Chapter III (2)

Yet these jealous instincts, and this implacable firmness in punishment, were not solely due to the character of the Emperor Nicholas, but also to the sad experiences which signalized the commencement of his reign. Conspiracies against the new czar, revolts occasioned by the appearance of cholera, indeed all sorts of disorders, Nicholas had to suppress on his accession to the throne. From the very first he learned these bloody retaliations, and never pardoned.

The first conspirators of his reign, Pestel, Mouravieff-Apostol, and the poet Relieff, were condemned to be hung. The emperor signed the decree after the Russian formula, "_Byt po siemau_" (So be it.) They were then conducted to the place of execution. Relieff, a poet of the highest order, was the first one led to the scaffold. Just at the moment when the executioner, having passed the slip-knot, over his head, had raised him on his shoulders to launch him into eternity, the too weak cord broke, and he fell forward bruised and bleeding.

"They know not how to do anything in Russia," said he, raising himself without even turning pale, "not even to twist a rope."

As accidents of this kind--besides being very rare, were always considered occasions of pardon, they sent, therefore, to the Winter Palace to know the will of the emperor.

"Ah! the cord has broken?" said Nicholas.

"Yes, sire."

"Then he was almost dead? What impression has such close contact with eternity produced on the mind of the rebel?"

"He is a brave man, sire."

The czar frowned.

"What did he say?" asked he severely.

"Sire, he said, 'They know not how even to twist a rope in Russia.'"

"Well," replied Nicholas, "let them prove to him the contrary." And he went out.

A wealthy Polish lord, the Prince Roman Sanguszko, had been condemned, as a conspirator, to serve the rest of his life as a simple soldier, and to immediately join a regiment fighting in Caucasia. On the margin of the sentence, the emperor wrote in his own hand, "On foot!"

Such severity was in him a system. He sincerely believed in it as a necessity, and a part of the sanctity of absolute power. In Russia, especially, his knowledge of the character of his people fortified him in his belief, and he let no opportunity escape to declare his despotism.

Of all the heterogeneous elements that compose the immense empire of Russia, there is not one that ever seems likely to develop in the slightest degree the idea of liberalism; not a single nationality in which servilism is not innate, and to which the people themselves are not as much attached as the nations of the East to liberty. Hence it is that among the Russians, properly so-called, and who constitute the main portion of the population, we find the nobility infected with an inveterate sentiment of servile obsequiousness, and the people predisposed by temperament, and moulded by past experience, to the most abject submission. {687} They all have the same character as the great princes of Kieff, who, when under the yoke of the Tartars, went to receive the investiture of the Khan of the Horde d'Or; and who, after having held his stirrup and offered him a glass of _koumys_, [Footnote 209] were obliged to lick from the neck of his horse the milk that dropped from his moustaches. Do we need greater evidence of the servility of the Russian people than the reign of the crowned tiger, Ivan IV. the Terrible, a despot without parallel in history, whose subjects, more patient than the Romans under Caligula and Nero, not only were contented to bear with his follies and crimes, but actually supplicated him to resume the throne, after his voluntary abdication through disgust of others and himself? The reign, too, of Peter the Great, whose savage grandeur could not absolve him from cruelty, and even the possibility in the nineteenth century of such a despot as Nicholas I., what greater proofs do we require?

[Footnote 209: Camel's milk fermented.]

As to the half-savage nations of the northern limits of Russia and Siberia, with populations perhaps only yesterday awakened to anything like social life, their need is still, as with children, the master, and the ferule.

It is easy to understand, then, how a man armed like Nicholas with an iron will and immense authority, and comprehending perfectly the character of his people, should have conceived this superhuman idea of his own power. Never thwarted by the least resistance, only now and then by an occasional murmuring, we can need no better explanation of his apparently exaggerated despotism, of his inveterate faith in the sanctity of his domination, his conviction that in himself centred his whole empire, and the faculty, in fine, which he possessed in so great a degree, of entirely ignoring mankind.

One day, a short time before the Crimean war, at a grand military review at Krasnoe-Selo, the emperor, on horseback, presented his troops to the empress seated in her carriage. Suddenly appeared on the drill ground a cariole drawn by one horse, and out of which stepped a _feld jaguer_, (courier of the palace,) charged with two autographic letters from the King of Prussia to the emperor and empress. As the empress was the more easily approached, he handed her the first letter, and ran toward the emperor to present the second. But some steps from him he pauses, turns pale, and bursts into tears. The letter is lost.

Trembling from head to foot, he retraces his steps to try and find it, but the soldiers, the aides-de-camp, the horses, have already trodden it in the dust, and the precious envelope cannot be found.

"What ails that animal?" asked the emperor of one of his aides-de-camp.

"I do not know, sire."

"Well, go and ask him, and bring me his reply."

The aide-de-camp spurred his horse, and from the lips of the poor feld jaguer he learned that an autograph letter from the King of Prussia to the Emperor of Russia had been lost. He brought the czar the information.

The face of Nicholas clouded instantly; his expression was gloomy and severe.

"Take charge of this man yourself and without allowing him to communicate with any one, conduct him immediately to Siberia. Let him not be harshly treated, but let him never again appear in Europe."

