaf, and their longevity. De- 
 scription of the premature luxury of Kief. Obstacles thrown in the 
 way of Russian civilization, by the situation of that capital, exposing 
 it perpetually to the incursions of the Nomade tribes, to civil wars, 
 and lastly, to endless mutations of fortunes and properties. Happy 
 influence of Christianity ; and, nevertheless, new and invincible ob- 
 stacles to the civilizing of the Russians, ascribed to barbarian habi- 
 tudes, the vanity of men of confirmed habits, and especially to the 
 destruction of Kief, which exclusively contained the principal seeds 
 of that civilization. Sketch of the progression of calamities, igno- 
 rance, and demoralization, which spread over the Russian Empire till 
 the end of the first dynasty. Page 48—54. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Partition of the empire into appanages.' How they were esta- 
 blished. Order of succession from brother to brother, and from uncle 
 to nephew ; its probable causes ; its pernicious results. Insignificance 
 of the Russian nobility. Devotedness of Russia to the Princes de- 
 scended from Rurik. Their pride. Form of government at that 
 period. Page 55—59. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Summary on the first reigns of this second period. Despicable 
 contentions till the reign of Andrew, but through which shines the 
 pure and spotless glory of Vladimir Monomachus. Patriotism of that 
 Prince. His noble actions, his virtues, his respect for the established 
 order of succession. Vladimir Monomachus refuses the throne ; for 
 twenty years he continues to be the support of it at the risk of his 
 life, and at the expense of his own patrimony. His struggle with 
 Oleg. Remarkable congress. The condemnation of David. Vladi- 
 mir at length ascends the throne, in spil^ of the order of succession
 
 CONTENTS. ix 
 
 and in spite of himself. Banishment of the Jews. Happiness and 
 tranquillity of Russia under the reign of Vladimir Monomachus. 
 His will. Page 60 to 66. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The struggle of Vladimir Monomachus and Oleg is perpetuated in 
 their descendants. Eleven princes, in thirty-two years^ appear upon, 
 and vanish from, the paramount throne. The Grand- Principality is 
 reduced to the city of Kief. Power of the Princes of Suzdal. Mag- 
 nitude of their appanage. The paramount sovereignty passes into 
 the hands of Andrew, Prince of Suzdal, and to Vladimir, his capital. 
 Contest of Andrew with the appanages. He is overcome. Complete 
 annihilation of the paramount authority in his successors. Russia 
 begins to lose its unity at the moment when the greatest of all the 
 Asiatic conquerors combines under his powerful sway all that part of 
 the world. Page 67 to 72. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Invasion by the Tartars. Its causes attributed to the genius of 
 Genghis-Khan, to the manners of the Mongols and Tartars, and to the 
 union of those two people. Their conquest of the Polovtzy and of 
 the Silver Bulgarians leads them to that of Russia. Their greedi- 
 ness of gain is inflamed by their hearing of the riches of Vladimir, of 
 Kief, and of Byzantium. The causes of the success of these Tartars 
 deduced from their mode of life, from the warlike spirit in Russia 
 being weakened, from the reduction in the free Russian population, 
 and from the enormous magnitude of the Mongol armies. A war 
 wholly of sieges, the Tartar cavalry being masters of all the open 
 country. Desperate resistance of the cities. The deserts which sur- 
 round those cities favour the suqirisos attempted by a nation Jilways 
 anned, always rapid in its motions, and always ready for acti(»n. The 
 arms of the 'I'artars suj)erior to those of the Russians. The incon- 
 testable superiority of the Mongol Tartars at that period, attributed 
 to their manners, to their military organization, to the annual assem- 
 bling of their leaders in tlie ])resence of Gengliis, and to tlic influence 
 produced l)y forty years of victory. First invasion in 12*2.^. Insidi-
 
 X CONTKNTS. 
 
 dious and implacable dis[)osition of the Tartars. Second invasion^ 
 and complete concpiest of Russia in 1237, by Baty-Khan, who finds 
 that empire entirely devoid of strength. Causes of that increase of 
 weakness. Establishment of the Tartar empire of the Kaptchak. 
 
 Page 73 to 80. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Duration of the empire of the Tartars in Russia ascribed to the 
 manners and customs of those barbarians. They allow the Russians 
 to govern Russia, and defend it against Europe; a circumstance 
 wliich jn-eserves it, but at the same time exhausts it, by continual 
 wars against the Livonians, the Swedes, and the Lithuanians. Fa- 
 mines, plagues, and intestine dissensions perpetuate the weakness of 
 Russia. Reason why the Tartars made a desert of it. Foundation 
 of their empire by terror. How they subsequently governed ; their 
 favourable treatment of the Russian priests. They assume the para- 
 mount sovereignty. Long journeys which they compel the Russian 
 princes to take. Homage atid tribute wliich they require. They 
 completely dissolve the feudal tie ; interfere in all the disputes of the 
 princes ; and continually ravage Russia. The Mongol empire being 
 kept together only by war, falls to pieces forty years after its founda- 
 tion. From the same cause, the empire of the Kaptchak, one of the 
 five divisions of the Mongol empire, very soon begins to show signs of 
 dissolution. Page 80 to 85. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Dissolution of the Mongol empire. Progress of the Russians to- 
 wards their independence. The Russian princes no longer journey 
 any farther than to Sarai to pay their homage. The Kaptchak, by 
 acquiring extension, becomes divided. The power of the Grand- 
 Princes again revives in the person of Alexander Nevsky. The Tar- 
 tars give the Grand-Principality to this great man. His courage, 
 his policy, his patriotism. The Grand-Principality is again a subject 
 of dissension between the Russian princes ; but, as the possession of 
 the crown is decided by the protection of the Khan, civil wars are 
 replaced by court intrigues. The blind cupidity of the Tartars aug- 
 ments the power of the Grand-Prince. They support him against his 
 kinsfolk. They begin to perpetuate the Grand- Princedom in the 
 same branch. Page 85 to 89. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Rivalship of the branches of Twer and Moscow. The ]ainces of
 
 CONTENTS. xi 
 
 Twer Grand- Princes. Geographical position of Moscow; the conse- 
 quences of it. Yury (orGeorge), Prince of Moscow, becomes brother- 
 in-law of Usbek-Khan. The Prince of Twer alienates Novgorod and 
 the Tartars. Calumny of Yury against that Prince. Usbek gives the 
 Grand- Princedom to Y^ury. He causes the Prince of Twer to be ex- 
 ecuted at the horde. Yury is assassinated by the son of the Prince of 
 Twer, who becomes Grand- Prince, and orders all the Tartars at Twer 
 to be slaughtered. Usbek wrests the Grand- Principality from him ; he 
 gives it to Ivan-Kalita of Moscow, the son of Yury. First union of 
 all the Russian princes under the orders of the Grand-Prince. The 
 Prince of Twer and his son are executed at the horde. Commence- 
 ment of the hundred and seventy years' reign of the bi'anch of Mos- 
 cow. The policy of Twer was fluctuating, that of Moscow was con- 
 sistently followed up. It ovei'came and united the Russian princes 
 by means of the Tartars ; this was the policy of the great Alexander 
 Nevsky, with the addition of a horrible machiavelism ; the Russians 
 having also become more docile to any yoke, and the Grand-Princi- 
 pality more powerful. Page 89 to 92. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The power of the Grand- Princes is increased by the riches which 
 they accumulate. They take upon them the collecting of the Khan's 
 tribute ; they begin by being receivers of the taxes, and end by the 
 becoming the possessors of them. They act as lieutenants of the 
 Tartars, in order to succeed to them in their rights. AYliole appa- 
 nages, and the consent of the Primate to reside in future at Moscow, 
 are bought by Ivan-Kalita. He begins the union of the nobility 
 with the Grand- Princi])ality, and the subjugation of the appanages. 
 The Primate and the Tartar Klian assist him in putting down the 
 rebellions of the princes and the Russian republics. Lithuania 
 throws off the yoke of the Ruriks. Its conquest of southern Russia 
 gives rise to the Cossacks. The relative power of the Russian Grand- 
 Princes incre;i8es. Ivan-Kalita restores order, and encourages com- 
 merce, by wliich his riches are still more increased. C!ommencoment 
 of the rcistoration of lineal succession in his son, Simeon tiie Proud ; 
 and llie second union of the Russian princes under that prince. In 
 default of issue on the part of Simeon, his l)rother succeeds him. He 
 dies. A momentary interruption of the lineal succession. It is re- 
 htored in the person of Dmitry Donskoi, grandson of Ivan-Kalita, and 
 is never again iiitcrruiitt'd. Reason wliy tliis Ivan is one of tbc most
 
 jdi CONTENTS. 
 
 remarkable princes of this third period. The Russian princes de- 
 sire the recal of the Tartar governors. A public opinion begins to be 
 formed. The throne of Moscow is about to become the rallying 
 point of all the Russians. Page 92 to 98. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 After Usbek, the Khans of the Golden-horde themselves assist in 
 establishing the direct succession, fi*om father to son, in the Moscow 
 branch. Dmitry Donskoi secures the hereditary order by treaties 
 with the princes who are possessed of appanages. The most cele- 
 brated of them even declares himself a vassal of the grandson of 
 Dmitry, who is only five years of age. The Grand- Princes, like the 
 French Capetians, cause, during their own life-time, their eldest sons 
 to be acknowledged as their successors. Thisorderrenders more con- 
 sistent and invariable the policy of the Grand-Princes, and attaches 
 the nobles exclusively to them. Reasons why. The Boyards of the 
 Grand- Princes are raided to a level with the princes holding appa- 
 nages, which draws to Moscow the Boyards of the appanages. Cir- 
 cumspect conduct of Dmitry with respect to his Boyards. He sacri- 
 fices to them the 'I'issiatsky, or Boyard of the Commons, whose office 
 he abolishes. The princes possessed of appanages, being deserted by 
 their nobles, become all of them vassals of the Grand-Prince Dmitry. 
 After him, the attachment of these nobles always maintains the lineal 
 successor on the throne, or restores him to it. Page 98 to 102. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Russian princes not being supported by the Tartars, they again 
 sink, discouraged, under the power of tlie Grand-Princes. The Prince 
 of Twer alone resists. He is backed by Lithuania. Terrible struggle 
 of that prince against Dmitry Donskoi. Dmitry rallies round him 
 the nobles and the Russian princes, overcomes Twer, and compels it 
 to unite with him against the Tartars, of whom he throws ofi^ the yoke. 
 His great victory of the Don. Alternation of successes and reverses, 
 during which the Tartars gi-ow weaker and weaker, while, on the 
 contrary, the power of the Grand-Princes, by being concentrated, 
 becomes more and more formidable. The political impulse given by 
 Ivan Kalita continued by Simeon, and vigorously renewed by Dmi- 
 try Donskoi, is supported with machiavelian and ferocious talent by 
 Vassili, his eldest son. Prudent council of nobles and priests left to
 
 CONTENTS. Xlll 
 
 him by his father. Vassili continues the successive uniting of the 
 appanages with the Grand-Principality, which becomes disproportion- 
 ate to the remainder of the appanages. The humiliation of Novgo- 
 rod begins. The Russian princes swear to desist from keeping up a 
 direct communication with the Tartars and Lithuanians. They ac- 
 knowledge, as their Grand-Prince, Vassili the Blind, aged five years, 
 the eldest son of the reigning Grand-Prince. Page 102 to 106. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The armies of Tamerlane, and of Vitovt the Lithuanian, which are 
 about to overwhelm Russia, take another direction, and come into 
 collision. Vitovt is overthrown. Lithuania and Poland separate ; 
 power becomes diflFused~there ; while in Russia it becomes centralized, 
 takes root, and continually acquires strength. Longevity of the Rus- 
 sian Grand-Princes of that period. Its eifects. Singular revolution, 
 and other events, proving the hold which the legitimacy of the lineal 
 succession had gained upon public opinion in the time of Vassili the 
 Blind. His son, Ivan III. associated with him in the government. 
 
 Page 107 to 111. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Russian clergy perse veringly contribute to the restoration 
 of the power of the Grand-Princes. Power of that clergy. Edict 
 attributed to Vladimir. Protection from the Tartars. The convents 
 become their only places of refuge. Fear of the end of the world, and 
 its effects. Tolerance of the Khans. Its causes. They become 
 Mahometans. Maliometanism stops short on the limits of Europe 
 and Asia. Why. Page 1 11 to 114. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Favourable treatment of the Russian priests by Usbek. They dis- 
 trust tbe Maliometan prince. They endeavour to accumulate all the 
 Russian strength in the hands of the Grand-Princes of Moscow. 
 The union of the Primates with the Grand- Princes in Moscow, in- 
 creases the power of the Grand-Princes. Numerous historical proofs 
 of their close union. Efforts of the Primates to maintain and defend 
 tbe lineal succession. End of tlie third great Russian [jcriod. Its 
 predrmiinant idea, that of tiie concentration of power, is about to be 
 triumphant in the fourtJi period, to go beyond all bounds, and to 
 destroy every thing. Page 115 to lly.
 
 MV CONTKNTS. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Character of Ivan III. His object. His adversaries. His allies. 
 His policy. His quadruple struggle against the Tartars, the Russian 
 republics, the princes possessed of appanages, and the Lithuanians. 
 His contest with the Tartars. In the prosecution of it he proves 
 himself pliant, crooked, servile, and pusillanimous. Indignation of 
 his subjects. He dares not commit any thing to the chance of arms, 
 but relies entirely on his policy. It is triumphant. Ivan assumes an 
 erect attitude, and acts in a manner as different from his former con- 
 duct, as the meanness of Louis XL is from the pride of Louis XIV. 
 
 Page 120 to 128. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The same policy, but with more dignity, in his second and great 
 effort, directed against the Russian republics. Marpha. Ivan attacks 
 Novgorod. He only half subjugates it. His moderation merely 
 specious. Crafty gradation by which he draws it over to him, and 
 gradually wrests from it its liberties. He endeavours to obtain from 
 it by stealth a voluntary submission to slavery. Indignation and in- 
 surrection of Novgorod. He accuses it of his own crimes. He arms 
 all Russia against it, and overpowers it, but without a blow, by a gra- 
 dual compression, which at last extorts from it a cry for pardon and 
 servitude. Pskof still remains free. Viatka is subjugated in its 
 turn. Despotic burst of violence in Ivan, which ruins the commerce 
 of Novgorod. Page 129 to 138. 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 Third part of the quadruple contest of Ivan III. The same 
 machiavelism employed against the princes holding appanages as had 
 been used against the Tartars and the Russian republics. Pliability 
 of Ivan to his kinsfolk till his first two contests are terminated. He 
 insulates the most dangerous of those princes, which is, again, the 
 Prince of Twer. He unites friends and enemies against that Prince. 
 His strength always deals in stratagem. Ivan, at first, only half 
 subdues this adversary. He does not complete his purpose till after 
 he has gradually disarmed him, and left the unfortunate Prince no
 
 CONTENTS. XV 
 
 other resource than flight. Ivan crushes, without ceremony, all the 
 other princes who possess appanages. He pushes even to fratricide 
 his tyranny towards them. Page 138 to 141. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Fourth part of the quadruple contest of Ivan III. For thi'ee 
 years the war of Ivan III. against Lithuania is carried on only in an 
 indirect manner. Death of Casimir. Separation of Lithuania from 
 Poland. Great armament of Ivan III. notwithstanding which he 
 allows his allies to attack Lithuania by themselves. Alexander 
 Prince of Lithuania. He endeavours to poison Ivan, who insidiously 
 gives him his daughter in marriage. Machiavelism of Ivan towards 
 his son-in-law. He takes advantage of all his errors. Religious war. 
 Territory recovered from Lithuania by Russia. A victoiy obtained 
 by one of Ivan's generals finally consolidates these acquisitions. 
 
 Page 142 to 144. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Ivan III. the terrestial deity of the Russians. Causes of this su- 
 perstition. His marriage with a Greek Princess. Effects of this 
 union on the mind of the Russians. Changes which it produces in 
 his court. Commencement of arts and civilization. The court of 
 Ivan III. shines in the eyes of the Russians, like a luminous point in 
 the midst of darkness. His policy, despotic at home, is proud and 
 arrogant abroad. New causes of the ascendancy of Ivan III. over 
 the minds of his subjects. His despotism. His success, whatever 
 may have been his means. Ivan III. as administrator and legislator. 
 Creation of a new army, composed of boyard-followers, subordinate 
 landholders, holding directly from the crown. Iron code of Ivan III. 
 The servility of the Russians is to be dated from the reign of this 
 Prince. Page 144 to 153. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Vassili continues the reign of his father. Accession of Ivan IV. 
 His court. Unusual regency of his mother ; her avowed lover. 
 Their sanguinary despotism. The regent dies of poison. Schuisky. 
 His excesses of all kinds. He oppresses and insults his ward, and 
 kills his favourites even in his arms. He deposes a primate. The 
 Glinsky give this brutal being to be devoured by the dogs. They
 
 xvi CONTENTS. 
 
 continue his tyranny under the name of Ivan IV. Lessons of cruelty 
 given to that Trince till he is seventeen. Conflagration at Mos- 
 cow. Insurrection. Massacre of the Glinsky. Sylvester and Adas- 
 chef obtain an ascendancy over the mind of Ivan. Happiness and 
 glory of Russia during thirteen years. Beneficent administration 
 of Adaschef. His great views with respect to Livonia, of the same 
 kind as those of Peter the Great. Livonian war. Tage 153 to 159. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Death of Anastasia, wife of Ivan IV. A violent disease affects 
 the mental faculties of the Grand-Prince. End of Adaschef and 
 Sylvester. Furious madness of Ivan, the seeds of which were sown 
 by the terror which he felt in childhood. Character and actions of 
 this Prince. His dastardly conduct with respect to the King of Po- 
 land, and his other disgraceful singularities, which indicate mental 
 alienation. Page 159 to 166. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Servility of Ivan's subjects. Creation of his satellites. His atro- 
 cious violences. They end by an infanticide. Page 166 to 169. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 His second son Foedor succeeds him. The race of Rurik terminates 
 with this Prince. He is succeeded by his brother-in-law, who is the 
 descendant of a Tartar and has been Fcedor's prime minister. Causes 
 of this ignominious end of the race of Rurik. Page 170 to 171 . 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Russian despotism. Its causes traced to the manner in which men 
 too often misuse the means by which they have at first succeeded ; to 
 the wide extent of the country ; to its depopulation, and its climate ; 
 to the scantiness of intercourse and of ideas; and to the influence of 
 a throne under such circumstances. Coarseness of the lower class. 
 The Greeks and Tartars taught despotism and slavery to the Rus- 
 sians, which, howevei-, the military government, brought from the 
 north by the Varangians, would of itself perhaps have been suflU-
 
 CONTENTS. XVll 
 
 cient to introduce. Manners and customs of the Russian people at 
 this epoch. Their vices attributed to their slavery and their want of 
 education. Description of their ignorance. Coarseness of the supe- 
 rior classed. Cruelty of the punishments, in consequence of the de- 
 fective state of manners, and the want of feelings of honour. Greek 
 and Tartar usages. \Fomen excluded from society. Depravity qf_ 
 manners. Society being imperfectly constituted, it is broken up by 
 the tyranny of Ivan IV. Page 172 to 176. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Slavery of the Russian people. Despotism ; its principles. A 
 superstitious attachment to the throne becomes the public opinion ; 
 slavery and despotism penetrate everywhere ; they are, in a manner, 
 tlie only ties, not merely of the government, but even of families. 
 Legal slavery of wives and children. Barbarous precautions against 
 the despair of wives. Slavery for debt. Such numerous chains make 
 the existence of a third estate a matter of doubt. It, however, 
 really exists, in consequence of its union in the cities. The traders 
 form a corporate body in tliem. The people bear a part in the deli- 
 berations. Russian republics ; their rights; Onodvortzy ; liberty of 
 the soil ; its causes. Tribunal for tlie protection of farmers and hired 
 servants. Power of the cities against tl»e nobles. Weakness of those 
 cities against the prince ; attributed to the nature of the country, to 
 the kind of materials of which their ramparts were composed, to the 
 multitude of the princes and of their guards, and lastly, to a perma- 
 nent state of war, which would not allow the cities to do without the 
 assistance of those warlike princes. Liberty circumscribed in Novgo- 
 rod. That republic becomes enervated. A triple despotism arises in 
 Moscow ; it is extended, and weighs upon the whole of Russia. Only 
 a master and slaves are now to be found in that country. Bondage 
 to tlie soil rendered indispensable there, to establish some degree of 
 order. Epoch and motives of this new slavery. Page 177 to 18.5. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The unvarying submission of the clergy to the Grand-Princes is an 
 incontestable fact. Historical proofs of this fact. The Grand-Princes 
 always liad the right of deposing the primates. Dmitry Donskoi 
 exercised that right. Till 1 tlO, the majority of the Greek primates 
 were Greeks. The fall of Byzantium enhances the religious power of 
 the Grand-Prince. The right of creating and having a patriarch in 
 
 b
 
 xvill (30NTENTS. 
 
 Russia is sold to him. The Grand-Princes preside at the councils. 
 They are autocrats. Recapitulation of the circumstances which might 
 have rendered the clergy formidable to tlie princes, and, nevertheless 
 their inferiority to the throne is indubitable Tlic clergy was retained 
 in submission by the traditionary influence of Scandinavian manners, 
 by imitation of the Greek Church, and by the power of Russian opi- 
 nion, which saw in its princes the heads of its religion. A corporate 
 spirit wanting in that clergy. Their dissemination. The marriage 
 of the priests. Its results. Class from which the clergy was re- 
 cruited. Page 185 to 189. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Russian nobility. It sprung not only from the Varangians, but also 
 from the Slavonians, who were united to those Scandinavians. Dif- 
 ference between the Russian nobility and that of the rest of Europe. 
 It always continues submissive to its princes. Causes of that sub- 
 missiveness : the multiplicity of princes of the blood ; scarcity of 
 cities ; consequently, no cities are left for the nobles. Importance of 
 those cities. They alone, or the princes to whom they belong, can 
 afford protection. The country not habitable, from the want of 
 defensive positions, and of materials. The nobles, therefore, under 
 the necessity of residing in cities. Their uncomfortable situation 
 there. Boyards of the cities and of the princes. Etymology of their 
 name. Their rights; their more or less importance in the state. 
 Their places elective and temporary. What was the only and real 
 nobility of Russia ; what the rest were ; how and why there was no 
 other till about the year 1360. Reasons why the Russian nobility 
 then acquired consistence. Its union with the throne. Sinking of 
 the possessors of appanages into the mass of this nobility. It 
 remains singly in presence of, and in conflict with, the throne, which 
 crushes it. Page igo to 196. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Singular similarity of the movements of internal policy in all the 
 European empires, from the period of the Norman invasion down to 
 the sixteenth century. The presumed cause of this phenomenon. 
 Historical coincidences. Political results produced for the Russians 
 by the concentration of power. Aggrandizement of their empire 
 under Ivan IV^. Asia driven from Europe. Siberia conquered. 
 
 Page 196 to 198.
 
 CONTENTS. XIX 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Nomadic and northern Asia are irrevocably vanquished by northern 
 Europe. Religious, physical, moral, and geographical causes of this su- 
 periority of the north of Europe over that part of Asia. Page 198 to 201. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Rivalship of Russia and Poland. Principal causes of the alterijia- 
 tion of the successes and reverses of those two empires, attributed 
 to the difference of origin in their dynasties, to the spirit of the 
 different religions which they adopted, and to the earlier or later 
 epoch at which those dynasties, becoming too fertile, divided the 
 state into appanages among the royal issue. Subjection of Russia to 
 the Tartars, while Lithuania and Poland united. Civilization was 
 nearer to one of these rival empires than it was to the other. Tri- 
 umph of Poland. Short duration of that triump^i. Causes of the 
 decline of Poland. The contest for the possession of power is, in that 
 country, a struggle between the nobility and the prince. Influence 
 of the vicinity. Influence of its religion. Alliance of the nobility 
 and the clergy against the throne. The crown is weakened by 
 partitions. It becomes elective. It passes to a foreign and hostile 
 family. Charter. The contest between Poland and Russia has the 
 termination which a contest between anarchy and autocracy must 
 necessarily have. Formidable developement of the principles of the 
 Russian government. Pa^e 20 1 to 206. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A retrospective glance on the seven centuries and a half which 
 have formed the subject of the previous narrative. Page 209 to 212. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Continuation of the first chapter. Page 212 to 217. 
 
 b 2
 
 XX CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Accession of Foedor. Ambition of the grandees of his court. Con- 
 sequences of the unequal marriages of the Grand-Princes. Boris Go- 
 dunof, brother-in-hiw of Foedor, and his prime minister. He causes 
 Dmitry, the brother of Foedor, to be assassinated. Able administra- 
 tion of this ambitious personage. He buj-s for Russia the right of 
 having a patriarch. In his hands the arms and the policy of Russia 
 shine witii brilliant lustre. Death of Foedor, the last of the reigning 
 branch of the Ruriks. Election of Godunof. His hypocritical re- 
 fusals. Servile ^nd obstinate enthusiasm of the Russians. Godunof 
 consents. He vainly wishes to reign with mildness and justice. His 
 power, born of violence, can maintain itself on its criminal basis only 
 by dint of crime. Persecution of the Romanofs One of them, from 
 whom the second Russian dynasty is to spring, is thrown into a 
 cloister. Bondage to the soil. Its effects. Russia becomes sullen 
 and gloomy. Famine. A Jacquerie. False Dmitry. Death of the 
 usurper. Melancholy result of his usurpation. It becomes fatal to 
 his successor. Page 218 to 223. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Picture of the horrible interval which separates the dynasty of the 
 Ruriks from that of the Romanofs. Usurpers of all kinds. Polish 
 and Swedish invasion. General confusion. Russia seems to give over 
 the struggle in despair. Her priests alone resist. Their sectarian 
 spirit. The excess of oppression makes great men start up from each 
 class. Minin, a rich butcher, among the people. Pojarski, an able 
 general, among the nobles. Philaretes Romanof, the primate, among 
 the clerg^y. The son of the latter is elected tzar. States-general. 
 The branches of Rurik related to the Moscow branch, seem alien to 
 the first dignity, and to have no right to the throne. Mode of elect- 
 ins Mikhail Romanof. Oath taken bv him. Difference between the 
 election of Godunof and that of Mikhail. Why order was restored 
 in Russia merely by the election of a youth. Page 224 to 228. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Dynasty of the Romanofs. Its legitimacy. Its Prussian origin. 
 Motives of its election. Its hereditary virtues down to the time of 
 Peter the Great. Government of Mikhail. Unsuccessful war against
 
 COM TENTS. XXI 
 
 Poland, in consequence of the jealousy of the natives against the 
 foreign officers whom Mikhail has introduced into the Russian armies. 
 Government of Alexis. His civil and military adniiiiistration. His 
 conquests. His honourable fidelity to u promise given to a revolted 
 robber. Singular character of that revolt. The Ukraine and its 
 Cossacks united to the empire. States-general. Nikon. Ill treat- 
 ment of him. His patriarchate. His deposition. Foedor, son of 
 Alexis. Union of the Zaporovian Cossacks with Russia. Turkish 
 war. Foedor burns the evidence of the titles of the Russian nobles. 
 Fortune of this second dynasty. It is manifested in the order of ac- 
 cession of the first five princes ; in the conformity of the character of 
 each of them to the circumstances ; in the sterility of the two eldest 
 sons of Alexis, and in the premature death of the first, and the insig- 
 nificance of the second ; by which means the field was left clear to 
 the third, who was Peter the Great. Page 2!s!9 to 23i. 
 
 BOOK VII. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Election of Peter. Revolt of the Stralitz. Sophia and Golitzin ac- 
 complices of it. The assassination of Peter very nearly accomplished. 
 Massacre of his relations by the mother's side. Ivan, eldest brother 
 of Peter, associated in the throne. Sophia, Regent. The assassins 
 rewarded. Their insolence ; duration of it. Sophia represses it. 
 Ability displayed by Sophia and Golitzin in their administration and 
 in their policy. Their machiavelian conduct towards Peter, whose 
 childhood they endeavour to brutalize. IVIarriage of Ivan. Child- 
 hood of Peter. Expanding of his youthful genius. Surrounded by 
 foreigners. Their infiuence. Deep humiliation of Petei', wlien the 
 knowledge which he acijuires from them nuikes him conscious of the 
 barbarism of his countrymen. Singular and remarkable determina- 
 tion and perseverance of this Prince, while he is yet but a child. His 
 amusers. His abode transformed into a military school. He deter- 
 mines to rise through all the ranks. He at the same time learns the 
 German langu;ige and the mathematics. Want of fori'siglit in So- 
 phia. Tlie marriiige of Peter and the birth of his fir>t child l)egin to 
 disquiet the Regent's ambition. She Jittempts the throne. lUirstof 
 indignation from Peter. Conspiracy of Sophia. It fails. Sophia is
 
 XXll CONTENTS. 
 
 shut up in a convent, and Peter, at the age of seventeen, ascends the 
 throne. Page 235 to 240. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Eifihteenth century. Under the second race of its princes, Russia 
 turns from the East to the West. Causes of this great change of di- 
 rection. Why, till the time of Peter the Great, it benefited but little 
 ])V it. In what situation he found it. Portrait of Peter the Great. 
 
 Page 241 to 244. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Studies of Peter I. Formation of his army. Sanguinary exercises. 
 Russia and China come into contact for the first time, and clash 
 together, but are reconciled. The sight of a small sailing-vessel 
 inspires the genius of Peter. Cause of his horror of water. Siege of 
 Asoph. Fleet built on the Voroneje. Capture of Asoph. The bar- 
 barism which predominates over the Black Sea repels Peter from it. 
 The civilization of the Baltic Sea attracts him. He is desirous of 
 giving that sea to Russia. Intent of his journey. Effect produced 
 by his departure. Journey of Peter. He observes Riga, which re- 
 buffs him, connects himself with Prussia, and attaches Saxony. The 
 northern powers endeavour to allure him. Conduct of Peter amidst 
 the vicissitudes of this iournev, and notwithstanding his war against 
 Turkey, which is not yet terminated. Peter is a man of the great 
 age. Reason why the age of Louis XIV. is superior to all other ages. 
 Great number of young Russians whom Peter draws after him into 
 the heart of Europe. Absolute necessity of Peter making himself 
 acquainted with every thing he wishes his people to learn. Patriot- 
 ism of this despot. Page 244 to 250. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Indispensable employment of despotism in this land of superstition, 
 ignorance, and slavery. Picture of this barbarism. Resistance of 
 the clergy, the nobility, and the people. Situation of each of these 
 classes before Peter the Great, and their weakness ; the history and 
 causes of which the Prince sees in their annals, which he was the 
 first who collected. Constant submissiveness of the Russian clergy. 
 Concise summary of its principal causes. The same recollection as 
 to the history of the continual subjection of the nobles, whom the
 
 CONTENTS. XXIU 
 
 clergy now call upon to revolt. Pretensions of those nobles. An 
 entirely new scene in history. The evidence of the titles of the 
 nobles is consumed. Comparison of the Russian nobility with the 
 other European nobilities. The subjugation of the Russian nobility 
 also explained by the causes which pro luced tliat of the people. In- 
 surrections of the people more frequent under the second dynasty 
 than under the first. Their causes, the principal of which is to be 
 found in the faulty organization of the Strelitz, and their having 
 degenerated into seditious Janissaries. Page 250 to 259. 
 
 BOOK VIII. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Peter the Great is desirous to introduce order and light into this 
 chaos. Motives which induce him to hasten his operations. Circum- 
 stances which huriy him forward in this new path. First conspiracy 
 of the Strelitz. Danger and presence of mind of Peter. The con- 
 spirators seized. Their horrible execution. Page 260 to 263. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Romodanovsky. Precautions taken against his subjects by Peter 
 during his journey. Insurrection of the Strelitz. Their defeat. 
 Peter returns. Atrocity of his vengeance. Punishment and decease 
 of Sophia. Peter begins his reform by e.xternals. The explanation 
 of his motives for changing the dress of his subjects proves that he 
 was not prompted to this measure by a blind spirit of enthusiastic 
 imitation. Other changes ; other causes. They relate to titles, to 
 words, and to many civil and even religious usages. Means which 
 he adopts to encourage these changes. He restores females to society 
 
 Page 264 to 269. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Regulation for social jiarties. Peter conliuues to attract foreign- 
 ers of talent into Russia, and to send young Russians into the Eu- 
 ropean states for instruction. Change made in the mode of collect- 
 ing the taxes. Tlie Russian year has hitherto begun with the autumn ; 
 he resolves that it shall hencefortli begin with the winter. Cause of \^ 
 
 the introduction of tobacco into Russia. Resistance of tlie priests.
 
 xkiv CONTENTS. 
 
 The Tzar attacks thorn with ridicule. He taxes the clergy. He 
 proiiibits nionastic vows from being taken before the age of fifty. 
 He allows the patriarchal see to remain vacant. He goes further ; 
 he at length suppresses it, but at a later and more ojjportune period. 
 Religious power of the Tzar. Page 269 to 272. 
 
 CH.\PTEH IV. 
 
 Discourse of the nobles.in which all their grievances, whether found- 
 ed or unfounded, are enumerated. Page '^73 to 277. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The resistance of the nobles is of the passive kind. Peter hurries 
 forward the work of regeneration which he has begun, to secure its 
 surviving him. His forms of speech. Power of his words. Law re- 
 lative to the succession, which is entirely in favour of civilization. 
 Enrolling of the sons of priests, and of the servants of the boyards. 
 Conscription of nobles. The education of youth personally super- 
 intended by the Tzar. Tyrannical punishments. His attempts to 
 thwart nature. Lesson given to him upon that subject by Dolgoruky. 
 Peter declares that henceforth services rendered to the state shall 
 alone decide civil and military rank, as well as social ranks and dis- 
 tinctions. The circumstances and great views of the Tzar account for 
 these violent innovations, and excuse some of them. Page 277 to 282. 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 Stimulant means employed by Peter to push forward his subjects in 
 this new path. Rewards of all kinds. Triumphs, which recal to mind 
 those of the Romans. Peter the Great gives an e.xample to his peo- 
 ple, by one of the most persevering exertions with which a man of 
 genius ever astonished the v/orld. He submits with remarkable steadi- 
 ness to gain, slowly and l;i1)oriously, all the ranks ; to ask for them 
 sometimes without obtaining them ; and to return thanks for them to 
 the Vice-Tzar, who, on these occasions, is his representative. Ro- 
 monadovsky, Vice-Tzar. His character. Peter the Great is taxed 
 with exaggeration a;id s^ingularity in the stimulant means which he 
 has employed; but he is justified by the admiration of his contempo- 
 raries, and by necessity. Page 282 to 286.
 
 CONTENTS. XXV 
 
 BOOK IX. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Necessity, under such circumstances, of beginnin^j^ by the formation 
 of a regular army. War with Sweden. A prudent policy lays for 
 it the ground-work of a success which appears to be infallible. Triple 
 alliance. Object of this war. The genius of Charles XII. takes by 
 surprise and overthrows his enemies, at Copenhagen, at Narva, in 
 Poland, and even in Saxony. Pliability of the Austrian policy. In- 
 surrection at Astracan. Persevei-ance of Peter the Great, in regene- 
 rating his empire amidst all this adversity. He invites to Russia 
 artizans of all kinds, from all quarters. Comparison between 
 Charles XII. and Peter I. Their tenaciousness is equal, their end 
 different. The one misuses every thing, the other profits by every 
 thing. The capture of Dorpt and Narva. Generosity of the T/;ar 
 towards tlie inhabitants of tlie latter city, to the governor of which he 
 gives a blow. His firmness supports and consoles his generals under 
 their reverses. Schlusselburg is taken, and Poland succoured. Rash 
 devotedness of Peter the Great, in order to conquer a port on the 
 Baltic. Capture of Nientschantz. Foundation of Petersburgh. 
 Possibility of so many efforts, and such success, exjilained by the re- 
 sources which Peter drew from himself, from his situation, and from 
 the remoteness of Charles XII. Page 287 to 2y I. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Arrogant intoxication of Charles XII. His contempt of the Rus- 
 sians. He marches against them. Every thing excites him ; reverses 
 as well as successes. His blindness. He at first attacks Russia 
 in the centre : then turns to the right, towards its southern extremity. 
 Joy and prudence of Peter the Great. He lets Charles XII. wander 
 ar-tray, while he himself risks every thing to prevent Levenhaupt from 
 joining him. Victory of Lesno. Peter 1. de[)arts to proceed with his 
 creations ; vhile winter, famine, and the Russian generals, weaken 
 Charles XII. and pave the way for his defeat. Victory of Pultova. 
 Sketch of Peter the Great. Contrast of the glory of Pultova with 
 the disaster of tiic Prulh. Page 292 to 29(5.
 
 XXVI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Activity of Peter the Great, in the interval between his victory at 
 Pultova and his disaster on the Pnith. His generosity. Situation 
 of his army. He brealvs his word for the first time. He negotiates, 
 fights, and governs, in Poland, in (iermany, witli Prussia, and with 
 Denmark, in Livonia and in Finland. His triumph at Moscow, in 
 which he announces as his Empress his ])risoner taken at Marienburg. 
 War with Turkey. Catherine saves Peter I. the army, and Russian 
 civilization, by prevailing on the Tzar to caj)itulate. Noble declara- 
 tion and memorable words of Peter I. after liis misfortune on the 
 Pruth. The same activity as after Pultova. Naval victory over the 
 Swedes. The triumphs at Petersburgh for his success against Erens- 
 child. Speech of Peter to his subjects. Page 297 to 304. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Negotiations with Sweden. Goertz obtains an ascendancy over the 
 mind of Charles XII. Projects of that extensive intriguer. Second 
 journey of Peter into the realms of civilization. Simplicity of his 
 manners. Judgment which the French court formed of the Tzar. 
 His prophetic words respecting the approaching fate of the French 
 monarchy. Activity; his sedulous attention to obtain information 
 respecting every thing which might be useful to his people. His 
 meeting with a parish priest, and his speech on that occasion. The 
 rebellion of his son, fomented by the Russian priests, explains the 
 singular exclamation of Peter at the tomb of Richelieu, and his as- 
 perity with the superstitious and persecuting Madame de Maintenon. 
 Death of Charles XII. Peter 1. makes head against all Europe. 
 His conquests on the Baltic are at length consolidated by the peace 
 of Nystadt with Sweden. Moderation of the victor. Recapitulation 
 of the wars carried on by Peter the Great. War with Persia. Re- 
 markable reply of the Tzar to Prince Cantemir. Page 304 to 312. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Peter 1 . extends and protects, on all sides, the Russian commerce. 
 He renders his people a maritime people. Petersburgh. Just objec- 
 tions of the Russians to the spot cTiosen for the founding of that 
 capital. ]\Iotives of Peter the Great, and why he persisted in this 
 choice, in spite of men and nature. Vast ideas which the Tzar con- 
 nected with this expensive establishment. Vain attempts to find a
 
 CONTENTS. XXvil 
 
 better port. Behring. Indefatigable exertions of the Tzar, and ex- 
 penses of all kinds, to render Petersburgh the commercial and mili- 
 ary capital of a great empire. Miraculous transformation of this 
 pestilential marsh. Obstacles which Peter met with in the pertina- 
 cious and mechanical obstinacy of his subjects. The Russians are 
 compelled to obey a prince who makes himself fit for every thing, and 
 is everywhere present. Page 312 to 320. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Inmraense results of such numerous efforts. The treasury of Peter 
 the Great seems to have been inexhaustible. Explanation of this 
 fact, as far as it depends on the ability of his administration ; and, 
 particularly on the compulsory labour, and taxes of all kinds, which 
 his inexorable despotism imposed upon his people. Despair of his 
 subjects. Exactions which he repressed. He himself monopolizes and 
 engrosses, for his own profit, every branch of commerce. The mira- 
 cle of so many creations explained by his despotism. Page 321 to 324. 
 
 BOOK X. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The commercial and financial errors of Peter the Great are those 
 of his age. Singular sensibility displayed by this prince towards one 
 of his mistresses, whom he went to console on the scaffold where she 
 was to suffer. Particulars respecting his coarseness and his acts of 
 violence. Manners which explain them. Reasons which he himself 
 as-signs for them. Page 330 to 335. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The historian (juf;lit not to he insensible. To do justice lo truth, 
 he ought not to be cold ; nothing being more animated, more vividly 
 coloured, and less cold, than tnitli. 'I'wo voices c(mtemporaneous 
 with Peter the Great; the one, that of admiration, the other, tliat of 
 hatred, are raised for and against liini. The accusation urged by the 
 one. It adduces the atrocious execution of the vaiwode of Kargo|)ol, 
 that of TalitHkoi, and several massacres ; the other voice replies, by
 
 XXVIU CONTENTS. 
 
 referring to the circumstances, to the men of that period, the dangers 
 to which Peter lias been exposed, the criminal attempts of which he 
 has been the victim, and their influence on his constitution and on 
 his character. It recals to mind the great utility of his object ; it 
 adds, that all men, who are colossally sculptured, are of roughly-hewn 
 forms, without any thiiig of high finish. But the cry of blood is now 
 heard ; at the name of Alexis all is silent, excejjt the voice of Peter 
 I. himself, who comes to accuse his own son before the grandees of 
 the empire. Page 33G to 340. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Brief exposition of this great tragedy. Adultery of Peter with 
 Anne de Moens. Jealousy of Peter's first wife. Aversion which 
 was the consequence of it. Divorce. The Tzarina inspires her son 
 with her hatred. Man-iage of Alexis. Death of his wife. Portraits 
 of Alexis and of Peter. Act of accusation which the latter pro- 
 nounces. Letter full of advice, of excitements, of reproaches, and of 
 threats, which the Tzar addressed to his son, and which he produces 
 to the assembly of the grandees of the state. Page 341 to 345. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Dejection of Alexis. He renounces the succession to the empire. 
 Reply of Peter. H is autocratic pride ; his foresight ; he is distrustful 
 of the influence of the great bearded Muscovites over his sou. 
 Threats more and more alarming, which he addresses to him. Alexis 
 desires to become a monk, rather than bend to civilization. New 
 efl^orts of Peter to overcome this excessive obstinacy. Kis departure 
 for Denmark, Holland, and France. Mendacity of Alexis; his flight 
 into foreign counti-ies ; his return, his interrogatory, his confessions. 
 
 Page 345 to 348. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Deliberation of the Russian grandees; they hesitate; motives which 
 decide them ; condemnation ; death of Alexis. Peter weeps for his son, 
 at the same time that he again criminates his memory. Page 348 to 351. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The judgment 'of history. Her hesitation, which ends with a cry 
 of horror; when, turning her view from the political object of this 
 action, she considers it in a moral light. Page 351 to 353.
 
 CONTENTS. XXIX 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Glance which she casts back to the interval between the flight of 
 Alexis and his death. She sees there the treacheiy of Peter to his 
 son. Inquisitorial, cruel, and tyrannical inquiry to which he sub- 
 jected him, and the ferocity of the Tzar to the accomplices of Alexis. 
 Particulars respecting the atrocious nature of their execution. Ini- 
 quity of this trial. Cowardice of the judges. Peter dictates to them 
 his son's sentence of death ; he himself executes it. Page 353 to 358. 
 
 BOOK XI. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Fears that amidst such ferocious actions the gi'eat man will never 
 again be discovered. But the difficulties of his situation are pointed 
 out. It is seen that he had estimated all the magnitude of the sacri- 
 fice which he was about to make. He is perceived to have been cruel 
 only against the enemies of civilization. His sensibility, his huma- 
 nity, his goodness, are proved by his clemency to Mentzikof, by his 
 joy when the innocence of his generals is ascertained, and by his long 
 continued regret for the death of Lefort, of Scheremetef, and of 
 Charles XI I . Page 3.59 to 365. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The tenderness of this prince for Catherine, and his despair on the 
 death of the son whom he had by her, also show that he was not in- 
 sensible. Dolgoruky snatches him from his grief. Peter the Great 
 proves his moderation, and liis love of justice and truth, by his con- 
 duct in various circumstances; with Dolgoruky, with an Iswoschik, 
 with Kreitz, Bassewitz, and Bevern. Page 36.5 to 371. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 He fruitlessly wishes to govern without executions. His paternal 
 solicitude for the welfare of his subjects. His garden of instruction. 
 His kindness in improving the shoes of the Finlanders. His delicate
 
 XXX CONTENTS. 
 
 mode of attracting tlie Russians to his useful establishments, and 
 inspiring them with a taste for gaining infonnation. AV^itli what sen- 
 sibility he soothes the sufferings of the men who have assisted him in 
 civilizing Russia. How his gratitude manifests itself, and honours 
 their memory, in the last duties which he pays to them. How he 
 encourages, caresses, and rewards the young Russians who ac- 
 quired knowledge. Page 37 1 to 374. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Ingenious gratitude of Peter the Great to the small sailing-vessel 
 by which his genius was first inspired. His beneficent delight on 
 the conclusion of the peace of Nystadt. His generosity when he tri- 
 umphed over Erenschild. Honours paid by him to the Russians who 
 brought back European civilization to Russia. His transports of ten- 
 derness towards the son of the unfortunate Alexis, when he hoped to 
 see him prove a well-informed and civilized successor. Recapitula- 
 tion of all that Russia owed to him, and of what she was before his 
 time. He has no friends or enemies but those of the civilization of 
 his empire. Page 375 to 379. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Indication of his institutions of all kinds, and of the redoubling of 
 his labours at the epoch of the murder of Alexis. At first intolerant 
 against intorance, he suspends a persecution which was begun. His 
 remarkable words on this subject. He disarms superstition, and un- 
 masks the workers of false miracles. He confines the privileges of 
 the clergy within proper bounds, rids himself of the Jesuits, replaces 
 the hetman of the Cossacks by a council, and the patriarch by a 
 synod. Administrative and judicial improvements. Page 379 to 386. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Peter the Great collects the archives of the Russian history. He 
 traces in them the progress of their legislation dovvn to his own time. 
 He fixes his attention on the laws of Ivan III. He admires the 
 enactments of Ivan IV. Bondage to the soil. Code of Alexis. Dol- 
 goruky stimulates the legislative genius of Peter the Great to sur- 
 pass his father in this kind of glory also. Legislative labours of Peter,
 
 CONTENTS. XXXI 
 
 Projects of codes. Preparatory directions. Maritime code. Judi- 
 cial regulations. Severity of the Tzar against false witnesses and 
 against peculation. Military code ; its remarkable preamble ; its 
 despotism j its urgent necessity. I'iige 386 to 394. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Peter the Great takes a retrospective view of the Russian army 
 from its origin. First elements of which it was composed ; its arms ; 
 its destruction by the Tartars ; its re-establishment ; its boyards, or 
 condottieri, and their guards. Armies of Ivan III. and Ivan IV. 
 Proportion of the cavalry to the infantry. Composition of the latter. 
 Military tax. Strclitz. Pay. Composition of the Russian army at 
 the end of the sixteenth century. Expense which it occasions. Sin- 
 gular manner of fighting in plains, and besieging cities. Efforts of 
 the first Romanofs better directed, but fruitless. This the reason 
 why Peter, distrustful of his successor, is desirous to complete every 
 thing during his life-time. He wishes to leave the civilization of his 
 empire in firm hands, and such as are interested in preserving it after 
 him. Statement of the situation of the army to which he entrusted 
 their regeneration. Page 391. to 401. 
 
 13 O () K XII. 
 CHAPTER 1. 
 
 Private life of Peter the Great ; its identity with his public life. 
 All his expenses have a view to the benefit of his empire. His eco- 
 nomy in that which relates to his pleasures. His habits, his occupa- 
 tions. Plainness of his dress. His frugality. His over-indulgence 
 in wine. His unaffected and frank familiarity. His extracts. His 
 translations. Anecdote on this subject. Even the most minute cir- 
 cumstances do not escape his attention. Example. Coincidence with 
 Charlemagne and Napoleon. His taste for all the kinds of labour 
 which he wishes to bring into credit. Anecdote relative to tliis. He 
 despises etiquette. Anecdotes which justify this assertion. Rashness 
 in his pleasures. Like other great men, he believes in predestina- 
 tion. Page 402 to 408.
 
 XXXll CONTKNTS. 
 
 (CHAPTER ]I. 
 
 Fits of passion of Peter the Great. His [»atience with the first and 
 often fruitless attempts of liis subjects in any art whatever. His re- 
 markable speech against slalider. Particulars respecting his popular 
 manners, related by his dtiughter. He joiu-neys through his states 
 alone, without any followers. Like the heroic demi-gods, he subdues 
 the robbers ; and, like Caesar, he falls into their hands, from which 
 he ransoms himself. Extermination of these robbers. Cause of the 
 prevalence of robbery. Peter is not comprehended by his subjects. 
 He is detested by them. Fortunate in all that relates to his glory 
 and his labours, he is unfortunate in the intex'ior of his empire and 
 in his domestic concerns. His daughters are his only consolation. 
 The kindness which he shows to them. Their affection for him. 
 
 Page 408 to 412. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Private sorrows of Peter the Great. Sufferings which, perhaps, 
 atone for his cruelties. He had deserved his misfortunes. Long con- 
 tinued and terrible consequence of a first fault. He does every thing 
 for Catherine. He makes her his partner in the government of the 
 Empire. He wishes to secure to her the succession to the throne. 
 The motive which he himself assigns for this. He crowns her him- 
 self. Page 413 to 417. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Ingratitude of Catherine. Her adultery. Peter discovers her 
 crime. Terrible scene with Repnin. Cruel punishment of the Em- 
 ])ress's accomplices. Suspicions of posterity with respect to her and 
 Mentzikof. Page 417 to 421 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Reluctance which is felt to part with this great man. First attack 
 of the disease which was ultimately to kill him. He struggles against 
 it. He conceals his malady, which at length gains the upper hand 
 and puts his life in danger. He is saved by a grievous operation ; 
 but immediately returns to the creations of his genius. Along with 
 Munnich, he minutely examines the works which are carrying on at 
 the Ladoga Canal. His anger against Pisarev. His confidence in 
 Munnich. Peter goes into Finland. He exposes himself to save a
 
 CONTENTS. XXXIU 
 
 vessel containing soldiers ; and is the victim of his humanity, as he 
 is again attacked by his malady. His genius, however, does not yet 
 flag. He governs from his bed of anguish. Instructions to Behring. 
 He is desirous to show himself to his people in a religious ceremony, 
 that of blessing the waters. His disease is aggravated by this eifort. 
 He struggles against it for a long while, and wishes, too late, to dic- 
 tate his last will. His death. . . Page 421 to 429. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The winding-up of this dissertation on the life of Peter the Great. 
 His eulogium. That of the great age to which he belonged, and 
 which ended with him. . . . Page 430 to 433.
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 3, line 10 from the bottom, for the Sukhana, read the Northern 
 Dwina. 
 
 Page 15, line 15, for Bicl-o-zero, read Bielozero, or Bielo-ozero. 
 
 Page 66, line 14, add, as a note, — From Kief to Tchernigof is thirty-six 
 leagues.
 
 ALPHABETICAL TABLE 
 
 Of the Authors consulted, whose names the Editor has thought it 
 advisable to give under one head, iu order to avoid crowding the 
 pages with references. 
 
 Abulgasi. 
 
 Adam Clement. 
 
 Ammianus. 
 
 ' Anecdotes, Secret, of the Court of 
 Russia, drawn from its Archives, 
 or, The Traveller during thirteen 
 years.' 
 
 ' Annals of Little Russia.' 
 
 ' Antidote.' 
 
 ' Art of verifying Dates.' 
 
 Basseville, ' Life of Lefort.' 
 Bruce, (Peter Hpnry) ' IMemoirs.' 
 Buchet. 
 
 Caillot. 
 
 Catherine IL 
 
 ' Chronicle of Novgorod,' an extract 
 
 translated from the. 
 ' Chronology of Poland.' 
 ' Code, Military.' 
 * Concordance of the Laws.' 
 C'onstantirie Porjtliyrogenitus. 
 Coxe. 
 
 Damazc; «le Raymond 
 
 Danville. 
 
 Deguignes, ' General History of the 
 
 llun».' 
 Depping. 
 
 ' Dictionary', Universal, of Sciences.' 
 Divof, 'Continuation of Karamsin.' 
 Duclos, ' Secret IMemoirs. ' 
 
 "• Ephemerides, Russian,' by Spada. 
 ' Essay on the Commerce of Russia.' 
 
 Fontenelle, ' Eulogium of Peter the 
 Great.' 
 
 Gebhardi, ' Geschen Wenden und 
 
 der Slaven.' 
 Gibbon. 
 
 Herbelot, ' Oriental Library.' 
 Herberstein, •• Rerum Moscoviti- 
 
 carum.' 
 ' History of the first Consort of 
 Peter the Great, and of tlie dis- 
 grace of Mentzikof.' 
 
 ' History of Poland,' by 
 
 ' History of the Northern Govern- 
 ments.' 
 ' History, Universal,' iiy a Society 
 of Literary Men. See vol. xlii. 
 
 Ivan Nestesuranoi, ' Memoirs.' 
 
 Jornandes, 
 
 ^ Journal of Peter the (ireat.'
 
 XXXV 1 
 
 ALPHABETICAL TABLE. 
 
 Kamensky,' Age of Peter the Great.' 
 Karamsin, ' History of Russia.' 
 Kot/.el)ue, ' HecoUections,' &c. 
 Kurbsky. 
 Krafft. 
 
 La Neuville, ' New and Curious Re- 
 lation concerning Muscovy.' 
 
 Leclerc, ' History of Russia.' 
 
 Leo the Deacon. 
 
 Lerberge, Dissertation. 
 
 Lescalier. 
 
 Lesley. 
 
 Levesque, ' Edit, of Malte-Brun and 
 Depping-.' 
 
 Lisakewitz. 
 
 Liutpiand. 
 
 Lomonosoff. 
 
 Louville, ' Memoirs of.' 
 
 JMallet, ' History of Denmark.' 
 
 Malte-Brun, ' Geography.' 
 
 ' Manifesto of the Trial of the 
 
 Tzarevitz.' 
 Margeret Manstein, ' Memoirs of.' 
 ' Memoirs of Catherine II.' by an 
 
 Officer who was a witness of what 
 
 he recorded. 
 ' Memoirs of a Foreign Minister, 
 
 who resided at Petersburgh, and 
 
 Life of Mentzikof.' 
 t Memoirs of a German, Resident at 
 
 the Court of Peter the Great, 
 
 (idem). 
 MuUer. 
 Munnich (' Life of.') 
 
 Navikof. 
 
 Nestor. 
 Nicon. 
 
 Pallas. 
 
 Perry, Jolm, a captain of engineers! 
 under Peter the Great, ' Mt^moira, 
 or Present State of Great Russia.* 
 
 ' Peter tlie Great, Age of.' 
 
 Pinkerton. 
 
 Pytheas of Marseilles. 
 
 Plan-Carpin. 
 
 Praetorius. 
 
 Possevin. 
 
 Haab. 
 Rulhiere. 
 
 Saxo-Grammaticus. 
 
 Schloezer. 
 
 Solignac, ' History of Poland.' 
 
 Spada. 
 
 ' Statu cum Canonic Petri Magni.' 
 
 Stcherbatof. 
 
 Stoehlin. 
 
 Storch, Plenry, ' Historical and Sta- 
 tistical Picture,' by. 
 
 Strahlenberg. ' Historical Descrip- 
 tion of the Russian Empire.' 
 
 Strube of Pyrmont,or Struve (F.H.) 
 'Dissertation on the Ancient Rus- 
 sians.' 
 
 Sturleson, or Sturlezon. 
 
 Tatischc^f, 
 Tooke. 
 
 Ville-Hardouin. 
 
 Voltaire, 
 
 Vsevolojsky. 
 
 Weydemeyer, ' Historical and Statis- 
 tical Picture,' 1828, &c. &c.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The Sciences are spreading with rapidity. A 
 arger share of our attention is every day required 
 )y them. At the same time, our recent, political 
 emancipation adds to the number of our pursuits, 
 nd of our habitual duties, and the lessons of 
 listory become more than ever indispensable for our 
 guidance. But how can we satisfactorily attend to 
 he present, if we do not abridge the study of the 
 )ast ? It is, therefore, a matter of necessity for the 
 najor part of us, to have to learn only in masses the 
 )olitical and philosophical progress of great nations, 
 lown to the period at which we live. 
 
 This is the reason why, passing over details, I 
 lave confined myself to the frame of the Russian 
 Lolossus. I have not attempted to follow its growth, 
 .'xcept in its most important stages ; or its march, 
 except in its most striking movements. In other 
 kvords, I have sought to discover the reason or the 
 >})iiit of its long liistory ; I have endeavoured to 
 :oinpress, to abridge, to circumscril)c it within the
 
 XXXVlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 limits of an almost synoptical table ; and have la- 
 boured to trace it in characters which may be legi- 
 ble to the eyes of both sexes, and of every age. 
 
 By so laborious a search, I may, perhaps, have 
 succeeded in throwing a new ray of light upon these 
 historical ruins. But, even should I merely have 
 planted a few pickets to indicate the path, my work 
 will not be useless. I shall be satisfied with having 
 pointed out a short and direct road, in which men of 
 higher powers may one day tread. It will be suffi- 
 cient to me to have established the real ground-work 
 of this history, obtained a leading clue to it, and 
 given it into native hands, who will be able to trace 
 more closely than I can, the thread of the destinies 
 of their ancestors. 
 
 Several authors have already written upon this 
 subject. Nevertheless, the first portion of it is, per- 
 haps, not so familiar to us that we can treat upon it, 
 without running the risk of not being generally 
 understood. I, therefore, think it necessary, at the 
 commencement, to point out, in a few lines, the con- 
 nection of the principal facts, and to bring before the 
 view of the reader the series of Princes of the first 
 dynasty, who occupied, with the greatest renown, a 
 scene so extensive and so remote. Then, after 
 having attempted to disentangle, to seize, and to 
 follow the main thread of the Russian history down 
 to the time of Peter I. I shall justify the title of 
 my work, and attain my proposed object, by a pic- 
 ture of the reign of that illustrious man.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXIX 
 
 It appears to me that the Iiistory of great per- 
 sonages, generally, is commenced by a portraiture of 
 them ; they excite more interest by being known ; 
 besides, this affords an explanation of many events : 
 it is the same with respect to empires. For this 
 reason, we begin by the following statistical picture 
 of Russia.
 
 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Russian empire extends over three hundred and 
 sixty-eight thousand sc^uare miles, of fifteen to the degree : 
 a hundred thousand miles in Europe ; more than two 
 hundred and forty-three thousand miles in Asia ; and the 
 residue in America. 
 
 This empire comprehends one half of Europe, and a 
 third of Asia ; it forms a ninth part of the habitable 
 globe. 
 
 Its European division is peopled by fifty-eight millions 
 of inhabitants ; its Asiatic, by two millions ; its American, 
 by fifty thousand : the total number is sixty millions of 
 souls;* which, however, does not give more than about a 
 hundred and sixty-one persons to each square mile. 
 
 * Up to the year 1819, statistical writers did not estimate the 
 whole population of Russia at more than forty-six millions of souls ; 
 but in 1822, Jialhi raised the estimate to fifty-four millions; Ilassel, 
 in 1823, to fifty-nine millions two hundred and sixty-three thousand 
 seven hundred; and Malte-Brun, in 182fi, to fifty-nine millions at 
 least. 
 
 It is true that, in 1828, Weydemeyer reduced it aj^ain to fifty- 
 three millions ; liut the calculations of llallii and Ilassel had, hofore- 
 hand, refuted this last estimate, wliicii tliey look uixni as erroneous. 
 
 H
 
 2 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 In this pop\ilation, and in Europe alone, we perceive 
 two millions and a half of Finns, less than five hundred 
 thousand Germans and Scandinavians, and fifty millions of 
 Slavonians, of whom four millions are Poles. 
 
 The Russian territory is considered to be capable of 
 supporting a hundred and fifty millions of human beings, 
 and its population to increase at the yearly rate of half a 
 million. 
 
 The Oural mountains, the river of the same name, and 
 the great Caucasian chain, divide the Asiatic portion of it 
 from the European. 
 
 The Asiatic part. — The surface of Siberia slopes 
 towards the Frozen Ocean, into which it pours its waters ; 
 this slope, and the loftiness of the enormous table-land 
 which gives birth to its rivers, are the two chief causes 
 of the severity of its climate. 
 
 Its superficies contains about seven hundred thousand 
 square leagues, of which not more than two fifths are sus- 
 ceptible of cultivation. The south-west is remarkable for 
 its fertility ; but to the north of the sixtieth parallel of 
 latitude, and to the east of the Jenisei, all culture ceases ; 
 doubtless, because the great table-land of Mongolia over- 
 looks, with an altitude equal to that of the Cordilleras, 
 that desolate space which it presses against, and exposes 
 to the north, and which it thus places between two eternal 
 glaciers, its own , and that of the Pole. 
 
 The two seas of this gloomy country are thronged with 
 monsters productive of oil ; its rivers are swelled to over- 
 flowing with fishing banks ; its plains, its immense forests, 
 its icy deserts, are peopled by flocks, or by wild animals 
 whose fur is valuable ; its mountains are fraught with 
 every species of metal. 
 
 The south of Siberia is subject to short but burning 
 summers, and to biting winters. So rigorous is the cli-
 
 ROOK I. CHAP. I. iS 
 
 mate of its other parts, tliat it is sufficient for the punish- 
 ment of the greatest crimes. Over these vast deserts wan- 
 der, or are scattered, two miUions of inhabitants. 
 
 The European part. — The European portion of the 
 Russian empire is divided, by the best authorities, into 
 three regions : the hot, the temperate, and the cold. The 
 first begins at the fortieth degree, the second at the fiftieth, 
 the third at the fifty-seventh.* 
 
 The middle region contains thrice as many inhabitants as 
 the two others. Why does this region, which is called tem- 
 perate, experience a severer degree of cold than the Low 
 Countries, Holland, England, Saxony, and Prussia, which 
 are imder the same parallels of latitude .'' Geographers 
 deduce the cause of it, firstly, from the continuity of 
 the Russian territory as far as the polar circle, while all 
 the western countries of Europe are bounded by the sea to 
 a nnich remoter distance from the Pole ; and, secondly, to 
 the trifling elevation of the chain which separates the 
 northern and southern slopes of that territory ; an eleva- 
 tion wliich is insufficient to shelter European Russia from 
 the polar blasts. 
 
 Here, nevertheless, are the points from which, in op- 
 j)osite directions, descend the Dwina and the Dnieper, the 
 Volga and the Sukhana. 
 
 The uncertain and (hd)ious outline of these summits 
 ])asses by Valdai, which gives its name to them ; it is 
 found again between Vologda and Yaroslaf ; it indicates, 
 in several parts of it, the conunencement of the cold region. 
 
 It is from tluir swampy table-land, and from these insig- 
 nificant eminences, that the waters of European Russia 
 glide down, and slowly find their way into its north, north- 
 east, and south seas. 
 
 The three Russian cliiTiates, however, as far as Ohmctz, 
 
 • See Wey«lemeyer, Stordi, P.illas, Tooke, Malte-Brun, i*tc. 
 
 It 9
 
 4 HISTORY OP RUSSIA, 
 
 favour, or permit, the ripening of the most necessary kinds 
 of grain, and of many others. To the southward, the soil 
 affords honey, all varieties of fruit, salt, and, especially, 
 rich pasturages, which extend into the temperate region ; 
 even the north has those pasture lands ; and all are co- 
 vered by innumerable flocks of every species, from the 
 camel to the reindeer. 
 
 Impenetrable forests, of trees of various natures, in the 
 middle and soutliern regions ; and of birch and resinous 
 trees in the northern parts ; abound with game, and, in the 
 north, with animals producing rich furs. 
 
 Bounded by several seas, covered with lakes towards the 
 north-west, furrowed by deep rivers, which, through the 
 means of easy canals, unite, by three communications, 
 the northern seas to the seas of the south, this vast coun- 
 try abounds, like Siberia, with marine monsters, and with 
 fishes of every description. 
 
 Finally, from north to south, the great Oural opens to 
 all the wants, and to all the passions of the Rvissians, its 
 inexhaustible mines of iron, of copper, and some of platina, 
 of silver, and even of gold.* 
 
 However magnificent this picture of Russia may appear 
 to be, it is faithfully copied from nature. 
 
 * From the Russian Journal of the Mines, for 1825, and the Pa- 
 triotic Annals, for 1826, it appears that, in six years and a half, 
 from 1818 to 1 824, the Ouralian mines produced three millions five 
 hundred and sixty-seven thousand two hundred and seventeen rubles, 
 of silver, and especially of gold. According to the same authorities 
 (and error or exaggeration excepted), the same mines gave, in only 
 the last six months of 1824, to the amount of five millions three hun- 
 dred and seventy-seven thousand and five rubles, and eighty-seven 
 kopecks, in gold and silver.
 
 BOOK I. CHAP. 11: 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Let us now proceed to its history ; and, for the sake of 
 brevity with respect to that part of it which may be called 
 ancient, let us observe, that it comes down to the ninth 
 century of the Christian era, and that, as it is obscure 
 and barren of interest, whatever is to be said of it must 
 occupy but a small portion of the text, and be abundant 
 in notes and documents. 
 
 The scene of action is nearly the European part of the 
 present Russian empire. On this vast field of battle, and 
 in that night of time, central Asia A\ill be seen often victo- 
 rious, and Scandinavia often acquiring the ascendancy in 
 its tuni. The most remote of those northern irruptions, 
 of which we have any knowledge, seem to have occurred, 
 — the first,* three hundred years before Jesus Christ ; 
 the second,t two hundred and fifty years after, under 
 
 * This is very uncertain. Pytheas of Marseilles says, however, 
 that the Goths crossed the Baltic three hundred years before Jesus 
 Christ. Is it to this period that we ought to refer the destruction of 
 that Slavensk which 'tradition represents as having existed on lake 
 llniun.'' Tacitus affirms, that in the glorious times of the Roman 
 republic, the Cimbri and Teutones had descended from the Baltic 
 sea. Nevertheless, their appearance in Italy is much posterior to 
 the epoch mentioned by Pytheas of iMarseilles. 
 
 t The Russian chronicles say, that the Slavonians then fled to- 
 wards the south ; consequently, they were attacked from the north. 
 Besides, Jornandes, a civiHzed fioth, who wrote at Ravenna, states 
 that, about A. I). y.50, Amala, king of the Goths and son of the gods, 
 descended from the N'ortli, and drew with him against the (Jreeks, 
 the Slavonians, the Venedi, and tlie Anta*, who dwelt in the countries 
 comprehended between Finland and the Borysthenes.
 
 b HISTORY OF RUSSJA, 
 
 Amala and Hermanric ; and the third in 862, under the 
 great Rurik, the founder of the Russian empire. 
 
 But the founding of this empire, and the last invasion of 
 Russia by the people of central Asia, who were called into 
 activity by the genius of Genghis Khan, belong to its mo- 
 dern history. 
 
 The Russian empire, therefore, does not, in reality, com- 
 mence till the middle of the ninth century. In its history 
 there are to be observed, five great periods, two dynasties, 
 twelve remarkable princes, and five capitals. 
 
 Of these five prominent periods, the first, comprehend- 
 ing a space of a hundred and ninety-two years, from 862 
 to 1054, presents to our view the foundation of the em- 
 pire, in Novgorod, by Rurik the Great, the leader of the 
 Varangians, or Vaeringar, of the Baltic sea ; its enormous 
 extension under the potent Oleg, successor of Rurik, and 
 his superior in greatness, who was regent for Rurik"'s son 
 Igor, and who gave to this rising state Kief as its capital, 
 together with a large part of the present European Russia. 
 Then follows the protracted reign of the weak Igor, who, 
 though son of Rurik the Great, pupil of the great Oleg, 
 and husband of the celebrated Olga, was an insignificant 
 prince, and was, perhaps, rendered so by this threefold 
 proximity. 
 
 To this reign succeeds a second regency, that of St. 
 Olga, the widow of Igor. This princess, the first Chris- 
 tian Russian, was baptised at Constantinople. She is fa- 
 mous for the crafty and terrible revenge which, for the 
 murder of her husband, she took upon the ferocious Drev- 
 lians,* whose subjugation she completed. Her adminis- 
 tration is remarkable. To her the republic of Pskof was 
 indebted for its liberties, which rendered it so flourishing 
 
 * Their capital is said to have been situated near the confluence 
 of the Pripiat with the Dnieper.
 
 BOOK 1. CHAP. II. 7 
 
 during the space of six centuries. It was this princess 
 who divided the north of Russia into various administra- 
 tive districts. Down to the period of the annalists, her 
 greatness continued to fill the memories, the mouths, and 
 the hearts of the people. 
 
 She was tlie mother of Sviatoslaf, a harsh, rough, in- 
 flexible, impetuous warrior, — the Achilles, the Charles the 
 Twelfth, of that epoch. As Oleg had removed his capita' 
 from Novgorod to Kief, so did Sviatoslaf remove his to 
 Bulgaria ;* in each remove approaching nearer to the em- 
 pire of the Greeks : but he was driven from it by them ; 
 and, in his retreat, his skull became the cup of the leader 
 of the Patzinacites, on the same soil where, eight centuries 
 later, Charles the Twelfth was destined to be overcome 
 by Peter the Great, and in consequence of similar obsti- 
 nacy. 
 
 Subsequent to him, and to Yaropolk, a prince who was 
 a mere cypher, this first period at length displays to us 
 the highest gothic glory of the Russian empire, under 
 Vladimir the Great, in 9H8, and its conversion to Christian- 
 ity. Then succeeds Sviatopolk. Were it not for his fra- 
 tricides, and the first invasion of the Poles in Kief, of 
 which he was the prompter, this miscreant would pass al- 
 most unperceived between his father, the great Vladimir, 
 and his brother Yaroslaf tlie legislator, the fifth eminent 
 man of this dynasty, but with whom, in 1054, closed the 
 first glorious period of that empire. 
 
 In the second period, from 1054 to 1236, comprising a 
 hundred and eighty years, a period wholly devoted to dis- 
 cord and to internal dilacerations, the empire was divided 
 and subdivided, like a private property, among the de- 
 scen(hmts of Rurik. 
 
 Amidst a throng of these princes, who reciprocally con- 
 
 • W'c-tcrn Hiilfraria, llio ancient Ma'sia.
 
 8 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 tended for their appanages, and especially for the throne 
 of Kief, we hardly distinguish an uninterrupted series of 
 seventeen paramount princes, succeeding from brotlier to 
 brother, and from uncle to nephew, down to the obscure 
 Yury, who was slain by the Tartars in 1237. 
 
 This peojjle of Grand Princes, ranged in this singular 
 order of succession, offers to our view only two men of 
 note, Vladimir Monomachus, in 1114, and Andrew, 
 about 1157. 
 
 The first of these restored to the empire a moment of 
 unity, by the ascendant of his valour and his virtues, 
 and in spite of the efforts of the Polovtzy, nomadic tribes 
 of the south, whom he succeeded in crushing. The second, 
 abandoning Kief, made Vladimir the capital of his empire. 
 His policy raised him above the unfortunate times in 
 which he lived. He is the only one who seemed to be 
 aware of the cause of so much dissension, and who strove 
 to annihilate it. 
 
 The third period opens, in 1237, ^^^^^ ^^^^ subjugation 
 of Russia, in consequence of its intestine divisions. It con- 
 tinues for two hundred and twenty-three years, till 1460. 
 
 A multitude of Rvissian princes, the Grand Prince, three 
 of his sons, and their mother, are massacred by the Tartars ; 
 but two brothers of the Grand Prince still survive ; they 
 successively fill his place. The eldest has five sons, who, 
 in succession, transmit to, or wrest from each other, the 
 sceptre, or receive it from the Tartars. 
 
 The third, St. Alexander Nevsky, is a great man, in 
 every sense of that emphatic word. He is a hero, victor 
 over the Teutonic knights, the Swedes, and even the 
 Lithuanians, who had rushed on upon hearing the sovmd 
 of the falling Russian empire ; he is a martyr of the most 
 patriotic devotedness, who thrice bends his way to the ex-
 
 BOOK 1. CHAP. II. 9 
 
 tremity of Asia, to disarm the Tartar wrath, which is about 
 to crush the remnant of his imprudent and unruly subjects. 
 
 Two of his sons, unworthy of him, ascend the throne, 
 after two of their uncles. Mikhail of Twer, their cousin, 
 succeeds to them about 1300. Then begins a contest of 
 twenty-eight years, fraught with treason, baseness, and 
 treachery, between the branch of the princes of Twer and 
 that of the princes of Moscow. But in 1328 the Grand- 
 princedom is secured by tlie latter, in the person of Ivan I. 
 surnamed Kalita. 
 
 This prince is worthy of note, because with him recom- 
 menced, firstly, the reuniting of the appanages with the 
 Grand-princedom of Moscow, which was become the ca- 
 pital ; secondly, the rallying round the Great Prince, of 
 those princes who held appanages ; tliirdly, the re-establish- 
 ment of succession in the direct line ; and, lastly, a system 
 of concentration of power, by which the Russian empire 
 was one day to be again raised up, and transformed into 
 that terrific mass which Ave now behold. 
 
 This direct succession, and this system, were intermitted 
 but for an instant, to revive in 1362, in the great Dmitry 
 Donskoy, the first coni[ueror of the Tartars, and to pass to 
 his son and grandson, the two Vassili ; finally, to produce 
 in 1462, after the lapse of a century, the uncontested 
 autocracy of Ivan III. 
 
 It was in 1462, and with that great Ivan, that the fourth 
 Russian period began ; it ended in 1613, and lasted only 
 a hundred and fifty-three years. 
 
 The Russian republics of the north, and the Tartars, 
 sank beneath his power, which he always employed o])])()r- 
 tunely, circumspectly, progressively, and with machiavelic 
 dexterity. By degrees, the chain with whicli the Tartars 
 weighed down the Russians came wh(;lly into the hands of
 
 10 IIISroRV OK RUSSIA, 
 
 this Graiul Prince, who bound with it, the one by means 
 of the other, both the victors and the vanquished, enve- 
 loped all in it, and remained sole and absolute master. 
 
 His grandson, Ivan 1^^., great in crime, carried to excess 
 the concentration of this power, in which every thing was 
 swallowed up ; manners, morality, patriotism, and the few 
 privileges which, under Ivan HI., the Russian nobility had 
 either preserved or acquired, by serving him against the 
 princes who held apanages, the Russian republic, and the 
 Tartars. This madman killed the only one of his two sons 
 who was able to wear this ponderous crown : the result 
 was that, after having been worn by his successor, it passed 
 to the head of a descendant of a Tartar, his treacherous 
 minister, which it crushed, as it did that of all the Rus- 
 sians, Poles, and Swedes, who subsequently dared to seize 
 or aspire to it. 
 
 This insane despotism thus destroyed itself. It gave up 
 the corrupted state to invasions from the West, in the same 
 manner that, three centuries and a half before, discord had 
 laid it open to those from the East. This similar effect of 
 two opposite kinds of excess lasted fifteen years ; and it 
 seemed as if the empire, brought to its last gasp, were to 
 close its existence with its fourth period. 
 
 But it was re-invigorated at that crisis, by the election 
 of a new dynasty : in 1613 the family of Romanof 
 ascended the throne. With them begins the fifth great 
 period of the Russian history ; it is the most splendid 
 from the middle of the seventeenth century ; it would still 
 have shone with the lustre of the reign of Alexis, the 
 praise-worthy father of Peter the Great, had he not been 
 eclipsed by that colossus. 
 
 Thus, to guide us to this illustrious man through the 
 obscurity of those eight centuries, if the distribution 
 of time into five great divisions, and that of men into
 
 BOOK 1. CHAP. 11. 11 
 
 two dynasties, will not suffice, twelve great or remarkable 
 princes, like twelve lofty peaks, or twelve rays of various 
 degrees of brilliance, by throwing light on and ascertaining 
 our path, will also serve to direct us. 
 
 In the first period, the period of foundation, of glory, 
 and of aggrandizement, we behold Rurik the Founder ! 
 0/eg, the Conqueror ! Olga, the Regent ! Vladimir, the 
 Christian ! YaroslaJ] the Legislator ! 
 
 In the second, ihe period of dissensions, the valiant 
 and virtuous Vladitnir Monomachus, and the politic 
 Atidrew. 
 
 In the third, that of complete slavery, the victorious, 
 the devoted St. Alexander Nevsky, the able Ivan 1., and 
 Dmitry Donskoy, the first who vanquished the Tartars. 
 
 Lastlv, in the fourth, that of deliverance and of despot- 
 ism, Ivan III. the autocrat, and Ivan IV. the Terrible. 
 
 But, independent of these twelve lights, these useful 
 beacons, we descry other directing points, geographical 
 points, which also may afford us assistance in classing our 
 observations, and analyzing this enormous mass of history. 
 
 We have, in fact, remarked, that the present capital of 
 Russia is the fifth which the empire has had ; that, in 862, 
 the conquering genius of Rurik placed the first in Nov- 
 gorod ; that, from 882, the still greater genius of Oleg, to- 
 gether with the allurement and the eager desire of a milder 
 climate, and of the riches, the knowledge, and the comforts 
 of Greek civilization, fixed the second in the south, and at 
 Kief; that, in 1167? internal dissensions, the attacks by 
 the Poles in the west, those by the nomade tribes in the 
 south, and the policy of Andrew, drew back the third to- 
 wards the east, at Vladimir; that the fourth, and most 
 central, the great Moscow, which was to re-imite Avith it 
 all the empire, rose in 1328, jukI subjugated the three 
 others bv the machiavelism of ^ iiry, and the talent of Ivan
 
 12 
 
 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 Kalita, its first princes, and by its position between Vladi- 
 mir, the first metropolis, and Novgorod the third, which 
 it disjoined from each other; and that, lastly, about 1703, 
 the genius of civilization established the fifth, on the 
 northern frontier, at the head of the gulf of Finland, and 
 on the very coast whence, eight hundred and forty years 
 earlier, the barbarian Rurik, the creator of this empire, 
 commenced his march for the purpose of founding it. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Having thus sketched the outline of this mass of his- 
 tory, let us proceed to its principal details ; and, without 
 pausing on the almost diluvian origin which is assigned to 
 these tribes, without repeating the names of Japhet, of 
 Russ, of Slavan, and of Scythes, of whom the Russians, 
 the Slavonians, and the Scythians are supposed to be the 
 descendants, let us state that the most anciently known 
 inhabitants of Russia were, the Scythians, to the south ; 
 the Slavonians, in the centre ; and the Finns, to the north. 
 Let us admit that we are quite ignorant of their earliest 
 source, but that as to the Russian Varangians, every thing 
 leads us to believe that they were Normans.^ 
 
 Till the time of Rurik, the history of all of them is at 
 least full of uncertainty : " all that we can discern is, that, 
 down to the ninth century, the extensive territory, which 
 now constitutes European Russia, had often been inun- 
 dated by great, successive and opposite irruptions ; those 
 from central Asia, and those from Scandinavia. If, how- 
 ever, we may judge from the last Tartar irruption, pre- 
 
 1 - See the two notes at the end of the Volume.
 
 BOOK I. CHAP. HI. 13 
 
 vious to 860, that of the Khozars (or Chazares), it will 
 apj^ear that the Asiatic invasions never penetrated, in a 
 northern direction, beyond the spots where Kief and Ka- 
 luo;a are now situated. 
 
 As to the Norman irruptions, with the exception of that 
 of Amala, king of the Goths, and son of the gods, who, 
 about the year 250, carried v,nih him, against the Roman 
 empire, all the Slavonians of the country comprehended 
 between Finland and the Borysthenes, they appear to have 
 flowed off" to the right hand, towards the south-west ; so 
 that, from the Oka and the upper Dnieper as far as the 
 Baltic, all the Slavonian and Finnish tribes who dwelt in 
 the centre and the north of European Russia, and thus 
 were between the two irruptions, were able to live in 
 tranquillity, to multiply, and even already, as was the 
 case with the ^eat Novgorod, to acquire riches by means 
 of a considerable commerce. 
 
 But, to complete the cursory view which we have taken 
 in passing through the obscurities of the history of ancient 
 Russia, let an antique chronicle speak ; and though, doubt- 
 less, it rests on no other evidence than oral traditions and 
 .songs of the olden time, let us listen to some accents of 
 that voice which, almost alone, is heard from the midst of 
 the darkness. 
 
 " At this time," it says, (speaking of the ninth century) 
 " a spirit of insubordinaticm disturbed the great city ; 
 Novgorod lost its supremacy by it, the empire its unity. 
 The Russian Varangians descended from the north with 
 war, and the great city was vanquished, and made tri-. 
 butary. \ 
 
 " Excessive was then the confusion ; but, being defeated 
 by the Ugrians, weakened by contagion, oppressed by the 
 Varangians, the people besought Gostomielz, a descendant 
 of their ancient chiefs, to place himself at their head. Tlie
 
 14 HISTORY OK RUSSIA, 
 
 Slavonians were successful in the war; the Varangian prince 
 espoused Uniila, the daughter of Gostoniielz ; he led her 
 to Finland ; she was the mother of the great Rurik. 
 
 " Gostoniielz was a prudent leader ; from the most dis- 
 tant countries his reputation attracted a throng of princes, 
 who came by sea and land to seek his advice, and gain in- 
 struction. The time came when he assembled the elders of 
 the nations ; those of the Slavonians, Russians, Tschudes, 
 Merians, Krivitches, Dragvischians, and Muromians; and 
 he said to them, ' I see no union among ijou ; you wish to 
 be your axon governors, but you are governed by your pas- 
 sions : the great Novgorod tvill perish if you do not choose 
 princes worthy of ruling you. My three sons are dead, 
 and your only hope of safety is in my nephews, the Varan- 
 gian princes, Rurik, Sinaf* and Truvor. 
 
 " He spoke thus, and died. In compliance with his 
 advice, the principal citizens sought the Varangian princes. 
 ' Our country,'' said they, ' is large and fruitful, but it is 
 without order ; come and govern it according to our laws.' 
 
 " The princes hesitated, for they knew the pride and 
 licentiousness of Novgorod." They, however, established 
 themselves at Ladoga, Biel-o-zero, and Isbork ; it was not 
 till after the lapse of three years, and the death of his bro- 
 thers, that Rurik took up his residence at Novgorod. 
 
 It has been thought proper to leave its original colour- 
 ing to the narrative which has just been read ; that narra- 
 tive is quoted as an authority by some, and discredited, in 
 many of its circumstances, by others. One thing is certain ; 
 that, at the period in question, Novgorod was so powerful 
 as to occasion it to be said, " Who can dare to oppose God 
 and Novgorod the great ?'''' 
 
 It is likewise known, that, even then, the commerce of 
 
 * Or Sineus.
 
 BOOK 1. CHAP. lU. 15 
 
 Novgorod extended to Persia, and to India itself, and from 
 Byzantium to A'ineta, a very commercial Slavonian city, 
 at the mouth of the Oder. It is known, too, that, about 
 the middle of the ninth century, anarchy arose there, 
 either from the abuse of liberty, or from the pride of 
 wealth. 
 
 In this state of things, a geographical circumstance drew 
 doAvn war upon Novgorod. Its most active commerce was 
 carried on through the Baltic : it passed amidst the Rus- 
 sian Varangians, Scandinavian warriors, who were then mas- 
 ters of that sea. A passage was to be obtained only by 
 tribute, or by force : hostilities ensued, and the Novgo- 
 rodians were rendered tributary. 
 
 Let us here remark the position of the three Russian 
 princes in Ladoga, Biel-o-zero, and Isbork, encircling the 
 commercial Novgorod, all the outlets from which they 
 thus occupied. Rather than relinquish all ideas of traffic, 
 and change its manners, Novgorod of course preferred to 
 submit ; and this, no doubt, was the cause which enabled 
 Rurik to take peaceable possession of it. 
 
 It is affirmed that he then took the title of Grand-Prince, 
 which implies the existence of other princes ; that he en- 
 larged the city, and gave it laws, and that, nevertheless, 
 A^adime the brave, the head of the re])ublican party, re- 
 volted against him. But if, in a civilized country, it is 
 difticult to keep even a native army within bounds, how is 
 * it possible to believe in the moderation of an army of pi- 
 rates, on a foreign soil .'' There are even traces of the mili- 
 tary government whicli Kurik brought from the North. 
 All the cities were jjortioned out among his companions in 
 arms; l)iit, whether the ])rotectors or the protected were 
 to blame, the fact is indisputable, that, divided between 
 the warriors of Rurik, tlie country became Russian, and 
 that from this epoch we nuist date that new name of so
 
 IG HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 many Slavonian and F'innisli tribes of European Russia, 
 and also the origin of their slavery. 
 
 As to the conquest of Kief, by Askold and Dir, the sub- 
 jects of Rurik, we know not the cause of it. Neither are 
 we acquainted with the cause of their expedition against 
 Constantinople,* which city they alarmed, which, however, 
 repulsed them, and whence they brought back to Kief the 
 first seeds of Christianity. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The birth of this empire was closely followed by an im- 
 mense and premature growth ; for it appears certain, that, as 
 early as the first successors of Rurik, Russia extended from 
 the Vistula and the Carpathian mountains to the Volga, from 
 the White and the Baltic seas to the Black sea and the Cas- 
 pian,-h and even that its fleets imposed upon Byzantium 
 the payment of tribute. 
 
 For this phenomenon there were several causes. In the 
 first place, we may remark the uniting, in Novgorod, of 
 the most warlike people with the richest and most com- 
 mercial. This, alone, could not fail to bring about a re- 
 volution in that part of the world. But a motive power 
 was still necessary, and this was found in the genius of 
 Olesr, which was in unison with the circumstances. 
 
 This successor of Rurik was a great man ; which is 
 sufficient to account for the greatest things. He seems to 
 have possessed in a high degree the qualifications, the vices, 
 
 * See Karamsin, Photius, and Constantine Porphyrogenitus. 
 t See Weydemeyer.
 
 BOOK I. CHAP. IV. 17 
 
 and all the passions, most suitable to the age in which he 
 lived ; a true specimen of barbaric greatness ! brave, crafty, 
 insatiable, adventurous, indefatigable; faithful, as with 
 respect to Igor his ward, and, nevertheless, occasionally 
 treacherous, as in his conduct to Askold and Dir, when, 
 subsequently to 882, after the capture of Smolensk, having 
 presented himself at Kief as a Aovgorodian merchant, he 
 entrapped them into an ambush by these words : — " We 
 are of the same race with you !" and then massacred them 
 as usurpers, saying to them, " You are neither princes, 
 nor sprung from princes; but I, I am a prince, and here 
 is the son of Rurik !" Then, transported with admiration 
 of his conquest, "Let Kief," he exclaimed, "be the mo- 
 ther of all the Russian cities !" This it became in fact, 
 for nearly three centuries ; and he made it his capital ; not 
 that he might enjoy repose in it, but because it was nearer 
 at hand to the Greek empire, — a prey which was greedily 
 coveted by the barbarians whom he commanded. 
 
 But to this pillage he did not lead them till he had well 
 connected his two capitals by a chain of conquests : to es- 
 tablish this connection he first subdued, or won over, all 
 the Slavonian, Finnish, and Lithuanian tribes, which had 
 till then been independent, or tributaries to the degenerated 
 Khans of the eastern Khozars. 
 
 In Slavonia itself, where he was desirous of fixing his 
 authority, he was cautious in the use of his power, and 
 moderate in the tributes which he imposed. He tolerated 
 nascent Christianity in Kief, and firmly established there 
 his pupil Igor. 
 
 But, when he had completed tlie founding of his em- 
 pire, he breathed into all these vancpiished tribes, who be- 
 came his subjects, the adventurous and ferocious avidity 
 of the victors, whicli he had hitherto restrained. Putting 
 himsflf at the head of both parties, inflaming thrir pas- 
 
 C
 
 18 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 sions by his own, and combining them in one and the same 
 horrible thirst of blood, of glory, and of plunder, he passed 
 with eighty thousand men, on two thousand barks, the ca^ 
 taracts of the Borysthenes, devastated the Greek empire 
 by atrocious barbarities, and, Uke Mahomet, conveyed his 
 fleet over a cape, or, as the chronicle affirms, navigated it 
 by land with all sails set, to launch it again in the very 
 port of Byzantium ; he then fixed his shield on the gate 
 of that capital as a trophy, and wrested from the emperor 
 an ignominious treaty, which was negotiated by the twelve 
 Scandinavians, Carles, Farlaf, Veremid, Bulaf, Stemid, 
 &c. his envoys, and those of the illustrious boyards who 
 acknowledged his sway. 
 
 His Varangian guard, which seems to have been his coun- 
 cil, whose assent appears to have been requisite and suf- 
 ficient, promised the observance of the treaty. These war- 
 riors swore to it by their gods Perune and Voloss, and by 
 their arms, which they had placed before them on the 
 ground : their shields, their golden rings, their naked swords, 
 gold and steel, what they loved and honoured most. The 
 satiate barbarian then departed with his rich booty to Kief, 
 to enjoy there an uncontested authority, and to die there 
 miraculously, as he had lived. 
 
 It is, therefore, chiefly in the union of Novgorod and 
 Kief with the Varangians, and in the genius of Rurik and 
 Oleg, that we perceive the first and the principal causes of 
 the aggrandizement, as well as of the foundation, of the 
 Russian empire. 
 
 Nevertheless, without the genius of the people, would 
 that of the chiefs have sufficed ? Here is an immense terri- 
 tory and a multitude of nations, which a small warlike tribe 
 seems at once to have subjugated ; for, as to the startling 
 disproportion of the conquerors to the conquered, an idea 
 may be formed, by considering the composition of the army
 
 BOOK I. CHAP. IV. 19 
 
 of Yaroslaf, of which the Varangians constituted only a for- 
 tieth part. Let us then endeavour to find, in the manners 
 and customs of both, additional causes of so improbable a 
 fact. 
 
 Tacitus says, that the Rugians were remarkable for their 
 attachment to their leaders. The Sueones, he adds, are 
 ruled by an absolute monarch. In 1060, the descendants 
 of Odin are said to have been still reigning in Sweden, and 
 in that country despotism was strengthened by religion. 
 Lomonosof (on the authority of Weissel, Helmold, and 
 John of Bohemia,) states, that one of the early Russian 
 princes asked his people for despotic power; that they 
 granted it to him, and that he joined to it the priesthood. 
 
 Amidst the sickeninjr details of the barbarism of the civil 
 and religious manners of tlie Russians, nuist be remarked 
 what Yakut, a geographer of the thirteenth century, (quot- 
 ing Maccadezzv, a traveller of the eleventh,) and Achmet, 
 envoy in 022, from Bagdad to the Bulgarians, state re- 
 specting the guards of the Russian princes, and the de- 
 votedness which prompted them to sacrifice themselves 
 spontaneously on their tombs. The Slavonians, on the 
 contrary, were very independent. There must, therefore, 
 have been more unity of purpose and action among the 
 Russians, consequently more energy; this alone was 
 enouffh to enable them to achieve extensive conquests. 
 
 In truth, the attachment and submissicm of the Russians 
 to the family of Rurik is worthy of note ; it is indubitable, 
 that the reign of that founder was succeeded by two mino- 
 rities, and that the two regencies were conferred by the 
 right of blood alone ; that the first devolved on an andntious 
 prince, the second on a female, and that, nevertheless, the 
 two successors of R\irik ascended, peaceably and without 
 dis])ute, the military throne which had been so recently 
 
 founded. 
 
 (• 2
 
 20 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 According to the testimony of Nestor, in 945, the war- 
 cry of the most distinguisliecl Russian chiefs, who had 
 placed at their head the infant grandson of Rurik, was, 
 " Let us die for our Prince !" It has been seen that, to 
 make Askold and Dir fall at his feet, and Kief into his 
 hands, the regent Oleg had only to name and to produce 
 the son of Rurik. 
 
 In the war against the Drevlians, the regent Olga also 
 appears all-powerful ; it was a war entirely of stratagem 
 and treachery, such as becomes a woman, whom no war be- 
 comes : as she alone directed it, so she alone portioned out 
 the advantages which were derived from it. It is known, 
 too, that, shortly after, this same Olga left her states, went 
 to Constantinople, and embraced Christianity there, with- 
 out her authority appjf?aring to have been in the least shaken 
 by her absence, and her change of religion. The aristo- 
 cracy of Vladimir, her grandson, is even yet more asto- 
 nishing. Lastly, we see Yaroslaf giving a code which be- 
 gins with these words,* " Behold your laws, for such is my 
 will." The despotic legitimacy of a single family on the 
 throne of Russia, must, it is obvious, have been deeply 
 rooted in the manners of these Northern barbarians. 
 
 Add to this reason of their strength, resulting from 
 their union, that their religion was wholly warlike; that 
 they slew each other rather than surrender, being persuaded 
 that a prisoner was the slave of his conqueror, not only in 
 this world, but likewise in the next; and, finally, that, 
 either from their population having again swelled beyond 
 bounds and become burthensome, or from the remembrance 
 of the ancient and fortunate irruptions of their ancestors, 
 or from the excitement produced by some particular cause, 
 their imagination was fired by the genius of conquests. The 
 
 * See Leclerc.
 
 BOOK I. CHAF. IV, 21 
 
 greediness and ambition of these Normans were never more 
 enterprising. It was an absolute inundation ; all of them 
 panted for bootv, for fiefs, for serfs, either in Germany, or 
 in that part of France which has received from them the 
 name of Normandy, or in Great Britain, which they de- 
 nominated England, or in that vast Slavonia, which be- 
 came Russian under their dominion. 
 
 Another very operative cause of the rapid extension of this 
 empire, and of the superiority of the Russian Varangians 
 over the Slavonians, is to be found in several ancient and 
 modern writers. Ammianus and Pausanias tell us, that 
 the Scythians and Sarmatians did not make use of iron in 
 their arms ; and Gibbon declares that the Esthonians were 
 vanquished by the Goths, because they had only clubs, and 
 no iron, for their defence. Malte-Brini adds, that the ^^aran- 
 gians, armed with good cutlasses and sharp swords, easily 
 overcame the Slavonians, who had no other protection than 
 wooden sliields. The iron mines of Sweden may thus have 
 been a cause of the conquests made by its inhabitants, the 
 A^arangians ; as the first conquests of the Turks were the 
 consequence of the arms which they forged in the Altai, 
 while they were held in slavery. 
 
 We know, besides, that these Varangians were foot sol- 
 diers. Karamsin represents them, from the time of Svia- 
 toslaf, covered with helmets, breast-plates, and vambraces : 
 lie states, that they had a system of tactics, and guarded 
 themselves regularly by outposts; that they marched in 
 close battalions, accustomed to mantjeuvres ; tliat tlieir 
 camps, like those of the Normans in France, were sur- 
 rounded by ditclies, palisades, and even by snares to entrap 
 the enemy, and that they sustained sieges in them. We 
 know, too, that their princes had a permanent guard, 
 maintained or paid, wliicli might be termed noble, .iiid of 
 uliicli the iiidividuuls were distiniiuished and chissed bv
 
 22 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 various denominations and titles. This was, no doubt, one 
 of the causes of their superiority over the Slavonians, who 
 were divided into tribes, independent of each other, and 
 who fought as they pleased, without rules, at random, and 
 imconnectedly. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 All these considerations, however, are still far from 
 being sufficient ; they do not satisfactorily explain how, 
 formidable as those warriors might be, it happened that 
 their scanty numbers could be diffused, without being lost, 
 amidst so many hostile people and territories. The fact 
 is, that all were not hostile. Novgorod the Great was not 
 single in calling upon the Varangians for succour. It ap- 
 pears, from a Russian tradition, that Kief, on the point of 
 being oppressed by the Khozars, implored Rurik, and 
 that, in consequence, that founder sent Askold thither, or 
 permitted him to go. 
 
 In the conquering march of Oleg, we see that several of 
 the Slavonian tribes, already broken to the Novgorodian 
 yoke, followed the example of their metropolitan city. 
 About 882, Oleg, when he drove out the Khozars from 
 the country which now forms the governments of Vitepsk 
 and Tschernigof, said to the Severians, " I am the enemy 
 of the Khozars, not of you ;" and he contented himself 
 with a trifling tribute. In 965, the Viatiches, Slavonians 
 of the banks of the Oka, solicited Sviatoslaf to aid them 
 against the Khozars. It was thus that the outrages of the 
 Khozars, the Tartar remains of the last Asiatic invasions, 
 and the dread inspired by the Patzinacites, other Tartars, 
 the forerunners of the great and final invasion which was
 
 BOOK I. CHAP. V. 23 
 
 impending, reduced, under the Russian sway, a part of the 
 Slavonic tribes of European Russia. 
 
 These unfortunate countries were situated between the in- 
 vasions from the north and the east, and close to the two 
 sources of those terrific inundations ; but the Russians 
 invaded for the purpose of ruling, the Tartars for that of 
 plundering : when, therefore, a choice became inevitable, 
 the Russians were preferred. 
 
 The circumstance which occasioned this difference of 
 conduct was, that the one party, penetrating into a milder 
 climate, was desirous to establish itself there ; while the 
 other, finding the climate less temperate than its own, 
 thought of nothing but pillaging the inhabitants, that it 
 might return to its native home. The habits of the first, 
 also, were sedentary ; those of the other, migratory. 
 
 Lastly, as appears from a Russian chronicle, the con- 
 quest was consolidated by marriages similar to those which 
 brought it about. Rurik, who, as this tradition says, was 
 the son of a Slavonian mother, married an Urnanian Slavo- 
 nian ; his son Igor espoused Olga, whom the same author 
 affirms to have descended from the ancient Slavonian 
 princes. 
 
 It is true that, up to this period, if we may jvidge from 
 the treaty of Oleg with the Emperor Leo, the amalgama- 
 tion of the two people had not extended to the chiefs ; for 
 the names of Cleg's twelve envoys, and of his boyards, are 
 all Scandinavian ; but, in the treaty between Igor and the 
 successtjr of Leo, out of fifty names of Russian envoys, 
 which are affixed to it, three are Slavonian. 
 
 Under the regency of the Slavonian and Christian ^)lga, 
 the credit of the Slavcmians could not but increase. It 
 appears even, that Sveneld, one of the most illustrious of 
 her vaiwodes, was a Slavonian. Tjastly, which is a very 
 remarkal)lc fact, subsc(juentlv to I lie tiiiu- of that princess,
 
 24 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 the names of all the Grand-Princes are Slavonian. From 
 that period, full of the Slavonian blood which had been in- 
 fused into them, and finding themselves more masters of the 
 Slavonians, tlian they were of the intractable Varangians, 
 these Grand-Princes preferred the richest, the most civi- 
 lised, and the most numerous of the two people, as well 
 as their language and their milder climate : this is proved 
 by the choice of their residence, and by their first codes. 
 
 The Slavonians, therefore, as well as the Varangians, 
 ended by considering the descendants of Rurik as their 
 natural and legitimate sovereigns. The two people were 
 united in the same fidelity. The fear of their common ene- 
 mies, the hope of pillage which drew them under the same 
 standards, and their union, in 988, in the religion of Christ, 
 accomplished the rest. 
 
 This passion for plunder was also one of the principal 
 causes of the immense and premature growth of the Rus- 
 sian empire. At that period, the rallying cry of the barba- 
 rous nations was the spoil of the Roman empire. As soon 
 as a leader had boldness and resources to undertake an 
 expedition against Byzantium, all the tribes rushed to 
 join his standard. The effect of this was, to begin the 
 coalescence of so many different nations, to lead from the 
 conquered country all its turbulent youth, and to keep 
 their fiery spirits occupied till it was broken-in to the new 
 yoke. 
 
 The army which, in 904, Oleg led against Byzantium, 
 is known to have been eighty thousand strong ; and that 
 of Igor, his successor, was swelled, in so short an interval, 
 to four hundred thousand. Even the Patzinacites, those 
 natural Tartar enemies of the Russians, united with Igor 
 as soon as the object was to plunder Byzantium. It is, 
 therefore, not in the least astonishing to see the Princes of 
 Kief venture upon such enterprises, since they placed them
 
 BOOK I. CHAP. VI. 25 
 
 at the head of the tribes which were combined for their 
 accomplishment. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Besides, among tliese Grand Princes, such was the 
 state of circumstances, that every thing had a perpetual 
 tendency to aggrandizement. Their forces were kept up 
 by the Varangians, who hurried to replace those who died, 
 or were glutted with booty. 
 
 As fresh swarms of barbarians were incessantly arriving, 
 and as, in a country which they looked upon as their con- 
 (juest, they did not bend their conduct to that moderation 
 which their prince required of them, he was under the 
 necessity of waging continual wars, to find employment for 
 their restlessness and their avidity. 
 
 So difficult was it for them not to treat Novgorod like a 
 captive, that we find the Novgorodians, who paid them, 
 compelled, by their excesses, to massacre them ; and 
 Madimir to despatch towards Byzantium, to meet a 
 certain death, those identical Varangians who had seated 
 liiin on the throne of Kief. Because they had taken 
 that capital, they considered all the inhabitants as their 
 slaves, and wished them to pay a ransom : a proceed- 
 ing which did not accord with the views of the Russian 
 f)rince, who was no longer desirous to reign merely over 
 an army, but to be the sovereign of all the conquered 
 nations. 
 
