Peter III, Emperor of Russia: the story of a crisis and a crime

Introduction

The present volume is an attempt to construct an authentic and impartial biography of the Russian Emperor, Peter III. Biographies of that unfortunate Prince abound, I know; many of these biographies in various languages I have made it my business to read ; yet I think I may safely say that while not one of them can be regarded as authoritative or even satisfactory, most of them are obviously fictitious. The reason of this is not far to seek. First, the memory of Peter has been so absolutely eclipsed by the brilliance of the extraordinary woman who superseded ^r, rather, suppressed him, that to many people he is only interesting as the husband, the murdered husband of Catherine. His short life is a mere episode in her turbulent and dramatic career. In the second place, most of the memoirs relating to Peter are frankly polemical — either lampoons or apologies. While the friends of Catherine are obviously interested in representing Catherine’s detested husband as a brutal, vicious, irresponsible despot, the friends of Peter, exaggerating his many amiable personal qualities and exteimating his undeniable absurdities, picture him, as simply and solely the victim of an ambitious consort and an ungrateful people. As usual the truth lies midway between these two extremes. Peter was notoriously unfit for ruling an Empire, but he would have made a good average eighteenth century junker or squire. His heart was good if his head was weak ; although anything but a hero himself, he was capable of an exalted hero-worship ; and a Prince who could conduct an orchestra and plan a library, should not in fairness be stigmatized as a mere idiot.

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INTRODUCTION

But a full and impartial lift of Peter III. on modern lines must be very much more than a mere personal rehabilitation. The reign of Peter III. coincides with perhaps the most acute diplomatic crisis, not merely in the history of Russia, but in the history of Europe during the eighteenth century. I allude, of course, to the imminent collapse of the Prussian monarchy at the beginning of 1762, a catastrophe only and hardly averted by the enthusiastic devotion of the new Russian Emperor to Frederick the Great. This interesting and important subject, never, I will venture to say, adequately dealt with before, because Russia’s share in it has hitherto been overlooked or disregarded, is sufficient of itself to justify an exhaustive record of the epoch-making events crammed into the brief six months during which Peter III., to his own hurt and harm, saved Frederick II. from apparently inevitable ruin.

Finally, there is the mysterious fate of the unhappy Emperor himself. Only of recent years has the thick veil which covers the tragedy enacted at the little country house at Ropsha been partially lifted. We still do not know precisely hoto Peter III. was done to death, but that he actually perished by violence there can now be no doubt whatever ; moreover, the long debated question of Catherine’s innocence or guilt can at last, in the light of recently discovered documents, be regarded as practically settled. For a critical estimate of the various documents relating to this history, many of which are now used for the first time, I must refer my readers to the bibliography which follows.

R. NISBET BAIN.

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS

(1) Keith, Despatches. Brit. Mus. MSS. 32,935; Bibl. Egerton, 1862 ; Brit. Mus. Add. 6825 ; Mitchell Papers, Vol. XXII ; Brit. Mus. Add. 30,999. Most of these documents, still unprinted, are now used for the first time.

Keith, the English Ambassador at St. Petersburg, as the personal friend of Peter III. in the first six weeks of his reign, is an important witness during that particular period. His account of the Revolution is less satisfactory, but defective rather than erroneous. He is naturally somewhat biassed in Peter’s favour.

Mercy, the Austrian Ambassador at St. Petersburg, is an acute observer, and his despatches, written in cumbrously stately German, abound with the most minute particulars and the most piquant aperpis. He is antipathetic to Peter, and suspicious towards Catherine, but, considering his strong anti-Russian bias, wonderfully fair, and, so far as his information goes, very accurate.

Raumer’s contribution consists, for the most part, of extracts from the despatches of the French minister, Breteuil, who does not impress one as either very accurate or very

X acute. Much of his information, too, is obviously at second hand. Doubtless he had not so much secret service money at his disposal as his Austrian and English colleagues, and the course of events kept him away from Court during the whole of Peter’s reign.

(4) Herrmann, Geschichte des russischen Staats. Bd. V., Abthl. 3.

This section of Herrmann is composed almost entirely, often verbatim, of the despatches of the Saxon Minister Briihl and his colleagues. Briihl is always lively and amusing. The cTironique scandaleuse of the Court particularly interests him, and he has a rare quality of summarizing personal character epigi’ammatically. On the other hand, he is obviously credulous, and it is veiy hazardous to accept his unsupported statement of any fact.

