and winds with sweeter harmonies.'
Korb's visit, tied to that of his ambassador, lasted fifteen months. In July 1699, they departed after lavish ceremonies. Peter distributed gifts, including numerous sable furs, to the envoy and his entire suite. By Peter's order, a magnificent procession was staged, and the ambassador rode in Peter's personal state carriage, with trappings of gold and silver and gems encrusting the doors and ceiling. Then the coach and the other carriages carrying the Austrian embassy were escorted out of the city by the squadrons of Peter's new cavalry and detachments of his new Western infantry.
VORONEZH AND THE SOUTHERN FLEET
From the hour of his return to Moscow, Peter had longed to see his ships being built at Voronezh. Even while the tortures continued at Preobrazhenskoe, while he and his friends drank through the gloomy autumn and winter nights, the Tsar desired to be on the Don, joining the Western shipwrights whom he had recruited and who even now were beginning to work in the shipyards on the riverbank.
He had made a first visit late in October. Many of the boyars, anxious to remain in the Tsar's good graces by staying close to his person, followed him south. Prince Cherkassky, the respected elder whose beard had been spared, was left behind as Prefect of Moscow, but soon discovered that his authority was not unique. Typically, Peter had confided the government not to one but to several. Before leaving, he had also said, to Gordon, 'To you I commit everything.' And to Romodanovsky, 'Meanwhile, I commit all my affairs to your loyalty.' It was Peter's maxim of absentee government: By dividing power among many and confusing all as to what power each had, they would remain in constant dissent and confusion. The system was not likely to promote efficient government in his absence, but it would prevent a single regent from ever challenging his power. With the causes of the Streltsy revolt still undetermined, this was Peter's first consideration.
At Voronezh, in the shipyards sprawling along the banks of the broad and shallow river, Peter found the carpenters sawing and hammering, akd he found many problems. There were shortages and great wastage of both men and materials. In haste to comply with the Tsar's commands, the shipwrights were using unseasoned timber, which would rot quickly in the water.* On arriving from Holland, Vice Admiral Cruys inspected the vessels and ordered many hauled out to be rebuilt and strengthened. The foreign shipwrights, each following his own designs without guidance or control from above, quarreled frequently. The Dutch shipwrights, commanded by Peter's orders from London to work only under the supervision of others, were sullen and sluggish. The Russian artisans were in no better mood. Summoned by decree to Voronezh to learn shipbuilding, they understood that if they showed aptitude, they would be sent to the West to perfect their skills. Accordingly, many preferred to do just enough work to get by, hoping somehow to be allowed to return home.
The worst problems and the greatest sufferings were among the mass of unskilled laborers. Thousands of men had been drafted— peasants and serfs who had never seen a boat bigger than a barge or a body of water wider than a river. They came carrying their own hatchets and axes, sometimes bringing their own horses, to cut and trim the trees and float them down the rivers to Voronezh. Living conditions were primitive, disease spread quickly and death was common. Many ran away, and eventually the shipyards had to be surrounded by a fence and guards. If caught, deserters were beaten and returned to work.
Although outwardly Peter was optimistic, the slowness of the work, the sickness, death and desertion of the workers, made him gloomy and despondent. Three days after arriving, on November 2, 1698, he wrote to Vinius, 'Thank God we have found our fleet in excellent condition. Only a cloud of doubt covers my mind whether we shall ever taste these fruits, which, like dates, those who plant never succeed in harvesting.' Later, he wrote, 'Here, by God's help, is great preparation. But we only wait for that blessed day when the great cloud of doubt over us shall be driven away. We have begun a ship here which will carry sixty guns.'
