Peter the Great

by Robert K. Massie

  61

  THE EMPEROR IN ST PETERSBURG

  The Emperor, noted one foreigner, "could dispatch more affairs in a morning than a household of senators could do in a month." Even in winter, when the sun in St. Petersburg does not rise until nine in the morning, Peter awoke at four and immediately, still wearing his nightcap and a billowing old Chinese dressing gown, received reports or held conferences with his ministers. After a light breakfast, he went to the Admiralty at six, worked there for at least an hour, sometimes two, then went to the Senate. He returned home at ten to work for an hour at his lathe before dinner at eleven. After dinner, he lay down for his regular two-hour nap, which he took wherever he was. At three, Peter made a tour around the city or worked in his office with Makarov, his private secretary. He carried a tablet or notebook in his pocket to write down ideas or suggestions which struck him during the day and if he had no tablet, he scribbled notes in the margin of the first piece of paper he could lay his hands on. In the evening, he visited friends in their houses or attended one of the new public assemblies which he had instituted after his return from France.

  The schedule varied, of course. There were times when he was rarely indoors and other times when he scarcely went out—the winter of 1720, for example, when he worked by himself in his office fourteen hours a day, for five months, writing and revising drafts of his new Maritime Regulations. At such times, the Emperor stood at a walnut writing desk made specifically for him in England. Its writing surface was five feet six inches above the floor.

  When he sat down to dinner, Peter brought a sailor's appetite. He preferred hearty, simple fare. His favorite dishes were cabbage soup, stew, pork with sour-cream sauce, cold roast meat with pickled cucumbers or salted lemons, lampreys, ham and vegetables. For dessert, he avoided sweets and ate fruit and cheese, being especially partial to Limburger cheese. He never ate fish, believing that it disagreed with him. On fast days, he lived on whole-meal bread and fruit. Before dinner, he took a little aniseed

  water, and after the meal he drank kvas or Hungarian wine. Whenever he went out in his carriage, he always carried some cold provisions with him, as he was likely to get hungry at any time. When he dined out, an orderly always brought his wooden spoon mounted with ivory and his knife and fork with green bone handles, for Peter never used any table implements other than his own.

  No ceremony attended Peter's private meals. He and Catherine often dined alone, with Peter in shirt sleeves and only a young page and a favorite maid of honor to wait on them. When he had several ministers or generals at his table, he was attended only by his chef and maitre d'hotel, an orderly and two pages, and they had strict orders to retire as soon as dessert was put on the table and a bottle of wine had been set before each guest. "I don't want them to observe me when I am speaking freely," Peter explained to the Prussian ambassador. "Not only do they spy on me, but they understand everything erroneously." There were never more than sixteen places set at Peter's table, which were filled at random by those who sat down first. Once he and the Empress had taken their chairs, he said, "Gentlemen, please take your places as far as. the table will hold. The rest will go home and dine with their wives."

  In public, the Emperor liked to listen to music while he ate. When he dined at the Admiralty on naval rations of smoked beef and small beer, a fife-and-drum band played from the central tower. When he ate in his palace with his generals and ministers, army musicians played military music on trumpets, oboes, French horns, bassoons and drums.

  Peter's cook was a Saxon named Johann Velten, who had come to Russia to serve the Danish ambassador. Peter tasted his cooking in 1704 and persuaded Velten to come to him, first as one of his cooks, then as chief cook and finally as maitre d'h6tel. Velten was gay and cheerful, and Peter was enormously fond of him, although the cook was often chastised. ("His cane," Velten said later, "often danced on my back.") One such episode occurred when Velten served Peter a Limburger cheese which the Tsar found especially tasty. He ate a piece and then took out his compass, carefully measured the amount remaining and wrote down the dimensions on his note pad. Then he summoned Velten and said, "Put this cheese away and don't let anyone else taste it because I wish to finish it myself." The following day, when the cheese reappeared, it seemed much smaller. To verify this impression, Peter took out his compass and measured it, comparing his calculations with the note in his pocket. The cheese was smaller. Peter called for Velten, displayed his notes, pointed out the discrepancy, stroked the cook with his cane and then sat down and finished the cheese with a bottle of wine.

