The History of Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia

CHAP. XXII

Marriage of the czarowitz. – The marriage of Peter and Catherine publicly solemnized. – Catherine finds her brother.

This unsuccessful campaign of Pruth proved more hurtful to the czar than ever the battle of Narva was; for after that defeat he had found means not only to retrieve his losses, but also to wrest Ingria out of the hands of Charles XII.; but by the treaty of Falksten, in which he consented to give up to the sultan his forts and harbours on the Palus Mæotis, he for ever lost his projected superiority in the Black Sea. He had besides an infinite deal of work on his hands; his new establishments in Russia were to be perfected, he had to prosecute his victories over the Swedes, to settle king Augustus firmly on the Polish throne, and to manage affairs properly with the several powers with whom he was in alliance; but the fatigues he had undergone having impaired his health, he was obliged to go to Carlsbad90 to drink the waters of that place. While he was there he gave orders for his troops to enter Pomerania, who blockaded Stralsund, and took five other towns in the neighbourhood.

Pomerania is the most northern province of Germany, bounded on the east by Prussia and Poland, on the west by Brandenburg, on the south by Mecklenburg, and on the north by the Baltic Sea. It has changed masters almost every century: Gustavus Adolphus got possession of it in his famous thirty years war, and it was afterwards solemnly ceded to the crown of Sweden by the treaty of Westphalia: with a reservation of the little bishopric of Camin, and a few other small towns lying in Upper Pomerania. The whole of this province properly belongs to the elector of Brandenburg, in virtue of a family compact made with the dukes of Pomerania, whose family being extinct in 1637, consequently by the laws of the empire the house of Brandenburg had an undoubted right to the succession; but necessity, the first of all laws, occasioned this family compact to be set aside by the treaty of Osnaburg; after which, almost the whole of Pomerania fell to the lot of the victorious Swedes.

The czar's intention was to wrest from Sweden all the provinces that crown was possessed of in Germany; and, in order to accomplish his design, he found it necessary to enter into a confederacy with the electors of Hanover and Brandenburg, and the king of Denmark. Peter drew up the several articles of the treaty he projected with these powers, and also a complete plan of the necessary operations for rendering him master of Pomerania.

In the meanwhile he went to Torgau, to be present at the nuptials of his son the czarowitz Alexis with the princess of Wolfenbuttel (Oct. 23, 1711.), sister to the consort of Charles VI. emperor of Germany; nuptials which, in the end, proved fatal to his own peace of mind, and to the lives of the unfortunate pair.

The czarowitz was born of the first marriage of Peter the Great to Eudocia Lapoukin, to whom he was espoused in 1689: she was at that time shut up in the monastery of Susdal; their son Alexis Petrowitz, who was born the 1st of March, 1690, was now in his twenty-second year: this prince was not then at all known in Europe; a minister, whose memoirs of the court of Russia have been printed, says in a letter he writes to his master, dated August 25, 1711, that 'this prince was tall and well made, resembled his father greatly, was of an excellent disposition, very pious, had read the Bible five times over, took great delight in the ancient Greek historians, appeared to have a very quick apprehension and understanding, was well acquainted with the mathematics, the art of war, navigation, and hydraulics; that he understood the German language, and was then learning the French, but that his father would never suffer him to go through a regular course of study.'

This character is very different from that which the czar himself gives of his son some time afterwards, in which we shall see with how much grief he reproaches him with faults directly opposite to those good qualities, for which this minister seems so much to admire him.

We must leave posterity, therefore, to determine between the testimony of a stranger, who may have formed too slight a judgment, and the declaration of a parent, who thought himself under a necessity of sacrificing the dictates of nature to the good of his people. If the minister was no better acquainted with the disposition of Alexis than he seems to have been with his outward form, his evidence will have but little weight; for he describes this prince as tall and well made, whereas the memoirs sent me from Petersburg say, that he was neither the one nor the other.

