his services as guardian of the czaritza. Every one else
within the court had to submit to the razor's fatal edge or feel the
czar's more fatal displeasure, and beards fell like "autumnal leaves
that strow the brooks in Vallombrosa."

An observer speaks as follows concerning a feast given by General Shein:
"A crowd of boyars, scribes, and military officers almost incredible was
assembled there, and among them were several common sailors, with whom
the czar repeatedly mixed, divided apples, and even honored one of them
by calling him his brother. A salvo of twenty-five guns marked each
toast. Nor could the irksome offices of the barber check the
festivities of the day, though it was well known he was enacting the
part of jester by appointment at the czar's court. It was of evil omen
to make show of reluctance as the razor approached the chin, and
hesitation was to be forthwith punished with a box on the ears. In this
way, between mirth and the wine-cup, many were admonished by this insane
ridicule to abandon the olden guise."

For Peter to shave was easy, as he had little beard and a very thin
moustache. But by the old-fashioned Russian of his day the beard was
cherished as the Turk now cherishes his hirsute symbol of dignity or the
Chinaman his long-drawn-out queue. Shortly after Peter came to the
throne the patriarch Adrian had delivered himself in words of thunder
against all who were so unholy and heretical as to cut or shave their
beards, a God-given ornament, which had been worn by prophets and
apostles and by Christ himself. Only heretics, apostates,
idol-worshippers, and image-breakers among monarchs had forced their
subjects to shave, he declared, while all the great and good emperors
had indicated their piety in the length of their beards.

To Peter, on the contrary, the beard was the symbol of barbarity. He was
not content to say that his subjects might shave, he decreed that they
_must_ shave. It began half in jest, it was continued in solid earnest.
He could not well execute the non-shavers, or cut off the heads of those
who declined to cut off their beards, but he could fine them, and he
did. The order was sent forth that all Russians, with the exception of
the clergy, should shave. Those who preferred to keep their beards
could do so by paying a yearly tax into the public treasury. This was
fixed at a kopeck (one penny) for peasants, but for the higher classes
varied from thirty to a hundred rubles (fro