The aide-de-camp, as well as the unhappy feld jaguer, were both to set out, without even changing their boots, for this journey of 2000 leagues. The aide-de-camp returned eight months afterward, and was recompensed by promotion from the emperor, but the poor courier was doubtless dying or dead in the neighborhood of Tobolsk, such faults as his having escaped an amnesty.

{688}

Such instances (I witnessed the one I am about to relate) were not rare in the life of Nicholas. One morning in the spring, when a freshet of the Neva had rendered its crossing extremely perilous, the emperor, on looking from the window of his Winter Palace, saw a large crowd watching, in evident stupefaction, a man directing himself, by leaps from one piece of ice to another, toward the opposite shore.

He called his attendant aide-de-camp.

"Look at that fool," said he. "What courage! Run and see what motive he has for so exposing his life."

The aide-de-camp learned the particulars and returned.

"Sire, he is a peasant who has bet he would cross the Neva for twenty-five roubles, and is trying to gain the reward."

"Give him twenty-fire lashes," replied Nicholas; "a man who risks his life in this miserable way would be capable of anything for money."

To a desperate caprice of the same kind is due the construction of the railroad from St. Petersburg to Moscow, called the Nicholas railroad. The emperor had in his court a certain general, Kleinmichel, a disagreeable person, exceedingly unpopular, and of equivocal fidelity, but who pleased by his reticence and promptness in executing orders. When the road was decided upon by a counsel of ministers, and its erection considered urgent, a map of Russia was brought to the czar, who was asked to look over the course designated by the different engineers and give his preference. Nicholas, without saying a word, took the map, marked a straight line from Moscow to St. Petersburg, and said to the stupefied engineers:

"This is the line of the railroad."

"But," they all cried, "impossible. Your majesty will find no one to undertake such a work. It would be to hide treasures in a desert."

"No one undertake it when I command it to be done!" said Nicholas. "We shall see."

And signalling Kleinmichel from a corner:

"Kleinmichel," said he, "you see this line?"

"Yes, sire."

"This is a new railroad I propose constructing in my empire."

"Sire, it is magnificent!"

"You think so? Will you charge yourself, then, with the execution of my orders?"

"With the greatest pleasure, sire, if your majesty orders it. But the funds, the funds?"

"Don't be troubled about them. Ask for all the money you want."

And turning to the engineers:

"You see," said Nicholas to them, "I can get along without you. I will build my own railroad."

And the construction of this road lasted ten years. It did not deviate an inch from the line marked out by the imperial finger; and leaving on one side, at about a distance of ten leagues, the villages of Novgorod, Twer, and a host of others equally rich and important, it traversed, in the midst of marshes and woods, nothing but immense solitudes; 706 kilometres of iron rail cost Russia 400,000,000 francs--a little more than half a million a kilometre--of which the devoted Kleinmichel, but that as a matter of course, took a good share. Nicholas, however, was right in saying nothing could resist him.

{689}

Some weeks after the inauguration of this railroad an ambassador arrived at St. Petersburg. According to custom and to pay him attention, everything was shown him in detail, all the objects of interest in the city. He expressed no surprise or admiration; his oriental gravity was proof against either.

"What could we show him that would astonish him?" asked the emperor of Menschikoff.

"Show him the accounts of Kleinmichel for the Nicholas railroad," replied the prince, laughing.

A few days later, General Kleinmichel, in presence of the emperor, was discussing with Menschikoff some question upon which they could not agree. The general proposed to the prince a wager.

"With pleasure," replied the latter, "and this shall be the stake, if your excellence permits it. He who loses shall be obliged--at the expense of the winner--to go to Moscow and return by the railroad your excellence has just finished."

"What joke is this?" asked the emperor.

"A very simple one, sire. The road is so constructed that one is very sure to break his neck on it; so, you see, we are playing for our lives."

The emperor laughed heartily at the joke, but Kleinmichel took care not to accept the bet.

These two instances prove that Nicholas knew how, now and then, to listen to a truth well said. He was too certain that none of his subjects dared fail him in the respect he required, so he could afford to listen to those who were bold and witty enough to approach him with the truth. Menschikoff, the same who commanded at Sebastopol, was one of these; better than any other, he always maintained before the czar his frank speech, and Nicholas, little accustomed to such frankness, loved him dearly, and frequently amused himself with his sallies.

General Kleinmichel was the aversion of Menschikoff. One day the latter entered the cabinet of Nicholas at the moment when the emperor was playing with one of his grand-children, the Grand Duke Michel, still quite an infant.

Astraddle on the shoulders of his grandfather, the little prince made the czar serve for his horse.

"See," cried Nicholas gayly, "see how this little imp treats me. I am growing thin under it. The little monkey is so heavy, I shall fall with fatigue."

"Zounds!" quickly replied Menschikoff, "little Michel (in German _Klein-michel_) ought not to be a very light load, if he carries about him all he has stolen."

Notwithstanding his jokes, which spared no one, Menschikoff delighted Nicholas, who could readily enough withdraw him from the chief command at Sebastopol, but would not deprive him of his friendship. This was of more ancient date, and founded on the two good qualities of courage and sincerity. Sometimes, but rarely, others approached the emperor as familiarly. The celebrated poet, Pouchkine, for example, dared to express himself in his presence with a frankness which, even in occidental Europe, and in a constitutional state, would pass for audacity.

In the palace of the Hermitage, where they were walking together, the emperor had led the poet into a gallery of pictures that contained the portraits of all the Romanoffs, from Michel Fedorovitch to the last reigning sovereign, and had ordered him to improvise some verses on each.

