Вольтер
The History of Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia
Charles, however, was absolutely determined not to depart, still flattering himself with the vain hope, that he should once more re-enter Poland and Russia with a powerful army of Turks. Every one knows what was the issue of his inflexible boldness in the year 1714, and how he engaged an army of janissaries, Spahis, and Tartars, with only himself, his secretaries, his valet de chambre, cook, and stable men; that he was taken prisoner in that country, where he had been treated with the greatest hospitality; and that he at length got back to his own kingdom in the disguise of a courier, after having lived five years in Turkey: from all which it remains to be acknowledged, that if there was reason in the conduct of this extraordinary prince, it was a reason of a very different nature to that of other men.
CHAP. XXI
Conclusion of the Affairs of Pruth.
It is necessary in this place to repeat an event already related in the History of Charles XII. It happened during the suspension of arms which preceded the treaty of Pruth, that two Tartarian soldiers surprised and took prisoners two Italian officers belonging to the czar's army, and sold them to an officer of the Turkish janissaries. The vizier being informed of this breach of public faith, punished the two Tartars with death. How are we to reconcile this severe delicacy with the violation of the law of nations in the person of Tolstoy, the czar's ambassador, whom this very vizier caused to be arrested in the streets of Constantinople, and afterwards imprisoned in the castle of the Seven Towers? There is always some reason for the contradictions we find in the actions of mankind. Baltagi Mahomet was incensed against the khan of Tartary, for having opposed the peace he had lately made, and was resolved to shew that chieftain that he was his master.
The treaty was no sooner concluded, than the czar quitted the borders of the Pruth, and returned towards his own dominions, followed by a body of eight thousand Turks, whom the vizier had sent as an army of observation to watch the motions of the Russian army during its march, and also to serve as an escort or safeguard to them against the wandering Tartars which infested those parts.
Peter instantly set about accomplishing the treaty, by demolishing the fortresses of Samara and Kamienska; but the restoring of Azoph, and the demolition of the port of Taganroc, met with some difficulties in the execution. According to the terms of the treaty it was necessary to distinguish the artillery and ammunition which belonged to the Turks in Azoph before that place was taken by the czar, from those which had been sent thither after it fell into his hands. The governor of the place spun out this affair to a tedious length, at which the Porte was greatly incensed, and not without reason: the sultan was impatient to receive the keys of Azoph. The vizier promised they should be sent from time to time, but the governor always found means to delay the delivery of them. Baltagi Mahomet lost the good graces of his master, and with them his place. The khan of Tartary and his other enemies made such good use of their interest with the sultan, that the grand vizier was deposed, several bashas were disgraced at the same time; but the grand seignior, well convinced of this minister's fidelity, did not deprive him either of his life or estate, but only sent him to Mytilene to take on him the command of that island. This simple removal from the helm of affairs (Nov. 1711,), and the continuing to him his fortunes, and above all the giving him the command in Mytilene, sufficiently contradicts all that Norberg has advanced, to induce us to believe that this vizier had been corrupted with the czar's money.
Norberg asserts furthermore, that the Bostangi basha, who came to divest him of his office, and to acquaint him of the grand seignior's sentence, declared him at the same time, 'a traitor, one who had disobeyed the orders of his sovereign lord, had sold himself to the enemy for money, and was found guilty of not having taken proper care of the interests of the king of Sweden.' In the first place, this kind of declarations are not at all in use in Turkey: the orders of the grand seignior always being issued privately, and executed with secresy. Secondly, if the vizier had been declared a traitor, a rebel, and a corrupted person, crimes of this nature would have been instantly punished with death in a country where they are never forgiven. Lastly, if he was punishable for not having sufficiently attended to the interests of the king of Sweden, it is evident that this prince must have had such a degree of influence at the Ottoman Porte, as to have made the other ministers to tremble, who would consequently have endeavoured to gain his good graces; whereas, on the contrary, the basha Jussuf, aga of the janissaries, who succeeded Mahomet Baltagi as grand vizier, had the same sentiments as his predecessor, in relation to Charles's conduct, and was so far from doing him any service that he thought of nothing but how to get rid of so dangerous a guest; and when count Poniatowsky, the companion and confidant of that monarch, went to compliment the vizier on his new dignity, the latter spoke to him thus. 'Pagan, I forewarn thee, that if ever I find thee hatching any intrigues, I will, upon the first notice, cause thee to be thrown into the sea with a stone about thy neck.'
