[1741A.D.]
The Swedes had long looked anxiously for an excuse to make war against Russia; and now that the government of that empire was, to a certain degree,unpopular, and likely from that circumstance to undergo an alteration, a favourable opportunity appeared to present itself for executing a project so gratifying to the whole nation. The ambassador of France at the court of Stockholm encouraged the council to prosecute this war; while the French minister at St. Petersburg demonstrated its facility by representing in strong colours the weakness and instability of the new administration. The Swedes, flattered by the hopes in which they were led to indulge, already calculated with certainty upon the results of the campaign; and the diet at Stockholm were so sanguine of success that they actually drew up no less than three sets of articles containing the conditions which they intended to dictate at the conclusion of the war, when they were assured Russia would be compelled to submit to any terms they might propose. By these articles, they made provision for the resumption of all the provinces that had been ceded to Russia by the Treaty of Nystad; and prepared arrangements, in the event of these not being quite so successful as they expected, by which certain terms, less humiliating but exceedingly extravagant, were to be forced upon their adversary. It was decided, at all events, that, in any case, Russia should surrender Karelia, Ingermanland, and Livonia; that she should not be permitted to keep a single ship on the Livonia or Esthonian coasts; and that she should be compelled to grant the free exportation of corn.
These plans of aggrandisement were deliberately settled by the diet, before any preparations were made for their execution. The Swedes were zealous enough in their desire to wrest from Russia her conquered territories; but they were lamentably deficient in the means by which that desire was to be accomplished. Their fleet was not seaworthy; and the army, brave to a proverb, was insufficiently furnished with provisions, and so destitute of skilful commanders that if it had achieved a victory it must have been by some miracle of good fortune, and not by its own prowess. The generals Levenhaupt and Buddembrock were the most strenuous advocates of the war; yet, although its conduct was committed to their own hands, the sequel proved that the enterprise was as rashly conceived as it was badly conducted.
Russia was the first in the field; and General Lacy, advancing on the Swedes in August, 1741, before they had time to organise their forces, obtained a signal victory over them near Vilmanstrand. This fortress immediately surrendered to the Russians; but the Swedes collected in such superior numbers that no further progress was made by Lacy throughout the rest of the campaign.
When Sweden entered upon this ill-advised war, she acted under a conviction that serious discontents prevailed in Russia against the regency of the duchess of Brunswick. The sudden changes, succeeding each other with marvellous rapidity, that had taken place in the imperial government, justified, in some measure, the supposition that the present regency was as much exposed to revolution as the preceding administrations. The question of the succession had been treated so vaguely, and had been subjected to such fluctuating decisions, that it was believed some new theory would be set up to annul the last election, as others had been annulled before. There was no doubt that the division of parties in Russia afforded a reasonable ground for anticipating a convulsion. The supreme power had latterly become the prize for which base and ambitious men, without hereditary pretensions and destitute of personal merit, had struggled with various degrees of success. There was evidently no settled principle of inheritance; and even the dangerous principle sanctioned by the example of Peter the Great, which gave to one unlimited sovereign the right of choosing another to succeed him, was actedupon capriciously, and appealed to or overruled as it happened to suit the exigency of the occasion.
The brief reigns of Catherine, of Peter, and of Anna, remarkable as they were for the confusion to which they led in the attempts to settle the crown, for the vicissitudes which they drew down upon persons who had previously enjoyed uninterrupted prosperity, and for the factious views which they extracted and condensed into conspiracies, might be referred to as furnishing the probabilities of the future, and confirming the hopes of those who desired, above all things, to see Russia once more broken up by civil commotions. The antipathy which existed against foreigners, and the objections of the old aristocracy to those European reforms that had been from time to time forced upon the people, were well known to the courts of Stockholm and Paris. The vulnerable point in the domestic concerns of the empire was laid bare; and Sweden, who anticipated a revolution from some cause or other, without being able to predicate from what precise ground of discontent it would spring, resolved, at all events, to expose to the Russians the permanent evil of their condition, leaving it to work its effects as it might. With this view she issued a manifesto, containing the following artful reasons, which were designed to draw with her the sympathies of the Russian population.
“The sole intention on the part of Sweden,” observed the manifesto, “is to defend herself by arms against the oppressions exercised against her by the arrogant foreigners, the ministers of the Russian court; and at the same time to deliver the Russian nation from the yoke which these ministers have imposed on it, by assisting the Russians to regain their right of electing for themselves a lawful ruler.” The foreigners particularly pointed at in this manifesto were Munich and Ostermann. The allusion, towards the close, of the design of Sweden to deliver Russia from the yoke of those ministers and to assist her in her right of electing a lawful ruler, touched upon topics which were well calculated to disturb the minds of the people, and to suggest to them notions of independence which they had been hitherto prevented by coercive institutions from entertaining. But there was either a stolid apathy on the part of the Russians, an indifference to or ignorance of the nature of liberty, or a national jealousy at the interference of other countries in their affairs, which rendered this ingenious and inflammatory document perfectly harmless. It was disseminated and forgotten; but, although Sweden could not create a revolution in Russia, there were elements of discord within which rendered revolution inevitable.
The assertion of the right of the sovereign to nominate his successor was productive of inconvenience in a variety of ways: (1) as it constantly brought the new monarch into collision with the authorities, who were thus deprived of the privilege of election; (2) as it was almost certain to dissatisfy some party, and to produce continual feuds; (3) as it led to dissensions and attempts to vindicate the ancient principle, whenever the sovereign, as we have seen, happened to die intestate; and (4) as it was calculated to perpetuate in particular families the inheritance of the patronage and the power of government. But the chief danger arose from the fatal precedent of its interruption, which was seized upon with avidity as a justification, on all future changes, of those revolutions which so frequently originated within the walls of the palace. Alterations had now followed each other so quickly in the persons to whom the administration of the government was committed, and they were conceived so rapidly, and executed with such suddenness and decision, that it was no longer surprising to find the imperial authority vested in the morning in different hands from those which exercised it the night before.
These bold transactions were, of course, founded upon some plausible pretext—the unpopularity of the late ruler, the more authentic claims of the new, the support of the army, or, perhaps, the rare argument of the national will, which it would be mockery to designate public opinion. The overthrow of Biron was effected by a combination of circumstances: the hatred in which he was universally held, his cruelty and rapacity, the obscurity of his origin, and the fact that he was an alien by birth. But the last of these objections lay with almost equal force against the young emperor Ivan, and might be employed with still greater truth against his father, the duke of Brunswick, who, as husband of the regent, exercised considerable influence at court. A stronger motive than this was not required to inflame the prejudices of a powerful section of the nobility, and to yield a satisfactory apology for removing the regent and her son, who was not considered a true Russian, from power. The project was not slow in arriving at maturity; and the term of authority permitted to the guardian of Ivan was, all circumstances considered, of little more duration than that extended to Biron, who held his perilous elevation only two and twenty days.
