Part 21

'I now write to you for the last time, to acquaint you, that you must instantly comply with my orders, which will be communicated to you by Tolstoy and Romanzoff. If you obey, I give you my sacred word and promise, that I will not punish you; and that, if you will return home, I will love you more than ever; but, if you do not, I, as your father, and in virtue of the authority which God has given me over you, denounce against you my eternal curse; and, as your sovereign, declare to you, that I will find means to punish your disobedience, in which I trust God himself will assist me, and espouse the just cause of an injured parent and king.

'For the rest, remember that I have never laid any restraint upon you. Was I obliged to leave you at liberty to choose your way of life? Had I not the power in my own hands to oblige you to conform to my will? I had only to command, and make myself obeyed.'

The viceroy of Naples found it no difficult matter to persuade the czarowitz to return to his father. This is an incontestable proof that the emperor had no intention to enter into any engagements with the prince, that might give umbrage to his father. Alexis therefore returned with the envoys, bringing with him his mistress, Aphrosyne, who had been the companion of his elopement.

We may consider the czarowitz as an ill-advised young man, who had gone to Vienna and to Naples, instead of going to Copenhagen, agreeable to the orders of his father and sovereign. Had he been guilty of no other crime than this, which is common enough with young and giddy persons, it was certainly very excusable. The prince determined to return to his father, on the faith of his having taken God to witness, that he not only would pardon him, but that he would love him better than ever. But it appears by the instructions given to the two envoys who went to fetch him, and even by the czar's own letter, that his father required him to declare the persons who had been his counsellors, and also to fulfil the oath he had made of renouncing the succession.

It seemed difficult to reconcile this exclusion of the czarowitz from the succession, with the other part of the oath, by which the czar had bound himself in his letter, namely that of loving his son better than ever. Perhaps divided between paternal love, and the justice he owed to himself and people, as a sovereign, he might limit the renewal of his affection to his son in a convent, instead of to that son on a throne: perhaps, likewise, he was in hopes to reduce him to reason, and to render him worthy of the succession at last, by making him sensible of the loss of a crown which he had forfeited by his own indiscretion. In a circumstance so uncommon, so intricate, and so afflicting, it may be easily supposed that the minds of both father and son were under equal perturbation, and hardly consistent with themselves.

The prince arrived at Moscow on the 13th of February, N. S. 1717; and the same day went to throw himself at his father's feet, who was returned to the city from his travels. They had a long conference together, and a report was immediately spread through the city, that the prince and his father were reconciled, and that all past transactions were buried in oblivion. But the next day, orders were issued for the regiments of guards to be under arms at break of day, and for all the czar's ministers, boyards, and counsellors, to repair to the great hall of the castle; as also for the prelates, together with two monks of St. Basile, professors of divinity, to assemble in the cathedral, at the tolling of the great bell. The unhappy prince was then conducted to the great castle like a prisoner, and being come in his father's presence, threw himself in tears at his feet, and presented a writing, containing a confession of his faults, declaring himself unworthy of the succession, and imploring only that his life might be spared.[101]

The czar, raising up his son, withdrew with him into a private room, where he put many questions to him, declaring to him at the same time, that if he concealed any one circumstance relating to his elopement, his life should answer for it. The prince was then brought back to the great hall, where the council was assembled, and the czar's declaration, which had been previously prepared, was there publicly read in his presence.[102]

In this piece the czar reproaches his son with all those faults we have before related, namely, his little application to study, his connexions with the favourers of the ancient customs and manners of the country, and his ill-behaviour to his wife.--'He has even violated the conjugal faith,' saith the czar in his manifesto, 'by giving his affection to a prostitute of the most servile and low condition, during the life-time of his lawful spouse.' It is certain that Peter himself had repudiated his own wife in favour of a captive, but that captive was a person of exemplary merit, and the czar had just cause for discontent against his wife, who was at the same time his subject. The czarowitz, on the contrary, had abandoned his princess for a young woman, hardly known to any one, and who had no other merit but that of personal charms. So far there appears some errors of a young man, which a parent ought to reprimand in secret, and which he might have pardoned.

The czar, in his manifesto, next reproaches his son with his flight to Vienna, and his having put himself under the emperor's protection; and adds, that he had calumniated his father, by telling the emperor that he was persecuted by him; and that he had compelled him to renounce the succession; and, lastly, that he had made intercession with the emperor to assist him with an armed force.