This compliment count Poniatowsky himself relates in the memoirs which he drew up at my request, and is a sufficient proof of the little influence his master had in the Turkish court. All that Norberg has related touching the affairs of that empire, appear to come from a prejudiced person, and one who was very ill informed of the circumstances he pretends to write about. And we may count among the errors of a party-spirit and political falsehoods, every thing which this writer advances unsupported by proofs, concerning the pretended corruption of a grand vizier, that is, of a person who had the disposal of upwards of sixty millions per annum, without being subject to the least account.89 I have now before me the letter which count Poniatowsky wrote to King Stanislaus immediately after the signing the treaty of Pruth, in which he upbraids Baltagi Mahomet with the slight he shewed to the king of Sweden, his dislike to the war, and the unsteadiness of his temper; but never once hints the least charge of corruption: for he knew too well what the place of grand vizier was, to entertain an idea, that the czar was capable of setting a price upon the infidelity of the second person in the Ottoman empire.
Schaffirow and Sheremeto, who remained at Constantinople as hostages on the part of the czar for his performance of the treaty, were not used in the manner they would have been if known to have purchased this peace, and to have joined with the vizier in deceiving his master. They were left to go at liberty about the city, escorted by two companies of janissaries.
The czar's ambassador Tolstoy having been released from his confinement in the Seven Towers, immediately upon the signing of the treaty of Pruth, the Dutch and English ministers interposed with the new vizier to see the several articles of that treaty put into execution.
Azoph was at length restored to the Turks, and the fortresses mentioned in the treaty were demolished according to stipulation. And now the Ottoman Porte, though very little inclinable to interfere in the differences between Christian princes, could not without vanity behold himself made arbitrator between Russia, Poland, and the king of Sweden; and insisted that the czar should withdraw his troops out of Poland, and deliver the Turkish empire from so dangerous a neighbour; and, desirous that the Christian princes might continually be at war with each other, wished for nothing so much as to send Charles home to his own dominions, but all this while had not the least intention of furnishing him with an army. The Tartars were still for war, as an artificer is willing to seize every opportunity to exercise his calling. The janissaries likewise wished to be called into the field, but more out of hatred against the Christians, their naturally restless disposition, and from a fondness for rapine and licentiousness, than from any other motives. Nevertheless, the English and Dutch ministers managed their negotiations so well, that they prevailed over the opposite party: the treaty of Pruth was confirmed, but with the addition of a new article, by which it was stipulated that the czar should withdraw his forces from Poland within three months, and that the sultan should immediately send Charles XII. out of his dominions.
We may judge from this new treaty whether the king of Sweden had that interest at the Porte which some writers would have us to believe. He was evidently sacrificed on this occasion by the new vizier, basha Jussuf, as he had been before by Baltagi Mahomet. The historians of his party could find no other expedient to colour over this fresh affront, but that of accusing Jussuf of having been bribed like his predecessor. Such repeated imputations, unsupported by any proofs, are rather the clamours of an impotent cabal, than the testimonies of history; but faction, when driven to acknowledge facts, will ever be endeavouring to alter circumstances and motives; and, unhappily, it is thus that all the histories of our times will be handed down to posterity so altered, that they will be unable to distinguish truth from falsehoods.
CHAP. XXII
Marriage of the czarowitz. – The marriage of Peter and Catherine publicly solemnized. – Catherine finds her brother.
