ry," in honor of
Prince-Saint Alexander Nevsky's conquest, and commanded the erection of
a Lavra, or first-class monastery, the seat of a Metropolitan and of a
theological seminary. By 1716 the monastery was completed, in wood, as
engravings of that day show us, but in a very different form from the
complex of stone buildings of the present day. Its principal facade,
with extensive, stiffly arranged gardens, faced upon the river,--the
only means of communication in that town, planted on a bog, threaded
with marshy streams, being by boat. In fact, for a long time horses were
so scarce in the infant capital, where reindeer were used in sledges
even as late as the end of the last century, that no one was permitted
to come to Court, during Peter the Great's reign, otherwise than by
water. Necessity and the enforced cultivation of aquatic habits in his
inland subjects, which the enterprising Emperor had so much at heart,
combined to counsel this regulation.

The bones of Prince Alexander were brought to St. Petersburg, from their
resting-place in the Vladimir Government, in 1724, Peter the Great
occupying his favorite post as pilot and steersman in the saint's state
barge, and they now repose in the monastery cathedral, under a canopy,
and in a tomb of silver, 3600 pounds in weight, given by Peter's
daughter, the devout Empress Elizabeth. In the cemetery surrounding the
cathedral, under the fragrant firs and birches, with the blue Neva
rippling far below, lie many of the men who have contributed to the
advancement of their country in literature, art, and science, during the
last two centuries.

Of all the historical memories connected with this monastery none is
more curious than that relating to the second funeral of Peter III. He
had been buried by his wife, in 1762, with much simplicity, in one of
the many churches of the Lavra, which contains the family tombs and
monuments not only of members of the imperial family, but of the noble
families most illustrious in the eighteenth century. When Paul I. came
to the throne, in 1796, his first care was to give his long-deceased
father a more fitting burial. The body was exhumed. Surrounded by his
court, Pavel Petrovitch took the imperial crown from the altar, placed
it on his own head, then laid it reverently on his father's coffin. When
Peter III. was transferred immediately afterward, with magnificent
ceremonial, to the Winter Palace, there to lie in state by the side of
his