Here it immediately occurs, that the emperor could not, with any propriety, have entered into a war with the czar on such an occasion; nor could he have interposed otherwise between an incensed father and a disobedient son, than by his good offices to promote a reconciliation. Accordingly we find, that Charles VI. contented himself with giving a temporary asylum to the fugitive prince, and readily sent him back on the first requisition of the czar, in consequence of being informed of the place his son had chosen for his retreat.

Peter adds, in this terrible piece, that Alexis had persuaded the emperor, that he went in danger of his life, if he returned back to Russia. Surely it was in some measure justifying these complaints of the prince, to condemn him to death at his return, and especially after so solemn a promise to pardon him; but we shall see, in the course of this history, the cause which afterwards moved the czar to denounce this ever-memorable sentence. For the present let us turn our eyes upon an absolute prince, pleading against his son before an august assembly.--

'In this manner,' says he, 'has our son returned; and although, by his withdrawing himself and raising calumnies against us, he has deserved to be punished with death, yet, out of our paternal affection, we pardon his crimes; but, considering his unworthiness, and the series of his irregular conduct, we cannot in conscience leave him the succession to the throne of Russia; foreseeing that, by his vicious courses, he would, after our decease, entirely destroy the glory of our nation, and the safety of our dominions, which we have recovered from the enemy.

'Now, as we should pity our states and our faithful subjects, if, by such a successor, we should throw them back into a much worse condition than ever they were yet; so, by the paternal authority, and, in quality of sovereign prince, in consideration of the safety of our dominions, we do deprive our said son Alexis, for his crimes and unworthiness, of the succession after us to our throne of Russia, even though there should not remain one single person of our family after us.

'And we do constitute and declare successor to the said throne after us, our second son, Peter,[103] though yet very young, having no successor that is older.

'We lay upon our said son Alexis our paternal curse, if ever at any time he pretends to, or reclaims, the said succession.

'And we desire our faithful subjects, whether ecclesiastics or seculars, of all ranks and conditions, and the whole Russian nation, in conformity to this constitution and our will, to acknowledge and consider our son Peter, appointed by us to succeed, as lawful successor, and agreeably to this our constitution, to confirm the whole by oath before the holy altar, upon the holy gospel, kissing the cross.

'And all those who shall ever at any time oppose this our will, and who, from this day forward, shall dare to consider our son Alexis as successor, or assist him for that purpose, declare them traitors to us and our country. And we have ordered that these presents shall be every where published and promulgated, to the end that no person may pretend ignorance.'

It would seem that this declaration had been prepared beforehand for the occasion, or that it had been drawn up with astonishing dispatch: for the czarowitz did not return to Moscow till the 13th of February, and his renunciation in favour of the empress Catherine's son is dated the 14th.

The prince on his part signed his renunciation, whereby he acknowledges his exclusion to be just, as having merited it by his own fault and unworthiness; 'And I do hereby swear,' adds he, 'in presence of God Almighty in the Holy Trinity, to submit in all things to my father's will,' &c.

These instruments being signed, the czar went in procession to the cathedral, where they were read a second time, when the whole body of clergy signed their approbation with their seals at the bottom, to a copy prepared for that purpose.[104] No prince was ever disinherited in so authentic a manner. There are many states in which an act of this kind would be of no validity; but in Russia, as in ancient Rome, every father has a power of depriving his son of his succession, and this power was still stronger in a sovereign than in a private subject, and especially in such a sovereign as Peter.

But, nevertheless, it was to be apprehended, that those who had encouraged the prince in his opposition to his father's will, and had advised him to withdraw himself from his court, might one day endeavour to set aside a renunciation which had been procured by force, and restore to the eldest son that crown which had been violently snatched from him to place on the head of a younger brother by a second marriage. In this case it was easy to foresee a civil war, and a total subversion of all the great and useful projects which Peter had so much laboured to establish; and therefore the present matter in question was to determine between the welfare of near eighteen millions of souls (which was nearly the number which the empire of Russia contained at that time), and the interest of a single person incapable of governing. Hence it became necessary to find out those who were disaffected, and accordingly the czar a second time threatened his son with the most fatal consequences if he concealed any thing: and the prince was obliged to undergo a judicial examination by his father, and afterwards by the commissioners appointed for that purpose.

