The History of Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia

by Voltaire

But Peter, when he left Paris, had other business to mind, than that of clearing up passages in St. Epiphanius. Nevertheless, he received the memorial of the Sorbonne with his accustomed affability. That learned body wrote to some of the Russian bishops, who returned a polite answer, though the major part of them were offended at the proposed union. It was in order to remove any apprehensions of such a union, that Peter, some time afterwards, namely, in 1718, when he had driven the jesuits out of his dominions, instituted the ceremony of a burlesque conclave.

He had at his court an old fool, named Jotof, who had learned him to write, and who thought he had, by that trivial service, merited the highest honours and most important posts: Peter, who sometimes softened the toils of government, by indulging his people in amusements, which befitted a nation as yet not entirely reformed by his labours, promised his writing-master, to bestow on him one of the highest dignities in the world; accordingly, he appointed him knéz papa, or supreme pontiff, with an appointment of two thousand crowns, and assigned him a house to live in, in the Tartarian quarter at Petersburg. He was installed by a number of buffoons, with great ceremony, and four fellows who stammered were appointed to harangue him on the accession. He created a number of cardinals, and marched in procession at their head, and the whole sacred college was made drunk with brandy. After the death of this Jotof, an officer, named Buturlin, was made Pope: this ceremony has been thrice renewed at Moscow and Petersburg, the ridiculousness of which, though it appeared of no moment, yet has by its ridiculousness confirmed the people in their aversion to a church, which pretended to the supreme power, and whose church had anathematized so many crowned heads. In this manner did the czar revenge the cause of twenty emperors of Germany, ten kings of France, and a number of other sovereigns; and this was all the advantage the Sorbonne gained from its impolitic attempt to unite the Latin and Greek churches.

The czar's journey to France proved of more utility to his kingdom, by bringing about a connexion with a trading and industrious people, than could have arisen from the projected union between two rival churches; one of which will always maintain its ancient independence, and the other its new superiority.

Peter carried several artificers with him out of France, in the same manner as he had done out of England; for every nation, which he visited, thought it an honour to assist him in his design of introducing the arts and sciences into his new-formed state, and to be instrumental in this species of new creation.

In this expedition, he drew up a sketch of a treaty of commerce with France, and which he put into the hands of his ministers at Holland, as soon as he returned thither, but it was not signed by the French ambassador, Chateauneuf, till the 15th August, 1717, at the Hague. This treaty not only related to trade, but likewise to bringing about peace in the North. The king of France and the elector of Brandenburg accepted of the office of mediators, which Peter offered them. This was sufficient to give the king of England to understand, that the czar was not well pleased with him, and crowned the hopes of baron Gortz, who from that time, left nothing undone to bring about a union between Charles and Peter, to stir up new enemies against George I. and to assist cardinal Alberoni in his schemes in every part of Europe. Gortz now paid and received visits publicly from the czar's ministers at the Hague, to whom he declared, that he was invested with full power from the court of Sweden to conclude a peace.

The czar suffered Gortz to dispose all his batteries, without assisting therein himself, and was prepared either to make peace with the king of Sweden, or to carry on the war, and continued still in alliance with the kings of Denmark, Poland, and Russia, and in appearance with the elector of Hanover.

It was evident, that he had no fixed design, but that of profiting of conjunctures and circumstances, and that his main object was to complete the general establishments he had set on foot. He well knew, that the negotiations and interests of princes, their leagues, their friendships, their jealousies, and their enmities, were subject to change with each revolving year, and that frequently not the smallest traces remain of the greatest efforts in politics. A simple manufactory, well established, is often of more real advantage to a state than twenty treaties.

Peter having joined the czarina, who was waiting for him in Holland, continued his travels with her. They crossed Westphalia, and arrived at Berlin in a private manner. The new king of Prussia was as much an enemy to ceremonious vanities, and the pomp of a court, as Peter himself; and it was an instructive lesson to the etiquette of Vienna and Spain, the punctilio of Italy, and the politesse of the French court, to see a king, who only made use of a wooden elbow-chair, who went always in the dress of a common soldier, and who had banished from his table, not only all the luxuries, but even the more moderate indulgences of life.

The czar and czarina observed the same plain manner of living; and had Charles been with them, the world might have beheld four crowned heads, with less pomp and state about them than a German bishop, or a cardinal of Rome. Never were luxury and effeminacy opposed by such noble examples.

It cannot be denied, that if one of our fellow-subjects had, from mere curiosity, made the fifth part of the journeys that Peter I. did for the good of his kingdom, he would have been considered as an extraordinary person, and one who challenged our consideration. From Berlin he went to Dantzic, still accompanied by his wife, and from thence to Mittau, where he protected his niece, the duchess of Courland, lately become a widow. He visited all the places he had conquered, made several new and useful regulations in Petersburg; he then goes to Moscow, where he rebuilds the houses of several persons that had fallen to ruin; from thence he transports himself to Czaritsin, on the river Wolga, to stop the incursions of the Cuban Tartars, constructs lines of communication from the Wolga to the Don, and erects forts at certain distances, between the two rivers. At the same time he caused the military code, which he had lately composed, to be printed, and erected a court of justice, to examine into the conduct of his ministers, and to retrieve the disorders in his finances; he pardons several who were found guilty, and punishes others. Among the latter was the great prince Menzikoff himself, who stood in need of the royal clemency. But a sentence more severe, which he thought himself obliged to utter against his own son, filled with bitterness those days, which were, in other respects, covered with so much glory.