Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/226

220 "A butcher or cattle-dealer of Nijni Novgorod, named Minin, gathered a small army under the belief that he was ordered by Heaven to free his country from the invaders. He persuaded Prince Pojarsky to lead these soldiers to Moscow, and together they started. Their force increased as they advanced, and finally they expelled the Poles and redeemed the capital. The names of Minin and Pojarsky are very prominent in Russian history. Monuments at Moscow and Nijni Novgorod commemorate the action of these patriotic men, and tell the story of their work in behalf of their country.

"The incident on which Glinka's opera, 'A Life for the Czar,' is based belongs to this period, when the Poles overran Kussia. The Czar who was saved was Michael Feodorovitch, the first of the Romanoffs, and he was elected to the throne by an assembly of nobles. The autocrat of all the Russias is descended from a man who was chosen to office by the form of government which is now much more in vogue in America than in the land of the Czar. Michael, the first of the Romanoffs, was the son of Feodor Romanoff, Archbishop of Rostov, and afterwards Patriarch of Moscow.

"There was nothing remarkable about the reign of Feodor, nor of that of his son Alexis. The latter was distinguished for being the father of Peter the Great, and for nothing else that I can find in history. Now we step from ancient to modern times. Peter the Great belongs to our day, and the Russia that we are visiting is the one that he developed. Under him the country became an Empire, where it was before nothing more than a kingdom. During his reign—"

They were interrupted by the stoppage of the tram at a station, and the announcement that they must wait there an hour or more to