These designs against the throne were greatly facilitated by the strange conduct of the princess Anna and her husband. Since they had attained their wishes in the government, their behaviour towards each other had undergone a most remarkable change. Harmony and confidence seemed to have ceased between them; and, no longer acting in concert, but, on the contrary, opposing each other by conflicting views, the affairs of the state unavoidably fell into perplexity and confusion. The rivalry that had been produced between Ostermann and Munich in consequence of the favour shown, in the first instance, by the duke to the latter, contributed to increase that disagreement in action which was imperceptibly dividing the government into two parties. Ostermann, finding himself displaced to make way for Munich, attached himself still more closely to the duke, for the purpose of supplanting his rival upon the first opportunity; while Munich, on the other hand, smarting under the mortification he endured by the duke’s repeated refusal of the office he solicited, sought to ingratiate himself in the good opinion of the regent. The consequence of this spirit of opposition, fed by the jealousies of those able ministers, was the daily counteraction by one party of the measures projected by the other.
The regent was a woman of serene temper and lenient disposition; she regarded severity with aversion, and always resorted to the prerogative of mercy where it was possible she could do so consistently with justice: but her desires were so completely thwarted by Ostermann that the public results of the administration bore a very different character from that by which they would have been distinguished had her own opinions been allowed their proper weight. Perhaps it was to this undercurrent of resistance that the indifference concerning the government into which she fell ought to be attributed. But, to whatever cause it might be referred, she gradually neglected the duties of her station, and suffered them to be discharged at hazard by the advisers of the duke. Totally estranging herself from her husband, she retired for weeks together from public affairs, and shut herself up with a Countess Mengden, who obtained so great an ascendency over her mind as to withdraw her attention almost wholly from the responsibility of her position. This circumstance produced considerable dissatisfaction, and heightened theantipathy with which the people regarded the German party that was now growing up at court. The aversion entertained towards foreigners now broke out with more violence than ever. It seemed as if the administration of affairs had completely passed out of the hands of the Russians. The convention that had been formed on the demise of Peter II, by which the supreme authority was vested in the council, which was composed almost exclusively of members of native families, would have had indirectly the effect of excluding strangers from the government; but the evils with which it was pregnant, and its immediate interference with the privileges of the empress, led to its abrogation. The ascendency of foreigners was then resumed with greater force than ever. Biron the insolent guardian, Ostermann the experienced politician, and Munich the able commander rose to the summit and swayed the destinies of the empire.
Nor did Ivan himself possess a much better claim to be considered as a Russian. He was but a remote descendant of the house of Romanov; his father was a German prince, his mother the daughter of a German prince; and the only member of the imperial house to whom he could refer his lineal descent was his grandfather Ivan, stepbrother to Peter I. The family, therefore, that occupied the throne, was almost exclusively of German blood, which was rendered still more repugnant to the people by the fact that all the most important offices under government were filled by foreigners. There was in these circumstances, and in the desire to arrest finally the influence of strangers—which appeared to progress with increasing certainty in each successive reign—a sufficient ground for protest; and the extraordinary indolence of the regent, her utter neglect of state affairs, her discouragement of Russian customs, and her lavish patronage of her immediate adherents, who were all obnoxious to the people, furnished the ready pretext upon which a plot was formed to expel her from the throne.
The princess Elizabeth, daughter of Peter I, residing at St. Petersburg, was the person in favour of whose claims this conspiracy was got up. By birth, she was closer to the throne than either the young emperor or the regent; and the habits of her life were much more congenial to the feelings of the country. She might have preferred her pretensions on the death of Peter II, when there was a strong probability that they would have commanded the suffrages of the council; but at that time she expressed no desire to enter upon the cares of sovereignty, choosing rather to cultivate the repose of a retired and tranquil life. Throughout the reign of the empress Anna she observed the same quiet course, kept aloof from politics, and avoiding, as much as possible, all intercourse with the great men or distinguished families at court. Her conduct was so entirely free from suspicion that she enjoyed the closest intimacy with the empress, who, believing that the princess was averse to the toils of power, bestowed her full confidence upon her; and even Biron, who distrusted almost everyone about him, never contemplated any measure to her prejudice. She enjoyed the immunities of a private person; never made any display of her rank in public; and was in truth, as she was in appearance, without a party in the country. The only exception to the privacy of her life was the attachment she showed for the soldiery, particularly the guards; which she did not hesitate to exhibit by frequently standing sponsor for their children.
Yet, although her conduct was so exempt from reproach, the Dolgoruki were accused of an intention of placing her upon the throne—an intention which they might have entertained without her knowledge or sanction; for there was sometimes as much violence committed in forcing the dignity uponunwilling shoulders as in deposing the possessor. That aspiring family fell under the displeasure of Biron, and its members were put to the torture towards the close of the year 1739; when they confessed that they had planned an insurrection, the purpose of which was to carry off the empress, the princess Anna, and her husband, to expel the Germans from Russia, to proclaim Elizabeth empress, and to bring about a marriage between her and one of the Nariskins. This confession might be true, or it might have been wrung from the accused by torture, which, in those times, was too often persuasively employed to make its victims confess more than the truth; but it was satisfactory for the ends of Biron, who, proceeding to capital punishment at once, broke one of the victims on the wheel, decapitated three others, and sentenced two more to a dungeon for life.
There is no reason to believe that Elizabeth contemplated any designs upon the throne during the reign of the empress Anna, or that the simplicity of her general conduct was assumed as a disguise for secret intrigues. The project seems to have occurred to her for the first time, when she saw an infant emperor consigned to the regency of a foreigner; it was probably strengthened afterwards, when the guardianship of the child was transferred to its parents, one of whom was a German by birth, and the other by descent; and it reached its maturity, when she heard it reported currently that the regent intended to have herself declared empress on her birthday in the following December, 1741, and to establish the succession in the line of her daughters. This intelligence, which every day obtained fresh credit at court, imparted a new aspect to the question. It was no longer to be considered a choice between lineal and indirect descendants of the house of Romanov, but between a sovereign who should be chosen by the electors and one who was resolved to usurp by force what she could not legitimately obtain.