 It must especially be remarked, that, up to this period, the 
 government of the Varangians, like that of all the other 
 Normans, had been only a species of feudality, or rather 
 a milit.iry government, that of a barl)arian armv, rudely
 
 26 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 disciplined, established amidst its conquests : thus, chiefs 
 and soldiers wished to be always concjuering. 
 
 When Igor, being advanced in years, was anxious for 
 repose, his companions, or Faithful Band, his guard, in fact, 
 according to the annalists, forced him to go to war. Their 
 rude luxury did not restrain them ; the leaders had 
 governments, or rather cantonments, to acquire,* and all 
 these adventurers had an eye to the booty and the tributes 
 with which they enriched the magazine of the prince, or 
 of the secondary leaders at whose expense they subsisted. 
 
 From the complaints of the warriors of this Igor, it 
 appears that, like the German princes, the Russian princes 
 furnished their Faithful Band with clothing, arms, horses, 
 and provisions. " We are naked," said to Prince Igor his 
 companions and guards, " while the companions of Sveneld 
 have beautiful arms and fine clothing. Come with us, to 
 levy contributions, that we may be in abundance with 
 
 thee.'^t 
 
 Every year, the Grand Prince left Kief in November, 
 
 with an army, and did not return till April, after having 
 visited his cities and received their contributions. When 
 the magazine of the prince was empty, and the annual 
 tributes were not sufficient, there was a necessity for find- 
 ing other enemies, on whom to impose other tributes,^ or 
 to treat as enemies the tribes that had submitted : this 
 
 * The Chi-onicle says of the Prince of Polotsk — " He came from 
 beyond sea with Rurik, and had Polotsk under his sway. Rurik 
 subjugated Novgorod, and portioned out among his warlike leaders 
 the cities which depended on that republic. Rurik gave the city of 
 Ischora to his wife Efanda, who, as some say^ was the sister of Oleg : 
 the Uglitsch and their tributes were given to their conqueror the 
 vaiwode Sveneld." 
 
 f See Karamsin, vol. i. page 193. 
 
 Jit was for this reason that the faithful band, or guard, of Igor, 
 compelled him twice to march against Byzantium, and twice against 
 the Drevlians.
 
 BOOK I. CHAP. VI, 27 
 
 latter case happened to Igor with the Drevlians, who, being 
 driven to extremity, massacred him, and the whole of his 
 guard. This barbarian had not called to his assistance 
 any of his vaiwodes, or lieutenants, because he did not wish 
 to share with them the fruit of his extortions. 
 
 This vassalship without fiefs, similar to that of the 
 ancient Germans, created a perpetual necessity for fresh 
 conquests. As the empire increased in magnitude, the 
 prince assigned such and such a district to such and such 
 a chief, with the condition of maintaining the warriors 
 who were his followers. These divisions, cantoned in this 
 conquered country, subsisted only on the tributes, never 
 (juitted their arms, and overawed by their presence, or by 
 periodical visits, the subjugated provinces. It is for this 
 reason that the tribute from Byzantium, under Igor, was 
 shared among the cities where there were dukes. Witness 
 Constantine Porphyrogenitus promising to deliver to the 
 Russian envoys the tributes destined for Kief, Tschernigof, 
 Pereiaslaf, and the other cities. 
 
 With such men and such manners, this empire could 
 not fail to increase the more, from the circumstance of the 
 military government (the only one which is practicable for 
 an extensive territory peopled by barbarians) being un- 
 known among the Slavonians, who had dwelt here from 
 time immemorial, and among whom no conqueror had 
 ever taken up his abode. This is why, before the time of 
 Rurik, no great empire could be formed here; and why, 
 as we have seen, he found the country divided into small 
 insulated republics, and easy to be concjuered. 
 
 On this point let us remark, that this division was that 
 of every primitive people. From this we may conclude, 
 that the Slavonians were the first inhabitants of central 
 Russia. When we find a great empire in fxistciici', wv 
 must look to foreign njilioiis for its fDundcis.
 
 28' HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 But in closing this review of the principal causes of such 
 a prodigious and raj)id aggrandizement, we must admire all 
 that was done by Providence to elevate this empire, and in 
 how opportune a manner it produced great men, to found, 
 to consolidate, to extend, and to raise it up again when 
 fallen. 
 
 Here let us consider the duration and the spirit of their 
 reigns; two objects which, in the establishment of great 
 dynasties, are worthy of serious attention. 
 
 Rurik reigned seventeen years, Oleg tliirty-four, Igor 
 thirty-seven ; which afforded to the Slavonians sufficient 
 time to become Russians. 
 
 Oleg was a great man, who, from Novgorod to Byzan- 
 tium, which he compelled to ransom itself, acquired so 
 much glory, that his new subjects looked upon him as a 
 magician. 
 
 Rest became necessary to the nation ; Igor, and then 
 Olga, reigned more pacifically. Their new subjects were 
 on the point of revolting ; the celebrated vaiwode Sveneld 
 restrained them. 
 
 The Russians were, perhaps, about to sink into lethar- 
 gy ; a prince, a ferocious warrior, Sviatoslaf, inspired them 
 with his own fury, and restored to them all the roughness 
 of their ancient manners. 
 
 Oleg; had transferred the seat of government from Nov- 
 gorod to Kief; this Sviatoslaf, attracted by Byzantium, 
 determined to give it a still more eccentric direction, into 
 Bulgaria.* Had he succeeded, his successor would have 
 gone yet farther ; and Rurik, instead of being the founder 
 of a mighty empire, would have been nothing more than 
 the principal leader of one of those vast and transient 
 irruptions of the Northern barbarians, who, till their extinc- 
 
 * Westei'n Bulgiiria, the ancient Moesia.
 
 BOOK I. CHAP. VI. 29 
 
 tion, wandered over and ravaged the world. But, in the 
 Greek emperor Zimisces, Sviatoslaf met with a hero as 
 pertinacious as himself, and with far more talent ; and the 
 Russians, repulsed, and confined within the limits of Rus- 
 sia, Avere compelled to establish themselves there. 
 
 By another piece of good fortune peculiar to this em- 
 pire, there had hitherto, at each accession, been only a 
 single heir to the throne, and consequently no opportvi- 
 nity for a partition. The state, therefore, was enabled 
 to gain coherence at the outset ; but, in 973, it was on 
 the verge of being broken up by a civil war, the result of 
 Sviatoslaf having- divided it between his three children. 
 Fortunately, A^ladimir,.the most talented of the three, had 
 Novgorod and the brave Varangians for his portion; 
 tliey made him master of the whole empire, which he 
 raised to the summit of its Gothic glory, and rendered 
 Christian. 
 
 Russia, however, was irrevocably ruined by the new 
 breaking into fragments among the twelve children of 
 that prince^.'* Not so ! Again it chanced, that Yaroslaf, 
 the most capable of them all, had Novgorod and the va- 
 hant Varangians for liis share ; for the second time they 
 united in a single hand the whole of the empire, of which 
 Yaroslaf was the father and the legislator. 
 
 But that prince again partitioned the state among his 
 offspring; and Providence, tired of perpetually raising 
 up tliis wretched empire, at length abandoned it to its evil 
 genius.
 
 30 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Russian empire, under Vladimir and Yaroslaf, at- 
 tained the summit of its Gothic greatness. To form a 
 right estimate of its expansion, let us cast a glance over 
 the reign of those sovereigns. 
 
 In 980, Vladimir conquered the throne by fratricide ; 
 he retained it, for fhirty-five years, by glory. 
 
 His sceptre, or his sword, stretched to the Ouralian 
 mountains, towards the Caspian, into Taurida, and over 
 Gallicia, Lithuania, and Livonia. 
 
 This lascivious despot had six wives and eight hundred 
 concubines, by whom he had those twelve sons among 
 whom he partitioned the empire. He did violence with 
 impunity to his female subjects, though this is the rock 
 on which tyrannies usually split: Rogneda, Princess of 
 Polotsk, whose family he had massacred, he brutally com- 
 pelled to marry him. 
 
 Nevertheless, his rude greatness, and the rumours of 
 his great warlike exploits, awakened the attention of the 
 neiffhbourino; religions : four of them hastened to contend 
 for his conversion : but Vladimir rejected Mahometanism, 
 because it interdicted wine, which, he said, " was indis- 
 pensable to Russians, and was their delight ;"" Catholicism, 
 offered to him by the Germans, he disliked, because of its 
 pope, an earthly deity, which appeared to him an unex- 
 ampled thing ; and Judaism, because it had no country, 
 and because he thought it neither rational to take advice 
 from wanderers punished by Heaven, nor tempting to par- 
 ticipate in their punishment.
 
 BOOK I. CHAP. VII. 31 
 
 But, at the same time, his attention was fixed by the 
 Greek rehgion,* which his ancestress Olga had followed, 
 and which had recently been preached to him by a philo- 
 sopher of Byzantium. He summoned his council, took 
 the opinion of his boyards, of the elders of the people, 
 and deputed ten of them to examine those religions in dis- 
 tant lands, even in their native temples. 
 
 Hitherto, notwithstanding their Beli-Bog and their Tcher- 
 ni-Bog, (white god and black god,) and whatever they might 
 have gathered from the followers of Zoroaster and of Odin, 
 it is affirmed that the Slavonians had not even dreamt of 
 the existence and perpetual struggle of a good and an 
 evil principle ; with different denominations, these pagans 
 had a mythology similar to all others ; that is to say, they 
 liad not only deified their passions, but also their tastes, 
 and the chief objects of their hopes and fears. 
 
 The envoys of the Grand Prince, meanwhile, plain down- 
 right men, went forth, and returned ; Mahometanism and 
 Catholicism they had seen only in poor and barbaroiis pro- 
 vinces, while they witnessed the Greek religion in its mag- 
 nificent metropolis, and adorned with all its pomp : they did 
 not hesitate. Instantly c(mvinced, Vladimir marched to 
 conquer priests and relics at Cherson : having done this, 
 he, by his threats, extorted from the Greek empire a prin- 
 cess, whom he married, and became a Christian. 
 
 * The Greek schism began in 8.57, when the patriarch Photius ex- 
 communicated Pope Nicholas I., because the Roman Chiirch ordered 
 fastin}; on Saturday, allowed milk food in Lent, cut oflP the first week 
 from that season of mortification, forbad priests to marry, and per- 
 mitted them to shave their Iteards; and, lastly, maintained that the 
 llftly ('iio.st i)ro<;eedcil not only from the I'^ather, but also from the 
 Son. The other differences consisted in administering the sacrament 
 in both kinds, in baptism by immersion, and in the Greek liturgy, 
 and the whole of its service, being in the vulgar tongue.
 
 32 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 Playing the tyrant to Heaven as he did to earth, his pa- 
 gan divinities, tliose divinities which he had formed entirely 
 of gold, and fattened with Christian blood, he now stripped 
 for the sake of Christ, like disgraced favourites : he went 
 still further ; he ordered them to be dragged to execution 
 at the tails of horses ; they were loaded with blows by his 
 guards, and were thrown into the Dnieper. 
 
 The prince who thus treated the gods of Russia, was not 
 more forbearing towards the men ; he commanded them to 
 become Christians on a certain day and hour : he com- 
 manded, and whole tribes were pushed on like flocks, 
 and collected on the banks of rivers, to receive the 
 Greek baptism. One crowd succeeded to another, and to 
 each of these, in mass, was given the name of a saint. He 
 next carried to excess the virtues of Christianity, as he had 
 formerly carried the vices of Paganism ; he wasted the 
 revenues of the state in alms, in pious foundations, and in 
 public repasts, to imitate the love-feasts of the primitive 
 Christians ; he no longer dared to shed the blood of crimi- 
 nals, or even of the enemies of the covmtry. 
 
 From this exaggeration, however, he was soon reclaimed; 
 and he then founded cities, into which he transplanted his 
 savage svibjects. He established schools, to which he com- 
 pelled the principal Russians to send their children : for 
 his power appears to have been unbounded. 
 
 This rough-hewn Colossus has a claim to a page of his- 
 tory, since to him Russia is indebted for a religion entirely 
 spiritual, for its first seeds of instruction and civilization, 
 for its highest degree of Gothic glory. 
 
 But he undid every thing by the partition of the empire 
 among his offspring. Yaroslaf, one of them, refused to 
 pay him the tribute of his principality. His revolt caused 
 Vladimir to die of grief ; it punished him for his portioning 
 out the empire in appanages.
 
 BOOK I. CHAP. VII. 33 
 
 This fault, however, was so pertinaciously repeated, sub- 
 sequently to the period of that Grand-Prince, that we 
 must look for the cause of it rather in the manners of the 
 times, and the necessity of circumstances, than in the im- 
 providence of such men. 
 
 These partitions were indispensable. A city was given 
 to a prince to make provision for one part of his subsis- 
 tence ; another city for another part of his expenditure : 
 there was no other means of providing for the objects. 
 
 And, besides this, as the military leaders, such as Rogvo- 
 lod of Polotsk, Sveneld, and the dukes, who are mentioned 
 in the early treaties with Byzantium, were possessed of 
 fiefs, or governments, it was not natural that the princes of 
 the blood should remain witliout them. It would even 
 have been more dangerous to leave such large and distant 
 ])()rtions of power in the hands of men who were not rela- 
 ted to the dynasty. 
 
 This may induce us to believe, that the massacre of the 
 family of Rogvolod by Vladimir, and the brutality by which 
 that prince compelled the sole surviving heiress to marry 
 him, arose from the circumstance of that family, only al- 
 lied to the Ruriks, having already converted Polotsk into 
 an hereditary fief. 
 
 Besides, what could have been done with the Russian 
 ])rinces of the blood ? Were they to be forced to] live in 
 the court, and at the charges of the Grand-Prince, without 
 any command, and merely as subjects of the first rank .'' 
 T?ut, at that time, this would have been contrary to the na- 
 ture of things ; and is practicable only wherelong experience 
 and advanced civilization have made the general interest 
 ])rc'(l«)niinant. Could these princes be shut up in serag- 
 lios f There were none in Russia; tlu-ir existence there is 
 imj)<)ssible. The climate stimulates too nuich to ;ill kinds 
 of ;ictivitv ; it is hostile to cft'cniiiincv, .ind to ;i conti'ini)!;!- 
 
 I)
 
 34 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 tive life : what gratification could they possibly affbi-d ? 
 Those seraglios were looked upon there as intolerable pri- 
 sons. What, then, was to be done ? Was the genealogi- 
 cal tree to be pruned in every generation ? Were the 
 princes to be lopped from it like useless branches ? But 
 neither did the climate prompt to such extreme means; 
 the spirit of Christianity, too, which was then in all its fer- 
 vour, was repugnant to them. This spirit had a much 
 more powerful influence over the thinking people of the 
 North, than over the impassioned people of the South, 
 and of that East whence it came, but where it could not 
 remain. 
 
 Sviatopolk, the successor of Vladimir, did, however, 
 in 1015, conceive such atrocities. But, as a plurality of 
 wives, and licentiousness of manners, had multiplied the 
 princes of the blood;* as, also, the appanages, and the vast- 
 ness of the territory, kept those princes at a wide distance 
 from each otlier, his attempts on the lives of his brothers 
 could not be simultaneously executed : one of the intended 
 victims escaped, and by him Sviatopolk was punished. 
 
 This was Yaroslaf; he hurled him from the throne. 
 That throne, however, loaded as he was with a triple fra^ 
 tricide, the monster re-ascended by a parricide ; by laying- 
 open, for the first time, the heart of his country to the 
 attacks of the Poles. But then, thinking his sway firmly 
 established, he wished to rid himself by treachery of his 
 allies, who, abandoning him to his own resources, allowed 
 him to fall for the second and last time, and to die of fear, 
 while he was flying from the avenging sword of Yaroslaf. 
 
 Of the nine earliest princes of this first dynasty, and 
 first period, this is the fifth great man. His reign began 
 
 * Witness Sviatopolk, who made no distinction between liis bastards 
 and his legitimate offspring.
 
 BOOK I, CHAP. Ml. 35 
 
 l)V the sword : but it was not with the splendour of the 
 sword that it was to shine. Yet, with a single blow, he 
 destroyed the Patzinacites. It is known, too, that he 
 made himself felt by Finland, Livonia, Lithuania, and Bul- 
 garia : for a moment, he inspired even Byzantium with 
 dread. But the majority of these expeditions was en- 
 trusted to lieutenants : little glory was reaped from them ; 
 the last even terminated disgracefully the wars of the Rus- 
 sians against the Greeks. 
 
 At the same time, after the Novgorodians had twice re- 
 placed Yaroslaf on the paramount throne, we see him again 
 precipitated from it by the efforts of his brother INIstis- 
 laf : but this prince of Tmutaracan stopped him midway 
 in his fall ; he generously restored to him one half of this 
 empire, the immensity of which is sufficiently indicated by 
 Novgorod and Tmutaracan,* the original appanages of 
 these two princes. 
 
 Seven years of a singular good understanding succeeded 
 to the short contest between the warrior and the le"isla- 
 tor ; after wliich the death of Mstislaf left Yaroslaf sole 
 j)()ssessor of this shapeless and colossal empire. It was, 
 then, noi; to the genius of war that he owed his power and 
 his renown ; it was to a genius of another kind. In Ya^ 
 roslaf the Wise, Russia especially reveres its first legisla^ 
 tor, the founder of the liberty of Novgorod, the creator of 
 a great number of cities. 
 
 It admires in this prince the disseminator of instruction 
 and of civilization. It was he who caused the Holy Scrip- 
 tures to be translated into Slavonian: with his own ]\:\\u\ 
 
 " Nov£^(»n»(l, wlictse possessions Ixtrdered on tlie liiiltic : 'rniutara- 
 can, the key to the confluence of the Sea of Azof with the Black Sea. 
 See the inscription discovered in the isle of Tanian, under Cathe- 
 rine II., and the dissert.ation hy Muschin-Pusclikiji. Sec also 
 Lmesipjc, ami I\aranisiri. 
 
 1> 2
 
 36 lllS'l'ORV OF RUSSIA, 
 
 he transcribed several copies of tliein. Russia is indebted 
 to him for many schools, and, amon^^ others, for that in 
 which three hinidred yoimg Novgorodians were educated. 
 Its history still tells of the throng of Greek priests whom 
 he invited, the only teachers that could then be given to 
 the people. 
 
 It applauds his toleration of the Ingrian and Livonian 
 idolaters ; his enlightened protection of the women of Suz- 
 dal, who were accused of sorcery. These hapless females 
 were about to become the victims of a people exasperated 
 by famine, which they attributed to their magical incan- 
 tations ; he saved them ; for his piety was as free from 
 superstition and weakness, as it was possible to be in that 
 age. 
 
 The Russian church owed to him a momentary free- 
 dom, which his children renounced. Undismayed by thg 
 thunders of the mother church, it was he who resolved 
 that the appointment of Russian bishops, and their covm- 
 cils for the election of metropolitans, should be indepen- 
 dent of the patriarch of Byzantium. 
 
 Already Russia rises from its long obscurity : Vladimir 
 and Yaroslaf have made it European by their conquests 
 towards the West, by religion, by the seeds of know- 
 ledge, and by their alliances ; the daughters-in-law of 
 Yaroslaf are Greek, German, and English princesses ; his 
 sister is queen of Poland ; of his daughters, one is queen 
 of Norway, the second, queen of Hungary, the third, 
 queen of France.* 
 
 Yet a code for the empire is still wanting, and that, 
 too, it receives from Yaroslaf. 
 
 * The consort of Henry I.
 
 BOOK I. CHAP. VIII. 37 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 It is chiefly in the codes of barbarians that we must 
 look for their history. The earhest Russian code was 
 written about the year 1018, and, in the first instance, for 
 Novgorod alone. 
 
 From this, however, we are not to conclude that no laws 
 existed before the time of Yaroslaf, a circumstance which 
 is impossible, as, prior to the reign of Rurik, there were 
 larsre conunercial cities. Besides, there are traces of them 
 in the treaties concluded by Igor and Oleg with Leo and 
 Constantine. But we know that, before the conquest of it, 
 Slavonia was divided into numerous hunting, pastoral, 
 agricultural, and conunercial tribes, each of which had its 
 hiws or its usages. The Russians came, conmiingled under 
 their dominion all these tribes, and, likewise, their laws and 
 customs, and blended with them something of their own 
 Scandinavian laws. 
 
 It appears that neither the one nor the other were writ- 
 ten ; and as the first Grand-Princes did not perplex them- 
 selves with attempts to make them harmonize; as they 
 thought of nothing but concpiering, and estimated their 
 power solely by their warriors, and the tributes which those 
 warriors gained for them;* this occasioned a confusion of 
 llie laws and customs, in which many of them were lost, 
 
 • \Vhen Sviatoslaf was intending to establish himself at I'eriasl.-if, 
 lu' said, " The Greeks supply me with gold, costly stuffs, rice, fruits, 
 and wine; Hungary furnishes cattle and horses; from Russia I draw 
 inmcv, wax, furs, and men."
 
 38 Ill!»iT()R^ OV RUSSIA 
 
 and sLicli sinister consequences, that Yaroslaf was compel- 
 led to frame an ordinance, to prevent the most grievous 
 anarchy from ruining the city of Novgorod, which was the 
 only one that was left under his sway. 
 
 This event was, no doubt, the immediate cause of the 
 code, and, particularly, of the very remarkable charter of 
 the Novgorodian franchises. 
 
 Tlie chronicle of that period says, that, in 1018, Novgo- 
 rod, being driven to despair by the Varangians, did justice 
 for itself by slaughtering them ; that the irritated prince 
 avenged this violence by the massacre of the principal Nov- 
 gorodians, whom he had inveigled into his palace; but 
 that at this moment was spread the news of Sviatopolk's 
 triple fratricide ; that, then, Yaroslaf, threatened by his 
 brother, and finding himself without guards, and deserted 
 by his subjects, sought the latter, and threw himself weep- 
 ing into their arms, which they stretched out to him with- 
 out retaining any animosity, which they employed on his 
 belialf, and by means of which they twice raised him to the 
 supremacy of the empire. 
 
 Without some explanation, this fact is wholly impro- 
 bable. That Yaroslaf may have softened the Novgorodians 
 by his repentance, is possible ; but that he should instant- 
 ly have converted them into an army most devoted and 
 persevering in his cause, is not credible, unless we sup- 
 pose an interchange of benefits, a compact, in short, be- 
 tween the Prince and his people. Besides, the epoch of 
 the revolt, of the vengeance and the reconciliation, agrees 
 with the date of the franchises which Yaroslaf conceded lo 
 the Novgorodians, and with that of his code. 
 
 This code is remarkable. It is despotism wliich pro- 
 mulgates it. " Respect this ordinance : it must be the 
 rule of your conduct. Such is my will."* 
 
 • Leclerc. 
 
 I
 
 BOOK I. CHAP. Vlli. 39 
 
 Its two first enactments, according to Leclerc, or, ac- 
 cording to Karamsin, its first, constitute the law the 
 public avenger only in default of private vengeance. The 
 law, therefore, came in aid only of the weak ; the strong 
 did justice for themselves. None but the relations of a 
 man who had been slain had a right to avenge his death. 
 The law did not even regulate judicial combats; this is 
 being not merely barbarous, but absolutely savage. 
 
 This same law distinguishes several classes. If no 
 avengers exist, it says, the murderer shall pay into the 
 treasury of the state the double fine (eighty grivnas) for 
 the murder of a boyard, or a thiun of the prince ; forty 
 grivnas for the murder of a free Russian, whether Varan- 
 gian, or Slavonian, a soldier, or a scribe, a husbandman, a 
 merchant, whether native or foreign, and perhaps also for 
 the murder of a hired man, for the latter was still free.* 
 
 The life of a female was estimated at only half the worth 
 of a man"'s,-f- a brutal law, and well worthy of that barbarous 
 period in which strength was above all things respected. 
 
 For the murder of a slave, nothing was to be paid to the 
 treasury ; all that was required was, that the value of him 
 should be paid to his owner, if he had been killed without 
 a sufficient cause ; that is to say, without the slave having 
 insulted a freeman. 
 
 This value was estimated according to the occupation of 
 the slave. An artisan, a schoolmaster, a nurse, the super- 
 intendant of a village, acting either for a Grand-Prince or 
 for a Boyard, was worth only twelve grivnas, (see the first 
 law;) just as nuich as the insulted honour of a citizen, (see 
 
 * This seems to be proved by the last paragraph of the third article, 
 according to Karamsin ; and also by the fine for the murder of a fe- 
 male servant, which waa eighteen grivnas, twelve of which were taken 
 by the state. 
 
 t See, in Karamsin, liic third paragrapli of tlie lirst artivle.
 
 k) HISTom OF RlSSiA, 
 
 the third,) or the line for killino- a head of cattle, (see, from 
 Kavamsin, the seventh.) Others were valued as low as six, 
 and even five grivnas. That these unfortunate Ix'ings 
 were not free, is proved by the wills of several ]n"inces, 
 since, at their deaths, they emancipated a great number of 
 them, who could make no better use of their liberty than 
 to sell themselves again. 
 
 Perpetual slavery, extending to their posterity, was the 
 lot of all prisoners of war, and of all persons bought from 
 foreigners ; slavery, for a limited period, was the portion of 
 those who sold themselves, of insolvent debtors, freemen 
 who, without conditions, married a slave, servants out of 
 employment, hired servants who did not fulfil their engage- 
 ments ; in a word, all the weak who made themselves the 
 slaves of the strong, to obtain subsistence and protection. 
 
 The rapidity with which the pest of slavery must have 
 been diffused, will appear from two facts ; that, on the one 
 hand, a debtor became a slave, and, on the other, that the 
 legal interest of money was forty per cent. 
 
 The second law,* made the district responsible for the 
 public safety within the bounds of its territory, when it 
 could not give up to the prince the murderer, his wife, and 
 his children : a law which was then usefid, but wliich seems 
 to bear out this remark, that, in proportion as civilization is 
 more widely spread, the more its penal justice is brought 
 to act on individuals ; and that, in proportion as barbarism 
 exists, the more is that justice compelled to swell the num- 
 ber of collective responsibilities. 
 
 The third law,-f- rates the loss of a member almost as 
 highly as that of life. This marks a hunting and warlike 
 people. On the ])lucking out a part of the beard, it in- 
 
 * Of Yaroslaf, according to Karamsin ; but Leclerc attributes it to 
 Isiaslaf, liis son. 
 t The second, according to Karanisin's arrangement.
 
 BOOK I. CHAP. MM. 41 
 
 riicts a fine four times greater than that which it decrees for 
 the loss of a finger. This brings to recollection the import- 
 ance which the Goths and Germans attached to their hair, and 
 may serve as a ])roof of a common origin ; as may, also, the 
 penalty of loss of liberty for stealing a horse, which is a 
 Saxon law. There existed, likewise, another enactment, 
 which was wholly Jutlandic, both in its spirit and letter; 
 that which prohibited the making use of a horse without the 
 owner's consent. It must be added, that our ordeals by 
 boiling water and red-hot iron are contained in this code.* 
 
 The enumeration of the mulcts for blows, seems to have 
 l)cen dictated by a delicacy like our own, with respect to 
 the point of honour ; insults are fined four times more hea- 
 vily than wounds. 
 
 From the seventh law,-|- which appears to compel a Ko- 
 bK'gian or a Varangian, and not a Slavonian, to take an 
 oath, it is difficult to draw any conclusion, except that, as 
 in Lombardy and France, each party followed its own 
 usage; that tliis was the usage of the A'^arangians ; that it 
 could belong only to a decidedly warlike people, and not 
 to a commercial people, among whom other sureties than 
 words were recjuisite ; that, finally, the Varangians were 
 greater barbarians than the Slavonians ; for, when justice 
 allows a denial on oath to be suflicient, the oppressed has 
 no other resource than an ap])eal to arms: a custom which 
 would be the parent of barbarism, if it were not its off- 
 spring. 
 
 • See Ewers, da.s iiltcste livrlii iJcr J{u.s.\r)i, whcM-e lie jirovcs tlie re- 
 BPnihlance of the ancient Russian law witli tliat of tlie (Jernians. See, 
 also, Strnve, Dmoiirne to the Acadomij of Scitnces, in 1756, thouf^li re- 
 cently refuted in Russia, (Patriotic Annals, .fan. lH'J(i,) liut witliout 
 heinf,' aide to exiilain tlie siuf^ntlar conformity of tlie Russian and 
 S«;andinavian laws, otlierwise than by assi^'ninj,' to them a common 
 and (iermanic oriji^in. 
 
 t Translation hy Leclerc.
 
 42 lHSTOI^^ of Russia, 
 
 The thirteenth law, according to Lcclerc''s arrangement, 
 confirms the existence of the three classes, which the se- 
 cond had already indicated ; the class of slaves, and that 
 of freemen, which it protects against that of the nobles and 
 boyards, whose violence it seems to apprehend. 
 
 These freemen were the husbandmen or farmers, hired 
 servants,* and country landholders ; probably, those Onod- 
 vortzy, of whom there were still about thirty thousand 
 remaining in the time of Peter the Great ; but the majority 
 of the freemen dwelt in the cities. They were divided into 
 centuries, and they chose a chief, who was a kind of tri- 
 bune. This civil and military magistrate of the people, 
 who bore the denomination of Tyssiatschky, had a guard, 
 and was upon an equal footing with the most eminent bo- 
 yards of the prince. 
 
 As to the nobles, they were doubtless descendants from 
 the Varangian and Slavonian warriors of Rurik and his 
 successors, who had large shares in the conquest ; they 
 were the vaiwodes or military leaders, the boyards or 
 direct counsellors of the princes, and the officers of their 
 guards. 
 
 Among various regulations relative to inheritances, we 
 observe (law the thirtieth), that the prince was the heir 
 of such free men as died without male issue ; but that, in 
 no case, had he a claim to the succession of a boyard, or 
 an officer of his guard : a circumstance which could not 
 fail, in a short time, to produce a nobility exclusively pos- 
 sessed of property. 
 
 According, to Karamsin, this code neither inflicted cor- 
 poral punishments (except, indeed, slavery, which includes 
 them all), nor made any difference in the compositions or 
 fines between the Varangians and the Slavonians. But, in 
 the first place, the code of Yaroslaf was not promulgated 
 
 * See the twentieth law, in Kaiamsin's arrangement.
 
 HOOK I. CHAP. Mil. 43 
 
 till after the amalgamation of the two people ; and, 
 secondly, as it appears that the prince's guard consisted 
 entirely of Varangians, it will be seen, in the first and thir- 
 teenth laws, that the latter were not without their privileges. 
 
 The sixteenth law* regulates the maximum of what a 
 proprietor, or a possessor, whether of a fief or a freehold, 
 may demand, by the \\eek and by the day, from his farmers ; 
 for the peasant was not then a serf, but a cultivator. 
 
 In the various versions of these laws, there is no trace 
 of taxation. The daring refusal of Yaroslaf to his father, 
 the great Vladimir, is the only proof that appanages were 
 bound to pay tribute to the great-principality. It does 
 not otherwise appear, that even the fiefs and estates {)aid 
 imposts to the Grand-Prince ; the lord or proprietor seems 
 to have had, in his possessions, the same right of customs 
 and tril)ute that the prince had in his own domain. 
 
 All that was not appanage, fief, or private })roperty, be- 
 longed to the sovereign. The Grand-Prince, like the lord, 
 subsisted on the fines which he imposed for offences, and on 
 the tribute which he received from his estates : this tribute, 
 as is now the case vnih Siberia, was paid in kind, where 
 there were no other means of payment, and in money ,f 
 where the use of money had been introduced by com- 
 merce with Cherson, Byzantium, and Vineta. 
 
 The expression tribute is here used instead of revenue, 
 because all this bore the aspect of concjuest. 
 
 Under this point of view, it ajipears that the only mark 
 of the lord''s dej)endence — and this may well be called a 
 
 * Leclerc's translation ; he attributes it to Isiaslaf, tlic son and 
 siicct'ssor of Yaroslaf. 
 
 \ Karanisin says (li;il niimcv "as coiMcd at Kii'f, in tlio time dl" 
 Y.-iriislal', which bi^rc liis fHij^y. Sec also AW-ydcinoyci-.
 
 44 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 tax — was military service, and that, too, with all its bur- 
 thensonie charges : the lord was bound to join the prince, 
 armed, mounted, supplied with provisions, and nume- 
 rously attended. 
 
 The judges went circuits; on the spot they empan- 
 nelled twelve respectable jurors, who were sworn, as in 
 Scandinavia, or in Denmark,* since the time of Lodbrog, 
 a monarch of the eighth century. 
 
 Several other laws extended protection to moveable and 
 immoveable property ; they are so judiciously framed for 
 the interests of commerce, that it is evident they were 
 enacted with a particular reference to Novgorod. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 This code sufficed for the enormous empire compre- 
 hended between the Volga and the Lower Danube, the 
 Northern Dwina and the Niemen, the Black Sea and the 
 Baltic. 
 
 It excites surprise to find in it so many contradictions, 
 and such a disjjroportion between the penalties ; but to 
 what a variety of circumstances and different interests 
 they were to be applied ! Doubtless, they were not all en- 
 acted at once, nor were the whole of them meant to ex- 
 tend to all classes. 
 
 It is, nevertheless, one of the most remarkable monu- 
 ments of the gothic age. This code, and the franchises 
 
 * See Karamsin, who cites Saxo-Granimaticus, (Vol. ii. p. 79.)
 
 BOOK I. CHAP. IX. 45 
 
 granted to the Novgorodians, constitute the glory of 
 Yaroslaf. A .ainimarv of these franchises will a:ive an 
 
 «■' c? 
 
 idea of those wliich existed in the Russian cities of that 
 epoch, but ^^ith great modifications, resulting from tlie 
 greater or less degree of power which each of the cities 
 possessed. 
 
 The vast importance of that republic is strikingly 
 manifested by the largess which Yaroslaf gave to the 
 army that placed liim on the throne of Kief. Here, as 
 elsewhere, the degree of consideration enjoyed by the 
 receiver, is indicated by the magnitude of the sum re- 
 ceived : ten grivnas to each vaiwode, ten grivnas to each 
 Novgorochan, a single grivna to each ^"arangian or Russian. 
 The Varangians must, indeed, have declined greatly in con- 
 sequence since the preceding reign, when they sought to 
 extort a ransom from the Kievians. That nation was 
 now looked upon merely as a nursery of brave men, 
 useful to the Prince, but dangerous to the country : 
 their influence in Russia seems to have ended with the 
 re-establishment of the' liberty of Novgorod, and with 
 the reign of Yaroslaf. 
 
 But it is now time to explain this very predominant power 
 of Novgorod, which we have seen thrice giving the whole 
 of Russia to Vladimir and to Yaroslaf. Its republican ex- 
 istence, constantly more worthy of note down to the pe- 
 riod of Ivan III. (1480), is a phenomenon in the midst of 
 this land of slavery. 
 
 The geographical situation of that city, which at first 
 occasioned its submission to the Varangians, became after- 
 wards the cause of its strength. 
 
 In fact, the Novgorodians being, by that situation, out 
 of the reach of the nomades of the soutli and east, and 
 always attracted towards the nortli by (heir commerce, 
 ivmained stationary, without going, like the rest of Russia,
 
 46 HISTORY OK RUSSIA, 
 
 to be disseminated and lost in tlie south. Tliis peace in 
 the north, while the south was exhausting itself; the re- 
 moteness of the Grand-Princes, after Cleg had removed 
 the capital to Kief; their circumspect conduct towards a 
 city which they looked upon as their asylum ; all contri- 
 buted to give new vigour to Novgorod, and to restore to it 
 its pristine independence. 
 
 In consequence, it soon became lord-pai*amount of In- 
 gria, Carelia, a considerable part of Permia, of Pleskof, 
 and of Torjock. On the north it was bounded by Archan- 
 gel, on the south, by Twer. 
 
 It had a Namestnick, who was usually a prince of the 
 blood, the lieutenant of the Grand-Prince, general of the 
 army, and even judge, but only, when his intervention was 
 sought for; a Posadnick, the burgomaster or mayor; a 
 Tisiatski, or Tyssiatchsky, the boyard of the Commons, 
 the tribune of the people, who watched over the proceed- 
 ings of the Namestnick and Posadnick; boyards, the city 
 counsellors, municipal body, or senate, (all which offices 
 were elective and teinporary) ; Zitieloudie, or proprietors 
 of the first class, out of which the boyards were chosen ; 
 and, lastly, the merchants and the people. 
 
 This republic, considered as an appanage of the grand- 
 principality, and as a state within a state, entrusted with 
 the defence of the northern and north-western frontiers, 
 had its assemblies of the people, which were convoked by 
 the sound of a famous bell, called vetchevoy : every citizen, 
 without distinction, had the right of voting. The prince 
 was not present at their deliberations. Here were decided, 
 war, peace, the election of magistrates, sometimes the 
 choice of the bishop, and even that of the prince ; at least, 
 in a great majority of cases, the approbation of this assem- 
 bly was necessary. 
 
 Tlie prince was not acknowledged till he had sworn to
 
 BOOK I. CHAT. IX. 47 
 
 govern agreeably to the ancient laws of the republic- ; to 
 intrust the government of the provinces only to Novgoro- 
 (lian magistrates, approved of by the Posadnick ; and to 
 attempt no infringement on the exclusive right of the re- 
 public to sit in judgment on its own citizens, to tax itself, 
 and to carry on its commerce with Germany. 
 
 He also engaged neither to give to his boyards, nor 
 allow them to accpiire, any of the villages dependent on 
 Novgorod ; not to encourage emigration from among the 
 Novgorodians ; not to cause any of them to be arrested 
 for debt ; and lastly, to oblige his own boyards and 
 judges to travel at their own expense in the Novgorodian 
 provinces, and to reject the evidence of servants. 
 
 It was on such conditions that these haughty and rest- 
 less republicans allowed the Prince to administer justice, 
 conjointly with judges chosen by themselves. 
 
 They paid him no taxes ; they merely made him free 
 gifts ; they even pushed their pretensions so far as to re- 
 gulate the hours which their sovereign was to dedicate to 
 pleasure ; they expelled several of their pi'inces, and even 
 of tlieir bishops. This liberty, which too often degene- 
 rated into licentiousness, was maintained for four cen- 
 turies, in spite of the distant power of the Grand-Princes. 
 But, transferred from Kief to Vladimir and Moscow, that 
 power, by degrees, accpiired concentraticm as it drew 
 nearer to the re])ublic, and ended, at length, by over- 
 whelming it. 
 
 Such were the concessions made by Yaroslaf to a ])eople 
 who had twice been al)le to send forth forty thousand 
 men to raise him to the throne.
 
 48 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Second period, from 1054 to 1236. 
 
 Thus, as far back as the eleventh century, Russia had 
 a paramount throne, an acknowledged dynasty, a Euro- 
 pean religion, a code ! it advanced towards civilization at 
 the same pace as the rest of Europe ; and nothing was 
 wanting for it, but to persist in the same noble career, 
 when it stopped short, tottered, and fell. Having, during 
 the first period of its history, witnessed the growth of its 
 rude and barbaric glory, let us seek, amidst the gloom of 
 the second, and in its moral and political situation, the 
 causes of its declension and of its fall. 
 
 The time for conquests was gone by. The misfortunes 
 of Sviatoslaf, and his warlike excesses, had excited a dis- 
 gust of them ; under Vladimir and Yaroslaf, the natural 
 frontiers had been acquired ; in what remained, there was 
 little temptation ; and, besides, the victories of Boleslas 
 King of Poland, and his capture of Kief, showed that the 
 territories to the west offered no easy prey. Internal dis- 
 turbances, which sprung from the partitions of the 
 empire, subsequent to the reign of Sviatoslaf, called back 
 the attention of the Russians to themselves. Their con- 
 version did not allow of their marching to plunder Con-
 
 BOOR II, CHAP. 1. 49 
 
 stantinople, which was become the metropolis of their 
 religion. Compelled, thenceforth, to think rather of re- 
 straining their own subjects, than of conquering those of 
 other monarchs, the Grand Princes, softened by Chris- 
 tianity, and enlightened by the priests, were at length 
 made aware that, to govern their people, it behoved 
 them to give to that people, laws, property, and instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 Such was their idea ; their means we have seen ; let us 
 now behold the obstacles and the result. 
 
 The commerce of the empire with Asia and with the 
 Greeks;* the military service of numbers of Russians at 
 Constantinople ; the expeditions, often crowned with suc- 
 cess, which were directed towards that centre of civilization 
 by the Grand Princes ; the situation of Cherson, which, in 
 many respects, may be compared with that of Marseilles ; 
 all these were causes productive of improvement. To these 
 must be added, the journey of Olga to Constantinople, and 
 her conversion ; the numerous cities and schools founded 
 by A'ladimir and Yaroslaf ; the laws promulgated by the 
 latter; the many Greek priests and artisans of all kinds, 
 whom they both attracted into Russia ; the seventy years"* 
 duration of their reigns, and their ardent efforts to civilize 
 their people ; and, lastly, the slaves whom tliey brought 
 back from their expeditions, wlio rcpco])led the country, 
 and, when they were Greeks, enlightened it : all these cir- 
 fumstances, no (loul)t, must have contributed to tlie in- 
 struction of the Russians, and began to render them 
 superior to their neighbours. 
 
 Of this we may form a judgment, from what is said by 
 
 • Yakut the geographer : observe the effect of Asiatic civilization 
 on the great Bulgarians of the Volga, who, in the tenth century, 
 from the time of Vladimir the Great, wen; agriculturists, manufac- 
 turers, and merchants, and dwelt in cities l)uilt of stiMic. 
 
 E
 
 50 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 contemporaries,* with respect to Kief, (which they deno- 
 minate the Capua, the Constantinoi)le of the North ;) the 
 great wall of brick that surrounded it ; its gilded gate, 
 like that of Byzantium ; its four hundred churches ; its 
 luxury ; the rich and splendid dresses worn by its inhabi- 
 tants; its hot-baths; the effeminacy of its manners, by 
 which the Polish army was corrupted ; lastly, its sumptu- 
 ous feasts, at which were to be found the wines of the 
 Greeks, their silver plate, and even the productions of the 
 Indies. There can be no doubt, also, that the long pos- 
 session, since the time of Oleg, had softened manners, 
 formed ties, and rendered some dvities sacred. 
 
 But barbarism, renewed by continual wars, stifled these 
 germs of civilization. 
 
 To conceive the difficulties which this empire had 
 to encounter, we must figure to ourselves the capital 
 of the Great Princes in the midst of deserts, where un- 
 known hordes suddenly disappeared from view, to rush 
 forth again incessantly in irruptions as sudden. Sur- 
 rounded by barbarians, they themselves being wholly bar- 
 barous, and reigning over barbarians, on whose obedience, 
 from the few laws, cities, and properties they possessed, 
 they had but an imperfect hold ; these Princes found it 
 impossible to govern such distant provinces in any other 
 manner than by traversing them with an army during 
 one half of the year, or by committing extensive portions 
 of them to lieutenants, able to keep in order and defend 
 them. Hence, civil wars between the great vassals ; such 
 wars as raised Vladimir and Yaroslaf to the throne ; and, 
 as the result of these dissensions, the overturning of esta- 
 
 * See Karamsin, and Dittmar of Merseburg, who died in 1018 ; and, 
 at a later period, I'lan-Carpin himself admiring the exquisite work- 
 manship of the rich throne of the Khans, which was made by Russian 
 goldsmiths.
 
 BOOK II. CHAP. I. 51 
 
 blished fortunes, and their transference into the hands of 
 new men, the offspring of conflicts and revolutions ; and, 
 lastly, nascent civilization perpetually exposed to inter- 
 ruption. 
 
 The introduction of Christianity, however, was one of the 
 most direct steps which was taken towards that civiliza- 
 tion ; and if the efforts of Olga, of Vladimir, and of Ya- 
 roslaf, had not been thwarted, we are justified in believing 
 that the period upon which we are about to enter would 
 have been less stained with blood. 
 
 We must here pay homage to the genius of Christianity ; 
 during this second period, it inspired with their noblest 
 actions the numerous descendants of Rurik, among whom 
 Russia was di\-ided ; of the best of them it made truly 
 great men ; of the wickedest it modified the manners, and 
 sometimes arrested their guilty hands. If Karamsin may 
 be believed, in no family of barbarian princes were there 
 ever seen more violent dissensions and fewer fratricides ; 
 although diverted from their religious subtleties by the 
 coarse rusticity v*hich surrounded them, dependent on the 
 sovereigns, and having every thing to lose by this barba- 
 rism, the Greek priests, who were the lights of that dark- 
 some age, often spoke the sublime language of Christianity. 
 But how was it possible to civilize barbarians surround- 
 ed by barbarians ? Olga was not listened to ; her son 
 Sviatoslaf even resisted her. When, on her return, after 
 having been baptized at Byzantiimi, by Constantine Por- 
 phyrogenitus, she endeavoured to convert the young war- 
 rior, his reply to her was, " I cannot singly embrace tiiis 
 new religion ; mv companions would laugh at me.'" A 
 singular remark, which seems to prove that, at all limes, 
 ridicule has been the most powerful of anti-religious 
 weapons. 
 
 This weajMHi was too weak against Vlatlinn'r; but he 
 
 K 2
 
 52 JIISTOHY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 undertook too late his own reformation, and the reforma- 
 tion of others. 
 
 There existed other obstacles to the civilization of the 
 Russians ; they are to be found in the antipathy with 
 which the despised Greeks and their new religion inspired 
 the minds of the people, against the arts, the sciences, and 
 the manners introduced by these foreigners. 
 
 We may believe, also, that the generation which was 
 going off the stage, had the selfishness to wish that it might 
 not be so much surpassed by that which was to replace it. 
 Can those who have declined into the vale of years, bear to 
 hear it asserted, that every thing which has occupied their 
 whole life is but ignorance, barbarism, triviality, and 
 clownishness ? Are thus to be lost the rights derived from 
 experience, the sole benefit, and that so dearly bought, 
 which remains to the aged ? 
 
 Add to this, that, in those barbarous times, the want of 
 a system of tactics, and the nature of the weapons, gave 
 all the advantage to mere physical strength ; a circum- 
 stance which conferred on the exercises of the body a pre- 
 cedence over those of the mind. 
 
 The various sackings of Kief, also, from the time when 
 the partitions of the empire commenced, destroyed to the 
 very root the entire labours of Olga, of ^'^ladimir, and of 
 Yaroslaf. 
 
 Against a voluntary and general barbarism, the means 
 of instruction are so feeble, that, far from dividing in order 
 to spread them, the prince is compelled to unite them under 
 his protection : it is necessary that he should first call 
 round him the rising generation, that they may come to 
 seek that instruction, which cannot seek them : this is the 
 reason of civilization being so long confined within the 
 limits of a single city. 
 
 Now, we shall see, in this second period of the Russian
 
 BOOK II. CHAP. 1. 53 
 
 history, that Kief, taken in 980 by the Varangians of Vla- 
 dimir, burned in 1015 by those of Yaroslaf, and plundered 
 in 1018 by the Poles, was captured and re-captured by 
 them in 1069 and 1077 ' ^"f^' lastly, that, after having 
 passed violently from hand to hand for more than a cen- 
 turv, it was completely sacked in 1169, and nearly de- 
 stroyed in 1201. 
 
 In the downfal of Kief, of that mother of all the Rus- 
 sian cities, would have been comprehended that of civiliza- 
 tion, were not the human mind so adapted to the seeds of 
 it, that, when once they are sown there, they become in- 
 destructible. 
 
 The Grand-Princedom, however, passed from Kief to 
 Madimir ; the navigation of the Borysthenes, more and 
 more impeded by the Polovtzy Tartars, and others, was 
 forgotten. The Grand-Princes thus withdrew from their 
 civilizers, the Greeks ; while, on the other hand, the Greeks 
 withdrew from them, repelled by the civil commotions of 
 Russia. 
 
 This is the reason why, about the middle of the twelfth 
 
 century, (1168) the date of the fall of the second Russian 
 
 capital, manners became more fierce, or, rather, manners 
 
 were wholly changed ; they were no longer those of Kief, 
 
 softened by Byzantium, but those of central Russia, still 
 
 pagan and barbarous, whither the seat of government had 
 
 recoiled. Judicial combats were then added to the fire and 
 
 water ordeals ; political assassinations and civil wars were 
 
 multiplied ; and to all these elements of confusion was 
 
 added a singular order of succession. Thus torn to pieces, 
 
 the emj)ire was laid open to the Poles, to the Hungarians, 
 
 and, especially to the Polovtzy Tartars, who assisted the 
 
 Ku^.si;ln princes to devastate it : at length appeared the 
 
 Mongol Tartars; sj)lit into fractions, the ^tate resisted 
 
 without concentrating its efl'orts, and was destroyed.
 
 54 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 Then, while it was plunged in this abyss, and for several 
 ages, the Tartar invasion poured forth on it the profuse 
 stores of its barbarism, its treacheries, and all the vices of 
 slavery. Robbery, " like a contagious disease, attacked 
 every kind of property."* Oppression, with its hideous 
 train of hatred, stratagems, dissimulation, gloomy and 
 stern manners, poisonings, mutilations, and horrible exe- 
 cutions, established its sway : it extended over the whole 
 country ; it penetrated into every heart, which it withered 
 and brutalized during two centuries. 
 
 Such a horrible tyranny rendered legitimate all means 
 of escaping from it ; then, every thing was confounded : 
 the distinction of good and evil ceased to exist ; crime lost 
 its shame, and punishment its infamy. The very name 
 of honour vanished ; fear alone held absolute dominion ! 
 
 In the second period, upon which we are now entering, 
 at the commencement of the twelfth century, Vladimir Mo- 
 nomachus, that Christian hero, could yet say, " Put not 
 even the guilty to death, for the life of a Christian is sa- 
 cred." But, at the close of the fourteenth century, when 
 his spirit again revived in the great Dmitry Donskoy, we 
 find that worthy descendant of the Christian hero of the 
 Russians, under the necessity of re-establishing capital 
 punishments. Very soon, the justice of his successors 
 became more ferocious, either from the Tartar manners 
 having become predominant, or from necessity, in order to 
 render punishment commensurate with crime. 
 
 * Kaiamsin.
 
 BOOK II. CHAP. II. 55 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 All this evil had its source in the division of the em- 
 pire into appanages, an evil which, as we have seen, was 
 inevitable with so many princes of the blood, in such a 
 climate, and among such men ; a system, in short, by 
 which alone it was practicable to govern such numerous 
 tribes, having no means of intercommunication, and dis- 
 persed over so wide a space. 
 
 During the first period of the Russian history, it has 
 been seen, that the genius of the last two reigns check- 
 ed the spread of that endemic distemper wliich was so 
 pernicious to all the states founded by the men of the 
 North. But, on the death of Yaroslaf, this debilitating 
 fever seized on the empire, divided among his five sons. 
 Of the second period, the first twenty-four years, which 
 comprise the reign of Isiaslaf, the son and successor of 
 \'aroslaf, were deeply contaminated by its pestilential in- 
 fluence ; several civil wars broke out, and that prince was 
 twice driven from his throne by his relatives, and twice 
 re-established by Boleslaus II., king of Poland. On his 
 death, another principle of decomposition was superadded 
 to that of the a])panages ; the order of hereditary suc- 
 cession, which, though transiently interrupted by the pro- 
 longation of Oleg's regency, had, since the time of Rurik, 
 always passed from father to son, then imderwent a change. 
 With the consent even of the children of Isiaslaf, Vsevo- 
 lod, his brother, became his heir, and the order of succes- 
 sion from brother to i)rother was established. 
 
 This is said to have been founded on a custom, for
 
 56 msroRY of rissia, 
 
 which the only precedent quoted is the regency of Oleg ; 
 without sufficiently considering that so antiquated a pro- 
 ceeding, and one which had not occurred a second time in 
 the course of a hundred and sixty-five years, could not be 
 in accordance with the national manners. 
 
 The Russians may be supposed to have obeyed a natural 
 instinct, which seems repugnant to the submission of an 
 uncle to his nephew ; or, rather, to have wished, by this 
 means, to avoid minorities, or to prevent quarrels between 
 the young princes, who would have more respect for an 
 elderly prince, who was their uncle. The fact is, that, in 
 those simple and rude times, this mode of succession, at 
 once so singular and so pernicious, appears to have origi- 
 nated in a scrupulous and overstrained respect for the 
 right of primogeniture. The appellation of elder was held 
 in such reverence, that, down to the close of the fifteenth 
 century, it was sufficient to designate the possessor of 
 paramount authority. Thus we shall see that the dii'ect 
 succession was not re-established, till the Grand Princes of 
 Moscow had secured, beforehand, the recognition of their 
 sons and grandsons, as the seniors of all the other princes. 
 " I acknowledge thee as my elder," was their symbol of 
 submission. 
 
 To the same deference for the right of eldership we 
 must also attribute the succession from uncle to nephew, 
 a consequence of the heirship between brothers. The bro- 
 thers having succeeded each other according to their order 
 of birth, and the last of them being extinct, it was not to 
 his son that the sceptre devolved, biit to his nephew ; that 
 is to say, to the son of the eldest brother who had possessed 
 the throne. 
 
 From this truly singular mode of succession resulted two 
 fatal consequences. In the first place, a still farther parcel- 
 ling out of the empire into appanages, and new occasions of
 
 BOOK ri. CHAP. II. 57 
 
 civil war. It was quite natural that, during his life, a 
 Grand Prince should strengthen his children against an 
 uncle, who, it was certain, would ere long favour his own 
 offspring, at the expense of his nephews. 
 
 This system of parcelling out did not spare even the do- 
 main of the crown. It appears that Yaroslaf the legislator 
 left it so powerful, in comparison with the appanages, that 
 he might well believe its paramount influence to be secure 
 and incontestable. But this vast domain was soon subdi- 
 vided, like the rest of the empire. 
 
 This fault was committed by the Grand-Princes them- 
 selves ; whether it was that they were indifferent as to pre- 
 serving unmutilated a domain, whicli, after their decease, 
 was to pass to another branch ; or, more probably, that 
 they were interested in leaving it weak against their chil- 
 dren, by whom it was not to be inherited ; or that they 
 knew not from what other source to provide them with 
 appanages. 
 
 The second result of this order of heirship was, the pro- 
 gres.sive weakening of the pow-erof the Grand-Princes; not 
 'only from the want of a solid point of support, in conse- 
 ({uence of tiie domains being thus broken into fragments, 
 but also from the want of an invariable system of govern- 
 ment. In fact, always strangers to the Grand-Princij)ality, 
 the princes arrived there from their appanages, with their 
 boyards, men devoted to them, whom they glutted at the 
 expense of the old possessors.* The fre([uent transference 
 of the sceptre, jjerpetually disappointing the hopes of 
 
 • Among a tliuiisand other in.stances, see wliat the Russian liisto- 
 riaii says with n'.s])e(;t to Yuiy of Suzdal, who thrice usurjieil tlie 
 throne of Kief. His favnurites, and a swarm of adventurers, who 
 flocked to seek their fortune in liis train, trampled as they pleased on 
 the citi/.eriH of that capital, and |»lundered and insulted them. The 
 |)rinccs often tarried off ail the Imyards of a <i( y, itc.
 
 58 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 the subjects, accustomed tlicm not to attiich themselves to 
 any branch of the Ruriks. 
 
 On the other hand, as the Grand-Princes did not ascend 
 the throne till they were somewhat advanced in years, the 
 reigns were shorter ; a circumstance which interrupted all 
 pjans, and perpetually gave rise to new revolutions, or 
 new systems of government : for the system of government 
 could not be transmitted from brother to brother, and from 
 uncle to nephew, as from father to son. 
 
 This order of succession was, therefore, during the se- 
 cond period, one of tlie main causes of the progressive 
 weakness of the Grand Princes and of the State : so cer- 
 tain is this, that, in the third period, and in spite of the 
 additional calamities produced by the Tartar invasion, we 
 shall see the State again revive with the paramovmt autho- 
 rity, by the re-establishment of the direct succession in one 
 of the branches of this multitude of Princes. 
 
 As to the Russian nobility, we must remark, that, amidst 
 all the quarrels which, in the second period, arose respect- 
 ing appanages, there is no allusion to them, but only to the 
 Princes. The reason of this is, that the continually con- 
 quering movement of the first period, the manners, the muta- 
 bility of all secondary fortunes in the midst of these revo- 
 lutions of appanages ; in fine, the scarcity of cities, residen- 
 ces, and strong places, had prevented the Vaiwodes from 
 perpetuating themselves in their commands, as those mili- 
 tary leaders had done every where else, at that period. 
 After that, when cities began to be founded, the Princes 
 were multiplied also, and divided them among themselves ; 
 no one even imagined that they could belong to any body 
 but those Princes ; so absolute and exclusive appears to 
 have been, at all times, the devotion to the family of 
 Rurik. 
 To belong to that race was enough : whether the Princes
 
 BOOK II. CflAP. II. 59 
 
 were good or bad, the Russians accepted them all. That 
 people allowed themselves to be transferred from hand to 
 hand, divided and subdivided, given and resumed, just as 
 the Princes thought proper. 
 
 On its side, the family of Rurik looked upon the State 
 as its property. Listen to one of them, of the name of 
 Oleg, who was summoned, in 1096 or 1097? to the con- 
 gress of Kief by his kinsmen, and was informed that, at 
 the meeting, the bishops, the ancient boyards, and the 
 most distinguished citizens, were to be consulted. " I am 
 a Prince," replied he, " and am not made to take advice 
 from monks and the mob." 
 
 But we shall witness many other examples of the sub- 
 missiveness of the people, and of the pride of the Rurik s. 
 
 This congress, however, which was convoked in 1096', 
 that of the sons of Yaroslaf the legislator, in 1059, for the 
 deliverance of their uncle, and those which were subse- 
 (juently held, indicate to us the form of government during 
 this second period. It was an assemblage of Princes de- 
 scended from Rurik,* and having appanages, who recog- 
 nized the Sovereign of Kief as Grand Prince and Lord 
 Paramount. These Princes often held a congress, in which 
 important affairs were decided, appanages distributed, and 
 high offences judged. " The fault which costs the boyard 
 his head," said one of them,-}- " costs the Prince his 
 appanage." 
 
 • About the year 1 1.JO there were more than seventy-one, all sove- 
 reif^ns. 
 
 t Sviatoslaf, in 1176.
 
 60 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Now, that all these causes of barbarism, of the order 
 of succession from brother to brother, of partitions, of 
 intestine dissensions, and of the exclusive authority of the 
 Ruriks, are appreciated, and that a glimpse has been 
 given of their mode of government, let us revert to the 
 history of the main facts, unconnected with those general 
 considerations, without which we should not have been 
 able to enter into the spirit of them. 
 
 We have seen Isiaslaf, the son of Yaroslaf the great, 
 commence the second disastrous period, by twenty-four years 
 of civil war, two depositions, two appeals to foreign inter- 
 vention for the purpose of effecting his restoration, and by 
 a change in the mode of succession to the throne, which he 
 left to his brother Vsevolod, without any opposition being 
 offered by his two sons. 
 
 But what boots it to dwell on the name of Isiaslaf; or 
 that of a Vsevolod, his successor, who reigned fifteen years ; 
 or of a Sviatopolk, the nephew of Vsevolod, and son of his 
 eldest brother, who succeeded him, and for twenty years 
 occupied a throne, which was much more an object of 
 envy from the wealth and luxury of Kief, than by the 
 contested power which it conferred ! What can we learR 
 from these annals, except that they are filled with out- 
 rages, usurpations, violated treaties, and pillagings, either 
 between the Russian Princes, or with the Polovtzy Tar- 
 tars, or with the Poles and Hungarians ? but of these facts, 
 therefore, the major part of which is unworthy of being 
 remembered, we shall select only such as may show us the
 
 BOOK J I. CHAP. 111. 61 
 
 colour of the times, and give us a leading and general idea 
 of that epoch. 
 
 Now, as early as the opening years of the reign of 
 Vsevolod, about 1084, there rises to view the noble form 
 of his son, of Vladimir Monomachus, the hero of the se- 
 cond period of the Russian history. His first actions were 
 distant campaigns for the redress of injuries. A tutelar ge- 
 nius amidst the crowd of princes possessing appanages, he 
 incessantly hastened to succour the weak against the un- 
 just aggressor ; in their frightful incursions, the Polovtzy 
 always found him the foremost to arrest their pro- 
 gress. The only fact with which he can be reproached is, 
 that he allowed himself to violate his faith with these 
 robbers, who never kept theirs ; that, in truth, he availed 
 himself of treachery against the treacherous, that he be- 
 trayed these traitors, and gave them up to the slaughter, 
 while they were slumbering amidst the fruits of their ra- 
 pine, among which A^ladimir doubtless reckcmed the treaty 
 whicli they had recently extorted from him. 
 
 But by how many great actions did he not atone for 
 this great error ! When, in 1093, his father died in his 
 arms, which he stretched out to him, and on the rich 
 throne of Kief, which he bequeathed to him, and of which 
 all good citizens implored his acceptance, he refused it. 
 Absurd as was the established order of succession, he 
 respected it, and transmitted the sceptre to his cousin 
 Sviatopolk. " His father," said he, " was the senior of 
 mine ; he reigned first in the capital. I wish to preserve 
 Russia from the horrors of a civil war." 
 
 He (lid more; during twenty years lie persisted in 
 this generous conduct. Remaining a faithful vassal of 
 Sviat()|)()lk, whose guard consisted of only eight hun- 
 dri'd warriors, he perpetually hastened to his aid in the 
 unjust wars and imprudent combats in which, notwith-
 
 6ll HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 standing Vladiniir's remonstrances and reproaches, the rash 
 nionarcli involved himself. In fighting for this sovei'eign, 
 "\nadimir lost in the waves a beloved brother, whom he 
 vainly endeavoured to save at the risk of his own life ; and 
 he lost even his appanage of Tchernigof, which the flagi- 
 tious Oleg, his kinsman, claimed as his inheritance, and 
 succeeded in wrestine from him. 
 
 This Oleg would neither submit to the amovability of 
 fiefs, nor to the congress of 1097? i^ which the princes di- 
 vided the appanages between them : he had sworn on the 
 cross to be satisfied with his share, but he, and David his 
 brother, again appealed to the Polovtzy. They perpetu- 
 ally laid open Russia to those robbers ; their whole exist- 
 ence was nothing but a tissue of treasons. 
 
 Thanks to the influence of Christianity over hyperborean 
 manners, the feudal contests of the Russian princes, not 
 less blood-stained than elsewhere, but stained only with 
 the blood that flowed in battle, had not hitherto, as was 
 the case among other barbarians, been blackened by blood 
 ferociously shed. For nearly a century, Sviatopolk, the 
 fratricide, had remained an insulated monster in an age 
 of discord, by which he had been held in abomination. 
 
 Towards the close of the eleventh century, however, the 
 detestable race of the traitor Oleg, with whom nothing was 
 sacred, renewed these monstrosities ; his brother David, to 
 whom the public peace, restored by the congress of 1097? 
 was insupportable, framed a plot, slandered Vladimir, and 
 tore out the eyes of one of his kinsmen, whose appanage 
 he coveted. 
 
 But this crime, so common in Greece, was unprece- 
 dented in Russia, and excited the utmost abhorrence. A 
 new congress of the Russian princes was assembled under 
 a vast tent, and there, too, the genius of Vladimir Mono- 
 machus was predominant. " Thou pretendest that thou
 
 BOOk II. CHAP. III. 63 
 
 liast cause of complaint,"' said they to David ; " thou art 
 now seated on the same carpet with thy brothers. Speak ; 
 which of us dost thou accuse T David, disconcerted, kept 
 silence, and the princes quitted the tent. They mounted 
 their horses ; and held a council, all of them completely 
 armed, as was the custom under alarming circumstances. 
 Then separating, each of them v/ent to consult his boyards ; 
 and David, condemned, and cast out with horror, was 
 deprived of his appanage. 
 
 Nevertheless, from the pity of his kinsmen he received 
 four towns and four hundred grivnas for his subsistence ; 
 so much did these descendants of Rurik respect his blood, 
 even when it was most impure ; so much had Christianity 
 softened them since the time of Vladimir the Great, who 
 abolished the penalty of death, and of Isiaslaf, his grand- 
 son, who again suppressed it, after it had been restored 
 by Yaroslaf his father. 
 
 At length, the death of the infamous Oleg, the last 
 congress in which tlie influence of Monomachus shone so 
 greatly, his generosity, and his active valour, suspended 
 the civil dissensions, and put an end to new wars against 
 the Poles and the Polovtzy. During the thirty-five years 
 of the reigns of Vsevolod and Sviatopolk, Madimir, who 
 had refused the sovereignty of Russia, had been its tute- 
 lary genius. 
 
 But, in 1113, Sviatopolk died. Kief fell into utter con- 
 fusion, and massacred its Jewish inhabitants, and INlono- 
 machus, who was always appealed to whenever the want of 
 order and j ustice was experienced, was again called to the 
 throne; but this hero of duty again rejected the sceptre; 
 he declared that the son of his enemy, the offspring of 
 the perfidious Oleg, had an hereditary title to it. 
 
 His high renown, however, his age, and the exist- 
 ing circumstances, triumphed : an unanimous assent and
 
 G4> HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 resolve, and the revolt of the Kievians, compelled him to 
 
 reign. 
 
 For it is remarkable, that he was elected by a general 
 and solemn assembly of the citizens of Kief; this, how- 
 ever, does not establish the rights of the people, there 
 being then nothing fixed : a great man could make in- 
 fringements in every thing, and procure them to be made. 
 Besides, this prince refused to avail himself of the election, 
 which proves that he did not consider it valid. 
 
 At length, however, he yielded ; and order was quickly 
 restored by the expulsion of the Jews from the whole of 
 the Russian territory. Vladimir protected their retreat, 
 and made their exile be respected : it has lasted for seven 
 centuries, and Russia still applauds it. 
 
 At the same time, the lot of those who were slaves by 
 contract, or for debt, and even that of the perpetual slaves, 
 was ameliorated ; the passions, restrained in the interior of 
 the state, were now turned towards external objects, and 
 the civil wars were succeeded by useful w^ars against the 
 enemies of the country. 
 
 In conclusion, this great man left to Russia better laws, 
 and to his children the remembrance of his actions, of 
 which, on his death-bed, he traced the picture, and offered 
 it to them as a model. 
 
 " My dear children," said he, " praise God, love men ; 
 for it is neither fasting, nor solitude, nor monastic 
 vows, that can give you eternal life ; it is beneficence 
 alone. 
 
 " Be fathers to the orphan ; be yourselves judges for the 
 widow. Put to death neither the innocent nor the guilty, 
 for nothing is more sacred than the life and soul of a 
 Christian. 
 
 " Keep not the priests at a distance from you ; do good 
 to them, that they may offer up prayers to God for you.
 
 BOOK. II. CHAP. III. 65 
 
 " Violate not the oath which you have sworn on the 
 cross. My brothers said to me, ' Assist us to expel the 
 sons of Rotislaf, and seize ui)ou their provinces, or re- 
 nounce our alliance.' But I answered, ' I cannot forget 
 that I have kissed the cross.' 
 
 " Bear in mind that a man ought to be always em- 
 ployed : look carefully into your domestic concerns, and fly 
 from drunkenness and debauchery. 
 
 " Love your wives, but do not suffer them to have any 
 power over you. 
 
 " Endeavour constantly to obtain knowledge. Without 
 ha\'ing quitted his palace, my father spoke five languages ; 
 a thing which captivates for us the admiration of foreigners. 
 
 " In war, be vigilant; be an example to your vaiwodes : 
 never retire to rest without having posted your guards : 
 never take off your arms while you are within the enemy's 
 reach ; and, to avoid ever being surprised, be early on 
 horseback. 
 
 " When you travel tluough your provinces, do not 
 allow your attendants to do the least injury to the inhabi- 
 tants ; entertain always, at your own expense, the master 
 of the house in which you take up yoiu' abode. 
 
 " If you find yourself affected by some ailment, make 
 three prostrations down to the ground before the Lord ; 
 and let the sun never find you in bed. As soon as the 
 first gleams of day appeared, my father, and all the vir- 
 tuous men l)y whom lie was surrounded, did thus — they 
 glorified the Lord ; they then seated themselves to deli- 
 berate, or to uchninister justice to the people, or they went 
 to tlie chase, and in the middle of the day they slept ; 
 which (iod permits to man, as well as to the beasts and 
 the birds. 
 
 " For my ))art, 1 accustomed myself to do every thing 
 that I might have ordered my servaiUs to do : iiiglil .nid 
 
 F
 
 66 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 day, summer and winter, I was perpetually moving about ; 
 I wished to see every thing with my own eyes. Never did 
 I abandon the poor or the widow to the oppressions of the 
 powerful. I made it my duty to inspect the churches and 
 the sacred ceremonies of religion, as well as the manage- 
 ment of my property, my stables, and the vultures and 
 hawks of my hunting establishment. 
 
 " I have made eighty-three campaigns and many expe- 
 ditions; I concluded nineteen treaties with the Polovtzy ; 
 I took captive a hundred of their princes, whom I set free 
 again ; and I put two hundred to death by throwing them 
 into rivers. 
 
 " No one has ever travelled more rapidly than I have 
 done. Setting out in the morning from Tchernigof, 1 
 arrived at Kief before the hour of vespers. 
 
 " In my youth, what falls from my horse did I not ex- 
 perience ! wounding my feet and my hands, and breaking 
 my head against the trees ; but the Lord watched over 
 me. 
 
 " In hunting, amidst the thickest forests, how many 
 times have I myself caught wild horses, and bound them 
 together ! How many times have I been thrown down by 
 buffaloes, wounded by the antlers of stags, and trodden 
 under the feet of elks ! A furious wild boar rent my 
 sword from my baldrick ; my saddle was torn to pieces by 
 a bear ; this terrible beast rushed upon my courser, which 
 he threw down upon me ; but the Lord protected me. 
 
 " O my children, fear neither death nor wild beasts ; 
 trust in Providence ; it far surpasses all human pre- 
 cautions."
 
 BOOK II. CHAP. IV. 67 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 By dint of virtue, A'ladimir Monomachus gained the 
 mastery of the first part of the second period. Between 
 him and the wicked Oleg and his race, we seem to have 
 witnessed the combat of the good principle against the 
 evil, in which the latter was subdued ; but for a moment 
 only ; for the good wholly depended on one man, while the 
 evil was inherent in the very nature of things. 
 
 Thus, on the death of "N^ladimir, we behold the vice of 
 feudality and the pernicious law of succession appealed to 
 by the descendants of Oleg, again arm all those princes, 
 and array them, as in a state of nature, against each other. 
 In the thirty-two years that elapsed between the reign of 
 "Madimir Monomachus and that of Andrew of Suzdal, the 
 only two great men of the second period, Russian princes 
 and appanages were indefinitely multiplied. In this short 
 interval, eleven of them, chiefly descendants of Oleg and 
 Madimir, renewed, with various success, the contest of 
 their fathers : they beset, they besieged, this barbaric 
 throne, and snatched from each other its rude dominion. 
 
 At length, towards the middle of the twelfth century, 
 by means of jiartition on ))artition, and civil war on civil 
 war, the Grand-Principality had dwindled to little more 
 than the city of Kief. Its paramount sovereignty was no- 
 thing but a vain title ; and yet, whether it arose from the 
 influence of a name, or that it was still looked uptm as the 
 C,'a|)ua, the Babylon of the Russians, the nutrojjolis of 
 their religion, the emporium of their connnercc, llu- source 
 of their civilization, it is certain that all the anarchy of 
 
 V 2
 
 68 HISTORY OK RUSSIA, 
 
 the princes continued to be obstinately bent against Kief: 
 the eye becomes bewildered in gazing upon the confusion. 
 
 In the midst of it, however, some traces are visible of 
 the struffo'le between the descendants of Vladimir Mono- 
 machus and those of Gleg. The latter, still reprobated 
 by the people, looked for support from the nomadic bar- 
 barians of the South ; the former sought it from the love 
 of their people and from the Hungarians, who were, at 
 least, equal to the Russians in civilization. From this it 
 would appear as if these lineages, like those of Cain and 
 Abel, had retained the distinguishing marks of their 
 origin. 
 
 But, at length, one of the princes possessed of appa^- 
 nages, that of Suzdal, obtained the ascendancy in this 
 chaos. For a short time he even inspired a hope that he 
 would reduce it to order. Like the founder of the third 
 French dynasty, his strength lay in his patrimony. The 
 principality of Suzdal included the present governments 
 of Yaroslaf, Kostroma, Vladimir, Moscow, and a part of 
 Novgorod, Twer, Nijni Novgorod, Tula, and Kaluga. 
 But this vast country, the centre of Russia, was, in the 
 eyes of the prince who reigned over it, nothing more than 
 a cheerless place of banishment. He could see there, he 
 declared, only an inclement climate, uncultivated deserts, 
 gloomy forests, and a people plunged in ignorance. Kief 
 alone could charm him ; he made himself master of Kief, or 
 rather. Kief made itself master of him ; and there he soon 
 after died, more the victim of sensual pleasures than of 
 the weight of years. 
 
 The host of princes who held appanages instantly start- 
 ed up again ; again they rushed to seize upon the throne 
 of Kief, carx'ied it by assault, and passed and repassed 
 on it with such rapidity, that tlie eye is baffled in its 
 attempt to follow them.
 
 BOOK II. CHAP. IV. 6& 
 
 One alone, whose youth was that of Achilles, witlidrew 
 from this ambitions crowd : it was Andrew, the heir of Suz- 
 dal. He viewed that great appanage with very different 
 eyes from his father. " Here," said he, " still abide sim- 
 plicity of manners, the obedience of the people, and the de- 
 voted fidelity of the boyards ; while at Kief, a city which 
 is on the frontier of the Hungarians, the Poles, and the 
 Polovtzy, all is pillage, murder, civil and foreign war."" 
 
 Thus, while he left the rest of the princes, with all 
 the fury of their passions and of their greedy hands, to 
 tear each other to ])ieces, and to exhaust themselves round 
 Kief, he regarded it with contempt, and kept himself apart 
 in his patrimony. There he appeared to reflect deeply on 
 the calamities of his country. It was especially in the di- 
 vergent position of Kief, and in the partitions of the em- 
 pire, that he discovered the cause of them. 
 
 For this reason, in his vast domain, he refused all 
 grants of territory, even in favour of his nearest rela^ 
 tions, and commenced a war of extermination against 
 appanages. For this reason it was that he rendered his 
 Vladimir worthy of being the Russian capital; that he ag- 
 grandized jNIoscow, a creation of his father; foimded 
 around him a number of cities, ]ieopled them wnth the 
 great Bulgarians of the A'^olga, whom he had subjugated,* 
 and drew into central Russia, by the attraction of peace, 
 the poj)ulation of the South, which fled from the horrors 
 of all kinds of war. 
 
 At length, in 11 G8, after having been repulsed by the 
 proud and flckle Novgorod, he bent his course towards 
 
 * Andrew did not ])ersonally make war after liis accession to the 
 tlirone. This, jjerhaps, is tlie reason why, from the date of his reig-n, 
 the chronicles give the name of court to that which they previously 
 denominated the guard of the prince.
 
 70 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 Kief, against which his armies advanced ; it was then, 
 that, taken by storm, des])oiled, and degraded, this second 
 capital of the Russians fell, and resigned the supremacy 
 to Vladimir. 
 
 In the following year, however, the numerous troops of 
 Andrew, commanded by one of his sons, having under him 
 seventy-one princes of the blood, were again foiled before 
 Novgorod, where reigned a son of the Prince of Kief. 
 Novgorod was at the climax of its power : the emporium 
 of the commerce of Persia and India with Germany, it 
 had been recently admitted into the Hanseatic league. 
 But, thouffh it twice resisted all the forces of Andrew, it 
 yielded to his policy ; and the first capital of the Russians 
 acknowledged, like the second, a third city as the me- 
 tropolis. 
 
 Andrew had triumphed in this part of his double 
 combat ; but in that of the appanages, custom, backed by 
 too powerful interests, resisted him. Opposed to a single 
 Grand-Prince, whose interest it was to destroy the system, 
 there was a throng of princes, all sovereigns, who must 
 necessarily be anxious for its continuance ; and not only 
 those Princes, but also their guards, and the whole of the 
 boyards, that multitude of adventurers retained by each 
 of the descendants of Rurik, all of whom subsisted on 
 this usage and its attendant defects. 
 
 The whole of them, therefore, revolted. It was in vain 
 that the brothers and nephews of Andrew, to whom he 
 had refused appanages, were banished, and forced to fly as 
 far as Byzantium ; the rest of Russia, divided among his 
 kinsmen, had the upper hand. Kief and Novgorod 
 escaped from his grasp ; his armies of fifty thousand men 
 were baffled by an inveterately rooted custom ; it was vic- 
 torious, and the policy of Andrew was under the necessity 
 of being satisfied with an empty homage.
 
 BOOK II. CHAP. IV. 71 
 
 Lastly, in his own patrimony, which, at least, he was de^ 
 sirous to preserve entire and undivided, he was cruelly 
 assassinated by his subjects, and died hated and un- 
 avenged. 
 
 The fall of this Grand-Prince, and of his plan of at- 
 taining order and strength by the concentration of power, 
 took place in 1174 ; whence it results that this great effort 
 was made too soon, as appears from the resistance Avhich 
 manners opposed to it ; and too late with reference to the 
 Tartar invasion, wliich occurred fifty-four years subse- 
 quently. For, even supposing a succession of able Princes, 
 and a series of well-directed efforts, half a century would not 
 have been sufficient to give to Russia, by the centralization 
 of power, all the energy of which she was susceptible, and 
 which, indeed, was indispensable for her safety. All his- 
 tory proves, that such a concentration of power in a feudal 
 state, and in the face of such formidable and hostile in- 
 terests, has ever been a task of difficult and tedious accom- 
 plishment. 
 
 Far from persisting in carrying this great conception into 
 effect, the first successor of Andrew weakly allowed to be 
 broken up into appanages the vast domain of Suzdal, which, 
 by its temporary union in one hand, had become the nu- 
 cleus of empire. The second suffered the Grand-Princi- 
 paHty to be disputed with him, by one of the princes to 
 whom he had given an appanage out of his own domain. 
 The third went still farther ; he ingenuously declared, that 
 he did not require any homage from the princes holding 
 apj)anages, and that to God alone were they accountable for 
 their con(hict. 
 
 Thus, the result of this third change of the capital was, 
 to transj)()rt into the middle of Russia the frenzy of civil 
 war, and the breaking it u]) into a|)|)anages, and to remove 
 the centre of government not only from (ireece, from its
 
 72 HISTORY OK KUSSIA, 
 
 commerce, and from its civilization, but also from the most 
 European of the Russian provinces. The latter, seeking 
 to obtain some ])oint of support within reach, were not 
 slow in becoming Hungarian, Polish, and Lithuanian. 
 Finally, this change of residence completed the decompo- 
 sition of the north of Europe, at the very moment when 
 central Asia, united in one mass, and under a single chief, 
 was ready to pour down, with overwhelming weight, upon 
 that unfortunate countrv.
 
 BOOK 111. CHAP. I. 73 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Third period, from 1237 to 1462. 
 
 A GREAT conqueror had now arisen in the vicinity of 
 Russia, at the precise instant when that unhappy coun- 
 try had no other means of defence than the fragments of 
 a power worn out and rent to pieces by discord. 
 
 In consequence of this, nothing more was required to 
 crush her, than a single lieutenant of Genghis Khan, and 
 two efforts, one of which was made in 1221, through the 
 defiles of Caucasus, the other, in 1237, on. the side of 
 eastern Bulgaria.* The first, which was merely an incur- 
 sion, cost the victor only one battle ; the second, some 
 insignificant combats, but many sieges. 
 
 Let us, in the first place, investigate the causes of this 
 invasion, of its rapid success, and of the long duration of 
 this last triumj)h of Asia; we will then trace the slow and 
 gradual progress of the Russians towards independence. 
 
 The princi])al causes of this great invasion of Europe by 
 Asia, are to be found in the genius of Genghis Khan, who 
 uiiitid tin- Mongols-f- and Tartars, and in the manners of 
 those two j)eople. 
 
 • Or the country of Kasan. 
 
 t Moj^ols, at-ciirdiii^ Id Dc (Juifrnes and Karani>iM ; and Mon- 
 oids, actrordiiif; to .Maltf-lJniri, Deppin};^, and Lcvesjpio.
 
 74 HISTORY OK RUSSIA, 
 
 That ambitious Prince could attain greatness by war 
 alone ; he was a barbarian ; he held command over shep- 
 herds, wlio, like their flocks, were com])elled to be migra^ 
 tory ; how, in those vast deserts, would it have been pos- 
 sible to keep them dependent on him, elsewhere than in 
 camps ? How could he retain them united in camps, other- 
 wise than by continual conquests; without which, these 
 shepherd tribes are under the necessity of separating into 
 a multitude of hordes, to find the means of subsistence ? 
 War, perpetual war, therefore, could alone satiate his 
 desires, and give a relish to his power. When he had 
 devoured the whole of Asia, Europe was required. 
 
 To say that the Russians had interfered in defence of the 
 Polovtzy, and had murdered the Tartar envoys, who came 
 to propose an insidious alliance, would be to assign a 
 puerile cause for this mighty invasion. Lured, like all 
 their predecessors, by the riches of Byzantium, would 
 these greedy barbarians have passed by Russia with- 
 out giving her a thought ? Would not Kief, which was 
 almost in their road, and the Greek luxury of the Rus- 
 sians, have been sufficient to attract them ? They had heard 
 of them, in 1221, from the Polovtzy, and in 1237 from the 
 Silver Bulgarians,* whose plundering excursions had made 
 them too well acquainted with the wealth of the Russians. 
 Besides, the Polovtzy and the Bulgarians of the Volga 
 were at war with the Tartars, and the conquest of these 
 by the latter, naturally led to that of Kief and Vladimir. 
 
 As to the causes of the rapid success of the Tartars, 
 we must, in the first place, observe, that the circumstance 
 of their pastoral habits preventing them from becoming 
 attached to any country, could not fail to forward the vast 
 and ambitious projects of Genghis Khan. This kind of 
 
 * Or Bulgarians of the Volga.
 
 BOOK III. CHAP. 1. 75 
 
 life renders all those people fit for the profession of arms, 
 and keeps them ever ready for action. The nomade 
 nations are armies ; irregular, indeed, but easily put in 
 motion, prompt, and always on foot ; whatever they 
 leave behind them can be guarded by old men, women and 
 children. 
 
 To such nations war is not an event ; for long marches 
 produce but little change in the habits of a wandering 
 people : their houses, their provisions, march along with 
 them ; and this is of some importance in uncultivated 
 plains and uninhabited forests. The Tartars, therefore, 
 had over the Russians the advantage which standing- 
 armies have over hasty levies. 
 
 Here, however, we must call to recollection the exist- 
 ence of the permanent guards of the Russian princes, to 
 which must be added those of the cities, though the 
 latter had doubtless less military experience than the 
 former ; but the national authors give us to understand, 
 that the permanence of these guards had induced a habit 
 of wholly committing to them all that related to war, and 
 that the people were become unfit for bearing arms. 
 
 Add to this, that here, as was the case wherever the 
 Normans established themselves with their military 
 government, there could be no warriors but free men 
 and proprietors ; and even from these we must deduct 
 the traders and the clergy. Now, continual wars had so 
 much increased the number of monks, hired servants, and 
 slaves, and so much diminished that of free men and land- 
 holders, that there remained scarcely warriors enough to 
 make head against the Polovtzy. 
 
 Amidst a ruin and dep()])ulati()n which was so general, 
 even the guard of the Prince must necessarily lose nuich 
 of its original strength. It has been seen, that about tlic 
 year 1100, the guurti of the (i rand-Prince consisted of only
 
 76 HISTORY OP RUSSrA, 
 
 eight hundred men, and that he lost it. Hence it hap- 
 pened that, with the exception of one battle and some 
 trivial skirmishes in the field, the Tartars encountered no 
 resistance except from the cities, in which all who had fled 
 to them for refuge, peasants, priests, and populace, were 
 converted into warriors by despair. 
 
 Even this did not take place till the second invasion : 
 to the first, we see the inhabitants of those cities opposing 
 nothing but processions of priests and of suppliants, which 
 the barbarians amused themselves by trampling under 
 their horses'* feet. 
 
 Another cause of the nature of this second war, a war 
 wholly of sieges, was, that in barbarous times, when tactics 
 were unknown, an impetuous cavalry must have the su- 
 periority in an open country : now, the Tartars being 
 always in the saddle, and being masters of the provinces 
 which produced the finest horses, were the best horsemen 
 in the world. Tlie Russians, on the contrary, were in- 
 fantry ; their guards being overwhelmed, and the rest badly 
 armed and undisciplined, could not keep their ground, 
 except in cities, against such furious cavalry. 
 
 The annalists boast much of the obstinate defence made 
 by the cities, the greater part of which suffered themselves 
 to be taken by assault, and destroyed, rather than sur- 
 render. The example of the sacking of one city did not 
 deter another from exposing itself to the same fate. In 
 this is supposed to be manifest the same tenacious firm- 
 ness, even to the death, which now forms a distinguishing 
 feature in the Russian character : it is true, that, as the 
 Tartars gloried in being equally faithless and pitiless, 
 no treaty could be made with, nor any quarter expected 
 from them. 
 
 Now, with the reduction which had taken place in the 
 warlike class of the Russians, let us contrast the enormous
 
 BOOK III. CHAP. I. 77 
 
 magnitiulo of the Tartar armies. Plan-Carpin, the am- 
 bassador sent to Baty by the Pope, saw that Khan sur- 
 rtftmded by six hundred thousand warriors, of whom a 
 liundred and fifty thousand were Tartars. There wap, at 
 that period, no art which could counterbalance such an 
 astoundincT disproportion of force. Rubruquis,* who was 
 the envoy from St. Louis to Mangu-Khan, gives us as vast 
 an idea of them. 
 
 There were also other causes which gave the superiority 
 to the Tartars. Among the Gauls, as among all barba- 
 rians, it was by cries repeated from village to village, that 
 intelligence was transmitted ; the more thickly the coun- 
 try was peopled, the more speedily was the news conveyed. 
 In Russia, where the dwellings were separated by deserts, 
 tliis kind of communication was perpetually interrupted, 
 so that a prince was often surprised in his capital by the 
 enemy ; this was a great advantage on the side of an as- 
 sailant always ready, and so rapid in his movements. 
 
 There is reason to believe, likewise, that the iNIongols, 
 who were situated so near the mines of Nertschinck, and 
 had become masters of the Oural and the Caucasus, were 
 provided with-lietter arms than the Russians ; accordingly, 
 the annalists speak with horror of the long and steeled 
 arrows of those Tartars, of their huge scymitars, of their 
 pikes with hooks, and of those terrible battering-rams, 
 wliich in one day overthrew the walls of Kief, their strong- 
 est city. 
 
 Another circumstance which we must figure to ourselves 
 
 " This monk was bold to think tliat he coukl convert Manjifu ; hut 
 the Khan rejdied to him, — " The Mon^^ols are not ij^norarit of the 
 existence of a (iorl, and tliey love him with all tlicir hearts : there are 
 as many, and more ways of being saved, than there are fingers on your 
 hands; and, if (iod has given {you the Bible, he has given us the 
 Magi, inc.''
 
 78 FIISTORY OF HUSSIA, 
 
 is, the sudden organization of tliese wandering hordes in 
 divisions of ten thousand men, regiments of a thousand 
 men, companies of a hundred men, and detachments of 
 ten men. We must also admire the annual assemblage of 
 all the chiefs in the presence of Genghis ; his sole means 
 of knowing them, of keeping them in a sort of con- 
 nexion, and of impressing their minds with his authority, 
 throughout so vast an extent : for it was in the midst of 
 deserts that all the splendour of genius burst forth ; it is 
 there, especially, that we witness what can be accomplished 
 by the influence of one man over so many men and events, 
 and even in spite of nature. 
 
 Fanaticism had its share, in one of these general as- 
 semblies, a prophet had predicted to Genghis Khan, that 
 he would be master of the world. We must also remark, 
 that, among the Mongols, the three highest crimes were 
 adultery, witchcraft, and cowardice ; and that, in fine, men 
 who had such fiery passions, who were so ignorant, and 
 who were bound to risk their lives under pain of death, 
 could not fail to be formidable soldiers. 
 
 Besides, it is not very astonishing that the Russians, 
 disunited, should have been overthrown by the Mongols, 
 united to the Tartars. To sum up the whole, the genius 
 of Genghis, the impulse given by him, the confidence 
 which he bequeathed, and the enthusiasm inspired by 
 forty years of victory, are striking causes of success. 
 
 These nomadic hordes pushed their conquests as far as 
 into Hungary, and beyond Poland ; but a dearly bought 
 victory in Silesia, and the poverty of Brandenburgh, hav- 
 ing disgusted them, they confined themselves to Russia. 
 
 Yet, with the assistance of the Polovtzy, the Alans 
 might have defended the entrance of European Russia 
 against the Tartars, who, in the first instance, attacked it 
 by the south-west of the Caspian, and the defiles of Cauca-
 
 BOOK HI. CHAP. I. 79 
 
 sus ; but, deceived by offers of friendship, and by the re- 
 membrance of a common origin, the Polovtzy abandoned 
 the Alans. As soon as the latter were crushed, and the Cau- 
 casus Avas penetrated, the war fell in turn on the Polovtzy, 
 who, driven to the Dnieper, implored aid from the princes 
 of Kief and Galitsch. 
 
 Those princes were aware of their true interest, and 
 united with the Polovtzy. It was then that the Tartar 
 envoys were killed, who came to offer to the Russians the 
 same friendship with which they had lured the Polovtzy- 
 The league of the Russians was imperfect : by a feigned 
 retreat, they were dra\vn to the banks of the Kalka, near 
 the mouth of the Don. There the Prince of Galitsch was 
 desirous of vanquishing without the help of the prince of 
 Kief, who, on his })art, allowed him to be defeated, and 
 was slaughtered in his turn : all the south of Russia was 
 ravaged, after which the Tartars withdrew. 
 
 This sketch of their first expedition, in 1221, shows 
 with what prudent and deceptions policy these Tartars 
 prepared for a war which they were to carry on with all 
 the fury of barbarism : what Montesquieu says of the cha- 
 racter of Attila well pourtrays the Tartar character, which, 
 patient and subtle in policy, is implacable and furious in 
 war. 
 
 There are yet two additional reasons to be assigned for 
 the general conquest of Russia, in 1237, by Baty, grand- 
 son of Genghis, and Klian of the Kaptchak. In the first 
 place, famine, a plague, the eartlujuake of 1230, and a 
 paroxysm of intestine dissension, had weakened the Rus- 
 sians; while, on the c(mtrary, the pacific reign of Zuzi- 
 Khan, had prc]iared the Kaptchak ; secondly, the Grand 
 Prince of Vladimir, (Yury,*) was an ich'ot, who never 
 thought of forming an alliance with tlie Bidgarians, and 
 
 • Or (Jeorpo
 
 80 FlISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 allowed himself to be beaten in detail. As he was solely 
 occupied in adorning the churches, perpetuating mendicity 
 by alms, and fattening the monks, he believed that God 
 would do the rest. 
 
 With respect to the infamy of the Russian princes, who, 
 at the outset, mutually deserted each other ; who, as we 
 shall see in the sequel, next employed themselves in com- 
 pleting the work of tearing each other to pieces on their 
 ruins; and who ended with choosing Baty as the arbiter 
 of their quarrels ; and with respect, likewise, to the esta- 
 blishment, on the Russian frontier, of the great Tartar 
 empire of Kaptchak,-f- which extended from the north of 
 the Caspian to the banks of the Don ; these were causes, 
 not only of the successes of the Tartars, but also of the 
 duration of their supremacy in Russia. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 That the duration of this conquest may cease to as- 
 tonish, it is necessary to examine all that contributed to 
 consolidate it. Luxury, which is especially destructive of 
 conquering empires — luxury wished to have a seat ; un- 
 inhabited and uncultivated plains repelled her, and the 
 Khans of Kaptchak, of Astracan, of Kasan, and of the 
 Crimea, long drew from their wandering hordes a swarm 
 of soldiers, ready to engage in any enterprise, having little 
 
 t Kaptchak, or the Golden Horde, a Khannat, which, according to 
 Levesque, was comprehended between the Volga, the Yaik, and the 
 Don ; and, according to De Guignes, extended much farther towards 
 the north-east of the Caspian. It is even believed, that the Sir, or 
 ancient Jaxartes, was its boundary.
 
 BOOK III. CHAP. II. 81 
 
 to lose, every thing to gain, and nothing to leave behind 
 them. 
 
 Their number was kept up by the slaves which they 
 captured ; they enrolled, under their standards, their van- 
 quished enemies, and thus made their conquests supply 
 the means of conquering. 
 
 In Russia, however, the difference of religion, of climate, 
 and of manners, became an obstacle. They could govern 
 it only from a distance, and as paramount sovereigns. It 
 was necessary for them to have armies there, to oppose the 
 Lithuanians, the Swedes, and the Livonians, their common 
 enemies ; for those three people, combined with the Hun- 
 garians and the Poles, had risen at once against Russia, 
 and rushed ujjon that fallen prey. But the Tartars not 
 being men to be retained in a country, the climate of 
 which was repugnant to all their habits, they left the Rus- 
 sian princes there, to reign and to fight for them. This 
 addition of European wars, which began in the twelfth and 
 thirteenth centuries, weakened the Russians, and thus 
 contributed to the continuance of the Tartar yoke. 
 
 Here might be enumerated the famines, which were a 
 consequence of the Tartar invasion and of Russian im- 
 providence ; and next, the endless dissensions between the 
 Russian Princes, and in the republics ; but all these causes 
 of the long endurance of slavery were equally the causes 
 of the conquest. 
 
 From the spot where Kas m now stands, to as far as 
 Vladimir, the seat of the Russian empire, the Tartars des- 
 troyed every thing ; such was their custom. Why should 
 a pastoral and migratory people have spared the cities ? 
 Pasturage was all they stood in need of.* This solitude 
 flattered their pride and insured their safety. 
 
 • See, in 1223, tlie .isseml)ly of the Monfrol chiefs, several of whom 
 jiroposed to (iengliis-Khaii to massacre all the inliahilaiits of tlie con- 
 
 (;
 
 82 HISTORY OK RUSSIA, 
 
 Could they allow to be left in their rear a population 
 which might have become an army ; armies being then the 
 same thing as the population ? This is a result of barba^ 
 reus manners, which, under another form, seems likely to 
 be re-produced by our new system of invasive war, a sys- 
 tem that, threatening at once the whole of a nation, com- 
 pels the whole nation to rise in its own defence. 
 
 In conclusion, they, like all similar barbarians, made war 
 upon walls ; for to such tribes, walls are objects of hostility ; 
 at home, because they are in opposition to their manners ; 
 among their neighbours, because they are an obstacle to 
 their violences. 
 
 The deserts which these Tartars made, and which would 
 have stopped the progress of any other than a nomadic 
 people, were no impediment to them. Their horses found 
 pasture in them, and horses were every thing in their 
 eyes. 
 
 But the principal end which the Tartars had in view, in 
 thus spreading destruction, was to root their power deeply 
 by terror ; for, as soon as they had produced the desired 
 effect, they treated with honour the Russian princes who 
 applied to them, though, at the same time, they enfeebled 
 them by insidious partitions. They founded Sarai,* and 
 then Kasan, and thus established themselves in the vicinity 
 of their conquest. 
 
 After Baty, Burgai caused a general census of the Rus- 
 sians to be made. He sent governors (baskaks) with 
 forces into each principality, imposed taxes, and placed a 
 governor general on the frontier. 
 
 He prohibited, under pain of death, the plundering of 
 
 quered countries^ in order to convert those vast and populous re- 
 gions into pasturage. (De Guignes, vol. iii. edit, in 4to.) 
 
 * Capital of the Kaptchaks : according to Abulgasi, a Tartar prince 
 and historian, it was situated on the Volga, north of Astracan.
 
 BOOR III. CHAP. II. 83 
 
 the monasteries ; he exempted the priests from all tribute. 
 He did not fear to augment their temporal power, that he 
 might secure in his interest their spiritual power, of which 
 they knew better how to make use. In the disgracing of 
 the princes of Kief and of Vladimir, who had recognised 
 the Pope, we seem to see the care the Tartar displayed to 
 defend the Greek religion which he did not profess, but of 
 which he knew the ascendancy over these tributary tribes, 
 and which he considered as a barrier between Russia and 
 the rest of Europe. 
 
 The weakening of the feudal tie in Russia had facilitated 
 the conquest ; the policy of the Khans completed the un- 
 loosing of that feudal tie. They themselves collected the 
 tribute of each ; they received the liomage and the ap- 
 peals of every prince ; and, when they committed the fault 
 of re-establishing a Grand Prince, they allowed several 
 rivals to lay claim to this paramount sway, made them 
 wait their decision, and sometimes retained them at their 
 horde for two whole years. At the same time, they pre- 
 vented the settling of any order of successicm. In a word, 
 they made themselves lords paramoimt ; for, at the outset, 
 they adopted the plan of not permitting any prince, great 
 or small, to assume the government of his states, before 
 he had journeyed to the great horde, to solicit the inves- 
 titure. 
 
 The effect of these journeys, to accomplish which a year 
 was barely sufficient, was to leave the principalities with- 
 out Russian chiefs, and under the autliority (jf the Tartar 
 baskaks ; to prove the supremacy of the Grand Khans ; 
 to make these Mongols accpiainted with what kind of men 
 they had to deal ; to ruin the competitors by the cus- 
 tomary presents ; and, lastly, as accusers of the princes 
 were never wanting among their kinsfolk and rivals, to 
 make them dread the terrible vengeance of the Khans, in 
 
 <; 'i
 
 84 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 case of their having to reproacli themselves with so much 
 as a sigh for independence. 
 
 Several princes were summoned to the great horde, tried, 
 and executed. But these Tartars, who thus cruelly pu- 
 nislied the insubordination of the Russian princes, joined 
 with them in their foreign wars ; they even served them in 
 their civil wars. This was the manner in which they did 
 so : a Russian prince journeyed to the horde, to impeach 
 the Grand Prince, in whose place he prayed to be substi- 
 tuted ; and he returned with a Tartar army, which per- 
 mitted him to reign over ashes and blood. 
 
 The granting of these succours was not always dictated 
 by policy. The Tartars, like the Huns, ravaged without 
 conquering ; it was tribute and slaves that they required. 
 Had they wished to govern their conquests, they could not 
 have plundered them ; a habit which it was impossible for 
 them to relinquish. The tribute was for the Khan, the 
 plunder for the horde ; it was necessary, from time to 
 time, to satisfy this craving for prey. 
 
 For the mass of the Tartar empire was composed of such 
 incoherent parts, that war, which destroys every thing, was 
 its only means of preservation ; it was indispensable to its 
 existence, because it bound together the whole of these 
 scattered tribes, by directing aU their interests, and all 
 their passions, towards one object. 
 
 As it is only by convulsions that a body verging on dis- 
 solution can manifest its strength, so was it only in the 
 violent state of war, that this empire resumed its collective 
 form. What other vehicle than a burning and impetuous 
 fever, stimulated by all the most fervid passions, could 
 have circulated with rapidity enough to animate and 
 move at once all the gigantic members of this enormous 
 empire .'' Nothing but the renown of a victor, the cry of 
 war, was sufficiently powerful to make itself simultaneously
 
 BOOK III. CHAP. 111. 85 
 
 heard through all the parts of a dominion, which were so 
 remote from each other, and dissevered by vast deserts. 
 
 Accordingly, no sooner did that war-cry cease to be 
 loudly heard ; no sooner did the Khans, exhausted or 
 glutted with blood, and fixed by luxury in cities which 
 could not, like the tent of Genghis, be removed to a dis- 
 tance, seek to enjoy at home the repose of which they had 
 robbed the world, than their sway was narrowed to their 
 slaves and the cities, and the insubordination of the hordes 
 convinced them how little consistence there was in an em- 
 pire composed of so many wandering nations, and of such 
 various and conflicting interests. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 We have seen Asia, when rallied, surprise and subjugate 
 disunited Russia ; we are now about to see Asia falling to 
 pieces in its turn, and Russia, after having successively 
 banded together all its people, at length avenging its in- 
 juries. But, in reverting back to the right path, it imi- 
 tated the slow and methodical progress of nature, who so 
 slowly and methodically composes that which she so rapidly 
 decomposes. 
 
