In the same way he changed the old Russian military drill to something resembling that of the other European countries. He had new carriages and furniture and foods imported from France and England, and tried to make Moscow more like a modern city than like the semi-barbarous Asiatic village it had been. The Russian men almost all wore long, flowing beards, and this fashion Peter quickly changed, insisting that the men about him should adopt the fashion of the French court. It is hard to realize how far behind the rest of the countries of Europe the Russia of those days was; yet it is due almost entirely to the young Czar Peter that this great northern country finally came out from semi-darkness. It must not be supposed that these great changes were at first popular with the court; there was tremendous opposition to almost everything Peter did, but the people gradually realized that he was really working for their benefit and that he was deeply interested in improving their condition. Slowly his popularity grew with the middle and lower classes, until finally they spoke of their "little Czar," as they called him affectionately, almost as though he were really one of themselves. Few rulers have had a harder task than did Peter. All during his youth the nobles plotted against him, and as he grew to manhood he escaped assassination again and again by the narrowest of chances, but every time he had to face danger he grew more self-reliant and more determined, and gradually his grip on the men of both court and army grew so strong that they realized places had changed, and that they were as absolutely his servants as he was their master. In time Peter became a great king, a fearless, purposeful ruler who knit his people together as no other Czar had ever been able to do. He led the armies he had himself drilled to many victories. He built a great fleet in the Baltic Sea. He established a new capital near the shores of the Baltic, and named it after his own patron saint, St. Petersburg. The history of his life is full of tremendous difficulties and dangers, but he fronted each one as he had fronted the riotous Streltsi Guards when he was a boy of eleven, and so history has given him the title of most powerful of all Russian Czars and has called him "Peter the Great." V Frederick the Great The Boy of Potsdam: 1712-1788 A little boy and girl sat playing on a harpsichord in one of the great stiffly-furnished and lofty-ceilinged rooms of the Potsdam Palace, outside Berlin. The boy wore his yellow hair in long curls, his eyes were merry and he laughed often, while his sister, who was a little older, seemed quite as happy. The children were practicing for their music lesson, and only too glad to be free of their teachers for a time, because music was dearest to them both. Without a word of warning the door of the room was thrown open, and a big, heavy-faced man stood on the threshold.