pudiated his wife, and
sent her to the seclusion of a convent. His second empress was a
peasant woman, whose name was Martha, but was called, in Russia,
Catharine. It was uncertain whether her husband was dead. It was
certain that Peter's first wife was living. Nobody minded. But
Alexis, the son of the earlier marriage, took the conservative side,
and became, from 1711, the hope of those who rejected Peter's
anti-national, cosmopolitan, chiefly Dutch and German system of
reform. He longed for the Asiatic twilight of the past, and the
discontented longed for him to succeed. Peter, seeing that he was a
poor creature, wished him to resign his claim. Alexis fled, and
placed himself under the protection of the emperor Charles VI. He was
discovered in the castle of St. Elmo at Naples, and brought back to
Russia, where he was condemned to death, and died of torture. The
plan had been to return to the ancient ways, and to give Petersburg
back to the Swedes, with the command of the coast. The clergy were
mixed up in it, and Peter now secured himself against the Church. He
had left the patriarchate vacant. He now abolished it, and divided
its powers.

A kindred spirit had arisen, capable of carrying out reform in the
Church. Procopovitch had become a united Greek, in order to be
admitted to foreign universities. He studied in Rome, and in Germany
he became familiar with Lutheran theology. He came back with much of
the religious culture of the West, and Peter appointed him to one of
the sees. The bishops protested. They said that he was a heretic
seventeen times over. And they proposed, if they were not believed,
that the matter should be decided by the three eastern patriarchs. It
was a scheme to disconnect the Church from the State, to merge it in
the Eastern Church. Procopovitch defeated his enemies, and drew up
the plan by which the Church was brought under the civil power, much
on the lines of Henry VIII. It was governed, thenceforward, by the
Holy Synod, which was controlled by a great official who represented
the emperor. The clergy ceased to be an obstacle. The government of
the Church by the Synod was part of a plan of government by boards,
which had been suggested by Leibnitz. The empire was governed by a
Senate of eight, of ten, at one time of twenty members. Under the
Senate, which made laws, were ten ministerial departments, or boards,
like our Treasury or Admiralty, which executed them. An