 The habitude of war, which accustoms to recognize no 
 other law, no other virtue, than force ; the want of order 
 in the succession to the Khanshij) ; tlie facility with which 
 the chiefs of wandering hordes could revolt ; the indispen- 
 sable necessity, in a too extensive empire, of entrusting 
 large portions of it to lieutenants ; the rcljcllion and tiii' 
 concjuests of the Nogays, in 1259; the ravages of Tiniur, 
 in l.'38(): ;ill these causes contributed to tlic disunion and
 
 86 HISTORY OF R(JSSIA, 
 
 enfeebling of the Kaptchak, which may be dated, particu- 
 larly, from the middle of the fourteenth century, after 
 the reign of Usbek, more than a century posterior to its 
 foundation. 
 
 I speak here only of the empire of the Kaptchak, one of 
 the five divisions of the great empire of Genghis-Khan. The 
 latter subsisted but forty years in its complete state. Of its 
 brief duration we need seek no other cause than its immense 
 extension ; for a man may, indeed, devastate the world, 
 but it can be governed by God alone. 
 
 The first successors of Genghis-Khan, however, claimed 
 nothing less than the possession of the whole earth, which 
 he had bequeathed to them by will.* For the conquest of 
 Europe they assigned eighteen years. But, of these ar- 
 rogant beings, Octay, the first after Genghis, died by poi- 
 son ; an event which probably contributed to postpone the 
 impending invasion of Constantinople, Vienna, Dresden, 
 and Berlin. The second, Gaiuk, or Kaiuk, held the throne 
 but transiently ; Mangu, the third, sustained reverses ; 
 and Kublai, the fourth of these pretended sovereigns of 
 the world, could not even make himself master in his own 
 territories.-f- 
 
 We have seen the causes of the Tartar invasion, of its suc- 
 cess, of its permanence, and also the first principles of the 
 dissolution of the Tartar empire. We are now to trace the 
 progress of the Russians towards their independence. 
 
 In the first place, we remark that the Grand-Princes, 
 and even the Princes holding appanages, were obliged to 
 journey to the abode of the Mongol Khan, to obtain the 
 right of governing. As these journeys took up a year, 
 the authority of the princes at home, during so long an 
 absence, remained weak, fluctuating, and uncertain. But, 
 
 * See Plan-Carpin. f See Abulgasi.
 
 BOOK HI. CHAP. III. 87 
 
 ere long, the Kaptchak, or Golden Horde, threw off its 
 dependence on the jNIongol Khan, and the Russian princes 
 had then to travel only to Sarai to solicit the crown. 
 
 On the other hand, nearly at the same epoch, and in the 
 Kaptchak itself,thus severed from the great INlongol empire, 
 another dismemberment took place. Nogay, one of its 
 warriors, a conqueror from the north of the Black Sea, 
 rendered himself independent. As early as 1262, or 1266, 
 his revolt against the Golden Horde affording to the Rus- 
 sians some hope of recovering their freedom, they massa^ 
 cred the Tartars who resided among them. No long time 
 after, in 1281, a Grand-Prince, Dmitry, even opposed these 
 Nogay s to the Ka])tchaks, and re-established himself by 
 their influence. 
 
 These beginnings of division among the conquerors, 
 however, weakened them, at the expense of Russia alone, 
 which served as their field of battle, and the prize of their 
 victories. 
 
 But that which excites surprise is, that there still existed 
 a Grand-Prince at that epoch. While Baty and Burgai 
 were completing the conquest of Russia, chance so ordered 
 it, that Alexander Nevsky, one of the sons of the Grand- 
 Prince of Vladimir, and, consequently Prince of Nov- 
 gorod, was a great warrior and statesman. He rebuilt 
 and repeopled numerous Russian cities; heroically de- 
 feated his European enemies, the Teutonic knights and 
 the Lithuanians, and recovered the Neva from the Swedes; 
 and won the good will of tlie Tartars, whom he considered 
 as t(x> formidable to be attacked. 
 
 By the same chance it hap|)ened, that, at the very time 
 when Alexander gained the esteem of the Khan, the Prince 
 of Kief drew upon himself tlie liatrcd of" the Tartars 
 and Hus.sians, l)y submitting to the Poj)c; and Andrew, 
 Prince of Madimir, marrying tlic lister of this Prince of
 
 88 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 Kief, and refusing to pay the Khan his tribute, involved 
 himself in the same disgrace with his brother-in-law. All 
 these principalities the Khan gave to Alexander Nevsky ; 
 some authors are of opinion that he even aided him to seize 
 upon them. 
 
 But the Russians were not disposed to submit either to 
 the Tartar yoke, or to the sceptre of the Grand-Prince ; 
 so that Alexander's whole life was spent in vanquishing 
 his people, in ])unishing or pardoning their revolts, or in 
 hurrying to intreat forgiveness for them at the feet of the 
 Khan, whom they were perpetually insulting. He died 
 the victim of his toils, but remained immortal in the hearts 
 of his subjects, who canonized him ; his virtues restored 
 in the minds of the Russians the paramount supremacy of 
 Vladimir. 
 
 This Grand-Principality was, it is true, long a subject of 
 discord held out to the ambition of the Russian princes, 
 and, while they contended for it with their own sword and 
 that of the Tartars, the Khan ruled it with sovereign sway. 
 
 If it chanced that one of these princes ventured to attack 
 the Grand-Prince, without having appealed to the Tartars, 
 and even in spite of them, it was because success would 
 procure for him riches, with which he might conciliate the 
 Tartar governors and the Khan himself; but this success 
 was vmcertain ; and the Russian princes at length perceiv- 
 ing that a journey to the Horde decided the possession of 
 the crown, war became thenceforth useless. Very soon, 
 therefore, it was only at the Horde, and to acquire an 
 ascendancy in the mind of the Khan, that they contended 
 with each other; fewer civil wars occurred, the Tartars 
 were more rarely called in, and Russia had time to 
 breathe. 
 
 The Khans committed a serious fault in preserving a 
 Grand-Prince ; it was a .still more striking one, and a con-
 
 BOOK HI. CHAT. IV. 89 
 
 sequence of the first, to place in his hands a sovereignty 
 disproportioned to those by which he was surrounded, to 
 select him for too long a time from the same branch, and 
 to give him armies to establish himself, and the means of 
 seducing even themselves by the most costly presents. 
 
 The consequence of this was, that the princes who held 
 appanages, dared not enter so readily into a contest Avith the 
 Grand-Princes, who were already more powerful than they 
 were, and were so formidably supported ; not daring to 
 contend with them, they turned their arms against each 
 other, and thus enhanced by their own weakness the 
 strength of the Grand-Princes. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Nevertheless, till 1324, that is, for a century pos- 
 terior to the Tartar invasion, the power of the Grand- 
 Princes was doubtful ; but then, amidst the crowd of pre- 
 tenders to the Grand-Princedom, two rival branches made 
 themselves conspicuous, and the other princes of the blood 
 resigned to them an arena, in wliich the scantiness of their 
 own resources no longer permitted them to appear. 
 
 One of these branches was that of the Princes of Twer ; 
 the other that of the Princes of Moscow. 
 
 The Princes of Twer (al)out 1300,) succeeded to the 
 ^/rand-Principality of Vladinur ; it devolved to them in 
 the order of the succession ; they resided at Twer. If we 
 consider the position of Moscow between Twer and AHadi- 
 mir, and the fickleness of the Novgorodians, we shall per- 
 ceive why it was impossible that the (jrand-Priiues of 
 Twer could ever extend their power beyond the limits of
 
 90 IJISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 their patrimony. In fact, the Prince of Moscow, whom 
 the situation of his ap}>auage made the rival of the Grand- 
 Prince of Twer, and who could cut off all communication 
 between Twer and Vladimir, had only to win over Novgo- 
 rod, in order to reduce the Grand-Prince within the bounds 
 of Twer ; and this was what actually happened. 
 
 Moscow, however, as being the weakest, must have fallen, 
 but that one of its princes, Yury,* married, in 1313, the 
 sister of Usbek-Khan. It was then that, after having ex- 
 cited the hatred of the Novgorodians, in persisting to 
 subdue them by means of the Tartars, Mikhail of Twer 
 drew down upon his head all the wrath of Usbek, by de- 
 feating Yury, and taking prisoners his wife, who was the 
 Khan"'s sister, and Kavadgi, a Tartar general, who came 
 to put the Prince of Moscow in possession of the Grand- 
 Princedom. 
 
 For Usbek, after having preferred and supported the 
 rights of Mikhail of Twer to the Grand-Principality, had 
 changed his mind in favour of Yury of Moscow, who was 
 become his brother-in-law. The anger of Usbek, however, 
 was still remaining suspended, when his sister, the wife 
 of Yury, and the prisoner of Mikhail, expired at Twer. 
 Yury hastened to the horde ; he accused Mikhail of having 
 poisoned the princess. The humiliated pride of Usbek 
 lent itself to this base calumny ; he entrusted to Kavadgi 
 the investigation of the affair. Mikhail appeared to 
 the summons ; the vanquished passed sentence on his 
 vanquisher, whom he caused to be put to death ; and the 
 infamous Yury of Moscow was appointed Grand-Prince, 
 in the place of his murdered rival. 
 
 His triumph was short : being accused of withholding 
 the tribute due to the Khan, he journeyed to the horde, 
 and was assassinated by the son of his victim. 
 
 * Or George.
 
 BOOK III. CHAP. IV. 91 
 
 This vengeance restored the Grand-Principality to the 
 branch of Twer, in the person of Prince Alexander. It 
 remained in it for three years ; but then, in 1328, this 
 madman caused all the Tartars at Twer to be massacred. 
 To the brother of Yiiry, Ivan I. surnamed Kalita,* 
 Prince of IMoscow, Usbek immediately gave A'ladimir and 
 Novgorod, the double possession of which always distin- 
 guished the Grand-Princedom. 
 
 This concession formed, in the hands of Ivan, a mass, 
 the connection of which Twer, weakened as it was, did but 
 little diminish. Consequently, with this power, and the 
 troops that Usbek added to it, Ivan speedily compelled all 
 the Russian princes to combine, under his orders, against 
 the Prince of Twer ; who. after having undergone various 
 misfortunes, was executed with his son at the Horde. 
 
 Here begin the two hundred and seventy years of the 
 reign of the branch of Moscow. This first union of the 
 Russians, under Ivan I. denominated Kalita, constitutes 
 an epoch ; it shows the ascendancy of this second Grand- 
 Prince of Moscow over his subjects ; an ascendancy, the 
 increase of which we shall witness under his successors; 
 and for which, at the outset, this branch of the Ruriks 
 was indebted to the suj^port they received from the Tartars. 
 
 For, as a word from the Khan decided the possession of 
 the throne, whichever of the two rival branches of Mos- 
 cow and Twer displayed at the horde the most shrewd and 
 consistent policy, that branch was sure to triumph. It 
 was not that of the princes of Twer which thus acted. On 
 the contrary, they sometimes solicited the protection of 
 the Khans, and sometimes fought against them ; we iiave 
 even seen one of them ordering the massacre of the Tartars 
 in his principalitv. 
 
 Thi' I'rinces of Moscow pursued ,i diUlriiit syslem ; 
 
 ' (h tlip I'lirse.
 
 92 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 they, no doubt, detested, as inucli as tlieir rivals did, the 
 yoke of the Khans ; but they were aware that, before the 
 Tartai's could be contended with, the Russians must be 
 united, and that it was impossible to subject and unite the 
 Russians without the assistance of the Tartars. They 
 therefore espoused the daughters of the Khans, manifested 
 the utmost submission to the Horde, and appeared to be 
 wholly devoted to its interests. 
 
 Now this policy, which, at the commencement of the 
 Mongol invasion, acquired for Alexander Nevsky the em- 
 pire of all Russia, gave it, seventy-four years later, still 
 more completely to Ivan I. : for the sway of the Tartars 
 was then more recognized ; the Russians were more docile 
 to their yoke ; and the cities which composed the Grand- 
 Principality, were more powerful in themselves, and also 
 by comparison with the rest of Russia, which became daily 
 more and more exhausted. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The wealth of Ivan I. was another cause of the exten- 
 sion of his power. 
 
 The complaints of the Prince of Twer, in 1323, prove 
 that Yury I. Grand-Prince of Moscow, when he under- 
 took to execute the vengeance of his brother-in-law Us- 
 bek against Twer, was also entrusted with the collecting 
 of the tributes ; which, however, he retained, instead of 
 sending them to the Horde. 
 
 Ivan Kalita, his son and successor, profited by this ex- 
 ample. It was thus, that by making themselves lieute- 
 nants of the Khan, the Moscovite Grand-Princes first be- 
 came the collectors, and finally the possessors, of the taxes
 
 BOOK HI. CHAP. V. 93 
 
 throughout the whole of Russia. It was thus that they 
 succeeded to all the rights of conquest enjoyed by the 
 Tartars, and to their despotism. 
 
 There can be no doubt, that one of the most copious 
 sources of power to those sovereigns, was the periodical 
 censuses, and the perpetual imposts, so alien to feudality, 
 and especially to a feudality of princes : imposts and cen- 
 suses which nothing but the Tartar conquest could have 
 established, and which were inherited by the Grand-Princes. 
 
 Already, in the first half of the fourteenth century, these 
 taxes had rendered Ivan Kalita rich enough to purchase 
 entire domains and appanages,* the protection of Usbek 
 Khan, and the preference of the Primate, who removed his 
 residence from Vladimir to jNIoscow, by which means the 
 latter city became the capital of the empire. 
 
 Tliis prince was collector for the Tartars : it was by 
 virtue of this authority that he practised extortion upon 
 his subjects. In 1377? ^^ ^^^ ^^^ requiring a double tri- 
 bute from the Novgorodians, under pretext that such was 
 the will of the Khan. 
 
 Armed against the Russians ^vith the dread inspired by 
 the Tartar name, and against the Tartars with the money of 
 the Russians, he, in his frequent journeys to the Horde, in- 
 toxicated with gold and adulation the Khan and his cour- 
 tiers ; it was then that, as lord-paramount, he brought 
 about the first union of all the appanaged princes against 
 his competitor, the Prince of Twer, whom he drove from 
 Pskof and from Russia, by the assistance of the thunder 
 of the F'rimate, which the church then made heard in the 
 empire for the first time. 
 
 Already, as is the case with immense masses in natiu'c, 
 
 • In the Ko^'t'rntnents of Novgorod, Vhwlimir, Kostrotna, ami llos- 
 tof, and the cilicH of Duglitsch, Biclozersk, and Galitsch. — See Ka- 
 ramsiri, and an art of Dmitry Donskoi.
 
 94 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 his power produced its effect — it exercised its attraction ; 
 the nobility imitated the clergy. Either from fear, or from 
 avidity, several boyards of other princes rallied round this 
 Grand-Prince, preferring the fiefs of so rich and so potent 
 a lord-paramount, to those of the petty princes whom they 
 abandoned. 
 
 Ivan Kalita pushed forward with horrible vigour in his 
 ambitious career. " Woe, woe to the princes of Rostof !" 
 exclaims Nicon, " because their power was destroyed, 
 and every thing was concentrated in Moscow." In 
 fact, from the Kremlin,* which he fortified, Ivan pro- 
 claimed himself the arbiter of his kinsfolk ; he reigiied 
 in their principalities by the medium of his boyards ; he 
 arrogated to himself the right of distributing the fiefs, 
 that of judge, that of legislator; and if, indignant, those 
 princes resisted, and dared to wage against him a xoar 
 of the public good^-f he hurried to the Horde, with purse in 
 hand, and denunciation on his lips ; and the short-sighted 
 Usbek, deceived by this ambitious monster, was impoUtic 
 enough to disembarrass him of the most dangerous of his 
 competitors, whom he consigned to frightful torments. 
 The Prince of Twer and his son were the most remarkable 
 victims of this atrocious policy. 
 
 At the same time, Lithuania, which, from the period of 
 the first overwhelming of Russia by the Tartars, had eman- 
 cipated itself from its yoke, was now become a conquering 
 
 * Kremlin, originally Kremnik, from kremen, fire-stone. See 
 Karamsin, and the Chronicle of Troitski. The Kremlin, in fact, is 
 situated on a very rocky hill. 
 
 > f From 1333 to 1339, the princes who held appanages espoused the 
 cause of the Prince of Twer against the Grand-Prince of Moscow, 
 whom they called a tyrant. In 1339, the Grand-Prince of Moscow 
 returned to the Horde, and so terrified Usbek-Khan by his denuncia- 
 tions against the Prince of Twer and other princes, that the Khan 
 immediately summoned them to the horde, in order to restrain, or get 
 rid of them. — See Karamsin.
 
 BOOK III. criAP. V. 95 
 
 state. About 1320, Guedimin, its leader, seized on the 
 Russian appanages of the south and west, which had long 
 ceased to be dependent upon the Grand-Principality of 
 Madiniir. Kief, Galitsch, Volhynia, became sometimes 
 Lithuanian, sometimes Polish or Hungarian : driven to 
 despair, their inhabitants emigrated ; they formed the two 
 military republics of the Zaporovian and Don Cossacks. 
 Rallying around them the unfortunate of all countries, they 
 were destined to become one day strong enough to make 
 head against the Turks and Tartars, between whom they 
 were situated ; and thus to embarrass the communication 
 between those two people, whom a common religion, ori- 
 gin, and interest, conspired to unite. 
 
 The Grand-Principality was, on the other hand, re- 
 peopled by unfortunate fugitives from the southern Rus- 
 sian pro\'inces, who sought refuge at Moscow.* The 
 empire, it is true, lost in extension ; but it was thus ren- 
 dered more jiroportionate to the revived power of its Grand- 
 Prince, who had also fewer competitors in it : those who 
 remained could not, in point of resources, be compared ^vith 
 the Grand-Principality. After all, it was much better that 
 the latter should one day have, to recover some provinces 
 from a foreign foe, than from its domestic enemies : it was 
 suffering an external e\il instead of an internal one, which 
 is the worst of all. 
 
 Thus, the machiavelism of Ivan prospered. It is true, 
 that, by the confidence with which he inspired the Horde, 
 and the terrible war which he waged against his kinsmen, 
 lie restored to Russia a trancjuillity to which she had long 
 been a stranger. A dawning of order and justice reap])ear- 
 ed under a sceptre ac(juired and j)reserved by such horrible 
 
 • See the emigration of Rodion, and of seventeen hundred Kievian 
 followers of boyard.s, who, about 130i or 13.33, souj^ht an Jtsyluni at 
 .Moscow.
 
 96 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 acts of injustice; the depredations to which Russia had 
 been a prey were repressed ; connnerce again flourished ; 
 great marts and new fairs were established, in which were 
 displayed the productions of the East, of Greece, and of 
 Italy ; and the treasiiry of the prince was swelled still fur- 
 ther by the profit arising from the customs.* 
 
 Such were the rapid effects of the first steps which Ivan 
 took to execute the system of concentration of power ; this 
 great political impulse was so vigorously given, that it was 
 perpetuated in his son Simeon the Proud, to whom Ivan 
 left wherewithal to purchase from the horde, in his 
 turn, the Grand- Princedom, and in whom he revived the 
 direct succession. Accordingly, Simeon effected, against 
 Novgorod, a second union of all the Russian princes. It 
 is to be remarked, that he was obliged to cede one half of 
 the taxes to his brothers ; but, at the same time, he re- 
 served to himself the whole authority, which soon gives to 
 its possessor the mastery of the revenue. 
 
 Simeon having died without children, Ivan II. his bro- 
 ther, purchased the sovereignty with the wealth of Kalita. 
 After Ivan II. this system and this order of succession 
 were, indeed, transiently interrupted in the person of a 
 prince, alien to the branch of Moscow ; but we shall soon 
 see the great Dmitry Donskoi establish them as fixed 
 principles; that prince did not neglect to increase the 
 wealth-f- of his grandfather Ivan. The people had given to 
 Ivan the surname of The Purse ; as much, perhaps, with 
 
 * See Kamenevitch, (translated by Karamsin) describing the great 
 mart of Mologa on the Volga, where the commerce of Asia and of 
 Europe met in the seventy inns of its Slavonian suburb ; and where 
 seven thousand two hundred pounds weight of silver were collected 
 for the treasury of the prince. 
 
 t See the treaty of Dmitry Donskoi with Vladimir his uncle, who 
 promised to pay to him the tribute of his appanage, which bore the 
 name of the Khan's tribute ; and the second treaty with the same
 
 BOOK III. CHAP. V. 97 
 
 allusion to his treasures, as to the purse, filled with alms 
 for the poor, which is said to have been always carried 
 before him. 
 
 At a later period, the constantly progressive riches of 
 the Grand-Princes of INIoscow enabled them to enfeoff 
 directly from the crown-lands three hundred thousand 
 boy ard-fol lowers ; and next, to keep up a body of re- 
 gular troops, sufficiently strong to reduce their enemies 
 and their subjects.* 
 
 This system of concentration of power which Ivan Kalita 
 commenced, by means of his wealth by the union of the 
 sceptre w ith the tiara, and by restoring the direct order of 
 succession ; his horrible but skilful machiavelism against 
 the princes holding appanages; finally, the fifty years' re- 
 pose which, thanks to his policy, and to their dissensions, 
 the Tartars permitted Russia to enjoy ; these are the cir- 
 cumstances which, next to Alexander Nevsky, entitle 
 Ivan to be considered as standing second among the most 
 remarkable Grand-Princes of the third period. It was he, 
 wlio had the sagacity on this stubborn soil to open and 
 to trace so deeply the path which led to monarchical unity, 
 and to point out its direction so clearly to his successors, 
 that they had nothing to do but to persevere in it, as 
 the only safe road which it was then possible for Russia to 
 follow. 
 
 This concentration of j)ower brought about great changes, 
 from 1320 to 1329; as, at that epoch, all the Russian 
 princes in concert solicited from the Horde the recal of the 
 
 Vladimir, by which the latter prince engaged that his boyards should 
 pay to Dmitry the same tax which the (irand- Prince might tliink 
 proper to impose on his own boyards. 
 
 • It waH thus that, in France, in lil.5, Charles VII. took advan- 
 tage of the exactions (»f the English, and of the terror whicli they 
 inspired, to render perpetual the temporary taxes, and to keep up 
 a permanent c(»rps of twenty-five thousand men. 
 
 H
 
 98 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 Tartar governors. It was then that, more firmly fixed, 
 the throne of the Grand-Princes became the rallying point 
 of the Russians : along with the consciousness of their 
 strength, it inspired them with a public spirit which em- 
 boldened them. This good understanding was, in reality, 
 an effect of the ascendency which a direct and sustained 
 succession, in a single branch of the Ruriks, had already 
 given to it over all the others. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 In fact, sometimes natural justice, sometimes oriental 
 negligence and cupidity, often, the fear of being disobeyed, 
 and lastly, and especially, the power and riches of the 
 Princes of Moscow, whose presents always surpassed those 
 of the other princes ; all these motives had induced the 
 Khans to allow the succession to the Grand-Principality to 
 descend regularly from father to son in the branch of Mos- 
 cow.* This natural order of succession Dmitry Donskoi, in 
 
 * Usbek, it is true, with machiavelian policy designated all the chil- 
 dren of Ivan I. as his successors; but, in 1340, he allowed Simeon, the 
 oldest and ablest of them, to make himself sole master of the throne. 
 lanisbek-Khan nominated Ivan II. the brother of Simeon, after his 
 death and that of his children, to the exclusion of a prince of the branch 
 of Twer or Nevsky. A Prince Dmitry, of the Nevsky branch, who had 
 been made Grand-Prince by a whim of Naurus-Khan, was deposed in 
 1362, by Murath-Khan, who chose Dmitry Donskoi, grandson of Ivan I. 
 and son of Ivan II. Taktamuisch also gave the throne to Vassili II. 
 the eldest son of Donskoi (1389). Lastly, Ulu-Mahomet nominated 
 Vassili III. son of VassUi II. and father of the Great Ivan III. whom 
 this long succession rendered so powerful that he completely crushed 
 the Horde.
 
 BOOk 111. CHAP. VI. 99 
 
 1389, established by a treaty, in which his kinsmen con- 
 sented to renounce the mode of succession from brother to 
 brother. 
 
 It was one of them, and the most remarkable, Vladimir 
 the Brave, who was the first to sign this act. In several 
 other conventions, Vladimir acknowledged himself the vas- 
 sal and lieutenant, not merely of Dmitry, but also of Vas- 
 sili his son, and even of the son of Vassili, when he was 
 only five years of age.* 
 
 This example, set by a prince who, of all the posses- 
 sors of appanages, was the most renowned for his prudence 
 and his valour, was followed by the others. Thus, like our 
 Capetians, did Ivan I. and particularly Dmitry Donskoi, 
 begin the monarchy by restoring the direct succession, in 
 causing, wliile they lived, their eldest son to be recognised 
 as their successor. We shall soon see ^^assili, son of 
 Dmitry, persevering in this j)ractice. Lastly, A'^assili the 
 Blind, his grandson, raising up his tottering throne, and 
 ])rej)aring the autocracy of the fourth Russian period, by 
 associating with himself his next heir, the great Ivan III. 
 
 It is easy to conceive the infallible effect of this order of 
 succession, and with what promptitude it nuist necessarily 
 have extended and consolidated the power of the Grand- 
 Princes. In fact, the ideas of the father being transmitted to 
 the s^)n by education, their policy was more consistently fol- 
 lowed up, and their ambition had a more direct object ; 
 for no one labours for a brother or ne})hew as for his 
 own children. 
 
 The nobles could not fail to attach themselves more 
 devote<lly to a prince, whose son and heir growing up 
 amongst them, would know only them, and would recom- 
 pense their services in the persons of their children ; for, 
 the necessary consecjuence of the succession of power in the 
 
 • See Karamsii!. 
 I' <> 
 
 it ^^
 
 100 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 same brand), was the succession of favours and dignities 
 in the same families. 
 
 Even before Dmitry had established the principle, the 
 boyards saw the advantages which this order of succession 
 held out to them. Here, as elsewhere, the fact preceded the 
 law. This was the reason of their i-estoring the direct line 
 in the grandson of Ivan Kalita ; it was they who made 
 him Grand-Prince at the age of twelve years, and who 
 subjected the other princes to him. We shall see them, 
 in the same manner, abovit 1430, maintain this order of 
 succession in Vassili the Blind. Contemporary annalists de- 
 clare that these ancient boyards of the Grand-Principality 
 detested the descent from brother to brother ; for, in that 
 system, each prince of the lateral branch arrived from his 
 appanage with other boyards, whom he always preferred, 
 and whom he could not satisfy and establish but at the 
 expense of the old. 
 
 It was thus that the most important and transmissible 
 places, the most valuable favours, an hereditary and more 
 certain protection, and greater hopes, attracted and held 
 around the Grand-Princes a military nobility. In a very 
 short time, their elevation to the level of the humbled 
 petty princes, flattered their vanity, and completed their 
 junction with the principal authority. 
 
 This circumstance explains the last words of Dmitry 
 Donskoi to his boyards, when he recommended his son 
 to their protection. " Under my reign,"' said he, " you 
 were not boyards, but really Russian princes."" 
 
 In fact, (to cite only some examples,) we see that his 
 armies were as often commanded by boyards as by princes, 
 and that, from this epoch, it was no longer a prince of the 
 blood, but a boyard of the Grand- Prince, who was his lieu- 
 tenant at Novgorod. 
 
 Nay more, when the succession from father to son was
 
 BOOK III. CHAP. VI. 101 
 
 once established, there were, at the very beginning, two 
 minorities, (those of Dmitry, and of Vassili, his grandson,) 
 during wliich the boyards composed the council of regency, 
 governed the state, and were the equals, and even the supe- 
 riors, of the princes who held appanages. This will ex- 
 plain, why, in 1392, the boyards of Boris, the last prince of 
 Suzdal, gave up him and his appanage to Vassili Dmitrie- 
 vitch of Moscow. The motive is to be found only in their 
 interest ; as the Grand-Prince of Moscow entrusted them 
 with the government of the appanages, and thus substi- 
 tuted the nobles in the place of the princes. 
 
 A very remarkable circumstance, with respect to Dmi- 
 try Donskoi, is, on the one hand, the energy with which 
 he subdued those princes, and, on the other, his circum- 
 •spect treatment of his boyards. According to Karamsin, 
 it is more es})ecially to their pride and jealousy of the tys- 
 siatsky* of Moscow, (the boyard of the city, or of the 
 Common, a sort of civil and military tribune, elected by 
 the people,) that we are to attribute the abolition of that 
 office by Donskoi. During the preceding reign, ano- 
 ther tyssiatsky of Moscow, who claimed precedence of 
 even the boyards of the Grand-Prince, had been murdered 
 by them. 
 
 When this hereditary protection afforded by the Grand- 
 Princes of the Moscow branch was once fairly established, 
 the nobles of each appanage, who constituted its army, had 
 thenceforth an asylum, and, as it were, a tribunal for re- 
 dress, to which tliey could appeal whenever they were di.s- 
 satisfied with their prince. It was this which made Twer fall 
 before Ivan Kalita; for the sovereign ])rince of that first and 
 last rival of Moscow, having preferred to his boyards the 
 people of Pskof, who Iiad defended him, the foniuT with- 
 drew to Moscow. 
 
 • Tyssiatchky, accordiiif; to Levesquc and Karamsin.
 
 102 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 The power of Ivan Kalita being once raised by the 
 Tatars' aid, and by the re-establishment of the direct line of 
 succession, and thorouo-hly developed by his son and grand- 
 son, Simeon the Proud, and Dmitry Donskoi, it followed, as 
 a natural consequence, that he who was most able to reward 
 and to punish, drew round him, and retained, the whole of 
 the nobles. Those nobles constituted the sole strength of 
 the princes holding appanages ; their defection, therefore, 
 completed the subjugation of these princes. 
 
 Accordingly, Dmitry Donskoi was, in reality, sovereign, as 
 is proved by his treaties with the princes who held appanages, 
 all of whom he reduced to be his vassals. And, accord- 
 ingly, notwithstanding the appanages which he gave to his 
 sons, and the dissensions which arose out of that error — an 
 error as yet, perhaps, unavoidable — the attachment of the 
 nobles, for which I have just assigned a reason, always 
 replaced the legitimate heir on the throne. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Already, so early as about 1366, the Russian Princes 
 could no longer venture to contend against their lord- 
 paramount by any other means than by denunciations 
 to the Horde ; but to what Khan could they be ad- 
 dressed ? Discord had created several : what result was 
 to be hoped from them ? Divided among themselves, the 
 Tartar armies had ceased to be an available force. 
 
 The journeys to the Golden Horde, which had originally 
 contributed to keep the Russian princes in awe, now served 
 to afford them an insight into the weakness of their ene- 
 mies. The Grand-Princes returned from the Horde with 
 the confidence that they might usurp with impunity ; and
 
 BOOK III. CHAP. VII. 103 
 
 their competitors with envoys and letters, which even 
 they themselves well knew would be of no avail. 
 
 It was then obvious in Russia, that the only protecting 
 power was at Moscow : to have recourse to its support was 
 a matter of necessity. The petty princes could obtain 
 it only by the sacrifice of their independence ; and it was 
 thus that all of them became vassals to the Grand-Prince 
 Dmitry. 
 
 Never did a great man arise more opportunely than this 
 Dmitry. It was a propitious circumstance, that the dis- 
 sensions of the Tartars gave them full occupation during the 
 first eighteen years of his reign :* this, in the first place, al- 
 lowed him time to extinguish the devastating fury of 01- 
 guerdthe Lithuanian, son of Guedimin, father of Jagellon, 
 and conqueror of all Lithuania, ^^ol]lynia, Smolensk, Kief, 
 and even of the Taurida ; secondly, to unite several princi- 
 palities wth his throne ; and lastly, to compel the other 
 princes, and even the Prince of Twer, to acknowledge his 
 paramount authority. 
 
 The contest with the latter was terrible : four times did 
 Dmitry overcome Mikhail, and four times did the Prince 
 of Twer, 'aided by his son-in-law, the great 01guerd,-f- rise 
 again victorious. In this obstinate conflict, Moscow itself 
 was twice besieged, and must have fallen, had it not been 
 for its stone walls, the recent work of the first regency of 
 the Muscovite boyards. 
 
 But, at length, Olguerd died ; and Dmitry, who, but three 
 years before, coukLappear only on his knees at the Horde, 
 now dared to refuse the Khan his tribute, and to put to 
 death the insolent aml)assador wlio liad been sent to claim it. 
 
 We have seen that, fifty years earlier, a similar instance 
 of temerity caused the brancli of Twer to fall beneath 
 that of Moscow ; but times were changed. The trij)le ul- 
 
 • From 13fi2to 1380. t Prince of Lithuania.
 
 104 HISTORY OP RUSSIA, 
 
 liance of the Primate, the boyards, and the Grand-Prmce, 
 had now restored to the Russians a confidence in their own 
 strength : they had acquired boldness from a conviction of 
 the })ower of their Grand-Prince, and from the dissensions 
 of the Tartars. Some bands of the latter, wandering in 
 Muscovy, in search of plunder, were defeated ; at last the 
 Tartars have fled before the Russians ! they are become 
 their slaves, the delusion of their invincibility is no more ! 
 
 The burst of fury which the Khan exhibited, on learn- 
 ing the murder of his representative, accordingly serv- 
 ed as a signal for the confederation of all the Russian 
 princes against the Prince of Twer. He was compelled to 
 submit to the Grand-Prince, and to join with him against 
 the Horde. 
 
 Russia now began to feel that there were three impor- 
 tant things which were indispensably necessary to her ; the 
 establishment of the direct succession, the concentration 
 of the sujireme power, and the union of all parties against 
 the Tartars. 
 
 Circumstances had been profited by very opportunely ; 
 for Mahomet-Khan, who was also disembarrassed of his civil 
 wars (1380), soon hastened with all his forces into Russia 
 to re-establish his slighted authority ; but he found the 
 Grand-Prince Dmitry at the head of the combined Rus- 
 sian princes, who destroyed his army on the Don. 
 
 Subsequently, however, and even during this reign, 
 there were many civil wars in Russia; Moscow was several 
 times burned by the Tartars. Two years after the victory 
 of the Don, Taktarauisch, a lieutenant of Tamerlane, who 
 was become master of the Kaptchak, surprised and ra- 
 vaged the Grand-Principality, and rendered it tribu- 
 tary ; and Twer once more raised its head. Seventy years 
 later, we still find two Russian princes disputing at the 
 Golden Horde for the possession of the Grand-Principality.
 
 BOOK III. CHAP. VII. 105 
 
 But the two principles destructive of the Tartar empire, — 
 namely, their own dissensions and the power of the Grand- 
 Princes, — continuing to gain ground, acquired the predo- 
 minance, and ended by sweeping every thing before them. 
 We see the Khans, even after their victories, uniformly 
 concentrating autlaority in the hands of the Grand-Princes 
 of Moscow, and annihilating themselves by engaging more 
 and more in internal divisions. 
 
 Donskoi, meanwhile, had so firmly founded the autho- 
 rity of the Grand-Princes, — ^he took such prudent steps on 
 iiis death-bed, and left such an illustrious example, that he 
 seemed to have bequeathed, not his greatness of mind, but 
 his skill and his good fortime to his successor Vassili. 
 
 Pliant and patient with his European and Asiatic neigh- 
 bours, we behold tiiis Prince haughty, and even ferocious 
 and inexorable, to his kinsmen and to his unruly sub- 
 jects. In his proceedings, circumspect at first, but perse- 
 vering and inflexible, we discover the aristocratic policy of 
 the council of boyards and priests to which his father had 
 confided his youth. 
 
 His triple object was, firstly, to repress the Lithuanians ; 
 and as he was the son-in-law of the Lithuanian prince, he 
 combated him rather by policy than by arms ; secondly, to 
 liberate Russia from the yoke of the Tartars ; and it was by 
 their means that, following the example of his ancestors, 
 he continued the system of re-uniting the appanages to the 
 Grand-Princi})ality ; for that was his third ])urpose, which 
 he deemed it prudent to achieve before he thought of the 
 second. 
 
 Like his predecessors, therefore, he journeyed, in 1392, to 
 offer homage to tlie Horde for his sceptre, to seduce it by dint 
 of presents, and to purchase from it the investiture of seven 
 appanages, of which he had despoiled his kinsmen ; their own 
 hoyards |)ut them into \i\>, hanils, and tiiose princes were,
 
 106 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 consequently, under the necessity of mingling in the ranks 
 of his courtiers, or of dying in captivity or in exile. 
 
 Eighteen years afterwards, when, having lost his old coun- 
 sellors, and being too eager to enfranchise himself, Vassili 
 drew on his head the wrath of the Khans, by his refusal of 
 the tribute, he promptly reverted to the policy of his fa- 
 thers, and returned again to the Horde, to ensure, by re- 
 newed homage, the concession of so many provinces. Thus 
 whole provinces, dependent on Novgorod, the principalities 
 of Suzdal, and of Tchernigof, were united to the Grand- 
 Principality ; and thenceforth the paramount throne was 
 raised to a disproportionate height above the petty thrones 
 by which it was surrounded. 
 
 Wars, horrible punishments, and machiavelian policy, all 
 were employed by Vassili to render the proud Novgorod 
 the tributary of Moscow ; and, as his power grew with that 
 of the Primate, he strove to subject the republic to the 
 civil jurisdiction of that priest. 
 
 At length, in 1425, ending as he began, he closed a reign 
 of thirty-six years, by requiring all the Russian princes to 
 swear that they would hold no correspondence with the 
 Tartars and Lithuanians ; he compelled them to acknow- 
 ledge his son Vassili, then only five years old, as their 
 lord-paramount, and whoever dared to refuse, he expelled 
 from his appanage.
 
 BOOK III. CHAl'. Vlil. 107 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Such was the political march of these Grand-Princes, 
 from the time of Ivan Kalita. 
 
 In 1398, however, the state was more than ever in dan- 
 ger of being irretrievably destroyed, and these princes of 
 Moscow, proud as they might be of their machiavelian skill, 
 were compelled to be thankful to the Russian good for- 
 tune for the salvation of their empire. 
 
 On its right and on its left arose at once two con- 
 ([uerors, who seemed ready to devour it. On the east, 
 there was Tamerlane ; on the west, Yitovt the Lithua- 
 nian. Already the first, with his four hundred thousand 
 warriors, had conquered the rebellious Kaptchak ; he 
 touched on the Russian frontier: already the second was at 
 Kaluga and at Viazma; he had surprised Smolensk, and 
 penetrated to Novgorod ; and Muscovy, trembling, expect- 
 ed to be crushed between these two colossuses, when, all 
 at once, they both turned aside, bent their course to the 
 south, met, and came into collision. Russia, which they 
 had so closely compressed, now breathed again ; she arose 
 astonished : on her left she belield ^^itovt, her European 
 ()pj)ressor, beaten down before Kutlui, the lieutenant of 
 Tamerlane. She turned towards the victorious east her 
 still terrified gaze, but the terrible Mongol had vanished 
 in the deepest recesses of Asia ; he seemed to have appear- 
 ed solely to inflict a mortal blow on the rebellious Ka])t- 
 chak, that horde which was fattened with Russian blood 
 and gold- It was thus that discord, passing fVoni the Rus- 
 sians to the Tartars, prepared for the north of Europe a
 
 108 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 
 
 triumph over Asia, the termination of wliich it is impossi- 
 ble to foresee. 
 
 At the same time, and by an equally propitious fortune, 
 subsequently to Jagellon and Vitovt, Lithuania and Poland 
 came to blows ; these other enemies of Russia rent each 
 other to pieces : hke the Tartars, they exhausted their 
 own strength ; their sterile dynasties were interrupted ; a 
 democracy of nobles gained the upperhand ; and the scep- 
 tre became more and more elective ; while that of the 
 Grand-Princes, in spite of the faults of Vassili the Blind, 
 the son of Vassili, struck deep root, by means of its divine 
 right, and of its direct succession, and became more flou- 
 rishing by the length of the reigns. 
 
 This longevity of the Muscovite Grand-Princes was ano- 
 ther very remarkable cause of the prodigious growth of 
 their power. It is not to our age that it is needful to 
 say, why the length of the first reigns of a dynasty is in- 
 dispensable to the establishment of the authority of that 
 dynasty. Let us, with reference to this head, remark those 
 of Ivan Kalita, and his lineal descendants, Simeon the 
 Proud, Dmitry Donskoi, Vassili his son, and Vassili Vas- 
 silievitch his grandson ; they were of thirteen, seventeen, 
 twenty-seven, thirty-six, and thirty-seven years ; this was 
 enough to found the paramount sway of the Grand- Princes 
 of Moscow. 
 
 In the succeeding period, we shall see this longevity 
 increasing, like the power, in their successors Ivan the 
 Great, Vassili, and Ivan the Terrible, whose reigns were 
 of forty-three, twenty-eight, and forty-nine years. So 
 that, when the reign arrived of Vassili Vassilievitch, 
 the last prince of this period, so rooted was the cus- 
 tom, of acknowledging as Grand-Prince no one but the 
 eldest son of the Grand-Prince, that this Vassili succeeded
 
 BOOK III. CHAP. Vlll. 109 
 
 his father when he was ten years old ; and although 
 he was several times dethroned, the habit of respect and 
 of fidelity always replaced him on the throne. After such 
 protracted reigns, the rights of the sovereign were marked 
 out, the path traced for his successor, and the habits of 
 his subjects formed. 
 
 Nevertheless, on the birth of this Vassili Vassilievitch, 
 a miracle was deemed useful, to ratify more fully his right 
 to the throne of his father ; this new-born prince was pro- 
 claimed Grand-Prince by a voice from heaven. The pre- 
 caution, however, appears to have been quite supereroga- 
 tory ; the first event of this reign is a proof of its being 
 so : it stands alone in history. 
 
 Yury, the uncle of the young sovereign, making an 
 appeal to the ancient order of succession, laid claim to 
 tlie throne. An excommunication by the primate, which 
 he at first despised, but which an unexpected pestilence 
 rendered efficacious, suspended the enforcement of his pre- 
 tensions, which, however, were renewed as the contagion di- 
 minished ; and Vassili and his uncle proceeded to dispute 
 for their rights before the Horde ; but the blinded Khan 
 was so completely influenced by the address of the boyards 
 who accompanied the Grand-Prince, and so carried away 
 by the general impulse, that he declared for the lineal 
 heir, released him from all tribute to the Horde, and even 
 decreed that the uncle shoidd hold the bridle of his ne- 
 phew's horse, on the entrance of the latter into his capital. 
 But from this decision the ambitious Yury appealed to 
 arms ; Mo.scow, taken by surprise, fell into his hands, and 
 his ne))hew Va.ssili was exiled to an ap})anage. 
 
 Wouhl it not appear as if the lineal succession were 
 again overthrown, and that a long and furious war would 
 be required to restore it P Not so ; the manners of the time,
 
 110 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 — respect for the lineal order — that custom founded on the 
 general interest, and already existing for eighty years, were 
 sufficient to secure its triumph ; and that, too, in the course 
 of a few days, without a single sword being drawn, or a 
 drop of blood shed. Public opinion, disarmed as it was, 
 yet stronger than a victor, was victorious over his victory : 
 priests, people, nobles, all disavowed him ; all, even the 
 son of the usurper, abandoned his cause. The entire popu- 
 lation of the great Moscow followed the lineal heir into 
 his banishment ; the conqueror, struck with dismay, re- 
 mained alone ; and, vanquished by this terrific insulation, 
 he descended from his solitary throne, and restored it to 
 the legitimate heir. 
 
 The errors of Vassili, however, subsequently precipitated 
 him twice from the throne, first into the fetters of the 
 Tartars, and next, into those of the son of Yury, who 
 tore out his eyes in retaliation ; but legitimacy always 
 triumphed by its inherent strength, even in spite of this 
 blind, imprudent, and unfortunate Grand-Prince, whom it 
 perpetually raised up again. 
 
 The son of Yury, was, indeed, speedily deserted by his 
 nobles ; they replaced Vassili the Blind on the throne. The 
 usurper was vanquished, pursued, despoiled ; he died of 
 poison administered by his own followers, and Novgorod, 
 which had given him an asylum, was compelled to ransom 
 itself. 
 
 Thus, the Tartar yoke was broken ; the humiliation of 
 the possessors of appanages was consummated; that of 
 the Russian republics of Novgorod, Pskof, and Viatka, 
 was commenced ; the paramount sway was established ; 
 and the lineal succession, which began de facto under Ivan 
 Kalita, acquired the force of a right under Dmitry Don- 
 skoi, was rendered, both de facto and de jure, incontest- 
 able, at the close of the long reign of Vassili the Blind,
 
 BOOK III. CHAP. IX. Ill 
 
 when tlie force of public opinion had obstinately over- 
 thrown his last competitor, and when, after having given 
 birth to the great Ivan III. he associated him in the go- 
 vernment of the empire. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 But, in this great work of autocracy, ha? there not 
 been obvious the powerful and persevering hand of the 
 priests? It is, then, in the spirit of the history of the Rus- 
 sian church, that we must seek for a final cause of the 
 elevation of the Grand-Princes of INIoscow. 
 
 In those times of ignorance, the Greek religion and its 
 priests could not be otherwise than one of the most power- 
 ful means of instruction and of government. An edict of 
 ^"ladim^r, issued about the year 1000, is said to have 
 granted immense privileges to the Russian clergy ; mo- 
 dern historians, however, attach no faith to this story. 
 But of what importance to us is the truth of it ? it 
 would prove nothing but the blindness of a prince, and 
 would be of no avail to establish a ria;ht asrainst nature. 
 
 Ought we to look at this question only witii a reference 
 to manners, or to obtain an insight into the respective 
 positions of the different orders of the state .'' But, in 
 either case, the fact is enough without the right. Now, it 
 is certain, that, as far back as the year 1200, the Russian 
 clergy were covered with the spoils of their flocks ; that, 
 in numerous cases, they sentenced to death, and without 
 ap])cal ; that the monks, like the nobles elsewhere, had 
 a number of fortified dwellings, of which they were the 
 formidable defenders; that their primate had a court,
 
 112 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 boyards, guards, and an Asiatic luxury ; that there were 
 public ceremonies at which the proudest sovereigns walked 
 before him, humbly holding the bridle of the ass on which 
 this pontiff rode ; and lastly, that, in all state affairs, the 
 primate was the first who was consulted : a very natural 
 circumstance, as many of these heads of the clergy came 
 from Greece, and were looked upon as lights amidst the 
 surrounding darkness. 
 
 There is another fact ; it is, that, in the civil commo- 
 tions, the Russian priests were often mediators, ambassa- 
 dors, even umpires ; a part which they were also called 
 upon to perform in virtue of their ministry, consecrated 
 wholly to charity and peace. 
 
 The Tartar invasion added to their power : in the 
 desperate resistance of the Russian cities, the Khans wit- 
 nessed the mighty influence which the clergy possessed 
 over the minds of the people ; it was for this reason that 
 Baty, Burgai, and their successors, treated them with 
 respect, and even exonerated tiiem from all tribute. 
 Thenceforth, being the only persons who were allowed to be 
 rich and at peace,* they bought or coveted every thing ; 
 Russia was covered with monasteries, in which males and 
 females were blended ; and, as all other subjects were hor- 
 ribly oppressed, all flocked to these convents : nobles, mer- 
 chants, even princes, were anxious to become monks. Such 
 was, besides, the superstition of the age, that the majority of 
 
 * See the firman of Usbek, in 1313 ; he declares, that "the Church 
 is the sole judge of the Church in all cases, and of all who live on 
 its domains. That he renounces the tribute due to him from the 
 lands of the clergy, as well as all his other rights, such as those of 
 customs, plough-money, tolls, farm-tax, and relays for his service. 
 That whoever shall contravene this safeguard shall be punished 
 with death ; and not only for the forcible carrying-ofi" of sacred pro- 
 perty, but even if they dare merely to condemn, or to blame, the 
 Greek religion."
 
 BOOK III. CHAP. IX. 113 
 
 the Grand-Princes of the first race expired in the monk- 
 ish habit. 
 
 In 1339, an archbishop of Novgorod having been taken 
 prisoner by the Lithuanians, the republic was on the point 
 of ransoming him at the cost of a province, of three cities, 
 and even of its independence. 
 
 An earthquake, frightful plagues, particularly that of 
 1352, and, at a later period, the fear of the end of the 
 world, which an ancient prediction announced for this 
 epoch, consummated the work attributed to Vladimir : the 
 major part of the dying bequeathed their property to 
 monasteries. 
 
 The legislation of the Russians was, likewise, such as to 
 give them a tendency to this unworthy conduct : among 
 men who could buy off earthly justice by pecuniary sacri- 
 fices, it was no unnatural conclusion that heavenly justice 
 might be bought off by donations. And then, at Byzan- 
 tium, as at Rome, it had become an established dogma, 
 that a man might gain the riches of heaven by disappoint- 
 ing his heirs, and bequeathing his earthly riches to the men 
 of God ; which, assuredly, was closing existence with one 
 of the most selfish acts of his whole life. 
 
 As to the toleration displayed by the Khans, we know 
 not whether it ought to be attributed solely to their policy, 
 or rather to their religious apathy, and to their being ac- 
 customed to rule people of different religions ; one tiling is 
 certain, that several Russian bishops resided in tlie court 
 of these pagan princes ; and that, either from doubt, or 
 from the spirit of paganism, the Tartars were believers in 
 the efficacy of all prayers, whatever might be their form, 
 and wished that they should be offered up for them. 
 
 In truth, their faith, nomadic like themselves, without 
 any external jiractices, without any point of union, with 
 scarcely any thing to alhur and attach the senses of so 
 
 1
 
 114 
 
 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 lively a people, could not be an object of much importance. 
 How then could this religion, so vague that it hardly de- 
 serves the name of one, have been intolerant ? The interest 
 of tlicir priests might have rendered it so ; but it does not 
 appear that, among these wandering nations, the priests 
 were ever able to become a corporate body, or to acquire 
 the spirit of one. 
 
 At a later period, Mahometanism, which these Tartars 
 embraced, did not, however exclusive it may be, render 
 them less tolerant ; and it is remarkable that, far from 
 penetrating into European Russia, that religion stopped 
 short on its frontier. Such of the Asiatic conquerors as 
 entered this part of our globe, to establish themselves 
 there, became converts to Christianity. Would it not 
 seem as if these two religions had finally and invariably 
 divided the different parts of the world, according to its 
 great geographical divisions ? But, let us here remark, 
 availing ourselves of the light thrown on the subject by 
 one of our most profound geniuses, that the causes of 
 polygamy, and of the slavery of women and men in the 
 East, are all equally so of the partition which Mahomet- 
 anism and Christianity have made of Asia and of Europe. 
 Now, almost all these causes are connected with the climate ; 
 and the reason is, that a religion having, still more than 
 the laws, its roots in the manners, the climate must 
 have considerable influence over it. 
 
 Neither could the doctrine of predestination, which 
 springs from indolence, as well as leads to it, possibly take 
 root in a rigorous, niggardly, variable climate, which stimu- 
 lates and requires active labour. This was another reason 
 for the distribution of religion according to temperature. 
 
 It has been objected, that Christianity itself came from 
 Asia ; but this confirms still more forcibly the preceding 
 assertion, since it was compelled to quit that continent.
 
 BOOK III. CHAP. X. 115 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 However that may be, Usbek, at the beginning of 
 the fourteenth century, became a Mahometan. He thought 
 that, either from tolerance, apathy, or pride, his prede- 
 cessors had been neghgent in rallying under the same creed 
 the vanquished slaves, who were not to be despised. It is 
 said that he was desirous to divest them of the too obvious 
 marks of dissimilarity and opposition. 
 
 This Klian seems to have been deeply impressed with 
 the power of the Russian clergy at this epoch ; of this we 
 may judge by the attentions which he lavished on the 
 primate when he visited his Horde. But the Christian 
 must naturally have been distrustful of a Mahometan prince 
 who reduced all his hordes under the law of the Prophet. 
 
 In fact, about 1327, a rumour was all at once spread 
 abroad, that Schevkal,* a kinsman of Usbek, and his am- 
 bassador at Twer, had gone thither to massacre the family 
 of the Grand-Prince, to set himself on the throne, and to 
 raise the standard of the Prophet. 
 
 Tlie general massacre of the Tartars in that principality, 
 must have convinced Usbek of the emptiness of his pro- 
 jects. Perhaps his wars with Persia induced him to post- 
 pone the execution of them till anotlier time ; perhaps, 
 even, they were falsely attriliuted to him ; as he contented 
 himself with ravaging Russia and changing its Crand- 
 Prince. Of what consequence is it ? To ascertain the 
 truth of the fact is now both impossible and useless; siiflice 
 
 * Stchelkhan, according to Levestjuc. 
 I 2
 
 110 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 it, that it proves the active disquietude of Christianity at 
 coming in contact with a hostile religion, equally exclusive 
 with itself. 
 
 Tlie dread of Tartar intolerance, therefore, had the effect 
 of rallying the priests round tlie sole power which was able 
 to protect them. They felt, that the Grand-Pi'ince could 
 defend them against Maliometanism and Catholicism only 
 by means of the united force of the Russians, and that force 
 they exerted themselves to place within his grasp. 
 
 This policy dates more particularly from the period 
 when Kief was under the yoke of the Nogays and the 
 Lithuanians.* Kief had preserved its pretensions to the 
 paramount authority ; the Primate still resided there : 
 about 1290, it became uninhabitable; the Pontiff" then 
 established himself at Vlachmir, and subsequently at Mos- 
 cow. The head of the Church formed a junction with the 
 head of the State, and the religious power with the civil 
 power. 
 
 After that period, it was obvious, from the more con- 
 sistent and undeviating march of the Grand-Princes, that 
 their progress was directed by the constantly adroit and 
 able policy of the priests. 
 
 Besides, notwithstanding the general prevalence of su- 
 perstition, the priests could not escape from the disastrous 
 consequences of civil dissensions; and, as they were as lit- 
 tle enabled to turn them to advantage, it became their in- 
 terest to form an alliance with the power most interest- 
 ed in putting a stop to such excesses. 
 
 We see, in fact, that the Metropolitan Photius became 
 the Grand-Prince of Moscow's firmest support, because that 
 throne was his sole protection against the encroachments of 
 the nobles upon the domains of the clergy. The same in- 
 terest united him with that Grand-Prince against ^'^itovt, 
 
 * From 1299 to 1320.
 
 BOOK in. CHAP. X. 117 
 
 the Lithuanian, who, by means of a very remarkable 
 council of bishops,* had liberated the church of Kief, which 
 he had conquered, from the supremacy of Moscow, as well 
 as from that of Byzantium. 
 
 Listen, also, in 1328, to the prophetic accents of the 
 Metropolitan Peter, choosing Moscow as his residence, 
 and requiring of Ivan Kalita to build a cathedral there. 
 *' My bones," said he to him, " shall rest in this city ; 
 here will the primates fix their abode ; it ^vill overthrow 
 all its enemies. You and your successors will become 
 great and famous." 
 
 In 1332, this Pontiff persevered in this close alliance, in 
 spite of the terrible Lithuanian Guedimin, into whose 
 hands he had fallen. 
 
 After the death of Ivan II. in 1359, one of the princes 
 who held appanages obtained the Grand-Principality from 
 the Horde; but the Primate, who was obliged to go to cro\vTi 
 him at "Madimir, refused to reside with him. The prelate 
 returned to concert, with the Muscovite boyards, the means 
 of restoring the sovereignty to the grandson of Ivan Ka- 
 lita, to the lineal heir of the Princes of Moscow, who was 
 then only twelve years of age. He went still further ; for, 
 proceeding in the work of legitimacy and concentration, he 
 hurled the thunders of the Church against those princes 
 who refused to acknowledge the supremacy of this child.' 
 
 In 1415, it was also a monk of Moscow, a dependant on 
 the Primate, who predicted the birth of Vassili the Blind, 
 the grandson of the hero of the Don. Tliis monk pub- 
 li.shed throughout the empire, that he had heard a voice 
 from heaven miraculously proclaim, as Grand-Prince of all 
 Russia, the young lineal heir of the throne of Moscow, at 
 the very moment in which he saw the light. 
 
 Lastly, in 14-47i hi a remarkable letter from the Rus- 
 • See Karamsiii, vol v. p. 27 i.
 
 118 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 sian bishops to tlie usurper J3mitry,* " observe how they 
 maintain Vassili to be the only sovereign by the grace of 
 God, and how they threaten Dmitry with the wrath of 
 Heaven for his revolts ; " but for which," add they, " Rus- 
 sia would have been emancipated from the Tartar yoke." 
 
 Previously, in 1425, the Primate of that day had pro- 
 claimed the accession of this same Vassili, aged only ten 
 years, and summoned his uncles to acknowledge him as 
 their sovereign. 
 
 Yet, in 1429, this young prince was near being expelled 
 from the throne by his uncle, Yury of Galitsch. The per- 
 nicious and absurd order of succession, from brother to 
 brother, was on the point of being restored, when the same 
 primate stopped Yury by that excommunication, which, 
 as we have before seen, derived additional weight from an 
 opportune pestilence ; for, in Russia, it was necessary that 
 the moral force of anathemas should be backed by physi- 
 cal force, without which the excommunication was impo- 
 tent, as was shown by Pskof, in 1337, ^^^ Nijni Novgo- 
 rod in 1365. Every thing, therefore, prompted the clergy 
 to lean for support on the Grand-Princes, and to enlarge 
 the protecting power of Moscow, with all that they could 
 aggregate to it. Faithful to this policy, the primates had, 
 consequently, a considerable share in the elevation of the 
 Grand-Princes, and the deliverance of their country. 
 
 Here terminates the third period of this history : in the 
 fourth, we shall behold Russia emancipating herself from 
 her foreign masters, to become the slave of her own 
 princes. 
 
 Four centuries of calamity, arising from the partition of 
 power, had demonstrated the indispensable necessity of 
 concentrating that power ; this single idea, which the 
 Grand-Princes of the branch of Moscow faithfully trans- 
 
 * See Karamsin, vol. v. p. 403.
 
 BOOK HI. CHAP. X. 119 
 
 mitted to each other, sufficed to raise up the prostrate em- 
 pire ; such mighty efficacy has a firm and consistent will. 
 This idea predominated for two hundred and sixty years ; 
 but, spreading in proportion as it encountered fewer ob- 
 stacles, it went beyond the mark, and produced the most 
 atrocious despotism that imagination can conceive.
 
 120 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 BOOK IV, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Fourth period, from 1462 to 1613. 
 
 The spirit of the history of the whole of this fourth pe- 
 riod, — the period of despotism, — stands fully displayed in 
 its first reign, that of Ivan III. This Prince ascended the 
 tlirone in 1462, at the age of twenty-two ; he reigned forty- 
 three years. The three succeeding reigns present the con- 
 tinuation, and the horrible abuse, of the system of Ivan 
 III. and the downfall of his race, the effect of that sys- 
 tem, which itself was but an expansion of that of his 
 ancestors. 
 
 The hfe of Ivan the Great, like all great lives, had one 
 uniform object — autocracy ; in him, it was one of the 
 powerful and exclusive passions, but without the rashness, 
 the confusion, the violence, which are pecuUar to them. 
 From the age of twenty-three, he proved himself capable 
 of regulating its march, and of subjecting it to the slow 
 prudence of a policy at once insidious even to perfidy, and 
 circumspect even to cowardice, but ever invariable. 
 
 Ivan III. wished to be independent out of his domains^ 
 and autocrat within ; he had, therefore, numerous enemies 
 among his neighbours and his subjects ; but he succeeded
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. I. \2\ 
 
 in uniting, by turns, all these enemies against a single one, 
 and thus successively subdued the one by the other. 
 
 It was necessary for liim to subdue Kasan and tlu- 
 Golden Horde, to which he was yet tributary ; the great 
 communities, or Russian republics, of Novgorod, Pskof, 
 and Viatka, which affected a sovereignty almost equal to 
 his own; lastly, the princes, his kinsmen, proud of the 
 appanages which they still retained, and determined to live 
 in them as masters. At the same time he had to repress 
 Lithuania, which was always ready to offer to all these hos- 
 tile ambitions, republics, and ])ossessors of appanages, the 
 protection of a sovereignty, long the fortunate rival of 
 that of Moscow, which it had straitened on the west, the 
 south, and even the north, by seducing from it successively 
 its great vassals. 
 
 Such were his adversaries. For allies, he made use, at 
 home, of his nobles, princes, and subjects of southern and 
 central Russia, inured to slavery, against his northern sub- 
 jects, wh(j were yet free ; afterwards, he employed his 
 nobles and his old and new slaves against the princes of his 
 blood. Lastly, his omnipotence sufficed him against his 
 (jwn boyards, when he had no longer need of them, artd 
 whom he ceased to fear, after the humiliation of his other 
 enemies, and the creation of a swarm of petty nobles, his 
 innnediate vassals. 
 
 As to the Golden Horde and Lithuania, his external ad- 
 versaries, he sought enennes for them in Persia, in Sweden, 
 in Hungary, at \'^icnna, and even at Rome; but the cele- 
 brated Stephen, Hospodar of Wallachia, and Menghli- 
 fJliirei, Klian of tlie (Jrimea, who were placed between and 
 in dread of the Golden Horde, 'i'urkey, and Lilhii;ini;i, 
 were the f(H-s of his foes, "^rhese, tlien, were his natural 
 allies, wlioiii lir distinguislu-d above all others; liis niacliia- 
 velian policy, while it incessantly deceived them, ^till con-
 
 122 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 trived to retain them on the side of Russia, and in perpe- 
 tual hostihty with Lithuania, till he found the favourable 
 moment for striking it in his turn. 
 
 Such were the aUies and the opponents of Ivan III. At 
 the beginning of his reign he acknowledged all their rights ; 
 he cajoled all the hostile powers which he wished to des- 
 troy ; he flattered all their jjretensions, and even patiently 
 submitted to the abuse of them. 
 
 From the time of his accession, however, the four-fold 
 contest which he was to sustain against the Lithuanians, 
 the possessors of appanages, the Russian republics, and the 
 Tartars, began with the latter ; but, remark with what 
 precautions! If he does not pay the tribute of the Khan, 
 if he does not go to pick up his crown at the feet of that 
 sovereign, do not imagine that his young pride haughtily 
 rejects the shameful necessities imposed upon him by a half- 
 vanquished barbarian. No ; he merely eludes them, and, 
 while he furtively withholds the tribute, he humbly ac- 
 knowledges himself a tributary. 
 
 Shortly after, the Tartar residents, their retinue, their 
 merchants, who were yet established even in the Kremlin, 
 were at length excluded from it. Who would not sup- 
 pose that, in a powerful sovereign, this so much desired 
 enfranchisement was the effect of a noble burst of indig- 
 nation.'' Not so. On the contrary, it was by insidious 
 pretexts, and by meanly purchasing the protection of a 
 Tartar woman, that the Grand-Prince surreptitiously ob- 
 tained from the Khan the order that these Mongols should 
 no longer dwell as masters in the very abode of the Rus- 
 sian sovereign. 
 
 At a later period, all that the high spirit of his wife, the 
 daughter of the Emperor of Byzantium, could obtain from 
 the autocrat, was, that he would avoid going to meet the 
 Mongol envoy ; that he would no longer degrade himself
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. I. 123 
 
 by spreading under the hoofs of this barbarian''s steed a 
 carpet of sable fur ; that he woidd not go to prostrate 
 himself at his feet ; that he would i-efuse to hear on his 
 knees the letter of the Khan ; and, lastly, that he would 
 not submit to present to the envoy of his master the cup 
 of koumiss, and shamefully to lick from the neck of the 
 barbarian's horse the drops of the beverage which might 
 have fallen upon it. 
 
 And yet, as early as the first years of his reign, 
 ancient Bulgaria, and the first and largest Tartar city, 
 namely, Kasan, had vielded to his arms ; nay more, 
 before that triumph and after, the Golden Horde, which 
 had thrice risen in a body against him, had thrice fallen 
 again, and the renmant of it, closely pursued, had at length 
 been destroyed, even in its haunt. 
 
 Behold, then, Asia vanquished, and Muscovy liberated ! 
 History \vill, doubtless, henceforth represent the prince 
 under whom this mighty revolution was effected, in no 
 other liglit than that of a formidable warrior, a glorious 
 conqueror in his triumphal car ! But history dare not ; 
 not even native history, captive, and submissive, like every 
 thing that springs from the Russian soil ; far, indeed, 
 from thus representing this prince, she depicts him dis- 
 playing, in an age of combats, nothing but a feigned de- 
 sire to combat. Sometimes, he announced his departure 
 for Kasan with his armies, which he afterwards left to 
 others the task of conducting; sometimes, he at length set 
 off himself, only to stop on the road on the slightest pre- 
 text, not blushing to let his warriors march witliout him, 
 and constantly reconunending to them to shun all decisive 
 engagements. 
 
 Yet more remains behind; in 1K)9, after assenibh' ng all 
 Itussia, and exhausting all the resources of war, uhm his 
 army was marching to certain triumph, he stop|)ed short!
 
 124 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 To SO many arms, all fully prepared, the vain hope of some 
 negotiations made him prefer having recourse to policy ; 
 but Russia, indignant, rushed forward injspite of its prince : 
 the general, who, in obedience to his orders, endeavoured to 
 ht)ld it back, was left alone. Ivan learned that the Russian 
 warriors had chosen another leader, and, finally, that, maugre 
 his pusillanimity, they had triumphed over the inhabitants 
 of Kasan. It was not till then, not till the fortunate and 
 unpunished daring of his subjects had thoroughly con- 
 vinced him of the weakness of Kasan, that he urged against 
 it all the princes engaged in his service, and even his guard; 
 but he himself continued at Moscow, still seriously alarm- 
 ed by the last convulsions of the feeble enemy, though, to 
 give the final blow to that enemy, he had dispatched the 
 colossal forces of the whole of Russia ! 
 
 It was thus that he attacked ; how, then, did he defend 
 himself? How did it happen that the Golden Horde, which 
 so long bore sway, was thrice repulsed, and at length irre- 
 trievably destroyed ? What were the combats of this new 
 Dmitry Donskoi, or, at least,those at which this Louis XIV. 
 was present ? What was the Actium of this Augustus ? 
 How vanqviish so often, Avithout a victory ? History does 
 not record even one. On the first invasion of Russia by the 
 Horde, he hardly dared to give orders for his own defence ; 
 Russia was saved by the Tartars of the Crimea alone. With 
 respect to the second (1468), he relied solely upon numbers, 
 and collected forces so disproportionate to the danger, that 
 it was dissipated by the mere rumour of their march. " In 
 the eyes of the Khan," says the annalist, " our army moved 
 and shone like the waves of a majestic sea illumined by 
 the rays of the sun." It was merely by this display that 
 Ivan contented himself with a second time vanquishing his 
 enemy, whose flight was not even disturbed by the wary 
 autocrat.
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. I. 125 
 
 On the third invasion by the Golden Horde, in 1480, 
 when he had subdued the most dangerous of the Russian 
 republics ; when he had succeeded in rallying his brothers 
 to the general cause; when Lithuania, held in check by the 
 Khan of the Crimea, was sufficiently occupied in provid- 
 ing for its own safety ; in short, when all Russia, ardent 
 and in arms, advanced proudly as far as the Oka to meet 
 the Tartars, he alone was discouraged ! he deemed him- 
 self conquered ! He alarmed the capital by the flight of 
 the Tzarina, whom he sent to find an asylum in a remote 
 part of the North. He stopped on the approach of the 
 enemy ; he hesitated ; he at length deserted his army, and 
 retired to the distant Moscow, to hide his terrors ; he even 
 recalled his son to that city. At the moment when all 
 might be lost, he seemed resolved to risk nothing that was 
 connected with his person. 
 
 But the priests, the people, even that son, were indig- 
 nant, and broke forth into murmurs : " Why had he over- 
 burthcncd them with taxes, without paying the Khan his 
 tribute ; and when he had brought the enemy into the 
 heart of the country, why did he refuse to fight for it .''*" 
 He convoked the bishops and boyards, for the purpose, as 
 he said, of asking their advice ; but they replied,* " Doe's 
 it become mortals to dread death ! It is in vain to fly 
 from fear : march boldly against the enemy ; such is our 
 ;ulvice !'' 
 
 His son, far from obeying him, declared, " That he 
 would unshrinkingly wait the coming of the Tartars; 
 that he would rather die at his post than follow the exam- 
 ple of his father." 
 
 Thus driven back towards iiis army by tlic geiu'ral 
 clamour, the pusillanimous autocrat returned to his 
 
 • Hy the mouth of Va.ssian, Arclihishop of llostof. Soo Kaniinsin, 
 vol. vi. p. tft.3.
 
 126 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 
 
 troops to cool the ardour wliicli glowed in their breasts ; 
 the fear which possessed a single individual, fettered the 
 courage of all. Moscow learned that its sovereign, trem- 
 bhng behind a river,* which divided him from the danger, 
 was cliaffering for a remnant of disgrace, that he was 
 negotiating his own dishonour ! Perhaps he was about to 
 degrade himself and Russia so flagrantly as to kiss the 
 stirrup of the Mongol ! Then it was that the Primate 
 addressed him, " Moved by our tears, you set out once 
 more to combat the enemy of the Christians, and now you 
 implore peace from that infidel who scorns your prayer ! 
 Ah, Prince, to what counsels have you lent your ear ? Is it 
 not, to throw away your shield, and shamefully take flight ? 
 From what a height of grandeur are you not descending ! 
 Would you give up Russia to fire and sword, and the 
 churches to plunder ? and whither would you fly ? Can you 
 soar like the eagle ? Will you fix your nest amidst the 
 stars? The Lord will cast you down from even that 
 asylum ! No ! you will not desert us ; you will blush at 
 the name of fugitive, and traitor to your country !'''' 
 
 But nothing, neither these animating exhortations, nor 
 the fresh reinforcements which thronged from aH quar- 
 ters, nor the insulated situation of his enetny, whom the 
 Lithuanian Prince could not second, nothing, in short, had 
 power to move that most personal of all feelings, auto- 
 cratical selfishness ! Disarmed of his machiavelian pohcy, 
 in which his genius entirely consisted ; in the midst of two 
 hundred thousand warriors, Ivan believed himself power- 
 less ; without fighting, he imagined himself without any 
 resource; and when the ice of a premature winter had 
 obliterated the river which served as a barrier between the 
 two armies, he was seized with consternation, determined 
 to fall back, and could not even fly but with a disorderly 
 
 flight ! 
 
 * The Lugra.
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. I. 127 
 
 At lengtli, no tloubt, we shall behold a tyrant stripped 
 of all his delusive qualities, and reduced to his instrinsic 
 value, and shall see this shameful nudity consign him to 
 the contempt of his people, whom he deserted. Not so. 
 However low he might have fallen, the immense interval 
 which separated him from the people, and even from his 
 nobles, was not yet traversed : the demigod had not yet 
 touched the earth : in him was still respected his whole 
 ancestral line, and such vast innate authority ! What 
 Muscovite could dare to conceive the possibility of dis- 
 pensing with the son of Rurik, this descendant of St. 
 Vladimir ! Dastardly as was the soul of this prince, it 
 seemed to be the only one by which Russia could be ani- 
 mated : it might be supposed to be the exclusive condi- 
 tion of the national existence, and that this immense 
 body could not resign it \vithout suicide. 
 
 Such a degree of servility seems wonderful ; and yet we 
 shall see it increased! This strong, this rooted faith, was 
 rewarded by a miracle ! At the very moment when Rus- 
 sia, in dismay, believed that she had again fallen, and for 
 ever, into the chains of the Tartars, she learned, all at once, 
 that a similar terror had scattered the armv of her fero- 
 cious dominators ; that, during the premeditated inaction 
 of Ivan, his lieutenant of Svenigorod, and his allies, were 
 on the march ; that one of those allies, the Klian of the 
 Crimea, united to that vaivode, had, by attacking the 
 Golden Horde in its capital, compelled the menacing 
 army to bend its course homeward ; while the others, 
 a hetman of the Cossacks, and the nuirza of the Nogays, 
 .stationed on the route taken by the Mongols, had sur- 
 prised them during their disorderly retrograde marcli, 
 and had totally destroyed them. 
 
 The mystery was now dispelled ! Ivan liad piipared 
 every thing, had foreseen every thing. Regarded by his
 
 128 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 people, as a second Providence, his pusillanimity was now 
 looked upon as wisdom ; his cowardice as prudence; his 
 flight as skill. He wished to make his enemies their own 
 destroyers : without risking, like Dmitry Donskoi, the fate 
 of Russia on a battle, he had by a diversion, in spite of 
 herself and for ever, delivered her from the Asiatic yoke ; 
 the hour, the place, all had been prescribed. Placed, like 
 the Divinity, out of the sphere of those whom he protected, 
 he had contemned even their contempt, and, unmoved by 
 the clamour of his subjects, had waited the appointed hour ! 
 Thus it was, that time, fortune, and Menghli-Ghirei, 
 ensured the triumph of Ivan over his first adversaries ; but 
 his good fortune did not intoxicate him. Having attained 
 his purpose, he despised not the means by which he had 
 attained it. Though, with the authority of a master, he 
 gave sovereigns to Kasan, he chose them from the family 
 of the Khan of the Crimea, his faithful ally. His court 
 and his states were peopled with refugee or converted Tar- 
 tar princes. His attitude, however, was materially changed. 
 The Turks of Caffa had plundered some Russian merchants. 
 In the pusillanimous Grand-Prince of 1480, who could re- 
 cognise the Tzar of 1492, writing in the following terms to 
 Sultan Bajazet ? " Whence arise these acts of violence ? 
 Are you aware of them, or are you not .'* One word more : 
 Mahomet, your father, was a great prince ; he designed to 
 send ambassadors to compliment me; God opposed the 
 execution of this project. Why should we not now see the 
 accomplishment of it ?'''' This same Ivan, who was lately so 
 terrified in the presence of the Tartar, expressly recommend- 
 ed to his ambassador at Constantinople, in 1498, " to be 
 careful not to do any thing to compromise the dignity of 
 his master ; to compliment the Sultan standing, and not on 
 his knees ; to address his speech only to that sovereign 
 liimself, and to yield precedence to no other ambassador."
 
 BOOK. IV. CHAP. 11. 129 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 It is true, that, at the period in question, Ivan had 
 triumphantly terminated another contest. Novgorod the 
 Great, Pskof, and Matka, had been subjugated. During the 
 first seven years of his reign, and of his war against Kasan, 
 pestilence and famine, the fit allies of tyranny, had enfee- 
 bled those Russian republics, and the dread of the end of 
 the world, which was predicted to happen at that time,* 
 had, by turning from earth the passions of Ivan's subjects, 
 afforded a more free and secure scope to his own. 
 
 The insolent Viatka had, however, declared itself neu- 
 tral between Kasan and Moscow, and the Prince had dis- 
 sembled his anger, for Novgorod had also shown itself 
 rebellious : the fall of Kasan had alarmed that great repub- 
 lic, and alreadv it had exclaimed to the Pskovians, " Take 
 arms ! march with us, to destroy the despotic power of 
 Moscow !" It was necessary, therefore, to neglect ^■ iatka, 
 to gain Pskof and its twelve cities, and to combine all 
 against Novgorod. That having once fallen, all the rest 
 would follow. 
 
 Novgorod, rather an ally than a subject of Moscow, 
 reigned over all the north of Russia, whose exclusive 
 commerce it possessed, and which it had to protect 
 against the Swedes, the Livonian kniglits, and Lithuania, 
 liut, since the time of Ivan Kalita, immersed in luxury, it 
 had oftener ransomed tlian defended its frontiers and its 
 liberties! Of the latter, some had alrcmly slip})e(l from 
 
 • Id 1 t-Gi, according to the Greek clironicle, the seventh thousand 
 years was completed, and that was believed to be the epoch of tlic end 
 of the world.
 
 130 HISTORY OP RUSSIA, 
 
 its grasp; but, in 1471, emboltlened by the presumed pu- 
 sillanimity of the Grand-Prince, it determined to resume 
 them. It was stimulated to this step by Marpha, the 
 rich and powerful widow of a Posadnick, who is said to 
 have been enamoured of a Lithuanian. The idea pleased 
 her of bestowing her country on that of her lover. She 
 was an ambitious M'oman ; and in the ambition of feaiiales, 
 the passions are almost always exerted to the advantage of 
 a man : as if women, the radii of another centre, the com- 
 plement of another sex, ouglit to exist only in that sex, and 
 all that is merely personal to them were interdicted to 
 their nature. 
 
 She opened her palace, and lavished her treasures on the 
 citizens of Novgorod, whom the darling sounds of their 
 veichvoi-koIokoU* perpetually summoned to the market- 
 place, which was the scene of their licentiousness. They 
 drove out the officers of the Grand-Prince ; they seized on 
 his domains ; and, wlien the surrender of Kasan allowed 
 Ivan to return towards Novgorod, and to make his threat- 
 ening voice heard there, they broke out into revolt, and gave 
 themselves, by a treaty, to Casimir Prince of Lithuania. 
 
 Here, amidst his other affairs with the Tartars, Sweden, 
 Livonia, Pskof, and the Princes, his kinsfolk, it is curious 
 to observe the politic system pursued by Ivan against this 
 formidable republic. Let us especially notice that equally 
 firm and flexible determination ; enthusiastic in its pur- 
 pose, yet at the same time cool and persevering in its 
 means ; sometimes resorting to humility and machiavelism, 
 sometimes to pride and terror, but also to patience, kind- 
 ness, and generosity ; which consideration, coupled with 
 the faults of his antagonists, and the imperious circum- 
 stances of the period, gives to the establishment of Ivan 
 the Third's tyranny, a seemingness, a species of modera- 
 tion, and even of public utility. 
 
 * The assembling bell.
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. II. 131 
 
 Making allies of all that came in his way, he succeeded in 
 arming against the ultra-democracy of Novgorod, the pride 
 of the nobles ; against its excessive opulence, the greedi- 
 ness of the Princes who were still possessed of appanages ; 
 against its trea.son and apostasy, the fanaticism of the peo- 
 ple ; and Novgorod, attacked at once by three armies, 
 which were followed by swarms of plunderers, resisted 
 obstinately within, faint-heartedly witiiout, and was finally 
 overpowered. 
 
 Ivan affected a moderation, which he considered to be 
 still indispensable. Being not yet sufficiently secured 
 against his ambitious relatives, to allow of his seizing 
 on so rich a prey without giving them a share of it, he 
 seemed to content himself with a ransom, and tlie res- 
 titution of some domains : but he ruined Novgorod by 
 devastation and plunder ; and, in the act of su])mission 
 of that re])ul)lic, the obscurity of some ambiguous words 
 reserved to him the authority of legislator and of supreme 
 judge. This was the side by which he seized the prey, 
 and by which he gradually drew it towards him, that he 
 might at length wholly devour it. 
 
 At the outset, he availed himself of the stupefaction 
 produced by this first blow, and of au insult offered by 
 the Permians, to deprive the great city of those tributaries. 
 Thenceforth, Moscow was enriched by the commerce of that 
 people with Germany, which had been formerly so nuich 
 coveted by Ivan Kalita. Then, on receiving intelligence 
 of an aggression of the Livonian knights, he, under pre- 
 tence of affording succour to the great city, and to Pskof, 
 disj^atched thither his ambassadors and troops, to (ighf and 
 negotiate in his name; to render him present every wliere; 
 and thus to take from those republics, which were also 
 (h-ained by his army, tiie right of making peace and war. 
 
 At the same time, he fomented tlie dissensions between 
 
 K 2
 
 132 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 the principal citizens of Novgorod and the lower class ; 
 and, when he had succeeded in having all complaints ad- 
 dressed to himself, he went among them, to impoverish the 
 rich by the presents and magnificent receptions which his 
 presence required, and to dazzle the people by the new 
 splendour of his oriental court, and to seduce them by the 
 partiality of his justice. 
 
 It was then that he sent to Moscow, loaded with chains, 
 the nobles of Novgorod, who had formerly been his ene- 
 mies. He had procured the denunciation of these boyards 
 by the people : the blind jealousy of the plebeians exulted 
 to see violated, in the persons of these eminent characters, 
 the ancient law of the republic, " that none of its citizens 
 should ever be tried or punished out of the limits of its 
 own territory.''"' Thus it was that, craftily mingling stra- 
 tagem with force, and justice with violence, Ivan disunited 
 all his adversaries, made himself judge in all causes, and 
 gained the hearts of all the multitude, the transports of 
 which followed him even to Moscow. 
 
 These republicans seemed henceforward desirous of 
 appealing to no other dispenser of justice than the Grand- 
 Prince ; their complaints were carried to the foot of his 
 throne ; and he the better able to avail himself of the op- 
 portunity, because it was of his own making, immediately 
 summoned all these imprudent men to appear before his tri- 
 bvmal. Novgorod, which had hitherto been under no juris- 
 diction but its ovm, now, astonished, and hurried out of 
 itself to Moscow, no longer knew whether it obeyed the 
 prince or itself. " Never," say the annalists, " never, since 
 Rurik, had such an event happened ; never had the Grand- 
 Princes of Kief and Vladimir seen the Novgorodians come 
 and submit to them as their judges. Ivan alone could re- 
 duce Novgorod to that degree of humiliation." 
 
 But the autocrat had succeeded in clothing all these
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. li. 133 
 
 Usurpations in seductive garbs. In all his encroachments, he 
 seemed to be entirely above personal hatred. JNIarpha her- 
 self was not molested ; his grudge was not against persons, 
 for their existence is transitory, and their cries might ex- 
 cite emotion, or betray his course ; it was against things, 
 for they are more durable, are silent ; and, besides, include 
 or hurry persons away with them. Making good subservient 
 to evil, he employed seven years in weaning these repub- 
 licans from their customs, by the generous moderation and 
 equity of his sentences ; and when, by this slow, gradual, 
 and almost imperceptible progression, he thought that he 
 had led these blinded men far enough astray from their 
 ancient usages, and had made them lose sight of their an- 
 cient liberties, then, on every thoughtless movement to 
 which he had given rise, and on every imprudence that he 
 had excited, he grounded a claim of right. 
 
 At length, the name of sovereign, which, during an 
 audience, was given to him by the inadvertence or treason 
 of an envoy of the republic, sufficed to make him in- 
 stantly claim all the rights of an absolute master, which 
 custom then attached to that title. He required, there- 
 fore, that the republic should take an oath to him as itrs 
 legislator and its judge ; that it should receive his boyards, 
 with all their arbitrary vexations, their encroachments, and 
 their ruinous oppressions; that it should yield to them the 
 revered palace of Yaroslaf, the sacred temple of Novgo- 
 rodian liberty; their forum, where, for more than five cen- 
 turies, their public assemblies had been held; and, lastly, 
 that each citizen sliould abdicate his share of the sove- 
 reignty, for the benefit of a single individual. 
 
 This sudden explosion of tyranny was responded to by 
 a counter explosion of indignation and indi-pendence. The 
 vi'il dropped from the eyes of Novgorod ; the cherished 
 voice of its Hbrrty, its vetrfivoi ko/o/co/, utteri'd a last peal
 
 134 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 of alarm ; it summoned thu citizens to that forum from 
 which there was now an intention of expelling them for 
 ever. Novgorod arose, with one accord, and exclaimed, 
 " Ivan is, in fact, our lord, but he shall never be our sove- 
 reign ; the tribunal of his deputies may sit at Goroditsch, 
 but never at Novgorod ; Novgorod is, and always shall 
 be, its own judge.''"' Then, in their transports of rage, 
 these unfortunate men completed the alienation of the 
 nobles, by the massacre of several of them, whom they be- 
 lieved to be accomplices of tyranny. Their imprudent en- 
 voy, whom they so loudly disavowed, was compelled to 
 appear before them ; they tried, clamorously condemned, 
 and tore him into a thousand pieces, and a second time 
 gave themselves up to Lithuania, whose prince they in- 
 voked to their aid. 
 
 When the perfectly foreseen intelligence of this righteous 
 insurrection reached the ears of the crafty despot, he 
 feigned a painful surprise ; he uttered groans : if he were 
 to be believed, it was he, this impostor, who had been trea- 
 cherously deceived. He accused the invaded of having 
 spread a snare for the invader ; " it was they who sought 
 him for their sovereign ; and when, yielding to their wishes, 
 he had assumed that title, they disavowed him ; they had 
 the impudence to give him the lie formally in the face of 
 all Russia ; they had dared to shed the blood of their com- 
 patriots who remained faithful, and to betray Heaven and 
 the holy land of the Russians, by calling into its limits a 
 foreign religion and domination."" 
 
 The machiavelian tyrant addressed these hypocritical 
 complaints to his priests, to his nobles, to his people; 
 to all the powers of heaven and earth, which he was ar- 
 raying against these hapless republicans. Pskof and Twer 
 alone appear to have hesitated ; but, under the form of 
 a contingent, he swept or drew away the whole of their
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. II. 135 
 
 military resources ; for he never undertook more than one 
 thing at a time, and, with friends as with foes, he had the 
 art of combining the efforts of all against a single opponent. 
 
 Surrounded by so many enemies, Novgorod was terri- 
 fied : it endeavoured to obtain conditions. " I will reign 
 at Novgorod as I do at Moscow," at length exclaimed the 
 despot: "I nmst have domains on your territory ; you must 
 give up your Posadnick, and the bell which summons 
 you to the national council !" Yet, always fraudulent, he, 
 in the same breath, promised to respect a liberty which he 
 deprived of every means of defence. 
 
 On hearing this terrible declaration, these unfortunate 
 citizens were thrown into the most violent amtation in their 
 city, which was now become their prison. Several times 
 did they furiously seize their arms, and as often did they 
 sink again into the despondence of impotency. 
 
 Meanwhile, they were closely watched by the crafty 
 autocrat. For a whole month, though the swoi'd was in 
 his hand, he remained immoveable ; for he did not amuse 
 himself with glory. His patient strength knew how to 
 wait; he had collected such abundance of warlike meaps 
 only to avoid war ; and all this innumerable army of com- 
 batants only to prevent a combat. It was by consternation 
 that he was desirous to vantjuish ; and, contracting by de- 
 grees the circle of fire and sword, which he had drawn 
 round the republic, he overbore, he oppressed, he terrified 
 it, by his formidable presence. His all-powerful arm, 
 though so long raised, did not suffer fatigue ; its weight 
 sunk but gradually on these unhappy beings; and, by the 
 infallible effect of this slow and inevitable compression, 
 without striking a blow, it at length compelled tlicir despair 
 to give place to resignation. 
 
 This system of circumspection thus disj)layeil in the con- 
 test, was c(|ually pursued after the victory ; tlu' melancholy
 
 136 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 recollection of wiiich was not stained with blood. Marpha 
 and seven of the principal Novgorodians were the only 
 persons who were sent prisoners to Moscow, and had their 
 property confiscated ; but, on the fifteenth of January, 
 1478, the national assemblies ceased, and the citizens took 
 the oath of slavery. On the eighteenth, the boyards, the 
 followers of the boyards, the notables, or, in a word, the 
 nobility, entered voluntarily into the service of the victor ; 
 and the possessions of the clergy, united to the domain of 
 the Prince, served to endow the three hundred thousand 
 followers of boyards, the immediate vassals of his own 
 creation, by whom the autocracy of Moscow over all the 
 rest was to be permanently secured. 
 
 In the following years the plan was followed up ; the 
 fate of the Russian republics was sealed (1489)- Viat- 
 ka, a Novgorodian colony, which was animated by the 
 same spirit, was subjugated with the same precautions. 
 The Grand-Prince had appeared inattentive to its rebel- 
 lions — insensible to its insults, as long as Kasan and Nov- 
 gorod resisted ; but when those states were reduced to 
 submission, he burst forth, and it was by another display 
 of irresistible force that, without a combat, he annihilated 
 this republic also. The blood of three guilty persons was 
 sufficient to satisfy his long-concentrated irritation ; but 
 he left there nothing but slaves. 
 
 The colony being destroyed, he returned to repeat his 
 blows on the parent city. From 1479 to 1528, at each 
 convulsion of the protracted agony of the great, but now 
 expiring, Novgorod, the yoke increased in weight ; till, 
 exhausted of its republican population, which was wholly 
 transplanted to the slavish soil of Moscow, it was re-peopled 
 by Muscovites. 
 
 In fact, it has never been seen, that any great modern 
 empire has been able to acquire that unity which is as in-
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. II. 137 
 
 dispensable for its own defence, as for the internally paci- 
 fying, regulating, enriching, instructing, and civilizing 
 it;— in a word, for rendering it worthy and capable of 
 liberty, — without being purified from its barbarous insti- 
 tutions, by passing, as in a vast conflagration, through the 
 medium of absolute power. 
 
 Here, as elsewhere, in order to become independent 
 abroad, and enlightened at home, it was necessary that all 
 tyrannies should be absorbed and concentered in one. 
 
 The restless and capricious ultra-democracy of Novgorod, 
 formed a state within a state ; its existence was no less in- 
 compatible than that of the appanages with the existence 
 (jf the Grand-Prince. Political necessity, therefore, im- 
 pelled Ivan to this great encroachment. As to the pretext, 
 whether iNIarpha was excited by ambition, patriotism, 
 or love, to seek, in a foreign prince, a protection less 
 dangerous than the sovereign of Moscow, her motive is of 
 little consequence ; the machiavelism of Ivan, in first 
 fraudulently ])ilfering, and then violently seizing upon, all 
 the liberties of the republic, did but too well justify the 
 efforts of that celebrated woman. 
 
 It is a remarkable circumstance, that the most fatal* 
 blow which Ivan gave to Novgorod, was an involuntary 
 one. Till 1492, that connnercial mart had been singularly 
 |)()pulous, rich, and powerful ; and it is truly worthy of 
 attention that, notwithstanding its barbarism, and so many 
 foreign wars and internal dissensions, the fruits of its 
 |)<)pular government, still the commercial prosperity of 
 that capricious city continued to increase : so much, even 
 in its most disorderly form, is liberty favourable to com- 
 merce. It would seem as if, amidst all their excesses, a 
 free pe()|)le preserve, in this respect, the instinct of their 
 true interest; while al)s<)lute ])ower, in sucii cases, is per- 
 petually falling into errors.
 
 138 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 As long as Novgorod was free, the Hanseatic cities, 
 notwithstanding her frequent intestine commotions, con- 
 tinued to traffic tliere with a confidence which was never 
 misplaced ; but, in the early days of her servitude, a burst 
 of despotic anger destroyed the source of her prosperity. 
 Ivan the Third, so skilful in extending and securing his 
 power, committed a fault which, during seven centuries, 
 the popular assemblies of the mad and inconstant republic 
 had never committed. Having been insulted by a Han- 
 seatic city, he ordered to be put in chains, at Novgorod, 
 all the merchants of all the cities of that union, and con- 
 fiscated the whole of their property. From that moment 
 confidence was no more, the commerce of the North took 
 another route, and the great Novgorod, which, for many 
 centuries, was able to muster a force of forty thousand 
 men, and wliich is said to have been peopled by four 
 hundred thousand souls,* is now nothing more than an 
 insignificant borough. -|- 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 On this vast field, meanwhile, from which every other 
 species of ambition had been swept away, the Grand- 
 Prince, and the princes possessed of appanages, feudality 
 and autocracy, were alone left standing, and now con- 
 fronted each other ; there was no longer any intermediary 
 between them, nothing to divert their attention to another 
 quarter : accordingly, they were not slow to come into hos- 
 tile collision. 
 
 But in this third grand contest, there was nothing that 
 
 " See Coxe. f See Levesque
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. III. 139 
 
 was unforeseen ; the autocrat had long been prepared for 
 it ; it bee;an in his heart at the moment of his accession. 
 The enfranchisement from the Tartar yoke was, however, 
 more pressing ; that prelude was necessary, and the en- 
 slaving of the Russian Republics was more easy. 
 
 Accordingly, in this third contest, he had hitherto pro- 
 ceeded with a still more circumspect tardiness ; for here 
 the question related to individuals of a nature similar to 
 his own, and always less easily circumvented than large 
 bodies. 
 
 It was for this reason that, during twenty-three years, 
 his machiavelian patience recognized the rights of all those 
 princes, and even their independence ; all that he could 
 venture to do, in spite of their complaints, was to keep his 
 conquests, without giving them any share, and to retain 
 the inheritance of two of his brothers, who left no heirs. 
 
 When, however, in 1480, his two other brothers re- 
 volted, and withdrew into Lithuania, plundering every 
 tiling in their way ; as he had not yet finished with the 
 horde and the Repubhcs, he humiliated himself, he bent 
 down to the earth, and brought the fugitives back by the 
 most humble supplications, and the most important con- 
 cessions. 
 
 But at length, in 1485, Novgorod was crushed, the Golden 
 horde was destroyed, the Livonian knights were vanquished, 
 and the impotence of Lithuania was obvious. The time 
 was, therefore, come ; and as every tiling was prepared for 
 it, the attack was immediately commenced on the Prince 
 of Twer. 
 
 As a consequence of the invariable policy of the Grand- 
 Princes, Ivan III., guided by Vassili his father, had for- 
 Mially es|M)iisc(l, at the age of twelve years, the Princess of 
 Twer; at eighteen, In- had ;i son by this marriage, who 
 was afterwards married to the daughtir of Stephen, hos-
 
 140 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 podar of Moldavia, and by that son he had a grandson, 
 But, in 1485, having lost his first consort, he was wedded 
 again, to a Greek Princess. His son died ; the ties that 
 connected Ivan with Twer were thus broken, and since 
 then, for a long period, he had held that first and last 
 rival of Moscow, in a manner surrounded and besieged by 
 his conquests. 
 
 In this instance, his aggressive system was exactly the 
 same that he had acted upon against Novgorod. He be- 
 gan by terrifying the Prince of Twer with his ambition ; 
 and, when he had led him to call Lithuania to his assist- 
 ance, he raised the cry of treason ; he armed, he dismayed 
 his victim by the formidable aspect of all his irritated 
 power. His feigned moderation was to be propitiated 
 only by concessions, which deprived his feeble adversary 
 of every means of resisting him in future. Then, avoid- 
 ing the ostentatious show of dangerous power, which he 
 had learned to render useless, it was by an underhand war, 
 by concealed violences, that he achieved this conquest ; he 
 stirred up a host of disputes between the Muscovites and 
 the Twerians, and manifested such partiality against the 
 latter, that, discouraged, they abandoned so wearisome a 
 cause. All came to range themselves under the protection 
 of Moscow ; while their Prince, driven to despair, had no 
 asylum left but Lithuania, where he died without pos- 
 terity. 
 
 Twer being united with Moscow, all speedily thronged 
 to that centre of attraction. The period of circumspect 
 management was gone by ; Ivan strode rapidly onward to 
 his object : he spoke, and the sovereigns of Rostof and Ya- 
 roslaf dared not be any thing more than governors of those 
 principalities. A burst of his anger sufficed to inspire 
 with such terror the Prince of Vereia, that he fled into 
 Lithuania, and the autocrat punished his fear and his flight
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. III. 141 
 
 by compelling the dying father of the fugitive to disinherit 
 him of several cities, which Ivan appropriated to himself. 
 
 Two brothers of the despot, however, still lived ; but 
 one of them, struck with dismay, submitted, and very soon 
 his appanage was reunited, by will, to the Grand Princi- 
 pality; the other, though of a more stirring nature, was 
 unsuspicious : at the court of the Grand-Prince, he was 
 indulging in effusions of the heart which he imagined to 
 be reciprocal, when, all at once, he was arrested, and was 
 loaded with chains, under the burthen of which he expired, 
 with no other revenge than the remorse of his murderer ; 
 a tardy remorse, which a synod of bishops stifled by an 
 iniquitous and cowardly absolution. 
 
 Now, at length, the feudal hydra was vanquished ; all 
 the Princes of the same blood as Ivan, whom, on his acces- 
 sion to the throne, he had foimd almost as much sovereimis 
 as himself, were either expatriated, or dead, or .so com- 
 pletely subdued, that they aspired to no other honour than 
 that of being the most officious of his servants. They 
 were beaten down by .so strong a hand, that, thenceforth, 
 confounded with the higher class of nobihty, not one of 
 them dared so mucii as call to mind their conunon orioiu 
 with their haughty ruler.
 
 14*2 iriSTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Thus far, Tartars, Russian Republics, Princes holding 
 appanages, every thing, abroad as well as at home, had 
 given way ; but this triple advantage was gained by Ivan 
 in spite of the efforts of Casimir of Poland, the constant 
 ally of all his enemies. 
 
 For thirty years, this fourth contest was only a war of 
 diplomacy and kidnapping, in which each monarch, enti- 
 cing to himself the malecontent subjects of his adversary, 
 and becoming the underhand protector of their revolts, 
 attacked his enemy only indirectly, and, as we may say, 
 by dint of allies. 
 
 For Casimir, his allies were sometimes the Livonian 
 knights, sometimes the Golden horde, and perpetually the 
 Russian petty princes and republics, whom he excited 
 against the Muscovite sovereign, and whose existence he 
 compromised and destroyed, by abandoning them to their 
 own strength in the moment of danger. On the part of 
 the far more able Russian Prince, they were the celebrated 
 Stephen, first hospodar of Moldavia, whom he attached 
 to himself by marriage, Matthias Corvinus, king of Hun- 
 gary, Maximilian of Austria, and, especially, Menghi 
 Ghirei, the khan of the Crimea, of whom, notwithstand- 
 ing his own many proofs of bad faith, he succeeded in 
 making so faithful an ally. 
 
 In this war of two Princes embarrassed by enemies which 
 they mutually stirred up against each other, and by un- 
 tractable subjects, all the advantage was on the side of 
 Ivan. As early as about 1492, the Petty Principahties 
 which Vitovt had detached from Russia, had already been
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. IV. 143 
 
 successively reunited to it. The first enticed or com- 
 pelled the others, without the circumspect Ivan seeming to 
 have any concern in this feudal movement. 
 
 But, about this epoch, Casimir died ; he was succeeded 
 by the weak Alexander, but only in Lithuania; that 
 duchy separated itself from Poland ; and power was there 
 more widely diffused, while at Moscow it was becoming 
 centralized : the mathiavelian autocrat then declared him- 
 self. Here, as in his three previous contests, we see the 
 moment, so long prepared beforehand, in which success 
 had become almost infallible, and in which every thing 
 superabounded for the explosion ; he, therefore, marched 
 unconcealed, and Avith open force, but in such a vast pro- 
 portion, that he had less to combat than to overwhelm. 
 
 And, notwithstanding this, he did not yet finish : here, 
 as in other instances, and though completely armed, he 
 paused before the semblance of a battle. If he profited by 
 the inmiensity of his armaments, the powerful diversions of 
 the khan of the Crimea, the simultaneous aggression of the 
 hospodar of Moldavia, and the weakness of Alexander, 
 who was deserted by his brothers, it was without daring to 
 strike a decisive blow : he preferred to expect every thing 
 from his enemy, to ally himself with all his faults, and to 
 lead him, like Novgorod, and like Twer, by successive 
 conccssi(ms, to be the instrument of his own destruction. 
 
 With this view, and to secure himself in the principali- 
 ties which he had surreptitiously reconquered, he accepted 
 as his son-in-law the Lithuanian prince, that very Alexander 
 who had recently attempted to poiscm him ; but lie did not 
 the less continue the ally of that prince"'s enemies, whom he 
 excited to aggressions upon Lithuania, Avhile, at the same 
 time, he prohil)ited Alexander from resisting them other- 
 wise than by c(miplaints. 
 
 The princess, his daughter, wlioiu he secmetl to liavc
 
 144 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 given to hiin as a pledge of peace, was only an additional 
 enemy, whom he had artfully introduced into the heart of 
 his adversary's states. She carried thither the Greek reli- 
 gion, which was that of all the Russians who were still 
 subject to Lithuania, of whom she seemed the protectress, 
 and who were persecuted by her husband, as zealous a 
 Catholic as he was a contemptible })olitician. 
 
 Ivan added fuel to this smouldering fire; then, when 
 the conflagration of a religious war at length burst forth, 
 claiming Heaven as his ally, and gathering courage from 
 the cries of his fellow-rehgionists, who implored his aid, he 
 at last, about 1500, ventured, by a victory, to resume, as J 
 far as the walls of Kief and Smolensk, a part of the con- 
 quests which were made from his ancestors by Guedimin 
 and Vitovt. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Thus was all accomplished at once, almost without com- 
 bats, and by the same patient, persevering machiavelism, 
 advancing slowly and gradually, and not putting out its 
 strength till it had rendered the enemy so weak, and its 
 own power so strong, that the mere display of the latter 
 was sufficient to annihilate all opposition. 
 
 We behold a triple revolution of men, of tilings, and of 
 manners, at length consummated. But, for a long period, 
 Ivan, the sole centre of this sphere, had been looked upon 
 by the Russians as the source of all things. But, having 
 so many internal enemies, whence did he derive this auto- 
 cratical ascendency ? By what illusions did he fascinate 
 such numerous hostile gazers ? How happened it, that all
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. V. 145 
 
 power capable of resisting- his orders was henceforth to 
 appear disorder.'' Exposed singly to so many domestic 
 foes, whom he curbed, how did he at length overlook them 
 from such an elevation that, even according to their own 
 avowal, he seemed to be their terrestrial deity ? 
 