  Peter had an aversion to pomp and lived simply and frugally. He preferred old clothes, well-worn shoes and boots, and stockings which had been darned and mended in several places by his wife and daughters. He rarely wore a wig until near the end of his life, when he had his head shaved in summer for coolness and had a wig made from his own hair. In summer, he never wore a hat. In the colder months, he wore the black three-cornered hat of the Preobrazhensky Regiment and an old greatcoat into the commodious pockets of which he habitually stuffed state papers and other documents. He owned elegant long Western coats with wide sleeves and wide lapels—green with silver thread, light blue with silver thread, brown velvet with gold thread, gray with red thread, red with gold thread—but he rarely put them on. To please Catherine, at her coronation he wore a coat which she had embroidered with her own hands in gold and silver, although he protested that the expense of the garment might have gone to better use in the support of several soldiers.

  Peter's preference for simplicity was evident also in the size and upkeep of his personal court. He had no chamberlain or footman; his personal attendants were only two valets and six dentchiks, or orderlies, who waited on him, two by two, in relays. The dentchiks were young men, usually from the petty nobility or merchant class, who served the Emperor in countless ways, acting as messengers, waiting on his table, riding behind his carriage and guarding him while he slept. When Peter was traveling, he took his midday nap lying upon straw, using a dentchik's stomach as a pillow. The dentchik, according to one who had served in this capacity, was "obliged to wait patiently in this posture and not to make the least motion for fear of waking him, for he was as good-humored when he had slept well as he was gloomy and ill-tempered when his slumber had been disturbed." Becoming a dentchik could be the first rung on a ladder to success; both Menshikov and Yaguzhinsky had been dentchiks. Usually, Peter kept a dentchik near him for about ten years and then assigned him an office in either the civil or military administration. Some had no higher ambitions. One young dentchik, Vasily Pospelov, was "a poor young fellow in the Tsar's choir, and as the Tsar himself is a singer and every feast day stands in the same row with the common choristers and sings with them in church, he [Peter] took such a great liking to him [Pospelov] that he can scarcely live an instant without him. He seizes him by the head perhaps a hundred times a day and kisses him, and even lets the highest ministers stand and wait while he goes and talks to him."

  It was Peter's belief that magnificence of ornament and display had nothing to do with greatness. He always remembered the simplicity of the royal palaces in England and Holland and the restraint and modesty shown by William III, who was the ruler of two of the wealthiest nations in Europe. Nor did Peter care for bombastic flattery. When two Dutchmen toasted him overlavishly, Peter laughed. "Bravo, my friends. Thank you," he said, shaking his head. In his relations with people of all ranks, Peter's manners were free and easy. He rarely observed protocol. He hated long, ceremonial banquets; such occasions, he said, had been invented "to punish the great and rich for their sins." At official banquets, he always gave the place of honor to Romodanovsky or Menshikov and seated himself near the end of the table in order to be able to escape. When he rode through the streets, it was in a small, open, two-wheeled carriage, like a Victorian loveseat on wheels, with room only for himself and one other passenger (one foreigner declared scornfully that no respectable Moscow merchant would set f
oot in so petty a vehicle). In winter, he used a simple one-horse sledge with a single attendant, who sat beside him. Peter still preferred walking to riding—on foot, he could see more and could stop to take a second look. He spoke to everyone he met.

