[1702 A.D.]
An open battle at last took place in the neighbourhood of Dorpat, on the borders of Livonia, when General Sheremetrev fell in with the main body of the enemy on the 1st of January, 1702, and, after a severe conflict of four hours, compelled them to abandon their artillery and fly in disorder. On this occasion, the Swedes are said to have lost three thousand men, while there were but one thousand killed on the opposite side. General Sheremetrev was immediately created a field-marshal, and public thanks were offered up for the victory.
Following up this signal triumph, the czar equipped one fleet upon Lake Peipus to protect the territory of Novgorod, and manned another upon Lake Ladoga, to resist the Swedes in case they should attempt a landing. Thus guarded at the vulnerable points, he was enabled to prosecute his plans in the interior with greater certainty and effect.
Marshal Sheremetrev in the meantime marched upon Marienburg, a town on the confines of Livonia and Ingria, achieving on his progress another triumph over the enemy near the village of Humolova. The garrison at Marienburg, afraid to risk the consequences of a siege, capitulated at once, on condition that the inhabitants should be permitted a free passage, which was agreed to; but an intemperate officer having set fire to the powder magazine, to prevent the negotiation from being effected, by which a number of soldiers on both sides were killed, the Russians fell upon the inhabitants and destroyed the town.
THE ANTECEDENTS OF AN EMPRESS
Catherine I
(1679-1727)
Amongst the prisoners of war was a young Livonian girl, called Martha, an orphan who resided in the household of the Lutheran minister of Marienburg. She had been married the day before to a sergeant in the Swedish army; and when she appeared in the presence of the Russian general Bauer, she was bathed in tears, in consequence of the death of her husband, who was supposed to have perished in the melée. Struck with her appearance, and curious to learn the history of so interesting a person, the general took her to his house, and appointed her to the superintendence of his household affairs. Bauer was an unmarried man, and it was not surprising that his intercourse with Martha should have exposed her to the imputation of having become his mistress; nor, indeed, is there any reason, judging by the immediate circumstances as well as the subsequent life of that celebrated woman, to doubt the truth of the charge. Bauer is said to have denied the fact, which is sufficiently probable, as it was evidently to his interest to acquit the lady of such an accusation; but, however that may be, it is certain that Prince Menshikov, seeing her at the general’s house, and fascinated by her manners, solicited the general to transfer her services to his domestic establishment; which was at once acceded to by the general, who was under too many obligations to the prince to leave him the option of a refusal.
Martha now became the avowed mistress of the libertine Menshikov, in which capacity she lived with him until the year 1704, when, at the early age of seventeen, she enslaved the czar as much by her talents as by her beauty, and exchanged the house of the prince for the palace of the sovereign. The extraordinary influence she subsequently exercised when, from having been the mistress she became the wife of the czar, and ultimately the empress Catherine, developing, throughout the various turns of her fortune, a genius worthy of consort with that of Peter himself, opens a page in history not less wonderful than instructive. The marriage of the sovereign with a subject was common in Russia; but, as Voltaire remarks, the union of royalty with a poor stranger, captured amidst the ruins of a pillaged town, is an incident which the most marvellous combinations of fortune and merit never produced before or since in the annals of the world.