One principal article of the charge brought against him, and that which served chiefly to his condemnation, was, a letter from one Beyer, the emperor's resident at the court of Russia, dated at Petersburg, after the flight of the prince. This letter makes mention of a mutiny in the Russian army then assembled at Mecklenburg, and that several officers talked of clapping up Catherine and her son in the prison where the late empress, whom Peter had repudiated, was then confined, and of placing the czarowitz on the throne, as soon as he could be found out and brought back. These idle projects fell to the ground of themselves, and there was not the least appearance that Alexis had ever countenanced them. The whole was only a piece of news related by a foreigner; the letter itself was not directed to the prince, and he had only a copy thereof transmitted him while at Vienna.

But a charge of a more grievous nature appeared against him, namely, the heads of a letter written with his own hand, and which he had sent, while at the court of Vienna, to the senators and prelates of Russia, in which were the following very strong assertions:--'The continual ill-treatment which I have suffered without having deserved it, have at length obliged me to consult my peace and safety by flight. I have narrowly escaped being confined in a convent, by those who have already served my mother in the same manner. I am now under the protection of a great prince, and I beseech you not to abandon me in this conjuncture.'

The expression, _in this conjuncture_, which might be construed into a seditious meaning, appeared to have been blotted out, and then inserted again by his own hand, and afterwards blotted out a second time; which shewed it to be the action of a young man disturbed in his mind, following the dictates of his resentment, and repenting of it at the very instant. There were only the copies of these letters found: they were never sent to the persons they were designed for, the court of Vienna having taken care to stop them; a convincing proof that the emperor never intended to break with the czar, or to assist the son to take up arms against his father.

Several witnesses were brought to confront the prince, and one of them, named Afanassief, deposed, that he had formerly heard him speak these words,--'I shall mention something to the bishops, who will mention it again to the lower clergy, and they to the parish priests, and the crown will be placed on my head whether I will or not.'

His own mistress, Aphrosyne, was likewise brought to give evidence against him. The charge, however, was not well supported in all its parts; there did not appear to have been any regular plan formed, any chain of intrigues, or any thing like a conspiration or combination, nor the least shadow of preparation for a change in the government. The whole affair was that of a son, of a depraved and factious disposition, who thought himself injured by his father, who fled from him, and who wished for his death; but this son was heir to the greatest monarchy in our hemisphere, and in his situation and place he could not be guilty of trivial faults.

After the accusations of his mistress, another witness was brought against him, in relation to the former czarina his mother, and the princess Mary his sister. He was charged with having consulted the former in regard to his flight, and of having mentioned it to the princess Mary. The bishop of Rostow, who was the confidant of all three, having been seized, deposed, that the two princesses, who were then shut up in a convent, had expressed their wishes for a revolution in affairs that might restore them their liberty, and had even encouraged the prince, by their advice, to withdraw himself out of the kingdom. The more natural their resentment was, the more it was to be apprehended. We shall see, at the end of this chapter, what kind of a person the bishop of Rostow was, and what had been his conduct.

The czarowitz at first denied several facts of this nature which were alleged against him, and by this very behaviour subjected himself to the punishment of death, with which his father had threatened him in case he did not make an open and sincere confession.

At last, however, he acknowledged several disrespectful expressions against his father, which were laid to his charge, but excused himself by saying, he had been hurried away by passion and drink.

The czar himself drew up several new interrogations. The fourth ran as follows:--

'When you found by Beyer's letter that there was a mutiny among the troops in Mecklenburg, you seemed pleased with it; you must certainly have had some reason for it; and I imagine you would have joined the rebels even during my life-time?'

This was interrogating the prince on the subject of his private thoughts, which, though they might be revealed to a father, who may, by his advice, correct them, yet might they also with justice be concealed from a judge, who decides only upon acknowledged facts. The private sentiments of a man's heart have nothing to do in a criminal process, and the prince was at liberty either to deny them or disguise them, in such manner as he should think best for his own safety, as being under no obligation to lay open his heart, and yet we find him returning the following answer: 'If the rebels had called upon me during your life-time, I do verily believe I should have joined them, supposing I had found them sufficiently strong.'

It is hardly conceivable that he could have made this reply of himself, and it would be full as extraordinary, at least according to the custom in our part of the world, to condemn a person for confessing that he might have thought in a certain manner in a conjuncture that never happened.

To this strange confession of his private thoughts, which had till then been concealed in the bottom of his heart, they added proofs that could hardly be admitted as such in a court of justice in any other country.

The prince, sinking under his misfortunes, and almost deprived of his senses, studied within himself, with all the ingenuity of fear, for whatever could most effectually serve for his destruction; and at length acknowledged, that in private confession to the archpriest James, he had wished his father dead; and that his confessor made answer, 'God will pardon you this wish: we all wish the same.'