This unsuccessful campaign of Pruth proved more hurtful to the czar than ever the battle of Narva was; for after that defeat he had found means not only to retrieve his losses, but also to wrest Ingria out of the hands of Charles XII.; but by the treaty of Falksten, in which he consented to give up to the sultan his forts and harbours on the Palus Mæotis, he for ever lost his projected superiority in the Black Sea. He had besides an infinite deal of work on his hands; his new establishments in Russia were to be perfected, he had to prosecute his victories over the Swedes, to settle king Augustus firmly on the Polish throne, and to manage affairs properly with the several powers with whom he was in alliance; but the fatigues he had undergone having impaired his health, he was obliged to go to Carlsbad90 to drink the waters of that place. While he was there he gave orders for his troops to enter Pomerania, who blockaded Stralsund, and took five other towns in the neighbourhood.
Pomerania is the most northern province of Germany, bounded on the east by Prussia and Poland, on the west by Brandenburg, on the south by Mecklenburg, and on the north by the Baltic Sea. It has changed masters almost every century: Gustavus Adolphus got possession of it in his famous thirty years war, and it was afterwards solemnly ceded to the crown of Sweden by the treaty of Westphalia: with a reservation of the little bishopric of Camin, and a few other small towns lying in Upper Pomerania. The whole of this province properly belongs to the elector of Brandenburg, in virtue of a family compact made with the dukes of Pomerania, whose family being extinct in 1637, consequently by the laws of the empire the house of Brandenburg had an undoubted right to the succession; but necessity, the first of all laws, occasioned this family compact to be set aside by the treaty of Osnaburg; after which, almost the whole of Pomerania fell to the lot of the victorious Swedes.
The czar's intention was to wrest from Sweden all the provinces that crown was possessed of in Germany; and, in order to accomplish his design, he found it necessary to enter into a confederacy with the electors of Hanover and Brandenburg, and the king of Denmark. Peter drew up the several articles of the treaty he projected with these powers, and also a complete plan of the necessary operations for rendering him master of Pomerania.
In the meanwhile he went to Torgau, to be present at the nuptials of his son the czarowitz Alexis with the princess of Wolfenbuttel (Oct. 23, 1711.), sister to the consort of Charles VI. emperor of Germany; nuptials which, in the end, proved fatal to his own peace of mind, and to the lives of the unfortunate pair.
The czarowitz was born of the first marriage of Peter the Great to Eudocia Lapoukin, to whom he was espoused in 1689: she was at that time shut up in the monastery of Susdal; their son Alexis Petrowitz, who was born the 1st of March, 1690, was now in his twenty-second year: this prince was not then at all known in Europe; a minister, whose memoirs of the court of Russia have been printed, says in a letter he writes to his master, dated August 25, 1711, that 'this prince was tall and well made, resembled his father greatly, was of an excellent disposition, very pious, had read the Bible five times over, took great delight in the ancient Greek historians, appeared to have a very quick apprehension and understanding, was well acquainted with the mathematics, the art of war, navigation, and hydraulics; that he understood the German language, and was then learning the French, but that his father would never suffer him to go through a regular course of study.'
This character is very different from that which the czar himself gives of his son some time afterwards, in which we shall see with how much grief he reproaches him with faults directly opposite to those good qualities, for which this minister seems so much to admire him.
We must leave posterity, therefore, to determine between the testimony of a stranger, who may have formed too slight a judgment, and the declaration of a parent, who thought himself under a necessity of sacrificing the dictates of nature to the good of his people. If the minister was no better acquainted with the disposition of Alexis than he seems to have been with his outward form, his evidence will have but little weight; for he describes this prince as tall and well made, whereas the memoirs sent me from Petersburg say, that he was neither the one nor the other.
His mother-in-law, Catherine, was not present at his nuptials; for though she was already looked upon as czarina, yet she had not been publicly acknowledged as such: and moreover, as she had only the title of highness given her at the czar's court, her rank was not sufficiently settled to admit of her signing the contract, or to appear at the ceremony in a station befitting the consort of Peter the Great. She therefore remained at Thorn in Polish Prussia. Soon after the nuptials were celebrated, the czar sent the new-married couple away to Wolfenbuttel (Jan. 9, 1712), and brought back the czarina to Petersburg with that dispatch and privacy which he observed in all his journies.