(5) Bolotov, Zapishi

Bolotov represents the “ man in the street ” of the period. He is often inaccurate when he alludes to events beyond his ken, as, for instance, when he tells us that ex-Chancellor Bestuzhev was banished to Siberia, when, as a matter of fact, he was simply relegated to his own country house. But Bolotov was actually on the spot up to the very eve of the Revolution, and, if we want to know what St. Petersburg looked like in the days of Peter HI., we could have no better guide than this observant, garrulous, inquisitive young Russian officer, who has something of the character of Pepys, and whose curiosity, overcoming his cowardice, frequently leads him into strange places.

(6) Dashkova. Memoirs of the. Princess Dashkow. Ed. Bradford.

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The Dashkova memoirs have long been before the world, and are always cited among the chief authorities on Catherine II. As an actual participator in the Revolution,^ the Princess cannot be ignored, but her testimony is vitiated (1) by her intense, irrational, partisanship, (2) by an all absorbing vanity, (3) by an absolute incapacity for weighing evidence wherever her sympathies or antipathies are concerned, (4) by a boundless credulity combined with singular lapses of memory. Mr. Keith, for instance, could not possibly have predicted the fall of Peter III., at the beginning of his reign, as recorded by Dashkova. Secy. Volkov was undoubtedly innocent of countermanding the Empress Elizabeth’s orders, as she accuses him of doing. Her uncle, the Chancellor Vorontsov, showed nothing of that ancient Roman virtue with which she credits him when he deserted Peter HI., etc.

(7) Rulhiere, Histoire en anecdotes sur la Revolution de Russie, Tannh 1762.

It is difficult to speak with sobriety of this scandalous and worthless document compiled by Rulhiere, an attache of the Erench Embassy at St. Petersburg during the Revolution, with the object of blackmailing the Empress at the author’s leisure. Catherine’s anxiety to get hold of the MS. is perfectly intelligible. It is saturated with vileness, and people in those days were not sufficiently well informed to perceive that the book was false as well as filthy. I now proceed to give five specimens of Rulhiere’s veracity taken from his narrative of the Revolution. It is almost needless to add that they are absolutely un verifiable by facts. (1) His statement that Dashkova, whom he calls d’Aschekoff, was the mistress of Gregory Orlov at the same

XII time as Catherine. (2) That there were two separate and independent conspiracies on the eve of the Revolution, one conducted by Catherine and the other by Dashkova. (3) That Panin was “eperdument amoureuse d’AschekofF,” and sacrificed the right of his pupil, the Grand-Duke Paul, at her instigation. (4) That Panin (the mild and timorous Panin) actually reconnoitred the apartments of Peter III. at the head of a band of assassins ! One might as well imagine Pickwick an assassin as Panin. (5) That the Emperor’s barber sent a valet disguised as a peasant to warn him of the Revolution ! — Moreover, Rulhiere’s account of the Revolution bristles with absurdities and contradictions, and he describes circumstantially the murder of Peter, not a single authentic detail in regard to which has ever come to light, his fiction only differing from the other apocrypha relating to the same subject by substituting poisoned eaude-vie for poisoned Burgundy. Perhaps, however, the climax of absurdity is reached in his recital of how Catherine (whose actual complicity he leaves doubtful) first heard the news. Catherine, he says, was dining at St. Petersburg when Orlov: “echevele, convert de sueur et de poussiere, ses habits dechires, sa physiognomie agite, plein d’horreur,” rushed in with the awful tidings.* It is so likely that Orlov, who, at any rate, was a ruffian of nerve and resource and took every minute and imaginable precaution to cloak the meditated crime and shield the Empress from the faintest suspicion, it is so likely, I say, that Orlov would betray everything after the deed had been successfully accomplished.

For a full translation see App. I.

XIII when all he had to do was to keep quiet! It is so likely that Catherine’s guards would admit mto her presence a ragged, dirty, disreputable-looking vagabond with the air of a madman or a drunkard I Had Orlov presented himself at the palace in such a plight, he would have been promptly arrested. Besides, we possess the letter ^ which Orlov actually wrote to Catherine, stating in the vaguest terms that Peter was no more, and this letter proves exclusively that the horror-stricken wretch expected little short of death at Catherine’s hands, and durst not appear within twenty miles of her till he had been certified of her forgiveness and his own security.

