LIBRARY 
 
 ONIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 z
 
 SCENES FROM THE COURT 
 OF PETER THE GREAT
 
 HISTORICAL MINIATURES 
 
 A Series of Monographs 
 Edited by Dr. F. L. Glaser 
 
 VOL. I — SCENES FROM THE 
 
 COURT OF PETER 
 
 THE GREAT 
 
 Based on the Latin Diary of F. 
 
 Korb, a secretary of the Austrian 
 
 Legation at the Court of Peter the 
 Great. 
 
 VOL. II — POPE ALEXANDER 
 VI AND HIS COURT 
 
 Based on the Diary of Johannes 
 Burchardus — /n preparation.
 
 Scenes from the Court 
 of Peter the Great 
 
 Based on the Latin Diary of John G. Korb, 
 
 a Secretary of the Austrian Legation 
 
 at the Court of Peter the Great 
 
 Edited by 
 
 Dr, f. l. glaser 
 
 NICHOLAS L. BROWN 
 NEW YORK MCMXXl
 
 
 COPTRIGHT, 1921 
 BY 
 
 NICHOLAS L. BROWN
 
 INTRODUCTION
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Two years before the birth of Peter Alexiewlcz, 
 better known to the world as Peter the Great and 
 first Emperor of Russia, the ancient Kremlin of 
 Moscow beheld a strange sight. Young maidens, 
 the loveliest of the realm, drawn from every province 
 and every class, entered the palace of the Czar on a 
 day appointed. Assembled there in the cramped 
 quarters allotted for their use, they spent their time 
 in the manner of Muscovite womanhood of that age, 
 their cloistered existence varied by some manual task 
 relieved with song and tale. At nightfall the weary 
 hours were forgotten and tense expectancy reigned, 
 for every maiden knew that she was a pawn in a 
 lottery and that the prize was supreme rank. When 
 darkness came figures passed through the dormitories 
 exchanging significant words and gestures as they 
 examined the sleepers. The Czar Alexis Mihailowicz 
 himself accompanied by his doctor was seeking a 
 wife among these unknown beauties, " the woman," 
 as the time-honored formula had it, " worthy to be 
 the Sovereign's delight," perchance the daughter of 
 the meanest serf who might at his word become the 
 Czarina of all the Russias.
 
 viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 This custom, borrowed like so many other Rus- 
 sian traditions from the Byzantines, and maintained 
 through centuries, had proved a useful device to 
 escape the jealousy of noble families at home and 
 the humiliation of rejection by foreign dynasties, by 
 no means eager at that time to bestow their prin- 
 cesses upon the uncouth Czars of Russia. Thus the 
 custom had become definitely established and pre- 
 ceded the betrothal of every Czar. The minutiae of 
 etiquette were strictly observed in this proceeding. 
 Ladies and gentlemen of the court were deputed to 
 examine the young girls who journeyed to Moscow 
 in answer to the call of the Czar. Their inspection 
 was exacting and severe, extending to the most in- 
 timate details, and resulted in the selection of the 
 finest specimen for presentation to the Czar. 
 
 This time, however, in 1670, the hopes of the fair 
 candidates were doomed to disappointment, for the 
 Czar's choice had already been made before their 
 arrival in the Kremlin. Alexis, now thirty-eight 
 years of age, had lost his first wife, of the family 
 of Miloslavski, three years before. Of the five sons 
 and eight daughters whom she had borne him three 
 sons were already dead and two were sickly. A sec- 
 ond marriage was therefore desirable. Alexis, while 
 concerned with this serious question, met in the house 
 of his minister, Artamon MatveiefF, a beautiful 
 brunette, Nathalia Nariskine, who had been brought 
 up there in the atmosphere of western European cul-
 
 INTRODUCTION ii 
 
 ture and freedom. Alexis' choice fell upon Nathalia, 
 but before she could become his second wife she was 
 compelled to undergo the traditional ordeal of the 
 Kremlin. 
 
 Of this marriage Peter I., called " the Great," was 
 born on June 9 (N. S.), 1672, although no less an 
 authority than Peter himself has thrown doubt on 
 his paternity. Contrary to all the legends of his 
 extraordinary precocity, history records that Peter 
 was a singularly backward child. He was over two 
 years old when he was weaned, and in his eleventh 
 year still enjoyed playing with wooden horses. At 
 that age he had barely learned to spell out the re- 
 ligious books on which the children of the Czars 
 were brought up. During his early years Peter was 
 surrounded by intrigues and rebellions, and his elec- 
 tion as Czar in 1682 under the regency of his half- 
 sister Sophia was but a signal for a fresh revolt. 
 More than once he had barely eluded the grasp of 
 death. One of his uncles was dragged from the 
 palace and killed before his eyes. Artamon Mat- 
 veiefF was hacked to pieces as he caught the sleeve of 
 the little Czar in a vain endeavor to find protection 
 from a savage mob. It is to such experiences, which 
 played havoc with the nerves of the young boy, that 
 the convulsions may be ascribed from which Peter 
 suffered in later years. 
 
 When Sophia attempted in 1689 to usurp the 
 title and power of autocrat, Peter, now seventeen,
 
 X INTRODUCTION 
 
 supported by the foreign clement, openly broke with 
 her, deprived her of her power and consigned her to 
 the safe isolation of a nunnery. This coup, while 
 successful, did not greatly enhance the authority of 
 the young Czar, who postponed a decisive conflict 
 with the reactionary element and frequented the so- 
 ciety of foreigners. Eager for information and 
 susceptible to new impressions he already showed 
 indications of that energy and elasticity of mind 
 which later distinguished him. This was the period 
 of Peter's first marriage with Eudoxia Lapukine 
 whom he deserted again soon afterward. His chief 
 associates at this time were Fran9ois Lefort, a clever 
 and jovial adventurer of French-Swiss extraction, 
 and the Scotch royalist refugee Patrick Gordon. 
 From them he learned the methods of European 
 tactics and strategy, and soon felt sufficient confi- 
 dence to undertake campaigns in Southern Russia. 
 These expeditions were under the direction of his 
 military mentors, but their plans were subject to the 
 approval of the Bombardier of the Preobrashensky 
 regiment, none other than Peter himself, who had en- 
 tered his own army in the lowest rank. 
 
 In the spring of 1697 Peter left Russia for west- 
 ern Europe with a mission whose ostensible purpose 
 was the consolidation of alliances against the Turks 
 but whose real aim was to afford Peter an opportun- 
 ity to observe conditions in western Europe, and 
 satisfy his thirst for practical knowledge. At
 
 INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 Koenigsberg he learned the science of gunnery from 
 the famous engineer Streitner of Sternfeld. At 
 Lejden he made the acquaintance of the celebrated 
 anatomist Boerhove. While residing in Holland he 
 studied mathematics and astronomy, the science of 
 fortification and even dentistry. But ship-building 
 was now as ever his main passion. In his earlier 
 years he had superintended the construction of ships 
 on a little lake near Moscow, participating In the 
 work himself. Now he studied shipbuilding In Hol- 
 land and was proud of his certificate of proficiency 
 in naval architecture. 
 
 Peter's foreign tour was brought to an abrupt 
 conclusion after an absence of a year and a half. At 
 the moment that he was making preparations to go 
 to Venice he was suddenly recalled to his capital by 
 the revolt of the Strelitz or sharpshooters, a mercen- 
 ary bodyguard organized by Ivan the Terrible. Al- 
 though the rebellion never seriously threatened 
 Peter's throne and the revolting regiments were 
 beaten on their approach to Moscow within an hour's 
 time by the Czar's loyal army, of which only one 
 man was mortally wounded, the captive rebels were 
 treated with unheard-of cruelty. From the mid- 
 dle of September to the end of October, 1698, ban- 
 quets and di'inklng bouts alternated with torturings 
 and executions in which the Czar and his favorites 
 played the parts of inquisitors and headsmen. At 
 least a thousand of the captive Strelitz were done to
 
 xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 death during those two months with every refinement 
 of cruelty, and the hideous tragedy reached its 
 climax on October 17th when the Czar, surveying the 
 scene on horseback, commanded his favorites and 
 ministers to decapitate a number of the unfortunates 
 who had already been mangled by repeated tortures. 
 
 The aim of Peter, however, was not alone to wreak 
 vengeance on traitors but to frighten the masses of 
 the people who sympathized with them as upholders 
 of Muscovite traditions against the reforms and the 
 introduction of western European customs which 
 Peter undertook with great vigor after his return, 
 starting immediately with cutting off the beards and 
 long frocks of his subjects. The terrified people 
 submitted to him grudgingly, and the last feeble at- 
 tempt at revolt, which was connected with the name 
 of Alexius Petrowicz, Peter's son by his marriage 
 with Eudoxia, was suppressed by the Czar with even 
 greater cruelty which included the torturing to death 
 of Alexius. Historians have not unjustly com- 
 mented that Peter the Great deliberately cemented 
 the foundations of his Empire with the blood of his 
 son. 
 
 Three years after the death of his son Peter was 
 acclaimed as " the Father of the Fatherland, Peter 
 the Great and Emperor of All Russia '* at the cele- 
 bration of the peace of Nystadt by which Sweden 
 surrendered the hegemony of the north to Russia. 
 Thus ended Peter's struggle with one of the strong-
 
 INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 est military powers of Europe. He had entered 
 the conflict with an army which firmly believed that 
 every Swedish soldier had a devil behind him to point 
 his musket and make him invulnerable, a superstition 
 which made the Russian soldiers run in numbers at 
 the first sight of a handful of Swedes. Such were 
 the men Peter led to victory and such was the enemy 
 he taught them to beat. 
 
 His labors, however, as well as his excesses had 
 already undermined his iron constitution and though 
 not yet fifty-three years of age, he was already an 
 old man. During the summer of 1724 the state of 
 Peter's health caused grave anxiety and in autumn 
 he had another violent attack of his paroxysms. 
 Ignoring the advice of his physicians he undertook 
 an arduous tour of inspection and visited some of 
 his iron mines, even digging out with his own hands 
 a piece of iron ore weighing 120 pounds. In the 
 beginning of November, at Lakhta, seeing a boat 
 grounded on a shoal, loaded with soldiers in imminent 
 danger of being drowned, he plunged into the water 
 to go to their rescue and stayed immersed for a 
 considerable time. He returned to St. Petersburg 
 dangerously ill and after a protracted and painful 
 agony he died on the evening of February 8 (N. S.), 
 1725, in the arms of his second wife, the Empress 
 Catherine. Of his last message scribbled on a sheet 
 of paper two words only were legible : " Forgive 
 everything."
 
 xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 The importance of the " Diary '* published in this 
 volume may be estimated from the foregoing sketch 
 of Peter's life. Johann Gcorg Korb, the author, 
 was the secretary to the Austrian Envoy who was 
 sent by the Emperor Leopold I. to Moscow with the 
 avowed purpose of reporting on the operations of 
 the Russian armies against the Turks, but with the 
 real mission of intervening on behalf of the Jesuit 
 missionaries in Russia. The Austrian Envoy 
 started on his journey on the 10th of January 1698, 
 arrived on the 29th of April, and left Moscow again 
 more than a year later. The observations of the 
 secretary thus cover a period embracing the second 
 half of 1698 and the earlier part of 1699 and reveal 
 to us the real reign of Peter. A few months after 
 the arrival of the Austrian Envoy in Moscow the 
 young Czar returned from his foreign tour, which 
 had been interrupted by the revolt of the Strelitz, 
 to sit in judgment on this last serious rebellion 
 against him and to start immediately afterwards on 
 his rude regime of reckless reforms of which we find 
 traces on almost every page of this diary. 
 
 The young official who noted down these impres- 
 sions during a year's residence in Moscow was 
 scarcely two years older than the Czar, having been 
 born in 1670, but his insight into the Czar's char- 
 acter is remarkable, and we find here and there the 
 most curious observations of the Czar's complex 
 character, — corroborated by the testimony of other
 
 INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 eyewitnesses in later years. For among all the 
 peculiar personalities which have been called upon 
 to rule over human beings Peter was one of the most 
 abnormal and remarkable. Neuropathic, if not by 
 inheritance then through the experiences of his early 
 youth, Peter spent his brief maturity between rest- 
 less work and reckless excesses of so violent a char- 
 acter that his companions of a weaker constitution 
 succumbed at an earlier age than he. His gigantic 
 deformity of character alone in fact would be suffi- 
 cient to earn for Peter the title of " the Great." 
 The personality of this astonishing man was com- 
 posed of many elements, horny-handed woodcutter, 
 unrivalled organizer, madman in his pleasures and 
 criminal in his passions. Wastefulness and stingi- 
 ness were strangely combined in him. For many 
 years he elected to live in a low wooden cottage at 
 Preobashensko while his favorites were building 
 palaces for themselves, and he would use the mathe- 
 matical instruments, which never left his person, to 
 measure the daily consumption of cheese at his table, 
 while to compensate for the poor wages of his cook 
 he turned the meals to which he invited his friends 
 into picnics at a ducat a head. 
 
 In his intercourse with foreign diplomats he 
 worked on a system of his own, combining Slavic 
 shrewdness with Oriental cunning. He threw the 
 negotiators off their guard in a manner peculiar to 
 himself by unexpected acts of familiarity or rude-
 
 xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 ness, by sudden caresses or insults. He would in- 
 terrupt a speaker by kissing him on the brow, he 
 would make long speeches, intended for the gallery, 
 of which his hearer could not understand a word, and 
 would then dismiss them before they had time to ask 
 for an explanation. 
 
 Other peculiarities of Peter's were no less bizarre. 
 After his return from Holland he always carried a 
 case of surgical instruments about with him, and 
 never let slip an opportunity of using them, to the 
 bad fortune of his patients. A bag full of teeth ex- 
 tracted by him was preserved until recently in the 
 Museum of Arts at Petrograd. Many of them 
 are in perfect condition and were so when he ex- 
 tracted them. His valet complained to him one day 
 that his wife, under the pretext of a bad tooth, had 
 long refused to perform her conjugal duties. Peter 
 sent for the unfortunate lady, operated on her then 
 and there in spite of her tears and screams, and 
 warned her that if she continued obdurate he would 
 pull out every tooth in her two jaws. His own wife, 
 later the Empress Catherine I., fared little better. 
 During a visit to a museum in her company he was 
 a^ttracted to a figure of a pagan god, one of those 
 with which the Greeks and Romans frequently 
 adorned the nuptial chamber. Peter beckoned to his 
 wife and commanded her to kiss the figure. When 
 she objected he shouted, " Kop ab!" (Head off!) 
 the implication of which was unmistakeable. He
 
 INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 then requested that the object kissed by the Czarina 
 should be presented to him. His curiosity often as- 
 sumed strange forms. When the Czarina, Martha 
 Apraxin, Theodore's widow, died in 1715 at the age 
 of fifty-one, he insisted on performing the autopsy 
 upon the corpse with his own hands. 
 
 Extraordinary as was his conduct in serious mat- 
 ters, he was a complete buffoon in his pleasures. 
 The "jolly company" of his earlier years he or- 
 ganized into a sort of mock hierarchy in whose so- 
 ciety he found relief from his overstrained nerves in 
 amusements which inevitably degenerated into orgies. 
 Masquerades were a favorite pastime at the courts 
 of that period, but Peter's feasts with sham cardinals 
 and mock monks where crosses made of long Dutch 
 pipes were worshipped and the nuptials of old men 
 and women made drunk were celebrated in public, 
 were entirely of his own invention. Here his prone- 
 ness to exaggeration displayed itself without inhibi- 
 tion, and he lavished on all sides the most absurd 
 drolleries, the most startling obscenities and un- 
 heard-of profanities. His friend, Peter Ivanowicz 
 Boutourlin, he appointed Archbishop of St. Peters- 
 burg " in the diocese of drunkards, gluttons and 
 madmen." Others he called kings and kaisers, while 
 he himself in his favorite costume as a Dutch sailor 
 marched on beating a drum in the drunken proces- 
 sion. 
 
 Yet even in his orgies Peter showed a spark of
 
 xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 logic. The church had dared to resist his reforms, 
 the church must therefore be degraded in order that 
 the authority of the Czar should be unchallenged. 
 And as the Bourbons in France, following the in- 
 genious plan of Richelieu, demoralized their restive 
 aristocracy with the frivolities of Versailles, so 
 Peter, pursuing a less elegant tradition, summoned 
 his boyars to the debauches of the pothouse, where 
 in drinking bouts of days* duration he never forgot 
 to carry tablets to note down suspicious utterances 
 dropped by wine-loosened tongues. 
 
 This not wholly unsophisticated joy in buffoonery 
 and harlequinade was together with his satanic 
 cruelty one of the most strongly marked features of 
 Peter's character. None but a madman could have 
 carried his former mistress in his own arms to the 
 scaffold, as Peter did, kissing her fainting form as 
 her head was laid on the block, taking up the head 
 again after it had fallen, and exhibiting to his en- 
 tourage the severed veins and vertebrae, then kissing 
 it again, crossing himself and departing. Still the 
 same man who blithely sent favorites to torture 
 chamber and scaffold could bear with patience the 
 blows of an exasperated cook whom he had infuriated 
 by some practical joke. 
 
 The work which Peter accomplished was as com- 
 posite as his personality. He grafted European 
 civilization on to the old Russian culture, though 
 branches and trunk were not well fitted. He left a
 
 INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 Dutch fleet, a German army, and a Swedish ad- 
 ministration. The fear haunted him, that his work 
 might not survive him, for with all his perversity 
 his mind was clear, penetrating, and exact, going to 
 the point unhesitatingly and unswervingly like a 
 sharp tool wielded by a sure hand. 
 
 Peter, though certainly no genius, possessed a re- 
 markable ingenuity and his abnormally restless brain 
 expressed itself in an atmosphere of the most ab- 
 solute power. With unmistakable traits of great- 
 ness he combined features of extreme vulgarity. 
 His rustic humor and childish gayety Avas trans- 
 formed on the moment into savagery at the slightest 
 provocation. He superintended his household like a 
 small shopkeeper, thrashed his wife like a peasant, 
 and sought his pleasures like a brawler. 
 
 All these characteristics of the full grown man we 
 find indicated in the younger Peter depicted by our 
 diarist. Peter's energy in extinguishing a fire is 
 mentioned there as well as his efficiency in executing 
 a criminal with his own hand. Nor is his aptitude 
 overlooked for appealing to the lowest instincts of 
 the mob. Even minor traits are not omitted. When 
 Peter visited England William III. complained that 
 the Czar seemed quite indifferent to the beauties of 
 architecture and gardening; and John Evelyn spoke 
 regretfully of certain holly hedges of his own plant- 
 ing at Sayes court after Peter had sojourned there 
 for a few months in 1698, mourning " his now ruined
 
 XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 garden, thanks to tlic Czar of Muscovy." The same 
 heedlessness of Peter about horticulture is mentioned 
 by Korb in his entry of April 5th, 1699. He re- 
 marks also the dirtiness of the Czar's silver plate, 
 a fact confirmed by later diplomatic reports which 
 explain that the vessels were not cleaned because it 
 had been discovered that they lost weight thereby. 
 
 This diary, though published in Latin and there- 
 fore accessible only to a comparatively small circle 
 of readers, led to serious friction between the Rus- 
 sian and Austrian courts until the Emperor Leopold 
 I. gave permission that the unsold copies of the diary 
 were to be destroyed. Even then the agents of the 
 Czar were active in buying up every available copy 
 and one was publicly burned by the executioner in 
 Moscow. The publication of the diary made the 
 Austrian envoy, Baron de Guarient, persona non 
 grata, and eliminated him from a later mission to 
 Moscow. The author, Korb, lived unharmed until 
 his death in 1741 as a Privy Councilor and Knight 
 in the Bavarian service. Outside of Russia the 
 diary was soon recognized as one of the most im- 
 portant sources of Russian history of that period. 
 It has been extensively copied for instance in Eleazar 
 de Mauvillon's " Histoire de Pierre I." which ap- 
 peared in 1742. But the persecution by Peter soon 
 made it a very rare work. It is estimated that there 
 are to-day scarcely more than ten copies existing, 
 most of them being in the possession of famous li-
 
 INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 braries. There arc copies in the British Museum 
 and the former Imperial Library in Vienna. 
 Strangely enough the copy in the National Library 
 in Berlin was formerly the property of the same 
 Baron Muenchhausen to whom are ascribed the well 
 known tales. Only one copy of the Latin original 
 is held in the western hemisphere. It is in the pos- 
 session of the Congressional Library in Washington, 
 D. C. 
 
 The earliest translations of this diary from the 
 original Latin text were done in Russian, one for 
 Peter himself, which is full of omissions and misun- 
 derstandings. No German translation has ever 
 been undertaken and in French there exists only that 
 part of the diary dealing with the revolt of the 
 Strelitz. The English version on which the follow- 
 ing pages are based is the only English translation, 
 and was made by Count Macdonnell in the middle 
 of the nineteenth century. It was published in Lon- 
 don in 1863 and has also become comparatively rare. 
 Charles Macdonnell, an Austrian Count, was de- 
 scended from the ancient Macdonnells of Antrim, a 
 leading branch of the Scottish clan Donnell, but he 
 had suffered financial reverses and lived abroad. 
 
 In the preface to his translation Count Mac- 
 donnell gives a picturesque account of the circum- 
 stances under which he came to make it : 
 
 " Some few summers ago the translator happened 
 to pass a •villeggiatura at Frascati, in the neighbor-
 
 xxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 hood of Rome, a solitary bird of passage left behind 
 after the season of the great flight northwards : 
 Henry, Cardinal of York, the last Prince of the 
 Royal Stuarts, who had struck medals upon Charles 
 Edward's death with the royal titles of " Henry IX. 
 by the Grace of God, but not by will of men. King of 
 England, France, Scotland, and Ireland, Defender 
 of the Faith," was at one time Bishop of Frascati, 
 and Frascati was his favorite residence even after 
 he was translated to another see. At his death he 
 bequeathed his library to the College in that town, 
 directing that it should be always accessible to the 
 public for study. Attracted by its connection with 
 the last of that royal race, the translator obtained 
 access to its shelves. The sultry heat of a Roman 
 summer rendered out-of door excursions in that beau- 
 tiful neighborhood impossible, except in the early 
 morning and in the evenings. Much of his time was 
 spent, in consequence, in poring over the dusty tomes 
 in the Stuart library. There he discovered a copy 
 of this rare and curious Diary; and there, seated 
 day after day in the identical arm-chair in which — 
 so said the living local tradition — fifty years prev- 
 iously, the crownless heir of three kingdoms was wont 
 to sit and read, the translation was undertaken and 
 half accomplished. The rest was completed in the 
 autumn of the following year in Vienna." 
 
 Count Macdonnell points out his efforts to render 
 as literally as possible into English the " slovenly
 
 INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 Latin " of the German diplomat, thus endeavoring 
 to make this translation as faithful as possible to the 
 original. His translation is fairly complete except 
 for a few slight omissions made as a concession to 
 the mid- Victorian taste of his time. 
 
 In this edition no effort has been made to repro- 
 duce the diary in full as that would involve the in- 
 clusion of a large amount of redundant and unin- 
 teresting matter, important only to the meticulous 
 savant. The editor has rather aimed at a careful 
 selection of those portions of the work which are 
 important and significant and those which reveal the 
 personality of Peter the Man whose human interest 
 will outlive the political power of the Romanoff 
 dynasty. For it is the intention of tnis volume as 
 of the whole series to meet the needs less of those 
 who write history than of those who read it. 
 
 F. L. Glaser. 
 
 New York, August, 1920.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Introduction vii 
 
 I The Entry into Moscow 1 
 
 II First Impressions of Moscow .... 7 
 
 III Revolt of the Strelitz 15 
 
 IV Return of the Czar 31 
 
 V Stubbornness of the Muscovites under 
 
 Torture 49 
 
 VI Punishment of the Strelitz .... 53 
 
 VII Life at the Czar's Court 75 
 
 VIII A Winter in Moscow 95 
 
 IX Diplomatic Incidents 131 
 
 X Return of the Imperial Legation from 
 
 Muscovy to Vienna 159 
 
 Appendix 165
 
 SCENES FROM THE COURT OF 
 PETER THE GREAT 
 
 I 
 
 THE ENTRY INTO MOSCOW 
 
 29th April, 1698. — About seven in the morning 
 we moved off from MammonofF towards Moscow. 
 After two miles we saw the monastery of nuns, 
 situated to the right. Here Sophia ^ is shut up and 
 always strictly watched by the authorities for hav- 
 ing several times conspired with rebels against her 
 most serene brother the Czar. As we approached 
 Moscow a number of Muscovites and foreigners rode 
 out on horseback to meet us, to see the fashion of 
 our coaches and our dress. The nearer we ap- 
 proached the city, the more our road and quiet were 
 interrupted. It is certainly a marvelous fashion, 
 which made the pristaza " very fussy — orders now 
 to go slow, now to press on, puzzled and wearied the 
 good man exceedingly. In approaching and meeting 
 the Czar's carriage the coachman has need of a 
 
 1 See page 58. 
 
 2 A police official.
 
 2 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 certain practice and dexterity to keep always on the 
 right hand, which the Muscovites try every possible 
 ruse to get. The master of the horse headed the 
 whole procession of our Lord Envoy, and deserved 
 no little praise for never turning to the left, always 
 keeping the right, paying no attention to the ad- 
 monition of the pristaw, the interpreter, and others, 
 to go to the left, even though some of them menda- 
 ciously told him that such were the Lord Envoy's 
 orders. This had always been a point of great diffi- 
 culty at the reception of ambassadors, the Musco- 
 vites having the ambition to pretend to this exceed- 
 ingly empty prerogative. The controversy at times 
 led to disputes and altercations, neither willing to 
 move first, and each most sharply struggling to get 
 the post of honor. There was no such dispute at 
 our reception, for the Muscovite commissary, waiv- 
 ing all dispute about this prerogative, was the first 
 to get down from his coach, went to meet the Lord 
 Envoy, and in the coach and elsewhere modestly gave 
 the first place to the Lord Envoy, and gave no sign 
 of the arrogance of a former time. We were all 
 amazed at this sudden national metamorphosis, and 
 the Lord Envoy thanked his stars that he was the 
 first to find dormant and almost extinct those con- 
 troversies, the obstinate defense of which had caused 
 so much trouble to all who had preceded him in a 
 similar capacity. 
 
 As long as the most auspicious reign of his present
 
 THE ENTRY INTO MOSCOW 3 
 
 majesty the Czar lasts, I do not think that this peo- 
 ple will relapse into such pretensions. Horses from 
 the stables of his majesty the Czar were assigned to 
 the embassy officials, with saddles and trappings 
 adorned in the richest way with embroidery of gold 
 and gems : grooms in handsome red tunics held them 
 to be mounted. The entry itself was splendidly 
 grand and truly magnificent. 
 
 The procession was preceded by four companies 
 of soldiers led by some one belonging to the Chan- 
 cery. 
 
 Then folloaved the Lord Envoy's master of the 
 horses, and after him four horses, led by servants. 
 The trappings of these horses, each of different col- 
 ored silk, were exceedingly handsome. 
 
 Came the Lord Envoy's officials, mounted upon 
 the horses, with trappings glittering with gold and 
 silver, and head-gear of variegated plumes. Along 
 with them rode several of the Czar's nobility. 
 
 In the Czar's carriage, which was gilt all over and 
 drawn by six white horses, came the Lord Envoy 
 with the Czar's commissary and an interpreter. 
 
 The private carriage of the Lord Envoy, very 
 handsomely adorned with painting, gilding, and silk 
 of various colors, drawn by six splendid dark brown 
 horses. On either side of the carriage walked eight 
 footmen in excessively rich livery. 
 
 The first coach for the officials, ornamented in the 
 same manner. The second coach for the officials (in
 
 4 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 which sat the three missionaries), drawn by six 
 horses, as were also the traveling carriage and the 
 rest. 
 
 Then came the Lord Envoy's horses, which had 
 all been brought from Vienna. Four more com- 
 panies of soldiers closed the procession. 
 
 Finally, about fifty Muscovite vehicles, conveying 
 the Lord Envoy's goods and baggage, were drawn 
 to the houses which were to be in readiness for our 
 lodging. An immense multitude crowded the streets 
 on either side ; and as our procession was conducted 
 across the stone bridge and through the Czar's 
 castle, called the Kremlin, the Czarina and several 
 other princesses of the blood were looking out of 
 their windows. I think it worthy to be particularly 
 remarked that it is not always ambassadors are al- 
 lowed to enter Moscow by the stone bridge and the 
 Czar's castle of the Kremlin ; — nay, at first another 
 route was appointed, by which we should have had to 
 cross the river on a floating bridge, but the Lord 
 Envoy having remonstrated, obtained his wishes. 
 The rich glitter of the equipages, the perfect ele- 
 gance of fashion of the Lord Envoy and all his suite, 
 induced the Czarina and many other princesses to 
 look out upon the scene. To gratify their curiosity, 
 the solemn entry, contrary to the established custom, 
 was allowed to take place through the Czar's very 
 fortress of the Kremlin : such a prodigy of innovation 
 long kept not only the Muscovites but also the royal
 
 THE ENTRY INTO MOSCOW 5 
 
 and other foreign ministers in amazement. Before 
 we reached the houses destined for our lodging, the 
 pristaw conducted the Lord Envo}^ through the 
 apartments and bed-rooms destined for his own ac- 
 commodation : the vice-master of the horse to the 
 Czar delivered the keys. But the place was quite 
 too small to lodge such a number of men and horses, 
 and drew from the Lord Envoy a protest that they 
 must find him more commodious lodgings, saying 
 that he knew not how he could keep his people and 
 horses in such narrow quarters. Though the pris- 
 taw promised to relate all faithfully, nevertheless 
 Mr. Pleyer was charged with a similar message to 
 the 'Prime Minister, Leo Kirilowicz Nareskin, with 
 the addition that the Lord Envoy would not dismiss 
 the potwodi ^ until a more decent and commodious 
 lodging was assigned to him, for that such a narrow 
 place was insufficient for the safe custody of his 
 property. Though Nareskin had rudely answered 
 that houses in Moscow could not be had as commodi- 
 ous as in Vienna — that it had cost a deal of trouble 
 to find that lodging — that the Lord Envoy might 
 be perfectly contented with it, especially considering 
 the case of the late Muscovite envoy, Cosmo Nikitz 
 NephimonofF, who was not allowed to bring all his 
 horses to Vienna — nevertheless, the interpreter, 
 Mr. Schwerenberg, to persuade us to dismiss the 
 
 3 Peasants' carts, collected by requisition of the authorities, 
 and which the peasants are bound to furnish when called upon.
 
 6 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 potwodi, gave hopes that we should soon obtain a 
 large house ; and the weather coming on to rain, fell 
 in with his advice to house our property at length, 
 after it had been exposed to all the vicissitudes of 
 the weather and storms on our long journey.
 
 II 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MOSCOW 
 
 14th May, 1698.— One of the Danish Lord 
 Envoy's footmen had ridden to the church belonging 
 to the secretaries of the Confession of Augsburg.-^ 
 The horse, in yielding to a need of nature, spattered 
 a lieutenant's wife who was passing by. With a 
 woman's fury she showered opprobrious epithets 
 upon the footman; and in an obstinate, fierce rage, 
 went off to rouse her husband to revenge, — telling 
 him that if he deserved to be called a husband he 
 would take signal vengeance for an insult that re- 
 flected upon himself. Excited with these outrageous 
 complaints and sobs, the lieutenant treacherously 
 fell upon the footman, and with the associates he 
 had brought with him to commit the outrage, so be- 
 labored the man with cudgels that he could neither 
 walk nor ride. The Danish envoy made a great com- 
 plaint of the lieutenant, and said, with great feeling, 
 that he was attacked himself in the person of the 
 servant. 
 