{690}

Pouchkine obeyed; but coming to the portrait of Nicholas, he was silent.

"Well, Pouchkine," said the emperor, "what have you to say of me?"

"Sire!"

"Some flattery, of course? I don't wish to hear it; so tell the truth."

"Your majesty permits me?"

"I order you. Believe in my imperial word, you shall not suffer."

"So be it, sire."

And he wrote the famous distich:

"Des pieds à la tête la toile est admirable;
De la tête aux pieds le tzar est détestable." [Footnote 210]

[Footnote 210:
"From feet to head the picture is admirable:
From head to feet the czar is detestable."]

The emperor made no reply, but he asked Pouchkine for no more verses.

Notwithstanding his despotism, and the arbitrary acts that signalized his reign; notwithstanding the innumerable banishments into Siberia and Caucasia, it is seen the emperor could sometimes bear to hear the truth. The instinct of justice was born in him; despotism had smothered it, unfortunately, but his better nature frequently triumphed. Often the hereditary grand duke had, in this respect, to submit to severe reprimands. One day, in 1832, a year after the revolt of the Poles, whom Nicholas had handled with implacable rigor, the grand duke, in the presence of his father, had called them _accursed_. Rebuking publicly his son:

"Imperial Highness," said Nicholas, "your expressions are unseemly. If I chastise the Poles, it is because they have revolted against my authority; but to you they have done no harm, and you are destined to reign over them. You have no right to make any difference in your future subjects. Be assured, such sentiments make bad sovereigns."

The sentiment of gratitude was no more a stranger to the Emperor Nicholas than the spirit of justice. True, he guarded as faithfully the remembrance of injuries as of services, and if he never forgot those who had served or defended him, neither did he ever forgive those who had made the least attempt against his power. While the Troubetskois, the Mouravieffs, the Tchernicheffs, worked in the mines of Siberia, still there could be seen, at the end of his reign, several generals perfectly unqualified, yet provided with advantageous employments, without any great power, it is true, but well lodged, well fed, honored, and tranquil. If they committed any absurdity, and this frequently happened, he changed their places according to capacity, or sometimes secretly directed them in the exercise of their functions, never failing in his goodness toward them. These men, in the military revolt of 1826, had offered their swords to assist his growing power.

Strange character! Curious mixture of faults and good qualities, of littleness and grandeur; brutal and chivalrous, courageous even to temerity, and distrustful even to poltroonery; equitable and tyrannical, generous and cruel, at once the friend of ostentation and of simplicity! His palace was magnificent, his court splendid, the luxuriousness of his courtiers dazzling, while, in his own person, his habits and tastes, he affected an imposing austerity. His working cabinet was almost bare; he slept always on a camp bed. The oldness of his uniform, and of his military cloaks, was proverbial at St. Petersburg. Worn out, pieced in different places, they evidenced, by their shining neatness, how carefully they were preserved. At his repasts even, he drank no wine; he never smoked, and the odor of tobacco was so disagreeable to him that it was forbidden, not only in the Winter Palace, but in the streets of St. Petersburg. {691} Even the Grand Duke Alexander, the czar truly, and an inveterate smoker, was obliged to sit under the mantel-piece, to enjoy the luxury of a cigar in the imperial palace.

Loving beyond everything military discipline, and rigorous in his formulas, Nicholas, who for thirty years was accustomed to this refrain, "Master, thy slave is here to obey thee"--Nicholas could only comprehend order and uniformity. Reviews were his favorite passion; during his reign, he transformed his empire into a barrack. He passed his life in manoeuvres, exercises, and miniature wars. The soldiers adored him, although he was only eclipsed in the severity of military rule by the Grand Duke Michel. It is true, the latter pushed his worship of discipline to such an extent that the emperor himself was often amused at the expense of his younger brother. One day he met an officer with his clothes torn and covered with mud, and without helmet or sword. The officer, finding himself discovered, and knowing he was to blame, was terribly frightened, and nearly fell backward in making the military salute. Nicholas fixed a severe look upon the poor devil, which made him totter. But, suddenly changing his tone and countenance, he said gayly:

"Go, dress yourself; but take good care you don't meet my brother!"

Rising with the dawn, and at work from the earliest hour of the day, whether at his palace in winter or in the field in summer, he hardened himself, as well as others, to both cold and fatigue. An excellent rider, his horses were magnificent and marvellously cared for; he always mounted alone those that were reserved for him, and out of two or three hundred sent every year to his stables for his own use, he could scarcely find a dozen to suit him. In manoeuvres I have seen him twenty times, at the moment of the loudest cannonade and in the most frightful noise, jerk, in his impatience, his horse's bit until the jagged lips of the poor beast were streaming with blood. Sometimes this torture lasted several minutes; the sides of the beautiful animal whitened with foam; he trembled in agony, and yet never lost for a moment his statue-like immobility.

Such methods of proceeding, applied by Nicholas equally to everything that surrounded him, generals, servants, horses, and courtiers, were fortunately tempered in him by the sense of justice, of which I have already spoken, and especially by the fear of public opinion, not only in Russia, but in all Europe. He seemed ashamed of the despotism he practised, and strove to conceal it from the governments and people of the West. In proportion as he affected to despise their arms, so much the more did he respect their ideas.

