Three years later he married Catherine, a girl of lowly origin and immoral character, of whom more will be said later. She was acknowledged publicly in 1710 and he caused her to be crowned in 1722.
Peter extended the limits of the empire both in Europe and Asia. He changed the face of Russia by his zealous promotion of trade and navigation, manufactures and education; effected an immense change in the manners and customs of the Russians, and after the conclusion of peace with Sweden received the title of "Emperor of all the Russias and Father of his Country."
It has been said of him that, while able to reform others, he never could reform himself, but remained to the last an ignorant, coarse, brutal savage, indulging in the lowest vices, gloating over scenes of cruel suffering. He sometimes put his victims to torture, played judge and executioner, and in a drunken fit would strike off the heads of twenty people in succession, to prove his dexterity with the sword.
He died at St. Petersburg, January 28, 1725, one of the greatest, the most remarkable, and, at the same time, the best and the worst men who have adorned and blotted the history of Russia. The history of no other country presents such a character. Mingling the elements of good and bad, he might well have been the original of the modern creation of the genius of Robert Louis Stevenson, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."
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From General Nelson A. Miles
Thrilling Stories of The Russian-Japanese War, 1904