 What age has, more than our own, felt all the ascen- 
 dancy of victory .'' But, in the instance of the Russian 
 sovereign, wliere are those splendid and daring acts M-hich 
 have a dazzling effect ^ How was the pusillanimous Ivan 
 enabled to assume that conquering attitude, that over- 
 awing and irresistible majesty, which is the attribute of 
 heroism ? A last glance thrown on some particular details 
 of this great life will explain to us the phenomenon. Let 
 us follow the progress of this predominating ruler. From 
 the first years of his reign, what a long series of efforts con- 
 curred to the accomplishment of his purpose ! Strata- 
 gems, intrigues, fallacious promises, even an oath to apos- 
 tatise, from which he was released by the heads of his 
 religion ; nothing was thought too much that could for- 
 ward his designs. He was desirous to obtain the Pope's 
 assent, that Sophia, the last princess of the Greek imperial 
 family, who, being dispossessed of Byzantium by the 
 Turks, had taken refuge at Rome, should come to adorn 
 liis throne, to consolidate it with all her rights, and to 
 environ it with all her fascinations. 
 
 Constantinoj)le is, in the eyes of the Russians, the sacred 
 source of the faith which they profess ; its emperors long 
 gave to them their ]irimates ; it is from thence tiiat they 
 derive their written characters,* their vapour batlis, a 
 
 * 'Ilioir mode of writing dates from tlie year 80.5 : it camo from 
 Moravia. Tlie Russian alphabet was then invented tliere, by a iiliilo- 
 Hoplier named Constantine. This learned man liad heen sent from 
 I{yzantium to translate the Scriptures into the language of the coun- 
 try. In the time of Vladimir, ahout 9H1 , there were to lie seen at 
 Kief, inscriptions enpraven in litis character. 
 
 L
 
 140 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 part of tlieir manners and usages, the saints to whose 
 images they pay an idolatrous worship, and, lastly, the 
 supreme religion. They had been brought to them, in a 
 former age, by a Greek princess ; it was she who had made 
 their Vladimir, that mighty one below, a mighty one above; 
 who had made that master of their destiny on earth, their 
 holy protector in heaven. Now, that Byzantium was be- 
 come captive to the Turks, the dexterous Ivan wished that 
 a second Greek princess should come to render Moscow 
 the heir of that Byzantium ; that she should bring, as her 
 dowry to its Grand-Prince, the two-headed eagle, that 
 symbol of autocracy, and the title of Tzar, which, as the 
 Russians tell us, is identical with that oi supreme authority.* 
 He wished that she should introduce into his palace the 
 haughty hierarchy of the sumptuous court of Constantine, 
 and its pompous ceremonies, less frivolous than some per- 
 sons imagine ; in a word, that despotism of divine right, 
 by which devotedness to the prince would be strengthened 
 and even sanctified in Russia. This theocratic power, to- 
 gether with the iron yoke which Ivan inherited from the 
 Tartars, and the entirely military constitution which was 
 soon to be added by a great man, were destined to com- 
 plete the most extraordinary concurrence of circum- 
 stances that ever formed princes to despotism, and nations 
 to slavery. 
 
 Nor was this all : by his union with that imperial scion, 
 the skilful and powerful hand of Ivan seems to have turned 
 back the face of his empire from east to west. He brought 
 the weight of the Russian throne into the balance of 
 Europe. Russia, which, during nearly three centuries, had 
 been detached from civilization, was again to be linked 
 with it by the ties of policy, and by those of arts and 
 sciences. 
 
 * See Karamsin.
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. V. 147 
 
 It was the Greeks, expelled from Constantinople, and 
 sheltered in Italy, who conveyed those arts to Moscow, 
 in the train of their sovereign. In fact, by a singular con- 
 formity of circumstar.ces, those Greeks, vanquished in their 
 turn near the ancient and Homeric conquests of their 
 ancestors, had come like iEneas and his Trojans of old, to 
 dignify Italy also, by taking refuge there with their house- 
 hold gods. 
 
 This was the reason why the crafty Ivan seemed willing 
 to sacrifice even his religion to obtain this high alhance 
 from the Pope, who was then the protector of the Greek 
 princess. See how triumphantly he caused to be conducted 
 through his states this sovereign, who came to autocratise, 
 and even to deify his power ! Hear the language of his 
 nobles and his priests : " God," said they, " sends him this 
 illustrious spouse, an offset of that imperial tree, the sha- 
 dow of which was formerly spread over all orthodox Chris- 
 tian brothers. Fortunate alliance ! which brings to mind 
 that of the Great Madimir, and which will make another 
 Byzantium of Moscow, and give to its Grand-Princes all 
 the rights of the Greek emperors !" 
 
 Thenceforth, a sumptuous train was requisite to the ne\\[ 
 autocrat. The novel pageantries of Constantinople came 
 to fascinate the eyes of these barbarians. At the same time, 
 his people saw him raise the massy walls of the Kremlin, 
 the awe-inspiring abode, the formidable fortress of auto- 
 cracy; and also of that first church of stone, included 
 within its circuit, which the Moscovite architects had 
 thrice endeavoured to ccmstruct, and which had thrice 
 fallen on these unskilful artificers. 
 
 For nothing was neglected by Ivan ; founders, engineers, 
 architects, miners, and minters, were invited fnmi Germany, 
 aiid from Italy, and, following the footsteps of a civili'/cd 
 princess, they ventured to penetrate into these almost nn- 
 
 i. 2
 
 148 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 known countries. The mines of Petchora were discovered ; 
 and Russia, for the first time, saw silver and copper money 
 coined in its capital. 
 
 We may imagine what a strikingly impressive effect must, 
 at that period, have been produced by a throne, which was 
 raised to such a prodigious height, that religion itself, every 
 where else so dominant, served as one of its supporters, and 
 of which the summit, just beginning to emerge from the 
 obscure night in which all these tribes were still stagnating, 
 like a luminous point in the darkness, shone to their won- 
 dering eyes with all the splendour of the most gorgeous 
 civil and religious ceremonies, and with the first rays of 
 European civilization. 
 
 Observe with what care this Louis XIV. of barbarism 
 turned these advantages to account. Proclaiming his di- 
 vine right, it is in the midst of this pomp that we hear him 
 exclaim, " The high and holy Trinity, from which we have 
 received the government of all Russia ;" to which, accord- 
 ing to his prompting, the interpreter of that Trinity re- 
 sponds, " The empire which you hold from God himself."" 
 
 When, subsequently, the republicans of Pskof dared to 
 communicate with him otherwise than by a respectful em- 
 bassy, he instantly astounded them by his indignation; nor 
 did he allow himself to be appeased, till after he had long 
 bent them under the weight of his wrath, that he might be 
 certain that they would never again lose the servile feeling 
 thus deeply and protractedly impressed. 
 
 It was thus, that, in the eyes of his subjects, he would 
 not grant his protection to the Livonian knights, till, instead 
 of requesting, they had supplicated for it. In his diplo- 
 matic instructions, we recognise the proud susceptibility 
 of a prince who wished to ally himself with the enlightened 
 courts of Europe, but with all the precautions of the most 
 irritable haughtiness ; he seemed to fear that European
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. V. 149 
 
 civilization might treat him as an upstart, an Oriental bar- 
 barian, the tributary of a horde. 
 
 It was for this reason that he, whom we have seen so 
 carefullv studving the policy of Europe, and deeming it 
 of such high importance to bring his throne in contact with 
 other thrones, that he, for a mere omission of formahties, 
 refused to receive, and even drove from his presence the 
 Austrian envoy ; he forced the Emperor to treat with him 
 as his equal ; and if his subjects may be believed, he even 
 denied his daughter to the King of the Romans, Vienna not 
 having consented to all the concessions which he required. 
 As to the INIargrave of Baden, the union of his daughter 
 with that German prince appeared to him a derogatory 
 alliance. When INIaxiniilian endeavoured to seduce his 
 ambition with the title of king, Ivan haughtily declared to 
 him, " That he would not degrade himself by receiving 
 titles from any prince on earth, and that he held his crown 
 from God alone !" 
 
 It was then that the Russian boyards lost their ancient 
 right, of quitting his service to enter that of the other 
 princes who still possessed appanages. And what boyard, 
 what Russian ])rince of the blood, could thenceforth haye 
 such an opinion of his own greatness, as not to humble 
 himself before the dazzling splendour of this sovereign 
 majesty ? Already blended together, and oblivious of per- 
 s<mal dignity, all crowded around him, and, like the nobles 
 of Byzantium, esteemed it an honour to be admitted into 
 his domestic establishment. Accordingly, they soon were 
 absorljcd in it entirely, and had no other existence than 
 in the servile ofHces of which he multiplied the number. 
 
 From this epoch it was that they began to consider as 
 hereditary those civil, military, and domestic ranks, and 
 to contend with each other for ])recedence; but did they 
 dare to .-ivail themselves of it in contravention of his orders,
 
 150 HISTORY OP RUSSIA, 
 
 then, depriving their vanity of this last resource, he de- 
 clared to them, " that they ought to submit without a 
 murmur to the will of their sovereign, and that when the 
 question related to his service every office was good." 
 
 After the death of his eldest son, however, the issue of 
 his first marriage, these nobles are said to have pushed 
 their intrigues even to the foot of Ivan's throne, to secure 
 the inheritance of it to the son of the regretted prince ; 
 it is said, too, that these worthy ancestors of the boyards 
 of Peter the Great slandered their Greek Czarina, the 
 mother of a second son, out of hatred to the commence- 
 ment of civilization which she protected, and the foreigners 
 whom she had introduced. 
 
 One fact is certain, that Ivan, being misled, at first 
 disgraced that princess, but that, afterwards, on better 
 information, he restored her to his favour. It is even 
 believed that it was with a view to preserve his innovations, 
 that he made her son his heir, to the exclusion of his 
 grandson, whom he consigned to perpetual imprisonment. 
 Ivan would not leave behind him this ferment of discord; 
 in this circumstance, as at a later period, and more cruelly, 
 was done by the regenerator of Russia, he sacrificed every 
 thing to reasons of state, of a state of which he had made 
 himself the soul, and which ought to be animated by 
 only one. 
 
 It was then that Pskof ventured to expostulate, in 
 behalf of the elder branch, against the heir whom he had 
 chosen. But, " Am I not, then, at liberty to act as I 
 please .?" replied he haughtily : " I will give Russia to 
 Avhom I think proper, and I command you to obey." 
 
 As to the boyards who had taken part in these in- 
 trigues, their rank, hitherto respected, did not shield them.; 
 whether accusers or accused, they were successively vic- 
 tims of the credulity, or of the vengeance, of the prince.
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. V. 151 
 
 Russia, dumb with astonishment, Avitnessed, for the first 
 time, the fall of several of those illustrious heads ; a word 
 from Ivan sufficed to strike them off as easily as though 
 they had belonged to the meanest of his subjects. 
 
 Is it therefore astonisliing, that all should have bent down 
 before this autocrat, whose able hand, rending the veil 
 which concealed Russia from Europe, had forced it to pay 
 homage to his power ; whose policy possessed the art of 
 obtaining the services of all, without ever serving any ; 
 and who had added to Russia nineteen thousand square 
 miles and four millions of subjects, by extending it from 
 Kief to Kasan, and as far as Siberia and Norwegian 
 La})land 't Personally, it is true that he concjuered nothing; 
 but, on the other hand, free from the infatuation of warrior- 
 kings, he knew how to pause opportunely, to acquire as 
 much, to retain more, and to close his career imder happier 
 auspices. 
 
 He was the first to borrow the arts of civilization; 
 but for himself only, as the means of riches and power, and 
 much less to enlighten than to dazzle his subjects. 
 
 The second legislator of the Russians, to him they are 
 indebted for a reform in the manners of their clergy, over 
 whom he presided in their councils ; a first attempt at a 
 general sei/Aire of the property of that order ; and, in spite 
 of the furious cries of that order, the suppression, by means 
 of ridicule and exile alone, of a heresy which the saints of 
 the day wished to exterminate by fire. 
 
 This Jewish heresy consisted in expecting the advent of 
 the Messiah ; in denying and cursing Christ and the Holy 
 Virgin ; in spitting on the images of the saints, and tearing 
 them with the teeth ; in disbelieving Paradise and the re- 
 surrection of the dead; and, lastly, in putting faith in a 
 cabali^tical book, given to Adam by God himself. From 
 that book Solomon was imagined to have deri\ed his wis-
 
 152 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 dom ; and Moses, .Tose})h, Klias, and Daniel, their power 
 over the elements and monsters, their skill in the interpre- 
 tation of dreams, and their faculty of looking into futurity. 
 
 Zosimus, a primate, is said to have been the head of 
 these heretics. " We see," exclaimed at that period St. 
 Joseph of Volok, " we see a son of Satan seated on the 
 throne of the holy ])relates ; we see a devouring wolf under 
 the garb of a simple shepherd ! They are no more ; they 
 have flown to the bosom of Christ ; those daring eagles of 
 religion, those godly bishops who would have pitilessly 
 torn out with their talons every eye that was bold enough 
 to cast a squinting glance on the divinity of the Saviour ! 
 Now, in the garden of the Church, we hear nothing but 
 the hiss of a horrible reptile, which vomits forth blasphe- 
 my against the Lord, and against his blessed mother." 
 
 But Ivan did not allow himself to be led away by these 
 insane declamations ; he contented himself with causing 
 the heresy to be anathematized, banishing the heretics, 
 and nominating another primate. He himself, by virtue 
 of his supremacy over the Church, and his divine right to 
 the throne, undertook the inauguration of the new pri- 
 mate; thus it was that he turned every thing to the ad- 
 vantage of his own authority. 
 
 A system of policy and administration at length began 
 to preside over the destiny of Russia ; every thing fell into 
 classes and into its place; the roads and their stations, 
 the police, the army, were more regularly organized ; the 
 taxes more uniformly and better assessed. In the thou- 
 sands of boy ard -followers, new possessors of military fiefs, 
 a kind of spahis, such as are still seen in Turkey, we re- 
 cognise the institution of a petty feudal nobility, but 
 without a gradation of rank, and dependant solely on the 
 throne, the strength of which it constituted. 
 
 A new code appeared ; it regulated and taxed the
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. \ I. 153 
 
 faculty which the peasants possessed of changing their 
 lords ; it determined the limits of slavery ; and, though it 
 was forced to confide to the nobles, and to those boyard- 
 followers, the new proprietors, the dispensing of justice, it 
 joined to them the elder, the chief men, and the civil func- 
 tionary of the place. 
 
 As to the rest ; in this barbarous code every thing 
 partakes of the keenness of the sword, whose keenness is 
 brought into action in every part of it. Single combat 
 decides upon the majority of criminal offences ; in cases of 
 suspicion, where reputation is not spotless, torture is called 
 in to enlighten justice. The penalties of Ivan's code are 
 confiscation, the knout, slavery, and death, the level of his 
 despotism ; it is since his reign that the Russians have 
 astonished Europe by their blind servility. Foreigners, 
 as well as his subjects, denominate him Ivan the Great. 
 The Russia of Oleg, of Madimir, and of Yaroslaf, ex- 
 isted no longer ; it is the Russia of Ivan III. reformed by 
 Peter the Great, that still exists. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 (1505.) Vassili Ivanovitch continued the ascendant 
 impulse of his father's reign : he extended his power over 
 Pohuid, from which hi- wrested Smolensk; over the re- 
 %()lt((l Kasan, wliicli he drained to exhaustion, and over 
 the republic of Pskof, where were sadly breathed forth 
 the expiring sighs of Russian liberty. 
 
 Then (153^3) commenced the reign of Ivan 1\'. The 
 hideous scene ()]>ene(l l)v the saturnalia of th.it coiiit wliicli 
 the two prcci'(hiig autotrats had suddciilv lalled into
 
 154 HISTORY OK RUSSIA, 
 
 existence, in the midst of coarse and brutal ignorance. Its 
 nobles were barbarians, either upstarts or fallen from their 
 pristine state. A great number of them were of the blood 
 of Kurik. Formerly, the whole empire was the theatre of 
 their ambition ; its dilaceration, its division into appana- 
 ges, their end ; civil war, their means : but, .now that all 
 was concentrated in the prince, their sole arena was his 
 court ; their end, the precai'ious power derived from 
 favouritism ; their means, intrigue ; they were without 
 rules, without manners, accordant to their novel situation; 
 they knew no other restraint than an iron despotism, whose 
 rude and ponderous mass had fallen into the hands of a 
 female of blighted character, the mother of an infant who 
 was only three years of age. 
 
 Helena was the second regent of the Russians. Since 
 the time of Olga, no similar instance had before occurred. 
 Muscovite manners would have dictated that the widow of 
 Vassili should be dead to the world ; that a convent and 
 a new name should have hidden her sorrows from public 
 view ; and tlie grandees were indignant to see the sceptre 
 of Rurik in the hands of that Lithuanian widow, and of a 
 lover, whom she dared to impose on them as a master. 
 
 For four years, however, the impure couple kept their 
 ground by means of despotism. That weapon, so illegiti- 
 mate that it fits any hand that dares to wield it, gave an 
 answer to all ; to the indignation of the three uncles of 
 Ivan, it replied by a lingering death in horrible dun- 
 geons ; to their partisans, — by torture, the cord, and the 
 axe ; to those grandees who emigrated to Lithuania and 
 Crimea, whence they brought back war, — by war and victory. 
 
 But, at length, crime did justice on crime; tortures 
 were avenged by poison ; the regent died suddenly, and 
 the great boyards, of whom the majority were descended
 
 IJOOK IV. CHAP. VI. 155 
 
 from princes of the blood, who formerly held appanages, 
 seized upon the guardianship of that same despotism of 
 which their ancestors had been the victims. 
 
 In the foremost rank of these barbarians stood the 
 Schuisky- They had long, and from father to son, been 
 treated as the enemies of the Grand-Prince and of the 
 state ; their turn was now come to treat the state and its 
 Grand-Prince as enemies. But the circle of their ambi- 
 tion was contracted amidst the crowd of other pretensions 
 by which they were surrounded. They could only dilapi- 
 date the resources of the public, and of individuals, by 
 their exactions ; and avenge the fall of their ancestors, by 
 the humiliations which they lavished on the heir of the 
 Grand-Princes. 
 
 The empire was a prey which they suffered the Tartars 
 to rend in pieces, while they themselves exhausted it by 
 their rapine and dissensions, and ensanguined it by their 
 proscri])tions, which they did not even deign to cover with 
 the name of their royal ward; for theyoutliful Ivan was 
 not spared any more than his subjects His treasury was 
 plundered, his domains were encroached upon ; masters of 
 liis palace, the great boyards seemed hardly to endure his. 
 presence there ; they delighted in degrading him. In his 
 clownish brutality, Schuisky was seen to stretch forth his 
 legs, and with the vuiworthy weight of his feet sully the 
 descendant of so many sovereigns. 
 
 The influence, however, of the Belsky, and of the pri- 
 mate, which was all at once increased by a Tartar invasion, 
 awakened the j)atnotisra of the nobles, restored some de- 
 gree of order, and gave to the youthful Ivan a moment of 
 digm'ty. But, when the danger was over, the Schuisky re- 
 appeared ; they surprised Moscow in the dead of the night, 
 and made tluinselves masters of tlie palace ; thi'V pushed
 
 156 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 their brutal irruption even to the bed of their young mas- 
 ter, whom tliey caused to pass suddenly from the calm of a 
 sound sleep to all the palpitations of terror. 
 
 From this refuge they violently dragged the primate, 
 whom they ill treated, deposed, and replaced by another ; 
 and Prince Belsky, whom they murdered. Ivan supplicated 
 them, but they disdained his prayers, and drowned them 
 by vociferations ; if he ordered, they took a pleasure in 
 disobeying ; if they saw him regret his mother, who had 
 been their victim, their scoffs turned his filial piety into 
 ridicule. Did his heart open to the soft and vivid friend- 
 ships of childhood, they lacerated it, they tore from it the 
 innocent object. In a council, they Jbrutally apostrophised 
 Vorontzof, who gave them umbrage ; they darted on him 
 like madmen, loaded him with blows, and rent with their 
 feet the garments of the primate, who, touched by the en- 
 treaties of the Grand-Prince, implored them to spare the 
 young boyard whom they wished to sacrifice. 
 
 It was amidst these horrors that young Ivan reached his 
 fourteenth year. The scene then changed, but in the per- 
 sonages only. This revolution was brought about by the 
 Glinsky, who were kinsfolk of Ivan. All at once, in a 
 hunting-party, an angry word, which they suggested to the 
 Grand-Prince, thunderstruck the insolent Schuisky, and 
 the whole train rushed immediately on that boyard, seized 
 him, and threw him to the dogs, by which he was de- 
 voured. 
 
 But his tyranny survived him ; it was continued in the 
 name of the prince. The Glinsky pushed him forward 
 at their head in this path of blood and plunder. They 
 allowed him to misuse his recently acquired liberty. He 
 squandered it in roaming without a purpose through his 
 provinces, which were compelled to defray the charges ; 
 they were ruined by his costly presence, and astonished by
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. VI, 157 
 
 his caprices. There, liis unworthy kinsmen prompted liini 
 to punish witliout cause, and to reward beyond measure ; 
 ffluttins: some with what was confiscated from others. 
 They taught him not to think himself master, except when 
 he was striking, except when he was causing to be tortured 
 before his eyes the suppliants by whose intreaties he was 
 wearied. 
 
 These infamous beings made use of his youthful liand 
 to massacre their enemies. Their dastardly subservience 
 applauded his cruel sports, when he delighted himself with 
 tormenting wild animals, and throwing down tame ones 
 from the summit of his palace; when, in his disorderly 
 rambles, he dashed old people to the ground, and trampled 
 under the feet of his horses the women and children of 
 Moscow. 
 
 These ebullitions, this fermentation of the effervescent 
 youth of a tyrant, had lasted three years, when, one day, 
 he awoke in Moscow, surrounded by the flames of a hor- 
 rible conflagration and the clamours of revolt. 
 
 Ivan was only seventeen. Terror had been the first 
 feeling of his infancy ; long oppressed by its weight, his 
 early youth had lately taken a delight in throwing it off 
 upon the whole of his people ; and now, from all points, 
 that terror was rebounding back upon him in burning 
 brands, in threatening cries, and in the blood of the Glin- 
 sky, whom the furious populace had torn in pieces. 
 
 Amidst this universal disorder, Sylvester, a monk, one 
 of those inspired j)ersonages who then traversed Russia, 
 and who, like the Jewish prophets, or the dervishes, dared 
 to stand up even against sovereigns, appeared in the pre- 
 sence of" the frightened young despot. He ajjproachcd 
 hin), the (i<)sy)el in his hand, his eye full of menace, his 
 finger raised, and with a solenni voice, he pointed out to 
 liim, in the surrounchng flames, and blood, and liuious
 
 158 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 
 
 cries, and the limbs of his dismembered kinsfolk, the wrath 
 of Heaven, which his passions liad at length aroused. To 
 tliese terrific menaces he added the infallible effect of 
 certain appearances then deemed supernatural ; and, thus 
 working on this feeble mind, he became its master. 
 
 Alexis Adascheff seconded Sylvester ; they encircled the 
 yoimg tyrant with priests and able and prudent boyards ; 
 and, assisted by the young and virtuous Anastasia, his first 
 and recently-married bride, they, during thirteen years, 
 made Russia enjoy an unexpected felicity. 
 
 Every thing was now pacified and reduced to order ; re- 
 gularity was introduced into the arttiy ; the strelitz, a per- 
 manent militia of fusileers, were created ; seven thousand 
 Germans were hired and kept up; a more just and equal 
 assessment of the military fiefs, services, and contingents, 
 was accomplished ; all proprietors of estates that required 
 three hundred pounds weight of seed corn, were obliged 
 to furnish a horseman completely armed, or an equivalent 
 in money ; a rate of pay for the soldiery was established, 
 and was even doubled, to encourage such of the boyard- 
 followers as should furnish a larger contingent than was 
 imposed by law ; and by these means the forces of the 
 empire were so much increased, that they were thenceforth 
 estimated at three hundred thousand men. The presence 
 of the prince with his armies, at once re-established order 
 in them, and stimulated to exertion. Kasan was once more 
 reduced ; the kingdom of Astracan was conquered ; for- 
 tresses to keep the Tartars in check were constructed ; and 
 eighty thousand Turks, whom Selim II. had sent against 
 Astracan, perished in the deserts by which it Was surround- 
 ed. Meanwhile, the grand idea of the reign of Peter the 
 Great, that of opening to Russia the commerce of Europe, 
 by conquering the Ingrian and Livonian ports, was almost 
 realized ; the Don Cossacks were united with the empire ;
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. VII. 159 
 
 and the ground-work was laid for the conquest of Siberia 
 by Yermak, one of those nomade people. 
 
 So much for what relates to war ; as to the rest, we see 
 the project of enlightening Russia conceived ; a hundred 
 and twenty artists requested from Charles the Fiftli ; the 
 first printing-office established ; Archangel founded ; and 
 the north of the empire thrown open to the commerce 
 of Europe. 
 
 At the same time, the aboHtion of precedence among the 
 nobility was begun to be abolished ; the greediness of the 
 clergy, in its monopolizing of all landed property, was re- 
 strained ; those priests were improved in their morals, and 
 in tlieir observances, which were still deeply embued with 
 paganism ; and the tolerant spirit of Adascheff proliibited 
 the cruelties with which superstition inspired them. 
 
 To crown the whole, the laws were revised in a new code. 
 Till then, justice had been administered by the Governors, 
 who paid themselves out of fees levied at their own discre- 
 tion. In 1556, Adascheff and Sylvester abolished all these 
 fees, caused justice to be gratuitously administered by the 
 oldest and most eminent persons of each place, and, finally, 
 established a general assessment, which was collected by 
 tlie officers of tlie Exchequer. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The auspicious ascendancy of Adascheff lasted thirteen 
 years. All the glory of the fifty years' reign of Ivan IV. 
 is circumscribed within this brief space. Ivan liimself", in 
 1503, bore witness to it, while he cursed it; for, at thai 
 calamit(;iis cpocli, thi- dcalli of the mild Anastasia, and a
 
 100 IIISTORV OF RUSSIA, 
 
 violent disease whicli attacked the despot, seem to have 
 alienated his mental faculties. 
 
 A salutary terror had kept down his ferocity ; another 
 terror again let it loose. Infamous delators instilled their 
 venom ; to the ministers whom they wished to replace, they 
 attributed the death of the Tzarina, and the insubordi- 
 nation of the boyards, which they affirmed to be on the 
 eve of breaking out ; and, with that weakness which is 
 inherent in cruelty, the superstitious Ivan persuaded him- 
 self that nothing but witchcraft could have enabled Adas- 
 chefF and Sylvester to retain for so long a period their 
 paramount sway over his mind. 
 
 In a letter, which still exists, all the benefits which 
 Russia attributed to him, are urged against them by this 
 madman, as if they were a protracted series of crimes^ 
 for the barbarian could write ! his letters and many of his 
 speeches are even remarkable. Like most insane persons, 
 this frantic being now and then manifested scintillations of 
 talent, which he made a parade of in sophisms, priding 
 himself on his knowledge, and often reasoning with con- 
 siderable acuteness. 
 
 In his actions, consummate craftiness may also be seen 
 occasionally prevailing. In 1566, being on the eve of 
 engaging in a dangerous war, he convoked an assembly of 
 the states-general, consisting of three hundred and thirty- 
 nine members, priests, nobles, citizens, and traders. He 
 laid before them his negotiations with Poland, on the sub- 
 ject of Livonia ; he pointed out to them the importance of 
 preserving that outlet for the Russian commerce ; he suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining from the bishops a declaration, that 
 it did not become them to dare to advise their Tzar ; from 
 the nobles, that they were ready to shed for him the last 
 drop of their blood ; from the citizens and traders, that all 
 their wealth belonged to him.
 
 BOOK IV. CKAP. Vll. 101 
 
 But, already, the modern Seneca and Burrhus of this 
 Nero of the North had experienced a fate similar to that 
 of the two prudent ministers of the Nero of Rome; 
 thenceforth, drunk with blood, bewildered with terror, the 
 life of the Moscovite tyrant was nothing but a long crime, 
 a furious lunacy ; the origin of which, however, may be 
 perceived, and of which, amidst the wanderings of a heated 
 and irregular imagination, we may discover and trace the 
 ruling principle. It was the despot instinct of hereditary, in- 
 nate, divine right, disturbed by fear ; it was seventeen years 
 of terror, received and repaid with interest in his childhood 
 and liis early youth, that gained the upper hand of tliir- 
 teen vears' efforts against nature. We seem to see a young 
 tyger, which efforts have been made to tame, and which 
 reverts with horrible ardour to its original propensities. 
 
 Even as early as 1552, at the capture of Kasan, his 
 natural disposition had broken out. Apostrophizing the 
 nobles who surrounded him, he then exclaimed, " At 
 length, God has preserved me from you !" 
 
 Adascheff, however, had kept him within bounds for ten 
 more years ; but, in 1563, that first terror, with which the 
 nobles had impressed his childhood, awoke, like a terrific 
 phantom, in his mind ; thenceforth, that evil genius was 
 ever present to his thoughts. Very soon, the power of 
 Sigismund, who united Lithuania to Poland, and ccmtend- 
 ed with him for Livonia, and that of Stephen Battori, 
 the successor of Sigismund, whose vigorous hand was felt 
 by Ivan, exasperated his trembling and senseless rage ; his 
 fren/y was increased by the suspicion that his subjects 
 connived with those princes. 
 
 In this burning and unintermitting fever of twenty-six 
 years, the Russians reckon six violent paroxysms ; in tiie 
 first, which was occasi(mcd bv the fliglit of I'rince Kiirhsky* 
 
 • See the letters of Ivan and of Prince Kiirhsky- 
 
 M
 
 162 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 into Poland, he accused that prince of a design to render 
 himself sovereijni of Yaroslaf : he could not conceive how 
 his subject, without bringing down the vengeance of 
 Heaven upon his soul, could 'have dared to secure his 
 head from him. 
 
 The boyards were reproached with the offences which 
 they committed during his minority ; the remembrance of 
 those events bewildered him; the impression made by 
 them was indelible; and the madman, always having 
 before his mental vision a vast and perpetual conspiracy 
 plotted against his power by the nobles, retired afar off, to 
 Alexandrovsky, a fortress encompassed by a gloomy forest, 
 the fit haunt of tyranny. The imagination of the moralist 
 poet, in his description of the despot of Tyre, falls short of 
 this reality. 
 
 The despot of Alexandrovsky, whose fear made his 
 whole empire tremble, at length denounced to the clergy 
 and the people the crimes of which the grandees had been 
 guilty during his minority, and the new projects, which 
 his frenzy attributed to them, against his own life and that 
 of his son, and ended by declaring, that his wounded heart 
 resigned the government of a state which was so thronged 
 with traitors. 
 
 On hearing this read, the people, whom at the same 
 time the crafty despot had won by his flatteries, were 
 astonished and aghast, and believed themselves to be lost : 
 " Who thenceforth would defend them ?" On their side, 
 the priests and the nobles, either in consequence of the fear 
 with which the people inspired them, or of the universal 
 spirit of servility, exclaimed, " That their Czar had over 
 them an imprescriptible right of life and death ; that he 
 might, therefore, punish them at his pleasure ; but that 
 the state could not exist without a master ; that Ivan was 
 their legitimate sovereign, whom God had given to them,
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. \ U. 163 
 
 the head of the church. Without him, who could pre- 
 serve the purity of religion — who could save millions of 
 souls from eternal perdition ?'" All set off, all hastened to 
 offer him theu* heads ; they struck with them the dust at 
 his feet, hoping to move him by their lamentations, and 
 bring him back by their prayers. 
 
 The dastards obtained this misfortune. Ivan appeared 
 again in Moscow ; but, at sight of him, every body was 
 struck with astonishment. Their surprise is described by 
 their historians. " Only a month," say they, " had elapsed 
 since the absence of Ivan, yet they hardly knew him again. 
 His large and robust body, his ample chest, his broad 
 shoulders, had shrunk ; his head, which had been shaded 
 by thick locks, was become bald ; the thin and scattered 
 remains of a beard which was lately the ornament of his 
 face, now disfigured it. His eyes were dull, and his fea- 
 tures, marked with a ravenous ferocity, were deformed."" 
 
 The acts of his mind corresponded with the disordered 
 appearance of his person. Not satisfied with forming an 
 entirely new household, court, and guard, he deserted the 
 palace of his fathers, to construct, in Moscow itself, ano- 
 ther fortress ; he then drove out all the inhabitants of the 
 adjacent streets, and posted his satellites there. To those 
 satellites he soon after gave twelve thousand of the estates 
 nearest to his capital, of which, in the depth of winter, he 
 des|j()iled the rightful possessors. 
 
 Still uneasy, after so many precautions, the fear of God, 
 joined to that of man — for this monster felt every kind of 
 fear — prompted him to fly from Moscow, to return to 
 Alexandrovsky, and to assume the monkish iiabit with 
 three hundred of his minions. 
 
 At the same time, he abandoned to the trembhng boyards 
 the government of the empire ; he derisively named them 
 the huj/ards oj' the commons ; he himself retaining only the 
 
 M '2
 
 164 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 military power, the power of striking. And, nevertheless, 
 his pusillanimity, which extcntled to every thing, covered 
 the Russian banners with disgrace, which had hitherto 
 been victorious over the Tartars and the Turks. In this 
 third portion of his reign, Moscow and several hundred 
 thousand IMoscovites were again burned by the Tartars. 
 
 The madman, who had said to the Russians, " I am your 
 God, as God is mine ; whose throne, like that of the Omni- 
 potent, is surrounded by winged archangels, and who sends 
 forth armies of three hundred thousand men and two hun- 
 dred cannon against his enemies," he trembled at the threats 
 of the khan of the Crimea. An incursion of the Siberians 
 terrified him ; nor could he discard his fears till he learned 
 that Yermak, a robber, and six hundred Cossacks, his ac- 
 complices, paid by a trader, and flying from the rigour of 
 the Russian laws, had sufficed to reduce this new empire 
 under his dominion.* 
 
 But it was of the anger of Battori that, above all things, 
 he was afraid ; he sent to that Prince his dastardly sub- 
 missions, his abject supplications ; he even, in the person 
 of his officers, offered himself to the insults and blows 
 by which the king of Poland might please to dishonour 
 Russia and its Tzar. 
 
 Sweden, meanwhile, wrested Esthonia from this vile 
 tyrant, wliile Battori deprived him of Livonia. Since 
 1556, those provinces, which were on the point of being 
 conquered by the talent of AdaschefF, had taken refuge, 
 the one, under the Swedish sceptre, the other, in the arms 
 
 * This Yermak displayed, to the life, that likeness which has so 
 often been asserted to exist, between the conqueror and the male- 
 factor. A despised Cossack, a detestable captain of robbers, while 
 his genius was cramped in his own country ; and an admired con- 
 queror, as soon as he was at liberty to astonish mankind, by perform- 
 ing abroad, and on a large scale, the same actions which had de- 
 graded him when he had committed them at home, and by piece-meal.
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. VII. 165 
 
 of Sigisnuind Augustus of Poland ; and Kettler, the last 
 Crrand-niaster of the Livonian knights, had reserved to him- 
 self only Courland and Semigallia. 
 
 It was then, (1581,) that, to the new supplications of 
 the Tzar, who grovelled before him, Battori* deigned to 
 reply only by branding him as a forger who falsified the 
 articles of treaties, and a monster who tortured his sub- 
 jects. " Where are you, then, God of the Russians, as 
 you compel your unfortunate slaves to call you ?'''' This in- 
 sulting letter he closed with a challenge to single combat ; 
 but Ivan, whose ambassadors he had recently dismissed, 
 answered him only by fresh prostrations. 
 
 When, at length, to use the words of the Russian histo- 
 rian, " this cowardly Prince, v;hose mind was degraded 
 by tyranny," had collected together three hundred thou- 
 sand men, he did not dare to command them ; if he march- 
 ed, it was under cover of the Jesuit Possevin, the envoy of 
 Rome, whose intervention witli Battori he had fraudu- 
 lently procured, by holding out to him as a bait the con- 
 version of the Russians to Catholicism. 
 
 This long effort, however, against the Livonian knights, 
 is worthy of remark ; its purpose, then avowed,-f* was, to 
 give Russia outlets upon the Baltic, and the nipans of 
 communicating with Europe. Its residt was, to make 
 these maritime provinces fall into more formidable hands ; 
 but though this masterly idea belongs to Ivan''s ministry, and 
 the depl()ral)le issue of it to Ivan himself, it is to this effort 
 particularly tliat must be attributeil the admiration, so 
 often highly censured, which the greatest Prince of the 
 Russians expressed of their greatest monster. 
 
 At length, the germ of that terror witii which the early 
 
 * See the Correspondence of the two Princes. 
 t Karamsin, vol. ix. p. I.39.
 
 16(j HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 years of the tyrant had been impregnated, expanding still 
 more and more, he sometimes conjured up phantoms of re- 
 volted vaiwodes, ready to give him up to the Tartars, and 
 then he flew far from his armies, which he dreaded ; and, 
 at other times, he pictured to himself his hoyards on the 
 point of raising the whole empire in rebellion, to overthrow 
 him, and to crush him with its collected weight. Then, 
 neither citadels nor fortified convents seemed, in his eyes, 
 to have power to save him ; it was an island beyond the 
 seas, which alone appeared to be a safe asylum ; and he 
 did not blush to request that asylum from EHzabeth of 
 England ! 
 
 But has not enough been said ? was it even necessary for 
 the spirit of history to register this tedious series of the 
 disgusting symptoms of such a deplorable case of mono- 
 mania? an aberration but too common in those despotic 
 states, where men's heads are turned by their being ex- 
 posed to too violent and sudden transitions, and to their 
 being lifted up to such giddy heights. Must we continue 
 to ensanguine these pages, by describing the horrible pa- 
 roxysms of such evident frenzy .'* 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Internally, every thing was bent down to eai'th ; and, 
 yet, the abject submission with which Ivan IV. was sur- 
 rounded did not tranquillize him ; his brain, shaken by the 
 violent emotions of his infancy, and by his tyrant conscience, 
 made ever present to him the phantom of a war of the pub- 
 lic good. The strelitz did not suffice him ; he formed a
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. VIII. 167 
 
 new guard of six thousand select men ;* in a word, of spies, 
 informers, and assassins, ready to massacre all the grandees 
 whom he might suspect to have the slightest memory of 
 ancient indep»3ndence. 
 
 He chose his guards from the lower class, in order to be 
 sure that envy would make them participate in the hatred 
 which he felt. 
 
 To these executitmers he gave the property of their 
 victims ; and thus transferred eminence and nobility from 
 those, who, having long possessed them, had any prejudices 
 pretensions, or habitudes whatever, to entirely new men, 
 without principles, without })rejudiceseven, and who thought 
 themselves but too happy to bend to any thing that was 
 required of them, so that they might accumulate riches. 
 
 In his first fit of rage, several great boyards, of the family 
 of Rurik, were put to death by beheading, poisoning, or 
 impaling ; their wives, their children, were driven by the 
 knout into forests, which echoed with their cries, and where 
 they expired under the scourge. In a second paroxysm, he 
 marched as a conqueror against the subjugated Novgorod ; 
 and, imagining that he imitated, or perhaps surpassed, the 
 victory of his grandfather, he pierced with his lance a 
 throng of the unfortunate inhabitants, whom he had 
 heaped together in a vast enclosure ; and when, at last, his 
 strength failed to second his fury, he gave up the remain- 
 der to his select guard, to his slaves, to his dogs, and to 
 the opened ice of the Volkof, in whicli, for more than a 
 montli, these hapless beings were daily engulphed by hun- 
 dreds. 
 
 Then, declaring that his justice was satisfied, he retired; 
 seriously recommending himself to the prayers of the sur- 
 vivors, who t(X)k special care not to neglect obedience to the 
 orders of their terrestrial deity. 
 
 • The Opritchinikis,
 
 168 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 Twer and Pskof, also, experienced his presence ; Moscow, 
 at length, again saw him, and on the same day, the public 
 s(|uare was covered by red hot brasiers, enormous caul" 
 drons of brass, and eighty gibbets. Five hundred of the 
 most illustrious nobles, already torn by tortures, were 
 dragged thither; some were massacred amidst the joyful 
 acclamations of his savage satellites ; but the major part of 
 them expired under the protracted agony of being slashed 
 with knives by the courtiers of the Moscovite monster. 
 
 Neither were women spared any more than men ; Ivan 
 ordered them to be hanged at their own doors ; and he pro- 
 hibited their husbands from going out or in without passing 
 imder the corpses of their companions, till they dropped in 
 decayed pieces upon them. 
 
 Elsewhere, husbands, or children, were fastened dead to 
 the places which they had occupied at the domestic table, 
 and their wives, or their mothers, were compelled to sit, for 
 days, opposite to these dear and lifeless remains. 
 
 To the dogs and the bears, which this raging madman 
 delighted to let loose upon the people, was left the task of 
 clearing the public square from the mutilated bodies which 
 encumbered it.* Every day he invented new modes of 
 punishment, which his tyranny, jaded by so many excesses, 
 still looked vipon as insufficient. Very soon, he required 
 fratricides, parricides ! Basmanof was compelled to kill 
 his father ; Prozorovsky, his brother ! The monster next 
 drowned eight hundred women ; and, rummaging with 
 atrocious cupidity the abodes of his victims, he, by dint of 
 shocking tortures, compelled their remaining relations to 
 point out the places in which their wealth was hidden. 
 These confiscations, joined to monopolies, taxes, and con- 
 quests, accumulated in his palace the riches of the empire 
 
 * According to the Annals of Pskof, there were sixty thousand 
 victims at Novgorod alone.
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. VIII. 169 
 
 and of the Tartars. To this he joined those of the Livo- 
 nians, whom he plundered, though he could not conquer 
 them. 
 
 In liis long and fruitless wars against the Livonian knights, 
 his transient successes were marked by frightful executions. 
 The courageous resistance wliich the enemy opposed to him 
 was, in his eyes, a revolt, and he ordered his prisoners to 
 be thrown into boiling cauldrons, or spitted on lances, and 
 roasted at fires which he himself stirred up. 
 
 Setting himself above all laws, this lustful being married 
 seven wives; even his daughter-in-law was forced to fly, 
 terrified by his lasciviousness. To complete his usurpa- 
 tions, he assumed the manner of one who was inspired,* 
 and all those external signs which our bounded imagination 
 attributes to the Divinity ; he made himself god in the 
 minds of his people. All that came from his hand, blows, 
 wounds, even the most degrading treatment, was re- 
 ceived with resignation, nay, with adoration. In the blind 
 and servile submission of this people God and the Tzar 
 were identified : their proverbial sayings bear witness to 
 this ; and to the influence of things and men was joined 
 that of words, the power of which is more durable than it 
 is sometimes imagined to be. 
 
 Finally, in a humble supplication, which was addressed 
 to him by the most faithful of his subjects, his frenzy again 
 saw a conspiracy of the boyards, of which the eldest of his 
 three sons, and the only one who was capable of succeed- 
 ing him, was to be the leader : transported with rage, the 
 madman felled to the earth, with ;i mortal blow from a 
 hoar s])ear, this hope of his race, to expire himself soon 
 after, consumed by regret without remorse, and giving 
 orders for new executions. 
 
 • See his Letter In Battori.
 
 170 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Every thing was, however, bent to the ground, every 
 thing was irrecoverably crushed beneath the throne, to fill 
 which, after him, a dying man and a mere infant sufficed : 
 the one was Foedor ; the other, Dmitry : both of them 
 were his sons. It is true, that a prime-minister, that the 
 son of a Tartar, in a word Boris Godunof, who governed 
 for the first, destroyed the second, and succeeded to his 
 master. 
 
 For it is not to the nobility, it is to the minister alone, 
 that must be attributed the revolution which extinguished 
 the race of Ivan in his successor. It was not even a revo- 
 lution ; but a mere court intrigue, like those at Constanti- 
 nople in the time of the lower empire. 
 
 Ivan did not perceive, that what had preserved him du- 
 ring his minority, was the existence of the higher class 
 of nobility. Had Schuisky, the oppressor of his child- 
 hood, not feared pretensions equal to his own, he would 
 have seized upon the crown. In reducing every one around 
 him to one level, Ivan overthrew all that could obstruct the 
 designs of a prime-minister. The immense interval of 
 terror between the throne and his subjects, was a field left 
 open to the ambition of a vizir who might remain alone in 
 it with the prince. 
 
 Accordingly, Foedor being weak, he had his minister for 
 his successor, and the race of Rurik ended in him. 
 
 For, what constitutes the danger of despotism to the 
 despot is, that the authority which he entrusts is necessa- 
 rily as despotic as his own. It is even more so ; and the 
 minister, in consequence of the sudden dangers to which
 
 BOOK IV. CHAP. IX. 171 
 
 he is exposed, is forced to be doubly a despot, for his master 
 and for himself. Thus, for this reason, that a despot can- 
 not be so without terror, his minister cannot be minister 
 without the exercise of a still greater terror. 
 
 In this state of things, let the despot be feeble, and a 
 child the only obstacle to the ambition of his minister, is 
 there not a probability that, in the person of the weak 
 prince, the dynasty will be extinguished ? 
 
 This is what happened under Foedor, and what placed 
 Boris Godunof on the throne : for, infact, who was there 
 to oppose it .'* The princes of the blood of the other 
 branches .'' — they were confounded with the nobility ! The 
 nobility ? — it was crushed ! The clergy ? — order and a 
 master were, above all things, necessary to them ! * The re- 
 cent nobles .'' — they were ephemeral beings, the creatures of 
 the minister ! The army, the guard .'' — here, too, in such 
 cases, it is the minister who pays, forms, and commands it ! 
 The people ? — what matters it to them ! they have neither 
 known nor felt the despot ; these are mere court revolu- 
 tions which never reach them ! It is the affair of the 
 great ! 
 
 Here, then, we see, as often will be seen, the history of 
 a nobility and a dynasty terminated by that of the des- 
 potism.
 
 172 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 This character of despotism and servitude is deeply 
 rooted in Russia. There is always a principal cavise of 
 the distinctive character of a nation. The benefit which 
 results from an institution always leads the people to 
 adopt the spirit of that institution, to make a bad use of it, 
 or conform to its abuses. Spain was subjugated by a 
 hostile religion ; it was by religion that Spain achieved its 
 liberation, and fanaticism still rules in Spain. A foreign 
 despotism, that of united central Asia, fettered Russia, 
 which was enfeebled by anarchy ; it was by the concen- 
 tration of power that Russia recovered its independence, 
 and, thence, despotism established itself in Russia, without 
 encountering any obstacle. 
 
 But there are other particular causes of despotism in that 
 empire. Extension and want of population are hostile to the 
 compactness of the mass; in conjunction with the climate, 
 they hinder large and continuous assemblages ; they render 
 men conscious of the weakness caused by being insulated ; 
 they perpetuate blind and credulous ignorance, by cutting 
 off the communication of ideas ; they confine observation 
 within narrow limits, and thus the judgment cannot be 
 exercised for want of objects of comparison ; and the result 
 is, the existence of only a scanty number of ideas, which,
 
 BOOK \. CHAP. I. 173 
 
 however, have a stronger hold on the mind, from the habit 
 of constant recurrence to them. 
 
 Thus the Russians of that period, ha\nng none of those 
 connexions which enlighten, were unable to form for them- 
 selves a public opinion ; they were obliged to take it from 
 the court of the Grand-Prince; there was their oracle, 
 their despot. 
 
 All these causes, so favourable to despotism, had, from 
 immemorial time, destined the Russians to slavery. 
 
 There seem, however, to be some other causes per- 
 ceptible. The last war has furnished numerous proofs 
 to support the opinion of INIontesquieu, as to the physical 
 insensibility of the Russians. This grossness of the facul- 
 ties of the lower class cannot be supposed to belong ex- 
 clusively to their bodies, when we consider the close union 
 subsisting between the mind and the body, which con- 
 stitutes life. Now, what feeling is there which requires 
 in the mind more sensibility, susceptibility, and irritability, 
 than that of independence ? This is why, in general, a 
 temperate climate requires a temperate government. Is 
 it not in our temperate climates, where the moral and 
 physical irritability is the most equally balanced, that 
 lil)erty has been longest established and maintained .'' In 
 Africa and in India, where an extreme climate produces 
 the same physical effect as in Russia, we again find ser- 
 vitude. 
 
 And, besides, had not Rurik the Great been a despot, 
 a chief of that military despotism which follows conquest, 
 his successors would speedily have been taught to become 
 so, by the Greeks, and especially by the Tartars. This 
 is the reason why the military ascendency of the ^'^a- 
 rangiaii chiefs, which could not be naturahzed at Nov- 
 gorod, was established without any obstacle in the south.
 
 174- HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 where Asiatic oppression had paved the way for the military 
 government, which was introduced from the north. 
 
 To all these causes, propitious to despotism, the Grand- 
 Princes of Moscow joined their Machiavelism. 
 
 But in this history of slavery, some features of the moral 
 aspect of the people, at this epoch, become necessary. 
 
 After what has been already said, it will excite little 
 astonishment that the Russians of those days were inclined 
 to dissimulation. They had been led to it by long servitude, 
 and by the practice of concealing what they gained, that it 
 might not be wrested from them by their masters. They 
 were selfish and cheating, because they were poor, and 
 because the major part of them had to purchase their 
 liberty, and that all means appeared good by which they 
 could obtain wherewithal to acquire so natural a right. 
 
 The priests, the only teachers of that age, were too 
 coarse-minded to inspire morality. The people, therefore, 
 liad no education, not even that which example affords ; 
 for the nobles, at all times the models of the people, being 
 surrounded, even from their cradles, by slaves, were not 
 more civilized than the rest. 
 
 To form an adequate idea of the ignorance of the Rus- 
 sians, under Ivan IV. we must see them seriously enter- 
 taining the idea that, because, in the sixteenth century, 
 traders came to St. Nicholas and to Archangel, to purchase 
 their grain, timber, hemp, and caviare, therefore their coun- 
 try was the granary and the dock-yard of Europe, and 
 that, without their aid, the Europeans would die of hunger 
 and of cold ! We must also see them imagining themselves 
 the best-informed people on earth, at the moment when 
 astronomy, anatomy, and most of the sciences, appeared to 
 them to be diabolical arts ; when not even three of their 
 priests knew Greek ; when their only mode of reckoning
 
 BOOK V. CHAP. I. 17, 
 
 was by balls strung upon strings ; and when the skins of 
 beasts were still their current money ! It was here, that a 
 noble substituted in place of himself one of his servants, to 
 receive the corporal chastisement awarded to perjury ; and 
 that, in the presence of the Tzar, and even to himself, 
 persons could venture to say " Thou liest," without con- 
 ceiving that they were offering an insult ; for insults were 
 punished by fines, blows, and banishment: judicial duels 
 had not yet introduced those other duels, which honour 
 elsewhere requires. 
 
 For such rude beings the penalties were equally rude, 
 and, as manners and honour had no influence, the pu- 
 nishments were horrible. 
 
 Peculation was punished by whipping and public brand- 
 ing ; but from the hands of the executioner the criminal 
 returned to his office ; this dishonoured the office, and di- 
 vested the punishment of dishonour; or, rather, it implies 
 a general want of honour. 
 
 The custom of the Grand-Princes choosing their consorts 
 from among the collected daughters of the nobility ; the 
 slavery of prisoners of war ; the long afternoon slumbers ; 
 the respect, the taste, for plumpness of person ; the dead 
 silence in the presence of the Tzar, so dead, that, a fo- 
 reigner tells us, if the eyes were closed in the midst of the 
 most numerous court, the spectator might have supposed 
 himself in a desert; the bazars ; the practice of boxing; 
 the hiring of mourners at funerals ; the length of the vest- 
 ments, which is suitable to Asiatics, whose mild climate 
 invites them to an indolence that is favoured by this mode 
 of dress; the long beards; the monkish habit which Ivan, 
 as well as several of his predecessors, assumed in their 
 (lying moments; and, lastly, the composition of its coiwt, 
 at once so u ipolished and so sumptuous; all this proves,
 
 17c HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 that this nation had borrowed from the Greeks and Tar- 
 tars only that which was most easily acquired— usages, 
 prejudices, and vices. 
 
 These same usages excluded women from society; which 
 may account for the sodomitism formerly charged upon 
 the Russians. But who will dare to assign a natural 
 cause for an unnatural abomination ! We must seek else- 
 where, and still farther, for the impure source of such de- 
 pravity in so recent a nation. It is to be found in the 
 boorishness of its customs ; and here we are forcibly struck 
 with the manner in which extreme civilization approximates 
 to extreme barbarism. When adultery, incest, and so- 
 domitism, the melancholy results of the eflFeminacy, luxury, 
 and depraved imaginations, of our old capitals, we behold 
 flourishing equally in these smoky dens, where, during 
 such protracted nights, whole families were confusedly 
 heaped together, we are indignant, without being asto- 
 nished. 
 
 There existed at that period no such thing as society, at 
 least in our acceptation of the word ; for women, its con- 
 necting link, were banished from it. But, as reading and 
 writing were unknown, there was a necessity for communi- 
 cating by word of mouth. Every day, at noon, therefore, 
 the people met in the public squares : it was there that 
 business was transacted, that intelligence was spread; and 
 that the education of youth was completed. This custom, 
 also, the uneasy tyranny of Ivan IV. destroyed. He se- 
 cretly introduced into these meetings his nefarious infor- 
 mers. Before the reign of this maniac, the Russians were 
 accustomed to say, " If I break my word, may shame be 
 my portion." But the monster extinguished the few re- 
 maining sparks of the rude honour of the days of old.
 
 BOOK V. CHAP. II 177 
 
 & 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 It is thus that, in the Russian history, every thing 
 brings us back to the history of despotism. 
 
 By a horrible consequence of the principle of this hate- 
 ful government, it was an established rule, that all the 
 indi\iduals of a family were involved in the punishment of 
 a single member of it. 
 
 By another consequence, every subject who went beyond 
 the frontier, became a traitor, who was daring to ' remove 
 himself out of reach of the prince — out of the sphere of 
 that terror which was the inspiring soul of the government; 
 he was a fugitive slave, a rebel ! Nay, much more than 
 that ; for was not his quitting that sacred territory an 
 offence ajrainst his God, since he then breathed the infec- 
 tion of those hostile religions by which Russia was sur- 
 rounded, and mingled with miscreants whose mere touch 
 was contamination .-* 
 
 Religious superstition, and the superstition of power, 
 were therefore the public opinion of that age ; it drove 
 back into the bounds of despotism every one who wished 
 to quit them ; there was no asylum from it ; it was all- 
 |)rescnt. A father was as despotic in his wooden hut as 
 the Tzar in the empire. The fetter was general; and, 
 from the great to the small, from the grandsire to his latest 
 l)orn descendant, all formed one vast, connected chain of 
 tyrants and of slaves. 
 
 There was, in fact, a law whicli allowed fathers to scourge 
 tlieir children with rods, and to sell them four times. Thi- 
 (Inhh-en were, the rtforf, the slaves of their Withers. Kach 
 
 N
 
 178 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 being was born a slave ; slavery showed itself everywhere. 
 The Russian wives were more enslaved than the Asiatic ; 
 their slavery, no doubt, was less strict, but it was more 
 barbarous; no law protected them from the violence of 
 their husbands, who, like savages, often put in force 
 against them the right of the strongest, as the caprice of 
 temper, or passion, or drunkenness inspired them. 
 
 In the Russian laws of that epoch, against wives who 
 murdered their husbands, we find the same cruelty that 
 marked the Roman laws against slaves who killed their 
 masters. Similarity of situation induced similarity of 
 precaution. 
 
 From the slavery of the women may be inferred that of 
 the men ; for the slavery of the one sex implies that of 
 the other. 
 
 Another law authorized persons to sell themselves. All 
 those who were ruined by the civil wars, and by the Tar- 
 tars, were, in truth, under the imperious necessity of sell- 
 ing themselves, in order to subsist. Yet this law, while it 
 proves slavery, proves also a sort of liberty ; for a man 
 must have possessed his liberty before he could be able 
 thus to dispose of it. 
 
 Now, should we be told, " There exists a country in 
 which prisoners of war are slaves ; where insolvent debtors 
 are given to their creditors ; where the poor man may sell 
 himself to the rich ; and where fathers have the right of 
 selling their children three or four times ; to which must 
 be added, that only one class there can possess landed pro- 
 perty, which class is, by its nature, by usage, and by ne- 
 cessity, devoted to the profession of arms ;"" who is there 
 who would not exclaim, that, within a given lapse of time, 
 such a country must be composed of only nobles and 
 serfs .'* 
 
 And if it should be replied, that such a country existed,
 
 BOOK V. CHAP. II. 179 
 
 and that, nevertheless, during six centuries, it had always 
 a third estate, who would not then judge, that the vague 
 existence of that order must have been indebted for its 
 preservation to local circumstances, to the interests of the 
 princes, to the weakness of the nobles, and to the system 
 of binding the slave to the soil not having been yet 
 introduced .'' 
 
 In fact, tliis people, originally free, by its division into 
 tribes, till towards the end i)f the ninth century, was also 
 free in the time of ^"ladimir the Great, by its being united 
 in cities, of which several were commercial, and by the 
 enormous extent of the country, and the small number of 
 conquerors ; and because that the ^^arangian leaders had 
 not conquered with the view of plundering and proceeding 
 onward, l^ut to establish themselves, and that in many 
 cities, as in Novgorod, it was as allies and protectors that 
 they were received. 
 
 We know, also, that in many of those cities, the advan- 
 tage of civilization was on the side of the vanquished. 
 Besides, by the simple manners of those times, the })rince 
 and his subjects were on numerous occasions brought in 
 contact with each other; as at common festivals, the public 
 repasts, to which all were admitted, and the deliberations, 
 in wliich all bore a part, because all had an interest in them. 
 
 The traders were held in estimation there; for, in a 
 country without industry, and without any means of com- 
 munication, they were the great connecting Unk, especially 
 with foreigners. It was, besides, necessary to have re- 
 course to them for every thing that was wanting; accord- 
 ingly, they always constituted a body in the state. We 
 see them appearing prominently in treaties, in elections, in 
 the assemblies of the cities, in those of the nation even; 
 they wiTc indi.spenial)k', in consecjuence of their numbers, 
 their connexions, ;uul thiir wealth. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 We licave remarked tlie duration, for six centuries, 
 of the warlike and commercial republic of Novgorod. 
 Pskof, the jmramount ruler of twelve cities, and Viatka, 
 were equally free ; it even appears that, like them, each 
 city that was founded before the Tartar domination, had 
 its boyards, denominated Boyards of the Commons ; its 
 tissiasky, a military leader appointed by the citizens, tak- 
 ing precedence of all the boyards of the Princes, and even 
 of those of the Grand-Princes;* lastly, its trial by jury ; 
 andj above all, its vetche-bell, or assembling of the people ; 
 " the voice of the supreme national power, often seditious, 
 and always dear to the Slavonians." By an ancient law 
 of Pskof, the husbandmen of its territory were constituted, 
 in perpetuity, its tributaries and labourers ; for, with the 
 exception of some onodvortzy, country landholders, it 
 seems that there were no landed proprietors, except mili- 
 tary persons, traders, and citizens. 
 
 The peasants of the lowest class, however, were not 
 bound down to the soil, but had the privilege of hiring 
 themselves to whom they pleased, either for life or for a 
 term. ' 
 
 This is highly worthy of notice ; in this mainly consists 
 the difference between the feudal times of the Russian 
 people, and those of the rest of Europe. The right of the 
 strongest was then every where predominant. In Europe, 
 the nobles having gained the upperhand of the cities and 
 princes, the necessity of some kind of order gave rise there 
 to the feudal hierarchy, and the inhabitants of the towns 
 and of the country were slaves. Among the Russians, 
 the princes having remained masters of powerful cities, 
 and the country free from feudal manors, the plebeians were 
 protected ; there was no bondage to the soil, no serfs, but 
 
 * Karamsin.
 
 BOOK V. CHAP. II. 181 
 
 farmers and hired servants ; and in cities, a tribunal to 
 make their contracts be respected. 
 
 Now, from the liberty and the protection afforded by 
 the cities, we must conclude, that the peasants continually 
 deserted their fields, where they were at the mercy of all 
 the individuals of the military class, to be hired in the 
 cities, and to seek their fortune there ; that, consequently, 
 those cities were exceedingly populous, and were some- 
 times summoned to the covmcils and elections of princes ; 
 and that, in the commercial cities especially, the com- 
 mercial class must have often enjoyed the pre-eminence. 
 How, then, happened it that liberty was not the re- 
 sult .'' for, in all ages, cities have been its cradle and its 
 asylum. 
 
 But, too far apart from each other in that immense space, 
 they acted without concert : when we are speaking of 
 Russia, the words distance, extension, dispersion, perpe- 
 tually present themselves, and are always applicable. 
 
 Besides, the country being in general extremely flat, 
 it affords few of those positions of difficult access in which 
 liberty delights. 
 
 Those cities, with their walls of earth and resinous 
 timber, could not have been very secure places of refuge. 
 In the thirteenth century, we see them ahuost all burned by 
 the Tartars ; again, under Ivan IV. we see that most of 
 those which the Poles besieged they compelled to sui-ren- 
 der by setting fire to their ramparts. Such cities, strong 
 enough against the nobles, were weak against their princes, 
 and could not do without them. 
 
 It must be remembered, that the great number of those 
 princes, and the scarcity of cities, had caused each of thelatter 
 to become an ap|)aiiage, and that the faithful band, by winch 
 each prince wjio held uii a|)panage was surrounded, com-
 
 182 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 posed for him a permanent and formidable body-guard. 
 Could the municipal government long subsist in the pre- 
 sence of those princes ? 
 
 Add to this, a perpetual state of hostility, and the continual 
 danger to which each city was exposed ; whence originated 
 the preponderance of the military government, which, next 
 to the theocratic, is the most absolute of all. Hence 
 resulted the loss of their primitive liberty to those cities 
 which Avere not, like Novgorod, rendered secure from civil 
 wars by their power, and from the nomade wars by their 
 northern situation. 
 
 Concentrated in this great Novgorod, the ancient liberty 
 of the Slavonians flourished there for six centuries and a 
 half, in despite of the Russian princes, of their guards, and 
 of the Tartars. 
 
 It was under Ivan III. that the original despotism of 
 the Grand-Princes of the family of Rurik, reinforced by 
 the civil and superstitious despotism derived from Greece, 
 inherited also the savage and Asiatic despotism of the 
 Tartars ; every thing, even the great Novgorod, com- 
 pletely sank beneath and was levelled under the weight of 
 this triple despotism. 
 
 At length, on this soil, several times conquered in mass, 
 and a thousand times in detail, we find, at the opening of 
 the sixteenth century, after Ivan III. nothing but a victor 
 and the vanquished; or, in other words, a master and 
 slaves. 
 
 In the formless hierarchy of these slaves, even order, the 
 only bearable side of servitude, did not exist ; so much 
 did the chances of force and of circumstances decide every 
 thing. It was not till about the year 1600, that the bon- 
 dage of the peasant to the soil was introduced there, at 
 the moment when it ceased in the rest of Europe : this 
 was the crowning of that misery which it was necessary to
 
 BOOK V. CHAP. II. 183 
 
 tndiire, to escape at length from the chaos ! A calamity 
 which was become indispensable, since there was no sal- 
 vation to be obtained but by concentrating all the tyrannies 
 into one ! The sole measure which, in this empire of evil, 
 could combine the army, the taxes, in a word, all the 
 means of government, in the hands which had the strongest 
 interest in the maintenance of order and of public tran- 
 ([uillity ! While this tranquillity lasted, it must produce 
 an increase of the population, tlie means of intercourse, 
 knowledge, wealth, and all that naturally and inevitably 
 brings forward, and at last fixes, on a firm basis, the li- 
 berty of the peo})le. 
 
 It was the usurper Godunof, then the prime-minister of 
 Foedor, who crushed Russia with this final chain.* In 
 a very short time, there were no longer even hired ser- 
 vants ; conuiierce fell into the hands of the slaves of the 
 nobles, and the cities were filled with serfs. 
 
 Surprise has been manifested, that, in this land of sla- 
 very, bondage to the soil was so late introduced ; but, 
 the country having been rather under a feudality of princes 
 than of nobles, it must have been the interest of the 
 princes, against the nobles, not to render them proprietors 
 of their peasants. Besides, this institution could not be 
 transmitted thither by the Greeks, Avho were unacquainted 
 with it when the Russians imitated them, and still less by 
 the nomade tribes, when the latter subjugated Russia. 
 
 To say that every thing was then in confusion, is again 
 to assign the reason of many circiun stances. 
 
 When, however, the pu1)lic and private interest had 
 raised ami firmly fixed a .single throne on the ruins of tlie 
 princes hohhng ap])anages, and of the higher class of 
 nobilitv \^li<) replaced those ])rinces, the sovereign, who 
 
 • See Tatiscliof — See the law of liD'i or 1593 ; tlie Edict of 1.597 ;— 
 Kuraiiibiii, Divof, ^V'eytlenleyer.
 
 18* HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 hud a hold over the nobles and cities by their property, 
 knew not how to reach the lower class of the community, 
 which was so widely dispersed ; he was obliged to render 
 each proprietor responsible for the peasants whom he em- 
 ployed. But those proju'ietors cotdd not be answerable 
 for men who had voluntarily entered their service, nor 
 have them forthcoming wlien the wants of the state re- 
 quired them : at the beginning of the fifteenth century, we 
 witness the })aternal administration of a Prince of Twer, 
 attracting into his states the population of the neighbour- 
 ing principalities. 
 
 Thus, a continual fluctuation of the people prevented 
 the recruiting service and the taxes from being established 
 on a fixed basis : with such mutability, the creation, by 
 Ivan III. of three hundred thousand subordinate land- 
 holders, from the mass of boyard-followers, subject to mi- 
 litary service, and the assessment of a tax on their ploughs, 
 would have produced but a very uncertain result. 
 
 Accordingly, when, after Ivan III. the Grand-Prince 
 was possessed of an arm}^, and had no longer any fear of 
 the nobles, it became his interest to introduce the bondage 
 of tlie peasant to the soil. 
 
 Well-informed Russians add, that Boris Godunof, em- 
 barrassed in his usurpation by the remains of the great fa- 
 milies, felt that the petty nobility, being envious, greedy, 
 and less united, would be more pliant; that one of the 
 means which he employed to gain over the poor proprie- 
 tors, of Avhich the nobility was composed, was to secure to 
 them the husbandmen, of whom hitherto the rich had 
 easily deprived them ; and that this was an additional 
 cause of making the peasant a bond-slave irremovable from 
 the soil. 
 
 Another motive is also assigned for this barbarous insti- 
 tution. The natives of the south were always free; that
 
 BOOK V. CHAP. III. 185 
 
 circumstance, and the climate, drew thither the peasants of 
 the north. It appears that the armies, when they with- 
 drew from Kasan and Astracan, left behind them numbers 
 of soldiers : from the concourse of people to the cities, from 
 these desertions or migrations,* and from the vagabond 
 habits which prevailed, arose the depopulation of the rural 
 districts, robbery, and famine. Great evils were put a sto}) 
 to by a lesser evil ; bondage to the soil rendered the pro- 
 prietors responsible for their peasants, and brought back 
 the latter to their agricultural labours. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Here, then, we see one order of the state swallowed up 
 by despotism : the clergy did not escape with better fortune. 
 
 We have observed, at the epoch of the resuscitation of 
 the paramount sovereignty, tlic clear-sighted policy of that 
 clergy, in forming a close alliance witli the lineal descend- 
 ants of the Muscovite Grand-Princes. 
 
 We know, too, how immense, after the tenth century, 
 were the privileges of that order ; and yet, its constant 
 inferiority before the religious sujjremacy of the Grand- 
 Princes, was, at all periods, an incHsputable fact. Among 
 a multitude of historical proofs, we see that, in 1440, By- 
 zantium, on the eve of falling into the power of the Turks, 
 implored aid from Rome ; the Greek patriarch offered liis 
 apostasy in exchange; and Isidore, a Bulgarian, then j)ri- 
 mate of Russia, dared to bring back, even into Mos- 
 cow, his submission to the Pope. The astonished Russians 
 remained silent; for it rtslid widi tluir (iraiid-Priiuc to 
 
 * See \Veydenicycr, Karamsin, &c. &c.
 
 18() HISTORY OK RUSSIA, 
 
 decide what should be their belief. But he, anathematizing 
 the traitor, cast down the apostate Greek from his see, and 
 elevated to it a faithful Russian. 
 
 The deposition of these primates, therefore, depended 
 on the Grand-Prince; this is attested by many otlier ex- 
 amples. At the close of the fourteenth century, Dmitry 
 Donskoi deposed the primate Pimen ; and, at a later period, 
 in a synod held by Alexis, father of Peter the Great, the 
 principle was solenmly recognized. 
 
 Up to 1448, however, with the exception of six primates, 
 all these heads of the Church were Greeks ; their election 
 was even purchased from the patriarch of Byzantium by 
 rich presents. Accordingly, the quarrel respecting inves- 
 titures was endeavoured to be raised here, as it was else- 
 where, but the attempt proved abortive. 
 
 At this epoch, the primate Jonas declared himself inde- 
 pendent on the Church of Byzantium. Five years after- 
 wards, in 1453, the Greek Empire fell to pieces; the 
 patriarch of Constantinople became nothing more than a 
 subject of a Turk ; and the religious authority of the 
 Grand-Prince was enhanced by this degradation. Truly 
 the head of the Russian clergy, he regulated its discipline, 
 and reformed its manners, by his edicts. It was he who 
 maintained theological discussions against the envoys of the 
 Pope ; he compelled the property of the Church, like other 
 property, to furnish a horseman and a foot soldier for every 
 hundred acres ; and he dipped deeply into the treasures of 
 the convents. In a very short time, his caprice rendered 
 precarious all the offices of the Church; primates were 
 made and unmade at his pleasure. 
 
 At length, in 1588, two Greek bishops bargained for the 
 pontificate of Byzantium, which was put up to the highest 
 bidder by the grand vizier. Jeremiah, one of them, being 
 overcome in this shameful contest, hastened to Russia, to
 
 BOOK V. CHAP. Ill 187 
 
 procure the gold which was necessary to buy the patriar- 
 chate of Greece, and the deposition of his rival: for this 
 base and obscure triumph, which he owed to the liberality 
 of Foedor, the last of the Ruriks, he paid by selling to 
 him the independence of the Russian Church, and the right 
 of possessing a patriarch in Russia. It was thus that the 
 religious supremacy, like all the others, was at length 
 united in one individual. 
 
 When, however, we call to mind that, for six centuries, 
 there had, in this land of darkness, been but one science, 
 that of theology ; but one book, the Gospels ; but one 
 corporation, the clergy ; but one constant rule, one in- 
 variable doctrine, one inflexible discipline, that of the 
 Church ; it excites astonishment that this organization in 
 the midst of confusion, this creation in the midst of chaos, 
 should not have acquired a domination over all things. 
 
 How, in reality, did it happen that, with the mighty 
 and profound philosophy of its religion, its positive, abso- 
 lute, and liighly-menacing doctrines, arid its impressive 
 forms, it .should always have been in subjection to the 
 temporal authority .'' How was it, that its judicial autho- 
 rity, its superstitious influence, which several times de- 
 stroyed with fire and sword the germs of schism; its wealtli, 
 which was so enormous, that in 1570,* it possessed two- 
 thirils of the estates of the empire ; did not render it for- 
 midable even to the head of the empire ? 
 
 It aro.se from tliat head being also its own ; he united 
 the two powers; he presided over the councils: for such 
 was always the spirit of the Greek religion. Constanti- 
 nople, the religious metropolis of the Russians, uniforndy 
 considered its ])rinces as tiie vicars of (iod upon earth. 
 'I'his dates from the pagan emperors. The ponlilicnlr 
 
 • See the Englisli Traveller, edition of 1551, and the treaties of 
 that period with the C'ossiickH.
 
 188 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 was one of their princijial attributes: to their successors, 
 the Christian emperors of the Lower Empire, something 
 of this remained, in their pretensions, and in the minds of 
 their people; and on this the Grand-Princes and their 
 nation modelled themselves.* 
 
 In truth, the bishops of Constantinople, being perpe- 
 tually in the presence, and under the hand of the master, 
 coidd not, like the bishops of Rome, establish for them- 
 selves a sovereignty ; so that they always continued sub- 
 ject in spirituals as well as in temporals. Their ambition 
 was limited to making themselves patriarchs, and, after- 
 wards, to rendering themselves independent on the Pope ; 
 but this they could accomplish only by leaning for support 
 on their emperors, by placing themselves behind them, and 
 there they remained. 
 
 This pointed out to their inferiors, the Russian primates, 
 a far lower station beneath the Grand-Princes. But, in- 
 deed, had they not had this example in their foreign head, 
 who was their model, they could not have avoided taking 
 that station. In Russia, obedience to the offspring of 
 Rurik, to the princes of the blood of St. A'ladimir, was a 
 religion almost as powerful as that of Christ ; the de- 
 scendants of St. Olga, of St. Vladimir, of St. Alexander 
 Nevsky, the apostles, the founders, the martyrs of that 
 religion, appeared to the people to be its legitimate heads. 
 
 Imally, it was only as a body that the Russian clergy 
 could have become formidable to its Grand-Prince ; now, 
 the domestic commotions, the extent of the country, and 
 the scantiness of its popvilation, kept asunder the parts of 
 that body ; so that, having no unity of action, it possessed 
 no political strength. 
 
 But the principal reason of this want of unity in that 
 clergy, is to be found in its internal constitution. The 
 
 * See Gibbon, Condillac, &c. &c.
 
 HOOK V. CHAP. III. 189 
 
 Greek religion calls for the marriage of its priests ; this 
 alone is sufficient to prevent them from forming, as priests 
 do elsewhere, a single and great family, since here, each 
 priest has one of his own. These marriages divide into a 
 multitude of private cares and interests that common in- 
 terest, that collective ambition, that corporate spirit, which 
 would otherwise have been the sole and constant occupation 
 of all its members. 
 
 Besides, these popes, morally insulated and dispersed, 
 as they physically were by the extent of the country, were 
 the only persons who had the right of confessing ; while, 
 on the other hand, the monks who, being unmarried, 
 united, and forming a body free from heterogeneous mix- 
 ture, were the only men who could make a bad use of that 
 dangerous right, were not allowed to exercise it. 
 
 The bishops, it is true, were all drawn from the con- 
 vents ; but there were few bishoprics : besides, in those 
 periods of confusion and war, when the monasteries ceased 
 to be the sole asylum from the Tartars, the gicat could 
 benefit little by immuring themselves within a cloister ; 
 and as, to follow this vocation, some little knowledge was 
 also requisite, against which the nobles resolutely set their 
 faces, the clergy, so entirely disunited, consisted only of 
 the lower class of the people ; a circumstance which caused 
 them to be held in but mean estimation. 
 
 Is it, therefore, surprising, that such a clergy should 
 have followed the example of slavery which was set by the 
 rest of the nation; and that, after having so effectually con- 
 tributed to elevate the prince, they should have wanted 
 strength to make head against him ?
 
 190 HISTORY OP RUSSIA, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Such is the spirit of the history of the Russian clergy. 
 That of the people 1ms already been sketched ; there now 
 remains the task of attempting to give an idea of the Rus- 
 sian nobility in all the stages of its existence, till its fall 
 into that abyss of slavery marked by the reign of Ivan IV. 
 For, unfortunately, it is in the history of despotism that 
 the history of those three orders at length terminates. 
 
 By dint of poring on the darkness of those annals, the 
 eye becomes accustomed to their obscurity. We are, 
 therefore, enabled to perceive, in the ninth century, the 
 commencement of that nobility, the existence of which is 
 so indefinite, that it almost eludes our grasp. 
 
 The Varangians were terrible men ! under Rurik and 
 his first successors, they conquered all European Russia ; 
 and when Vladimir and Yaroslaf tottered on the throne, 
 it was by them that those monarchs were re-established. 
 
 It is from them, especially, that the Russian nobihty 
 derives its origin. 
 
 The law of war then in force, which reduced the van- 
 quished to slavery ; and the necessity which each conqueror 
 was under, of relying only on his army, of depending on 
 it, of satisfying it, of giving it an interest in the preserva- 
 tion of his conquests by means of establishments ; in fine, 
 the impossibility of barbarians governing a barbarous 
 country otherwise than by a misshapen and coarse feudal- 
 ity ; all these circumstances were the cause that the Va- 
 rangians, and those Slavonians who opportunely submitted 
 to and assisted them, shared the country among them-
 
 BOOK V. CHAP. IV. 191 
 
 selves, became answerable for it to their leader, and were 
 nobles. 
 
 Tliat Slavonian warriors and tribes, either received as 
 friends, or subdued, did at that period, and subsequently, 
 mingle with those conquerors, does not admit of doubt. 
 But tliis is of little consequence. The stock was Scandi- 
 navian, and its sap pervaded all the grafts : it resembled 
 those corporations which, thougli the members are perpe- 
 tually changed, are still unalterably inspired with the same 
 spirit. 
 
 This nobility, which, like so many others, was of Scan- 
 dinavian origin, also commenced, like so many others, with 
 a victorious people, cantoned in the midst of a conquered 
 people ; and if this haughty origin did not, as Jiappened 
 elsewhere, promptly transform, in the hands of the nobles, 
 the cantonments into fiefs, and the fiefs into sovereignties, 
 it was because the manners, the place, the times, and the 
 circumstances, combined to prevent such a natural consum- 
 mation. 
 
 In fact, the Russian nobility, unlike that of the rest of 
 Europe, was not the rival of the sovereign authority ; it 
 was never looked upon in any other light than that of a 
 faithful militia, conformably to the manners of its pro- 
 genitors, and the spirit of its institution. 
 
 Nevertheless, it must be noticed tliat, under the reign 
 of "\"ladimir, tlie Lord of Polotsk had already enfranchised 
 himself from the authority of tlie Prince, as was done by 
 the Counts in France. But, as there were few cities, and 
 as the Princes of the blood became very soon as nume- 
 rous as the cities, the cities were assigned as appanages 
 for the Princes, before the Lords, who were too remote 
 from each other, could confederate, and tnaintain their 
 ground. 
 
 Accordingly, it was an imheard-of thing in the Russian
 
 192 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 history, tliat a single iiohlo should dare to contend against 
 a single Prince invested with an appanage ; so weak, with- 
 out exception, did the nobles remain, in consequence of 
 the niulti})licity of Princes of the blood, and the scarcity 
 of cities, of which, indeed, there were barely enough to 
 provide appanages, so that there were none for any but 
 Princes.* 
 
 Amidst those vast deserts, the po})ulous and walled 
 cities must have possessed a high relative importance. 
 Travellers of the fifteenth century tell us, that cultiva- 
 tion existed only in the neighbourhood of cities. Those 
 cities were of such magnitude, that, in 1602, Moscow 
 could lose a hundred thousand men by various scourges. 
 The population of Novgorod we know. This does not 
 prove that the territory was more populous than it now 
 is ; but merely that, in those times of confusion and bar- 
 barism, fear collected and compressed the people into 
 cities, who, if they had remained dispersed over the coun- 
 try, would have been unable to live there in safety. 
 
 The same fear retained the nobles in the cities ; and, 
 indeed, how was it possible that the proud and arrogant 
 individuality, the insulation of a feudal life, could exist 
 in so rude and gloomy a climate, and on a soil so thinly 
 peopled, so flat, every where accessible^ particularly in 
 winter, and threatened with such sudden and furious 
 incursions .'' 
 
 Now, the nobility must necessarily have continued 
 without strength, and without personal independence, in a 
 country where cities alone could afford protection. In 
 fact, in their desert plains, every thing was wanting to 
 
 * Among other examples, it may be remarked that, under Vladi- 
 mir the Great, Rostof and Murum, fiefs which, since the time of 
 Rurik, had belonged to Varangian chiefs, were taken from them, to 
 be given to the sons of the Grand- Prince. — Karamsin, vol. i. p. 294.
 
 BOOK V. CHAP. IV. 193 
 
 them, even stone, and even the steep positions wliich 
 are indispensable in the construction of those strong cas- 
 tles, with which every other part of Europe was covered 
 by the nobles. This was the reason why they were under 
 the necessity of residing in the cities, and of being de- 
 pendent on them, or on the princes by whom they were 
 governed. 
 
 It was, therefore, not merely the multiplicity of princes, 
 it was the power of the cities, and the necessity of living 
 there, that constituted the weakness of the Russian nobles ; 
 for nobility, by its very nature, is rustic; no sooner does 
 it mingle with large bodies of men, who, by coming in 
 contact, acquire knowledge and a consciousness of their 
 strength, than it sinks beneath tlie weight of so many 
 combined interests and personal feelings, or beneath that 
 of the prince who becomes its protector. 
 
 Accordingly, it is proved that, in the rich and for- 
 midable Novgorod, all offices, even that of the boyard,* 
 were, as late as the end of the fifteenth century, elective 
 and temporary. 
 
 In the life of Isiaslaf, (twelfth century,) we see that the 
 boyards were the servants of the princes, and were then 
 held in but little estimation ; a speech of Sviatoslaf (117^) 
 proves that a boyard was deprived of his head for crimes 
 which would have cost a prince only his appanage. 
 
 The oath which Ivan III. recjuired from the boyards 
 who desired to transfer their services to him, shows how 
 complete was their subjection. The law of Novgorod 
 manifests the care with which the cities kept down their 
 boyards; the Novgorodian boyard who was found guilty 
 of any violence was fined fifty rubles, while, in a similar 
 
 • TliiH word iHiyard is derived from loye (combat), for nobility 
 liiid, every \(li('r(', its orif;iii in xaloiir. 
 
 O
 
 194 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 case, a citizen of eminence paid only twenty, and tlie rest, 
 but ten. 
 
 From these facts, the conclusion is, that there were no 
 feudal nobles in Russia, except the princes invested with 
 appanages ; the nobles were rather their guards, and lead- 
 ing men, among whom the equal division of inheritances, 
 till the time of Peter the Great, and four centuries of con- 
 tinual disorders, perpetuated the amovability of fiefs, of 
 offices, and even of estates. 
 
 It was, in an especial degree, the frequency of revo- 
 lutions in the appanages that occasioned the other pro- 
 perties so often to change hands ; every new prince was 
 obliged to satisfy his guards and his dependents, and 
 this alone sufficed to establish, de facto, the principle of 
 amovability. 
 
 Every kind of succession, therefore, was incessantly 
 interrupted among these nobles or leading men, or, in 
 other words, among the civil and military officers, and the 
 cavaliers of the princes and the cities, the precarious pos- 
 sessors of estates, pay, and dignities, on condition of civil 
 and military service. 
 
 From this followed as a consequence, that, not being able 
 to gain consideration except by these temporary places and 
 dignities, these nobles remained in obscurity under the 
 standards of the cities, and of that throng of princes of the 
 blood, who constituted the higher and genuine nobility. 
 
 Nor must it be forgotten, that, as liberty could be sold, 
 and as bondage to the soil did not yet exist, the rich and 
 the powerful must have drawn every thing around them, 
 the farmers, the hired servants, and even these nobles; 
 now, the rich and the powerful could be only the princes ; 
 and thus circumstances must have contributed to keep the 
 nobles in an enfeebled state. 
 
 Accordingly, notwithstanding the intervention of the
 
 BOOK V. CHAP, n . 195 
 
 boyard-followers, endowed by Ivan III., we again find in 
 the sixteeenth century, as in the code of the eleventh, the 
 administration of justice in tlie hands of jurors, leading 
 men and elders of the place, or in those of judges chosen 
 by the Princes. Fines, which were the punishment al- 
 lotted to the majority of crimes, were always paid into the 
 treasury of the prince ; the dispensing of justice, there- 
 fore, remained wath the throne ; and there was not in Russia, 
 as elsewhere, on the part of the nobles, any usurpation of 
 this main branch of the sovereign authority. 
 
 This is the reason why, till the close of the fourteenth 
 century, the Russian liistory recognizes but two powers, 
 that of the princes and that of the cities. These causes 
 were so decidedly those of the insignificance o*f the no- 
 bihty, down to the time of Dmitry Donskoi, (1354) that 
 we see this class all at once begin to figure in history, as 
 soon as the princes were blended with it, and the Tartars 
 expelled. Its first family names even do not date farther 
 back than the end of the fourteenth century ; till then, 
 by-names and surnames were the only distinctions. 
 
 But, when the union of Moscow and A^ladimir, the 
 support of the clergy, that of the Tartars, the new order of 
 succession, the long duration and the spirit of the reigns of 
 tiie first princes of Moscow, and the introduction of fire-arms, 
 (l.'^9) which are the weapons of the richest, had composed 
 a central and sovereign force, the eyes of all the weak were 
 attracted by that power ; to escape from the Tartars, from 
 the tyranny of their princes, and from the systent whicli 
 rendered their offices and their fortimes merely temjiorary, 
 the nobles rallied round that power, and gave to it a further 
 augrnentation. It was thus that, by degrees, the nobles, 
 who wore the vassals of tlie petty princes, deserted them, 
 and became vassals of the (irand-Prince, so that, thence- 
 forth, only a single sovereignty existed in Russia. 
 
 2
 
 lOf) HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 As the (irand-Prinees continued, for a considerable 
 period, to dread their kinsmen, they preferred to them the 
 nobles and the converted Tartar princes ; the consequence 
 of which was, that, towards the end of Ivan the Third's 
 reign, we hear only of the nobles ; who began to grow 
 powerful, by virtue of so many preferences, their mixture 
 with the decayed petty princes, and their assistance having 
 become necessary to the possessor of the throne. 
 
 Thus, after having raised each other, the Gkrand-Prince 
 and the nobles alone remained in the field. We have 
 already seen, in the fourth period of the Russian history, 
 by what a tremendous victory the Grand-Princes at length 
 brought this final contest to a triumphant conclusion. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Such a result excites little astonishment; but the cir- 
 cumstance which surprises is, that, in its system of go- 
 vernment, Russia had not fallen behind the general march 
 of European policy. Here, as elsewhere, and notwith- 
 standing the Tartars, its feudality of princes, and even of 
 nobles, rude as it was, had lasted from the end of the tenth 
 century to the sixteenth ; and here, still more than else- 
 where, the sixteenth century was fatal to it. In Russia, 
 as in the rest of Europe, by the re-establishment of the 
 lineal succession, and the uniting the fiefs to the royal 
 domain, this age was that of the concentration of power on 
 the throne. 
 
 What cause, then, was sufficiently eminent and power- 
 ful to give so uniform a pohtical impulse to so many diife-
 
 BOOIt V. CHAF. V. 197 
 
 rent empires, so widely extended ; and that, too, in spite 
 of such chssimilar circumstances and localities ? 
 
 Ouglit we to seek -for its general principle in the uni- 
 versality of that great inundation of the northern tribes, 
 which, thanks to the drying up of its source in the tenth 
 century, was terminated every where at the same epoch ? 
 for the definitive invasion of Russia by the Varangians 
 coincides with the end of those of France and England by 
 the Normans. Ought we, in short, from this common 
 origin, to infer the sequence, the identity, the almost si- 
 multaneousness of consequences and general effects, over 
 such immense spaces, and during so many centuries ? 
 
 In fact, sameness of origin, at a contemporaneous period, 
 had, nearly at the same time, produced similar calamities 
 tliroughout Europe, which had required the same remedy, 
 and almost at once calletl forth, to combat them, men pos- 
 sessing minds of the same temper ; hence it was that every 
 thing then, and in all quarters, tended to concentrate all 
 political power on the throne. 
 
 Accordingly, as it happened in Russia, under the great 
 Ivan III. (from 146:2 to 1500), we see, at the close of the fif- 
 teenth century, the scattered members of France re-united 
 under Louis XI. and Louis XII.; those of Spain, under 
 Ferdinand and Isabella; those of Germany, under Maxi- 
 milian the First, of Austria; lastly, those of England, un- 
 der the Tudors, in 14{{5, by Henry VII. So, also, in the 
 following age, that of Ivan IV., of Henry A'^III. and of 
 Elizabeth, and of Philip II.; and soon after, in France, 
 under Richelieu ; we perceive that the universal success 
 of this princij)le of concentration was productive of its 
 imiversal abuse. 
 
 In Russia, meanwliile, this great political movement, of 
 the concentration of power in Moscow, ac(|uirc'd the ascen- 
 dencv, abroad as well as at home, over all that sunounded
 
 19B HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 it; then, more tlian ever, it was, that priests, people, 
 nobles, in a word, the whole nation, almost crushed, in- 
 deed, but united under the weight, became still farther 
 ago-randized. In reality, notwithstanding the mad fury 
 of Ivan IV., Kasan, Astracan, and Siberia, in short, 
 eighty-eight thousand square miles, and two millions of 
 subjects, were added to the empire. 
 
 Here, then, thanks to the concentration of power in the 
 hands of the Grand-Princes, as well as to tl)e dissensions 
 of the Tartars, we see the last grand Asiatic invasion of 
 Europe at length driven back, and doubtless for ever, 
 upon Asia itself. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 There exists, however, another fact, which assigns a 
 cause of another nature to this revolution of Europe 
 against Asia. It is this, — that Europe continually in- 
 creases its strength by its progress towards perfection, 
 while, on the contrary, in both those points of view, Asia 
 remains in a stagnant state. 
 
 To explain the reason of this moral superiority of Eu- 
 rope over Asia, after having attributed it to the influence 
 of the different rehgions professed by those two quarters 
 of the globe — the one, the religion of the mind, which con- 
 tributed so greatly to enlighten and soften the Russians ; 
 the other, that of the sabre, an instrument of darkness ; 
 after having also remarked, that the nature of the climate 
 and soil required that the natives of the one should, in all 
 ao-es, be citizens and cultivators (the third stage of civi- 
 lization), and retained those of the other in a pastoral and
 
 BOOK V. CHAP. VI. 199 
 
 migratory life, wliieh is only the second stage of it ; let us 
 seek in the geography of those covuitries for a new and 
 more general cause of the advantage enjoyed by the north 
 of Europe over central and northern Asia. 
 
 And, in the first place, let us admit that there is no 
 civilization where the means of intercourse do not exist ; 
 that water is the most ready of those means ; and that the 
 people who possess the greatest facility of inter-communi- 
 cation, have at all periods been the most capable of 
 being civihzed, and of reaping all the benefits consequent 
 upon the civilized state. Look on the old territory of 
 southern Europe, with its surface tmeven, carved out, 
 intersected, and riven by several seas : and thence its 
 temperate and changeful climate ; wliich gives to minds 
 the varietv, the impulse, the agitation, that incessantly 
 impels them to advance, from discovery to discovery, in 
 the vast field opened to the human intellect ; and, lastly, 
 gives that fondness, that longing for liberty, by which the 
 expansion of intellect is favoured. 
 
 Now, under this point of view, let us look at European 
 Russia and Northern Asia, empires wholly consisting of 
 land, and of plains, consequently, with a climate subject 
 to few changes ; and having, also, no natural and easy 
 mearLs of communication, such as exist in countries that 
 have considerable bodies of water : hence, minds less stir- 
 ring, less restless, caring little for novelties, the major part 
 of them stagnant, uniform, motionless; hence, depopula- 
 tion, ignorance, and, as the last result, despotism ! What 
 fears for their civilization do not such numerous obstacles 
 compel us to feel ! 
 
 And, in truth, on these two centres and northern por- 
 tions of Asia and Europe, on these two dense and enor- 
 mous masses of frozen land, through what endless deserts, 
 what ])rofound marshes, what inq)enetrable forests, Iiad it
 
 200 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 not to force its Wcay ! Vet a few rays suflficed ; but the 
 least inland of these masses, that which lay nearest to Eu- 
 ropean civilization, was the first to be enlio-htened by them ; 
 a tardy light, it is true, and long- weak and doubtful, but 
 which, notwithstanding, from the fifteenth century, began 
 to give to Europe a definitive and thenceforth irrevocable 
 superiority over Asia. 
 
 As far back as five centuries, some sparks of that highly 
 vivifying light had by degrees penetrated into the mass of 
 Russian darkness, by the Black, White, and Baltic seas. 
 Those which darted from Greece, pierced by the way of 
 Kief; those from Italy, by Asoph ; and those from Eng- 
 land and Germany, by Riga, Novgorod, and Archangel. 
 And when, about 1396, the destruction of Asoph was ef- 
 fected by Tamerlane, and, in 1453, that of Byzantium by 
 Mahomet, European Russia had already received, through 
 the four seas, a degree of knowledge so superior to that of 
 Northern Asia, that it enabled her to resist the foe, and 
 even to conquer him in her turn. 
 
 Thus, thanks to the concentration of power, however it 
 may have been misused, and to some gleams of civilization, 
 we behold almost dissipated, by the last of the Ruriks, 
 " one of the two horrible spectres,* which," (as the old 
 Russians dolorously exclaimed) " rose on the right and on 
 the left of Russia, and wholly concealed her from the view 
 of the civilized world. "-f- 
 
 But the second of these hostile phantoms still existed ; 
 and, as it was placed between Russia and its civilization, 
 it was not by the superiority of knowledge that it could 
 possibly be made to vanish : the fall of the Ruriks ren- 
 dered it even more menacing. Favoured by civil dis- 
 
 * See Karamsin. 
 
 t The Horde and Lithuanian Poland. If, indeed, we can give the 
 name of spectre to the most generous, the most brilliant, and the 
 most chivalric of modern nations ! 
 
 I
 
 Boot V. CHAP. MI. 201 
 
 sensions, it took its seat even in Moscow itself ; but we 
 shall soon see the ascendant march of the Princes of 
 Moscow resumed under the Romanofs, and the " great 
 spectre of the West" disappear before the second Russian 
 dynasty, as that of the East had bowed down before the 
 first. 
 
 Before we hasten onward in the second part of this vast 
 career, and while we pause to breatlie, let us seek, by com- 
 paring, from its outset, the political movement in Russia 
 and in Poland, to discover the chief causes of the successes 
 and reverses of those two states, during their protracted 
 contest. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The fabulous times of those two empires extend down to 
 the middle of the nintli century. Then began in Poland 
 the great dynasty of the Piasts, almost contemporaneously 
 with that of the Ruriks in Russia. But the latter de- 
 scended all at once from the Ossianic heights of Scandi- 
 navia, completely royal, completely armed, and as a con- 
 queror ; while the origin of the other, purer it is true, but 
 citizenish and common, had in it nothing antique, myste- 
 rious, or menacing, and the remembrance that it was 
 elective was deeply rooted in the minds of its subjects. 
 
 In the second half of the tenth century, these empires 
 had again, and both at once, their greatest warrior and 
 politician, Miciezlas and A'ladimir. Both made their j>eo- 
 ple Christian; but tlu- one, taking his religicm from liy/an- 
 tium, became tlie hv:n\ of it, and thus to his civil ;iiul 
 military jM)wer, added tin- theocratic |)(»\vcr, one of the 
 deepest roots of the autocracy of \\'\-> descendants; while
 
 202 HISTORY OP RUSSIA, 
 
 the other, yieldinoj to the Pope, was, in the eyes of those 
 over whom he ruled, nothing more than the subject, not 
 merely of an ultramontane bishop, but of all his own sub- 
 jects, who might happen to be enrolled in the ambitious 
 militia of the new Rome, which was no less bent upon con- 
 quest than the old. 
 
 So far, in this parallel, every thing is to the advantage 
 of Russia, with respect to the centralizing of power, and 
 consequently with respect to strength : but here the ba- 
 lance is destroyed. Fortunately, the Russian and Polish 
 dynasties were, at first, not exceedingly fruitful ; each suc- 
 cessively produced only a single heir to the throne ; but 
 with the Russian this was the case only till 915 ; while it 
 continued to be so with the Polish till 1137 '■> so that the 
 partitions of Poland among the Piast Princes did not com- 
 mence till a century and a half later than those of Russia 
 among the Ruriks. This circumstance gave to the Poles 
 a superiority over the Russians, tlie result of which was 
 the repeated capture of Kief, and of those provinces of 
 the south of Russia which were dependent on that capital. 
 
 To this humiliation of the Russians, caused by their 
 intestine quarrels, must be added the overwhelming of 
 their empire by the Tartars, which produced the liberation 
 of Lithuania, till then under the yoke of the Russians. 
 That country, after having been aggrandized by the 
 wrecks of the Russians, united itself to the religion and 
 the throne of Poland in the person of Jagellon, its first 
 Christian prince, the founder of the second Polish race ; 
 an union which prolonged, till the reign of Peter the 
 Greafs father, the superiority of the Poles over the 
 Russians. 
 
 It must also be believed, that, being more in the vici- 
 nity of civilization, Poland was tlie first to reap the be- 
 nefits of it.
 
 BOOK V. CHAP. VII. 203 
 
 This was the reason that its ascendency kept the upper 
 liand till towards the fifteenth century. It still maintained 
 the contest, though giving way somewhat, against the 
 autocracy of Ivan the Great ; and soon that ascendant 
 manifested itself more remarkably than ever under Stephen 
 Battori, and particularly on the fall of the great dynasty 
 of the Ruriks, which ended with the sixteenth century. 
 
 Poland, triianphant, tlien penetrated even to Moscow ; 
 favoured by the distracted condition of Russia, and by 
 causes nearly similar to those which had delivered Kief to 
 her in 1018. 
 
 But that supremacy was not of long duration ; it was 
 a last gleam shed on this side by the genius of Poland. 
 Soon its torch began to pale its fires before the splendour 
 of the arms of Alexis ; and fifty years later, it passed into 
 the hands of Peter the Great, to be extinguished, before 
 the close of the same century, in tliose of Catherine II. 
 
 Thus, Poland liad, for a long while, the advantage over 
 Russia ; but, notwithstanding its great men, notwithstand- 
 ing the generous and proud elevation of its national genius, 
 and its daring and heroic valour, the superiority was an 
 accidental one, the greatest part of the causes of which 
 were not inherent ; it was not derived from its policy, or 
 from the nature of its government, or from its geogra- 
 phical position. Poland was indebted for it to tlie in- 
 testine quarrels of the Russians, to the subjugation of tho.se 
 rivals by the Tartars ; and also to its fortunate union with 
 Lithuania, by which country, far more than by Poland, the 
 cakiiriities of Russia were turned to advantage. 
 
 Besides, all the circumstances which were peculiar to 
 Poland were unfavourable to it ; — its geographical position, 
 which obliged it to make head in every direction, while 
 Russia, ])acke(i by the ice of the north, was unassailable 
 in that (juartcr; — its Latin religion, which diMTi-difcd its
 
 204 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 dynasty, by luiniblino' it at the feet of tlie priests, wliile 
 from the Greek reli<;i()n the Ruriks derived their divine 
 right ; and, lastly, even the long continued scantiness of 
 numbers of the Piast princes of the blood, though, at first, 
 that circiunstance had given the superiority to Poland 
 over Russia, which latter country was earlier divided into 
 appanages. 
 
 For, among the Russians, the eternal struggle to seize upon 
 power having at first and exclusively been carriedon among 
 the princes of the same blood, it was necessarily less fatal 
 there to the established dynasty and the monarchical spirit 
 than it was in Poland, where, in default of a multiplicity 
 of princes of the reigning family, the greatand inevitable 
 contest took place between the monarch and the nobles. 
 
 To this must be added the pretensions of the latter, 
 which were stimulated either by their contact with 
 that proud German aristocracy, still sovereign in our 
 days; or, perhaps, by the obviously elective origin of 
 their first race of kings ; a race which was less respected in 
 consequence of the very circumstance that rendered it 
 more respectable. 
 
 Let us particularly remark how the kings, who were 
 vanquished by the nobles as early as 1035, were humi- 
 liated before the bishops. They were again vanquished, 
 and lost even their title, in 1380, by the alliance of that 
 warlike aristocracy with the religious aristocracy of the 
 Polish bishops, who wielded the thunder of Rome. 
 
 Then followed the partitions of Poland, when, about 
 1087 ^^^ IISO or 1138, its princes of the blood, having 
 at length multiplied as in Russia, aspired to the possession 
 of appanages. The royal authority was still further en- 
 feebled by this event ; the nobles became the only sup- 
 porters of the princes of the blood in their quarrels ; and 
 by this means their importance was so much enhanced
 
 BOOK V. CHAP. \ (I, 205 
 
 that, towards the close of the twelftli century, (11 73) 
 having risen to be the sovereign arbiters of their princes, 
 they deposed Miciezlas, and wished to render the crown 
 elective. 
 
 Thus, for one anarchy which preyed on Russia, three 
 anarchies, those of tlie princes, the nobles, and the priests, 
 were the scourges of Poland. These germs of autocracy 
 on the one part, and of inextricable confusion on the other, 
 being once established, time, and the chances which it 
 brings, produced their full expansion. Towards the end 
 of the fourteenth century, while in Russia, the power, 
 which had never been out of the hands of the great family 
 ' of Rurik, was fixed in one of its branches, to be concen- 
 tered and increased there, during an additional longevity 
 of two centuries, the dynasty of the Piasts became extinct 
 in Poland (1370.) 
 