We know that it is customary at the court of St. Petersburg to be presented to the emperor in full uniform. And even more, that there is no condition in life, however trifling, which has not its distinctive costume. It is related that one morning Lord ----, ambassador from England, arrived in his carriage at the gate of the Winter Palace, was recognized, and went up to the apartments of the emperor. He was in his great-coat. Seeing it, the chamberlain-in-waiting, who did not dare remark this infringement of the laws of etiquette in such an important person, immediately sent word to the chancellor of the empire. Count Nesselrode, and meanwhile retained the ambassador under various pretexts. {692} The count arrived in haste, and the morning toilet seemed to have the same effect on the chancellor as on the chamberlain.

"I am delighted to see you, my dear count," said Lord ---- to M. de Nesselrode. "I wanted to speak to his majesty on some very important business, but I have been detained here nearly an hour."

"Because we do not dare, my lord--"

"Do not dare--what?"

"We cannot introduce you to the emperor in such morning _négligé_."

"_Négligé!_" said he, throwing a rapid glance at his person, and aware of his reputation for elegance, and supposing he had been guilty of some impropriety in his toilet.

"In Russia, no one is admitted in similar costume to the presence of the sovereign."

"Would full uniform be necessary?" asked smilingly the reassured ambassador.

"Exactly, my lord."

"Oh! pardon me, then. I will go dress myself." And he left, shrugging his shoulders.

The emperor was furious when he heard of the adventure.

"Cursed fools!" he grumbled, "they represent me a barbarian!"

When, an hour afterward, the ambassador returned to the palace in official uniform, the emperor excused himself with great anxiety, blaming the narrow-mindedness of his servants, and declaring loudly that he did not occupy his brain with such trifles.

"When you wish, my lord," added he, giving him his hand, "to come and see me as you did to-day, do not be incommoded, I beg of you, by any such formula."

This fear of Western irony affected all his relations with Europeans. We know the flattering reception he gave the Marquis de Custine, Horace Vernet, and twenty other illustrious strangers. Those employed in his empire were as anxious to throw dust in the eyes of travellers as himself. Nothing could be more amusing than the arrival of a stranger at St. Petersburg, under the reign of Nicholas. As no one could remain in the city without a permit, all new-comers hastened to the police to have their cards presented them, and the scenes enacted were truly comical.

The following dialogue will give a good idea of them:

"You wish to live at St. Petersburg?"

"Yes, sir."

"How long?"

Each one then fixed the probable duration of his stay.

"Well, your permit will be given you."

Here a pause. The policeman gives the necessary order, then resumes the conversation.

"Well, what do you think of St. Petersburg?"

"It is an admirable city."

"Are not our theatres as fine as those of Paris?"

"Most assuredly."

"Is not the perspective from Newski a superb view?"

"Truly."

"Do they not tell idle stories of us in Paris, and are they any freer than we?"

"Prejudices these, nothing more. Travellers, like me, are here to rectify such errors. A proof that Russia is free, I can move about with perfect liberty."

"Have you seen the emperor?"

"Yesterday evening at the Théâtre Michel."

"Is he not a remarkably handsome man?"

"The handsomest I have ever seen."

{693}

"Sir, your permit must be ready by this time. Will you go and receive it, and prolong your stay in Russia as long as you please. You will see that you have judged our country correctly."

Notwithstanding all his efforts to conciliate European opinion, the Emperor Nicholas was not rewarded in his travels by any praise whatever. Once out of his own country, he quickly discovered he had deceived no one, and his despotism was in Europe the object of universal unpopularity.

From the Holy Father he received his first lesson: a lesson, however, both given and received with dignity.

It was well known that he had changed hundreds of Catholic into Greek churches, in all the western provinces of Russia and Poland.

Curious to visit Rome, he asked permission of Gregory XVI. to enter the holy city. The pope asked, in return, by what ceremonial he wished to be received.

"As a Catholic sovereign," replied the emperor.

Lodged at the Quirinal, he went the next day in Eastern style with a guard of Cossacks to visit the holy father, who received him standing at the head of the staircase of the Vatican. Nicholas knelt to receive the benediction of the venerable pontiff, who, after having given it to him, without being at all impressed with his Attila-like costume, said to him with a serenity almost angelic:

"My son, you persecute my sheep."

"I?" cried Nicholas in a disconcerted tone.

"Yes, you, my son. You are powerful. Do not use your strength to oppress the weak."

"Holy father, I have been slandered."

The conversation continued some time in the cabinet of the pope, and the emperor remained, during his stay in Rome, on terms of the most affectionate respect with Gregory XVI. He afterward sent him a magnificent altar of malachite, that may be admired at the church of St. Paul, outside the walls. An inscription, dictated by Nicholas to St. Peter at Rome, recalls his visit to the Capital of Christianity:--"Nicholas came here to pray to God for his mother, Russia."

In London, as is well known, he was received with great popular demonstrations. We need not relate here the tumultuous scenes to which he had to submit, and how his carriage was more than once covered with mud.

