It was then that the utility of the system of serfdom became apparent.

The prelates and monasteries were taxed--_one vessel to every eighty thousand serfs_!--according to their wealth all the orders of nobility to bear their portion in the same way, and the peasants toiled on, never dreaming that _they_ were building a great navy for the great Tsar.

Peter then sent fifty young nobles of the court to Venice, England, and the Netherlands to learn the arts of shipbuilding and seamanship and gunnery.

But how could he be sure of the knowledge and the science of these idle youths--unless he himself owned it and knew better than they?
The time had come for his long-indulged dream of visiting the Western kingdoms.
But while there were rejoicings at the victory over the Turks, there was a feeling of universal disgust at the new order of things; with the militia (the _Streltsui_) because foreigners were preferred to them and because they were subjected to an unaccustomed discipline; with the nobles because their children were sent into foreign lands among heretics to learn trades like mechanics; and with the landowners and clergy because the cost of equipping a great fleet fell upon them.

All classes were ripe for a revolt.
Sophia, from her cloister, was in correspondence with her agents, and a conspiracy ripened to overthrow Peter and his reforms.