The discontent of the people, the inconsistent bearing of the regent, and the favourable disposition for a change which began to be developed in influential quarters, seemed to sanction the act of revolution, and to invoke Elizabeth from her retirement to fulfil its ends. Personally, she stood alone; she had never drawn around her any powerful friends; she had never mixed in the court feuds; and her whole reliance was upon the temper and accidents of the time. But it was not forgotten in her calculations that the individual who is the representative of a principle acquires at once all the power which the cause he espouses can confer, and that he is sure to be sustained by a party for the promotion of their own objects, although he might be destitute of support in the attempt to advance his own.
Lestocq, the physician and favourite of the princess, was the mainspring of the plot. It was by his advice that the enterprise was undertaken, and it was almost solely by his perseverance that it was prosecuted. He first addressed himself to the guards, who were individually devoted to the princess. The earliest confidants of his schemes were Grünstein, a broken merchant, who was then a corporal in the Preobrajenski guards, and Schwartz, a trumpeter. Through the agency of these persons, to whom he promised large rewards, Lestocq succeeded in gaining over to his views a strong party of the soldiery. M. de la Chetardie, the French ambassador resident at St. Petersburg, readily engaged in the conspiracy, acting, no doubt, under the sanction of his court, whose policy it was to convulse the Russian government by any means in its power, in the hope of ultimately effecting a disunion between that cabinet and the Austrian emperor. From that minister Lestocq procured the sums of money that were necessary to carry forward his plans, which now proceeded with rapidity.
But Elizabeth, who had entered into the project with reluctance, regarded its progress with fear, and was as anxious to postpone the catastrophe as Lestocq was eager for its accomplishment. This produced delays which were nearly fatal. The soldiers, entrusted with a secret of too much magnitude for persons in their condition, could not long preserve the confidence that was reposed in them; and at last the design began to be rumoured abroad. It even reached the ears of the regent, who, possessed by some unaccountable infatuation, treated it with the utmost carelessness. She either did not believe in its truth, or lulled herself into security by depending upon the fidelity of her friends. Unmoved by the danger that threatened her, she concealed from her husband the information she had received; for which, when it was too late to retrace her steps, he afterwards severely censured her. Ostermann, who was early made aware of the proceedings of the conspirators, warned the regent of her danger, and entreated her to take some decisive measures to avert it: and the British ambassador, detecting, probably, the insidious hand of France, predicted her destruction in vain. Her facile nature still lingered inactive, until at last she received an anonymous letter, in which she was strongly admonished of the perils by which she was surrounded. A more energetic mind would have acted unhesitatingly upon these repeated proofs of the approaching insurrection; but Anna, still clinging to the side of mercy, instead of seizing upon the ringleaders, who were known to her, and quieting at once the apprehensions of her advisers, read the whole contents of the letter in open court in the presence of Elizabeth, and stated the nature of the reports that had reached her. Elizabeth, of course, protested her ignorance of the whole business, burst into a flood of tears, and asserted her innocence with such a show of sincerity that the regent was perfectly satisfied, and took no further notice of the matter.
This occurred on the 4th of December, 1741. Lestocq had previously appointed the day of the consecration of the waters, the 6th of January, 1742, for Elizabeth to make her public appearance at the head of the guards, to issue declarations setting forth her claims upon the throne, and to cause herself to be proclaimed. But the proceeding that had taken place in the court determined him to hasten his plans. Now that the vigilance of the court was awakened, he knew that his motions would be watched, and that the affair did not admit of any further delay. He applied himself, accordingly, with redoubled vigilance, to the business of collecting and organising the partisans of the princess; continued to bribe them with French gold; and, when everything was prepared, he again impressed upon his mistress the urgent necessity of decision. He pointed out to her that the guards, upon whose assistance she chiefly relied, were under orders to march for Sweden, and that in a short time all would be lost. She was still, however, timid and doubtful of the result, when the artful Lestocq drew a card from his pocket, which represented her on one side in the habit of a nun, and on the other with a crown upon her head—asking her which fate she preferred; adding that the choice depended upon herself, and upon the promptitude with which she employed the passing moment. This argument succeeded; she consented to place herself in his hands; and, remembering the success that had attended the midnight revolution that consigned Biron to banishment, he appointed the following night, the 5th of December, for the execution of his plan—undertaking the principal part himself, in the hope of the honours that were to be heaped upon him in the event of success.
When the hour arrived Elizabeth again betrayed irresolution, but Lestocq overcame her fears; and after having made a solemn vow before the crucifixthat no blood should be shed in the attempt, she put on the order of St. Catherine, and placing herself in a sledge, attended by Lestocq and her chamberlain, she drove to the barracks of the Preobrajenski guards. When she arrived at this point, she advanced towards the soldiers on foot, holding the cross in her hand; and, addressing them in a speech of some length, justified the grounds on which she advanced her claims to the throne; reminded them that she was the daughter of Peter the Great; that she had been illegally deprived of the succession; that a foreign child wielded the imperial sceptre; and that foreigners were advanced, to the exclusion of native Russians, to the highest offices in the state. A considerable number of the guards had been previously prepared for this proceeding by bribes and promises, and inflammatory liquors were distributed amongst them to heighten their zeal. With the exception of a few, who would not violate their duty and who were, in consequence, manacled by the remainder, the whole body responded to the address with enthusiasm.
They now proceeded to the palace of the emperor and his parents, pressing into their train everybody they met on the way, to prevent their object from being betrayed; and, forcing the sentries at the gates, obtained easy admittance to the sleeping apartments of the regent and the duke, whom they dragged, unceremoniously, and without affording them time to dress, out of their beds, and conveyed to the palace of Elizabeth, where they confined them under a strong guard. The infant Ivan, unconscious of the misery that awaited him, was enjoying a gentle slumber during this scene of violence; and when he awoke he was carried, in a similar manner, to the place where his unhappy parents were immured. On the same night the principal persons connected with the government were seized in the same way, and thrown into prison. Amongst them were Lewis Ernest of Brunswick, the brother of the duke, Ostermann, and Munich.
This revolution was as rapid and complete as that which deprived Biron of the regency, and was effected by a similar stealthy proceeding in the silence of the night. Early on the following morning, the inhabitants were called upon to take the oath of fealty to Elizabeth. But they were accustomed to these sudden movements in the palace; and before the day was concluded the shouts of the intoxicated soldiery announced that the people had confirmed, by the usual attestation of allegiance, the authority of the empress.[49]A manifesto was immediately issued, which contained the following statement:
The empress Anna having nominated the grandson of her sister, a child born into the world only a few weeks before the empress’ death, as successor to the throne; during the minority of whom various persons had conducted the administration of the empire in a manner highly iniquitous, whence disturbances had arisen both within the country and out of it, and probably in time still greater might arise; therefore all the faithful subjects of Elizabeth, both in spiritual and temporal stations, particularly the regiments of the life-guards, had unanimously invited her, for the prevention of all the mischievous consequences to be apprehended, to take possession of the throne of her father as nearest by right of birth; and that she had accordingly resolved to yield to this universal request of her faithful subjects, by taking possession of her inheritance derived from her parents, the emperor Peter I and the empress Catherine.
