Interruption till he came to Konigsberg, which was the place where the

road turned off to Vienna. It was now necessary to say something to

Afrosinia and his other attendants to account for the new direction

which his journey was to take; so he told them that he had received a

letter from his father, ordering him, before proceeding to Copenhagen,

to go to Vienna on some public business which was to be done there.

Accordingly, when he turned off, they accompanied him without any

apparent suspicion.

Alexis proceeded in this way to Vienna, and there he appealed to the

emperor for protection. The emperor received him, listened to the

complaints which he made against the Czar--for Alexis, as might have

been expected, cast all the blame of the quarrel upon his father--and,

after entertaining him for a while in different places, he provided him

at last with a secret retreat in a fortress in the Tyrol.

Here Alexis concealed himself, and it was a long time before his father

could ascertain what had become of him. At length the Czar learned

that he was in the emperor's dominions, and he wrote with his own hand

a very urgent letter to the emperor, representing the misconduct of

Alexis in its true light, and demanding that he should not harbor such

an undutiful and rebellious son, but should send him home. He sent two

envoys to act as the bearers of this letter, and to bring Alexis back

to his father in case the emperor should conclude to surrender him.

The emperor communicated the contents of this letter to Alexis, but

Alexis begged him not to comply with his father's demand. He said that

the difficulty was owing altogether to his father's harshness and

cruelty, and that, if he were to be sent back, he should be in danger

of his life from his father's violence.

After long negotiations and delays, the emperor allowed the envoys to

go and visit Alexis in the place of his retreat, with a view of seeing

whether they could not prevail upon him to return home with them. The

envoys carried a letter to Alexis which his father had written with his

own hand, representing to him, in strong terms, the impropriety and

wickedness of his conduct, and the enormity of the crime which he had

committed against his father by his open rebellion against his

authority, and denouncing against him, if he persisted in his wicked

course, the judgment of God, who had threatened in his Word to punish

disobedient children with eternal death.

But all these appeals had no effect upon the stubborn will of Alexis.

He declared to the envoys that he would not return with them, and he

said, moreover, that the emperor had promised to protect him, and that,

If his father continued to persecute him in this way, he would resist

by force, and, with the aid which the emperor would render him, he

would make war upon his father, depose him from his power, and raise

himself to the throne in his stead.

After this there followed a long period of negotiation and delay,

during which many events occurred which it would be interesting to

relate if time and space permitted. Alexis was transferred from one

place to another, with a view of eluding any attempt which his father

might make to get possession of him again, either by violence or

stratagem, and at length was conveyed to Naples, in Italy, and was

concealed in the castle of St. Elmo there.