Part 4 (1/2)
The emperor acquired great fame throughout Europe by the success of his operations in the siege of Azof. This success also greatly increased his interest in the building of s.h.i.+ps, especially as he now, since Azof had fallen into his hands, had a port upon an open sea.
In a word, Peter was now very eager to begin at once the building s.h.i.+ps of war. He was determined that he would have a fleet which would enable him to go out and meet the Turks in the Black Sea. The great difficulty was to provide the necessary funds. To accomplish this purpose, Peter, who was never at all scrupulous in respect to the means which he adopted for attaining his ends, resorted at once to very decided measures. Besides the usual taxes which were laid upon the people to maintain the war, he ordained that a certain number of wealthy n.o.blemen should each pay for one s.h.i.+p, which, however, as some compensation for the cost which the n.o.bleman was put to in building it, he was at liberty to call by his own name. The same decree was made in respect to a number of towns, monasteries, companies, and public inst.i.tutions. The emperor also made arrangements for having a large number of workmen sent into Russia from Holland, and from Venice, and from other maritime countries. The emperor laid his plans in this way for the construction and equipment of a fleet of about one hundred s.h.i.+ps and vessels, consisting of frigates, store-s.h.i.+ps, bomb-vessels, galleys, and gallia.s.ses. These were all to be built, equipped, and made in all respects ready for sea in the s.p.a.ce of three years; and if any person or party failed to have his s.h.i.+p ready at that time, the amount of the tax which had been a.s.sessed to him was to be doubled.
In all these proceedings, the Czar, as might have been expected from his youth and his headstrong character, acted in a very summary, and in many respects in an arbitrary and despotic manner. His decrees requiring the n.o.bles to contribute such large sums for the building of his fleet occasioned a great deal of dissatisfaction and complaint.
And very soon he resorted to some other measures, which increased the general discontent exceedingly.
He appointed a considerable number of the younger n.o.bility, and the sons of other persons of wealth and distinction, to travel in the western countries of Europe while the fleet was preparing, giving them special instructions in respect to the objects of interest which they should severally examine and study. The purpose of this measure was to advance the general standard of intelligence in Russia by affording to these young men the advantages of foreign travel, and enlarging their ideas in respect to the future progress of their own country in the arts and appliances of civilized life. The general idea of the emperor in this was excellent, and the effect of the measure would have been excellent too if it had been carried out in a more gentle and moderate way. But the fathers of the young men were incensed at having their sons ordered thus peremptorily out of the country, whether they liked to go or not, and however inconvenient it might be for the fathers to provide the large amounts of money which were required for such journeys. It is said that one young man was so angry at being thus sent away that he determined that his country should not derive any benefit from the measure, so far as his case was concerned, and accordingly, when he arrived at Venice, which was the place where he was sent, he shut himself up in his house, and remained there all the time, in order that he might not see or learn any thing to make use of on his return.
This seems almost incredible. Indeed, the story has more the air of a witticism, invented to express the sullen humor with which many of the young men went away, than the sober statement of a fact. Still, it is not impossible that such a thing may have actually occurred; for the veneration of the old Russian families for their own country, and the contempt with which they had been accustomed for many generations to look upon foreigners, and upon every thing connected with foreign manners and customs, were such as might lead in extreme cases, to almost any degree of fanaticism in resisting the emperor's measures.
At any rate, in a short time there was quite a powerful party formed in opposition to the foreign influences which Peter was introducing into the country.
