the throne under the Regency of Sophia. But while she was
outraging the feelings of the people by her contempt for ancient
customs, and while her friendship with her Minister, Prince Galitsuin,
was becoming a public scandal, Sophia was at the same time being
defeated in a campaign against the Turks at the Crimea; and her
popularity was gone.

In the meantime Peter was growing. With no training, no education, he
was in his own disorderly, undisciplined fashion struggling up into
manhood under the tutelage of a quick, strong intelligence, a hungry
desire to know, and a hot, imperious temper. His first toys were drums
and swords, and he first studied history from colored German prints;
and as he grew older never wearied of reading about Ivan the Terrible.
His delight was to go out upon the streets of Moscow and pick up
strange bits of information from foreign adventurers about the habits
and customs of their countries. He played at soldiers with his boy
companions, and after finding how they did such things in Germany and
in England, drilled his troops after the European fashion. But it was
when he first saw a boat so built that it could go with or against the
wind, that his strongest instinct was awakened. He would not rest
until he had learned how to make and then to manage it. When this
strange, passionate, self-willed boy was seventeen years old, he
realized that his sister was scheming for the ruin of himself and his
mother. In the rupture that followed, the people deserted Sophia and
flocked about Peter. He placed his sister in a monastery, where, after
fifteen years of fruitless intrigue and conspiracy, she was to die.
Then, conjointly with his unfortunate brother, he commenced his reign
(1689).

If Sophia had freed herself from the customary seclusion of Princesses,
Peter emancipated himself from the usual proprieties of the palace.
Both were scandalous. One had harangued soldiers and walked with her
veil lifted, the other was swinging an ax like a carpenter, rowing like
a Cossack, or fighting mimic battles with his grooms, who not
infrequently knocked him down. In 1693 he gratified one great thirst
and longing. With a large suite he went up to Archangel--and for the
first time a Tsar looked out upon the sea! He ate and drank with the
foreign merchants, and took deep draughts of the stimulating air from
the west. He established a dock-yard, and while his first ship was
building made perilous trips u