She it was who chose the officer she considered most intelligent and trustworthy for the important mission to the vizier, and she it was who gave him his instructions. Some hours having elapsed after his departure, it was feared that he had been killed, or was detained a prisoner; and a council of war was held, at which we find Catherine was present. At this council it was resolved that, if the Turks refused to enter into a treaty of peace, rather than lay down their arms and throw themselves on their mercy, the Russians would risk their lives by attempting to cut their way through the enemy. During this interval, Peter, despairing of any favorable results from the mission, and reduced to despondency, wrote to the senate at Moscow—‘If I fall into the hands of the enemy, consider me no longer as your sovereign, and obey no commands which shall proceed from the place of my confinement, though it should be signed by my own hand. If I perish, choose the worthiest among you to succeed me.’
The return of the messenger, however, prevented these desperate measures, for he brought the intelligence that an honorable treaty had been agreed to by the vizier. The partisans of Charles XII have always upbraided what they call the cowardice of the Turkish governor on this occasion; but it seems to us that he behaved in a dignified and enlightened manner, and, in consenting to put an end to the war, consulted the interests of his country, a hundred times more than if he had sacrificed fresh troops in opposing the czar, and driving the Russian army to desperation. Hostilities were suspended immediately; and soon afterwards articles were signed, by which Azoph was surrendered to the Turks, the czar excluded from the Black Sea, the Russian army withdrawn beyond the Danube, and the promise given of a free passage to Charles XII through Russia to his own dominions. Much as this seems for Peter to have sacrificed, that Catherine’s services were considered extraordinary is proved beyond question; and several years afterwards, on the occasion of her being crowned empress, Peter again publicly acknowledged them, referring to that ‘desperate occasion’ in these words—‘She signalized herself in a particular manner by a courage and presence of mind superior to her sex, which is well known to all our army, and to the whole Russian empire.’
The fury of Charles on hearing of this treaty knew no bounds. He sought the Turkish camp, and insulted the vizier to his face, who retorted only by some bitter sarcasms on his own prostrate condition. He refused to take advantage of his right to return home; and, still nourishing the insane hope of being able to attack Moscow, he lingered at Bender till 1714, when the Turks, heartily tired of their troublesome guest, sent an army to dislodge him, and he made his way to Sweden in the disguise of a courier.
Of Charles XII of Sweden we need only further say that he fell from a chance ball, which entered his temple, and killed him on the spot, on the 11th of December 1718, while conducting the siege of Frederickshall, a small town in Norway; just in time, according to some historians, to prevent a union with his old opponent the czar to disturb the government of Great Britain. If the mere existence of such a scourge as Charles XII were not in itself too grave a subject for mirth, one might be amused at the acknowledgments of his panegyrist Voltaire, who, in summing up his character, alludes to his great qualities, of which he says—‘One alone would have been enough to immortalize any other prince;’ and yet admits that they caused the misery of his country. And that his ‘firmness, become obstinacy, led to the sufferings of his army in the Ukraine, and its detention in Turkey; that his liberality degenerated into profusion, and ruined Sweden; that his justice sometimes’—we should say very often—‘approached to cruelty; and that the maintenance of his authority verged upon tyranny.’ Moreover, that he ‘gained empires to give them away.’ Yes; for the mere pleasure, to him, of fighting and slaughtering! What a pity he was not born a butcher instead of a king! If an admirer acknowledged thus much, what was the truth likely to have been?
Meanwhile Peter had been going on with his mighty reforms, notwithstanding the opposition of the ignorant and superstitious priesthood, who worked on the people by every means in their power. They taught them that all these alterations were in direct opposition to the will of Heaven; and among other tricks, persuaded them that the pictures of the saints wept at their transgressions. This deception was contrived by making a cavity behind the head of the picture, and filling it with water; then, when the occasion arrived that it was proper for the tears to flow, a little fish was put into the water, which, splashing about, forced out the water at the eyes of the painting.
In 1715–16, Peter indulged himself by making a second tour in Europe, taking Catherine with him. He visited Saardam, where, eighteen years before, he had worked as a ship-builder; and where he was now received with every demonstration of honor and regard. It is related that he showed the czarina, with much interest, the little cabin in which he had worked and lived. There were some political reasons which detained Peter for nearly three months in Holland. He was nearer the centre of intelligence than at home concerning the purposes of other powers, some of whom were plotting against him. However, after conducting a correspondence, and drawing up a treaty with France, he returned to St. Petersburg, traveling by way of Berlin.
