Voltaire's history of Charles XII, king of Sweden

by Voltaire

The Czar Peter, having transformed the manners, laws, militia, and the very face of his country, wished also to take a prominent part in commerce, which brings both riches to a State and advantages to the whole world. He intended to make Russia the centre of Asian and European trade. The Volga, Tanais, and Duna were to be united by canals, of which he drew the plans, and new ways were to be opened from the Baltic to the Euxine and the Caspian, and from these to the Northern Ocean.

In the year 1700 he decided to build on the Baltic a port which should be the mart of the North, and a town which should be the capital of his empire, because the port of Archangel, ice-bound for nine months in the year, and the access to which necessitated a long and dangerous circuit, did not seem to him convenient. Already he was seeking a passage to China through the seas of the north-east, and the manufactures of Paris and of Pekin were to enrich his new town.

A road of 754 versts, made across marshes which had to be first filled, led from Moscow to his new town. Most of his projects were carried out by his own hand, and two Empresses who succeeded him successively carried out his policy whenever practicable, and only abandoned the impossible.

He made tours throughout his empire whenever he was not engaged in active warfare. But he travelled as lawgiver and natural philosopher. He carefully investigated natural conditions everywhere, and tried to correct and to perfect. He himself plumbed rivers and seas, had locks made, visited the timber-yards, examined mines, assayed metals, planned accurate maps, and worked at them with his own hand.

He built, in a desolate district, the imperial town of Petersburg, which, at the present day, contains 60,000 houses, and where there has arisen in our day a brilliant Court, and where the greatest luxury is to be had. He built the port of Cronstadt on the Neva, Sainte-Croix on the frontiers of Persia, and forts in the Ukraine and in Siberia, docks at Archangel, Petersburg, Astrakan, and at Azov; besides arsenals and hospitals. His own residences he built small and in bad style, but his public buildings were magnificent and imposing. The sciences, which in other parts have been the slow product of centuries, were, by his care, introduced into his empire in full perfection. He made an academy, modelled on the famous institutions of Paris and London; at great expense men like Delisle, Bilfinger, Hermann, Bernoulli, were summoned to Petersburg. This academy is still in existence, and is now training Russian scholars.

He compelled the younger members of the nobility to travel to gain culture, and to return to Russia polished by foreign good breeding. I have met young Russians who were quite men of the world, and well-informed to boot.

It is shocking to realize that this reformer lacked the cardinal virtue of humanity. With so many virtues he was yet brutal in his pleasures, savage in his manner, and barbarous in seeking revenge. He civilized his people, but remained savage himself. He carried out his sentences with his own hands, and at a debauch at table he displayed his skill in cutting off heads. There are in Africa kings who shed the blood of their subjects with their own hands, but these monarchs pass for barbarians. The death of one of his sons, who ought to have been punished or disinherited, would make his memory odious, if the good he did his subjects did not almost atone for his cruelty to his own family.

Such a man was Peter the Czar, and his great plans were only sketched in outline when he united with the kings of Poland and Denmark against a child whom they all despised.

The founder of Russia resolved to be a conqueror; he believed the task an easy one, and felt that a war so well launched would help him in all his projects. The art of war was a new art in which his people needed lessons.

Besides, he wanted a port on the east side of the Baltic for the execution of his great plans. He needed Ingria, which lies to the north-east of Livonia. The Swedes possessed it, and it must be seized from them. His ancestors, again, had had rights over Ingria, Estonia, and Livonia; it seemed the right time to revive these claims, which not only dated from a hundred years back, but had also been annulled by treaties. He therefore concluded a treaty with the King of Poland to take from Sweden the districts which lie between the Gulf of Finland, the Baltic, Poland and Russia.