Peter the Great (146 page)

It was Peter's belief that magnificence of ornament and display had nothing to do with greatness. He always remembered the simplicity of the royal palaces in England and Holland and the restraint and modesty shown by William III, who was the ruler of two of the wealthiest nations in Europe. Nor did Peter care for bombastic flattery. When two Dutchmen toasted him overlavishly, Peter laughed. "Bravo, my friends. Thank you," he said, shaking his head. In his relations with people of all ranks, Peter's manners were free and easy. He rarely observed protocol. He hated long, ceremonial banquets; such occasions, he said, had been invented "to punish the great and rich for their sins." At official banquets, he always gave the place of honor to Romodanovsky or Menshikov and seated himself near the end of the table in order to be able to escape. When he rode through the streets, it was in a small, open, two-wheeled carriage, like a Victorian loveseat on wheels, with room only for himself and one other passenger (one foreigner declared scornfully that no respectable Moscow merchant would set foot in so petty a vehicle). In winter, he used a simple one-horse sledge with a single attendant, who sat beside him. Peter still preferred walking to riding—on foot, he could see more and could stop to take a second look. He spoke to everyone he met.

Peter's habit of walking freely among his people carried personal danger. There were reasons enough for an assassin to strike; indeed, many believed he was the Antichrist. One summer when Peter was attending a meeting in his Summer Palace on the Fontanka, a stranger quietly stole into the palace antechamber. In his hand, he carried a small colored bag similar to those in which secretaries and clerks brought papers for the Tsar to sign. The man waited quietly, attracting no attention, until Peter walked into the room, escorting his ministers to the door. At this point, the stranger stood up, drew something from his bag, wrapped the bag around it to conceal it and moved toward Peter. The Tsar's attendants did not block him, assuming that he was an orderly or servant of one of the ministers. At the last minute, however, a dentchik stepped forward and took the stranger's arm. A scuffle followed and, as Peter turned, a knife with a six-inch blade fell to the floor. Peter asked the man what he had meant to do. "To assassinate you," the stranger replied. "But why? Have I done you any harm?" Peter asked. "No, but you have done harm to my brethren and religion," said the man, declaring that he was an Old Believer.

Assassins did not frighten Peter, but there were creatures before which he trembled: cockroaches. When he traveled, he never entered a house until he had been-assured that no cockroaches were present and his own room had been carefully swept by his own servants. This followed an episode in which Peter, as a guest at dinner in a country house, asked if his host ever had cockroaches. "Not many," the host replied, "and to chase them away, I have pinned a living one to the wall." He pointed to the place where the insect was pinned, still squirming, not far from the Tsar. With a roar, Peter leaped from the table, gave his host a tremendous blow and rushed out of the house.

Peter's hasty temper and his habit of disciplining subordinates with a stick or his fists never left him. No one close to the Tsar was immune, although usually, once the blows had been delivered, calm quickly returned. A typical incident occurred one day in St. Petersburg when Peter was driving in his small gig with Lieutenant General Anthony Devier, the Commissioner of Police in St. Petersburg, in which capacity he was responsible for the condition of roads and bridges in the capital. On this day, Peter's carriage was crossing a small bridge over the Moika Canal when the Tsar noticed that several planks were missing and others loose. Stopping the carriage, Peter jumped out and ordered the dentchik accompanying him to repair the bridge at once. While the planks were being fastened in place, Peter took his cane to Devier's back. "This is a punishment for negligence," he said. "It will teach you to make the rounds and be sure that everything is safe and in good condition." Once the bridge was repaired, Peter turned to Devier and said in a pleasant tone, "Get in, brother. Sit down," and the two drove off as if nothing had happened.

Peter's blows fell equally on great and small. Once, when his yacht was becalmed for an entire day between Kronstadt and St. Petersburg, the Tsar went down to his cabin to sleep after midday dinner. Before his two hours were up, he was awakened by noises on deck. Furious, he went topside and found the deck deserted except for a small black page sitting quietly on the stair ladder. Peter grabbed the boy and caned him, saying, "Learn to be more quiet and not wake me when I sleep." But the boy had not been guilty; the noise had been made by the Tsar's doctor, an engineer and two naval officers, who had fled and hid when they heard Peter mounting the ladder. After the canning, they crept back and warned the boy against telling the truth, on pain of another beating. An hour later, Peter reappeared on deck, now cheeful from his rest. Astonished to see the boy still weeping, he asked him why. "Because you have chastised me cruelly and unjustly," the boy replied, naming those who had actually been responsible for the noise. "Well," said Peter, "since I have punished you this time undeservedly, the next folly you commit shall be pardoned." A few days later, when Peter was about to cane the boy again, the page reminded him of his statement. "True," said the Tsar. "I remember and forgive you this time, as you have been punished by anticipation."

