THE TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION OF ALEXIS AND DEATH OF THE TZAR.

From 1718 to 1725.

The Tzar's Second Visit to Holland.—Reception in France.—Description of Catharine.—Domestic Grief.—Conduct of Alexis.—Letters from His Father.—Flight To Germany.—Thence to Naples.—Envoys Sent to Bring Him Back.—Alexis Excluded from the Succession.—His Trial for Treason.—Condemnation and Unexpected Death.—New Efforts of the Tzar for the Welfare of Russia.—Sickness of Peter.—His Death.—Succession of the Empress Catharine.—Epitaph to the Emperor.
 

From Holland the tzar went to Paris. Great preparations were made there for his reception, and apartments in the Louvre were gorgeously fitted up for the accommodation of him and his suite. But Peter, annoyed by parade, declined the sumptuous palace, and, the very evening of his arrival, took lodgings at the Hotel de Lesdiguieres. To those who urged his acceptance of the saloons of the Louvre he replied,

"I am a soldier. A little bread and beer satisfy me. I prefer small apartments to large ones. I have no desire to be attended with pomp and ceremony, nor to give trouble to so many people."

Every hour of his stay in Paris was employed in studying the institutions of the realm, and the progress made in the arts and sciences. Standing by the tomb of Richelieu, which is one of the finest pieces of sculpture in Europe, he exclaimed,

"Thou great man! I would have given thee one half of my dominions to learn of thee how to govern the other half."

This letter produced no effect upon the shameless debauchee. He continued unchecked in his career of infamy. In acknowledging the receipt of his father's letter, he contemptuously replied that he had no wish for the crown, and that he was ready at any time to take an oath that he would renounce it for ever. Matters were in this position when the tzar left for Denmark. He had hardly arrived in Copenhagen when he received dispatches informing him that his son was gathering around him all the disaffected, and was seriously endangering the tranquillity of the State. Once more the anxious father wrote to him in these words:

"I observe in your letter that you say not a word of the affliction your conduct has caused me for so many years. A father's admonitions seem to produce no impression upon you. I have prevailed on myself to write you once more, and for the last time. Those bushy beards bind you to their purposes. They are the persons whom you trust, who place their hopes in you; and you have no gratitude to him who gave you life. Since you were of age have you ever aided your father in his toils? Have you not opposed every thing I have done for the good of my people? Have I not reason to believe that should you survive me you will destroy all that I have accomplished? Amend your life. Render yourself worthy of the succession, or turn monk. Reply to this either in person or in writing. If you do not I shall treat you as a criminal."

The reply of Alexis, was laconic indeed. It consisted of just four lines, and was as follows:

"Your letter of the 19th I received yesterday. My illness prevents me from writing at length. I intend to embrace the monastic life, and I request your gracious consent to that effect."

This brought matters to a crisis. The last thing the bloated debauchee wished was to enter a convent. He was equally averse to a sober life, and dared not meet his father lest he should be placed under arrest. He consequently made no reply, but pretending that he was to set out immediately for Copenhagen, he secured all the treasure he could lay his hands upon and fled to Germany, to the court of the Emperor Charles VI., who, it will be remembered, was his brother-in-law, having married a sister of his deceased wife. Here he told a deplorable story of the cruelty of his father, of the persecutions to which he was exposed, and that to save his life he had been compelled to flee from Russia.

"I write to you for the last time. Toltoi and Romanzoff will make known to you my will. If you obey me, I assure you, and I promise before God, that I will not punish you, but if you will return to me I will love you better than ever. But if you will not return to me, I pronounce upon you, as your father, in virtue of the power I have received from God, my eternal malediction; and, as your sovereign, I assure you that I shall find means to punish you, in which I trust God will assist me."

