The History of Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia

by Voltaire

The czar himself drew up several new interrogations. The fourth ran as follows:—

'When you found by Beyer's letter that there was a mutiny among the troops in Mecklenburg, you seemed pleased with it; you must certainly have had some reason for it; and I imagine you would have joined the rebels even during my life-time?'

This was interrogating the prince on the subject of his private thoughts, which, though they might be revealed to a father, who may, by his advice, correct them, yet might they also with justice be concealed from a judge, who decides only upon acknowledged facts. The private sentiments of a man's heart have nothing to do in a criminal process, and the prince was at liberty either to deny them or disguise them, in such manner as he should think best for his own safety, as being under no obligation to lay open his heart, and yet we find him returning the following answer: 'If the rebels had called upon me during your life-time, I do verily believe I should have joined them, supposing I had found them sufficiently strong.'

It is hardly conceivable that he could have made this reply of himself, and it would be full as extraordinary, at least according to the custom in our part of the world, to condemn a person for confessing that he might have thought in a certain manner in a conjuncture that never happened.

To this strange confession of his private thoughts, which had till then been concealed in the bottom of his heart, they added proofs that could hardly be admitted as such in a court of justice in any other country.

The prince, sinking under his misfortunes, and almost deprived of his senses, studied within himself, with all the ingenuity of fear, for whatever could most effectually serve for his destruction; and at length acknowledged, that in private confession to the archpriest James, he had wished his father dead; and that his confessor made answer, 'God will pardon you this wish: we all wish the same.'

The canons of our church do not admit of proofs resulting from private confession, inasmuch as they are held inviolable secrets between God and the penitent: and both the Greek and Latin churches are agreed, that this intimate and secret correspondence between a sinner and the Deity are beyond the cognizance of a temporal court of justice. But here the welfare of a kingdom and a king were concerned. The archpriest, being put to the torture, confirmed all that the prince had revealed; and this trial furnished the unprecedented instance of a confessor accused by his penitent, and that penitent by his own mistress. To this may be added another singular circumstance, namely, the archbishop of Rezan having been involved in several accusations on account of having spoken too favourably of the young czarowitz in one of his sermons, at the time that his father's resentment first broke out against him; that weak prince declared, in his answer to one of the interrogations, that he had depended on the assistance of that prelate, at the same time that he was at the head of the ecclesiastical court, which the czar had consulted in relation to this criminal process against his son, as we shall see in the course of this chapter.

There is another remark to be made in this extraordinary trial, which we find so very lamely related in the absurd History of Peter the Great, by the pretended bojar Nestersuranoy, and that is the following:

Among other answers which the czarowitz Alexis made to the first question put to him by his father, he acknowledges, that while he was at Vienna, finding that he could not be admitted to see the emperor, he applied himself to count Schonborn, the high chamberlain, who told him, the emperor would not abandon him, and that as soon as occasion should offer, by the death of his father, that he would assist him to recover the throne by force of arms. 'Upon which,' adds the prince, 'I made him the following answer: "This is what I by no means desire: if the emperor will only grant me his protection for the present, I ask no more."' This deposition is plain, natural, and carries with it strong marks of the truth; for it would have been the height of madness to have asked the emperor for an armed force to dethrone his father, and no one would have ventured to have made such an absurd proposal, either to the emperor, prince Eugene, or to the council. This deposition bears date in the month of February, and four months afterwards, namely, after the 1st of July, and towards the latter end of the proceedings against the czarowitz, that prince is made to say, in the last answers he delivered in writing:—

'Being unwilling to imitate my father in any thing, I endeavoured to secure myself the succession by any means whatever, excepting such as were just. I attempted to get it by a foreign assistance; and, had I succeeded, and that the emperor had fulfilled what he had promised me, to replace me on the throne of Russia even by force of arms, I would have left nothing undone to have got possession of it. For instance, if the emperor had demanded of me, in return for his services, a body of my own troops to fight for him against any power whatever, that might be in arms against him, or a large sum of money to defray the charges of a war, I should have readily granted every thing he asked, and should have gratified his ministers and generals with magnificent presents. I would at my own expense have maintained the auxiliary troops he might have furnished to put me in possession of the crown; and, in a word, I should have thought nothing too much to have accomplished my ends.'