 It was then that the Polish nobility, so haughty and 
 restless towards their native sovereigns, either chose or ac- 
 cepted a foreign and hostile king. This fact naturally led 
 them to assume a superintending authority over that of the 
 monarch, and to impose on him conditions, to which we 
 might give the name of a charter ; but as this aristocracy 
 had no strength except in assemblies, where a majority de- 
 cides, the great were constrained to mix with this crowd, 
 and to share with it the power which they had wrested from 
 their kings. 
 
 Vainly, in 1385, did the marriage of their princess with 
 Jagellon, unite Lithuania to their empire ; the jealousy of 
 power, the passion for individual independence, kept every 
 thing in a state of internal ferment, and, we may say, of 
 dissolution. 
 
 It is thus that, as we trace the march of ])ower in the 
 two empires, we behold it, in the one, contended for by the 
 members of a royal family, but never quitting that family,
 
 20G HISTORY OF RUSSIA. 
 
 till, at leno-th, it there becomes concentrated and for- 
 midable ; while, in the other, it slips from the grasp of the 
 reigning dynasty, and is divided between the great, to be 
 jfinally disseminated among the petty nobles. 
 
 In the causes of the superiority which Poland long main- 
 tained over Russia, there was, therefore, nothing intrinsic; 
 its strength was derived much more from the protracted 
 weakness of the Russian empire than from its own inherent 
 vigour ; while in Russia, on the contrary, amidst all its 
 /rightful dilacerations by the Tartars, by the Lithuanians, 
 and by itself, there still existed a nucleus, a principle of 
 constitutive energy, in the tendency to concentrate all the 
 sources of power in the hands of a dynasty which had a 
 military and immemorial origin, and was the supreme head 
 of its religion. 
 
 This principle operated silently ; for ages, in spite of 
 circumstances, it won its way by degrees, turning every 
 thing to the advantage of the Russian throne ; at last, like 
 a colossus that has grown up in darkness, that throne burst 
 formidably forth, to crush all around with its gigantic 
 greatness. 
 
 4
 
 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. 
 
 PART. II.
 
 BOOK \J. CHAP. I. 209 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 What station shall we now take, to behold at a glance 
 the lengthened series of causes and effects, to catch only 
 the most prominent of them, to discover the principal 
 chain whence the others proceed, and to which all are 
 again linked ; in a word, to pass from summit to summit, 
 till we reach the creator of modern Russia; a being so 
 colossal, that it seems as if the history of so many ages 
 were nothing more than the prelude to his illustrious life. 
 
 We have touched upon the sacred liistory of this people, 
 which traces their descent from Japhet, and uj)on their 
 ancient history, which displays to our view the European 
 portion of the Russian empire as the widely extended 
 theatre of the great conflicts between central Asia and 
 northern Europe; on this vast field of a combat which 
 was at once so long and so obscure, we have beheld Asia 
 several times invading Europe, and Europe, in its turn, 
 thrice gaining the ascendency over Asia. 
 
 Then, in H{'y2, appeared the great Rurik, at the head of 
 his X'arangians: he founded the Russian empire. Some 
 coruscations of Ins genius reach us, and we eiitir wita a 
 less doubtful stej) on tlu' tii-^t piiiod of tli;it history. 
 
 I'
 
 210 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 At the outset, our attention is fixed upon those Russian 
 Varangians, Scandinavian ])irates of the Baltic, and on 
 their local situation with respect to the great ~ Novgorod ; 
 whence resulted the voluntary or compulsory union of that 
 northern Slavonic city, the richest and the most popu- 
 lous of cities, with the most valiant of tribes, the Varan- 
 gians, who occupied its principal outlets. 
 
 It is from hence that, like the six thousand Franks of 
 Clovis, we see those Russian Varangians, under the illus- 
 trious Oleg, spread themselves abroad without being weak- 
 ened, and cover all at once, with their arms and with their 
 fame, a large portion of the enormous extent of European 
 Russia. 
 
 Such a phenomenon must originate in great causes. 
 The union of the most warlike Norman tribe with the 
 most commercial Slavonian tribe, does not sufficiently 
 account for it ; accordingly, we remarked, as a second 
 principle of strength, the concentration of power in the 
 hands of the earlier descendants of Rurik ; it was the 
 effect of an unbroken and lineal succession, peculiar to the 
 princes of Russia, which, during the first century of that 
 dynasty, seems to have successively given only a single 
 head to each of its Grand-Princes. 
 
 After having noticed this circumstance, we next admired 
 the astonishing series of great men, and the duration of their 
 reigns ; Rurik, the founder of the empire ; Oleg, who was 
 looked upon as a magician, and whose lance, cut from the 
 forests of the Ladoga, penetrated the gates of Byzantium ; 
 Olga, the regent, worthy of a place among so many re- 
 markable warriors, the mother of Sviatoslaf, the Russian 
 Achilles, grandmother of that Vladimir the Great who 
 conquered the Crimea and Livonia, and who, in 988, raised 
 Gothic Russia to its plenitude of power, made it Chris- 
 tian, and laid tlie basis of its civilization ; lastly, Yaroslaf,
 
 BOOK VI. CHAP. I. ^11 
 
 its earliest legislator, who supported its enormous weight 
 in the year 1054. 
 
 Nevertheless, still surprised at the immense and sudden 
 growth of the empire of the Russian Varangians, we 
 sought new causes for it, in their exclusive attachment to 
 the princes of the Rurik family ; in the guards, animated 
 by such a spirit of devotedness, possessed of a gradation 
 of ranks, and perfectly trained; in their tactics, their 
 discipline, and their iron w^eapons, so much superior to 
 those of the Slavonians. We also ascribed it to their re- 
 ligion, which was wholly warlike ; to that passion for con- 
 quest which then fired all the Normans ; finally, to the in- 
 supportable incursions of the migratory barbarians of the 
 South. The latter obliged Kief to call to its aid the bar- 
 barians of the North : that great city of the South pre- 
 ferred the \'arangian princes, wlio invaded to establish 
 themselves, to the oriental nomades, whose sole ambition 
 was to plunder and to destroy. 
 
 Who, then, can be astonished that, like all armed pro- 
 tectors, those Normans became masters .? The display of 
 their strength, by their union under a single hereditary 
 chief, rendered more conspicuous the weakness of the 
 Slavonians, divided as they were into small independent 
 tribes, and consequently without a leader and without co- 
 herence. Hence, the preponderance of the one, and general 
 submission of the other ; nor sliould we forget the fre- 
 (juently able policy of the first Russian princes, with re- 
 spect to the Slavonians, from whom they descended by the 
 female side. It was manifested in their solicitude to pro- 
 tect the Slavonians against the Varangians, and, finally, to 
 blend the two people under one name, tiiat of the victors ; 
 one language, that of the van(piished ; one religion, that 
 of Christ; and under one standard, of which the rallying 
 word, fraught with attraction, was the s])()ils of l^yznntium. 
 
 I- -2
 
 212 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 To these causes of the foundation antl of the miraculous 
 aggrandizement of Gothic Russia, we added those of its 
 dechne, or its division into ap])anages : whence, after the 
 death of Vladimir the Great, arose horrible civil wars ; the 
 sacking of Kief by the Poles, about 1018 ; and, at a later 
 period, the singular and fatal custom of heirship from 
 brother to brother, and from uncle to nephew, which was 
 substituted in the place of lineal succession. 
 
 Hence, also, notwithstanding the virtues of Vladimir 
 Monomachus, and tlie policy of Andrew, an increase of ap- 
 panages and of intestine dissensions. We have beheld un- 
 fortunate Russia torn in pieces by these ; and all at once, 
 in 1224, while it was in that state, Genghis Khan putting 
 in motion the Asiatic hordes, heaping their waves together, 
 making them overflow from all quai'ters, and inundating 
 with billows of fire and blood, and for more than two cen- 
 turies, the disjointed empire of the descendants of Rurik. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The date of this last gi'eat invasion of the north of 
 Europe by Asia marks the commencement of the third 
 period of the Russian history. 
 
 In endeavouring to explain this great invasion, we 
 have exhibited the full extent of devastating rage, of con- 
 joint effort, of invariable system, of crafty policy, and of 
 active talent, which in the ardovir of a new undertaking, the 
 Tartars displayed, in order to consummate their conquest, 
 and to establish themselves in it on a firm basis. 
 
 With respect to this triumph of Asia, while denying to
 
 BOOK VI. CHAP. 11. 213 
 
 chance a part of the too extensive influence which in- 
 dolence or the weakness of our minds universally ascribes 
 to it, we attributed a large share to the faults of the van- 
 quished ; to the impulse given by such a man as Genghis 
 Khan ; and, lastly, to the ascendency \\hicli, in this con- 
 test of barbarism, the manners and habits of migratory 
 barbarians must possess over the manners and habits of 
 still barbarous citizens and cultivators. 
 
 But we soon had to call attention to that relaxation in the 
 conquerors, which follows great successes, to the negligences 
 of pride, and to intestine dissensions, which sprung from 
 a state of rest, — an unnatural state of existence among bar- 
 barians, whose imcultivated minds are ignorant of the art of 
 enjoyment, and can be occupied only by their sordid pas- 
 sions. An abler hand, opening the tents of the Golden 
 Horde, might then, perhaps, have displayed in more vivid 
 colours, a brutal corruption, the natural consequence of a 
 borrowed luxury, rootless and dead, w'hich is the besetting 
 danger of societies that spring from conquest ; an exotic 
 luxury, always barren of benefits, and every where abun- 
 dantly fertile in injurious effects. 
 
 There we might have seen discord, as usual, claiming 
 to enjoy that which luiion had conquered ; and the Tartars, 
 like voracious troops of hounds, admirable for the ardour 
 with which they pur.sued and overtook their prey, horrible 
 for the fury with which they contended to tear it from 
 each other ! Fierce discords, however ; the strife of vic- 
 tors and masters, where the sword was the umpire ; and, 
 not, as among the subjugated Russian princes, an abject 
 strife, the strife of slaves, whose chief weapon was calunmy, 
 and wjio were always ready to denounce each other to their 
 cruel rulers : wrangling for a degraded throne, whence they 
 could not move but with ])lundering, ])arricidal hands, 
 han(U filled with gold, and stained with gore; which they
 
 214 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 dared not ascend without grovelling; nor retain but on 
 their knees, prostrate, and trembling beneath the scimetar 
 of a Tartar, always ready to roll under his feet these ser- 
 vile crowns, and the heads by which they were worn. 
 
 What, then, must have been the slaves of such slaves ! 
 and, notwithstanding the lapse of ages, what deep traces 
 of such heavy, galling, and long-endured chains, must 
 there not be left behind ! 
 
 At length, amidst so black and violent a tempest, in 
 which all the branches of the family of Rurik, hurtling 
 against each other, were almost broken, we distinguisb 
 the branch of Moscow ; at first so flexible, and speedily 
 so strong. It was, on the one side, the perfidious cruelty 
 of its first princes to their kinsfolk, and, on the other, their 
 crafty and persevering servility, to the Tartars, that 
 raised up again the Russian throne. 
 
 On this throne of cunning and of blood, however, as 
 on a fertile and well-tilled soil, the branch of Moscow 
 shot up to an infinite height ; it saved the empire. It 
 woidd seem as if the chances of birth, of genius, and 
 of longevity, as if God himself had protected the ce- 
 lebrated successors of those treacherous princes : whether 
 it were that, in the eye of heavenly as of earthly justice, 
 an unjvistly acquired possession may be innocently in- 
 herited ; or that good nov/ and then arises from evil, 
 like life from corruption ; or, rather, that all the crime 
 abides in the criminal, who himself bears the curse that 
 attends it, and not in the work, often a useful one, which 
 he leaves behind him. 
 
 Here recommenced a period of glory; but, to reach 
 it, through what ensanguined tracts of darkness was it not 
 necessary to grope our way ! It is to Peter the Great 
 that history is indebted for the collecting of their me- 
 lancholy archives. When his genius cast on them a
 
 BOOK VI. CHAP. II. 215 
 
 penetrating glance, this fourth period is said to have con- 
 soled him for the third. Yet, in the one as well as in the 
 other, he might have beheld predecessors worthy of him ; 
 he miffht have seen them in the illustrious shades of 
 Alexander Nevsky, of Ivan Kalita, and of Dmitry Donskoi, 
 as well as in those of the great Ivan III., and the ferocious 
 Ivan IV., to the latter of whom he, perhaps, too fre- 
 quently referred. 
 
 Recognizing their genius in his oAvn, he might have 
 marked them advancing, the one* with steel, the other-f* 
 with gold, in liis hand; the third,+ cowardly like the 
 Roman Octavius, but like him endowed with talents, 
 armed Avith all the strength which is derived from a patient, 
 machiavelian, persevering policy ; and in a word, the whole 
 of them moving invariably onward to the same goal, name- 
 ly, the concentration of every species of power in their 
 OAvn hands. 
 
 He might, also, have witnessed Asia becoming more and 
 more disunited ; and the same cause, for the third time, 
 having produced the same effect, the Russians conquering 
 the Tartars, in like manner as the Russians had been 
 subjugated by the Tai'tars, and the Slavonians by the 
 Russians. 
 
 In reviewing these two periods, we have dwelt on the 
 important a)nsequences which sprung from the principle 
 of the concentration of power. We have cxplainetl how 
 that alone was able to triumph over an anarchy of 
 princes, as, at the same period, the same principle over- 
 came, in the rest of Europe, an anarchy of feudal lords. 
 Accordingly, to tiiat have we ascribed the re-establish- 
 ment of the lineal order of succession instead of that be- 
 tween brothers; the restoration of internal tranquillity; 
 
 • Dmitry Donskoi. f Ivan Kalitu. X Ivan III.
 
 216 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 the conquest of Kasan and Astracan; that of northern 
 Asia ; the recovery of portions of the empire from Lithu- 
 ania and Livonia; lastly, the splendour of the Russian 
 throne, which even then shone with sufficient lustre to 
 attract the attention and the arts of Christianity over these 
 icy expanses, and in spite of the double barrier of religious 
 and political hatred with which it was surrounded by the 
 Lithuanians and Livonians. Already the way was pre- 
 paring for the reign of Peter the Great ; and the great 
 Ivan IIL, dissevering from barbarian Asia the renascent 
 Russian empire, linked it to civilized Europe, by the ties 
 of an able and high spirited policy, and with the aid of the 
 general terror with which the Turks had inspired it. 
 
 But the hero of the second Russian dynasty, that in- 
 terested admirer of absolute authority, was he not here led 
 astray ? Did he ever own to himself that, in its ascendent 
 march, this concentrated power, having disembarrassed 
 itself of all obstacles, went beyond the mark ; that, ground- 
 ing itself on manners impregnated by the Tartar yoke, it 
 became under Ivan IV. an atrocious despotism, destructive 
 of all within its reach, of his nobles, of his own family, and 
 of himself.!^ For, in short, God alone has an ever-pre- 
 sent and immediate power over all things; but as, on 
 the contrary, the most levelling despot must always have 
 grandees and ministers, the tyrant crushed some only to 
 raise others ; he beat down the kinsfolk who were near his 
 throne, only to bring strangers Avithin reach of it ; and his 
 dynasty, reduced to a child, was extinguished in its blood, 
 by dint, as it were, of his own precautions. Thus, as 
 often happens, we have seen the .>uccess of a principle give 
 birth to its abuse ; have seen that branch of the Ruriks fall 
 by the means which originally raised it ; and in its fall drag 
 to the ground with it the whole of the trunk. 
 
 Rapid as is the glance which we have transiently cast
 
 BOOK VI. CHAP. II. 217 
 
 on the first race, wliich nearly ends with the reign of 
 Ivan IV. we start, chilled with horror, at sight of that 
 monstrous epoch. The multitude of ferocious beings with 
 which nature has jieopled the world is no doubt inexpli- 
 cable, and yet we dare not impute to her this INIuscovite 
 monster. Let us rather accuse of it a second nature, 
 springing into existence amidst gross debaucheries, insolent 
 plots, and shameless assassinations, with which the gran- 
 dees environed and outraged the cliildhood of the tyrant : 
 it seems as though they had delighted in training up and 
 exciting against themselves the tiger by whom they were 
 one day to be devoured. In the midst of his sanguinary 
 and irregidar march, we perceive, it is true, the impulse of 
 that hereditary policy, which, after having humiliated the 
 princes by means of the Tartars and the higher class of 
 nobility, subjugated that higher class by means of the 
 petty nobles. But the blind rage with which Ivan hunted 
 down the nobles was no longer merely machiavelism; it was 
 the instinct of a wild beast, a hatred of the species, which sa- 
 tisfied wants could not satiate, and which impelled even to 
 useless mischief. They had corroded his youthful heart 
 with suspicion, with apprehension, with that fear, in short, 
 which is the most violent, the most formidable, and the 
 most cruel of all the passions ; a furious insanity, a san- 
 guinary frenzy, which time developed, and which was but 
 too obvious when, intoxicated with wine, with blood, and 
 with power, the madman was seen crushing in his subjects 
 the most obsecjuious of his .slaves, and that, too, under the 
 idea that he was defending liimsclf from them.
 
 218 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The death of Ivan IV. and the downfall of his race, do 
 not, however, terminate the fourth period ; we must add 
 to it the times of confusion which succeeded ; the disgrace 
 of them ought not to belong to the second dynasty. Being, 
 as they were, the result of the maniac fury of Ivan IV., 
 why should we separate from the epoch in which that 
 monster lived, the fifteen years of horror, corruption, and 
 dissolution, which he left behind him ? the long and dis- 
 gusting decomposition of the carcase of a tyrant ! 
 
 In vain had he wished to survive himself. Of his three 
 sons, the first alone was capable of reigning, and him he 
 killed with his own hand in a fit of rage; the second, 
 Fcedor, was one of those pliant docile beings, such as are 
 suitable to tyrants, but, at the same time, of such complete 
 incapacity, that Ivan was forced to bequeath him, together 
 with the autocratic sway of which he was so jealous, to a 
 council of those nobles, the whole of whom he had been 
 unable to crush. 
 
 Though his expectation was deceived as to the tyrant, 
 it was not so with respect to the tyranny ; those nobles 
 entered into a contention for the power, — a power which 
 was so completely made up of violence and despotism, that 
 the most crafty and wicked of them all was the only person 
 who was capable of seizing and retaining it. Boris Godu- 
 nof was that ambitious being. An Eastern custom, which 
 authorised the unequal marriage of princes with their sub- 
 jects, had made this Boris, who was the descendant of a 
 Calmuck, the brother-in-law of Fcedor, the last sovereign
 
 BOOK M. CHAP. 111. 219 
 
 of the race of Rurik ; an infirm tzar, who could not live, 
 and whose brother and sole heir, the unfortunate Dmitry, 
 was but a child. 
 
 Thus, the crown of Rurik came within reach of the son 
 of a Tartar. He insulated it ; and when, by calumny, by 
 banishment, and by poison, the traitor had made room 
 for himself, he stood so near the throne, that, in order to 
 ascend it, he had only one more crime to conunit. It was 
 then that the hapless Dmitry, who lived in exile at Uglitch, 
 was there assassinated, and that the whole city, the witness 
 and the denouncer of the murder, was destroyed, as if it had 
 been an accomplice in the crime. 
 
 The barbarian could at once fully consummate a crime, 
 and wait for the results of it. He suft'ered the weak 
 Foedor to live ; and, reigning gloriously in his name, he 
 purposed to obtain from tiie love and admiration of the 
 people, the fruit of iiis criminal actions. In the same 
 year in which he killed the sole heir to the throne, he 
 availed himself of the sordid ambition of a Greek bishop, 
 who was become the slave of the Turks, to purchase from 
 him the right of establishing in Russia a patriarch, who 
 was destined, at a future period, to repay him diadem for 
 diadem. 
 
 In the mean while, the grandees whom he could not 
 deceive were either driven away or crushed by terror ; the 
 petty nobles were gained over by chaining down the serfs 
 to the soil;* the inhabitants of the cities, by a continued 
 affectation of pojjularity ; criminals, by indulgence; and 
 the whole nation, by the splendour of an able administra- 
 tion and poHcy. Smolensk was fortified ; Archangel built ; 
 the Tartars, defeated for the last time under the walls of 
 Moscow, were chased back into their deserts, and were 
 
 • In 1592 or 1593. See Divof, Tatischef, the edict of 1597.
 
 220 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 confined within them by strong })laces constructed around 
 their haunts. Otlier fortresses arose, under the shadow 
 of the Caucasus; Siberia was finally reconquered by the 
 Russian manners, arts, and arms. The Swedes were dri- 
 ven into Narva; and a diplomatic intercourse was opened 
 with the European powers. Lithuania, and even Poland 
 itself, is said to have momentarily consented to submit to 
 the sceptre which was swayed by Godunof. The spirit of 
 sectarianism alone appears to have dissolved this important 
 union, which was then voluntary, but which, two centuries 
 later, was to be the work of compulsion. 
 
 It was at the moment that the glory of Boris shone in 
 its brightest lustre, that, after seven hundred and thirty-six 
 years of existence, the dynasty of Rurik became extinct, 
 in the person of Foedor, its fifty-second sovereign, and 
 with the sixteenth century, (1598.) Other branches still 
 existed, but the tyranny of Ivan had pressed heavily upon 
 all his race. So completely had he insulated the throne 
 by terror, that none but the minister of that terror dared 
 to aspire to it. 
 
 The deputies of Russia were assembled; let us listen to 
 their annalists. " The election begins ; the people look 
 up to the nobles, the nobles to the grandees, the grandees 
 to the patriarch ; he speaks, he names Boris; and instan- 
 taneously, and as one man, all re-echo that formidable 
 name !" 
 
 Godunof, on his side, grasped with so firm a hand all 
 the links of power, that he felt a pleasure in obstinately 
 refusing a sceptre which he so ardently desired. The 
 grandees, the people, besieged him with their supplications ; 
 he escaped from them, he took refuge in a monastery, 
 where the throng of slaves again fruitlessly surrounded 
 him. This political farce, which others of his kind have 
 hardly been able to play for a few minutes, he ventured to
 
 BOOK VI. CHAP. III. 221 
 
 keep up for more than a month. He knew that, from the 
 seclusion of the cell to which he had hypocritically retired, 
 a single breath of his would suffice to impel, as he pleased, 
 all the waves of that inmiense multitude. 
 
 In fact, the people, the nobles, the priests, all obeyed 
 the impulse; he appeared to direct, by unseen threads, 
 every movement of those thousands of individuals ; al- 
 ways invisible, he made them come, or go, speak, or be 
 silent, with one accord, and as he willed, as though they 
 had been a single body of which he was the soul. 
 
 It was thus that, to the walls of the monastery which 
 held him, the impostor attracted this herd of slaves, repel- 
 led them, drew them on again, without fearing to disgust 
 them, and did not yield, at length, till after having for six 
 weeks kept all Russia in suspense, on its knees, in tears, 
 its arms raised to him, and with clasped hands holding 
 forth to him the relics of the saints, the image of the 
 Redeemer, to whom it compared him, and that antique 
 crown, which during fourteen years he had coveted, and 
 towards which he had won his way by so many crimes. 
 
 The usurpation of Boris began, or rather it continued: 
 it sustained itself by dint of prodigalities, of idle shows, 
 and of those striking effects of charlatanism which liave 
 such influence over the minds of a rude and ignorant peo- 
 ple. The satisfied tyrant at first imagined that he might 
 .^to]) in the career of crime. He sought to enlighten his 
 subjects with European knowledge; but this the priests 
 opposed. His usurped power was devoid of independence ; 
 emanating from evil, it was strong only for purposes of 
 evil. The consciousness of his crimes appalled him ; he 
 hoped to (juiet his alarms by new acts of violence, which 
 redou})led these alarms, and he com[)lete(l the demoraliza- 
 tion of every thing by the dread which he felt, and that 
 which lie inspired.
 
 222 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 Like so many other usurpers, he, who was lately the 
 equal of the grandees, now became mistrustful and fearful 
 of them ; in their ruin he saw his own safety : their riches 
 would enable him to win the petty nobles, whose preten- 
 sions could never come in com])etition with his own ; and 
 also the love of the people, which has been sought by the 
 majority of tyrants, and which has but too often been 
 obtained by them. Among his victims may be remarked 
 the Romanofs. Being allied to the Ruriks, they were the 
 family which gave most uneasiness to the usurper. The 
 head of this eminent house was preserved from the punish- 
 ment of the axe only by that of the tonsure. Ere long, 
 we shall see this monk, after having risen to the primacy, 
 rendering himself illustrious by his patriotic devotedness, 
 and his virtues meriting for his son the sceptre of an 
 empire which those virtues had preserved from foreign 
 domination. 
 
 All was, in the meantime, brutified by fear: in the 
 midst of banquets, in the most peaceable ceremonies, the 
 proudest grandees of the empire, the descendants of so many 
 princes, on the least sign being given by this Tartar, were 
 seen to rush, like executioners, upon any one of their num- 
 ber whom he pointed out as his enemy. Slavery was car- 
 ried to its highest pitch of intensity by this usurper ; with 
 that slavery which Ivan employed to crush the Princes 
 and the Russian Republic, which Ivan IV. extended to the 
 higher class of nobility and the cities, Boris now fettered 
 the country, by binding down the peasantry to the soil.* 
 
 From that moment, despotism was omnipresent ; every 
 village, every house, had its despotism equally with the 
 throne, on which, in their turn, all these despotisms were 
 dependent. The Russian nation was no longer any thing 
 
 * See Divof; — the edicts subsequent to that of 1593; — Tatischef.
 
 BOOK VI. CHAP. III. 223 
 
 but a hierarchy of slaves. Thenceforth, there was no 
 intercourse ; none of those public meetings in which the 
 youthful part of society at least orally acquired knowledge; 
 no compacts to protect the weak, no asylum for them. 
 Russia became sad and sullen : the minstrels, who had been 
 wont to traverse the country, now disappeared ; their songs 
 of war and the chase, and even of love, were heard no 
 longer. It is only in the chronicles of the time that we 
 discover the traces of those perished manners, those melli- 
 fluous songs : on meeting with them, the national historian 
 is surprised, is affected ; he mournfully exclaims, " that, 
 in these recollections, the Russia of the present day, mute 
 and enslaved, finds but the image of an object which no 
 longer exists, the echo of a voice which no longer vibrates 
 on her ear.^' 
 
 All these usurpations of Boris were not slow in pro- 
 ducing the scourges which are their inseparable concomi- 
 tants ; those scourges caused the tyrant himself to die of 
 grief on his tottering throne. He was doomed, in the 
 first place, to witness the calamitous emigration of the 
 ])easants, in order to preserve their freedom among the 
 Cossacks ; then a horrible famine ; and shortly after, 
 an atrocious jacquerie^ victorious at first, but ultimately 
 vanquished. These were the fruits of his criminal attack 
 upon the liberties of the people. As to the murder of 
 Dmitry, he imagined that he beheld the shade of his vic- 
 tim rising from the tomb, to take vengeance upon him. 
 In conclusion, he left Russia depopulated, exhausted, laid 
 open on every side, and a prey to all the horrors which 
 arise from the breaking up of society. What crimes, wiuit 
 torments, what woes, to ])rocure a six years'" reign upon a 
 throne which, two months after his decease, was to over- 
 whelm his son in its fall !
 
 224 HISTORY or-' Russia, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 But wliy plunoe into, and be lost in, the details of 
 such numerous abominations ? In one word, the interval 
 which divides the only two races that have reigned over 
 Russia, was like a gulph opened in the midst of that 
 empire ; an abvss of mire and of blood, in wliich the na- 
 tion was on the point of being wholly swallowed up. 
 
 This period of fifteen years includes every thing that is 
 most revolting, in meanness, in treachery, in foreign and 
 civil war, and in the war of the poor against the rich. 
 It would seem as if the genius of evil, foreseeing the 
 contraction of his empire by the days of civilization which 
 were approaching, had hastened to crowd into this brief 
 space every calamity and every crime. 
 
 The most flagrant of all illegitimacies, that of des- 
 potism, opened the door to every other. After a parricidal 
 usurper, — a monk under the name of Dmitry, a grandee of 
 the family of Rurik, foreign and hostile princes, peasants, 
 slaves even, always under the name of the unfortunate 
 Dmitry, the last of the Ruriks, aspired to ascend the 
 throne ; they approached it ; several of them reached it, 
 and ensanguined and sullied it for a few moments. Con- 
 fusion was at its height. The atrocious despotism of 
 Ivan IV. seemed to have destroyed all the ties of country, 
 of family, of religion, particularly among the grandees ; 
 those on whom his tyranny had weighed most heavily : 
 ■ the major part of them, it is true, the creatures and play- 
 things of his caprice, upstarts, without bounds or measure,
 
 BOOK VI. CHAP. IV. 2-23 
 
 without habitudes, or prepossessions, in short, without any 
 traditionary feehno- connected with their new situation. 
 
 Some of them signed, in Moscow itself, the subjection of 
 their country to Poland ; a throng of others beset the tent of 
 the Polish prince, not to combat that enemy of their native 
 land, but shamelessly to require from him, as the reward 
 of their treason, the spoils of their compatriots who had 
 remained faithful. The Swedes were masters of Nov- 
 gorod, the Poles of Moscow : the most frightful disorder 
 reisrned uncontrolled. 
 
 But, amidst this total subversion, religion alone stood 
 erect and immutable ; in the enemies of the country it 
 recognized its own ; its priests could not, in this instance, 
 mistake their way : their faith was unbroken, their duty 
 evident, their interest direct. In this universal confla- 
 gration, it seemed as though the religious spirit which 
 animated tliem were like an atmosphere, an element apart, 
 admitting of no intermixture ; in which they lived, and 
 out of which they felt that they could not exist : all was 
 corrupted, all dropped down around this nucleus, which 
 singlv, exposed as it was, remained entire and incor- 
 ruptible. 
 
 This epoch, so disgraceful to all classes of the nation, is 
 that of the brightest glory of the Russian clergy. While 
 all others, scarcely escaped from the fetters of the East, 
 were bending to receive those of the West, they alone, by 
 heroes and by martyrs, resisted domestic treason and fo- 
 reign invasion ; thus proving, that national independence, 
 that the spirit of party, and even of caste, may give )vay, 
 hut that the spirit of a sect never can. 
 
 Russia, meanwhile, was so degraded, that her crown 
 was despised : in the eyes of the Kings of Sweden and 
 Poland, she was no hmger an empire, but a prey of which 
 they wi.shc'd to seize only the fragments.
 
 226 HISTORY OK RUSSIA, 
 
 At length, in 1G12, affairs had reached that })oint at 
 which nations feel that their only hope of safety is in 
 themselves ; in wliich excess of adversity displays men as 
 they are; and necessity becomes the dispenser of ranks. 
 A hundred fold more calamities existed than were re- 
 quired to produce great men. Accordingly they arose 
 in every class of the nation : Minin among the people ; 
 Pojorsky among the nobles. The clergy continued to 
 produce their portion, among them was Romanoff: twice 
 in Polish chains a martyr for his country, during nine 
 years this primate inflexibly asserted its independence; 
 and grateful Russia elevated his son as its emperor (1613.) 
 
 This election marks the end of the fourth period, and of 
 the fifteen years of illegitimacy, or interregnum, which 
 began with Boris. While casting a last glance on this 
 part of our subject, we may remark that this naturalized 
 Tartar did not consider his usurpation as legalized, till he 
 had procured himself to be elected by the States-general ; 
 that, shortly after, Chuisky, a prince descended from 
 Rurik, but of a different branch from that of Moscow,' 
 ascended and fell from the throne, without his origin 
 having contributed to his rise, or been able to retard his 
 fall ; and even without his having urged it as a plea for 
 seizing or retaining the crown : he did not so much as 
 repel the title of usurper, with which he was overwhelmed, 
 in consequence of his not having been elected by the nation. 
 So utterly was he despised, that death was not deigned to 
 be inflicted on him. Into such singular dis-esteem all 
 these branches of the Ruriks had fallen ; while, on the con, 
 trary, the first impostor, because he claimed to belong, to 
 that of Moscow, was instantly surrounded by whole armies 
 of dupes. 
 
 And, in reality, it seems that the origin of all the other 
 branches was already forgotten ; either through the jea-
 
 BOOK VI. CHAP. IV. 227 
 
 lousy of the Tzars of Moscow, seconded by that which a 
 petty nobihty felt against a nobility of princes; or from 
 the effect of that levelling despotism which had long since 
 obliterated every other distinction than that of favour ; or, 
 lastly, that family names not being then in use, the col- 
 lateral descent was unperceived, or was held in little 
 estimation. 
 
 But, before we enter upon the fifth period of the Rus- 
 sian history, we must remark, that its first prince was not 
 elected till after long and stormy debates in a national 
 assembly, composed not only of boyards, but of boyard- 
 foUowers, and of the deputies of the traders and citizens 
 of the towns. 
 
 The oath which was then dictated bears the stamp of 
 this : jNIikhail Romanoff swore, in the presence of the 
 boyards, " that he would protect religion ; that he would 
 pardon and forget all that had been done to his father ; 
 that he would make no laws, nor alter the old ; and that, 
 in important causes, he would decide nothing by himself, 
 but that every thing should be tried according to the laws, 
 and the usual form of trial ; that he would not at his own 
 pleasure make either war or peace with liis neighbours ; 
 and that, to avoid all suits with individuals, he would 
 resign his estates to his family, or incorporate them with 
 the crown domains." Strahlenberg adds, thcit Alexis, on 
 his accession, swore to observe the same conditions. 
 
 ■^I'liese forms, however futile they may have been, are 
 remarkable ; not because they render sacred a riglit which 
 stands in ntj need of them, but because they recall it to 
 mind ; and also because they prove that, even on the soil 
 most favourable to despotism, a charter which sliould give 
 absolute power to a monarch would appear such a gross 
 absurdity, that we knf)w not that an instance of the kind 
 ever existed. 
 
 ii2
 
 228 HISTORY OK U 11 SSI A, 
 
 Thus, the period of interregnum, of illegitimacy, which 
 sullied the Russian history, terminated, in Mikhail Ro- 
 manoif, by an election, as it commenced in Boris ; but with 
 this difference, that the one could not legalize a previous 
 usurpation, while the second, which preceded the accession 
 of INlikhail Romanoff, was free and legitimate. 
 
 But how is this ? amidst such a vast disorganization, 
 was a mere election sufficient ? Was not the political ex- 
 istence of Russia itself recently in doubt ? A terrific crisis, 
 resembling those violent diseases which threaten with cer- 
 tain destruction the most robust bodies! And yet tran- 
 quillity re-appeared. It seems as though the dreadful fever 
 of fifteen years had evaporated all the pestilential miasma. 
 For if all the before-mentioned causes of the sudden tran- 
 sition from evil to good are still considered as unsatisfac- 
 tory ; there is nothing left to allege, except that, doubt- 
 less, for Russia, the source of its woes was exhausted, the 
 most painful part of its career was run : and that, as in 
 the elliptical course in which the world incessantly moves, 
 nothing pauses or retrogrades ; so Russia naturally passed 
 on to a milder season, and entered without effort upon a 
 new path, in which all that had formerly unsettled it could 
 reach it no more. 
 
 In fact, the tempest was at its height, and all was sud- 
 denly calmed by the election of a mere youth ; the throng 
 of pretenders melted away before this chosen of the nation; 
 the King of Sweden, the King of Poland himself, was com- 
 pelled to acknowledge him. New false Dmitrys started up 
 in vain ; they fell despised before him : so completely was 
 this event brought about by the state of things, this 
 natural unravelling, and the fulness of time !
 
 BOOK VI. CHAP. V. 229 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Behold, then, the dynasty of barbaric origin, of divine 
 right, of the right of conquest, the inheritor of Tartar 
 manners and violence; behold it replaced by a dynasty 
 which a nation, purified by misfortune, chose freely from 
 among all that it possessed that was most patriotic, most 
 virtuous, most sacred, and bearing the least resemblance 
 to the tyrants who were recently its oppressors. 
 
 In fact, the source of this dynasty was pure. It was 
 from the very heart of the nation that it sprung, ^^'hat 
 imports it, that an obscure Prussian, who settled in Rus- 
 sia about 1350, was the head of this family, and that thus 
 the primary root of this second dynasty was foreign.''* 
 For two centuries had it not been covered by Russian 
 earth and native laurels .'' 
 
 In Mikhail Romanoff, Russia chose a name which was lus- 
 trous with two hundred and fifty years of conspicuousness ; 
 the descendant of the Cleremetefs, a family equally beloved 
 and illustrious ; the son of that martyr of the country, who 
 again endured for it heroic sufferings ; lastly, one allied to 
 the Ruriks,-f- who is said to have been designated as his suc- 
 cessor by the last Prince of that dynasty. The persecu- 
 tion of the Romanoffs by the regicide Boris gave weight 
 to this poj)ular report : the hatred of the usurper pointed 
 out this family to the love of the nation. 
 
 What could be more natural than that, disgusted witli 
 
 • Navikof, LeveKfjiie, Leclorc, Sec. 
 
 t Nephew of tlie niotlier of Fcfilor, the last tzar of tliat (l\ natty.
 
 230 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 tyranny, that nation should, in Mikhail, have chosen one of 
 its victims ; that, weary of all kinds of war, it should have 
 proclaimed the son of a minister of peace ; that in a libe- 
 rating revolution, for which it was indebted particularly to 
 its priests, it should be the offspring of a priest, the pupil 
 of a convent, whom it selected for its sovereign ! For here, 
 every thing was in unison ; the interests of various classes, 
 the love of the people, patriotism, the want of repose, and 
 the hope of a mild and pacific reign. 
 
 Another great citizen, the vaiwode Pojarsky, rose, it is 
 true, to an equal elevation with the primate Romanoff: 
 there might have been room for hesitating which of them 
 deserved the preference; but it was the general himself 
 who elected the son of the primate, either from disinterest- 
 edness, or from that deference which the Russians then 
 felt for those families which had long been more conspi- 
 cuous than others, or from respect for the character of the 
 martyr, and docility to the influence of the priests, who 
 must, of course, prefer the son of a priest, in the hope of 
 reigning through his father. 
 
 The virtues of the primate Romanoff were, therefore, the 
 deeply-seated roots of that dynasty ; they penetrated into 
 the hearts of the Russians ; they bore their fruit ; and, as 
 it often happens, the solid cause of entering upon posses- 
 sion became that of its duration. 
 
 In reality, either from ability, or from the force of cir- 
 cumstances, or from the influence of origin, the first de- 
 scendants of that victim of tyranny, that martyr of inde- 
 pendence,* seem to have inherited the virtues of their an- 
 cestor. Their government, down to the period of Peter 
 the Great, had somewhat of strength, of virtue, and of that 
 mildness which is natural to strength. 
 
 Revolts again broke out; they were suppressed; and, 
 * See Leclerc, page 73.
 
 bo6k m. chap. y. 231 
 
 for the first time, during a long series of years, the justice 
 of the prince was not an act of vengeance. 
 
 European military officers were invited ; but the great 
 effort which they directed against Smolensk was frustrated 
 by the national jealousy, and Mikhail was obliged to re- 
 nounce the glory of arms. 
 
 Moderation, a love of peace, resignation even, and yet 
 the creation of a more resuLir armv, which restored inter- 
 nal tranquillity, and prepared the way for indispensable 
 conquests ; this is the sliare of merit which, in the esta- 
 blishment of this dynasty, must be assigned to the first of 
 its princes I* 
 
 That of the second is, to have been a formidable warrior, 
 who recovered from Poland, Smolensk, Kief, and the ma- 
 jor j)art of the provinces which had been wrested from 
 Russia, and endeavoured to give more regularity to his 
 army : to have been a legislator, who strove to ameliorate 
 his codes ; a ruler, wlio knew how to discover and rej)air 
 his faults ; who invited foreign arts, founded manufac- 
 tures, caused to be worked the copper and iron mines, 
 which are the riches of tlic Russian soil, and constructed 
 the two first Russian vessels, the sight of which inspired 
 the genius of his tliird son, Peter the Great. To have 
 been also a moderate concpieror, who manifested respect 
 for his nation, by calling his States-general to decide on 
 great questions of public interest; and, lastly, to have 
 been a clement and religious prince. We see him faithful 
 to his pledged word, even when given to the robber Sten- 
 ko Razin, a revolted (Jossack, the devastator of the south- 
 east f)f Russia, the Pugatciicf of that age 
 
 • Mikhail, from 1013 to 164.5. Alexei, his son, from 1615 to 1676. 
 FfPflor, tliP oldest son of Alexei, from 1676 to \G>vi. Sophia. Ivan, ami 
 Peter, from I6«'i to 1619. Peter and Ivan till 1696. Peter alone, 
 till 172J.
 
 232 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 That flagitious ruffian, who wislietl to give to his enor- 
 mities the colour of a war in behalf of one class, pro- 
 claimed himself the enemy of the nobles, and the restorer 
 of the liberli/ of the people ; a strange word on this soil of 
 slavery and from such lips ; but, notwithstanding, less 
 strange from those of the nomadic tribes who then rallied 
 round Russia, prompted by love of that same liberty for 
 which their ancestors had expatriated themselves of old. 
 
 In fact, those of the Ukraine, who had revolted against 
 Polish oppression and intolerance, offered themselves to 
 Russia, along with Kief, their recent conquest. But this 
 resumjjtion from Poland would be the signal of a great 
 war ; and it was then that the Tzar submitted to the prin- 
 cipal men of his empire the decision upon the subject. 
 
 At the same time that prince lost no opportunity of con- 
 necting himself* with the European courts. He assisted 
 Charles II. during that monarch''s exile, and sent to com- 
 pliment him on his restoration to the English throne ; he, 
 however, declined a treaty disadvantageous to the Russian 
 commerce, which was proposed to him by the ambassador 
 Carlisle.-f- 
 
 The sufferings inflicted on the celebrated Nikon by the 
 ever-furious Novgorodians, his elevation to the patriarchate, 
 his innovations, and his writings, likewise illustrate this 
 reign, which, however, was tarnished by his disgrace. 
 
 In conclusion, notwithstanding the revolts of the people, 
 which had become perceptibly more frequent since the in- 
 terregnum, the authority of this second race was already 
 established. Its ascensive impulse was even so powerfully 
 given, that Foedor, the son and successor of Alexis, tho- 
 roughly weak as he was in body and mind, was able to 
 
 * In conformity with the oath which he took upon his accession. — 
 See Manstein. 
 
 f See Spada, Russian Ephemerides.
 
 BOOK ^ 1. CHAP. V. 233 
 
 wrest the Zaporovians from Turkey, by a three years"" war, 
 and from the Russian nobles their vain pretensions, by 
 burning all their title-deeds. 
 
 But in the uncontested and rapidly increasing power and 
 glory of this second race, as in all that relates to the affairs 
 of mankind, fortune had a considerable share. Behold, in- 
 deed, as at the time of the foundation of the empire by 
 the Ruriks, and of its restoration by the princes of Moscow, 
 behold, again reappearing and brilhantly shining, that star 
 which presides over the establishment of great dynasties. 
 Exhausted and mutilated, Russia required a long pacific 
 reign, not for the purpose of enjoying peace, but of pre- 
 paring to reconquer its ancient frontiers under a long reign, 
 entirely warlike : well, then! not only were the first two 
 Romanoffs born with dispositions conformable to these 
 wants, but the one reigned thirty-tliree years, and the 
 other thirty-one ; and all the necessary conditions, of mild- 
 ness, patience, and prudence, in the one ; of talent and of 
 boldness in the other ; and of longevity, moderation, and 
 of seasonableness in botli ; were exactly fulfilled. Fate 
 seems even not to have been careless of minor points ; he 
 who was to be pacific, had a suitable exterior ; the second, 
 who was destined for a conqueror, was of a colossal, com- 
 manding, and already victorious stature. 
 
 Nay, more, of three sons whom the warrior left, one 
 alone was a great man, ])iit he was the youngest of the 
 three. Now, what was the result ? It liappened, that, 
 during the childhood of the latter, the first, who was an or- 
 dinary ])rince, died after a short reign : it happened, too, 
 that the second was so utterly incapable of reigning, that 
 his subjects set no value on him ; and, finally, it hapj)eni"(l, 
 that his two elder brothers died witlioiil iiiali' licirs : so 
 that, amidst these three princes, of such didcrent ages, the 
 crown, passing rapidly through the first two, fell, as of
 
 234 
 
 Hl«TORV OF RUSSIA, 
 
 itself, into tlic luands of him wlio Avas most remote from 
 and most wortliy of it. 
 
 Peter the Great wore it during forty-three years.* Thus 
 destiny arranged in such a manner the spirit and the du- 
 ration of the first six reigns of the second race, as if it 
 had delighted in preparing, raising, ])reserving, and aug- 
 menting the glory of the race. 
 
 * From 1682 to 1726. 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 I
 
 BOOK VII. CHAP. I. 235 
 
 BOOK VII. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The grandees themselves refused the crown to the im- 
 becility of Ivan, the second son of Alexis ; they gave it to 
 Peter I.* his brother by a second marriage. 
 
 It is not, however, by so gentle a descent that fate leads 
 great men ; the childhood of Peter was claimed by misfor- 
 tune. Aided by a revolt of the Strelitz, Sophia, liis sister, 
 but by the same mother as Ivan, caused to be restored to 
 Ivan a sceptre, which she hoped to wield in conjunction 
 with her favourite Golitzin, during the perpetual infancy 
 of the weak-minded prince. 
 
 Peter Avas only ten years old, and already he seemed to 
 be lost to Russia : sedition in all its fury surrounded him. 
 In the first instance, his mother could save him only by 
 carrying him sixty versts in her arms, and the insurgent 
 Strehtz closely tracked her footsteps.-f- She could hear their 
 yells and the tread of their ap])roachingfeet ; at length, they 
 rushed after her into the Convent of the Trinity. The un- 
 fortunate and dismayed motlier took refuge at the foot of 
 
 • See, fftr tlie accession of Teter the (Jreat, Stcherliatof, Muller, 
 Phcoplianes. The Icariicfl notes of M. M. Deppiiiff, and Levesqiie, 
 whom Lcclerr controverts, but without citing wulfi( ient autlioriticK. 
 
 t Sto-hlin.
 
 236 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 the altar, on which she placed her son ; but the sanctuary 
 was violated, and the victim was seen by two strelitz : doubly 
 sacrilegious, one of them seized the prince, and raised his 
 sword, and that head which contained the seeds of the 
 Russian glory was on the point of falling, when a mo- 
 mentary hesitation produced an entire change. Horsemen 
 appeared, tliey hurried forward, and Peter was once more 
 saved. 
 
 In the mean while, the boyards, by whom he was elected, 
 had been proscribed ; his relatives by his mother''s side 
 had been murdered ; the strelitz alone seemed to have 
 conceived and executed every thing. But Sophia, whom 
 they had appointed regent, had reaped the fruits of the 
 murder ; she encircled herself with the murderers ; she 
 recompensed them with the property of their victims. 
 
 These dangerous allies, hov/ever, did not resign into her 
 hands their revolutionary power. After having gratified 
 their own class by destroying the indentures wliich bound 
 the hired slaves to the nobility, they placed inspectors about 
 Sophia : like all those who give thrones, these janissaries 
 wished the possessor to reign for them alone. 
 
 This disgrace was lasting : for three years, in the ambi- 
 tious Sophia, as it has happened in so many other ambi- 
 tious characters, the most lordly and arrogant of all pas- 
 sions, proved itself to be the most servile. At length, she 
 shook off this infamous yoke, avenged herself on the most 
 daring, and pardoned the others, either in consideration of 
 their numbers, or of their being old accomplices. 
 
 The Tartars were now repulsed, the Turks were re- 
 pressed ; and, as the reward of ihe latter effort, which was 
 made in conjunction with Poland and Austria, Poland 
 renounced the Lithuanian provinces which had been re- 
 conquered by Alexis. 
 
 But the capacity thus displayed by Sophia and her mi-
 
 BOOK VII. CHAP. 1. 237 
 
 nisters, did not legitimate their usurpation over the risin2 
 genius which they vainly sought to stifle : that indestruc- 
 tible principle, that insurmountable strength, the livino- 
 deity in man, against which human efforts are unavailing ! 
 Accordingly, they succeeded only in impairing the health 
 and corrupting the morals of the youthful Tzar ; it was 
 not more in their power to deprive him of his lofty nature, 
 than it would have been possible for them to have given it 
 to him. 
 
 In the beginning of 1684, they led to the altar the weak- 
 minded Ivan, in the hope that the birth of a heir to the 
 throne would for ever exclude his brother from it, and 
 prolong their regency for an indefinite period. 
 
 At the same time, the boyhood of Peter was banished 
 to a village. General Menesius,* a learned Scotchman, to 
 whom Alexis had entrusted his education, refused to be- 
 tray him, and was, therefore, driven from his charge. 1'he 
 first impressions on the mind of Peter were allowed to be 
 received from coarse and sordid amusements ; and next, 
 from foreigners, who were repulsed by the jealousy of the 
 boyards, hated by the superstition of the people, and de- 
 spised by the general ignorance. 
 
 But Providence attains its ends even by means of our 
 own blindness. Kept at a distance from the throne, Peter 
 escaped the influence of tliat atmosphere of effeminacy and 
 flattery by which it is environed ; the hatred with which 
 lie was inspired against tlie destroyers of his family, in- 
 creased the energy of his character. He knew that he 
 must con(juer his place upon the throne, which was held 
 by an able and ambitious sister, and encircled by a barba- 
 rous soldiery ; thenceforth, his childiiood had tliat wliich 
 ripened age too often wants, it iiad an aim in view, of 
 which his genius, already bold and ])ersevering, had a 
 
 * See IJabbvillu.
 
 238 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 thorough comprehension. Surrounded by adventurers of 
 darinoj spirits, who had come from far to try their fortune, 
 his powers were ra))idly unfolded. 
 
 One of them, Lefort, who doubtless perceived in this 
 young barbarian the traces of civilization, which had per- 
 haps been left there by his first tutor,* gave him an idea 
 of the sciences and arts of Europe, and particularly of the 
 military art. 
 
 It is said that, on being made sensible of the barbarism 
 of his countrymen, tears of generous sorrow started into 
 the eyes of this youth ; it was like presenting a sword to 
 the sight of a new Achilles. But Peter was much more. 
 That arms should have been his toys, and military exer- 
 cises his sports, excites but little astonishment ; but that 
 which deserves admiration is, that, at a time of life when it 
 is deemed an insupportable yoke, he should have compre- 
 hended the importance of discipline ; that he should have 
 submitted to it with the same eagerness that men display 
 to elude it ; that he should have persevered in it, at the 
 most mutable period of existence; and lastly, that he 
 should have given an example at an age in which indivi- 
 duals are hardly capable of following one. 
 
 Fifty young Russians were placed about his person ; 
 hot, as of old, when the flower of the Egyptian youth were 
 placed near Sesostris, or the sons of the Persian grandees 
 near the youthful Cyrus ; but merely as companions in 
 debauchery, his amusers, for so they were denominated by 
 the rusticity of that period. 
 
 Peter accepted them as such ; for his body, equally ro- 
 bust with his mind, was suflicient for every thing, for evil 
 as well as for good ; but, at the same time, with that ad- 
 mirable discernment which marks great men, and that 
 power which tliey exercise over themselves and others, he 
 * See Bassville, Mem. of Lefort.
 
 BOOK Vll. CHAP. I. 239 
 
 rushed forth, by the only outlet tliat was left open, from 
 tlie barbarism which enveloped him, and drew after him 
 all who were about his person. 
 
 The village in which he was retained became an Eu- 
 ropean military school ; his companions became pupils in 
 the art of war, exercised, armed, and dressed like the fo- 
 reigners, whose superiority he had discovered. 
 
 The youthful Tzar wished to pass through all the ranks, 
 and perform their most painful duties : he was a drummer, 
 then a soldier, then an officer, and this was not a mere 
 mockery ; in a barrow, made with his own hands, he 
 wheeled the earth of the entrenchments whicii he con- 
 structed, and, like the meanest soldier, he himself took his 
 turn to keep guard in them. 
 
 He was desirous to render that career honourable, and 
 to leave deeply imprinted in it the footsteps of a sove- 
 reign, to serve as a guide to those whom he called to fol- 
 low him ; then, giving another great example, in the inter- 
 vals of his service, he applied himself to the study of the 
 German language and of mathematics ; resting from the 
 toils of the body by those of the mind, and thus forming 
 himself for the life of a hero. 
 
 Already, by his persevering study of the principles of 
 the science of war, Peter had acquired a facility of learn- 
 ing; for, as the arts are connected with each other by 
 some one link, and all by a general method, the profound 
 study of one of them led him on to the others ; he ac- 
 quired more and more a taste for civilization, and a dis- 
 taste for Muscovite barbarism, and thus his future great- 
 ness was to be the offspring of his misfortunes. 
 
 Sophia and her strelitz, meanwhile, smiled at these war- 
 like sports. Ill this series of efforts, always directed to- 
 wards the .same point, she did not ])erceive tiie es.says of a 
 nascent genius. In these fifty boys, formed into a com-
 
 240 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 panv, bearing the name of pleasure compani/^ she saw not 
 the germ of those regular corps, which were soon to assist in 
 hurling her from the throne, and destroying her sateUites. 
 What cared she for a boy of fifteen, Avho, alone, was 
 growing up between her and the goal which her sanguinary 
 ambition even now touched! But already Peter dared 
 to resist her ; his strength disdained dissimulation ; he 
 openly declared against the accomplices of his sister ; to the 
 criminal pregnancy of his brother's wife he opposed his 
 own marriage, and, in a very short time, the hope of a 
 more legitimate heir. 
 
 Sophia began to be astonished that so youthful a heart 
 was neither to be won over nor intimidated. In a very 
 short time the age of Peter (1689), for he was seventeen, 
 and his genius, which outran his years, Avere a source of 
 embarrassment to her. At length, she dared to wear the en- 
 signs of sovereign power ; Peter was indignant at this; and 
 his giving vent to his anger was the signal of his ruin. 
 The victim, the hour, the place, all was marked out, and 
 six hundred strelitz marched with all the precipitation of 
 guilt, vmder cover of the night. 
 
 But it was not in a despotic court, the favourite abode 
 of intrigue, and in a government where power, absolute 
 even to theocracy, was concentered in a single family, that 
 the two-f©Id potency of legitimacy and of genius could 
 want partisans ; this was proved by the humbled state of 
 that haughty princess, when she learned that Peter, time- 
 ly warned, had taken refuge in the Convent of the Trinity; 
 that he had summoned round him his faithful subjects; 
 that the patriarch himself had abandoned the usurper and 
 proclaimed her guilty ; and that her scheme was thus 
 rendered abortive. Disarmed of her plot, the ambitious 
 regent sank powerless before a youth ; and genius assumed 
 the station which she had recently occupied (1689).
 
 BOOK VII. CHAP. 11. 241 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The eighteenth century was now about to commence, 
 and with it the period of Russian civilization at length ar- 
 rived. Since the tenth century, the first race, attracted 
 by the benefits which the sun and civilization confer, had 
 followed the general tendency of the northern barbarians 
 towards those two lights which warm and illuminate the 
 world. But its intestine dissensions, and the Tartars, had 
 violently turned it aside from that direction. Accord- 
 ingly, the master-idea of that dynasty was the concentra- 
 tion of its power, and its liberation from the Asiatic yoke. 
 
 Under the first race, therefore, Russia was turned wholly 
 towards the East ; under the second, we see it almost ex- 
 clusively turned back towards the West. 
 
 Every thing drew it thither, peace as well as war ; and 
 also the Germanic origin of the new princes : Asia was 
 now done with : besides, the original propension towards 
 heat and light, which is so natural to the men of the frozen 
 shades of the north, but which had at first been wrested aside 
 by a great accident, now insensibly resumed its empire.* 
 
 Those European lights, hitherto perhaps too feeble to 
 penetrate to such a distance, and through such thick dark- 
 ness, now grew stronger, and from day to day shed around 
 an increa.sing radiance. 
 
 Besides, in the interval which separated the two Russian 
 dynasties, had not Europe itself advanced to the very 
 heart of Russia.^ To resist it was a matter of necessity ; 
 
 * VVeytlemeyer, Malte-Brun, &c.&c. See, subsequent to the con- 
 quest of Astracaii, the constiint migrations of the Great Russians 
 along tlie Vnl^n ami the Kama. 
 
 K
 
 242 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 and, for this purpose, it was no less necessary to turn en- 
 tirely towards the West, and fix all the attention there ; 
 and, since war was there an art, it was also indispensable 
 to obtain instruction, and to become civilized, in order to 
 combat with equal arms. 
 
 On the other hand, the encampment of the Turks in 
 Constantinople, compelled one part of Christendom to have 
 recourse to Russia for aid : thus, in whatever manner, 
 whether hostile or otherwise, Europe displayed its radiance 
 to it, Russia, henceforth obliged to make war or to nego- 
 tiate by the light of that radiance, must necessarily be il- 
 luminated by it. Asia, therefore, was no longer any thing 
 more than a secondary concern in its policy ; and as it had 
 been Asiatic under the Ruriks, it tended to become Euro- 
 pean under the Romanoffs. 
 
 Till the time of Peter the Great, however, the princes of 
 his dynasty may be said to have lived only upon loans 
 made from civilization, and not to have been able to na- 
 turalize it ; their efforts were indecisive, inexpert, inca- 
 pable ; they were made without a plan, without concentra- 
 tion ; they were rendered abortive by an ignorant, obsti- 
 nate, superstitious, national pride, which yielded with re- 
 gret to the necessity of borrowing from Europe, not the 
 germ of its arts, but merely some of their results. Those 
 timid experiments in industry and commerce, crushed and 
 stifled, were lost amidst that rude and boorish people. In 
 a country deeply impressed by the stagnant manners of 
 Asia, the power of habit contended victoriously against 
 that of novelty. 
 
 Some corps of foreign cavalry had, it is true, been or- 
 ganized ;* but they existed, dispersed and despised, in an 
 
 * In the Russian army of Alexis, before Smolensk, there were 
 seven regiments organized in the European manner.
 
 BOOK VII. CHAP. II. 2^3 
 
 army without pav, without an uniform, and without regu- 
 larity ; and this commencement of organization inider 
 Alexis disappeared under his successor. This was the 
 reason why the Romanoffs had not been able to preserve 
 the conquests which were made from the Tartars by the 
 two Ivans. It was only by availing himself of highly 
 favourable circumstances, that Alexis triumphed over the 
 Poles. As to the Swedes, a fruitless effort had inspired a 
 disgust of contending against them. 
 
 Since the sixteenth century, the empire, therefore, had 
 made no acquisitions but on the side of Siberia ; elsewhere, 
 in that direction, the course of the Oural nearly marked 
 its frontier : Astracan on the one side, Kief on the other, 
 and the Cossacks, whom sameness of religion, the intole- 
 rance of the Poles, and their hatred of the Turks, had re- 
 cently given to Russia, were her dubious and last posses- 
 sions towards the south ; to the west, were the Dnieper 
 and the Dwina ; to the north, Pskof and Novgorod, ruined 
 by desolation and war ; then, the White Sea : an empire, 
 in short, wholly of land, held as a prisoner, without any 
 other outlet than a wild, repulsive, desert sea, which, during 
 three-fourths of tlie year, was itself enchained and innnove- 
 able. 
 
 But one bold stroke placed a youthful barbarian of 
 eighteen at the head of this barbarous nation, and all was 
 soon irrevocably changed. An historical miracle ! To work 
 ujjon, to enlighten, to enlarge, in a word, to transform en- 
 tirely, and in spite of itself, that whole moral and physical 
 nature, one single mind, circumscribed within the narrow 
 linn'ts of a man, was found to suffice. 
 
 'I'hat young prince sprang from a family of pure morals, 
 as is ol)vi()us, not only from the colossal vigour of his 
 frame, but also of his mind. Without selfishness in the 
 most selfish of passions, his ample heart included witliin its 
 
 K 2
 
 244 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 own bounds an entire national ambition ; one of those great 
 and noble ambitions, devoid of all reference to self, — the 
 glory of twenty milhons of men ! 
 
 To this greatness of mind he added a soundness of judg- 
 ment, a correctness of ideas, in a word, that good sense 
 which may be called a sixth sense, and which alone can 
 give to all the mental and corporeal powers a useful, and, 
 consequently, a truly great direction. 
 
 Add to all this, the constitution of a great man ; that 
 harmony of intellectual and physical vigour and activity 
 which is essential to strong and vivid conception, to tena- 
 cious pursuit, and to the accomplishment of vast projects. 
 Lastly, that stature of imaginary heroes which real heroes 
 so seldom possess, either because human nature cannot be 
 so perfect, and that it exhausts itself in giving large pro- 
 portions either to body or to mind ; or, because the two 
 advantages are incompatible with each other, men, gifted 
 with such personal qualities, being very seldom solicitous 
 to become distinguished as men of illustrious deeds. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Till he reached the age of twenty, the study of some 
 of the European languages, that of the military art, and 
 the care of forming, according to the principles of that 
 art, an army of twenty thousand men, occupied his early 
 youth. 
 
 Murderous exercises, and petty but sanguinary wars, 
 manifested at once the ardour of the prince, the rudeness 
 of the times, and that oriental contempt of the life of man.
 
 BOOK VII. CHAP. III. 245 
 
 which is the worthy result of tlie servile brutishness of the 
 subject, the despotism of the master, and the exclusion of 
 females from society .* 
 
 At the same time, the Russian Cossacks pushed their 
 conquests in Siberia as far as the frontiers of China. The 
 two empires, on approaching each other for the first time, 
 came into collision, till the treaty of 1692 settled the limits 
 which Avere to be common to them. 
 
 It was then that,t in an European sloop, which had 
 been forgotten among other ruins, and the use of which he 
 caused to be explained to him, the Tzar perceived the real 
 instrument for civilizing liis empire. From that moment 
 this prince, whose early childhood, in consequence of his 
 having been frightened by the sudden noise of a large cas- 
 cade,! had contracted a dread of water wliich he was loner 
 before he could conquer, became passionately fond of that 
 element ; he attached himself to the art of navigation ; a 
 river, a lake, the White Sea, which was then the only 
 Russian sea, successively served to give him a thorough 
 knowledge of that art. 
 
 War was at length begun ;| it was the Turks whom 
 Peter attacked. He was only twenty-three, and already, 
 in the siege of Asoph, the paramount idea of his whole life 
 became visible. He wished to civilize his people in begin- 
 ning with the science of war by sea and land. That art, 
 which thenceforth included all the other arts, would open 
 the way for them into Russia, and protect them there. 
 By that science the Tzar was to conquer for his empire 
 that element, which, in his eyes, was the greatest civifizer 
 of the world, because it is the most favourable to the inter- 
 course of nations with each other. 
 
 His att(Mn])t upon Asoph, his failure, wlieii his irn|)a- 
 
 * See liatjsville, Life of Lefort, &c. ike. f 1612. 
 
 I Manstein.
 
 246 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 tiencc led him to deviate from right princij)los, and his 
 success when, after a two years'" siege, he acted upon them, 
 confirmed him in his resolution. Twelve ships of war, 
 constructed on the Voroncje,* and sent down the Don, 
 ensured this conquest. Since the barks of the Varangians, 
 it was the first time that these streams had beheld a Rus- 
 sian sail. 
 
 But ignorant and savage Asia lay stretched along the 
 Black Sea, even to Byzantium, between Russia and the 
 south of Europe. It was not, therefore, through this sea, 
 which was become barbarous, that the efforts of Peter 
 could open himself a passage to European knowledge. 
 
 But towards the north-west another sea, that whence, 
 in the ninth century, came the first Russian founders of the 
 empire, was within his reach. Hovyever hyperborean it 
 may be, that sea has, nevertheless, like most other seas, 
 civilized its bordering tribes. It alone could connect Mus- 
 covy with ancient Europe ; it was especially through that 
 inlet, and by the ports on the gulfs of Finland and of 
 Riga, that Russia covdd aspire to civilization. It would 
 dispel from her atmosphere the heavy vapours of that two- 
 fold Asiatic and Gothic barbarism, which lent obstinacy 
 to each other, and of which the double source was so near 
 to it. 
 
 But those ports belonged to a warlike land, thickly 
 studded with strong fortresses, and defended by a formid- 
 able nation. It mattered not ; every thing ought to be 
 tried to attain so important an object. 
 
 Peter, however, did not deem it proper to make such 
 strenuous efforts, without being certain of the utility of 
 that which he sought to acquire. There was nothing 
 around him which could give him an idea of the nations 
 Avhich he was to gain over, or to conquer, and which were 
 
 * 1695.
 
 BOOK VII. CHAP. III. 247 
 
 recommended to him as models. It Avas not on the mere 
 word of adventurers that he ought to become the reformer 
 of his people ; he was desirous, with his own eyes, to be- 
 hold civilization in its mature state, full of life, to form a 
 judgment of it in its effects, in its totality, in its details, 
 and to derive it from its source. He departed;* and, by 
 this first step of the sovereign, he broke down the barrier 
 which despotism and superstition had raised between the 
 Russians and Europe, and which rendered war their only 
 connecting link with the civilized world. 
 
 At that period, Mustapha II. was vanquished by the 
 emperor Leopold ; Sobieski was dead ; and Poland was 
 hesitatino; between the Prince of Conti and Augustus of 
 Saxony; the celebrated Stadtholder William I. reigned 
 over England ; Louis XIV. was on the point of conclud- 
 ing the treaty of Ryswick ; the Elector of Brandenburg 
 purchased the title of king ; and Charles XII. ascended 
 the throne. 
 
 Peter was only twenty-four years of age, and even now 
 the plan of his whole life seemed to be irrevocably laid 
 down. His journey shows it ; he began by Livonia, on 
 which, at the risk of his liberty, he mad(i his observations 
 in Riga : tlienceforth, he covdd not rest till he had acquired 
 that maritime province, that outlet, that source of com- 
 merce and civilization, through which his empire was one 
 day to be enriched and enlightened. 
 
 Ill his progress, he gained the fricndslii}) of Prussia, a 
 power which, at a future time, might assist liis efforts; 
 Pohmd ought to be his ally, and already he declared him- 
 self the supporter of the Saxon prince who was about to 
 rule it. 
 
 Hamburgh, HoUand, England, contended for the esteem 
 of a monarch, the harvest of whose possessions their coni- 
 
 * 1697.
 
 248 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 merce was eager to reap ; but he, careless of the repulsive- 
 ness of Sweden, and of his triumphal reception by the 
 other northern states, advanced steadily onward towards 
 his purpose, without turning from it his attention. Amidst 
 nations so superior in knowledge, he, unaffectedly simple, 
 as true greatness ever is, despised nothing; in his eyes, 
 useful science placed every thing on an equality. He 
 listened with the same deportment to the lessons of kings 
 and of artisans ; raising to his own level all kinds of utility, 
 all kinds of superiority, from whatever quarter they came ; 
 and thus proving himself, unconsciously, and by the 
 strength of character alone, above the prejudices, not only 
 of his own country, to which he wished to be an example, 
 but also of the nations which he took for his models. 
 
 For seventeen months, Germany, Holland, England, 
 and Austria, saw a young barbarian of twenty-five, whom 
 a treacherous sister, in his tenderest infancy, had delivered 
 over to the most violent passions — a lover of wine, of 
 women, and of authority — quitting his absolute throne, a 
 war begun under happy auspices, and all that throng of 
 seductions by which power is incessantly besieged, to visit, 
 with the compass, the axe, and the scalpel, in his hand, 
 their manufactories, their workshops, their hospitals, to 
 study practically there all the sciences, which he, and he 
 alone, amidst his people, considered as indispensable to 
 their prosperity, their glory, and their independence. 
 
 Neither the study and the cares of politics, nor the wars 
 which he continued to carry on, nor those for which he 
 prepared, could turn him aside from tliis obscure and pain- 
 ful labour ; he was sustained by the importance of his 
 enterprise ; while, at the same time, he did not allow the 
 splendour and magnitude of the prize which was perpetu- 
 ally present to his mind, to seduce liim into imprudent 
 precipitation for the purpose of obtaining it.
 
 BOOK VII. CHAP. III. 249 
 
 He was, indeed, one of the men of a great age, of an 
 age which surpassed all others in greatness, because it was 
 conscientious ; because every thing in it was more deeply 
 impressed with the stamp of truth, and because the espe- 
 cial object of many was to be smcerely and entirely that 
 which, in later days, it has been the grand object of others 
 to appear to be. 
 
 At the same time, Peter either drew, or impelled out of 
 Russia, and towards the light of European knowledge, 
 four hundred young Russians : he himself led back to it 
 seven hundred foreigners, skilled in those arts and sciences 
 which were most necessary to his empire ; and others were 
 ))erpetually lured to enter into his service. 
 
 Nor let it be imagined that we behold the eye of a bar- 
 barian, suddenly dazzled by the civiHzation of the great 
 age of Louis XIV. going astray from its real object, 
 in attention to minute peculiarities. Peter liad under- A 
 taken to re-edify and to instruct a society of fifteen millions 
 of men, grown stiff in prejudices, in superstition, and in 
 sordid iiabits. It was not alone his subjects that he was 
 desirous of civilizing, but likewise the soil which they in- 
 habited ; he wished to ameliorate, and, indeed, to trans- | 
 form, the whole moral and physical nature of the realm ] 
 over which his dominion extended. 
 
 In an enterprize so gigantic, where it was necessary to 
 put force upon those two natures, — an enterprize by which 
 all minds were to be so much agitated, which was so pow- 
 erfully to give motion to man, and even to the soil on 
 which he trod, and which was to be accom})lished at such 
 an expense of labour, of treasure, and of blood, — it was 
 impossible for him to act unhesitatingly and steadily, with- 
 out that strong conviction which can never he ])n)duced 
 but by a thorough knowledge of the subject. 
 
 He well knew that here, still iiioit- than elsewhere, it
 
 250 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 would not be enout>;li to «^ive an order without setting an 
 example ; that it could not be set merely by a few foreign 
 teachers ; that, therefore, he must himself pvit his hand to 
 every thing ; and that even that hand, royal, and strong, 
 and skilful as it was, would hardly afford a sufficiently 
 powerfid example. 
 
 This is an example which stands alone in history ! it is 
 the example of a despot no doubt ; a despot by birth, by 
 station, by necessity, by the ascendancy of genius, by nature, 
 and because slaves must have a master ! but, which seems 
 utterly incompatible, a despot more patriotic, more con- 
 stantly and wholly devoted to the welfare of his nation, 
 than ever was any citizen of a modern' or even of an 
 ancient republic ! 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 And what other instrviment than despotism could he 
 use among a people trebly slaves, by the conquest under 
 the first Russians, by the domination of the Tartars, and 
 by the concentration of power which released them from 
 the Tartar yoke ; a people, among whom children were 
 the slaves of their fathers, and wives of their husbands ; 
 where, in a word, all were at once masters and slaves : two 
 situations, one of which is amply sufficient to pervert 
 human beings ? 
 
 In that country, then the abode of barbarism, even those 
 who had the largest share of learning, had no other mode 
 of reckoning than by strings of balls ; thek^xciests, Greeks 
 }>y religion, were ignorant of Greek and Latin, scarcely 
 knew how to read, and wallowed in perpctual~(3runken-
 
 BOOK VII. CHAP. IV. 251 
 
 ness : a typofyraphical correction made in the clumsy edi- 
 tions of their Bible, was looked upon by them as a horri- 
 ble sacrilege ; they were a people truly idolatrous, by 
 their excessive adoration of the saints, each individual 
 having the image of his own, which his fellow countrymen 
 could not pray to without being prosecuted and sentenced 
 to damages, for having stolen favours from an image which 
 anoiher had ruined himself to enrich and adorn. 
 
 They were men, a great part of whom were so thorough- 
 ly brutified by wretchedness, as to believe that heaven 
 was not made for them, but only for their princes and 
 boyards ; for those very grandees who, nevertheless, were 
 publicly scourged for theft, without their being degraded, 
 without believing their rank to be disgraced, either by the 
 shame of the crime, or the shame of the punishment. 
 
 They were, in a word, the same people of whom, by a 
 single nod, the Ivans had transported thousands of pro- 
 jjrietors from the south to the north, and from the north 
 to the south, of their empire ; who, without a murmur, had 
 suffered bears to be let loose upon them, for diversion, in 
 the streets of the capital ; whose nobles returned thanks to 
 the })rince when, at a ban(juet, he beat or mutilated them 
 for his sport. A barbarous country, where, in the nume- 
 rous butcheries of pretended state criminals, the Grand- 
 Princes and his courtiers themselves played the part of 
 executioners upon the principal conspirators ; a govern- 
 ment so ill-constructed and absurd, that civil and military 
 functions were confounded in the same hands ; a national 
 mass so mis-shapen and so unliealthy, that it was scarcely 
 ablcto repulse a renmant of Tartars; and whiili, had it 
 continued in the state that Peter found it in, Cliarles XII. 
 would, perhaj)s, have concjuered as easily as Siberia had 
 been concpa-red by itself, and America by Europe. 
 
 And yet, nobler, priests, j)e()|)le, every one, even to the
 
 252 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 first wife and the son of the reformer, clung to these boor- 
 ish manners, and to this beniglited ignorance ; obstinately 
 determined to live over again the life of their fathers ; per- 
 petually re-commencing instead of making progress. 
 
 The nobles, who had been discontented since the time of 
 Ivan IV. and es})ecially since the destruction, by Fcedor, 
 of their exclusive titles to the ranks and places held by 
 their ancestors, refused to obey ; they abhorred the new 
 system which Peter sought to introduce, where it was 
 necessary to begin by obeying, where every thing re- 
 quired to be learned, and where rank depended on merit. 
 
 The priests, superstitious from their calling, fanatical from 
 ignorance, from interest, and from the pride inspired by 
 their influence over a people still more ignorant than them- 
 selves ; the priests, whose patriarchal throne, since the 
 accession of the second race, had stood so close to the 
 regal throne; they, beforehand, poured forth their male- 
 dictions upon all innovation, and especially when brought 
 from countries where a dreaded sect was triumphant. 
 By them, the first printing-office, which Alexis endea- 
 voured to estabUsh, had been burned. Thus did they 
 repel all improvements, as abominable acts of sacrilege ; 
 and to this they were prompted either by a fanatical spirit, 
 or by the instinct of immutability which, in fact, is indis- 
 pensable to the existence of all power that is built upon 
 error and superstition. 
 
 As to the people, the example of the two other classes, 
 and the influence which they exercised over them, were 
 sufficient to harden them in their barbarous manners ; 
 even independent of the force of habit, which operated 
 powerfully on all classes, and which is generally strong in 
 proportion to the worthlessness of the custom from wliich 
 it has originated. 
 
 But Peter had formed a correct estimate of the three
 
 BOOK VII. CHAP. IV. 253 
 
 elements on wliich he wshed to act : he knew that the 
 State, such as his genius conceived it, was entirely con- 
 centrated in himself. He was aware that the clergy were 
 not likely to become a dangerous power. It is true that, 
 having constantly increased their numbers and their pri- 
 vileges since the time of Vladimir the Great,* we find 
 them, in I7OO, the persons first consulted on all important 
 affairs, exercising the right of sentencing to death without 
 appeal, and possessing one half of the property of the 
 empire. Yet, notwithstanding all this, traditionary feel- 
 ings, interest, and weakness, had always retained them in 
 obedience. 
 
 The causes of this constant submission to the head of 
 the Government have already been assigned : the most 
 prominent cause has been stated to be, the obligation which 
 the priests were under of being married — a custom which 
 introduced into their corporation the most heterogeneous 
 parts; which weakened the corporate spirit by the mix- 
 ture of contrary interests with it ; which linked them with 
 civil life by rendering them as much citizens as priests ; 
 and lastly, which occasioned them to be less respected by 
 their flocks, in consequence of their too near approach 
 to the multitude in point of situation. 
 
 We have seen, that uniforndy, in the midst of com- 
 motions, and of extreme dangers, the priests, and es- 
 pecially their primate, who was almost always a foreigner, 
 felt the j)aramount necessity of order, and of supj)orting 
 with all their strength, a government by which alone they 
 could be supported. 
 
 Thus the primates and the Grand-Princes had grown 
 great by the aid of each otiier ; and no sooner was a tzar 
 seen at Moscow, than a primate was also seen there. 
 
 ♦ About the year lOOO.
 
 254 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 But these ftiithful allies of the Grand-Princes, who 
 for centuries had assisted them to subdue the rebellious 
 Russians by means of the Tartars, and the Tartars by 
 means of the at length united Russians, now, prompted by 
 ambition or superstition, dared to resist them in their 
 turn ; and it was against Peter the Great that their resist- 
 ance was directed ! But the clergy had so successfully 
 contributed to enhance the power of the tzars, that that 
 power was become sufficient of itself to crush them, with a 
 single word, and without assistance from any quarter. 
 
 In the first place, the priests endeavoured to excite the 
 nation to revolt; but to whom did they address thens- 
 selves ? to the nobles. Had they, then, forgotten, that it 
 was mainly by the help of their patriarch, that the elder 
 brother of this very Tzar gave the final blow to the no- 
 biHty, by destroying their privileges. Besides, vainly did 
 the clergy lean for support on the shadow of a body, which, 
 even from the period of its origin, had never been pos- 
 sessed of regularity and consistence. Peter, Avho was the 
 first to collect its annals, well knew its long-continued 
 weakness. He knew that the nobles could derive no 
 energy from the pride of their recollections ; he knew their 
 protracted submission to the cities and the Russian petty 
 princes ; their three centuries of servility to the brutal 
 whimsies of the meanest Tartar traveller or trader. In 
 their benighted history, his eyes could scarcely discern their 
 obscure ance-stors, till the fall of the princes who held ap- 
 panages, and the blending of them and of the Tartars with 
 the nobihty, gave rise to a court aristocracy, which prided 
 itself on being the slave of its monarch. Then it was, that 
 they pretended to those hereditary privileges of favour 
 and of rank, which they still so bitterly regretted. 
 
 But Peter was not ignorant of the abasement of those 
 nobles before the pride of Ivan III. " Every place,"
 
 BOOK VII. CHAP. IV. 255 
 
 that monarch had told them, " ought to be held good by 
 them for his service." Peter, indeed, seemed but too 
 much to approve the executions of the great boyards of 
 that prince, and the massacres of Ivan IV. He knew that 
 the grandees of Russia had borne the insane atrocities of 
 that infamous tyrant, like vile courtiers, like slaves even, 
 and had possessed no other stability than that which they 
 derived from the power that had been pleased to raise them, 
 and which afterwards thought proper to annihilate them. 
 
 In the election of the parricidal Godunof, amidst that 
 vast armv of vassals which the nobles brought to him ; 
 in the series of native or foreign usurpers, who had ty- 
 rannized with impunity during their momentary possession 
 of the throne ; the youthful Tzar saw, in a stronger light, 
 all the withering and degrading power of servitude ; and 
 yet, those nobles contended with each other for precedence ! 
 At once masters and slaves, they were arrogant and ser- 
 vile, but still more servile than they were arrogant. 
 They had perpetually sacrificed the state to their un- 
 bearable pretensions ; important expeditions had been frus- 
 trated by their pride ; the wounded vanity of these nobles 
 liad even left the country without defenders ; the empire 
 had been disturbed, shaken to its basis, and laid open by 
 it. To this vanity was added an envious horror of the fo- 
 reigners who were called in to instruct them ; it ruined the 
 army before Smolensk, luider the grandfather of Peter the 
 Great; it had recently obliterated the traces of some of 
 those steps which his father had taken towards the im- 
 j)rovement of the Russians. At that period it was, that 
 the childhood of the reformer was astonished by a scene 
 which was without a precedent in history. The Krcndin 
 is said to have been the theatre of it. Foedor, his eldest 
 l)rother, and iiis minister, Golitzin, reigned there. TIh' 
 grandees of the state had been assembled, and all the evi-
 
 ySO HISTORY OP RUSSIA, 
 
 (lencc relative to their titles luul been brought with them ; 
 in the midst of these heads of the nobles, the patriarch 
 concluded an animated harangue, by inveighing against 
 their prerogatives. " They are," said he, " a bitter 
 source of every kind of evil ; they render abortive the 
 most useful enterprises, in like manner as the tares stifle 
 the good grain ; they have introduced, even into the heart 
 of families, dissensions, confusion, and hatred ; but the 
 pontiff comprehends the grand design of his Tzar. God 
 alone can have inspired it !" At these words, and by an- 
 ticipation, all the grandees blindly hastened to express 
 their approval ; and, suddenly, Fcedor, whom this generous 
 unanimity seemed to enrapture, arose and proclaimed, in 
 a simulated burst of holy enthusiasm, the abolition of all 
 their hereditary ranks. " To extinguish even the recol- 
 lection of them,"" said he, " let all the papers relative to 
 those titles be instantly consumed !" And, as the fire was 
 ready, he ordered them to be thrown into the flames, be- 
 fore the dismayed eyes of the nobles, who strove to conceal 
 their anguish by dastardly acclamations 
 
 These were not corporate privileges, which are so useful 
 as a counterpoise. They were not even family privileges ; 
 they were merely insulated interests, individual pretensions 
 to rank, command, and precedence, founded on the absurd 
 opinion, that a place, formerly given by the Prince, con- 
 ferred hereditary rank. A ridiculous and contemptible 
 vanity, often condemned to the knout and to cudgelling, 
 and which was made for it. 
 
 Such was this rude, imperfect nobility, the barbarous 
 period of which, thanks to Peter the Great, was to end 
 with the seventeenth century. 
 
 But the other nobilities of Europe have no right to 
 reproach it with its past debasement. The early days of 
 their domination were not less deplorable than those of its
 
 BOOK VII. CHAP. IV. 257 
 
 slavery. All of them were the offspring of war and bar- 
 barism, and all, for a longer or shorter time, bore the 
 stamp of this origin ; but, on the other hand, each of them 
 had its distinffuishinsr virtues; fidelitv and valour were 
 those of the Russian nobility ; and if it must be confessed 
 to have been obscure when the others were chivalric, en- 
 slaved when they were dominant, and longer sunk in bar- 
 barism, a few words, as to the condition of the Russian 
 people previously to the eighteenth century, by completing 
 this picture of the state of the various classes of the na- 
 tion anterior to Peter the Great, will show that the circum- 
 stances, which, elsewhere, have always had a powerful 
 influence, were imperious, absolute, and irresistible in 
 Russia. 
 
 Wliat availed it, that tlic Prince, to whom his people 
 are indebted for collecting the materials of their iiistory, 
 might see in that history the traces of their primitive li- 
 berty, and those of their nascent civilization, as far back as 
 the eleventh century ; must not the most striking object 
 which he perceived in their annals have been the throng of 
 prince.s, with their guards, all possessors of cities, and the 
 consequent fever of foreicrn and domestic war which con- 
 sumed the unfortunate country ? For three centuries and 
 a half, from 1100 to 1460, it disordered, overthrew, and 
 destroyed every thing. Posterior to 1224, and for two 
 hundred years, every roaming Tartar could wander there, 
 like a master among his slaves. 
 
 In their pitiless invasion, those migratory enemies parti- 
 cularly made war upon cities. The bravest princes, their 
 guards, and the most valuable citizens, pciishcd at the 
 outset by fire and sword : with them died the country. 
 Wlien they were gone, national pride ceased to exist ; 
 every moral feeling l)ecame degraded; artifice and stratiu 
 gem, the only resources of hopeless despair, formed a part 
 
 S
 
 258 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 of the manners ; it was only by dint of patience, of subser- 
 viency, and of money, that it was possible to purchase 
 from the Tartars a moment of safety, or the preservation 
 of any object whatever, from the crown of a Grand-Prince 
 to the simple stove which served as the bed of the humblest 
 peasant. 
 
 Meanwhile the ambition and the cupidity of the Russian 
 princes, which were the causes of such numerous calami- 
 ties, were still active in this mire, and were added to the 
 other scourffes of Russia. The citizen sank into such a 
 wretched condition, that the law was obliged to allow him 
 to sell his children four times, and also to sell himself. 
 Men became rapacious, and insensible to insult and shame. 
 " The Russia of that period," exclaims their national his- 
 torian, " was rather a gloomy forest than an empire !"" 
 
 Amidst this chaos, it is true that the Russian republics 
 of the north remained free and powerful. There, the pri- 
 mitive liberty of the Slavonians was long preserved ; but 
 it was a barbarous liberty, which fell in its turn, when 
 foreign oppression was succeeded by domestic tyranny. 
 This latter barbarism trampled down all the others ; then, 
 to establish an unchangeable order among these various 
 classes of slaves, which were stretched vipon each other, 
 the last, the lowest, in one word, the people, were bound 
 down to the soil. 
 
 Yet, it was subsequently to this last outrageous manifes- 
 tation of despotism that, even in Moscow, the people seem to 
 have exercised the greatest influence. Witness the revolts 
 which occurred from the time of Mikhail to that of Sophia. 
 Peter the Great could attribute this new spirit only to 
 the concussion caused by the extinction of the sacred race of 
 Rurik, the mildness of his ancestors, the union of the free 
 Cossacks with the empire, and, especially, the creation of 
 the Strelitz ; for those vanquishers of the Tartars, those
 
 BOOK VII. CHAP. IV. 259 
 
 satellites of Ivan IV. petty citizens of the larger cities, at 
 the end of the seventeenth century, were nothing more than 
 blind and fanatical Janissaries. There was now an armed 
 people, armed, not for liberty, but for licentiousness ; ano- 
 ther despotism, that of the multitude, the least durable, 
 indeed, but the most intolerable of all. 
 
 s 2
 
 260 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 BOOK VIII. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Such was the chaos in which Peter the Great wished to 
 restore order, and from whence he departed to obtain the 
 light by which he was at last to illumine it. In this utter 
 confusion of prejudices and of manners, what was there for 
 him to respect and treat with caution ; especially when the 
 obstinate blindness of the people rendered it necessary that 
 the mighty work of regeneration should be accomplished 
 during the short life of one man ? As every thing must be 
 done by himself, speed was requisite ; all the changes must 
 be abruptly produced ; and, as in the case of Vladimir the 
 Great, the god of barbarism must be at once thrown into 
 the waves, that the god of civilization might be imme- 
 diately introduced. 
 
 Moreover, abruptness takes by surprise ; which is one 
 mode of bringing affairs to a termination. 
 
 Besides, it is not sufficiently known by what a multitude 
 of criminal attempts against his life, the reformer"'s despotic 
 temper and natural ferocity were irritated. Sometimes it 
 was the sword of rebellion that he had to fly from or to 
 break ; sometimes, to escape the poison, which is said to 
 have been prepared by a sister''s hand ; at a later period.
 
 BOOK VIII. CHAP. I. 261 
 
 the dagger of a Raskolnick fell at his feet, at the moment 
 when the assassin was on the point of using it. 
 
 The Strelitz in particular, who saw themselves supplanted 
 by the regiments disciplined in the European manner, were 
 actively hostile. The childhood and youth of Peter had 
 several times escaped from their rage ; and now, in the 
 horror which was inspired by the annunciation of his de- 
 parture for profane Europe, they determined to sacrifice 
 an impious Tzar, who was ready to defile himself by the 
 sacrilegious touch of foreigners, whom they abhorred. 
 
 They saw in the midst of them twelve thousand heretics, 
 already organized, who would remain masters of their holy 
 city ; while they themselves, exiled to the army, were des- 
 tined to fight at a distance on the frontier.* Nor was this 
 their only grievance ; for, either from necessity, or from 
 his youthful and energetic genius being desirous to accom- 
 plish too much and too soon, Peter the Great had given 
 orders to construct a fleet of a hundred vessels ; and of this 
 sudden creation they complained, as being an insupport- 
 able tax in the midst of an already ruinous war, and as 
 rendering it necessary to introduce into their sacred land a 
 fresh supply of those schismatical artisans who were pre- 
 ferred to them. 
 
 Like all malcontents, the Strelitz believed that discontent 
 was universal. It was this belief which, in Moscow itself, 
 and a few days before the departure of their sovereign, 
 emboldened Tsikler and Sukanim, two of their leaders, to 
 plot a nocturnal conflagration. They knew that Peter 
 would be the first to hasten to it ; and, in the midst of the 
 tumult and confusion common to such accidents, they meant 
 to murder him witliout mercy, and then to massacre all 
 the foreigners who had been set over them as masters. 
 
 Such was the infamous scheme. The hour which they 
 
 • See Perry, Sta;hlin, &c. &c.
 
 262 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 had fixed for its accomplishment was at hand. They had 
 accomplices but no impeachers ; and, when assembled at a 
 banquet, they all sought in intoxicating liquors the courage 
 which was required for so dreadfid an execution. 
 
 But, like all intoxications, this produced various effects, 
 according to the difference of constitution in those by whom 
 it was felt. Two of these villains lost in it their boldness ; 
 they infected each other, not with just remorse, but with a 
 dastardly fear ; and, escaping from one crime by another, 
 they left the company under a specious pretext, promising 
 to their accomplices to return in time, and hurried to the 
 Tzar to disclose the plot. 
 
 At midnight the blow was to have been struck ; and 
 Peter gave orders that, exactly at eleven, the abode of the 
 conspirators should be closely surrounded. Shortly after, 
 thinking that the hour was come, he went singly to the 
 haunt of these ruffians ; he entered boldly, certain that he 
 should find nothing but trembling criminals, already fetter- 
 ed by his guards. But his impatience had anticipated the 
 time, and he found himself, single and unarmed, in the 
 midst of their unshackled, daring, well-armed band, at the 
 instant when they were vociferating the last words of an 
 oath that they would achieve his destruction. 
 
 At his unexpected appearance, however, they all arose in 
 confusion. Peter, on his side, comprehending the full extent 
 of his danger, exasperated at the supposed disobedience 
 of his guards, and furious at having thrown himself into 
 peril, suppressed, nevertheless, the violence of his emotions. 
 Having gone too far to recede, he did not lose his presence 
 of mind ; he unhesitatingly advanced among this throng 
 of traitors, greeted them familiarly, and, in a calm and 
 natural tone, said, that, " as he was passing by their house, 
 he saw a Hght in it ; that supposing that they were amus- 
 ing themselves, he had entered in order to share their
 
 BOOK VIII. CHAP. I. 263 
 
 pleasures." He then seated himself, and drank to his as- 
 sassins, who, standing up around him, could not avoid put- 
 ting the glass about, and drinking his health. 
 
 But soon they began to consult each other by their 
 looks, to make numerous signs, and to grow more daring ; 
 one of them even leaned over to Sukanim, and said, in a 
 low voice, " Brother, it is time !" The latter, for what 
 reason, is unknown, hesitated, and had scarcely replied, 
 " Not yet," when Peter, who heard liim, and who also 
 heard at last the footsteps of his guards, started from his 
 seat, knocked him down by a blow in the face, and ex- 
 claimed, " If it is not yet time for you, scoundrel, it is for 
 me !" This blow, and the sight of the guards, threw the 
 assassins into consternation ; they fell on their knees, and 
 implored forgiveness. " Chain them !" replied the terrible 
 Tzar. Then, turning to the officer of the guards, he struck 
 him, and reproached him with his want of pimctuality ; 
 but the latter showed him his order ; and the Tzar, per- 
 ceiving liis mistake, clasped him in his arms, kissed him on 
 the forehead, proclaimed* his fidelity, and entrusted him 
 with the custody of the traitors. 
 
 His vengeance was terrible ; the punishment was more 
 ferocious than the crime. First the rack, then the succes- 
 sive mutilation of each member : then death, when not 
 enough of blood and life was left to allow of the sense of 
 suffering. To close the whole, the heads were exposed on 
 the summit of a column, the members being symmetrically 
 arranged around them, as ornaments : a scene worthy of a 
 government of masters and of shaves, reciprocally brutify- 
 ing each other, and whose only god was feai-.
 
 264 HISTORY OK RUSSIA, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 This terrific execution seems, however, to have kept the 
 people within bounds (hiring the seventeen months'" ab- 
 sence of their master ; but a still more dreadful example 
 was necessary to put down entirely the spirit of insurrec- 
 tion among these barbarians, and to drag them from that 
 darkness in which they delighted. 
 
 At the departure of Peter, this abortive conspiracy had 
 secured for a while the tranquillity of the empire : he 
 was recalled by a new revolt of barbarism. The Strelitz 
 were again the actors : so sacred was their cause, that the 
 priests declared it would render them invulnerable. They 
 accordingly deserted the army, and marched in great num- 
 bers towards Moscow, where their accomplices waited in 
 expectation of them. 
 
 But every thing had been anticipated. The place of the 
 Tzar was filled by Romodanovsky, an old boyard of steady 
 fidelity, inflexible resolution, rugged and capricious in his 
 manners, and who pushed even to atrocity the brutal jus- 
 tice of that age. Gordon, a Scotchman, and his twelve 
 thousand experienced soldiers, disciplined in the European 
 fashion, most of them Frenchmen, and all of them con- 
 scious that, amidst these barbarians, their lives depended 
 on the existence of the reformer, had the keeping of Mos- 
 cow for their sovereign. The combat was a brief one; the 
 army of barbarism was vanquished, disarmed, and fettered, 
 by the army of civilization. 
 
 Peter, who was then at Vienna, and on the eve of pro- 
 ceeding to Italy, hurried back amidst this victory of order
 
 BOOK VIII. CHAP. II. 265 
 
 over disorder : he turned it to account. But not so when 
 just returned from civilized countries, he relapsed into all 
 the ferocity of the savage manners which he wanted to 
 reform, and which he now displaved by torturing and 
 rending with his own hands two thousand of these wretch- 
 ed Janissaries. True, they were the same barbarians who 
 were formerly the nuirderers of the grandees of the state 
 the executioners of his family, the thrice baffled assas- 
 sins of his childhood and his youth ; true, they were the 
 same audacious beings, who, with the axe in their hands, 
 had aspired to govern the state amidst their sanguinary 
 saturnalia ; the same revolters who, doubly traitors to their 
 country, had recently abandoned its frontier to overthrow 
 his government, and to replunge it into darkness. But, 
 enormous as were such numerous crimes, they cannot justify 
 the atrociousness of so many executions ; nor can it find an 
 excuse in the strong influence of the manners and customs 
 of that period, nor in the necessity of the circumstances, 
 and of the severe measures which it was indispensable to 
 adopt with brutal and ferocious slaves. 
 
 The details of them are horrible ; but history cannot pass 
 them over. Peter himself interrogated the criminals by tor- 
 ture; then, in imitaticm of Ivan the Tyrant, he constituted 
 Rmiselftbeir judge and their executioner; the nobles who 
 remained faithfid he compelled to cut off the heads of the 
 guilty nobles, whom they had just condenmed. Seated on 
 his throne, the cruel being witnessed the executions with 
 tearless eyes ; he went still farther ; with the festivity of^ 
 bancjuets he blended the horrors of these punishments. V 
 Intoxicated with wine and with blood, the glass in one 
 hand, the axe in the other, in a single hour twenty succes- j 
 sive libations marked the fall of twenty heads of the Stre- 
 lit/, whicli he smote off at his fi-et, exulting, imaiiwhik', in 
 the horrihk- skill which Ik' (lispl.iyi'd. In tin- following
 
 266 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 year, the consequences, either of the insurrection of these 
 Janissaries, or of the brutality with which they were pu- 
 nished, were manifested in distant part-s of the empire; 
 fresh insurrections broke out. Eighty Strelitz, loaded with 
 chains, were dragged from Asoph to Moscow, and their 
 heads, which a boyard successively held up by the hair, 
 again fell beneath the axe of the Tzar. For five whole 
 months he made wheels and gibbets incessantly exhibit to 
 the gaze their disgusting prey ! * 
 
 Sophia was still a prisoner ; her fallen ambition had not 
 been deadened amidst the silence of a cloister and the so- 
 litude of disgrace. An address from the Strehtz had again 
 invited her to assume the crown. But Peter hanged the 
 three authors of it before the windows of the princess, and 
 ordered that, in his sister's own chamber, the stiffened arm 
 of one of the dead bodies should hold out to her the cri- 
 minal address, till it dropped decayed at the feet of that 
 ambitious female. 
 
 Discouraged, at length, the Regent renounced the world 
 for the cloister, and her name for that of Marpha, and 
 died in I704. 
 
 The foreigners, whose lives were preserved by this ri- 
 gour, regarded it with horror ; they looked for justice, not 
 for vengeance. 
 
 Accordingly, in their eyes, Peter the Great derived 
 no real advantage from his victory, till he had disbanded 
 and dispersed the barbarian army, and completed the for- 
 mation of a civilized army, which he dressed in the German 
 fashion. 
 
 Having secured his power by means of terror and dis- 
 cipline, he thus began his reformation by externals ; well 
 knowing that, with such a coarse-minded people, essentials 
 
 * Korb, Prinz, &c. &c.
 
 BOOK VIII. CHAP. II. 267 
 
 and forms are nearly connected : that he could not make 
 them forget their ancient manners, while they were perpe- 
 tually reminded of them by their dress, and their Gothic and 
 Tartar beards, the livery of their barbarism ; that he must 
 strip them of the Asiatic robe, which was as invariable in 
 its shape as the manners and the ignorance of indolent 
 and stagnant Asia; and must thus put an end to the con- 
 formity which linked them with Asia, and made so marked 
 a difference, a line of separation, an additional obstacle, be- 
 tween the Russian and tlie European. 
 
 For this dress, therefore, which was also little suited to 
 the modern art of war, and to the practice of several other 
 arts, he deemed it necessary to substitute the European 
 dress ; variable in its shape, the fashion of whicli re- 
 quires more dexterity, and seems more favourable to the 
 activity of a people who are always })ushing on towards 
 perfection in every thing : he was, in short, desirous to 
 establish one likeness which miglit lead to others ; and 
 this, too, in the most obvious and striking point of simi- 
 larity between his own people and those whom he meant 
 to be their models. 
 
 It was a combat of manners that he now began ; the 
 longest, the most dangerous, and the most inveterate com- 
 bat of all. In this great struggle, where he stood alone 
 against a whole people, he could neglect nothing; and it 
 was one step towards success, to substitute the uniform of 
 civilization in place of the vestments of barbarism. 
 
 This was also the reason why, after having thus changed 
 the external appearance, he changed the titles, the viands, 
 and all the social liabits. The names of boyards, of okol- 
 nitchie, of dumnie-diaki, were dismissed along witli the 
 Tartar robes and the Gothic beards. In their stead, IVter 
 substituted the denominations of presidents, counsellors, and 
 senators: he wished to link his nation to civilized nations.
 
 268 HISTORY OF RUSSJA, 
 
 by the sight, the hearing, the taste, and by all the senses ; 
 for he knew, far better than his censors, that this is the 
 only mode of beginning with an vnicultivated people ; that 
 their habits can be vanquished only by other habits ; and 
 that when the outward and visible sign is once got rid 
 of, the ideas and manners which it recalled to mind will 
 be soon forgotten and replaced by others. 
 
 He, therefore, imposed a tax upon Asiatic robes, as 
 well as upon beards ; and thus set the avariciousness of 
 age in opposition to its obstinacy. 
 
 From this tax he excepted only the priests and the pea- 
 sants ; the priests, because their costume was an article of 
 faith ; the peasants, because they were of little consequence, 
 and the desire of distinguishing themselves from that 
 lowest class, would be to the nobles and traders an addi- 
 tional motive for obedience. 
 
 Besides, the brutal superstition of the Russians afforded 
 another strong reason for this change of customs. They 
 had a horror of foreigners, as being heretics. On several 
 occasions, betrayed by their European dress, those whom 
 Alexis had invited for the purpose of instructing his sub- 
 jects, had narrowly escaped being torn to pieces, even in 
 Moscow. It had been necessary, as among the Turks, to 
 allot them a separate quarter to reside in, out of which 
 they durst not venture, at least, without concealing them- 
 selves in a Russian garb. Even under that disguise their 
 lives were not safe, the Russian priests having forbidden, 
 as an act of sacrilegious profanation, the wearing of it by 
 foreigners. 
 
 As to the ancient religious and social usages, which bore 
 the stamp of barbarism, Peter attacked them by ridicule. 
 He multiplied in his palace entertainments in the Euro- 
 pean style ; he invited himself to those which his sub- 
 jects gave in imitation of him ; and he left presents with
 
 BOOK VIII. CHAP. III. 269 
 
 his hosts to defray the expenses which they had in- 
 curred. 
 
 Till this period, females had lived in seclusion, and 
 young men had been united to young women without ever 
 having seen them. It was here, as it is in Asia, but under 
 quite another climate, with another religion, and without 
 polygamy, by which this usage is rendered less hateful. 
 These customs Peter destroyed ; and by so doing he gained 
 over to his side all the young men, and particularly the 
 young women. From being slaves and hermits, he called 
 them into the society of men, and thus made civilization 
 take its most gigantic stride, by entrusting it to that sex 
 which is most interested in strength being tempered by 
 mildness. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 To the society which he was thus endeavouring to form, 
 the grossness of the age rendered it necessary that he should 
 give a code of regulations. But, at the outset, he was 
 obliged, in a preamble, to explain to these barbarians what 
 is called a party in civilized Europe; then, like most great 
 men, showing liimself capable of entering into the minutest 
 details, he, in the first, second, fourth, and sixth articles, 
 decreed, that each of these assemblies should be announced 
 by a written card ; he orderctl that every man of distinc- 
 tion, nol)le, superior officer, trader, person employed in 
 the chancery, and master- work men, (that is to say, espe- 
 cially, a ship carpenter, and master shipwright) slioidd be 
 admissible to them with his wife, and might enter and 
 (le})art when he pleased, between four o'clock and ten 
 at night.
 
