convent and a fortress.
The vast pile, reared of stone, was situated thirty-six miles from
Moscow, and was encompassed with deep ditches, and massive ramparts
bristling with cannon. The monks were in possession of the whole
country for a space of twelve miles around this almost impregnable
citadel. From this safe retreat Sophia opened communications with the
rebel chief. She succeeded in alluring him to come half way to meet
her in conference. A powerful band of soldiers, placed in ambush,
seized him. He was immediately beheaded, with one of his sons, and
thirty-seven strelitzes who had accompanied him.

As soon as the strelitzes in Moscow, numbering many thousands, heard
of the assassination of their general and of their comrades, they flew
to arms, and in solid battalions, with infantry, artillery and
cavalry, marched to the assault of the convent. The regent rallied her
supporters, consisting of the lords who were her partisans, and their
vassals, and prepared for a vigorous defense. Russia seemed now upon
the eve of a bloody civil war. The nobles generally espoused the cause
of the tzars under the regency of Sophia. Their claims seemed those of
legitimacy, while the success of the insurrectionary soldiers promised
only anarchy. The rise of the people in defense of the government was
so sudden and simultaneous, that the strelitzes were panic-stricken,
and soon, in the most abject submission, implored pardon, which was
wisely granted them. Sophia, with the tzars, surrounded by an army,
returned in triumph to Moscow. Tranquillity was thus restored.

Sophia still held the reins of power with a firm grasp. The imbecility
of Ivan and the youth of Peter rendered this usurpation easy. Very
adroitly she sent the most mutinous regiments of the strelitzes on
apparently honorable missions to the distant provinces of the Ukraine,
Kesan, and Siberia. Poland, menaced by the Turks, made peace with
Russia, and purchased her alliance by the surrender of the vast
province of Smolensk and all the conquered territory in the Ukraine.
In the year 1687, Sophia sent the first Russian embassy to France,
which was then in the meridian of her splendor, under the reign of
Louis XIV. Voltaire states that France, at that time, was so
unacquainted with Russia, that the Academy of Inscriptions celebrated
this embassy by a medal, as if it had come from India.[10] The Crimean
Tartars, in confederacy with the Turks, kept Russia, Poland, Hungary,
Tra