An invaluable authority, and for the most part posterior

to Carlyle’s masterpiece. We find here, too, almost the sole existing authentic letters of Peter HI.

This enthralling, and, on the whole, singularly veracious

book, is too well known to require any comment.

MONOGRAPHS

(10) Solovev, Istoria Rosii, Vol. XXV.

This monumental work, consisting as it does for the most part of a mass of original documents or excerpts therefrom, skilfully connected together and accompanied by a lucid and pregnant commentary, might be regarded as something more than a monograph. With the fear of the censor constantly

XIV before his eyes, Solovev, a born critic and a most conscientious investigator, was almost forced to write his gi’eat history in this way. Quotation may pass when opinions, however cautiously expressed, might be erased by the red pencil which Russian writers fear so much. Any way, this great treasury of facts and documents is absolutely indispensable to all students of the period.

(11) Glinsky, Tsarskiya Dyetui.

This interesting book is valuable as containing the best extant account of Peter III.’s education.

(12) Vasilchikov, Semeistvo Razumovskikh, Vol. I.

Vasilchikov’s history of the Razumovsky Family furnishes

many important details relating to the Revolution, not to be found elsewhere.

(13) Helhig, Biographie Peters des Dritten.

This book is in many respects very untrustworthy. The author’s description of Peter III.’s death is of course fictitious, and his account of the Revolution, though accurate on the whole, has evidently been touched up here and there for dramatic effect. Yet Helbig evidently took great pains to collect and sift evidence on the spot, and his book abounds with intimate details relating to the life of Peter, many of them apparently obtained at first hand. The book shows plainly enough that there was a good side to Peter’s character, a fact almost universally disregarded, and reduces his chronique scandaleitse to very insignificant proportions.

(14i) Holm, Danmark-Norges Historie.

This peculiarly able work, by one of the most eminent of modern Danish historians, makes use of the still unpublished despatches of Haxthausen, the Danish Minister

XV at St. Petersburg during Peter’s reign, and thus throws much light on the Emperor’s projected Holstein campaign, and supplies information previously unattainable.

The cardinal defect of this piquant and attractive author, is his uncritical acceptance of conflicting authorities, and there is the less excuse for this fault as it is evidently due, not to ignorance, but carelessness. This is especially noticeable in his account of the Revolution, when Dashkova, Helbig, and even Rulhiere(!) are freely quoted as if they were of great and equal authority, whereas very few statements by any of the three can be accepted without ample corroboration. In particular, his narration of the doings of Peter HI. immediately before his arrest is little more than a rechauffe of stale and questionable dicta, while several essential facts are omitted. On the other hand, Waliszewski’s views as to the death of Peter, if somewhat of a non-committal character, are quite unexceptionable. His book on the whole, cannot, however, be regarded as authoritative.

(16) Bilhasov, Istoriya EJeaterinui Vtoroi. Vol. i.

Bilbasov is the very antipodes of Waliszewski. He has

nothing of the latter’s charm of style, but he displays prodigious learning and more than German accuracy and thoroughness of research. By far the best existing bibliography relating to Catherine II. is set forth at the end of his first volume, and he has brought to the arduous task of sifting the enormous mass of raw material, a critical acumen of the highest order. I have mainly depended upon him for my account of the last fortnight of Peter’s life. Moreover, as this somewhat compromising book was published in

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London, the author is always free to express his judgment with perfect frankness. I have used the Russian (privately printed) edition of 1895, and all my references are thereto. Since I wrote the above lines a still fuller edition of this work, in twelve volumes, has begun to appear at Berlin, but Vol. I. of the 1895 edition is practically unaltered.

R. N. B.

Contents

CHAPTEB PAGE

I. Kiel 1

II. The Little Grand Duke 8

Chapter I Kiel

Birth of Charles Peter Ulric — Death of his mother — Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein, his character — Military mania — Charles Peter Ulric’s first promotion — Early education — Death of his father — Miserable childhood — Brutality of his preceptor, Brummer — Migrates to Russia.