 20th May, 1698. — In the public offices which the 
 Muscovites call Pricass, the chief Clerk is called All. 
 
 1 i. e. the Lutherans. 
 
 7
 
 8 COURT OF TETER THE GREAT 
 
 His duty is to watch constantly that the rest actively 
 pursue their work. One day the business was so 
 great, that it was considered necessary to give up 
 the whole night as well as the day to it, though only 
 the day was paid for. Ali had in consequence be- 
 taken him to rest. The remaining mob of scribblers 
 followed his example. 
 
 The day after, the Dumnoi,^ becoming aware of 
 this contumacy of the clerks, condemned Ali to re- 
 ceive, in proper person, the penalty of the battok — 
 a kind of cudgelling — as being the prime offender, 
 by the very bad example he had given to the rest 
 by contempt of orders. The clerks, after the man- 
 ner of outrageous criminals, were chained with iron 
 to their places, and fettered, to teach them how to 
 write night and day. 
 
 25th, 26th, 27th, May, 1698.— These days our 
 movables were transferred to the Palace of the Am- 
 bassadors and arranged in the rooms of our future 
 lodging there. On the last day, when everything 
 had been removed, one of the servants, by some ac- 
 cident, dropped a sword in the street. A Muscovite 
 of the common people, before the eyes of another of 
 our men, thievingly snatched it up to carry home 
 with him ; he refused to give it up when asked for 
 it; his insolent quibbling gave rise to a brawl, and a 
 consequent tumult, so that the whole house was full 
 of the idea that our people were in danger, when 
 
 2 The Magistrates.
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MOSCOW 9 
 
 the Lord Envoy, who at all times was most cautious 
 to prevent any quarrel, especially with people not 
 belonging to the house, hastily arranging his dress, 
 mounted the first horse at hand to see for himself 
 what was the matter ; but the affair had already been 
 settled without wounds on either side. 
 
 1st June, 1698. — At about an hour's distance 
 from the city of Moscow, there is a green grove on 
 the bank of the river Jausa, whither daily flock, in 
 spring and summer, the Germans established in Mos- 
 cow. The place is so familiar to every German of 
 them all, from constantly going there, that it seems 
 almost to belong to himself. Their sole amusement 
 is to gladden their souls among these shady thickets 
 and pleasant green trees with their usual innocent 
 games. Here too they spread the board, alternating 
 the expenses with one another. It was Colonel de 
 Grage's turn to-day; he politely invited us to enjoy 
 this gentle recreation, and we willingly accepted. 
 
 8th June, 1698. — A council of war was held by 
 the Boyars at a place a mile distant from Moscow. 
 A most commodious traveling carriage, with six 
 horses, beautifully ornamented and with richly- 
 wrought trappings and housings was sent to the 
 Prime Minister,^ at his own request, by the Lord 
 Envoy who was not unaware that they would never 
 return to his stables. 
 
 3 Nariskin brother of the Czarina, mother of Peter I. See 
 Appendix.
 
 10 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 After the sacrifice of the mass in Slowoda, the 
 Lord Envoy was received by Mr. Guasconi, a Floren- 
 tine merchant, to a most splendid dinner. The other 
 guests were Colonel Grage and Doctors Carbonari 
 and Zoppot, together with the four Imperial mission- 
 aries. 
 
 9th June, 1698. — As the Lord Envoy far pre- 
 ferred the sovereign fame of his most clement lord 
 principal to any private convenience whatsoever, he 
 had, from the very day he made his public entry, kept 
 open table for those who, being distinguished from 
 the common herd by splendor of birth or dignity of 
 office, were thus worthy of his familiar conversation. 
 The Czar's physician, Mr. Zoppot, came to dinner 
 to-day, along with Colonel de Grage and several 
 others. This gentleman's servant, coming to per- 
 form his duty, was taken under a false pretext, by 
 the soldiers who have been assigned to us as a guard, 
 into their own room, and there they beat him. The 
 Lord Envoy, indignant that the soldiers of the guard 
 should dare to act so to his guests or their servants, 
 ordered the soldier, whom the servant had noted to 
 be the ringleader, into arrest ; and meantime signified 
 what had happened to the Prime Minister and to 
 Dumnoi Unkrainzow, adding that he would not hesi- 
 tate to take satisfaction on his own authority should 
 the ministry think of deferring the matter needlessly. 
 But, on the other hand, considering the justice of 
 our complaint, full satisfaction followed. The sol-
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MOSCOW 11 
 
 dier paid the due penalty of his audacity, being con- 
 demned to receive one hundred blows of a stick, or, 
 as they call them, hattoK: 
 
 To-day, for the first time, a vague rumor of the 
 revolt of the Strelitz struck terror. 
 
 29th June, 1698. — The joyful news arrived that 
 the rebels were defeated at the monastery dedicated 
 to the Most Holy Resurrection, commonly called 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 30th June, 1698. — The Lord Envoy went by in- 
 vitation to a certain monastery in the city, where 
 one of the Boyar family of Szeremetow is abbess. 
 The dainties which they presented, according to their 
 custom, were nuts and cucumbers. Some kinds of 
 very old wine were, however, presented, some of the 
 nuns reverentially serving, and most civilly inviting 
 the Lord Envoy to come and see them often. 
 
 ^J^th July, 1698.— The wife of a diak (i.e. a 
 chancer}^ secretary) happening to pass in front of 
 the gibbet that was erected in front of the Czar's 
 castle of the Kremlin in the late rebellion, compas- 
 sioning the fate of those that she beheld hanging 
 there, inadvertently exclaimed, " Alas ! what mortal 
 knows whether you were guilty or innocent? " 
 These words were repeated to another person, who 
 forthwith denounced them to the Boyars as an in- 
 dubitable indication of treason. A woman's pity 
 for condemned and public criminals was deemed 
 dangerous. So she was forthwith dragged up, along
 
 12 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 with her husband, to an examination. Now, when it 
 was proved that there was nothing more in question 
 than unreflecting and womanly compassion for the 
 unfortunate, and that there was no trace of deliber- 
 ate malice, they were indeed exempted from the 
 penalty of death, but nevertheless condemned to 
 exile. Thus thoughtless and guileless liberty of the 
 tongue is chastised where subjects are coerced to 
 obey through fear alone. 
 
 Lieutenant Colonel NarbekofF, impeached for the 
 late sedition, was, with twenty-five serfs, dragged off 
 to prison and the torture. 
 
 26th July, 1698.— After dinner to-day the Lord 
 Envoy, with the greater part of his suite, went to 
 Prince Galizin's, as well to pay him a ceremonial 
 visit as to enjoy the freedom of familiar discourse 
 with him. 
 
 With strange politeness he commanded his musi- 
 cians, who are natives of Poland, to play various 
 airs for the amusement of the company, and earn- 
 estly begged the Lord Envoy to come to his country 
 house, where he purposed to take the Lord Arch- 
 bishop for his amusement, before he should finally 
 start for Persia. He ordered a great variety of 
 wines to be served to display the extent of his opu- 
 lence. Two of the Prince's sons, who were present, 
 were commanded to serve the Lord Archbishop and 
 the Lord Envoy, really in testimony of a proud 
 courtesy. He had given them as a companion a
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MOSCOW 13 
 
 young Circassian Prince, who a considerable time 
 ago was torn away by violence from his parents, 
 princes of the Tartar Circassians, and christened. 
 A very rich widow of the Galizin family adopted him 
 as her heir, in order to console him for the patri- 
 mony which he had lost by being stolen and torn 
 away from his father. He keeps a Pole as tutor to 
 these youths : they are at present engaged learning 
 Latin. The disposition of the Galizins appeared 
 meek. On the contrary the Circassian's noble and 
 daring countenance seemed an index of the warlike 
 soul with which he was born. 
 
 Prince Galizin at length put us all in amaze by 
 the atrocious invectives and threats into which he 
 broke out at the pedagogue. " Thou traitor to me 
 and mine, how durst thou publish the secret of my 
 house and violate thy sworn promise of silence.'* 
 Knowest thou not Galizin? In whose power it is to 
 hang thee, and thus (clenching his hand) to squash 
 thee ; for know that it is something to be the tyrant 
 even in one's own house."
 
 Ill 
 
 REVOLT OF THE STRELITZ • 
 
 BY a common sport of fortune it very often 
 happens that when a friend would extinguish 
 the houses of his neighbors which the flames are de- 
 vouring, his own is involved in the same peril. And 
 so it is not without reason that we deplore a calamity 
 that may befall ourselves as often as Ucalegon 
 hard-by is on fire. 
 
 Everybody knows that when the Poles were about 
 to proceed to the vote for the election of a monarch 
 to the throne of their widowed Republic, their strug- 
 gles were divided between two candidates. These 
 wild gusts bursting beyond the narrow limits of the 
 Diet, among this fiery people, burning as they are 
 with subtle and active intrigue menaced a tempest 
 fraught with universal danger. The Czar of Mos- 
 cow, roused by the proximity of the peril, ordered a 
 strong body of troops under the command of General 
 Knes Michael Greegorowicz Romadonowski to lie in 
 observation upon the frontiers of Lithuania, so as 
 to be able, should public disorders arise out of the 
 
 strife of private individuals, to settle them promptly 
 
 15
 
 16 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 and repress with strong succors the disturbers of 
 the public peace, and force them the more effica- 
 ciously into the reverence due to their lawfully elected 
 king. 
 
 But how wonderful are the vicissitudes of fortune 
 and of human affairs ! The flood burst in wild rage 
 upon him, who rashly thought to brave the unruly 
 inundation that menaced the quiet of a neighboring 
 nation. Four regiments of the Strelitz, which lay 
 upon the frontier of Lithuania had nefariously 
 plotted to change the sovereignty. The regiment of 
 Theodosia abandoned Viasma, the Athanasian regi- 
 ment quitted Picla, the Isano-Tzernovio-Wlodomir- 
 ian left Ostheba, and the Ticchonian quitted Dorogo- 
 busa, in which places they were in garrison. They 
 drove away the loyal officers that happened to be 
 among them, distributed military rank among them- 
 selves, — the readiest for crime being held the fittest 
 for command. At once they menaced death to all in 
 their next neighborhood if they would not freely join 
 their party, or should resist their design. 
 
 Many reports spread through Moscow about the 
 danger that was so near at hand, but what real truth 
 was in them nobody knew : until at length the meeting 
 of the Boyars, their consultations repeated day after 
 day, their assembling by night, and their assiduous 
 conferences might have proved to anybody how 
 grave a business it was, and what imminent need 
 there was to press on their conclusions to maturity.
 
 REVOLT OF THE STRELITZ 17 
 
 The Czar, before his departure, had chosen the 
 Boyar and Woiwode Alexis Simonowicz Schachin,^ 
 generalissimo of his land forces. No other than 
 the man whom the Czar's majesty had already en- 
 trusted with the command-in-chief of the army could 
 be charged with the execution of the measures re- 
 quired. But the orders were not sufficiently decisive, 
 everybody wished to take counsel of events ; should 
 they hold out perseveringly and refuse to confess 
 their fault and crave pardon, it would then be time 
 enough to take severe measures against this flagitious 
 mutiny. 
 
 Schachin agreed to accept the power they, the 
 Boyars, would entrust to him, but upon condition 
 that the decree approved unanimously should be 
 also confirmed by their seals and signatures. Al- 
 though what he required was fair, there was not one 
 among them all that did not refuse to put his hand 
 to the resolution. It was hard to say whether this 
 was through fear or envy: but the danger was too 
 near to admit of delay, and the dread was left the 
 seditious cohorts of the Strelitz should penetrate 
 into Moscow. Nor was it without reason that they 
 were in terror of the mixing of the rebels and the 
 masses. It appeared more advisable to march out 
 against them than to await an invasion so fraught 
 with the veriest peril. 
 
 The regiments of the guards got notice to hold 
 iSee Appendix.
 
 18 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 themselves In readiness to march at an hour's notice, 
 and that those who should decline to act against the 
 sacrilegious violators of the Majesty of the Crown 
 would be held guilty of misprison of their crime, — 
 that no ties of blood or kindred held binding when 
 the salvation of the soverign and the state were at 
 stake, — nay, that a son might stay his father if he 
 rose to ruin his fatherland. 
 
 General Gordon strenuously executed this Spartan 
 measure and exhorted the troops entrusted to him to 
 perform their noble task, telling them how there 
 could be no more glorious need than to have saved 
 the sovereign and the state. Nor was the circum- 
 stance of this expedition against the mutineers being 
 undertaken on the very festival of Pentecost, devoid 
 of happy omen that the spirit of truth and justice 
 would confound the councils of the wicked, — as the 
 event clearly showed. For there was discord be- 
 tween the three principal chiefs of the rebellion, 
 which delayed their march for three days, and so 
 gave the loyal army time to encounter the traitor 
 Strelitz at the monastery dedicated to the most 
 Holy Resurrection which some call Jerusalem. For 
 the stupendous nature of their crime, brought dread, 
 delay, and divided counsels: the concord that is 
 sworn for crime is seldom indeed lasting. 
 
 Had the rebels reached that monastery but one 
 hour sooner, safe within its strong defenses, they 
 might perhaps have worn out the loyal troops with
 
 REVOLT OF THE STRELITZ 19 
 
 such long and fruitless labor that they might have 
 lost heart, and victory, hostile to Loyalty, might 
 have set her garland upon the brow of Treason. 
 But Fortune denied to their turbulent counsels the 
 object they sought. A slender stream not far dis- 
 tant waters the rich land hereabouts. On its hither 
 banks the Czar's troops, and on the opposite the 
 rebel columns had begun to appear. The latter 
 were trying to ford and if they had been really de- 
 termined to pass, the Czar's force could hardly have 
 hindered them. Fatigued with a long march, and 
 still without sufficient force, Gordon, setting "wisdom 
 in the place of strength, strolled alone to the bank 
 to talk with the Strelitz. He found them deliberating 
 without crossing, and dissuaded them from their un- 
 dertaking with words like these : what did they mean 
 to do? Whither were they going? If they were 
 thinking of Moscow, the night was too close at hand 
 to admit of their reaching it, — there was not room 
 for them all on the hither bank, they would do much 
 better to remain at the other side of the river and 
 give the night to thinking sensibly of what they 
 ought to do on the morrow. The seditious multitude 
 could not resist such friendly advice; they Avere too 
 much fatigued in body to have stomach for a fight 
 where they did not expect one. 
 
 Meantime, Gordon having well examined all the 
 advantages of the ground, occupied an advantageous 
 height with his troops, Schachin consenting, he dis-
 
 20 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 tributed the posts, and fortified himself, leaving noth- 
 ing undone that could contribute to his own defense 
 and security or to the detriment and damage of the 
 enemy. With equal loyalty and resolution the im- 
 perial colonel of artillery, De Grage, bravely per- 
 formed his part. He made a lodgement upon the 
 height, placed his great guns in advantageous posi- 
 tion, and distributed all in such excellent order, that 
 almost the whole success that attended the affair was 
 due to the artillery. At the first dawn of day, by 
 command of General Schachin, General Gordon went 
 again to parley with the 'Strelitz, and after blaming 
 somewhat the disobedience of the regiments, he dis- 
 coursed largely of the Czar's clemency, telling them, 
 that it was not by sedition and mobbing together 
 that the desires of the soldiers should be made known 
 to the Czar. Why, contrary to their usual dutiful 
 behavior, contrary to the sanction of discipline, had 
 they deserted the places that had been entrusted to 
 their loyal keeping? Why should they have driven 
 away their officers, and have broken out in designs 
 of violence .f* Let them rather propose their requests 
 peaceably, and, mindful of the loyalty they owed, re- 
 turn to their appointed stations, that should he see 
 them yield to their duty, should he hear them beg 
 for it, he would get them both satisfaction for their 
 requests, and pardon, when they confessed it, for 
 their shameful conduct. 
 
 But Gordon's speech did not move the now hard-
 
 REVOLT OF THE STRELITZ 21 
 
 ened stubbornness of the false traitors ; and they 
 only saucily answered that they would not go back 
 to their appointed quarters until they had been al- 
 lowed to kiss their darling wives at Moscow, and had 
 received the arrears of their pay. 
 
 Gordon related to Schachin the perfectly deter- 
 mined wickedness of the Strelitz. But as the latter 
 was unwilling to despair altogether of the repentance 
 of the criminals, Gordon did not decline to try a third 
 time to mollify the fierce passions of the rebels with 
 offers of payment for their arrears, and pardon for 
 the crime they were bent upon. Not only was ad- 
 vice utterly fruitless, but they were in such a state 
 of exasperation, that the negotiator was near to have 
 paid dearly for his pains. Already they loudly up- 
 braided and rebuked this man of grave authority, 
 their former general ; they warned him to be off 
 forthwith, and not to waste his words to no purpose, 
 unless he wanted a bullet to chastise his marvelous 
 audacity ; that they recognized no master, and would 
 listen to orders from nobody ; that they would not 
 go back to their quarters ; that they must be ad- 
 mitted into Moscow; that if they were forbidden, 
 they would open the road with force and cold steel. 
 Their unexpected fierceness stung Gordon, and he 
 deliberated with Schachin and the other military offi- 
 cers present what was to be done. There was no 
 difficulty in deciding the course that should be 
 adopted against men that were predetermined to try
 
 22 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 the strength of their arms. Everything was made 
 ready consequently, for the onset and the fight, as 
 the stubborn unanimity of the traitors forced on that 
 last resort. Nor were the Strelitz less busy; they 
 drew up their array, pointed their artillery, dressed 
 their ranks, and, as if the strife in which they were 
 about to mingle was a struggle with a foreign foe, 
 they preceded it with the customary prayers and 
 invocation of God. Even malice does not dare to 
 show its head in the face of the world without dis- 
 guising itself in the colors of virtue and righteous- 
 ness. 
 
 Countless signs of the cross being made on both 
 sides, the attack began on both sides from a distance. 
 The first reports of cannon and small arms pro- 
 ceeded from the lines of General Schachin, by whose 
 command none of the pieces were loaded with ball ; 
 for he entertained a secret hope that the reality of 
 resistance might terrify them into a submissive re- 
 turn to obedience. But the first volley passing with- 
 out wound or slaughter, only added courage to their 
 guilt. Vastly emboldened, they responded by a dis- 
 charge, by which some were laid lifeless, and several 
 were bloodily wounded. When death and wounds 
 had given a sufficient lesson that stronger remedies 
 must be applied, Colonel de Grage was no longer re- 
 quired to dissemble his stout will, and allowed to 
 discharge his great guns, fraught with deadly lead 
 and iron. Colonel de Grage had been anxiously
 
 REVOLT OF THE STRELITZ 23 
 
 waiting for this command, and lost no time in firing 
 with such precision into their rebel ranks that their 
 furious passions were checked, and the strife of re- 
 sistance and skirmishing of the mutineers was 
 changed into a piteous slaughter. 
 
 When they saw that some were stretched lifeless, 
 courage and fierceness at once deserted the terror- 
 stricken Strelitz, who broke in disorder. Those that 
 retained any presence of mind, endeavored by the 
 fire of their own artillery to check and silence that 
 of the Czar; but all in vain; for Colonel de Grage 
 had anticipated that design, and directing the fire 
 of his pieces upon the artillery of the seditious mob, 
 whenever they would go ,to their guns, vomited such 
 a perfect hurricane upon them, that many fell, num- 
 bers fled away, and none remained daring enough to 
 return to fire them. Still Colonel de Grage did not 
 cease to thunder from the heights into the ranks of 
 the flying. The Strelitz saw safety nowhere; arms 
 could not protect them; nothing was more appalling 
 to them than the ceaseless flash and roar of the 
 artillery showering its deadly bolts upon them from 
 the German right. And the same men who, but an 
 hour before, had spat upon proff'ered pardon, off*ered 
 in consequence to surrender — so short is the in- 
 terval that separates victors from vanquished. Sup- 
 pliant, they fell prostrate, and begged that the artil- 
 lery might cease its cruel ravages, off'ering to do 
 promptly whatever they were ordered.
 
 24 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 The suppliants were directed to lay down their 
 arms, to quit their ranks, and obey in everything 
 that would be enjoined to them. Though they at 
 once threw down their arms, and proceeded to the 
 places, to which they were ordered ; nevertheless, for 
 a little while, the fire of the artillery was kept up, 
 lest with the cessation of the cause of their terror, 
 their rash daring should return, and the mutinous 
 strife be renewed. But when they were truly and 
 tlioroughly frightened, they were treated with con- 
 temptuous impunity. Thousands of men allowed 
 themselves to be fettered, who, if they had but rather 
 instead have tried their real strength, would, beyond 
 the least doubt, have become the victors of those that 
 vanquished them. But it is God that scatters the 
 counsels of the malignant, that they may not prosper 
 in their undertaking. 
 
 When the ferocious arrogance with which they 
 were swollen had been made to subside completely, 
 in the manner we have just narrated, and all the 
 accomplices of the mutiny- had been cast into chains. 
 General Schachin instituted an inquiry, by way of 
 torture, touching the causes, the objects, the in- 
 stigators, the chiefs, and the accomplices of this 
 perilous and impious machination. For there was 
 a very serious suspicion that more exalted people 
 were at the head of it. Every one of them freely 
 confessed himself deserving of death ; but to detail 
 the particulars of the nefarious plot, to lay bare
 
 REVOLT OF THE STRELITZ 25 
 
 the objects of it, to betray their accomplices, was 
 what no person could persuade any of them to do. 
 
 The rack was consequently got in readiness by the 
 executioner, as the only means left to elicit the 
 truth. The torture that was applied was of un- 
 exampled inhumanity. Scourged most savagely 
 with the cat, if that had not the effect of breaking 
 their stubborn silence, fire was applied to their backs, 
 all gory and streaming, in order that, by slowly 
 roasting the skin and tender flesh, the sharp pangs 
 might penetrate through the very marrow of their 
 bones, to the utmost power of painful sensation. 
 These tortures were applied alternately, over and 
 over again. Horrid tragedies to witness and to 
 hear. In the open field above thirty of these more 
 than funeral pyres blazed at the same time, and 
 thereat were these most wretched creatures under 
 examination roasted amidst their horrible bowlings. 
 At another side resounded the merciless strokes of 
 the cat, while this most savage butchery of men was 
 being done in this very pleasant neighborhood. 
 
 After numbers had been proved by the torture, at 
 last the obstinacy of a few was found to yield ; and 
 one of them detailed the following particulars of this 
 most perverse plot. He said that he was not un- 
 aware how great their fault was, that all had de- 
 served to lose their lives, and that perhaps none 
 would be found that would shirk death. That had 
 fortune attended their undertaking they would have
 
 26 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 decreed the same penalty against the Boyars, as, 
 now they were vanquished, they expected themselves ; 
 for that they had the intention to set on fire, sack 
 and ruin the whole German suburb, and when all the 
 Germans, without exception, had been got rid of by 
 massacre, to enter Moscow by force, to murder all 
 that would make resistance, taking the rest with 
 them to aid in their nefarious deeds ; that they meant 
 to inflict death upon some of the Boyars, exile upon 
 others, and to drag them all down from their offices 
 and dignities, in order the more easily to conciliate 
 to themselves the sympathies of the masses. That 
 some popes were to carry an image of the Blessed 
 Virgin, and another of St. Nicholas, before them, in 
 order that it might appear that they had been driven 
 to take up arms by the necessity of defending the 
 faith, and not out of malice. That when they had 
 got possession of authority they meant to scatter 
 papers among the public, to assure the people that 
 the Czar's majesty, who had gone abroad, in con- 
 sequence of the pernicious advice of the Germans, 
 had died beyond seas. But that lest the barque of 
 the State should be buffeted at hazard by the billows 
 to perish a wreck upon the first rock, that Princess 
 Sophia Alexiowna-was to be raised to the throne until 
 the Czarewicz should have attained his majority and 
 
 the strength of manhood, that Basil Galizin ^ was to 
 2 See Appendix.
 
 REVOLT OF THE STRELITZ 27 
 
 have been recalled from exile, to aid Sophia with 
 prudent advice. 
 
 Now, as any one of the points of this confession 
 was of itself weighty enough to merit death. General 
 Schachin had the sentence that was drawn up against 
 them, promulgated and executed. Numbers were 
 condemned to be hanged and gibbeted; many laid 
 their heads upon the fatal block and died by the 
 ax, many were reserved to certain vengeance, and 
 laid in custody in places in the environs. It was 
 contrary to General Gordon's and Prince Masatski's 
 advice that the General proceeded to execute the 
 rebels ; as in this manner the chiefs of the revolt may 
 without sufficient examination, have been removed, 
 by premature death, from further inquest. Hence 
 he drew upon himself, not undeservedly, the fury of 
 a more wary avenger, when, amidst the gayeties of 
 a royal banquet he would have died tlie death, had 
 not the stout arm of General Lefort drawn back and 
 refrained the hand that was descending to the stroke. 
 But, at the time in question, Schachin was of a dif- 
 ferent opinion, believing that timely severity would 
 have the salutary consequence of restoring to the 
 minds of numbers reverence for the monarch and 
 fear of punishment. And for this reason — to 
 strike terror into the rest by an example of public 
 vengeance — he on one day broke seventy, and an- 
 other ninety, upon the cross they so richly deserved.
 
 28 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 How sharp was the pain, how great the indigna- 
 tion to which the Czar's Majesty was mightily 
 moved, when he knew of the rebeUion of the Strehtz, 
 betrayed openly a mind panting for vengeance. He 
 was still tarrying at Vienna, quite full of the desire 
 of setting out for Italy ; but, fervid as was this 
 curiosity of rambling abroad, it was nevertheless, 
 speedily extinguished on the announcement of the 
 troubles that had broken out in the bowels of his 
 realm. Going immediately to Lefort (the only per- 
 son almost that he condescended to treat with in- 
 timate familiarity), he thus indignantly broke out: 
 " Tell me, Francis, son of James, how I can reach 
 Moscow, by the shortest way, in a brief space, so 
 that I may wreak vengeance on this great perfidy of 
 my people, with punishments worthy of their fla- 
 gitious crime. Not one of them shall escape with 
 impunity. Around my royal city, of which, with 
 their impious efforts, they meditated the destruction, 
 I will have gibbets and gallows set upon the walls 
 and ramparts, and each and every of them will I put 
 to a direful death." 
 
 Nor did he long delay the plan for his justly ex- 
 cited wrath; he took the quick post, as his ambas- 
 sador suggested, and in four weeks' time, he had got 
 over about three hundred miles ^ without accident, 
 and arrived on the 4th of September, a monarch for 
 the well-disposed, but an avenger for the wicked. 
 
 3 German miles, each equal to about five English. — Transl.
 
 REVOLT OF THE STRELITZ 29 
 
 His first anxiety, after his arrival, was about the 
 rebellion. In what it consisted? What the insurg- 
 ents meant? Who had dared to instigate such a 
 crime? And as nobody could answer accurately 
 upon all points, and some pleaded their own igno- 
 rance, others the obstinacy of the Strelitz, he began 
 to have suspicions of everybody's loyalty, and began 
 to cogitate about a fresh investigation. The rebels 
 that were kept in custody, in various places in the 
 environs, were all brought in by four regiments of 
 guards, to a fresh investigation and fresh tortures. 
 Prison, tribunal, and rack, for those that were 
 brought in, was in Bebraschentsko. No day, holy or 
 profane, were the inquisitors idle; every day was 
 deemed fit and lawful for torturing. As many as 
 there were accused there were knouts, and every in- 
 quisitor was a butcher. 
 
 Prince Feodor Jurowicz Romadonowski * showed 
 himself by so much more fitted for his inquiry, as 
 he surpassed the rest in cruelty. The very Grand 
 Duke himself, in consequence of the distrust he had 
 conceived of his subjects, performed the office of 
 inquisitor. He put the interrogatories, he ex- 
 amined the criminals, he urged those that were not 
 confessing, he ordered such Strelitz as were more 
 pertinaciously silent, to be subjected to more cruel 
 tortures; those that had already confessed about 
 many things were questioned about more; those who 
 
 4 See Appendix,
 
 30 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 were bereft of strength and reason, and almost of 
 their senses, by excess of torment, were handed over 
 to the skill of the doctors, who were compelled to 
 restore them to strength, in order that they might 
 be broken down by fresh excruciations. The whole 
 month of October was spent in butchering the backs 
 of the culprits with knout ai\d with flames : no day 
 were those that were left alive exempt from scourg- 
 ing or scorching, or else they were broken upon the 
 wheel, or driven to the gibbet, or slain with the ax — 
 the penalties which were inflicted upon them as soon 
 as their confessions had sufficiently revealed the 
 heads of the rebellion.
 
 IV 
 
 RETURN OF THE CZAR, 
 
 5th September, 1698. — The report of the Czar's 
 arrival had spread through the city. The Boyars 
 and principal Muscovites flocked in numbers at an 
 early hour to the place where it had become known 
 he had spent the night,^ to pay their court. Great 
 was the crowd of congratulators, who came to prove, 
 by the promptitude of their obsequiousness the con- 
 stancy of their spotless loyalty to their sovereign. 
 Although the chief ambassador, Francis, son of 
 James Lefort, would receive nobody that day, al- 
 leging the fatigue occasioned by such long and un- 
 interrupted traveling, nevertheless his Majesty the 
 Czar received all that came, with an alacrity that 
 showed as if he wished to be beforehand with his 
 subjects in eagerness. Those who, according to the 
 fashion of that country, would cast themselves upon 
 the ground to worship majesty, he lifted up gra- 
 ciously from their groveling posture, and embraced 
 with a kiss, such as is only due among private 
 friends. If the razor, that plied promiscuously 
 
 1 He had stayed at the house of Miss Mods (see Appendix). 
 31
 
 32 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 among the beards of those present, can be forgiven 
 the injury it did, the Muscovites may truly reckon 
 that day among the happiest of their lives. Knes 
 Alexis Simonowicz Schachin, General-in-Chief of the 
 Czar's troops, was the first who submitted the en- 
 cumbrance of his long beard to the razor. 
 
 Nor can they consider it any disgrace, as their 
 sovereign is the first to show the example — their 
 sovereign to whose wish or command they deem it a 
 holy and religious command to devote their lives. 
 Nor was there anybody left to laugh at the rest. 
 They were all born to the same fate. Nothing but 
 superstitious awe for his office exempted the Patri- 
 arch. Prince Lehugowicz Tzerkasky was let off 
 out of reverence for his advanced years, and Tichon 
 Nikitowicz Stresnow out of the honor due to one 
 who had been guardian to the Czarine. All the rest 
 had to conform to the guise of foreign nations, and 
 the razor eliminated the ancient fashion. In speak- 
 ing of the foreign sovereigns he had visited, he made 
 honorable mention of the King of Poland. " I prize 
 him more than the whole of you together," (he was 
 addressing his Boyars and magnates that were pres- 
 ent) " and that not because of his royal preemi- 
 nence over you, but merely because I like him." 
 
 Such was the effect of the three days during which 
 he enjoyed the King's societ3\ He still proudly 
 wore the King's arms, which he had exchanged with 
 that monarch for his own, in order to proclaim that
 
 RETURN OF THE CZAR 33 
 
 their bond of pledged friendship is more solid than 
 the Gordian knot, and never to be severed with the 
 sword. 
 