His mother-in-law, Catherine, was not present at his nuptials; for though she was already looked upon as czarina, yet she had not been publicly acknowledged as such: and moreover, as she had only the title of highness given her at the czar's court, her rank was not sufficiently settled to admit of her signing the contract, or to appear at the ceremony in a station befitting the consort of Peter the Great. She therefore remained at Thorn in Polish Prussia. Soon after the nuptials were celebrated, the czar sent the new-married couple away to Wolfenbuttel (Jan. 9, 1712), and brought back the czarina to Petersburg with that dispatch and privacy which he observed in all his journies.

Feb. 19, 1712.] Having now disposed of his son, he publicly solemnized his own nuptials with Catherine, which had been declared in private before. This ceremony was performed with as much magnificence as could be expected in a city but yet in its infancy, and from a revenue exhausted by the late destructive war against the Turks, and that which he was still engaged in against the king of Sweden. The czar gave orders for, and assisted himself in, all the preparations for the ceremony, according to the usual custom; and Catherine was now publicly declared czarina, in reward for having saved her husband and his whole army.

The acclamations with which this declaration was received at Petersburg were sincere: the applauses which subjects confer on the actions of a despotic sovereign are generally suspected; but on this occasion they were confirmed by the united voice of all the thinking part of Europe, who beheld with pleasure, on the one hand, the heir of a vast monarchy with no other glory than that of his birth, married to a petty princess; and, on the other hand, a powerful conqueror, and a law-giver, publicly sharing his bed and his throne with a stranger and a captive, who had nothing to recommend her but her merit: and this approbation became more general as the minds of men grew more enlightened by that sound philosophy, which has made so great a progress in our understandings within these last forty years: a philosophy, equally sublime and discerning, which teaches us to pay only the exterior respect to greatness and authority, while we reserve our esteem and veneration for shining talents and meritorious services.

And here I think myself under an obligation to relate what I have met touching this marriage in the dispatches of count Bassewitz, aulic counsellor at Vienna, and long time minister from Holstein at the court of Russia; a person of great merit, and whose memory is still held in the highest esteem in Germany. In some of his letters he speaks thus: 'The czarina had not only been the main instrument of procuring the czar that reputation which he enjoyed, but was likewise essentially necessary in the preservation of his life. This prince was unhappily subject to violent convulsion fits, which were thought to be the effects of poison which had been given him while he was young. Catherine alone had found the secret of alleviating his sufferings by an unwearied assiduity and attention to whatever she thought would please him, and made it the whole study of her life to preserve a health so valuable to the kingdom and to herself, insomuch, that the czar finding he could not live without her, made her the companion of his throne and bed.' I here only repeat the express words of the writer himself.

Fortune, which has furnished us with many extraordinary scenes in this part of the world, and who had raised Catherine from the lowest abyss of misery and distress to the pinnacle of human grandeur, wrought another extraordinary incident in her favour some few years after her marriage with the czar, and which I find thus related in a curious manuscript of a person who was at that time in the czar's service, and who speaks of it as a thing to which he was eye-witness.

An envoy from king Augustus to the court of Peter the Great, being on his return home through Courland, and having put up at an inn by the way, heard the voice of a person who seemed in great distress, and whom the people of the house were treating in that insulting manner which is but too common on such occasions: the stranger, with a tone of resentment, made answer, that they would not dare to use him thus, if he could but once get to the speech of the czar, at whose court he had perhaps more powerful protectors than they imagined.

The envoy, upon hearing this, had a curiosity to ask the man some questions, and, from certain answers he let fall, and a close examination of his face, he thought he found in him some resemblance of the empress Catherine; and, when he came to Dresden, he could not forbear writing to one of his friends at Petersburg concerning it. This letter, by accident, came to the czar's hands, who immediately sent an order to prince Repnin, then governor of Riga, to endeavour to find out the person mentioned in the letter. Prince Repnin immediately dispatched a messenger to Mittau, in Courland, who, on inquiry, found out the man, and learned that his name was Charles Scavronsky; that he was the son of a Lithuanian gentleman, who had been killed in the wars of Poland, and had left two children then in the cradle, a boy and a girl, who had neither of them received any other education than that which simple nature gives to those who are abandoned by the world. Scavronsky, who had been parted from his sister while they were both infants, knew nothing further of her than that she had been taken prisoner in Marienburg, in the year 1704, and supposed her to be still in the household of prince Menzikoff, where he imagined she might have made some little fortune.