On February 21st, 1728, the young consort of Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein, was brought to bed of a son, who, on the following day, in the Lutheran church at Kiel, was christened Charles Peter Ulric. The names thus given to the lad were eloquent of his illustrious lineage. He was called Charles, like his father before him, after his paternal great-uncle Charles XII., ever the best, oftentimes the only, friend of the House of Holstein. He owed his second name, Peter, to his late grandfather, Peter the Great, while his third name, Ulric, was a compliment to his great-aunt, the actual Queen regnant of Sweden. The little gentleman, though he had in his veins the blood of heroes and empire makers, was but a puny creature at best, and Fate, who had such a strange and temble destiny in store for him,

was unkind to him from his very cradle : he lost his mother when he was only ten days old. The young Duchess, who had been reared in the austerer climate of Muscovy, and was thought to be far stronger than she really was, while watching through an open window the illuminations in honour of the birth of her son, took a chill, and died three days later, in her twenty-first year. Her body was embalmed and sent back to St. Petersburg in the same frigate which had brought her, a sad and reluctant bride, to Holstein only a few months before. Contemporaries describe her as a pretty, gentle, studious creature, unusually well educated for her age, her savage father’s darling, adored by everyone who had the privilege of her acquaintance, but especially beloved by her younger sister, Elizabeth, who, thirteen years later, was to ascend the imperial throne, and who, as we shall see presently, transferred to the son much of the affection she had felt for the mother.

The bereaved husband felt his loss all the more poignantly as its immediate consequence was serious financial embarrassment. Henceforward the ample if somewhat intermittent stream of gold which had flowed into the perennially empty coffers of the court of Kiel from the imperial treasury at St. Petersburg, ceased altogether, and Charles Frederick was left to support, with the limited resources of a poor principality, an establishment which would not have done dishonour to the wealthiest of monarchies. He maintained a splendidly equipped Garde du Corps ; was waited upon by a whole host of pages and kammerherrn, and, in fact, kept a court far more brilliant than either his rank demanded or his means could sustain. Nevertheless, in justice to him, it must be added, that this costly and extravagant display

KIEL was not entirely due to the foolish pretentiousness of a petty German princelet striving to ape his betters. It was also a sort of dignified, tacit protest against the injustice of Destiny who had condemned him, the former companion of Emperors and the actual heir of kingdoms,' to a quite subaltern position amongst the potentates of Europe. He was indeed, in some respects, a man much to be pitied. All his life long he had been the football of Fortune. Driven from his native land by the Danes while still a youth, always either a fugitive or a pensioner, this disappointed pretender to a visionary crown had grown up a soured misanthrope. That he was peevish, obstinate, haughty and narrow-minded, we can well believe; that his unhappy overtaxed subjects paid dearly for their master’s crotchets, we know for certain; yet there was a touch of nobility in the steadfastness which rejected every proposal to compromise his claims upon Sleswick and Sweden, whether accompanied by threats or promises. This solitary trait of firmness of character is distinctly reminiscent of his uncle, Charles XII., who considered it a point of honour in the days of his adversity to maintain a magnificent establishment, although while still the conqueror of kings and the arbiter of Europe his contempt for pomp had been notorious.

It was doubtless from his royal Swedish uncle, at whose

^ He had for some years resided at the Russian court as the son-in-law of Peter the Great and Catherine I., the latter of whom at one time designated him her successor. As the last surviving male descendant of Charles XI., his claim to the Swedish -crown, on hereditary principles, was indisputable and was only surmounted in Sweden itself by a domestic revolution and some bloodshed.

court he had been brought up, that Charles Frederick likewise inherited his love for soldiering, though, in his case, the military mania stopped short at drilling, reviewing, and other forms of mimic warfare. He inspired his little son only too soon with the same taste, and so effectually that what had been only a favourite hobby with Charles Frederick expanded into on overwhelming passion in the case of Charles Peter Ulric. We are told that the most terrible punishment which could be inflicted on the child was to board up the window of his room looking out on the parade-ground during exercise time, and, all his life long, he treasured up the memory of the day when, at a bound, he rose from the ranks to the dignity of a second lieutenant. The occasion of this joyous and memorable elevation was the Duke’s birthday in 1737, when the tiny heir-apparent (he was then but nine years old) was on guard at the door of the Tqfelsaal; for, in theory at least, the Holstein army was the most democratic institution in the world, every member of it, whatever his rank, having to start at the lowest rung of the ladder, the Father of the Fatherland arguing that only so could the officer leam to appreciate the hard lot of the common soldier. In the middle of the banquet then, Charles Peter Ulric was relieved of his duty, summoned to table, there and then promoted to the rank of a lieutenant, and took his place in triumph among his brother officers as a guest at his father’s table.

