Part 17

The dam was the centre of the struggle. The besiegers sought to raise it still higher and deepen the water in the streets; the besieged did their best to break it down and relieve the city. It had grown to a great height with such rapidity that the superstitious people of Toula felt sure that magic had aided in its building and fancied that it might be destroyed by magic means. A monk declared that Shuiski had brought devils to his aid, but professed to be a proficient in the black art, and offered, for a hundred roubles, to fight the demons in their own element.

Bolotnikof accepted his terms, and he stripped, plunged into the river, and disappeared. For a full hour nothing was seen of him, and every one gave him up for lost. But at the end of that time he rose to the surface of the water, his body covered with scratches. The story he had to tell was, to say the least, remarkable.

"I have had a frightful conflict," he said, "with the twelve thousand devils Shuiski has at work upon his dam. I have settled six thousand of them, but the other six thousand are the worst of all, and will not give in."

Thus against men and devils alike, against water, famine, and pestilence, fought the brave men of Toula, holding out with extraordinary courage. Letters came to them in Dmitri's name, promising help, but it never came. At length, after months of this brave defence had elapsed, Shakhofskoi proposed that they should capitulate. The Cossacks of the garrison, furious at the suggestion, seized and thrust him into a dungeon. Not until every scrap of food had been eaten, horses and dogs devoured, even leather gnawed as food, did Bolotnikof and Peter the pretender offer to yield, and then only on condition that the soldiers should receive honorable treatment. If not, they would die with arms in their hands, and devour one another as food, rather than surrender. As for themselves, they asked for no pledges of safety.

Shuiski accepted the terms, and the gates were opened. Bolotnikof advanced boldly to the czar and offered himself as a victim, presenting his sword with the edge laid against his neck.

"I have kept the oath I swore to him who, rightly or wrongly, calls himself Dmitri," he said. "Deserted by him, I am in your power. Cut off my head if you will; or, if you will spare my life, I will serve you as I have served him."

This appeal was wasted on Shuiski. He forgot the clemency which the czar Dmitri had formerly shown to him, sent Bolotnikof to Kargopol, and soon after ordered him to be drowned. Peter the pretender was hanged on the spot. Shakhofskoi alone was spared. They found him in chains, which he said had been placed on him because he counselled the obstinate rebels to submit. Shuiski set him free, and the first use he made of his liberty was to kindle the rebellion again.

Thus ended this remarkable siege, one in some respects without parallel in the history of war. What followed must be briefly told. Though the siege of Toula ended with the hanging of one pretender to the throne, another was already in the field. The new Dmitri, in whose name the war was waged, had made his appearance during the siege. Some of the officers of the first Dmitri pretended to recognize him, but in reality he was a coarse, vulgar, ignorant knave, who had badly learned his lesson, and lacked all the native princeliness of his predecessor.

Yet he had soon a large army at his back, and with it, on April 24, 1608, he defeated the army of the czar with great slaughter. He might easily have taken Moscow, but instead of advancing on it he halted at the village of Tushino, twelve versts away, where he held his court for seventeen months.

Meanwhile still another pretender appeared, who called himself Feodor, son of the czar Feodor. He presented himself to the Don Cossacks, who brought him in chains to Dmitri, by whom he was promptly put to death. Soon afterwards Marina, wife of the first Dmitri, who had been released, with her father, by Shuiski, was brought into the camp of the pretender. And here an interesting bit of comedy was played. Marina, rather than go back to meet ridicule in Poland, was ready to become the wife of this vulgar impostor, though she saw at once that he was not the man he claimed to be.

She met him coldly at first, but at a second meeting she greeted him with a great show of tenderness before the whole army, being glad, it would appear, to regain her old position on any terms. The news that Marina had recognized the pretender brought over numbers to his side, and soon nearly all Russia had declared for him, the only cities holding out being Moscow, Novgorod, and Smolensk.

The false Dmitri had now reached the summit of his fortunes. A rapid decline followed. One of his generals, who laid siege to the monastery of the Trinity, near Moscow, was repulsed. His partisans were defeated in other quarters. Soon the whole aspect of the war changed. A new enemy to Russia came into the field, Sigismund, King of Poland, who laid siege to the strong city of Smolensk, while the army of the czar, which marched to its relief, suffered an annihilating defeat.

This result closed the reign of Shuiski. An insurrection broke out in Moscow, he was forced to become a monk, and in the end was delivered to Sigismund and died in prison. Thus was Dmitri avenged. The new condition of affairs proved as disastrous to the false Dmitri. His Poles deserted him, his power vanished, and he descended to the level of a mere Cossack robber. In December, 1610, murder ended his career.