Prince Repnin, agreeable to the particular orders he had received from the czar, caused Scavronsky to be seized, and conducted to Riga, under pretence of some crime laid to his charge; and, to give a better colour to the matter, at his arrival there, a sham information was drawn up against him, and he was soon after sent from thence to Petersburg, under a strong guard, with orders to treat him well upon the road.

When he came to that capital, he was carried to the house of an officer of the emperor's palace, named Shepleff, who, having been previously instructed in the part he was to play, drew several circumstances from the young man in relation to his condition; and, after some time, told him, that although the information, which had been sent up from Riga against him, was of a very serious nature, yet he would have justice done him; but that it would be necessary to present a petition to his majesty for that purpose; that one should accordingly be drawn up in his name, and that he (Shepleff) would find means that he should deliver it into the czar's own hands.

The next day the czar came to dine with Shepleff, at his own house, who presented Scavronsky to him; when his majesty, after asking him abundance of questions was convinced, by the natural answers he gave, that he was really the czarina's brother; they had both lived in Livonia, when young, and the czar found every thing that Scavronsky said to him, in relation to his family affairs, tally exactly with what his wife had told him concerning her brother, and the misfortunes which had befallen her and her brother in the earlier part of their lives.

The czar, now satisfied of the truth, proposed the next day to the empress to go and dine with him at Shepleff's; and, when dinner was over, he gave orders that the man, whom he had examined the day before, should be brought in again. Accordingly he was introduced, dressed in the same clothes he had wore while on his journey to Riga; the czar not being willing that he should appear in any other garb than what his unhappy circumstances had accustomed him to.

He interrogated him again, in the presence of his wife; and the MS. adds, that, at the end, he turned about to the empress, and said these very words: – 'This man is your brother; come hither, Charles, and kiss the hand of the empress, and embrace your sister.'

The author of this narrative adds further, that the empress fainted away with surprise; and that, when she came to herself again, the czar said, 'There is nothing in this but what is very natural. This gentlemen is my brother in-law; if he has merit, we will make something of him; if he has not, we must leave him as he is.'

I am of opinion, that this speech shews as much greatness as simplicity, and a greatness not very common. My author says, that Scavronsky remained a considerable time at Shepleff's house; that the czar assigned him a handsome pension, but that he led a very retired life. He carries his relation of this adventure no farther, as he made use of it only to disclose the secret of Catherine's brother: but we know, from other authorities, that this gentleman was afterwards created a count; that he married a young lady of quality, by whom he had two daughters, who were married to two of the principal noblemen in Russia. I leave to those, who may be better informed of the particulars, to distinguish what is fact in this relation, from what may have been added; and shall only say, that the author does not seem to have told this story out of a fondness for entertaining his readers with the marvellous, since his papers were not intended to be published. He is writing freely to a friend, about a thing of which he says he was an eye-witness. He may have been mistaken in some circumstances, but the fact itself has all the appearance of truth; for if this gentleman had known that his sister was raised to so great dignity and power, he would not certainly have remained so many years without having made himself known to her. And this discovery, however extraordinary it may seem, is certainly not more so than the exaltation of Catherine herself; and both the one and the other are striking proofs of the force of destiny, and may teach us to be cautious how we treat as fabulous several events of antiquity, which perhaps are less contradictory to the common order of things, than the adventures of this empress.

The rejoicings made by the czar Peter for his own marriage, and that of his son, were not of the nature of those transient amusements which exhaust the public treasure, and are presently lost in oblivion. He completed his grand foundry for cannon, and finished the admiralty buildings. The highways were repaired, several ships built, and others put upon the stocks; new canals were dug, and the finishing hand put to the grand warehouses, and other public buildings, and the trade of Petersburg began to assume a flourishing face. He issued an ordinance for removing the senate from Moscow to Petersburg, which was executed in the month of April, 1712. By this step he made his new city the capital of the empire, and early he employed a number of Swedish prisoners in beautifying this city, whose foundation had been laid upon their defeat.

CHAP. XXIII

Taking of Stetin. – Descent upon Finland. – Event of the year 1712.