With a brutality unworthy a sovereign, and at times a delicacy astonishing in a man of such a character, the most contrary qualities and defects reproduced themselves in a hundred acts of his life. For instance, one night I saw him fisticuff a poor Jew in the face, and accompany the act with the most sonorous oaths, because in giving light to the postilions of the Berlin imperial, he had awakened him with a start, by throwing the light of his lantern into his face. Again, at Warsaw, where he went to receive the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria, he took Francis Joseph into his arms to force him to occupy the seat of honor in his carriage, which the young emperor was unwilling to accept: a courtesy, according to the Cossack, that would have exactly suited him.

Yet this man, so rude and so haughty, evidenced occasionally great delicacy of sentiment. One very cold day, returning from a review, where he had been almost frozen, he stopped at the house of a lady, whom he knew to be in ill health, and met the doctor in the waiting-room.

"How is Madame ----?" said he to the latter.

{694}

"Very poorly, sire. The cold of St. Petersburg is killing her."

"Ah! the cold is injuring her? Feel my hands. They are frozen, are they not?"

"Very cold, sire."

"Well, I will wait here until they are warm; I would not for the world increase her malady."

And the emperor waited in this sort of an antechamber, talking to the doctor, until his hands resumed their natural warmth.

So this character, which, at first sight, appeared all of a piece, was composed of contrasts the most dissonant. Nicholas bared his breast to the revolted regiments in 1826 and recalled them to duty by this single attitude; at the time of the cholera, alone amid a populace mad with terror and exasperated by famine, a gesture from him, a single word, could constrain the delirious multitude and throw them on their knees before him; in cases of fire, so frequent at St. Petersburg, and under the burning beams, a hundred times he uselessly risked his life; yet on another occasion, when the safety of an empire depended upon him, he resolutely refused to repair to Sebastopol.

His long reign was fatal to Russia. For nearly thirty years it accomplished nothing. During the lifetime of Nicholas, the wheel-work of the machine moved regularly under his powerful hand, the cogs upon which he impressed the movement never being completely paralyzed. But the evil, being hidden, was not the less deep or real. Under this show of factitious strength, the downfall was already visible, and the approaching disaster keenly felt. The army, upon which Nicholas concentrated all his attention and intelligence--the army, his strength, his hope, his pride, began to be disorganized under the influence of an administration without control. Alone, the will of the czar sustained the edifice, and his pride sustained his will. And this word pride embodies to my mind the character, the conduct, the whole politics, of the Emperor Nicholas. His ruling passion was pride, a pride incommensurable, a pride such as neither Louis XIV., Henry VIII., nor Solyman the Magnificent--these three crowned representatives of capital sins--could ever equal. The idea of humiliation would leave him smiling, so entirely he believed such an event impossible. It may be truly said that he never submitted, for the first repulse he had to suffer killed him.

This pride in him passed all bounds, and touched sometimes on the aberrations of a Schahabaham. One day, one of his aides-de-camp came to him very much excited, and throwing himself at his feet:

"Sire!" cried he, "I beg your majesty to grant me a favor."

"Speak."

"Permit me to fight a duel."

"Never!" replied the emperor.

Nicholas had a horror of duels. In his eyes, all blood was criminally shed in Russia that was not for the country or in his service, and he punished the guilty in this respect most severely.

"Sire, I am dishonored. It is necessary for me to fight."

"What do you say?"

"I have been struck in the face."

"Ah!" said the emperor, contracting his brows. "But no, I cannot permit a duel. You must come with me."

And taking him by the arm, he conducted him before the assembled court, and, in presence of all, kissed him on the offended cheek.

{695}

"Go, now," said he, "and resume your tranquillity; the affront is washed out."

During the war of the Crimea, and especially in the first part of it, Nicholas, very restless, waited every day for news from the south. Each one tried his best to conceal the bad turn affairs had taken; but after the battle of the Alma, the truth had to be confessed. A courier, Colonel A., was despatched to him in great haste. He received orders to repair immediately to the czar.

"Well! what news?" said the emperor to him brusquely, giving him scarcely time to enter or fulfil the accustomed formalities of etiquette.

"The battle has been fought, sire."

"Finish!" said the emperor, with an emotion that caused his usually firm voice to tremble.

"Alas!--"

"You say--?"

"Fortune has failed us."

"We are--?"

"We are beaten, sire."

The emperor arose from his seat.

"It is impossible," said he in a quick manner.

"The Russian army has taken flight."

"You lie!" cried Nicholas with a frightful explosion of anger.

"Sire--"

"You lie. My soldiers never fly."

"Sire, I have told you the truth."

"You lie, I say, you lie."

And his eye beaming with anger, his lips contracted, his hand raised, he threw himself on the military courier and tore off his epaulettes.

"Go! You are now only a soldier."

The unhappy colonel, pale with shame, smothering his rage and the tears that rose to his eyes, went out, his soul in despair. But hardly had he reached the staircase, when he heard the voice of the emperor begging his return. He retraced his steps, and Nicholas, running to meet him, embraced him ardently, begged pardon for his brutality, and offered for his acceptance the post of aide-de-camp.

"May your majesty hold me excused," replied the poor officer; "for, in taking off" my epaulettes, you have deprived me of my honor. I leave them in your hands with my dismissal."

"You are right," replied Nicholas. "It is not in my power to repair the offence of my hasty action. Ah! we are both unhappy, and I am vanquished. Yes, completely vanquished!"

And, walking up and down with an agitated step, the subdued lion in his cage, his heart bleeding with the wound given his pride:

"Go, leave my empire," continued he, turning to Colonel A----, "and pardon me. We must not meet again. Both of us would suffer too much in each other's presence."