 6th September, 1698. — The Czar inspected his 
 troops at exercise; and seeing at a glance how back- 
 ward they were as compared with other soldiers, he 
 went himself through all the attitudes and move- 
 ments of the manual exercise, teaching them by his 
 own motions how they should endeavor to form their 
 heavy clumsy bodies. Tired at last with the uncouth 
 horde, he went off with a bevy of Boyars to a dinner 
 which he had ordered at his Ambassador Lefort's. 
 Salvos of artillery mingled with the shouts of the 
 drinkers, and the pleasures of the table were pro- 
 tracted to a late hour of the evening. Then, taking 
 advantage of the shades of night, attended by a 
 very few of those in whom he reposes most confidence, 
 he went into the Castle of the Kremlin, where he 
 indulged a father's affection in seeing his darling 
 little son, kissed him thrice, and leaving many other 
 pledges of endearment, returned to his wooden dwel- 
 ling in Bebraschentsko, flying the sight of his wife, 
 the Czarine, whom he dislikes with a loathing of old 
 date. 
 
 The Czar's ministry had a friendly hint given to 
 the Lord Envoy to abstain a little from appearing 
 in public, and not to allow those of his household to 
 go out of doors too much; that it was necessary to 
 yield so much to custom in order not to risk the
 
 S4> COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 high esteem which he had hitherto won from every- 
 body. 
 
 8th September, 1698. — His Majesty the Czar 
 was reported to have graciously favored his most 
 serene wife with a secret conversation of four hour's 
 duration in a strange house, but the rumor was ut- 
 terly false; others, with greater show of truth, 
 telling that it was Nathalia, the Czar's favorite 
 sister. 
 
 The Lord Envoy asked for an audience. 
 
 11th September, 1698. — The Russians begin their 
 year, according to the old calendar, in the first of 
 September, for they reckon the number of years from 
 the creation of the world. Moreover, a venerable 
 custom used to mark this daj' among the Russians 
 by a great and ancient solemnity. In the most 
 spacious courtyard of the Castle of the Kremlin, 
 two thrones, most richly adorned, used to be erected 
 for the Czar and the Patriarchs. The latter in the 
 splendor of his pontificals, the former in his royal 
 robes, sat in these thrones, adding by the grandeur 
 of this attire to that reverence for majesty which, 
 even without that outward adornment, the people 
 looked up to as a kind of divinity that only seldom 
 appears. After a solemn benediction given by the 
 Patriarch, the congratulations of the magnates and 
 other chief persons were borne to the Czar, who re- 
 turned thanks with a nod for their good wishes. 
 The absence of the Czar for many years had oc-
 
 RETURN OF THE CZAR 35 
 
 casioned the intermission of these rites, and, with 
 the new-fangled ambition of our daj^s, they were 
 left unrevived as things worn-out and obsolete. It 
 was considered that the worship of by-gone genera- 
 tions w?,s needlessly superstitious in allowing majesty 
 to be wrapped up with so many sacred rites. 
 Nevertheless a jolly inauguration of the year took 
 place in a banquet prepared with royal munificence 
 at the house of General-in-Chief Schachin. A 
 crowd of Boyars, scribes, and military officers, al- 
 most incredible, was assembled there, and among them 
 were several common sailors, with whom the Czar 
 repeatedly mixed, divided apples, and even honored 
 one of them by calling him brother. A salvo of 
 twenty-five great guns marked each toast. Nor 
 could the irksome offices of the barber check the 
 festivities of the day, though it was well known he 
 was enacting the part of jester by appointment at 
 the Czar's court. It was of evil omen to make show 
 of reluctance as the razor approached the chin, and 
 was to be forthwith punished with a boxing on the 
 ears. In this way, between mirth and the wine- 
 cup, many were admonished by this insane ridicule 
 to abandon the olden guise. 
 
 l^th September, 1698. — The Prime Minister, 
 Nareskin, sent for the Lord Envoy, and announced 
 that his Majesty the Czar had appointed to admit 
 him to an audience next day. 
 
 13th September, 1698. — At four in the afternoon
 
 36 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 we went with a most splendid train to audience. It 
 took place in the magnificent house which the Czar 
 had built at his own cost and presented to his general 
 and admiral, Lefort. Numbers of magnates were 
 around his Majesty, and amidst them all the Czar 
 stood preeminent, with a handsome figure and lofty 
 look that bespoke the latent monarch. The Prime 
 Minister and Dumnoi Ukrainzow, by virtue of their 
 functions, stood nearer to his Majesty than the rest. 
 We made our reverential obeisances, which his 
 Majesty acknowledged with a gracious nod which 
 augured kindness. The Lord Envoy had directed 
 that two letters credential should be carried before 
 him to be exhibited to his Majesty the Czar. The 
 first was borne by the secretary, the other by the 
 missionary, Mr. Francis Emiliani, as having special 
 reference to his affairs. Presenting them with a 
 lowly reverence, the Czar graciously took them, and 
 then admitted the Lord Envoy, and all the officials 
 of the embassy and the missionaries present, to kiss 
 hands. 
 
 After this followed courteous questions touching 
 our most august master's health and the Lord En- 
 voy's, suitable and respectful replies to which closed 
 the audience. 
 
 14th September, 1698.— The hymn Te Deum 
 laudamus was sung in the church, amidst the clangor 
 of drums and trumpets, for the Czar's happy re- 
 turn. His Majesty the Czar gave orders that all
 
 RETURN OF THE CZAR 37 
 
 the foreign representatives, the Boyars, and other 
 persons distinguished by rank or favor, should be 
 invited to a grand banquet, given at his Majesty's 
 charges, by General Lefort. The minister of Den- 
 mark, in consequence of having incautiously given 
 up his credentials when asked to do so by the min- 
 istry, has been refused an audience of his Majesty 
 the Czar on his return ; but he had so gained the good 
 graces of General Lefort, that he was admitted into 
 the house of the latter to kiss hands of the «Czar 
 before sitting down to his table. In like manner 
 the envoy of Poland, having prematurely given up 
 his credentials, subjected himself to the same lot; 
 so that losing all hope of an audience, and begging 
 to be at least admitted to kiss hands, he obtained his 
 desire in a little closet where the glasses and drink- 
 ing-bowls were kept. The envoy of Denmark 
 piqued himself greatly on his victory, vaunting that 
 he had been allowed the precedency because he was 
 the first that had the honor of kissing hands. As 
 these rivals were ambitiously contending about pre- 
 cedency, neither willing to be second to the other, 
 the Czar, in a passion, made use of a word familiar 
 to the Muscovites to express a disorder of the mind 
 — calling them Duraks." 
 
 His Majesty, during dinner, addressing the com- 
 
 2 Ti durak (literally: Thou donkey) is an expression still 
 familiar to high officials in Russia up to the nineteenth cen- 
 tury.
 
 38 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 pany, was painting the wretchedness of Poland in 
 terms like the following : " At Vienna I was get- 
 ting fat with good cheer, but hungry Poland made 
 me quite slender again." The Polish minister said 
 that he was surprised that should have happened to 
 his Majesty the Czar; that for his own part he had 
 been brought up there, and had come hither through 
 that country, and yet had managed to get fat ; and 
 fat he was. The Czar answered, " It was not there, 
 but here in Moscow that you crammed yourself " ; — 
 alluding to the free maintenance at the Czar's cost 
 upon which he was supported. Dinner was not j^et 
 over, when his Majesty left the room in a rage with 
 his general-in-chief, Schachin, with whom he had 
 been warmly disputing; and nobody knew what he 
 was going to do. It was known later that he had 
 gone to question the soldiers, to learn from them 
 how many colonels and other regimental officers that 
 general-in-chief had made without reference to merit, 
 merely for money. In a short time when he came 
 back, his wrath had grown to such a pitch that he 
 drew his sword, and facing the general-in-chief, hor- 
 rified his guests with this threat : " By striking 
 thus, I will mar thy mal-government." 
 
 Boiling over with well-grounded anger, he ap- 
 pealed to Prince Romadonowski, and Dumnoi Miki- 
 tim Mosciwicz ; but finding them excuse the general- 
 in-chief, he grew so hot that he startled all the guests 
 by striking right and left, he knew not where, with
 
 RETURN OF THE CZAR 39 
 
 his drawn sword. Knes Romadonowski had to com- 
 plain of a cut finger, and another of a slight wound 
 on the head. Mikitim ]\Iosciwicz was hurt in the 
 hand as the sword was returning from a stroke. A 
 blow far more deadly was aiming at the general-in- 
 chief,^ who beyond a doubt would have been stretched 
 in his gore by the Czar's right hand, had not Gen- 
 eral Lefort (who was almost the only one that might 
 have ventured it), catching the Czar in his arms, 
 drawn back liis hand from the stroke. But the Czar, 
 taking it ill that any person should dare to hinder 
 him from sating his most just wrath, wheeled round 
 upon the spot, and struck his unwelcome impeder a 
 hard blow on the back. He is the only one that 
 knew what remedy to apply ; none of the Muscovites 
 is more beloved by the Czar than he. They say he 
 has been raised up from the lowest condition to this 
 envied pinnacle of authority. This man so miti- 
 gated his ire, that threatening only, he abstained 
 from murder. 
 
 Merriment followed this dire tempest: the Czar, 
 with a face full of smiles, was present at the danc- 
 ing ; and, to show his mirth, commanded the musicians 
 to play the tunes to which (so he said) he had danced 
 at his most beloved lord and brother's, when that 
 most august host was entertaining guests. Two 
 
 3 " Schein," or, as the Diarist writes the name, " Schachin," 
 evidently following the spelling adopted by the Russians to 
 express the sound of the name. See Appendix.
 
 40 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 young ladies departing by stealth were, at an order 
 of the Czar, brought back by soldiers. Again, 
 twenty-five great guns saluted the toasts, and the 
 hilarity of the fete was protracted till half-past five 
 in the morning. 
 
 16th September, 1698. — The Lord Envoy called 
 on the Dumnoi Ukrainzow, to treat of certain mat- 
 ters of moment. The missionaries, Francis-Xavier 
 Loeffler and Paul-Joseph Jarosch, were also present 
 to offer thanks for having obtained leave to go away 
 at last.'* 
 
 About two o'clock came a Pristaw, dressed in a 
 green pelisse of silk and fur of sables, which is given 
 to them with the obligation of returning it to the 
 Czar's treasury, whence upon occasions like the pres- 
 ent it is produced from an inner chamber. He was 
 accompanied by the vice-prefects of the Czar's 
 kitchen and cellars, attended by some clerks of the 
 ambassadorial chancery, and followed by the twelve 
 semsJcoi (persons belonging to the Czar's kitchens), 
 clad in dresses ornamented with silk, over which they 
 wore linen; then in long processional train by two 
 hundred soldiers, bearing the Czar's dainty dishes, 
 and carrying likewise drinkables, brandy, wine, mead 
 of various kinds, beer, and guass. They laid the 
 
 4 Before the reign of Peter I., foreigners who went into 
 Russia were never allowed to leave that country again. Peter 
 I. changed this extraordinary system, in order to favor the 
 introduction of arts and manufactures, at the solicitation of 
 his faithful favorite, General Lefort.
 
 RETURN OF THE CZAR 41 
 
 table. The cloth was of the finest possible texture; 
 there was one little gold salt cellar, two other ves- 
 sels, also of gold, one of them with pepper, and the 
 other with salt. Near the table there was an orna- 
 mental sideboard for the Czar's plate ; cups of vari- 
 ous dimensions were set upon it, the largest measur- 
 ing at least an ell. These vessels were arrayed in 
 pairs, a smaller and a larger one being always 
 together ; and the whole sideboard, laid out with so 
 many great cups of silver and silver gilt, looked like 
 an organ. Near the sideboard, on benches against 
 the wall, glittered two huge vases, one of pewter, 
 the other of silver gilt. Not far from this lay a 
 cask, containing about two gallons of guass. Every- 
 thing being in this order, the Pristaw began reading 
 the prescribed formulary of civility in the name of 
 his Majesty the Czar, as follows: — "His Majesty 
 the Czar, our most puissant master, highly esteems 
 his ever-to-be-entirely-cultivated eternal friendship 
 with his Majesty the Emperor, and greets thee his 
 envoy, and of his especial bounty makes thee parti- 
 cipator of his table." 
 
 The Lord Envoy replied : " I give the deepest 
 thanks to his Majesty the Czar for this clement 
 liberality of his Majesty's table, and not only shall 
 I account it among the greatest of favors, but I 
 will also in my first most humble dispatches extol it 
 to his sacred Imperial INIajesty, my most clement 
 lord, with that submissive devotion which I ought.'*
 
 42 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 After this an agate vessel, full of most precious 
 brandy, was produced, and a tiny cup made out of a 
 ruby, which the Pristaw filled. They then sat down 
 to table: the Lord Envoy had the place of honor, 
 the Pristaw had the second. Mr. Carbonari and 
 Mr. Pleyer, and the four missionaries, had been in- 
 vited; and besides these, all the Lord Envoy's offi- 
 cials. To these brandy was handed round after they 
 had sat down. Then the viands were brought in. 
 Among the roasts was a swan; there were no less 
 than a hundred and eight dishes counted, but ex- 
 cessively few that a German palate could relish. 
 The Pristaw's first toast was to the health of his 
 sacred Majesty the Emperor; the second, the health 
 of his Majesty the Czar ; the third, the health of 
 the faithful ministers of the most august Emperor 
 and the most serene Czar. The wily Pristaw had 
 tried to derange this order, and had asked the Lord 
 Envoy to fill a cup and propose a toast to the health 
 of somebody: but he took nothing by his misplaced 
 subtlety; for the Lord Envoy replied that he was 
 not thirsty, and that it was not his part as guest to 
 propose a toast ; let him, as he was playing the part 
 of host in the Czar's name, fulfill his office as he 
 thought right. There was a crowd of Muscovites 
 standing by, who had flocked into the room to serve 
 and pay their court, to all of whom, as they came up 
 in turn, each according to his condition, the Lord 
 Envoy handed a cup of wine with his own hand.
 
 RETURN OF THE CZAR 43 
 
 wliich, according to established custom, ended dinner 
 and these ceremonies of state. 
 
 18th September, 1698, — Colonel de Grage gave a 
 sumptuous entertainment to-day, which his Majesty 
 the Czar was graciously pleased to honor with his 
 presence, though his gums were swollen with a tooth- 
 ache. General Gordon, at the time of the Czar's 
 unexpected arrival, was at his country seat, distant 
 about thirty miles from the city ; and having heard 
 of it, he came to this dinner to-day to pay his court. 
 He bowed down to the earth twice, and was begging 
 pardon for being so late to pay his court, imputing 
 the delay to the broken weather and storms. His 
 Majesty the Czar raised him up, and when he would 
 have embraced his knees, stretched him his hand 
 instead. The Lord Envoy was fortunate enough 
 not only to be at the dinner, but enjoyed the fur- 
 ther privilege of being at the supper which the Czar 
 had commanded to be prepared for himself : and none 
 others besides the Lord Envoy were admitted to the 
 latter except the three generals, Lefort, Gordon, and 
 Carlowitz.^ The Czar never showed himself more 
 frankly gay ; perhaps because none of the Boyars or 
 anybody else was present to trouble the sensations 
 of joy with evil eye. 
 
 20th September, 1698. — A Czar's entertainment 
 was given to the representatives of Poland and Den- 
 mark. The Pole got twenty-five dishes, the Dane 
 
 5 See Appendix.
 
 44 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 only twenty-two, and both had six gallons of drink- 
 ables of various kinds. It seems the ministry wanted 
 to cut short the controversy about prerogative 
 which the Dane had moved against the Pole. For 
 the Pole was honored with the first entertainment, 
 and the greater number of the viands battled in his 
 favor too. The Dane found it very sour of diges- 
 tion to be held inferior to the Pole: he could not 
 endure that others should have made such a distinc- 
 tion as was made in the difference of this entertain- 
 ment. 
 
 The Patriarch cast upon others the blame that the 
 Czarina was not yet shut up in a monastery, and the 
 consequent contempt of the Czar's commands : his 
 Majesty the Czar's indignation at which was so fiery 
 that he ordered the archimandrite and four popes, 
 to whose charge the Patriarch imputed it, to be set 
 upon little carts by soldiers, and dragged to Bebra- 
 schentsko by night. 
 
 As his evil star would have it, one from the Em- 
 peror's mines, by name Urban, far gone in his cups, 
 was going on horseback to the German suburb where 
 he dwelt. A saucy Russian attacked him, first with 
 abusive language, and then with bodily violence. 
 Urban losing patience, and indignant at being in- 
 sulted by such a filthy rascal, began repelling force 
 by force, and using the natural right of defense 
 against his assailant, drew a pistol to defend him- 
 self — the first weapon which anger and want of
 
 RETURN OF THE CZAR 45 
 
 self-possession suggested to the drunken man. The 
 ball which he wildly fired at his assailant merely 
 grazed the fellow's head; there was not the least 
 sign of the wound being dangerous ; but lest the com- 
 plaints of a man wounded should be fussed with a 
 great noise to the Czar's Majesty, and be made a 
 great affair of, Urban came to an amicable agree- 
 ment with the fellow (who was most in fault him- 
 self) for four roubles to sa}^ nothing about it. 
 ]\Ieantime hints of the accident were reported to the 
 Czar. Urban was arrested, accused of a capital 
 crime — the offended law must be publicly vindi- 
 cated, and private agreements could not be allowed 
 to interrupt its course — for that it was a case that 
 fell within the clause, zvhosoever shall with hostile 
 intent unsheath a sivord or knife, or draw a javelin, 
 or other deadly instrument against another, eveit 
 though death should not ensue, — not even drunken- 
 ness shall excuse him if we yield to Muscovite reason- 
 ing. His very Majesty the Czar, when some per- 
 sons were putting forward the man's drunkenness as 
 a palliation of his offense, openly used these words: 
 Sauffen, rauffen,^ might be excusable; but sauffen, 
 schiessen, could not be allowed to go unpunished. 
 By which apparently he meant to insinuate that 
 drunken people were pardonable if they only used 
 their hands in their quarrels, but not vhen they 
 
 6 Sauffen, rauffen, etc., i. e. drunken scufjUng might be ex- 
 cused; but drunken shootinr/ must not go unpunished.
 
 46 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 fought with tlicir arms. Whence I infer that half- 
 drunkenness among the Muscovites deserves favor, 
 but total drunkenness chastisement. 
 
 22nd September, 1698. — Letting the wretched 
 Urban off capital punishment, they condemned him 
 to the knout (which is a frightful kind of scourge). 
 This by renewed intercession the Lord Envoy saved 
 him from. 
 
 23rd September, 1698. — Here are the principal 
 guests that came to a sumptuous dinner given by 
 the Lord Envoy of the Emperor : the envoy of Den- 
 mark, General Lefort and his kinsman, General Gor- 
 don and his son, Major-General Garlowicz, Colonels 
 de Grage and Bhimberg, the Swedish commissioner 
 Knipper, the Danish commissioner Baudenan, Lieu- 
 tenant-Colonel Colon, and on the pretext of intimacy 
 thither came the Boyar Feodor Madveowicz Apraxin, 
 who, in reward for his good administration, was 
 some years ago confirmed in the post of Voivode of 
 the port of Archangel. About nightfall in came a 
 Muscovite intruder, unknown to any of the guests, 
 and, as far as could be judged from his dress, a 
 common person. Having falsely told that he had 
 received orders from the ministry to inquire whether 
 his Majesty the Czar was present, or would soon 
 come, he gave rise to a suspicion of some deep design 
 of mischief, so General Lefort questioned the fellow 
 about why he was sent and who sent him; and when 
 he stammered and said he forgot the person's name
 
 RETURN OF THE CZAR 4T 
 
 that sent him, he was, after some boxes on the ears, 
 taken by the soldiers to Bebraschentsko to be more 
 closely examined next day. 
 
 2Ji.t}i September, 1698. — An archimandrite sent a 
 present to the Lord Envoy of a huge loaf, weighing 
 thirty pounds, blessed after his fashion. Another 
 monk of high authority had added brandy, apples, 
 nuts, cherries, all preserved in spirits. 
 
 29th September, 1698.~The Czar himself ex- 
 amined a certain pope, an accomplice in the revolt, 
 who, though menaced with the rack, has so far con- 
 fessed nothing.
 
 STUBBORNNESS OF THE MUSCOVITES 
 UNDER TORTURE 
 
 WHAT they tell of the unconquerable stub- 
 bornness of this race under the most ex- 
 quisite tortures is scarcely within the bounds of 
 credibility. Before the Czar*s travels abroad, one 
 of the accomplices of the revolt of 1696 had already 
 four times borne tortures of the most exquisite agony 
 without the least confession of guilt ; and the Czar, 
 perceiving that tortures were of no avail, turned to 
 enticements, and having kissed the person under the 
 question thus spoke to him : — " It is no secret to me 
 that thou hast knowledge of the treason attempted 
 against me. Thou hast been punished enough ; now 
 confess of thy own accord out of the love that thou 
 owest to thy Prince ; and by that God, by whose 
 singular grace I am thy Czar and Prince, I swear, 
 not alone wholly to pardon thy guilt, but moreover, 
 as a special testimony of my clemency, to make thee 
 a colonel." 
 
 This strange friendliness of such a mighty Prince 
 bent the fierce nature of that iron man ; and taking 
 
 the freedom of returning the Czar's embrace, he thus 
 
 49
 
 50 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 began — " For me this is the greatest of all tortures ; 
 by no other shouldst thou have ever vanquished my 
 determination," and thereupon he proceeded to un- 
 fold at great length the whole series of the treason. 
 The Czar, carried away with wonder, that a man 
 who had remained silent under such awfully cruel 
 tortures, should be so softened with one little kind- 
 ness, having asked him how he could have borne so 
 many strokes of the knout and the dreadful torture 
 of fire applied to his back, he began another and 
 more stupendous tale. He stated that he and his 
 accomplices had founded a kind of association; that 
 nobody was admitted into it without being previously 
 tortured; that he who was found capable of bearing 
 the most pain was afterwards decreed higher honors 
 by the others ; that a person who was only once tor- 
 tured was a simple associate and participator in the 
 common advantages ; that anybody who aspired to the 
 higher grades of distinction was not to receive them 
 until he had undergone fresh tortures, and had 
 proved that he could bear more in proportion to the 
 eminence of the dignity; that he had been tortured 
 himself six times, and was the president of the whole 
 society ; that the knout was a mere nothing ; that the 
 roasting of the flesh after knouting was nothing; 
 that he had had to go through far more cruel pains 
 among his associates : " for," continued he, " the 
 sharpest pain of all is when a burning coal is placed 
 in the ear; nor is it less painful when the head is
 
 STUBBORNNESS OF MUSCOVITES 51 
 
 shaved, and extremely cold water is let to fall slowly 
 drop by drop upon it from a height of two ells." 
 
 He said that in all these things he had sui*passed 
 himself and his associates ; and that those who, after 
 being aspirants for membership, were found unable 
 .to go through the first tortures, were made away with 
 by poison, or in some other way, for fear they should 
 betray. That as far as he could remember, at least 
 four hundred such inapt candidates had been killed 
 by himself and his comrades. Thus this fellow bore 
 ten times the most unheard of tortures ; six times 
 from his associates, and four times in the inquiry 
 before the Czar. He is still living, and, as I have 
 set down above, is now by the Czar's clemency a 
 colonel and away in Siberia. 
 
 A case of similar stubbornness occurred when the 
 Czar was returning to Moscow from Vienna. He 
 had already passed Smolensk and was approaching 
 his capital, when one of his suite, terrified at having 
 committed some flagrant act, sought safety in flight. 
 The inquirers could find no indication of the direc- 
 tion or road he had taken ; when at length a peasant 
 from the next hamlet came and said that indeed he 
 knew no particulars about the fugitive, but that he 
 had seen a horse in a neighbor's house. The Czar 
 detained the informer, and sent off Mr. Adam Weyd 
 to the house designated, to obtain more positive in- 
 formation. He saw the horse, and on his return con- 
 firmed the peasant's story to the Czar.
 
 52 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 So the owner of the cottage was brought up, and 
 the Czar inquired civilly of him about the man and 
 the horse. But the hind denied any knowledge of 
 a horse being at his house. The Czar repeated the 
 question in a grave tone: but the fellow persisted in 
 his denial. The Czar urged him to remember that 
 he was speaking to his sovereign, the lord of his 
 limbs, in whose power were life and death. But the 
 thick-skulled clown was not in the least moved by 
 the threat. The Czar in consequence commanded 
 him to be thrown down on the ground and dreadfully 
 beaten from head to foot with a great knotty stick. 
 
 When on further interrogation — he still would 
 confess nothing, he was again most violently thrashed 
 from top to toe. Still the fellow remained contu- 
 maciously silent. They rolled him over again and 
 almost beat him to a mummy. But still at every 
 invitation of the knotty club the mangled rustic lay 
 like a block and stubbornly denied. 
 
 To such obstinate stubbornness are the souls of 
 these Muscovites hardened, that no torments — nay, 
 not the very presence of their sovereign — can bend 
 them to confess the most manifest truth. For it 
 was found out shortly after by true and indubitable 
 proof, that this very rustic had kept the horse, and 
 had sent off the fugitive, with his brother as guide, 
 by secret paths beyond Smolensk.
 
 VI 
 
 PUNISHMENT OF THE STRELITZ 
 
 7th October, 169S. — Such horrible accounts of 
 the tortures daily exercised reached the Patriarch 
 that he thought it his duty to exhort the angered 
 Czar to mansuetude. He thought the best thing 
 was to take an image of the Most Blessed Virgin, the 
 sight of which might remind him of the common lot 
 of man, and bring back the common feelings of pity 
 to a mind that was almost degenerating into savag- 
 ery. But the weights of real justice with Avhich his 
 Majesty the Czar measured the magnitude of this 
 heinous crime were not to be altered by this exhibition 
 of sham piety. For it had come to that pass that 
 Muscovy was only to be saved by cruelty, not by 
 pity. Yet is this severity of chastisement falsely 
 called tyranny ; for sometimes even equity and sever- 
 ity are one and the same: more particularly when 
 disease or obstinate gangrene has taken such firm 
 hold of the members that there remains no other 
 remedy for the general health of the body politic 
 than iron and fire to cut them off. Thus the Czar^s 
 invective against the Patriarch was not unworthy of 
 
 53
 
 64 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 his sovereign office : " What wilt thou with thy 
 image? or what business is it of thine to come here? 
 Hence forthwith, and put back that image in the 
 place where it should be venerated. Know, that I 
 reverence God and his Most Holy Mother more 
 earnestly perhaps than thou dost. It is the duty 
 of my sovereign office, and a duty that I owe to 
 God, to save my people from harm, and to prosecute 
 with public vengeance crimes that tend to the com- 
 mon ruin." 
 
 The same day a Muscovite chorister was charged 
 with having held secret communication in his own 
 house with four Strelitz accused of lese-majesty; and 
 being accused already of another's treason, the Czar 
 himself, attended by Prince Romadonowski and Gen- 
 eral Artemont, put him to the question. 
 
 9th October, 1698. — The Czar stood godfather to 
 the first-born son of the Danish envoy, and gave 
 him the name of Peter. The other godfathers were 
 General Lefort, Major-General Carlowitz, the Dan- 
 ish Commissioner Baudenan ; and the godmothers, the 
 widow of the late General Menzies, the wife of Col- 
 onel Blumberg, and Miss Mons.^ His Majesty wore 
 an open countenance throughout the ceremony, 
 kissed the baby when it cried at being sprinkled with 
 the christening water, most clemently accepted a 
 snufF box which the Danish envoy offered him, and 
 1 See Appendix.
 
 PUNISHMENT OF THE STRELITZ 55 
 
 did not sliame to rush into tlie embraces of the giver. 
 ICnes Boris Alexiowicz Gahzin coming there in the 
 evening, he bade him welcome with a kiss, as a token 
 of his great friendliness. But catching his favorite 
 Alexasca - dancing with his sword on, he taught him 
 the fashion of laying it aside by inflicting a box, to 
 the force of which the blood that spouted abundantly 
 from his nose bore witness. The same comet was 
 near falling foul of Colonel Blumberg, and the more 
 so as, neglecting the Czar's admonition, he was slow 
 about putting off his sword in the dance ; but at his 
 humble entreaties he was pardoned this transgres- 
 sion. 
 
 The Czar had it intimated to the Lord Envoy, 
 through the 3'ounger Lefort, that he would execute 
 vindictive justice upon the rebels to-morrow. 
 
 The Chief of the Rebellion. — Major Karpa- 
 kow was said to be as far beyond the other rebels 
 in treason as he was in official rank. So after being 
 knouted, fire was applied to roast his back to such a 
 degree that he lost both speech and consciousness ; 
 and then, as it was feared that death might remove 
 him prematurely, he was commended to the skill of 
 the Czar's physician. Dr. Carbonari, that he might 
 apply such remedies as would have the effect of re- 
 storing his expiring strength, and as soon as he was 
 
 2 The founder of the family of Menschikow. See also Ap- 
 pendix.
 
 56 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 in some degree restored, he was subjected to the 
 question anew, and fainted away under the sharpest 
 tortures. 
 
 Batska Girin, the insurgent ringleader, after un- 
 dergoing four times the most exquisite tortures, con- 
 fessing nothing, was condemned to be hanged. But 
 on the very day appointed for his execution, there 
 was led out of prison, with the rebel Strelitz, to the 
 question, a certain youth of twenty years of age, 
 on being confronted with whom, he, of his own ac- 
 cord, broke his stubborn silence, and revealed the 
 counsels of the traitors, with all the circumstances. 
 Now that youth of twenty had fallen in by chance 
 with these rebels near the borders of Smolensko, and 
 being forced to wait on the principal instigators of 
 the mutiny, they took no notice of his listening, nor 
 was his presence forbidden even when they used to 
 deliberate about the success of their nefarious en- 
 terprise. When he was dragged along with the 
 rebels before the tribunal, he, in order to prove his 
 innocence more easily, cast himself at the judge's 
 feet, and with the most ardent sighs implored not to 
 be subjected to the torture — that he would confess 
 all that he knew with the most exact truth. Batska 
 Girin, who was condemned to the halter, was not 
 hanged before having made his judicial confession; 
 for he was one of the prime rebels, and an excellent 
 witness of what he very truly detailed.
 
 PUNISHMENT OF THE STRELITZ 57 
 
 Boriska Broskurad was executed in the camp, by 
 command of General iSchachin. 
 
 Takuska, who had been chosen first Major of the 
 White Regimeint, and two other inferior officers, 
 among whom, as they were approaching Moscow, a 
 dispute arose which occasioned some day's delay, 
 were the cause of their own destruction, and saved 
 the lives of all well-disposed people. 
 
 Deacon Ivan Gabrielowicz had, some years pre- 
 viously, courted the Princess Marpha to yield to his 
 passion. The rebels would have this fellow married 
 to Marpha,"^ to be protector of the Strelitz or high 
 chancellor ; but in consequence of the sinister turn 
 of their criminal undertaking, his funeral and 
 obsequies, instead of his nuptials, marked the 
 event. 
 
 Certain popes that were connected with the 
 Strelitz became sharers in their treason. For they 
 put up prayers to God to favor the efforts of treason, 
 and it was they who carried the images of the 
 Blessed Virgin and Saint Nicholas among armed 
 men, and who had promised to draw the people to 
 the side of the revolt, under the pretense of the 
 marked justice of the cause, and of true piety. 
 Hence one of them was hanged by the Czar's buf- 
 foon, near the high church dedicated to the most 
 Holy Trinity ; another, being first beheaded with 
 
 3 A sister of Czar Peter and Sophia.
 
 58 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 the ax, was set upon the wheel near the same place. 
 Dumnoi Diak Jichon Mosciwicz (whom the Czar 
 calls his patriarch) was forced to be the butcher of 
 the latter. 
 
