offer for idleness and delinquency, namely, his ill health.
His answer to his father's letter was as follows. It was not written
until two or three weeks after his father's letter was received, and in
that interim a son was born to the Empress Catharine, as related in the
last chapter. It is to this infant son that Alexis alludes in his
letter:

"MY CLEMENT LORD AND FATHER,--

"I have read the writing your majesty gave me on the 27th of October,
1715, after the interment of my late spouse.

"I have nothing to reply to it but that if it is your majesty's
pleasure to deprive me of the crown of Russia by reason of my
inability--your will be done. I even earnestly request it at your
majesty's hands, as I do not think myself fit for the government. My
memory is much weakened, and without it there is no possibility of
managing affairs. My mind and body are much decayed by the distempers
to which I have been subject, which renders me incapable of governing
so many people, who must necessarily require a more vigorous man at
their head than I am.

"For which reason I should not aspire to the succession of the crown of
Russia after you--whom God long preserve--even though I had no brother,
as I have at present, whom I pray God also to preserve. Nor will I
ever hereafter lay claim to the succession, as I call God to witness by
a solemn oath, in confirmation whereof I write and sign this letter
with my own hand.

"I give my children into your hands, and, for my part, desire no more
than a bare maintenance so long as I live, leaving all the rest to your
consideration and good pleasure.

"Your most humble servant and son,

"ALEXIS."

The Czar did not immediately make any rejoinder to the foregoing
communication from his son. During the fall and winter months of that
year he was much occupied with public affairs, and his health,
moreover, was quite infirm. At length, however, about the middle of
June, he wrote to his son as follows:

"MY SON,--As my illness hath hitherto prevented me from letting you
know the resolutions I have taken with reference to the answer you
returned to my former letter, I now send you my reply. I observe that
you there speak of the succession as though I had need of your consent
to do in that respect what absolutely depends on my own will. But
whence comes it that you make no mention of your voluntary indolence
and inefficiency, and the aversion you constantly express to public