Shortly after this another manifesto appeared, in which Elizabeth grounded her legitimacy on the will of Catherine I. As the statements in this document respecting the right of inheritance are singular in themselves, and as they illustrate in a very remarkable degree the irregularity with which the question of the succession was suffered to be treated, the passage touching upon those points appears to be worthy of preservation. It will be seen, upon reference to previous facts, that these statements are highly coloured to suit the demands of the occasion. After some preliminaries, the manifesto proceeds to observe, that on the demise of Peter II, whom she (Elizabeth) ought to have succeeded, Anna was elected through the machinations of Ostermann; and afterwards, when the sovereign was attacked by a mortal distemper, the same Ostermann appointed as successor the son of Prince Antony Ulrich of Brunswick and the princess of Mecklenburg, a child only two months old, who had not the slightest claim by inheritance to the Russian throne; and, not content with this, he added, to the prejudice of Elizabeth, that after Ivan’s death the princes afterwards born of the said prince of Brunswick and the princess of Mecklenburg should succeed to the Russian throne; whereas even the parents themselves had not the slightest right to that throne. That Ivan was, therefore, by the machinations of Ostermann and Munich, confirmed emperor in October, 1740; and because the several regiments of guards, as well as the marching regiments, were under the command of Munich and the father of Ivan, and consequently the whole force of the empire was in the hands of those two persons, the subjects were compelled to take the oath of allegiance to Ivan. That Antony Ulrich and his spouse had afterwards broken this ordinance, to which they themselves had sworn; had forcibly seized upon the administration of the empire; and Anna had resolved, even in the lifetime of her son Ivan, to place herself upon the throne as empress. That, in order, then, to prevent all dangerous consequences from these proceedings, Elizabeth had ascended the throne, and of her own imperial grace had ordered the princess with her son and daughter to set out for their native country.
Such were the arguments upon which Elizabeth attempted to justify her seizure of the throne. With what sincerity she fulfilled the act of grace towards the regent and her family, expressed in the last sentence, will be seen hereafter.
The revolution which elevated Elizabeth to the throne and the circumstances which preceded that elevation were in every respect remarkable. She had no claim to the dignity, either by birth or by the regulation in regard to the succession introduced by the innovating Peter. Elizabeth was the younger daughter of Peter: Anna, who had been married to the duke of Holstein, was the elder; and though this princess was dead, she left a son, the representative of her rights, who, as we shall hereafter perceive, did ultimately reign as Peter III. The right of primogeniture, indeed, had, in the regulation to which we have alluded, been set aside, and the choice, pure and simple, of the reigning potentate substituted; but the infant Peter had the additional claim of being expressly indicated in the will of Catherine I. These claims, however, had been utterly disregarded when Anna, duchess of Courland and daughter of Ivan, brother of Peter I, had been raised by a faction to the throne. On the death of this empress without issue, Peter, as we have seen, was again overlooked, through the ambition rather of an individual than of a faction—the bloodthirsty Biron.
Ivan, the son of Anna, had been preferred to his mother, who had been married to Prince Antony Ulrich of Brunswick; and no doubt could be entertained that the object of Biron, in prevailing on the empress to nominate the child, was to retain the supreme power in his own hands as regent. We have seen by what means his ruin was effected; what circumstances accompanied the regency of the duchess Anna, mother of the youthful emperor; and how, by a similar revolution, Anna herself was replaced by the princess Elizabeth.
That Ivan had no other right to the throne than that conferred by the will of the empress Anna, was one of the pretexts which Elizabeth employed to prove the validity of her own title. That will, in the manifesto published three days after the revolution, was insinuated—probably with great truth—to have been irregularly obtained; but in either case it was of no validity, since the right of Elizabeth was asserted to be superior even to that of the former empress. But the instrument was a tissue of sophistry. Though she had been placed on the throne by about three hundred soldiers, she did not hesitate to affirm that the revolution had been effected at the demand of all her subjects. In ostentatiously displaying her clemency, in proclaiming that she had sent back the parents of Ivan to their own country, with all the honours due to their station, she was equally insincere. Both passed their lives in captivity, and were transferred from one fortress to another, according to her caprice or jealousy. Until his eighth year Ivan was permitted to remain with them; but, apprehensive lest his mind should be taught ambition, he was consigned to solitary confinement first in the fortress of Oranienburg, next in that of Schlüsselburg. In one respect his fate was worse than that of his parents: they died in the course of nature[50]; he, as we shall hereafter perceive, perished by violence.
Elizabeth Petrovna(1709-1762)
Elizabeth Petrovna
(1709-1762)
One of Elizabeth’s first cares was to punish the men who had, during the former reigns, kept her from the throne—those especially who had assisted the regent Anna in overturning the power of Biron, and had instigated her afterwards to seize the throne. All were condemned to death; but the new empress was not a woman of blood, and the sentence was commuted into perpetual banishment. Ostermann, Munich, Golovkin, Mengden, Lövenwold, driven from a power scarcely less than supreme and from riches almost inexhaustible, were forced to earn their own subsistence in the wilds of Siberia. Munich opened a school. The hand which had conquered the Turks, which had given a king to Poland, was employed in tracing mathematical figures for children.
If Elizabeth could punish, she could also reward. The surgeon, Lestocq, was made head physician of the court, president of the college of the faculty, and privy councillor, with a magnificent income. The company of grenadiers who had raised her to the throne were all declared noble; and the commonsoldiers ranked in future as lieutenants. But under a despotic government there is little security for the great, least of all for those whom capricious favour has exalted. Presuming on his services, the ambition of Lestocq urged him to demand higher preferment, and he had the mortification to be refused. Nor was this all: by his arrogance he offended the most powerful favourites of Elizabeth, especially the grand chancellor Bestuzhev, who had been the minister of Anna; and, in seven years after the revolution, he was exiled to a fortress in the government of Archangel. Exile, in short, was perpetual in this reign. The empress vowed that no culprit should suffer death; but death would often have been preferable to the punishments which were inflicted. Torture, the knout, slitting of the tongue, and other chastisements—so cruel that the sufferer frequently died in consequence—were not spared even females.
[1743A.D.]