 Sophia. — Wherever ambition has entered into 
 possession there is no room for justice. For ambi- 
 tion has always reasons to allege in its own behalf, 
 and is unmoved at the gulf that lies between empire 
 and subjection. Princess Sophia has the reputation 
 of having intrigued, for the last fourteen years, 
 against her brother's life, and has already been the 
 cause of several seditious movements. She, by her 
 open schemes and factiousness, drove liim, who is at 
 once her sovereign and her brother, to consult for his 
 own safety ; especially as the late perils bore ample 
 witness that, as long as she was at liberty, there 
 would be nothing stable in Muscovy. Shut up on 
 this account in the monastery of Nuns, watched daily 
 in the strictest manner, by a guard of the Czar's 
 troops, nevertheless the wiles of this most ambitious 
 princess could not be quite guarded against by all 
 those watchful eyes. She promised to put herself 
 at the head of a new conspiracy of the Strelitz, and 
 communicated her advice to them — suggesting the 
 manner and the frauds by wliich the Strelitz might 
 bring their dark and malignant designs into effect. 
 She was interrogated by the Czar himself, touching 
 these attempts, and it is still uncertain what she 
 answered. But this much is certain — that in this
 
 PUNISHMENT OF THE STRELITZ 59 
 
 act the Czar's Majesty wept for liis own lot and 
 Sophia's. Some will have it the Czar was on the 
 point of sentencing her to death, and used this argu- 
 ment: "Mary of Scotland was led forth from 
 prison to the block, by command of her sister Eliza- 
 beth, Queen of England, — a warning to me to ex- 
 ercise my power over Sophia." Still once more the 
 brother pardoned a sister's crime, and, instead of 
 penalty, enjoined that she should be banished to a 
 greater distance, in some monastery. 
 
 It was rather the lust of sating her passions than 
 the desire of transferring dominion, that had en- 
 tangled Princess iNIarpha in the same rebellious ma- 
 chinations. She wanted to indulge more at ease in 
 her illicit connection with Deacon Ivan Gabrielowicz,* 
 whom she had maintained at her own cost, for some 
 3^ears, for that purpose. With her head shaved, she 
 has been thrust into a monastery and does penance 
 for the past. 
 
 Fiera and Schukowa, the former Sophia's, the 
 latter Marpha's confidential chamber-woman, were 
 dragged from the Czar's Castle to Bebraschentsko 
 — the place of inquisition — and were both sub- 
 jected to the torture. When Fiera, stripped naked 
 to the loins, was being scourged with what they call 
 the knout, the Czar observed that she was pregnant ; 
 and on being asked whether she knew the fact, she 
 did not deny it, and moreover indicated a certain 
 *Souvarow was his surname. See Appendix.
 
 60 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 chorister as the cause of her burden. By this she 
 liberated herself from further scourging but not 
 from the penalty of death. For, afterwards, she and 
 Schukowa, who had undergone a long scourging, and 
 had confessed her share in the operations of the 
 traitorous Princess, both expiated their crimes with 
 their lives. Nothing is yet certain about the man- 
 ner of their execution : some will have it that they 
 were buried up to the neck alive ; others, that they 
 were thrown into the river langa that flows just 
 there. 
 
 The Correspondence of Sophia with the 
 Rebels. — No garrison is safe where malice and 
 treason have once adopted the idea of upsetting the 
 fortress. Malice is never a moment idle ; examines 
 minutely every smallest nook in which she may safely 
 hide the emissaries of her nefarious designs. It was 
 certainly with no other design that so large a guard 
 of soldiers kept watch and ward, day after day, 
 without the monastery of Nuns, than to observe, 
 with all possible minuteness, this dangerously am- 
 bitious Princess, so that she might be unable to plot 
 anything against the safety of the state and the 
 sovereign. Yet all these Argus eyes were not able 
 to hinder her from trying to raise a truly great and 
 most perilous flame of civil war by means of an abject 
 wretched little mendicant that used to frequent the 
 very guard. This was a little old woman that begged 
 her daily bread. Sophia took her affections by
 
 PUNISHMENT OF THE STRELITZ 61 
 
 storm with profuse liberality and, with promise of 
 higher rewards, seduced her to forbidden deeds. 
 
 When the old hag, full of such grand hopes, prom- 
 ised to execute to the minutest detail all her lady's 
 bidding, Sophia taught her what to guard against 
 and what to do, and told her that she would pretend 
 to give her a loaf as her usual alms, that she would 
 bring it to the Strelitz and should wait to see whether 
 they would entrust her with any answer. There 
 were letters enclosed in the loaf, in which she assured 
 the rebels that she would make strong efforts in aid 
 of their laudable undertakings ; let them only come 
 to the monastery, slay all the guards that would 
 resist; that things had come to such a pass, that 
 there was no happy auspices for them without shed- 
 ding blood. The rebels in like manner transmitted 
 their answers to Sophia in a loaf. The thing was 
 done several times and the soldiers had no suspicion 
 of it — so ingenious is malice in plotting mischief. 
 After all she deceived herself ; and that loaf which 
 they meant to make the bread of death to so many 
 innocent people, led to their own richly deserved 
 ruin, and was most fatal to themselves. 
 
 The First Execution. — 10th October, 169S. — 
 To this exhibition of avenging justice the Czar's 
 Majesty invited all the ambassadors of foreign sov- 
 ereigns, as it were to assert anew on his return that 
 sovereign prerogative of life and death which the 
 rebels had disputed with him.
 
 62 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 The barracks in Bebraschentsko end in a bare 
 field which rises to the summit of a rather steep 
 hill. This was the place appointed for the execu- 
 tions. Here were planted the gibbet stakes, on 
 which the foul heads of these confessedly guilty 
 wretches were to be set, to protract their ignominy 
 beyond death. There the first scene of the tragedy 
 lay exposed. The strangers that had gathered to 
 the spectacle were kept aloof from too close ap- 
 proach; the whole regiment of guards was drawn in 
 array under arms. A little further off, on a high 
 tumulus in the area of the place, there was a multi- 
 tude of Muscovites, crowded and crushing together 
 in a dense circle. A German Major was then my 
 companion ; he concealed his nationality in a Mus- 
 covite dress, besides which he relied upon his military 
 rank and the liberty he might take in consequence 
 of being entitled by reason of his being in the service 
 of the Czar to share in the privileges of the Mus- 
 covites. He mingled with the thronging crowd of 
 Muscovites, and when he came back announced that 
 five rebel heads had been cut off in that spot by an 
 ax that was swung by the noblest arm of all Mus- 
 covy.^ The river Jausa flows past the barracks in 
 Bebraschentsko, and divides them in two. 
 
 On the opposite side of this stream there were a 
 hundred criminals set upon those little Muscovite 
 carts which the natives call Sbosek, awaiting the 
 
 5 /. e. the Czar himself.
 
 PUNISHMENT OF THE STRELITZ 63 
 
 hour of the death they had to undergo. There was 
 a cart for every criminal, and a soldier to guard 
 each. No priestly office was to be seen ; as if the 
 condemned were unworthy of that pious compassion. 
 But they all bore lighted tapers in their hands, not 
 to die without light and cross. The horrors of im- 
 pending death were increased by the piteous lamenta- 
 tions of their women, the sobbing on every side, and 
 the shrieks of the dying that rung upon the sad 
 array. The mother wept for her son, the daughter 
 deplored a parent's fate, the wife lamenting a hus- 
 band's lot, bemoaned along with the others, from 
 whom the various ties of blood and kindred drew 
 tears of sad farewell. But when the horses, urged 
 to a sharp pace, drew them off to the place of their 
 doom, the wail of the women rose into louder sobs 
 and moans. As they tried to keep up with them, 
 forms of expression like these bespoke their grief, as 
 others explained them to me : " Why are you torn 
 from me so soon.'^ Why do you desert me.'' Is a 
 last embrace then denied me? Why am I hindered 
 from bidding him farewell? " With complaints like 
 these they tried to follow their friends when they 
 could not keep up with their rapid course. From a 
 country seat belonging to General Schachin one hun- 
 dred and thirty more Strelitz were led forth to die. 
 At each side of all the city gates there was a gibbet 
 erected, each of which was loaded with six rebels on 
 that day.
 
 64 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 When all were duly brought to the place of execu- 
 tion, and the half dozens were duly distributed at 
 their several gibbets, the Czar's Majesty, dressed in 
 a green Polish cloak, and attended by a numerous 
 suite of Muscovite nobles, came to the gate where, 
 by his Majesty's command, the imperial Lord Envoy 
 had stopped in his own carriage, along with the rep- 
 resentatives of Poland and Denmark. Next them 
 was Major-General de Carlowiz, who had conducted 
 his Majesty on his way from Poland, and a great 
 many other foreigners, among whom the Muscovites 
 mingled round about the gate. Then the proclama- 
 tion of the sentence began, the Czar exhorting all 
 the bystanders to mark well its tenor. As the ex- 
 ecutioner was unable to dispatch so many criminals, 
 some military officers, by command of the Czar, came 
 under compulsion to aid in this butcher's task. The 
 guilty were neither chained nor fettered; but logs 
 were tied to their legs, which hindered them from 
 walking fast, but still allowed them the use of their 
 feet. They strove of their own accord to ascend 
 the ladder, making the sign of the cross towards the 
 four quarters of the world; they themselves covered 
 their eyes and faces with a piece of linen (which is 
 a national custom) ; very many putting their necks 
 into the halter sprang headlong of themselves from 
 the gallows, in order to precipitate their end. There 
 were counted two hundred and thirty that expiated
 
 PUNISHMENT OF THE STRELITZ 65 
 
 their flagitious conduct by halter and gibbet.® 
 
 Second Execution. — IStli October, 1698. — Al- 
 though all those that were accomplices of the re- 
 bellion were condemned to death, yet the Czar's 
 Majesty would not dispense with strict investiga- 
 tion. The more so as the uni'ipe years of judgment 
 of many seemed to bespeak mercy, as they were, as 
 one may say, rather victims of error than of deliber- 
 ate crime. In such case the penalty of death was 
 commuted into some corporal infliction — such as, 
 for instance, the cutting off their ears and noses, 
 to mark them with ignominy for life — a life to be 
 passed, not as previously, in the heart of the realm, 
 but in various and barbarous places on the frontiers 
 of Muscovy. To such places fifty were transported 
 to-day, after being castigated in the manner pre- 
 scribed. 
 
 Third Execution. — 17th October, 1698. — Only 
 six were beheaded to-day, who had the advantage of 
 rank over the others, if rank be a distinction of 
 honor in executed criminals. 
 
 It was reported by a number of persons that to- 
 day again the Czar had himself executed public 
 vengeance upon some traitors. 
 
 The tortures — most atrocious — to which Lieu- 
 tenant-Colonel Kolpakow has been continually sub- 
 jected for some time, so rent his flesh that he lost 
 « See Appendix.
 
 66 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 the power both of speech and motion. In conse- 
 quence he was earnestly commended to the skill and 
 attention of the Czar's physician. Through negli- 
 gence, the doctor had left a knife in his cell, with 
 which he had probably been preparing medicaments. 
 Kolpakow, indignant that the vital spark, which had 
 almost fled, should be summoned back with medicines 
 for no other end than, as you are already aware, 
 that he might be subjected afresh to more cruel tor- 
 tures, drew the knife across his throat, hoping to 
 find death by cutting off that channel of life; but 
 when his hand had nearly accomplished the deed, his 
 strength failed him, and he was cured of his wound, 
 and to-day was dragged back again to the torture. 
 
 FouKTH Execution. — 21st October, 1698. — To 
 prove to all the people how holy and inviolable are 
 those walls of the city, which the Strelitz rashly 
 meditated scaling in a sudden assault, beams were 
 run out from all the embrasures in the walls near the 
 gates, on each of which two rebels were hanged. This 
 day beheld about two hundred and fifty die that 
 death. There are few cities fortified with as many 
 palisades as Moscow has given gibbets to her guard- 
 ian Strelitz. 
 
 Fifth Execution.— ^5 rt^ October, 1698.— This 
 differed considerably from those that preceded. 
 The manner of it was quite different, and hardly 
 credible. Three hundred and thirty at a time were 
 led out together to the fatal ax's stroke, and em-
 
 PUNISHMENT OF THE STRELITZ 67 
 
 brued the whole plain with native but impious blood : 
 for all the Boyars, Senators of the realm, Dimmoi, 
 Diaks, and so forth, that were present at the council 
 constituted against the rebel Strelitz, had been sum- 
 moned by the Czar's command to Bebraschensko, 
 and enjoined to take upon themselves the hangman's 
 office. Some struck the blow unsteadily, and with 
 trembling hands assumed this new and unaccustomed 
 task. The most unfortunate stroke among all the 
 Boyars was given by him ^ whose erring sword struck 
 the back instead of the neck, and thus chopping the 
 Strelitz almost in halves, would have roused him to 
 desperation with pain, had not Alexasca reached the 
 unhappy wretch a surer blow of an ax on the neck. 
 
 Prince Romadonow^ski, under whose command pre- 
 vious to the mutiny these four regiments were to have 
 watched the turbulent gatherings in Poland on the 
 frontier, beheaded, according to order, one out of 
 each regiment. Lastly, to every Boyar a Strelitz 
 was led up, whom he was to behead. The Czar, in 
 his saddle, looked on the whole tragedy. 
 
 26th October, 1698. — Past ten o'clock, the Czar's 
 Majesty arrived in his coach to a feast ordained 
 without regard to expense. — The banquet was re- 
 markable for the sumptuous cookery and the costly 
 
 7 That this was probably Prince Galizin, seems from the 
 entry in the Diary under October 27th, 1G98; though there is 
 here a slight discrepancy as to the precise day on which the 
 magnates performed as " executeurs des hautes ocuvres " in 
 this terrific tragedy. — Transl.
 
 68 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 and precious wines which the well-stored cellar 
 brought forth: for there was Tokay, red Buda, dry 
 Spanish, Rhenish, red French, another as well as 
 that they call Muscatel, a great variety of hydromel, 
 and beer of various descriptions, and that comple- 
 ment which is not the least prized by the Muscovites 
 — brandy (vinum adustum). 
 
 Boyar Golowin ^ has, from his cradle, a natural 
 horror of salad and vinegar; so the Czar directing 
 Colonel Chambers to hold him tight, forced salad 
 and vinegar into his mouth and nostrils, until the 
 blood flowing from his nose succeeded his violent 
 coughing. Shortly after a kind of cold derange- 
 ment of the stomach seized the Czar, and a sudden 
 spasm running through his limbs, struck him with 
 great terror that something was wrong. General 
 Lefort, anxious, like everybody else, for the Sov- 
 ereign's health, directed Doctor Carbonari de Bis- 
 enegg to find a vein, who saying that his faint chill 
 would speedily pass, asked for the most generous 
 Tokay wine that was to be had. Most pleasing to 
 the Czar was this quickwitted remedy, nor did he 
 long delay to take such wholesome physic. He in- 
 quired of the doctor why he meant to sell his wife: 
 and the physician, with a quiet laugh, answered 
 boldly, " Because you delay paying my yearly 
 salary." It happens that Carbonari had some days 
 before, after explaining his wants to Prince Roma- 
 
 8 See Appendix.
 
 PUNISHMENT OF THE STRELITZ 69 
 
 donowski, solicited his salary; and the Prince an- 
 swering that he was ready to lend money at interest, 
 he replied, without hesitating, that except his wife 
 he had no other pledge to offer; but if the Prince 
 was resolved to lend money, that he was ready either 
 to pawn or sell her. In other respects his Majesty 
 all through, with a perfectly open countenance, gave 
 evidence of his internal gayety. 
 
 Seventh Execution. — '27th October, 1698. — 
 To-day was assigned for the punishment of the popes 
 — that is to say, of those who by carrying images 
 to induce the serfs to side with the Strelitz, had 
 invoked the aid of God with the holy rites of his 
 altars for the happy success of this impious plot. 
 The place selected by the judge for the execution 
 was the open space in front of the church of the most 
 Holy Trinity, which is the high church of Moscow. 
 The ignominous gibbet cross awaited the popes, by 
 way of reward in suit with the thousands of signs of 
 the cross they had made, and as their fee for all the 
 benedictions they had given to the refractory troops. 
 The court jester, in the mimic attire of a pope, made 
 the halter ready, and adjusted it, as it was held to 
 be wrong to subject a pope to the hands of the 
 common hangman. A certain Dumnoi struck off 
 the head of another pope, and set his corpse upon 
 the ignominious wheel. Close to the church, too, the 
 halter and wheel proclaimed the enormity of the 
 crime of their guilty burden to the passers by.
 
 70 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 The Czar's Majesty looked on from his carriage 
 while the popes were hurried to execution. To the 
 populace, who stood around in great numbers, he 
 spoke a few words touching the perfidy of the popes, 
 adding the threat, " Henceforward let no one dare 
 to ask any pope to pray for such an intention.'* A 
 little while before the execution of the popes, two 
 rebels, brothers, having had their thighs and other 
 members broken in front of the Castle of the 
 Kremlin, were set alive upon the wheel : twenty others 
 on whom the ax had done its office lay lifeless around 
 these wheels. The two that were bound upon the 
 wheel beheld their third brother among the dead. 
 Nobody will easily believe how lamentable were their 
 cries and howls, unless he has well weighed their ex- 
 cruciations and the greatness of their tortures. I 
 saw their broken thighs tied to the wheel with ropes 
 strained as tightly as possible, so that in all that 
 deluge of torture I do believe none can have exceeded 
 that of the utter impossibility of the least movement. 
 Their miserable cries had struck the Czar as he was 
 being driven past. He went up to the wheels, and 
 first promised speedy death, and afterwards prof- 
 fered them a free pardon, if they would confess sin- 
 cerely. But when upon the very wheel he found 
 them more obstinate than ever, and that they 
 would give no other answer than that they would 
 confess nothing, and that their penalty was nearly 
 paid in full, the Czar left them to the agonies of
 
 PUNISHMENT OF THE STRELITZ 71 
 
 death, and hastened on to the Monastery of the 
 Nuns, in front of which monastery there were thirty 
 gibbets erected in a quadrangular shape, from which 
 were hung two hundred and thirty Strelitz. The 
 three principal ringleaders, who presented a petition 
 to Sophia, touching the administration of the realm, 
 were hanged close to the windows of that princess, 
 presenting, as it were, the petitions that were placed 
 in their hands, so near that Sophia might with ease 
 touch them. Perhaps this was in order to load 
 Sophia with that remorse in every way, which I be- 
 lieve drove her to take the religious habit, in order 
 to pass to a better life. 
 
 27th October, 1698. — The two bedchamberwomen, 
 above named, are buried alive, if we are to believe 
 what rumor has bruited abroad. All the Boyars 
 and magnates that were present at the Council by 
 which the fate of the rebel Strelitz was decreed, this 
 day were summoned to a new tribunal. A criminal 
 was set before each, and each had to carry out with 
 the ax the sentence which had passed. Prince 
 Romadonowski, who was chief of four regiments of 
 Strelitz before their revolt, laid four Strelitz low 
 with the same weapon. — His M'ajesty urging him to 
 it. The more cruel Alexasca went boasting of 
 twenty heads that he had chopped ofF. Galizin was 
 unhappy at having greatly increased the criminal's 
 sufferings by striking ill. Three hundred and thirty 
 that were all led out together to the ax's fatal stroke
 
 72 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 impurpled the plain far and wide with civil — 'tis 
 true — but impious blood. General Lef ort and 
 Baron de Blumberg were invited also to this hang- 
 man's office, but were excused on alleging that it was 
 foreign from the manners of the countries thej^ came 
 from. The Czar himself, sitting in his saddle, looked 
 on with dry eyes at the whole tragedy — at this 
 frightful butchery of such a multitude of men — 
 being only irate that several of the Boyars had per- 
 formed this unaccustomed function with trembling 
 hands — for that no fatter victim could he immolated 
 to God than a wtched man. 
 
 Last Execution. — 31st October, 1698. — Again, 
 in front of the Kremlin Castle two others, whose 
 thighs and extremities had been broken, and who 
 were tied to the wheel, with horrid lamentations 
 throughout the afternoon and the following night, 
 closed their miserable existence in the utmost agony. 
 One of them, the younger of the two, survived amidst 
 his enduring tortures until noon the following day. 
 The Czar dined at his ease with the Boyar Leo 
 Kirilowicz Nareskin, all the representatives and the 
 Czar's ministers being present. The successive and 
 earnest supplications of all present induced the mon- 
 arch, who was long reluctant, to give command to 
 that Gabriel ^ who is so well known at his court that 
 an end might be put with a ball to the life and pangs 
 of the criminal that still continued breathing. 
 » Gabriel Ivanowicz Golovkin. See Appendix.
 
 PUNISHMENT OF THE STRELITZ 73 
 
 For the remainder of the rebels, who were still 
 guarded in places round about, their respective 
 places of confinement were also their places of execu- 
 tion, lest by collecting them all together this tor- 
 turing and butchery in the one place of such a multi- 
 tude might smell tyranny. And especially lest the 
 minds of the citizens, already terror-stricken at so 
 many melancholy exhibitions of their perishing fel- 
 low men should dread every kind of cruelty from 
 their sovereign. 
 
 But considering the daily perils to which the 
 Czar's Majesty was hitherto exposed, without an 
 hour's security, and hardly escaping from many 
 snares, he was very naturally always in great ap- 
 prehension of the exceeding treachery of the Strelitz, 
 so that he fairly concluded not to tolerate a single 
 Strelitz in his empire, — to banish all of them that 
 remained to the farthest confines of Muscovy after 
 having almost extirpated the very name. In the 
 provinces, leave was given to any that preferred to 
 renounce military service forever, and with the con- 
 sent of the Woivodes to addict themselves to domes- 
 tic services. Nor were they quite innocent : for the 
 officers that were quartered in the camp of Azow to 
 keep ward against the hostile inroads of the enemy, 
 told how they were never secure, and hourly ex- 
 pected an atrocious outbreak of treason from the 
 Strelitz ; nor was there any doubt but that they had 
 very ambiguous sympathies for the fortunes of the
 
 74 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 other rebels. All the wives of the Strelitz were com- 
 manded to leave the neighborhood of Moscow, and 
 thus experienced the consequences of the crimes of 
 their husbands. It was forbidden by Ukase, under 
 penalty of death, for any person to keep any of them 
 or afford them secret harbor, unless they would send 
 them out of Moscow to serve upon their estates.
 
 VII 
 
 LIFE AT THE CZAR'S COURT 
 
 His Majesty the Czar. — Those brilliant gifts 
 of nature and soul which have spread his fame 
 throughout almost every realm of earth, pointed 
 him out from his infancy for kingly power and sov- 
 ereign sway. A well set stature, well proportioned 
 limbs, the vivacity of his 3"outh, and an address be- 
 yond his years, so conciliated the affections and good 
 will of his subjects, on account of their expectations 
 of his natural qualifications, that he was openly 
 preferred by the contending suffrage of numbers of 
 people to his brother Ivan Alexiowicz, who was called 
 to the throne of his progenitors by that preeminence 
 of primogeniture which is held sacred by the nations. 
 Ever self-reliant, he contem-ns death and danger, the 
 apprehension of which terrifies others. Often has 
 he gone quite alone to traitors and conspirators 
 against his life, and either fram their reflection on 
 the greatness of their crime, or dread and remorse 
 for their divulged treason al'one he has made them 
 quail by his Majestic presence; and, lest this creep- 
 ing and dangerous pest should spread, he has de-
 
 76 COURT or PETER THE GREAT 
 
 llvered them up to chains and prison. In 1694 he 
 sailed out of the port of Archangel, into the North 
 Sea beyond Cola. A storm arose and drove the 
 ships upon the most perilous rocks. The seamen 
 were already crying out in despair; the Boyars, who 
 had accompanied their sovereign, had betaken tliem- 
 selves to their prayers and their devotion of making 
 thousands of crossings — no doubt in terror at the 
 contemplation of such an awful shipwreck. Alone, 
 amidst the fury of the wild sea, the fearless Czar 
 took the helm with a most cheerful countenance, re- 
 stored courage to their despairing souls, and until 
 the sea subsided, found an asylum for life and limb 
 on that very rock upon which, in rough weather, 
 many vessels had been a prey to the foaming brine. 
 A fcAV years ago, before liis two year's tour, he 
 told his magnates, at Szerdraetows, at whose house 
 he was dining, to what 'Saint, under God's prov- 
 idence, he ascribed his happy escape from that 
 tempest. " When," said he, " I was sailing to 
 Slowiczi Monastir from Archangel, with several of 
 you, I was, as you know, in danger of shipwreck. 
 How great was the h-orror of death and the dread of 
 what seemed certain destruction that beset your 
 minds, I forbear to record. Now we have escaped 
 that danger, we have got through our -peril, but I 
 hope you will think with me, that it is but right to 
 do what I swore to do, and fulfill the vow I made to 
 heaven. I then proffered a vow to God and to my
 
 LIFE AT THE CZAR'S COURT 77 
 
 holy patron, the Apostle Peter, that I would go to 
 Rome to pray at his tomb, less out of my anxiety 
 for my own safety than for all yours. Tell me, 
 Boris Petrowicz," thus he addressed Szeremetow, 
 " what are the country and the towns like? As you 
 have been in those parts you must be able to tell all 
 about them." Szeremetow praised the amenity and 
 beauty of the country, and the Czar subjoined: 
 " Some of you shall come with me when I am going 
 there; when the Turk has been humbled, I will ac- 
 quit myself of my vow." 
 
 His late most serene mother tried to discourage 
 him from this project, and through her the Rus- 
 sians suggested many figments against the Apostolic 
 see. His answer to her was : " If you had not been 
 my mother I could hardly restrain myself. My ven- 
 eration for that name pleads your excuse for what 
 you have dared to speak. B,ut know that death is 
 the penalty that awaits whosoever henceforward 
 shall presume to blame my intention or resist it." 
 And to Rome assuredly he would have gone in per- 
 formance of his vow, had not such pressing dangers 
 summoned him back to Moscow, on the breaking out 
 of a revolt in his realm. 
 
 With what spirit, too, he labored to introduce into 
 Muscovy those polite arts that had for ages been 
 proscibed there, may be easily gathered from his 
 having sent into various -countries of Europe, — into 
 Germany, Italy, England, and Holland, — the most
 
 78 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 talented children of his principal subjects, in order 
 that they might learn — by intercourse, the wisdom 
 and arts o.f the most polished nations, and on their 
 return be ornaments of Muscovy, and in their turn 
 excite their juniors to like deserts. He made known 
 his reasons for this plan, some years ago, to his 
 Boyars, explaining its utility to them. They all 
 commended the monarch's prudence, but insinuated 
 that such immense good, however desirable it might 
 be, was unattainable. That the genius of the Mus- 
 covites was unsuited to such pursuits ; that the money 
 expended on it would be wasted in vain ; and that he 
 would fatigue himself and his subjects with profitless 
 labor. The Czar was indignant at these sayings, 
 which were only worthy of the profound ignorance 
 of those that gave utterance to them. 
 
 For they liked their benighted darkness, and noth- 
 ing but shame at their own deformity was capable 
 of drawing them into the light. " Are we then born 
 less blest than other nations," the Czar continued, 
 " that the divinity should have infused inept minds 
 into our bodies? Have we not hands? Have we 
 not eyes? Have we not the same habit of body that 
 suffices foreign nations for their internal culture? 
 Why have we alone degenerate and rude souls? 
 Why should we alone be left out as unworthy of the 
 glory of human science? By Hercules! We have 
 the same minds ; we can do like other folk if we only 
 will it. For nature has given to all mankind the
 
 LIFE AT THE CZAR'S COURT 79 
 
 same groundwork and seed of virtues ; we are born 
 to all those things ; when the stimulus is applied, all 
 those properties of the soul that have been, as it 
 were, sleeping, shall be awakened." 
 
 The greatest things may be expected from such a 
 Prince. Let the Muscovites congratulate themselves 
 on the treasure they possess in him, for they are now 
 really fortunate. He chose his wife in the family of 
 Lubochin, and she bore him a son named Alexis 
 Petrowicz,^ a youth splendidly gifted and adorned 
 with ingenuous virtues, on whom rest the hopes of 
 his father, and the fortunes and tranquillity of Mus- 
 covy. 
 
 Espousals of the Czar. — Different times call 
 for different manners. It may, indeed, formerly 
 have been the practice in Russia to assemble all 
 the maidens of Muscovy that were of comely form 
 and remarkable beauty when the Czar was thinking 
 of marrying, in order that he might select Avhichever 
 pleased him best. But the custom is become ob- 
 solete ; and the marriages of the Czars have of late 
 been mostly decided by the advice of those who by 
 official rank or favor were raised to the honor of 
 standing beside the throne. Polygamy, too, has 
 fallen into desuetude, and they hold it to be sinful 
 to share the nuptial bed with a number of select con- 
 cubines. But should the Czarina be sterile, the 
 Czar may shut her up in a monastery, and is at 
 
 1 See Appendix.
 
 80 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 liberty to look out for a more fruitful union. Be- 
 sides sterility there are other causes of repudiation. 
 We must believe that other sovereigns do nothing 
 rashly, though we, as it often happens, cannot ac- 
 count for their motives. Thus, the wife of the pres- 
 ent Czar, who, as she bore him a prince, could by 
 no means be said to be sterile, has nevertheless been 
 repudiated — a divorce which, no doubt, is grounded 
 upon most grave causes, the weight of which we may 
 jjerhaps conjecture from the fact that when the Czar 
 was lying outside of Azow he refused to return until 
 he should be certain that his wife's head had been 
 shaved, and that she had been shut up in a monastery 
 called Sustalski, about thirty miles distant from 
 Moscow. 
 
 To seek for a wife among foreign princes has, up 
 to this, been a perilous experiment for a Czar, the 
 Boyars and leading people holding out vain appre- 
 hensions that by the foreign marriages foreign and 
 new-fangled manners would be most perniciously sub- 
 stituted in their country, that ancient usages would 
 become corrupted, the purity of the religion of their 
 fathers be imperilled, and, in short, all Muscovy be 
 exposed to the utmost danger. And the only reason 
 they allege for the poisoning of Czar Feodor Alex- 
 iowicz is that he had chosen a wife out of the Polish 
 family of Lupropin. At length some hope is dawn- 
 ing that a gentler spirit is beginning to breathe over 
 Muscovy, in order to the perfect development of
 
 LIFE AT THE CZAR'S COURT 81 
 
 which the Czar has taken some new measures of ex- 
 ceeding wisdom, for the purpose of civilizing his sub- 
 jects by more frequent intercourse with foreign na- 
 tions ; and they may thus come to like what they 
 have hitherto persecuted with so much disgust! 
 They are beginning to desire marriages with foreign 
 nations, now that they learn that there are no holier 
 bonds to conciliate friendship between nations, and 
 to settle wars — nay, how often they give laws to 
 the victors. Many believe that the Czar divorced 
 the wife whom he has shut up in a convent with the 
 design of marrying a foreigner. 
 
 The Czar's Court. — The former Grand Dukes 
 made use of inestimable parade in their apparel and 
 adornment, the majesty of the Pontiff being super- 
 added to that of the King. On the head they wore 
 a miter, glittering with pearls and priceless gems ; 
 in the right hand they bore an exceedingly rich pas- 
 toral staff; their fingers were covered with rings of 
 gold; and above the throne on which they sat, there 
 was fixed to the right an image of Christ, and to the 
 left one of the most Holy Virgin Mother. The pres- 
 ence and ante-chambers were thronged with men clad 
 in golden vesture and other precious insignia to the 
 very feet. 
 
