incompetency of contemporary estimates of genius; or, perhaps, the inability of talent to take the full measure of genius at any time.  The good Bishop adds that he adores the wise Providence which “has raised up such a furious man to reign over such a part of the world.”  Louis XIV. “had procured the postponement of the honor of his visit”; so Peter prepared, after visiting Vienna, to go to Venice, but receiving disturbing news of matters at home, this uncivilized civilizer, this barbarian reformer of barbarism, turned his face toward Moscow.

There was widespread dissatisfaction in the empire.  The Streltsui (militia) was rebellious, the heavily taxed landowners were angry, and the people disgusted by the prevalence of German clothes and shaved faces.  Had not the wise Ivan IV. said:  “To shave is a sin that the blood of all the martyrs could not cleanse”!  And who had ever before seen a Tsar of Moscow quit Holy Russia to wander in foreign lands among Turks and Germans? for both were alike to them.  Then it was rumored that Peter had gone in disguise to Stockholm, and that the Queen of Sweden had put him into a cask lined with nails to throw him into the sea, and he had only been saved by one of his guards taking his place; and some years later many still believed that it was a false Tsar who returned to them in 1700—­that the true Tsar was still a prisoner at Stockholm, attached to a post.  Sophia wrote to the Streltsui—­“You suffer—­but you will suffer more.  Why do you wait?  March on Moscow.  There is no news of the Tsar.”  The army was told that he was dead, and that the boyars were scheming to kill his infant son Alexis and then get into power again.  Thousands of revolted troops from Azof began to pour into Moscow, then there was a rumor that the foreigners and the Germans—­who were introducing the smoking of tobacco and shaving, to the utter destruction of the holy faith—­were planning to seize the town.  Peter returned to find Moscow the prey to wild disorder, in the hands of scheming revolutionists and mutineers.  He concluded it was the right time to give a lesson which would never be forgotten.  He would make the partisans of Old Russia feel the weight of his hand in a way that would remind them of Ivan IV.

On the day of his return the nobles all presented themselves, laying their faces, as was the custom, in the dust.  After courteously returning their salutations, Peter ordered that every one of them be immediately shaved; and as this was one of the arts he had practiced while abroad he initiated the process by skillfully applying the razor himself to a few of the long-beards.  Then the inquiry into the rebellion commenced.  The Patriarch tried to appease the wrath of the Tsar, who answered; “Know that I venerate God and his Mother as much as you do.  But also know that I shall protect my people and punish rebels.”  The “chastisement” was worthy of Ivan the Terrible.  The details of its infliction are too dreadful to relate, and we read with incredulous horror that “the terrible carpenter of Saardam plied his own ax in the horrible employment”—­and that on the last day Peter himself put to death eighty-four of the Streltsui, “compelling his boyars to assist”—­in inflicting this “chastisement!”