Soon after her accession a conspiracy was discovered, the object of which was the restoration of young Ivan. The conspirators, who were encouraged by a foreign minister, were seized, severely chastised, and sent into exile. Among them was a court beauty, whose charms had long given umbrage to the czarina, and we may easily conceive that the revenge was doubly sweet which could at once destroy the rebel and the rival. But the number of these victims was small, compared with that which was consigned to unknown dungeons, and doomed to pass the rest of life in hopeless despondency. With all her humanity, Elizabeth suffered that most inquisitorial court, the secret chancery, to subsist; and the denunciations which were laid before it were received as implicitly as the clearest evidence in other tribunals.
In her foreign policy this empress seems scarcely to have had an object. Averse to business, and fond of pleasure, she allowed her ministers, especially Bestuzhev, to direct the operations of the wars in which she was engaged, and to conduct at will the diplomacy of the empire. Her first enemy was Sweden. That power demanded the restitution of Finland, and was refused; hostilities which, indeed, had commenced at the instigation of France during the last reign, were resumed, but they were prosecuted with little vigour by the Swedes. The valour of the nation appeared to have died with their hero, Charles XII. So unfortunate were their arms that, by the Treaty of Nystad, in 1721, and that of Åbo, in 1743, Livonia, Esthonia, Karelia, Ingermanland, Viborg, and Kexholm passed under the domination of Russia.
Still worse than the loss of their possessions was the influence thenceforward exercised over the court of Stockholm by that of St. Petersburg. In vain did Sweden endeavour to moderate the exactions of the empress by electing the duke of Holstein, her nephew, successor to the throne of the Goths: the Treaty of Åbo was not the less severe. It is, indeed, true that the intelligence of this election did not reach St. Petersburg until Elizabeth herself, who was resolved never to marry,[51]had already nominated Duke Peter as her own successor; but she ought to have received in a better spirit a step designed as an act of homage to herself.
Had Elizabeth known her own interests, she would never have engaged in the celebrated war which during so many years shook all Europe to its centre. But, in the first place, she affected much commiseration for the Polish king, whose Saxon dominions were invaded by the Prussians, and whom she calledher ally. In the second, she was evidently actuated by a personal antipathy to Frederick, and whoever were his enemies were sure to be her allies. It would, however, be wrong to suppose that personal feeling alone was her sole motive for interfering in a foreign war. There can be no doubt that even at this early period, and indeed long before this period, the ministers of Russia had cast a longing eye on the possessions of Poland.
[1757A.D.]
Courland and Semigallia, though nominally dependent on the Polish crown, were in reality provinces of Russia. They had been lost to Poland through the marriage of Anna, niece of Peter I, to Kettler, sovereign of the duchy. Though she had no issue; though Ferdinand, the successor of Kettler, was also childless; though the Polish diet contended, with justice, that the fief was revertible to the republic, Anna was resolved that its future destiny should be changed. Under the pretext of certain pecuniary claims, the Russian troops overran the territory; and the states were compelled to elect Biron, the parent of the empress, to the vacant dignity. After the fall of that unprincipled adventurer, the states, disgusted with Russian preponderance, had ventured to unite their suffrages in favour of Charles, son of Frederick Augustus III king of Poland; but Frederick durst not sanction the election until he had obtained the permission of the empress Elizabeth. She could, for once, well afford to be generous; and Duke Charles was suffered to take possession of the dignity. And, while on this subject, we may so far anticipate events as to add that Peter III, successor of Elizabeth, refused to admit the rights of Charles, whom he expelled from the duchy; and that Catherine II incorporated it with her dominions. That Elizabeth herself had the ambitious views of her father, in reference not only to Courland but to other provinces, is certain; and, as we have already observed, one of her motives for engaging in the great European contest was the prospect of ulterior advantages. The pretext of succouring an ally was sufficient to justify, in the eyes of Europe, the march of her armies. In this respect, her policy was macchiavellian enough. But to her the war was an imprudent one; whatever her views, the time was not yet arrived when they could be fully executed. Nor were the events always honourable to the military glory of the empire. The reason is generally and, perhaps, justly assigned to the partiality of the grand duke Peter, the heir presumptive, for the Prussian monarch—a partiality so great as to be inexplicable. The Russian generals, however anxious to win the favour of their sovereign, still more the honours of successful warfare, were yet loth to incur the dislike of Peter: hence the operations were indecisive; and success, when gained, was not pursued.
Charles Peter Ulrich, duke of Holstein Gottorp, whom Elizabeth had nominated her successor, who had embraced the Greek religion, and who, at his baptism, had received the name of Peter Fedorovitch, had arrived at St. Petersburg immediately after her accession. He was then in his fourteenth year. The education of this unfortunate prince was neglected; and the cause must be attributed alike to his own aversion to study and to the indifference of the empress. Military exercises were the only occupation for which he had any relish, and in them he was indulged. At the palace of Oranienbaum, with which his aunt had presented him, he passed the months of his absence from court—a period of freedom for which he always sighed. As his recollections were German, so also were his affections. He had little respect for those over whom he was one day to reign: instead of native, hesurrounded himself with young German officers. His addiction to such exercises became a passion, and was doubtless one of the causes that so strongly indisposed him to more serious and more important pursuits.
But it was not the only cause. In his native province he had probably learned to admire another propensity, common enough in his time—that of hard drinking; and it was not likely to be much impaired in such a country as Russia. His potations, which were frequent and long, were encouraged by his companions; and, in a few years, he became a complete bacchanalian. If we add that both he and they indulged in gratifications still more criminal—in licentious amours—we shall not hesitate to believe the charge of profligacy with which he has been assailed. Whether the empress was for some time privy to his excesses has been disputed; but probability affirms that she was, and that, by conniving at these ignoble pursuits, her policy was to keep him at a distance from the affairs of state. In this base purpose she was, from motives sufficiently obvious, zealously assisted by her ministers, especially by Bestuzhev. Profligate as was the grand duke, he was displeased with this state of restraint; and he sometimes complained of it with a bitterness that was sure to be exaggerated by the spies whom they had placed near him.
The empress paid little attention to the reports concerning him. Her purpose was to disqualify him for governing, to render him too contemptible to be dreaded; nor was she much offended with his murmurs. That purpose was gained; for Peter had the reputation of being at once ignorant, vicious, and contemptible. In a country so fertile in revolutions, where unprincipled adventurers were ever ready to encourage the discontent of anyone likely to disturb the existing order of things, this reputation was one of the surest safeguards of Elizabeth’s throne. She no longer feared that he would be made the tool of the designing, and she secretly exulted in the success of a policy which Macchiavelli himself would have admired. Nor did she prove herself unworthy of that great master in the refined hypocrisy which made her represent her nephew as a prince of hopeful talents. But even she blushed at some of his irregularities; and, in the view of justifying him, had furnished him with a wife. Her choice was unfortunate; it was Sophia Augusta, daughter of the prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, who, on her conversion to the Greek faith—a necessary preliminary to her marriage—had received the baptismal name of Catherine.
