[1676 A.D.] Poland, or Russia. Sultan Muhammed IV, who had subdued and lately imposed a tribute on the Poles, insisted, with all the insolence of an Ottoman and of a conqueror, that the czar should evacute his several possessions in the Ukraine, but received as haughty a denial. The sultan in his letter treated the sovereign of the Russias only as a Christian gospodin (hospodar), and entitled himself Most Glorious Majesty, King of the World. The czar made answer that he was above submitting to a Mohammedan dog, but that his sabre was as good as the grand seignior's scimitar.

Alexis sent ambassadors to the pope, and to almost all the great sovereigns in Europe, except France, which was allied to the Turks, in order to establish a league against the Porte. His ambassadors had no other success at Rome than not being obliged to kiss the pope's toe; everywhere else they met with nothing but good wishes, the Christian princes being generally prevented by their quarrels and jarring interests from uniting against the common enemy of their religion. Alexis did not live to see the termination of the war with Turkey. His death happened in 1676, in his forty-eighth year, after a reign of thirty-one years.

FEODOR (1676-1682 A.D)

Alexis was succeeded by his eldest son, Feodor, a youth in his nineteenth year, and of very feeble temperament. The most pressing task that devolved on him was the prosecution of the war with Turkey, which, as far as Russia was interested, had regard chiefly to the question whether the country of the Zaparogian Cossacks should be under the sovereignty of the czar or of the sultan. The contest was terminated, three years after Feodor's accession, by a treaty which established his right over the disputed territory. Only one other memorable event distinguished his brief reign.

Nothing could equal the care with which the noble families kept the books of their pedigrees, in which were set down not only every one of their ancestors but also the posts and offices which each had held at court, in the army, or in the civil department. Had these genealogies and registers of descent been confined to the purpose of determining the ancestry and relationship of families no objection could be alleged against them. But these books of record were carried to the most absurd abuse, attended with a host of pernicious consequences. If a nobleman were appointed to a post in the army, or at court, or to some civil station, and it appeared that the person to whom he was now subordinate numbered fewer ancestors than he, it was with the utmost difficulty that he could be brought to accept of the office to which he was called. Nay, this folly was carried to still greater lengths: a man would even refuse to take upon him an employ, if thereby he would be subordinate to one whose ancestors had formerly stood in that position towards his own.

It is easy to imagine that a prejudice of this kind must have been productive of the most disagreeable effects, and that discontents, murmurs at slights and trifling neglects, disputes, quarrels, and disorders in the service must have been its natural attendants. It was, therefore, become indispensably necessary that a particular office should be instituted at court in which exact copies of the genealogical tables and service-registers of the noble families were deposited; and this office was incessantly employed in settling the numberless disputes that arose from this inveterate prejudice. Feodor, observing the pernicious effects of this fond conceit that the father's capacity must necessarily devolve on the son, and that consequently he ought to inherit his posts-wished to put a stop to it; and with the advice of his

[1682 A.D.] sagacious minister, Prince Vasili Galitzin, fell upon the following method. He caused it to be proclaimed that all the families should deliver into court faithful copies of their service-rolls, in order that they might be cleared of a number of errors that had crept into them. This delivery being made, he convoked the great men and the superior clergy before him. In the midst of these heads of the nobles, the patriarch concluded an animated harangue by inveighing against their prerogatives. "They are," said he, "a bitter source of every kind of evil; they render abortive the most useful enterprises, in like manner as the tares stifle the good grain; they have introduced, even into the heart of families, dissensions, confusion, and hatred; but the pontiff comprehends the grand design of his czar. God alone can have inspired it!"

