[2] The accounts which different historians give of the circumstances of Catharine's early history vary very materially. One authority states that the occasion of Gluck's taking Catharine away was the death of the curate and of all his family by the plague. Gluck came, it is said, to the house to see the family, and found them all dead. The bodies were lying on the floor, and little Catharine was running about among them, calling upon one after another to give her some bread. After Gluck came in, and while he was looking at the bodies in consternation, she came up behind him and pulled his robe, and asked him if he would not give her some bread. So he took her with him to his own home.
[3] There was a story that he was taken among the prisoners at the battle of Pultowa, and that, on making himself known, he was immediately put in irons and sent off in exile to Siberia.
CHAPTER XV.
THE PRINCE ALEXIS.
1690-1716
Birth of Alexis—His father's hopes—Advantages enjoyed by Alexis—Marriage proposed—Account of the wedding—Alexis returns to Russia—Cruel treatment of his wife—Her hardships and sufferings—The Czar's displeasure—Birth of a son—Cruel neglect—The Czar sent for—Death-bed scene—Grief of the attendants—The princess's despair—High rank no guarantee for happiness—Peter's ultimatum—Letter to Alexis—Positive declarations contained in it—The real ground of complaint—Alexis's excuses—His reply to his father—He surrenders his claim to the crown—Another letter from the Czar—New threats—More positive declarations—Alexis's answer—Real state of his health—His depraved character—The companions and counselors of Alexis—Priests—Designs of Alexis's companions—General policy of an opposition—The old Muscovite party—Views of Alexis—Peter at a loss—One more final determination—Farewell conversation—Alexis's duplicity—Letter from Copenhagen—Alternative offered—Peter's unreasonable severity—Alexis made desperate—Alexis's resolution
The reader will perhaps recollect that Peter had a son by his first wife, an account of whose birth was given in the first part of this volume. The name of this son was Alexis, and he was destined to become the hero of a most dreadful tragedy. The narrative of it forms a very dark and melancholy chapter in the history of his father's reign.
Alexis was born in the year 1690. In the early part of his life his father took great interest in him, and made him the centre of a great many ambitious hopes and projects. Of course, he expected that Alexis would be his successor on the imperial throne, and he took great interest in qualifying him for the duties that would devolve upon him in that exalted station. While he was a child his father was proud of him as his son and heir, and as he grew up he hoped that he would inherit his own ambition and energy, and he took great pains to inspire him with the lofty sentiments appropriate to his position, and to train him to a knowledge of the art of war.
But Alexis had no taste for these things, and his father could not, in any possible way, induce him to take any interest in them whatever. He was idle and spiritless, and nothing could arouse him to make any exertion. He spent his time in indolence and in vicious indulgences. These habits had the effect of undermining his health, and increasing more and more his distaste for the duties which his father wished him to perform.