The mortification attending the first reverses of his army before Sebastopol was a mortal blow to his health; yet, had not his stubborn pride brought about these reverses? Self-deceived thoroughly as to the real condition of his empire, the disastrous news of the Alma came upon him like a thunder-bolt. Some honest men, sent to the different stations, signalized the imperfect state of the fortifications of Sebastopol, the disorganization of the army, the deplorable condition of the roads. They informed the emperor that the soldiers, in their march toward the south, were dying by thousands for want of sufficient nourishment and necessary clothing. Thanks to the bad quality of the grass and hay, whole regiments were in a few days entirely dismounted. And now the alarming news spread with rapidity. {696} Each day brought fresh tidings of new embarrassments, new checks, and new misfortunes. Nicholas at last opened his eyes. He saw the colossus, with its feet of clay, tremble to its base; he felt his power crumble in his hands, his prestige fade and disappear. From the windows of Peterhoff, his loved summer residence, he could follow with his telescope the evolutions of the allied fleet. Turkey itself, hitherto so despicable in his eyes, was transformed into a redoubtable enemy. Now he began to think of the ravages that continued theft had made in his empire, the disorders in the finances, the corruption of public morals, and every one was doomed to punishments. By his order, judgments, condemnations, banishment to Caucasia and Siberia, were daily multiplied. It was too late; the gangrene had reached the wound.

Tears of grief and rage flowed with the consciousness of his impotence. He opened his eyes to the fall of Russia with each victorious flash of the allied cannons; and the edifice of terror that had taken him twenty years to build, he saw crumbling, stone by stone, and felt that the military quackery with which he had intimidated Europe had frightened no one. With the mocking pride of Titan, he bled at every pore. Repeated blows of this kind ended by undermining his constitution, till now so vigorous. Little by little he sank, bent his haughty head, and tottered, with slow and saddened step, to the grave.

It was February. Under a gray and cold sky, a penetrating, driving snow enveloped St. Petersburg in a whitened dust. The streets, the houses, the beards and furred great-coats of the passers-by, all were white. The great city resembled a giant asleep under the snow. An inexpressible sadness took possession of you, weighed down your whole being, and froze your very heart. You seemed to be at the pole itself.

On this day the emperor, an early riser as usual, came out of his bedroom and entered his cabinet, where were already assembled his general aide-de-camp, his other aides, the chamberlain, and gentlemen of the bed-chamber. Perceiving his general aide-de-camp, he called to him, and said:

"I am suffering. Send for Mandt."

"I will go myself, sire."

"Yes. I have a grand review at the end of the week, and must be there."

Mandt, his attendant physician, Prussian by birth, a man of science, and an excellent practitioner, hastened to the emperor, who, after having given his orders, had returned to his apartments.

"It will be nothing, gentlemen," said the doctor to us on leaving the imperial chamber; "only the emperor should abstain from going out, as the least imprudence may aggravate a malady which at present portends nothing serious."

The emperor remained two days in his room, and there was a sensible improvement in his condition. But his wasted figure, his dull eyes, and waxy color betrayed the existence of a hidden malady. The third day, the courier from the south brought him news--sad news, certainly, for it had been a long time since his couriers had anything happy to tell him. The next day was terribly cold, icy, heavy, impregnated with the boreal fog; yet this was the day of the review at which the czar wished to assist.

He threw a small military cloak over his uniform, and at the appointed hour left his cabinet, to mount his horse.

Mandt was waiting for him in the antechamber.

{697}

"Sire!" said the doctor to him in a supplicating voice, and trying to retain him.

"Oh! it is you, doctor. I am better, thank you."

"Yes, sire, better, but not well yet."

"Oh! indisposed merely,"

"No, sire, a serious malady. I come to beg your majesty not to go out."

"Impossible!"

"Sire, for pity's sake--"

"You are crazy, Mandt."

"Sire, you had better be resigned."

"You believe there is danger?"

"It is my duty to warn you of it."

"Well, Mandt, if you have done your duty in warning me, I will do mine by going out."

And the emperor, without listening to another word, pursued his way.

Mandt, stupefied for a moment, ran after him, and rejoined him in the court-yard, at the moment he mounted his horse.

"Sire," cried he, resuming his supplications, "deign to listen to me--"

"I have said it, Mandt. I thank you, but to insist would be useless."

"Sire, in this condition!"

"Well?"

"It is your death, sire."

"And then?"

"It is suicide."

"And who has permitted you, Mandt, to scrutinize my thoughts? Go, and insist no longer. I order you."

After the review, he returned to the palace, pale, trembling, icy cold.

"I am threatened with my malady," said he to his aide-de-camp.

"Shall I send for Mandt?"

"Useless; he has already warned me."

"He warned your majesty?"

"Yes; that I would kill myself."

The aide-de-camp turned pale.

"Ah sire! what do I hear?"

"To die, is it not the best thing I can do? Farewell, my old friend, I have need of rest. Let no one disturb me."

All night the imperial family, who had been apprised of his condition, the doctors, Mandt and Rasel, united in the anteroom, waited with anxiety--not daring to knock at the door of the emperor--for the moment he might call to them. Obedience, in this court, was so blindly servile that it imposed silence on the most natural and imperious sentiments. Toward two o'clock something was heard between a groan and a sigh. Mandt thought he might knock gently at the door of the imperial chamber.