 But the present Czar, a great contemner of all 
 pomp and ostentation about his own person, rarely 
 makes use of that superfluous multitude of attend- 
 ants. Nor do the Boyars or nobles about the Court
 
 82 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 use the proud old garb, having learnt by the example 
 of the Grand Duke that luxury in dress is an empty 
 thing, and that living in fine houses does not con- 
 stitute wisdom. The Czar himself, when going 
 through his capital, is often accompanied by two, 
 and at most three or four, of his more intimate at- 
 tendants ; feeling even in the perilous time of the 
 military revolt, a confidence in the simple respect of 
 his subjects for majesty. For in former times the 
 Muscovites obeyed their sovereign less like subjects 
 than bought slaves, looking upon him more in the 
 light of a god than a sovereign ; so that one often 
 used to hear among the Muscovites (what the vulgar 
 still continually say) " God only and the Grand 
 Duke know that: everythmg that we have of health 
 and comfort proceeds from the Grand Duke" This 
 reverence of his people recalled Ivan Basilowicz to 
 the throne of his forefathers, when, after unheard-of 
 atrocities, he had, out of fear of just vengeance, be- 
 taken himself to the retirement of a monastery ; 
 whether it would be that respect for the royal name, 
 which those who live under monarchy revere as some- 
 thing sacred, or innate veneration for their sovereign, 
 or their trust in one who had held the reigns of gov- 
 ernment already, drove these men, born for subjec- 
 tion, into loyal obedience. 
 
 Sedition was almost utterly unknown in Muscovy 
 of old ; now you would think the rebelHons must be 
 chained one to another. Hydra's head did not
 
 LIFE AT THE CZAR'S COURT 83 
 
 sprout faster than fresh rebelhons spring out of the 
 very graves of traitors. Hercules thoroughly sub- 
 dued Hydra by fire ; but the restless audacity of the 
 Muscovites feeds upon flames like a Salamander. Is 
 it the iron age that has banished olden fidelity and 
 affection, and reverence for their sovereign, even 
 from among the dregs of the populace? Yet the 
 custom still exists of prostrating themselves on the 
 ground in worship of the Czar, as if his place were 
 nearly as exalted in power as God's. As for the 
 rest, a throng of nobles-Sin-Boyaren, as they call 
 them (that is, sons of Boyars), — perform the daily 
 ministrations. But there is nothing seemly in the 
 service, no cleanliness among the servers ; so that the 
 mere rudeness of their unpolished manners and their 
 filthy service would suffice to distinguish this from 
 every other court in Europe. 
 
 When the table is being laid for the Czar no flour- 
 ish of trumpets summons the courtiers to their func- 
 tions ; but one of them cries out in a stentorian voice, 
 " Gosudar Cuschimim, Gosudar Cuschinum" (that 
 is, " The Grand Duke wants to eat") The cups in 
 which the drink in presented to the Czar are made of 
 gold and silver, in sooth, but so coated with filth 
 that it is hard to discover which precious metal lies 
 hidden beneath the dirt. There is no order in the 
 arrangement of the viands ; they are thrown higgledy- 
 piggledy; and they are generally torn asunder, not 
 carved. There was a reverential old custom which
 
 84 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 forbade the admission of any person to the table of 
 former Czars. They used to dine alone; but they 
 were accustomed to send some dishes from their table 
 to any of the Boyars that they wished to honor with 
 an especial mark of favor. The present Czar, on 
 the other hand, considers it a decided affront to 
 kings that they should be repelled from the pleasures 
 of private society, arguing why should a barbarous 
 and inhuman law be enacted against kings alone, to 
 prevent them enjoying the society of anybody? So 
 that, neglecting the proud solitude of his own table, 
 he is fond of conversing and dining with his advisers, 
 with the German officers, with merchants, and even 
 with the ambassadors of foreign princes. Though 
 this be sovereignly displeasing to the Muscovites, 
 yet, as they must needs obey, they had to adopt the 
 same fashions, and often exhibit a smiling counte- 
 nance upon compulsion. 
 
 The Czau's Residence. — It is called the 
 Kremlin — is surrounded with a stone wall two miles 
 and nine hundred paces in circumference, and com- 
 prises several very handsome structures belonging 
 to the noblesse within the ambit of its enclosure, sev- 
 eral bazaars, several churches — as, for example, the 
 Church of the Archangel Michael, which contains the 
 royal tombs. Blagavesine, or the Church of the An- 
 nunciation, is remarkable for its nine towers, the 
 roofs of which, as well as the whole church, are cov- 
 ered with gilt copper, and the highest tower thereof
 
 LIFE AT THE CZAR'S COURT 85 
 
 is surmounted with a cross of pure gold, of immense 
 value. Ivan Veliskoy, or the Church of Saint John, 
 the tower roof of which is gilt, has a number of bells, 
 one of which, the largest in the world, weighs two 
 thousand two hundred poods, or sixty-six thousand 
 pounds of our weight. Within the same regal pre- 
 cinct, preeminent among the other chanceries, stands 
 that called the Posolki Pricas, or Ambassadorial 
 Chancery, wherein all affairs concerning the condi- 
 tions of the state and negotiations with foreign 
 princes are expedited. All strangers, too, are de- 
 pendent thereon. The chambers and apartments in- 
 tended for the monarch's dwelling are ordained with 
 sumptuous pomp of decorations and hangings, and 
 for size and splendor yield in nothing to the chief 
 palaces in Europe. 
 
 In another part of the fortress there is a stud of 
 various breeds of blood horses, a kind of little 
 Sybarite army, as it were. Horses, to be prized by 
 the Muscovites, must be tall and showy. They like 
 those of Arabia and Altenburgh. Muscovy possesses 
 a native breed of horses exceedingly commendable 
 for their fleetness ; they call them pachmaten. The 
 Czar's predecessors used to appoint chases of dif- 
 ferent kinds in the various districts of their domin- 
 ions, the monarch reserving hawking for his own 
 pleasure. The reigning sovereign, on the contrary, 
 is attracted by other matters — the art of war, fire- 
 works, the roar of artillery, shipbuilding, the dangers
 
 86 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 of the sea, and sets the arduous pursuit of glory 
 above all pleasures and amusements. He went 
 through the military functions from the very lowest 
 rank, and would not ascend the throne of his an- 
 cestors, and mount the pinnacle of sovereign power, 
 before he had passed through all the grades of mil- 
 itary rank to the highest, that of General-in-Chief 
 (Campicucis), so glorious does he esteem it to have 
 merited dignity before possessing it. 
 
 Of Female Luxury. — The women of Muscovy 
 are graceful in figure, and fair and comely of fea- 
 ture: but spoil their beauty with needless shams. 
 Their shapes, unimprisoned by stays, are free to 
 grow as nature bids, and are not so neat and trim of 
 figure as those of other Europeans. They wear 
 chemises interwoven with gold all through, the 
 sleeves of which are plaited up in a marvelous way, 
 being eight and sometimes ten ells in length, and their 
 pretty concatenation of little plaits extends down 
 to the hands, and is confined with handsome and 
 costly bracelets. Their outer garments resemble 
 those of Eastern women : they wear a cloak over their 
 tunic. They often dress in handsome silks and furs, 
 and earrings and rings are in general fashion among 
 them. 
 
 Matrons and widows cover the head with furs of 
 price; maidens only wear a rich band round their 
 forehead and go bareheaded, with their locks floating
 
 LIFE AT THE CZAR'S COURT 87 
 
 upon their shoulders, and arranged with great ele- 
 gance in artificial knots. 
 
 Those of any dignity or honorable condition are 
 not urged to be present at banquets, nor do they even 
 sit at the ordinary table of their husbands. They 
 may be seen, nevertheless, at present when they go 
 to church or drive out to visit their friends ; for 
 there has been a great relaxation of the jealous old 
 rule which required women only to go out in car- 
 riages so closed up, that the very use of the eye- 
 sight was denied to these creatures made bond slaves 
 to a master. Moreover they hold it among the 
 greatest honors that can be paid if a husband admits 
 his guest to see his wife or daughters, who present a 
 glass of brandy, and expect a kiss from the favored 
 guest ; and according to the manner of this people, 
 duly propitiated with this, they withdraw in silence, 
 as they came. They exercise no authority in their 
 households. When the master is absent from house, 
 the servants have full charge of the management of 
 the affairs of the house, according to their honesty 
 or caprice, without asking or acquainting the wife 
 about anything. But the more wealthy maintain 
 great crowds of handmaidens, who do scarcely any 
 work, except what trifling things the wife may re- 
 quire of them; meantime, they are kept shut up in 
 the house, and spin and weave linen. With such a 
 lazy life one cannot blame the custom which con-
 
 88 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 dcmned the poor creatures to such frequent use of 
 the bath, so that their idleness may be at least varied 
 from time to time with another description of sloth. 
 
 Whenever the wife of a man of the higher classes 
 is delivered of a child, they signify it without delay 
 to the employees and tradesmen, with rather a beg- 
 garly kind of civility. Those who dread the hus- 
 band's power, or are ambitious of his patronage, on 
 receiving notice of the new birth, come to offer their 
 congratulations in return; and giving a kiss to the 
 mother, they present some offering as a token for 
 the new-born babe. They had better beware not to 
 give less than a gold piece, for that would be a kind 
 of vili-pending; but everybody is free to be more 
 generous in his gift. He that is found to be the 
 most liberal will be deemed the best friend. What 
 the poet sang of the populace, I apply with greater 
 justice to the Muscovites — the Muscovite tests 
 friendship by its utility. It is a fable that they 
 value the affection of their husbands for them by the 
 amount of blows they receive from them ; for they 
 know how to distinguish between ferocious and gentle 
 characters better than words can tell. If any person 
 of weight were to make a beginning of abandoning 
 the old usage, they would certainly struggle from 
 beneath that most vile bondage in which they are 
 held towards their husbands. 
 
 The Muscovites hold it sinful to marry a fourth 
 wife; in consequence of which the third is in general
 
 LIFE AT THE CZAR'S COURT 89 
 
 treated famously, although her two predecessors are 
 treated like bond-slaves ; for the thoughts of a new 
 wife, and their inordinate desires induce them to 
 wish for their speedy death, and render the charms 
 of the first loathsome, perhaps even within the brief 
 space of a year. It is quite a proverb, that a pope 
 may have one and a layman a third wife. Because 
 when they die it is unlawful for them to marry again, 
 and the Muscovites treat these with true marital 
 affection, as they never can expect to marry again 
 when these die. Nevertheless, some of the more 
 powerful extort a dispensation from the Patriarch 
 to marry a fourth time ; and the Patriarch, even 
 though he does not refuse it, still blames them as 
 sacrilegious nuptials, that are null in virtue of the 
 immutable authority of the prohibitive law. 
 
 The Don Cossacks have another custom. They 
 may repudiate women ad libitum, provided it be in 
 the circle of the whole community, which assembly 
 they call a Krug. In presence of the Hetmann and 
 the entire community the man leads his wife into the 
 middle of the circle, and proclaims that she pleases 
 him no longer; this said, he twirls his wife round 
 about, and letting her go, pronounces her free from 
 his marital authority. The bystander who takes 
 hold of the discarded woman is compelled to keep her 
 as a wife, and protect and maintain her until the 
 next assembly day. Still the laws of these barbar- 
 ians have established rules for repudiation; so that
 
 90 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 they are not valid, except in circle and with the whole 
 community as witnesses. 
 
 Of Marriages. — The fashion of their marriage 
 differs in a slight degree from the mode which a long 
 series of ages has sanctioned in other countries. 
 For among them the men are not accustomed to see 
 or speak to the girl they want to marry; the ques- 
 tion is popped through the mother, or some other 
 old woman, when the parents, without whose consent 
 they consider marriage to be illicit, have agreed 
 about the dowry, which is sometimes proportioned 
 to the wealth of the old people. For it is not moral 
 among them for the husband to promise anything, 
 nor have they any word to express a donation on 
 account of marriage. But if the husband die with- 
 out issue of the marriage, the widow receives as much 
 as she brought, provided the husband has left prop- 
 erty to that amount. If, however, she has had chil- 
 dren by him, she takes the third part of the goods, 
 or more according to her husband's will. Finally, 
 they draw up marriage articles, in which the girl's 
 parents warrant her undefiled; whence many law- 
 suits arise, if the husband should have the least sus- 
 picion that she was previously seduced. When these 
 are completed, the betrothed girl sends the first gift 
 to her intended, which he reciprocates. Still they 
 are neither allowed to see nor speak to one another. 
 
 When the promise of marriage has been given, the 
 father summons his daughter, who comes covered
 
 LIFE AT THE CZAR'S COURT 91 
 
 with a linen veil into his presence ; and asking her 
 whether she be still minded to marry, he takes up a 
 new rod, which has been kept ready for the purpose, 
 and strikes his daughter lightly once or twice, say- 
 ing, " Lo ! my darling daughter, this is the last that 
 shall admonish thee of thy father's authority, be- 
 neath whose rule thou hast lived until now. Now 
 thou art free from me. Remember that thou hast 
 not so much escaped from sway, as rather passed be- 
 neath that of another. Shouldst thou behave not as 
 thou oughtest towards thy husband, he in my stead 
 shall admonish thee with this rod." With this the 
 father, concluding his speech, stretches at the same 
 time the whip to the bridegroom, who excusing him- 
 self briefly according to custom, says that he " be- 
 lieves he shall have no need of this whip " ; but he is 
 bound to accept it, and put it up under his belt, like 
 a valuable present. 
 
 Now, towards the evening which precedes the 
 solemn nuptials, the bride is conducted by her mother 
 and other matrons in a carriage, or, if it should be 
 winter, in a sledge, with her marriage trousseau and 
 a nuptial bed, elegantly appareled, to the bride- 
 groom's house, and there she is guarded over-night, 
 so that she may not be seen by her husband. Early 
 in the morning of the day appointed for the marriage 
 ceremony the bride, with a linen veil which covers 
 her from the head to below the middle, is conducted 
 to church by her parents and friends; the bride-
 
 92 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 groom, on his part, being accompanied by his 
 friends ; even poor men using horses, though the 
 church may be close to their door. The ceremonies 
 and words which the priest makes use of hardly dif- 
 fer from those used among other Christians. It is 
 with a ring that the pledge of fidelity is ratified, and 
 the hand of the bride is put into the hand of the 
 bridegroom, which done, the bride falls to the bride- 
 groom's feet and touches his shoes with her forehead, 
 in token of subjection; and the bridegroom, in his 
 turn, puts his tunic over her, in testimony that he 
 undertakes to protect her. Then the kinsfolk and 
 friends bow to both bridegroom and bride^, as a 
 pledge of mutual willingness to oblige and of friend- 
 ship to be cherished. Finally the bridegroom's fa- 
 ther presents a loaf to the priest who forthwith hands 
 it to the bride's father, begging him to pay the 
 dowry he has promised to the bridegroom on the day 
 ajDpointed, and henceforward to maintain inviolate 
 friendship with him and his friends. In like manner, 
 too, he breaks the bride's loaf into many pieces, and 
 distributes a bit to each of the relatives and connec- 
 tions present, fco signify that they should hencefor- 
 ward be kneaded together like a loaf. 
 
 These ceremonies being at an end, the bridegroom 
 leads the bride by the hand to the church porch, and 
 pours out a cup of hydromel for her, which she sips 
 beneath her veil, and thus both return with their 
 friends to the house of the parents. There grain is
 
 LIFE AT THE CZAR'S COURT 93 
 
 strewn on the threshold as a token of fertility and 
 plenty and while the guests are regaling themselves 
 the newly wedded couple proceed to the consumma- 
 tion of the marriage. After they have reposed for 
 some two or three hours upon the nuptial couch, 
 some of the banqueters are assigned to go to them 
 and inquire of the bridegroom whether he has found 
 the bride a virgin. If he answers in the affirmative 
 to the great joy of the guests, the bridal couple are 
 led amid dancing to the bath which has been adorned 
 with sweet smelling herbs. Having bathed to their 
 pleasure, they are led back to the banquet hall where 
 they receive an abundance of congratulation. If 
 on the other hand the bridegroom complains that the 
 bride has already been seduced, she is repudiated and 
 sent back to her parents. Not even the chastity of 
 our age could improve upon this test for determining 
 virginity.
 
 VIII 
 
 A WINTER IN MOSCOW 
 
 1st November, 1698. — A certain envoy from the 
 north was aware that the Czar had slept the night 
 before at the house of the Danish Commissioner, 
 Baudenan, Thither, therefore, he went, expecting 
 by this humble court to win greater favor than 
 others. Nor was he wrong in his reckoning, for the 
 Czar took hira to show him the great Iwan, the larg- 
 est bell in the Avorld. But he was near losing in a 
 moment whatever share of favor he had laboriously 
 gathered. Along with the other representatives he 
 had come by invitation with the Czar to a banquet, 
 which was sumptuously prepared by the Prime 
 Minister, Leo Kirilowicz Galizin. He had sat down 
 next the Czar, and united with the other representa- 
 tives, and the Czar's ministers had implored him — 
 and long he resisted — to shorten the long-sufferings 
 of the criminals that were set upon the wheel yester- 
 day, and who were still alive, by sending a bullet 
 through them. The favorite, Gabriel, who was 
 charged with the execution of this, announced at his 
 return that one of the condemned had lived some 
 
 95
 
 96 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 time, even after the bullet: whence the Czar took 
 occasion to tell the following story : — A coachman 
 in Poland was so wounded by the chance explosion 
 of a firelock that he was carrying in his hand, that 
 the bullet, entering through his mouth, had gone out 
 again at the occiput ; notwithstanding which he sur- 
 vived nine days. The envoy above mentioned, aug- 
 uring the success of the whole day from his early 
 court, treated the matter as something too porten- 
 tious and prodigious. But the Czar asseverated all 
 the more strongly in proportion as he saw the envoy's 
 amazement to be great; and as the latter at last 
 brought up some physical reasons, and was philo- 
 sophizing with perilous ambition, adding that it 
 would be hard to persuade him of it, the Czar, wroth 
 that the truth of his word should be so pertinaciously 
 impugned, called upon General Carlowitz to repeat 
 the whole story from the beginning. When Carlow- 
 itz had told it just the same, the Czar thus addressed, 
 with a certain indignation, the philosopher that had 
 thus publicly cast doubt upon him : " Dost thou 
 believe now.-^ If it should happen still to be beyond 
 belief, I will write to the King of the Poles, that I 
 may prove my veracity to you by his testimony." 
 During dinner there was question about the differ- 
 ences between countries ; the one that lay next Mus- 
 covy was very ill spoken of. The minister who comes 
 thence replied that for his part he had noticed a 
 great many things in Muscovy that were deserving
 
 A WINTER IN MOSCOW 97 
 
 of censure. The Czar retorted, " If thou wert a 
 subject of mine, I would add thee as a companion to 
 those of mine that are now hanging from the gibbet, 
 — for I well know what thy speech alludes to." The 
 Czar, of set purpose, sought an opportunity of set- 
 ting the same personage to dance with his fool, a 
 laughing-stock for his court, amidst a general titter ; 
 and yet the personage did not understand what a 
 shameful trick was being played upon him, until the 
 Imperial Lord Envoy, who had always a great deal 
 of influence with him, had quietly given him warning, 
 through one of his intimates, not to forget the 
 dignity of his office. By another jesting interpreta- 
 tion he understood the slaps which a sacred hand 
 inflicted as being a token of afl^ection t Thus the 
 acts of others sometimes borrow so completely their 
 denomination from our own interpretings, that we 
 see frequently the same acts, according to the 
 chances of time and natural character, at one time 
 taken for insults, and at another for favors. 
 
 2nd, November, 1698. — His Majesty the Czar 
 being about to start for Vcroncje, ordered a dinner 
 to be prepared by his general, Lefort, and all the 
 other representatives, as well as the chief Boyars, 
 to be invited. The Czar came later than usual, hav- 
 ing doubtless been engaged in some aff'airs of no light 
 moment ; even at table, without taking notice of the 
 presence of the representatives, he still continued 
 discussing some points with his Boyars ; but the con-
 
 98 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 sultation was next thing to an altercation — neither 
 words nor hands being spared, every one being ex- 
 cited beyond measure, each defending his own opinion 
 with obstinacy, and with a warmth perilous beneath 
 the eye of Majesty. They differed so widely that 
 they almost abused one another. Two, whose lowlier 
 rank excused them from mingling in this knotty dis- 
 cussion, sought to win the favor due to a capital 
 funny joke by another description of clownishness, 
 trying, as something quite fine, to hit one another's 
 heads with the bread which they found upon the 
 table ; for they all, in their own way, did their best to 
 give genuine proofs of their true origin. Yet even 
 among the Muscovite guests some there were whose 
 more modest speech with their Prince betokened high 
 character of soul. An undisturbable gravity of 
 manners was remarkable in the aged Prince Leo 
 Hugowicz Tzerkaski; ripe prudence of counsel char- 
 acterized Boyar Golowin ; an apt knowledge of public 
 affairs was distinguishable in Artemonowicz ; — men 
 who shone all the more, as their species was evidently 
 very rare. The last that I have named, indignant 
 that so many, and such a variety of madmen, should 
 be admitted to a royal banquet, addressing the 
 Dumnoi of the Siberian Pricassa in Latin (which he 
 knows weU), exclaimed aloud: " Stultorum plena 
 sunt omnia," (i. e., " the whole place is full of 
 fools,") so that his Avords might easily reach the 
 ears of all that knew Latin.
 
 A WINTER IN MOSCOW 99 
 
 Dancing followed immediately after the table was 
 removed ; and now took place the dismissal of the 
 Envoy of the Poles. The Czar broke hastily away, 
 quite unexpectedly, from the gay crowd, into a place 
 next the dining-room, where the glasses and drinking 
 cups and various kinds of drinkables were kept, com- 
 manding the Envoy of Poland to follow him. 
 Thither crowded after him the w^hole body of the 
 guests eager to know what was the case. Impeded 
 by their own haste, they had not all got into the 
 room, when the letters recredential had been already 
 handed to the Polish Envoy and the Czar coming 
 out again, put to the blush those that were still try- 
 ing and pushing to get in. At the intercession of 
 General Lefort, two Dutch sea-captains, guilty of 
 notorious disobedience, and who had been condemned 
 to death by a court-martial, were brought in to the 
 Czar, and after previously craving pardon, cast 
 themselves at his feet, and, receiving back their 
 swords from his own hand, were restored to life, 
 honor, and their former functions, — an immense les- 
 son of the Czar's sovereign clemency. He then bade 
 farewell, with a kiss, to all the Boyars and repre- 
 sentatives, — indeed in an especial manner to the Im- 
 perial Lord Envoy — excepting the Pole, who having 
 got his recredentials, appeared to be severed from 
 further salutation of his Majesty. 
 
 4.th November, 1698. — By public order, all who 
 have shops in the streets near the Castle of the
 
 100 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 Kremlin, have been commanded to destroy them with- 
 out any subterfuge, as quickly as possible, under 
 penalty of confiscation of goods, and corporeal pains 
 at discretion. They will have it, that the motive 
 of this edict is the beautifying and ornamenting of 
 the city. 
 
 The Czar's banquet, at which it is the old custom 
 and usage to receive representatives on their de- 
 parture, was given to the Lord Envoy of Poland. 
 
 5th November, 1698. — ■ In virtue of yesterday's 
 ukase, the shops near the Castle of the Kremlin are 
 already destroyed, so urgent is obedience. 
 
 By another ukase of the Czar, all tolerably grown 
 and robust boys are to be sent to Veroneje, to learn 
 shipbuilding from the workmen there. The first 
 200, who are to be sent from thence into Holland, 
 began their journey to-day. Two sons of the late 
 General Menzies were let off, on the grounds of their 
 weakly age. 
 
 8th November, 1698. — Doctor Zoppot, having 
 complained to General Lefort of his interpreter be- 
 ing carried off by force, Romadonowski sent him back 
 to-day upon compulsion. A clerk from the Czar's 
 chancery brought a monkey to the same physician 
 with an order for him to exert his skill to cure him. 
 Zoppot excused himself on the ground of his igno- 
 rance of the Russian idiom, and suggested his col- 
 league Carbonari as more capable of the cure, on 
 account of his skill in that tongue.
 
 A WINTER IN MOSCOW 101 
 
 26th November, 1698. — Although the late inhu- 
 man and most atrocious execution of rebels had cut 
 off bj halter, blade, and wheel, some thousands of 
 men in a few days, still Muscovy is not cleansed of 
 all the dregs of treason. As soon as the Czar's 
 Majesty left for Veroneje, the secret meetings of 
 some troublous spirits struck fear into the minds of 
 the well-disposed that stubborn civil war might rise 
 again more fierce then ever. This suspicion is still 
 dissembled till notice be quietly given to the Czar's 
 Majesty of it; that he may so provide in time a 
 strong remedy for the mischief once more afoot, be- 
 fore it gathers strength. 
 
 A courier that was sent off to his Majesty last 
 night to Veroneje, with letters and some valuable 
 utensils, was violently seized on the stone bridge at 
 Moscow, and robbed — the letters, indeed, with the 
 seals broken, were found scattered on the bridge at 
 daybreak ; but wliither the utensils — whither the 
 courier himself has been carried, there was no trace 
 to indicate. This deed is imputed to the treasonable 
 conspirators ; and it is presumed that the courier has 
 been thrust beneath the ice into the waters of the 
 river Neglina. 
 
 Ji-th December, 1698. — «Seventy of the Moscow 
 night-robbers were seized, of whom two executioners, 
 that were formerly popes, were the first to be put 
 to the rack. 
 
 16th December, 1698. — One of the sea-captains,
 
 102 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 spending the night with his wife at the house of a 
 Bojar, and in the night-time being invited to drive 
 out sleighing, for pleasure, along with the Boyar, 
 found, on his return, his wife with her head cut off, 
 and nothing could be discovered about the assassin. 
 21st December, 1698. — The Lord Envoy of Po- 
 land invited some Russian princes to dine with him. 
 After copious compotations, with mightily lavish 
 generosity, he offered all that he possessed to his 
 guests ; nor were the Russians squeamish about tak- 
 ing what was offered. One asked for a coach and 
 six horses, another for a pair of most costly pistols, 
 a third for a book, which was all he saw remaining; 
 and the Pole gave each of them what he asked, ad- 
 ding: "The Muscovites may see that I am taking 
 nothing with me out of Russia that comes from 
 them." 
 
 25th December, 1698. — A mother plotted with 
 her daughter the death of her husband, and the cruel 
 deed was perpetrated by two murderers hired for 
 thirty kreuzers.^ Both these women suffered the 
 penalty due to the crime, which they confessed, and 
 were buried up to the neck in the earth. The mother 
 bore the intense cold until the third day ; the daugh- 
 ter survived till the sixth. When dead, their corpses 
 were taken out of the holes and hanged, heads down- 
 most, to the feet of the two assassins before men- 
 tioned, who had perished by the halter. Tliis penalty 
 1 About fifteen cents.
 
 A WINTER IN MOSCOW 103 
 
 only attaches to the murder of a husband by his wife ; 
 men who slay their wives are not punished with such 
 rigor — na}»", very often the crime is compounded 
 for merely with money. 
 
 28th, 29th, 30th, December, 1689, — The Czar's 
 Majesty came back from Veroneje, and held the 
 daughter of Colonel Baron de Blumberg at the 
 christening font. There were seventeen other spon- 
 sors along with him; and they were of almost every 
 religion. Among the chief were — the Imperial 
 Lord Envoy, Generals Lefort and Carlowitz, Mr. 
 Adam Weyd. In the course of conversation, the 
 Imperial Lord Envoy began speaking about the 
 penalty for slaying a husband, and of the reported 
 custom of digging up those who survived after the 
 third day, and sending them to hard labor in some 
 monastery. The Czar, whose ear the words had 
 indistinctly reached, inquired what they were talking 
 about, and when he learnt that it was about the lenity 
 of the custom, he replied to his eager listeners, that 
 so little was such a custom in force, that he could 
 state that he knew himself of a woman, a long time 
 ago, who was condemned to the same penalty, and 
 who had expiated her crime with the death she de- 
 served after surviving twelve days without food. 
 
 As long as the person condemned to the pit con- 
 tinues to drag out life, the sentries on guard are 
 commanded, under the most severe coi'poral penalty, 
 to admit no food or drink whatever to the criminal
 
 104 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 which restore her strength, so as to make her bear 
 longer tortures. That night the Czar is said to 
 have gone to her and examined her, perhaps with a 
 design of clemency, should she be found deserving of 
 it ; but the greatness of the crime stood in his way, 
 and pardon of such an extremely atrocious example 
 seemed dangerous. Others averred that the Czar 
 wanted to have one of the soldiers on guard free her 
 from further torment of this slow death by shooting 
 her; but General Lefort cried out against this idea, 
 that it was not for a soldier to shoot a woman, and 
 that woman fomid guilty of death; upon which and 
 some other squeamish word in addition, the Czar in 
 a passion ordered that the wretched creature should 
 be left until death came for her. 
 
 31st December, 1698. — General Lefort received 
 the Czar and two hundred guests of the highest no- 
 bility to a most sumptuous banquet. The Czar was 
 so exasperated at the exceedingly base calumnies of 
 two,^ who, by reason of their holding the highest 
 rank after the Czar, were become rivals, that he 
 loudly threatened he would cut short the dispute 
 with the head of one or the other — whichever should 
 be found most in fault. He commissioned Prince 
 Romadonowski to examine into the affair ; and with 
 a violent blow of his clenched hand thrust back Gen- 
 
 2 The personages here alluded to are Nareskln, the Czar's 
 maternal uncle, wlio held the function of Prime Minister and 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Prince Boris Galizin, Viceroy 
 of Cassan and Astracan. — Transl.
 
 A WINTER IN MOSCOW 105 
 
 eral Lefort, who was coming up to mitigate his fury. 
 
 1st, 2nd, January, 1699. — All the Boyars came 
 to the Czar in Bebraschentsko by command. The 
 question of peace or war was debated. 
 
 A peasant was found dead, with several wounds, 
 in the German Slowoda; the cuts showed that he 
 was murdered with a knife ; but as no trace could be 
 found of the robber — who had fled — the crime had 
 to go unpunished. 
 
 Rebels brought here from Azow paid the penalty 
 of their treason. Among those implicated was a 
 pope whom the Czar himself, with his own hand, laid 
 low with the ax. Likewise six coiners suffered the 
 same penalty; the false money was poured molten 
 down their throats. 
 
 3rd January, 1699. — To-day, being the eve of 
 our Lord's Nativity (old style), which is preceded by 
 a Russian fast of seven weeks, all the markets and 
 public thoroughfares are to be seen plenished to over- 
 flowing with flesh meats. Here you have an in- 
 credible multitude of geese; in another place such 
 store of pigs, ready killed, that you would think it 
 enough to last the whole year; the number of oxen 
 killed is in proportion; fowl of every kind looked as 
 if they had flown together from all Muscovy, and 
 every part thereof, into this one city. It would be 
 useless to attempt naming all the varieties. Every- 
 thing that one could wish for was to be had. 
 
 One of the Boyars was abusing the freedom of
 
 106 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 speech rather too much in the Czar's presence, in 
 Bebraschentsko ; but he has been castigated bodily, 
 and the smart of the stripes has duly impressed upon 
 him how much it behoveth to be of reverent speech 
 with his sovereign. 
 
 6th January, 1699. — A woman who had killed 
 both her husband and her mother was questioned, by 
 what impulses she had been driven to commit a crime 
 so impious and inhuman — whether she did not know 
 with what cruel rigor crimes of that kind were 
 avenged? To the amazement of the inquirer, she 
 replied, with a fearless front : " I lately saw two 
 women found guilty of killing a husband awaiting a 
 slow death in their pits: I neither doubt that the 
 same torment awaits me, nor do I crave for any 
 favor; it is enough for me that, having killed my 
 husband and my mother I can rejoice at so bold a 
 deed.'* The ordinary penalty of the pit was sharp- 
 ened in her case, by burning her limbs in addition. 
 