 270 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 The third and fifth articles imposed the obligation of 
 bowing- to the company, on entering and quitting the 
 room. With respect to the host, he directed that, like his 
 company, he should be at full liberty to come and go, to 
 be seated, and to drink, in the rooms, as soon as he should 
 have sufficiently provided them with chairs, liquors, and 
 all the means of amusement. 
 
 The seventh article even went so far as to point out the 
 place for the servants. 
 
 By the fifth, it was ordained, that every transgressor of 
 the rules should be obliged instantly to empty the great 
 eagle, a large bottle full of brandy ; a grotesque punish- 
 ment, which exists also among the Chinese. Peter thus in- 
 flicted as a penalty what had till then been considered as a 
 pleasure. It is uncertain whether this was done to disgust 
 them with the practice, or rather, to hold out to the in- 
 temperate an additional lure to these parties, where, by 
 their mixture with women and industrious foreigners, they 
 were ultimately to be humanized and enlightened. 
 
 At the same time that he invited foreigners of all pro- 
 fessions into Russia, he forced out of Russia, into Europe, 
 a throng of young nobles. By exposing them to the very 
 focus of light, he wished, as it were, to consume in them 
 the old Russian man ; the benefits which they repelled, he 
 expected to make them appreciate, by compelling them to 
 become acquainted with them. 
 
 He likewise entrusted to a regular administration, com- 
 posed of select merchants, the task of collecting the re- 
 venue of the state. Hitherto this office had been par- 
 celled out, in large divisions, to the boyards, who sold it 
 piece-meal to the governors of cities ; a mode which esta- 
 blished a shameful traffic of the public resources, and put 
 all kinds of power into the hands of these armed tax- 
 gatherers.
 
 BOOK VIII. CHAP. III. 271 
 
 By another ancient usage, the commencement of the year 
 was fixed at the fruit season, as representing the commence- 
 ment of the universe. 
 
 This was deciding tlie question of the primogeniture of 
 the egg and the chicken ; a question apparently so simple, 
 but mth which the good Plutarch said, " that all the vast 
 and ponderous machine of the creation of the world might 
 be moved !" Peter resolved that Russia, like the rest of 
 Europe, should conform to the order of Sabeism, which, 
 without being the basis of an entirelv moral and spiritual 
 religion has, at least, succeeded in regulating its forms. 
 He, therefore, decreed that the first day of the year should 
 date from January, the period of the revivification or return 
 of the sun. 
 
 The introduction of tobacco, the use of which the priests 
 had anathematized, had been one of the principal causes of 
 the revolt of the Strelitz. Peter the Great persevered in 
 this innovation. The monopoly of this connnerce, which he 
 had sold to the English, had served to defray the expenses 
 of his travels, and to draw industrious foreigners into his 
 country. This new custom would, also, eradicate a super- 
 stitious ]jrejudice, which was an additional barrier be- 
 tween his subjects, of whom he wished to make sailors, 
 and the sailors of the rest of Europe. 
 
 But the Tzars and the priests, hitherto always acting in 
 concert, and deriving power from each other, had connected 
 the majority of these usages with religion. The priests un- 
 dertook the defence of them ; but Peter attacked these 
 cham])ions with ridicule : he j)ar()died, with the youths who 
 followed hi> person, their fantastic, interested, or supersti- 
 ticnis customs ; he taxed thini like iiis other subjects; and 
 an ukase prohibited vows from being taken before the age of 
 fifty, an age at which all ties are either formed or broken. 
 By thus diminishing the number of convents, Peter in-
 
 272 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 creased his subjects, his revenues, and his domains. As 
 the priests persevered in their liostility, Peter did not ap- 
 point a patriarch in the place of tlie one who died ; or 
 rather, he joined the tiara to liis crown, by creating, in- 
 stead of tlie head of tlie church, a synod, which took an 
 oath of obedience to him. 
 
 In tliis thorny path, however, he moved on gradually, 
 with the deliberate progress of a founder. It was not till 
 after a delay of twenty years had taken place in the elec- 
 tion of a new patriarch, that he announced the abolition of 
 that dignity ; nor was it till after the conclusion of the 
 peace of Nystadt, when Heaven was supposed to have 
 declared in his favour by the multitude, who consider all 
 success or reverse as coming from above, and always be- 
 lieve the Deity to be on the strongest side. 
 
 To Catholic eyes this may appear a surprising stroke of 
 authority ; but it will seem less astonishing, when we call 
 to mind that the Russian Grand-Princes were the founders, 
 apostles, saints, and martyrs, of the Greek religion in 
 Russia ; that, consequently, they were looked upon as the 
 heads of a religion, founded, preserved, and sanctified by 
 them ; and, still more than this, that, in their gross ig- 
 norance, these people, brutified as they were by all kinds 
 of slavery, paid an almost equal veneration to God and 
 to the Tzar.
 
 BO;)K VIII. CHAP. l\, 273 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Meanwhile, the superstition of ancient recollections, 
 that of habit, and that which the priests inspired, were 
 acting on the minds of the nobles. Being slaves, their re- 
 sistance was confined to remaining inert ; they refused to 
 serve their countrv ; secluded in their wooden houses, 
 they gave vent to murmurs ; and, it must be owned, that 
 in their complaints against their master, every thing is 
 true, though all of them are not reasonable. " By what 
 right did his brother burn the evidence of their titles, 
 which secured their ranks at the court and in the army .'' 
 What were those pretended registers of nobility, in which 
 their names were inscribed 't They were nothing but lists 
 of proscription, to prevent any of them escaping the hu- 
 miliations in which they were steeped to the lips ; for their 
 resignation was no longer sufficient ! Obscurity even had 
 ceased to be a shelter ; their very slaves were compelled to 
 denounce them for being tranquil. The despot had ima- 
 gined a general happiness, composed of the wretchedness 
 of each individual ; all must bend, all must be transformed, 
 before the imprudent innovator. He kept his course on- 
 ward to his goal, amidst the sorrowful cries of a whole 
 people, without any thing having the power to stop him, 
 or to turn him aside. 
 
 " Thus, he had torn from them even their children, to 
 infect them with impious sciences, which were imknown 
 and useless to their ancestors ; then, driving thom into sa- 
 crilege, violating the law of God himself, wliicli prohibited 
 Israel from having any communication with its idolatrous 
 neighbours, he had forced them out of tlieir holy land ; he 
 
 T
 
 274 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 had sent them afar off", to remote countries, to defile both 
 body and soul, by coming in contact with those atheistical 
 nations, which he held up to them as a model. 
 
 " It would have been something, had he displayed any 
 solicitude for the well-being of those young men ; but no, 
 they were cast, without precaution, without protection, 
 into distant lands. There, entirely out of their depth, ig- 
 norant of the language of the country, and having no 
 guides, they established themselves by bands in some 
 house, which they quitted only to become corrupted, and 
 to bring back to Russia, along with new vices, nothing but 
 some manual arts, learnt mechanically, and without Nature 
 having given to the learners any talent or inclination for 
 them. 
 
 " What, indeed, could be expected from a Prince, who, 
 since his earliest childhood, had disrespectfully treated the 
 old boyards, and spurned even the accustomed homage of 
 the young nobility ! And why ? That he might shut him- 
 self up with men of low extraction, vile foreigners, in his 
 village of Prebagenskoi, where nothing was heard but the 
 noise of banquets, and the bowlings of drunkenness. 
 
 " Look also at Romadanovsky, his worthy representa- 
 tive, with his pleasing employment, his favourite passion 
 for putting men to the rack, on the least doubt, on the 
 slightest accusation, for any inadvertence casually com- 
 mitted towards the Tzar, whose domains he was daily 
 swelling by his confiscations. This was, indeed, a choice 
 becoming a prince who had instituted military commissions 
 to try civil causes, and had rewarded and solicited the 
 rigour of the judges, by giving them the lands of the con- 
 demned, whose moveable property he himself retained ! 
 
 " Accordingly, to this executioner had he recently com- 
 mitted the management of his state-inquisition, a tribunal 
 of blood, the infernal invention of his father or of himself.
 
 BOOK VIII. CHAP. IV. 275 
 
 Henceforth, on the mere cry of ' Slovo-i-delo,"' from the 
 meanest of their slaves, all of them, great or small, might 
 be plunged into horrible dungeons. What availed it, that 
 there the informer would be chained near his victim ; that 
 he must even thrice undergo the torture ? If he persisted 
 in his denunciation, would it not be the turn of his unfor- 
 tunate victim to submit to that infamous and atrocious 
 ordeal .'* 
 
 " But the prince cared not for this. More absolute than 
 all his ancestors, he respected nothing ; neither essentials 
 nor forms ; he monopolized all commerce in his grasping 
 hand, and had thus ruined several branches of it. Behold 
 how he usurped every right ; how he destroyed even the 
 ancient formula of the Ukases — ' The Council of Boyards 
 decrees ;"■ and this, too, in spite of the royal oath, recjuired 
 from his grandfather, ' that he would submit to the laws, 
 and that he would decide no matter of importance, nor make 
 any new laws, \vithout the consent of the grandees of the 
 state.' For nothing could escape his inflexible despotism. 
 It extended to every usage ; it was not enough that he had 
 abjured the national mode of dress; his unworthy satel- 
 lites, placed in ambush at the gates of the cities, must dare 
 to mangle, even on the persons of the boyards, those ma- 
 jestic robes which they inherited from their ancestors. 
 What kind of civilization was that which produced such 
 coarse brutality ? No thought was taken of the diffi- 
 culties, or of the expense, or of the time that was necessary 
 to workmen, as well as to masters, to acquire such strange 
 habits. Even as far off as Astracan, his lieutenants, exe- 
 cuting tyrannically, as they always did, his despotic orders, 
 and preferring the garb to the man, had occasioned a re- 
 volt, a civil war, and a great destruction of men, merely 
 for a form of dress. 
 
 " The children of his dearest generals, even the tie- 
 
 t2
 
 276 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 phews of Apraxin, were they not condemned to the labour 
 of slaves for having preferred one mode of instruction to 
 another ? 
 
 " Had not the tyrant hkewise converted into thousands 
 of soldiers that throno- of noble domestics, with which the 
 great boyards had till now been surrounded ! His envy 
 had wrested from them this noble train of followers, this 
 ornament of their dignity, this only remembrance that re- 
 mained to them of the guards by which, of old, they were 
 attended ! 
 
 " Formerly, their peasants were required from them 
 only in time of war, and for some months of the year : now 
 they were taken from them for ever, to fill the ranks of that 
 permanent army with which their Tzar oppressed them. 
 Even the young boyards themselves ! into what a de- 
 graded situation had he not plunged them ? When had they 
 before been summoned to the defence of the country for 
 more than a limited period ? When had there ever been 
 an idea of dictating to them what should be their dress 
 and their arms ? Who had ever dared to make them 
 march, except at the head of the militia of the cities, of 
 their guards, and of their vassals ? Henceforth, however, 
 sacrificing their best years, insulated, and wearing an he- 
 retical uniform, they must submit to degrade themselves, 
 and, with a musket in their hands, be blended with and 
 lost in the ranks of that army ! 
 
 " There, subjected to an apprenticeship, to an unsup- 
 portable discipline, and commanded by a Mentzikof, or 
 some other upstart slave, or, which was still more disgust- 
 ing, by hateful foreigners, they could never rise again to 
 a less degrading situation, but by dint of toil. And why.? 
 To serve a tyrant, who had deprived them of the collect- 
 ing of the public imposts : an impious being, who strove 
 to change the course which God had assigned to the ri-
 
 BOOK VIII. CHAP. V. 277 
 
 vers ! a pagan, who had extended his sacrilegious hand to 
 their beards, the emblem of their faith in the ancient 
 patriarchs ! the sacred imitation of their sacred images ! 
 Despoiled as they were of that venerable ensign, how would 
 their holy patron henceforth recognize his chosen people ? 
 No other resource remained to them, than to conceal in 
 their bosom that consecrated symbol, to preserve it at least 
 for their coffin, that they might render an account of it to 
 St. Nicholas, when the time should come for their passing 
 into another world."* 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Such were some of their complaints. But since 1698, 
 when many of them had shared in the revolt and the pu- 
 nishment of the Strelitz, the remainder had confined them- 
 selves to these murmurs. They hoped every thing from 
 time ; but as Peter hoped nothing from it, he pushed for- 
 ward, by all possible means, the regeneration of his em- 
 pire, that his labours might survive him. 
 
 The Tzar often reasoned with his boyards ; displaying 
 a patience which was not natural to him, he strove to over- 
 come, by conviction, their obstinate bigotry. His lan- 
 guage, like that of all great men, was at once spirited and 
 ])ictures(|ue, nervous and concise ; for it is j)articularly in 
 reference to men wholly devoted to action tliat it may with 
 truth be said that the style is the man. 
 
 " All the proofs of tliese complaints may l)t' fouinl in I'erry, 
 Strahienberg, the Foreign Resident, and tlie trial of Alexis ; in Vol- 
 taire, Levesqne, Lcderc, Manstoin, and Miinnich ; and in tlie Tra- 
 veller for thirteen years, the Memcdrs of f atiierino I., <!vc. &c.
 
 278 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 But prejudices, habit, a haughty indolence, superstition, 
 and the interest of their cast, appealed to the heart of the 
 nobles more forcibly than the Tzar, and with far more 
 perseverance. Accordingly, Peter did not stop at words. 
 He seemed to consider these landed proprietors as nothing 
 more than possessors of fiefs, who held them by the tenure 
 of being serviceable to the state. Such was the spirit of 
 the law relative to inheritances, which hitherto had been 
 equally divided, but, of which, henceforth, the immoveable 
 property was to descend to one of the males, the choice 
 of whom was left to the father, while only the moveable 
 property was to pass to the other children : a law which, 
 in this respect, was favourable to paternal authority and 
 to aristocracy, but the real purpose of which was rendered 
 obvious by other clauses. 
 
 In reality, it decreed that the inheritors of moveable 
 property should not be permitted to convert it into im- 
 moveable, till after seven years of military service, ten 
 years of civil service, or fifteen years profession of some 
 kind of art, or of commerce. Nay, more than this, if 
 we may rely upon the authority of Perry, every heir of 
 property to the amount of five hundred rubles, who had 
 not learned the rudiments of his native language, or of 
 some ancient or foreign language, was to forfeit his in- 
 heritance. 
 
 It was particularly among the priests and the nobility, 
 that he attacked and disarmed the underhand and ob- 
 stinate resistance which was made to him by barbarism. 
 In pursuance of this system it was, that he formed several 
 thousand cavalry out of the sons of the priests, who were 
 free men, but no less ignorant and superstitious than their 
 fathers. For the same reason, he transformed into sol- 
 diers, who were dressed and disciplined in the European
 
 BOOK VIII. CHAP. V. 279 
 
 manner, the multitude of boyard-retainers, or noble do- 
 mestics, by whom the boyards were perpetually attended. 
 
 Previously to 1709, however, most of the officers of his 
 army were either foreigners, or of the inferior order of 
 nobles, or of the class of the people ; for the other nobles 
 kept themselves at a distance. But even in the sanctuary of 
 their families, Peter made war upon their inertness. Every 
 noble between the ages of ten and thirty, who evaded an 
 enlistment, which was denominated voluntary, was to have 
 his property confiscated to the use of the person by whom 
 he was denounced. 
 
 It was by this measure that, in 1713, he violently snatch- 
 ed from the barbarian manners which their parents trans- 
 mitted to them, all this froward race, and enrolled them 
 among civilized beings. Some were placed in military 
 schools which he established ; others were sent to acquire 
 softer manners, and new habits and knowledge, among 
 polished nations ; many of them were obliged to keep up a 
 correspondence with him on the subject of what they were 
 learning ; on their return, he himself questioned them, and 
 if they were found not to have benefited by their travels, 
 disgrace and ridicide were their pimishment. Given up to 
 the Tzar's buffoon, tliey became the laughing stocks of the 
 court, and were compelled to perform the most degrading 
 offices in the palace. These were the tyrannical punishments 
 of a reformer, who imagined that he might succeed in doing 
 violence to Nature, ])y commencing educaticm at an age 
 when it ought to be completed, and by subjecting grown up 
 men to chastisements which would scarcely be bearable for 
 cliihhcii. For it is not intended to maintain, that this illus- 
 trious life was not interspersed with great errors ; that it 
 wa.s so may be easily conceived, since in the opinion of every 
 one every thijig was innovation ; and, as he acted on untract-
 
 280 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 able and barren materials, he was under the necessity of 
 making a number of fruitless trials ; he was, also, too apt 
 to form a judgment of others from himself, which generally 
 leads to error, especially in kings and great men ; in the 
 first, because they differ too much from other men by 
 their situation ; in the second, because they differ in them- 
 selves. 
 
 Accordingly, Manstein reproaches Peter the Great, with 
 having expected to transform, by travels into polished 
 countries, men who were already confirmed in their habits, 
 and who were entirely made up of ignorance, indolence, and 
 barbarism. " The greatest part of them," says he, " ac- 
 quired nothing but vices.'" This it was which drew upon 
 Peter a lesson from his sage ; for such was the appellation 
 which he gave to Dologoruki. That senator having perti- 
 naciously, and without assigning any reason, maintained 
 that the travels of the Russian youth would be useless, 
 made no other reply to an impatient and passionate contra- 
 diction from the despot, than to fold the ukase in silence, 
 and run his nail forcibly along it, and then to desire the 
 autocrat to try whether, with all his power, he could ever 
 obliterate the crease that was made in the paper. 
 
 The good sense of Peter, it is said, felt all the propriety 
 of this illustration ; but he did not the less determine that 
 all the nobles should be compelled to serve as volunteers, 
 and at their own expense, in his naval and military forces. 
 Thenceforth they could not obtain the rank and appoint- 
 ments of an officer, nor, in any company, the respect and 
 distinctions exclusively belonging to that rank, till after 
 having earned it by distinguished services. 
 
 This general obligation to serve, and this classification in 
 the state and in society, regulated according to ranks which 
 he alone conferred, placed the whole of the nobility under 
 his inflexible hand. This is an unbearable despotism to
 
 BOOK. VIII. CHAP. V. 281 
 
 think of, but which he did not create. In Russia it was 
 the only law, the only rule, the only known means of go- 
 vernment. The prince, as well as his subjects, had no idea 
 of any other. Peter found it ingrained in the national 
 manners ; and, Uke his predecessors, he made use of it ; not, 
 however, as his caprice, or passions, or circumstances, might 
 prompt him, but in subserviency to a vigorously conceived 
 plan ; for the benefit of pubhc utility, which was his sole 
 object, and with the confidence of genius ; nor did he require 
 from others, by so many tyrannical orders, more than a 
 part of the sacrifices which he had imposed on himself. 
 
 And, besides, was it really such tyranny to compel the 
 nobles to be useful ? Did he not go back to the sources, 
 to the spirit of that institution, when he refused to acknow- 
 ledge as nobles those who were not ready to serve the state .'* 
 Will he find detractors in this age of equality, the Mus- 
 covite prince of the .seventeenth century, who declared the 
 great and hitherto inaccessible career of nobility to be ojien 
 to all liis people .'' ^Vas it not he who, after having himself 
 been a soldier, decreed that every soldier who distinguished 
 himself might, according to the rank which he obtained, 
 acquire personal or hereditary nobility .'' And as, at the 
 same time, he classed all civil oflices, assimilating them to 
 the military, it followed that this body of nobility, thus 
 perpetually regenerated, that this Legion oj Honour, daily 
 recruited from men of all classes, who were deemed most 
 qualified fc^r the various branches of public service, must 
 one day, as ought to be the case, become really the flower 
 of the nation. 
 
 For it was only in a military manner that this reformer 
 could secure obedience from .slaves, wlio were subjected 
 not merely to his despotism, l)ut to all kinds of super- 
 stitious maimers and habits ; two servitudes of (lifiiTent 
 kinds, the harmony of wliich was disturbed by lii-- imiova-
 
 282 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 tions. It was, therefore, necessary to unite them both in 
 one, and submit every thin^ to the same rule ; and this 
 was the reason why, instead of rendering the camp secon- 
 dary to the city, he organized the city like a camp. 
 
 Listen, on this head, to the most intelligent and disin- 
 terested witnesses : observe how they admire the extraor- 
 dinary care he took to estimate correctly the merit of each 
 of his civil and military officers ; with what discernment 
 he rewarded and punished ; and how in the course of a 
 few years, he converted a mob of barbarians into one of 
 the regular armies of Europe, in which command and 
 obedience are best understood. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Compulsion, however, was not the sole means of order, 
 discipline, and success, which Peter employed ; he bor- 
 rowed from the ancients and the moderns all their most 
 powerful stimulants ; he appealed to vanity, to love of 
 glory, and to interest, by triumphs worthy of antiquity, 
 by decorations, titles, and promotions, and by the riches 
 which he lavished upon those who seconded his efforts. 
 
 Often, on the very field of his victories, and with his 
 own glorious hand, did he distribute to the ablest and 
 bravest, either gold chains, or medals, or his portrait ; 
 then, estates, villages, towns even, and the order which he 
 himself created, and which still bears the name of St. 
 Andrew. Anxious that actions should have their deserved 
 glory, he retarded the triumph of Pultava, till Schere- 
 metef, who was ill, could assume his station ; a station 
 superior to that which he reserved for himself.
 
 BOOK VIII. CHAP. VI. 283 
 
 But this is not sufficient. Let us contemplate this 
 great man in his perseverance to give the rarest of all ex- 
 amples. See him, from his youth to his death, devoting 
 himself to obtain gradually, and by dint of services, the 
 ranks of which he was the sovereign dispenser ; for it was 
 not by commanding from the recesses of his palace, and 
 from the elevation of his throne, and by his mere orders, 
 that he was able to drag violently from the slough of in- 
 dolence and barbaric pride, in which they delighted, so 
 many obstinate minds, to make them abruptly enter into 
 a new path, and to ])ush them so forward in it, that it was 
 thenceforth impossible for them to make a retrograde move- 
 ment. No, it is not thus that genius acts ; if it commands, 
 it commands by example ; it does not impel before it, it 
 irresistibly draws after it. It does not say, " Go !" it 
 rushes onward, and exclaims, " Follow me !" 
 
 Did they act on any other system, those great men 
 whose efforts sufficed to change, by new laws, manners, or 
 religions, and for a long series of ages, the condition of 
 nations ? The boldness of their generous flight carried 
 them out of, and in advance of, the general mass, and 
 beyond the age in which they lived ; this constituted their 
 glory, and justly so, as the example began by insulating 
 him who gave it : a circumstance which implies an almost 
 supernatural strength, men appearing to be made to live 
 together, and to be prompted to congregate in bodies by 
 their being conscious of their weakness. 
 
 This is what raises Peter the Great above the majority 
 of those creators ; for we have here the most extraordinary 
 spectacle which is to be found in all recorded time, an ex- 
 ample without a model, a true regeneraticm of Muscovy, 
 where we see the Russian autocrat himself decending from 
 his barbaric tlirone to the lowest point in the scale of social 
 order, to reascend thither by all the steps of civilization.
 
 284 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 Not that he for a moment abandoned the sovereign au- 
 thority ; but, while he descended within reach of his un- 
 polished subjects, and made himself their model, he chose, 
 not only for the purpose of restraining them, but also to 
 render the example still more striking, that one of them 
 should seem to replace him upon the throne. The object 
 of his choice was the old and faithful Romodanovsky. This 
 boyard was at the head of the terrible State Inquisition, 
 which was, in truth, established by Ivan IV. ; a creation 
 which, Mke most tyrannical institutions, had produced the 
 evils which afterwards rendered it necessary. 
 
 Romodanovsky was president of the council of govern- 
 ment ; it was he who contributed to save the state from 
 the fury of the Strelitz. By dint of executions, he sup- 
 pressed robbery, which had hitherto been carried on with 
 impunity on the highways, and even in the streets of the 
 capital. He was the most upright man in the empire ; 
 but he was a Russian imbued with the ancient manners : his 
 habits were fantastical and brutal, and his justice was fero- 
 cious. He resided in Moscow during the continual travels 
 of the real sovereign ; Peter even decorated him with the 
 title of Tzar, which this old and faithful servant retained 
 during his life : he enjoyed the honours of the throne, and 
 transmitted them to his son. 
 
 Often, in his letters and in the ceremonies, the reformer 
 studied to seem only the subject of his subjects : he began 
 by being nothing more than a soldier under his orders. 
 When he had been successful at Asoph, it was only in 
 his rank of captain of bombardiers that he passed in tri- 
 umph before his throne; at a later period, the rank of 
 colonel, which he had asked, was refused to him, and 
 one of his subjects was preferred. 
 
 He persevered in this system of seeming to gain slowly 
 from this pretended Tzar, and by means of splendid actions.
 
 BOOK VIII. CHAP. VI. 285 
 
 all his various promotions. As the reward of the victory 
 at Pultava, he would receive only the rank of major-gene- 
 ral. He wished it to appear that he vanquished Cliarles 
 XII. only under the orders of Mentzikof, of that humble 
 artisan, whose merit he had formerly discovered, and 
 whom he had raised to the rank of general-in-chief. At a 
 subsequent epoch, after a naval engagement, in which he 
 himself had triumphed, he obtained from the same boyard 
 the rank of vice-admiral. 
 
 Thus it was that he moved onward to his purpose, with- 
 out ever pausing, without losing sight of it, without being 
 discouraged, and without being satisfied till he had fully 
 attained it. 
 
 He was desirous to give his subjects the example of the 
 forms, and of the new kind of respect wliich he required 
 from them ; he particularly held himself up to his nobles, 
 as a model of submission to discipline, and to that novel 
 hierarchy of ranks, to which merit and services were hence- 
 forth to be the passport, without any regard to antecedent 
 ])rivileges. 
 
 This continual simular, this unvarying spectacle of re- 
 spect, submission, and discipline, which a despot gave to 
 his people ; this persevering affectation of not obtaining 
 promotion, except successively and by services, and of 
 thanking so respectfully the vice-tzar who represented 
 him ; in a word, this species of theatrical effect, unique in 
 kind, has, to some persons, appeared fantastical and over- 
 acted. But the exaggeration was in the pertinacious and 
 arrogant grossness of manners, by wiiich such moans of 
 rtfonn were rendered indispensable. 
 
 And, l)esides, at such a distance from the place, the 
 time, and the customs, how is it possible for us to estimate 
 correctly the seasonableness and fit degrie of that long 
 series of sacrifices, which a jrreat man tl)()U<i;lit it necessary
 
 286 HISTORY OF RUSSIA; 
 
 to impose on himself with such wonderful perseverance ? 
 It is to those learned foreigners who assisted him in the 
 vast work ; who had to contend with those singular man- 
 ners ; whose lives, hazarded amidst irritated barbarians, 
 depended on the success of this important enterprise ; it is 
 to them that the decision ought to be referred ; they alone 
 could be the most judicious appreciators of this magnifi- 
 cent spectacle, of which, whatever may be the case as to 
 the forms, the substance is undoubtedly worthy of our 
 respect. 
 
 What is the result of an appeal to their evidence? 
 They admired him ; they tell us that such numerous 
 efforts were barely sufficient to deprive the arrogant obsti- 
 nacy of the Russian nobles of every pretext for murmurs 
 and disobedience. They add, that to conquer the pride 
 of those nobles, which was disgusted by their being com- 
 pelled to depend on labour, merit, and gradual promotion, 
 for the ranks which they considered as due to their birth, 
 it was necessary incessantly to come forward and assume 
 the office of a model. 
 
 But Peter himself opened to his nobles this laborious 
 path ; he marched, far in advance, at their head. That 
 being the case, who was there among his subjects who 
 could disdain to follow the sovereign in that career of arts 
 and sciences, which he was pursuing before their eyes? 
 What Muscovite noble could think himself degraded by 
 treading in the footsteps of the absolute monarch of the 
 most vast of empires, a single sign from whom could make 
 heads fall by thousands, and who, as they had witnessed, 
 had a heart capable of giving such a terrible signal ?
 
 BOOK IX. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Such mviltiplied efforts were absolutely necessary, in 
 order to triumph at once at home and abroad, and to leave 
 behind him an immoveable ground-work of civilization ; to 
 lay that ground-work Peter had been obliged to create, 
 under the form of an army, the nucleus of a new nation. 
 With that army he was to overcome the skilful valour of 
 the Swedes, and the barbarism of his subjects. For those 
 two contests were concordant : the one was indispensable 
 to the other. 
 
 This was one of those unusual circumstances, in which 
 war, the ferocious ascendancy of the strongest, was to be- 
 come, for a whole people, the direct means of civilization. 
 In fact, how was it possible, without commerce, to civilize 
 a barbarous people, and how could it be rendered com- 
 mercial, if it were shut out from the sea, and especially 
 the only sea within its reach which was bordered by civi- 
 lized nations .'' War alone, therefore, could open to it 
 that sole path to riches and improvement. But, however 
 eager his desires might be, Peter did not act precipitately. 
 He did not manifest his intention till I7OO, when he had 
 taken advantage of the victories of Eugene and the Vene-
 
 288 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 tians, to conclude a thirty years' peace with Turkey ; when 
 he was unembarrassed by any other war, and his army was 
 ready ; when it was but the king of Sweden, a prince who 
 was little more than a child, whom he had to attack ; and 
 lastly, when two powerful neighbours were in confederacy 
 with him, to wrest from the youthful king the provinces 
 which were in immediate contact with Russia, and which 
 were disjoined from Sweden and discontented. 
 
 In this war, the object of Poland was to recover Livonia 
 and Esthonia ; that of Denmark, to become master of 
 Holstein and Sleswick ; that of Russia, to seize on Ingria 
 and Carelia. The right was the same on both sides. The 
 contending powers were desirous to regain by war a pos- 
 session anciently acquired by war, and of which, a century 
 back, they had been deprived by war. 
 
 To accomplish this, seemed to require only a moment, 
 and a trifling effort ; the struggle, however, was terrible, 
 and it lasted for twenty-one years. In this case, as it has 
 happened in many others, the forecast of an able policy 
 was baffled by the rapid and vigorous bursts of genius. 
 They astonished Peter the Great himself by their nature, 
 which always constitutes an exception, and changes all at 
 once the order of place, time, and distance. 
 
 Like those points in space, which contain the seeds of 
 the most terrible tempests, but at the beginning are un- 
 perceived, and, indeed, imperceptible, so did Charles XII. 
 sviddenly start forth in formidable greatness. Denmark, 
 taken by surprise even in her capital, was beaten down by 
 the first stroke of this thunderbolt ; the second, seemed to 
 disarm Russia under the walls of Narva ; the fate of Cour- 
 land was decided by a third ; a fourth sufficed to rend 
 from Saxony the turbulent Poland, which was so jealous 
 of its privileges, and which imagined that, out of the indi-
 
 BOOK IX. CHAP. I. 289 
 
 vidual liberty possessed by multitudes, it could form a 
 general liberty. 
 
 The storm continued ; it grew more violent ; a fifth 
 bolt burst on the hereditary throne of the Saxon, and 
 hurled him from it. Gifted as he was with such bodily 
 strength and valour, tlie mind of the Saxon monarch sunk 
 under the blow ; and the iron hand of the Swede never 
 relinquished its hold, till it had defiled his kneeling rival 
 in that slough of meanness and treachery into which 
 those who are vmfortunate, whether sovereigns or private 
 individuals, are but too often plunged. 
 
 The Emperor of Austria bent still lower than his vassal ; 
 it was without having fallen that he humbled himself; 
 while he stooped, " he let," he said, " the hurricane pass 
 over ;" thus affording another example of the pliant per- 
 severance of the Austrian policy, which is patient even to 
 resignation, and whicii willingly sacrifices every thing to 
 time, because it is from time that it expects every thing. 
 
 At Narva, meanwliile, the flower of the Russian troops, 
 to the number of thirty-two thousand, and attacked by 
 eight thousand Swedes, had been taken, disarmed, and 
 destroyed. The Tzar was absent at the time. This ter- 
 rible and unexpected blow did not confound him. The 
 revolt of Astracan, whicii was occasioned by the new form 
 of dress, and by tlie son of one of the Strelitz who had 
 l)een executed at Moscow, was shortly after added to his 
 em})arrassments. This conflagration coidd be smothered 
 only by Scheremetef, the best of his generals ; but no ob- 
 stacle could stop the reformer in his course. He had but 
 one end in view, from which nothing turned him aside, to 
 whicii he nuule every thing subservient, and to wliich he 
 brought back and sacrificed every thing. He pursued it 
 without jjausing, amidst this terrible war and the iiisiirrec- 
 
 U
 
 290 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 tions of his empire. In that empire it was absolutely ne- 
 cessary to anniliilate the old mode of thinking-, with its 
 train of habits and manners, and to substitute a new one ; 
 and, during the transition from the one to the other, to 
 sustain, like Atlas, and with his unaided strength, a shaking 
 world ; this burthen he undertook to bear. Amidst the 
 perturbation of a great defeat, as well as in the ecstasy of 
 victory, he proceeded with unaltered pace : he founded 
 institutions, he began vmdertakings of all kinds in all 
 quarters, without either success or defeat diverting him 
 from his purpose, or one creation making him forgetful of 
 another. 
 
 At the same time that he was personally engaged in 
 raising fresh troops for the army which had been destroyed 
 before Narva, in disciplining them, in selecting those who 
 were fit to head the remainder, and in converting into 
 cannon the bells of his churches, he hastened into Samogi- 
 tia, and to Smolensk, to hold out a helping hand to 
 tottering Poland. He offered to its sovereign a subsidy 
 of twenty-five thousand pounds, and the assistance of 
 twenty thousand Russians, on the sole condition of his in- 
 structing and civilizing them. He subdued his clergy, and 
 his nobility, and changed their manners by laws and by 
 examples ; and he regvdated the forms of contracts, in 
 which, hitherto, the parties had, in general, been desig- 
 nated only by by-names. He founded colleges ; he esta- 
 blished woollen manufactories ; the activity of his genius, 
 which extended to every thing, endeavoured to naturalize 
 Saxon sheep in Russia ; he invited vine-dressers from the 
 remotest parts of Spain; and, lastly, he lured from all 
 quarters artists, workers in metal, and artificers of all 
 kinds, and thus emancipated his empire, which, till now, 
 had been tributary to Europe for even its most trifling 
 metallic instruments.
 
 BOOK IX. CHAP. I. 291 
 
 Charles was not less active ; both were equally perse- 
 vering, but with diametrically opposite ends in view ; the 
 one looked to utility, the other to vain glory ; so that the 
 efforts which strengthened the one, enfeebled the other. 
 
 Charles, who seemed not to be aware that a leader risks 
 as much by despising as being despised, traversed, for 
 eight years, Poland and Saxony, where his presence was 
 useless, while he left to his lieutenants the task of defend- 
 ing his o\vn states, those ports of Ingria and Carelia, against 
 which all the efforts of Peter the Great were directed. He 
 acted like a man who scorned his enemy ; the Tzar, like a 
 man who esteemed him, kept an observant eye upon him, 
 directed his own troops by the light which flashed from 
 the arms of his rival, and endeavoured, at the expense of 
 this great master in tlie art of war, to profit by the lessons 
 which he received from him. 
 
 Accordingly, early in the contest, Scheremetef, Mentzi- 
 kofF, and Peter himself, were several times victorious. 
 Dorpt and Narva were taken almost at once ; and by the 
 exertions of the Tzar, who hastened from the one to the 
 other, to direct the labours of the engineers and of the ar- 
 tillery. At the sacking of Narva, it was only by killing 
 several of his soldiers with his own sword that he succeeded 
 in saving the town from their violence ; but his own vio- 
 lence he was not able to control. At sight of Count de 
 Horn, the governor, who was brought to him a prisoner, 
 he darted forward, struck him in the face, and exclaimed, 
 " It is you, and you only, who are the cause of so many 
 calamities ! Ought you not to have capitulated, when you 
 had no liojx- of assistance .''"* Then, throwing his sword 
 oil tile table, ••' Look at that blood," achled lie ; " it is not 
 Swedish, but Russian ; that sword has saved the unfortu- 
 nate inliabitants, who were sacrificed by vour obstinacy." 
 
 * StaOiliii. 
 u 2
 
 292 HISTORY OP RUSSIA, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Ingria, meanwhile, was conquered, Livonia and Cour- 
 land were invaded, and twelve thousand Swedes were pri- 
 soners. The Tzar made these victories widely known, and 
 rewarded the victors liberally ; but, far from being dazzled 
 by them, he contented himself with exclaiming, " Thank 
 Heaven ! we have at last succeeded in beating the Swedes 
 when we were two to one ; let us hope that we shall 
 one day be able to beat them with equal nvmibers." 
 When Scheremetef experienced a defeat, he wrote to 
 him, " Do not allow yourself to be dispirited by it ; con- 
 stant prosperity renders men vain." If, at length, he 
 suffered his joy to manifest itself, by stimulating, with 
 triumphal shows, the patriotic pride of his people, it was, 
 (as in the case of the conquest of tlie fortress and sea 
 of Asoph,) when, in the second year of the war he made 
 himself master of a town upon the Neva, to which he 
 gave the name of Schlusselburg, or the key of the Baltic. 
 Every where else this prince exposed his person only on 
 great occasions ; but he became as rash as a buccaneer 
 whenever an effort was to be made to open for his states 
 an ovitlet to that sea. In fact, in the ensuing campaign, we 
 see him with the rudder in the one hand, and the sword in 
 the other, descending the Neva, passing under the fire of 
 Nientschanz, and with his barks carrying the Swedish fleet 
 by boarding : no sooner has he accomplished this, than the 
 Gulf is reconnoitred, and, without waiting to disencumber 
 himself of his arms, Peter takes up the compass and the 
 sounding lead, and decides that a desert island, an uninha-
 
 BOOK IX. CHAP. II. 293 
 
 bitable marsh, shall be Petersburgh. He himself chooses 
 the spot, and traces the plan of the fort by which it is to 
 be defended. 
 
 The efforts which the generals of Charles made to de- 
 stroy this creation were mvdtiplied in vain ; it w^as guarded 
 by the genius of Peter; and a numerous population was 
 attracted to it. A hundred thousand men perished in lay- 
 ing its pestilential foundations, and yet the founder did 
 not think that he had bought too dearly this point of con- 
 tact with the commerce, sciences, and arts of Europe. At 
 no distant period the canal of the Twer and the Msta 
 united the waters of its port with those of the Caspian sea. 
 The city, the harbour, and its fleet, all sprang up at once, 
 and as if bv enchantment; and this arose from the counsel, 
 tlie order, the execution, in a word, every thing, de})ending 
 only on this one man, who was, at the same time, general, 
 naval officer, engineer, and absolute monarch. 
 
 At the same time, and for eight whole years, by sub- 
 sidies, and by reinforcements which he himself often led 
 into Poland, he kept alive the contest between his Saxon 
 ally and the Swedisli hero ; for, either in consequence of 
 the dexterous management of the Tzar, or that good luck 
 lias a part even in the best deserved success of mortals, it 
 happened, fortunately for Russia, that, during the first 
 eight years of the war, Charles XII. chose for the theatre 
 of his glory, a spot four hundred leagues distant from that 
 which Peter the Great had cliosen for the theatre of his 
 own. 
 
 But in Saxony as in Poland, every thing was at length 
 beaten down under the sword of the Swedes. It was then 
 that, to his natural pride, Charles XII. addt'<l that of vic- 
 tory ; the fatal ])rc'sumption, the intoxication ol" the victo- 
 riou.s, which is the ordinary effect of the homage and the 
 sul)missi«)n that are lavished upon them.
 
 294 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 His contempt of the Russians was increased by the pru- 
 dence of the Tzar, wlio offered him peace. " He would 
 sign it," he said, " only in Moscow." Peter, without being 
 at all disconcerted, replied, " My brother Charles wishes 
 to play the part of Alexander ; but he will not find a 
 Darius in me !" And he immediately proved it, by tra- 
 versing not only his empire, but also the whole of Lithua- 
 nia, and preparing every thing for an obstinate defence. 
 
 Cliarles, meanwhile, who was swollen with arrogance by 
 the success at Narva, divided, by anticipation, the dignities 
 of the Russian empire among his officers. " His whip," 
 he said, " would be sufficient to drive this Muscovite 
 rabble before him, not only out of Moscow, but from the 
 world." * 
 
 He at length deigned to march in person against these 
 vanqviished enemies. At Grodno, a fortunate bold stroke 
 increased his confidence. As he proceeded onward, an 
 obstinate and sanguinary contest-f- at the passing of a 
 river, instead of moderating, inflamed his ardour. Be- 
 yond Mohilef, after his entrance upon the territory of 
 old Russia, a check which Golitzin gave to his advanced 
 guard irritated him ; he exposed his person ; and a sur- 
 prise by a partisan corps, in which he was very near fall- 
 ing under the lances of the Cossacks, did not open his eyes. 
 It seems as though the excess of power which he had 
 enjoyed at Dresden had weakened his judgment; that he 
 was blinded by the still smoking blood of Patkul ; and 
 that, having made a god of himself, the true God had 
 deserted him. 
 
 At last, when Moscow began to tremble, when Sweden 
 hoped that her purpose was on the eve of being accom- 
 
 * See Leclerc. 
 
 t Combat of the Bibitch against Scheremetef, llei)iiiij;, and 
 Mentzikof, (14 July, 1708.)
 
 BOOK IX. CHAP. II. 295 
 
 plished, he disappointed the fears of his enemies, and the 
 hopes of his o^vn people; this haughty warrior, whose 
 blows hitherto had always been aimed at the heart, now 
 turned aside towards the south on the faith of a nomadic 
 chieftain ; he abandoned his reinforcements, to wander at 
 a distance in boundless deserts, without guide, without 
 support, and as if hurried away by a fatality. 
 
 Let it not be supposed that the joy which he felt, on wit- 
 nessing this unhoped-for movement, induced Peter to come 
 into hasty and imprudent collision with the victorious in- 
 toxication of the Swede, who was thus going astray. He 
 had no other allies than the faults of his adversary ; but 
 he knew that they were the surest and the most useful of 
 all allies : they were enough for him, and he allowed them 
 to come fully into play. He waited till they had delivered 
 over his rival to the deserts, to famine, to approacliing 
 winter; and then he added himself to those scourges. 
 But all his blows were deliberately calculated; he had 
 recently left open to the conqueror of Poland the road to 
 the southern deserts of his empire, but, not less enter- 
 prising when needful than he had lately been circumspect, 
 he now determined to conquer or die, in order to bar the 
 passage, at Lesno, of a second Swedish army, which was 
 advancing to reinforce the first ; and with this determina- 
 tion, he ordered the Russians of his reserve " to kill every 
 Muscovite who should give way, himself not excepted." 
 With only twelve thousand troops, he triumphed, after an 
 obstinate combat of three days. His victory was complete. 
 Levenhaupt and his sixteen thousand Swedes were almost 
 entirely destroyed ; provisions, cannon, the military chest, 
 in short every thing, became the prize of the victor. 
 
 In conse(|uence of this daring stroke, Charles remained 
 insulated. '^I'hen, from his lofty sphere, forming a compre- 
 hensive judgment with respect to time and place, and
 
 296 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 men, the Tzar decided the epoch and the spot for his ter- 
 niiiiatin<!j in ]ierson, at a future period, this gigantic con- 
 test. The ohstinacy of the Swedes, which was so inflexible 
 and immovable that it seemed corporeal, he, for the pre- 
 sent, left to contend with his lieutenants and with all the 
 scoiu-ges combined against it, while he himself returned to 
 the heart of his empire. There, he repressed the Tartars, 
 and calmly continued to call into life the creations of all 
 the arts of peace, in the midst of a terrible war, and while 
 waiting the near approach of the moment when he was to 
 strike his most decisive blow. 
 
 At lengtli, at Pultava, victory crowned the labours of 
 the warrior-legislator. On that field of glory, " I hail 
 you," said he to his soldiers,* " I hail you, dearest children 
 of my heart ! you whom I have formed by the sweat of 
 my brow ! you, the children of your country, and who are 
 as indispensable to her as the soul is to the body which it 
 animates !" 
 
 He then offered up his thanksgiving to the God of 
 armies, who doubtless was on his side ; that mighty God 
 to whom all things are at once existent, and who beheld 
 him triumphing not far from those fatal banks of the 
 Pruth, to which this victorious Tzar was to return, that 
 he might fall into the hands of a Tartar and of a Turk, 
 in consequence of his placing the same confidence in the 
 good faith of a barbarian, and manifesting a contempt of his 
 enemy similar to that by which he had now profited. 
 
 This was a transient but it was a fertile error, as all 
 errors in war and policy are; it retarded the southern 
 greatness of Russia, and compelled Peter the Great to 
 ransom himself by lavishing gold, and by making the sa- 
 crifice of Asoph and its establishments, which were the 
 fruit of so much toil, and blood, and treasure. 
 
 * Life of Mentzikof. Age of Peter the Great.
 
 BOOK IX. CHAP. HI. 297 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 In the interim, between the glory of Pultava and tiiis 
 misfortune on the Pruth, in the short space of two years, 
 what numerous labours and events had occurred, wliich, 
 with otlier men, a century could scarcely have contained ! 
 What, then, is time, but an additional symptom of our 
 weakness ! And by this excessive rapidity, this almost 
 simultaneousness of events, which the genius of one man 
 was able to produce, how well are we enabled to conceive 
 tliat, in the sight of the Genius of the universe, all things 
 may have a contemporary existence ! 
 
 No sooner was Charles XII. overthrown, than the Tzar 
 personally hastened to complete, by his negotiations and 
 his arms, in Poland, in Prussia, with Denmark, at Riga, 
 at Petersburg!!, and at Moscow, the victory which he had 
 achieved at Pultava. Stanislaus submitted ; Poland was 
 restored to the Elector of Saxony ; the strength of the 
 'J'zar's mind made allowance for the weakness of Aug-ustus ; 
 he did not reproach him, and he remedied his misfortune. 
 He, however, declared, that as none of his allies had as- 
 sisted him in his conquests, all previous treaties were void, 
 and he would share his acquisiticms with no one. 
 
 In the same manner tliat he had filled the office of his 
 own negotiator, he l)ecame general and bombardier before 
 Kiga, engineer and sliipbuildcr at Petersburgh, and a 
 I uler, and j)otent prince, acknowledged as em|KTor by 
 Mngland, at Moscow; the patriotic pride of wln'ch cilv he 
 swelled by the exhibition of a (hini tiiumpii. 
 
 In llir preparations foi if lu liiin^rlf Ixnc a paif Imi(
 
 298 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 soon, proving himself greater than in this triumph, after 
 having excited the hopes and the courage of his })eople by 
 the spectacle of the elevation of the victors and the humilia- 
 tion of the vanquished, he gave a kind welcome to the mis- 
 fortunes of the latter, paid honour to civilization in their 
 persons, received them at his table, and took them into 
 his service ; and if, at a later period, he treated them with 
 more rigour, it was not till he deemed it necessary to 
 exercise upon them a strictly just retaliation. 
 
 At the same time, he fixed the amount of his army at 
 tliirty-three regiments of infantry, twenty-four of cavalry, 
 and fifty-eight thousand men in garrison. He regulated 
 the expenditure of it ; and in order to avoid the charges 
 arising from discount and the transmission of specie, he 
 made a distribution of the forces, and assigned the pay- 
 ment of these bodies to the different provinces of his 
 empire. 
 
 These triumphal festivals, and these arrangements, were 
 still going on, Avhen he re-appeared at a distance of two 
 hundred and fifty leagues, before Wiborg : that capital 
 was compelled to surrender. Here it was that, as a reta- 
 liatory measure, and for the first time, he violated his 
 word ; not perceiving that by this step he did more injury 
 to himself than to his enemy. It is true that he made 
 some atonement for his error, by softening, in many ways, 
 the captivity of a garrison which he unjustly detained as 
 prisoners. 
 
 At length, the four Swedish maritime provinces, on the 
 frontier of Russia, were conquered. And still the inflexi- 
 ble pride of Charles XII., who was a fugitive in Turkey, 
 obstinately persisted in refusing to return to Europe, till 
 after he had armed the Sultan against the Tzar, and seen 
 his conqueror capitulate, not far from the spot which had 
 been the witness of his own defeat.
 
 BOOR IX. CHAP. III. 299 
 
 In the mean wliile, Peter the Great, who had converted 
 Mentzikoff, the son of a peasant, into a prince, and a 
 general-in-chief covered with glory ; and who had changed 
 a rude, coarse, and savage state, into a powerful and victo- 
 rious empire ; had also made another change : Catherine, a 
 captive servant, whom he made his mistress, and who had 
 for ten years been the assiduous companion of his labours, 
 he had transformed into an acknowledged tzarina, worthy 
 of partaking them, and even of continuing them after his 
 decease. 
 
 It was thus that, in all manners, he played the part of a 
 creator ; as far, at least, as human weakness will permit ; 
 or, rather, perhaps, it should be said, that he transmuted ; 
 and tliat before his eyes every prejudice, every vanity, 
 sunk down and was effaced. The most worthy, whatever 
 might be their birth, seemed to him to be the fittest in- 
 struments, and the best disposed, to assist him in that na- 
 tional regeneration, which was the sole object of his entire 
 existence. 
 
 And why should an absolute sovereign, who, to enlighten 
 his people, had been capable of descending from all the 
 splendour of the throne to the workshop of the humble 
 artificer, why should he have feared to raise to empire a 
 daughter of one of the people .^ Besides, this kind of un- 
 e(jual marriage excited no astonishment in a coimtry where, 
 according to an Asiatic custom, the Grand-Princes had 
 often chosen their wives from among their assembled female 
 subjects. 
 
 The choice was soon justified by the evciU; only four 
 months had elapsed after Peter the Great had caused to be 
 recognised as sovereign this offspring of the peo])le, when 
 that people, his army, and liimself, were saved on the 
 Pruth by her courage. 
 
 Tlie pertiniicity of Cl>arles Xil. Iiad \n\n suiir. ^I'ul.
 
 300 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 Two large Turkish and Tartar armies marched along the 
 banks of that river to overwlielm his rival ; deceived by 
 two Greeks, who reciprocally betrayed each other, Peter 
 was on the point of exposing himself to the combined ope- 
 rations of those armies. Cantemir, hospodar of Moldavia, 
 one of the Greeks, offered him the two principalities, and 
 wished to secure for himself alone, the reward of a plot 
 which was excusable in a Greek against a Turk. Branco- 
 van, the other, who was hospodar of Wallachia, at first 
 took part in this revolt ; he sold himself to Peter the 
 Great ; then, doubly a traitor, selling himself again to 
 Turkey, he put into its hands his first corrupter and his 
 army. The hope of this miscreant was to obtain from the 
 Sultan the two principalities, which Cantemir persisted in 
 expecting only from the Tzar. 
 
 It was here, in the deserts through which the Pruth 
 flows, that, caught in the snare, twenty thousand warriors, 
 the flower of Russia, the precious germ of its civilization, 
 after several days of marches, counter-marches, and com- 
 bats, without water, without provisions, with no other 
 ammunition than three rounds for their cannon and mus- 
 ketry,* found themselves encircled by two hundred and 
 fifty thousand Turks and Tartars, and reduced to the 
 necessity of either perishing or surrendering. 
 
 The last day which seemed to be allotted to the existence 
 of renovated Russia had now closed; Peter had lost all 
 hope ; and, feeling himself attacked by those nervous con- 
 vulsions which were the consequences of the excesses and 
 fears of his youth, he avoided every eye, and hid in the 
 seclusion of his tent the double anguish which oppressed 
 him. But let not envy prematurely exult ; however de- 
 pressed that great man might be, all that issued from that 
 
 * See Bruce.
 
 BOOK IX. CHAP. III. 301 
 
 tent was still to bear the stamp of greatness. This severe 
 adversity was all that was wanting to the glory of Peter : 
 it seems as though, by momentarily divesting him of his 
 omnipotence, it had stripped him naked, as in single com- 
 bat, to show him more powerful in his native strength, and 
 rising still superior to such an overwhelming weight of 
 misfortune. 
 
 In fact, even in this utter extremity, no debasement of 
 mind appeared in any part of his conduct. Though he 
 was convinced that no resource was left, he gave directions 
 to prepare for a desperate and final effort, and at the same 
 time penned this admirable command to his senate, '•" Not 
 to lose courage ; to think of nothing but the welfare and 
 safety of the state, without paying the slightest respect to 
 any orders whatever which might be extorted from his 
 captivity ; but even, should the public good require it, to 
 })lace the most worthy among them on the throne; thus 
 beforehand, and while he was yet free, voluntarily abdi- 
 cating an empire over which he had been desirous to reign 
 that he might insure its happiness."''* 
 
 Ifut a chance of safety now offered itself. In this ex- 
 treme danger, Catherine was the only person who did not 
 despair. She alone, in spite of the most threatening pro- 
 hibition, ventured to penetrate into the tent of the Tzar ; 
 and she, in a manner, extorted his permission to negotiate 
 with the vizier for peace, which it seemed highly impro- 
 ])able that he would grant, but which she, nevertheless, 
 succeeded in ol)taining. The determined firmness which 
 the Russians displayed, gave weight to the proposal ; and 
 the principal conditions were already settled, when the Tzar 
 was again reduced to the alternative of perishing with his 
 whole arn)y, and along with them, the cherisjied civili- 
 zation of his j)eople, or of paying to the victorious Turk 
 
 • See, The Ajje of Peter tlie CJreat.
 
 302 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 and Tartar a small tribute, and delivering into their hands 
 the fugitive Cantemir, who was the cause of his distress. 
 
 It was to the sovereign of a country in which the very 
 name of honour was said to be unknown, that this alterija- 
 tive was projiosed. Let those who love to hear the voice 
 of true glory, whatever may be the language in which she 
 speaks, listen to the reply of the Tzar, "I would rather 
 cede to the Turks all the territory between this and Kursk ; 
 I should have the hope of some day recovering it ; but 
 my broken faith would be irreparable ; I cannot violate 
 my promise : honour is the only thing that is pecvdiarly 
 ours ; and to renounce it, is to cease to be a monarch !"" 
 Thus, in his turn, this great man gave to his European 
 masters an example of which they stood in need, and 
 which, undoubtedly, was of a far higher character than all 
 those which he had received from them. 
 
 Taganrock, Asoph, the Black Sea, his fleets, his ports, 
 and his dock-yards, were, however, either abandoned or 
 given up to the victorious Turk. But, as at the period of 
 the defeat of Narva, this terrible event, and the enormous 
 sacrifices which it occasioned, did not shake the genius of 
 the Tzar. Though his brightness was transiently obscured, 
 he still moved steadily onward to his wonted purpose. It 
 was with the same view, with the design of securing to his 
 subjects an outlet on a civilized sea, that he completed the 
 downfal of the Swedish party in Poland,* from which 
 country he did not even require a compensation ; and that 
 he drove Steinbock from the Germanic empire,-}* took pri- 
 soners that general and his army, compelled Dantzickj to 
 ransom itself, made himself master of Stettin, conquered 
 Finland, and passed his galleys over an isthmus of eleven 
 hundred and fifty fathoms in breadth. Erenschild, the 
 
 * 1712. t 1713. X 1714.
 
 BOOK IX. CHAP. III. 303 
 
 -Swedish admiral, who was master of the sea, beheld a hos- 
 tile fleet suddenly appear in the midst of his o^vll ; the 
 Russian vessels carried his men of war by boarding, after 
 an obstinate action, in which Peter proved himself at 
 once the bravest soldier of his army, the most experienced 
 pilot of his squadron, and its most skilful admiral. 
 
 Finally, when, as he was returning homeward, a storm 
 arose, which threatened to swallow up together the victors 
 and the vanquished, he devoted his person to avert the 
 danger ; he threw himself into a boat on a tumultuous sea, 
 amidst deep darkness and innumerable reefs, contended 
 with the tempest during a passage of two sea leagues, 
 reached a port, lighted a beacon, and thus saved the whole 
 of liis victory. Petersburgh then witnessed another trium- 
 phal procession. Peter was present in it only as a rear- 
 admiral, in which rank he had fought ; he was seen passing 
 in the crowd, in the presence of Romanodovsky, and sub- 
 mitting to lay publicly before him the report of the en- 
 gagement, and to reply to all his questions. In the same 
 manner, and with all the forms of respect, he received 
 from him the rank of vice-admiral, wliich Apraxin had 
 asked for him ; he then returned his thanks to that gene- 
 ral, in a letter which was remarkable, because it was evi- 
 dently intended to serve as a model to his subjects. 
 
 Then, resuming the Tzar, " Friends," said he to the 
 Russians who surrounded him, " which of you, only 
 tliirty years ago, would ever have thought that a day 
 would come when ycju and I should build vessels on the 
 Baltic ; when we should found a city in that country, con- 
 (juered by our toils and our valour, and sliould see so 
 many Russians become victorious soldiers and skilful sai- 
 lors .'' (jould y(ni possibly have foreseen that such a nuil- 
 titude of highly instructed men, of industrious artificers, 
 of distinguisjjcd artists, would come from various ])arts of
 
 304 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 Europe, to make the arts flourish in our native land ; that 
 we should impress foreijrn powers with such respect for us ; 
 in one word, that so much glory was destined for us ? 
 
 " History shows us, that Greece was anciently the asy- 
 lum of all the sciences ; and that, driven from that beau- 
 tiful country by the revolutions of the times, they spread 
 over Italy, and thence into all the nations of Europe. It 
 was in consc(iuence of the negligence of our ancestors that 
 they stopped short in Poland, and could not reach us ; but 
 at one time the Germans and Poles were plunged into the 
 same darkness of ignorance in which we languished till a 
 recent period. It was by the exertions of their sovereigns 
 that their eyes were opened ; they have inherited the sci- 
 ences, the polity, and the arts of Greece. 
 
 " Our turn is at last come, if you will second me in my 
 undertaking, if you will add labour to obedience. The 
 transmigration of the sciences and arts may be compared to 
 the circulation of the blood. I hope that the hour will 
 come when, abandoning Germany, France, and England, 
 they will remain some time with us, in their way to Greece, 
 their country.*"* 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Meanwhile, in I7I6, Charles XII., who had at length 
 returned to his states, still persisted in refusing to allow 
 the Russians an entrance into the Baltic sea, that sea 
 which the Tzar now traversed as master, at the head of the 
 combined squadrons of all the northern powers, which 
 o-loried in sailing under his orders. 
 
 * See the German Resident, Leclerc, Voltaire, Levesque.
 
 BOOK IX. CHAP. IV. 305 
 
 But, at length, the obstinacy of the most rash adven- 
 turer that ever reigned was turned aside by the most in- 
 triguing of ministers, and its object was changed. 
 
 Goertz was become the adviser of Charles XII. ; he had 
 gained the ascendency over that inflexible spirit. He w^as 
 desirous to unite the two heroes of the North, for the pur- 
 pose of restoring Pomerania to Sweden, and Poland to 
 Stanislaus, and dethroning George I. in England, while, by 
 a conspiracy against the Duke of Orleans, Alberoni should 
 give to Spain the regency of France. 
 
 It was at this period, particularly, that Peter the Great 
 proved how steadily he adhered to his only purpose, that 
 of regenerating his people, the accomplishment of which 
 his wars and conquests were merely designed to promote. 
 
 This victor, who seems to have been ardent only for the 
 interest of his country, and whom the glory of arms could 
 not carry beyond that point, felt no repugnance to being 
 reconciled with his vanc[uished enemy. Then, almost imme- 
 diately availing himself of this first moment of relaxation, 
 afforded by the absurd intrigues in which Goertz involved 
 and debased his rival, Peter hastened into Denmark, 
 whence he proceeded to Holland. In the latter country 
 he, for three months, studied the politics of Europe, and 
 the progress of arts and sciences ; and he visited the house 
 of the ship-builder with whom he had originally resided. 
 His plain and open-hearted manners, whicli arc so natural 
 to genius, might almost have induced that family to ima- 
 gine that, in this glorious and potent emperor, seated at 
 their table with his wife, they saw nothing more than a 
 former journeyman car|)entcr, who had risen to be a master 
 like themselves. 
 
 But this was not enough; Holland did not afford ^u(li- 
 cicnt scope to his regenerative genius; it was in tiic uic- 
 tropolis of ,ill kinds of glory, in thi' centre of ciNili/atioii, 
 
 X
 
 30G HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 that he was desirous to form an estimate of its full effects. 
 Astonished Paris beheld and admired him ; in that city, 
 which the great age had raised to such an elevation, Peter 
 still appeared a Colossus. 
 
 At all times full of enthusiasm for the possessors of 
 high renown, even when they are foreigners, Paris lavished 
 its homage upon him. But, from the moment of his ar- 
 rival, all these vain pomps were rejected by the Tzar ; they 
 hid from him the useful things which he wished to ob- 
 serve.* " I am a soldier," replied he, " bread and beer are 
 all I want ; I like small rooms better than large. I do not 
 wish to move about in state, and to tire so many people." 
 
 Meanwhile his character was closely studied by that 
 clear-sighted, witty, and satirical Court. Listen to its 
 own words. " His deportment is full of dignity and con- 
 fidence, as becomes an absolute master ; he has large and 
 bright eyes, with a penetrating and occasionally stern 
 glance. His motions, which are abrupt and hasty, betray 
 the violence of his passions and the impetuosity of his dis- 
 position ; his orders succeed each other rapidly and im- 
 periously. He dismisses with a word, with a sign, with- 
 out allowing himself to be thwarted by time, place, or 
 circumstance, and now and then forgetting even the rules 
 of decorum ; yet, with the Regent and the young King, 
 he maintained his state, and regulated all his movements 
 according to the points of a strict and proud etiquette. 
 
 " For the rest," according to Louville, " the court dis- 
 covered in him more great qualities than bad ones ; it con- 
 sidered his faults to be merely trivial and superficial. It 
 remarked that he was usually sober, and only now and 
 then gave way to excessive intemperance ; that, regular in 
 
 * See Buchet, Voltaire, Leclerc, Levesque, Duclos, Stoehlin, the 
 Traveller, the Resident, &c. and especially, Louville.
 
 BOOK IX. CHAP. IV. 307 
 
 his haliits of living, he daily went to bed at nine o'clock, 
 and rose at four, and was never for a moment unemployed ; 
 and, accordino-lv, that he was well-informed, and seemed 
 to have a better knowledge of naval affairs and fortification 
 than any man in France." Then, with the boldness of an 
 enhghtened contemporary, who has no fear of being con- 
 tradicted by fame, the same Court adds, " A Prince, be- 
 sides, who was very sincere, and whose promises and trea- 
 ties were inviolable ; capable of esteeming his enemies, ma- 
 nifesting an extraordinary veneration for Charles XII. and 
 Louis XIV. and a warm attachment to Catherine, though 
 he was unfaithful to her." 
 
 Finally, as in so great a man every thing was deemed 
 worthy of notice, the Court also observed, that " he dis- 
 played little gallantry towards women, and little polish in 
 his exterior, but that his mind was highly polished ; that 
 he was singularly affable in private life, and very stately 
 in pubhc ; that he knew France and its principal subjects 
 as if he had been brought up there ; that, penurious with 
 respect to useless things, he loved the arts, detested luxu- 
 rious extravagance, and exclaimed, ' that he grieved for 
 France and its infant King, and believed the latter to be 
 on the ])oint of losing his kingdom through luxury and 
 superfluities.'' " 
 
 Others, on various occasions, long continued to be 
 astonished at his extreme inchilgence in all kinds of de- 
 bauchery, though he took some pains to conceal it. Little 
 used to the habits of the natives of the north, his repasts, 
 even his daily ones, appeared to them to be excesses. Hut 
 at the same time, they remarked the gracioiisness with 
 which he received individuals, the pertinence of his ques- 
 tions, his flattering language to the Marshal di- \'illars, 
 and the marked attention whidi lu- ])ai{l to many officers, 
 with all whose memorable actions he was well ac(|uaiiitcd. 
 
 X 2
 
 308 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 Tlicy described how noble, frank, and affectionate, was his 
 simplicity of manners towards the yovnig King of France ; 
 and what gratitude he manifested for French urbanity, 
 which, whenever he showed himself, multiplied, as by 
 enchantment, the portraits of himself and of Catherine. 
 They admired the experienced glance and skilful hand 
 with which he selected the objects worthy of his attention, 
 and the masters whom he engaged to instruct his people ; 
 and his preference of the useful arts and sciences, to exa- 
 mine which he repeatedly visited the artists and manufac- 
 turers whose merit he had discerned. " His questions to 
 learned men and to artists," say they, " uniformly gave 
 proof of his knowledge, and excited admiration of the sa- 
 gacity of an enlarged mind, which was as prompt to com- 
 prehend information, as it was eager to learn.'"* 
 
 Accordingly, in his rapid journey through France, he 
 was seen to stop, quit his carriage, and stray into the 
 fields to converse with common husbandmen. Not content 
 with making them explain the use of their agricultural im- 
 plements, he himself took sketches of those implements. 
 The dress of one of them having attracted his notice, he 
 stopped again, went to him, interrogated him, and then, 
 turning to his followers, " Look,'"* he said, " at this good 
 country parson ; with the labour of his own hands he pro- 
 cures cider, wine, and money to boot. Remind me of this 
 when we are in Russia again. I will endeavour to stimu- 
 late our priests by this example, and, by teaching them to 
 till the soil, rescue them from their wretchedness and indo- 
 lence."" He then entered this memorandum in his note- 
 book, which was crowded with remarks full of good sense, 
 knowledge, and ingenious ideas, on every thing which he 
 deemed it advisable to attempt for the well being of his 
 empire. 
 
 * See Fontenelle, Louville, Duclos, &c.
 
 BOOK IX. CHAP. IV. 309 
 
 In the meanwhile, his son, the heir of his throne, had 
 taken advantage of his absence to rebel against civilization 
 by flying from it, as the strelitz had formerly done by at- 
 tackino- it : and the termination of this second iourney of 
 the Tzar was to be more deeply stained with blood than 
 his first return had been. The priests were the primary 
 cause of this revolt, the germ of which was eventually to 
 be extirpated only by an iron hand. Then, at length, was 
 explained to the Russians, and to the astonishment of 
 the French, the churlish and stern silence of the Tzar 
 before the bed of the intolerant and superstitious widow of 
 Louis XIV. and his fierce rapture at the tomb of Ri- 
 clielieu, when he exclained, " Great man ! I would have 
 given you one of half of my states for teaching me to 
 govern the other !"" As if, by this singular exclamation, 
 he had meant to invoke that genius of order obtained by 
 means of despotism, to add his sanguinary and machia- 
 velian inflexibility to that of the speaker, in aid of tlie 
 terrible blow which the latter was meditating. 
 
 But let us turn away our eyes from that fatal episode, 
 and, in the inmiense and rugged career of the reformer, let 
 us first follow to the conclusion the trace of his warlike 
 footsteps. His struggle with Sweden had already lasted 
 eighteen years. For three years longer it was to stain tlie 
 Baltic with lilood. The negotiations of Goertz had slack- 
 ened hostilities without suspending them. On the death 
 of Charles XII., in I7IH, the dying fire of war again 
 revived : it shot forth a last and splendid blaze, by the 
 light of which all the greatness of the Tzar's genius again 
 became manifest. Charles XII. being killed, Peter re- 
 mained the sole object of the restless jealousy of the nor- 
 thern powers ; with Sweden, which they looked u|)()n as 
 sufHcientlv weakened, they now combined, to wi;ikrn llie 
 Tzar in hih lurii. 'I'hiis, as it sometimes h;i|)|)ins in tin >e
 
 310 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 important contests, at the close of this sanguinary con- 
 test, the victory would have remained in the hands of the 
 lookers-on. 
 
 But, in all his triumphs, he had kept his eye fixed only 
 upon their result ; to preserve that, he did not fear to 
 break with Austria, Poland, Denmark, and even with 
 England, whose envious policy began to dread him. The 
 equal already of all his masters, he refused their treache- 
 rous mediation, and replied to their hostile measures by 
 reprisals; and when the successor of Charles XII. whom 
 they supported, still strove to wrest from him that port on 
 the Baltic which was the sole reward of eighteen years'* 
 efforts, he redoubled those efforts. It was in spite of 
 their threats, in the face of their united squadrons, that, 
 invariable in the pursuit of one object, which, in his eyes, 
 neither successes nor reverses could aggrandize or de- 
 preciate, he completed the conquest of Finland, invaded 
 Bothnia, refused any suspension' of arms, and pushed his 
 soldiers, whom he called his plenipotetUiaries, as far as the 
 gates of Stockholm, which capital they shook, and where 
 they at length extorted a peace more glorious than he had 
 hoped to attain.* 
 
 For this prince, who made war so well, who had given 
 such strength to his nation, and who was indebted to that art 
 and to his valour for so many provinces and so much glory, 
 preferred peace to it. In his hand, that scourge of order, 
 of civilization, and of the welfare of the people, became the 
 most powerful means of organization, of instruction, and of 
 national riches. As soon as, by the possession of Petersburgh,-}- 
 he conceived that he had secured all those benefits, he seized 
 upon every occasion of laying down his arms; on the eve 
 of his triumph at Pultava, he, for the second time, offered 
 
 • 1721. t 1703.
 
 BOOR IX. CHAP. IV. 311 
 
 peace to the enemy who had threatened him in his capital, 
 and whom he had now surrounded. He only reqiured 
 from him the cession of that port on the Baltic which was 
 already conquered and fortified. On the morrow after his 
 victory, his steady eye pierced, undazzled, beyond the 
 splendid glory wliich his arms had acquired ; he still fixed 
 it on the sole object of his first efforts, the original motive 
 of this important war : he wrote to Apraxin, " Thanks be 
 to God, the foundation-stone of Petersburgh is now solidly 
 laid. I believe that we shall continue masters of that 
 place, and of the territory belonging to it :"" and again he 
 solicited peace from the rival whom he had just overthrown. 
 Twelve years later, in 17^1 > after twenty-one years of toils, 
 of dangers, and of victories, when at length it was con- 
 cluded at Nystadt, and gave to him Livonia, Esthonia, 
 Ingria, a part of Carelia and of li'inland, with several 
 islands, leaving him with a formidable army, and reputa- 
 tion, the name of father of his country, which was bestow- 
 ed on him by his senate, and the title of emperor, which 
 Kurope confirmed, he exclaimed to Munnich, in the trans- 
 ports of his joy, " that if the Swedes had let him be the 
 arbiter of peace, it would have been much less disadvan- 
 tageous to them ;" and he again repeated, that '" his utmost 
 hopes had only extended to the possession of a port on 
 the Baltic." * 
 
 The year after, however, he resumed his arms, but it 
 was for the last time. His military life was occupied by 
 four wars; one against Sweden, two against Turkey, and 
 the foiuth against Persia. Three were aggressive and 
 fortunate; one (that of the Pruth), was defensive and unfor- 
 tunate. All had the same purpose — that of accpiiring or 
 ])rescrving outlets on the three surrounding seas. \\y the 
 
 • Sec .Miimiicli, The Age of i'eter llic Cireat, Sta-lilin, The Tra- 
 veller, &c. &c.
 
 312 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 first contest with the Turks, he ahnost o})ened to himself 
 the Black Sea, which a second war made liim lose; the 
 third rendered liim master of the Baltic ; and the fourth 
 gave to him the Caspian, on which the Russian commerce 
 had been insulted. 
 
 In that war against the revolted subjects of the Shah of 
 Persia, or rather in that military march of twelve months, 
 undertaken to avenge, secure, and extend the Russian 
 commerce in Asia, Peter acquired three maritime pro- 
 vinces ; and he ably avoided a rupture with Turkey, which 
 was jealous of this aggrandizement : a premature conquest, 
 but which it was necessary to dispute with the Turks, and 
 with reference to which, when prince Cantemir congratu- 
 lated him on it, he gave this remarkable answer : " You 
 are mistaken as to the real interests of Russia ; she has 
 more than enough of land, it is only water that she 
 wants." * 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Thus, greater than his empire, he filled it, extended it 
 in all quarters, and opened to the industry of his subjects 
 an immensity of sea and land. For it was he who, at an 
 early period of his reign, commenced the commerce of his 
 subjects with China; subsequently, though it seemed as 
 if the principal object of his efforts must necessarily turn 
 all his attention towards Europe, he did not neglect this 
 directly opposite point of view. His negotiations renewed 
 the connection which was perpetually broken by barbarism 
 and dishonesty; his justice protected his subjects against 
 
 '' See the Traveller for Thirteen years.
 
 1500K IX. CHAP. V. 313 
 
 his owTi officers ; and several nobles were beheaded for 
 havino; levied contributions on the caravans. From the 
 midst of the Baltic, where he was treating and conibatino- 
 with Europe, he carried on other negotiations, by which 
 he constantly sought to shorten the distance traversed by 
 his subjects who traded with China, and, endeavoured, by 
 the route of the Caspian and Great and Little Bucharia, to 
 render accessible to them the commerce of India. 
 
 But it was on Petersburgh that his mightiest efforts were 
 concentred. It was not enough for him to have opened 
 this new road to activity and industry ; it was necessary 
 for him to push into it his astonished subjects, in spite of 
 their contrary habits and manners. For this reason it was, 
 that he covered his seas, his lakes, and even his rivers, 
 with vessels of every kind, which he demanded from all 
 classes of the rich. He was resolved that his subjects 
 should thus be made pilots and sailors. It was also with 
 this purpose, of rendering maritime the inland people whom 
 he had transferred to Petersburgh, that he did not throw 
 a bridge over the Neva. He determined that the new 
 inhabitants of its banks should cross that dangerous river 
 only in sailing-boats, the art of guiding which would, he 
 knew, soon be acquired by them, when their lives were at 
 stake. 
 
 j\or did he listen to the complaints of all his other 
 provinces, with respect to the remoteness of the situation 
 which he had chosen for liis capital : a ruinous distance, 
 which could not fail to occasion an excessive tardiness in 
 all administrative and judicial communications. 
 
 It was equally in vain tliat his boyards urged their ob- 
 jections to tile barren and swampy soil, to (lu- inclement 
 climate, in uliicli winter reigned for eight iiioiitlis of the 
 year, where rye was an article of gardi n ciihiiri', and a 
 bee-hive a curiosity ; to the Neva, uliicli uas a nias> nf ice
 
 314' HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 for four whole months, and of such unequal depth, that 
 ships of war launched at Petersburgh could not descend it 
 without the aid of machines to float them over the shoals, 
 nor merchant-vessels ascend without being towed; and, 
 lastly, to the port, capable, indeed, of containing three 
 hundred sail, but from which the egress, impeded by 
 sands and rocks, is so beset by dangers, that there is no 
 possibility of accomplishing it except with certain favour- 
 able winds. 
 
 Peter set at nought all these serious inconveniences, nor 
 did he take more heed of the freshness of the water, which 
 spread rapid decay in his ships, nor of that solitary tree 
 on which experience had marked the height of the last 
 inundation, and which he ordered to be cut down. Pro- 
 phesying the future from the past, that irksome witness 
 showed clearly to every age, that a storm of some hours 
 duration from the west, by driving back the waters of the 
 Neva, would be sufficient to swallow up the new city, 
 which was built upon piles in a bottomless marsh. 
 
 Since, however, he was thus obstinately determined to 
 choose for his capital a spot so removed from the rest of 
 his dominions, why did he not prefer the eminences which 
 were in its immediate neighboui'hood "^ The palaces, and 
 most of the public establishments, might have been built 
 there, out of the reach of danger ; and, if the passion of 
 the Tzar for imitating Holland, his first instructor, was 
 so strong that, at all risks, he must have something like 
 that country, it was in his power to extend this upper 
 city to the river, by adding a lower city, in which he 
 might have given a copy of Amsterdam and its commercial 
 streets, consisting of canals between a double quay. 
 
 But, when placed in competition with the grand con- 
 ception of the Tzar, which included the world in its scope, 
 every thing must give way. These obstacles appeared to
 
 BOOK IX. CHAP. V. 315 
 
 him to be nothing more than minor impediments. The 
 three most important quarters of the globe, Europe, Asia, 
 and America, converge towards the North Pole, or seem 
 to have their roots in it. Russia, situated at the point 
 where the meridians unite, participates of all three, or, 
 at least, touches on them, and seems to be their origin. 
 This gigantic whole Peter had attentively considered; 
 and he formed the vast plan of taking advantage of its 
 geographical position, and deriving from it all possible 
 benefit. The Russian empire which, till then, had in a 
 manner been banished to the extremity of Europe, and of 
 which Europe had but little knowledge, he was desirous 
 to render the state, of all others, most closely and directly 
 connected with the three richest or most civilized quarters 
 of the world. 
 
 Let it not be said, that to men of genius, as to the rich, 
 we delight in lending. Did he not, from the beginning to 
 the end of his reign, endeavour, by negotiations and con- 
 quests, to draw Russia closer to Persia, and even to India 
 and to China .'* Did he not twice cause to be explored tlie 
 point where Northern Asia aj)proaches to An)erica .'* It 
 was according to instructions drawn up with his own hand 
 ])y this great man, that Bchring attempted the famous 
 passage to which he gave his name. By his concjuests 
 by land, by sea, and over man, the Tzar thus wished to 
 give to his states the enjoyment of three worlds. It was 
 by means of the rivers, lakes, and seas, wliicli intersected 
 or crowded his emj)ire, and of canals and caravans, that 
 he endeavoured to establish these extensive lines of com- 
 munication. It was amidst the marshes of the Neva, at 
 the extremity of the Gulf of Finland, that his eagle eye 
 discovered tlie connecting point of this vast whoU', the 
 link by which every part of it was united. 'IMiis port, on 
 the Baltic, i.^ the nearest to tlu' ^'o!g.l, that main artery of
 
 31G HISTORY OF RUSSIA 
 
 the Russian colossus. Here the waters of Europe might 
 bejoincd to those of Asia, and, perhaps, without difficulty, 
 to those of the Wliite and Frozen seas, and even those of 
 America. 
 
 The choice made by the Tzar is thus proved to have 
 been the result of reflection. It did not spring from the 
 transport inspired by the first possession of that which he 
 had so much desired, nor from the eagerness and precipi- 
 tancy which a young conqueror felt to enjoy his conquest. 
 Other ports have been tried. Revel is one of them, but it 
 is not sufficiently safe ; at Rogerwick, Nature has been con- 
 tended against by immense works, but in vain, for she has 
 been victorious. This was the reason why so many effiDrts, 
 so many sacrifices, were lavished on Petersburgh, and why 
 he made every thing subservient to that creation. Thither 
 riches, commerce, nobles, the people, the centre of govern- 
 ment, in a word, every thing, was attracted, summoned, 
 hurried away, and fixed. Far from growing weaker, his 
 determination continued to acquire strength. He took 
 especial care not to let one of his great establishments be at 
 a distance from those fetid swamps. Palaces were neces- 
 sary there to establish and preserve cottages ; and sena- 
 tors, nobles of his court, and he himself, to fix traders and 
 sailors to the spot. All the seductions, all the attractions 
 of power, were required there, to change an inland into a 
 maritime people ; to retain in a repulsive situation men of 
 repugnant manners, contrary habits, and hostile prejudices ; 
 and to make them persist in a long, obscure, and deadly 
 struggle with elements which were less rebellious than 
 themselves. 
 
 Accordingly, it was on this nearest point to the civiliza- 
 tion, and consequently to the commerce of Europe, that 
 he estabhshed his abode, not by a palace, as Mentzikof
 
 BOOK IX. CHAP. V. 3iy 
 
 had doiH', but by the institutions and foundations of ])ub- 
 lic utility which belong to a great capital. The infectious 
 and desert marshes had already disappeared under quays, 
 under an Admiralty, imder colleges, military schools, and 
 halls of justice, in which sat courts of appeal ; under com- 
 mercial tribunals, composed of foreigners and natives ; 
 and, lastly, under manufactories of arms, of linen, of 
 woollen, of tapestry, and even of gold and silver thread, 
 silk, glass, and velvet. 
 
 To secure these buildings, and even the humblest 
 wooden cottages, fi-om the ravages of fire, he himself set 
 the example of devotedness ; he took the situation of a 
 police-officer of the second class. In this occupation, which 
 gave him the superintendence of the others, he has been 
 seen to run over the burning beams. To preserve his new 
 city, he daily manifested a boldness, a forgetfidness of 
 self, equal to the ardour and temerity with which, eighteen 
 years before, he had wrested from the Swedes this pesti- 
 lential and uninhabited spot. A memorable example of that 
 perseverance which is the distinguishing quality of all 
 great men, and which, wherever it is found, awes, and in- 
 spires respect, even when its object is reprehensible ; but 
 which here was the more worthy of remark, because it was 
 consecrated to the accomplishment of the noblest and most 
 patriotic of all the ins])irati()ns of genius. 
 
 It is in such great foundations as these that we recog- 
 nize its impress. Alexander left his in Alexandria ; Peter, 
 in Petersl)urgh. This unnoted spot of earth, transformed 
 by the will of a great man, was destined to become, a hun- 
 dred years after his death, the centre and emporium of a 
 commerce whidi ranks among the most extensive in the 
 world ; its three hundred thousand inhabitants exporting 
 or importing native or foreign prtubictions to the value of
 
 318 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 between forty aiul fifty millions sterling ; there, the fate of 
 Kurope was to be decided, and the whole moral and })olitical 
 aspect of the northern regions was to undergo a change !* 
 
 We must here observe, that the influence of the Neva, 
 on the destiny of Russia, was always remarkable. In 862, 
 the possession of it gave Novgorod to Rurik, and from 
 this the Russian empire had its rise. 
 
 About 1240, the recovering of this river from the 
 Swedes by Alexander Nevsky, conferred on that prince his 
 glorious surname ; Novgorod attached itself to that vic- 
 tor, who had restored the Baltic to it ; and the empire, 
 which was broken by discord, and trampled on by the 
 Tartars, was recommenced by him. 
 
 In 1323, a new conquest of the Neva from the Swedes, 
 and the foundation of Schlusselburg by Yury, attached 
 Novgorod to that first Grand-prince of Moscow ; and from 
 this union of Novgorod with Moscow we must date the 
 origin of the concentration of power in that branch of the 
 Ruriks, and of the liberation of Russia, as well as the 
 brilliant rays of glory, which, for the second time, illu- 
 mined that country under its first dynasty. 
 
 Lastly, it was the definitive conquest of this same river, 
 in 1703, from the same power, and the transformation of 
 its marshes, which had been the cradle of the empire, 
 into a warlike and commercial capital, that secured to Rus- 
 sia its civilization, and to Peter the Great his renown. 
 
 In every thing, however, he had met with obstacles, but 
 he had surmounted them all. Did he wish to attract to 
 the Baltic the commerce of the centre of Russia, which 
 was thrown away upon Archangel ? A deaf ear was turned 
 to his advice. Yet at Petersburgh the Russian merchants 
 enjoyed several privileges, and a milder climate allowed 
 
 * See Malte-Brun.
 
 BOOK IX. CHAP. V. 319 
 
 of two freiglUs in a year, while at Archangel the ice would 
 admit of only one ; to which must be added, the advantage 
 of a calmer sea, a better port, lower duties, a much shorter 
 distance, and a much larger concourse of purchasers ; but 
 notliing could move his obstinate subjects, and, perhaps, 
 to the present hour, they would have been plodding on 
 the White Sea, had not Peter, in 1722, prohibited the use 
 of that port to the merchants of the other provinces of 
 his Empire. He treated them tyrannically for their own 
 benefit ; — like ignorant and stubborn chikh-en, to whom 
 we do good in spite of themselves, and whom, till they 
 reach the age of reason, we are obliged to treat with 
 severity. 
 
 Henceforth how was it possible for revolt or disobe- 
 dience, or even for ignorance and indolence, to escape him ? 
 Not satisfied with having himself acquired knowledge on 
 all subjects, he with his own hand drew into these new 
 paths his people, whom he compelled to second him. They 
 could no longer say, " God is on high, and the Tzar is 
 afar off:" more rapid in his movements than all the great 
 men who have been so famous for their celerity, it seemed 
 to the Russians that their Tzar was every where at the 
 same time. 
 
 At the moment when tiiey supposed tiiat his labours 
 tied down to Moscow this legislator, this reformer of 
 manners, the founder of workhouses for mendicants, of 
 establishments for ])ublic instruction, of schools of artil- 
 lery, engineering, and mathematics, and of manufactories 
 of all kinds, from a pin to a cannon ; at that moment they 
 beheld him suddenly appear at a distance of a hun(ht'd 
 and eighty leagues, to trace out and to open, with his own 
 hands, those canals by which seas, nations, and hemi- 
 spheres, now unknown to each oilier, were one ilay to be 
 drawn clo.ser, or united.
 
 320 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 It was he who, from north to south, and on all the 
 points of his vast dominions, put into their hands the 
 compass, the pen, the nuisket, and even the axe and the 
 mattock. Almost at the same instant they saw him visit 
 the sea of Archangel, conquer that of Asoph, cover Lake 
 Ladoga all at once with a hundred vessels ; surprise with 
 his infantry, and carry sword in hand, the Swedish fleet ; 
 wrest from it the Gulf of Finland ; found there, in con- 
 tempt of all the elements, a military and commercial ca- 
 pital ; efface cataracts, clear the sand-banks from the rivers 
 which flow into the Black Sea and the Caspian ; and, lastly, 
 design, build, and launch vessels of eighty guns on the 
 seas of Xerxes and of Odin ! 
 
 The universal impulse which he gave to his subjects, he 
 every where kept up by his unexpected appearance. In 
 all places, and at all times, each one looked for his arrival. 
 They were sure that nothing would escape his experienced 
 eye, and that he would be certain to appreciate every 
 thing, and to make himself obeyed ; as he well knew how 
 to execute whatever he commanded. 
 
 In fine, as we are told by Perry, the English engineer, 
 who was in his service, and who was, besides, so phleg- 
 matic, downright, and discontented ; this Prince delighted 
 in being, perpetually and alternately, a civil and marine 
 engineer, smith, founder, gunsmith, fire-worker, artillery- 
 man, carpenter, pilot, teacher of all kinds of military ex- 
 ercises, and astronomer ; putting to every thing a practised, 
 powerful, and indefatigable hand, by which all was brought 
 into form, the officer, the soldier, the weapon which he 
 bore, the sailor, the ship itself, victory, too, the result of 
 so many efforts, and even the fireworks and triumphal 
 arches by which victory was rewarded.
 
 BOOK IX. CHAP. VI. 321 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The original nucleus of such immense external and 
 internal power was, however, nothing more than fifty 
 young companions in debauchery, w'hom he transformed 
 into soldiers, and the remains of a sailing-boat, which had 
 been left forgotten in a magazine. In twenty-five years, 
 this seed, nursed by a skilfid and vigorous hand, had, on 
 the one part, produced* two hundred thousand men di- 
 vided into fifty-five regiments, and cantoned, with three 
 hundred field-pieces, in permanent quarters ; a body of 
 engineers, and. particularlv, of formidable artillery-men ; 
 and fourteen thousand pieces of cannon, deposited in a 
 great central establishment, in the fortresses, and in tlu-ee 
 military magazines on the frontiers of the three chief 
 national enemies, the Turks, the Poles, and the Swedes. 
 On the other hand, from the remnant of the sailing-boat 
 had arisen thirty ships of the line, a jiroportionable num- 
 ber of frigates and smaller vessels of war, two hundred 
 galleys with sails and oars, and a nndtitude of experienced 
 mariners. 
 
 But witli what treasures did Peter undertake the moral 
 and physical transformation of such an extensive empire ? 
 We behold an entire land metamorphosed : cities contain- 
 ing a hundred thousand souls, ports, canals, and establish- 
 ments of all kinds, created ; thou.sands of skilful Kuro])eans 
 attracted, maintained, and rewarded ; several fleets built, 
 and others purchased ; a permanent army '>f i lumdred 
 
 • See Maii.stoiii.
 
 322 iiisroRY OF Russia, 
 
 and twenty thousand men trained, equipped, provided 
 with every species of arms and ammunition, and several 
 times renewed ; subsidies of men and money given to 
 Poland ; and, lastly, four wars undertaken. One of those 
 wars spread over half of Europe ; it fired the north and the 
 south, the land and the sea ; and when it had lasted twenty- 
 one years, the treasury from which it was fed still re- 
 mained full. And Peter, whose revenues, on his accession 
 to the throne did not exceed a few hundred thousand 
 pounds, declared to Munnich, " That he could have car- 
 ried on the war for twenty-one years longer without con- 
 tracting any debt." 
 
 Will order and economy be sufficient to account for these 
 phenomena? We must, doubtless, admire them in this great 
 man, who refused himself every superfluity, at the same 
 time that he spared nothing for the glory, the utility, and 
 the ornament of his empire. Let us do justice to his efforts 
 when, after having wrested the indirect taxes from the 
 boyards, who were at once, civil, military, and financial 
 managers, and from those to whom the boyards sold in 
 portions the collecting of them, he, in imitation of Holland, 
 entrusted the finances to committees, composed of select 
 merchants. 
 
 We may also feel less surprise at the increase of his 
 revenue, after we have seen him subjecting to taxation the 
 clergy as well as the laity ; suppressing a number of monas- 
 teries, by forbidding monastic vows to be taken before the 
 age of fifty ; and uniting their estates to the domains of the 
 crown, which were swelled by confiscations, by the revert- 
 ing back of his brother Ivan's appanage, and by his con- 
 quests from the Swedes. 
 
 We must remark, at the same time, that he had opened 
 his states to foreign commerce, and to the treasures of Eu- 
 rope, which v/erc carried thither to be exchanged for the
 
 BOOK IX, CHAP. VI. 3-23 
 
 many raw materials which had hitherto remained valueless ; 
 we must consider the augmentation of revenue which neces- 
 sarily ensued, and the possibility of requiring to be paid in 
 money a nudtitude of taxes whicli had previously been 
 paid in kind. 
 
 It was thus that, in place of quotas of provisions, which 
 were brought from remote distances, and were highly op- 
 pressive to the people, he substituted a tax : the sum raised 
 was applied to the payment of contractors. It is true that 
 the nobles contrived to screen themselves behind these 
 agents, in order to fatten upon the blood of the people ; 
 but Peter at length perceived them ; the evil betrayed it- 
 self by its own enormity ; it grew so that it caught the eye 
 of the Tzar. Then it was that he created conniiissions of 
 inquiry, passed whole days in them, and, during several 
 years, keeping these great pecidators always in sight, made 
 them disgorge by fines and confiscations, and piniished 
 them by the knout, the halter, and the axe. 
 
 To this superintendence by the head of the state, which, 
 subsequently to 1715, the contraction of the war within a 
 narrower circle allowed him to exert, let us add the in- 
 crease of salary to the collectors, which deprived them of 
 all pretext for misconduct. Nor nuist it be forgotten that 
 most of the stipends were paid in kind ; and that, for seve- 
 ral years, the war, being carried on out of the empire, sup- 
 plied its own wants. It must be observed, too, that the 
 cities and ])rovinces in which the troops were afterwards 
 (juartered, furnished their pay on the spot, by whicli the 
 charo-e of discount was saved ; and that tlie measures 
 which they adopted for their subsistence appear to have 
 been munici])al, and consequently as little opjjressive as 
 possible. Finally, we must remark, in IJ-K thi' sui)stitu- 
 tion, in place of the Tartar house-tax, of ;i |)()ll-tax, which 
 was a real impost on land, assessed according to ;in iiunne- 
 
 ^ 2
 
 324 HISTORY OF Russia, 
 
 ration repeated every twenty years, and the payment of 
 which the agriculturists regulated among themselves, in 
 proportion to the value of their produce. 
 
 At the same time, the reformer refused to foreigners the 
 privilege of trading with each other in Russia ; he even 
 gave to his subjects exclusively the right of conveying to 
 the frontiers of the empire, the merchandize which ft)reign- 
 ers had bought from them in the interior. Thus he en- 
 sured to his own people the profit of carriage. In I7I6, 
 he chose rather to give up an advantageous alliance with 
 the English, than to relincjuish this right in their favour.* 
 
 This superintendence, however, these numerous efforts 
 and cares, this order and economy, these improvements, 
 and this triple tax of men, of things, and of money, will 
 not yet account for the possibility of so many gigantic un- 
 dertakings, and such immense results, with a fixed revenue 
 in specie, which, in 1715, was estimated, by an attentive 
 observer, at only some millions of roubles. But in the fis- 
 cal expedients of a despotic empire, it is to fluctuating 
 revenue, to illegal resources, to arbitrary measures, that we 
 must direct our attention ; astonishment then ceases, and 
 then begins pity for one party, indignation against another, 
 and surprise excited by the ignorance, with respect to com- 
 mercial affairs, which is displayed by the high and miglity 
 geniuses of despotism, in comparison with the unerring 
 instinct which is manifested by the humblest community 
 of men who are free. 
 
 Then, we indeed shudder with dismay at sight of the 
 tremendous per si stance of these great men, amidst so much 
 toil, and woe, and blood ; as though they had made of 
 their scheme of glory or of civilization one of those bar- 
 barous deities who must be served at any cost, and who 
 can be rendered propitious only by human sacrifices ! 
 
 * See Manstein.
 
 BOOK IX. CHAP. VII. 325 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 It is the genius of Russian despotism, therefore, that 
 we must question, as to the means by which it produced 
 such gigantic results ; but, however far it may be dis- 
 posed to push its frightful candour, will it point out to us 
 its army recruited by n»en whom the villages sent tied to- 
 gether in pairs, and at their own expense ? Soldiers at 
 a penny a day, payable every four months,* and often 
 marcliing without pay ; slaves whom it was thought quite 
 enougli to feed, and who were contented with some hands- 
 ful of rye, or of oats made into gruel, or into ill-l)aked 
 bread \f unfortunate wretches, who, in spite of the blun- 
 ders of their generals, were compelled to be victorious, 
 under pain of being decimated ! ^ 
 
 Or will this despotism confess that, while it gave nothing 
 to these serfs, who were enlisted ft)r life, it required every 
 thiTig from them ; that, after twenty-one years of war, it 
 compelled them to dig canals, like miserable bond-slaves ? 
 " For they ought to serve their country,"" said Peter, 
 " either by defending or enriching it ; that is what they 
 are made for."" 
 
 Will this autocrat pride himself on the perennial ful- 
 ness of an exchequer, which violated its engjigements in 
 such a manner, that most of the foreigners who were in his 
 .service were anxious to quit it .'' 
 
 What answer will he make to that hollow and lengthen- 
 ed groan, which, even yet, seems to rise from every house 
 
 * See Maiistt'iii. t See I'erry. 
 
 : See Kamcnsky, Life of Montzikof.
 
 328 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 ill I'aganrock, and in Fetersburgh, and from his forts, 
 built by the most deadly kind of statute-labour, and peopled 
 by requisitions ? To construct these, one half of the inha- 
 bitants of the villages were sent, and were relieved by the 
 other half every six months ; and the weakest and most 
 industrious of them never more saw their homes ! 
 
 These unfortunate beings, whatever might be their call- 
 ing, from the common delver to the watchmaker and jewel- 
 ler, were torn without mercy from their families, their 
 ploughs, their workshops, and their counting-houses. 
 They travelled to their protracted torture at their own ex- 
 pense ; they worked without any pay. Some were com- 
 pelled to fill up swamps, and build houses on them ; others, 
 to remove thither suddenly, and establish their trade there ; 
 and the whole of these hapless men, one part of whom 
 were bent to the earth with toil, and the other part in a 
 manner lost in a new world, were so badly fed and shel- 
 tered, or breathed such a pestilential air, that the Russians 
 of that period assert no less than a hundred thousand of 
 them to have been engulphed in these abysses. 
 
 Listen to the complaints of the nobles and the richest 
 merchants : after the gift of a hundred vessels had been 
 required from them, they were forced to vmite in this 
 slough to build stone houses, and were also constrained to 
 live there at a much greater expense than they would have 
 incurred in their own homes. And when even the clergy, 
 in its turn, remonstrated against the excessive taxes laid 
 upon the priests, who were able to indemnify themselves 
 out of their flocks, who can be astonished at the possibility 
 of so many creations, and at the plenitude of a treasury 
 which opened so widely to receive, and so scantily to dis- 
 burse .'* 
 
 Personal services, taxes in kind, taxes in money, these 
 were the three main sources of the power of the Tzar. We
 
 BOOK IX. CHAP. VII. 32^ 
 
 have just seen what estimate we ought to form as to the 
 manner in which the first of these was employed. As to 
 the taxes in kind and in money, how could the insulated 
 cries of such a multitude of tax-payers, who were scat- 
 tered over so wide a space, have reached the present age, 
 if the excess of a simultaneous and universal evil had not 
 blended them into one vast clamour, stronger even than 
 time and space.'* It is from this we learn the names of 
 the throng of taxes which were laid upon every thing, and 
 at every opportunity, for the war, for the admiralty, for 
 the recruiting-service, for the horses used in the public 
 works, for the brick and lime-kilns required in the build- 
 ing of Petersburg!!, for the post-office, for the government 
 offices, for the extraordinary expenses, for the contribu- 
 tions in kind, for the requisitions of men and their pay 
 and subsistence, and for the salaries of those who were 
 in place ; to which must be added innumerable other 
 duties on mills, ponds, baths, bee-hives, meadows, gar- 
 dens, and in tlie towns, on every square fathom of land 
 which bore the name of black or non-free ; and all this was 
 aggravated by other exorbitant and grinding burthens, 
 and by the fleecing of the artisans, in proportion to their 
 industry and their presumed wealth ; the result of which 
 was that they concealed both ; the most laborious of thenj 
 buried their earnings that they might hide them from the 
 nobles, and the nobles entrusted their riches to foreign 
 banks, that they might hide them from the Tzar. 
 
 To this we have yet to add the secondary oppressions. 
 Collectors, whose annual pay was, for a long time, only 
 six rubles; and who, nevertheless, accumulated fortunes 
 in four years, for they converted to their own use two- 
 thirds of the sums which they extorted ; executing by tor- 
 ture whoever was unable to pay, they made the niost 
 horrible misuse of the unlimited powers which, according
 
 328 HISTORY OK KtSSlA, 
 
 to the practice of absolute g-overninents, were necessarily 
 entrusted to them ; despotism being unable to act other- 
 wise than by delegation. 
 
 These men had the right of levying taxes on all the 
 markets of the country, of laying whatever duties they 
 pleased upon connnodities, and of breaking into houses, 
 for the purpose of preventing or discovering infractions 
 of their orders: so that the unfortunate people, finding 
 that they had nought which they could call their own, and 
 that every thing, even to their industry, belonged to the 
 Tzar, ceased to exert themselves for more than mere sub- 
 sistence, and lost that spirit which only a man's personal 
 interest can inspire. 
 
 Accordingly, the forests were peopled with men driven 
 to desperation, and those who at first remained in the 
 villages, finding that they were obliged to pay the taxes 
 of the fugitives as well as their own, speedily joined their 
 companions. 
 
 What can bear witness more strongly to the disordered 
 state of those times than the facts themselves ! They show 
 us grandees, who were possessed of the highest credit, re- 
 peatedly convicted of embezzling the public money ; others, 
 hanged or beheaded ; and a vice-chancellor himself daring, 
 without any authority, to give places and pensions, and, 
 in so poor a country, contriving to purloin nearly a hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand pounds. It was not, therefore, 
 the Tzar alone whom the people accused of their suf- 
 ferings. 
 
 But such is the tenure of despotism, that, in depriving 
 the people, of their will, it takes upon itself the whole 
 responsibility. All, however, agree that, about 1715, they 
 beheld their Tzar astounded at the aspect of such nu- 
 merous evils ; they acknowledge the efforts which he had 
 made, and that all of them had not been fruitless.
 
 ROOK IX. CHAP. VII. 329 
 
 But, at the same time, to account for the inexhaustible 
 abundance of the autocrat's treasury, they represent him 
 to us as monopolizing every thing for his own benefit, 
 o-ivinff to the current coin of his empire the value which 
 suited his purpose, and receiving it from foreigners at no 
 more than its intrinsic worth. 
 
 They accuse him of having engrossed the purchase or 
 sale of numberless native and foreign productions, either 
 by suddenly taxing various kinds of merchandize, or by 
 assuming the right of being the exclusive purchaser, at 
 Iiis own price, to sell again at an exorbitant price when he 
 had become the sole possessor. 
 
 They say also that, forestalling every thing, their Tzar 
 made himself the sole merchant trading from European 
 Russia to China and Siberia, as well as the sole mint-master, 
 the sole trader in tobacco, soap, talc, pitch, and tar ; that 
 liaving also declared himself the only public-house keeper 
 in an empire where drunkenness held sovereign sway, this 
 monopoly annually brouglit back into his coffers all the 
 })av that had been disbursed from them. 
 