At these words, and by anticipation, all the grandees blindly hastened to express their approval; and, suddenly, Feodor, whom this generous unanimity seemed to enrapture, arose and proclaimed, in a simulated burst of holy enthusiasm, the abolition of all their hereditary pretensions-"To extinguish even the recollection of them," said he, "let all the papers relative to those titles be instantly consumed!" And as the fire was ready, he ordered them to be thrown into the flames before the dismayed eyes of the nobles, who strove to conceal their anguish by dastardly acclamations. By way of conclusion to this singular ceremony, the patriarch pronounced an anathema against everyone who should presume to contravene this ordinance of the czar; and the justice of the sentence was ratified by the assembly in a general shout of "Amen!" It was by no means Feodor's intention to efface nobility; and, accordingly, he ordered new books to be made, in which the noble families were inscribed; but thus was abolished that extremly pernicious custom which made it a disgrace to be under the orders of another if his ancestry did not reach so high, or even in case of equal pedigree- if a forefather of the commander had once been subordinate in the service to the progenitor of him who was now to acknowledge him for his superior. Feodor died in February, 1682, after a reign of five years and a half, leaving no issue.h

When, towards the beginning of the eighteenth century, Peter the Great laid the foundation of Petersburg or rather of his empire, no one predicted success. Had anyone at that time imagined that a sovereign of Russia could send victorious fleets to the Dardanelles, subjugate the Crimea, drive out the Turks from four great provinces, dominate the Black Sea, establish the most brilliant court of Europe, and make all the arts flourish in the midst of war-if anyone had said that he would merely have been taken for a visionary.-VOLTAIRE.

THE question of the succession was now again thrown open to discussion, and the family feuds were revived. Ivan, the next in succession, was nearly blind, and, according to some historians, nearly dumb, and inferior in mind and body; and shortly before his death Feodor expressed his wish that his half-brother, Peter, then between nine and ten years of age, should be nominated to the throne; a nomination of which Ivan had just sense enough to approve. The imbecility of Ivan was so great that, had it not been for the influence of the family to which he belonged, and the bold and ambitious spirit of his sister Sophia, he must have been set aside at once, and Peter without further difficulty raised to the sovereignty. The Miloflavskoi, however, were resolved to preserve the right of succession in their own blood; and Sophia, a princess of singular beauty and high mental endowments, in the meridian of youth and possessed of indomitable courage, set the example of contesting the throne, first in the name of her idiot brother and next in her own name: for when her plans were ripe she did not scruple to declare that she aspired to the sceptre in the default of the rightful heir. But as all her machinations were carefully conducted with a colour of justice on behalf of Ivan, she escaped from the charge of interested motives, which, in the early part of the plot, would have defeated her grand object.

[1684 A.D.]

While Sophia was employed in devising her plans, the Narishkins urged with unabating activity the claims of Peter. Friends arose in different quarters for both parties, and the city was thrown into consternation. But the Miloflavskoi had the advantage of possession: the keys of power were in their hands: the officers of the state were in their immediate confidence, and the bands of the strelitz, the janissaries of Russia, were under their control. Sophia, availing herself of these fortunate circumstances, pleaded with her supplicating beauty in the name of her brother; besought the strelitz, by arts of fascination which were irresistible, to make common cause with her; and where her eyes failed to impress their sluggard hearts, she was bountiful in money and promises. A body so corrupt and slavish as the strelitz was easily won by bribes to any offices of depredation, and they accordingly declared for the beautiful and prodigal Sophia.

The accession of fourteen thousand soldiers to her side-men who were ready at any moment to deluge the capital in blood-determined the scales at once. It was necessary in the first instance to exterminate the Narishkins, the formidable supporters of Peter; and next, if it could be accomplished with safety, to make away with the life of the prince. A rumour was accordingly disseminated that the Narishkins had compassed the death of Feodor, in order to make room for the young Peter; that they had poisoned him through the agency of foreign physicians; and that they contemplated a similar act of treachery towards Ivan. The zeal of the Narishkins seemed to justify these charges; and the populace, who were universally in favour of the direct lineal succession, were brought to believe them; particularly as Galitzin, the favourite minister of Feodor, was the chief counsellor and friend of Sophia. Affairs were now ripe for revolt. The chiefs of the strelitz, having previously concerted their plans, broke out into open violence; and for three days in succession this band of legalised plunderers committed the most extravagant excesses in the streets of Moscow, secretly abetted by the encouraging patronage of Sophia. In their fury they murdered all those officers of the state whom they suspected to be inimical to the views of the princess; and bursting into the palace of the czars demanded the lives of the Narishkins. Two brothers of Natalia, the widow of Alexis, were sacrificed on the spot, and sixty of her immediate kindred were shortly after put to death in the most cruel manner.

