After the death of the princess, Peter wrote his son a letter, the conclusion of which ran thus: “I will still wait awhile, to see if you will amend; if not, know that I will deprive you of the succession, as a useless limb is cut off. Do not imagine I am only frightening you; nor would I have you rely on the title of being my eldest son; for since I do not spare my own life for the good of my country and the prosperity of my people, why should I spare yours? I shall rather commit them to a stranger deserving such a trust than to my own undeserving offspring.”
At this very juncture the empress Catherine was delivered of a prince, who died in 1719. Whether the above letter disheartened Alexis, or whether it was imprudence or bad advice, he wrote to his father that he renounced the crown, and all hopes of reigning. “God is my witness,” said he, “and I swear upon my soul, that I will never claim the succession; I commit my children into your hands, and for myself desire only a subsistence during life.”
His father wrote to him a second time. “I observe,” says he, “that all you speak of in the letter is the succession, as if I stood in need of your consent. I have represented to you what grief your behaviour has given me for so many years, and not a word do you say of it; the exhortations of a father make no impression on you. I have brought myself to write to you once more; but for the last time. If you despise my counsels now I am living, what regard will be paid to them after my death? Though you may now mean not to violate your promises, yet those bushy beards will be able to wind you as they please, and force you to break your word. It is you those people rely on. You have no gratitude to him who gave you life. Since you have been of proper age, did you ever assist him in his labours? Do you not find fault with, do you not detest everything I do for the good of my people? I have all the reason in the world to believe that, if you survive me, you will overthrow all that I have been doing. Amend, make yourself worthy of the succession, or turn monk. Let me have your answer either in writing, or personally, or I will deal with you as a malefactor.”
Though this letter was harsh, the prince might easily have answered that he would alter his behaviour; but he only acquainted his father, in a few lines, that he would turn monk. This assurance did not appear natural; and it is something strange that the czar, going to travel, should leave behind him a son so obstinate, but this very journey proves that the czar was in no manner of apprehension of a conspiracy from his son. He went to see him before he set out for Germany and France; the prince being ill, or feigning to be so, received him in bed, and confirmed to him, by the most solemn oaths, that he would retire into a convent. The czar gave him six months for deliberation, and set out with his consort.
He had scarcely reached Copenhagen when he received advice (which was no more than he might well expect) that Alexis admitted into his presence only evil-minded persons, who humoured his discontent; on this the czar wrote to him that he must choose the convent or the throne, and, if he valued the succession, to come to him at Copenhagen.
The prince’s confidants instilled into him a suspicion that it would be dangerous for him to put himself into the hands of a provoked father and a mother-in-law, without so much as one friend to advise with. He therefore feigned that he was going to wait on his father at Copenhagen, but took the road to Vienna, and threw himself on the protection of the emperor Charles VI, his brother-in-law, intending to continue at his court till the czar’s death.
This was an adventure something like that of Louis XI, who, whilst he was dauphin, withdrew from the court of Charles VII, his father, to the duke of Burgundy. Louis was, indeed, much more culpable than the czarevitch, by marrying in direct opposition to his father, raising troops, and seeking refuge with a prince, his father’s natural enemy, and never returning to court, not even at the king’s repeated entreaties.
Alexis, on the contrary, had married purely in obedience to the czar’s order, and had not revolted nor raised troops; neither, indeed, had he withdrawn to a prince in anywise his father’s enemy; and, on the first letter he received from his father, he went and threw himself at his feet. For Peter, on receiving advice that his son had been at Vienna, and had removed thence to Naples, then belonging to the emperor Charles VI, sent Romanzov, a captain of the guards, and Tolstoi, a privy-councillor, with a letter in his own hand, dated from Spa, the 21st of July, N.S. 1717. They found the prince at Naples, in the castle of St. Elmo, and delivered him the letter, which was as follows:
“I now write to you, and for the last time, to let you know that you had best comply with my will, which Tolstoi and Romanzov will make known to you. On your obedience, I assure you, and promise before God, that I will not punish you; so far from it, that if you return I will love you better than ever. But if you do not, by virtue of the power I have received from God as your father, I pronounce against you my eternal curse; and as your sovereign, I assure you I shall find ways to punish you; in which I hope, as my cause is just, God will take it in hand, and assist me in revenging it. Remember further that I never used compulsion with you. Was I under any obligation to leave you to your own option? Had I been for forcing you, was not the power in my hand? At a word, I should have been obeyed.”
Relying on the faith thus solemnly given by a father and a sovereign, Alexis returned to Russia. On the 11th of February, 1717, N.S., he reached Moscow, where the czar then was, and had a long conference in private with his father. A report immediately was spread through the city that a reconciliation had taken place between the father and son, and that everything was forgotten; but the very next day the regiments of guards were ordered under arms, and the great bell of Moscow tolled. The boyars and privy-councillors were summoned to the castle: the bishops, the archimandrites, and two monks of the order of St. Basil, professors of divinity, met in the cathedral. Alexis was carried into the castle before his father without a sword, and as a prisoner; he immediately prostrated himself, and with a flood of tears delivered to his father a writing, in which he acknowledged his crimes, declared himself unworthy of the succession, and asked only his life. The czar, raising him up, led him to a closet, where he put several questions to him, declaring, that if he concealed anything relating to his escape, his head should answer for it. Afterwards the prince was brought back into the council-chamber, where the czar’s declaration, which had been drawn up beforehand, was publicly read.