punishment. To noble birth and long
pedigrees he habitually showed a most democratic, or rather autocratic,
indifference. Intent on obtaining the service of living men, he paid no
attention to the claims of dead ancestors, and gave to his servants the
pay and honour which their services merited, irrespectively of birth or
social position. Hence many of his chief coadjutors had no connection
with the old Russian families. Count Yaguzhinski, who long held one of
the most important posts in the State, was the son of a poor sacristan;
Count Devier was a Portuguese by birth, and had been a cabin-boy; Baron
Shafirof was a Jew; Hannibal, who died with the rank of Commander in
Chief, was a negro who had been bought in Constantinople; and his Serene
Highness Prince Menshikof had begun life, it was said, as a baker's
apprentice! For the future, noble birth was to count for nothing. The
service of the State was thrown open to men of all ranks, and personal
merit was to be the only claim to promotion.

This must have seemed to the Conservatives of the time a most
revolutionary and reprehensible proceeding, but it did not satisfy the
reforming tendencies of the great autocrat. He went a step further, and
entirely changed the legal status of the Noblesse. Down to his time the
nobles were free to serve or not as they chose, and those who chose to
serve enjoyed land on what we should call a feudal tenure. Some served
permanently in the military or civil administration, but by far the
greater number lived on their estates, and entered the active service
merely when the militia was called out in view of war. This system was
completely changed when Peter created a large standing army and a
great centralised bureaucracy. By one of those "fell swoops" which
periodically occur in Russian history, he changed the feudal into
freehold tenures, and laid down the principle that all nobles, whatever
their landed possessions might be, should serve the State in the army,
the fleet, or the civil administration, from boyhood to old age. In
accordance with this principle, any noble who refused to serve was not
only deprived of his estate, as in the old times, but was declared to be
a traitor and might be condemned to capital punishment.

The nobles were thus transformed into servants of the State, and the
State in the time of Peter was a hard taskmaster. They complained
bitterly, and with reason, that they had been deprived of their ancient
rights, an