The Cheyenne Daily Leader

Son of Peter the Great. He Nearly Escaped His Awful Death but Was Betrayed by a Barber.

The death of the Czarewitch Alexis son of Peter the Great, is one of the most tragical chapters in history; all the more tragical because the unhappy prince so nearly escaped his cruel fate. "It is impossible," says the historian Dutens, "to collect more authentic particulars in regard to the czarewitch than those which I received from a Russian noble intimately connected with Marshal Romanzoff, son of the general who was employed to arrest him. This noble informed me, that being at Schonbrunn on a visit to the count of that name, he conducted him to a small castle near at hand, and showed him the apartment in which Alexis had lived in concealment for a long time after he had been driven from his father's court. He also told me that the czar, according to Marshal Romanzoff, having resolved that his son should be brought back to Russia, and knowing that he was secluded in some part of the territories of the Emperor Charles VI. wrote to that sovereign, about 1717, to obtain his permission for Gen. Romanzoff to see his son, wherever he might be, and persuade him to return to his father's court, promising to use no compulsion if he refused.

"The emperor, who had daily expected this demand, had advised Prince Alexis to repair to Naples, furnishing him with a strong recommendation to the viceroy of that kingdom. So that when Gen. Romanzoff arrived to fulfill his commission, he was informed that the czarewitch was nowhere within the territories of the house of Austria. He then extorted from the emperor an order to all the governors of his Italian states to give facilities to the general for seeing Prince Alexis if he resided anywhere within the limits of their respective governments.

"With this order in his hand he traversed the Milanese and all Lombardy, and then passed into Naples, but everywhere the same answer met him, that no one knew the place of the prince's retirement. One day when Gen. Romanzoff was conversing in Russian with the members of his suite before a barber whose services he had engaged, the barber showed so much astonishment that the general asked him, in Italian, the reason. He replied that he did not understand a word of the language which the general had been using, but that the cause of his surprise was its resemblance to that spoken by a great foreign lord whom he often went to shave at the Castel del Novo. The general, much struck by his remark, continued to question the garrulous barber, and having made him some presents, learned that a young lord, whose person he described, was served with the greatest respect by numerous attendants, and led a very retired and secluded life in the Castel del Novo. From the details furnished by the barber, the general had not the slightest doubt that he was the czarewitch. He immediately repaired to the viceroy, and having shown him again the imperial order, and assured him of his conviction that Prince Alexis was at the Castel del Novo, obtained permission to see him, on the conditions specified in the czar's letter to the emperor. He had an interview with the unfortunate prince, who at first refused to proceed to St. Petersburg. The general, however, gave a handsome bribe to a woman who lived with the prince, and had much influence over him; and he was thus persuaded eventually to return to the Russian capital, where we know what destiny awaited him," W. H. D. Adams in Gentleman's Magazine.