Peter the Great

by Jacob Abbott

This document was signed in the most solemn manner by all the members of the council, nearly one hundred in number. Among the signatures are the names of a great number of ministers of state, counselors, senators, governors, generals, and other personages of high civil and military rank. The document, when thus formally authenticated, was sent, with much solemn and imposing ceremony, to the Czar.

The Czar, after an interval of great suspense and solicitude, during which he seems to have endured much mental suffering, confirmed the judgment of the council, and a day was appointed on which Alexis was to be arraigned, in order that sentence of death, in accordance with it, might be solemnly pronounced upon him.

The day appointed was the 6th of July, nearly a fortnight after the judgment of the court was rendered to the Czar. The length of this delay indicates a severe struggle in the mind of the Czar between his pride and honor as a sovereign, feelings which prompted him to act in the most determined and rigorous manner in punishing a rebel against his government, and what still remained of his parental affection for his son. He knew well that after what had passed there could never be any true and genuine reconciliation, and that, as long as his son lived, his name would be the watchword of opposition and rebellion, and his very existence would act as a potent and perpetual stimulus to the treasonable designs which the foes of civilization and progress were always disposed to form. He finally, therefore, determined that the sentence of death should at least be pronounced. What his intention was in respect to the actual execution of it can never be known.

When the appointed day arrived a grand session of the council was convened, and Alexis was brought out from the fortress where he was imprisoned, and arraigned before it for the last time. He was attended by a strong guard. On being placed at the bar of the tribunal, he was called upon to repeat the confessions which he had made, and then the sentence of death, as it had been sent to the Czar, was read to him. He was then taken back again to his prison as before.

Alexis was overwhelmed with terror and distress at finding himself thus condemned; and the next morning intelligence was brought to the Czar that, after suffering convulsions at intervals through the night, he had fallen into an apoplectic fit. About noon another message was brought, saying that he had revived in some measure from the fit, yet his vital powers seemed to be sinking away, and the physician thought that his life was in great danger.

The Czar sent for the principal ministers of state to come to him, and he waited with them in great anxiety and agitation for farther tidings.

At length a third messenger came, and said that it was thought that Alexis could not possibly outlive the evening, and that he longed to see his father. The Czar immediately requested the ministers to accompany him, and set out from his palace to go to the fortress where Alexis was confined. On entering the room where his dying son was lying, he was greatly moved, and Alexis himself, bursting into tears, folded his hands and began to entreat his father's forgiveness for his sins against him. He said that he had grievously and heinously offended the majesty of God Almighty and of the Czar; that he hoped he should not recover from his illness, for if he should recover he should feel that he was unworthy to live. But he begged and implored his father, for God's sake, to take off the curse that he had pronounced against him, to forgive him for all the heinous crimes which he had committed, to bestow upon him his paternal blessing, and to cause prayers to be put up for his soul.

While Alexis was speaking thus, the Czar himself, and all the ministers and officers who had come with him, were melted in tears. The Czar replied kindly to him. He referred, it is true, to the sins and crimes of which Alexis had been guilty, but he gave him his forgiveness and his blessing, and then took his leave with tears and lamentations which rendered it impossible for him to speak, and in which all present joined. The scene was heart-rending.