TRAVELS AND REFORMS OF PETER. 203 assiduously the art of ship-building, and laid the foundation of Ch. 18 a navy. Even then he cherished the idea that Russia might one day become a great maritime power. A. D. 1689 to His enterprising and innovating spirit created, as was to be expected, considerable disaffection among the partisans of the 1698. old régime, who were stripped of many of their privileges. A rebellion was the consequence: this, however, was soon suppressed, and the conspirators were executed with unsparing cruelty. He then came to the singular resolution of visiting foreign His countries, in order to acquire useful information, both as to travels. government and the arts of civilization. Many amusing incidents are recorded of him in his travels. He journeyed in disguise; clambered up the sides of ships, ascended the rigging, and descended into the holds; he engaged as a workman in Holland, lived on the wretched stipend which he earned as a ship-carpenter, and mastered all the details of ship-building. From Holland, in 1698, he went to England, where he was received with great honor by William III.; he studied manufactures and trades, and sought to gain knowledge on all common subjects. From England he went to Austria, intending to go afterwards to Italy; but he was compelled to return home, on account of a rebellion of the old military guard, called the Strelitz, who were peculiarly disaffected. He at once suppressed the discontents, and punished the old soldiers with unsparing rigor, executing thirty of them with his own hands. He then turned himself, in good earnest, to the work of His rereform. His passions were military, and he longed to conquer forms. kingdoms and cities. But he saw no probability of success, unless he could first civilize his subjects, and teach his soldiers the great improvements which had been made in the art of war. In order to conquer, he resolved first to reform his people. His ruling passion was the aggrandizement of himself and of his nation. But Providence designed that this should be made subservient to the welfare of his race, and 204 WAR WITH CHARLES XII. Ch. 18 gave him sufficient enlargement of mind to perceive the true sources of national prosperity. A. D. 1697 His first object was the improvement of the military force. to To effect this, he abolished the old privileges of the soldiers, 1700. disbanded them, and drafted them into new regiments, which he had organized on the European plan. Changés in the He found more difficulty in changing the dress of the people, who, generally, wore the long Asiatic robe, and the army. Tartar beard. Such was the opposition made, that he was obliged to compromise the matter, and to compel all who would wear beards and robes to pay a heavy tax, excepting only priests and peasants. He granted the indulgence to priests on account of the ceremonial of their worship, and to peasants in order to render their costume ignominious. His next important measure was the toleration of all religions, and all sects, with the exception of the Jesuits, whom General he hated and feared. He caused the Bible to be translated im- into the Sclavonic language; founded a school for the marine, ments. and also institutions for the encouragement of literature and prove War with Sweden art. He abolished the old and odious laws of marriage, by which women had no liberty in the choice of husbands. He suppressed all useless monasteries; taxed the clergy as well as the laity; humiliated the patriarch, and assumed many of his powers. He improved the administration of justice; mitigated laws in relation to woman; and raised her social rank. He established post-offices, boards of trade, a vigorous police, hospitals, and almshouses. He humbled the nobility, and abolished many of their privileges; for which the people honored him, and looked upon him as their benefactor. Having organized his army, and effected these great social reforms, he now turned his attention to various schemes for national aggrandizement. age His first war was with Sweden, then the most powerful of the northern States, and ruled by Charles XII., who, at the of eighteen, had just ascended the throne. The cause of the war was the desire of aggrandizement on the part of the Czar; WAR WITH CHARLES XII. 205 of Peter. the pretence was the restitution of some lands which Sweden Ch. 18 had obtained from Denmark and Poland. Taking advantage A. D. of the defenceless state of Sweden, attacked, at that time, by 1700. Denmark on the one side, and by Poland on the other, Peter, in the year 1700, invaded the territories of Charles with an army of sixty thousand men, and laid siege to Narva. The Swedish forces were only twenty thousand; but they were veterans, and they were headed by a hero. Notwithstanding the great disproportion between the contending parties, the Russians were defeated, and their artillery fell into the Defeat hands of the Swedes. The victory at Narva assured Charles of fame, but intoxicated his mind, and led to presumptuous self-confidence; while the defeat of Peter did not discourage him, but braced him to make still greater exertions. The Czar was conscious of his strength, as well as of his weakness. He knew he had unlimited resources, but that his troops were inexperienced; and he made up his mind for disasters at the beginning, in the hope of victory in the end. "I know very well," said