  Peter's habit of walking freely among his people carried personal danger. There were reasons enough for an assassin to strike; indeed, many believed he was the Antichrist. One summer when Peter was attending a meeting in his Summer Palace on the Fontanka, a stranger quietly stole into the palace antechamber. In his hand, he carried a small colored bag similar to those in which secretaries and clerks brought papers for the Tsar to sign. The man waited quietly, attracting no attention, until Peter walked into the room, escorting his ministers to the door. At this point, the stranger stood up, drew something from his bag, wrapped the bag around it to conceal it and moved toward Peter. The Tsar's attendants did not block him, assuming that he was an orderly or servant of one of the ministers. At the last minute, however, a dentchik stepped forward and took the stranger's arm. A scuffle followed and, as Peter turned, a knife with a six-inch blade fell to the floor. Peter asked the man what he had meant to do. "To assassinate you," the stranger replied. "But why? Have I done you any harm?" Peter asked. "No, but you have done harm to my brethren and religion," said the man, declaring that he was an Old Believer.

  Assassins did not frighten Peter, but there were creatures before which he trembled: cockroaches. When he traveled, he never entered a house until he had been-assured that no cockroaches were present and his own room had been carefully swept by his own servants. This followed an episode in which Peter, as a guest at dinner in a country house, asked if his host ever had cockroaches. "Not many," the host replied, "and to chase them away, I have pinned a living one to the wall." He pointed to the place where the insect was pinned, still squirming, not far from the Tsar. With a roar, Peter leaped from the table, gave his host a tremendous blow and rushed out of the house.

  Peter's hasty temper and his habit of disciplining subordinates with a stick or his fists never left him. No one close to the Tsar was immune, although usually, once the blows had been delivered, calm quickly returned. A typical incident occurred one day in St. Petersburg when Peter was driving in his small gig with Lieutenant General Anthony Devier, the Commissioner of Police in St. Petersburg, in which capacity he was responsible for the condition of roads and bridges in the capital. On this day, Peter's carriage was crossing a small bridge over the Moika Canal when the Tsar noticed that several planks were missing and others loose. Stopping the carriage, Peter jumped out and ordered the dentchik accompanying him to repair the bridge at once. While the planks were being fastened in place, Peter took his cane to Devier's back. "This is a punishment for negligence," he said. "It will teach you to make the rounds and be sure that everything is safe and in good condition." Once the bridge was repaired, Peter turned to Devier and said in a pleasant tone, "Get in, brother. Sit down," and the two drove off as if nothing had happened.

  Peter's blows fell equally on great and small. Once, when his yacht was becalmed for an entire day between Kronstadt and St. Petersburg, the Tsar went down to his cabin to sleep after midday dinner. Before his two hours were up, he was awakened by noises on deck. Furious, he went topside and found the deck deserted except for a small black page sitting quietly on the stair ladder. Peter grabbed the boy and caned him, saying, "Learn to be more quiet and not wake me when I sleep." But the boy had not been guilty; the noise had been made by the Tsar's doctor, an engineer and two naval officers, who had fled and hid when they heard Peter mounting the ladder. After the canning, they crept back and warned the boy against telling the truth, on pain of another beating. An hour later, Peter reappeared on deck, now cheeful from his rest. Astonished to see the boy still weeping, he asked him why. "Because you have chastised me cruelly and unjustly," the boy replied, naming those who had actually been responsible for the noise. "Well," said Peter, "since I have punished you this time undeservedly, the next folly you commit shall be pardoned." A few days later, when Peter was about to cane the boy again, the page reminded him of his statement. "True," said the Tsar. "I remember and forgive you this time, as you have been punished by anticipation."

  His outbursts could be terrifying. One day, Peter was working in the Turning Room of the Summer Palace, making a large ivory chandelier in the company of his chief turner Andrei Nartov and a young apprentice whom Peter liked for his gaiety and forth-rightness. The apprentice had orders to quietly remove the Emperor's hat whenever Peter sat down without taking it off. This time, grabbing the hat in haste, the apprentice pulled a lock of hair. Roaring with anger, Peter leaped to his feet and chased the young man, threatening to kill him. The apprentice escaped by hiding, and the next day Peter, his anger forgotten, returned to the lathe. "That cursed boy had no mercy on me," he laughed, "but he hurt me more than he intended, and I am very glad that his flight was quicker than my pursuit." Several more days passed and Peter noticed that the apprentice still had not returned to work. He told Nartov to look for him and assure him that he could return without fear, but the young man still could not be found, even by the police. In fact, he had fled St. Petersburg, first to a little village on Lake Ladoga and then to Vologda on the Dvina River, where he pretended to be an orphan and was taken in by a glazier, who taught him his trade. Ten years later, on Peter's death, the young man dared to reveal his real name and return to St. Petersburg. Nartov told him of the Tsar's pardon and rehired him, and he worked at court through the reigns of Empresses Anne and Elizabeth.

