PETER THE GREAT IN THE DUTCH SHIPYARD.
Her mother also wrote: “The Czar is very tall, his features are fine, and his figure very noble. He has great vivacity of mind, and a ready and just repartee. But, with all the advantages with which nature has endowed him, it could be wished that his manners were a little less rustic. I asked him if he liked hunting. He replied that his father had been very fond of it, but that he himself, from his earliest youth, had had a real passion for navigation and for fireworks. He told us that he worked himself in building ships, showed us his hands, and made us touch the callous places that had been made by work. He has quite the manners of his country. If he had received a better education, he would be an accomplished man, for he has many good qualities, and an infinite amount of native wit.”
The Czar proceeded to Holland, and in the little town of Saardam, not far from Amsterdam, may still be seen the shop which Peter occupied while there. The historians say, he entered himself as a common ship-carpenter, at Amsterdam, and worked for several months among the other workmen, wearing the same dress they wore. In moments of rest, the Czar, sitting down on a log, with his hatchet between his knees, was willing to talk to any one who addressed him simply as carpenter Peter, but turned away without answering if called Sire or Your Majesty. Peter’s curiosity was insatiable. He visited workshops, factories, cabinets of coins, anatomical museums, botanical gardens, hospitals, theatres, and numerous other places; and inquired about everything he saw, until he was recognized by his usual questions, “What is that for? How does that work? That will I see.” He made himself acquainted with Dutch home and family life. Every market day he went to the Botermarkt, mingled with the people, and studied their trades.
He took lessons from a travelling dentist, and experimented on his servants. He mended his own clothes, and learned enough of cobbling to make himself a pair of slippers. He visited Protestant churches, and did not forget the beer-houses. The frigate upon which Peter worked so long, was at last launched, and proved a good ship. He had seen some English ships which pleased him so much, that he determined to set out for England, which he did in 1698, leaving his embassy in Holland.
King William of England made Peter a present of an English yacht, with which he was much delighted. Peter spent much of his time in England, looking for suitable persons to employ in arts and mechanics in Russia. He avoided all court pomp and etiquette during this journey, and travelled incognito, as much as possible. He visited also the mint in England, for he was pleased with the excellence of the English coinage, and he designed recoining the Russian money, which he afterwards accomplished, coining copper, silver, and gold to the extent of $18,000,000 in the space of three years, to replace the bits of stamped leather formerly used. At length he returned to Amsterdam, where his embassy awaited him. When Peter the Great was excited by anger or emotion, the ugly aspect of his countenance and demeanor was greatly aggravated by a nervous affection of the head and face, which attacked him, particularly when he was in a passion, and which produced convulsive twitches of the muscles, that drew his head by jerks to one side, and distorted his face in a manner dreadful to behold. It was said that this disorder was first induced in his childhood, by some one of the terrible frights through which he passed. This distortion, together with the coarse and savage language he employed when in a passion, made him appear at times more like some ugly monster of fiction than like a man. He disliked court etiquette, and avoided pompous ceremonies. Of course there was much curiosity to see him in the various cities he visited, but he generally avoided the crowds; and when his splendid embassy entered a city in royal state, and the people collected in vast numbers to behold the famous Czar, while they were straining their eyes, and peering into every carriage of the royal procession in hopes of seeing him, Peter himself would slip into the city by some quiet street, in disguise, and meeting the merchants, with whom he delighted to associate, he would go to some inn and indulge in his pipe and beer, leaving his embassy to represent royalty. At last his disguise was discovered, and then the news was circulated that the Czar could be easily recognized by his great height,—nearly seven feet,—by the twitching of his face, by his gesturing with his right hand, and by a small mole on the right cheek. His appearance is thus described by one who saw him at this time:—
“He is a prince of very great stature, but there is one circumstance which is unpleasant. He has convulsions, sometimes in his eyes, sometimes in his arms, and sometimes in his whole body. He at times turns his eyes so that one can see nothing but the whites. I do not know whence it arises, but we must believe that it is a lack of good breeding. Then he has also movements in the legs, so that he can scarcely keep in one place. He is very well made, and goes about dressed as a sailor, in the highest degree simple, and wishing nothing else than to be on the water.”
But the Cardinal Kollonitz, primate of Hungary, gives a more flattering picture of Peter the Great:—
“The Czar is a youth of from twenty-eight to thirty years of age, is tall, of an olive complexion, rather stout than thin, in aspect between proud and grave, and with a lively countenance. His left eye, as well as his left arm and leg, were injured by the poison given him during the life of his brother; but there remain now only a fixed and fascinated look in his eye, and a constant movement of his arm and leg, to hide which, he accompanies this forced motion with continual movements of his entire body, which, by many people in the countries which he has visited, has been attributed to natural causes, but really it is artificial. His wit is lively and ready; his manners rather civil than barbarous, the journey he has made having improved him, and the difference from the beginning of his travels and the present time being visible, although his native roughness may still be seen in him; but it is chiefly noticeable in his followers, whom he holds in check with great severity. He has a knowledge of geography and history, and, what is most to be noticed, he desires to know these subjects better; but his strongest inclination is for maritime affairs, at which he himself works mechanically, as he did in Holland; and this work, according to many people who have to do with him, is indispensable to divert the effects of the poison, which still very much troubles him. In person and in aspect, as well as in his manners, there is nothing which would distinguish him or declare him to be a prince.”