The canons of our church do not admit of proofs resulting from private confession, inasmuch as they are held inviolable secrets between God and the penitent: and both the Greek and Latin churches are agreed, that this intimate and secret correspondence between a sinner and the Deity are beyond the cognizance of a temporal court of justice. But here the welfare of a kingdom and a king were concerned. The archpriest, being put to the torture, confirmed all that the prince had revealed; and this trial furnished the unprecedented instance of a confessor accused by his penitent, and that penitent by his own mistress. To this may be added another singular circumstance, namely, the archbishop of Rezan having been involved in several accusations on account of having spoken too favourably of the young czarowitz in one of his sermons, at the time that his father's resentment first broke out against him; that weak prince declared, in his answer to one of the interrogations, that he had depended on the assistance of that prelate, at the same time that he was at the head of the ecclesiastical court, which the czar had consulted in relation to this criminal process against his son, as we shall see in the course of this chapter.

There is another remark to be made in this extraordinary trial, which we find so very lamely related in the absurd History of Peter the Great, by the pretended bojar Nestersuranoy, and that is the following:

Among other answers which the czarowitz Alexis made to the first question put to him by his father, he acknowledges, that while he was at Vienna, finding that he could not be admitted to see the emperor, he applied himself to count Schonborn, the high chamberlain, who told him, the emperor would not abandon him, and that as soon as occasion should offer, by the death of his father, that he would assist him to recover the throne by force of arms. 'Upon which,' adds the prince, 'I made him the following answer: "This is what I by no means desire: if the emperor will only grant me his protection for the present, I ask no more."' This deposition is plain, natural, and carries with it strong marks of the truth; for it would have been the height of madness to have asked the emperor for an armed force to dethrone his father, and no one would have ventured to have made such an absurd proposal, either to the emperor, prince Eugene, or to the council. This deposition bears date in the month of February, and four months afterwards, namely, after the 1st of July, and towards the latter end of the proceedings against the czarowitz, that prince is made to say, in the last answers he delivered in writing:--

'Being unwilling to imitate my father in any thing, I endeavoured to secure myself the succession by any means whatever, _excepting such as were just_. I attempted to get it by a foreign assistance; and, had I succeeded, and that the emperor had fulfilled _what he had promised me_, to replace me on the throne of Russia even by force of arms, I would have left nothing undone to have got possession of it. For instance, if the emperor had demanded of me, in return for his services, a body of my own troops to fight for him against any power whatever, that might be in arms against him, or a large sum of money to defray the charges of a war, I should have readily granted every thing he asked, and should have gratified his ministers and generals with magnificent presents. I would at my own expense have maintained the auxiliary troops he might have furnished to put me in possession of the crown; and, in a word, I should have thought nothing too much to have accomplished my ends.'

This answer seems greatly strained, and appears as if the unhappy deponent was exerting his utmost efforts to appear more culpable than he really was; nay, he seems to have spoken absolutely contrary to truth in a capital point. He says the emperor had promised to procure him the crown by force of arms. This is absolutely false: Schonborn had given him hopes that, after the death of his father, the emperor might assist him to recover his birth-right; but the emperor himself never made him any promise. And lastly, the matter in question was not if he should take arms against his father, but if he should succeed him after his death?

By this last deposition he declares what he believes he should have done, had he been obliged to dispute his birth-right, which he had not formally renounced till after his journey to Vienna and Naples. Here then we have a second deposition, not of any thing he had already done, and the actual commission of which, would have subjected him to the rigorous inquiry of the law, but of what he imagines he should have done had occasion offered, and which consequently is no subject of a juridical inquiry. Thus does he twice together accuse himself of private thoughts that he might have entertained in a future time. The known world does not produce an instance of a man tried and condemned for vague and inconsequential notions that came into his head, and which he never communicated to any one; nor is there a court of justice in Europe that will hear a man accuse himself of criminal thoughts; nay, we believe that they are not punished by God himself, unless accompanied by a fixed resolution to put them in practice.

To these natural reflections it may be answered, that the czarowitz had given his father a just right to punish him, by having withheld the names of several of the accomplices of his flight. His pardon was promised him only on condition of making a full and open confession, which he did not till it was too late. Lastly, after so public an affair, it was not in human nature that Alexis should ever forgive a brother in favour of whom he had been disinherited; therefore, it was thought better to punish one guilty person, than to expose a whole nation to danger, and herein the rigour of justice and reasons of state acted in concert.