Feb. 19, 1712.] Having now disposed of his son, he publicly solemnized his own nuptials with Catherine, which had been declared in private before. This ceremony was performed with as much magnificence as could be expected in a city but yet in its infancy, and from a revenue exhausted by the late destructive war against the Turks, and that which he was still engaged in against the king of Sweden. The czar gave orders for, and assisted himself in, all the preparations for the ceremony, according to the usual custom; and Catherine was now publicly declared czarina, in reward for having saved her husband and his whole army.
The acclamations with which this declaration was received at Petersburg were sincere: the applauses which subjects confer on the actions of a despotic sovereign are generally suspected; but on this occasion they were confirmed by the united voice of all the thinking part of Europe, who beheld with pleasure, on the one hand, the heir of a vast monarchy with no other glory than that of his birth, married to a petty princess; and, on the other hand, a powerful conqueror, and a law-giver, publicly sharing his bed and his throne with a stranger and a captive, who had nothing to recommend her but her merit: and this approbation became more general as the minds of men grew more enlightened by that sound philosophy, which has made so great a progress in our understandings within these last forty years: a philosophy, equally sublime and discerning, which teaches us to pay only the exterior respect to greatness and authority, while we reserve our esteem and veneration for shining talents and meritorious services.
And here I think myself under an obligation to relate what I have met touching this marriage in the dispatches of count Bassewitz, aulic counsellor at Vienna, and long time minister from Holstein at the court of Russia; a person of great merit, and whose memory is still held in the highest esteem in Germany. In some of his letters he speaks thus: 'The czarina had not only been the main instrument of procuring the czar that reputation which he enjoyed, but was likewise essentially necessary in the preservation of his life. This prince was unhappily subject to violent convulsion fits, which were thought to be the effects of poison which had been given him while he was young. Catherine alone had found the secret of alleviating his sufferings by an unwearied assiduity and attention to whatever she thought would please him, and made it the whole study of her life to preserve a health so valuable to the kingdom and to herself, insomuch, that the czar finding he could not live without her, made her the companion of his throne and bed.' I here only repeat the express words of the writer himself.
Fortune, which has furnished us with many extraordinary scenes in this part of the world, and who had raised Catherine from the lowest abyss of misery and distress to the pinnacle of human grandeur, wrought another extraordinary incident in her favour some few years after her marriage with the czar, and which I find thus related in a curious manuscript of a person who was at that time in the czar's service, and who speaks of it as a thing to which he was eye-witness.
An envoy from king Augustus to the court of Peter the Great, being on his return home through Courland, and having put up at an inn by the way, heard the voice of a person who seemed in great distress, and whom the people of the house were treating in that insulting manner which is but too common on such occasions: the stranger, with a tone of resentment, made answer, that they would not dare to use him thus, if he could but once get to the speech of the czar, at whose court he had perhaps more powerful protectors than they imagined.
The envoy, upon hearing this, had a curiosity to ask the man some questions, and, from certain answers he let fall, and a close examination of his face, he thought he found in him some resemblance of the empress Catherine; and, when he came to Dresden, he could not forbear writing to one of his friends at Petersburg concerning it. This letter, by accident, came to the czar's hands, who immediately sent an order to prince Repnin, then governor of Riga, to endeavour to find out the person mentioned in the letter. Prince Repnin immediately dispatched a messenger to Mittau, in Courland, who, on inquiry, found out the man, and learned that his name was Charles Scavronsky; that he was the son of a Lithuanian gentleman, who had been killed in the wars of Poland, and had left two children then in the cradle, a boy and a girl, who had neither of them received any other education than that which simple nature gives to those who are abandoned by the world. Scavronsky, who had been parted from his sister while they were both infants, knew nothing further of her than that she had been taken prisoner in Marienburg, in the year 1704, and supposed her to be still in the household of prince Menzikoff, where he imagined she might have made some little fortune.
