In many published accounts the Czar is represented as a mere youth at the period of his visit to the dockyards of Holland and England. The fact is that he was twenty-five years of age, and had already served in two campaigns. Indeed, it may be said that the latter campaign, in which he conquered Azoff, partly by the assistance of foreigners and ships built by foreigners, was the means of opening his eyes to the superiority of the Western Europeans over his own barbarous subjects. Resolute, ambitious, and intelligent, he determined that his people should not remain half savages. Influenced by such motives, he dispatched, in 1697, sixty young Russians, selected out of the army, to Venice and Leghorn, under orders to make themselves instructed in everything pertaining to the arts of ship-building and navigation; forty more were sent to Holland for the same purpose, and his own voyage had largely the same object. “It was a thing,” says Voltaire, “unparalleled in history, either ancient or modern, for a sovereign of five-and-twenty years of age to withdraw from his kingdom for the sole purpose of learning the art of government.” It happened that Peter was not as yet represented at any of the foreign courts, and he therefore appointed an embassy extraordinary to proceed, in the first instance, to the States-General of Holland, while he would accompany it simply in the character of an _attaché_. The three ambassadors were General Le Fort, a native of Geneva, who had been of immense service to the Czar, and was now his confidential friend; Alexis Golowin, Governor of Siberia; and Voristzin, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. With secretaries, attachés, pages, and guards, the retinue numbered 200 persons. Their passage through Germany was a grand carouse, and the hard drinking for which the Russians are still noted, was very much observed. At one of these bacchanalian debauches, the Czar, who was a hot-headed man, took such violent offence at something said by Le Fort, that he drew his sword and ordered him to defend himself. “Far be it from me,” said Le Fort; “rather let me perish by the hand of my master.” Peter had raised his arm, but one of the retinue dared to interfere, and caught hold of it. Peter’s anger was of short duration; he displayed, says Voltaire, “_autant de regret de cet emportement passager qu’Alexandre en eut du meurtre de Clitus_,” and immediately asked Le Fort’s pardon, saying, “that his great desire was to reform his subjects, but he was ashamed to say he had not yet been able to reform himself.”