Smolensk fell after a siege of eighteen months, but at the last moment a powder magazine exploded and set fire to the city, and Sigismund became master only of a heap of ruins. The Poles in Moscow, attacked by the Russians, took possession of the Kremlin, burned down most of the city, and massacred a hundred thousand of the people. Anarchy was rampant everywhere. New chiefs appeared in all quarters. Each town declared for itself. The Swedes took possession of Novgorod. A third Dmitri appeared, and dwelt in state for a while, but was soon taken and hanged. The whole great empire was in a state of frightful confusion, and seemed as if it was about to fall to pieces.

From this fate it was saved by one of the common people, a butcher of Nijni Novgorod, Kozma Minin by name. Brave, honest, patriotic, and sensible, this man aroused his fellow-citizens, who took up arms for the deliverance of their country. Other towns followed this example, an army was raised with Prince Pojarski at its head, and Minin, the patriotic butcher, seconded him in an administrative capacity, being hailed by the people as "the elect of the whole Russian empire."

Driving the Poles before him, Pojarski entered Moscow, and in October, 1612, became master of the Kremlin. The impostors all disappeared; Marina and her three-year-old son Ivan were captured, the child to be hanged and she to end her eventful life in prison; anarchy vanished, and peace returned to the realm.

The end came in 1613, when a national council was convened to choose a new czar. Pojarski refused the crown, and Michael Romanof, a boy of sixteen, scion of one of the noblest families of Russia, and allied to the Ruriks by the female line, was elected czar. His descendants still hold the throne.

THE BOOKS OF ANCESTRY.

The noble families of Russia, for the most part descendants of the Scandinavian adventurers who had come in with Rurik, were as proud in their way as the descendants of the vikings who came to England under William of Normandy. Their books of pedigree were kept with the most scrupulous care, and in these were set down not only the genealogies of the families, but every office that had been held by any ancestor, at court, in the army, or in the administration.

With this there is no special fault to be found. It is as well, doubtless, to keep the pedigrees of men as it is to keep those of horses and dogs; though the animals, being ignorant of their records, are less likely to make them a matter of pride and presumption. In Russia the fact that certain men knew the names and standing of their ancestors led to the most absurd consequences. The books of ancestry were constantly appealed to for the support of foolish pretensions, and the nobles of Russia strutted like so many peacocks in their insensate pride of family.

In no other country has the question of precedence been carried to such ridiculous lengths as it was in Russia in the days of the early Romanofs. If a nobleman were appointed to a post at court or a position in the army, he at once examined the books of ancestry to learn if the officials under whom he would serve had fewer ancestors on record than he. If such proved to be the case the office was refused, or accepted under protest, the government being, metaphorically, forced to fall on its knees to the haughtiness of its offended lordling.

The folly of the nobles went even farther than this. The height of their genealogy counted for as much as its length. They would refuse to accept positions under persons whose ancestors were shown by the books to have been subordinate to theirs in the same positions. If it appeared that the John of five centuries before had been under the Peter of that period, the modern Peter was too proud to accept a similar position under the modern John. And so it went, until court life became a constant scene of bickering and discontent, and of murmurs at the most trifling slights and neglects. In short, it became necessary that an office of genealogy should be established at court, in which exact copies of the family trees and service registers of the noble families were kept, and the officers here employed found enough to keep them busy in settling the endless disputes of their lordly clients.

In the reign of Theodore, the third czar of the Romanof dynasty, this ridiculous sentiment reached its climax, and it became almost impossible to appoint a wise man to office over a fool, if the fool's ancestors had happened to hold the same office over those of the man of wisdom. The fancy seemed to be held that folly and wisdom are handed down from father to son, a conceit which is often the very reverse of the truth.

Theodore was a feeble youth, who reigned little more than five years, yet in that time he managed to bury this folly out of sight. Annoyed by the constant bickerings of courtiers and officials, he consulted with his able minister, Prince Vassili Galitzin, and hit on a means of ridding himself of the difficulty.

Proclamation was made that all the noble families of the kingdom should deliver their service rolls into court by a fixed date, that they might be cleared of certain errors which had unavoidably crept into them. The order was obeyed, and a multitude of these precious documents were brought into the palace halls of the czar. The heads of the noble families and the higher clergy were now sent for, composing a proud assembly, before whom the patriarch, who had received his instructions, made an eloquent address. He ended by speaking of the claims to precedence in the following words:

"They are a bitter source of every kind of evil; they render abortive the most useful enterprises, in like manner as the tares stifle the good grain; they have introduced, even into the hearts of families, dissension, confusion, and hatred. But the pontiff comprehends the grand design of his czar; God alone could have inspired it!"

Though utterly ignorant of what that design was, the grandees felt compelled to express a warm approval of these words. At this Theodore, who pretended to be enraptured by their unanimous applause, suddenly rose, and, simulating a burst of patriotic enthusiasm, proclaimed the abolition of all their hereditary claims.

"That the very recollection of them may be forever extinguished," he exclaimed, "let all the papers relative to these titles be instantly consumed."