It required the most earnest persuasion, and even the intervention of the viceroy of Naples, to induce Alexis to return to Russia. The miserable man had a harem of abandoned women with him, with whom he set out on his return. They arrived in Moscow the 13th of February, 1718, and on that very day Peter had an interview with his son. No one knows what passed in that interview. The rumor of the arrival of Alexis spread rapidly through the city, and it was supposed that a reconciliation had taken place. But the next morning, at the earliest dawn, the great bell of Moscow rang an alarm, the royal guards were marshaled and the privy counselors of the emperor were summoned to the Kremlin.

"Now although our son, by such criminal conduct, merits the punishment of death, yet our paternal affection induces us to pardon his crimes and to exempt him from the penalty which is his due. But considering his unworthiness, as developed in the conduct we have described, we can not, in conscience, bequeath to him the throne of Russia, foreseeing that, by his vicious courses, he would degrade the glory of our nation, endanger its safety and speedily lose those provinces which we have recovered from our foes with so much toil and at so vast an expense of blood and treasure. To inflict upon our faithful subjects the rule of such a sovereign, would be to expose them to a condition worse than Russia has ever yet experienced. We do therefore, by our paternal authority, in virtue of which, by the laws of our empire, any of our subjects may disinherit a son and give his succession to such other of his sons as he pleases, and, in quality of sovereign prince, in consideration of the safety of our dominions, we do deprive our son, Alexis, for his crimes and unworthiness, of the succession after us to our throne of Russia, and we do constitute and declare successor to the said throne after us our second son, Peter.

This document was then taken to the cathedral, where all the higher ecclesiastics had been assembled, and was read to them. Nothing was omitted which could invest the act with solemnity, There is every evidence that the heart of the father was rent with acutest anguish in all these proceedings. Nothing could have been more desirable to him than to transmit the empire his energies had rendered so illustrious, to his own son to carry on the enterprises his father had commenced. But to place eighteen millions of people in the hands of one who had proved himself so totally unworthy, would have been the greatest cruelty. The exclusion of Alexis from the succession was the noblest act of Peter's life.

But new facts were soon developed which rendered it impossible for the unhappy father to stop even here. Evidence came to light that Alexis had been plotting a conspiracy for the dethronement of his father, and for the seizure of the crown by violence. His mother, whom the tzar had repudiated, and his energetic aunt, Mary, both of whom were in a convent, were involved in the plot. He had applied to his brother-in-law, the Emperor of Germany, for foreign troops to aid him. There were many restless spirits in the empire, turbulent and depraved, the boon companions of Alexis, who were ready for any deeds of desperation which might place Alexis on the throne. The second son of the emperor, the child of Catharine, was an infant of but a few months old. The health of Peter was infirm and his life doubtful. It was manifest that immediately upon the death of the tzar, Alexis would rally his accomplices around him, raise the banner of revolt against the infant king, and that thus the empire would be plunged into all the horrors of a long and bloody civil war.

The evidence adduced against the young prince, from his own confession, and the depositions which had been taken, were very carefully considered, nearly a month being occupied in the solemnities of deliberation. A verdict was finally rendered in the form of a report to the emperor. It was a long, carefully-worded document, containing a statement of the facts which the evidence substantiated against the culprit. The conclusion was as follows:

"It is evident, from the whole conduct of the son of the tzar, that he intended to take the crown from the head of his father and place it upon his own, not only by a civil insurrection, but by the assistance of a foreign army which he had actually requested. He has therefore rendered himself unworthy of the clemency promised by the emperor; and, since all laws, divine, ecclesiastical, civil and military, condemn to death, without mercy, not only those who attempt rebellion against their sovereign, but those who are plotting such attempts, what shall be our judgment of one who has conspired for the commission of a crime almost unparalleled in history—the assassination of his sovereign, who was his own father, a father of great indulgence, who reared his son from the cradle with more than paternal tenderness, who, with incredible pains, strove to educate him for government, and to qualify him for the succession to so great an empire? How much more imperatively does such a crime merit death.