  With the passage of time, Peter tried to correct his temper, and although he never fully succeeded, he was aware of it as a flaw. "I am sensible that I have my faults," he said, "and that I easily lose my temper. For which reason I am not offended with those who are on familiar terms with me when they tell me of it and remonstrate with me, as does my Catherine."

  Indeed, it was Catherine who could best—and sometimes only—deal with Peter's temper. She was not afraid of him, and he knew that. Once, when she persisted in mentioning a subject which irritated him, he flew into a rage and smashed a handsome Venetian mirror, shouting ominously, "Thus can I destroy the most beautiful object in my palace!" Catherine understood the threat, but looked him in the eye and replied calmly, "And have you made the palace more beautiful by doing so?" Wisely, she never opposed her husband directly, but searched for a way to make him look at matters from a new angle. On one occasion, she used his favorite dog, Lisette, to mollify his anger. Wherever he went at home, this small duncolored Italian greyhound followed, and during his afternoon nap she always lay at his feet. It happened that Peter was furious at a member of the court whom he thought guilty of corruption and who was in grave danger of the knout. Everyone at court, including Catherine, was convinced of the unhappy courtier's innocence, but all appeals to the Tsar had only made him angrier. Finally, to obtain peace around him, Peter had forbidden everyone, including the Tsaritsa, to present any petition or speak to him on the subject. Catherine did not give up. Instead, she composed a short, pathetic petition in the name of Lisette, presenting strong evidence of the innocence of the accused and begging, on the ground of Lisette's total fidelity to her master, for a pardon. Then she tied the petition to Lisette's collar. On Peter's return from the Senate, the faithful Lisette leaped joyfully about him as usual. Peter saw the petition, read it, smiled wearily and said, "Well, Lisette, as this is the first time you have asked, I grant your prayer."

  Although he hated formality, there were some ceremonies which Peter enjoyed hugely, and others which he accepted dutifully as obligations of the ruler of the state. Above all, he loved the launching of a new ship; generally frugal, he did not mind spending large sums to celebrate this kind of event, and crowds flocked to the Admiralty to share in his largess. The occasion always demanded an enormous banquet on the decks of the new vessel, and the Tsar, his face shining, his voice excited, could be found at the center of all activity, accompanied by his family, including
his daughters and even the aging Tsaritsa Praskovaya, who never missed a launching and its attendant rivers of alcohol. These parties inevitably ended with General-Admiral Apraxin bursting into tears and moaning that he was a lonely old man and with the mighty Prince Menshikov drunk and inert under the table, whereupon his servants would send for his wife, Princess Darya, and her sister, who came to revive him with smelling salts, massage and cold water, "and then would get permission from the Tsar to take him home."

  Life in St. Petersburg revolved around weddings, baptisms, christenings and funerals. Peter and the members of his family were always willing to appear as witnesses at a wedding, and he was frequently a godfather, often holding over the baptismal font the children of common soldiers, artisans, and lower-ranking officials. Peter did this cheerfully, but the family could not expect a lavish present; all that was given was a kiss for the mother and a rouble slipped under the baptismal pillow in the old Russian fashion. After the ceremony, if the weather was warm, Peter would take off his caftan and sit down in the first empty seat. When he served as Marshal of Ceremonies at a wedding, he fulfilled his duties rigorously, then put down his marshal's rod, moved to the table, took a hot roast of meat in his hands and began to eat.