Despite Peter's worries, the work moved forward although the shipyards were without machinery of any kind and all work was done with hand tools. Gangs of men and teams of horses moved the tree trunks, trimmed them to logs and pulled them through the yard and into position over pits in the earth. Then, with some men beneath the log and others leaning or sitting on it to steady it, the long planks or curved frame timbers were sawed or hewn out. There was tremendous waste, as very few planks were obtained from a single log. Once the rough board was obtained, it was turned over to more skillful artisans who worked with hatchets,
*The problem of using green timber was not restricted to Russian ships. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the average life of British navy ships was only about ten years, due to the use of unseasoned timber.
hammers, mauls, augers and chisels to create the exact shapes needed. The heaviest, strongest pieces went into the keels, laid just above the earth. Then came the ribs curving out and up to be fastened together. Finally, along the sides came the heavy planks that would keep out the sea. And then work could begin on decks, interiors and all the special structures that would make the ship both a place of habitation and a machine of work.
Through the winter, ignoring the cold, Peter labored with his men. He walked through the shipyards, stepping over logs covered with snow, past the ships standing silent in the stocks, past the workers huddled around outdoor fires trying to warm their hands and bodies, past the foundry with its huge bellows driving air into the furnaces where anchors and metal fitting were being cast. He was indefatigable, pouring out his energy, commanding, cajoling, persuading. The Venetians building die galleys complained that they were working so hard they had no time to go to confession. But the fleet continued to grow. When Peter arrived in the autumn, he found twenty ships already launched and anchored in the stream. Every week, as the winter progressed, another five or six went into the water, or waited ready to be launched when the ice melted.
Not content with his overall supervision, Peter himself designed and began to build, solely with Russian labor, a fifty-gun ship called the
It was in March during his second trip to Voronezh that the Tsar was stunned by a personal blow: the death of Francis Lefort. Both times Peter went to work on his ships that winter, Lefort remained in Moscow. At forty-three, his great strength and hearty enthusiasm seemed intact. As First Ambassador of the Great Embassy, he had survived eighteen months of ceremonial banquets in the West, and his prodigious drinking capacity had not deserted him during the feasts and roaring entertainments of the fall and winter in Moscow. He still seemed gay and in high spirits when he saw Peter off for Voronezh.
But in the days before his death, while Lefort went on with his frantic life, a strange story was heard. One night when he was away from his house, sleeping with another woman, his wife heard a terrible noise in her husband's bedroom. Knowing that Lefort was not there, but 'supposing that her husband might have changed his mind and come home in a great fury, she sent someone to ascertain the cause. The person came back, saying that he could see nobody in the room.' Nevertheless, the uproar went on, and, if one is to believe the wife—the story is told by Korb—'the next morning all the chairs, tables and seats were scattered, topsy-turvy all about, besides which deep groans were constantly heard all through the night.'
Soon afterward Lefort gave a banquet for two foreign diplomats, the ambassadors of Denmark and Brandenburg, who were departing to visit Voronezh at Peter's invitation. The evening was a great success, and the ambassadors stayed late. Finally, the heat in the room grew overpowering, and the host led his guests, reeling, out into the frozen winter air to drink under the stars without coats or wraps. The following day, Lefort began to shiver. A fever mounted rapidly and he became delirious, raving and shouting for music and wine. His terrified wife suggested sending for the Protestant Pastor Stumpf, but Lefort shouted that he wanted no one to come near him. Stumpf came anyway. 'When the pastor was admitted to see him,' writes Korb,
and was admonishing him to be converted to God, they say he only told him 'not to talk much.' To his wife, who in his last moments asked his pardon for her past faults if she had committed any, he blandly replied, '1 never had anything to reproach thee with; I always honored and loved thee.' . . . He commended his domestics and their services, desiring that their wages should be paid in full.
Lefort lived for another week, solaced on his deathbed by the music of an orchestra which had been brought to play for him. Finally, at three in the morning, he died. Golovin immediately sealed the house and gave the keys to Lefort's relatives, at the same time urgently dispatching a courier to Peter at Voronezh.
When Peter heard the news, the hatchet fell from his grasp, he sat down on a log and, hiding his face in his