This union was entitled to the more attention as in its consequences it powerfully affected not only the whole of Russia but the whole of Europe. Shortly before its completion Peter was seized with the smallpox, which left hideous traces on his countenance. The sight of him is said so far to have so affected Catherine that she fainted away. But, though she was only in her sixteenth year, ambition had already over her more influence than the tender passion, and she smothered her repugnance. Unfortunately, the personal qualities of the husband were not of a kind to remove the ill impression; if he bore her any affection, which appears doubtful, his manners were rude, even vulgar; and she blushed for him whenever they met in general society. What was still worse, she soon learned to despise his understanding; and it required little penetration to foresee that, whatever might be his title after Elizabeth’s death, the power must rest with Catherine. Hence the courtiers in general were more assiduous in their attentions to her than to him—a circumstancewhich did not much dispose him for the better. Finding no charms in his new domestic circle, he naturally turned to his boon companions; his orgies became frequent, and Catherine was completely neglected. Hence her indifference was exchanged into absolute dislike.
The contrast between their characters exhibited itself in their conduct. While he was thus earning contempt for himself, she was assiduously strengthening her party. She had the advantage—we should rather say the curse—of being directed by a wily mother, who had accompanied her into Russia, and whose political intrigues were so notorious that at length she was ordered by the empress to return into Germany. The grand duchess, however, had been too well tutored to suffer much by her mother’s departure; and she prosecuted her purpose with an ardour that would have done honour to a better cause.
So long as the German princess remained at court, the conduct of Catherine was outwardly decorous; but now less restraint was observable in her behaviour. She was little deterred by the fear of worldly censure, in a court where the empress herself was anything but a model of chastity; and her marital fidelity soon came to be more than doubtful.
[1762A.D.]
That, in concert with several Russian nobles, of whom Bestuzhev was the chief, Catherine meditated the exclusion of her husband from the throne and the elevation of herself as regent during the minority of her son Paul, is a fact that can no longer be disputed. Hence the criminal condescension of the chancellor to the views of Catherine; hence his efforts to prevail on the empress to nominate the infant Paul as her successor. The indiscretion of the grand duke, who was no favourite with anybody; his frequent complaints of the tutelage in which he was held; his bursts of indignation at his exclusion from the councils of the empire—were carefully related to his aunt, with such exaggeration as were most likely to destroy the last traces of the lingering regard she bore him. All, indeed, who had been the friends of Catherine, all who had shared in the confidence of the minister, might well contemplate with alarm the succession of one that had vowed revenge against the partisans of both. Besides, the contempt which Peter felt, and which he seldom hesitated to express, for the Russian people, rendered his succession far from agreeable to them.
Thus, when, in 1757, Apraxin, field marshal of the Russian forces, invaded Prussia, took Memel, and, near Jägerndorf, obtained a brilliant victory over the troops of Frederick, yet, as if defeated, instantly fell back upon Courland, the cause was something more than the fear of offending Peter. This retrograde movement surprising, as well it might, both the empress and her people, Apraxin was placed under arrest, and the command of the army bestowed on another general. He was tried for the crime, but absolved—a result still more surprising to men who regarded merely the surface of things. The reason was that the grand-chancellor, Bestuzhev, had secretly ordered the marshal to retreat, and was, of course, his protector in the trial. It was not to please the heir-presumptive of the crown, whose blind adoration of the Prussian king was so well known, that Bestuzhev despatched the secret order for Apraxin to retreat: it was that the chiefs of the army, of whom many were his creatures, might be ready to join in effecting the revolution which was meditated. But theambitious minister, presuming on the distaste which his imperial mistress generally showed for affairs, and still more on her bodily indisposition, which at this time placed her life in danger, proceeded too rapidly. His intrigues were discovered; his letter to the marshal was produced; he was deprived of all his power; and Peter had the joy of seeing him exiled.
The general who succeeded Apraxin obtained advantages over the Russian monarch, which had never been contemplated by his predecessor. But though he took Königsberg, placed most of Prussia under contribution, and defeated the Prussian army in a decisive engagement, he, too, was unwilling to irritate beyond forgiveness the heir of the empire, especially as the reports which daily reached him of Elizabeth’s health convinced him that the succession was not far distant. Under the pretext of illness, he demanded leave to retire. His successor, Soltikov (not, we may be sure, the favourite of that name), was still more successful. Frederick was defeated in one of the best contested battles of this famous war; Berlin was taken, and Kolberg reduced after a vigorous siege. The news of this last success reached the empress, but she was no longer capable of deriving satisfaction from it. Much to her honour, she withstood all the solicitations of the intriguers who wished to exclude her nephew and to place Paul on the throne, under the regency of his mother. She died on the 5th day of January, 1762.b
The empress Elizabeth had a passion for building; Peter the Great’s summer palace and even the empress Anna’s winter palace appeared to her small and confined. Upon the site of the latter she began to build the present edifices; during her reign was also built the vast, elegant, and beautiful palace at Tsarskoi Selo; the palace of Oranienbaum was reconstructed, and the fine churches of the Smolni convent, of Vladimirskaia and of Nicholas Morskoi (in St. Petersburg) were also erected. Some handsome private houses were built by Elizabeth’s noblemen, and in general St. Petersburg, which had not long before been a desert place, consisting chiefly of wooden houses, became greatly embellished; the palace quay, as may be seen from drawings and engravings of the time, already showed a continuous row of huge stone edifices.
Of course all these buildings cost enormous sums which led private persons into debt and the government into superfluous expenditure, but it is impossible not to observe that there was to be seen in this luxury an artistic quality which had never before existed. The finest edifices of that period form a special style, which after temporary neglect is now beginning to be imitated; the creator of this style in Russia was Count Rastrelli—a foreigner, of whom, however, Russia has the right to speak. The palaces and churches built by Rastrelli merit description, and although painting at that time did not represent a very high standard, yet the ceilings painted in accordance with the fashion of the day, with bouquets of flowers and mythological goddesses, even now attract the attention of artists. The grandees gave high prices for pictures by foreign masters; their houses became distinguished not only for their handsome façades but also for the comfort of their interior arrangements; it would hardly be possible, for instance, to imagine anything more nobly elegant than the house of the chancellor Vorontzov (now thecorps des Pages).
