parent suspicion.

Alexis proceeded in this way to Vienna, and there he appealed to the
emperor for protection. The emperor received him, listened to the
complaints which he made against the Czar--for Alexis, as might have
been expected, cast all the blame of the quarrel upon his father--and,
after entertaining him for a while in different places, he provided him
at last with a secret retreat in a fortress in the Tyrol.

Here Alexis concealed himself, and it was a long time before his father
could ascertain what had become of him. At length the Czar learned
that he was in the emperor's dominions, and he wrote with his own hand
a very urgent letter to the emperor, representing the misconduct of
Alexis in its true light, and demanding that he should not harbor such
an undutiful and rebellious son, but should send him home. He sent two
envoys to act as the bearers of this letter, and to bring Alexis back
to his father in case the emperor should conclude to surrender him.

The emperor communicated the contents of this letter to Alexis, but
Alexis begged him not to comply with his father's demand. He said that
the difficulty was owing altogether to his father's harshness and
cruelty, and that, if he were to be sent back, he should be in danger
of his life from his father's violence.

After long negotiations and delays, the emperor allowed the envoys to
go and visit Alexis in the place of his retreat, with a view of seeing
whether they could not prevail upon him to return home with them. The
envoys carried a letter to Alexis which his father had written with his
own hand, representing to him, in strong terms, the impropriety and
wickedness of his conduct, and the enormity of the crime which he had
committed against his father by his open rebellion against his
authority, and denouncing against him, if he persisted in his wicked
course, the judgment of God, who had threatened in his Word to punish
disobedient children with eternal death.

But all these appeals had no effect upon the stubborn will of Alexis.
He declared to the envoys that he would not return with them, and he
said, moreover, that the emperor had promised to protect him, and that,
if his father continued to persecute him in this way, he would resist
by force, and, with the aid which the emperor would render him, he
would make war upon his father, depose him from his power, and raise
himself to the throne in his stead.

After this there followed a long