 8th, 9th January, 1699. — The Czar was dining 
 with Prince Galizin, when a sudden tumult announced 
 that a fire had broken out, and had already con- 
 sumed the house of a certain Boyar. The Czar, ex- 
 cited at this, springing hastily from the table and 
 running headlong to the place where he had heard the 
 fire was raging, not only gave his advice, but ac- 
 tually employed his own hands in putting out the 
 flames, and was seen laboring away among the very 
 tottering ruins of the house.
 
 A WINTER IN MOSCOW 107 
 
 l^tJi January, 1699. — ^A certain juggler (in the 
 vernacular, Taschenspieler) reached Muscovy a long 
 time ago, with mighty hopes of making a fortune by 
 his art in such far off lands. Coming from his na- 
 tive Scotland, he ambitiously used to boast that he 
 was of the stock of those the splendor of whose il- 
 lustrious blood General de Gordon had proved to 
 Muscovy by his noble deeds. It seems that his claim 
 might have been acknowledged, if the baseness of a 
 jester's art, which was his sole profession, had not 
 condemned him to be injuriously treated as base- 
 born ; nor had the fierce eagles j^rocreated a timid 
 dove. Fate led this poor devil, cast off by his proud 
 kin, by an unbroken chain of calamity to his utter 
 destruction at last. Falling into a brawl with a cap- 
 tain whose name was Schmid, he forged^ the last 
 link of his misfortunes. The captain's wife rushing 
 in with her two grown-up daughters to help her hus- 
 band, who was grappling with the juggler, and almost 
 on the point of succumbing; the number of hands 
 upon him drove the juggler to fiercer counsels; so 
 snatching the dirk which he carried, he struck so 
 deep into the captain's side, that his life's blood 
 gushed forth and he expired. When the deed of 
 
 3 " Forged," a pun upon the name Schmid ; the German 
 equivalent of the English patronymic Smith, respecting which 
 a rare and quaint heraldic writer, Morgan, in his " Sphere of 
 Gentry" (London 1660-1661) reflects: "Whence cometh 
 Smith, or whether he be knight or squire? But from the Smith 
 that forgeth in the fire?" Transl.
 
 108 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 death was done he fled to the Lord Envoy of Poland 
 for sanctuary ; but it was an unhappy thought, for 
 the Envoy, being on the point of leaving Muscovy 
 from day to day, was in doubt whether he could con- 
 vey the poor wretch safely away, and so he himself 
 hastily, and too thoughtlessly, conducted the man 
 in a sledge from the Ambassadorial Court into the 
 German suburb, — from a place of asylum and safe 
 concealment into open peril of prison, life, and ex- 
 ecution ; fancying that he would be longer safely 
 hidden in Colonel de Gordon's house, who was in the 
 Czar's service, and had a right to give orders to 
 anj'body, than among those whom the unanimous 
 consent of nations far and wide has surrounded with 
 a barrier, as it were, sacred, legal and inviolate. 
 The Envoy's going in person in the evening, and in 
 such turbulent haste, towards the German Slowoda, 
 gave rise to a suspicion of whom he was bringing. 
 No sooner was he brought back than, trace of him 
 being found, the juggler was delivered up, upon 
 summons of the head man; the sentence of the pop- 
 ulace, as usual, having decreed peculiarly atrocious 
 pains for him for having deprived a wife of her hus- 
 band and left four children fatherless. Under the 
 penal question, the pangs of which he thrice bore 
 to the envy of the Muscovites, he alleged the neces- 
 sity he was under of killing in his own defense, that 
 he was driven to that crime in order to escape being 
 strangled by the other, as was imminent.
 
 A WINTER IN MOSCOW 109 
 
 A serf had been pardoned of the treacherous shiy- 
 ing of his master; but the Czar having acquired the 
 certainty of his having committed a fresh man- 
 slaughter to-day, commanded liim to be cast into 
 irons and executed. 
 
 13th January, 1699. — A sumptuous comedy cele- 
 brates the time of Our Lord's Nativity. The chief 
 Muscovites, at the Czar's choice, shine in various 
 sham ecclesiastical dignities. One represents the 
 Patriarch, others Metropolites, Archimandrites, 
 Popes, Deacons, Sub-Deacons, etc. Each, accord- 
 ing to whichever denomination of these the Czar has 
 given him, has to put on the vestments that belong 
 to it. The scenic Patriarch, with his sham metro- 
 polites and the rest in eighty sledges, and to the 
 number of two hundred, makes the round of the 
 city of ]\Ioscow and the German Slowoda, ensigned 
 with crosses, miter, and the other insignia of his 
 assumed dignity. They all stop at the houses of 
 the richer Muscovites and German officers, and sing 
 the praises of the new-born Deity in strains for 
 which the inhabitants of those houses have to pay 
 dearly. After they had sung the praises of the new- 
 born Deity at his house. General Lefort recreated 
 them all with pleasanter music, banqueting and danc- 
 ing. 
 
 lJi,tli January, 1699. — The wealthiest merchant 
 of Muscovy, whose name is Filadilow, gave such of- 
 fense by having only presented twelve roubles to the
 
 110 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 Czar and his Boyars, who sung the praises of God, 
 new-born, at his house, that the Czar, with all pos- 
 sible speed, sent off a hundred of the populace to 
 the house of the merchant, with a mandate to pay 
 forthwith to every vOne of them a rouble each. But 
 Prince Tzerkasky, whom they had nicknamed the 
 richest rustic, was rendered more prudent by what 
 befell his neighbor; — in order not to merit the 
 Czar's anger he offered a thousand roubles to the 
 mob of singers. It behoved the Germans to make 
 show of equal readiness. Everywhere they keep the 
 table ready with cold viands, not to be found unpre- 
 pared. 
 
 15th, 16th January, 1699. — The festival of the 
 Three Kings, or rather the Epiphany of Our Lord, 
 w^as graced with the blessing of the river Neglina. 
 The Lord Envoy went to see this grand annual 
 solemnity from the windows of the Ambassadorial 
 chancery which looks out upon the river. The pro- 
 cession to the river, which was frozen over, went in 
 this order: General de Gordon's regiment opened 
 the line, Major Menzies at their head instead of 
 Colonel Gordon ; the exquisite red of their new uni- 
 forms adding to their splendid appearance. Gor- 
 don's regiment was followed by another, called Beb- 
 raschentsko, in handsome new green uniforms ; the 
 Tsar had taken the place of its chief, his fine port 
 winning respect for Majesty. There followed a 
 third regiment, which they call Scmonowski, the good
 
 A WINTER IN MOSCOW 111 
 
 grace of which a dwarf drummer increased in the 
 same proportion as nature had curtailed in his per- 
 son the common stature of manldnd. The soldiers' 
 uniforms were blue. Every regiment had two bands 
 of musicians, each composed of eighteen instru- 
 mentalists. The Bebraschcntsko regiment was fol- 
 low^ed by eight, and the others by six pieces of can- 
 non. Almost all the officers of these regiments are 
 German by birth or origin. A place was railed off 
 upon the ice-bound river. Gordon's regiment was 
 drawn up across the stream above, Semonowski be- 
 low, and that of Bebraschentsko longitudinally about 
 the place where the enclosure was erected. That 
 week General Lefort's regiment happened to be on 
 guard, in consequence of Avhich two companies of 
 it escorted the clergy, and two more, with white 
 wands in their hands, made way and kept off the 
 pressure of the crowd. Immediately in front of the 
 ropes, went twelve semskoi (sewers of the Czar's 
 kitchen) carrying brooms to keep the streets clean. 
 Five hundred ecclesiastics, sub-deacons, deacons, 
 priests, abbots, bishops, and archbishops, clad in the 
 vestments proper to their dignity and office, and 
 gleaming with ornature of gold and silver, and gems 
 and precious stones, lent an air of greater majesty 
 to devotion. Before a splendid gold cross twelve 
 clerics bore a lantern with three burning wax lights ; 
 the Muscovites consider it unlawful and shameful for 
 the cross to appear in public unattended with lights.
 
 112 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 An incredible multitude of people had thronged 
 from every side ; the streets were full ; the roofs of 
 the houses covered ; the walls of the city crowded 
 with spectators. When the clergy had filled the 
 ample space of the enclosure, the sacred ceremonies 
 began, multitudes of wax-torches being lighted up 
 before the Divine invocations commenced. When 
 the Almighty had been invoked according to their 
 ritual, the Metropolite went around incensing the 
 whole enclosure, in the middle of which the ice was 
 broken with a mattock, allowing the water to appear 
 like a well. This he thrice incensed, and hallowed 
 it by thrice dipping a burning wax-light into it, and 
 by the customary benediction. Near the enclosure 
 there was erected a pillar higher than its walls, from 
 which he who had been deemed worthy of that honor 
 by the Tsar, waved the standard of the realm. To 
 be chosen by the Tsar for this office is considered to 
 be a very special favor of his Majesty, a more ample 
 argument of which you have in their being custom- 
 arily presented with new garaients from head to 
 foot, and with some gold pieces besides, at the 
 Tsar's pleasure, on this occasion. The standard in 
 question is white, with a double-headed eagle em- 
 broidered in gold. It is not allowed to be unfurled 
 till the clergy have entered within the enclosure of 
 the stage. Then the standard bearer has to watch 
 the ceremonies, the incensing, the blessing — each of 
 which he indicates by waving the standard. His
 
 A WINTER IN MOSCOW 113 
 
 motions are closely observed by the regimental stand- 
 ard-bearers, in order to wave at the same time as he 
 does. 
 
 When the benediction of the water is over, all the 
 regimental standards approach and stand around 
 to be duly sprinkled with the hallowed water. The 
 Patriarch or in his absence, the Metropolite, leaving 
 the enclosure or choir, bestowed this sprinkling upon 
 his Majesty the Tsar, and all the soldiers. To com- 
 plete the solemnity of the festival, at the Tsar's word 
 of command the artillery of all the regiments roared 
 out, which was responded to by a triple volley of 
 musketry. Before the ceremony began, a vessel — 
 not unlike a sarcophagus in shape — covered with 
 red cloth, in which the hallowed water was to be 
 carried to his Majesty the Tsar's palace, was drawn 
 hither by six of his Majesty's white horses. Clerics 
 bore a vessel for the Patriarch also, and several 
 others for the Boyars and Magnates. 
 
 18tli January, 1699. — Many of the sailor serfs 
 that were lately taken to Holland, and who have just 
 come back to Muscovy, have married, though they 
 left lawfully wedded wIa'cs behind them in Holland. 
 This having come to the knowledge of General and 
 Admiral Lefort, he prohibited all pastors of churches, 
 parsons and missionaries of whatsoever religion, 
 from presuming to unite or join any person in mar- 
 riage without his foreknowledge and special consent. 
 This prohibition rested on just grounds; for other-
 
 114 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 wise it would have been easy for these most incon- 
 stant men to trample heaven, rehgion and good 
 morals under foot, and fall headlong into that most 
 pestilent madness, polygamy. 
 
 19th, 20th January, 1699.— The Czar's physi- 
 cian, Gregory Marinowicz Carbonari de Bisenegg, 
 dining with us, was summoned by Gosen, the apothe- 
 cary, to attend a sick monk. Perhaps the moon at 
 that time had taken away the fellow's lucid interval, 
 — for against all rule and worship, without having 
 the decency to send in word, with the clownishness 
 one meets in public inns, he had stalked into the 
 room where the Lord Envoy and his guests were at 
 dinner. All stood aghast at this impudence of a 
 man who was scarcely known, and whom many had 
 never seen, when, without uttering a word, he beck- 
 oned to the physician, and with a disdainful nod, 
 summoned him to his presence. The doctor, indig- 
 nant at having to deal with a madman, plainly 
 showed that this bore was no favorite with him. The 
 Imperial Lord Envoy, too, lost further patience with 
 this outrageous raving fool, who seemed to be stretch- 
 ing the Czar's command falsely by his servants, and 
 to be warned that if he ever again attempted any- 
 thing so rash, he should not leave unpunished. For 
 who could have believed that a man notoriously sub- 
 ject to fits of insanity would be employed in the 
 service of the Sovereign? 
 
 And the doctor was all the more in doubt that the
 
 A WINTER IN MOSCOW 115 
 
 Czar had really given such an order, from having just 
 come from visiting that very same person. But the 
 madman's fury grew wild. The apothecary flew 
 helter skelter, madman like, to the Czar — vociferat- 
 ing with great impetuosity that the Czar's commands 
 had been treated Avith contempt, that he himself had 
 been insulted, that the doctor's disobedience was un- 
 pardonable; and he was supported in his complaints 
 by one who is either a connection of his by marriage, 
 or a member of the same religion. By their accu- 
 sations the Czar's wrath was roused against the blame- 
 less physician, and they endeavored to make it more 
 perilous to him by another perverse stratagem. 
 For when the doctor, after again visiting the sick 
 man, asked, for the sake of paying his court, to be 
 admitted to the Czar, the ensign then on guard 
 denied him access during two whole hours, on pur- 
 pose that his apparent delay in coming, which the 
 physician could not then explain, might give a color 
 of truth to their iniquitous complaint. Thus it oc- 
 curred that the Czar would not listen to him, Avhen 
 he was at length allowed admission : but ordered him, 
 like a public criminal, to give himself up at once 
 into the hands of the guard, and go into arrest. 
 
 About dusk, the funeral of Captain Schmid, that 
 was lately killed, took place, the Czar attending it. 
 I cannot omit to mention how stolidly, and with what 
 scandal to his hearers the preacher in the course of 
 usual discourse was not ashamed openly to say that
 
 116 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 there could be no doubt that a man whom another 
 had criminally slain would enjoy eternal beatitude; 
 but that the slayer, even should he escape punish- 
 ment in this world, would never get free from ever- 
 lasting damnation — a judgment worthy surely of 
 himself alone. 
 
 25th January, 1699. — The Czar's physician, 
 Carbonari de Bisenegg, being freed from arrest to- 
 day, when he inquired of Prince Romadonowski why 
 he was so long kept in confinement, got no other 
 answer than that it was done to vex him : an exceed- 
 ingly pleasant and elegant jest, certainly, which, if 
 it be not dangerous to the vexed man's life, at least 
 imperils and risks his honor. Such vexing, cer- 
 tainly, does not prove him that suffers it to be in the 
 right, but it exhibits him who inflicts it in the wrong. 
 28th January, 1699. — Ernest Wilhelm von SenfF 
 was kidnapped by Boyar Plesceow on his travels in 
 a place called Zuckermandl, and brought by force 
 and false persuasions into Muscovy. Now he was 
 treated most horribly in Moscow ; for he got no food, 
 but mere guass ^ and bread. If he asked for any- 
 thing else the Muscovites knocked his head against 
 the wall. To this boy of sixteen years of age, at 
 the utmost, Boyar Plesceow offered several girls to 
 take his choice of the handsomest if he would first 
 embrace the Russian religion; nay, there was a fear 
 lest he should be depraved by another infamous 
 4 A kind of mead.
 
 A WINTER IN MOSCOW 117 
 
 usage. He fled in tears to the Lord Envoy Imperial, 
 for refuge, on the first day of the Christmas holi- 
 days ; but the Czar, at the Boyar's instance, re- 
 quested that the boy be sent to him, as it were, to 
 be attached to his own service and court, and that 
 he should henceforward neither feel harshness, nor 
 want, nor violence, on account of his religion. 
 Nevertheless, to-day being fully emancipated, he 
 came back to the Lord Envoy. 
 
 A certain English merchant has been sentenced to 
 pay a fine of a thousand roubles, because his brother 
 (would not pay a bill of exchange for two thousand 
 ducats to certain Russians that were going from 
 England to Catalonia ; although the whole fault 
 should most justly have been laid upon these very 
 Muscovites themselves, inasmuch as they only asked 
 for five hundred ducats when they were going away. 
 
 2nd February, 1699. — To-day Bacchus con- 
 secrated with solemn Epicurean rites, to wit with 
 feasting, the house which the Czar lately gave to his 
 favorite Alexasca. Last week thirty Strelitz came 
 here from the camp at Azow to inspect the state of 
 Moscow, and to see how they might bring their trea- 
 sonable designs to bear according to their desires. 
 But indications of their impious designs being con- 
 veyed to the Tsar, all were seized, and underwent for 
 the first time the atrocious torture of the rack, the 
 Tsar questioning them. 
 
 3rd February, 1699. — The Brandenburgh Envoy,
 
 118 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 reciprocating the customary civilities, visited the 
 Imperial Lord Envoy, with the whole of his magnifi- 
 cent train for greater state. 
 
 While the thirty Strelitz above mentioned are un- 
 dergoing torture here, again five hundred Strelitz 
 more have revolted in the neighborhood of Moscow. 
 
 ^th February, 1699. — ^For the fresh rebels new 
 racks were made ready. Every Boyar is an in- 
 quisitor; to torture the guilty was deemed a token 
 of remarkable loyalty. The officials of a certain 
 Envoy, whose curiosity for sight-seeing had led them 
 to Bebraschentsko, had inspected various prisons of 
 the criminals, hastening whithersoever more atrocious 
 howls betokened a tragedy of greater anguish. Al- 
 ready they passed with horror through three, when 
 howls more appalling and groans more horrible than 
 they had yet heard stimulated them to examine what 
 cruelty was going on in a fourth house. But hardly 
 had they set foot within it than they were about 
 withdrawing again, being startled at the sight of the 
 Tsar and the Boyars. Nareskin, Romadonowski, 
 and Tichon Nikitowicz were the chief persons. As 
 they were about retiring Nareskin addressed them, 
 inquiring who they were, and whence and why they 
 had come here. They felt sore at being caught by 
 foreigners in the performance of that office. He 
 then ordered an interpreter to tell them to go to 
 Romadonowski's house, for that the Knes had some- 
 thing to say to them. When they refused the
 
 A WINTER IN MOSCOW 119 
 
 Tsar's commands wore added, with the threat, that If 
 they would not obey their contempt should not go 
 unpunished. Nothing dismayed by this threat, 
 trusting in their freedom, they replied still more 
 confidently to those who were giving these orders, 
 that they listened to commands from no person what- 
 soever — that if the Knes had anything to say to 
 them, he was not ignorant what Envoy's household 
 they were, and that at his residence all could be bet- 
 ter settled. As they were going off, one of the 
 military officers followed them to drag them by vio- 
 lence to the place the Boyars had ordered, and 
 did not hesitate to lay hands upon a horse at full 
 gallop, to stop him ; but the party of the officials 
 was stronger both in courage and numbers ; they 
 dashed aside by main force his attempt to stop 
 them, and reached safe shelter. Perhaps for penalty 
 of their rash curiosity, they would have been forced 
 to exhibit themselves before the Boyars in the same 
 capacity as they had detected them. 
 
 5th February, 1699. — An accomplice of the re- 
 bellion was undergoing the penal question. While 
 he was being tied to the rack, his lamentations gave 
 rise to a hope that the truth might be pressed from 
 him by torments ; but the event was quite the con- 
 trary, for as soon as his body began to be stretched 
 with the rope, besides the horrible crackling of his 
 members which were being torn from their natural 
 sockets, he remained mute, even when twenty strokes
 
 120 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 of the knout were superadded, as If the accumulation 
 of his pain were too great to afflict the senses. All 
 believed that the man must be crushed with excess 
 of calamity to such a degree, that he must have lost 
 the power of moaning and speech. So he was loosed 
 from the infamous rack and rope, and then asked 
 whether he knew the persons present. To the as- 
 tonishment of all, he enumerated the names of every 
 one of them. But when they put a fresh question 
 about the treason, once more he became uttei'ly 
 dumb, and did not break silence during a whole 
 quarter of an hour, while he was roasted at a fire by 
 the Czar's command. The Czar, tired at last of 
 this exceedingly wicked stubborness of the traitor, 
 furiously raised the stick which he happened to have 
 in his hand, and thrust it so violently into his jaws — 
 clenched in obstinate silence — to break them open, 
 and make him give tongue and speak. And these 
 words, too, that fell from the raging man: " Con- 
 fess, beast, confess ! " loudly proclaimed how great 
 was his wrath. 
 
 7th February, 1699. — Dr. Zoppot began to prac- 
 tice anatomy in the presence of the Czar and a great 
 number of Boyars, who, to their disgust, were coerced 
 by the Czar's commands. 
 
 One of the rebels under examination had made a 
 dagger to kill himself, but strength failed him to 
 complete his crime ; still the wound was such that, if 
 neglected, it would lead to death. It was the Sov-
 
 A WINTER IN MOSCOW 121 
 
 ereign's interest that the man should not escape ex- 
 amination and torture by a premature death; so he 
 commanded that every diligence should be employed 
 by the physicians to heal his wound. Nay, he had 
 the heart to be present and to solace the criminal- 
 patient when the medicines were being prepared, in 
 order that the doctors might be more attentive to do 
 everything faithfully for the best to effect a cure on 
 account of his presence. 
 
 12th February, 1699. — A certain foreigner, dis- 
 tinguished by an office which is held sacred among 
 the nations, looking for comforts that are not com- 
 patible with the rigors of a northern climate, drank 
 an immoderate quantity of wine, and in order to try 
 and cool the heat of his body with the freezing air, 
 drove round all the streets of the city in an open 
 carriage, and did not return home until he had, by 
 striking and banging against things, shattered the 
 carriage so that it was no longer capable of bearing 
 its burden and driver. He attributes it to his good 
 luck that he was not caught by the Muscovite night- 
 rovers, or massacred utterly, especially as the main 
 delight of the Muscovite populace is to rob and run 
 riot against the Germans." We had a splendid proof 
 of this to-day. One of our messengers that knows 
 the Russian language fell in with a Russian, who was 
 furiously vomiting forth a quantity of foul speeches 
 
 5 A term used in the daj^s of Peter the Great to designate all 
 foreigners.
 
 122 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 against the Germans. " Ye German dogs ! " he was 
 saying, " you have been robbing long enough at your 
 ease, but the day is at liand when you shall suffer 
 and pay the penalty." The messenger, in order to 
 have another witness to this contumelious language, 
 called a soldier, and at last ordered the rascal to 
 be dragged off in custody; but, by command of the 
 Imperial Lord Envoy, the fellow was left to the dis- 
 cretion of the soldiers, who stripped him naked and 
 loaded him with a sound fustigation. 
 
 13th February, 1699. — A direful day is this, and 
 one that ought truly to be marked with a black 
 token, for it beheld the execution of two hundred 
 men, all whose heads were cut off with the ax. In 
 a very wide space, close to the Kremlin Castle, beams 
 were stretched for the criminals to lay their heads 
 upon. I measured the length myself in paces — it 
 was two beams in breadth. His Majesty the Czar, 
 along with a certain Alexander, in whose society 
 he takes great delight, came thither in an open car- 
 riage, and crossing the funereal area, entered a place 
 near at hand, where thirty that were found guilty of 
 this nefarious conspiracy expiated their crime with 
 death. Meanwhile the dismal crowd of criminals 
 had filled up the space above described, and the Czar 
 had come back in order that the men should be pun- 
 ished in his presence who cogitated such a crime 
 with impious counsels against him when absent. A 
 scribe, mounting upon a bench that was brought by
 
 A WINTER IN MOSCOW 123 
 
 soldiers, proclaimed, in several places, the sentence 
 framed against the rebels, that the enormity of the 
 fault and the justice of the punislunent about being 
 inflicted, might be better known to the multitude 
 round about. When he ceased the executioner be- 
 gan the tragedy ; there was a kind of order among 
 the unfortunate wretches ; they all followed one an- 
 other in turn, without any sadness on their features, 
 or any horror of their imminent death. Yet I do 
 not want to refer that contempt of death to great- 
 ness of soul. I rather think that the infamy of 
 their atrocious guilt, and the cruel remembrance of 
 the tortures with which they were daily butchered, 
 had brought them to that contempt of life and self. 
 A wife and children followed one of them up to the 
 very beam, with great and frightful wailing. As 
 this man was on the point of laying down, he gave 
 his gloves and linen — all that he had left — to his 
 wife and the sorrowful group of his beloved off- 
 spring, by way of last farewell. Another, to whose 
 turn it came to kiss the fatal beam complained that 
 he was forced to go innocent to death ; and the Czar, 
 who was not farther than one step away from him, 
 answered him: " Die, wretch! If thou be innocent, 
 the guUt of thy blood 'will be mine." 
 
 Besides the Czar and the above-named Alexander, 
 some others of the principal Muscovites were there. 
 The Czar told one of them to take the ax himself; 
 and when he would excuse himself, saying that he
 
 124 COURT OF TETER THE GREAT 
 
 had not sufficient courage for that office, he was 
 deemed worthy of being told that he was an ass. 
 When the execution was over, it pleased the Czar's 
 Majesty to sup at General Gordon's ; but he showed 
 no sign of cheerfulness, insisting to several upon the 
 obstinacy and stubborness of the criminals. He de- 
 tailed with indignant words to General Gordon and 
 the Muscovite magnates present, that one of the con- 
 demned was so insolent that he dared, just as he was 
 about lying down upon the beam, to address the Czar 
 with these words : " Make way, my lord, it is for 
 me to lie here." Out of 150, only three confessed 
 themselves guilty of the crime and treason, and 
 begged pardon of the Czar's Majesty there present, 
 for which they were held worthy of their Sovereign's 
 clemency, were freed from the penalty of death, and 
 obtained pardon for their delict. But for next day 
 a fresh scene of execution was being decked ; and the 
 Czar invited General Gordon to it, telling him that 
 he wished to execute the criminals by a new mode, 
 unknown to his people, to wit, with the sword in- 
 stead of the ax. IMoreover, the often-mentioned 
 Alexander ^ showed that evening, riding in an open 
 carriage through all the thoroughfares of the city, 
 by the exceedingly frequent flourishing of a naked 
 sword how sanguinary a tragedy he expected next 
 day. 
 6 Alexander Mentschikow. See Appendix.
 
 A WINTER IN MOSCOW 125 
 
 Before It was quite dark, a certain Russian and 
 eighteen accomplices of his were arrested and im- 
 prisoned for rapine committed. 
 
 lJf,tli Fehruary, 1609. — At the Jausa 150 rebels 
 were dragged to execution. The Czar is said to have 
 cut off 84 rebel heads with the sword, Boyar Plesceow 
 holding up each criminal in such a manner by the 
 hair as to render the blow more certain. Three 
 swords were prepared for this use : one, while it was 
 being brandished, flew in pieces and missed its stroke. 
 The Cossacks who had mixed themselves up with this 
 revolt were quartered and set upon the ignominious 
 stake, as a terror and example of punishment to 
 those whose restless spirits might henceforward, per- 
 haps, tempt them to flagitious daring. Five more, 
 guilty of more insolent counsel, had their hands and 
 feet first cut ofF, and then were beheaded. 
 
 19tli Fehruary, 1699. — Great is the multitude of 
 robbers in Muscovy, and greater still their audacit}'. 
 Their cruel pursuits have so obliterated human feel- 
 ings and shame from their hearts, that even in the 
 broad daylight they are not afraid to set upon the 
 people. Just as the day was declining, but while 
 there was still broad light, a servant of Zoppot, the 
 Czar's physician, was attacked by one of the bandit 
 tribe, who after rifling him, would beyond doubt, as 
 their fashion is, have murdered him, had not the 
 doctor, perceiving what was taking place, disturbed
 
 126 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 the robber in his designs by coming speedily and 
 suddenly to the rescue along with some others that 
 fortunately he had met. 
 
 At nightfall the Imperial Lord Envoy and the 
 rest of the representatives were invited by Colonel 
 Baron de Blumberg, in the name of his Majesty, the 
 Czar, to come to the suburban residence of Prince 
 Romadonowslci, to a show of fireworks. The first 
 representation was three crowns with the legend, 
 vivant; the second was a double heart, with the word, 
 vivat; the third was another double heart without 
 motto. 
 
 21st February, 1699. — A sham Patriarch and a 
 complete set of scenic clergy dedicated to Bacchus, 
 with solemn festivities, the palace which was built 
 at the Czar's expense, and which it has pleased him 
 now to have called Lefort's. A procession thither 
 set out from Colonel Lima's house. He that bore 
 the assumed honors of the Patriarch was conspicuous 
 in the vestments proper to a bishop. Bacchus was 
 decked with a miter, and went stark naked, to be- 
 token lasciviousness to the lookers on. Cupid and 
 Venus were the insignia on his crozier, lest there 
 should be any mistake about what flock he was pastor 
 of. The remaining rout of Bacchanalians came 
 after him, some carrying great bowls full of wine, 
 others mead, others again beer and brandy, that 
 last joj of heated Bacchus. And as the wintry cold
 
 A WINTER IN MOSCOW 12T 
 
 hindered their binding their brows with laurel, they 
 carried great dishes of dried tobacco leaves, with 
 which, Avhen ignited, they went to the remotest corn- 
 ers of the palace, exhaling those most delectable 
 odors and most pleasant incense to Bacchus from 
 their smutty jaws. Two of those pipes through 
 wliich some people are pleased to puff smoke — a 
 most empty fancy — being set crosswise, served the 
 scenic bishop to confirm the rites of consecration. 
 Now, who would believe that the sign of the cross — 
 that most precious pledge of our redemption — was 
 held up to mockery? 
 
 ^'Bnd February, 1699. — The representatives as 
 well as the magnates of Muscovy, by invitation in 
 the name of his Majesty the Czar, went to a banquet 
 of regal magnificence and most sumptuous festivities 
 to last two days, in the new palace which was dedi- 
 cated with yesterday's rites to Bacchus. Prince 
 Szeremetow, as a Knight of Malta, with the cross of 
 the order on his breast, imitated most happily the 
 German manners, and wore the German dress ; by 
 which, though he found favor with his prince, and 
 was held in special honor, he won the envy of the 
 Boyars, who feared that he would, by help of his 
 Majesty's favor, work his way up to great and 
 eminent power. It is in the nature of mortals to be- 
 hold with evil eye the recent good fortune of any- 
 body, and they are never more inclined to carp than
 
 128 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 when they see any person in the saddle. The Czar 
 perceiving some of his military officers hankering 
 after new fashions, wearing very loose coats, cut off 
 the cuffs that hung down too low, and thus addressed 
 them : " See, these things are in your way ; you are 
 safe nowhere with them ; at one moment you upset 
 a glass ; then you forgetfully dip them in the sauce ; 
 get gaiters made of them." 
 
 The Russians call the week that precedes the 
 Lenten fast, Maslaniza,'^ because the use of flesh is 
 forbidden, but butter is allowed during those days. 
 With more truth would I call them Bacchanalia, for 
 they give themselves up to debauchery the whole 
 time. Then they have no shame of lust, no reverence 
 of God, and most mischievous licentiousness is the 
 order of the day ; as though crimes committed at 
 that time were not cognizable by any judge or any 
 fair law. Such is the confidence of the robbers, that 
 you can hardly hear of anything else but manslaugh- 
 ter and funerals. There are, indeed, guards posted 
 at certain points to prevent such mischief; but no 
 precaution, no fear, can quell the insolent, and they 
 are all sharers of the general vice. Several patri- 
 archs gave themselves great pains to abolish this 
 corrupting custom, but all that they were able to 
 effect was, to diminish the duration of this direful 
 custom to eight days instead of fourteen, over which 
 it formerly extended, so that by shortening the in- 
 7 From mazlo, butter.
 
 A WINTER IN MOSCOW 129 
 
 famy which inveterate abuse prevented being wholly 
 cured, there might at least be less wounds left after 
 it. 
 
 ^3rd February, 1699. — The festivities went on 
 till to-da}', nor were the guests allowed to go home 
 to sleep ; certain chambers and hours of sleep were 
 appointed for the representatives, after which the 
 guards were changed, and they must join in the 
 dancing and in applauding the other dancers. 
 
 As one of the ministers was commending the fav- 
 orite Alexander, that his jMajesty the Czar might 
 raise him to the equestrian order, creating him Stol- 
 nock, the answer is reported to have been: "Al- 
 ready without that he takes undue honors to him- 
 self: it is better to lessen ambition than to add to 
 it." 
 