Prince Repnin, agreeable to the particular orders he had received from the czar, caused Scavronsky to be seized, and conducted to Riga, under pretence of some crime laid to his charge; and, to give a better colour to the matter, at his arrival there, a sham information was drawn up against him, and he was soon after sent from thence to Petersburg, under a strong guard, with orders to treat him well upon the road.
When he came to that capital, he was carried to the house of an officer of the emperor's palace, named Shepleff, who, having been previously instructed in the part he was to play, drew several circumstances from the young man in relation to his condition; and, after some time, told him, that although the information, which had been sent up from Riga against him, was of a very serious nature, yet he would have justice done him; but that it would be necessary to present a petition to his majesty for that purpose; that one should accordingly be drawn up in his name, and that he (Shepleff) would find means that he should deliver it into the czar's own hands.
The next day the czar came to dine with Shepleff, at his own house, who presented Scavronsky to him; when his majesty, after asking him abundance of questions was convinced, by the natural answers he gave, that he was really the czarina's brother; they had both lived in Livonia, when young, and the czar found every thing that Scavronsky said to him, in relation to his family affairs, tally exactly with what his wife had told him concerning her brother, and the misfortunes which had befallen her and her brother in the earlier part of their lives.
The czar, now satisfied of the truth, proposed the next day to the empress to go and dine with him at Shepleff's; and, when dinner was over, he gave orders that the man, whom he had examined the day before, should be brought in again. Accordingly he was introduced, dressed in the same clothes he had wore while on his journey to Riga; the czar not being willing that he should appear in any other garb than what his unhappy circumstances had accustomed him to.
He interrogated him again, in the presence of his wife; and the MS. adds, that, at the end, he turned about to the empress, and said these very words: – 'This man is your brother; come hither, Charles, and kiss the hand of the empress, and embrace your sister.'
The author of this narrative adds further, that the empress fainted away with surprise; and that, when she came to herself again, the czar said, 'There is nothing in this but what is very natural. This gentlemen is my brother in-law; if he has merit, we will make something of him; if he has not, we must leave him as he is.'
I am of opinion, that this speech shews as much greatness as simplicity, and a greatness not very common. My author says, that Scavronsky remained a considerable time at Shepleff's house; that the czar assigned him a handsome pension, but that he led a very retired life. He carries his relation of this adventure no farther, as he made use of it only to disclose the secret of Catherine's brother: but we know, from other authorities, that this gentleman was afterwards created a count; that he married a young lady of quality, by whom he had two daughters, who were married to two of the principal noblemen in Russia. I leave to those, who may be better informed of the particulars, to distinguish what is fact in this relation, from what may have been added; and shall only say, that the author does not seem to have told this story out of a fondness for entertaining his readers with the marvellous, since his papers were not intended to be published. He is writing freely to a friend, about a thing of which he says he was an eye-witness. He may have been mistaken in some circumstances, but the fact itself has all the appearance of truth; for if this gentleman had known that his sister was raised to so great dignity and power, he would not certainly have remained so many years without having made himself known to her. And this discovery, however extraordinary it may seem, is certainly not more so than the exaltation of Catherine herself; and both the one and the other are striking proofs of the force of destiny, and may teach us to be cautious how we treat as fabulous several events of antiquity, which perhaps are less contradictory to the common order of things, than the adventures of this empress.
The rejoicings made by the czar Peter for his own marriage, and that of his son, were not of the nature of those transient amusements which exhaust the public treasure, and are presently lost in oblivion. He completed his grand foundry for cannon, and finished the admiralty buildings. The highways were repaired, several ships built, and others put upon the stocks; new canals were dug, and the finishing hand put to the grand warehouses, and other public buildings, and the trade of Petersburg began to assume a flourishing face. He issued an ordinance for removing the senate from Moscow to Petersburg, which was executed in the month of April, 1712. By this step he made his new city the capital of the empire, and early he employed a number of Swedish prisoners in beautifying this city, whose foundation had been laid upon their defeat.