Peter, now seeing himself happy in his own family, and in his state, and successful in his war against Charles XII. and in the several negotiations which he had entered into with other powers, who were resolved to assist him in driving out the Swedes from the continent, and cooping them up for ever within the narrow isthmus of Scandinavia, began to turn his views entirely towards the north-west coasts of Europe, not laying aside all thoughts of the Palus Mæotis, or Black Sea. The keys of Azoph, which had been so long withheld from the basha, who was to have taken possession of that place for the sultan, his master, were now given up; and, notwithstanding all the endeavours of the king of Sweden, the intrigues of his friends at the Ottoman Porte, and even some menaces of a new war on the part of the Turks, both that nation and the Russian empire continued at peace.

Charles XII. still obstinate in his resolution not to depart from Bender, tamely submitted his hopes and fortunes to the caprice of a grand vizier; while the czar was threatening all his provinces, arming against him the king of Denmark, and the elector of Hanover, and had almost persuaded the king of Prussia, and even the Poles and Saxons, to declare openly for him.

Charles, ever of the same inflexible disposition, behaved in the like manner towards his enemies, who now seemed united to overwhelm him, as he had done in all his transactions with the Ottoman Porte; and, from his lurking-place in the deserts of Bessarabia, defied the czar, the kings of Poland, Denmark, and Prussia, the elector of Hanover (soon afterwards king of England), and the emperor of Germany, whom he had so greatly offended, when he was traversing Silesia with his victorious troops, and who now shewed his resentment, by abandoning him to his ill fortune, and refused to take under his protection any of those countries, which as yet belonged to the Swedes in Germany.

1712.] It would have been no difficult matter for him to have broken the league which was forming against him, would he have consented to cede Stetin, in Pomerania, to Frederick (the first) king of Prussia, and elector of Brandenburg, who had a lawful claim thereto; but Charles did not then look upon Prussia as a power of any consequence: and indeed neither he, nor any other person, could at that time foresee, that this petty kingdom, and the electorate of Brandenburg, either of which were little better than deserts, would one day become formidable. Charles therefore would not listen to any proposal of accommodation, but determined rather to stake all than to give up any thing, sent orders to the regency of Stockholm, to make all possible resistance, both by sea and land: and these orders were obeyed, notwithstanding that his dominions were almost exhausted of men and money. The senate of Stockholm fitted out a fleet of thirteen ships of the line, and every person capable of bearing arms came voluntarily to offer their service: in a word, the inflexible courage and pride of Charles seemed to be infused into all his subjects, who were almost as unfortunate as their master.

It can hardly be supposed, that Charles's conduct was formed upon any regular plan. He had still a powerful party in Poland, which assisted by the Crim Tartars, might indeed have desolated that wretched country, but could not have replaced Stanislaus on the throne; and his hope of engaging the Ottoman Porte to espouse his cause, or convincing the divan that it was their interest to send ten or twelve thousand men to the assistance of his friends, under pretence that the czar was supporting his ally, Augustus, in Poland, was vain and chimerical.

Sep. 1712.] Nevertheless, he continued still at Bender, to wait the issue of these vain projects, while the Russians, Danes, and Saxons, were overrunning Pomerania. Peter took his wife with him on this expedition. The king of Denmark had already made himself master of Stade, a sea-port town in the duchy of Bremen, and the united forces of Russia, Saxony, and Denmark, were already before Stralsund.

Oct. 1712.] And now king Stanislaus, seeing the deplorable state of so many provinces, the impossibility of his recovering the crown of Poland, and the universal confusion occasioned by the inflexibility of Charles, called a meeting of the Swedish generals, who were covering Pomerania with an army of eleven thousand men, as the last resource they had left in those provinces.

When they were assembled, he proposed to them to make their terms with king Augustus, offering himself to be the victim of this reconciliation. On this occasion, he made the following speech to them, in the French language, which he afterwards left in writing, and which was signed by nine general officers, amongst whom happened to be one Patkul, cousin-german to the unfortunate Patkul, who lost his life on the wheel, by the order of Charles XII.

'Having been hitherto the instrument of procuring glory to the Swedish arms, I cannot think of proving the cause of their ruin. I therefore declare myself ready to sacrifice the crown, and my personal interests, to the preservation of the sacred person of their king, as I can see no other method of releasing him from the place where he now is.'