Apart from soldiering, the lad’s education was of a very indifferent description, not so much in consequence of the stupidity and brutality of his teachers, as because he was the victim, from the first, of two conflicting pedagogic

KIEL systems alternately and indiscriminately applied. As the nearest male relation of Peter the Great, he seemed at one time to have a fair chance of ascending the Russian throne and, accordingly, in the first instance, he received some instruction in the principles of the Russian language and the Orthodox Religion, and the Greek chapel, established at Kiel for the benefit of his mother, was retained for his use. But when, on the death of Peter II., the Muscovites, altogether ignoring the little Holstein Prince, elected Anne of Courland ‘ as Empress, there was a bitter reaction at the Court of Kiel against everything Russian, and all the hopes of the needy Holsteiners were fixed upon Sweden, whose old and childless King, Frederick of Hesse, alone stood between Charles XH.’s nearest blood relation and the Swedish throne. Henceforth the Muscovites were ridiculed to Charles Peter Ulric as barbarians, and he received the education best adapted for a Prince who was expected, one day, to sit upon the principal Lutheran throne of the north. The method adopted in the case of Charles XII., whom the Duke imitated in all petty details, was followed as closely as possible, to the utter despair of the unfortunate pupil whose very limited intelligence was utterly unable to master what his highly endowed great-uncle had so easily assimilated. For Latin, in particular, he conceived such an enduring hatred, that years afterwards, when, as Emperor of Russia, he set about collecting a really fine library, he absolutely refused to allow a single Latin book a place on his shelves. With Swedish he was much more successful, and could, in a very

* See Nisbet Bain : Pupils of Peter the Great, Chap. V.

short time, not only read that language, but even translate easy passages out of it into German. French he had been taught almost from his cradle by the women in whose hands he remained till he was seven years of age. Though obstinate, he was always affectionate, and for his governess, Fraulein Alinius, in particular (“mamma” he used to call her), who ultimately accompanied him to Russia, and survived him, he always had a grateful affection.

On the death of his father in 1739, the position of the little Duke distinctly deteriorated. His nominal guardian was now his uncle Adolphus Frederick, Prince-Bishop of Eutin, memorable at a later day as the meek husband of Frederick the Great’s termagant sister, Ulrica Louisa, and the ineffectual father of the last great King of Sweden, Gustavus III. Adolphus Frederick was an indolent, good-natured epicure, who loathed every sort of business which required the least mental effort, and practically he allowed his ward, and his ward’s estates to take care of themselves. Under his somnolent sway, the revenues of the Duchy dribbled away inexplicably, and the little Duke was left to the tender mercies of a group of instructors many of whom had cultivated the amenities of life at Potsdam among the rough dragoons and the gigantic grenadiers of Frederick William I. of Prussia. Von Brummer, the Prince’s governor, was a rough, quarrelsome, choleric martinet, who treated his sovereign like a dog, brutally ill-using him on the slightest provocation. His favourite method of punishment was to make the child kneel for hours on hard peas, till his little legs were red and swollen. As the Prince grew older. Von Brummer used to chastise him freely with a horsewhip.

KIEL occasionally alternating the discipline by placing him in a doorway with a fool’s cap on his head, for the amusement of his own gentlemen-in-waiting as they sat at dinner. The other preceptors, his tutor Von Bergholtz, Pastor Hosemann who taught him theology, and Dr. Juel, a ridiculous pedant of the type familiar to us in the contemporary comedies of Holberg, who first inspired the Duke with his life-long horror of the Latin language, were, more or less, the obsequious tools of the bully Brummer. Even a vigorous intelligent lad would have fared badly in such hands, and to the little Duke, who was always morbidly timid and weakly both in body and mind, this savage and senseless regimen must have been a crushing torture ; indeed, but for his military diversions, and even these Brummer contrived to curtail as much as possible, life must have been well-nigh insupportable. Fortunately, just before his 13th birthday, a great event occurred which enabled him to exchange this purgatorial discipline for what must, by comparison, have seemed a veritable paradise. On the night of Dec. 6th, 1741, his aunt, the Tsarevna Elizabeth Petrovna, at the head of the Preobrazhensky Grenadiers, overthrew the existing Russian government, ^ and the first thing the new Empress did, on feeling securely established on her throne, was to send for her nephew, her one remaining male kinsman, whom she had already resolved to adopt as her successor.