We come now to a dark and mysterious passage in the life of Peter the Great. Alexis, Peter’s son by his divorced wife, appears to have possessed naturally but an inferior intellect, joined to that species of low cunning which often belongs to it, without any moral qualities to counterbalance such defects; and unfortunately his mistaken education had confirmed him in his vices and follies. We have already mentioned that, on his marriage being dissolved, Peter allowed his son to remain with his mother. The consequence was, that from an early age he was placed under the control of the priests, who not only instilled into his mind their own superstitious notions, but taught him that the changes in the government and manners of the people effected by the czar were acts offensive to God. It is impossible to help sympathizing with Peter in the disappointment he must have felt at finding his only son a stupid, and yet mischievous and profligate creature; for the only son which Catherine brought him died a mere infant. Remembering that the Russian succession was vested in the will of the autocrat, who was supposed to have a perfect right to bequeath the sovereignty to whomsoever he pleased, every candid reader will acknowledge that Peter was quite justified in disinheriting his unworthy son, whose first act, on gaining the reigns of government, would have been to undo, to the best of his ability, the great works of his predecessor. But it is impossible to justify the extreme severity of the czar, although we can comprehend the excuses which might be offered for it. Not that historians do offer them, for they seem, almost without exception, to dwell on the darkest side of the question, almost without remembering the provocatives to his wrath. The simple truth is a deep enough tragedy.
When Alexis was about twenty years of age, which appears to have been as soon as Peter discovered the mischief that was done, he tried to repair it, by placing a different order of persons about him, and sending him to travel. When he came back, he married him to an amiable and intelligent princess of the house of Brunswick, who died in less than four years, literally of a broken heart, from the neglect, cruelty, and profligacy of her brutal husband. After her death, Peter wrote a letter to his son, which concluded with these words:—‘I will still wait a little time to see if you will correct yourself; if not, know that I will cut you off from the succession as we lop off a useless member. Don’t imagine that I mean only to frighten you; don’t rely upon your being my only son; for if I spare not my own life for my country and the good of my people, how shall I spare you? I would rather leave my kingdom to a foreigner who deserves it, than to my own son who makes himself unworthy of it.’ And in a subsequent letter, Peter said—‘Take your choice; either make yourself worthy of the throne, or embrace a monastic state.’
But Alexis seemed not at all inclined to do either; although, during fits of pretended penitence, he was willing to do anything. There is no doubt, however, that the terror of the Czar was, that even if his son entered a monastery, he might still at his death be placed at the head of that party who were opposed to reform, and so recover the throne. It seems to us that this dread of future ruin to the country is the true explanation of Peter’s severity; for, taking into account the barbarism of the times, and the sanguinary laws all over Europe, we can find no evidence of a cruel disposition in the history of Peter the Great.
Before the Czar set out for Germany and France, he visited his son, who was then on a bed of sickness. On this occasion Alexis solemnly promised that, if he recovered, he would embrace a monastic life; but his father was no sooner out of Russia, than the prince became suddenly well, and entered upon his former life of riot and dissipation. Some intelligence of what was occurring at home reached the Czar, and he wrote a peremptory letter to his son, desiring him either to enter a monastery without delay, or join him at Copenhagen. Upon this Alexis declared his intention of going to Copenhagen, and drew money from Menzikoff for his traveling expenses. But, apparently frightened at the thought of meeting his father—and really it is easy to fancy the incensed czar an object of great terror to the culprit—he proceeded to Vienna, there to concoct some treasonable schemes with the emperor of Germany, who, however, alarmed at the probable consequences, got rid of him; and from Vienna he turned his steps to Naples. His plan seems to have been to get out of his father’s way as far as possible, and wait the chances of life and death that might place him in some new position. But Peter I, either as a sovereign or a father, was not a personage to be treated in this manner. Accordingly, we find him despatching two messengers to Naples, to bring Alexis back to Moscow by fair means or foul. There is evidence that he accompanied them, on the solemn assurance of his father’s forgiveness; and this deception certainly gives the darkest hue to the trial and condemnation which followed.