Peter the Great

by Jacob Abbott

Four days after this there was another display, when the embassadors were admitted to their first public audience with the king. There was again a grand procession through the streets, with great crowds assembled to witness it, and bands of music, and splendid uniforms, and gorgeous equipages, all more magnificent, if possible, than before. The embassadors were conducted in this way to the royal palace. They entered the hall, dressed in cloth of gold and silver, richly embroidered, and adorned with precious stones of great value. Here they found the king seated on a throne, and attended by all the principal nobles of his court. The embassadors advanced to pay their reverence to his majesty, bearing in their hands, in a richly-ornamented box, a letter from the Czar, with which they had been intrusted for him. There were a number of attendants also, who were loaded with rich and valuable presents which the embassadors had brought to offer to the king. The presents consisted of the most costly furs, tissues of gold and silver, precious stones, and the like, all productions of Russia, and of very great value.

The king received the embassadors in a very honorable manner, and made them an address of welcome in reply to the brief addresses of salutation and compliment which they first delivered to him. He received the letter from their hands and read it. The presents were deposited on tables which had been set for the purpose.

The letter stated that the Czar had sent the embassy to assure him of his desire "to improve the affection and good correspondence which had always existed, as well between his royal highness and himself as between their illustrious ancestors." It said also that "the same embassy being from thence to proceed to the court of Vienna, the Czar requested the king to help them on their journey." And finally it expressed the thanks of the Czar, for the "engineers and bombardiers" which the king had sent him during the past year, and who had been so useful to him in the siege of Azof.

The king, having read the letter, made a verbal reply to the embassadors, asking them to thank the Czar in his name for the friendly sentiments which his letter expressed, and for the splendid embassy which he had sent to him.

All this time the Czar himself, the author of the letter, was standing by, a quiet spectator of the scene, undistinguishable from the other secretaries and attendants that formed the embassadors' train.

After the ceremony of audience was completed the embassadors withdrew. They were reconducted to their lodgings with the same ceremonies as were observed in their coming out, and then spent the evening at a grand banquet provided for them by the elector. All the principal nobility of Prussia were present at this banquet, and after it was concluded the town was illuminated with a great display of fireworks, which continued until midnight.

The sending of a grand embassage like this from one royal or imperial potentate to another was a very common occurrence in those times. The pomp and parade with which they were accompanied were intended equally for the purpose of illustrating the magnificence of the government that sent them, and of offering a splendid token of respect to the one to which they were sent. Of course, the expense was enormous, both to the sovereign who sent and to the one who received the compliment. But such sovereigns as those were very willing to expend money in parades which exhibited before the world the evidences of their own grandeur and power, especially as the mass of the people, from whose toils the means of defraying the cost was ultimately to come, were so completely held in subjection by military power that they could not even complain, far less could they take any effectual measures for calling their oppressors to account. In governments that are organized at the present day, either by the establishment of new constitutions, or by the remodeling and reforming of old ones, all this is changed. The people understand now that all the money which is expended by their governments is ultimately paid by themselves, and they are gradually devising means by which they can themselves exercise a greater and greater control over these expenditures. They retain a far greater portion of the avails of their labor in their own hands, and expend it in adorning and making comfortable their own habitations, and cultivating the minds of their children, while they require the government officials to live, and travel, and transact their business in a more quiet and unpretending way than was customary of yore.

Thus, in traveling over most parts of the United States, you will find the people who cultivate the land living in comfortable, well-furnished houses, with separate rooms appropriately arranged for the different uses of the family. There is a carpet on the parlor floor, and there are books in the book-case, and good supplies of comfortable clothing in the closets. But then our embassadors and ministers in foreign courts are obliged to content themselves with what they consider very moderate salaries, which do not at all allow of their competing in style and splendor with the embassadors sent from the old despotic monarchies of Europe, under which the people who till the ground live in bare and wretched huts, and are supplied from year to year with only just enough of food and clothing to keep them alive and enable them to continue their toil.

But to return to Peter and his embassy. When the public reception was over Peter introduced himself privately to the king in his own name, and the king, in a quiet and unofficial manner, paid him great attention. There were to be many more public ceremonies, banquets, and parades for the embassy in the city during their stay, but Peter withdrew himself entirely from the scene, and went out to a certain bay, which extended about one hundred and fifty miles along the shore between Konigsberg and Dantzic, and occupied himself in examining the vessels which were there, and in sailing to and fro in them.

This bay you will find delineated on any map of Europe. It extends along the coast for a considerable distance between Konigsberg and Dantzic, on the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea.