"That illness appeared at first like an apoplexy; but he afterwards recovered his senses and received the holy sacraments; and having desired to see us, we went to him immediately, with all our counselors and senators; and then he acknowledged and sincerely confessed all his said faults and crimes, committed against us, with tears and all the marks of a true penitent, and begged our pardon, which, according to Christian and paternal duty, we granted him; after which
on the 7th of July, at six in the evening, he surrendered his soul to God."
The tzar endeavored to efface from his memory these tragic scenes by consecrating himself, with new energy, to the promotion of the interests of Russia. Utterly despising all luxurious indulgence, he lived upon coarse fare, occupied plainly-furnished rooms, dressed in the extreme of simplicity and devoted himself to daily toil with diligence, which no mechanic or peasant in the realm could surpass. The war still continued with Sweden. On the night of the 29th of November, of this year, 1718, the madman Charles XII. was instantly killed by a cannon ball which carried away his head as he was leaning upon a parapet, in the siege of Fredericshall in Norway. The death of this indomitable warrior quite changed the aspect of European affairs. New combinations of armies arose and new labyrinths of intrigue were woven, and for several years wars, with their usual successes and disasters, continued to impoverish and depopulate the nations of Europe. At length the tzar effected a peace with Sweden, that kingdom surrendering to him the large and important provinces of Livonia, Esthonia, Ingria and Carelia. This was an immense acquisition for Russia.
With the utmost vigilance the tzar watched the administration of all the internal affairs of his empire, punishing fraud, wherever found, with unrelenting severity. The enterprise which now, above all others, engaged his attention, was to open direct communication, by means of canals, between St. Petersburg and the Caspian Sea. The most skillful European engineers were employed upon this vast undertaking, by which the waters of Lake Ladoga were to flow into the Volga, so that the shores of the Baltic and distant Persia might be united in maritime commerce. The sacred Scriptures were also, by command of the emperor, translated into the Russian language and widely disseminated throughout the empire. The Russian merchants were continually receiving
insults, being plundered and often massacred by the barbaric tribes on the shores of the Caspian. Peter fitted out a grand expedition from Astrachan for their chastisement, and went himself to that distant city to superintend the important operations. A war of twelve months brought those tribes into subjection, and extended the Russian dominion over vast and indefinite regions there.
Catharine, whom he seemed to love with all the fervor of youth, accompanied him on this expedition. Returning to St. Petersburg in 1724, Peter resolved to accomplish a design which he for some time had meditated, of placing the imperial crown upon the brow of his beloved wife. Their infant son had died. Their grandson, Peter, the son of Alexis, was still but a child, and the failing health of the tzar admonished him that he had not many years to live. Reposing great confidence in the goodness of Catharine and in the wisdom of those counselors whom, with his advice, she would select, he resolved to transmit the scepter, at his death, to her. In preparation for this event, Catharine was crowned Empress on the 18th of May, 1724, with all possible pomp.
The city of Petersburg had now become one of the most important capitals of Europe. Peter was not only the founder of this city, but, in a great measure, the architect. An observatory for astronomical purposes was reared, on the model of that in Paris. A valuable library was in the rapid progress of collection, and there were several cabinets formed, filled with the choicest treasures of nature and art. There were now in Russia a sufficient number of men of genius and of high literary and scientific attainment to form an academy of the arts and sciences, the rules and institutes of which the emperor drew up with his own hand.
While incessantly engaged in these arduous operations, the emperor was seized with a painful and dangerous sickness—a strangury—which confined him to his room for four months. Feeling a little better one day, he ordered his
yacht to be brought up to the Neva, opposite his palace, and embarked to visit some of his works on Lake Ladoga. His physicians, vainly remonstrating against it, accompanied him. It was the middle of October. The weather continuing fine, the emperor remained upon the water, visiting his works upon the shore of the lake and of the Gulf of Finland, until the 5th of November. The exposures of the voyage proved too much for him, and he returned to Petersburg in a state of debility and pain which excited the greatest apprehensions.
The disease made rapid progress. The mind of the emperor, as he approached the dying hour, was clouded, and, with the inarticulate mutterings of delirium, he turned to and fro, restless, upon his bed. His devoted wife, for three days and three nights, did not leave his side, and, on the 28th of January, 1725, at four o'clock in the afternoon, he breathed his last, in her arms.