Having made this declaration (which is here given in his own words), he prepared to set out for Turkey, in hopes of being able to soften the inflexible temper of his benefactor, by the sacrifice he had made for him. His ill fortune would have it, that he arrived in Bessarabia at the very time that Charles, after having given his word to the sultan, that he would depart from Bender, and having received the necessary remittances for his journey, and an escort for his person, took the mad resolution to continue there, and opposed a whole army of Turks and Tartars, with only his own domestics. The former, though they might easily have killed him, contented themselves with taking him prisoner. At this very juncture, Stanislaus arriving, was seized himself; so that two Christian kings were prisoners at one time in Turkey.

At this time, when all Europe was in commotion, and that France had just terminated a war equally fatal against one part thereof, in order to settle the grandson of Lewis XIV. on the throne of Spain, England gave peace to France, and the victory gained by Marshal Villars at Denain in Flanders, saved that state from its other enemies. France had been, for upwards of a century, the ally of Sweden, and it was the interest of the former, that its ally should not be stript of his possessions in Germany. Charles, unhappily, was at such a distance from his dominions, that he did not even know what was transacting in France.

The regency of Stockholm, by a desperate effort, ventured to demand a sum of money from the French court, at a time when its finances were at so low an ebb, that Lewis XIV. had hardly money enough to pay his household servants. Count Sparre was sent with a commission to negotiate this loan, in which it was not to be supposed he would succeed. However, on his arrival at Versailles, he represented to the marquis de Torci the inability of the regency to pay the little army which Charles had still remaining in Pomerania, and which was ready to break up and dispute of itself on account of the long arrears due to the men; and that France was on the point of beholding the only ally she had left, deprived of those provinces which were so necessary to preserve the balance of power; that indeed his master, Charles, had not been altogether so attentive to the interests of France in the course of his conquests as might have been expected, but that the magnanimity of Lewis XIV. was at least equal to the misfortunes of his royal brother and ally. The French minister, in answer to this speech, so effectually set forth the incapacity of his court to furnish the requested succours, that count Sparre despaired of success.

It so happened, however, that a private individual did that which Sparre had lost all hopes of obtaining. There was at that time in Paris, a banker, named Samuel Bernard, who had accumulated an immense fortune by making remittances for the government to foreign countries, and other private contracts. This man was intoxicated with a species of pride very rarely to be met with from people of his profession. He was immoderately fond of every thing that made an éclat, and knew very well, that one time or another the government would repay with interest those who hazarded their fortune to supply its exigencies. Count Sparre went one day to dine with him, and took care to flatter his foible so well, that before they rose from table the banker put six hundred thousand livres91 into his hand; and then immediately waiting on the marquis de Torci, he said to him – 'I have lent the crown of Sweden six hundred thousand livres in your name, which you must repay me when you are able.'

Count Steinbock, who at that time commanded Charles's army in Pomerania, little expected so seasonable a supply; and seeing his troops ready to mutiny, to whom he had nothing to give but promises, and that the storm was gathering fast upon him, and being, moreover, apprehensive of being surrounded by the three different armies of Russia, Denmark, and Saxony, desired a cessation of arms, on the supposition that Stanislaus' abdication would soften the obstinacy of Charles, and that the only way left him to save the forces under his command, was by spinning out the time in negotiations. He therefore dispatched a courier to Bender, to represent to the king of Sweden the desperate state of his finances and affairs, and the situation of the army, and to acquaint him that he had under these circumstances, found himself necessitated to apply for a cessation of arms, which he should think himself very happy to obtain. The courier had not been dispatched above three days, and Stanislaus was not yet set out on his journey to Bender, when Steinbock received the six hundred thousand livres from the French banker above-mentioned; a sum, which was at that time an immense treasure in a country so desolated. Thus unexpectedly reinforced with money, which is the grand panacea for all disorders of state, Steinbock found means to revive the drooping spirits of his soldiery; he supplied them with all they wanted, raised new recruits, and in a short time saw himself at the head of twelve thousand men, and dropping his former intention of procuring a suspension of arms, he sought only for an opportunity of engaging the enemy.