"I have forbidden any one to disturb me," murmured the emperor, in a voice still feeble, but which retained an accent of authority.

That night was spent in mortal inquietude, in inexpressible anguish, and not until the next morning was the doctor informed by the valet de chambre that his august patient would like to see him.

"Well, Mandt, you were right. I believe I am a dead man."

These were the first words of Nicholas.

"O sire! I spoke as I did to dissuade your majesty from so great an imprudence."

"Let us see: look me in the face and tell me if there is yet hope."

"I believe so, sire."

"I tell you I am a dead man. I feel it. Go on, make use of your trade. Sound my lungs; I know that science will confirm my conviction."

Mandt, having accomplished the orders of the emperor, shook his head.

"Well?"

"Sire--"

"You are troubled, Mandt; your hand trembles. See, I have more courage than you. Come, let us have the sentence, and quickly, for I have to settle my affairs in this world, and I have a great many of them."

{698}

"Your majesty troubles yourself unnecessarily. No case is ever desperate, and with the grace of God--"

Nicholas gazed at his doctor fixedly in the eyes.

The latter looked down confusedly.

"You know, Mandt, I cannot be deceived easily. Let us have the truth now, and only the truth. Do you think that Nicholas does not know how to die?"

"Sire--"

"Well?"

"In forty-eight hours you will be dead or saved."

"Thank you, Mandt," said Nicholas in a voice of deep emotion. "Now good-by, and send me my family."

The doctor prepared to leave the room.

"Mandt!" called Nicholas, on seeing him direct his steps toward the door.

"Sire."

"Let us embrace each other, my good old friend. We will perhaps never meet again on earth. You have been an honest and faithful servant. I will recommend you to my son."

"What do you say, sire? Never see you again! I sincerely hope the contrary, and that my attentions--"

"Your attentions will be superfluous. There will be time for me only to see my ministers and my priest, and make my peace with God. Human science can do no more for me, and, indeed, I do not wish to try it."

"And now at the close, sire, I revolt," cried the doctor. "I have no right, and my duty forbids my thus abandoning you."

"Mandt, do you answer for my cure?"

The doctor hung his head, and could not reply.

"Farewell, then, my friend."

"Sire, if not, then, as your physician, permit me as a devoted servant to see you again. Who can tell? God is great! and for the destiny of the Russia which he protects, may work a miracle."

"And because I know that God protects Russia, so neither do I wish nor hope for my restoration to health. Mandt, let my family come now. I assure you the time will soon fail me."

Mandt wept. With tears in his eyes, he went out and related to the courtiers his conversation with the emperor. Strange contradiction! This man, whom I have tried to depict as so severe and haughty, was adored by all who approached him. Courtiers, soldiers, servants, burst into tears. Lost in the crowd with them, I mingled my complaints and prayers.

Then, after the empress and the grand hereditary duke, the imperial family, all in tears, entered the apartment of the emperor. The door closed upon them, and all that passed there, all that was said in this supreme grief, only God knew. Mandt, however, with a voice choked with emotion, continued his recital, and we listened to him with the keenest attention. How and by what indiscretion the news he had just given us was spread in the city, I cannot tell; but already, before the death of the czar, it was believed at St. Petersburg that Mandt had helped to poison him. From this to the pretended act itself there was but one step toward belief, and this was soon overcome; so the exasperation, true or false, against the honest doctor, knew no bounds, and they would have torn him to pieces in the streets. The name of Nicholas still inspired such terror that every one endeavored to give some public demonstration of grief as a claim on his benevolence in the event of his returning to life. Yet after his death these manifestations changed their character, and the contrast between such marks of affection and the epithets with which they loaded his memory when they were certain he really ceased to exist, was a lesson for kings to contemplate. {699} For the time, though, the anger of the people against the poor doctor was so blindly furious, that it is related of a thief, seized by the collar by a passerby, from whom he had tried to steal his watch, that in order to escape, he raised the cry, "Hist! hist! it's Mandt, comrades, it's Mandt!"

The interview between the emperor and his family lasted three hours, three long hours, during which expectation for us was changed into real anguish. By degrees retired, one by one, the children, the grand-children, and his brothers. The grand hereditary duke came out last, bathed in tears. An hour flew by, and not a sound was heard from the imperial chamber; no one dared enter. Mandt listened attentively, holding his breath. Suddenly a loud noise was heard in the corridors; a courier from Sebastopol arrived. As the whole court knew the impatience with which the emperor awaited the news from the Crimea, the aide-de-camp general on duty, thinking to please the emperor, knocked at his door.

"Do they still want me?" murmured the emperor; "tell them to let me rest."

"Sire, a courier from Sebastopol."

"Let him address himself to my son; this concerns me no longer."

Soon the primate, followed by the clergy, arrived to offer the last consolations of the church. Then the ministers were presented, the Count Orlof at their head. This lasted during the night. At ten o'clock, the emperor asked for the officers of his household. His face already bore the impress of death; a cadaverous paleness betrayed the progress of the decomposition that preceded the fatal moment; lying on his camp-bed, he addressed us some farewell words, which the first strokes of death-rattle interrupted, and took leave of us with a waive of his hand. None of us slept that night in the Winter Palace, none of us after that hour ever saw the emperor alive.

