3io Readings i?i European History 352. How Peter the Great forced his people to wear Western dress. which sunk down through the sea, and made a very solid foundation, upon which he raised his fort, called Cronstat. . . . About two hundred fathoms distant from the island Ratu- sary there is also erected another strong fort, with a toler- able small town, called Cronburgh, where sea officers are commonly lodged. Betwixt Cronstat and Cronburgh is all sea, deep only in the middle, about thirty fathoms broad, so that ships of great burden can pass only one after another. These two forts secure St. Petersburg from any insult by sea, and make it perhaps one of the best and safest harbors in the known world. . . . The work gave no small umbrage to the Swedes. In carrying materials for it there were upwards of eight thousand horses destroyed and near as many men. A French historical writer of the first half of the eighteenth century, Jean Rousset de Missy, 1 wrote a life of Peter the Great. Although the author never visited Russia, his volumes have some value, since he appears to have taken pains to get reliable information. He thus describes the reform in dress enforced by Peter. The tsar labored at the reform of fashions, or, more prop- erly speaking, of dress. Until that time the Russians had always worn long beards, which they cherished and pre- served with much care, allowing them to hang down on their bosoms, without even cutting the moustache. With these long beards they wore the hair very short, except the eccle- siastics, who, to distinguish themselves, wore it very long. The tsar, in order to reform that custom, ordered that gen- tlemen, merchants, and other subjects, except priests and peasants, should each pay a tax of one hundred rubles a year if they wished to keep their beards ; the commoners had to pay one kopeck each. Officials were stationed at the gates 1 He wrote under the assumed name Ivan Nestesuranoi.
