761 



PETER I. 



PETER II. 



.762 



the previous year the Russian army, under Soherematov, had gained a 

 complete victory over an inferior force of Swedes, and immediately 

 after took the town of Marienburg. The war continued with more or 

 less success until the year 1709, when Charles XII., having rashly 

 marched into the Ukraine, was completely defeated by the Russian 

 army under Peter at Pultowa, on the 15th of June. Charles himself 

 escaped to Bender, but his army was totally annihilated. 



We have seen that Peter, in his seventeenth year, had a wife forced 

 upon him, who bore him one son, Alexis. The Czarina having encou- 

 raged the factious party, who opposed all innovation, Peter divorced 

 her and confined her in a convent before he had been married three 

 years (1696). His son Alexis was left in her guardianship. When 

 the prisoners taken at Marienburg filed up before him, General Bauer 

 was much struck with the appearance of a very young girl, who 

 appeared to be in the greatest distress. She had been married only 

 the day before to a Livonian sergeant in the Swedish service, whose 

 loss she was then mourning. The general took compassion on her, 

 and received her into his house. Some time after, Meuscliikov beinir 

 struck by her beauty, she was transferred to him, and remained his 

 mistress till 1704, when, in the seventeenth year of her age, she 

 became the mistress of Peter, and gained his affections so entirely that 

 he married her, first privately and afterwards publicly. On the 17th 

 of -March 1711 he declared the Czarina Catharine Alexina his lawful 

 wife. She accompanied her husband immediately afterwards to the 

 war in Turkey, which had just broken out. Peter, following the rash 

 example of Charles XII., entered the enemy's country before his whole 

 army was concentrated. Without sufficient force to keep up his line 

 of communication with Russia, he crossed the river Pruth near Jassy, 

 marched some way down the right bank, and was hemmed in by the 

 army of the grand-vizier on one side and the Tartars of the Crimea on 

 the opposite shore of the river. After three days' action the situation 

 of the army became desperate, when Cathariue, unknown to her 

 husband, sent a letter to the grand-vizier, with a present of all the 

 plate and jewels she could collect in the camp. After some delay a 

 treaty of peace was signed, by which Peter gave up the towns of 

 Az<jf and Taganrog, and the vizier supplied the Russian army with 

 provisions. Peter's health was so much impaired after this campaign 

 that he went to Carlsbad to drink the waters. From Carlsbad he 

 proceeded to Dresden, where his son the Czarovich Alexis Petrovich 

 was married to the Princess of Wolfenbuttel. From Dresden he 

 went to St. Petersburg, where he solemnised anew his marriage with 

 Catharine with great pomp. Peter now determined to strip Sweden 

 of every place which could be an annoyance to his new capital. 

 Before the close of 1713 Stralsund was the only spot in Pomerania 

 remaining to the Swedes : Peter himself gave the plan for its siege, 

 and then leaving Menschikov to carry it out, went to St. Petersburg, 

 and thence with a squadron of galleys and flat boats made himself 

 master of Abo and the whole coast of Finland. The library of Abo 

 was transferred to St. Petersburg, and was the foundation of the 

 present library of that city. He next defeated the Swedish fleet in a 

 naval engagement, and instituted the female order of St. Catharine on 

 the occasion, in honour of the Czarina, who alone could bestow it 

 The senate was removed from Moscow to St. Petersburg in 1713, and 

 the emperor's summer and winter palaces were completed in 1715. 

 He employed about 40,000 men in finishing his dockyard, building 

 ships, wharfs, and fortifications. Goods imported into Archangel 

 were prohibited from being sent to Moscow ; and under these favour- 

 able circumstances St. Petersburg soon became a place of great 

 commerce and wealth. 



I'eter had now taken the whole of Finland, and the provinces of 

 Esthonia and Livonia ; and having nothing to fear from Charles XII., 

 he made a second tour through Europe in 1716, accompanied by the 

 empress. They visited Mecklenburg, Hamburg, Pyrmont, Schwerin, 

 Rostock, and Copenhagen, where he remained some months. While 

 he was at Copenhagen an English and a Dutch squadron arrived : 

 I'eter proposed that the four fleets should unite, and proceed to sea in 

 search of the Swedish fleet. The chief command was given to the 

 Czar, who declared the moment in which he hoisted his standard to be 

 the proudest of his life. From Copenhagen he went to Liibeck, where 

 he had an interview with the King of Prussia, and then to Amsterdam, 

 where he remained some time. Catharine, who had been left behind, 

 was brought to bed at Werel of a third child, which died the next day. 

 She remained at Amsterdam while her husband went to Paris, where 

 he was received with great splendour. On his return to Amsterdam 

 he visited Berlin on his way to Russia. During this tour he pur- 

 chased great quantities of pictures, cabinets of birds and insects, 

 books, and whatever appeared likely to enrich or ornament the city of 

 his creation. The King of Denmark presented him with a great 

 hollow globe 1 1 feet in diameter, whose inside represented the celestial 

 and the outside the terrestrial sphere. Peter showed everywhere the 

 same dislike to parade and formal etiquette which he had always 

 evinced, and avoided them when possible. 



His eldest son, Alexis, who had unhappily been left to the guardian- 

 ship of bis mother, bad always been a source of disquietude and 

 trouble to Peter ; and when he grew up, far from showing any desire 

 to tread in the footsteps of his father, he chose his friends and 

 advisers from among the disaffected and turbulent boyars and priests, 

 who were opposed to all change. The unfortunate princess, wife of 



Alexis, had fallen a victim to the brutal conduct of her husband, 

 after giving birth to a son, Peter Alexiovich, afterwards Peter II. 