The next day, the 18th of February, at mid-day, the grand chamberlain of the palace was sent for by the physicians to the imperial bed. At half-past twelve o'clock, returning among us, "Nicholas Paulowitch is dead," said he.

We went out silent and sad.

The next day, on the walls of St. Petersburg could be read this inscription: "Russia, grateful to the Emperor Nicholas I. for the 18th of February, 1855."

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{700}

Translated From The French
Of The Pere Landriot--
Addressed To Women Of The World.

Household Duties.

"She giveth meat to her household,
and a portion to her maidens.'

We finished the question, vulgar perhaps in one sense, yet so important in many others, of sleep: [Footnote 211] a benefit of divine Providence accorded us each day to repair our strength, renew our life, and provide for the weakness and precipitation of man; a time for repose and sage counsel.

[Footnote 211: See "_Early Rising_" in _The Catholic
World_ for September, 1867.]

Sleep is a precious dictate, a solitary bath for body and soul, and a prudent counsellor and daily preacher to remind us of our approaching and last departure. But like all good things, sleep is subject to abuse, and then it produces effects entirely contrary to the will of the Creator: weakening, stupefying, and dulling the faculties, it becomes for humanity a living sepulchre. If the abuse of sleep coincides with the quality, that is to say, if the hours by nature destined to it are considerably changed--night turned into day, and day into night--the constitution is assuredly ruined, and an infirm old age prepared, a never-ceasing convalescence. Parties and midnight revels have killed more women than the most exaggerated mortifications and if religion commanded the sacrifice the world requires of its votaries, the recriminations against it would be unending. In a hygienic light, physical as well as moral, it is better to retire and rise early. Everything gains by it--health, business, and the facility and excellence of prayer. But we must not dissimulate; and the struggle with the pillow is, in its very sweetness, one of the most violent that can exercise man's courage; and to break these _chains of bed_, it is necessary to exercise an almost superhuman energy. The enemy is deceitful, dangerous in his caresses, and generally ends in persuading us; we think he is right; and, after all, it is a cruelty to martyrize ourselves. I have not wished, ladies, to conceal the difficulties; but I have pleaded my cause, which is also yours. To your wisdom and reason I submit it, and I trust to succeed at such a tribunal. If you wish to appeal, and present the cause before the tribunal of Idleness, listening to its numerous lawyers, in advance I may tell you the first judgment will be suspended. Well, I will consent to lose, but on one condition--that you will insert this explanation in the judgment: that the case was gained before Judge Reason; but that, in the supreme court of Indolence, Idleness, surrounded by his lawyers, revoked the decision.

Now for the end of our text: "_The strong woman giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens_."

Formerly, ladies, when families and societies were truly Christian, the domestics, according to the etymology of the word, were really a part of the house; for _domestic_ comes from the Latin word _domus_, which signifies house. In those days, a family formed a body; the father and mother were head, and the domestics themselves had their place in the organization of the family; they were only subordinate members, but they were a part of the body. {701} Therefore, they always lived in the house, passed their lives there; and when they were no longer able to work, they were cared for with paternal and filial affection; and when the hour of death came to them by length of time, they had fallen into decay as a branch dying on its trunk. The relations of benevolence and Christian charity united masters to servants; and while the latter accepted the place of inferiority, they felt themselves loved, and loving in return, a tie was formed stronger than massive gold--the tie of love. Saint Augustine speaks to us with much feeling of the nurse who cared for his mother's infancy, and who had even carried on her back the father of St. Monica, as young girls then carried little children: "_Sicut dorso grandiuscularum puellarum parvuli portari solent._" [Footnote 212]

[Footnote 212: _Confessions_, i. 9, c 8.]

"This remembrance," continued St. Augustine, "her old age, the excellence of her manners, assured her in a Christian house the veneration of her masters, who had committed to her the care of their daughters; her zeal responded to their confidence; and while she exercised a saintly firmness to correct them--to instruct, she was always guided by an admirable prudence."

Nowadays, ladies, things have changed. Such examples are rare; but without doubt, there are still honorable exceptions--servants who love their masters, and who make part of the family as true children of the house, serving with ease and gentleness, because they are guided principally by affection, and bearing the faults of their masters, who, in return, are patient with them, until household affairs glide on with a smoothness which, though sometimes very imperfect, is, after all, a small evil. Yes, we do still find Christian families where domesticity is thus understood; but alas! they become rarer every day! In our time, owing to a spirit of pride, independence and irreligion are spreading everywhere; good servants are hard to find, and perhaps also good masters; and as two fireplaces placed opposite each other are mutually overheated, so the bad qualities of the domestics increase those of the masters, and _vice versâ_. Servants have exaggerated pretensions; they will not bear the least reproof; everything wounds them; and on the other side, masters do not command in a Christian spirit. Thus, everywhere is heard a general concert of complaint and recrimination; masters accuse their servants, servants do as little as possible for their masters; and certain houses become like omnibuses, where the servants enter only to get out again at their convenience.

I have told you, ladies, that, if I had to preach to your husbands, I could add a kind of counterpart, not adverse to your interests, but to complete my instructions; but, addressing myself to you, my words must be limited to your duties. I would add here, also, that, if I had to preach to your servants, I would be obliged to give them advice very useful for your household organization; but they are absent; my instruction is to you; so I must leave in shadow all their shortcomings.