every thing belongs to your majesty, and your majesty
has, therefore, only to give me the command, and I shall deliver it up to
you."

This reply pleased the Czar so much that he sent for the boy to come to
him, and on conversing with him farther, and after making additional
inquiries respecting him, he was so well satisfied that he took him at
once into his service.

All this took place before Le Fort's plan was formed for organizing a
company to exhibit to the emperor the style of uniform and the system of
military discipline adopted in western Europe, as has already been
described. Menzikoff joined this company, and he took so much interest
in the exercises and evolutions, and evinced so great a degree of
intelligence, and so much readiness in comprehending and in practicing
the various manoeuvres, that he attracted Le Fort's special attention.
He was soon promoted to office in the company, and ultimately he became
Le Fort's principal co-operator in his various measures and plans. From
this he rose by degrees, until in process of time he became one of the
most distinguished generals in Peter's army, and took a very important
part in some of his most celebrated campaigns.

In reading stories like these, we are naturally led to feel a strong
interest in the persons who are the subjects of them, and we sometimes
insensibly form opinions of their characters which are far too favorable.
This Menzikoff, for example, notwithstanding the enterprising spirit
which he displayed in his boyhood, in setting off alone to Moscow to seek
his fortune, and his talent for telling stories and singing songs, and
the interest which he felt, and the success that he met with, in learning
Le Fort's military manoeuvres, and the great distinction which he
subsequently acquired as a military commander, may have been, after all,
in relation to any just and proper standards of moral duty, a very bad
man. Indeed, there is much reason to suppose that he was so. At all
events, he became subsequently implicated in a dreadful quarrel which
took place between Peter and his wife, under circumstances which appear
very much against him. This quarrel occurred after Peter had been
married only about two years, and when he was yet not quite twenty years
old. As usual in such cases, very different stories are told by the
friends respectively of the husband and the wife. On the part of the
empress it was said that the difficulty arose from Peter's hav