 When, in ^'JMi, he wished to defray the expenses of his 
 second journey to Holland, and at the same time avoid 
 being a loser by the rate of exchange, what was the ])laM 
 which he adopted ':' He laid his hands on all the leather 
 intended for exportation, which he paid for at a maximum 
 fixed by himself, and then exported it on his own account, 
 tlie proceeds being made payable in Holland, where it was 
 purchased by foreigners. 
 
 It is thus, that many of his contemporaries explain the 
 riches of a prince who was the principal manufacturer and 
 merchant of a great empire, the creator, the superintendent 
 of its arts. In his eyes, his subjects were nothing more 
 than workmen, whose labours he prom])ted, estimated, and 
 rewarded, accordingto his own good pleasure ; he reserved
 
 330 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 to himself the sale of the produce of their industry, and 
 the immense profits which he thus gained, he employed 
 in doubling that produce. 
 
 What a singular founder of commerce in his empire 
 was a monarch who drew it all within his own sphere, and 
 absorbed it in himself ! We may, however, be allowed to 
 believe, that he sometimes became a merchant and manu- 
 facturer, as he became a soldier and a sailor, for the sake 
 of example, and that the obstinately ignorant repugnance 
 of his subjects to many branches of industry and commerce, 
 long compelled him to retain the monopoly of them, in 
 contradiction to his ovm wishes. 
 
 In conclusion, it is curious to remark, when, for the pur- 
 pose of enlightening every thing, he wished to make use 
 of despotism which extinguishes every thing, how that 
 weapon of darkness and of death, glancing back against 
 himself, wounded the hand which was most accustomed 
 to wield it ! Solovieff is an example of this. Assisted by 
 the privileges which Peter had granted to him, that mer- 
 chant had at length succeeded in establishing at Amster- 
 dam the first commercial Russian factory that had ever 
 been worthy of notice ; but in 1717? when the Tzar visited 
 that city for the second time, his greedy courtiers irritated 
 him against that merchant, who was their fellow country- 
 man. Solovieff' had not chosen to ransom himself from the 
 envy which his riches inspired. They, therefore, slan- 
 dered him to their sovereign, and the autocrat, by con- 
 fiscating this source of riches, destroyed his work with his 
 own hand. 
 
 Here, then, as far as regards his external resources, is 
 solved the miracle of such sudden and wonderful creations 
 of all kinds ! Can our age feel surprise at whatever may 
 be effected, in the lapse of five and twenty years, by con- 
 fiscations, arbitrary taxes, monopolies, requisitions, com-
 
 BOOK IX. CHAP. VII. 331 
 
 pulsory labour, and a mind that shrinks not from the use 
 of the most desperate means. And when to all these power- 
 ful movers we add the docile disposition arising from 
 long slavery, what ground can there remain for astonish- 
 ment ? Do not the onions and the servitude of Egypt suf- 
 ficiently explain the enormous magnitude of its pyramids ? 
 Those, however, are barren creations ; while here, we con- 
 template those living and fertile creations, the works of 
 genius, which, when they are once produced, continue to 
 grow of themselves, and, as it were, by their own inherent 
 powers.
 
 B O O K X. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Such was Peter ! great by the purpose which he had 
 in view, by his perseverance, and by his means ! Not 
 that the latter were uniformly well chosen, or that he was 
 always capable of using them in the most prudent manner, 
 and of controlling himself, as he controlled others : no, 
 this was undoubtedly not the case. 
 
 But who can wonder that, following the example of 
 many of his masters in civilization, he did not reform a 
 multitude of excessive monopolies, that he even secured 
 them to himself ; or that the very commerce which he had 
 created, he should have so essentially injured, by perpe- 
 tuating an Asiatic custom, which gives to the government 
 the right of buying and selling before its subjects ? 
 
 These errors are the errors of his age ; his grossness and 
 drunkenness were also the vices of the times. For here 
 we do not mean to reproach him with that savage pity 
 which led him to be present at the execution of his mis- 
 tress, who had been guilty of infanticide, to kiss her 
 forehead on the scaffold, and merely to turn aside his 
 head Avhen the fatal blow was given. 
 
 Nor will be imputed to him as a crime the coarseness of
 
 BOOK X. CHAP. I. 333 
 
 those entertainments which were meant to serve a political 
 purpose ; where sometimes he ridiculed the ancient man- 
 ners by burlesques on them, sometimes his priests, whose 
 influence he dreaded, and at other times the Pope, of 
 whom he did not wish to be considered as a partisan. 
 
 Neither will history pause to criticise, as was done by 
 the German resident at his court, the barbarism of that 
 nuptial feast, during which each day was marked by the 
 most fantastical whimsies, and by paroxysms of disgusting 
 drunkenness. 
 
 It will also pass lightly over the burial of his dwarf, 
 and the marriage of his buffoon, two grotesque and 
 clo\vnish farces, in which his own person, antl the most 
 venerable ceremonies of religion, were lavishly introduced. 
 
 It will not even dwell on his fits of brutal violence; 
 though we know that in his orgies, which, however, were 
 less frequent than is supposed, he was on the point of 
 kilHng those in whom he placed most confidence, and even 
 tlie man whom he had desired to check him in his rage; 
 tliat, on the latter occasion, he condemned himself, and 
 exclaimed tliat " he wished to reform others, yet was un- 
 able to reform himself;"''' and that, in another instance, 
 when one of them was about to be thrown into the water, 
 he could stop the Tzar's uplifted hand only by saying to 
 him " thy history will record this :"" can such bursts 
 of passion, arising from drunkenness, and under the cir- 
 cumstances of the age, excite our wonder .'' 
 
 It is added, indeed, that one morning, having come 
 sooner than the senators, to the hall where they held tluir 
 deliberations, he belaboured them all soundly a>> tliey en- 
 tered, with the exception of the oldest among them. It 
 is .said, too, that having, on some occasions, applied these 
 brutal corrections by mistake, he thought it (juite natural 
 to tell tlie ministers whom he had beaten without a reason,
 
 SS'i HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 as he told his black slave on a similar occasion, that he 
 would make an allowance for this error the next time that 
 they deserved punishment ; and that, in fact, he kept his 
 word in all these instances. 
 
 All this is but too well proved : but that it should be 
 also true that he daily, and in public, cuffed or caned his 
 principal officers, for slight faults, as well as for serious 
 ones, almost without discontinuing his conversations with 
 those great personages, and without conceiving that he had 
 degraded them in their own eyes or in those of others ! — 
 Yet such acts of boorish violence as these are susceptible 
 of explanation ; they admit even of excuse in a country, 
 which, for several centuries, had known no submission but 
 that of slavery. 
 
 There chastisement, inflicted by the hand of the prince, 
 seemed almost a distinction ; as it implied a sort of inti- 
 macy, a vassalship immediately dependent on him ; it was, 
 as the phrase still in use expresses it, looked upon as a 
 fatherly correction. So much did every one, when in the 
 presence of the Tzar, consider himself as being in a state of 
 minority, of childhood even ; and so absolutely was there 
 between him and his subjects, not merely the distance be- 
 tween master and slave, but also that which exists be- 
 tween a man who has attained the age of reason, and the 
 beings who have not yet acquired the exercise of that fa- 
 culty. 
 
 In his presence all were divested of free-will ; he was 
 their living and irrevocable destiny. 
 
 The Russians, nevertheless, and especially since the 
 usurpation of Godunof, were not unaware of the possibility 
 of conspiracy ; but as long as they did obey, it was thus 
 they obeyed : there was no other mode known here of 
 commanding and yielding obedience. 
 
 Even those ambassadors, who, by residing for many years
 
 BOOK. X. CHAP. I. 335 
 
 in civilized countries, had become polished, when they 
 entered again into this murky atmosphere of slavery, im- 
 morality, and barbarism, were obliged to change their eyes 
 and their hearts, in order to accommodate themselves to 
 their situation. They soon forgot there the whole of what 
 they had learned. 
 
 Is it, then, wonderful, that the power of such brutal 
 and deeplv-rooted manners should have had an influence 
 on the reformer himself ; especially when we consider that, 
 to instruct the people and make himself understood, it was 
 necessary he should be perpetually in contact with them, 
 and speak their own coarse language ; and that, to drag 
 them from the darkness in which they were involved, fear 
 being their only tangible point, he was compelled to seize 
 them by the single hold which it was possible for him to 
 take '<; 
 
 But let us listen to his own language, when, on various 
 occasions, he exclaimed to those about him, " You may 
 make war on wild beasts, it is a pleasure which is not un- 
 becoming to you ; but as for me, I cannot amuse myself 
 in such a manner, while I have so many to combat in my ob- 
 stinate and untractable subjects. They are animals whom 
 I have dressed like men ; I often desj^air of overcoming 
 their pertinacity, and eradicating their wickedness from 
 their hearts. Let nie, therefore, be no longer painted as 
 a cruel tyrant by those who are unacquainted with the 
 circumstances which have imperiously directed my con- 
 (kict ; what numl)ers of persons have thwarted my designs, 
 rendered abortive my most beneficial plans for the country, 
 and comj)e]l((l inc to use the utmost rigour ! \ souglit for 
 their assistance, and appealed to their ])atri()tisni : those 
 who have comjjrehended and seconded me, and have been 
 the most useful to niy jx-oplc, I have loaded with rewards; 
 they have been my only favourites !"
 
 330 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 History may, tlierefore, be allowed not to wonder at 
 the coarse manners of one of her greatest characters. 
 
 But, however painful it may be to pass from love to 
 hatred, it is one of the fatalities of the historian to have to 
 admire and detest by turns, and that, too, with respect to 
 the same man. And why should it be more astonishing to 
 see a man sometimes exciting our enthusiasm, and some- 
 times our indignation, than to know that he is composed of 
 body and mind, or, in other words, of life and death, of 
 eternity and corruption ? 
 
 Is it imagined that, because the historian has delighted 
 to indulge in one of these feelings, he is, therefore, inca- 
 pable of speaking the language of the other ? 
 
 It has too long been supposed that indifference alone can 
 be impartial : thank Heaven, far from forbidding admira- 
 tion, the history of men sometimes inspires it ; and, when 
 this is the case, why should her enthusiastic accents be 
 stifled ? Truth is what is required from history, and when 
 the truth which she has to record is all fire, is it with the 
 ice of a frozen unfeelinffness that its flames can be made 
 obvious ? No ! since she must paint every thing, all co- 
 lours are necessary for her ; since she must say every thing, 
 all tones of speech are suitable to her ; that of enthusiasm 
 as well as that of indignation. It is by these means that 
 she must perform her task, the task of describing, and 
 depicting, not lifeless truth, but truth glowing with life 
 and with all its natural hues, with all its passions, its 
 sallies, its disgusting or enchanting nudities ; and all the
 
 BOOK X. CHAP. II. 337 
 
 impressions which it must have made on contemporaries 
 who were possessed of acute optics, sound minds, and 
 pure hearts. 
 
 Let us, therefore, leave to the contemporaries of Peter 
 the Great, to raise their cry of love or hatred ; let history 
 preserve them both, and posterity decide. A man, who is 
 a despot by right of birth, suddenly starting up alone in 
 the midst of darkness, perceives the light ! He advances 
 towards it, he drags with him a whole people, and amidst 
 their cries of admiration or of anguish, he pushes onward, 
 like fate itself, to that luminary which he alone beholds, 
 and from which nothing turns him aside. 
 
 Let us hearken to those two vast and clamorous out- 
 cries, which will be heard through ages ; the one, barba- 
 rous, but pliuntive, will undoubtedly not accuse him of 
 the triple and brutal intoxication of wine, and wrath, and 
 power, which was the result of those unpolished manners 
 which it desires to be perpetuated. It will, however, re- 
 proach him with the tyranny which overturned and vio- 
 lated the most deeply rooted usages and customs, and 
 comjjelled the adoption of new ; and his prodigality of 
 tlie toils and of the lives of his subjects. If this voice 
 may be tru.sted,* he pushed even his virtues into vice by 
 their excess : in him, justice became cruelty. It bids us 
 recall to memory the hesitation of the Senate, when that 
 bodv was called upon to condcnui to death the Vaiwode 
 of Kargopol for his exactions ; and the ferocious exclama- 
 tion of the Tzar : " Well then ! I order him to be (juar- 
 tered, and his members cut into pieces, to be distributed 
 among the Vaiwodcs, to teach them to be just, and not to 
 deprive of their subsistence and their lives my j)oor 
 subjects, who cannot defend themselves from their op- 
 pression." 
 
 • See Leclerc. The Trnvellcr for thirteen years — -Manstein. 
 
 Z
 
 338 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 Here, ttH>, the acciisino; cry will allege the horrible pu- 
 nishment of Talitskoi. This fanatical printer, imagining 
 that he was inspired, dared to spread the doctrine, that 
 " the birth and actions of the Tzar proved him to be Anti- 
 christ."" He then fled into Siberia, but his flight was in 
 vain. He was brought back before his master, who 
 seemed to think that to punish such a crime against his 
 power and against civilization, all existing kinds of punish- 
 ment were worn out or insufficient ; he, therefore, imagined 
 a new one. It is asserted that, by his orders, in his own 
 palace, and even before his own eyes, a fire fed by corro- 
 sive liquors was lighted, over which the unfortunate Ta- 
 litskoi was suspended, till his flesh was gradually corroded, 
 his muscles were dried up, and his still living remains 
 dropped into this infernal flame, by which they were con- 
 sumed. 
 
 It may be hoped that this narrative is envenomed by 
 hatred : but the enemies of the regenerator will add to it 
 his well-known harshness to his first wife ; the frightful 
 and fully-proved massacre of the Strelitz ; the unjust and 
 atrocious execution of Glebof, and of Moens ; and so many 
 other instances of ferocity. 
 
 To this terrible charge another acclamation, composed 
 of native and foreign voices, replies, that all these imputa- 
 tions are true, but that their degree of criminality depends 
 upon circumstances. It acknowledges the brutality of 
 some of his passionate acts, which, however, is sufficiently 
 accounted for by the difficulties of his situation, arising 
 from the rebellious obstinacy of his subjects, and, espe- 
 cially from the circle of meanness that surrounded him ; 
 slavery being still more productive of tyranny, than ty- 
 ranny is of slavery. 
 
 It recalls to memory, not for the purpose of vindicating 
 his furious sallies, but of pointing out one of their causes,
 
 BOOK X. CHAP. II. 339 
 
 tliat their violence was often independent of his will ; 
 that, having been the victim of the ambition of a sister 
 and the revolts of the Strelitz, his boyhood had been 
 ]3oisoned by debauchery, and even, as some contemporaries 
 affirm, by a more direct crime. 
 
 Often at that period, his earliest perceptions, his ten- 
 derest feelings, and his nightly repose, were confused and 
 broken by sudden horrors : we have seen rebellion startle 
 him up from his bed, pursue him, seize him even upon the 
 altar, and brandisli over his head the dagger, which God 
 alone was able to turn aside. Hence originated the ner- 
 vous irritabihty, which so predominated in his constitu- 
 tion, that any strong feeling often became in him a pro- 
 tracted and terrific convulsion. And hence, perhaps, was 
 also derived his fortunate attachment to order and dis- 
 cipline ; and, at the same time, his excessive jealousy of 
 encroachments on his power, and the suspicious, ferocious 
 rage which he manifested against the slightest semblance 
 of revolt. 
 
 But it is here more especially, tliat, eager to recall to 
 mind the many beneficial results which were obtained, this 
 voice of the new manners dwells on the impotence of the 
 reigns which preceded and followed ; whence arose the 
 necessity of completing every thing within the term of a 
 single life, and, consequently, of turning back at once, and 
 with violence, from the east to the west, the whole of this 
 Muscovite mass. 
 
 It adds, that in revolutions as in war, whicli is also a 
 state of revolution, every thing is achieved by means of 
 toil and blood ; tliat, for this reason, all great warriors and 
 politicians have never scrupled to use them without stint, 
 and the Tzar less than any of those great men ; that he 
 exacted more from others, because he spared himself less 
 tlian any one ; and went inoii' lu'vond reasonable bounds 
 
 z 2
 
 340 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 because he had a greater and nobler object in view ; there 
 being, in general, nothing which is so apt to be over- 
 strained as the attempt to effect the accomplishment of 
 beneficial purposes. 
 
 Lastly, it exclaims that these gigantic beings, these co- 
 lossuses, are always sculptured out on a large scale and in 
 masses ; that they are marked by striking asperities, Na- 
 ture seeming to have neglected the nice finishing of the 
 details, which she reserves for beings of an inferior species, 
 who are destined to humbler efforts, and made for less 
 stormy times. 
 
 But here, the accusing cry breaks in upon the defence : 
 with the voice of the ancient manners is blended the cry 
 of blood, the blood of a son expiring under the inflexible 
 hand of a father ; all the other voices are put to silence ; 
 even that of history loses its boldness. Other accents are 
 here required. And what man is there who will be rash 
 enough to decide peremptorily upon this great question, 
 where the mind and the heart remain divided, and which 
 seems to separate heaven from earth, by opposing policy 
 to morality ; those two powers, of which the one, wholly 
 pure and divine, ought for ever to have the mastery over 
 the other ? 
 
 It is to Peter the Great himself that we are now about 
 to listen, in the midst of all the grandees of Russia, whom, 
 on the 24th of June, I7I8, he assembled at Moscow to 
 hear him.
 
 BOOK X. CHAP. IIJ. 341 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 These grandees were assembled in the hall which was 
 appropriated to their deliberations. On tlie one side, they 
 saw there a young Prince of twenty-nine years of age, who 
 was the heir to the throne, and the son of a divorced 
 mother. They recollected that, in 1697? ^^^ ^^^^ ^"^^^ ^f 
 their Tzar, being jealous of Anne de Moens, a young fo- 
 reigner, had contracted an aversion for the foreigners and 
 the arts which they introduced ; that, like all the malecon- 
 tents of that period, she had joined the faction of the old 
 manners, and that, by thus mingling state affairs with 
 those of her domestic establishment, she had violated the 
 duties of a wife and of a subject, and consequently had, 
 in 1698, been banished to a cloister. 
 
 These grandees knew not which of the two passions of 
 Peter, that of illicit love, or that of civilizing his empire, 
 had the greatest share in this severity ; but they saw that 
 either from a spirit of contradiction, which is so often wit- 
 nessed in children, and especially in the heirs of kings 
 against their fatliers, or from liatred transmitted by bloody 
 and fostered by intrigue, the evil genius of that dethroned 
 motlier had, after a lapse of twenty years, involved her 
 son in her ruin. 
 
 For it was tliat jirince, tlie successor tu the empire, 
 whom his father now dragged before them as a criminal. 
 There was not one of them that could not recognize liim, 
 by his lofty stature, liis powerfid voice, the filthiness of 
 his dress, arul the stupidity produced by continual and 
 disgusting (lrunkennes^.* They had seen him perpetually 
 
 # Spc Tlruce.
 
 342 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 surrounded by the most ignorant and debauched priests, 
 who were his dearest confidants : to those men he had pro- 
 mised the surrender of all his father's labours, the exile 
 or death of those by whom his parent had been seconded, 
 the destruction of Petersburg!! and of the navy, and the 
 restoration of the ancient usages. 
 
 Hence had arisen his passive resistance to the orders of 
 their Tzar, and his desertion of his country. But, since 
 his return, four months ago, he had been disinherited of 
 the throne, and subjected to the heaviest curses if he dared 
 to appeal from that decision : the blood of his accomplices 
 had been shed ; he was a captive. Was not this enough '•( 
 of what did his father, their absolute sovereign, now intend 
 to accuse him .''" 
 
 Their Tzar addressed them :* in his large and robust, 
 but already bending form ; in that embrowned face, whose 
 eagle features, harsh and penetrating glance, and stern ex- 
 pression, became every day more strongly marked ; they 
 beheld the throes of a long concentrated wrath, which 
 finally broke forth in imputations, in violent and accumu- 
 lated charges of crimes, perjuries, atrocities, pernicious in- 
 trigues, and criminal practices. 
 
 Their master at length explained himself. They learned 
 that it was in order to evade the sharp-sighted eye of his 
 father that, in 1712, Alexis consented to take as his wife, 
 a young and virtuous female of the family of Wolfenbut- 
 tel ; but that his ill-restrained barbarity, by causing the 
 death of his amiable and mild princess, soon broke that 
 new tie by which Russia was connected with European ci- 
 vilization. The Tzar, informed them that, " On the 27th 
 of October, 1715, the very day on which the victim was 
 
 * See the Manifesto of the Trial, Memoirs of a German Resident, 
 Levesque, Leclerc, &c.
 
 BOOK X. CHAP. m. 343 
 
 buried, finding it impossible any longer to doubt that his 
 obstinate heir was the determined enemy of all his benefi- 
 cent plans, he had declared to him, both by word of 
 mouth and by writing, that undoubtedly he could not have 
 forgotten the oppression of the country by the Swedes, and 
 their usurpation of the maritime provinces, by which they 
 shut out the Russians from all intercourse with the rest of 
 the world, and thus covered with a thick veil even the sharp- 
 est eyes ; nor all that, trembling as it was, before such an 
 enemy, it had cost the country to acquire the knowledge 
 which enabled it to make that enemy tremble in his turn. 
 But that, vast as was the joy with which he, who was his 
 parent and his sovereign, was inspired by the many bless- 
 ings which Heaven had showered on his labours, it was 
 far over-balanced by the still greater sorrow of seeing the 
 heir to the throne reject all the means of governing that 
 empire after his father's decease. 
 
 " Why did he refuse to learn the art of war, its rules, 
 and its discipline, by means of wliich alone Russia had 
 emerged from obscurity, and without which it could not 
 be defended ? Did he not know that the Greek empire it- 
 self owed its ruin to indolence ? Perhaps, he relied on his 
 generals ; but did it not belong to the chief alone, on Avhom 
 all eyes were turned, to set a pattern to his people ? 
 
 " Let him look at the example of Feodor ; his occupa- 
 tions became those of his subjects : they all studied his in- 
 clinations, and conformed to them. If to the pleasures of 
 tliat prince, who was his predecessor, they so readily sacri- 
 ficed their own pleasures, how much more readily still, in 
 imitation of his slotliful and untractable nephew, would 
 they not relinquish their labours ! 
 
 " His natural disposition," he said, " was adverse to 
 what was rc(iuired ! But how was instruction to be gained
 
 344- HISTORY OF RUSSIA^ 
 
 without practice, and how, without instruction could he be 
 enabled rightly to commend,* to reward or to punish, 
 when occasion called for it ? in a word, how could he go- 
 vern under such circumstances, without borrowing the 
 eyes of others, and doing every thing by their means, 
 like a youug bird that still waits to be fed f 
 
 " Let him no longer plead the delicate state of his 
 health, since he was not so much called upon to encoun- 
 ter the fatigues of war as to learn the art of it. Let him 
 make a resolution ! this will be enough ; as it was with 
 his predecessor, who introduced into Russia the breeding 
 of horses, though he had not bodily strength to manage a 
 mettlesome steed. 
 
 " Let him learn that if, (as he had said, to excuse his 
 indolence,) many princes who were not warriors were for- 
 tunate in war, it was because, though they did not make 
 it, they were versed in it : like Louis XIV, whose cam- 
 paigns were a school for all the world, though often, while 
 they were in progress, and he was far from them, he was 
 occupied in founding those numerous establishments of 
 commerce, arts, and industry, by which his reign surpassed 
 the glory of every other. 
 
 " In conclusion," added he,f " I am a man and am 
 mortal. To whom can I bequeath the care of preserving 
 and of completing that which I have begun .'* Rememljer 
 your obstinacy and your degeneracy. How often have I 
 admonished you, how often corrected you, and how many 
 years have elapsed during which I scorned to say any thing 
 to you ! But all this has been in vain ! Your sole delight 
 seems to be to remain in your apartments, given up to 
 indolence, and stretched on the softest cushions ; the only 
 
 * Manifesto, as given by the German Resident. 
 t Manifesto, according to Levesque.
 
 UOOK X. CHAP. IV. 345 
 
 thing which pleases you, is that which ought to make you 
 bhish ! 
 
 " Do not imagine that, because I have no other son, I 
 write this merely to frighten you. If I do not spare my 
 own life, when the good of my country and the happiness 
 of my subjects are in question, why should 1 spare yours ? 
 
 " I would sooner trust my empire to a stranger who is 
 worthy of it, than to an undeserving son !" 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Such was the threatening language which, as the Tzar 
 assured his nobles, he had addressed to his sonjk 
 
 He added that, ten weeks afterwards, disheartened, no 
 doubt, by Catl^erine giving birth to a son, Alexis replied, 
 " That his father migiit dispose of the crown in favour of 
 his younger brother ; and that he earnestly requested him 
 to do so, because he felt himself too enfeebled in body and 
 mind to ride over so many nations." 
 
 They were also told that, on receiving this answer, their 
 irritated master had written again to his obstinate off- 
 s])ring, and had said, " I do not stand in need of your 
 consent to settle the succession to the throne, wliich so 
 entirely depends on my pleasure ; I see plainly that my 
 advice has made no iinj)ression on your heart, since that 
 heart it remains sik-nt. If, wliile I am living, yon thus 
 treat my wishes with contemj)t, is it proi)abIe tliat you 
 will pay more respect to them wiien I have ceased to exist ? 
 
 '• You swear to renounce the tlirone ; but what nlinncc 
 can be placed on the oatlis <-f a iiardened luait ? Kvcu 
 were it, at thib moment, ri-ally yt^iT intention to hold tluiii
 
 346 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 sacred, the long beards, who wind you about as they please, 
 would soon force you to break your word/' He added, 
 *' that the fondness of Alexis for these obstinate Musco- 
 vites already inspired them with the hope of recovering 
 under his reign, those offices from which their indolence 
 and debauchery now excluded them." 
 
 The close of this letter reproached him with ingratitude. 
 *' Far from assisting your father, you censure, nay, you 
 slander all the good he does at the expense of his health, 
 which is already injured, to gain the love and the pros- 
 perity of his subjects. He has, therefore, strong reasons 
 for believing that his son will overturn every thing, if he 
 survive him ; but he will not abandon the State to the 
 caprice of his offspring. Let him either render himself 
 worthy of the throne, or enter into a monastery — other- 
 wise, he will treat him as a criminal." 
 
 The Tzar continued his narrative. Alexis, he said, 
 had replied, that he wished to become a monk ; he wrote 
 a short note, to ask his father's consent ; illness prevented 
 him from writing more. Such was the concise answer of 
 this rebellious son. 
 
 His father, meanwhile, visited him ; he repeated his 
 pressing solicitations, and his reproaches of his son's volun- 
 tary incapacity ; and, in the hope of overcoming his per- 
 tinacious resolution to prefer a cloister, he gave him six 
 months to weigh the inconveniencies of such a measure. 
 
 The Tzar then set out to Denmark, Holland and 
 France, with the belief that he left Alexis confined to a 
 bed of pain by a serious disease ; , from which bed, how- 
 ever, the Prince arose, on the same day, in perfect health, 
 to celebrate, by a banquet, the departure of his father. 
 
 Finally, seven months after this deception, on the 27th 
 of August, I7I6, and from Copenhagen, Peter ordered 
 his son to come to a decision ; he must either join him
 
 BOOK X. CHAP. IV. 347 
 
 immeciiately at the army, or appoint a day for his abjuriiitr 
 the world. 
 
 The reply of the Tzarevitz was another falsehood. He 
 pretended to obey the summons of his parent ; but he fled 
 to foreign countries. 
 
 Here, without any concealment, the Tzai* made known 
 to the grandees of his empire in what manner he had 
 brought about the return of his rebellioiLs offspring ; the 
 promised pardon, which was afterwards retracted, or made 
 conditional ; the interrogatories to which he had been sub- 
 jected, and the answers which he had returned. He ended 
 by consigning the criminal to their justice. 
 
 The Prince appeared before them ; lie owned that he 
 had constantly and voluntarily shut his eyes against the 
 new lights ; that he had often injured his health by taking- 
 needless medicines to have a pretext for remaining in idle- 
 ness ; and tliat, on one occasion, when pressed by his 
 father, he had even confessed, that he was looked up to as 
 the hope of the old Russians, and of the populace. 
 
 Witnesses testified their having heard him exclaim, that, 
 " if an opportunity should arise during the absence of the 
 Tzar, he would say one word to the archbishops, who 
 would rejjeat it to the priests, and the priests to their 
 parishioners, and that then he would be compelled to 
 reign, even in spite of himself! That, if such should 
 chance to be the case, Petersburgh, and the navy which he 
 abhorred, would not long remain with the Russians." 
 
 As to those who had connected him with civilization by 
 his marriage, " they were," he said, " infamous wretclies 
 who had tied a diabolical woman to his neck ! whose heads 
 he would, some day or other, exhibit uj)()n stakes." And, 
 with respect to his flight, he had resorted to it for the ])ur- 
 pose of avoiding a cloister, thoiigli his counsellors had as- 
 sured him, "• that he nnght sign as many renunciations of
 
 348 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 the throne as he pleased ! that even monastic vows were of 
 no more consequence than old wives' talcs ; and that the 
 monkish dress was not nailed to the head V 
 
 He himself added, that, having preferred to fly, he had 
 written from his asylum to the senate and the archbishops ; 
 and had held himgelf in readiness, not only to succeed, by 
 fair or foul means, to his father, whose death he wished ; 
 but, even during his life, to take advantage of an insur- 
 rection, which was impatiently desired, to hurl him from 
 the throne. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The grandees had heard the charge, and the confession 
 of the criminal ; he was the second personage of the em- 
 pire, the individual of all others whose actions coidd be 
 the most useful or the most injurious : he was one of its 
 defenders ; yet, notwithstanding this, it was in the midst of 
 a terrible war, when the country, exhausted by so many 
 sacrifices, though on the point of reaping the fruits of them, 
 saw Austria and the north of Europe combining, in order 
 to snatch them from her : it was at such a critical moment, 
 that, deceiving his father and his sovereign, he declared 
 himself his enemy, by deserting his political and military 
 post, to throw himself into the arms of one of those pow- 
 ers, which was already jealous of the rising glory of the 
 Russians ! 
 
 The culprit had, it is true, been since disinherited of the 
 empire; but his judges were doubtful whether his crime 
 did not deserve death, as well in the e3^es of justice, which
 
 BOOK. X. CHAP. V. 349 
 
 look only to the past and the present, as in those of policy, 
 which look also to the future. 
 
 And, in truth, at this epoch of Russian regeneration, 
 was not the still cherishing a wish to destroy it, high trea- 
 son against their country, no less than agiiinst their Tzar 'i 
 
 The accuser, the tone of the accusation, and all the 
 attendant circumstances, gave sentence by anticipation. 
 But, if they should dare to pronounce it, would Peter 
 carry it into effect .'' They had no doubt of it. The civi- 
 lization of his people was a work conscientiously under- 
 taken : to that he had sacrificed sister, wife, a whole gene- 
 ration, and still more, and a thousand times, himself! Nor 
 was it any longer a mere conception of his genius ; it was 
 already a living and perfect creation. They themselves 
 made a part of the new nation, formed out of able foreign- 
 ers, and the flower of the natives. 
 
 And nevertheless there had existed among them, for 
 twenty-nine years, a being by whom it was reprobated and 
 abhorred : he even threatened to destroy it in the blood of 
 those superior-minded men who had hastened from all 
 quarters, relying on the word of the regenerator. The 
 rebel, it is true, was heir to the empire— was the son of 
 their Tzar ; but that Tzar was their creator ; he was at 
 least as much their father as he was of this obstinate beinff, 
 whom, during eighteen years, he had fruitlessly laboured 
 to reform. 
 
 The alternative was, indeed, an embarrassing one ! On 
 the one side was a nation, his own work ; on the other, 
 was a .son ! Towards which had he the most imperative 
 duty to perform .'' Whether ought the many children of 
 his genius, or the child of hi,s blood, to gain the upper 
 hand .'' Of these two creations, whose co-existence was 
 rendered incompatible by the fault of one of then), wliich 
 ought to be sacrihced to the other .''
 
 350 HISTORY OP RUSSIA, 
 
 In truth, the question here no longer turned on a renun- 
 ciation, disinlierison, or even compulsory vows. The con- 
 fession of Alexis had demonstrated their insufficiency ! the 
 mortal enemy of civilization might rise again from that 
 religious death ! It was necessary to join to it a political 
 death, a physical death ; in a word, death of all kinds ! 
 and, that barbarism might irrevocably perish along with 
 this devoted victim, it was equally necessary that the 
 greater part of the grandees who were engaged in that 
 work of civilization, should co-operate in this great sacrifice. 
 
 Such, no doubt, were the ideas of their master ; those 
 on which he had meditated for five months, and which he 
 believed to be inspired by Heaven itself: for they knew 
 that it was from the foot of the altar, where he had lain 
 prostrate for several days, that he had come to put his son 
 into their hands. 
 
 They were slaves — they were judges in their own cause ; 
 and the flight of Alexis seemed to give to a fatal decree, 
 dictated by reasons of state, the sanction of rigorous jus- 
 tice : they pronounced it ! 
 
 Let history for a while suspend hers : attentive and im- 
 movable, let her keep her eyes fixed on this inflexible and 
 most persevering of all geniuses, in this giddy and rugged 
 road. 
 
 Alexis was condemned on the sixth of July, I7I8. On 
 the seventh, a report was spread, that, on his sentence 
 being read to him, he fell to the ground in the most alarm- 
 ing state of terror, and desired to see his father. The 
 latter, followed by all the grandees of the state and of his 
 court, went to receive his last farewell, and mingle his tears 
 with those of his son. The rest is a mystery. The Tzar 
 was seen to quit with a dejected countenance the apart- 
 ment of the unfortunate Alexis, who expired some hours 
 after having embraced his father.
 
 BOOK X. CHAP. VI. 351 
 
 Peter wept over the victim* before he was immolated ; 
 he wept, too, over his coffin, which he himself accompanied. 
 But the statesman remained inflexible in him. The ashes 
 of his son were yet warm, they were still wet with his 
 tears, when he loudly declared that this son, " the most 
 insincere and ungrateful being that imagination could con- 
 ceive, had been justly condemned !" He gloried in having 
 made this sacrifice to the love of his people, as well as in 
 having banished or put to death all his accomplices. 
 
 Four years after, fearing that, on his decease, the mino- 
 rity of the son of this victim might revive the hopes of his 
 mother, and of the party of the ancient manners, he de- 
 clared by a decree, (as Ivan III. had done in his letter to 
 the Pskovians) " that the reigning sovereign was the abso- 
 lute master to dispose of the throne to whomsoever he 
 pleased."" 
 
 In fact, it was not long before he crowned Catherine ; 
 doubtless, with the intention of preserving, when he should 
 be no more, the great work of his life, by the reign of her 
 who had been the com]>anion of his toils, and by her being- 
 surrounded with grandees who were interested in civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Such, in this melancholy part of his immense career, was 
 
 the persevering and terrible march of Peter the Great ! 
 
 Thus did j)olicy obtain an undivided triumph ! But in (lie 
 
 present day, who is there who relying, like liiiii, solely i>n 
 
 important and un})ending reasons of state, with his foot on 
 
 • Leves(jue, Leclerc, Memoirs of Bruce, IMemoirs of the Gcrmiiii 
 Resident. The Traveller duririf,' Thirteen Years, &c. I'fec.
 
 352 HISTORY 01' RUSSIA, 
 
 the victim will dare to say, " It was not a murder, it was 
 a sacrifice ! an act of necessity, not of hatred ! a fatality of 
 situation ! a political fatality !" which, in the opinion of 
 the greatest warrior and legislator of modern times, is well 
 calculated to replace in our poems, that religious fatality 
 of which the ancient tragic writers made such frequent and 
 such terrible use ! 
 
 A dangerous fatality, indeed, to interpret ! when the 
 prince who trusts to his inspiration, making a god of his 
 pohcy, creates necessities to which he sacrifices the present 
 race, and even his own son ! when, in short, he submits to 
 incur such a terrific responsibility, that history, while it 
 judges him, is seized with horror and admiration, and 
 scarcely dares to absolve, lest it should seem to be an ac- 
 complice. 
 
 The memoirs, however, of that period, written, it must 
 be owned, by foreigners, who saw their own safety in the 
 fall of Alexis, give their approbation to the act. The 
 most celebrated writer of modern times has also sanctioned 
 the fatal decree. Lastly, the circumstance which makes 
 the strongest impression of all, is, the firm conviction 
 felt by a great man, which, from consequence to conse- 
 quence, led him on to this frightful sacrifice, the particulars 
 of which he himself widely pubhshed, in which he wished 
 his whole empire to bear a part, and which Heaven, in its 
 turn, seems to have rewarded by success. 
 
 There is grandeur, no doubt, in this tremendous victory 
 of policy over nature, and we may conceive the hesitation 
 of history, when she looks only at this side of such a 
 catastrophe. But no sooner does she fix her eyes on 
 its morality, than a cry of horror escapes from her. Then, 
 sullied with iniquity, with perfidy, and with ferocity, 
 sinks into dust before her view that policy, which is so 
 perishable in itself, and yet so arrogant, so contemptu- 
 ous in its triumphs ; which, in a word, is so proud of sue-
 
 BOOK X. CHAP. Ml. 353 
 
 cess, for whose duration it is indebted solely to that eter- 
 nal morality, which, Heaven be praised ! survives its master- 
 strokes, and prevents them from obtaining the authority of 
 principles. 
 
 We have seen the originally circumspect progress of this 
 colossal policy in the advice of Peter to his son; in his re- 
 peated hints and menaces, and in his hesitation to accom- 
 plish them ; succeeded all at once, by the flight and return 
 of the rebel, his trial, and his condemnation. 
 
 But between the flight and the condemnation there ex- 
 ists an infernal abyss of ferocious and treacherous tyranny, 
 into which his policy, haughty and inflexible as it was, did 
 not hesitate to plunge. The historian, not losing himself 
 by tracing it in its disgusting details, has hitherto kept his 
 eyes raised to their first elevation, that he might consider 
 the great man only in his purpose. Now, however, he is 
 compelled painfully to retrograde among these tortuous 
 horrors : the man stripped to the naked soul must now be 
 exposed : a ])lain narrative will suffice ; and, as is too often 
 the case, this hideous episode will display to us, in one and 
 the same being, a hero when we regard him with reference 
 to the end in view, and a miscreant when we contemplate 
 him in his means. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 In September, 17^), Alexis deceived and fled from his 
 father. To escape from the nascent civilization of the 
 Russians, he took refuge in the midst of European civiliza- 
 tion. He put himself under the protection of Austria, and 
 lived in concealment at Naples, with a mistress. 
 
 Peter discovered his retn-at. Me wrote to him. His 
 
 2 A
 
 354' HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 letter began with just reproaches ; it ended with terrible 
 threats, if Alexis did not obey the orders which he sent to 
 him. 
 
 These words, in particular, held a prominent place: 
 " Are you afraid of me ? I assure and promise yovi, by 
 the name of God, and by the last judgment, that if you 
 submit to my will, and return hither, I will not inflict 
 any pimishment upon you, and will even love you better 
 than ever r 
 
 Relying on the faith thus solemnly given by a father and 
 a sovereign, Alexis returned to Moscow, on the 3rd of 
 February, I7I8 ; and on the next day, he was disarmed, 
 seized, interrogated, and ignominiously excluded from the 
 throne, with all his posterity ; he was even laid under a 
 curse if he dared ever to appeal from this sentence. 
 
 Nor was tliis all ; he was secluded in a fortress. There, 
 every day and every night, violating his sworn faith, every 
 noble feeling, all the laws of nature, and those laws which 
 he had himself given to his empire,* an absolute father 
 armed himself against a too confiding son with a political 
 inquisition, which equalled the religious inquisition in its 
 insidious atrocity. He tortured the pusillanimous mind of 
 this hopeless being, with every fear that heaven and earth 
 can inspire ; he compelled him to impeach friends, rela- 
 tions, and even the mother who bore him ; and lastly, to 
 accuse himself, to render himself unworthy of living, and 
 to condemn himself to death, imder pain of death ! 
 
 This protracted crime lasted five months. It had its 
 paroxysms. In the first two, the exile and spoliation of 
 several grandees, the disinheriting of a sister, the confine- 
 ment and scourging of his first wife, and the execution of 
 a brother-in-law, did not suffice. 
 
 * See in his Code or Concordance of the Laws, chap. vi. art. l,%6, 
 8, &c.
 
 BOOK X. CHAP. VII. 355 
 
 And yet, in one day, Glebof, a Russian general, the 
 known lover of the divorced Tzarina, had been impaled in 
 the midst of a scaffold, the four corners of which were 
 marked by the heads of a bishop, a boyard, and two dig- 
 nitaries, who had been broken on the wheel and deca- 
 pitated.* Tliis liorrible scaffold was itself surrounded by 
 a circle of trunks of trees, on which more than fifty priests 
 and other citizens had been beheaded ! 
 
 This was, indeed, taking a terrible vengeance upon those 
 who, by their intrigues and superstitious obstinacy, had 
 reduced this unbending heart to the necessity of sacrificing 
 his son or his empire ! a punishment which was a thou- 
 sand times more culpable than the offence ; for what motive 
 can furnish an excuse for such atrocities ? But it .seems as 
 though, impelled l)y the suspicious instinct of unnatural 
 governments, Peter had obstinately persisted in seeking 
 and finding a conspiracy, where there existed nothing but 
 an inert opposition of manners, which hoped and waited 
 for his death that it niifjlit be broug-ht into action. 
 
 And, nevertheless, this direful butchery has found fiat- 
 terers ! The victor of Pultava himself gloried in it as 
 a victory. " When,"' said he, " fire meets with straw, it 
 consumes it ; but when it meets with iron, it must go 
 out." Then, he coolly walked about in the midst of the 
 torments which were being inflicted ! It is even said that, 
 ])rompted by a restless ferocity, he ascended the scaf- 
 fold, to question again the agonized (ilebof, and that 
 having made a .sign to him to ap))roach, the latter spat in 
 his face. 
 
 Moscow itself was a prisoner; to (piit it witliont his 
 leave was a capital crime ; its citizens were orderi'd, inider 
 pain of death, to act the [)art of sjjies and informers against 
 each other. 
 
 * Bruce. 
 2 A 2
 
 356 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 The principal victim, meanwhile, had remained trembling, 
 and insulated by the many blows which were struck around 
 him. Peter then dragged him from the prisons of Moscow 
 to those of Petersburg!!. 
 
 It was there that he laboured indefatigably to torture the 
 mind of his son, and to wring from him even the slightest 
 particulars which he could recollect, of his past irritation, 
 intractability, or rebellion ; he noted them down each 
 day with a horrible exactness, triumphing in each avowal, 
 numbering every sigh, and every tear, summing up the 
 whole in a detestable account, and struggling to convert 
 into a capital crime all these fleeting thoughts, and all 
 these regrets, to which he strove to give weight in the 
 balance of justice. 
 
 When, at length, by dint of putting his own construc- 
 tion on these confessions, he supposed that he had made 
 something out of nothing, he hastened to summon the 
 most eminent of his slaves. He described to them his 
 accursed work ; he set forth to their view its ferocious and 
 tyrannical iniquity, with an artless barbarism and a candid 
 despotism, which was blinded by his right of absolute 
 sovereignty ; as if any right could exist independent of 
 justice, and was dazzled by his object, which, fortunately, 
 was great and useful. 
 
 By this means, he hoped that he should cause to be at- 
 tributed to justice the sacrifice which he made to his policy. 
 He wished to justify himself at the expense of his victim, 
 and silence the double cry of conscience and of nature, by 
 which he was persecuted. 
 
 When, by his lengthened accusation, this absolute mas- 
 ter thought he had irrevocably condemned, he called upon 
 his hearers to decide. " They liad," he exclaimed, " heard 
 the lonff enumeration of crimes, such as were almost un- 
 heard of in the world, but of which his son had been
 
 BOOK X. CHAP. VII. 357 
 
 guilty towards him, who was his father and his sovercio-n. 
 They were well aware tl\tit to himself alone belonged the 
 right to give judgment ; nevertheless, he asked their as- 
 sistance ; for he stood in fear of eternal perdition, and the 
 more so, as he had promised forgiveness to his son, and had 
 sivorn it to him hi/ the decrees of God. — It, therefore, re- 
 mained with them to do justice, without considering his 
 birth, without paying any regard to his person, that the 
 country might not be endangered." It is true that with 
 this clear and terrible order he mixed up a few words, 
 Avhich bear the mark of clumsy cunning. " They ought," 
 he said, " to pronounce without flattering him, or fearing 
 to fall under his disj)leasure, in case they should decide 
 that his son was deserving of only a sliglit punishment." 
 
 The slaves comprehended their master ; they saw what 
 was the horrible assistance which he wanted from them ; 
 accordingly, the priests who were consulted replied merely 
 by quotations from their sacred Ixioks, choosing in equal 
 number those which condemned and those which pardoned, 
 and not daring to throw any weight into the scale, not 
 even that sworn promise of the Tzar, of which they feared 
 to remind him. 
 
 At the same time, the grandees of the state, to the num- 
 ber of a hundred and twenty-four, yielded implicit obe- 
 dience. They pronounced sentence of death unanimously, 
 and without hesitation : but their decree condemned them 
 selves, far more than it did their victim. We there see 
 the disgusting efforts of this throng of slaves labouring to 
 efface the perjury of their master ; while their mendacity 
 being added to his own, but makes it stand out with a still 
 more striking prominenci'. 
 
 For his own ])art, he inflexibly conipkted lii^ work : 
 nothing made him j)ause ; neither tlic time wliidi l\;nl 
 elapsed sinci- his wrath w.is excited, nor rtinorM', ii<»r tlir
 
 35ii HISTORY OF RUf^SlA, 
 
 repentance of a wretched being, nor trembling, submissive, 
 sup})liant weakness ! In one jvord, every thing which 
 usually, even between foreign enemies, is cajjable of ap- 
 peasing and disarming, was powerless to soften the heart 
 of a father towards his child. 
 
 Nor is this all. He had been iiis accuser, and his 
 judge, — he chose also, to be his executioner ! On the 
 seventh of July, 171 B, the very day after the passing of 
 the sentence, he went, attended by all his nobles, to re- 
 ceive the last tears of his son, and to mingle his own with 
 them ; and, at the moment when he was imagined to be at 
 last melted to pity, at that moment he sent for the strong 
 potion which he himself had ordered to be prepared ! Im- 
 patient for its arrival, he hurried it by a second message ; 
 he presented it to him as a salutary medicine ! and did not 
 retire, with " a very dismal countenance," it is true, till he 
 had poisoned the unfortunate creature who was still implo- 
 ring his forgiveness. The death of his victim, who expired 
 in dreadful convulsions some hours afterwards, he then at- 
 tributed to the terror with which his sentence had inspired 
 him ! This was the flimsy veil with which he sought to 
 cover all these enormities from tho eyes of those who were 
 about him — he deemed it sufficient for their brutalized 
 manners ; he, besides, commanded their silence upon the 
 subject, and was so well obeyed, that, but for the Memoirs 
 of a foreigner, who was a witness, an actor even, in this 
 horrible drama, history would for ever have remained in 
 ignorance of its final and terrible particulars.* 
 
 * See Note (3) at the end of the volume.
 
 BOOK XI. CHAP. I. 359 
 
 B O O K XI. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 In what manner are we now to extricate ourselves from 
 this labyrinth of blood and iniquity ? Where shall we 
 again find the great man ? But was he not always the 
 same, persevering right onward in the same direction, 
 traversing with ever equal and undeviating pace, some- 
 times the fields of glory and of light, and sometimes the 
 abysses of horrors.^ Always great, even amidst those 
 horrors, because he perpetually, and without reference to 
 self, held his course towards a single and vast object, and, 
 with a mighty hand, drew after him twenty millions of 
 men ! 
 
 He was the inspiring mind of Russia ; and, like strong 
 minds, he unceremoniously impelled forward to the i)ur})ose 
 that he had in view, the vast body which he animated. 
 
 The contest was begun. Sacrifices must be made, whe- 
 ther to advance, or to recede. These {)urb]ind beings 
 wished to make a last effort to retrogade into their ancient 
 darkness: by a more violent effort, Peter wished to compel 
 them to proceed. Had they been successful, it would have 
 been time and money and blood uselessly lavished, anil not 
 a revolution, but a counter revolution, which is the least 
 durable of all violent changes ! It is only by accidi-nt, 
 and for a moment, that rivers run l)ack towards their
 
 360 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 source ; while, on the contrary, revolutions are like those 
 sudden accumulations, those cataracts, which sweep on- 
 ward in the natural direction of the stream. 
 
 It is true that, generally speaking, they do badly that 
 good which it is often so difficult to do well. Thus it hap- 
 pened that, barbarous against barbarism, Peter the Great 
 showed himself more detestable than barbarism itself. In 
 witnessing these atrocities, we seem to see the genius of 
 good overcoming the genius of evil, by making use of the 
 baleful arms of his antagonist. 
 
 Yet, the many hours passed on his knees in imploring 
 direction from Heaven, the confession of the remorse which 
 wrung him for his perfidy to his victim, and, lastly, the tears 
 which he shed on the tomb of that victim, conspire to prove 
 that the sacrifice was a painful one, and that the reformer 
 felt all the magnitude of it. It was not, as had been the 
 case throughout his previous rugged career, merely his 
 mortal life that Peter had offered up for his country ; it 
 was, perhaps, even his immortal life. 
 
 But, it must be owned, that the blood which was shed, 
 was not shed in vain : the last hope of barbarism was de- 
 stroyed, and the regeneration of the Russians was secured ! 
 For, to comprehend and scan correctly this rude and irre- 
 gular genius, we must look at him only with reference to 
 his object ; in that alone he wholly and continually ex- 
 isted ; it was with a view to that alone that he loved or 
 hated, smote or upheld. 
 
 Let it, therefore, not excite surprise, to behold him re- 
 garding with a scrutinizing, inflexible, ferocious attention, 
 the punishment of the enemies of civilization ; and yet, at 
 the same time, when the question concerns those who have 
 assisted him to regenerate his country, looking on them 
 with an eye of indulgent kindness, even though their 
 faults, or their vices, may retard his object.
 
 BOOK XI. CHAP. I. 3()1 
 
 Let us listen to their grateful voices, breaking- the Ion"- 
 silence imposed on them by the murder of Alexis ; they 
 ■will proclaim that noble heart to be no less capable of 
 love than of hate ; they i.\'ill describe the lengthened and 
 gloomy dejection of spirits under which every one beheld 
 him suffering, a year before these horrible executions took 
 place. The miseries of his subjects, the wasting away of 
 his soldiers, that of the thousands of workmen who founded 
 Petersburgh, and the nn)rtality which reigned among 
 them, entirely overcame him. Tormenting suspicions agi- 
 tated his mind, and agonized his heart ; for they were 
 felt with respect to the companions of his efforts in the 
 civilization of Russia. 
 
 But those doubts were soon elucidated by a prince who 
 perpetually mingled in the labours, the festivals, and the 
 public and private amusements of his subjects ; and wlio, 
 with the glass in his hand, delighted in the artless and 
 frank confidence reposed in him by the talkers and guests 
 whom he met there. 
 
 It was thus that, being one day present at the exchange, 
 he was astonished at the inaction of the Russian merchants, 
 and enquired of them the cause. " Father," they replied, 
 " when the leading men of your Court become traders, the 
 traders are under the necessity of remaining idle."" And 
 they informed him that INIentzikof and several other 
 grandees monoj)olized all the contracts for the supply of 
 the state, with a profit one third greater than that which 
 they had tliemselves required. 
 
 As soon as Peter was informed of this, his just indig- 
 nation burst forth against the infamous cu|)idity of liis 
 favourite. A military commission was appointed to try 
 iiim ; every one believed IMcntzikof to be lost; tluy, how- 
 ever, remarked an emotion of generous ))itv ior tlir piiii- 
 ialor, when, as Mentzikof was reading his defence, I'llei-
 
 362 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 interrupted it, and said to him, in an under tone, " Friend, 
 you have not known how to draw it up C and, led away 
 by his tender sohcitude, he began inniiediately to correct 
 it with his own hand. 
 
 But, at that moment, a ca])tain, one of the youngest of 
 the judges, and the most imprudent, started up abruptly, 
 and exclaimed, " Let us go away ! we have no farther 
 business here, since the Tzar himself is teaching the culprit 
 what he ought to say." The Russians relate, that their 
 emperor, though at first astonished at such boldness, was 
 able to restrain himself. " You are in the right," said he 
 to the officer, " take your seat again, and give your opi- 
 nion." The captain required, that the accused person 
 should stand near the door, read his defence aloud, and 
 then quit the room. " Do you hear that," said the Tzar 
 to Mentzikof; "this is, in fact, the proper mode of pro- 
 ceeding." The culprit obeyed, and left the room, and a 
 majority of voices condemned him to lose his head. 
 
 But Peter could not consent to this : he addressed the 
 judges ; it was, he told them, just to weigh faults, but 
 services also ought to be weighed; that if the services 
 predominated, clemency ought likewise to predominate. 
 Then, retracing those of Mentzikof, he showed at what 
 price an individual may be the favourite of a great man. 
 
 He reminded them, that Mentzikof had been a soldier, a 
 Serjeant, an officer ; that his intelligent bravery had con- 
 tributed to the capture of Asoph, of Schlusselburgh, of 
 Nientschantz, and of the Swedish fleet ; to that of Dorpt, 
 of Narva, and of Divan; that, in 1704, he had van- 
 quished ten thousand enemies and saved Petersburgh ; 
 that, in I7O6, he had defeated in Poland the army of Mar- 
 defeldt ; that, in I7O8 and I709, he had saved the state, 
 by making himself master of Baturin and of the provisions 
 intended for the Swedish army, by revictualling Pultova,
 
 BOOK XI. CHAI'. 1. 3G3 
 
 and by bearino- an important part in the decisive defeats of 
 Levenhaupt and of Charles XII. 
 
 That, subsequently, he had taken Riga, compelled 
 Steinbock, the last hope of Sweden, to capitulate, and 
 reduced Stettin ; that, in the midst of so many labours, he 
 had become a carpenter along with his master, had shared 
 all his other fatigues, and had continually represented him 
 on occasions of ceremony, and even in the government of 
 the empire. He concluded by recommending clemency to 
 be displayed by judges who were not ignorant that, at the 
 epoch of conspiracies, their master had owed his life to the 
 very criminal whose life they now wished to destroy.* 
 
 It was thus, say the contemporaries of these events, that 
 this prince, so inexorable to others, defended the com- 
 panion of his toils, and saved his existence and his rank. 
 Nay, more ; they add, that remorse having stretched the 
 criminal on a bed of sorrow, and brought him to the 
 brink of the grave, the constant and grateful friendship of 
 the Tzar, by the tenderest attentions, saved him from tlie 
 justice of Heaven, as he had already saved him from that of 
 earth. 
 
 They remark, also, that all this was done without weak- 
 ness ; that in him, the man still remained the numarch, 
 and at once satisfied friendship and justice; rescuing 
 with one hand his companion in arms, and witli the other 
 striking the covetous arrogance of the favourite, by the 
 blows with which he publicly humiliated him, and the 
 enormous fine wliich he persisted in imposing upon him, m 
 spite of the sordid supplications of the offender. 
 
 As to the other de])redators, he punished thcni by ba- 
 nishment and confiscation ; sometimes by deatli ; l>iit 'l»i!^ 
 he (lid witli reluctance. Kor this very maslei', wlio svas 
 
 ♦ Sec Note (I,) ;iL the t'lid of llir \">limii'.
 
 3(j4 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 suspicious enough to interrogate on the scaffold itself the 
 agony of his victim, in the cruel hope of detecting more 
 partisans of ignorance and superstition, was the same man, 
 wlioni, almost at the same moment, his subjects beheld 
 giving way to the noble transports of a quite different joy, 
 and celebrating in a banquet, and by volleys of artillery, 
 the proved innocence of two of his generals, friends of the 
 new lights, who had been falsely accused of peculation. 
 
 Accordingly, it is less by referring it to natural fero- 
 city than to his passion for civilization, that his contem- 
 poraries explain the inflexibility with which he treated his 
 son ; when, at the same time, on his hearing of the death 
 of Charles XII., they saw the generous tears flowing, which 
 he vainly endeavoured to hide ; and when, also, they re- 
 membered what sobs burst from him on Scheremetef, and 
 especially Lefort, being snatched from him, the first by 
 time, the second by disease, and how he then hallowed his 
 regret by the funeral honours which he paid to them; 
 thus striving to invest their death with the ensigns of im- 
 mortality. 
 
 Nor did these witnesses forget the violent sally of pas- 
 sionate grief with Avhich he overwhelmed his old boyards, 
 when, either from fatigue, or from feeling, their national 
 pride wounded by such testimonies of respect for a fo- 
 reigner, they imagined that the burial of Lefort being 
 almost over, they might be at liberty to withdraw. " You 
 are impatient," said he, " to be at home, that you may re- 
 joice at the death of the admiral ; you are afraid that, 
 during a long ceremony, you will not be able to keep up 
 the melancholy looks which you have put on, and that 
 your delight will break out and betray you. Wretches ! 
 in your hearts you are exulting at this death, as if you 
 had gained a victory !" They quote, also, the affecting 
 exclamation of their Tzar, five years subsequently, when,
 
 BOOK XI. CHAP. II. 365 
 
 in the excess of gladness occasioned by a victory over the 
 Swedes, he said to Golovine, " This is the first pleasure, 
 unmingled M-ith pain, tliat I have tasted since the death of 
 Lefort !" 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Let us, then, not entertain the belief that this genius, 
 who delighted in concentration, could feel affection only 
 for men in the mass ; even if all these instances of tender 
 regret, and of generous pity, selected from numerous others 
 of the same kind, were not enough to bring conviction, it 
 would suffice to recal to mind his unchangeable fondness 
 for Catherine, and his despair when, on the 25th of April, 
 1719, he lost the son whom he had by her, and wlio was 
 the only one that was left. 
 
 His officers tell us that, at that period, the Tzar being 
 seized with those convulsions to which he was subject, they 
 saw tlie muscles of his face become contracted, and his 
 neck stiffened and twisted in a frightful manner. Till that 
 time, during such painful paroxysms, which lasted for 
 several hours, the presence and the voice of a woman had 
 possessed the power to quiet him ; but, on this occasion, 
 he repulsed all importunate attentions. For three days 
 and three nights, overwhelmed with sorrow, this colossus 
 remained alone, shut up, stretched on the ground, hiding 
 himself from the light of day, and from every eye, reject- 
 ing all food, and waiting impatiently for the end of a life, 
 which thenceforth must be without a hope .iiid uitliout ,1 
 future. 
 
 They feel a delight in calh'iig tf) mind with uh.il icsolii-
 
 'S6G HISrORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 tion their ^reat senator, their sage, for so they denominate 
 Dolo-oruky, came to snatch liim from this deep dejection. 
 They relate how, speaking to him tlirough the door, which 
 the speaker also threatened to break open, he reproached 
 him with his deserting the empire, declaring to him that 
 his successor should be chosen, and at length, forcing him 
 to open his apartment, and show himself to his whole 
 senate, whom Dolgoruky had brought with him, and 
 whose unexpected presence, by astonishing the Tzar, 
 silenced his sorrow, and compelled him to repress his 
 despair. 
 
 For, to whatever fits of passion might give way so ar- 
 dent a mind, which was spoiled, too, by the habit of being 
 so often and so much in the right, in opposition to a whole 
 people, it is those very men whom the despot so roughly 
 directed, who stand up as his defenders. They are anxious 
 that posterity should admire in him a multitude of traits, 
 which bear the impress of moderation, and of deference for 
 reason and good sense, even when his authority was resist- 
 ed in the most decided manner. The memory of these is 
 preserved in their writings ; and, here, again, the Russians 
 feel a double pride in connecting the name of their Dolgo- 
 ruky with that of their Tzar. 
 
 The instance which they most delight to adduce is, the 
 boldness of this senator, in the year of famine, when, by 
 an ukase which was already signed, Peter was about to 
 sacrifice Novgorod to Peter sburgh : this magistrate had 
 not co-operated in the injustice; he found it committed. 
 But then, seizing, in full senate, the obnoxious ukase, he, 
 at the risk of his life, suspended the execution of it, car- 
 ried it away with him, and went to the next church, to 
 receive the Sacrament, which the priest was then admi- 
 nistering. 
 
 The intelligence of this offence, Avhich was envenomed
 
 BOOK XI. CHAP. 11. 3G7 
 
 by envy and servility, was instantly speeded to the Tzar ; 
 he hurried to the senate, and sent orders to Dolgoruky to 
 appear there immediately. But the latter, without turn- 
 ing his head, or diverting his attention from heaven to 
 earth, replied, " I hear you," and went on \vith his pray- 
 ers. A second and more imperious message had as little 
 effect upon him. " I give unto Caesar the things that are 
 Cfesar's, and unto God the things that are God's," replied 
 he, unmoved ; and it was not till the holy Sacrament was 
 over, that he took his way to the Tzar. 
 
 As soon as the monarch saw him, he rushed furiously 
 at him, seized him, drew his sword, and, with a threaten- 
 ing voice, exclaimed, " You shall perish!" But Dolgo- 
 ruky remained unmoved, and pointing to his heart, 
 " Strike !" said he firmly ; " I do not fear to die in a just 
 cause !" On hearing these words, the Prince dropped his 
 hand, his voice softened, he stepped back, and said in a 
 tone of surprise, •' But, tell me, what could have made 
 you so daring .^" — " Yourself," replied the minister ; " did 
 not you order that the truth should be told you, with 
 respect to the interest of your people .''" He then ex- 
 plained ; and Peter, who was convinced by what he heard, 
 tlianked him for his courageous sincerity, and begged par- 
 don for his violence. 
 
 He, however, perpetually relapsed into that violence; 
 the sword of the despot was again often seen to menace the 
 abru])t and resolute frankness of his minister ; but his arm 
 was always arrested by the ascendancy, which with liiiii 
 was irresistible, of reason, supported by masculine and 
 patriotic virtue. 
 
 It was thus that, in another instance, when he had re- 
 quired from that daring senator an account of an ukase 
 for recruiting, which, also, Dolgoruky had had the teme- 
 rity to suppress, his wrath gavr place to tears of" com-
 
 3G8 HISTORY OP ItUSSIA, 
 
 passion and sorrow, as the virtuous minister depicted to 
 him " the exhausted state of the present generation, which 
 he sacrificed, without mercy, as he did himself, to future 
 generations."" 
 
 Lastly, on the occasion of the new and extraordinary 
 compulsory labour, which was imposed for the excavation 
 of the canal of Ladoga, Dolgoruky, indignant at such an 
 abuse of power, dared to destroy, in the midst of the senate, 
 the order which his master had himself dictated. On wit- 
 nessing this unheard of action, the senators started from 
 their seats in affright; they removed to a distance; they 
 kept as far as possible from this sacrilegious being, on 
 whom the thunder was about to fall, for the terrible Tzar 
 had just entered. But Dolgoruky remained in his place ; 
 and, unastonished either by his own boldness or the vio- 
 lence of the Tzar, he opposed to the first burst of wrath 
 from his irritated master, the glory of such a noble reign 
 which he was on the point of tarnishing, and the good of 
 his subjects, whom doubtless he did not, like Charles XII. 
 desire to ruin. Then, he stated the reasons of his indig- 
 nation, while at the same time he himself blamed its 
 violence. 
 
 It is said, that the whole of the senators were struck 
 with astonishment, to see the furious glances of their for- 
 midable Tzar lose their fierceness ; his features, which were 
 swoln with anger, become composed ; his lips, which 
 foamed with threats, acknowledge his error, and revoke 
 his order ; and his pride, jealous as it was, far from pu- 
 nishing the brutal sincerity of his counsellor, be satisfied 
 with the regret which he had expressed to him. 
 
 Nor was it with respect to this great personage alone 
 that Peter displayed so much moderation and love of jus- 
 tice ; for proof to the contrary, we may refer, among other 
 jnstances, to Bassewitz, to Kreitz, to Brevern, and even to 
 an ivoschick.
 
 BOOK. XI. CHAF. II. 369 
 
 The last of these persons was notliing- more tlian a man 
 who let out horses, which, in the simplicity of his manners, 
 the Tzar was accustomed to hire in tlie same way as his 
 people ; but one day, being made angry by their slowness, 
 he drove them without mercy, and one of them having 
 died in consequence, the o\vner demanded the value of it. 
 Peter refused to pay it ; the ivoschick had the boldness to 
 resort to the law ; his sovereign agreed to abide by the 
 decision of the tribimal, appeared before it, defended him- 
 self, lost his cause, and submitted without a murmur to the 
 verdict which was given against him. 
 
 Kreitz was an admiral ; he had lost, by his disobedience, 
 two of the men of war on which the Tzar set such a value, 
 and which he had, perhaps, built with his own hands ! 
 Accordinglv, the council of war condemned the criminal to 
 be shot. 
 
 But Kreitz appealed to foreign admiralties, and Peter 
 not onlv gave his assent beforehand to their decision, but 
 when they confirmed the fatal sentence, he revoked it. 
 He commuted the punishment of the offender ; nay, more, 
 at the expiration of twenty-four hours, he remitted even 
 the milder jienaltv, and gave to this officer, who was more 
 unfortunate than guilty, the superintendence of a navy, 
 with the vessels composing which lie did not think it pro})er 
 to intrust him again. 
 
 As to Basscwitz, he was a minister of the yoimg Duke 
 of liolstein, who was at once a nephew of Charles XII. 
 and, since his being taken ])risoncr at Pultova, a (le|)en- 
 dent on Peter. This envoy himself confirms the narrative 
 given l)v the comjjain'ons of the great man. 'I'lu- ciiiuni- 
 stance (jccurnd in 17-1 ; tht' peace of Nystadt had re- 
 cently been conchided ; being ])resse(l hv the foreign mi- 
 nister, Peter ownid to him that, in the treaty, which was 
 yet a secret, tiie interests of the (hd<r had luru ncgh-cted. 
 
 2 u
 
 SyO HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 Deeply grieved, the minister exclaimed against such con- 
 duct, and Peter promised to seize the earliest opportunity 
 of satisfying him."" 
 
 But, shaking his head, Basscwitz replied, " I wish this 
 new promise may be more to be trusted to than so many 
 others, on the faith of which my master came to kiss the 
 hand which was held out to him ; for my part, I shall die 
 of grief, for having, at my age, had the weakness to be- 
 lieve that there were mortals who did not break their 
 words, and to bring here the offspring of the line of 
 Vasa, to be made the sport of foreign policy. 
 
 Schaffirof and Mentzikof, who were present when this 
 reply was uttered, relate that they turned pale, and were 
 about to express their indignation, when Peter looked at 
 them, and said, " His zeal is pure and sincere ; would to 
 God that tho-e who serve me were inspired with the same ;" 
 then, ordering wine to be brought, he added, " Bassewitz, 
 let us drink to your master, and I will soon compel you to 
 forbear regretting that you confided him to me." 
 
 In fact, three years later, in 1724, the eventual right of 
 the Duke of Hoist ein to the throne of Sweden was sup- 
 ported by Russia, and was acknowledged ; Denmark was 
 forced to restore his dominions to him ; and, lastly, Anne, 
 second daughter of Peter the Great, married this nephew 
 of Charles XII. 
 
 It was thus that, after a sanguinary contest of twenty- 
 one years, the blood of these two great rivals was blended 
 together, to flow in the veins of Peter III. ; and to this 
 alliance the Russians are indebted for beholding on their 
 throne the offspring of two of the most illustrious men 
 whom the North has ever produced. 
 
 But among the numerous other testimonies of equity 
 and moderation, the contemporaries of this great man cite 
 also that of Brevern. He was a counsellor of Riga, which
 
 BOOK VI. CHAP. m. 371 
 
 city was conquered by Peter ; misltd by some one who 
 was about his person, the prince claimed the property of a 
 lake, which he imagined to form a part of his domain. 
 The counsellors of the city, struck with terror, had already 
 given up the point, when Brevern boldly opposed the pre- 
 tension of the sovereign, demonstrated its injustice, and 
 prevailed upon his colleagues to join in op]}osing it. 
 Peter was quickly informed of the refusal ; and, far from 
 being irritated by it, he weighed all the reasons, and, 
 having acknowledged tlieir equity, he praised the courage 
 of this Livonian, and rewarded him with the gift of no- 
 bility ; and that his virtue might benefit his fellow-coun- 
 trymen, he at the same time appointed liim vice-president 
 of the college of justice for the conquered provinces. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 How are such noble sentiments as these to be recon- 
 ciled with so nuich cruelty in a father, or with the cold- 
 blooded ferocity of a prince, whom we see quitting his 
 repast, for the purpose of cutting off" heads, and then re- 
 turning, without any emotion, to resume the scarcely sus- 
 pended hilarity of the banquet. How could exist, at the 
 same time, in so al)solute a heart, so much ecpiity, so 
 much satisfaction at the sentiments of honoiM* ;iiul viilui' 
 wliic'h he discovered in those about him, even ulun tliey 
 resisted him .'' Was it the caprice of a de.^pot wearied by 
 servility? Was it a natural instinct of justice.^ or, ra- 
 ther, that, being himself born with a masculine and in.irtial 
 frankm-ss, he loved in others the free niul Iniili-spiritrd 
 voice of truth r Or, lastly, was il that the measure nf 
 
 ■2 H -2
 
 372 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 barbarian blood which it was necessary to sacrifice to ci- 
 vilization was filled up by the blood of his son ? 
 
 But, no ! these various examples of moderation, of in- 
 dulgent pity, of long and tender attachment, preceded as 
 well as followed that mortal blow which was given to bar- 
 barism. We know, in truth, that after the terrible 
 execution of the heir of the empire, he pardoned tlie 
 criminal Gagarin ; declaring that, " thenceforth, it was 
 his intention to correct his subjects rather by mildness 
 than severity." But we know also, that, on the following 
 day, the culprit having retracted his confession, and pub- 
 licly accused the Tzar of having extorted it from him by 
 violence, the latter, whose indignation let loose his natural 
 disposition, ordered him to be immediately hanged upon a 
 gibbet fifty ells high. 
 
 It was, likewise, subsequently to the murder of his son, 
 that, in a last contest with the old manners, the Tzar 
 spread terror through Russia by the death or mutilation 
 of great numbers of fanatics, whom the salutary reform 
 of a multitude of superstitious practices and abuses had 
 excited to revolt. 
 
 The whole of his life, therefore, was implacable against 
 the enemies of civilization ; those who were attached to his 
 person admit it. But what great deeds were ever achieved 
 without great passions .'' And what powerful passion is 
 there which has not united extremes, and which, fixed and 
 persevering, has not become, at the same time, full of love 
 and of hatred. It is in the name of one of these two 
 feelings, that his admirers seem to intreat forgiveness for 
 the other. 
 
 That eye, so ferocious when it darted its glances on the 
 enemies of civilization, they show to us full of the most 
 attentive and mild solicitude for the welfare of his people. 
 Having formed a park at one of his residences, and the
 
 HOOK XI. CllAl'. III. 
 
 373 
 
 entrance of it liuving, without his knowledge, been for- 
 bidden to his subjects, he exclaimed, with astonishment, 
 " What ! how can any body imagine that 1 spent so much 
 money only for myself!" Then, with his ingenious and 
 constant attention to every thing which might conduce to 
 the perfecting of his people, he ordered the park to be 
 transformed into a garden of instruction. The trees were 
 cut into figures of animals, and he soon after added sixty 
 groups of the same figures, in gilded lead : they repre- 
 sented Esop's fables, with the explanation in the Russian 
 language, engraven on iron plates, which were placed near 
 them. 
 
 Thus it was that, in every quarter, his paternal care was 
 directed even to the minutest particulars. After lie had 
 conquered Finland, he perceived that tlie health of the 
 inhabitants of that province suffered very nuich from the 
 careless manner in which their shoes were made; and he 
 innnediately sent Russians among them to teach them the 
 art of making better shoes, from the bark of their l)irch 
 trees. He did still more; for, to hasten the ad()j)tioii of 
 this improvement, his generous pity intrusted to their 
 priests the distribution of prizes to those who shoidd soon- 
 est become dexterous in this kind of manufacture. 
 
 Hearken to him once more : that voice which, of late, 
 inex()ra])lv thundered against a son who had identified him- 
 self with Muscovite barbarism, is the same liiat now mildly 
 invites to his cabinets of anatomy and natural history, the 
 curiosity of his subjects. He even wished his servants to 
 attract them thither, by every kind of contlescension, : ml 
 bv ])resenting to them, gratis, the best refreshments. 
 
 Lastly, the prince who, not long ago, coolly ualkrd 
 al)out among fifty scafiold.s, which were (lri|)j)iiig willi lUv 
 blood of fifty priests of ignoraJice and barbaiiMu, is the 
 .same prince whom bis officers saw standing li\ llir Ixd of
 
 37-i HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 Weydt, who was his marshal of the court, calHng to his 
 aid the most eminent physicians, intreating them to save 
 for him " his servant, his general, the best in his empire ;" 
 and not only snatching him from death by his assiduity, 
 but afterwards enriching him with an estate of two thou- 
 sand five hundred pounds a-year. It is still the same tzar, 
 on many occasions so terrible, whom they represent to us 
 with his head uncovered, a torch in his hand, and he liini- 
 self in deep affliction, accompanying, at one time, for seve- 
 ral versts, the funeral procession of Erskine, his physician, 
 and, at another, that of two deceased Englishmen, one of 
 whom was a rear-admiral of liis fleet, and the other his 
 interpreter. 
 
 Let us extend our patience for a few moments longer to 
 the admiration of his followers, and they will lead us, in 
 the train of this great man, into the manufactories, or ra- 
 ther the numerous schools of industry, which were founded 
 by his care. It was there that skilful foreigners, selected 
 by himself, taught their arts to a multitude of young Rus- 
 sians, who were maintained in them at his expense. Can 
 this be the same man ? That countenance, so full of fero- 
 city when he is viewing the punishments inflicted on the 
 enemies of these arts, how can it become so benevolent, 
 when he is assiduously visiting the beneficent and useful 
 establishments by which the arts are diff'used ? See him 
 daily inspecting the progress which his subjects make in 
 knowledge ; bidding the new adepts show him the products 
 of their juvenile industry ; encouraging the most ingenious 
 of them by a kiss on the forehead, or a present of some 
 rubles ; and, lastly, at his own cost, setting up as masters, 
 those who have acquired the highest degree of proficiency.
 
 BOOR XI. «;ii.\i'. IV. ;37.") 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The joy of Peter, no less than his grief, bears witness 
 against that stern insensibihty which he manifested only 
 towards the enemies of civilization. 
 
 Among his amusements, (all of which were not of a coarse 
 kind, as, for instance, his parties with his sister and his 
 daughters, whom he had caused to be educated with the 
 utmost care, at which parties several plays of their own 
 composition were acted,) his followers refer to the enter- 
 tainments whicli were given to celebrate the ])eace of Ny- 
 stadt ; and they describe the affecting and ingenious gra- 
 titude which their great Tzar dis])layed to the small saihng 
 vessel, the first sight of whicli had been the inspirer of his 
 genius. 
 
 They tell us with what care he delighted to adorn it, to 
 cover it with gilded c<ipper, and to arm it with silver can- 
 non ; then, with what precautions he had it brought from 
 Archangel to Petersburgh ; how, on its arrival, he himself 
 assumed the office of its pilot, while the highest grandees 
 of his empire acted as sailors ; and how, also, he steered it 
 through his fleet, which was dressed out with flags, and, 
 as it were, pointed out to it those gigantic vessels which 
 had been so often victorious, and wliicli sahited the humble 
 lK)at bv volleys from the whole of their artillery ; that, as 
 the Tzar expressed it, " this worthy little grand-father 
 might receive the compliments of all these fine children, 
 who were indebted to him for their existence.'"' 
 
 But what epoch can, better than that <<f ih.' peace of
 
 376 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 Nystadt, show the emotions of a heart which was too great 
 not to be generous, and too generous to liave been insen- 
 sible. Accordingly, they affirm that, if those who are cruel 
 are ferocious in their joy, their prince could not have been 
 born cruel, who, on the day of this glorious peace, opened 
 all the jirisons in his states, and remitted all arrears of 
 taxes, that universal happiness might be inspired by so 
 national a triumph. 
 
 They remind us, too, that at Pultova, at Narva, Riga, 
 and in all his victories, he behaved with mildness to the 
 vanquished, though they had not always acted with gene- 
 rosity. They add, that if, in his triumph over Erenschild, 
 he did show to his people the vanquished admiral, he did 
 not do it to humiliate his captive enemy, as was the case 
 with the pagan and spurious civilization of the Romans ; 
 but that, on the contrary, he exclaimed, " You see here a 
 brave and faithful warrior, whose valour and whose ex- 
 ploits are deserving of the highest rewards, and of our 
 utmost respect." 
 
 It was then that, turning towards his subjects, he ad- 
 dressed them, in the words we have already stated, re- 
 specting the course of civilization ; describing it as having 
 formerly quitted Greece, and being now on the return 
 thither by the way of Russia, after having passed through- 
 out Evirope ; for such was the idea that always occupied 
 the mind of the regenerator. All their recollections prove 
 that it did so, and particularly those of another triumph, 
 which their gratitude must be permitted to recal to our 
 minds. 
 
 It is recorded by them, that, while their master was de- 
 grading to the vile station of servants of his buifoon those 
 nobles who refused to acquire knowledge for the benefit 
 of the state, they beheld this prince, him who hated the 
 pageantry and ceremonious pomp of courts, dress himself
 
 BOOK. XI. CHAP. IV. 3 
 
 // 
 
 one day in his most splendid dress, ascend the handsomest 
 of his carriages, and proceed to some versts from his ca- 
 pital, to meet his ambassadors Golofkin and Dolgorukv : 
 they tell us, also, that as soon as he saw them, he hurrietl 
 to them, clasped them in his arms, made them take the 
 most honourable seat, and thus led in triumph to Peters- 
 burgh these two civilized Russians. Tlien, raising his 
 voice, he declared to his astonished sid)jects, " that he 
 only did his duty in receiving with such honours the trea- 
 sure of learning and of refined manners, which these illus- 
 trious Russians had been to gather among Europeans, and 
 which they had now brought back to their country." 
 
 Thus it was that he incessantly laboured to attract ta- 
 lents from abroad ; as he well knew, also, how to call them 
 into life and multiply tliem at home, without ever dread- 
 ing them — for his merit delighted to be reflected in that 
 of others. And thus he felt a gratification in correspond- 
 ing with the great Leibnitz, whom he consulted ; and 
 thouglrt himself honoured by the considerable })ension 
 and the grant of nobility which he gave to him.* 
 
 Bruce and others, accordingly, make it plain, tliat a 
 prince who was so much the friend of knowledge, could 
 have hated in liis son only the declared enemy of that 
 knowledge. In fact, his hatred did not fall on the head 
 of his son"'s child. To the same Bruce who had borne a 
 part in the execution of the father, Peter entrusted tin- 
 education of the son. Tlie Tzar himself took j)leasure in 
 lending his aid towards"it ; and, charmed witli the aj)tness 
 of his grandson, he one day apyiointed him a stTJcant, and 
 another day, an ensign: he fre(juentlv raiMd him in his 
 arms, and folded liiiii to his ])os()in, in tlic (r.iiisports of 
 joy and tenderness. At anothtr time lie hung ahont hi> 
 neck a portrait of himself, set with chanionds; :nid, even 
 
 • I'"()iitent'lk'.
 
 ,378 HISTORY OK RUSSIA. 
 
 thus early, surrounded hiiu by artists, ship-builders, and 
 masters of all kinds. 
 
 Following the example set by panegyrists, it is thus 
 that, hiding the horrid nature of the means, not only by 
 the excellence of the end, but also by the success of the 
 result, the admirers of Peter the Great delight to show 
 the Tzar in his fairest aspect ; they enumerate all the be- 
 nefits for which his empire is indebted to him : six new 
 provinces ; three seas ; an extensive commerce ; fortresses ; 
 ports ; a regular army of two hundred thousand men ; an 
 admiralty, a naval academy, and a fleet of forty sail of 
 the line and two hundred galleys ; a good police ; a mul- 
 titude of elementary schools ; colleges for the mathema- 
 tical sciences, arts, and belles-lettres ; an imperial library, 
 and a cabinet of medals ; schools of anatomy, medicine, 
 pharmacy, with the best collections of subjects in ana- 
 tomy, natural history, and botany ; a botanical garden ; 
 an observatory ; printing offices, with new kinds of types ; 
 and a gallery of pictures and of statues, by the most emi- 
 nent masters : all of them things which, before his time, 
 were unknown among this people, who were so ignorant 
 that they looked upon foreign languages as heresies, and 
 the mathematical and natural sciences as witchcraft : who, 
 nevertheless, believed their unfilled and frozen land to be 
 the nighest to heaven, their clumsy language the most 
 pleasing to the divinity, and their brutal manners the 
 nearest approach to those of the immortals : and who con- 
 ceited that their nation was the most rich and eminent 
 under the sun, that to which all others owed their exist- 
 ence, and without which every other people, who were 
 all pagans and impious beings, wovdd perish of famine ! 
 
 Yet this people, at once so ignorant and so arrogant, 
 did not believe in happiness. Being always tyrannized 
 over, they imagined only malcv(^lent geniuses, and knew
 
 BOOK XI. rHAF. V. 379 
 
 no god but that of evil, and no power but that of doinir 
 mischief; so that, in a mild and indulgent prince they 
 would have been unable to recognize a master, and they 
 dreaded all innovations, as a surplus and an aggravation 
 of suffering. 
 
 Such was, as we learn from the contemporaries of Peter 
 the Great, the nation which he felt himself destined to re- 
 generate ; then, ending as they began, these witnesses re- 
 peat that his only friends and enemies were those t)f the 
 regeneration of his empire. They point out to us that, 
 in his immense career, every thing bore reference to this 
 one idea ; every thing was directed to this one end ; and 
 that, lastly, if they are to be considered as the greatest 
 men whose lives, influenced by the grandeur and energy 
 of reason or of passion, display the fewest unmeaning and 
 fortuitous actions, then is he the greatest of all men: his 
 unchanging and powerful determination, and his per.severing 
 and enthusiastic desire of civilizing his subjects, seeming 
 to them to have inspired and directed even the most trivial 
 occurrences of his existence. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Before we (piit this su]))cct we may remark, tliat 
 the terrible state siicrifice which lias so long occu})ied us, 
 appears to have occupied him less ; either from conviction 
 and natural harshness, or from its being the priviK-ge of 
 great minds to rule that which rules others, or, il' \<ni 
 plea.sc, from their bt-ing tluniselves more exclusivtlv iiilnl 
 by a single idea. 
 
 Kroin 171 l" t" '7' 7' ''*' |>iil)li>ht(l ninil v-lwo «ii(liii.uice.N
 
 380 IJISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 or regulations; in I7I8 alone, in that year of crime, 
 thirty-six ukases, or regulations, were promulgated, and 
 twenty-seven in I7I9. The majority of them related 
 directly to his new establishments ; all bear witness to his 
 mind being perpetually occupied in meditation upon the 
 means of completing and perfecting his vast design. 
 
 The council of mines dates its origin from that period, 
 as do also the uniformity of weights and measures, the 
 institution of schools for teaching arithmetic in all the 
 towns of the empire ; that of orphan-houses and foundling- 
 hospitals, of workshops for the poor, and of manufactories 
 of tapestry, silks, linens, and cloths for soldiers^ clothing ; 
 the founding of the city of Ladoga ; the canal of the same 
 name, which he began with his own hands ; that of Cron- 
 stadt ; the plan of another, which now unites the Baltic to 
 the Caspian, by the intermedium of the Volga ; and, lastly, 
 even down to the details of the police, of salubrity, of 
 safety, of lighting, and of cleansing, which, during the 
 previous year, he had remarked in our great cities. 
 
 At this sanguinary epoch it was, that, by this multitude 
 of establishments for the promotion of all kinds of indus- 
 try, he gave the most rapid impulse to the knowledge, 
 commerce, and civilization, to which he sacrificed his son ; 
 as though, by thus redoubling his activity, he had sought 
 to escape from himself, or to palliate, by the importance of 
 the result, the horror of the sacrifice. 
 
 In several of these ordinances, it is remarkable, that 
 either from the inconsistency which is inherent in our 
 nature, or from the pride of a despot, which believes itself 
 to be detached from and above every thing, he required re- 
 spect to be paid to religion, at the very moment when, with 
 such cruelty, he was paying no respect to the sanctity of his 
 own oath ; and yet the importance of keeping sworn faith 
 must have been well known to a prince who one day said,
 
 BOOK XI. CHAP. V. 3{{1 
 
 " The irreligious cannot be tolerated, because, by sappino- 
 religion, they turn into ridicule the sacredness of an oath, 
 which is the foundation of all society." 
 
 It is true, that on this occasion, as he too often did, 
 pushing right into wrong, he wished to mutilate and 
 banish to Siberia a miserable creature, who, wlien drunk, 
 had been guilty of blasphemy. 
 
 Then, nevertheless, and as in all the course of his life, 
 he combated against superstition ; but instead of bein"- 
 satisfied with wresting her cruel weapons from her, he 
 armed himself with them, and used them against her 
 votary, who became a martyr in his turn ; and, as he had 
 incurred the reproach of having been barbarous against 
 barbarism, so did he incur that of being: intolerant against 
 intolerance. 
 
 For nothing was left unsaid against this great man ; 
 either in consequence of his having unhinged and woiuided 
 so many habits and interests, or of the inconvenience which 
 is inherent in despotic states, where all being weighed 
 down, all unite with one voice in complaining; a circum- 
 stance which explains why there are no worse detractors 
 of their masters than children and slaves a^:e. 
 
 The cries of the unfortunate Rastolnick,* whose groans 
 have reached our times, were, liowever, not the cries of 
 slaves. These sectaries were, and still are, the blind and 
 declared enemies of all innovation. One of tiicm, at that 
 period, even believed that he might avenge Heaven by an 
 assassination. Under the guise of a suppliant, this fanatic 
 had easily penetrated into the duunber of tlic |)iinct'; hi' 
 was already within reach of him, and, while he feigned to 
 imjjlore him, his hand was seeking for the dagger under 
 his clothes, when, fortunately, the dagger (hopped and 
 betrayed the a.ssa.ssin, by falling at the feet of the Tzar, 
 • A flpecies of Puritans.
 
 382 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 who was liolding out to this madman his protecting 
 hand. 
 
 This abortive crime had made the persecution rage with 
 redoubled fury, when, all at once, a frightful report was 
 spread; it was soon confirmed; several hvmdred of these 
 wretched beings had taken refuge in a church, and, rather 
 than abjure their superstitions, had set fire to this asybun, 
 leaving nothing but their ashes to their persecutor. A 
 horrible sacrifice, but which was not useless ! Peter saw 
 his error ; his intolerance was only political ; it was en- 
 lightened by these flames, which religious intolerance wit- 
 nessed with such atrocious joy. 
 
 Yet, unable to forgive these sectaries an obstinacy Avhich 
 was victorious over his own, he once more tried against 
 them the weapon of ridicule : he ordered that they should 
 wear a bit of yellow stuff on their backs, to distingviish 
 them from his other subjects. This mark of humiliation, 
 however, they considered as a distinction. Some malig- 
 nant advisers endeavoured to rouse his anger again, but he 
 replied, " No ; I have learned that they are men of pure 
 morals ; they are the most upright merchants in the 
 empire ; and neither honour nor the welfare of the country 
 will allow of their being martyred for their errors. Be- 
 sides, that which a degrading badge and the force of reason 
 have been unable to effect, will never be accomplished by 
 punishment ; let them, therefore, live in peace." 
 
 These were remarkable words, and worthy the pupil of 
 Holland and England, worthy of a prince to whom super- 
 stition was a most inveterate enemy. In reality, he was a 
 believer, but not credulous ; and even while he knelt on 
 the field of victory, he gave thanks to God alone for the 
 reward of so many toils, and could separate the cause of 
 Heaven from that of the priests ; it was his wish that they 
 should be citizens. We have seen, that he subjected them to
 
 BOOK XI. CHAP. V. 3{}."> 
 
 the same taxes as his other subjects ; and because the monks 
 ekided them, he diminished their numbers. 
 
 His toleration, however, did not extend to the Jesuits, 
 whom he hated as rivals in despotism. But, though he 
 expelled them from the empire, and though his ukases se- 
 verelv punished irreligious acts, and even inattention dur- 
 injT divine service, he tolerated the other sects ; he did not 
 hesitate to be present at their worship, and he unmasked 
 the superstitiovis impostures of his priests, who all, by a 
 detestable instinct, sought to extinguish the light, and to 
 close up every cranny by which it might have a chance of 
 reaching them. 
 
 For this reason, they held Petersburgli in abhorrence. 
 According to their description of it, this half-built citv, by 
 which Russia already aspired to civilization, was one of 
 the mouths of hell. It was they wlio obtained from the 
 unfortunate Alexis a promise that it should be destroyed. 
 Their prophecies repeatedly fixed the epocli at which it 
 would be overthro^vn by the wratli of Heaven. The la- 
 bours upon it were then suspended, and tliis fear getting 
 the upper hand of another fear, the orders of the terrible 
 Tzar were almost issued in vain. 
 
 On one occasion, these lying priests w^re for some days 
 particularly active; they dis))hiyed one of tlieir sacred 
 images, from which the tears flowed miraculously ; it wept 
 the fate which impended over those who dwelt in tliis new 
 city. " Its hour is at hand," said they, " and, with all its 
 inhabitants, it will be swallowed up by a tremendous inunda- 
 tion." On hearing of this miracle of the tears, llu- titaih- 
 erous construction which was put u])on it, and thi- pertur- 
 bation which it occasioned, Peter thought it necessary t<) 
 hasten to the sj)ot. There, in the midst of" the peopK-, 
 who were j)etri(ied with terror, and of hi^ tongue-tied 
 court, he unhesitatingly seized the niiracuioii- image, and
 
 384 HISTORY OK RUSSIA, 
 
 discovered its mechanism ; the multitude were stupified 
 with a pious liorror, but he o])encd their eyes by showing 
 them, in those of the idol, the congealed oil, which was 
 melted by the flame of tapers insidp, and then flowed drop 
 by drop through chinks whidi had been artfully made. 
 
 At a later period, he did still more ; the horrible execu- 
 tion of a young Russian by the priests was the cause. 
 This luifortunate man had brought back from Germany a 
 highly valuable knowledge of medicine, and had left there 
 some superstitious prejudices. For this reason all his mo- 
 tions were watched by the priests ; and they at last caught 
 up some thoughtless words against their sacred images. 
 They immediately arrested the regenerated young Russian, 
 sentenced him without mercy, and, with a ferocious de- 
 light, they destroyed this germ of civilization by torture, 
 fire, and sword. 
 
 But this individual evil produced a general good. In- 
 dignant at their cruelty, Peter deprived the clergy of the 
 right of condemning to death. The priests lost a jurisdic- 
 tion which they alleged they had possessed for seven cen- 
 turies, from the time of Vladimir the Great, and thus 
 the source of their power was for ever annihilated by this 
 execrable abuse of it. 
 
 He soon after replaced the hetman of the Cossacks by 
 a tribunal, and the patriarchate by a synod; he being 
 unwilling that there should be any unity except in the su- 
 preme authority ; and, dividing in order to weaken, he was 
 more sure of the submissiveness of a council than of a man ; 
 for he was well aware that, when servitude was in question, 
 assemblies would venture farther, weak men and flatterers 
 always forming the majority ; and besides, collective bo- 
 dies have less shame, in consequence of the responsibility 
 beino; divided amono; numbers. 
 
 About 1^2'2, however, and in spite of Theophanes, the
 
 BOOK XI. CHAP. V. 385 
 
 president of the synod, whom we may consider as his mi- 
 nister for rehgious affairs, the synod dared to desire that a 
 patriarcli might be appointed. But, bursting into a sud- 
 den passion, and rising abruptly, Peter struck his breast 
 violently witli his hand, and the table with his cutlass, and 
 exclaimed, " Here, here is your patriarch r He then has- 
 tily quitted the room, and as he departed, he cast a stern 
 look upon the panic- struck prelates. 
 
 He was not at all disposed, by being guilty of an act of 
 weakness, to go back in that career in which, four years 
 previously, the commission of parricide had not stopped 
 him. He is said to have even prided himself on this perse- 
 verance. " Louis XIV." said he, " is greater than I am, 
 except that I have been able to reduce my clergy to obedi- 
 ence, while he has allowed his clergy to rule him.'" 
 
 But it was particularly in that sanguinary year, so fatal 
 to the last hope which the old Russians placed in his suc- 
 cessor, that he seemed to hasten on the severing of them 
 from their ancient customs, by giving an entirely new 
 form to the administration of his empire. As far back as 
 1711, he had already replaced the old supreme court of 
 the boyards by a senate, a sovereign council, into which 
 merit and services might obtain admission, independent 
 of noble origin. Subsequently, and every year, other 
 changes had been effected. Thus, in I7I7, he brought 
 from France, along with a conmiercial treaty, the institu- 
 tion of a general poHce. But, in I7I8, he, at one stroke, 
 substituted instead of the old prikaz, colleges for foreign 
 affairs, naval affairs, finance, justice, and commerce, and 
 fixed, by a general regulation, and with the utmost mi- 
 nuteness, the functicms and privileges of each of them. 
 
 At the same time, when capal)U' Russians were not to 
 be found, he ajjpointed his Swedi.sh prisoners, and llu' 
 most eminent of the foreigners, to fill these administrative 
 
 ■2 c
 
 386 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 and jiulicial situations. He was careful to give the 
 hio-hest offices to natives, and the second to foreigners, 
 that the natives might support, against the pride and jea- 
 lousy of their countrymen, these foreigners who served 
 them as instructors and guides. 
 
 But this was not enough ; and, for the purpose of form- 
 ino- his young nobles to these sciences, he adjoined a con- 
 siderable number of them to each college. There, from 
 the lowest stations, merit alone could raise them to the 
 first rank. Thus it was that, every thing being wanting, 
 he created at once the administration and the administra- 
 tors, justice and the judges. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that, either from his conscience 
 being disturbed, or from his genius being inspired by the 
 dignity of our Parliaments, it was at the moment when 
 Peter the Great was guilty of one of the worst of crimes, 
 that justice was the object to which he paid the most 
 attention. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 He had, however, long been preparing himself for this 
 labour. His patriotism, which sought for every kind of 
 national glory, had already begun to bring to light the 
 chronicles that were buried in the dust of the cloisters. 
 It was not, therefore, only with the torch of his genius, 
 and that of justice, such as he had seen it shine among 
 the most civilized people, that he ventured to enter upon 
 the difficult career of a legislator ; it was also with that of 
 Russian history, which is indebted to him for its archives. 
 
 By means of this last light, however wavering it might
 
 BOOK. XF. CHAP. VI. 387 
 
 be, his eagle eye, as his contemporaries termed it, had 
 pierced tliroiigh the darkness of the Gothic ages, and dis- 
 covered the origin, the spirit, and the progress, of all the 
 legislation of his empire. He had perceived, that, before 
 Yaroslaf and Isiaslaf, (the beginning and the middle of 
 the twelftii century), the Russians had had no written 
 laws; and, without stop})ing to investigate what modifi- 
 cations their first code might have undergone in the course 
 of the three following disastrous centuries, his glance 
 had passed rapidlv over that obscure and blood-stained 
 interval, to pause only on the reign of the great Ivan. 
 
 There, no doubt, scrutinising with a curious attention 
 the enactments of the first Russian autocrat, he must have 
 observed that, at the period in question,* the judge and 
 all the costs of the action, were paid by a tenth of the 
 property in dispute, witli the addition of a tax ; that in- 
 heritances, when there was no will, descended in the na- 
 tural order ; and that, for landed jiroperty, a prescription 
 of three years barred the claims of individuals, and of six 
 years barred those of the crown. 
 
 He must have remarked, that tlie peasants, who were 
 then free, and a kind of farmers, could every year change 
 their place of abode, eight days before and after St. 
 George's day, on paying a trifling sum to the landed ]}ro- 
 prietors ; that the slaves were those who were pristmers of 
 war, criminals given into the hands of their accusers, those 
 who sold themselves by a public bargain, and those who 
 became stewards and butlers ; that these slaves might be 
 transferred or bequeathed ; and, lastly, that thiir wives, 
 and even those of their children whom they maintained, 
 shared in their fate. 
 
 We know not what was the impression iiiiide iqiou the 
 legislator of the eighteenth century by this shapeless code, 
 
 • Ii97. 
 •2 <; 2
 
 388 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 which allowed not only of slavery and torture, but also 
 of judicial combats, and entrusted the administering of 
 justice to the armed hands of all the holders of fiefs, not- 
 withstanding the ineffective addition to them of the elder 
 and of the head men of the place. 
 
 One thing is certain ; it is, that it was particularly the 
 succeeding age, that of Ivan the Terrible, which attracted 
 and longest fixed his whole attention ; this is proved by 
 his own words, and by the reproaches of many of his 
 contemporaries. 
 
 In the monster of the sixteenth century, Peter, who, 
 perhaps, did not sufficiently keep in view the minister of 
 Ivan, seems to have been most forcibly struck with the 
 pertinacious assailant of the provinces bordering on the 
 Baltic, which Adaschef then vainly strove to unite to the 
 Russian empire. He gave his approbation to the legis- 
 lator who, about the year 1550, withdrew the administra- 
 tion of justice from the rude and greedy hands of military 
 men, for the purpose of entrusting it to the elders, the 
 heads of villages, the centurions, and judges elected by the 
 citizens. 
 
 Attributing always to that prince the whole of the good 
 which was done by the minister, he considered as a wise 
 measure the ranking of the boyard-followers below the 
 learned men belonging to the courts of justice; the care 
 which the third Russian autocrat took to make judicial 
 combats become obsolete ; and the prohibition to execute 
 any capital sentence without the sanction of the supreme 
 court of boyards, of which the prince was president. 
 
 On the other hand, the depriving the possessors of mili- 
 tary fiefs of the collection of the taxes, and the giving it to 
 agents employed by the exchequer, must have appeared 
 no less judicious to the imitator of that wise measure. 
 
 Peter, no doubt, must have delighted also to see the
 
 BOOK XI. CHAP. VI. 389 
 
 Tzar of the sixteenth century, forbid the clergy to make 
 any new purchase of immoveable property, resume from 
 them all that which had formerly belonged to the crown, 
 and write to the heads of that order, " That it was hearts, 
 and not lands, which ought to be cultivated bv the minis- 
 ters of religion ; that it was not grain which ought to be 
 sown, but the word of God ; and that their inheritance 
 ought to be the kingdom of heaven, and not villages and 
 patrimonies !" 
 
 It may even be believed, that the reformer of the 
 eighteenth century approved of that ecclesiastical regula- 
 tion, made in the sixteenth, which is so remarkable for its 
 morality, for the picture which it presents of the horrible 
 dejiravitv of manners of the clergy, and because it pre- 
 served, or gave, to the parishioners the right of electing 
 their priests and deacons. 
 
 But he must have been astonished to see that, in this 
 civil and ecclesiastical code of a tyrant so ferocious, pro- 
 perty, justice, and humanity, were treated with more re- 
 spect than in the enactments of his predecessors. It is 
 true, that this benefit he might attribute to the two able 
 and virtuous ministers of the early and auspicious years of 
 the Northern Nero. 
 
 In other respects, if he looked upon this second Russian 
 code as still stained witli the barbarism of the times and 
 the tyrannical spirit of its author, it was not because it 
 permitted bondage to the soil, which a few years after- 
 wards was established by the last of the Ruriks. It may 
 be believed, that Peter, who loved order, no matter what 
 it might cost, was of opinicm that to get rid of an insup- 
 portal)le state of confusion, vagrancy, and barbarism, thire 
 was nj)thing to be done but to cmph)y a still more barba- 
 rous remedy. 
 
 Then, this genius of despotism, tliorouglily imbued with
 
 390 lllSrOfJY (IF RUSSIA, 
 
 the recollections of the sixteenth century, which was gene- 
 rally so despotic, passed over the confusion of the inter- 
 regnum, and paused on liis own dynasty. He saw his 
 grandfather, Mikhail, the first of the Ronianofs, striving 
 to put in full operation the codes framed by the descend- 
 ants of the Ruriks. He contemplated the succeeding 
 reign ; and, eitlier out of respect for a father, or from 
 his mind being occupied with other objects, the reformer 
 stopped at the still existing code of Alexis, which he main- 
 tained in force. 
 
