Philaret had ability, and we need not quarrel with the way in which he took the power from the hands of his feeble and incompetent son. That he was a Wolsey or a Richelieu, as some historians conceive him, is far too flattering an exaggeration. The Cossacks, the Poles, and the Swedes were disarmed while he was still absent, and when the Poles renewed the war in 1632 Philaret’s army was badly beaten, and he could think of nothing better than to have its generals executed. He had friendly relations with France and England, because both wanted to enter, through Russia, into a profitable commerce with Persia; which was refused. The Turks, of course, barred the Mediterranean route to the east. The Sultan offered Philaret an alliance against the Poles, but he was at that time unprepared for a big war. On the whole it was a balance of interests rather than statesmanship which gave Russia some years of peace. Internally Philaret did more active service. The question had already arisen whether Russia should be Europeanised. The colony of foreign merchants which now grew just outside the walls of Moscow exhibited a higher culture. The western armies were constantly superior to the Russian in equipment. The envoys to France, England, and Holland spoke of refinements which made the luxury of Moscow seem tawdry. On the other hand were the inevitable croakers who protested that Russian trade, Russian religion, or even the Russian State, would not survive an invasion of western ideas. Philaret boldly adopted the progressive view and summoned foreign teachers to Moscow. Astronomers brought their marvellous instruments to astonish or scare the populace; mathematicians and literary men opened schools in the metropolis. Against one western discovery, tobacco, the Russians remained obdurate; while the man who was caught surreptitiously taking snuff, as the westerners did, had his nose cut off. The religious controversy also contributed to the sharpening of the wits of the nation. The Jesuits still lingered heroically on the fringe of the Empire and sought to bring it under the rule of the Papacy. Even a new pretender was tried--a son of Maryna who had escaped murder, they said--but the man, a commonplace peasant, was not chosen with their usual skill, and little harm was done. In the Russian provinces which were subject to Poland, however, they worked with such effect that the Church was rent by a great schism. Some of the Russian prelates were for union with Rome. The struggle had an echo in Russia, and some education for controversial purposes was inaugurated. We must, however, not exaggerate the effect on the Russian mind of this controversy. It is estimated by Russian historians that at that time not one person in a thousand, at the most, could read, and even in the city-circles in which the points at issue were debated the clash of ideas must have been of the crudest conceivable nature.