III
Until Peter the Great, the Romanov family was a national dynasty. It had remained national from sheer necessity, as no European court would have cared to intermarry with Tartar and Barbarian princes. Even at the end of Peter the Great's reign, the prestige of Russia had scarcely asserted itself in the politics of the West. Peter the Great expressed a keen desire to pay a visit to the court of Louis XIV. He was politely given to understand that his visit would not be acceptable, even as a poor relation will be told that his visit is not welcome to a kinsman in exalted position. After the death of Louis, the Tsar again asked to be received at Versailles. This time his overtures were accepted, but even at the court of the Regent his visit caused the greatest embarrassment to the masters of ceremonies. The situation was a tragic-comic one. French etiquette could not decide whether the Tartar Prince was to receive the honours which belong of right only to the ruler of a civilized people.
For the first time in modern Russian history, Peter the Great's daughter, Anne, married a German prince in 1725. With that year be-
