The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

During the last three years a new figure had risen to prominence, the ingenious, ambitious and intriguing Baron Gortz, who was now to become the chief minister and guide of the Swedes. Under his influence, Charles's hostility was now turned in other directions than against Russia, and Peter was favourably inclined towards the opening of a new chapter in his relations with Sweden, since he had made himself master of Ingria, Finland, Livonia, Esthonia, and Carelia. The practical suspension of hostilities enabled Peter to start on a second European tour, while Charles, driven at last from Weimar and Stralsund--all that was left him south of the Baltic--was planning the invasion of Norway.

During this tour the Tsar passed three months in Holland, his old school in the art of naval construction; and while he was there intrigues were on foot which threatened to revolutionise Europe. Gortz had conceived the design of allying Russia and Sweden, restoring Stanislaus in Poland, recovering Bremen and Verden from Hanover, and finally of rejecting the Hanoverian Elector from his newly acquired sovereignty in Great Britain by restoring the Stuarts. Spain, now controlled by Alberoni, was to be the third power concerned in effecting this bouleversement, which involved the overthrow of the regency of Orleans in France.

The discovery of this plot, through the interception of some letters from Gortz, led to the arrest of Gortz in Holland, and of the Swedish ambassador, Gyllemborg, in London. Peter declined to commit himself. His reception when he went to Paris was eminently flattering; but an attempt to utilise it for a reunion of the Greek and Latin Churches was a complete failure. The Gortz plot had entirely collapsed before Peter returned to Russia.

V.--Peter the Great

Peter had been married in his youth to Eudoxia Feodorovna Lapoukin. With every national prejudice, she had stood persistently in the way of his reforms. In 1696 he had found it necessary to divorce her, and seclude her in a convent. Alexis, the son born of this marriage in 1690, inherited his mother's character, and fell under the influence of the most reactionary ecclesiastics. Politically and morally the young man was a reactionary. He was embittered, too, by his father's second marriage; and his own marriage, in 1711, was a hideous failure. His wife, ill-treated, deserted, and despised, died of wretchedness in 1715. She left a son.

Peter wrote to Alexis warning him to reform, since he would sooner transfer the succession to one worthy of it than to his own son if unworthy. Alexis replied by renouncing all claim to the succession. Renunciation, Peter answered, was useless. Alexis must either reform, or give the renunciation reality by becoming a monk. Alexis promised; but when Peter left Russia, he betook himself to his brother-in-law's court at Vienna, and then to Naples, which at the time belonged to Austria. Peter ordered him to return; if he did, he should not be punished; if not, the Tsar would assuredly find means.

Alexis obeyed, returned, threw himself at his father's feet. A reconciliation was reported. But next day Peter arraigned his son before a council, and struck him out of the succession in favour of Catherine's infant son Peter. Alexis was then subjected to a series of incredible interrogations as to what he would or would not have done under circumstances which had never arisen.

At the strange trial, prolonged over many months, the 144 judges unanimously pronounced sentence of death. Catherine herself is said by Peter to have pleaded for the stepson, whose accession would certainly have meant her own destruction. Nevertheless, the unhappy prince was executed. That Peter slew him with his own hand, and that Catherine poisoned him, are both fables. The real source of the tragedy is to be found in the monks who perverted the mind of the prince.

This same year, 1718, witnessed the greatest benefits to Peter's subjects--in general improvements, in the establishment and perfecting of manufactures, in the construction of canals, and in the development of commerce. An extensive commerce was established with China through Siberia, and with Persia through Astrakan. The new city of Petersburg replaced Archangel as the seat of maritime intercourse with Europe.