 ^8th February, 1699. — Near the Kremlin, in two 
 places, 36 rebels, and in Bebraschenstko 150, suffered 
 the penalty of death. 
 
 The hours of evening were adorned with pleasantcr 
 sports, and royally splendid, for there was a hand- 
 some display of fireworks to gratify the sight. In 
 consequence of which the representatives and the 
 Muscovite nobilit}^ went by invitation to the Lefort 
 Palace, from which there was an excellent view of 
 the devices of the fireworks. The Czarewicz and the 
 Czar's favorite sister Nathalia witnessed the playful 
 fires from the same house, but from another apart- 
 ment. For it is against the national usage for
 
 130 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 young princes to appear much in public, on the 
 grounds that they are more respected at a distance, 
 wliich I agree is true in cases where the people revere 
 their sovereign through dread, and not out of love. 
 Seclusion like this may indeed render the sovereign 
 more to be dreaded, but certainly can never make 
 him more lovable.
 
 IX 
 
 DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS 
 
 1st March, 1699. — The Brandenburgh Envoy 
 was conducted in state to an audience of leave-tak- 
 ing. He rode with a Pristaw, in a carriage of the 
 Czar's, drawn by six white horses. The officials 
 were on horseback. Twelve grooms from the Czar's 
 stables swelled the number of the attendants, and the 
 audience took place in the Lefort Palace, often be- 
 forementioned. At the same time Mr. de Zadora 
 Kesielski, hitherto Marshal of the mission, was ac- 
 credited and accepted as Resident, being substituted 
 instead of the Envoy, and the Czar commanded him 
 to stay for dinner, which was splendid, and at which 
 the envoys of foreign princes and the principal 
 Boyars were also present. After dinner was over, 
 Dumnoi Moseiwicz, who was mimic Patriarch when 
 the Czar wished, began giving toasts. He that 
 drank had on bended knee for mockery to revere the 
 sham ecclesiastical dignitary, and beg the favor of 
 his benediction, which he gave with two tobacco 
 pipes, set in the shape of a cross. He alone, of all 
 the Envoys,^ withdrew furtively who held the sacred 
 
 1 1, e. the Austrian Ambassador. 
 131
 
 132 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 sign of our Christian faith too holy to approve of 
 such jests. The same Prelate added to the decency 
 of the dancing by opening it with pontificials and 
 crozier. The inner apartment, next to the room in 
 which the festivities were going on, was again oc- 
 cupied by the Czarewicz and the Czar's sister 
 Nathalia; thence they saw the dancing and all the 
 gay tumult, the curtains with which the place was 
 most handsomely decorated being drawn a little and 
 they were only seen through a lattice by the guests. 
 The natural beauty of the Czarewicz was wonder- 
 fully shown off by his civilized German dress and 
 powdered wig. Nathalia was escorted by the crcme 
 of the married ladies. This day, too, beheld a great 
 departure from Russian manners, which up to this 
 forbade the female sex from appearing at public as- 
 semblies of men, and from festive gayeties, for some 
 were not only allowed to be at the dinner, but also 
 at the dancing afterwards. 
 
 2nd March, 1699. — The silence and modesty of 
 this week is as remarkable as last week's tumult and 
 fury, be it repentance for all the expense, or remorse 
 for all the crime; unless perhaps it be that the festi- 
 val holiness of the season may have violently reined 
 in to such outward seeming of orderliness, men that 
 were just now loose and audacious in every lust and 
 every criminal license. Neither shops nor markets 
 were open, the courts did not sit, the judges had 
 nothing to do ; it is neither allowed to eat fish nor
 
 DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS 133 
 
 linseed oil ; with most strict fast they mortify the 
 flesh on dry bread and fruits of the earth — such an 
 unexpected metamorphosis, certes, that one hardly 
 can believe one's eyes. 
 
 11th March, 1699. — They began to bury the 
 corpses of the dead criminals. Horrible spectacle, 
 and unknown, and I may say an abomination to more 
 civilized nations. Several corpses lay huddled to- 
 gether in the carts, many half naked, and all hig- 
 gledy-piggledy. Like slaughtered sheep to the 
 market, they were brought to the sepulchral pits. 
 
 General Lefort having quite lost the use of his 
 senses, raved and shouted, now for music, now for 
 wine. When mention was made of calling for the 
 pastor, growing hotter in his madness, he allowed 
 nobody to come near him. 
 
 12th March, 1699. — General and Admiral Lefort 
 died at three o'clock in the morning. After his death 
 many and incongruous rumors were spread about. 
 It is doubtful whether any of them be true. When 
 Stumpf, the Protestant pastor, was admitted to see 
 him, and was admonishing him to be converted to 
 God, they say he only told him, " Not to talk much." 
 To his wife, who in his last moments asked his pardon 
 for her past faults, if she had committed any, he 
 blandly replied : " I never had anything to reproach 
 thee with ; I always honored and loved thee " ; and 
 without saying more, he shook his head several times, 
 by which they believe he meant to allude to a certain
 
 134 COURT or PETER THE GREAT 
 
 other connection. He commended, in the first place, 
 his domestics and their services, desiring that their 
 wages should be paid in full. Some days before his 
 death, when he was sleeping at another person's 
 house, where he had an amor, a frightful row was 
 heard at his own house in his usual bedroom. The 
 wife was horror-stricken, and supposing her hus- 
 band might have changed his mind and come home 
 in a great fury, she sent to ascertain what was the 
 case: and the persons sent came back again, asseverat- 
 ing that they could see nobody in that room. 
 Nevertheless the uproar went on, and if the wife's 
 assertion may be credited, next morning all the 
 chairs, tables, and seats were found, horrible to be- 
 hold, lying scattered topsy-turvey, all about; be- 
 sides which, deep groans were constantly heard all 
 through the night. A messenger was immediately 
 dispatched to Veroneje, to acquaint the Czar that 
 General Lefort had departed this life. In the in- 
 terim, Boyar Golowin had everything sealed up, and 
 had given the keys to the kinsman of the deceased. 
 IJf. March, 1699. — A very rich shop, belonging 
 to a certain merchant, was confiscated, for punish- 
 ment of I know not what crime. The merchant im- 
 mediately set eagerly to work to purchase the 
 patronage of the notorious Alexander ^ with a bribe 
 of thousand roubles. The latter, greedy of such a 
 sum, labored in his turn to gain over him who then 
 2 See A ppendix.
 
 DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS 135 
 
 presided over the Treasury. But when he found that 
 the Treasurer was more faithful than himself, and 
 adverse to his proposal, inasmuch as he deemed it 
 wrong to commit a fraud upon the Sovereign's pub- 
 lic Treasury to enrich a private individual, the fav- 
 orite had the audacity even to threaten him that if 
 he made any further opposition he would not want 
 for an occasion to revenge his contempt and neglect. 
 
 General Lefort (as they have asseverated) left 
 nothing to excite the envy of his people against him- 
 self or his heirs. Nay, his kinsman prostrate upon 
 the ground before Prince Galizin, protested that he 
 had not the means of buying the usual mourning suit 
 for himself. 
 
 21st March, 1699. — As all the representatives 
 were invited to the funeral of the late General Lefort, 
 they all appeared in mourning. Eight in the morn- 
 ing was the hour appointed for carrying out the 
 body. But before everybody had arrived and every- 
 thing was ready, the sun that looked down on the 
 sad scene had risen nearly to the meridian. Mean- 
 time, after the manner of the Slowoda folk, the tables 
 were laid out, groaning under viands, and drinking 
 cups in long array, and bowls mantling with every 
 description of wine. Mulled wine was served to those 
 who preferred it. The Russians — for everybody 
 of any rank or office had by the Czar's orders to be 
 present — sat at table, ravenously devouring the 
 viands, which were all cold. There was a great
 
 136 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 variety of fish, cheese, butter, caviare, and so forth. 
 
 Prince Szeremetow, refined by much travel, and 
 dressed in the German fashion, wearing his Cross of 
 Malta pendant at his breast, thought it beneath his 
 propriety to give himself up to voracity along with 
 the rest. The Czar coming in, showed many tokens 
 of grief: fixed sorrow was in his face. To the repre- 
 sentatives who paid their becoming court, bowing to 
 the ground according to custom, the monarch replied 
 with exquisite politeness. When Leo Kirilowicz left 
 his seat, and hastened to meet the Czar, he received 
 indeed his salutation graciously, but remained absent 
 without answering for a little while, until recollect- 
 ing himself he bent to embrace him. When the 
 moment for removing the body came, the grief and 
 former affection of the Czar and some others was 
 ■manifest to everybody, for the Czar shed tears most 
 abundantly, and in the sight of all the vast crowd of 
 people who were assembled on account of the solemn 
 ceremony, he gave the last kiss to the corpse. 
 
 Thus the body was conducted to the Reformed 
 Church, where Pastor Stumpf preached a short ser- 
 mon. On leaving the temple the Boyars and the 
 rest of their countrymen disturbed the order of the 
 procession, forcing their way with inept arrogance 
 up to the very body. The Envoys pretending, how- 
 ever, to take no notice of the haughty pretensions 
 that led to tliis violent act, suffered every one of the 
 Muscovites to go on before them, even those whose
 
 DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS 137 
 
 humble lot and condition placed them out of the con- 
 test which the others perhaps had plotted for pre- 
 cedency. And the Envoys went on to where the 
 nearest relation of the deceased had taken his place, 
 as in funerals it is always reckoned the chief honor 
 to walk beside him. As they came to the cemetery 
 where the deceased was to be buried, the Czar no- 
 ticed that the order was changed; that his subjects, 
 who previously had followed the Envoys, now pre- 
 ceded them ; therefore he called young Lefort to him 
 and inquired : " Who disturbed the order : why 
 those followed that just now went foremost? " And 
 as he remained prostrate without giving any answer 
 about the cause, the Czar commanded him to speak 
 out what was the case : and when he said that it was 
 the Russians that had violently inverted the order, 
 the Czar greatly in wrath, nevertheless said nothing 
 except: "They are dogs, not my Boyars." 
 
 Szeremetow, on the contrary — and to his pru- 
 dence it may be attributed — still continued to ac- 
 company the Envoys, although all the Russian's had 
 gone on before. In the cemetery itself and on the 
 highway there were cannon drawn up, which shook 
 the air with a triple discharge, and each regiment 
 also delivered a triple volley of musketry. One of 
 the artillery-men, remaining stupidly before the can- 
 non's mouth, had his head carried off by the shot. 
 The Czar went back with the troops to the house of 
 Lefort, whither all who had accompanied the funeral
 
 138 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 followed lilm. Everybody that had attended in 
 mourning was presented with a gold ring, on which 
 was engraved the date of the death, and a death's 
 head. The Czar, having gone out for a moment, all 
 the Boyars were hastening with anxious speed to go 
 home. They had already gone down some steps, 
 when meeting the Czar returning face to face, they 
 came back into the room. This haste of the Boyars 
 to get away gave rise to a suspicion that they were 
 glad of the death, and it put the Czar in such a 
 passion that he wrathfully addressed them in the 
 following terms : — " Ho ! you are made merry at his 
 death! It is a grand victory for you that he is 
 dead. Why can't you all wait.'' I suppose, be- 
 cause the greatness of your joy will not allow you 
 to keep up this forced appearance, and the feigned 
 sorrow of your faces." 
 
 ^3rd March, 1699. — As the Czar was deliberating 
 to whom he should confide the Prefecture, one of the 
 Boyars said to him that it was an office which might 
 be imposed upon Boris Petrowicz Szeremetow. Upon 
 which the Czar gave him a cuff, as if he were an 
 evil adviser ; and roared passionately at him : " So, 
 you too are hankering after his friendship." 
 
 In the afternoon to-day, the Czar rode in a car- 
 riage through Slowoda, bade adieu to all whom he 
 condescended to grace with his favor, and in the 
 evening left Moscow for Veroneje. 
 
 It is the talk of the town, that about twelve Rus-
 
 DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS 139 
 
 sians went in the stillness of the night to the cemetery 
 where they knew General Lefort was buried, and, in 
 the hope of a rich boot}', would have violated the 
 grave, had not the neighbors awoke with the noise 
 they made talking, and hurrying to see this un- 
 paralleled crime, deterred the wicked wretches from 
 their nefarious purpose. 
 
 ^7th March, 1699. — A principal race among the 
 Tartars is that of the Calmucks, who are not tribu- 
 tary to the Czar, but nevertheless acknowledge his 
 suzerainty, and yield services more in the waj^ of 
 allies than as subjects, — services which are pur- 
 chased with annual presents. An Envoy from them 
 came to-day, with a train of only six persons. Un- 
 der the name of an Ambassador, he drove a more 
 profitable trade. Tea leaf, starry anise, Chinese 
 tobacco, fine tissues and several other things in which 
 Cliina is known to abound, were his most precious 
 merchandise. There were still some empty rooms 
 remaining, that are built over the stables of Ambas- 
 sadorial P^ace, tv>o of which were appointed for his 
 lodging. Although the barbarian knew little or 
 nothing of those manners and honorable customs, by 
 the grandeur and stately ceremonial of which it is 
 the privilege of Ambassadors to captivate the rever- 
 ance of foreign nations ; nevertheless, before he would 
 go into those rooms, he inquired whether other En- 
 voys had lodged there before. He deserves credit, 
 at least for having tried to guard against anything
 
 140 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 prejudicial. The Muscovites had little difficulty in 
 imposing upon him ; asserting that the Ambassadors 
 of the greatest princes of Europe had lodged in 
 those strait limits. He ate mostly mare's flesh, and 
 was allowed, at the outside, thirty kopeks^ a day 
 for the usual free maintenance. But, humbugged 
 by the persuasions of the Muscovites, he thought 
 himself most splendidly treated. 
 
 ^9tli March, 1699. — 'Seventy Italians, whom the 
 Muscovites had brought from Venice, were discharged 
 without payment of their expenses. Notwithstand- 
 ing the many inconveniences through which they had 
 to retrace their long journey, none got more than 
 ten roubles, others nine, and others only eight. Ex- 
 asperated at this injustice, they took the libert}' of 
 saying direful things of the whole Muscovite race. 
 
 31st March, 1699. — All the Boyars, by little and 
 little, are going off to Veroneje. Tzarkaski, a 
 prince of advanced years, remains as Prefect of the 
 City, an office which was entrusted to him, though 
 there were others who would fain have arrogated 
 that dignity to themselves, under pretext that the 
 Czar had conferred it upon them. Eor the Czar, 
 when bidding farewell at his departure, recommended 
 the affairs of Moscow to several and spoke to differ- 
 ent persons in this manner : " Meantime I commit 
 all my affairs to your loyalty.'* I opine it was a 
 
 3 About fifteen cents. The buying power of money was 
 greater at that time, of course.
 
 DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS 141 
 
 maxim with the Czar, — and a maxim not to be con- 
 temned, — to raise up many to great hope, in order 
 that the possession may be envied to an}' one, and 
 that by their constant dissensions they may be left 
 without means of abusing absolute power, or of giv- 
 ing grounds for regret at such authority being in- 
 trusted, by seizing on it to act against their Sove- 
 reign. 
 
 1st April, 1699. — Some hordes of Crim-Tartars 
 penetrated in a headlong swoop to the very camp at 
 Azow. None dared resist the unexpected peril; fear 
 filled the country far and wide around, and this very 
 panic terror gave increased force and daring to the 
 enemy. The farms depopulated, the fields desolate, 
 the hamlets in ashes, the colonies widowed of their 
 inhabitants, are standing monuments of irreparable 
 damage, and vestiges of the unheard-of cruelty that 
 was exercised. The plundering hurricane swept 
 along with it numbers of officers, still more common 
 soldiers, and an almost incredible multitude of serfs, 
 into the harshest slavery. 
 
 2nd, 3rd April, 1699. — The Greek and Russian 
 Church venerates the images of Saints with no less 
 devotion than the Church of Rome, and justly places 
 much hope and confidence in their suffrages ; not giv- 
 ing them that supreme worship of latria, wliich be- 
 longs to the Majesty of the Almighty Creator of 
 all that exists, but that far different worship which 
 we are to pay to them as friends of God, and inter-
 
 142 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 cessors for us. So that that signal honor which the 
 Russians unanimously pay to Saints and their images 
 is not to he censured. It is a more knotty question 
 whether particular practices which they use in honor 
 of divers Sairits be not superstitious ; as, for ex- 
 ample, when the sick, the helpless, and those Avhich 
 are beyond the aid of human skill, fly for refuge to 
 images, which are placed upon their heads with 
 sacerdotal rites. But when one examines more 
 closely into the reason why the cloak that Elias left 
 after him wrought miracles, it will at once appear 
 that the finger of God's right hand, to whom as the 
 ultimate source all our piety, all worship, and ven- 
 eration tend, works wonderful things in his works in 
 a wonderful manner. Whence I hold it not to be 
 omitted that General-in-Cliief Schachin was present 
 to-day at a solemn procession in which an image was 
 carried to the house of a sick person, to the very 
 great edification of many people. 
 
 5th April, 1699. — The Lord Envoy, conducted 
 by a certain German Colonel, went over the Czar's 
 castle of the Kremlin. In the hall where audience is 
 usually given to ambassadors, a throne of silver 
 gilt, embellished with a number of precious stones, 
 stands conspicuous, worthy of Sovereign jNIajesty. 
 We did not see the rest of the regalia ; for, as the 
 Czar has hitherto refused to dwell in this castle, they 
 are kept locked up in chests. On the side of the 
 castle from wliich a charming view opens on the
 
 DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS 143 
 
 river Neglina, above the second story, there is a 
 fair precinct of garden, supported upon masonry: 
 it is quite melancholy to see how it lies neglected, 
 going to ruin on account of human sloth. We were 
 also gratified with a sight of the room from which 
 Princess Sophia, in the time of the Muscovite 
 triumvirate, under the usurping sway of the prime 
 minister, Basil Galizin, could observe through a lat- 
 tice all the proposals of the envoys and the answers 
 of the ministers. Next this, is a magnificently 
 adorned apartment, set apart for the conferences of 
 ambassadors. There are also two exceedingly neat 
 chapels, one for summer and the other for winter. 
 In the summer chapel they venerate a miraculous 
 image of the Mother of God, wliich was brought from 
 Smolensko. In the Church of the Annunciation of 
 the Blessed Virgin Mary, all the Czars are buried 
 and entombed. They keep the pictures of those 
 whose sanctity of life procured them the honor of 
 miracles. That cause was alleged on an inquiry why 
 Ivan Basilowicz, the great tyrant of Muscovy, was 
 the only one of whom there was no portrait. Be- 
 sides a decollation of Saint John, they show another 
 picture of the Mother of God, which cost 17,000 
 roubles. The grandfather, father, and elder brother 
 of the now reigning Czar are laid together in front 
 of the same altar, enclosed in stone sarcophagi. 
 This church has nine towers, all gilt, from the sum- 
 mits of which as many crosses glitter with the same
 
 144 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 metal on high; that upon the highest tower is said 
 to be cast entirely of pure gold. In a church close 
 by, called Sabora, all the Patriarchs and Metropo- 
 lites that are reckoned among the Saints are buried. 
 Among the rest, they revere one named lona. In 
 the same church there is a particle of our Savior's 
 garment preserved ; and we kissed a still entire arm 
 of St. AndreAV. The Czar's seat in that Church is 
 marvelously wrought and exceedingly ancient. It 
 belonged to the Princes of Kiow,* and was thence 
 brought hither. Near it rises the throne of the 
 Patriarch, marvelously adorned with numberless 
 paintings. The sedilia for the princess, in another 
 part of the church, are covered with very rich tap- 
 estries and red silk. 
 
 6tli April, 1699. — Oats and provisions were very 
 dear now in Moscow, and they alleged that it arose 
 from the circumstance that when the corpses of 
 those that were lately executed were to be carted to 
 the pits which were dug for them outside the city, 
 the ferocious soldiers, by the Czar's command, had 
 compelled the Sbosecks, that is the serfs, to throw 
 down the burdens off their carts and load them with 
 dead bodies, or to leave them and go dig pits, whilst 
 the soldiers with a high hand kept for themselves the 
 wheat, hay, oats, and whatever else the serfs were 
 carting in, not only with impunity, but as a matter 
 of right. Deterred by this loss, the peasants 
 4 Kiev on the Dnieper.
 
 DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS 145 
 
 brought nothing more into town, fearing lest what 
 they meant for market should fall a prey and booty 
 to the licentious rapacit}^ of the soldiers. 
 
 8th, 9th April, 1699. — A great fire broke out 
 about nine o'clock in the morning not far from the 
 Palace of the Ambassadors, behind the palace of Gen- 
 eral-in-Chief Schachin. Boyar Soltikow and Kncs 
 Michalowicz Tzerkasky met with great loss ; their 
 own palaces and several wooden houses round about 
 being reduced to ashes in the space of four hours. 
 There was no water poured on to extinguish the 
 flames, the only security was in demolishing some 
 houses. Pieces of sheet lead were to be seen in num- 
 bers with the distinguishing marks of the regiments : 
 but there were few men to give a helping hand ; and 
 those that were trying to destroy the roofs were so 
 scorched by the sudden approaches of the flames 
 when they least expected it, as to put a stop to fur- 
 ther eff"orts. They carried out a miraculous image 
 of the Mother of God in order that superior powers 
 might stay the flames. The same day a house in 
 the German Slowoda was destroyed by fire. 
 
 23rd April, 1699.— The Lord Envoy and one of 
 his friends visited Colonel Gordon, who was on guard 
 in the Kremlin Castle. There was one of the prin- 
 cipal persons of the Muscovite nobilit}^ named Al- 
 mazow, under arrest in his quarters. Feodor 
 MadA^eowicz Aprazen is married to his sister, and 
 Aparazen's sister is the Dowager of the Czar who
 
 146 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 died about seventeen years ago. This Almazow's 
 household were taking too great freedom in sporting 
 with Easter eggs, and perhaps were more than usu- 
 ally uproarious. They did not stop when they were 
 forbidden by the watch, and maintained, that at the 
 Easter season custom warranted them. However, 
 the night watch was not of the same opinion, and 
 gave them warning to be off, unless they preferred 
 being cudgelled away. The others, exasperated, be- 
 gan brawling, and at length words came to blows. 
 Help was sent to the watch, but being insufficient, 
 was driven away by the infuriated domestics. The 
 matter being reported to Prince Michael Lehugowicz 
 Tzerkaski, orders were sent to the Chancellor to see 
 that Almazow's guilty servants be taken into cus- 
 tody, and to send a scribe to his house with a force 
 of fifteen soldiers. The scribe either by a mistake 
 of his own, or by a spiteful order of the Chancellor, 
 seized not the servants, but their master, who was 
 ignorant of the whole affair, and would have dragged 
 him off to a most villainous dungeon, if Colonel Gor- 
 don, who had got notice from the Dowager Czarine, 
 Almazow's kinswoman, had not wrested him from the 
 reluctant hands of the soldiers and scribe, and as- 
 signed him his own quarters as his place of arrest. 
 Certainly soldiers in Muscovy are in the habit of 
 tormenting prisoners in every way at their fancy, 
 without respect of persons or the matter of which 
 they are accused, bruising them with their muskets,
 
 DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS 147 
 
 with sticlcs, and thrusting them into the most beastly 
 holes — especially the opulent, to whom they un- 
 blushingly say, that they will not cease from beating 
 them until they have paid a certain sum. Let a 
 prisoner go willingly or unwillingly to jail, he is 
 beaten all the same. Almazow, a strikingly fine 
 young fellow, being liberated from arrest while I 
 was looking on, went to return thanks to the Czarine. 
 
 Srd May, 1699. — The Czar claims the monopoly 
 of the sale of brand3\ Some of the lower orders — 
 those called Jemskoi — were offering it for sale in 
 the private houses, contrary to the express inhibition 
 of the Czar. So the Treasurer, Peter Ivanowicz 
 Prosorowski, wanting to chastise them, had fifty 
 soldiers at his orders that he had asked of General 
 Gordon. Along with these he sent a scribe, armed 
 with a warrant to seize as contraband and bring to 
 the Czar's stores all the brandy they could find in 
 such places. But when they attempted to put the 
 warrant in execution, a mob of Jemskoi assembled; 
 and, repelling force by force, killed three soldiers 
 by running them through, and wounded several. 
 The Jemskoi, moreover, threatened fiercer vengeance 
 if such another seizure should be attempted. The 
 daring of this conduct is such, that it keeps the 
 authorities of the city in great anxiety whether it 
 is better to employ force or dissemble. 
 
 5th May, 1699. — When one of the footmen be- 
 longing to the Danish Envoy was going to Sboseck,
 
 148 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 a Russian shouted an approbrious name at him. The 
 footman at once sprang from his horse to strike the 
 fellow for the insult : for the word was a contumelious 
 one that they address to the Germans, But the 
 Russian ran away, and called up the Guard, saying 
 that the German was on the point of murdering him, 
 and that he was a robber. The soldiers roused by 
 this story ran up, arrested the footman, and brought 
 him as a robber to the Pricassa ; where, his innocence 
 being manifest, he was, on payment of one griffna, 
 allowed to return home. 
 
 Everything is in confusion in Muscovy. The 
 Czar, at leaving, commended the safe keeping and 
 prefecture of the city to Knes Tzerkaski. To Gor- 
 don he said : " To thee, meanwhile, I commit every- 
 thing: everything is entrusted to your hands and 
 your loyalty." But some scribe arrogates to him- 
 self the supreme military direction which belonged 
 to Knes Romadnowski, pretending that it devolved 
 upon him at the departure of the latter, and con- 
 sequently that cognizance of everything is of his 
 competency. 
 
 15tli June 1699. — When the Czar was leaving 
 Veroneje for Azow, and was already on board, that 
 Alexander,^ who is so conspicuous at court through 
 the Czar's graces, was whispering something in his 
 ear, which put the Czar in a sudden passion, and he 
 inflicted some boxes on his importunate monitor, so 
 
 c See Appendix.
 
 DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS 149 
 
 that he lay stretched at full length, quite like a dying 
 man at the feet of irate Majesty. 
 
 The mutiny of the garrison of Azow gained 
 strength with its duration. The mutineers demand 
 an oath from him whom they should revere as the 
 arbiter of life and death. But what have treason- 
 able subjects, after trampling on the authority of 
 their prince, ever left whole untouched, and undared? 
 It is a solace to those whose unholy disobedience has 
 thus lost them, to leave nothing untried, that daring 
 can suggest, which may avail them to conjure the 
 ruin which they have called down upon themselves. 
 Although the Czar saw, with a great sense of grief, 
 his dignity compromised by treason, nevertheless, 
 he did not reject the condition put to him, nor the 
 oath which was exacted at its guarantee ; lest, by 
 obstinately upholding His Majesty, he should open 
 the way to peril of worse evils. He descended to 
 make a pact with his subjects, and, repeating the 
 words after them, bound himself by his royal truth 
 and dignit}^ that all the Strelitz in the city of Azow 
 should go unpunished. It remains to be seen whether 
 he will adhere to this pledge given under compulsion. 
 For what is extorted wrongfully from princes they 
 often requite by another wrong, nor do they con- 
 sider themselves in justice bound to their own in- 
 jury. 
 
 lOth May, 1699.— They celebrated to-day with 
 the greatest pomp, the festival of Saint-Nicholas,
 
 150 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 patron of Muscovy, which is the grand Prasdnkk ® of 
 the Russians. It is quite shameful — they think it, 
 in fact, unworthy of them, not to reel with wine or 
 brandy on this day, for the greater the solemnity 
 of the festival the more correct they consider it to 
 give themselves up to drunkenness and other gratifi- 
 cations. 
 
 This night, as the Envoy of Denmark came back 
 from Veroneje, when he arrived at the gate, a dis- 
 pute arose about money which the soldiers insisted 
 upon — what is called das Sperr-Geld ^ — for he re- 
 fused to pay for the soldiers that the Czar had given 
 him as an escort. 
 
 ^Oth May, 1699.— The Envoy of Denmark told 
 among other stories the following. That two Ger- 
 man colonels who were accused by a Muscovite of 
 treason, imprisoned and subjected to the worst tor- 
 tures of the rack, could not be made to confess the 
 crime which the informer had laid to their charge. 
 Meanwhile the Russian had repented of his false ac- 
 cusation, and with the same effrontery as he before 
 had accused these innocent men, he made known to 
 the Czar that the Germans had been wrongfully tor- 
 tured, and that it was only his envy that made him 
 accuse innocent men of such a heinous offense. This 
 atrocious man's malice put the Czar in such a heat 
 
 6 Holiday. 
 
 7 Gate-money.
 
 DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS 151 
 
 of indignation that he struck off his fateful head, as 
 he richly deserved. 
 
 The soldiers of the regiment of Bebraschentsko 
 are divided among the ships. They say that the 
 vessel to which none but the Czar and his principal 
 Boyars put a hand, is unique, and the handsomest 
 of his Majesty's fleet. 
 
 ^Ji-ih May, 1699. — The Brandenburgh resident, 
 Timothy de Zadora Kesielski, had gone for the pur- 
 pose of speaking to Boyar Leo Kirilowicz Nareskin. 
 After a whole hour's patience, the Boyar at last came 
 into the antechamber, where he knew he was waited 
 for. When he looked at the Resident, as if he won- 
 dered at his being there, he rudely questioned him 
 with this haughty address : " What dost thou 
 want.f^ " To which the Resident answered: " Thou 
 knowest that I have not come to beg a crust of bread 
 from thee: if thou dost not consider the attention 
 of my visit an honor to thee, I shall dispense myself 
 in future of that trouble." 
 
 The unexpected tartness of the answer struck the 
 Boyar so home, that in a harsh and contemptuous 
 tone he was beginning to taunt the Resident, saying: 
 " What durst thou say to me, thou petty little Cham- 
 berlain? " Upon which the Resident, with no less 
 warmth instantly retorted: "I hold myself highly 
 honored in being a Chamberlain of my most Serene 
 Prince. If the rank I hold be beneath thy ambition,
 
 152 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 he that sent me could confer a higher upon me, but 
 it would be difficult for him to confer any which the 
 impotency of your stilted mind would not despise as 
 far beneath you." 
 
 6th June, 1699. — To-day being the feast of 
 Pentecost, branches and foliage of trees were blessed 
 by the Russian priests ; and this is the only day on 
 which they pray for God's aid kneeling; on every 
 other festival they say their usual prayers standing 
 erect. They account for it by sayingi that the 
 Apostles and all the disciples of our Redeemer pros- 
 trated themselves upon the earth at the time of the 
 coming of the Holy Ghost — and thence they took a 
 handle to bless all the fruits of the earth. 
 
 8th, 9th June, 1669.— The Lord Envoy Extraor- 
 dinary drove out to the Monastery dedicated to the 
 Most Holy Resurrection, distant six German miles 
 from Moscow. The Bazilian monks took the most 
 laudable pains to receive the Lord Envoy honorably. 
 They served up with most lavish politeness a vast 
 quantity of fresh fish out of their own fishponds, 
 beer, brandy, and dishes dressed in the Russian fash- 
 ion. The Czar's ministers had* recommended the 
 monks to show all this civility of polite preparation. 
 
