Peter the Great (124 page)

Your most humble servant and son, Alexis.

After Peter had received Alexis' letter, he saw Prince Vasily Dolgoruky, who relayed to Peter his own conversation with Alexis. Peter seemed agreeable, and Dolgoruky told Alexis, "I have spoken to your father about you. I believe he will deprive you of the succession, and he seems content with your letter. I have saved you from the block by speaking to your father." If Alexis was reassured by the sum of this message, he cannot have been cheerful to hear that there had been talk of the scaffold.

In fact, Peter was far from content. His warning to the Tsarevich had provoked the wrong reaction, and Alexis' letter of submission and renunication seemed far too prompt and sweeping. How could a serious man lay aside a throne so easily? Was the renunication sincere? And even if it were, how could the heir to a great throne simply retire and live in the country? As a farmer or a country squire, would he not remain—perhaps even involuntarily—a rallying point for opposition to his father?

For a month, Peter pondered these questions and did nothing. Then, fate intervened and almost settled the matter. Attending a drinking party at Admiral Apraxin's, the Tsar suffered a violent convulsion and became dangerously ill. For two days and nights, his chief ministers and the members of the Senate remained in a room just outside his bedchamber, and on December
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his condition became so critical that the Last Rites were administered. Then Peter rallied and began very slowly to improve. For three weeks, he remained in bed or in his house and finally was able to go to church on Christmas Day, where people saw that he was very thin and pale. During the illness, Alexis remained silent and

visited his father only once. Perhaps this was because Kikin had warned Alexis to beware a trick: Peter, he suggested, might be only pretending to be sick, or at least exaggerating his illness by receiving the Last Rites, in order to see how everyone around him—and especially Alexis—would react to his imminent death.

As he recovered, Peter was pondering his next step. Alexis had sworn before God and "seared it on his soul" that he would never seek the succession, but Peter feared the influence on him of "great beards"—that is, the priests—once he himself was gone. Further, Peter still earnestly desired the active help of a son playing a full role as heir to the throne. Thus he decided: Alexis must join him or renounce the world completely by entering a monastery. On January 19, 1716, the Tsarevich received a second letter from his father with a demand for an immediate reply:

My Son:

My last sickness had hindered me until now from explaining myself to you about the resolution I have taken upon your letter which you wrote to me in answer to my first. At present I answer that
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observe you talk of nothing in it but of the succession, just as if I needed your consent to do in that affair what in fact depends solely on my will. But whence comes it that in your letter you say nothing of that incapacity wherein you voluntarily put yourself and of that aversion you have for state affairs, which I touched on in mine, and instead stress only the ill state of your health? I also remonstrated with you about the dissatification your .conduct has given me for so many years, and you pass all that over in silence, though I strongly insisted upon it. Thence I judge that those paternal exhortations have no weight with you. I have therefore taken a resolution to write to you once more by this letter, which shall be the last. If you reject the advice I give you in my lifetime, how will you value it after my death?

Can one rely on your oaths when one sees you have a hardened heart? King David said, "All men are liars." But supposing you have at present the intention of being true to your promises, those great beards may turn you as they please and make you break them.

Because at present their debauches and sloth keep them out of posts of honor, they are in hopes that one day or other their condition will mend by you who already show much inclination for them.

I do not see that you are sensible of the obligations you have to your father, to whom you owe your very being. Do you assist him in his cares and pains since you have attained the years of maturity? Certainly in nothing; all the world knows it. Quite contrary, you blame and abhor all the good I do at the hazard and expense of my own health for the sake of my people and for their welfare. And I have all the reasons in the world to believe that you will be the destroyer of it, if you outlive me. And so I cannot resolve to let you
live on according to your own free will, like an amphibious creature, neither fish nor flesh. Change therefore your conduct and either strive to render yourself worthy of the succession or turn monk. I cannot be easy on your account, especially now that my health begins to decay. On sight therefore of this letter, answer me upon it, either in writing or by word of mouth. If you fail to do it, 1 will treat you as a criminal.