This sentence was signed by all the members of the court, one hundred and eighty in number; and on the 6th of July it was read to the guilty prince in the castle where he was kept confined. The miserable young man, enfeebled in body and mind by debaucheries, was so overwhelmed with terror, as his death warrant was read, that he was thrown into convulsions. All the night long fit succeeded fit, as, delirious with woe, he moaned upon his bed. In the morning a messenger was dispatched to the tzar to inform him that his son was seriously sick; in an hour another messenger was sent stating that he was very dangerously sick; and soon a third messenger was dispatched with the intelligence that Alexis could not survive the day, and was very anxious to see his father. Peter, scarce less wretched than his miserable son, hastened to his room. The dying young man, at the sight of his father, burst into tears, confessed all his crimes, and begged his father's blessing in this hour of death. Tears coursed down the cheeks of the stern emperor, and he addressed his dying child in terms so pathetic, and so fervently implored God's pardon for him, that the stoutest hearts were moved and loud sobbings filled the room.

About six o'clock in the evening the wretched Alexis breathed his last, and passed from the tribunals of earth to the judgment-seat of God. The emperor immediately seemed to banish from his mind every remembrance of his crimes, and his funeral was attended with all the customary demonstrations of affection and respect. Peter, fully aware that this most momentous event of his life would be severely criticised throughout the world, sent a statement of the facts to all the courts of Europe. In his letter, which accompanied these statements, he says:

"While we were debating in our mind between the natural emotions of paternal clemency on one side, and the regard we ought to pay to the preservation and the future security of our kingdom on the other, and pondering what resolution to take in an affair of so great difficulty and importance, it pleased the Almighty God, by his especial will and his just judgment, and by his mercy to deliver us out of that embarrassment, and to save our family and kingdom from the shame and the dangers by abridging the life of our said son Alexis, after an illness with which he was seized as soon as he had heard the sentence of death pronounced against him.

The tzar endeavored to efface from his memory these tragic scenes by consecrating himself, with new energy, to the promotion of the interests of Russia. Utterly despising all luxurious indulgence, he lived upon coarse fare, occupied plainly-furnished rooms, dressed in the extreme of simplicity and devoted himself to daily toil with diligence, which no mechanic or peasant in the realm could surpass. The war still continued with Sweden. On the night of the 29th of November, of this year, 1718, the madman Charles XII. was instantly killed by a cannon ball which carried away his head as he was leaning upon a parapet, in the siege of Fredericshall in Norway. The death of this indomitable warrior quite changed the aspect of European affairs. New combinations of armies arose and new labyrinths of intrigue were woven, and for several years wars, with their usual successes and disasters, continued to impoverish and depopulate the nations of Europe. At length the tzar effected a peace with Sweden, that kingdom surrendering to him the large and important provinces of Livonia, Esthonia, Ingria and Carelia. This was an immense acquisition for Russia.

Catharine, whom he seemed to love with all the fervor of youth, accompanied him on this expedition. Returning to St. Petersburg in 1724, Peter resolved to accomplish a design which he for some time had meditated, of placing the imperial crown upon the brow of his beloved wife. Their infant son had died. Their grandson, Peter, the son of Alexis, was still but a child, and the failing health of the tzar admonished him that he had not many years to live. Reposing great confidence in the goodness of Catharine and in the wisdom of those counselors whom, with his advice, she would select, he resolved to transmit the scepter, at his death, to her. In preparation for this event, Catharine was crowned Empress on the 18th of May, 1724, with all possible pomp.

The city of Petersburg had now become one of the most important capitals of Europe. Peter was not only the founder of this city, but, in a great measure, the architect. An observatory for astronomical purposes was reared, on the model of that in Paris. A valuable library was in the rapid progress of collection, and there were several cabinets formed, filled with the choicest treasures of nature and art. There were now in Russia a sufficient number of men of genius and of high literary and scientific attainment to form an academy of the arts and sciences, the rules and institutes of which the emperor drew up with his own hand.

