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PET soldiers to beat them. In the midst of the war with Sweden occurred an event which exercised an important influence upon Peter's character and future career—his second marriage. Some years before this he had divorced his wife who had been chosen for him in his boyhood, mainly, it is believed, because being a woman of mean intellect, a slave of superstition and bigotry, the mere creature of the priests, she had thwarted his schemes and opposed herself to all his reforms. In 1699 he met with his future empress, a Livonian peasant girl who had been taken prisoner at the siege of Marienberg, and was now a servant in the family of Prince Menschikoff. He entered into conversation with her, and was so much captivated by her intelligence, cheerful and lively disposition, and amiable temper, that he soon after married her, first privately and then publicly, and speedily found that she was in every way the wife he wanted. Soon after this event the death of the patriarch, or supreme head of the Russian church, afforded the czar an opportunity of carrying out some long-projected changes in ecclesiastical affairs. He boldly abolished the office of patriarch, and placed himself at the head of the church—a step which has contributed greatly to augment the power of his successors, though it very naturally aggravated the discontent which his reforms had excited amongst the clergy. They were for the most part sunk in gross ignorance and superstition, and lost no opportunity of vilifying and thwarting their sovereign, whom they denounced as Antichrist. They taught the people that his reforms were opposed to the will of heaven, and among other tricks contrived to make it appear that the pictures of the saints wept at the backslidings of the monarch and his subjects. The war with Sweden still continued, but Peter at length succeeded in wresting the coveted provinces from his adversary, and commenced the erection of his new capital. The spot selected for its site was a miserable morass, liable at certain seasons to be flooded by the waters of the gulf—without building materials of any kind, with a barren soil all around, and a climate of almost polar severity: but his indomitable resolution overcame these difficulties, which to most men would have appeared insuperable, and under his marvellous energies a splendid city rose on that dreary marsh, and henceforth became the seat of his colossal empire. The senate was transferred from Moscow to St. Petersburg in 1713, and the emperor's summer and winter palaces were completed in 1715. Having now been successful in gaining the objects for which war had been undertaken, Peter became anxious for peace. But the Swedish king, indignant at the spoliation of his territory, was bent upon reprisals, and marched into Russia at the head of a powerful army, determined to dictate a treaty of peace at Moscow. The czar retreated slowly before the advancing enemy, drawing them on step by step into the heart of the barren country. But Charles was induced by the representations and promises of the double traitor Mazeppa, the hetman of the Cossacks, to turn aside in order to reduce the Ukraine; and after losing many thousands of his men from cold, hunger, and disease, with the remnant of his army he laid siege in May, 1709, to the town of Pultowa, where in June his army was completely routed and destroyed by the czar. Charles escaped to Bender, and took refuge among the Turks, whom he succeeded in persuading to declare war against the czar, with the view of recovering Azoph and expelling the Russians from the Black Sea. Peter having levied an army of forty thousand men, marched to the Turkish frontiers, accompanied by the czarina, whom he had just before publicly acknowledged as his wife. Relying on the promise of assistance from the faithless hospodar of Moldavia, he crossed the Pruth, and advanced to the neighbourhood of Jassy. Here he found himself hemmed in on all sides, destitute of provisions, and with a rapid river rolling between him and his dominions. A desperate struggle ensued, which was protracted for three days, and cost him eighteen thousand men. Peter gave up all for lost and shut himself up in his tent, where his wife found him in a convulsive fit, to which he was liable. She calmed his mind and cheered his spirit, and proposed that a negotiation should be attempted with the enemy. Her advice was followed, and her pearls and every article of value which the camp could furnish were sent as presents to the grand vizier. The Turkish general proved unexpectedly placable and moderate in his demands. Hostilities were immediately suspended, and peace was concluded on condition that Azoph should be surrendered to the Turks, the czar excluded from the Black Sea, and the Russian army withdrawn beyond the Danube. The extraordinary services of Catherine on this "desperate