it.
My Son:
Your disobedience and the contempt you have shown for my orders are known to all the world. Neither my words nor my corrections have been able to bring you to follow my instructions, and last of all, having deceived me when I bade you farewell and in defiance of the oaths you made, you have carried your disobedience to the highest pitch by your flight and by putting yourself like a traitor under a foreign protection. This'is a thing hitherto unheard of, not only in our family, but among our subjects of any consideration. What wrong and what grief have you thereby occasioned to your father, and what shame have your drawn upon your country!
I write to you for the last time to tell you that you are to do what Messrs. Tolstoy and Rumyantsov will tell you and declare to be my will. If you are afraid of me, I assure you and I promise to God and His judgement that I will not punish you. If you submit to my will by obeying me and if you return, I will love you better than ever. But if you refuse, then I as a father, by virtue of the power I have received from God, give you my everlasting curse; and as your sovereign, I declare you traitor and I assure you I will find the means to use you as such, in which I hope God will assist me and take my just cause into His hands.
As for what remains, remember I forced you to do nothing. What need had I to give you a free choice? If I had wished to force you, was it not in my power to do it? I had but to command and I would have been obeyed.
Peter
Finishing the letter, Alexis told the two envoys that he had put himself under the Emperor's protection because his father had decided to deprive him of the crown and put him in a monastery. Now that his father had promised parden, he said, he would reflect and reconsider; he could not answer immediately. Two days later, when Tolstoy and Rumyantsov returned, Alexis told them that he was still afraid to go back to his father and would continue to ask the hospitality of the Emperor. Hearing this, Tolstoy put on a different face. Roaring with anger, storming about the room, he threatened that Peter would make war on the empire, that the Tsar eventually would take his son dead or alive as a traitor, that wherever he might flee, there would be no escape because Tolstoy and Rumyantsov had orders to remain close by until they took him.
His eyes staring with fright, Alexis grasped the Viceroy by the hand, pulled him into an adjoining room and begged Count Daun to guarantee the Emperor's protection. Daun, whose orders were to facilitate the interviews while at the same time preventing violence, suspected his master's dilemma. Believing that if he could help persuade the Tsarevich to return voluntarily he would be doing a service to all parties, he calmed Alexis. But he began to work with Tolstoy.
Meanwhile, Tolstoy turned his fertile mind to other intrigues worthy of his years in Constantinople. With 160 ducats, he bribed the Viceroy's secretary to whisper in the Tsarevich's ear that he had heard that the Emperor had decided to return the son to the angry father. Next, speaking again to Alexis himself, Tolstoy lied, saying that he had received a new letter from Peter announcing that he was coming to seize his son by force and that the Russian army soon would be marching toward Silesia. The Tsar himself meant to come to Italy, Tolstoy went on. 'And when he is here, who can prevent him from seeing you?' he asked. At the thought, Alexis turned pale.
Finally, Tolstoy's relentless mind located the key to Alexis' decision: It was Afrosina. Observing the Tsarevich's almost desperate need for the serf, he told the Viceroy that she was a major cause of the rift between father and son. Further, he suggested, Afrosina was still encouraging Alexis not to return home because there her own status would be questionable. At Tolstoy's urging, Count Daun issued orders to remove the girl from Castle St. Elmo. When Alexis heard this, his defenses crumbled. He wrote to Tolstoy, begging him to come alone to the castle so that they might work out an agreement. His battle almost won, Tolstoy then persuaded Afrosina, with promises and gifts, to urge her lover to return home. She did as she was asked, begging her lover in tears to give up his last desperate idea: a flight to the Papal States to put himself under the protection of the Pope.
Alexis was now emotionally and psychologically battered to the point of submission. His choice lay between returning to Russia in the company of his mistress to receive his father's pardon, or the removal of Afrosina and of the Emperor's protection, leaving him at the mercy of Tolstoy and Rumyantsov or, worse, Peter himself. The choice was obvious, and when Tolstoy arrived, the Tsarevich quickly capitulated. Although hesitant and filled with fear and misgiving, he told the Ambassador: 'I will go to my father on two conditions: that I may be allowed to live quietly in a country house and that Afrosina will not be taken away from me.' Tolstoy, mindful of Peter's command to get the Tsarevich back to Russia by any means, instantly agreed; indeed, he promised Alexis that he would write personally to the Tsar asking permission for the Tsarevich to marry Afrosina immediately. Cynically, Tolstoy explained in his letter to Peter that this marriage would demonstrate that Alexis had fled not for serious political reasons but simply for frivolous love of a peasant girl. This in turn, Tolstoy added, would strip away any last sympathy the Emperor might have for his erstwhile brother-in-law.