 But, in a very short time,* the sage Dolgoruky stimu- 
 lated him by the example ; this faithful minister called his 
 attention to Alexis, whom history immortalized, after his 
 having, in 1650, summoned the most eminent Russians of 
 all classes to assist in forming a new code.-f* " Will his 
 master remain inferior to that prince, who is already a less 
 illustrious warrior than his son, but still greater as a le- 
 gislator ? Why shovdd Peter the Great content himself 
 with this third Russian code .'* However superior it might 
 be to the preceding enactments, was it not, after all, a tri- 
 vial and confused digest of those old Muscovite customs 
 which he himself, at his very outset, had overthrown 
 without ceremony ? Till this period,"'"' added Dolgoruky, 
 " other cares have turned thee aside from this object ; 
 but thou owest justice to thy people, and I warn thee, 
 Tzar, that it is time thou shouldst think of it !" 
 
 The minister did not speak in vain : Peter pressed him 
 to his grateful heart. But, on the one hand, time was 
 wanting ; and on the otlier, the laws of Alexis harmonized 
 with absolute power. Peter was indebted to his father for 
 the ukase by which every noble family was made respon- 
 sible for the crime of one of its members. Some have 
 even said that he owed to him also the institution of the 
 * See Leclcrc. f The Ulagenia.
 
 BOOK XI. CHAP. VI. 391 
 
 secret chancery ; a political inquisition, which too closely 
 resembled the inquisitions of Spain or Venice.* 
 
 He, however, felt that the Ulagenia of Alexis, a relic 
 of barbarous times, was no longer suited to the Russians. 
 In 1710, therefore, Peter projected civil, criminal, mili- 
 tary, and naval codes. With liis own hand he copied 
 extracts from the best legislative systems of Europe. 
 
 But, amidst such universal ignorance, such an extensive 
 agitation of men and of events, and amidst the blending 
 and fermenting of so many ancient customs, manners, 
 and institutions, it was only by degrees that inconve- 
 niences and wants could be ascertained; it was, tiiere- 
 fore, requisite to provide for them by means of the es- 
 tablished rules, which he daily rectified, or added to, by 
 what experience and circumstances suggested to him. 
 Hence sprung that multitude of successive regulations, 
 till his creation was in a sufficiently forward state for iiim 
 to form it into a consistent wliole. 
 
 Accordingly, with the exception of his military code, 
 we find him, in 17^6, ordering that the Ulagenia of his 
 father .should be adhered to, and declaring, at the .><ame 
 time, that he was employed in bringing a code t«) ]K'r- 
 fection. In fact, four years afterwards he com])leted his 
 work, which he gave to his people, under the title of a 
 Concordance of the Laws. To this he joined his ukase 
 for the reformation of the clergy. 
 
 But no long time ela])sed before, with the exception of 
 that innnortal ukase, this com])ilati()ii appeared to him lo 
 be undigested and insufficient. -f- In c()nsr(|in ncr, tuo 
 years later,;J^ he ])egan to unite all tlic elements of a 
 
 * Tatihtclii'f, Sclilov.or, Levcsquc. It is true tliat tlu' ukase 
 issued in lHi2, hy Catherimsuttriliutos it to IVtrr tin- (iri'at liiiiisclf. 
 
 f See the Opinion of the Commission uf Russian lef,nslatioii. wliiili 
 was assemhlfd in \T2'.i. 
 
 \ See Lcclerc, vol. iii. ]>. .'>(i8
 
 3d2 HISTORY t)h RUSSIA, 
 
 civil and criminal code, by publishing a collection of his 
 decrees, and by giving orders to a commission to take the 
 best systems of European legislation as the model of a new 
 code. We must here remark, that he added the express 
 condition, of " respecting and preserving the statutes of 
 the ancient Russian codes, in as far as they might be 
 found in unison with the national manners and customs."" 
 
 In the following year he published a Maritime Code ; at 
 the same time, he proscribed gaming, as a sordid passion, 
 and an utterly useless occupation ; gave a censor to the 
 synod itself; and appointed an attorney-general and four 
 assessors, in each government, to keep a watchful eye on 
 the judges. The judges themselves he prohibited from 
 receiving either presents or fees ; he wished even the coun- 
 sel to be paid by the State; for, in his opinion, justice 
 ought to be gratuitously administered. Thenceforth, 
 causes were ordered to be brought forward for trial ac- 
 cording to the date of their being registered, without any 
 attention being paid to the rank of the person who had 
 engaged in the suit. 
 
 After having decreed that places gained in the service of 
 the State, even by peasants, should confer nobility and all 
 its prerogatives, save those which might be claimed by the 
 most ancient nobles who had remained inactive, he added, 
 that a boyard, whom justice had stamped with infamy, 
 should lose his nobility !* By this, he restored its due 
 honour to labour, and its disgrace to punishment. 
 
 His laws against breach of promise, and against breach 
 of trust, of powers of attorney, and of sacred contracts, are 
 terrible. But circumstances required that they should be 
 so ; they rendered him inexorable against the exactions of 
 men in office, against those of the assessors and collectors 
 
 * See Chap. III. o( Sentences-
 
 BOOR Xi. CHAP. VI. 393 
 
 of taxes, and against fraudulent bankruptcies, the subor- 
 nation of evidence, and false oaths. Manners being want- 
 ing, he endeavoured to form them by means of laws and 
 punishments.* 
 
 But a clear and precise instruction had already ap- 
 ])eared, intituled " The Form of Judicial Proceedings," 
 which each iudiie was always to have with him as his 
 guide. This regulation preceded his Military Code, 
 which was divided into two parts, in ninety-one c]m])tcrs, 
 and appeared in lyiO. The opening of it is remarkable. 
 Either from sincere piety, or from the policy of the head 
 of a religion, who was anxious to preserve unimpaired the 
 strength of so powerful a mover, he declares that, " of all 
 true Christians the soldier is the man whose morals ought 
 to be the most virtuous, decent, and Christian; the Chris- 
 tian warrior ouglit to be always ready to appear before 
 God, without which he has not the necessary security for the 
 continual sacrifice recjuired of him by his country." And 
 he concludes, by tile following quotation from Xeno})h()n : 
 " that in battles, tliose who have the most fear of the 
 gods, are those who have the least fear of men." Then, 
 he provides for the punishment of even the sHgiitest of- 
 fences, against God, against discipline, morals, honour, 
 and even against good manners, as though he had wished 
 to make of his army a nation apart in the nation, and at 
 the same time its model. 
 
 But it is especially here that the genius of his despotism 
 luxuriates witli frightful com])lacency. " All the state," 
 says he, "is in him; all ought to be done for liiiii. thi: 
 absolute and despotic master, wjio ouis to (iod alone 
 an account of his conduct !" For this reason, every in- 
 sidting wdid against his |)irson, eviry unbecoming jndg- 
 
 ♦ See Leclerc, pr- ()'il, (i'^2-
 
 394 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. 
 
 ment of his actions or intentions, must be punished with 
 tleath ! 
 
 It was in I7I6, that the Tzar thus proclaimed himself 
 beyond and above all laws ; as if he were preparing for 
 the terrible stroke of state policy, by which, in I7IH, he 
 was to sully his fame with blood. 
 
 The preamble of the second part of this Draconian 
 code explains the urgency of it ; it shows that, unfortu- 
 nately, it was only in characters of blood that it could he 
 impressed on the heart of a nation which was at once 
 enslaved and undisciplined ; or, in other words, which 
 had for ages suffered all the inconveniences of despotism, 
 without enjoying its advantages. 
 
 " It is known," says he, " that, in 1647, the Tzar 
 Alexis, our father, was the first Russian sovereign who 
 employed regular troops, and who established such good 
 order in his armies, that they gained great glory in Poland 
 and Sweden ; but it is known also that, after him, far 
 from perfecting themselves in the military art, the Rus- 
 sians neglected it to such a degree, as not to be able to 
 make head against civilized nations, nor even against 
 barbarians." 
 
 CHAPTER Vll. 
 
 We have seen Peter the Great declaring that the Rus- 
 sian army, from the period of its origin till the seventeenth 
 century, made scarcely any progress in the art of war. 
 We nuist give credit to what he asserts. What other
 
 BOOK XI. CHAP. \ll. 395 
 
 glance could have dai'ted through so many centuries ! 
 Placed between the two ages of his subjects, who is there 
 that better than this reformer, in whom met the end of 
 Russian barbarism and the beginning of Russian civili- 
 zation, could perceive through the dust of the national 
 chronicles, which were collected by his care, the progres- 
 sion or the retrogradation of the armies of the Ruriks and 
 the Romanofs, Avith respect to their improvement P 
 
 Let us follow the regenerator in this innnense retro- 
 spect. And in the first place, in what particular could 
 the army of Sviatoslaf, composed of those terrible ^'aran- 
 gians, the conquerors of Russia, the guards of tlie earliest 
 of the Ruriks, a hierarchical union of boyards or illustrious 
 warriors, of select boyard-followers, of jjages at arms, and 
 of sword-bearers, appear to him inferior to the armies of 
 his last ancestors. To these elements of the first Russian 
 armies there were, it is true, added a crowd of horse and 
 foot volunteers, attracted by the love of glory, the thirst 
 of plunder, and the voice of the leaders : but to which of 
 the two, to this multitude, organized by thousands, by 
 hundreds, and by dozens, or to the provincial and wholly 
 undisciplined regiments of Alexis, ought we to give the 
 preference .'' 
 
 As to the warlike manners of the two ages, how was it 
 possible for the conqueror of the eighteenth century not to 
 have exclusively admired those of the armies of the tenth 
 century, the flower of which armies consisted of Scan- 
 dinavians.'' How greatly must he have been delighti-d to 
 observe their military sports, their march in close l)attalions, 
 their regular nuuifx'uvres, their well-entreiulud caiiips, their 
 singular custom of registering, when tiii' battle was done, 
 the names of the valiant and of the cowardly, and, lastly 
 the savage and superstitious pride wliiih, wlun liny wen- 
 about to be overcome, led those warriors to kill themselves.
 
 396 JIISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 tliat thc>y might not be tlie slaves of their conquerors, 
 either in this world or in the next ! 
 
 As the introduction of gunpowder into Russia took place 
 in 1389, the arms of the jirevious period were doubtless 
 inferior to those of Ivan. The rich, however, were com- 
 pletely armed, like our knights ; as to the others, they 
 provided themselves with whatever came to hand, even to 
 as humble weapons as wooden clubs ; which, indeed, was 
 still the case till the beginning of the seventeenth century. 
 
 But the eye of the reformer must soon have been lost in 
 a mass of inextricable confusion : the tenth century ends, 
 and from that period commence the civil wars, and the 
 Polish and Hungarian wars, to which must be added the 
 devastations of the Southern migratory tribes. In the 
 eleventh and twelfth centuries, intestine dissensions ex- 
 hausted the nation ; in ihe thirteenth, the Mongol invasion 
 disarmed it ; the sword-bearing knights wrested Livonia 
 from it ; and the Swedes, Ingria ; in the fourteenth, the 
 savage Lithuanians escaped from under its sway ; and 
 those pagans deprived it of its finest provinces. 
 
 But, at length, about'1370, it was roused by the excess 
 of oppression and by Dmitry Donskoi; it resumed its 
 arms, but not its manners ; all was changed or modified : 
 it combated or struggled against slavery in a disorderly 
 and Scythian manner. During this disastrous period of 
 three centuries, however, the army of Novgorod remained 
 untouched, and the remnant of the guards of the princes, 
 united with the Tartars, was often victorous over the Eu- 
 ropean neighbours of Russia. 
 
 But at the end of the fourteenth century, when at length 
 the Tartars were enfeebled, and amidst their thinned and 
 scattered numbers Peter began to see again the Russian 
 army, he could find it only in the guard of the Grand- 
 Princes, and especially in the boyards of the princes hold-
 
 BOOK XI. CHAP. vii. 39y 
 
 ing- appanages, and those of the cities ; for tlie citizens 
 and traders took arms only in cases of emergency, and tlie 
 labouring class never. 
 
 Each of these boyards kept up a guard of servants, and 
 of boyard-retainers, who belonged to him. When they 
 were discontented, these condottieri gave up their pay to 
 the prince or the city, abandoned their fiefs, and marched 
 with their guard to some other prince, or some other 
 city, where they found the same remuneration and new 
 domains. 
 
 But, at last, in the fifteenth century, the autocrat might 
 perceive that the military authority was concentrated in 
 one point : the boyards lost the privilege of choosing whom 
 they would serve ; and the appanages of the ])rinces and 
 those of the Russian republics being united with that 
 of the Grand-Prince, they were now employed to endow, 
 for the first time, and on the tenure of military service, 
 three hundred thousand boyard-followers. Ivan III. di- 
 vided these men into five main-bodies, the connnand of 
 which was an object of contention among the boyards and 
 the vaiwodes, who were now reduced to vain pretensions of 
 hereditary office. 
 
 Here, as was the case elsewhere, the reformer might ob- 
 serve, that the infantry, which was always composed of the 
 poorest, armed irregularly, and only with swords, ])ikes,- 
 bows, and even clubs, was for a long time weak ; that 
 under Vassili (the end of the fifteenth century,) it was 
 estimated at no more than sixty thousand men, a .sixtli of 
 the army, which is a proportion (piite (Hffeii'nt from wliat 
 is now established ; and that it was, lastly, composed of 
 servants of the l)()yard-followers, and of city nuisketccrs, 
 who were a kind oi' militia. 
 
 And here we may iniagine to ourselves tlic attcnlioii of 
 the despot of the eighteenth century, pausing with com-
 
 398 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 placency, to consider the cles]X)t of the sixteenth. The 
 latter, or rather liis minister, obh'ged every proprietor, 
 whose lands produced a hun(h-ed sacks of grain, to fumish 
 a horseman equipped for service, or the value in money ; 
 and, as Ivan increased his revenue, by taking from the 
 nobles the collection of the taxes, he was at length able to 
 form a body of infantry, the first that had been seen in 
 Russia ; he armed it with muskets, and divided it among 
 the great cities, where these Strelitz became a kind of 
 janissaries. 
 
 This same Ivan IV. also established a war-rate of pay for 
 the soldiers when they were in the field. By this measure 
 he doubled the army, of which he several times raised the 
 effective force to more than two hundred cannon and three 
 hundred thousand men. This was, no doubt, an exceed- 
 ingly irregular army : but it was sufficient to conquer 
 Casan, Astracan, and Siberia, to crush the Livonian knights, 
 and for a while to recover ancient Russia, as far as the 
 Dnieper and the Duna, from Poland and Lithuania, which 
 were then in a state of discord. 
 
 The rapid glance of Peter has at length reached the end 
 of the sixteenth century, and the last of the Ruriks : this 
 age is partly his own. He can take a closer view of its 
 armies ; he can number the different corps which compose 
 them. He may remark that, in 1600, the Russian cavalry 
 consisted of sixteen thousand nobles, who were the guards 
 of the Tzar, and of the three hundred thousand boyard- 
 followers, sixty thousand of whom were assembled every 
 spring on the banks of the Oka. Peter knows, by expe- 
 rience, that this season was always dangerous to southern 
 Russia, in consequence of the sudden incursions of the 
 migratory tribes. He is able to estimate the expense of 
 this annual calling into the field, which was nearly 'forty 
 thousand pounds, while that of the fifteen thousand noble
 
 BOOK XI. CHAP. Ml. 899 
 
 o-uards of the Tzar was about a hundred thousand pounds, 
 and that of the regular infantry little short of forty thou- 
 sand pounds. 
 
 This infantry was then composed of twelve thousand 
 Strelitz, six thousand Cossacks, and four thousand four 
 hundred Germans; the rest was made up of provincial 
 regiments, from three to twelve hundred strong, hastily 
 levied, when circumstances pressed, which could scarcely 
 be retained for a twelvemonth under their colours, and 
 which bore the names of the principal cities.* 
 
 The victor of Pultava must here have smiled, to see 
 this infantry armed with muskets, bows, and clubs, and 
 which knew no other mode of ajiproaching an enemy's 
 rampart than by raising and pushing to the top of it whole 
 mountains of earth. It had, indeed, so little confidence in 
 its arms and its connected efforts, that, in the stc'p])cs, it 
 never ventured to fight against the Tartars, except when 
 it was secured between two rows of loop-lioled ])lanks, 
 which extended for three quarters of a league in length. 
 
 At last, the armies of the second race appear in their 
 turn. But, doubtless, because he was too nuich dazzled 
 l)y the glory of his father, Peter the Great does not seem 
 to have given credit enough to the efforts which, in 10:29, 
 his grandfather Mikhail made, for the puqiose of »)ii])osing 
 the Swedes and Poles with a Russian army discij)lincd in 
 the European manner. 
 
 The Strelitz alone of the district of Moscow are said to 
 have been, at that time, forty thousand in number ;t tluir 
 officers were still provided for by fiefs, from which they 
 were removable ; they even received clothing yearly from 
 the Tzar, as had formerly been done by the faithful band, 
 or guard, of the early Huriks. liut the grandfather of 
 
 • See Kfirainsin, Flctdior, JJriii-.-, {*.<•.&(■. 
 t See MaiiHteiii.
 
 4O0 HISTORY OF lUSSlA, 
 
 Peter the Great did not consider these Russian janissaries 
 as sufficient ; he introduced into his army many foreign offi- 
 cers, and had even several German regiments in his pay. 
 It is true, that the jealousy which the natives entertained 
 of these foreigners, was the ruin of the army before Smo- 
 lensk. 
 
 For this reason it was, that in this century Peter seems 
 to have noticed only the efforts of his father. These were, 
 in the first place, the creation, in 1645, of the regular 
 reo-iment of Butersk, which had fifty-two companies, and 
 was five thousand two hundred strong ;* that of Alciel or 
 Moscow, in 1648, which was of the same strength ; and 
 the introduction of a multitude of European teachers into 
 the army- Alexis distributed to that army the first mili- 
 tary book that was known in Russia ; he increased it by 
 adding the Cossacks of the Ukraine ; and Smolensk was 
 at length reconquered by the help of seven Russian regi- 
 ments, which were organized in the European manner. 
 
 But we have heard the conqueror of Charles XII. de- 
 clare, that, after Alexis, the Russian army had fallen back 
 into a state of confusion, and of childhood, and of such 
 weakness that, on his accession to the throne, the empire 
 was at the mercy, not only of its European enemies, but 
 even of the migratory savages of stagnant Asia. 
 
 Accordingly, Peter distrusted his successors ; for he was 
 convinced that after his reign, as had been the case after 
 that of his father, all the old customs would exercise 
 a reaction. In vain, then, would he have bent back to- 
 wards the light that tree of darkness, which had so long 
 been crooked towards barbarian Asia. It was, therefore, 
 necessary to cut to the quick, to graft on this old and 
 shapeless trunk a multitude of European scions, and to 
 
 * See Manstein, Vsevol^ Dam. de Ray, &c. &c.
 
 BOOK XI. CHAP. VII. 401 
 
 direct their new and flexible shoots towards European 
 civilization. 
 
 For this reason it was tliat, as we have seen, both 
 before and subsequent to the military code, he chano-ed 
 every thing, justice, administration, capital, interests, man- 
 ners, usages, customs, and even names and habits. Peter 
 was desirous that, after his decease, authority should be 
 in the hands of a great number of men of all ranks and 
 kinds, who were linked to and compromised by civiliza- 
 tion, in their deeds, their habitudes, their titles, and even 
 their clothing. Let us by no means forget an addition to 
 this security, of two regiments of guards, fifty of infantry, 
 thirty of dragoons, some of hussars, sixty-seven garrison 
 regiments, and six of militia, distributed in permanent 
 quarters. A formidable total of more than two hundred 
 thousand men, organized, instructed, the best disciplined 
 in Europe, and defenders of the whole of this regenera^ 
 tion, less even against its foreign than against its domestic 
 enemies. 
 
 2 D
 
 402 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 BOOK XII. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 This great man, meanwhile, was approaching to his 
 end. It is time that we should look a little more qlosely 
 into his private life ; if, indeed, there can be said ever to 
 have existed for this colossal being any other privacy than 
 that of his vast empire. In fact, contrary to so many 
 modern heroes, he had not two different modes of living, 
 the one domestic, the other public; he had only one of 
 them. He was the same at home and abroad, and lived 
 in the face of day without condescending to conceal any 
 thing, without fearing even to betray his weaknesses ; 
 either from the pride of hereditary autocracy, which did 
 not deign to put constraint upon itself in the presence of 
 slaves ; or from a coarse frankness of manners ; or, rather, 
 from an excessive confidence in the rights which his genius 
 gave to him, and a persuasion that the great benefits which 
 he conferred on his empire were sufficient to redeem all his 
 faults. 
 
 In a word, he lived publicly, because he regarded him- 
 self as living only for the public good. 
 
 And it must be owned that, more than any other despot, 
 if he could say, " the state ! I am the state !" it was be-
 
 BOOK XII. CHAI'. 1. 403 
 
 cause, instead of seeing only himself in the state, the state, 
 on the contrary, was every thing in his eyes. 
 
 Did he overcome nature ; it was not that he misht build 
 gigantic palaces; he never dwelt in them: it was that he 
 might give to Russia a military and commercial citv. If 
 he did violence to the elements, his object was not to gra- 
 tify his senses with coolness and ahen waters, but to open 
 to the Russian vessels, and from the north to the south 
 of his empire, a road across the widely-extended plains 
 of the Muscovite territory. His palaces were ports, for- 
 tresses, ships; they had either been founded or built by 
 his own hands, or taken by himself from the enemy ; and 
 he himself inhabited, defended, or commanded them. 
 
 If, at a vast expense, he traced out roads, they were 
 not those of sumptuous and useless parks, but those of his 
 country, which he was the first to divide by versts, and 
 on which he established post-houses and inns. 
 
 At the same time that he displayed magnificence in dis- 
 bursements for general utility, he did not ruin the state 
 l)y making a shameless luxury blaze abroad to the world 
 the innumerable errors of his animal passions, which his 
 herculean strength may account for, but cannot excuse. 
 
 His ways and his manners, it is true, were unpolished, 
 but they were simple, frank, and natural; like those of 
 every man who has a great end in view, who presses on- 
 ward to it witii a resolute and straight-forward spirit, and 
 all whose faculties, >in order to attain it, rise above the 
 jjompous littlenesses of j)ride and of vanity. 
 
 In his humble abode at Petersburgh, an abode winch a 
 mere artizan would think hardly good enough for himself, 
 a bed, a chair, a table, a lathe, and some book.s, formed 
 the whole of the furniture. 
 
 When he was not at liomi-, tlic deck of a >liip, I lie Door 
 of a hut, or the bare ground, si'ivc-d him as a hcd ; now 
 
 ■2 I. -2
 
 404 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 and then straw, wlien he could get it ; if not, he leaned 
 his head on the officer who attended upon him, who lay 
 across under it, and wliose business it was to remain in 
 that position as motionless as the bolster which he repre- 
 sented. 
 
 Everything in him was hostile to luxury, and looked 
 to the useful : his clothes were plain, and even of a coarse 
 cloth calculated to wear well ; his shoes, which were solid 
 and clumsy, were frequently mended. 
 
 At his table, which was usually a frugal one,* nothing 
 came amiss to him, except fish, which this naval prince 
 could never bear. His habitual food, that which he pre- 
 ferred, was such as was eaten by the people. He ate 
 little, but often, wherever he might chance to be, and no 
 matter with whom. 
 
 He drank, however, to excess, from habit, from taste, 
 perhaps even from vanity. Deplorable orgies, but less 
 frequent than they are supposed to have been, where he 
 was too often seen overcome by a shameful or a furious 
 intoxication, but where, still oftener, proving himself more 
 powerful than his excesses, he kept his senses, and pati- 
 ently bore the rash language which intemperance prompt- 
 ed to his convivial companions. 
 
 His court, at common times, consisted only of a few 
 officers to convey his orders ; luxury was banished from 
 it by sumptuary laws : no plate was seen there. He waited 
 upon himself, rose at four in the morning, and lighted his 
 fire with his own hands. 
 
 Pitre was his usual signature. When the labours of 
 government were over for the day, he amused himself by 
 corresponding with the most eminent European astrono- 
 mers, and with the geographers whom he had sent into all 
 
 * See Stoehlin, Louville, &c.
 
 BOOK XII. CHAP. 1. 405 
 
 his provinces, by tracing maps and plans, and by becom- 
 ing the most skilful turner in his empire. 
 
 He himself translated the principles of that trade, those 
 of architecture by Leclerc, and the art of constructing 
 canal-locks and foundries. He also ordered the transla- 
 tion of numbers of useful books into Russian. If in any 
 of these versions, as happened with respect to that of 
 PufFendorf, the translator modified passages which were 
 severe upon the Russian nation, Peter made them be given 
 literally, and, reprimanding the translator, he exclaimed, 
 " that he did not want to flatter his subjects, but to in- 
 struct them, and, especially, to show them what they had 
 been, and what foreigners thought of them, that he might 
 stimulate them to change, bv their exertions, the opinion 
 of Europe." 
 
 A multitude of memoirs, notes, and ])rojects, written 
 with his own hand, are still in exi.stence; the style is con- 
 cise, picturesque, and energetic ; the reasoning just and 
 close; the ideas striking; they embrace the whole world; 
 they point out tlie major })art of the conquests of every 
 kind which Russia has achieved since his time, and others 
 even, to which the daring genius of that empire has not 
 yet ventured to aspire. 
 
 And yet, like Charlemagne and Napoleon, (two colos- 
 suses so predominant, that ten ages of history between 
 them seem to shrink into littleness,) this genius of vast and 
 collected masses delighted to enter into the minutest du- 
 tails ; like them, at a distance of five hundred leagues from 
 home, and amidst the iiii])ulse which he was giving lo (lie 
 wliole worhl, lie was seen, in his letters, to iii.iiiif'est an in- 
 terest with rispict to the most trivial circumstances rela- 
 tive to his garilens and to the furnishing of his house ! 
 
 Such were his habits at home; when \\v \\c\\\ out, it
 
 40(> HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 was generally on foot, oi* in a hackney-coach, and he some- 
 times borrowed of the first passer-by the money to pay his 
 fare. He daily spent several hours at the senate, but 
 particularly at the Admiralty ; after which, and always fol- 
 lowed, like the great Frederick, by a favourite dog, he went, 
 alone and without guards, to mingle among his people : 
 preferring the society of foreign and Russian traders and 
 sailors, especially the Dutch, from whom he could scarcely 
 be distinguished by his dress. There, without ceremony, 
 he took a part in their business, their pleasures, and their 
 conversation, questioning them continually, and gaining 
 knowledge from their replies. 
 
 Many a time was he seen working with his own hands 
 in the manufactories which he had established ! It is 
 known that he often offered himself to pilot the European 
 vessels which came to Cronstadt, and that he received, 
 like other pilots, the pay of a service which he considered 
 as an honour, and which he was desirous to render ho- 
 nourable. 
 
 Another time, having been compelled by the state of 
 his health to stop at a forge, he for some hours became 
 a smith. Nor let it be supposed that there was any 
 thing puerile in this ; for in him, every thing, even to the 
 major part of his most trifling actions, tended to a great 
 pui'pose. For this reason, on his return to Moscow, he 
 went to the master of the forge, and enquired what he 
 paid his workmen. " Well, then !" said he, " I, at that 
 rate, have earned eight altins (about thirteen pence) and 
 I am come for the money.''"' Having received it, he added, 
 that, " with this sum he would buy himself a new pair 
 of shoes, of which he was in great want.'"* This was very 
 true; and he hastened to the market to make his pur- 
 chase, which he afterwards felt a pleasure in wearing. 
 " See what I earned by the sweat of my brow,"'' said he
 
 BOOK XU. CHAP. I. 407 
 
 to his courtiers ; thus priding himself on the fruits of his 
 labour, in the eyes of a nobility whom he wished to cure 
 of the Oriental and haughty indolence with which they 
 were imbued. 
 
 It mav well be believed that such a prince, so opposite 
 to all the vanities of the proud Ivans, liis predecessors, 
 treated witli contempt the pompous etiquette of their 
 diplomatic ceremonies ; accordingly, he gave liis first 
 audience to the Austrian ambassador at five in the 
 morning, and amidst the confusion of setting to riglits 
 his cabinet of natural history. As to the Prussian mi- 
 nister, he, with his credentials, had no other mode of 
 reaching the Tzar, except by going on board of a vessel, 
 and even up to the topsail of the mainmast, where the 
 Emperor was busily engaged : it is true, however, that 
 Peter did not compel the minister to ascend to him, the 
 Prussian envoy liaving pleaded his want of practice as an 
 excuse for declining this aerial reception. . 
 
 In fact, the honour of sharing in his occupations, and 
 even in his pleasures, was not without danger. They often 
 consisted in braving the storm ; and when all the heads 
 around him, excepting that of Catherine, were almost 
 deprived of their senses, he would take the helm, and with 
 a steady eye, a firm hand, and an unfaltering voice, avert 
 the danger, and give life again to the crew, whom death 
 seemed to have already seized. 
 
 It is known, nevertheless, that he was born witli a hor- 
 ror of water, which any other person would liave believed 
 to be imconqucrable ; ])ut he surmounted it by habit, his 
 genius having availed itself of this second ii.idire to sulxiuc 
 the first. 
 
 And who is there who will venture to allinn that so 
 much fearlessness did not spring, as his contemporaries* 
 
 See Fontcnclle.
 
 408 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 supposed it to do, from a mysterious cause? In 1714, in 
 the midst of a liorrible tempest, when he saved his fleet, 
 as C-esar saved his army, by intrusting his fate to a frail 
 bark, did he not reply to those about him, who were 
 alarmed at such rashness, " that the Tzar Peter could not 
 be drowned ; that a Russian sovereign would never perish 
 in the water ! But," added he, " you Russians, you do 
 not believe in predestination !" As though he alone, so 
 calm amidst so many men who thought him lost, had been 
 in the secret of destiny : whether tliis confidence arise from 
 the power of instinct, in such singular beings, for all have 
 givenbelief to their presentiments, or that, in reality, being 
 the chosen instruments of Heaven, they approximate more 
 nearly to it than other men. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 But in a mind of such a fervid character, and which 
 was subject to the influence of every species of intoxica- 
 tion, how terrible must have been the first bursts of 
 passion ! Some examples we have seen : neither his phy- 
 sicians, whom he sent to the victims of his rage, nor the 
 attentions which he paid to tliem himself, nor his repent- 
 ance, especially when his violence had arisen from error 
 or drunkenness, were at all times sufficient. They were 
 unavailing to a French arc'iitect, whom he had unjustly 
 struck, and who could not survive the insult. 
 
 And, nevertheless, in the customary course of life of 
 this passionate master, we are astonished by the indulgent 
 patience which he manifested towards all projects that had 
 a useful end in view. We know with what attention he
 
 BOOK \II. CIIAl'. IJ. 401) 
 
 caused all the experiments to be made in his presence ; with 
 what kindness he rewarded the authors, and even, not un- 
 frequently, when they had deceived themselves. He wislied, 
 he said, to encourage them in search of sometliing better, 
 and he endeavoured to put tliem in the right way, by ex- 
 plaining to them with a beneficent mildness the causes of 
 their mistake. 
 
 It was with similar consistency, if not with the same 
 mildness, that, at the residence of his daughters, or the 
 palace of the ostentatious Mentzikof, he enforced, by 
 example, his regulations with respect to society : a sin- 
 gular code, by which society, broken up by the tyrants of 
 the first race, was re-established on a new basis. 
 
 In these parties, where truth often met liis ear without 
 offending it, he was particularly indignant against that 
 treacherous slander, wjiich is the resource of empty minds, 
 and of that criminal vanity which is anxious to shine at 
 any cost — the vile talent of still more detestable court 
 flatterers. We are told that, on one occasion, a person 
 about him being guilty of this disgraceful vice, he inter- 
 rupted him by the following words, full of simple and 
 antique beauty : " Surely you must have seen something 
 good in the man you are slandering, and cannot you tell 
 us that ?" 
 
 It was also the same chief, so inflexible, so absolute, aud 
 whose military code was so terrible, who behaved like the 
 equal of his meanest soldiers, when he was not acting in 
 the character of their commander. He accepted their in- 
 vitati<ms as readily as those of the hin-liest nobles of his 
 court, re])ulsing no one, and, as we are told by his daugh- 
 ter, " staiuhng godfather as often as he was asked." There, 
 without either feeling or insjiiring constraint, scatetl at 
 their humbh- n-pasts, he seemed to hi- more gratified than 
 at the most brilliant eiiterlainnk iil> : " then," to u>e tlie
 
 410 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 very words of the Empress Elizabeth, "a kiss given to the 
 lying-in woman, and a ducat put under the bolster, was all, 
 and that gave satisfaction." 
 
 A sovereign of such popular manners was no longer one 
 of those terrestrial deities, as the national historians deno- 
 minate their ancient tzars, when they relate that, far from 
 mingling familiarly with their subjects, these despots of 
 Tartar manners, frightened them with their rare and 
 formidable presence. It seems, on the contrary, that, too 
 great not to despise this haughty invisibility, Peter must 
 rather have reminded his contemporaries of the demi-gods 
 of the heroic ages, the inventors of arts, and the conquerors 
 of monsters, or, in other words, of barbarism. 
 
 And, in fact, like those rvigged heroes, confiding in his 
 colossal stature, and his almost supernatural strength, he 
 was seen to traverse alone, but with a still nobler purpose, 
 the wildest covmtries. Like them, too, he combated and 
 overcame the robbers whom he there met with ; and, like 
 Caesar, that other deified great man, he also ransomed his 
 life and liberty from their hands. 
 
 Thus, he one day, on a lonely road, fovmd himself un- 
 expectedly engaged with eight villains, whose vehicle stop- 
 ped his ; but, Avith a vigorous arm, the hero seized one of 
 them by the hair, pulled him out from amidst his com- 
 panions, and dragged him to a place of safety, where he 
 compelled him to disclose the haunt of his accomplices. 
 
 On another occasion, being surprised by a more nume- 
 rous troop of them, he, with a sword in one hand, and a 
 pistol in the other, held them at bay. " I am the Tzar," 
 he exclaimed ; " what do you require of me .?"" But, this 
 time, he was forced to capitulate : he even remained in the 
 power of the banditti, till one of them returned from the 
 neighbouring city with his ransom, for the payment of 
 which he had been obliged to give a written order.
 
 BOOK. XII. CHAP. II. 411 
 
 These robbers were masters of the highways in open 
 day, and they seized upon the towns, and even upon 
 Moscow itself, as soon as the sun set.* In sonie weeks, 
 there were found in the streets of that capital no less than 
 sixty of its inhabitants who liad been nuu'dered. Barri- 
 cades were oblio-ed to be erected. The ferocious Roma- 
 donovsky conquered these ruffians by surpassing thera in 
 cruelty : he had them hunted down like wild beasts ; then 
 he sentenced them, after his manner, in a moment, with a 
 single word, without appeal, always to death, and without 
 ever pardoning. He hung them up alive, by hooks tlirougli 
 their sides, two hundi'ed at a time, and left them to expire 
 thus, in the most horrible agony, in the public roads. 
 
 This inundation of criminals had its source in the weiirlit 
 of the taxes, and the severity of the compulsory labour 
 and of the recruiting ; in the underhand opposition of the 
 nobles and the jjriests; and, lastly, in general discontent. 
 For Peter the Great, though fortunate abroad, was unfor- 
 tunate at home : this was the natural effect of a life in 
 which the present was always sacrificed to the future, and 
 private interests to the general interest. 
 
 He was fortunate in glory, in conquests, and in the 
 success of his great views relative to order, industry, and 
 commerce; and unfortunate in the interior of his emj)ire, 
 and even in the bosom of his family, by the obstinate 
 opposition and by the censures of his subjects and his 
 relations, or by their vices. 
 
 Accordingly, in the imperial domestic circle, as is the 
 case in many ])rivate domestic circles, his only consolation 
 was his daughters: whether it be that tlie difli'ivnci- of 
 sexes, their reciprocal bias, and the natural subjection of 
 the one sex to the other, produce a sweeter svni|)alh\ Itc- 
 
 * iSee Tlie l-'oreinn Ueuident.
 
 412 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 tween daughters and a father ; or that, by a law of nature, 
 which some profound or merely ingenious observers ima- 
 gine they have discovered, the mind and disposition, as 
 well as the form of a being, whatever may be the species, 
 generally bear a closer resemblance to those of the parent 
 from which it differs in sex. 
 
 However this may be, it is certain that, very unlike the 
 son of Peter the Great, his daughters, Anne and Eliza- 
 beth, were docile to all the wishes of their father. The 
 Princess Anne, especially, handsome and majestic like him, 
 had his keen and ready judgment, his firm and decided 
 character, and his intrepid presence of mind, but without 
 his savage harshness; for in her every thing had been 
 softened down by an education which he himself superin- 
 tended. She and her sister knew four foreign languages. 
 When their court was assembled at the residence of the 
 Princess Natalia, their aunt, who was herself the author of 
 the first Russian theatrical piece, we are assured, by a fo- 
 reign minister, that a spectator might, particularly as to 
 what he saw, have imagined himself to be in a London or 
 Parisian society. 
 
 The Tzar, terrible as he was to a son who rebelled against 
 civilization, came every day to these princesses, to enquire 
 how they proceeded with their studies. Whenever he 
 found that they had increased their stock of knowledge, he 
 kissed them on the forehead, and rewarded them, exclaim- 
 ing, at the same time, " that they were very fortunate ; 
 that he envied them their education ; and that he would 
 give one of his fingers to have had the same advantage 
 that they had !" For he lived on the most affectionate 
 terms with his daughters ; who, at a subsequent jjeriod, 
 delighted to tell of his many acts of kindness ; and it is 
 said that the youthful Natalia, Avho died a few days after 
 him, was vmable to survive his loss. 

 
 BOOK XII. CHAP. III. 413 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 But, along with this domestic consolation of the great 
 man, what a host of private sorrows ! A sister, his guar- 
 dian, but the usurper of his rights, the murderer of his 
 relations by the mother's side, the assassin of his infancy 
 and his youth, and a pertinacious conspirator ; a second 
 sister, the accomplice of the elder ; a first wife, who was 
 an enemy and divorced ; a rebellious son, whose deliirht it 
 was to be the hope of the blind hatred of the Muscovites 
 against his parent, and whom it was necessary to sacrifice 
 to the regeneration of the empire ! Nor was this all : 
 seven other children, of whom five were sons, his dearest 
 hope, all died in the birth, or shortly after ; not one was 
 left to him, to perpetuate, in a successor formed by him- 
 self, his magnificent and laborious creations ! 
 
 On the other liand, his dearest friends, his })upils, the 
 sharers in his toils, were accused and convicted of pecula- 
 tion ; he was obliged to tear them from liis heart, or from 
 his eyes, some by contem|)t, others by banishment, mikI 
 several even by the scallold. Add to tiiis, |)urbliiul sub- 
 jects, who cursed him for his pur])()se as well as for his 
 means. With the exception of a few natives, he had, in 
 the midst of his ])eoj)le, no one on his sidi' but foreigners, 
 and gained only an admiration which was without alltr- 
 tion and without gratitude. 
 
 La.stly, a horrible disease arose, to ternu'nati- his illus- 
 trious life by torments dreadful enough, perhaps, to ex- 
 piate those with which he had punished the ineinies of his 
 system.
 
 414 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 These were misfortunes which, in a greater or less de- 
 gree, were deserved, as all the misfortunes of human kind 
 are. Peter brought on liiniself this horrible disease by a 
 debauchery which occasions such cruel sufferings as serve 
 rather to make existence hateful than to correct it ; the 
 censure of his subjects, by his desjiotic violence, which too 
 often effected good by means of evil ; and the loss of so 
 many children, by the excess of toil which he made their 
 mother endure, even when in a state of pregnancy : there 
 being nothing so wearisome to those about them, no less 
 than to nations, as these ever-indefatigable great men. 
 
 As to the enmity of his first Avife, it is said to have 
 originated in the jealousy with which the criminal fondness 
 of the Tzar for Anne de Moens inspired that princess : 
 a fatal source ! whence, subsequently, sprung the obstinate 
 aversion of a son, who was led away by the rage of a di- 
 vorced mother, and the angry advice of his maternal rela- 
 tives ; then, all the domestic dissensions that followed ; 
 and lastly, even the terrible catastrophe, the frightful par- 
 ricide, which twenty years later, stained the whole of his 
 reign with blood. A melancholy result of a first act of 
 infidelity : so fertile are the seeds of evil, and, whatever 
 the lax morality of the world may say, so durable and 
 severe are the consequences of a single fault. 
 
 This remark acquires a still more terrific strength, when 
 we find that, after so many bitter fruits, the bitterest that 
 a fault of this nature could produce, the fatal fertility of 
 this root of evil was not yet exhausted. In fact, after a 
 lapse of twenty-five years, and by a natural result of that 
 criminal attachment, the brother of Anne de Moens was 
 about the person of the Tzar, and was the chamberlain of 
 Catherine ; it was by him that the punishment was to be 
 consummated ; that adultery was to be avenged by adul- 
 tery ; it was to him, that the second wife of Peter was to
 
 BOOK \ll. CHAF. 111. 415 
 
 sacrifice that prince, to the brother of the woman to whom 
 he had sacrificed the first wife. 
 
 The blow was rendered more painful to him, by his 
 being betrayed at the moment when he had filled up the 
 measure of his benefits. And by whom betrayed ? by 
 that Liyonian servant who, in 1702, was married to a 
 Swedish dragoon, who, on the same day, became the slave 
 of a Russian general, and, soon after, of INIentzikof. She, 
 the secret mistress of the Tzar in lyOS ; his avowed mis- 
 tress in 1705 ; whom, in I707, he had privately made his 
 wife, and in I7II had publicly acknowledged as such. 
 She for whom, in 171-^, he created the order of St. Ca- 
 therine, in remembrance of the crisis on the Pruth, when, 
 as the grateful prince confessed, " Catherine did not act 
 like a woman, but like a man." 
 
 It was for her also, that, in 17^2, he had subverted the 
 order of direct succession, to which Russia was indebted for 
 its being freed from the Tartar yoke ; in its place he had 
 substituted, under a legal form, the right of the Tzar to 
 choose his successor, to revoke his choice, and to make a 
 new one ; a right which, like all others, is included in 
 autocracy, and which Ivan III. was aware of when, in 
 1498, two hundred and eighty years before this })eriod, 
 he wrote to the Pskovians, " Am I not, tlien, at hberty 
 to act as I please ? I will give Russia to whomsoever I 
 think proper, and I command you to obey." 
 
 But let us listen to the great man himself, whin he 
 declares, " that as the obstinate rebc-llion of Alexis could 
 be accounted for only by the imprescrij)til)li' right w inch 
 that prince, who had the wickedness of Absalom, suj)- 
 posed that he had to tlu- throne, it was indispensable to 
 give to the sovereign the same authority over his son 
 as a private individual jjosscsscd ovi-r lii^ cliildiin." He 
 then adduces the wife of Istiac, and especially I\an III.
 
 416 IJISTORY OK RUSSIA 
 
 " who collected into one body the scattered members of 
 the country, and who, fearing to see his work destroyed 
 by his descendants, disinherited one of them, chose ano- 
 ther, and afterwards restored the former, according to his 
 own good pleasure, and without paying any attention to 
 the law of primogeniture V 
 
 It was in 17^22 that Peter the Great thus expressed 
 himself when he had only daughters left, and when a son 
 of Alexis was still living. By thus proclaiming the right 
 of the Tzars to dispose of the empire, he })repared his sub- 
 jects to slight the claims of his grandson, the child of his 
 victim ; and, at the same time, held out to them, as his 
 successor, Catherine the First, with all her circle of native 
 and foreign grandees. By this means, he particularly 
 designed to uphold his work of civilization, and to save it 
 from the hands of his first divorced wife, who was the 
 grandmother of the heir to the throne, and whom he 
 dreaded as a guardian. 
 
 He was actuated by the same kind of policy when, in 
 1724, after his return from the hot-baths of Olonetz, 
 which a violent attack of strangury had compelled him to 
 visit, he issued a manifesto, announcing the coronation of 
 Catherine. This was an unexampled event in Russia, 
 where no woman had ever been crowned. This act tacitly 
 gave the right of succeeding him to the companion of his 
 labours, and consequently to his daughters ; to princesses 
 brought up in the modern arts ; in a word, to the sex 
 Avhich has the greatest degree of interest in civilization 
 and in its progress. " This," said the Tzar, as he showed 
 the new crown ; " this confers on Catherine the right of, 
 perhaps, one day reigning : she saved the empire on the 
 banks of the Pruth, and she will, no doubt, be able to 
 maintain all our useful establishments."* 
 
 * Kamensky, The Age of Peter the Great.
 
 BOOK XII. CHAP. IV. 417 
 
 At the same time, the grateful prince wished that the 
 felicity and splendour of this important day sht)uld be 
 doubled, by the betrothing of his daughter Anne to 
 the Duke of Holstein. At length, before the eyes of all 
 Russia, he himself placed the diadem on tlie brow of 
 Catherine, and the .slave of INIarienburg became the sharer 
 of his throne ! 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 This coronation was closely followed by ingratitude; 
 and, whether it were from the weakness natural to the sex, 
 or that even ingratitude requires the support of hope, cer- 
 tain it is that Catherine forgot her obligations as soon as 
 there was no longer any thing to be expected from her 
 benefactor. 
 
 In reality, up to this day, she liad liad every thing to 
 hope from the life of the Tzar; hencefortli, it was his 
 death alone that could raise her higher, and she is said to 
 have wished for it : even more is said ! One thing is un- 
 deniable ; that she tlicn violated her conjugal fidelity. 
 
 Perhaps in the crime of this crowned (ierman slave 
 there was nothing more than a lightness of manners which 
 was worthy of her origin ; perhaps, too, as is asserted, 
 her chamberlain INIoens was really .sechictive; but x. it 
 was, that, either tVoiii hi r being find by an ambit i(tn oC 
 wliich she is j)rovcd not to have been dislitute, or from 
 hir being tired of iier benefactor's paroxysms of vioii-nce, 
 her npugnanci- to I'l-tcr increased, nwd ^lic .illowid it to 
 become visible. 
 
 2 I-;
 
 418 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 The Tzar perceived it ; his temper became more soured, 
 his mind had worn out his body, and a secret, cruel, and 
 even mortal malady increased his natural irritability ; 
 from that internal justice which we never fail to exercise 
 on ourselves, becoming more suspicious in proportion as 
 he was conscious of being less bearable, he suspected the 
 adultress, and set spies upon her. 
 
 The court was then at Petcrhof ; Prince Repnin, pre- 
 sident of the war department, slept not far from the 
 Tzar ; it was two o'clock in the morning ; all at once the 
 door of the marshal was violently thrown open, and he 
 was startled up by abrupt and hasty footsteps : he looked 
 round in astonishment ; it was Peter the Great ; the mo- 
 narch was standing by the bedside ; his eyes sparkled with 
 rage, and all his features were distorted with convulsive 
 fury. Repnin tells us,* that at the sight of that terrible 
 aspect he was appalled, gave himself vip for lost, and re- 
 mained motionless ; but his master, with a broken and 
 panting voice, exclaimed to him, " Get up ! speak to me ! 
 there 's no need to dress yourself ;" and the trembling 
 marshal obeyed. 
 
 It was then he learned, that, but the instant before, 
 guided by too faithful a report, the Tzar had suddenly 
 entered Catherine's apartment ; that the crime is revealed ! 
 the ingratitude proved ! that at day-break the empress 
 shall lose her head ! that the emperor is resolved ! 
 
 The marshal afterwards declared that, gradually reco- 
 vering his voice, he agreed that such a monstrous act of 
 treachery was horrible, but that he reminded his master, 
 of the crime being as yet known to no one, and of the im- 
 policy of making it public ; that then, growing bolder, he 
 dared to call to recollection the massacre of the Strelitz, and 
 
 * See LeclerCj Coxe, Levesque.
 
 BOOK XII. CHAP. IV. 419 
 
 that every subsequent year had been ensanguined bv ex- 
 ecutions ; that, in fine, after the imprisonment of his sister, 
 the condemning of his son to death, and the scourging and 
 imprisonment of his first wife, if he should hkewise cut off 
 the head of his second, Europe would no longer look upon 
 him in any other light than that of a ferocious prince, 
 who thirsted for the blood of his subjects and even of those 
 who were a part of himself. 
 
 He added that, besides, the Tzar miglit have satisfac- 
 tion by giving up INIoens to the sword of the law upon other 
 charges ; and that, as to the Empress, he could find the 
 means of ridding himself of her, without any prejudice to 
 his glory. 
 
 While Repnin was thus advising, the Tzar, who stood 
 motionless before him, gazed upon him intently and wildly, 
 and kept a gloomy silence. But, in a short time, as was 
 the case when he was laboiu'ing inider strong emotions, his 
 head was twisted to the left side, and his swollen features 
 became convulsively contracted ; signs of the terrible 
 struggle by which he was tortured. And yet the excessive 
 working of liis mind hehl liis body in a state of friglitful 
 immovability. 
 
 At length, he precipitately rushed out of the chamber 
 into the adjoining room. For two whole hours he hastily 
 paced it ; then, suddenly entering again like a man who 
 had made up his mind, he said to Repnin, " Moens shall 
 die immediately ! I will watch the Empress so closely that 
 her first slip shall cost her life !" 
 
 He then went away ; and, cm the following morning, the 
 head of Moens, who was accused of peculation, was brought 
 to the block ; his two s(ms were degraded, and were sent 
 to a great distance, on the Persian frontier, as private sol- 
 diers. At the same time, his .sister, who was an acconi- 
 
 2n 2
 
 420 HISTORY UP RUSSIA, 
 
 plice in the crime, .and a favourite of Catlierine, receivecl 
 the knout, and was banished to Siberia, and her property 
 was confiscated. It is even said, that the terrible Tzar led 
 his guilty consort to look at the bleeding head of her lover, 
 and that he attentively watched her coinitenance, but that, 
 fortunately, her downcast eyes did not betray grief. Rep- 
 nin adds that, from that dreadful night till his death, 
 Peter never more spoke to the Empress except in public, 
 and that, in his dwelling, he always remained separate 
 from her. 
 
 As his death took place but a few months after, some 
 have suspected Catherine to have been the author of it ; 
 without taking into consideration the too well-knov/n ma- 
 lady of the great man, without weighing the numerous 
 facts, and how much faster such heroes seem to live, without 
 reflecting that not one of them has run much more than 
 half the career allowed to other men, they have accused the 
 Empress. 
 
 For the reputation of Catherine as well as of Mentzikof, 
 both of whom had risen from so low [a station, and had 
 always mutvially supported each other to attain so high a 
 rank near the Tzar, it is undoubtedly a double misfortune, 
 that both of them should have lost his good opinion, just 
 before his death, the one by malversation, and the other 
 by adultery. In fact, both of them had seen themselves 
 supplanted in his favour ; the one, it is said, by a Princess 
 Cantemir, who was patronized by Jaguchinsky ; the other, 
 by that Jaguchinsky, the eye of the Tzar. 
 
 It was in 1722 that Peter gave him this appellation ; 
 when, on his departure for Persia, he entrusted the ma- 
 nagement of the government to this new favourite, who 
 trod so closely on the footsteps of Mentzikof. Hence, 
 the envy of Mentzikof, and the jealousy of Catherine : to 
 which, after the disclosure of her adultery, must be added.
 
 BOOK Xll. CHAP. V. 421 
 
 a crow-n to be preserved, and the exile and punishment of a 
 favourite, and the death of a lover, to be avenged ; and 
 lastly, the pressing necessity of escaping by a second crime 
 from reproach, and from the perpetual danger of a threaten- 
 ing presence. 
 
 Such were the surmises of contemporaries, prompted 
 either by divine justice, which often punishes a known 
 crime only by tlie gratuitous suspicion of another crime ; 
 or by the too customary propensity of common minds to 
 imagine that the premature death of great princes cannot 
 be a natural event. It seems, in fact, that in consequence 
 of an inherent tendency in the human race to deify all that 
 they fear, the multitude find it difficult to conceive that 
 those beings whom they do not consider as belonging to 
 nature, can die naturally ; they cannot persuade them- 
 selves that so much hfe, so vast a Ufe, on which all others 
 seem to depend, can possibly be extinguished by tlie 
 mere accidents of war or disease, bke that of the common- 
 place beings by whom it is surrounded. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 But it is at length necessary to j)art from this gnat 
 man; perhaj)s, in my reluctance to arrive at this hist 
 moment, 1 may liave ()verh)aded these })ages with minute 
 circumstances. In truth, feasting on the recoUeetions of 
 his contemporaries, deeply iujpressed with the perusal of 
 them, with my eyes .sometimes on the map of the empire 
 which he regenerated, and somi-times on the faithful itpif- 
 sentation of his features, many a tinu, for several years
 
 422 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 back, have I seemed to be living with him. In the reve- 
 ries of my fancy, retrograding into the past, making my 
 existence contemporaneous with his in the land which he 
 ruled and wliich I visited with another colossus, how often 
 have I pictured myself as one of the foreign partners of 
 his toils, interested in the success of his great enterprise, 
 loving and admiring him in his object, and feeling indig- 
 nant at the obstacles which he met with, and {^t those 
 which he himself created ; and, lastly, enjoying with tran- 
 sport his noble actions, and his great and vigorous quali- 
 ties, or bearing with his errors, and manifesting hatred of 
 his vices ! 
 
 He was only fifty-two years of age. But to a mind 
 which was vast enough to animate the whole of a great 
 people, a single body, however robust it might be, could 
 not long suffice. 
 
 His life had been nothing but one protracted and violent 
 excess of labour, mingled with other excesses. In 1722, a 
 secret malady attacked him,* but he said nothing about 
 it ; and it was during that same year, and in spite of the 
 disease, that he achieved the conquest of the three Persian 
 provinces, which he added for a while to his empire. He 
 shared in the fatigues of his meanest soldiers, and in their 
 coarse food. He marched, as they did, on foot, under a 
 burning sun, in a deep and heated sand, in the midst of a 
 thick dust, and frequently without water to quench the 
 thirst during whole days. And yet he constantly refused 
 to make use of Catherine"'s carriage; she herself several 
 times quitted it, to fill it with soldiers who were dying of 
 heat and fatigue. 
 
 His disease, meanwhile, grew worse. This internal 
 enemy, which he despised, gained ground and increased 
 while, in 1723, attending only to his foreign but much 
 
 * The stranguvj'.
 
 BOOK XII. CHAP. V. 423 
 
 less dangerous enemies, he retained the Cossacks in their 
 fidelity by the presence of sixty thousand men; bridled 
 the Turks by threatening negotiations, such as must be 
 carried on with those barbarians; and soaring from the 
 Caspian to the Baltic, from a fiery to a frozen sea, pass- 
 ed again in triumph before Romanodovsky, at Moscow, 
 still in a subordinate rank ; gave him an account of his 
 expedition ; and then, with the authority of a master, 
 repressed the new malversations of his vice-chancellor, and 
 those of Mentzikof. 
 
 He had the co\iraae still to dissemble his suff'crinfirs 
 while, from on board of the fleet whicli hv iiad fittetl 
 out, he dictated to Stockholm the acknowledgment of the 
 nephew of Charles XII. as Prince of Sweden ; to Den- 
 mark, that of the rights of the same prince, his future 
 son-in-law , to the duchy of Holstein ; and, finally, com- 
 pelled Coj^enhagen to recognise himself as Emperor. But 
 as, at the same time, in order to hide his internal decline, 
 and not afford his enemies an irksome joy, or even a dan- 
 gerous hope, he would not drop anv of his habits, his 
 pains became every day more excruciating. 
 
 At length, he could no longer endure them, but it was 
 only to one of his servants that he entrusted the secret ; 
 he directed him to obtain advice as if for some one else ; 
 he would not even consult his court physician, of so much 
 importance did he consider it not to be fathomed. It was 
 then that he went to the hot batlis of Ulonctz ; and that, 
 being better on his return, he, on the 'Jth of May, 17-4, 
 placed the crown on the head of Catherine. 
 
 But, whetlier it were, tiiat in these cntertaiiinn.nt>, he 
 was guilty of some excess, or, as his surgeon* aMIrms, his 
 disease had only been ])alliated by the first and obscure 
 consultation, or (hat, on his discovering the treason of tlie 
 
 • I'illllsOIl.
 
 424 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 Empress, the violence of his unger had aggravated his case ; 
 certain it is, that subsequent to the coronation, and but a 
 few days after the fatal discovery, his horrible malady 
 broke out with additional fury. 
 
 All on a sudden, Petersburgh learned, that the life of 
 its founder was in danger ; next, that nothing but a hor- 
 rible operation could save him ; then, that he had under- 
 gone it, but with such agony, that he had entirely black- 
 ened the bodies of the operating surgeons, by the forcible 
 manner in which he grasped them. Lastly, it heard, that 
 its Tzar was stretched, deprived of all strength, on a bed 
 of pain, where, for three months, it was doubtful whether 
 he would die of his disease, or of the means which were 
 employed to cure him. 
 
 But his vigorous constitution again got the better. He 
 was restored to life, and notwithstanding the most serious 
 statements of the danger, angry to have been so long a 
 captive, he immediately returned to his creations. 
 
 Munnich, whose genius was in unison with his own, 
 called for his presence in those marshes, where intrigue 
 and ignorance had for so many years given a wrong direc- 
 tion to the famous Ladoga Canal ; the canal which was to 
 be the feeder of Petersburgh, the junction of the waters 
 of Northern Asia and of Europe, the connecting link be- 
 tween tAvo worlds. 
 
 Autumn, meanwhile, began,* the autumn of the Rus- 
 sians ; but the Tzar took no thought of it. For a whole 
 month, that of October, he traversed these filthy marshes. 
 His mind, which was yet strong and entire, dragged into 
 this fetid bog his suffering body, enfeebled and already 
 bent ; every thing about him gave signs of pain, except 
 his eagle glance, which preserved its imperious liveliness, 
 and was darted over tlie whole of this swampy country. 
 
 * 1724.
 
 BOOK XII. CHAP. V. 425 
 
 " This canal," exclaimed he, " will feed Petersburgh and 
 Cronstadt, furnisli materials for their structures, convey 
 thither all the productions of the empire, and render pros- 
 perous the commerce of Russia Avith the rest of Europe." 
 
 He, however, blamed the line which had been adopted; 
 and addressing himself to the unskilful engineer, who was 
 protected by his favourites, " Pisarev," said he, " there are 
 two kinds of faults ; the one, when we err from ignorance ; 
 the other, which is more inexcusable, when we do not 
 make use of our five senses. Why are not the banks of 
 this canal prevented from giving way .'' whv are there so 
 many windings .'' Where are the hills which you made an 
 objection ? Truly, you are an absolute knave !" Then, 
 turning to INIunnich, of whose plans he a])proved, he called 
 him " his friend," and declared that, " in him, he had 
 found the man who would coniplete this great work, and 
 that his labours had cured him." He put under his orders 
 twenty-five thousand men and the senate; and then, at 
 length, quitted this lifeless spot, which is now so full of 
 life, breathed into it by the last breath of his ininiortal 
 genius. 
 
 The same ardour impelled him to the extremity of Luke 
 Ilmen, and then to the salt-works of Starai Roussa. He 
 bent his course at length towards Petersburg!! ; but, hur- 
 ried away by his destiny, which was about to make him 
 the victim of that humanity he had too often outraged, 
 he went on, without stoj)])ing, to Finland ; in- was desi- 
 rous to visit his forges there; in a word, to have again 
 examined every thing: the manufactories of anus, the 
 esta])lishments for the benefit of eoimiu ice, ail>, .iiid 
 sciences, whence is derived the pros])erity of nations, 
 and whence sj)ring also, tlie glories of peace, and the 
 glories of war.
 
 426 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 He entered the port of Lachta, on the 5th of November. 
 The weather was gloomy, the air keen and cold, the sea 
 rough, swelling, and wearisome ; but the Tzar at length 
 landed. He was on the point of reaching the abode pre- 
 pared iFor him, when, casting towards the harbour one of 
 those inquisitive and penetrating glances which nothing 
 could escape, he perceived a small vessel, full of soldiers 
 and sailors, which had struck upon a shoal. He saw that 
 the unfortunate men were confused by fear ; and, in the 
 first instance, approaching the water's edge, he called out 
 to them, and told them what was necessary to be done to 
 save themselves ; but he exerted himself in vain, for his 
 voice was drowned by the clamours of the sufferers and 
 the roaring of the waves. Those whom he sent to assist 
 them were in fear of their ow^n lives, and made but fruit- 
 less efforts. Then, forgetting all the danger that he ran, 
 he took his resolution at once, and jumped into a skiff". As 
 he could not approach the shoal with it, he leaped into the 
 sea, reached the stranded vessel, saved the passengers, and 
 conveyed them to the shore, where he lavished on them the 
 kindest attentions. 
 
 But in the middle of the same night, and while Peter 
 the Great Avas enjoying the pleasure of having performed 
 a noble action, his disease again attacked him ; a burning 
 fever fired his blood; the strangury and all his former 
 pangs seized upon the tenderest parts of his body. He 
 was removed to Petersburg!!. There, living always more 
 for his country than for himself, while his alarmed phy- 
 sicians predicted inflammation and its mortal consequences, 
 he did not suspend his labovirs ; his mind, stronger than 
 such pungent agony, still watched over his empire ; and 
 even when pain seemed his only connecting link with earth, 
 and he was about to quit the world, he strove to give a 
 new world to Russia.
 
 BOOK XII. CHAP. V. 427 
 
 It was then that Behring received, from the monarch's 
 own hand, those second instructions wliich were to extend 
 to America the empire of the Russians ; an empire which 
 their Tzar had never ceased to aggrandize, and far more 
 by the conquests of commerce and the arts, than by tliose 
 of war. For two months longer, a muhitude of other 
 instructions and reg-ulations bear witness to his constant sob- 
 citiide for the welfare of his people. He did still more : 
 this mode of reigning by ordinances, and by his mind alone, 
 did not satisfy liim ; he wished to combine with it the 
 execution, to see every thing with his own eyes. He was 
 to pause only to die ; and his thus lavishing his own per- 
 son, without bestowing a thought on it, is liis best excuse 
 for his having spared others so little. 
 
 This was the reason why, on the lytli of .January, 
 1725, the day of the ceremony of Ijlessing the water, he 
 braved the severity of the weather and of illness ; and, 
 for the last time, commanding by example, was desirous 
 to give that of piety which, however, he well knew how 
 to distinguish from superstition, its most pernicious and 
 formidal)le enemv. 
 
 But, on tlie following day, either from the effect of this 
 excess of piety,* or from his having indulged in excess of 
 some other kind,-f- a tightness seized his chest, an increas- 
 ing fever burnt him up, and he was tortured by an ob- 
 stinate and agonizing suppression of urine. He still strove 
 to struggle against his disease, and rise superior to pain, 
 the last monster which this dying Hercules sought to 
 concjuer; but it triumphed, and he fVIl liopeless on his 
 bed of deatli. 
 
 The palace was thrown into ahum ; coinins win- (Hs- 
 
 * According to Sd-thlin, iScc. 
 
 t Acwnlirig to some unpuldished MemoirB, ami sonic works wliicli 
 have been printed.
 
 428 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 patclied to Lcyden and to Berlin to obtain tlie best ad- 
 vice. All the physicians of Petersburgh were summoned 
 round the couch, where lay the object of so many recollec- 
 tions, and of so many hopes of glory and national prospe- 
 rity. There, while his medical attendants were fourteen 
 days employing the terrible means which were meant to 
 relieve, but which are said to have ended him, he some- 
 times filled the palace with the cries which his sufferings 
 extorted, and at other times, indignant at his involuntary 
 weakness, exclaimed that " in him might plainly be seen 
 what a wretched animal is man I" 
 
 At length, on the 26th of January, he became resigned ; 
 he called upon Heaven, in a loud voice, and received the 
 last consolations of religion ; and, either from Christian 
 humility, or the remorse of a dying man, or rather, per- 
 liaps, in conformity to an ancient usage, which is peculiar 
 to Russia, he ordered his debts to be paid, and the prison- 
 ers to be released. " I dare hope," said he, at the same 
 time, " that God will look upon me with a merciful eye, 
 for all the good that I have done to my country !" 
 
 Then, though he was enduring worse than a thousand 
 deaths for two whole days, but possessing still the same 
 ardour for civilization, and the same firmness with which 
 he had lived, the Tzar, in the short intervals which pain 
 allowed him, laid his injunctions on Catherine to protect 
 his Academy of Sciences, and to invite to it the learned 
 men of Europe. He then pointed out Ostermann to her 
 in the following words : — " Russia cannot do without him ; 
 he is the only man who knows her real interests." After 
 this, he settled the time during which mourning for him 
 shovdd be worn. 
 
 He now wished to write his last will ; but the deceitful 
 calm of a partial death, which succeeded to his pangs, had 
 deceived him as to his remaining strength. His trembling 
 
 i
 
 BOOK XII. CHAP. V. 429 
 
 and already nerveless hand could form nothing on the 
 paper but illeoible marks ; he himself coidd read no more 
 
 than these three words, — " Give all to " He then 
 
 ordered the Princess Anne, his favourite daughter, to be 
 sent for instantly ; but by the time she could come, the 
 voice as well as the hand and left side of her father were 
 gone. In the meanwhile he had endeavoured, but in vain, 
 to finish what he had begvm ; the mind was yet entire, but 
 it had no longer any means of communicating with the 
 material world. This sovereign, so potent, still living in 
 the midst of his people, surrounded by his household, and 
 in the arms of his family, 'was, nevertheless, insulated from 
 all ; he was separated from them, and stood alone, battling 
 with death, against wliich he struggled during fifteen 
 hours of horrible agon v. 
 
 At length, on the liHth of January, about four in the 
 morning, his eyes closed forever; and thus, at the very 
 same hour when he was every day accustomed to awake 
 from other sleep than tliis, and resume the toils of his em- 
 pire, he closed forty-three years of a reign, and fifty-two 
 years of a life, by which Russia still lives. It is to that 
 life that she owes the first blaze of her glory, and all the 
 reflections of it : great lives being those which do not ex- 
 pire with one man, but wliich seem to descend to and be 
 repeated in a long series of successors — like those splendid 
 works of genius, which are creative of so many others.* 
 
 * See the note (5) at the end of the Volume.
 
 430 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Historians of the nineteenth century, while we detest 
 the violent acts of this prince, why should we be astonish- 
 ed at his despotism ? Who was there who could then 
 teach him, that to be truly liberal or moral is the same 
 thing ? But of what consequence is it, that he was igno- 
 rant that morality calls for the establishment of liberty, 
 as being the best possible means of securing the general 
 welfare? All that he did for that welfare, or, in other 
 words, for the glory, the instruction, and the prosperity of 
 his empire, was it not beneficial to that liberty, of which 
 neither himself nor his people were yet worthy ? Thus, 
 without being aware of it, Peter the Great did more for 
 liberty than all the dreams of liberalism have since fancied 
 that he ought to have done ! His people are indebted to 
 him for their first and most difficult step towards their 
 future emancipation. What matters, then, his abhorrence 
 of the word, when he laboured so much for the thing ? 
 Since despotism was necessary there, how could he better 
 employ it ? 
 
 If he carried matters too far, if he often deemed it just 
 to inflict on his enemies all the evil which they wished to 
 him, and to treat his country like a conquest in order to 
 conquer it to civilization ; in a word, if he overcame in 
 his Russians their barbarous manners by dint of the bar- 
 barism which still remained in himself; the fault must be 
 attributed to his education, to the age in which he lived, 
 and to the circumstance of a degree of power being re- 
 quisite here which has never been found to exist in man 
 without being pushed to excess.
 
 BOOK XII. CHAP. vr. 431 
 
 It was in this hyperborean land, where a freezing tem- 
 perature is adverse to social intercourse, by confining 
 each individual within his own limits ; in these humid and 
 cold regions, where every kind of strength and superiority 
 seems as though it ought to exert itself only to escape 
 from them, to conquer a milder climate under a distant 
 sky ; it was here that this citizen despot, so familiar, so 
 accessible, so enamoured of truth — full of the pride of 
 noble actions, and endowed with admirable sagacity, with 
 boundless zeal, and with sleepless activity, devoted him- 
 self, in order to transform this barbarous and desolating 
 nature into an enlightened and productive nature. 
 
 Let thanks be paid to him, since he changed into a 
 source of light that source of ignorance, whence the barba- 
 rism of the middle age had flowed in torrents over the face 
 of Europe, ingulpliing the civihzation of ancient times. 
 Never again will burst forth from tliose countries tlie 
 Attilas, the Hermanrics, " the scourges of God and of 
 mankind !" Peter the Great has called forth there the 
 lustre of the Scheremetefs, the Apraxins, the ISIentzikofs, 
 the Tolstoys, the Schuvalofs, the Ostermanns, the Rumian- 
 zofs, and the numerous band of other names, till then un- 
 knoAvn, but of which, since that epoch, the European aris- 
 tocracy has been proud. 
 
 In that great creation, as at the period of that of the 
 world, we seem to behold all these men of Russian livili- 
 zaticm included in one man ! they seem as though they 
 sprimg from him, to civilize the empire with that unity, 
 that order, that concordant motion, which manifests one 
 common ori'nii ! He himself discerned, trained, or guided 
 them. For, like the major ])art of the greatest iiuii, he 
 knew how to choose those who were suitable to his pur- 
 pose; like them, ten), he persisted in his choice, and in liis
 
 432 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 friendships; cither from the tenacity which is natural to 
 all noble hearts in their feelings as well as in their pro- 
 jects, or, rather, from the correctness of their first glance, 
 tlieir sviperior genius being able instantly to recognize and 
 to draw to them these subordinate geniuses ! For what 
 great man has ever yet been seen unsurrounded by great 
 talents ? as though, in virtue of an universal law, similar 
 minds had a tendency to unite in the moral order of 
 things, as atoms of the same nature have in the physical 
 order. 
 
 Observe how this illustrious prince, strong in his own 
 unaided strength, at the very outset extricated himself 
 from the midst of fifteen millions of men who were em- 
 bruted by ten centuries of ignorance and of prejudices ; 
 how he darted out of the sphere of the coarse manners in 
 which he was enveloped ; and, in a short time, how vigo^ 
 rously he soared above the Egyptian darkness into which 
 his nation was plunged ! From that elevation he enlight- 
 ened and attracted to him the chosen spirits of his peo- 
 ple ; with these he formed the nucleus of a nation, which 
 thenceforth never ceased to aspire to the light, to proceed 
 in its new and noble career, and to draw after it all the 
 rest of his empire. 
 
 In tearing himself, however, from this stupid and ob- 
 stinate barbarism, he bore with him some fragments of it ; 
 but they stained, without eclipsing, the glory which he 
 acquired. 
 
 Here, at length, let us stop. And, indeed, how is it 
 possible not to remain mute with admiration, as we con- 
 template this vast age, which contains a Louis the Great, 
 with his glorious train of divine orators, sublime poets, and 
 celebrated generals ! which shows to us that Dutch war- 
 rior, who was so often overthrown, yet, as soon as he 
 touched the earth, always rose again, more formidable than
 
 BOOK XII. CHAP. \ I. 433 
 
 before ! where we venerate the generous Sobieski, the sa- 
 viour of the empire, the last, and perhaps the greatest 
 of the heroes of the eross ! where we behold the fraternal 
 piety of one of his sons refusing the throne, that he may 
 preserve it to his brother ! and where we witness, too, the 
 gratitude of a Leczinski surviving a benefit and saving 
 the benefactor! Sublime age! whence the immortal ge- 
 nius of Newton illumes all the ages which are to come. 
 An age which, far from being exhausted by giving 
 birth to so manv great men, closed its reign by pro- 
 ducing the two who were the most extraordinary of all. 
 
 Does it not seem to have created these two colossuses at 
 once, and within reach of each other, as if to bring them into 
 collision, and thus to close this great epoch by one of 
 the grandest spectacles that time ever displayed to the 
 world .'' 
 
 One of them is Charles the Twelfth, the last heroic off- 
 spring of a family of heroes ; full at the same time of emo- 
 tion and of inflexibility ! concpiering without the ambition 
 of conquests ! loving glory for itself, with that pure love 
 which had always before been deemed an improbability, 
 and sacrificing every thing to it ! The other is the 
 founder, the regenerator of Russia, that giant of the 
 North, whose mind was so vast, that it alone was sufficient 
 to inspire the whole of 9- mighty nation. 
 
 With him terminates this ever-memorable age : an age 
 of wonders ! which was begun by a monarch worthy of a 
 conmianding civilization, and dosed by a T/.iir wjio was 
 capable of creating it ! 
 
 2 F
 
 NOTE S. 
 
 NOTE 1. Page 12. 
 
 TuE \'aningiaii names which have come down to us arc Scandina- 
 vian, and Nestor positively affirms tliat tlie Varangians were Russians. 
 
 Constantine Porphyrogenitus remarks the difference between the Rus- 
 sian and the Slavonian languages. 
 
 Tiie leaders of the people, who, about 802, conquered Novgorod and 
 Kief, were Scandinavians ; tiiis is proved by their names. Those leaders 
 gave to their conquests the name of Russia, (See Nestor.) They were, 
 consequently, Russians, and the Russians were Scandinavians. 
 
 The Russians who, in 839, accompanied the erabas.sy which was sent 
 by the Greek Emjjcror Theophilus, to Louis, the son of Charleniagne, 
 were recognized ai> Normans ; and, as Luitprand tells us, were so recog- 
 nized after a very jealous and minute investigation. Now, the Tranks 
 of that period had good reasons for knowing Normans. These Normans 
 complained of the hostile countries and tribes through which they had 
 been obliged to journey before they could reach Byzantium ; and they 
 desired to be sent back, hy sea, from France to their native land. 
 
 Ville-IIardouin tells us, that, at the capture of Con.stanlinopli', by 
 Haldwin, I'.arl of I'lanrlers, who was a Crusader, and an ally of the \'c- 
 netians, the Varangian.s, or, a.s he calls them, tiif Anglians and Danes, 
 repulsed the Latins with th«;ir axes. These \ arangians fornieil the 
 body-guard of the emperors of the l^wer Empire. 
 
 Iksides, the ancient wars of the Scandinavians with the northern 
 Slavonians and the I'iiinish tribes are not unknown to us. The Swedes 
 
 2 I 2
 
 43(i NOl'KS. 
 
 made a descent in Kstliom;i in tlio hf'tli century, and often, botli before 
 and after, Sturlezon mentions several marriages between the princes 
 and princesses of Suevia and Finland. These attacks and alliances in 
 the north were terminated by a conciuest. In 984, we see the Normans 
 masters of Livonia and Esthonia, and the Russian Varangians in posses- 
 sion of all the rest of European Russia. 
 
 Did not Rurik commence his conquest by Ladoga and Bielozero ? 
 Why, then, should we believe that he came from Prussia, as is asserted 
 by Lomonosof ? And even if it were true, as he affirms, that Rurik came 
 from the Niemen and from Rugen, does not Pra;torius tell us that Alaric 
 and his Gothic successors were kings of the Rugians '. and is not the 
 name of Goths given to the Rugians by Procopius ? 
 
 Oleg imposed a tribute on the Novgorodians for the support of his 
 Varangians. Ivor sent to ask assistance from the insular Varangians. 
 Vladimir sought an asylum among the \'arangians, and returned with 
 them. Yaroslaf had recourse to the Varangians beyond sea. Were not, 
 then, the princes who threw themselves into the arms of the Varangians, 
 of the same origin with them ? Now, is not this insular and transmarine 
 origin Scandinavian } 
 
 Karamsin also (vol i. p. 45,) says, that the Varangians were Goths of 
 Normans 5 that from time immemorial, there had been in Sweden, a pro- 
 vince named Rosslagen, the inhabitants of which were denominated 
 Rhos or Rhotses, &c. Moreover, the Kurisch-haf, in old Prussia, is 
 likewise called Russna ; the northern branch of the Memel bears the 
 name of Russ, and the country that of Po-Russia ; for those Rhos, or 
 Ross, were Swedes who, according to Karamsin's statement, had con- 
 quered Prussia. One of the oldest streets in Novgorod, had the appella- 
 tion of Prussia-street. Lastly, about 1560, Ivan, when laying claim to 
 Sweden, as being the patrimony of his ancestors, affirmed positively 
 that the Varangians of Yaroslaf were Swedes. 
 
 We know, besides, that Sigurd, the brother-in-law of the King of 
 Norway, was a subject of Vladimir, and enjoyed his confidence ; and 
 that Trygvason, King of Norway, took refuge in Russia. All this might, 
 indeed, happen, without the Russian Grand-Princes, and what they 
 termed their court, or their guard, having been Scandinavians. But we 
 have also a right to infer from it, that these princes were attracted to the 
 abodes of each other by identity of origin. 
 
 The learned and judicious Levesque says, that the Russians cannot 
 ))j^ve been Slavonians. He adds, that it is barely possible, that thr
 
 NOTES. t37 
 
 L'igors, who were Siberian Huns, may have spread as far as Livonia, and 
 have been the oripfinal Russians ; that thus the Russians may be descend- 
 ants of tlie Huns ; hut, as all tlieir known names are Gothic, he states that, 
 in that case, before they conquered the Slavonians, they must themseh es 
 have been conquered by tlie Goths ; an opinion which is much less pro- 
 bable, than that of the laborious and accurate German writers, wlio 
 assign a Gothic origin to the Russians. 
 
 In short, whatever may have been the primary origin of the Russians, 
 it is indisputable that, as early as the ninth century, their alliances, their 
 wars, their climates, and their names, had so completely, and for so long 
 a time, blended them with the Scandinavians, tiiat it is impossible to 
 perceive any distinction between them. And are we to imagine that a 
 people so famous in the north should have sprung from the Finnish 
 tribes, which were always obscure, rather than from the Gotlis, who were 
 the conquerors of the world ? 
 
 How do we know that the appellation of Russian, generally adopted 
 since the time of Rurik, was not derived from him >. or, still more pro- 
 bably, may not the Slavonians, whose dem; gods of the waters were call- 
 ed Russalks, have given that name to the Scandinavian Varangian pirates, 
 who were more truly the demi-gods of tlie billows which foamed under 
 their keels. 
 
 But, are more proofs required of the Scandinavian lineage of the 
 Russians ? Attend, then, to a literal translation from Nestor, their oldest 
 annalist. " In tlie years 860, 61, and 62, the X'arangians came from be- 
 yond sea, and the Novgorodians, &c. refused them the tribute which had 
 been agreed upon." Read, also, the following quotation — " The Novgoro- 
 dians went beyond sea to the Ross \'arangians ; for these Varangian.'? 
 were called Ross, as others were Svie (Swedes,) others, I'rmians (Nor- 
 mans,) others. Angles, and others, Goths. They a.sked them for princes, 
 and those princes went with all the nation ; and from those \'arangians, 
 the territory of Novgorod was called the land of the Russians." 
 
 Strahlemberg, a Swedish officer of Charles XII. suites that, in \ns 
 time, the Finns still denominated Sweden Rosslagen, and the Swtnlos 
 Ruedzalains. He has no doubt that the Russian \'arangian.s were from 
 Scandinavia. 
 
 As to I^combe, he no doubt knows no better than I do, why lie says, 
 that a prince named Russus gave his name to Russia. 
 
 Lisakewitz, a Russian, says positively, (Hist, of Novgorod,) llial thn 
 Varangians were (»oths, and called themselves Russians ; that the Hoxo-
 
 438 NOTES. 
 
 lani were Goths who moved to the south in the fourth century ; and 
 that a Swedish province formerly bore the name of Ilosslagen* 
 
 Struve, in his " Dissertation on the Ancient Russians," a scarce and 
 very curious work, declares that the oldest Swedish authors, (he cites 
 Saxo-Grammaticus,) speak of the existence of a Ross people in the first 
 century ; that, in the Celtic language, Riss or Ross signifies loftiness, 
 whence he infers that the Riss or Ross were Scandinavian mountaineers ; 
 that their country was situated to the east of the Bothnic gulf; and 
 that from thence they spread to the north and south of the Ladoga, in 
 Esthonia, &c. In the monastery of St. Bertin, in Flanders, he found 
 indubitable evidence that the Russians, yi\\o were sent by the Greek 
 Emperor Theophilus to Louis the Debonair, spoke the same language as 
 the Swedes. 
 
 Out of the sixty-two names of the envoys sent by Cleg and Ivan to 
 Byzantium, we see that only three are Slavonian, and that fifty-five are 
 evidently Scandinavian. 
 
 Yaroslaf married Indigerga, daughter of the King of Sweden; an 
 union to which he was doubtless prompted by gratitude for the succours 
 which he had received from the Varangians. We remark, besides, that 
 Harold, the brother of the King of Norway, commanded the Varangians, 
 who were the guards of Yaroslaf, and that the same station was after- 
 wards held by Eleifur, the son of Rogvald. This arose from Scandina- 
 vian chiefs naturally being given to Scandinavian Varangians. 
 
 * It must be mentioned here, that this opinion is controverted by Malte- 
 Brun ; he believes the Russians to be derived from the Roxolani, the ancient 
 inhabitants of central Russia. These Roxolani were known by their wars 
 against the Roman Empire, in 68, 166, and 270. About the middle of the 
 fourth century, we find them sometimes in subjection to the Huns, and some- 
 times to the Goths, who were masters of that country after the time of Herman- 
 ric. It must be added, that Malte-Brun quotes Sulim and Snorro against the 
 opinion which makes Scandinavia the cradle of the Russian nation. These au- 
 thorities, however, do not seem strong enough, nor does the appellation of Roxo- 
 lani bear a sufficient likeness to that of Russians, to destroy the body of proofs 
 which are afforded by all the preceding quotations. That the Varangians were 
 at once Russians and Scandinavians, we may, therefore, continue to believe, 
 till the Russians of the present day shall have settled the question themselves ; 
 for it is said that they are now entering upon the inquiry with a degree of zeal, 
 intelligence, critical spirit, and science, which is continually increasing in a 
 remarkable manner.
 
 NOTES. 4;>9 
 
 It is known, that Luitprand was informed by his father-iu-law, \iiri- 
 cus, who witnessed, at Byzantium, the massacre of die Russians of Igor's 
 army, that those Russians were from Scandinavia, and spoke its lan- 
 guage. 
 
 Codinus tells us, tiuit the Varangians of the Greek Emperor's guard 
 wished him long life in English. — See the curious Dissertation of Ler- 
 berge, on the double Russian names ; that is to say, the Scandinavian and 
 Slavonian names of the Autocrats of the Borysthenes. Lastly, D'Anville 
 also believes that the Russian Varangians were from Scandinavia. 
 
 NOTE 2. P.\Gr. 12. 
 
 See Pinkerton, in his " Origin of the various Scythian and Gothic 
 Establishments," who destroys with a single stroke of his pen the whole 
 effect of the celebrated pa.ssage of Jornandes, "ex hac igitur, Scaiidia 
 insula, quasi ofticina gentium, aut certe velut vagina nationum, &.c." by 
 observing that that author confounds the Scythians, the Geta?, and the 
 Goths into one people, and makes them all come from Scandinavia. 
 
 It is true that, in place of this error, Pinkerton substitutes the opinion 
 that, in reality, these three nations were identical, but that they came 
 from Asia, like the Sarmatians, or Slavonians ; for Pinkerton does not 
 admit that Europe had any really original and indigenous population, 
 except some wandering Celts, Cimbrians, or Cimmerians. (See, indeed, 
 Possidonius, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Herodotus.) l"i.im wliencc, 
 for example, it follows, that we Franks and Gascons, originally sprung 
 from Asia and Africa, and that the Scythians and the Moors are our real 
 
 progenitors. 
 
 What the peremptory assertions of Pinkerton, and this throng of con- 
 flicting authorities, most clearly prove i.s, the impossibility of nition- 
 ally deciding in favour of any opinion whatever, except that tlie most 
 anciently and hi.storically known inhabitants to the north of llie Black 
 Sea were the Scythians ; those of the centre of European Russia, the 
 Sannatians or Slavonians; those of the north, the Tschudi and liu' I'linis; 
 and, lastly, that the Russ Varangians were derived from Scandinavia.
 
 440 NOTES. 
 
 NOTE 3. Page 358. 
 
 Extracts from Book VI. of the Memoirs of Peter Henry Bruce, Esq- 
 
 London, 1782. 
 
 " His Majesty set out for Moscow on the 3d of February, havinj 
 received intelligence that Count Tolstoi was on his way thither from 
 Naples with the Czarowitz, where they arrived the 11th. A grand 
 council was held at Moscow on this occasion, consisting of the great 
 men of the empire ; the Czar being determined to exert, in a most 
 solemn manner, his justice on the Prince for his disobedience. The coun- 
 cil being met, the Czarowitz was brought into the hall as a prisoner 
 before them. At his entering, he presented a writing to his Majesty, con- 
 taining a confession of his crime. The Czar demanded of him what was 
 his desire. The Prince implored his mercy, and begged he would save 
 his life. Ilis Majesty granted his request, on condition he made a full 
 discovery of all his accomplices, and renounced all his claim and title 
 to tlie succession, under his hand. Upon this, the Prince signed an in- 
 strument, setting forth that, finding himself not qualified for govern- 
 ment, he disclaimed all right of succession to the crown ; and afterwards 
 confirmed it upon oath, acknowledging his brother Peter lawful heir to 
 the crown. This being done, all the ministers and great men present 
 took the oaths excluding Prince Alexis from the crown, and acknow- 
 ledging Prince Peter to be the undoubted successor to it; engaging to 
 stand by him with their lives, against all that should dare oppose him ; 
 and that they never would, under any pretence whatever, adhere to 
 Prince Alexis, or assist him in the recovery of the .«aid succession. The 
 same oath was afterwards administered to the army and navy, at home • 
 and abroad, and to every subject of the Russian empire. Nevertheless, 
 the Prince was still kept under confinement, and nobody admitted to 
 him, except Count Tolstoi and such others as were appointed by the 
 Czar. 
 
 " This being over, the Prince's accomplices were secured ; in which 
 number were his mother, formerly Czarina, now Abbess of the monastery 
 of Susdale, and her gallant, the Boyar Glebof, who not only had lived a 
 lewd life with the mother, but was a principal agent in the conspiracy
 
 NOTES. 441 
 
 between her and her son, the Czarowitz. T\\e letters they liad written 
 were published, and were both treasonable and scandalous. 
 
 " Next the Boyar Abraham Lupochin, brother to the late Czarina 
 and uncle to the Prince; Alexander Kikin, First-Commissioner of the 
 Admiralty, formerly a very great favourite with the Czar ; the Bishop of 
 Rostof ; and Pustinoi, the late Czarina's confessor and treasurer, were 
 all tried and sentenced. Glebof was impaled alive, and the other four 
 were broke alive on the wheel. A high square wall was built before tlie 
 castle-gate for that purpose ; the impaled corpse of Glebof was placed 
 in the middle, and the heads of the other four were, each on a long pole, 
 set up at the corners. Several others suffered death at the same time, 
 amoni whom fifty priests and monks, late companions of the Czarowitz, 
 who had led him into all manner of debauchery, were all beheaded on 
 one block, which was a tree provided for the holding them all at once. 
 
 " In this conspiracy, the Princess Mar)', half-sister to the Czar, was 
 also concerned ; .she was afterwards confined in a monastery near to Lake 
 Ladoga; and the late Czarina Attakesa Lupochin, was confined in the 
 fortress of SluteltburGrh, upon an island in that I^ke." (Mr. Bruce here 
 mistakes the destination of one of these Princesses for that of the other.) 
 " All the Czarowitz's domestics and his mistress Euphrosina were taken 
 up ; as was also Prince Wasilia Dolgoruky, Lieutenant-General and 
 Colonel of the Guards, Knight of the Order of the Elephant, and Direc- 
 tor-general for enquiring into the mismanagements of the Czar's reve- 
 nue, in which post he behaved with the utmost insolence to Prince 
 Menzikoff, Admiral Apraxin, and several others, lie wa.s banished to 
 Casan for life : the Siberian Czarowitz, and the senators Woinof, Worof, 
 and John Kikin, were also banished ; but the senators C;ount Peter 
 Apraxin, brother to the admiral, and Count Samarin, were acquitted. 
 One of the Czar's pages and several nmis suffered severe corporal pu- 
 nishment.s, and were, with most of the Czarowitz's dome.stics, .sent into 
 banisliment ; but Euphrosina, making it ai)pear tliat it was by her por- 
 sua.sion the Prince returned, and that, after htr first lying-in, having 
 conformed with the Russian faith, she was actually married to the Prince 
 when they were on their journey, by a Grecian priest, who was seized 
 at Leipsic and brought prisoner to Moscow, she was not only set at 
 liberty, but had several of the Czarowitz's jewels restore I to her, and a 
 handsome fortune appointed for her support out of the treasury. She 
 could never be prevailed on to marry. She was but of mean extraction, 
 and a captive of Finland. • " • •
 
 442 NOTES. 
 
 " From the numerous executions and punishments after the inqui- 
 sition at Moscow, every body believed tliat business at an end ; but from 
 the fresh discoveries made every day, it appeared the Prince had not been 
 genuine in his confession of all his confederates in the conspiracy ; and 
 the accomplices appearing so numerous, and the plot so deep laid, the 
 Czar found it absolutely necessary to bring the Prince to a formal trial. 
 For this purpose he summoned all the nobility and clergy, the principal 
 officers of the army and navy, tlie governors of provinces, and many 
 others of different ranks and degrees, to attend at the senate-house, to 
 examine and try the said Prince. The trial was begun the 25th of June, 
 (the particulars of which have been so fully related by others, that I 
 thought a repetition of it needless,) and continued to the 6th of July, 
 when this supreme court, with unanimous consent, passed sentence of 
 death upon the Prince, but left the manner of it to his Majesty's deter- 
 mination. The Prince was brought before the court, his sentence was 
 read to him, and he was reconveyed to his prison in the fortress. 
 
 " On the next day his Majesty, attended by all the senators and 
 bishops, with several others of high rank, went to the fort, and entered the 
 apartments where the Czarowitz was kept prisoner. Some little time there- 
 after, Marshal Weyde came out, and ordered me to go to Mr. Bears, the 
 druggist, ivhose shop was hard by, and tell him to make the potion 
 STRONG lohicli he had bespoke, as the Prince was then very ill. When 
 I delivered this message to Mr. Bear, he turned quite pale, and fell a 
 shaking and trembling, and appeared in the utmost confusion, which sur- 
 prised me so much, that 1 asked him what was the matter with him ; but 
 he was unable to return me any answer. In the mean time the Marshal 
 himself came in, much in the same condition with the druggist, saying, he 
 ought to have been more expeditious, as the Prince was very ill of an apo- 
 plectic fit. Upon this the druggist delivered him a silver cup with a cover, 
 which the Marshal himself carried into the Prince's apartments, staggering 
 all the way as he went, like one drunk. About half an hour after, the 
 Czar with all his attendants withdrew with very dismal countenances ; and 
 when they went, the Marshal ordered me to attend at the Prince's apart- 
 ment, and in case of any alteration, to inform him immediately thereof. 
 There were at that time two physicians and two surgeons in waiting, 
 with whom and the officers on guard, I dined on what had been dressed 
 for the Prince's dinner. The physicians were called in immediately after 
 to attend the Prince, who ivas struggling out of one convulsion into an- 
 other ; and, after great agonies, expired at five o'clock in the afternoon.
 
 NOTES. 443 
 
 I went directly to inform tlie Marshal, and he went that moment to 
 acquaint his Majesty, who ordered the corpse to be emboweled ; after 
 which it was laid in a coffin covered with black velvet, and a pall of rich 
 gold tissue spread over it ; it was then carried out of the fort to the 
 church of the Holy Trinity, where the corpse lay in state till the 11th 
 in the evening, when it was carried back to the fort, and deposited in the 
 royal burying-vault, next the coffin of the Princess, his late consort ; on 
 which occasion, the Czar and Czarina, and the chief of the nobility, fol- 
 lowed in procession. Various were the reports that were spread con- 
 cerning his death. It was given out publicly, that on hearing his sen- 
 tence of death pronounced, the dread thereof threw him into an apoplec- 
 tic fit, of which he died. Very few lelieved he died a natural death ; iut 
 it was dangerous for people to speak as they thought. The ministers of 
 the Emperor, and the States of Holland, were forbid the Court for 
 speaking their minds too freely on this occasion ; and, upon complaint 
 against them, were botli recalled. 
 
 " Thus died Prince Alexis, undoubted heir to that great monarchy ; 
 little regretted by people of rank, as he always shunned their acquaint- 
 ance and company. It was said, the Czar had taken uncommon pains 
 in the education of this Prince, but all in vain ; indolent and slovenly 
 by nature, he kept tlie lowest of company, with whom he indulged him- 
 self in all manner of vice and debauchery. His father, to put a stop to 
 this, sent him abroad to see foreign court.-;, thinking tliereby to reclaim 
 him, but all to no purpose ; on which he ordered lum to attend him on 
 all his expeditions, thereby to have a watcliful eye over him himself; 
 but the Prince evaded this, by continually pretending to be sick, wliicli 
 might probably be the case, as he was most part of his time drunk. The 
 Czar, at least, thought to reclaim him, by mariyinij him to some foreign 
 Princess. After the death of his amiable Princess, his Majesty ordered 
 him to attend iiim in his expedition to Germany ; and being on Iiis 
 journey, under pretence of going to join him in Mecklenburg, he fle«l 
 privately, and sought the protection of his brother-in-law, Uie Kmperor 
 of Germany, whom he endeavoured to engage in a war again.st his 
 
 father. 
 
 " It was made apju-ar on his trial, that \u- threatened, whenever he 
 came to the throne, to overturn all iiis fatlier liad done ; declaring that 
 he would tlien be revenged on Prince Menzikoff, and Iiis sister-in-law. 
 by impaling them alive, a.s al.so the great-Chancellor Count (Jolnfkin. 
 and his son, for persnadinij him to marry llir Prinre.ss VVdlfenbullil ;
 
 444 NOTES. 
 
 that lie would send all his father's favourites into banishment, and expel 
 all foreigners out of the country ; that he would release his mother out 
 of confinement, and put dame Catherine and her children in her place ; 
 after this, he would form his Court of people who had the ancient man- 
 ners and customs of Russia most at heart, for he hated all innovations. 
 Nothing could have touched the Czar more sensibly, than threatening 
 to overthrow all he had been doing for so many years for the welfare 
 and glory of his country, with so much danger, toil, and labour, with- 
 out ever sparing his own person ; which made him say, with great emo- 
 tion, that he would rather give his dominions to a worthy stranger, than 
 be succeeded by so worthless a son : at the time of this expression, he 
 had no other son but the Czarowitz, which showed plainly, he had the 
 good of his country more at heart than the succession in his own 
 family." 
 
 Whoever will take the trouble to read these memoirs of an officer who 
 was about the person of Peter I. and whose near relation was one of 
 the most useful generals of that reformer, will be convinced of the ve- 
 racity of his narrative. The artless simplicity of his whole book, and 
 his constant admiration of the Czar, strengthen the melancholy convic- 
 tion which arises from the perusal of the above quoted passage. Short- 
 ly after the execution, P. H. Bruce was entrusted with the education of 
 the son of the unfortunate Alexis. 
 
 Leclerc, who was on the spot, and a witness of this crime, quotes 
 Bruce in his history, and entertains no doubt of the sad veracity of his 
 narrative, which he gives at full length. 
 
 " // is certain," writes Voltaire, " that his son died the day after the 
 passing of the sentence, and that the Czar had at Moscow one of the 
 finest Pharmaceutical establishments in Europe."* 
 
 * Voltaire, Age of Peter the Great, edition of 1784, vol. xvii. p. 411.
 
 NOTES. 445 
 
 NOTE 4. Page 363. 
 
 Memoirs of Peter Henry Bruce. (Book iii. p. 77.) 
 
 " As Prince Menzikoft" was also a person raised from a very low desrree, 
 I \vas told the following circumstances of his rise. He was born of 
 gentle, but very poor parents, and they dying, left him very young, 
 witliout any education, insomuch that he could neither read nor write, 
 nor even did he till the day of his death : his poverty obliged him to 
 „eek service in Moscow, where he was taken into the house of a pastry- 
 cook, who employed him in crying mince-pies about the streets ; and 
 having a good voice, he also sung ballads, whereby he was so generally 
 known, that he had access into all the gentlemen's houses. Tlie Czar, 
 by invitation, was to dine one day at a boyar's, or lord's house, and 
 Menzikoff happening to be in the kitchen that day, observed tlie boyar 
 give directions to his cook about a dish of meat he said the Czar 
 was fond of, and took notice that the boyar himself put some kind of 
 powder in it, by way of spice ; taking particular notice of what meat 
 that dish was composed, he took liimself away to sing liis ballads, and 
 kept sauntering in the street till the Czar arrived, when exalting his 
 voice, his Majesty took notice of it, sent for him, and asked him if ho 
 would sell his basket with the pies. The boy replied, he had power 
 only to sell the pies ; as for the basket, he must first ask his master's 
 leave, but as every thing belonged to his Majesty, he needed only to lay 
 his commands upon him. This reply pleased tiie Czar so mucli, tliat 
 he ordered Alexander to stay and attend him, which he ol)eyed wilJi 
 great joy. Menzikoff waited behind the Czar's cliair at dinner, and see- 
 ing the before-mentioned dish served up and placed before him, in a 
 whisper, begged his Majesty not to eat thereof; tlie Czar went mio 
 another room with the boy, and asked his reason for what he had whis- 
 pered to him, wlien he informed iiis Majesty whiil he had oliscrvcd in 
 the kitchen, and tlie boyar's [)utting in tlie |)ow<ler Innisi'lf, without 
 the cook perceiving him, made him suspect that dish in particidar; hr 
 therefore thought it his iluty to put Ins Majesty upon his giiaid. The 
 Czar returned to the liiblu without the ku.st discomposure in his coiintc-
 
 446 NOTES. 
 
 nance, and with his usual clieerfuhiess ; the hoyar recommended this 
 dish to him, saying it was very good : the Czar ordered tlie boyar to 
 sit down by him, (for it is a custom in Moscow for tlie master of the 
 house to wait at table when he entertains his friends,) and putting some 
 of it on a plate, desired him to eat and show him a good example. The 
 boyar, with the utmost confusion, replied, that it did not become the 
 servant to eat with his master ; whereupon the plate was set down to a 
 dog, who soon dispatched its contents, which in a very short time, threw 
 him into convulsions, and soon deprived him of life. The dog being 
 opened, the effect of the poison was clearly discovered, and the boyar 
 was immediately secured, but was found next moinuig dead in his bed 
 which prevented all farther discovery. 
 
 NOTE 5. Page 429. 
 
 He was deeply lamented. Love in some, gratitude in many others, 
 and admiration in all, burst forth m the language of regret. His re- 
 membrance remained impressed on every part of the empire ; and, ne- 
 vertheless, it must be remarked, to the honour of his people, that their 
 sorrow has not been satisfied with such numerous monuments: they 
 have collected, with a religious veneration, every thing that has any 
 connection with his person. When foreigners visit tliem, they still 
 show, with a just pride, the image of this great man, moulded from his 
 own body. His head is covered with the very locks that he caused to 
 be cut off and arranged, expressly for the purpose, during the Persian 
 war. H;e is seated, dressed in his court dress, the only one which he 
 ever had ; it was embroidered for him by Catherine, and was worn by 
 him at the coronation of that Empress. Near this are preserved with 
 respectful care, the walnut-tree desk, at which he wrote standing, and 
 the height of which will only suit a man of more than six feet in stature ; 
 a plan of Cronstadt, a multitude of manuscripts in the hand-writing of 
 the hero, the last shoes that he wore, and which have been several times 
 pieced, his uniform pierced by a Swedish ball, his arms, his captain's 
 spontoon, his charger, stuffed, which he rode at Pultava, his too formid- 
 able dubina, a thick bulrush, with an ivory head, a bar of iron, weigh- 
 ing a hundred and twenty pounds, which he himself forged, the lathe 
 which he used, an ivory chandelier, which he wished to make his mas-
 
 NOTES. 
 
 4.47 
 
 ter-piece in the art of turning, his female dog, which he had stuffed, and 
 for whicli he had a fondness, like that which has since been remarked 
 in the Great Frederick; and, lastly, a design for a Trajan column, which 
 he meant to turn with his own hands. The pedestal would have been 
 emlellished with four inscriptions, and the circumference with plates <f 
 copper, on which would have been engraven his victories over the Swedes. 
 And more than this, the summit would have been crowned by the statue 
 of this great man ; in the same maimer as, at a distance of eight hun- 
 dred leagues, and at a period of a century later, we have seen, on a si- 
 milar column, that of the other colossus, who penetrated even to Mos- 
 cow, to shake to its foundations the empire of the Czar. 
 
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 PLANTS ASIATICS RARIORES; 
 
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 DESCRIPTIONS AND FIGURES 
 
 OF 
 A SEIiECT DnrivxBEn. 
 
 OF 
 
 UNPUBLISHED EAST INDIAN PLANTS. 
 
 BY 
 
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 Superintendent nf the Honble. East India Company's Botanic Garden at 
 
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 performed in Hindustan, Nipal, the Straits of Malacca, and 
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