Peter the Great (123 page)

Involuntarily, but also inevitably, Alexis became the focus of serious opposition to the Tsar. All who opposed Peter looked to Alexis as the hope of the future. The clergy prayed that Alexis as tsar would restore the church to its former power and majesty. The people believed that he would lighten their burdens of labor, service and taxation. The old nobility hoped that when he sat on the throne, Alexis would restore their former privileges and dismiss the upstart newcomers like Meshikov and Shafirov. Even many of the noblemen whom Peter trusted showed their sympathy for the Tsarevich privately. The Golitsyns, the Dolgorukys, Prince Boris Kurakin and even Field Marshal Boris Sheremetev were among these. Senator Prince Jacob Dolgoruky warned Alexis, "Do not say any more, they are watching us." Prince Vasily Dolgoruky told Alexis, "You are wiser than you father. Your father is wise, but he has no knowledge of men. You will have more knowledge of men."

Despite these sentiments and a general current of discontent at Peter's rule, there was no conspiracy. The only policy of Alexi's adherents was to wait until the son succeeded the father, which, given the precarious state of Peter's health, seemed unlikely to be long. One of Alexis' closest advisors, Alexander Kikin—one of Peter's new men, who had accompanied the Tsar on the Great Embassy and been promoted to head of the Admiralty—secretly counseled the Tsarevich to think of leaving Russia, or, if he happened to be in a foreign country, to remain there. "After your recovery [in Carlsbad]," Kikin had told Alexis before he left, "write to your father that you will be obliged to take medicines again in the spring, and in the meantime you may go to Holland, and afterward to Italy, after the cure in the spring. At this rate, you may make your absence last two or three years."

As for Peter, his feelings for his son were a blend of frustration and anger. Years before, when he had ignored his infant son, it was because Alexis was Eudoxia's child and because he himself was scarcely more than an adolescent. Then, as the boy grew older and the flaws in his character became more evident, Peter tried to strengthen him by treating him roughly, with almost Spartan harshness, rather than with warmth and understanding. Repeatedly, through the governorship of Menshikov, through his own letters and talks with his son, and by employing him on various public assignments and governmental missions, Peter tried to instill in Alexis a sense of duty to the state and participation in the reforms he was forcing on Russia. By sending him to the West for schooling, by marrying him to a German princess, Peter hoped to change his son. On Alexis' return to St. Petersburg in 1713, Peter waited hopefully to observe the results of the Tsarevich's foreign travel and study. But when the Tsar asked Alexis for a demonstration of his new knowledge, his reward was that the Tsarevich tried to shoot himself in the hand.

More and more, as Peter saw it, his son rejected all the responsibilities of being heir to the throne, preferring to hang back and turn away from every challenge. Rather than taking up his natural role in Peter's work, Alexis surrounded himself with people who opposed everything Peter stood for. To certain parts of his son's personal life, Peter did not object: He did not mind Alexis' drinking, or his charades with his own little "Exotic Company" or his taking Finnish serf as a mistress—all these traits had parallels in Peter's own life. What the Tsar could not accept was his son's continual rejection of what he saw as the Tsarevich's duty. Peter was willing to be tolerant of all those who tried to carry out his orders, but he was furious when he met resistance. How else could he react when his own son, who at twenty-five should have been the leading exemplar of the Tsar's concepts of duty and service, refused any part in Peter's life work except when he was driven to it? In the winter of 1715-1716, Peter decided that he must get things in order; the passive, lazy and frightened man who had no interest in military affairs or ships and the sea, no sympathy for reforms and no wish to build on the foundations laid by his father, must change himself once and for all. What Peter was demanding was a complete re-creation of personality. Unfortunately, the time for this had passed; the son, like the father, now was set in his temperament for life.

* * *

On
the
day
of Princess Charlotte's funeral, the Tsarevich was
handed
a
letter which Peter had written sixteen days earlier, before Charlotte's death and the births of the two male infants named
Peter.
This letter reveals the hopes Peter had for Alexis, how desperately he wished the Tsarevich to pick up the mantle and
prepare
himself, and his growing dismay that Alexis was unable
or
unwillinging to do this:

A Declaration to My Son:

You cannot be ignorant of what is known to all the world, to what degree our people groaned under the oppression of the Swedes before the beginning of the present war.

By the usurpation of so many maritime places so necessary to our state, they had cut us off from all commerce with the rest of the world. . . . You know what it has cost us in the beginning of this war (in which God alone has led us, as it were, by the hand, and still guides us) to make ourselves experienced in the art of war and to put a stop to those advantages which our implacable enemies obtained over us.

We submitted to this with a resignation to the will of God, making no doubt that it was He who put us to that trial till He might lead us into the right way and we might render ourselves worthy to experience that the same enemy who at first made others tremble, now in his turn trembles before us, perhaps in a much greater degree. These are the fruits which, next to the assistance of God, we owe to our own toil and to the labor of our faithful and affectionate children, our Russian subjects.

But at the time that I am viewing the prosperity which God has heaped on our native country, if I cast an eye upon the posterity that is to succeed me, my heart is much more penetrated with grief on account of what is to happen, seeing that you, my son, reject all means of making yourself capable of governing well after me. I say your incapacity is voluntary because you cannot excuse yourself with want of natural parts and strength of body, as if God had not given you a sufficient share of either; and though your constitution is none of the strongest, yet it cannot be said that it is altogether weak.

But you even will not so much as hear warlike exercises mentioned; though it is by them that we broke through that obscurity in which we were involved, and that we made ourselves known to nations whose esteem we share at present.