His outbursts could be terrifying. One day, Peter was working in the Turning Room of the Summer Palace, making a large ivory chandelier in the company of his chief turner Andrei Nartov and a young apprentice whom Peter liked for his gaiety and forth-rightness. The apprentice had orders to quietly remove the Emperor's hat whenever Peter sat down without taking it off. This time, grabbing the hat in haste, the apprentice pulled a lock of hair. Roaring with anger, Peter leaped to his feet and chased the young man, threatening to kill him. The apprentice escaped by hiding, and the next day Peter, his anger forgotten, returned to the lathe. "That cursed boy had no mercy on me," he laughed, "but he hurt me more than he intended, and I am very glad that his flight was quicker than my pursuit." Several more days passed and Peter noticed that the apprentice still had not returned to work. He told Nartov to look for him and assure him that he could return without fear, but the young man still could not be found, even by the police. In fact, he had fled St. Petersburg, first to a little village on Lake Ladoga and then to Vologda on the Dvina River, where he pretended to be an orphan and was taken in by a glazier, who taught him his trade. Ten years later, on Peter's death, the young man dared to reveal his real name and return to St. Petersburg. Nartov told him of the Tsar's pardon and rehired him, and he worked at court through the reigns of Empresses Anne and Elizabeth.

With the passage of time, Peter tried to correct his temper, and although he never fully succeeded, he was aware of it as a flaw. "I am sensible that I have my faults," he said, "and that I easily lose my temper. For which reason I am not offended with those who are on familiar terms with me when they tell me of it and remonstrate with me, as does my Catherine."

Indeed, it was Catherine who could best—and sometimes only—deal with Peter's temper. She was not afraid of him, and he knew that. Once, when she persisted in mentioning a subject which irritated him, he flew into a rage and smashed a handsome Venetian mirror, shouting ominously, "Thus can I destroy the most beautiful object in my palace!" Catherine understood the threat, but looked him in the eye and replied calmly, "And have you made the palace more beautiful by doing so?" Wisely, she never opposed her husband directly, but searched for a way to make him look at matters from a new angle. On one occasion, she used his favorite dog, Lisette, to mollify his anger. Wherever he went at home, this small duncolored Italian greyhound followed, and during his afternoon nap she always lay at his feet. It happened that Peter was furious at a member of the court whom he thought guilty of corruption and who was in grave danger of the knout. Everyone at court, including Catherine, was convinced of the unhappy courtier's innocence, but all appeals to the Tsar had only made him angrier. Finally, to obtain peace around him, Peter had forbidden everyone, including the Tsaritsa, to present any petition or speak to him on the subject. Catherine did not give up. Instead, she composed a short, pathetic petition in the name of Lisette, presenting strong evidence of the innocence of the accused and begging, on the ground of Lisette's total fidelity to her master, for a pardon. Then she tied the petition to Lisette's collar. On Peter's return from the Senate, the faithful Lisette leaped joyfully about him as usual. Peter saw the petition, read it, smiled wearily and said, "Well, Lisette, as this is the first time
you
have asked, I grant your prayer."

Although he hated formality, there were some ceremonies which Peter enjoyed hugely, and others which he accepted dutifully as obligations of the ruler of the state. Above all, he loved the launching of a new ship; generally frugal, he did not mind spending large sums to celebrate this kind of event, and crowds flocked to the Admiralty to share in his largess. The occasion always demanded an enormous banquet on the decks of the new vessel, and the Tsar, his face shining, his voice excited, could be found at the center of all activity, accompanied by his family, including his daughters and even the aging Tsaritsa Praskovaya, who never missed a launching and its attendant rivers of alcohol. These parties inevitably ended with General-Admiral Apraxin bursting into tears and moaning that he was a lonely old man and with the mighty Prince Menshikov drunk and inert under the table, whereupon his servants would send for his wife, Princess Darya, and her sister, who came to revive him with smelling salts, massage and cold water, "and then would get permission from the Tsar to take him home."

