le and haggard with
terror and woe. The iron-hearted father, whose soul this sublime
tragedy had-melted, sat at his side weeping like a child. The guards
who stood at the door, the nobles and ecclesiastics who had
accompanied the emperor, were all unmanned, many sobbing aloud,
overwhelmed by emotions utterly uncontrollable. This scene stamps the
impress of almost celestial greatness upon the soul of the tzar. He
knew his son's weakness, incompetency and utter depravity, and even in
that hour of agony his spirit did not bend, and he would not sacrifice
the happiness of eighteen millions of people through parental
tenderness for his debauched and ruined child.

About six o'clock in the evening the wretched Alexis breathed his
last, and passed from the tribunals of earth to the judgment-seat of
God. The emperor immediately seemed to banish from his mind every
remembrance of his crimes, and his funeral was attended with all the
customary demonstrations of affection and respect. Peter, fully aware
that this most momentous event of his life would be severely
criticised throughout the world, sent a statement of the facts to all
the courts of Europe. In his letter, which accompanied these
statements, he says:

"While we were debating in our mind between the natural emotions of
paternal clemency on one side, and the regard we ought to pay to the
preservation and the future security of our kingdom on the other, and
pondering what resolution to take in an affair of so great difficulty
and importance, it pleased the Almighty God, by his especial will and
his just judgment, and by his mercy to deliver us out of that
embarrassment, and to save our family and kingdom from the shame and
the dangers by abridging the life of our said son Alexis, after an
illness with which he was seized as soon as he had heard the sentence
of death pronounced against him.

"That illness appeared at first like an apoplexy; but he afterwards
recovered his senses and received the holy sacraments; and having
desired to see us, we went to him immediately, with all our counselors
and senators; and then he acknowledged and sincerely confessed all his
said faults and crimes, committed against us, with tears and all the
marks of a true penitent, and begged our pardon, which, according to
Christian and paternal duty, we granted him; after which on the 7th
of July, at six in the evening, he surrendered his soul to God."

The tzar endeavored to efface from his