Peter

This ultimatum fell on the Tsarevich like a thunderbolt: Transform himself into the son Peter demanded or become a monk! Alexis could not do the former; he had tried for twenty-five years and failed. But to become a monk? It meant giving up everything of the world, including Afrosina. At this point, Kikin stepped in with some cynical advice. "Remember that they do not nail the cowl to a man's head. One can always slip it off again and throw it away." Alexis eagerly accepted this solution. "Most Clement Lord and Father," he wrote to Peter, "I received this morning your letter of the 19th. My indisposition hinders me from writing to you more at length. I will embrace the monastical state and desire your gracious consent to it. Your servant and unworthy son, Alexis."

Once again, Peter was taken aback by the suddenness and totality of Alexis' submission. Besides, the Tsar was on the point of leaving Russia on the long journey to the West and the time before his departure was too short to resolve an issue of this importance and complexity. Two days before he left, Peter visited Alexis at the Tsarevich's house, where he found his son shivering in bed. Again, Peter asked Alexis what he had chosen to do. Alexis swore before God that he wished to become a monk. But at this, Peter stepped back, deciding that perhaps his ultimatum had been too harsh and that he should give his son more time to think. "Becoming a monk is not easy for a young man," he said gently. "Think about it a little more. Do not hurry. Then write to me what you have decided. It would be better to follow the straight road than to become a monk. Anyway, I will wait another six months." As soon as Peter left the house, an overjoyed Alexis threw off his bedclothes, got up and went to a party.

When Peter departed St. Petersburg for Danzig and the West, Alexis was enormously relieved—his father was gone and the great shadow over his life had receded. He remained heir to the throne and for six months need not think of any other choice. Six months seemed an eternity. In that time, with a man as mercurial or as subject to illness as his father, everything might change. Meanwhile, the Tsarevich could enjoy himself.

Six months can flash by when one is postponing an unpleasant choice. So it was with Alexis during the spring and summer of 1716. As autumn approached, Peter's six-month deadline had passed and the Tsarevich still procrastinated. He had written to his father, but his letters mentioned only his health and daily routine. Then, early in October came the letter from Peter which Alexis dreaded. It was written on August 26 from Copenhagen, where preparations for the allied invasion of Scania were reaching a climax. The letter was the final ultimatum from father to son; the Tsarevich was to return his answer by the same courier.

My Son:

I have received your letter of the 29th of June and the other of the 30th of July. Seeing that you talk of nothing in it but only of the state of your health, I write to you now to tell you that I demanded your resolution concerning the succession when I bade you farewell. You answered me then as usually, that you did not judge yourself capable of it by reason of your infirmity and that you had rather retire into a convent. I tell you to think once more seriously upon it, and afterward to write to me what resolution you have taken. I have expected it this seven months past, and you send me no word at all about it; therefore upon the receipt of my letter, choose one or the other. In case you determine for the first, which is to apply yourself in order to be capable of the succession, do not delay above a week to repair hither, where you may arrive in time enough to be present at the operations of the campaign. But if you resolve on the other side, let me know where, what time and even the day you will execute your resolution, that my mind may be at rest and that I may know
what I am to expect from you. Send your final answer back to me by the same courier who is to deliver you this letter.

In the first case, mark to me the day when you intend to set out from Petersburg, and in the second when you will put it in execution. I repeat it to you that I absolutely will have you resolve on something, for otherwise I must judge that you only seek to gain time to pass it in your usual idleness.

Peter

Holding this letter in his hand, Alexis at last made up his mind. His decision was to take neither of the two courses Peter offered, but to flee, to find some place where the towering figure of his father could not reach him. Only two months earlier, as Kikin departed to escort Alexis' aunt the Tsarevna Maria to Carlsbad, he had whispered to the Tsarevich, "I am going to look for some place for you to hide." Kikin had not returned, and Alexis did not know where to go, but in his mind there burned only a single, overwhelming idea: to escape the iron hand which now reached out for him.