The disease made rapid progress. The mind of the emperor, as he approached the dying hour, was clouded, and, with the inarticulate mutterings of delirium, he turned to and fro, restless, upon his bed. His devoted wife, for three days and three nights, did not leave his side, and, on the 28th of January, 1725, at four o'clock in the afternoon, he breathed his last, in her arms.

Before the dethronement of his reason, the tzar had assembled around his bed the chief dignitaries of the empire, and had requested them, as soon as he should be dead, to acknowledge the Empress Catharine as their sovereign. He even took the precaution to exact from them an oath that they would do this. Peter died in the fifty-third year of his age. None of the children whom he had by his first wife survived him. Both of the sons whom he had by the Empress Catharine were also dead. Two daughters still lived. After the Empress Catharine, the next heir to the throne was his grandson, Peter, the orphan child of the guilty Alexis.

HERE LIETH
ALL THAT COULD DIE OF A MAN IMMORTAL,
PETER ALEXOUITZ;
IT IS ALMOST SUPERFLUOUS TO ADD
GREAT EMPEROR OF RUSSIA;
A TITLE
WHICH, INSTEAD OF ADDING TO HIS GLORY,
BECAME GLORIOUS BY HIS WEARING IT.
LET ANTIQUITY BE DUMB,
NOR BOAST HER ALEXANDER OR HER CÆSAR.
HOW EASY WAS VICTORY
TO LEADERS WHO WERE FOLLOWED BY HEROES,
AND WHOSE SOLDIERS FELT A NOBLE DISDAIN
AT BEING THOUGHT LESS VIGILANT THAN THEIR GENERALS!
BUT HE,
WHO IN THIS PLACE FIRST KNEW REST,
FOUND SUBJECTS BASE AND INACTIVE,
UNWARLIKE, UNLEARNED, UNTRACTABLE,
NEITHER COVETOUS OF FAME NOR FEARLESS OF DANGER--
CREATURES WITH THE NAMES OF MEN,
BUT WITH QUALITIES RATHER BRUTAL THAN RATIONAL
YET EVEN THESE
HE POLISHED FROM THEIR NATIVE RUGGEDNESS,
AND, BREAKING OUT LIKE A NEW SUN
TO ILLUMINE THE MINDS OF A PEOPLE,
DISPELLED THEIR NIGHT OF HEREDITARY DARKNESS,
AND, BY FORCE OF HIS INVINCIBLE INFLUENCE,
TAUGHT THEM TO CONQUER
EVEN THE CONQUERORS OF GERMANY.
OTHER PRINCES HAVE COMMANDED VICTORIOUS ARMIES;
THIS COMMANDER CREATED THEM.
EXULT, O NATURE! FOR THINE WAS THIS PRODIGY.
BLUSH, O ART! AT A HERO WHO OWED THEE NOTHING;

———

THE REIGNS OF CATHARINE I. ANNE, THE INFANT IVAN AND ELIZABETH.

From 1725 to 1162.

Energetic Reign of Catharine.—Her Sudden Death.—Brief Reign of Peter II.—Difficulties of Hereditary Succession.—A Republic Contemplated.—Anne, Daughter of Ivan.—The Infant Ivan Proclaimed King—His Terrible Doom.—Elizabeth, Daughter of Peter the Great Enthroned.—Character of Elizabeth.—Alliance with Maria Theresa.—Wars with Prussia.—Great Reverses of Frederic of Prussia.—Desperate Condition of Frederic.—Death of Elizabeth.—Succession of Peter III.
 

The new empress, Catharine I., was already exceedingly popular, and she rose rapidly in public esteem by the wisdom and vigor of her administration. Early in June her eldest daughter, Anne, was married with much pomp to the Duke of Holstein. It was a great novelty to the Russians to see a woman upon the throne; and the neighboring States seemed inspired with courage to commence encroachments, thinking that they had but little to apprehend from the feeble arm of a queen. Poland, Sweden and Denmark were all animated with the hope that the time had now come in which they could recover those portions of territory which, during past wars, had been wrested from them by Russia.