^ See Nisbet Bain : The Daughter of Peter the Great, Chap. III.

Chapter II

Charles Peter Ulric in Russia — Kindness of his Aunt — His personal appearance — And feeble health — Education — Professor Stehlin and his kindergarten method — The cabinet of fortification— The bad-mark book — Indolence and frivolity — Lack of deportment — Elizabeth s anxiety on this score — Charles Peter Ulric received into the Orthodox Church as Peter Fedorovich — The Ceremony — Liberality of the Empress — Serious illness of the Grand-Duke — Finding him a bride — Arrival of Sophia Augusta — Her serious illness — The betrothal—The journey to Kiev — The wedding ceremonies — The Grand-Duke pronotmced of age.

The removal of the young Duke from Holstein had all the suddenness and the secrecy of an abduction. The bearers of the Empress Elizabeth’s letter of invitation were Baron Niklas von Korlf, and his brother the Russian Resident at Copenhagen. The imperial offer of adoption was joyfully accepted by the Holstein Regency, to whom the prophecy of the late Duke, that his little son would one day restore the fallen fortunes of his house, seemed at last about to be fulfilled. The preparations for his journey went on apace, and not a soul in Kiel knew of the departure of the Duke till three days after he was well across the frontier. Travelling via Berlin in the strictest incognito, under the name of the Count von Diicker, with his two Hofmeisters, Brummer and Bergholtz, in attendance, Charles Peter Ulric reached St. Petersburg in the beginning of January, 1742.

His reception at the Winter Palace was of the most touching description. The buxom good-natured Tsaritsa, whose strong affection for every member of her family, however remote, was one of her many amiable qualities, shed torrents of tears over the only child of her beloved and never-to-be-forgotten sister, aiid promised to be more than a mother to him. A thanksgiving service for his safe arrival was held the same day at the Court Chapel, whereupon aunt and nephew received the congratulations of the whole Court, and a round of festivities, crowned by magnificent illuminations, was held in honour of the auspicious event. Nevertheless, the delight of the Tsaritsa at this happy reunion was speedily dashed when she came to examine her newly found treasure a little more closely. The Duke’s personal appearance was more peculiar than prepossessing. Extraordinarily pale and thin, with his lank blond hair combed straight down over his collar and profusely powdered in the so-called Spanish fashion, the odd little figure held itself as stiff and straight as a wooden soldier, with its narrow tiny head projecting a good inch in front of its body, and when spoken to Charles Peter Ulric responded in a queer jargon of broken French and German uttered with a strident squeak of piercing intensity. ^ The physicians, moreover, shook their heads over his fragile frame, while the great Dr. Struve, who had won a European reputation and was

‘ Bolotov, who often heard it in later days, says that Peter’s voice could always be distinguished amidst the loudest din, and pierced the thickest doors and walls.

called in to patch up the little Duke as best he could, almost killed his Serene Highness outright by a too vigorous application of the fashionable Halle cure, then regarded as an infallible panacea. But doctors and the arctic severity of the weather notwithstanding, the Empress contrived safely to convey her nephew from St. Petersburg to Moscow in the depth of winter, and his first birthday in Russia was celebrated with extraordinary pomp and solemnity. On this occasion Peter was nominated lieutenant-colonel of the Preobrazhensky Guards, a dignity his father had held before him, as well as Colonel of the Cuirassiers of the Body Guard, the veteran Field-Marshal Lacy, the last surviving military hero of the preceding reign, being enjoined, in his capacity of Lieutenant-Colonel of the same corps, to report to the little Duke every morning, and receive from him the countersign for the day.

But it was the question of her nephew’s mental equipment which occupied the Empress most of all. Elizabeth herself was no scholar. She regarded literature in general as injurious to health, and always attributed the premature death of her sister Anne to her excessive bookishness. At the same time she held it to be the duty of Sovereign Princes to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of their subjects, and she was determined, anyhow, that her heir should not be behind the rest of his royal and imperial cousins in knowledge and learning. All the Russian Ambassadoi-s abroad were commanded to search for and send to Moscow the best procurable pedagogic systems of the day, but the one finally adopted was of native origin, being the work of Professor Stehlin of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at and Bergholtz, in attendance, Charles Peter Ulric reached St. Petersburg in the beginning of January, 1742.