he, "that the Swedes will have the advantage over us for a considerable time; but they will teach us at length to beat them." Charles, on the other hand, was intoxicated with victory, and acquired that fatal presumption which finally proved disastrous to himself and to his country. Peter, while making new military preparations, still vigor- New military ously prosecuted his schemes of internal improvement, and prepaprojected the union, by a canal, of the Baltic and Caspian rations. Seas. About this time, he introduced into Russia flocks of Saxony sheep, erected linen and paper manufactories, built hospitals, and invited skilful mechanics, of all trades, to settle in his kingdom. But Charles thought only of war and glory. He pursued his military career by invading Poland, then ruled by the Elector of Saxony; while Peter turned his attention to the organization of new armies, melting bells into cannon, constructing fleets, and attending to all the complicated cares of a mighty nation with the most minute assiduity. 206 A. D. BUILDING OF ST. PETERSBURG. Ch.18 He drew plans of fortresses, projected military reforms, and inspired his soldiers with his own enthusiasm. And his 1703. energy and perseverance were soon rewarded. He captured Marienburgh, a strong city on the confines of Livonia and Ingria; and among the captives took a young peasant girl, who eventually became the Empress Catharine, and to whose counsels Peter was much indebted for his great success. Mar riage with rine. She was the daughter of a poor woman of Livonia, and lost her mother at the age of three years; she then attracted the Catha- notice of a Lutheran clergyman, was brought up with his own daughters, and subsequently married a young sergeant of the army, who was killed in the capture of the city. She interested the Russian general by her intense grief and great beauty; was taken into his family, and, soon after, won the favor of Prince Menzikoff, who had himself risen from obscurity to be the prime minister of the Czar; became mistress of his palace; there beheld Peter himself, captivated him, and was married to him, at first privately, and afterwards publicly. Her rise, from so obscure a position, in a distant country town, to be the wife of the absolute monarch of an empire of thirty-three millions of people, is one of the most extraordinary events in the history of the world. When she enslaved the Czar by the power of her charms, she was only seventeen years of age. This was two years after the foundations of St. Petersburg were laid. Build ing of ters burg. The building of this great northern capital, in 1703, was as St. Pe- extraordinary as the other acts of the monarch. Amid the marshes at the mouth of the Neva, a rival city to the ancient metropolis of the empire arose as if by magic. One hundred thousand people perished during the first year, in consequence of the severity of their labors, and the pestilential air of the place. But Peter persevered. The new city was the delight and pride of the Czar, who made it the capital of his vast dominions. It was scarcely built, before its great commercial advantages were appreciated; and vessels from all parts of the world, freighted with the various treasures of its NEW WAR WITH SWEDEN. 207 different kingdoms and countries, appeared in the harbor of Ch.18. Cronstadt. A. D. to Charles XII. looked with contempt on the Herculean labors 1704 of his rival to civilize and enrich his country, and remarked "that the Czar might amuse himself as he saw fit in building 1708. a city, but that he should soon take it from him, and set Increas fire to his wooden house;" a boast, which, like many others, ing came most signally to nought. Indeed, success now turned in power of favor of Peter, whose forces had been constantly increasing. City after city fell into his hands, and whole provinces were conquered from Sweden. Soon all Ingria was added to the empire of the Czar, the government of which was entrusted to Menzikoff, a man of extraordinary abilities. Peter. While Peter was thus contending with the armies of Sweden, he succeeded in embroiling her in a war with Poland, and by so doing diverted invasion from his own shores. Had Charles perseveringly concentrated all his Charles strength on an invasion of Russia, he might have changed the politics of Europe; but he was induced to invade Poland first, Russia. and then found, when he turned towards Russia, that the Czar was ready to meet him, at the head of immense armies. XII. in The Russian forces amounted to one hundred thousand men; the Swedish to eighty thousand, and they were veterans. Peter did not venture to risk the fate of his empire by a pitched battle with such an army of victorious troops. So he attempted a stratagem, and succeeded. He decoyed the Swedes into a barren and wasted territory; and Charles, instead of marching to Moscow, as he ought to have done, followed his expected prey where he could get neither provisions for his Defeat men, nor forage for his horses. Exhausted by fatigue and Charles, famine, he was defeated in a disastrous battle, but, struck with madness, refused to retreat. Disasters multiplied. The victorious Russians hung upon his rear. The Cossacks cut off stragglers. The army of eighty thousand melted away to twenty-five thousand. Still the infatuated Swede dreamed of victory. The winter set in with its northern severity, and P of |