 10th JuTie, 1699. — We were led by a monk 
 through the monastery, Avhich is enclosed with huge 
 walls. The refectories for the whole community 
 were shown to us, as were the cells of the monks ; the 
 latter are separated by a very thin partition. The
 
 DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS 153 
 
 Church is a large and very noble pile, sumptuously 
 built by the Patriarch Nichon, and, carried out ex- 
 actly on the model of that on Mount Calvary in 
 Jerusalem, represents every circumstance of Christ's 
 passion, in different chapels. While we were ex- 
 amining the church at our leisure, Wignius arrived 
 with the Brandenburgh Resident, in company with 
 whom we had our dinner here; at which a Russified 
 Pole, who spoke good liatin, and two other monks 
 high in office, were present ; after which we set off to 
 an estate of his (Wignius*s), that lay some miles 
 further on. His house, constructed of brick, is built 
 with various conveniences. The stream that glides 
 past it, and the wide open fields around it, afforded 
 a charming view. We first amused ourselves de- 
 lightfully boating, and enticing the unwary fish into 
 the cunning net, a diversion all the more pleasant, 
 when we knew we should have them for supper, for 
 which it was delightful to catch them. Our host 
 omitted none of those attentions that might denote 
 sincere affection and truth. 
 
 11th June, 1699. — After fowling and dinner duly 
 performed, and friendly greetings had been mutually 
 exchanged, the Brandenburgh Resident desired to 
 return to Moscow, along with the Imperial Lord 
 Envoy. At a village called Angeliko, on an estate 
 belonging to the monastery, we passed that night. 
 
 12th June, 1699. — After accomplishing four 
 miles, we reached Moscow, and the Ambassadorial
 
 154 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 Palace, at about ten in the day. In a grove, an 
 hour distant from the city — where the Germans 
 are in the habit of going to amuse themselves — there 
 grew so hot a quarrel between Captains Erchel and 
 Printz, that swords were drawn, and wounds given 
 on both sides. 
 
 21st June, 1699. — No time was allowed to the 
 Venetian shipwrights to purify their consciences by 
 sacramental confession, they are kept working as 
 hard as they can by the Czar, toiling without rest 
 at shipbuilding. 
 
 5th, 6th July, 1699. — A Russian merchant 
 claimed a debt of four roubles from a certain Ger- 
 man for goods bought. When the German denied 
 that he owed so much, the Russian with much voci- 
 feration, several times most atrociously calling on 
 all the powers celestial and infernal to witness, en- 
 deavored to prove his claim. So the German ap- 
 pointed the Russian arbiter on his proffered oath; 
 who thereupon entering the nearest church, falsely 
 made the requisite oath. In a short time after he 
 himself confessed that the German did not owe him 
 four roubles, but only two ; that the other two were 
 due to him by another, also a German, and that he 
 could claim them in turn. This is respect for an 
 oath ! this is piety towards God ! the taking of whose 
 name in vain is no scruple of conscience to this peo- 
 ple. 
 
 9th July, 1699. — The Muscovites perform the
 
 DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS 155 
 
 annual festival of the Holy Apostles, Peter and 
 Paul, and of the Czar, who was named Peter in bap- 
 tism. 
 
 The Czar's castle at Ismailow, laid out most agree- 
 ably for a summer residence, is surrounded by a 
 grove of trees, not thickly planted, but growing to 
 a prodigious height, and affording an admirable 
 refuge beneath the cool shade of their lofty and 
 spreading branches from the burning heat of sum- 
 mer. It pleased the Lord Envoy to go and see the 
 delightful neighborhood of this wood, to contem- 
 plate and enjoy the famous charms of the place. 
 Musicians followed to aid the gentle whisperings of 
 the woods and winds with sweeter harmonies. 
 
 The Czarine, the Czarewicz, and the unmarried 
 princesses, enticed by the gentle season of the year, 
 were then staying at that castle, and they were fond 
 of rambling through the dense thickets to the pleas- 
 ant glades of the forest, and killing time in the sweet 
 disports and forgetfulness of busy repose. It so 
 happened that they were thus engaged at the mo- 
 ment when the sweet symphony of clarions and reed 
 instruments gushed in gentlest measure upon their 
 ears, and made them cease awhile from their occupa- 
 tion. The musicians grew ambitious upon finding 
 themselves observed and were giving satisfaction to 
 the observers, and with most graceful emulation they 
 strove one with another who should bear off the 
 palm in witching with his sweet skill, these ears
 
 156 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 Most Serene to longest forgetfulness. They re- 
 mained a quarter of an hour, and praised exceedingly 
 the skill of all the musicians. 
 
 10th July, 1699. — A Lithuanian Catholic boy, 
 seduced by the Muscovites, fled from our kitchen to 
 a certain Russian prince, to embrace the Russian re- 
 ligion, in the hope of getting a wife, as they had 
 promised him upon that condition. Knes Repnin,''^ 
 Colonel of the Dragoons, and his servants, stung by 
 some gad-fly to frenzy, broke violently in upon the 
 city guard, and as he was on the point of snatcliing 
 away the colors, the ensign received him upon his 
 pike in the most creditable manner. 'Several others 
 were wounded in the strife on both sides. 
 
 IJ/^th July, 1699. — Came Diak Jacob Nikonow, 
 having heard of the complaints of some of our peo- 
 ple, who had been uncivilly affronted lately by the 
 Watch, and after previously examining the accused 
 dragoons, condemned them all eight, notwithstanding 
 the splendor of their birth — for they were noble — 
 to the penalty of the battok. By order of the Czar 
 the sentence was executed in the Court of the Am- 
 bassadorial Palace, the number of 'blows with which 
 they were to be chastised was left to the arbitrament 
 of those to whom their evil stars had 'led them to give 
 very ill-treatment. 
 
 7 Prince Anikita Repnin, who was a constant friend of Peter 
 the Great. He rose to be a field marshal. The family is 
 extinct in the male line.
 
 DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS 157 
 
 A Czar's banquet, not inferior in opulence and 
 splendor to that given to us before, was carried to 
 the Lord Envoy with the useful solemn state and 
 procession of two hundred men. After a sip of 
 brandy? which was brought round in a cup made of 
 a precious stone, the first toast was to the health of 
 the Most August Empel-or; the second, that of the 
 Most Serene Czar; the third, of the Most Serene 
 King of the Romans ; the fourth, the Czarewicz ; the 
 fifth, the Lord Envoy. The mutual wordy compli- 
 ments of the Pristaw and of the Lord Envoy, con- 
 sisted in protestations of sincere friendship. 
 
 15th, July, 1699. — Those who had any part of 
 care or trouble in yesterday's Imj^erial banquet, con- 
 ference and solemn dismissal, stood awaiting with 
 most greedy hopes, the largess of the Lord Envoy, 
 and received gifts in proportion to their several func- 
 tions. 
 
 IGth Jvly, 1699. — The Russians celebrated the 
 festival of the Blessed Virgin of Casan. The Mus- 
 covites beHeve that the image which they venerate 
 under that name had always been suspended in the 
 clouds, and was seen by the entire Russian army that 
 beleaguered Casan, during the whole time of the 
 siege ; but that after the city was stormed, the image 
 fell from the sky to the ground, and was with the 
 utmost reverence lifted up by the Russians, and has 
 ever since been held in worship. 
 
 About evening came the head scribe of the Am-
 
 158 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 'bassadorial Chancery, attended by many others 
 from the same office, and distributed the Czar's pres- 
 ents, consisting of sable furs, to the Lord Envoy 
 and the whole of his suite. 
 
 19th, 20th July, i 699.— Yesterday and to-day 
 leave-taking began ; farewell being bidden to all that 
 were familiar and intimate friends. Full-size por- 
 traits of their Imperial Majesties, the Emperor and 
 Empress, of the Most Serene King of the Romans, 
 and of the Most Serene Archduke Charles, were 
 sent as a present to the Prime Minister, Leo Kirilow- 
 icz Nareskin. 
 
 21st, 22nd July, 1699. — Having performed the 
 last civility of farewell visits in the German Slowoda, 
 we all prepared for to-morrow's departure. The 
 Lord Envoy has been several times invited by the 
 Prime Minister to a seat of his called Filli, some 
 versts distant from Moscow. 
 
 At four miles distant from Moscow the Grand 
 Swedish Embassy lay, awaiting the order for en- 
 tering the city. For their suitable lodging there 
 was assigned a house formerly inhabited by popes, 
 and commonly called das Pfaffenhaus.
 
 X 
 
 RETURN OF THE IMPERIAL LEGATION 
 FROM MUSCO\^" TO VIENNA 
 
 23rd July, 1699. — Although no such practice or 
 custom be in force in any European Court, as ac- 
 companying the departure of the Ministers of 
 foreign Princes with a pubhc solemnity and extra- 
 ordinary exhibition of pomp ; so that for ages it had 
 come to be considered a useless expense of public 
 honors to wait on their departure with state or 
 splendor; nevertheless the Court of Russia departed 
 in our time by a contrary usage from this general 
 sentiment, honoring Mr. de Printz, Envoy Extraor- 
 dinary of the Elector of Brandenburg (as an es- 
 pecial friendly distinction, in order to exhibit more 
 abundantly the fraternal bonds lately confirmed be- 
 tween the two princes), with the same state cere- 
 monial at his departure as that with which they 
 received him on his arrival, and had thought fit to 
 accompany his entry into their walls. The like was 
 intimated to the Lord Envoy also, after the cere- 
 monial of giving him his re-credentials. He indeed 
 set himself against this novel and unusual method of 
 
 demonstrative friendship ; but it was labor in vain. 
 
 159
 
 160 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 After his multifarious objections, the commands of 
 His Majesty the Czar were brought back, directing 
 that the Lord Envoy should be dismissed with such 
 honors as had never fallen to the lot of any minister 
 before him. 
 
 So after duly providing by solemn protest, that 
 the Muscovites should not pretend to make these 
 unusual ceremonies a precedent at the Emperor's 
 Court, he left it to their own free will to distinguish 
 his departure with whatever honors they might 
 choose. 
 
 Now, it was in no particular different from the 
 handsome ceremonial which they had appointed for 
 our entry. There were squadrons of the new cav- 
 alry ; detachments of the light troops, a most gorge- 
 ous coach of the Czar's, and horses glittering with 
 new trappings of gold and silver and gems, awaited 
 the Lord Envoy's officials. Along with the Lord 
 Envoy, there sat in the coach a prist aw in ordinary, 
 as well as the interpreter, and they were to conduct 
 him as far as the place where fifteen months ago the 
 ceremonial of reception had been solemnly gone 
 through. 
 
 Tlirough the leading streets of the city, every- 
 where beset by a countless throng of men, we reached 
 the banks of the river of Moscow. The crossing was 
 not quite exempt from danger, for the bridge was 
 only in the middle of the stream, and did not reach 
 the bank at either side; so that the ascent and the
 
 RETURN OF THE LEGATION 161 
 
 descent were of no little difficulty. But the dangers 
 of such ill-made bridges seems little or nothing to 
 the ^Muscovites, though they swallow up no few peo- 
 ple that are deceived by the unexpected declivity. 
 Jemska Slowoda (the coachmen's suburb) occupies 
 the further bank. The pristaff's attendance was 
 limited to the bounds of this suburb. Here the 
 coach stopped, the pristaw bade farewell, and capped 
 the adopted ceremonial with the last compliments. 
 The noble estate of the Prime Minister and Boyar, 
 Lord Leo Kirilowicz Nareskin, called Filli, is only 
 seven versts distant from Moscow. He had some 
 days previously invited the Lord Envoy, at his de- 
 parture, to a dinner, which he got up there in most 
 splendid style. Scarcely was the ceremonial at an 
 end, when one of the officials of that Boyar, who was 
 sent by his master to show the way to the estate, 
 presented himself, politely begging that the Lord 
 Envoy M^ould deign to follow him. Thus with the 
 whole train and baggage, which was carried by ninety 
 potwoda, he left the high road escorted by the repre- 
 sentatives of foreign ministers and several officers of 
 the Czar's army. So great were the compliments of 
 the guests ujDon entering the place, which was for the 
 most part thronged with the principal Germans, that 
 you might have thought they were contending for a 
 prize. There was a great and general studiousness 
 of friendship ; sovereign was the emulation of many 
 to express with greater force the integrity of their
 
 162 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 feelings, till at length the summons to the costly 
 banquet that was served brought back the guests to 
 themselves. Except the Prime Minister and his 
 kinsman, and our usual interpreter, Mr. Schweren- 
 berg, no Russian guest was there. The Germans, 
 in numbers were invited instead of them. 
 
 The banquet was not inferior to Royal sumptu- 
 ousness, nor was it cooked in the Russian fashion, 
 but well dressed to the German taste. The rare 
 profusion of viands, the costliness of the gold and 
 silver plate, the variety and exquisiteness of the 
 beverages, bespoke plainly the near blood-relation of 
 the Czar.^ After dinner there was an archery 
 match: nobody was excused because of the exercise 
 being strange to him, or for his want of skill in a 
 matter to which he was unaccustomed. A sheet of 
 paper stuck in the ground was the butt. The Prime 
 Minister perforated it several times, amidst general 
 applause. As the rain drove us from this most 
 pleasant exercise, we retired again to the apart- 
 ments of the Boyar. Nareskin, taking the Lord 
 Envoy by the hand, led him to his wife's chambers 
 to salute and be saluted. There is no higher mark 
 of honor among the Russians. He is honored in the 
 highest degree Avhom the husband invites to embrace 
 his wife, and to receive the extreme compliment of a 
 sip of brandy from her hand. Nor should I pass 
 
 1 Nareskin's sister was the Czarina, mother of Peter I. See 
 Afpendix.
 
 RETURN OF THE LEGATION 163 
 
 unmentioned the liberality which the Boyar exhibited 
 in his gift of a costly pelisse of sables to the Lord 
 Envoy. Yet this munificence was not altogether de- 
 void of some thought of his own advantage. For 
 the Boyar laboredly sought an, occasion of moving 
 discourse, and calling to remembrance the honors of 
 the day, when the Most August Emperor's clemency 
 distinguished Basil Kirilowicz Galizin, who held the 
 first place of authority in Muscovy fourteen years 
 ago, sending him a coach by INIr. Kurz. Eager, no 
 doubt, that the Emperor should exhibit equal con- 
 descension to him who ambitiousl}^ occupies the same 
 place and office at present. Whither tended the 
 atrocious threats against Diak Basil Bosnikow, that 
 there was no scarcity of cudgels to chastise his im- 
 pertinence towards him? Certainly this was meant 
 to mollify the Lord Envoy, who was querulous about 
 this Diak's rude manners, and to make fair sail for 
 the object of his ambition by the Lord Envoy's 
 favorable report. But he lost his toil and his labor, 
 when, after General Gordon having already occupied 
 the seat of honor, he invited the Imperial Envoy to 
 get into his coach, that he might conduct him to an- 
 other estate of his two versts further on. Yet the 
 man was rather to be pardoned for his simplicity 
 than reprehended for craftiness ; and so he was hor- 
 ror-stricken when the Lord Envoy said: "You 
 postpone the Imperial Envoy to General Gordon ! " 
 While he was seeking to remedy this, the Imperial
 
 164 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 Envoy got into his own carriage, and so drove off 
 with the rest to that estate. Receiving his guests 
 there with much politeness, the proprietor pointed 
 out his conveniences for the chase on an adjacent hill 
 that was studded with little thickets, and sloped with 
 a gentle declivity into a valley; and he sought to 
 win back the offended spirit of the Lord Envoy by 
 the offer of two sporting dogs, which he warranted 
 capital. After tarrying for a brief space here, 
 thanks were given and farewell bidden not only to 
 the Boyar, but to all the guests present. Colonel 
 Gordon's main task was to excuse his father of the 
 offense received in his person from the Boyar. Col- 
 onel de Grage and the Czar's doctor. Carbonari, fol- 
 lowed our tents three versts further. 
 
 Beneath the open sky, under canvas, we passed the 
 night. But as a scarcity of water was apparent, 
 the Lord Envoy not unjustly inveighed against the 
 Czar's pristaw, for it was incumbent on him to have 
 provided against such circumstances. Although 
 there was no inn near, still we were not afflicted with 
 any scarcity of eatables or drinkables. 
 
 2Ji.th July, 1699. — After solemn leave-taking on 
 both sides, those returned to Moscow, who as I have 
 already said, accompanied us to the field and to our 
 tents ; and we too speedily started on an opposite 
 route.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 The notes in this appendix are arranged alphabeti- 
 cally. They contain additional information about cer- 
 tain persons and other matters in the text, and they are 
 intended to assist the reader in understanding various 
 remarks and allusions of the Diary. 
 
 The method of transliteration of Russian names 
 adopted by Count Macdonnell has — with a very few 
 exceptions — been observed in reprinting the excerpts 
 from the Diary. Other methods of spelling these names 
 have been added in parenthesis in order that readers 
 desirous for further information should have no difficulty 
 in finding the names in works of reference. 
 
 Minor errors which are of importance to the historian 
 only and about which the author himself admitted his 
 doubts have not been commented on, as for instance the 
 rumor, which was erroneous, that Shukova, a confidential 
 chamberwoman of Czarina Martha, had been buried alive 
 as a punishment for being imjDlicated in the revolt of the 
 Strelitz. In the same way the correspondence with the 
 Strelitz ascribed by the author of the Diary to Sophia 
 was as a matter of fact written by the Czarina Martha. 
 
 Regarding the completeness of Count Macdonnell's 
 translation (see Introduction p. xxiii) the rather prudish 
 count omitted page 70 of the Latin original describing 
 in a Chauccresque style the nightly bacchanalia of the 
 Muscovite clerics with their wives. Other passages in 
 
 1G5
 
 166 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 similar vein he was disinclined to render in English and 
 left them in the original Latin. Some of these have 
 been given in English in this edition. 
 
 Apraxin (Apraksin), Martha. — She was of a Boyar 
 family, the pedigree of which is traced to the fifteenth 
 century, and was the second wife of Czar Theodore, the 
 eldest half-brother of Czar Peter, who died in 1682. a 
 few months after the marriage. Czarina Martha was 
 but little more than fourteen years when married. She 
 died in 1716. Her brother became an Admiral of the 
 Russian fleet and a count. 
 
 Dwarfs. — There was no lack of dwarfs at the Czar's 
 court. They were introduced on all occasions, and even 
 put into pies which the Czar cut open with great relish. 
 At the funeral of one who had been long attached to the 
 household of Peter, twenty-four male and as many 
 female dwarfs walked in procession, followed by Peter 
 in person as well as by his ministers and guards. In 
 1708 Prince Menshikow wrote to his wife: " I send you 
 a present of two girls, one of whom is very small and 
 can serve as a parrot. She is more talkative than is 
 usual among such little people, and can make you much 
 gayer than if she were a real parrot." In 1710, follow- 
 ing the marriage of the Princess Anne to the Duke of 
 Courland, a marriage of two dwarfs was celebrated with 
 the same rites and pomp as had been observed at the 
 marriage of the Duke and the Princess. On this oc- 
 casion seventy-two dwarfs supped at a separate table 
 in the hall of Prince Menshikow's palace. They were 
 made as drunk as the rest of the company and their 
 antics furnished great amusement. They were given 
 the Czar's cabinet for a nuptial chamber. In 1716
 
 APPENDIX 167 
 
 Menshikow wrote : " Since one of my daughters pos- 
 sesses a dwarf girl and the other does not, therefore I 
 beg you kindly to ask Her Majesty, the Czarina, to 
 allow me to take one of the dwarfs which were left after 
 the death of the Czarina Martha." No noble residence 
 was considered well furnished without dwarfs and the 
 birth of a dwarf was even considered a piece of good 
 luck. There is a decree in the archives of the Senate 
 granting freedom from serfdom to the father and family 
 of a dwarf. When Peter as a child went to church, a 
 dbuble row of dwarfs, carrying red silken curtains, fol- 
 lowed him, a moving prison, always with him. 
 
 German Slowoda (also " Dutch Suburb " or " Ger- 
 man Settlement"). — Beyond the gates of the old cap- 
 ital, towards the north-western corner of the modern 
 city of Moscow, there arose, on the borders of the 
 Jaouza, (lausa) a scanty affluent of the Moscva river, — 
 a kind of Ghetto, specially assigned to the Niemtsy, i. e. 
 those who did not speak the tongue of the country, and 
 who in consequence, were niemoi, dumb. In the middle 
 ages there were a few German merchants here from the 
 Hansa cities. In the 17th century there were besides 
 the Dutch and Germans many Englishmen and Scotch- 
 men, exiles during Cromwell's rule. Later the French- 
 men came, when Louis XIV. drove the Protestants out 
 of France. New political and Scientific ideas from 
 Western Europe were here and the more enlightened 
 of the Russian statesmen like Basil Galizin went there 
 to dine and talk with the foreigners. Czar Peter too 
 frequented the Dutch Suburb witli his " jolly company," 
 i. e. his friends, favorites and casual acquaintances. 
 
 Galizin (Golitsuin), Boris Alexiewicz. — Of a
 
 168 COURT OF PETEK THE GREAT 
 
 princely family of Lithuanian descent, he was one of 
 Peter's chief supporters when he broke with his half- 
 sister Sophia in 1689. During the Czar's first foreign 
 tour (1697-1608) he was one of three regents of Rus- 
 sia. He was highly educated, spoke Latin with fluency, 
 frequented tlie society of scholars and had his children 
 brought up according to the best European methods. 
 But being a habitual drunkard and a parasite on the 
 foreigners, he ruined his reputation in spite of the great 
 services he had rendered. 
 
 Galizin (Golitsuin), Basil. — A cousin of Boris 
 Galizin and chief counselor of Sophia. Although one 
 of the few great Russian nobles who favored Western 
 civilization and a friend of the foreigners in Moscow 
 with whom he used to dine and converse, the Strelitz at 
 their revolt offered him the throne in case Sophia refused 
 to accept it because he had always been merciful to 
 them. He died in exile in 1714. 
 
 GoLoviN, Theodore Alexiewicz. — The first Russian 
 statesman in the modern sense and one of Peter's best 
 friends. In the grand embassy in 1697 Golovin oc- 
 cupied the second place immediately after Lefort, on 
 whose death in March 1699 he succeeded him as Ad- 
 miral-General. The conduct of foreign affairs was also 
 entrusted to him and from 1699 until his death in 1706 
 he was considered as a kind of prime minister of the 
 Czar. 
 
 GoLovKiN, Gabriel Ivanowicz. — The son of a high 
 official, he began his career as a page at the court of 
 Czar Alexius, became, at the age of seventeen, one of 
 Peter's gentlemen of the bedchamber, and subsequently 
 was raised to the rank of Oberkammerherr and created
 
 APPENDIX 169 
 
 a count. During the latter part of his life he became as 
 famous for his avarice as for his stinginess. 
 
 Gordon, Patrick. — A Scotch soldier of fortune and a 
 Russian general who made his first appearance in public 
 life as a witness to a deed by which his father added to 
 the still growing burden of the family debts. He was 
 then a boy of fifteen on the eve of setting out to seek 
 his fortune as a foreign mercenary, according to the 
 fashion of the time which taught the country gentleman, 
 however needy, to look on trade with contempt. Patrick 
 Ivanovicz, as he was called among the Muscovites, took 
 part in the revolution of 1689 on the side of Peter 
 against Sophia and became thereby one of the first favor- 
 ites of the Czar, who closed his eyes when he died in 
 1699. Passages from the Diary of General Patrick 
 Gordon of Auchleuchries were printed for the Spalding 
 Club in 1859. 
 
 Lapoukine (Lopukhina), Eudoxia. — Peter's first 
 wife of boyar family which traces its origin back to the 
 15th century. During his western tour Peter suggested 
 to her repeatedly to take the veil voluntarily which she 
 refused to do. After his return he had her shut up in 
 a convent where she was reduced to the condition of a 
 simple nun. Eudoxia appeared again during Peter's 
 proceedings against their son Alexis. Slie was ar- 
 rested on account of her correspondence with her son 
 and on the further allegation that she had relations with 
 a Major Gliebof. It was also alleged that she liad in 
 no waj^ conformed to the rules of the convent but had 
 assumed there a secular habit and the state of a princess. 
 Eudoxia was now sent to another convent near St. 
 Petersburg where she lived until the accession of her
 
 170 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 grandson, Peter II., wlien she was released. She ap- 
 peared occasionally in court but the long seclusion had 
 dulled her mind and she died in 1731. 
 
 Her alleged lover Gliebof was executed less on ac- 
 count of his relations with her than for having sympa- 
 thized with Alexis. After having been tortured by the 
 knout, by redhot irons, and by burning coal he was fas- 
 tened for three days upon a plank with wooden spikes, 
 and as he confessed nothing more, lie was impaled. 
 During his imjDalement which lasted over twenty-four 
 hours till he died, Peter visited him in the endeavor to 
 elicit a last confession. For an answer Gliebof spit in 
 his face. Eudoxia's brother, Abraham Lopukhin, met 
 a similar though less cruel fate. 
 
 Lefort, Fran9ois. — An adventurer of Swiss-French 
 extraction, who in 1675, when only nineteen, had en- 
 tered Czar Theodore's service, and finally drifted to 
 Moscow where he married a cousin of Patrick Gordon. 
 After participating in various campaigns he settled down 
 in the Dutch Suburb (German Slowoda) at Moscow 
 where he met the young Czar. Peter chose him as one 
 of his advisers and favorites, which position he held until 
 his death. Things impossible to describe happened ac- 
 cording to Kurakin, one of Peter's companions in the 
 large hall added at Peter's expense to Lefort's house. 
 There were drinking banquets lasting for three whole 
 days during which not unfrequently some of the guests 
 died. In Lefort's house Peter met also his first mis- 
 tress, Anna Mons. 
 
 Mentschikow (Menshikov), Alexander Danilowicz. 
 — He is frequently mentioned as " Alexasca " in the 
 Diary, and was literally plucked from the gutter by Gen-
 
 APPENDIX 171 
 
 eral Lefort who made him his valet. In Lefort's house 
 Peter saw him and chose him as his own attendant. 
 But from a servant he soon developed into an equally 
 indispensable friend. He lived and worked by the side 
 of Peter during his first foreign tour. Later he became 
 the governor of Peter's son Alexis, whom he treated ac- 
 cording to the Czar's wishes with ferocious brutality. 
 Titles and honors were showered upon him. Emperor 
 Leopold I. created him in 1705 a Prince of the Holy 
 Roman Empire and Peter invested him two years later 
 with the dignity of a Russian Prince. He died in 1729 
 as an exile in Siberia. 
 
 MoNS, Anna. — She is mentioned by the author of the 
 Diary unobtrusively as " Miss Mons " and was the first 
 mistress of Czar Peter. Alexander Gordon, son of 
 Patrick Gordon, calls her " a wine merchant's daughter, 
 of Livonian extraction, exceeding beautiful and taking." 
 When Peter returned from his western tour he went 
 to visit her first before seeing his wife Eudoxia. He 
 broke with Anna Mons after some time, however, accus- 
 ing her of infidelity. She then married a diplomat. 
 
 Peter's attitude to women is well characterized in a 
 contemporaneous diplomatic dispatch reporting a con- 
 versation the Czar had with the King of Denmark. 
 " Ah, brother," the King is reported to have asked, " so 
 I hear you have a mistress ? " Wliereupon the Czar is 
 said to have answered: "Brother, my harlots do not 
 cost me much but yours cost you millions of crowns 
 which might be better spent." 
 
 Althougli lie fixed tlie price of the favors bestowed 
 on his soldiers in St. Petersburg at one kopeck for three 
 kisses and in spite of the fact that after his first in-
 
 172 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 terview with Martha Glueck, the later Empress Cath- 
 erine, he enriched her with a solitary ducat. Peter was 
 not altogether incapable of appreciating the more deli- 
 cate charm of the company of women, and Russian 
 feminine society was one of his first creations. On the 
 whole however he preferred servant girls or similar 
 tyjDCS. Such was Catherine, his second wife, who had 
 begun her career by wandering from camp to camp at 
 the disposal of the soldiers and officers of her future 
 consort. 
 
 The brother of Anna Mons, William, was accused 
 later of having had relations with Catherine, and was 
 executed. After the execution Peter passed the scaffold 
 in a sledge together with Catherine and so close that 
 her robes touched the body of her alleged lover. When 
 the Czarine appeared unmoved by the sight, Peter had 
 the severed head of William Mons preserved in alcohol 
 placed in her apartments. Many years afterward a 
 commission appointed to investigate the consumption of 
 spirits in the imperial household discovered two vessels 
 in the cellars of the castle containing the heads of a 
 former mistress of Czar Peter and of William Mons, 
 which preserved their pristine beauty. The heads were 
 buried in the vaults of the castle by command of Cath- 
 erine II. 
 
 Nariskin (Narishkin), Leo Kirilowicz. — He was 
 the uncle and devoted friend of the Czar and regent 
 during Peter's western tour. 
 
 RoMADONOwsKY, Theodore. — One of Peter's favor- 
 ites and famous for his cruelty. During the Czar's 
 western tour he was charged with maintaining order in 
 Moscow.
 
 APPENDIX 173 
 
 ScHACHiN (ScHEiN, Shein)^ Alexis. — A boyar of a 
 distinguished family whose ai^pointment as commander 
 in chief of the army was intended to silence the com- 
 plaints of the Nationalists that too many foreigners 
 were employed in high offices. The quarrel between the 
 Czar and Schachin at a banquet during the period of 
 punishment of the Strelitz, page 38 of the Diary, ensued 
 not without good reason. When it had become known in 
 the summer of 1698 that the Czar was returning sooner 
 than was generally expected, the surprised boyars held 
 councils twice a day and under threat of the whip forced 
 the merchants' clerks to make out accounts for them. 
 The promotions of officers made by Schachin during the 
 Czar's absence were all cancelled. 
 
 Sophia. — The third daughter of Czar Alexius and a 
 half sister to" Peter. Like her brother. Czar Theodore, 
 she had had a relatively superior education under the 
 guidance of learned monks from Kieff. Taking over 
 the regency of Russia in 1682 she governed in the name 
 of Peter and his infirm and half idiotic brother Ivan 
 until 1689 when her attempt to dethrone Peter was 
 defeated and she was forced to return to a monaster}'. 
 In 1698 after the revolt of the Strelitz she was shorn 
 as a nun and imprisoned for life-time as Sister Susannah. 
 Some have described her as beautiful; extraordinary 
 she surely was. De Neuville, a diplomatic agent sent 
 to Moscow by the Marquis de Bethune, the French am- 
 bassador in Poland, wrote of Sophia in 1689: "Her 
 mind and her great ability bear no relation to the de- 
 formity of her person, as she is immensibly fat, with 
 a head as large as a bushel, hairs on her face and tumors 
 on her legs, and at least forty years old (she was born
 
 174 COURT OF PETER THE GREAT 
 
 in 1657, Edit.). But in the same degree that her stature 
 is broad, short and coarse, her mind is shrewd, un- 
 prejudiced and full of policy. — She is as acute, subtle, 
 and shrewd in mind as she is broad, short and coarse in 
 person. And though she has never read Machiavelli, nor 
 learned anything about him, all his maxims come nat- 
 urally to her." 
 
 SouvARow (SuvARov). — The cleric Souvarow, men- 
 tioned by the Diarist, was attached to one of the churches 
 in the Kremlin and was the grandfather of the famous 
 Marshal. His son Basil entered the army as a common 
 soldier, rose to be an officer, and, subsequently to the 
 rank of a General. The son of this general, the later 
 field-marshal and prince Souvarow, was born in 1729. 
 
 SzEREMETOw (Sheremetev), Boris. — A friend of 
 Peter and later one of his field-marshals through whom 
 he met the girl Martha, who became his second wife and 
 reigned as Catherine I. after Peter's death until her own 
 in 1727. 
 
 Tolstoy, Peter Andreevicz. — First a supporter of 
 Sophia, then one of Peter and one of his most skillful 
 and unscrupulous tools. As Russian ambassador to the 
 Porte he brought about the strangulation of a grand 
 vizier and the removal by poison of a secretary. In 
 1717 he succeeded in bringing back the Czarewicz Alexis 
 from Naples. Immediately after the death of Catherine 
 I. he was banished to a convent where he died soon after- 
 ward. 
 
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