There was no one in the imperial family to whom this party could look for a leader and head except the Princess Sophia. The Czar John, Peter's feeble brother, was dead, otherwise they might have made his name their rallying cry. Sophia was still shut up in the convent to which Peter had sent her on the discovery of her conspiracy against him. She was kept very closely guarded there. Still, the leaders of the opposition contrived to open a communication with her. They took every means to increase and extend the prevailing discontent. To people of wealth and rank they represented the heavy taxes which they were obliged to pay to defray the expenses of the emperor's wild schemes, and the loss of their own proper influence and power in the government of the country, they themselves being displaced to make room for foreigners, or favorites like Menzikoff, that were raised from the lowest grades of life to posts of honor and profit which ought to be bestowed upon the ancient n.o.bility alone. To the poor and ignorant they advanced other arguments, which were addressed chiefly to their religious prejudices. The government were subverting all the ancient usages of the country, they said, and throwing every thing into the hands of infidel or heretical foreigners. The course which the Czar was pursuing was contrary to the laws of G.o.d, they said, who had forbidden the children of Israel to have any communion with the unbelieving nations around them, in order that they might not be led away by them into idolatry. And so in Russia, they said, the extensive power of granting permission to any Russian subject to leave the country vested, according to the ancient usages of the empire, with the patriarch, the head of the Church--and Peter had violated these usages in sending away so many of the sons of the n.o.bility without the patriarch's consent. There were many other measures, too, which Peter had adopted, or which he had then in contemplation, that were equally obnoxious to the charge of impiety. For instance, he had formed a plan--and he had even employed engineers to take preliminary steps in reference to the execution of it--for making a ca.n.a.l from the River Wolga to the River Don, thus presumptuously and impiously undertaking to turn the streams one way, when Providence had designed them to flow in another! Absurd as many of these representations were, they had great influence with the ma.s.s of the common people.
At length this opposition party became so extended and so strong that the leaders thought the time had arrived for them to act. They accordingly arranged the details of their plot, and prepared to put it in execution.
The scheme which they formed was this: they were to set fire to some houses in the night, not far from the royal palace, and when the emperor came out, as it is said was his custom to do, in order to a.s.sist in extinguis.h.i.+ng the flames, they were to set upon him and a.s.sa.s.sinate him.
It may seem strange that it should be the custom of the emperor himself to go out and a.s.sist personally in extinguis.h.i.+ng fires. But it so happened that the houses of Moscow at this time were almost all built of wood, and they were so combustible, and were, moreover, so much exposed, on account of the many fires required in the winter season in so cold a climate, that the city was subject to dreadful conflagrations. So great was the danger, that the inhabitants were continually in dread of it, and all cla.s.ses vied with each other in efforts to avert the threatened calamity whenever a fire broke out.
Besides this, there were in those days no engines for throwing water, and no organized department of firemen. All this, of course, is entirely different at the present day in modern cities, where houses are built of brick or stone, and the arrangements for extinguis.h.i.+ng fires are so complete that an alarm of fire creates no sensation, but people go on with their business or saunter carelessly along the streets, while the firemen are gathering, without feeling the least concern.
As soon as they had made sure of the death of the Czar, the conspirators were to repair to the convent where Sophia was imprisoned, release her from her confinement, and proclaim her queen. They were then to reorganize the Guards, restore all the officers who had been degraded at the time of Couvansky's rebellion, then ma.s.sacre all the foreigners whom Peter had brought into the country, especially his particular favorites, and so put every thing back upon its ancient footing.
The time fixed for the execution of this plot was the night of the 2d of February, 1697; but the whole scheme was defeated by what the conspirators would probably call the treachery of two of their number.
These were two officers of the Guards who had been concerned in the plot, but whose hearts failed them when the hour arrived for putting it into execution. Falling into conversation with each other just before the time, and finding that they agreed in feeling on the subject, they resolved at once to go and make a full confession to the Czar.
So they went immediately to the house of Le Fort, where the Czar then was, and made a confession of the whole affair. They related all the details of the plot, and gave the names of the princ.i.p.al persons concerned in it.
The emperor was at table with Le Fort at the time that he received this communication. He listened to it very coolly--manifested no surprise--but simply rose from the table, ordered a small body of men to attend him, and, taking the names of the princ.i.p.al conspirators, he went at once to their several houses and arrested them on the spot.
