The Empire of Russia: From the Remotest Periods to the Present Time

by John S. C. Abbott

with a beautiful maiden, Ottokesa Lapuchin, daughter of one of his nobles, and, notwithstanding all the intriguing opposition of Sophia, persisted in marrying her. This marriage increased greatly the popularity of the young prince, and it was very manifest that he would soon thrust Sophia aside, and with his own vigorous arm, wield the scepter alone.

The regent, whose hands were already stained with the blood of assassination, now resolved to remove Peter out of the way. The young prince, with his bride, was residing at his country seat, a few miles out from Moscow. Sophia, in that corrupt, barbaric age, found no difficulty in obtaining, with bribes, as many accomplices as she wanted. Two distinguished generals led a party of six hundred strelitzes out of the city, to surround the palace of Peter and to secure his death. The soldiers had already commenced their march, when Peter was informed of his danger. The tzar leaped upon a horse, and spurring him to his utmost speed, accompanied by a few attendants, escaped to the convent of the Trinity, to which we have before alluded as one of the strongest fortresses of Russia. The mother, wife and sister of the tzar, immediately joined him there.

The soldiers were not aware of the mission which their leaders were intending to accomplish. When they arrived at the palace, and it was found that the tzar had fled, and it was whispered about that he had fled to save his life, the soldiers, by nature more strongly attached to a chivalrous young man than to an intriguing, ambitious woman, whose character was of very doubtful reputation, broke out into open revolt, and, abandoning their officers, marched directly to the monastery and offered their services to Peter. The patriarch, whose religious character gave him almost unbounded influence with the people, also found that he was included as one of the victims of the conspiracy; that he was to have been assassinated, and his place conferred upon one of the partisans of Sophia. He also fled to the convent of the Trinity.

Sophia now found herself deserted by the soldiery and the nation. She accordingly, with the most solemn protestations, declared that she had been accused falsely, and after sending messenger after messenger to plead her cause with her brother, resolved to go herself. She had not advanced more than half way, ere she was met by a detachment of Peter's friends who informed her, from him, that she must go directly back to Moscow, as she could not be received into the convent. The next day Peter assembled a council, and it was resolved to bring the traitors to justice. A colonel, with three hundred men, was sent to the Kremlin to arrest the officers implicated in the conspiracy. They were loaded with chains, conducted to the Trinity, and in accordance with the barbaric custom of the times were put to the torture. In agony too dreadful to be borne, they of course made any confession which was demanded.

Peter was reluctant to make a public example of his sister. There ensued a series of punishments of the conspirators too revolting to be narrated. The mildest of these punishments was exile to Siberia, there, in the extremest penury, to linger through scenes of woe so long as God should prolong their lives. The executions being terminated and the exiles out of sight, Sophia was ordered to leave the Kremlin, and retire to the cloisters of Denitz, which she was never again to leave. Peter then made a triumphal entry into Moscow. He was accompanied by a guard of eighteen thousand troops. His feeble brother Ivan received him at the outer gate of the Kremlin. They embraced each other with much affection, and then retired to their respective apartments. The wife and mother of Peter accompanied him on his return to Moscow.

Thus terminated the regency of Sophia. From this time Peter was the real sovereign of Russia. His brother Ivan took no other share in the government than that of lending his name to the public acts. He lived for a few years in great seclusion, almost forgotten, and died in 1696. Peter was

physically, as well as intellectually, a remarkable man. He was tall and finely formed, with noble features lighted up with an extremely brilliant eye. His constitution was robust, enabling him to undergo great hardship, and he was, by nature, a man of great activity and energy. His education, however, was exceedingly defective. The regent Sophia had not only exerted all her influence to keep him in ignorance, but also to allure him into the wildest excesses of youthful indulgence. Even his recent marriage had not interfered with the publicity of his amours, and all distinguished foreigners in Moscow were welcomed by him to scenes of feasting and carousing.

Notwithstanding these deplorable defects of character, for which much allowance is to be made from the neglect of his education and his peculiar temptations, still it was manifest to close observers even then, that the seeds of true greatness were implanted in his nature. When five years of age, he was riding with his mother in a coach, and was asleep in her arms. As they were passing over a bridge where there was a heavy fall of water from spring rains, the roar of the cataract awoke him. The noise, with the sudden aspect of the rushing torrent, created such terror that he was thrown into a fever, and, for years, he could not see any standing water, much less a running stream, without being thrown almost into convulsions. To overcome this weakness, he resolutely persisted in plunging into the waves until his aversion was changed into a great fondness for that element.

Ashamed of his ignorance, he vigorously commenced studying German, and, notwithstanding all the seductions of the court, succeeded in acquiring such a mastery of the language as to be able both to speak and write it correctly. Peter's father, Alexis, had been anxious to open the fields of commerce to his subjects. He had, at great expense, engaged the services of ship builders and navigators from Holland. A frigate and a yacht had been constructed, with which the

Volga had been navigated to its mouth at Astrachan. It was his intention to open a trade with Persia through the Caspian Sea. But, in a revolt at Astrachan, the vessels were seized and destroyed, and the captain killed. Thus terminated this enterprise. The master builder, however, remained in Russia, where he lived a long time in obscurity.