Alexis wrote begging the Tsar's forgiveness and entreating that the two conditions to which Tolstoy had agreed might be carried out. On November 17, Peter replied: 'You ask for pardon. It has already been promised to you orally and in writing by Messrs. Tolstoy and Rumyantsov, and I now confirm it, of which you can be fully assured. As regards certain other wishes expressed by you [marriage to Afrosina], they will be allowed to you here.' To Tolstoy, Peter explained that he would permit the marriage if Alexis still wished it on his return, but that it must take place either on Russian soil or in one of the newly conquered Baltic territories. Peter also promised to grant Alexis' wish to live in peace in a country house. 'Perhaps he may doubt whether he will be allowed to do this,' the Tsar wrote to Tolstoy, 'but let him reason thus: when I have pardoned such a great crime, why should I not allow this little matter?'
Once Alexis had agreed to return and had written this to the Emperor in Vienna, there could be no question of detention by the imperial authorities. The Tsarevich left Castle St. Elmo with Tolstoy and Rumyantsov, and, traveling slowly and feeling more relaxed, he made a pilgrimage to Bari to visit the shrine of St. Nicholas, the miracle worker. From there, he went to Rome, where he visited the holy shrines in a Vatican carriage and was received by the Pope. In a cheerful mood, he reached Venice, where he was persuaded to leave Afrosina behind so that she would not have to cross the Alps in winter in her delicate state.
For the Tsarevich's wary escorts, Tolstoy and Rumyantsov, and for Veselovsky, who was waiting for them near Vienna, the passage through the Imperial capital posed something of a gauntlet to be run. Alexis was asking that the party halt in Vienna so that he could call on the Emperor and thank him for his hospitality. Tolstoy, however, was afraid that one or both of the brothers-in-law might have a change of mind which would upset the success of his mission. Accordingly, he arranged for Veselovsky to spirit the little party through Vienna in a single night. By the time the Emperor heard about it, the Tsarevich and his escorts were already north of the city in the town of Brunn in the imperial province of Moravia.
Charles was alarmed and indignant. He had suffered needles of conscience over what he had permitted to take place in Naples. To reassure himself, he had resolved to interview his brother-in-law in Vienna to make sure that the Tsarevich truly was returning to Russia voluntarily. The Emperor hoped, of course, that this was so; repatriation of the embarrassing guest would remove a large thorn from his own foot. But honor required that Alexis consent; the imperial dignity could not permit the Tsarevich to be dragged away by force. Thus, a meeting of the Council was hastily convened and a messenger dispatched to Count Colloredo, Governor of Moravia, commanding him to detain the Russian party until Alexis had personally assured the Governor that he was traveling freely at his own wish.
Tolstoy, finding his inn surrounded by soldiers, denied that the Tsarevich was in the party. He threatened to use his sword to prevent anyone from entering Alexis' room, and promised that the episode would summon the vengeance of Tsar Peter. The Governor, taken aback, sent to Vienna for new instructions, and again he was ordered not to permit Tolstoy's party to leave Briinn until he had seen and talked with the Tsarevich; if necessary, he was to use force to achieve this. This time, Tolstoy backed down. The interview was permitted, although the Govern's request to speak to Alexis alone was ignored; Tolstoy and Rumyantsov remained in the room. Under the circumstances, Alexis spoke only in monosyllables, saying that he was anxious to return to his father and that he had not stopped to call on the Emperor because he lacked court clothes and a suitable carriage. The game was over. The forms of propriety and diplomatic etiquette had been observed. The Governor and, through him, the Emperor had discharged their obligations; permission to depart was granted. Within a few hours, Tolstoy had secured new horses and the Russian party was gone. It reached Riga in Russian-occupied territory on January 21, 1718. From there, Alexis was taken to Tver near Moscow, to await his father's summons.
Afrosina remained in Venice, intending to travel in better weather and at a more leisurely pace. As he