The leaders having been thus seized, the execution of the plot was defeated. The prisoners were soon afterward put to the torture, in order to compel them to confess their crime, and to reveal the names of all their confederates. Whether the names thus extorted from them by suffering were false or true would of course be wholly uncertain, but all whom they named were seized, and, after a brief and very informal trial, all, or nearly all, were condemned to death. The sentence of death was executed on them in the most barbarous manner. A great column was erected in the market-place in Moscow, and fitted with iron spikes and hooks, which were made to project from it on every side, from top to bottom. The criminals were then brought out one by one, and first their arms were cut off, then their legs, and finally their heads. The amputated limbs were then hung up upon the column by the hooks, and the heads were fixed to the spikes. There they remained--a horrid spectacle, intended to strike terror into all beholders--through February and March, as long as the weather continued cold enough to keep them frozen. When at length the spring came on, and the flesh of these dreadful trophies began to thaw, they were taken down and thrown together into a pit, among the bodies of common thieves and murderers.
This was the end of the second conspiracy formed against the life of Peter the Great.
CHAPTER VI.
THE EMPEROR'S TOUR.
1697
Objects of the tour--An emba.s.sy to be sent--The emperor to go incognito--His a.s.sociates--The regency--Disposition of the Guards--The emba.s.sy leaves Moscow--Riga--Not allowed to see the fortifications--Arrival at Konigsberg--Grand procession in entering the city--The pages--Curiosity of the people--The escort--Crowds in the streets--The emba.s.sy arrives at its lodgings--Audience of the king--Presents--Delivery of the letter from the Czar--Its contents--The king's reply--Grand banquet--Effects of such an emba.s.sy--The policy of modern governments--The people now reserve their earnings for their own use--How Peter occupied his time--Dantzic--Peter preserves his incognito--Presents--His dress--His interest in the s.h.i.+pping--Grand entrance into Holland--Curiosity of the people--Peter enters Amsterdam privately--Views of the Hollanders--Residence of the Czar--The East India Company--Peter goes to work--His real object in pursuing this course--His taste for mechanics--The opportunities and facilities he enjoyed--His old workshop--Mode of preserving it--The workmen in the yard--Peter's visits to his friends in Amsterdam--The rich merchant--Peter's manners and character--The Hague--The emba.s.sy at the Hague
At the time when the emperor issued his orders to so many of the sons of the n.o.bility, requiring them to go and reside for a time in the cities of western Europe, he formed the design of going himself to make a tour in that part of the world, for the purpose of visiting the courts and capitals, and seeing with his own eyes what arts and improvements were to be found there which might be advantageously introduced into his own dominions. In the spring of the year 1697, he thought that the time had come for carrying this idea into effect.
The plan which he formed was not to travel openly in his own name, for he knew that in this case a great portion of his time and attention, in the different courts and capitals, would be wasted in the grand parades, processions, and ceremonies with which the different sovereigns would doubtless endeavor to honor his visit. He therefore determined to travel incognito, in the character of a private person in the train of an emba.s.sy. An emba.s.sy could proceed more quietly from place to place than a monarch traveling in his own name; and then besides, if the emperor occupied only a subordinate place in the train of the emba.s.sy, he could slip away from it to pursue his own inquiries in a private manner whenever he pleased, leaving the emba.s.sadors themselves and those of their train who enjoyed such scenes to go through all the public receptions and other pompous formalities which would have been so tiresome to him.
General Le Fort, who had by this time been raised to a very high position under Peter's government, was placed at the head of this emba.s.sy. Two other great officers of state were a.s.sociated with him. Then came secretaries, interpreters, and subordinates of all kinds, in great numbers, among whom Peter was himself enrolled under a fict.i.tious name.
Peter took with him several young men of about his own age. Two or three of these were particular friends of his, whom he wished to have accompany him for the sake of their companions.h.i.+p on the journey. There were some others whom he selected on account of the talent which they had evinced for mechanical and mathematical studies. These young men he intended to have instructed in the art of s.h.i.+p-building in some of the countries which the emba.s.sy were to visit.
Besides these arrangements in respect to the emba.s.sy, provision was, of course, to be made by the emperor for the government of the country during his absence. He left the administration in the hands of three great n.o.bles, the first of whom was one of his uncles, his mother's brother. The name of this prince was Naraskin. The other two n.o.bles were a.s.sociated with Naraskin in the regency. These commissioners were to have the whole charge of the government of the country during the Czar's absence. Peter's little son, whose name was Alexis, and who was now about seven years old, was also committed to their keeping.