Impression upon you. For this reason I have determined to write this

letter to you, and it shall be the last.

"I don't find that you make any acknowledgment of the obligation you

owe to your father who gave you life. Have you assisted him, since you

came to maturity of years, in his labors and pains? No, certainly.

The world knows that you have not. On the other hand, you blame and

abhor whatever of good I have been able to do at the expense of my

health, for the love I have borne to my people, and for their

advantage, and I have all imaginable reason to believe that you will

destroy it all in case you should survive me.

"I can not let you continue in this way. Either change your conduct,

and labor to make yourself worthy of the succession, or else take upon

you the monastic vow. I can not rest satisfied with your present

behavior, especially as I find that my health is declining. As soon,

therefore, as you shall have received this my letter, let me have your

answer in writing, or give it to me yourself in person. If you do not,

I shall at once proceed against you as a malefactor.--(Signed) peter."

To this communication Alexis the next day returned the following reply:

"MOST CLEMENT LORD AND FATHER,--

"I received yesterday in the morning your letter of the 19th of this

month. My indisposition will not allow me to write a long answer. I

shall enter upon a monastic life, and beg your gracious consent for so

doing.

"Your most humble servant and son,

"ALEXIS."

There is no doubt that there was some good ground for the complaints

which Alexis made with respect to his health. His original

constitution was not vigorous, and he had greatly impaired both his

mental and physical powers by his vicious indulgences. Still, his

excusing himself so much on this ground was chiefly a pretense, his

object being to gain time, and prevent his father from coming to any

positive decision, in order that he might continue his life of

Indolence and vice a little longer undisturbed. Indeed, it was said

that the incapacity to attend to the studies and perform the duties

which his father required of him was mainly due to his continual

drunkenness, which kept him all the time in a sort of brutal stupor.

Nor was the fault wholly on his side. His father was very harsh and

severe in his treatment of him, and perhaps, in the beginning, made too

little allowance for the feebleness of his constitution. Neither of

the two were sincere in what they said about Alexis becoming a monk.

Peter, in threatening to send him to a monastery, only meant to

frighten him; and Alexis, in saying that he wished to go, intended only

to circumvent his father, and save himself from being molested by him

any more. He knew very well that his becoming a monk would be the last

thing that his father would really desire.

Besides, Alexis was surrounded by a number of companions and advisers,

most of them lewd and dissolute fellows like himself, but among them

were some much more cunning and far-sighted than he, and it was under

their advice that he acted in all the measures that he took, and in

every thing that he said and did in the course of this quarrel with his

father. Among these men were several priests, who, like the rest,

though priests, were vile and dissolute men. These priests, and

Alexis's other advisers, told him that he was perfectly safe in

pretending to accede to his father's plan to send him to a monastery,

for his father would never think of such a thing as putting the threat

in execution. Besides, if he did, it would do no harm; for the vows

that he would take, though so utterly irrevocable in the case of common

men, would all cease to be of force in his case, in the event of his

father's death, and his succeeding to the throne. And, in the mean

time, he could go on, they said, taking his ease and pleasure, and

living as he had always done.

Many of the persons who thus took sides with Alexis, and encouraged him

in his opposition to his father, had very deep designs in so doing.

They were of the party who opposed the improvements and innovations

which Peter had introduced, and who had in former times made the

Princess Sophia their head and rallying-point in their opposition to

Peter's policy. It almost always happens thus, that when, in a

monarchical country, there is a party opposed to the policy which the

sovereign pursues, the disaffected persons endeavor, if possible, to

find a head, or leader, in some member of the royal family itself, and

if they can gain to their side the one next in succession to the crown,

so much the better. To this end it is for their interest to foment a

quarrel in the royal family, or, if the germ of a quarrel appears,

arising from some domestic or other cause, to widen the breach as much

as possible, and avail themselves of the dissension to secure the name

and the influence of the prince or princess thus alienated from the

king as their rallying-point and centre of action.

This was just the case in the present instance. The old Muscovite

party, as it was called, that is, the party opposed to the reforms and

changes which Peter had made, and to the foreign influences which he

had introduced into the realm, gathered around Alexis. Some of them,

it was said, began secretly to form conspiracies for deposing Peter,

raising Alexis nominally to the throne, and restoring the old order of

things. Peter knew all this, and the fears which these rumors excited

in his mind greatly increased his anxiety in respect to the course

which Alexis was pursuing and the exasperation which he felt against

his son. Indeed, there was reason to believe that Alexis himself, so

far as he had any political opinions, had adopted the views of the

malcontents. It was natural that he should do so, for the old order of

things was much better adapted to the wishes and desires of a selfish

and dissolute despot, who only valued his exaltation and power for the

means of unlimited indulgence in sensuality and vice which they

afforded. It was this supposed bias of Alexis's mind against his

father's policy of reform that Peter referred to in his letter when he

spoke of Alexis's desire to thwart him in his measures and undo all

that he had done.

When he received Alexis's letter informing him that he was ready to

enter upon the monastic life whenever his father pleased, Peter was for

a time at a loss what to do. He had no intention of taking Alexis at

his word, for in threatening to make a monk of him he had only meant to

frighten him. For a time, therefore, after receiving this reply, he

did nothing, but only vented his anger in useless imprecations and

mutterings.

Peter was engaged at this time in very important public affairs arising

out of the wars in which he was engaged with some foreign nations, and