"On some occasions a tree was used as a block; the victims placed in rows along it, and their heads struck off by men of Peter's new guard. Others were hanged; as late as 1727 the heads stuck on pike points stood round the Lobnoe Mesto. In January 1699 came more enquiries, more tortures, more executions, and then the extermination of the Streltsi determined upon. There was a break from 1699 to 1704 as Peter required the remaining Streltsi to aid in the wars against Swedes and others, but after the revolt in Astrakhan, the executions were renewed. Stragglers and deserters from the corps, those related to them and who associated with them, were placed under a ban--they might not be employed by anyone; none might give them food, shelter, or assistance. They perished miserably. In such manner did Peter exterminate the old Muscovite militia." [F] _Kostomarov_, vol. ii. p. 516. Peter's cruelties, like those of Ivan Groznoi, did not pass unnoticed by the Church. His treatment of the Streltsi called forth a fierce denunciation from the Patriarch Adrian, who "beseeched him in the name of the Mother of God to desist." "Get thee home!" answered Peter, "I know that I reverence God and his most Holy Mother; more, perhaps, than thou dost thyself. It is the duty of my sovereign office, and a duty I owe to God, to punish with the utmost severity crimes that threaten the general welfare." Unfortunately the Church had been deprived of its privilege of intercession for the life of one accused, and Peter cared nought for the spiritual power of the Church, as already stated. He even with his own hand killed two priests, but afterwards expressed contrition. The Church regarded him almost as anti-christ; the citizens dreaded him and kept out of his way. "The nearer the Tsar the greater the danger," a proverb of that time was believed in by all. Peter had his proverb also, "the knout is no angel but teaches men to speak the truth," and even as Ivan did, he went constantly in fear of conspiracies, chiefly dreading his own relations. Eudoxia, now the nun Helena in a convent at Suzdal, was believed to have corresponded with Dositheus an Archimandrite who had predicted, or prayed for, Peter's death. Glebov was the intermediary in the matter; he was impaled; the prelate was broken on the wheel; a brother of the ex-tsaritsa was tortured and beheaded; thirty others were executed or exiled, and Eudoxia herself flogged and confined in an isolated convent at New Ladoga. Peter, when there were no more conspirators, or accused, offered a bribe of six roubles to all who made secret accusations, and threatened with severe penalties any who held back information. The better to protect his informers from reprisals by the people, they went through the streets with their faces veiled, in order to search for those whose names they did not know, but whom they had overheard in indiscreet speech.