The academy of sciences at St. Petersburg, which Peter had founded, was sedulously fostered by Catharine. The health of the empress was feeble when she ascended the throne, and it rapidly declined. She, however, continued to apply herself with great assiduity to public affairs until the middle of April, when she was obliged to take her bed. There is no "royal road" to death. After four weeks of suffering and all the humbling concomitants of disease and approaching dissolution, the empress breathed her last at nine o'clock in the evening of the 16th of May, 1727, after a reign of but little more than two years, and in the forty-second year of her age.

Some of the principal of the nobility, seeing how many difficulties attended hereditary succession, which at one time placed the crown upon the brow of a babe in the cradle, again upon a semi-idiot, and again upon a bloated and infamous debauchee, conferred upon the subject of changing the government into a republic. But Russia was not prepared for a reform so sudden and so vast. After much debate it was decided to offer the crown to Anne, Duchess of Courland, who was second daughter of the imbecile Ivan, who, for a short time, had nominally occupied the throne, associated with his brother Peter the Great. She had an elder sister, Catharine, who was married to the Duke of Mecklenburg. So far as the right of birth was concerned, Catharine was first entitled to the succession. But as the Duke of Mecklenburg, whose grand duchy bordered upon the Baltic, and which was equal to about one half the State of Massachusetts, was engaged in a kind of civil war with his nobles, it was therefore thought best to pass her by, lest the empire should become involved in the strife in which her husband was engaged. As Ivan was the elder brother, it was thought that his daughters should have the precedence over those of Peter.

A babe, two months old, was now Emperor of Russia. The senate immediately met and acknowledged the legitimacy of his claims. The foreign embassadors presented to him their credentials, and the Marquis of Chetardie, the French minister, reverentially approaching the cradle, made the imperially majestic baby a congratulatory speech, addressing him as Ivan V., Emperor of all the Russias, and assuring him of the friendship of Louis XV., sovereign of France.

The regent, as was usually the case, arrogating authority and splendor, soon became excessively unpopular, and a conspiracy of the nobles was formed for his overthrow. On the night of the 17th of November the conspirators met in the palace of the grand duchess, Anne, mother of the infant emperor, unanimously named her regent of the empire, arrested Biron, and condemned him to death, which sentence was subsequently commuted to Siberian exile.

This revolution was accepted by the people with the loudest demonstrations of joy. The memory of Peter the Great was enshrined in every heart, and all exulted in placing the crown upon his daughter's brow. The next morning, at the head of the royal guards and all the other troops of the metropolis, Elizabeth was proclaimed Empress of Russia. In one week from this time, the deposed infant emperor, Ivan, who was then thirteen months old, was sent, with his parents, from Petersburg to Riga, where they were for a long time detained in a castle as prisoners. Two efforts which they made for escape were frustrated.

This conspiracy, which was carried to so successful a result, was mainly founded in the hostility with which the Russians regarded the foreigners who had been so freely introduced to the empire by Peter the Great, and who occupied so many of the most important posts in the State. Thus the succession of Elizabeth was, in fact, a counter revolution, arresting the progress of reform and moving Russia back again toward the ancient barbarism. But Elizabeth soon expended her paroxysm of energy, and surrendered herself to luxury and to sensual indulgence unsurpassed by any debauchee who ever occupied a throne. Jealous of sharing her power, she refused to take a husband, though many guilty favorites were received to her utmost intimacy.

A humane monk, taking pity upon the unfortunate little Ivan, attempted to escape with him. He had reached Smolensk, when he was arrested. The unhappy prince was then conveyed to the castle of Schlusselburg, where he was immersed in a dungeon which no ray of the sun could ever penetrate. A single lamp burning in his cell only revealed its horrors. The prince could not distinguish day from night, and had no means of computing the passage of the hours. Food was left in his cell, and the attendants, who occasionally entered, were prohibited from holding any conversation with the child. This treatment, absolutely infernal, soon reduced the innocent prince to a state almost of idiocy.

