The character of Frederick of Prussia was distinguished by the same blunt, persevering, military qualities which belonged to that of Peter. He lived plainly, dressed like a common soldier, was extremely abstemious, and exhibited in his habits even a needless severity of discipline. The meeting, therefore, between sovereigns who so closely resembled each other in their tastes, who were equally self-devoted to the good of their people, and equally uncorrupted by the pomp and temptations of power, was a spectacle such as history rarely presents. The czarina was worthy of entering into the scene, for she was the only female sovereign in Europe who could share, without shrinking, the toils and difficulties of their career. Voltaire remarks that if Charles XII had been admitted to the group, four crowned heads would have been seen together, surrounded by less luxury than a German bishop or a Roman cardinal.
But, while Peter, Catherine, and Frederick entertained an utter contempt for ostentatious display, the fashion of the court, which was probably directed by the queen, rendered it necessary that the illustrious visitors should be treated with a show of grandeur and parade which they despised. They were entertained in a costly style at the palace; and their manners did not fail to excite the sarcasms and gossip of the courtiers, who were incapable of comprehending the real dignity of their character, and who were disappointed to find in the czar and czarina of Russia a couple of plain, rough, and, agreeably to their notions, vulgar persons. The particulars of this visit to the court of Prussia are minutely commemorated in the loose and satirical memoirs of the day; while the visits to Paris, Amsterdam, and London are recorded, without a single exception, in a spirit of grave admiration, that exhibits a curious contrast to the flippant tracasseries of Berlin.
Amongst the most pert and lively writers who chronicled the visit and caricatured the czar and his simple train of followers, is the markgräfin von Bayreuth. She gives a very amusing account in her memoirs of the reception at court; and says that when Peter approached to embrace the queen, her majesty looked as if she would rather be excused. Their majesties were attended, she informs us, by a whole train of what were called ladies, as part of their suite, consisting chiefly of young German women, who performed the part of ladies’ maids, chamber-maids, cook-maids, and washerwomen; almost every one of whom had a richly clothed child in her arms. The queen, it is added, refused to salute these creatures. At table the czar was seized with one of his convulsive fits, at a moment when he happened to have a knife in his hand, and the queen was so frightened that she attempted to leave the table; but Peter told her not to be uneasy, assuring her that he would do her no harm. On another occasion, he caught her by the hand with such force that she was obliged to desire him to be more respectful; on which he burst out into a loud fit of laughter, and said that she was much more delicate than his Catherine. But the most entertaining part of the whole is a sketch of the personal appearance of the uncultivated sovereigns. “The czarina,” says the markgräfin, “is short and lusty, remarkably coarse, and without grace or animation. One needs only see her to be satisfied of her low birth. At the first blush one would take her for a German actress. Her clothes looked as if bought at a doll-shop, everything was so old-fashioned and so bedecked with silver and tinsel. She was decorated with a dozen orders, portraits of saints, and relics, which occasioned such a clatter that when she walked one would suppose an ass with bells was approaching. The czar, on the contrary, is tall and well made. His countenance is handsome; but there is something in it so rude that it inspires one with dread. He was dressed like a seaman, in a frock, without lace or ornament.” The spirit of the tiring-woman shines through the whole of this saucy and superficial description. The markgräfin took the measure of the illustrious visitors as she would of her lady’s robe—colour, spangles, and shape. It never occurred to her that, in the little coarse woman who looked so like a German actress, she saw the heroine of the Pruth; and that the rude seaman who frightened the queen was the man who, amidst ignorant wonder and superstitious resistance, laid the foundations of the most gigantic empire that the world has ever seen! But the circumstances under which the markgräfin obtained her impressions were unfavourable to the formation of a just opinion, or, indeed, of any opinion at all. She was only eight years of age when she saw Peter and Catherine, although she had arrived at a mature age when she wrote her memoirs. She retained no more than the silly whispers and jests of the ante-chamber. She noted down what she heard rather than what she thought; but it serves to show very clearly the sort of atmosphere in which the eccentric Frederick moved, and the courtly weaknesses against which, in his own person, he must have been compelled to sustain a continual warfare.
On Peter’s return through Holland, he purchased a variety of pictures of the Dutch and Flemish schools, several zoölogical, entomological, and anatomical cabinets, and a large collection of books. With the treasures thus accumulated he laid the foundation of the imperial Academy of Sciences, the plan of which he drew up himself. He would probably have lingered longer in those countries, but for the intelligence which he received concerning the conduct of his son Alexis, which induced him to hasten to St. Petersburg under the agitation of bitter feelings, in which the natural dispositions of the father were drawn into direct collision with the duty of the sovereign.[c]
THE CZAREVITCH ALEXIS DISINHERITED (1718 A.D.)
The czar arrived at St. Petersburg from his foreign tour on the 21st of October, 1717. Twenty years before he had signalised his return from a first visit to civilised countries by the inhuman butchery of the strelitz, and now he was about to give still more appalling evidence of the deep depravity of his heart.
Peter’s early aversion to Eudoxia had a most deplorable influence on Alexis, the son she bore him in 1690. The dissensions between the father and the mother speedily diminished the father’s affection for Alexis. Moreover, as Peter’s vast labours prevented him from paying much attention to the education of his son, Alexis at first grew up under female tuition, and then fell into the hands of some of the clergy, under whose guidance he daily conceived a greater abhorrence for his father. This being observed by Peter, he put an end to the spiritual education, and appointed Menshikov superintendent of the prince’s preceptors.
Menshikov was no friend to Alexis, and the latter had been early inspired by his mother with contempt and aversion for the favourite of his father. The tutors who were now placed about the prince were not able to eradicate the prejudices impressed on his mind from his infancy, and now grown inveterate; besides, he had an unconquerable dislike to them as foreigners. The future sovereign of so vast an empire that was now reformed in all its parts, and by prosperous wars still further enlarged; the heir of a throne whose possessor ruled over many millions of people, had been brought up from his birth as if designed for a Russian bishop; theology continued to be his favourite study. With a capacity for those sciences which are useful in government, he discovered no inclination to them. Moreover, he addicted himself early in life to drunkenness and other excesses. There were not wanting such as flattered his perverse dispositions, by representing to him that the Russian nation was dissatisfied with his father, that it was impossible for him to be suffered long in his career of innovation, that even his life was not likely to hold out against so many fatigues, with many other things of a like nature.
The conduct of Alexis, particularly his indolence and sloth, were highly displeasing to Peter. Menshikov, from political motives, to preserve himself and Catherine, was constantly employed in fanning the czar’s resentment, while the adherents of Alexis, on the other hand, seized every opportunity to increase the aversion of the prince, who, from his very cradle, had never known what it was to love, and had only dreaded his father. Alexis at times even gave plain intimations that he would hereafter undo all that his father was so sedulously bringing about. Nay, when the latter, in 1711, appointed the prince regent during his absence, in the campaign of the Pruth, Alexis made it his first business to alter many things in behalf of the clergy, so as clearly to evince in what school he had been brought up.
The czar was in hopes of reforming his son by uniting him with a worthy consort; but even this attempt proved fruitless. The princess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, who was selected for his bride, and to whom Alexis was married at Torgau, in 1711, notwithstanding all her eminent qualities of mind and heart and her great beauty, could make no impression on him, and sank under the load of grief brought on by this unhappy connection, soon after giving birth to a prince, who was called by the name of his grandfather, Peter (1715). By a continuance in his dissolute mode of life, by his bad behaviour towards his spouse, and his intercourse with persons who were notorious for their hatred of Peter and his reforms, Alexis seemed bent upon augmenting his father’s displeasure.