As the Tsar was one evening sitting down to an entertainment with a large party of ladies and gentlemen, word was brought that someone desired to see him privately upon an important matter.

He promptly excused himself and was taken in a sledge to the appointed place.

There he graciously sat down to supper with a number of gentlemen, as if perfectly ignorant of their plans.

Suddenly his guard arrived, entered the house, and arrested the entire party, after which Peter returned in the best of humor to his interrupted banquet, quite as if nothing had happened.
The next day the prisoners under torture revealed the plot to assassinate him and then lay it to the foreigners, this to be followed, by a general massacre of Europeans--men, women, and children.

The ringleaders were first dismembered, then beheaded--their legs and arms being displayed in conspicuous places in the city, and the rest of the conspirators, excepting his sister Sophia, were sent to Siberia.
With this parting and salutary lesson to his subjects in 1697, Peter started upon his strange travels--in quest of the arts of civilization! The embassy was composed of 270 persons.