Twice Elizabeth ordered him to be brought to Petersburg, where she conversed with him without letting him know who she was; but she did nothing to alleviate his horrible doom. After the death of Elizabeth, her successor, Peter III., made Ivan a visit, without making himself known. Touched with such an aspect of misery, he ordered an apartment to be built in an angle of the fortress, for Ivan, who had now attained the age of manhood, where he could enjoy air and light. The sudden death of Peter defeated this purpose, and Ivan was left in his misery. Still weary years passed away while the prince, dead to himself as well as to the world, remained breathing in his tomb. Catharine II., after her accession to the throne, called to see Ivan. She thus describes her visit:

"We immediately made a visit to him in order to judge of his understanding and talents, and to procure him a situation suitable to his character and education. But how great was our surprise to find, that in addition to a defect in his utterance, which rendered it difficult for him to speak, and still more difficult to be understood, we observed an almost total deprivation of sense and reason. Those who accompanied us, during this interview, saw how much our heart suffered at the contemplation of an object so fitted to excite compassion; they were also convinced that the only measure we could take to succor the unfortunate prince was to leave him where we found him, and to procure him all the comforts and conveniences his situation would admit of. We accordingly gave our orders for this purpose, though the state he was in prevented his perceiving the marks of our humanity or being sensible of our attention and care; for he knew nobody, could not distinguish between good and evil, nor did he know the use that might be made of reading, to pass the time with less weariness and disgust. On the contrary, he sought pleasure in objects that discovered with sufficient evidence the disorder of his imagination."

History has few narratives so extraordinary as the fate of Ivan. A forced marriage was arranged that a child might be generated to inherit the Russian throne. When this child was but a few days old he was declared emperor of all the Russias, and received the congratulations of the foreign embassadors. When thirteen months of age he was deposed, and for the crime of being a king, was thrown into captivity. To prevent others from using him as the instrument of their purposes, he was thrown into a dungeon, and excluded from all human intercourse, so that like a deaf child he could not even acquire the power of speech. For him there was neither clouds nor sunshine, day nor night, summer nor winter. He had no employment, no amusement, no food for thought, absolutely nothing to mark the passage of the weary hours. The mind became paralyzed and almost idiotic by such enormous woe. Such was his doom for twenty-four years. He was born in 1740, and assassinated under the reign of Catharine II., in 1764. The father of Ivan remained in prison eleven years longer until he died.

"The empress," she said in this proclamation, "can never forget how much foreigners have contributed to the prosperity of Russia. And though her subjects will at all times enjoy her favors in preference to foreigners, yet the foreigners in her service are as dear to her as her own subjects, and may rely on her protection."

In the mean time, Elizabeth was prosecuting with great vigor the hereditary war with Sweden. Russia was constantly gaining in this conflict, and at length the Swedes purchased peace by surrendering to the Russians extensive territories in Finland. The favor of Russia was still more effectually purchased by the Swedes choosing for their king, Adolphus Frederic, Duke of the Russian province of Holstein, and kinsman of Elizabeth. The boundaries of Russia were thus enlarged, and Sweden became almost a tributary province of the gigantic empire.

The next year, 1758, another Russian army invaded Prussia, overran nearly the whole kingdom, and captured Konigsburg. The victorious Russians thinking that all of Prussia was to be annexed to their dominions, began to treat the Prussians tenderly and as countrymen. An order was read from the churches, that if any Prussian had cause of complaint against any Russian, he should present it at the military chancery at Konigsburg, where he would infallibly have redress. The inhabitants of the conquered realm were all obliged to swear fealty to the Empress of Russia. The Prussian army was at this time in Silesia, struggling against the troops of Maria Theresa. The warlike Frederic soon returned at the head of his indomitable hosts, and attacking the Russians about six miles from Kustrin, defeated them in one of the most bloody battles on record, and drove the shattered battalions, humiliated and bleeding, out of the territory.