arrested me in the streets, and made me accompany him to look upon two
men undergoing the fearful punishment of the battaog;* one was a German,
the other a Russian: the former shrieked violently, struggled in the
hands of his punishers, and, with the utmost difficulty, was subjected
to his penalty; the latter bore it patiently and in silence; he only
spoke once, and it was to say, "God bless the Czar!"


* A terrible kind of flogging, but less severe than the knout.


"Can your Majesty hear the man," said I, warmly, when the Czar
interpreted these words to me, "and not pardon him?" Peter frowned, but
I was not silenced. "You don't know the Russians!" said he, sharply,
and turned aside. The punishment was now over. "Ask the German," said
the Czar to an officer, "what was his offence?" The German, who was
writhing and howling horribly, uttered some violent words against the
disgrace of the punishment, and the pettiness of his fault; what the
fault was I forget.

"Now ask the Russian," said Peter. "My punishment was just!" said the
Russian, coolly, putting on his clothes as if nothing had happened; "God
and the Czar were angry with me!"

"Come away, Count," said the Czar; "and now solve me a problem. I know
both those men, and the German, in a battle, would be the braver of the
two. How comes it that he weeps and writhes like a girl, while the
Russian bears the same pain without a murmur?"

"Will your Majesty forgive me," said I, "but I cannot help wishing that