I do not exhort you to make war without lawful reasons; I only desire you to apply yourself to leam the art of it. For it is impossible to govern well without knowing the rules and disciplines of it, be it for no other end than for the defense of the country.

I could place before your eyes many instances of what I am proposing to you. I will only mention to you the Greeks [the Byzantine Empire, whose capital, Constantinople, fell to the Turks in 1453], with whom we are united by the same profession of faith.

What occasioned their decay but that they neglected arms? Idleness and repose weakened them, made them submit to tyrants and brought them to that slavery to which they are now so long since reduced. You mistake if you think it is enough for a prince to have good generals to act under his orders. Everyone looks upon the head; they study his inclinations and conform themselves to them. All the world knows this. My brother [Fedor] during his reign loved magnificence in dress and great equipages of horses. The nation was not much inclined that way, but the Prince's delight soon became that of his subjects, for they are inclined to imitate him in liking a thing or disliking it.

If the people so easily break themselves of things which only concern pleasure, will they not forget in time, or will they not more easily give over the practice of arms, the exericse of which is the more painful to them the less they are kept to it?

You have no
inclination to learn
war. you do not apply yourself to it and consequently you will never leam it. And how then can you command others, and judge of the reward which those deserve who do their duty, or punish others who fail of it? You will do nothing, nor judge of anything, but by the eyes and help of others, like a young bird that holds up his bill to be fed.

You say that the weak state of your health will not permit you to undergo the fatigues of war. This is an excuse which is no better than the rest. I desire no fatigues but only inclination, which even sickness itself cannot hinder. Ask those who remember the time of my brother. He was of a constitution weaker by far than yours. He was not able to manage a horse of the least mettle, nor could he hardly mount it. Yet he loved horses, hence it came that there never was, nor is there actually now in the nation, a finer stable than his was.

By this you see that good success does not always depend on pains, but on the will.

If you think there are some [monarchs] whose affairs are successful though they do not go to war themselves, it is true. But if they do not go themselves, yet they have an inclination for it and understand it.

For instance, the late King of France [Louis XIV] did not always take the field in person, but it is known to what degree he loved war and what glorious exploits he performed in it, which made his campaigns to be called the theater and school of the world. His inclinations were not confirmed solely to military affairs, he also loved mechanics, manufactures and other establishments, which rendered his kingdom more flourishing than any other whatsoever.

After having made to you all those remonstrances,
1
return to my former subject which regards you.

I am a man and, consequently, I must die. To whom shall I leave after me to finish what I have partly recovered? To a man who like the slothful servant hides his talent in the earth—that is to say, who neglects making the best of what God has entrusted to him?

Remember your obstinacy and ill-nature, how often I reproached
you for it and for how many years I almost have not spoken to you. But all this has availed nothing, has effected nothing. It was but losing my time, it was striking the air. You do not make the least endeavors, and all your pleasure seems to consist in staying idle and lazy at home. Things of which you ought to be ashamed (forasmuch as they make you miserable) seem to make up your dearest delight, nor do you forsee the dangerous consequences of it for yourself and for the whole state. St. Paul has left us a great truth when he wrote: "If a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?"

After having considered all those great inconveniences and reflected upon them, and seeing I cannot bring you to good by any inducement, I have thought fit to give you in writing this act of my last will and this resolution, however: to wait still a little longer before I put it in execution to see if you will mend. If not, I will have you know that I will deprive you of the succession, as one may cut off a useless member.

Do not fancy that, because I have no other child but you, I only write this to terrify you. I will certainly put it in execution if it please God; for whereas I do not spare my own life for my country and the welfare of my people, why should I spare you who do not render yourself worthy of either? I would rather choose to transmit them to a worthy stranger than to my own unworthy son.

Peter

Alexis' reaction to this letter was the opposite of that his father had hoped for. Terrified by Peter's summons, he rushed to his most intimate confidants and begged for advice. Kikin advised him to renounce his rights to the throne on the ground of ill-health. "You will at last be able to rest if you cut yourself off from everything. I know that otherwise, with your weakness, you cannot hold out. But it is a pity you did not stay away when you were [in Germany]." Viazemsky, his first teacher, concurred that he should declare himself unfit to bear the heavy burden of the crown. Alexis spoke also to Prince Yury Trubetskoy, who told him, "You do well not to aspire to the succession. You are not proper for it." The Tsarevich then pleaded with Prince Vasily Dolgoruky to persuade the Tsar to let him resign the succession peacefully and live the rest of his life on an estate in the country. Dolgoruky promised to speak to Peter.

Meanwhile, three days after he received his father's declaration, Alexis wrote his reply:

Most Clement Lord and Father:

I have read the paper Your Majesty gave me on the 16th of October 1715 after the funeral of my late consort.

I have nothing to reply to it but that if Your Majesty will deprive 694
me of the succession to the
crown of Russia by reason of my incapacity, your will be done. I even most urgently beg it of you because I do not think myself fit for government. My memory is very much weakened and yet it is necessary in affairs. The strength of my mind and of my body is much decayed by sicknesses which I have undergone and which have rendered me incapable of governing so many nations. This requires a more vigorous man than I am.

Therefore I do not aspire after you (whom God preserve many years) to the succession of the Russian crown, even if I had no brother as I have one at present whom I pray God preserve. Neither will I pretend for the future of that succession, of which I take God to witness and sear it upon my soul, in testimony whereof I write and sign this present with my own hand.

1
put my children into your hands, and as for myself, I desire nothing of you but a bare maintenance during my life, leaving the whole to your consideration and to your will.