All these beautiful architectural productions, and likewise those of music and painting, were for the greater part the work of foreign artists—visitors to Russia; but under their influence Russian artists were formed and taste developed. The church of Nicholas Morskoi was built by a pupil of Rastrelli.The almost daily theatrical representations produced at court gave rise to the idea of organising similar representations at thecorps des Cadets. The empress took a lively interest in them; she often assisted at them and lent her diamonds for the women’s costumes. In their turn these representations could not but assist the development of a taste for the stage, for dramatic art and literature in general and from amongst the number of cadet actors not a few became well known writers, as for instance Beketov, Kheraskov, and Sumarokov.
We must dwell for a few moments on Sumarokov—a man who in his time enjoyed an extensive literary reputation and secured for himself the appellation of Father of the Russian Stage. The love of literature, and especially of the stage, was already developed in Sumarokov when he was in the corps des Cadets; when he was afterwards made aide-de-camp to Razumovski, he could almost daily assist at operas and ballets. At that period he read with avidity the dramatic authors then in fashion: Corneille, Racine, Voltaire, and Molière became his idols; he decided to try to imitate them in his own native language then very undeveloped, and in 1747 he wrote a tragedy, theChorists.
It was not the merits of this work, which were very insignificant, but the unwontedness of the appearance of an original Russian tragedy, and besides that the fact of its being in verse, that so astounded and enraptured his contemporaries that they proclaimed Sumarokov the “Russian Racine”; encouraged by such a success he wrote a second and yet, a third tragedy; he took up comedy (for which he had hardly any more vocation) and in fact wrote a whole repertory; there were, however, no actors; because neither in St. Petersburg nor in Moscow did there any longer exist such company and such theatres as were begun in the time of Peter.
Meanwhile, far away from both capitals, in Iaroslav there was formed, almost of itself without any commands or even any encouragement being given, a Russian dramatic company which is indissolubly bound up with the name of Volkov. Theodore Volkov was the son of a merchant and had been educated in the Iaroslav seminary, where, following the example of the Academy of Kiev, and others, representations of a spiritual or religious character were given. They produced a great impression upon the young merchant; when later on he managed to get to St. Petersburg and saw on the stage of the corps des Cadets a dramatic representation given with scenery, lighting, and mechanical contrivances, Volkov was stupefied with rapture and astonishment. Being to the highest degree sensitive to every artistic impression, being a painter, a musician, and a sculptor—all self-taught—Volkov was also endued with that constancy and patience without which even gifted natures do not attain to any results. Volkov studied the material side of scenic art to the smallest details—that is, the arrangement of the machinery, of the scenes, etc.; when he returned to Iaroslav he asked his parents, with whom he lived, to let him have an empty tanner’s shed; there he arranged a pit and a stage, and making up a company of young merchants like himself, sons of citizens and clerks, gave representations which aroused the enthusiasm of all the spectators. The intelligent and practical Volkov, seeing how the population of Iaroslav flocked to his representations, named a price for them—a five kopeck piece for the first rows—and thus little by little he amassed a sum with which in 1752 he was able to build a general public theatre with room for one thousand spectators.
The taste for the stage had meanwhile greatly spread in St. Petersburg; in various private houses dramatic representations were given at evening parties;it was therefore not surprising that the Iaroslav theatre soon began to be talked of. The empress invited Volkov to come to St. Petersburg with his company, as she wished to see his representations given on the stage of the court theatre. She was remarkably pleased with them, and four years later issued an ukase for the establishment of a public theatre. The first director of this theatre and almost the only dramatic writer was Sumarokov; according to the testimony of contemporaries Volkov was one of its most talented actors and his friend and fellow worker Dmitrievski a great artist.
We must here speak of another still more remarkable Russian native genius—Lomonosov. It is well known how, when he was a youth of sixteen, devoured by a thirst for knowledge, he secretly left the paternal roof and made his way on foot from Kholmogori to Moscow. How unattractive must life and learning have appeared to him in those early days! “Having only one altyn (a three-kopeck piece) a day for salary, it was impossible for him to spend more on food than a halfpenny a day for bread and a halfpenny worth ofkvass(a kind of beer or mead); the rest had to go for paper, books, and other necessities.” Thus he described his life in the Zaikonospaskvi Ecclesiastical Academy to Ivan Shuvalov and concluded with the following words: “I lived thus for five years and did not abandon science!” Theodore Prokopovitch, when he was already an old man, visited the Moscow academy a few years before his death; he noticed Lomonosov there and praised him for his laboriousness and learning. In 1737 Lomonosov was sent abroad to perfect himself and placed himself under the surveillance of the then famous scholar, Wolff, who, while despising him for his disorderly life, spoke with respect of his capacities and success in study. Lomonosov followed the lectures of the German professors and amused himself with the German students. The news of Minikh’s great victories and the taking of Khotin reached him; his patriotic feelings were aroused, and he wrote an ode. When the verses were received in St. Petersburg everyone was struck with their harmony; and when Lomonosov returned from Germany in the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign his reputation as a poet had already preceded him—the more he wrote the greater his fame became. Poetry, however, was not Lomonosov’s strongest point, and verses do not occupy a quarter of his entire works. His mind worked even more than his imagination, and his scholarly writings are striking in their variety. He composed a grammar of the Russian language from which several generations have learned; he laid down rules of versification, the foundation of which are even now recognised by everyone; he wrote on chemistry, physics, astronomy, metallurgy, geology; he composed a Russian history, wrote a hypothesis concerning the great learned expeditions and memoranda bearing on questions of the state (as for instance measures for increasing and maintaining the population in Russia): in fact, Lomonosov’s extraordinary intellect seemed to touch upon every branch of mental activity. He was made a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, but there the German element reigned supreme and Lomonosov was one of those who, while venerating the work of Peter the Great and the European learning introduced by him, yet was oppressed by foreign tutorage and took offence when the Germans put forward their own countrymen to the detriment of meritorious Russians. Continual disputes and quarrels arose between Lomonosov and his fellow members; nor, being of a very impetuous and obstinate nature, was Lomonosov always in the right. His rough and sharp measures frequently led him into quarrels even outside the academy, for instance with his literary brethren, Frediakovski and Sumarokov. All this might greatly have injured Lomonosov, but fortunatelyfor him he possessed powerful protectors in the persons of Count Worontzov and Count Razumovski, who liked to show favour to the first Russian scholar and poet.