 While yet grieving for the loss of his daughter-in-law Peter remon- 

 strated with his sou on his conduct, and told him that he should not 

 be his successor unless he altered his mode of living. These remon- 

 strances being treated with complete neglect by Alexis, who still 

 pursued his vicious courses, Peter forced him, on the 14th of February 

 1718, to sign and swear to a deed wholly renouncing the succession to 

 the crown ; he also required from, him the names of his advisers in 

 his misconduct. The answers given by Alexis to the queries put to 

 him were such that Peter thought it necessary to try him by the great 

 officers of state, the judges, and the bishops, who unanimously con- 

 demned him to death. On the day of his condemnation he was seized 

 with a violent illness, which terminated in two days, on the 7th of 

 July 1718. His mother was strictly confined, and his advisers 

 punished. In 1719 the Czar's son by Catharine, in whose favour 

 Alexis had abdicated, died at five years of age. On the 10th of 

 September 1721 the peace of Neustadt was concluded, by which 

 Sweden ceded to Russia, Livonia, Esthonia, Ingria, Carelia, Wyburg, 

 and the adjacent Ulands, but secured the possession of the Gulf of 

 Finland. 



Peter had now attained the summit of his glory : he was requested, 

 and after some hesitation consented to adopt the titles of ' Peter the 

 Great, Emperor of all the Russias, and Father of his Country.' This 

 was done amidst great rejoicings, which continued for fifteen days. 

 He now turned his undivided attention to the arts of peace. He com- 

 menced canals to unite navigable rivers ; encouraged by bounties the 

 manufactures of woollen and linen cloths, the erection of corn, 

 powder, and sawing mills ; established a manufactory of small-arms ; 

 instituted hospitals, and established a uniformity of weights and 

 measures ; paved the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg ; and 

 ordered the young nobility to carry their wives to visit foreign courts 

 and countries, in order to acquire more civilised manners. Some of 

 his measures were not so politic, although equally well intended, such 

 as the attempt to fix the prices of provisions and the limit of expense 

 in dress. 



In 1722 Peter led an expedition to the Caspian, which however 

 failed in producing any results. In 1723 he went to St. Petersburg to 

 found the Academy of Sciences, and to erect a memorial of the 

 establishment of a navy in Russia. Peter took his idea of the 

 academy from that of Paris, of which he had been elected a member 

 during his visit to that capital. In the same year he caused Catha- 

 rine to be crowned, and his eldest daughter was married to the Duke 

 of Holstein Gottorp. He suffered greatly at this time from a stran- 

 gury in the neck of his bladder, which painful disorder he endeavoured 

 to stifle by an unlimited indulgence in strong liquors, which so much 

 increased the violence of his temper that even the empress is said to 

 have feared his presence. Being partially relieved, he went, in 

 October 1724, contrary to the advice of his physicians, to inspect the 

 works on Lake Ladoga. On his return he proceeded to Lachta, on 

 the Gulf of Finland, and had scarcely anchored there when a boat 

 full of soldiers, being cast on the shore, Peter, in his ardour to assist 

 them, waded through the water, which brought on violent inflam- 

 mation in the bladder and intestines. He was conveyed to St. Peters- 

 burg, where his complaint made rapid progress, giving him intense 

 and constant pain. He at length sunk under the disease, and expired 

 on the 28th of January 1725. His body lay in state till the 21st 

 of March, when his obsequies, and those of his third daughter, 

 Natalia Petrowna, who died after her father, were performed at the 

 same time. 



Peter I., deservedly named the Great, was compounded of contra- 

 dictious : the greatest undertakings and the most ludicrous were 

 mingled together; benevolence and humanity were as conspicuous in 

 him as a total disregard of human life ; he was at once kind-hearted 

 and severe even to ferocity ; without education himself, he promoted 

 arts, science, and literature. " He gave a polish," says Voltaire, " to 

 his people, and was himself a savage ; he taught them the art of war, 

 of which he was himself ignorant ; from the sight of a small boat on 

 the river Moskwa he created a powerful fleet, made himself an expert 

 and active shipwright, sailor, pilot, and commander; he changed the 

 manners, customs, and laws of the Russians, and lives in their memory 

 as the ' Father of his Country.' " 



Menschikov, whose birth was so obscure as to be totally unknown, 

 and who had risen through the favour of the Czar to be a prince and 

 governor of St. Petersburg, caused Catharine to be proclaimed empress 

 immediately after the death of Peter, and during her reign possessed 

 unlimited power. Catharine died of a cancer in her breast, aggravated 

 by excessive indulgence in wine of Tokay, in 1727, at the age of 

 thirty-eight, having survived her husband only two years and a few 

 months. She was succeeded by Peter II., son of the unfortunate 

 Alexis. 



Among other works connected with the mechanical arts, Peter the 

 Great translated ' L'Architecturo de Sobastien Leclerc,' 'L'Art da 

 Tourner, par Plumier,' and ' L'Art des Ecluses et des Moulius, par 

 Sturm.' The manuscripts of these, with his journal of the Swedish 

 campaigns from 1693 to 1714, are preserved at St. Petersburg. 



PETER II., ALEXEVICH, the grandson of Peter the Great by his 

 son Alexis, was born in 1714, ami ascended the throne in 1727, on the 



