uent floods, and piles were needed before a building could be
erected. But when this autocrat had made up his mind, objections were
brushed aside. Peter collected 40,000 men, soldiers, Cossacks,
Kalmucks, Tartars and such natives as could be found, and put them to
work. At first he provided neither tools nor shelter, and food was
often scarce. Thousands of workmen died;--what did he care? Others
were compelled to take their place. The fortress of St. Peter and Paul
arose first; the czar himself was watching the progress from a little
wooden house on the right bank of the Neva. Men of means were forced
to build stone houses in the new capital. Swedish prisoners and
merchants from Novgorod were invited to move to St. Petersburg, and no
excuse was admitted. Goods could be brought only by boat, and no (p. 169)
boat was allowed to land unless it carried a certain number of white
stones to be used as building material. He erected churches, and
ordered that he should be buried in the Church of St. Peter and Paul.

Peter's domestic life, as we have seen, was not happy. After his
divorce from his first wife, he married Catherine who, in 1702, had
been made prisoner at Marienburg. It is not known where she was born,
but she was probably a native of Livonia, and was a servant in the
family of Pastor Glueck and engaged to be married to a Swedish dragoon.
She became the property of Menzikoff who gave her to the czar. There
was a secret marriage which was confirmed by a public ceremony in
1712, in reward for her services at Pultowa. Peter also instituted the
Order "For Love and Fidelity," in her honor. A German princess
describes her thus:--"The czarina was small and clumsily made, very
much tanned, and without grace or air of distinction. You had only to
see her to know that she was lowborn. From her usual costume you would
have taken her for a German comedian. Her dress had been bought at a
secondhand shop; it was very old-fashioned, and covered with silver
and dirt. She had a dozen orders, and as many portraits of saints or
relics, fastened all down her dress, in such a way that when she
walked you would have thought by the jingling that a mule was
passing." She could neither read nor write, but she was sharp, had
natural wit, and obtained great influence over Peter. They had two
sons, Peter and Paul, who died in childhood, and two daughters, Anne
and Elizabeth. The former married the Duke of Holstein.

Alexis, the son by his f