But the strongest, truest, and most constant of his protectors was Ivan Shuvalov. Shuvalov had many defects—his character was weak, lazy, and careless; but he nevertheless represented one of the most consolatory types of his epoch: strong, energetic types were not uncommon in the first half of the eighteenth century, but gentle, benevolent, indulgent natures were rarely to be met with. Shuvalov was not captivated by clamorous deeds, like the men of Peter’s time, but by the peaceful progress of science and art. Therefore if the weakness of his character made him an instrument for the ambitious designs of his cousin, his heartfelt sympathies drew him towards Lomonosov, of whom he naturally learned much and—what is of more importance—with whom he devised means for the spread of education in Russia. The result of these deliberations was a vast plan for the establishment of schools throughout the governments, and finally of a university in Moscow. The establishment of a university seemed of the first necessity, as it was to furnish Russia with teachers; this had been Peter’s intention with regard to the academy: but it had not been fulfilled. In his report to the senate upon this subject, Shuvalov wrote that it would be desirable to appoint a “sufficient number of worthy men of the Russian nationality, acquainted with the sciences, to spread education in distant parts among the common people, so that thus superstition, dissent, and other like heresies proceeding from ignorance might be destroyed.” The senate approved Shuvalov’s proposition and in 1755 the University of Moscow was founded.
We have given as just and complete a picture of the period of the empress Elizabeth as is possible in view of the scarcity of information obtainable concerning many circumstances of that time. Elizabeth left behind her if not a great memory yet, broadly speaking, a good one. Her administration may be reproached with much: in its foreign policy it was not sufficiently independent; it was not sufficiently watchful in interior affairs, where oversights occasioned special evils; moreover examples of unlawful enrichment attained huge dimensions. But her reign may be said to have led Russia out of bondage to the Germans, while the level of education was not in the smallest degree lowered, but on the contrary considerably raised. Much that brought forth such brilliant fruits under Catherine II was sown under Elizabeth.d
It is the peculiar glory of Elizabeth Petrovna that she consulted once for all the life work of her illustrious father. During the first fifteen years after the death of the great political regenerator, his stupendous creation, Russia, (before him we only hear of Muscovy,) was frequently in danger. The reactionary boyars who misruled the infant empire under Peter II would have sacrificed both the new capital and the new fleet, the twin pivots upon which the glory and the prosperity of the new state may be said to have turned; the German domination under the empress Anna, directly contrary as it was to the golden rule of Peter, “Russia for the Russians,” threatened the nation with a western yoke far more galling than the eastern or Tatar yoke of ruder times. From this reaction, from this yoke the daughter of Peter the Great set the nation free, and beneath her beneficent sceptre Russia may be said to have possessed itself again. All the highest offices of state were once more entrusted to natives and to natives only, and whenever a foreigner was proposed for thenext highest, Elizabeth, before confirming the appointment, invariably inquired: “Is there then no capable Russian who would do as well?” Moreover she inherited from her father the sovereign gift of choosing and using able councillors, and not only did she summon to power a new generation of native statesmen and administrators, but she constrained them to work harmoniously together despite their mutual jealousies and conflicting ambitions. She herself had advantageously passed through the bitter but salutary school of adversity. With all manner of dangers haunting her path from her youth upwards, she had learnt the necessity of circumspection, deliberation, self-control; she had acquired the precious faculty of living in the midst of people intent on jostling each other, without in any way jostling them; and these great qualities she brought with her to the throne without losing anything of that infinite good-nature, that radiant affability, that patriarchal simplicity which so endeared her to her subjects and made her, deservedly, the most popular of all the Russian monarchs. As regards her foreign policy, it may be safely affirmed she laid down the deep and durable foundations upon which Catherine II was to build magnificently indeed, but too often, alas! so flimsily. The diplomacy of Elizabeth, on the whole, was not so confident or so daring as the diplomacy of her brilliant successor; but, on the other hand, it was more correct, equally dignified and left far less to chance. It must also be borne in mind that the energy and firmness of Elizabeth considerably facilitated the task of Catherine by rendering Prussia, Russia’s most dangerous neighbour, practically harmless to her for the remainder of the century. This of itself was a political legacy of inestimable value, and it was not the only one. All the great captains, all the great diplomatists of the “ever victorious Catherine,” men like Rumiantsev, Suvarov, Riepnin, Besborodko, the Panins and the Galitzins, were brought up in the school of Elizabeth. Excellent was the use which the adroit and audacious Catherine made of these instruments of government, these pioneers of empire, but it should never be forgotten that she received them all from the hands of the daughter of Peter the Great.g
As Elizabeth, on her death-bed, had confirmed the rights of Peter III; and as the conspirators, deprived of Bestuzhev their guide, were unable to act with energy, the new emperor encountered no opposition. On the contrary, he was immediately recognised by the military; and the archbishop of Novgorod, in the sermon preached on the occasion, thanked heaven that a prince so likely to imitate his illustrious grandfather was vouchsafed to Russia. Catherine was present. She wore a peculiar dress to conceal her pregnancy, and her countenance exhibited some indication of the anxious feeling which she was obliged to repress. Compelled to defer the execution of her ambitious purposes, and uncertain what vengeance the czar might exert for her numerous infidelities, she might well be apprehensive.
But she had no real foundation for the fear. Of all the sovereigns of that or any age, Peter was among the most clement. Whether he thought that clemency might bind to his interests one whose talents he had learned to respect, or that her adherents were too numerous and powerful to allow of her being punished—whether, in short, he had some return of affection for her, or his own conscience told him that she had nearly as much to forgive as he could have, we will not decide. One thing only is certain—that, in about three months after his accession, he invested her with the domains held by thelate empress. Certainly his was a mind incapable of long continued resentment. His heart was better than his head. Resolved to signalise his elevation by making others happy, he recalled all whom his predecessor had exiled, except Bestuzhev. Many he restored to their former honours and possessions. Thus the aged Munich was made governor-general of Siberia, restored to his military command; while Biron, who certainly deserved no favour, was reinvested with the duchy of Courland. He did more: he restored the prisoners made by the generals of Elizabeth, and gave them money to defray their passage home. And, as Frederick had always been the object of his idolatry, the world expected the armistice which he published, and which was preparatory to a peace between the two countries.
That declaration was an extraordinary document. In it the emperor declares that, his first duty being the welfare of his people, that welfare could not be consulted so long as hostilities were continued; that the war, which had raged six years, had produced no advantage to either party, but done incredible harm to both; that he would no longer sanction the wanton destruction of his species; that, in conformity with the divine injunction relative to the preservation of the people committed to his charge, he would put an end to the unnatural, impious strife; and that he was resolved to restore the conquests made by his troops. In this case he had been praised, and with great justice, for his moderation. We fear, however, he does not merit so high a degree of praise of humanity as many writers have asserted. At this moment, while proclaiming so loudly his repugnance to war, he was sending troops into his native principality of Holstein, with the intention of wresting from the king of Denmark the duchy of Schleswig, which he considered the rightful inheritance of his family. He even declared that he would never rest until he had sent that prince to Malabar.