Alexis acted swiftly and with subterfuge. He went immediately to Menshikov in St. Petersburg, declared that he was leaving for Copenhagen to join his father and needed 1,000 ducats to pay for his trip. He visited the Senate, asked his friends there to remain faithful to his interests and received a further 2,000 roubles for his expenses. In Riga, he borrowed 5,000 gold roubles and 2,000 roubles in other coins. When Menshikov asked him what he was going to do about Afrosina while he was gone, Alexis replied that he would take her with him as far as Riga and then send her back to Petersburg. "You will do better to take her with you all the way," suggested Menshikov.

Before leaving St. Petersburg, Alexis confided his real intentions only to his manservant Afanasiev. But along the road, a few miles outside Libau, he met the carriage of his aunt Tsarevna Maria Alexeevna returning from her cure at Carlsbad. Although sympathetic to Alexis and the old ways, she was too frightened of Peter to offer any spoken opposition. Alexis sat in her carriage, telling her first that he was obeying his father's command and was on his way to join the Tsar. "Good," replied the Tsarevna, "it is necessary to obey him. That is pleasing to God." But then Alexis broke into tears and weepingly told his aunt that he wished to find some place to hide from Peter. "Where could you go?" asked the horrified Tsarevna. "Your father would find you no matter where." Her advice was to endure, hoping that in the end God would solve his problems. Meanwhile, she said, "Kikin was in Libau and perhaps he could give better advice.

In Libau, Kikin advised that Vienna might be safe, as the Emperor was Alexis' brother-in-law. Alexis seized the suggestion and he continued in his own coach as far as Danzig. There, dressed as a Russian officer and taking the name Kokhansky, accompanied by Afrosina disguised as a boy page, and with three Russian servants, he set off by way of Breslau and Prague for Vienna. Before he left, Kikin had given him urgent parting advice: "Remember, if your father sends somebody to persuade you to return, do not do it. He will have your publicly beheaded."

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FLIGHT OF THE TSAREVICH

On
the evening of November 10, 1716, Count Schonborn, Vice Chancellor of the Imperial court in Vienna, was already in bed when a servant entered his chamber to announce that the heir to the Russian throne, the son of Tsar Peter of Russia, was in an anteroom demanding to see him. The astonished Schonborn immediately began to dress, but before he could finish, the Tsarevich burst into the room. In a state of near-hysteria, pacing rapidly from one side of the room to the other, Alexis poured out his appeal to the amazed Austrian. He had come, he said, to beg the Emperor to save his life. The Tsar, Menshikov and Catherine wished to deprive him of the throne, send him to a monastery and perhaps even to kill him. "I am weak," he said, "but I have sense enough to rule. Besides," he added, "God, not man, gives kingdoms and appoints heirs to a throne."

Schonborn stared at the frantic young man, who was looking from left to right almost as if he expected his tormentors to pursue him right into the room. Raising his hand for calm, the Vice Chancellor offered a chair. Alexis swallowed hard, sank into the chair and asked for beer. Schonbom had no beer, but he offered his visitor a glass of Moselle wine and then, in a friendly and reassuring way, began asking questions to convince himself that this really was the Tsarevich.

When this was done, Schonborn explained to the sobbing Prince that the Emperor could not be roused that night, but would be informed the following morning. Meanwhile, it would be best for the Tsarevich to return to his inn and remain in concealment until it had been decided what to do. Alexis agreed and, after expressing his gratitude with another gush of tears, he left.

Alexis' arrival put Emperor Charles VI in a delicate position. To step between father and son was risky. If there was rebellion or civil war in Russia, no one could tell who would win, and if Austria had backed the loser, who could say what form the winner's revenge might take? In the end, it was decided expedient not to receive Alexis officially or take public notice of his presence