CONCLUSION.

1719-1725

Death of little Peter--Excessive grief of the Czar--The Czar shuts
himself up--Device of his minister--Subsequent reign--His plan for the
succession--Oath required of the people--Prince
Naraskin--Proclamation--Catharine's usefulness--Splendour of the
preparations--The interior of the church--The dais--The canopy--The
regalia--The ceremonies--Sickness and death of Peter--Natalia--The double
funeral--General character of Peter--Compared with other
sovereigns--Playful vein in his character--Examples--The Little
Grandfather--Taken to Cronstadt--Triumphal procession--Display before the
fleet--Closing festivities--Catharine proclaimed empress--Catharine's
brief reign--Her beneficent character

At the time of the death of Alexis the Czar's hopes in respect to a
successor fell upon his little son, Peter Petrowitz, the child of
Catharine, who was born about the time of the death of Alexis's wife,
when the difficulties between himself and Alexis were first beginning to
assume an alarming form. This child was now about three years old, but
he was of a very weak and sickly constitution, and the Czar watched him
with fear and trembling. His apprehensions proved to be well founded,
for about a year after the unhappy death of Alexis he also died.

Peter was entirely overwhelmed with grief at this new calamity. He was
seized with the convulsions to which he was subject when under any strong
excitement, his face was distorted, and his neck was twisted and
stiffened in a most frightful manner. In ordinary attacks of this kind
Catharine had power to soothe and allay the spasmodic action of the
muscles, and gradually release her husband from the terrible gripe of the
disease, but now he would not suffer her to come near him. He could not
endure it, for the sight of her renewed so vividly the anguish that he
felt for the loss of their child, that it made the convulsions and the
suffering worse than before.

It is said that on this occasion Peter shut himself up alone for three
days and three nights in his own chamber, where he lay stretched on the
ground in anguish and agony, and would not allow any body to come in. At
length one of his ministers of state came, and, speaking to him through
the door, appealed to him, in the most earnest manner, to come forth and
give them directions in respect to the affairs of the empire, which, he
said, urgently required his attention. The minister had brought with