Life in St. Petersburg revolved around weddings, baptisms, christenings and funerals. Peter and the members of his family were always willing to appear as witnesses at a wedding, and he was frequently a godfather, often holding over the baptismal font the children of common soldiers, artisans, and lower-ranking officials. Peter did this cheerfully, but the family could not expect a lavish present; all that was given was a kiss for the mother and a rouble slipped under the baptismal pillow in the old Russian fashion. After the ceremony, if the weather was warm, Peter would take off his caftan and sit down in the first empty seat. When he served as Marshal of Ceremonies at a wedding, he fulfilled his duties rigorously, then put down his marshal's rod, moved to the table, took a hot roast of meat in his hands and began to eat.

Winter scarcely slowed Peter's incessant activity. On days when Jefferyes was writing to London that "one can hardly put one's nose out of doors without running the risk of losing it in the cold," Peter, Catherine and members of the court drove forty miles to the village of Dudderoff, where—reported the startled ambassador— they enjoyed "the diversion of what they call the
catat,
or the driving in sledges full speed down a steep mountain." Another winter sport, ice-boating, attracted the Tsar even more. "In winter when both the river Neva and . . . [the Gulf] are frozen over, then he has his boats . . . ingeniously fixed for sailing upon the ice," wrote Perry. "Every day when there is a gale of wind, he sails and plies to windward upon the ice, with Jack-Ensign and Pennant flying in the same manner as upon the water."

During the summer months, Peter delighted in opening the Summer Garden for receptions and celebrations. The anniversary of the Battle of Poltava on June 28 was always memorable: the Preobrazhensky Guards in their bottle-green uniforms and the Semyonovsky Guards in dark blue were massed in ranks in an adjacent field, and Peter himself handed wooden breakers of wine and beer to his soldiers to toast the victory. Catherine and then-daughters, Anne and Elizabeth, dressed in elegant gowns, with jewels and pearls in their hair, stood in the center of the garden receiving guests, surrounded by the court and by LeBlond's bubbling fountains and cascades. Nearby, like two stiff little wax dolls, stood Peter's two grandchildren, Peter and Natalya, the orphaned son and daughter of the Tsarevich Alexis. Having paid their respects, the guests sat down around wooden tables placed among the groves, none of them happier than the bearded bishops and other clergy devotedly drinking their fill.

On one of these occasions, gaiety turned to alarm, especially among the foreigners and some of the ladies, when they observed six brawny Guardsmen advancing toward them carrying huge buckets of corn brandy to be consumed in serious toasting. Guards having been posted at all the gates to prevent anyone from leaving, a stampede began in the direction of the river, where several galleys had been moored. The bishops, however, made no attempt to flee, but sat at their tables, smelling of radishes and onions, their faces wreathed in smiles, drinking toast after toast. Later, the Tsaritsa and the Princesses led the company in dancing on the decks of the galleys, and fireworks lit up the sky over the river. Some continued dancing and drinking into morning, but many simply sank down where they were in the garden and drifted into sleep.

Members of the imperial family as well as those who had faithfully served the Emperor were buried with pomp. A number of Peter's older lieutenants had fallen. Romodanovsky died in 1717, and his offices passed to his son. Sheremetve followed in 1719 at sixty-seven, a few years after marrying a cultured young widow who had lived in England. Jacob Dolgoruky died in 1720 at eighty-one. To old and loyal foreigners who had spent many years—in some cases, most of their adult lives—in his service, Peter responded with special generosity. While still in service, they received estates; when they retired, they received pensions, which were continued for their widows or orphaned children. Nor would Peter permit the reduction of an official's income when he went into retirement. When one aging foreigner retired after thirty years' service, the College of Financial Control proposed a pension equal to half his salary. Peter was distressed. "What?" he asked. "Shall a man who has spent his youth in my service be exposed to poverty in his old age? No, give him the whole of his pay as long as he lives, without requiring anything from him, since he is unable to serve. But take his advice in whatever relates to his profession and profit from his experience. Who would sacrifice the most valuable years of his life if he knew that he was doomed to poverty in his old age and that he to whom his youth was devoted would neglect him when he was worn out?"