These were remarkable words, and worthy the pupil of Holland and England, worthy of a prince to whom superstition was a most inveterate enemy. In reality, he was a believer, but not credulous; and even while he knelt on the field of victory, he gave thanks to God alone for the reward of so many toils, and could separate the cause of heaven from that of the priests; it was his wish that they should be citizens. We have seen that he subjected them to the same taxes as his other subjects; and because the monks eluded them he diminished their numbers. He unmasked the superstitious impostures of the priests, who all sought to close up every cranny by which the light might have a chance of reaching them.
For this reason, they held St. Petersburg in abhorrence. According to their description of it, this half-built city, by which Russia already aspired to civilisation, was one of the mouths of hell. It was they who obtained from the unfortunate Alexis a promise that it should be destroyed. Their prophecies repeatedly fixed the epoch at which it would be overthrown by the wrath of heaven. The labours upon it were then suspended, for so great was the fear thus inspired that the orders of the terrible czar were issued almost in vain.
On one occasion, these lying priests were for some days particularly active; they displayed one of their sacred images, from which the tears flowed miraculously; it wept the fate which impended over those who dwelt in this new city. “Its hour is at hand,” said they, “and it will be swallowed up, with all its inhabitants, by a tremendous inundation.” On hearing of this miracle of the tears, the treacherous construction which was put upon it, and the perturbation which it occasioned, Peter thought it necessary to hasten to the spot. There, in the midst of the people, who were petrified with terror, and of his tongue-tied court, he seized the miraculous image, and discovered its mechanism; the multitude were stupefied with a pious horror, but he opened their eyes by showing them, in those of the idol, the congealed oil, which was melted by the flame of tapers inside, and then flowed drop by drop through openings artfully provided for the purpose.
[1719 A.D.]
At a later period he did still more; the horrible execution of a young Russian by the priests was the cause. This unfortunate man had brought back from Germany a highly valuable knowledge of medicine, and had left there some superstitious prejudices. For this reason all his motions were watched by the priests; and they at last caught up some thoughtless words against their sacred images. They immediately arrested the regenerated young Russian, sentenced him without mercy, and put him to a torturing death. But this individual evil produced a general good. Indignant at their cruelty, Peter deprived the clergy of the right of condemning to death. The priests lost a jurisdiction which they alleged they had possessed for seven centuries, from the time of Vladimir the Great, and thus the source of their power was forever annihilated by this execrable abuse of it.
It was particularly in that sanguinary year, so fatal to the last hope which the old Russians placed in his successor, that Peter seemed in haste to sever them from their ancient customs, by giving an entirely new form to the administration of his empire. As far back as 1711, he had already replaced the old supreme court of the boyars by a senate, a sovereign council, into which merit and services might obtain admission, independent of noble origin. Subsequently, and every year, other changes had been effected. Thus, in 1717, he brought from France, along with a commercial treaty, the institution of a general police. But, in 1718, instead of the old prikaz, he substituted, at one stroke, colleges for foreign affairs, naval affairs, finance, justice, and commerce, and fixed, by a general regulation, and with the utmost minuteness, the functions and privileges of each of them.
At the same time, when capable Russians were not to be found, he appointed his Swedish prisoners, and the most eminent of the foreigners, to fill these administrative and judicial situations. He was careful to give the highest offices to natives, and the second to foreigners, that the native officers might support, against the pride and jealousy of their countrymen, these foreigners who served them as instructors and guides. For the purpose of forming his young nobles for the service of the state, he adjoined a considerable number of them to each college; and there merit alone could raise them from the lowest stations to the first rank.
RENEWED HOSTILITIES WITH SWEDEN (1719-1721 A.D.)
[1719-1720 A.D.]
The death of Charles XII was immediately followed by a revolution in Sweden. His sister Ulrica Eleonora, who was married to the crown prince of Hesse-Cassel, succeeded him on the throne; but the constitution was changed, the despotic authority of the crown was reduced to a mere shadow, and the queen and her husband became the tools of an oligarchy who usurped all the powers of the state. The czar and the new queen mutually protested their desire for peace; but Peter at the same time announced to the Swedish plenipotentiaries that, if the propositions he had made were not accepted within two months, he would march forty thousand men into Sweden to expedite the negotiations.