The czarina herself was forced to flee for safety from the capital, accompanied, providentially for the destiny of Russia, by the young prince Peter. For sixty versts she fled in consternation, carrying the boy, it is reported, in her arms: but the ferocious strelitz had tracked her footsteps, and followed close upon her path. Her strength at last began to fail: her pursuers were rapidly gaining on her; she could hear the sound of their yells, and the tramp of their approaching feet: her heart trembled at the horrors of her situation, and in despair she rushed into the convent of the Trinity to seek for a last shelter in the sanctuary. The strelitz, uttering cries of savage triumph, followed on the moment: the despairing mother had just time to gain the foot of the altar, and place the child upon it, when two of the murderous band came up. One of them seized the prince, and, raising his sword, prepared to sever the head from the body, when a noise of approaching horsemen was heard without: the ruffian hesitated-his fellow murderers at the distant part of the church were struck with terror-dismayed by the apprehension of some sudden change in the fortune of the day, he abandoned his grasp of the prince and fled, and Peter the Great was preserved to Russia.

The immediate result of those violent efforts of the strelitz was the decla

[1684 A.D.]

ration of the sovereignty in the name of Ivan. That prince, however, trembled at the prospect of incurring the responsibility of a trust to which he felt himself to be unequal, and entreated his counsellors to permit his half-brother Peter to be associated with him in the government. This request, which was considered on all sides reasonable enough, could not be refused without increasing the difficulties of Sophia's party, and rendering such further measures necessary as might probably betray her motives too soon. It was therefore sanctioned by the nobles; and on the 6th of May, 1681, the coronation of Ivan and Peter were celebrated in due form; Sophia being nominated regent, on account of the imbecility of the one and the youth of the other. Thus far Sophia had carried her purpose. She was now in possession of the power to which her ambition tempted her to aspire; but she panted to have that power formally assigned and publicly acknowledged. In order the more effectually to exclude Peter from any future lien upon the throne, she brought about a marriage between Ivan and a young Soltikov; trusting to the issue for an insurmountable obstacle in the path of the prince, whose dawning genius, even at that early age, she appeared to dread.c

THE CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH OF PETER

During Sophia's government Peter continued to reside with his mother in the village of Preobrazhenski. His education was entirely neglected; his teacher, Nikita Zotov, was taken away from him and not replaced by another; he spent his time in play, surrounded by companions of his own age and without any intelligent occupation: such an existence would certainly have spoiled and maimed a less gifted nature. Upon Peter it only had the effect, as he himself afterwards recognised, of making him feel in later years the want of that knowledge which is indispensable for a sound education. By reason of this neglect Peter had to study much when he reached maturity; besides this, the manner in which his boyhood was spent deprived him of that training of the character in intercourse with other people which is the mark of an educated man. From his youth Peter adopted the rough habits of those who surrounded him, an extreme want of self-restraint, and hideous debauchery.

But his unusually gifted nature could not be crushed by this absence of all intellectual interests. Peter had no early instruction, but the love of knowledge inherent in him could not be destroyed. He himself afterwards communicated the circumstances which directed him into the paths he elected to follow. When he was fourteen years of age, he heard from Prince Iakov Dolgoruki that he had possessed an instrument "by means of which it was possible to measure distances or extension without being on the spot." The young czar wished to see the instrument, but Dolgoruki replied that it had been stolen; so Peter commissioned the prince, who had gone to France as ambassador, to purchase there for him such an instrument. In 1688 Dolgoruki brought from France an astrolabe and case of mathematical instruments, but there was no one amongst the czar's entourage who had any understanding of what they were for. Peter applied to a German doctor, but neither did he know how to use the instruments; finally he found a Dutchman, Franz Timmerman, who explained to him the significance of the objects. The czar began to study arithmetic, geometry, and the science of fortification with him. The teacher was not a great authority in these matters, but he knew sufficient to give Peter indications, and the talented pupil worked out everything himself; but his education had been neglected to such an extent that