e
blood of all the martyrs could not cleanse"! And who had ever before
seen a Tsar of Moscow quit Holy Russia to wander in foreign lands among
Turks and Germans? for both were alike to them. Then it was rumored
that Peter had gone in disguise to Stockholm, and that the Queen of
Sweden had put him into a cask lined with nails to throw him into the
sea, and he had only been saved by one of his guards taking his place;
and some years later many still believed that it was a false Tsar who
returned to them in 1700--that the true Tsar was still a prisoner at
Stockholm, attached to a post. Sophia wrote to the _Streltsui_--"You
suffer--but you will suffer more. Why do you wait? March on Moscow.
There is no news of the Tsar." The army was told that he was dead, and
that the _boyars_ were scheming to kill his infant son Alexis and then
get into power again. Thousands of revolted troops from Azof began to
pour into Moscow, then there was a rumor that the foreigners and the
Germans--who were introducing the smoking of tobacco and shaving, to
the utter destruction of the holy faith--were planning to seize the
town. Peter returned to find Moscow the prey to wild disorder, in the
hands of scheming revolutionists and mutineers. He concluded it was
the right time to give a lesson which would never be forgotten. He
would make the partisans of Old Russia feel the weight of his hand in a
way that would remind them of Ivan IV.

On the day of his return the nobles all presented themselves, laying
their faces, as was the custom, in the dust. After courteously
returning their salutations, Peter ordered that every one of them be
immediately shaved; and as this was one of the arts he had practiced
while abroad he initiated the process by skillfully applying the razor
himself to a few of the long-beards. Then the inquiry into the
rebellion commenced. The Patriarch tried to appease the wrath of the
Tsar, who answered; "Know that I venerate God and his Mother as much as
you do. But also know that I shall protect my people and punish
rebels." The "chastisement" was worthy of Ivan the Terrible. The
details of its infliction are too dreadful to relate, and we read with
incredulous horror that "the terrible carpenter of Saardam plied his
own ax in the horrible employment"--and that on the last day Peter
himself put to death eighty-four of the _Streltsui_, "compelling his
_boyars_ to assist"--in inflicting this "chastisement!"

C