The first named, the “Petropaolovskaya,” is never mentioned by Russians without a shudder. It is stained indelibly with the imprint of appalling cruelty and savage ill-treatment. Its grim, gray bastions crouch low, flush with the water’s edge, opposite the imperial palace, and in full view of the great city. Within its extensive perimeter are included several fine buildings; the mint, the cathedral, the burial place of the reigning dynasty, military barracks and well filled arsenals, while the ordinary street traffic passes through it in the day time. From its earliest days this fortress was the scene of murderous and cruel atrocities. Peter the Great used it recklessly when imposing his will upon the enslaved people; torture, the lash, horrible mutilations and death were continually inflicted within its gloomy walls. Peter is said to have executed his only son Alexis in this fortress. Defeated conspirators against autocracy constantly languished in its deep sunken dungeons or were thrown into the Neva from its battlements. Generations of unsuccessful revolutionists, during reign after reign, have eaten out their hearts here in lifelong imprisonment. Many of the “Dekabrists,” mostly nobles who rose against the Czar Nicholas in 1826, lingered in one of its cells for twelve years. Since then, numbers of hapless people, defeated in their vain efforts to compass freedom and liberal institutions for their country, have been imprisoned, neglected and forgotten in the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. The fortifications of St. Peter and St. Paul cover an extent of three hundred acres. It is a five-sided or pentagonal work, constructed on the old-fashioned plan of Vauban, having six conventional bastions and two salient ravelins, one on the eastern and the other on the western front. To the northward, on the far side of the Neva, leading away from the city and partly overlooking the zoological gardens, is a crown work or hornwork of red brick built by Nicholas I. Various parts of the fortress have been appropriated for prison purposes. One of the most famous was the so-called “Courtine” of Catherine, connecting the south and west bastions, facing the Neva; the bastion on the west being known as the Trubetzkoi. This also became a famous prison, for when completed and opened, being newer, more spacious and safer, it largely replaced the Courtine, now no more than a place of detention for officers under arrest for breaches of discipline. [Illustration: _The Fortress of Peter and Paul_,]