The age-herald., 1897-10-24
From the New York Post.


 much favor by the public; the first Gle Roman dune ImperatriceD has already attained the eleventh edition, the com panion work cAutour dun TroneO the sixth edition. He gives us now volume which is even more important and richer in original documents, on Peter the Great At a moment when the fever of the Russan alliance was al it's height, it was rathsr bold to show us Peter the Great as he really was; the Russian em- p,re as a land hardly emerging from a barbarous and inorganic state. I con- fess that the book has produced on my mind almost the effect of a nightmare. Peter appears in it as sort of monstsr. as prodigy as the embodiment of an other and infer.or humanity. A mod -ern philosopher has written eloquent pages on the Uebsrmensch; the Slav, as p;rsonifed by Peter, is a sort of Unter- mensch:
 Peter" says M. Walisz swski, "is Rus sia itself it's spirit and it's flesh, it's temper and It's genius. it's virtues and its vices. With the diversity of his apti- tudes. the multiplicity Of his efforts, the tumult of his passions, he sesms a col lective being The physi- ognomy of the world which he seems to nave drawn out of no.hingness may have been modified in some of its features; not So the principle of it's existence. There is force thsre immsasurable, which in threa centuries has dsfied all calculation, and which out of the small land of Ivan, poorly populated steppe, has made the patrimony of the Alex anders and the Nicholases, an empire larger in size and in population than any which Europe, Africa and Asa hay+ known, than those of Alexandsr and of Rome, these of the Caliphs, the British empire, with all it's colonies. Twenty millions of square kilometers and a hundred and twenty million men! This force was once called Peter the Gr5at The name has changed, the character has not
 Peter the. Great was born on May 30, 1872 He was the son of Natalie Narish- kin. the second wife of Tsar Alexis Mika- ha.lovitch, who died in 1876. The mother and the young child had to leave the Kremlin, and Ware sent to village near Moscow. The Tsar Alexis had other children by his first wife; the eldest, Feodor, died in 1882, without poster.ty. The second was an idiot. The high dig nitaries pronounced in favor of Peter, who was five y5arS old. It was tr- umph of his mothers family, but 1t did not last long. The Miloslavski, re- lations of the first wife, proclaimed her daughter Sophia, who was already 26 years old. She had been brought up n the terem of the Kremlin, sort of clols- ter; th5 Patriarch and the near relations were the only visitors. ''The doctor was admitted only in the case of a grave malady. When he arrived the shutters were closed and he could feel tha pulse only through a piece of Inen." The Princesses lived there. slaves of an im- mutahle and OrierAal etiquette. The people only knew their names, which were pronounced in the public prayers. The Pr.ncesses knew nothing of life; they wsre not allowed to marry sub ject on account of their rank, nor for eign prince, on account of their reIg- ion.''
 Sophia was able to become the insi1ga- tor of the coup detat which was marked by the revolt of the Strelitzi, and which made Ivan Pster's associate-lvan the idiot the brother of Sophia. "The ter em was certainly under the direct fn- fluence of Byzantine ideas, comprising the historical mixture of ascetic.sm and of intrigue which composed the lif@ Of the Lower empire" Sophia found an instrument in Vassili Ga1itzin, with whom she was in love, but she was the soul of the plot against the Narishkin fac.ion. The Kremlin was beseiged, the Strelitzi began a massacre which lasted three days; at the end of It, Sophla threw off the mask, Ivan was proclaim ed second Tsar, great banquet was served TUT lfG SOiultiS, etio tooPAiieo eihN the honors of it. The red shirts of the Str;litzi wer4 still covered with blood; she helped them to drink. On May z9 she was proclaimed regent.
 Meanwhile, young Peter was a passive victim. At the age of II, he did not yst know how to read and write. He came back to the Kremlin only on the days of great functions to sit on the double throne (which is st.H to be seen in the Museum of Moscow. The r5st of the time he remained at Preobrazhsnsk.o,,. He made friends with grooms, with country boys, played at soldiers and sailors with them. There was con stant rivalry between the Kr5mhn ana Preobrazenskoi. Ths Regent Sophia and Galitzin were living Tn an atmos- phere of plots and counter-plots. on the historical night of August ', 1889, Peter was awakened from his slesp by msn coming from the kremlin 10 tell him that an armed band was on its way to put him to death. He dresses rapidly. jumps on a horse, and takes rsfuge with some stable-boys in the nearest forest, and afterwards in the monastery of the Troitsa. His friends assemble; the Sure 1itzi pronounce for Peter; th- favorlte Gal,tzin is exied, and Sophia Is sent to a cloiSter.
 Peter is now really the Tsar. but he at first abandons the government to his friends, and feels the desire to complete his very imperfect education abroa1, at the schools of the civilized world. He did not execute his project immediately, but spent six years in idls amusements, with his friend Lefo1t, Swiss officer Of fortune, whose house became the center of gay companions, the comrades Of the Tsar sI1adies also were seen there, Scotch women with fine profile. Ger mans with dreamy eyes, fat Dutchwo- men, None of them resembled the re- cluses of thIs Muscovite terems, in,acces- sible behind iron gates or veils of silk" A great Muscovite reaction against Jesu- it's and Protestants had followed the coup d'etat of 1889. Tn 1890 Patrick Cor don who lived in Russia. wrote to a friend in London: 'I am still at this court which costs me much expense and uneasiness. Great rewards have been promised to me, but have received notbing so far. When the young Tsar takes the government in hand I don't doubt that I shall receive satisfaction" The young Tsar was in no hurry; he lived in perpetual orgy of movement and noise. or in trying allsorts of exper- iments, learning trades, building fleet on a small lake. He was very impatient to view the sea. something bigger than
 L.. ,..l., x.<.1J