's character was not so easily ruined. His mother and
his old teachers had given him the beginning of an education and instead
of falling into Sophia's snares, he immediately started to turn his
playmates into scholars.

He formed a sort of military school, where the boys practiced all the
discipline necessary in camp. He himself set to work to learn to use
different tools, and in general he studied the trades of his people. He
managed to get teachers who could instruct the boys in history and
geography, and as a result instead of being good for nothing the circle
of boys in the little palace became unusually energetic and
active-minded. When he finally left the palace it had become a
well-organized military school, and continued to be run as such for a
long time afterward.

When the Princess Sophia realized that these plans of hers were failing,
she decided on a more desperate measure. On the night of August 7, 1689,
Peter was suddenly waked in the middle of night by fugitive soldiers
coming from the Kremlin, who warned him that Sophia had gathered a band
of soldiers to come out to his palace and kill him. The boy, realizing
his extreme peril, jumped out of bed, and throwing on a few clothes ran
to the stables, where he found his favorite horse and set out with some
comrades into the neighboring forest.

There they stayed practically in hiding until officers came from the
palace bringing him food and clothing, and gradually gathering about him
until he had quite a small body-guard. By this time he had made up his
mind what to do.

Feeling sufficiently strong with his friends, he finally set out for a
monastery, thinking to find safe refuge there until the storm should
pass. Here more friends came to join him, and as the news of Sophia's
plot to kill the boy Czar was spread through the country, a new
enthusiasm for the youthful Peter sprang up, and the very troops that
had formerly sided with the Princess now denounced her as a traitor to
Russia. Peter wrote to his stepsister asking for explanations about the
plot at the Kremlin, but the Princess could make no satisfactory reply.

The monastery was now crowded with officers of the court who had come to
realize that Sophia's power was gone and that the boy Czar's strength
was rising rapidly. The time had come when he was strong enough to
strike. He marched on the Kremlin and captured Sophia and those who had
been in the conspiracy with her. Some of the Streltsi Guar