occasion," as he termed it, were publicly acknowledged by the czar when she was subsequently crowned empress. In 1715-16 Peter made a second tour in Europe, taking Catherine with him. He visited Saardam, where eighteen years before he had worked as a shipbuilder, and pointed out to the czarina with much interest the little cabin in which he had lived. He remained nearly three months in Holland transacting some important political business, and after visiting Mecklenburg, Hamburg, Pyrmont, Schwerin, Rostock, and Copenhagen, he returned to St. Petersburg by way of Berlin. The closing years of the czar were clouded by a dark and mysterious occurrence, which has given rise to much controversy, and has left a stain upon his memory. His son Alexis by his first wife, had been unwisely left to the guardianship of his mother. He was a young man of low intellect, but of a cunning and mischievous disposition, which had been still further degraded by a vicious education; and his friends were systematically chosen from among the disaffected bayards and priests who were fiercely hostile to the new policy. When he was about twenty years of age his father sent him to travel, and on his return married him to an amiable and intelligent princess, who died in less than four years of a broken heart from his neglect and brutality. Peter, provoked beyond endurance at his son's riotous and dissipated life, repeatedly threatened to disinherit him and consign him to a monastery. At length, alarmed by some treasonable schemes which the wretched youth had concocted, he despatched messengers after him to Naples, where he had taken refuge, and they by a solemn assurance of his father's forgiveness induced him to accompany them to Russia. On his arrival at Moscow (February, 1718) he was publicly disinherited; arraigned as a criminal, and tried for conspiring against his father's life and throne, by a body of "ministers and senators, estates military and civil;" found guilty, and condemned to death. Whether Peter intended to permit the execution of this sentence cannot now be known; but on hearing it read Alexis fell into a fit, from the effects of which he never recovered, though he lingered for some time, and died in prison on the 7th of July. The extreme severity of the czar was greatly blamed at the time, and many absurd stories were current respecting this dismal tragedy. In 1721 peace was concluded with Sweden on the mediation of France, and the provinces of Livonia, Estonia, Ingria, Carelia, Wyburg, and the adjacent islands, were ceded to Russia. On this occasion Peter was requested by the senate, and after some hesitation consented, to adopt the title of "Peter the Great, Emperor of all the Russias, and Father of his country." In 1722 Peter found a pretext for a quarrel with Persia, having coveted a portion of its territories; and entered upon a campaign which terminated in his acquisition of those beautiful and fertile provinces to the south of the Caspian Sea; and in 1724 he conducted a powerful fleet against Sweden to enforce certain claims in behalf of the duke of Holstein. His active and eventful life now drew near a close; but he busied himself to the last in schemes for the improvement of his empire, in protecting his new capital against inundations, in continuing the Ladoga canal, in the erection of an academy of sciences, reforming the monasteries, and promoting the labours of the legislative body and the commerce of the country. His health had been for some time in a declining state, and he suffered severely from a stranguary; but his death was hastened by a severe cold which he caught from leaping into the water to assist a stranded boat filled with soldiers and sailors. He breathed his last on the 28th of January, 1725, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, and in accordance with his wishes was succeeded by his wife, who, however, survived him only two years. The personal appearance of Peter was imposing. He was tall and robust, active, nimble of foot, quick and impatient in his gestures, and rapid in all his movements. His face was plump and round, with curling brown hair; his features were regular; but then general expression was severe, and at times even ferocious. He was lively and sociable, however, in his manners, and very accessible. He was undoubtedly a man of powerful and original genius, and rendered services of inestimable value to his ignorant and barbarous subjects; but great vices as well as great virtues, things mighty and mean, were combined in his character. At one time he exhibited the most marked benevolence and humanity, at another a total disregard of human life. He was at once kind-hearted and cruel, and often gave way to violent passions and indulged in the grossest sensualities—the fruits, in part at least, of the barbarism of his country and his own imperfect education "He gave a polish," says Voltaire, "to his