e promising era began for the Russian woman. Matveyeff, the
favorite _boyar_ of Alexis Mikhailovich, was an admirer of the culture
of western Europe and treated the women of his family with marked
consideration, freely admitting them into the society of his friends.
His clever ward, Natalia Kirillovna Naryshkina, attracted the widowed
tsar's attention and became tsarina and mother of Peter the Great.

In the palace of Alexis women enjoyed almost modern freedom. They were
allowed to go out of the palace, and to go to the theatre. A daughter of
Alexis by his first wife, Sophia Alexeyevna, received as complete an
education as could be had at that time in Russia. She grew up to be a
woman of unusual intelligence, energy, and ambition, and on her father's
death began a struggle with her stepmother, Natalia Kirillovna, for
political predominance. The disorderly and unruly standing army of the
Russian tsars, the Strelets, sided with Sophia. Having secured the
regency of Russia during the minority of her brothers, Ivan and Peter,
she soon acquired almost absolute power. Slighting custom and tradition,
she lost no opportunity to appear in public. In the matter of religion,
her advanced ideas led her to support the orthodox, or reform, party.
The conservatives, or "old believers," having challenged to a discussion
the orthodox prelates, Sophia convened a meeting, to be held in the
Palace of Facets, on which occasion she presided. The discussion was of
such a stormy character that violence was used, and the leader of the
"old believers," Nikita, was afterward executed by order of the empress.
She made peace with Poland and China. In 1689 Peter decided to rule
independently. The chief of the Strelets, being unable to raise his
troops in defence of Sophia's interests, decided to assassinate Peter.
The plot did not succeed: its instigators lost their lives, and Sophia
was immured in a convent. She caused a revolt of the Strelets during
Peter's travels abroad, but they were again subdued; many of them were
hanged under the very windows of Sophia's retreat. Sophia died in 1704,
leaving the memory of a rare intelligence and an indomitable energy,
overmatched only by that of her great brother.

Peter the Great found the Russian woman a painted doll, hung over with
pretty ornaments and trinkets, eating fattening foods and sleeping all
day long in order to get stout, for stoutness at that time passed for
beauty. Peter forbade the clergy to