VIII.

1824.

M. de Chateaubriand, "a fidelity which continued eleven CHAP. years." Alexander, however, suffered in his turn by a righteous retribution the pangs of jealousy. The object of his attachment (a married Polish lady of rank) had all the beauty, fascination, and conversational talent which have rendered her countrywomen so celebrated over Europe, and to which even the intellectual breast of Napoleon did homage; but she had also the spirit of coquetry and thirst for admiration which has so often turned the passions they have awakened into a consuming fire. Unfaithful to duty, she had proved equally so to love the influence of the emperor was, after a long constancy, superseded by a new attachment; and the liaison between them was already broken, when a domestic calamity overwhelmed him with affliction. Meanwhile the empress, who had left Russia, and sought solace in foreign travelling, mourned in silence and dignified retirement the infidelity of her husband-the blasting of her hopes. Yet even then, under a calm and serene air, and the cares of a life entirely devoted to deeds of bene- 1Schnitzler, ficence, was concealed a heart wasted by sorrow, but i. 97, 98; faithful to its first attachment. "How often," says the Congrès de annalist, "was she surprised in tears, contemplating the 207. portrait of that Alexander, so lovable, yet so faithless! "1

Lagarde,

Vérone, i.

Alexander's

From this irregular connection had sprung three chil- 100. dren, two of which had died in infancy. But the third, Death of Mademoiselle N., a child gifted with all the graces and natural charms of her mother, though in delicate health, still daughter. lived, and had become the object of the most passionate affection to her father. It became necessary to send her to Paris, for the benefit of a milder climate and the best medical advice; and during her absence, the emperor, a solitary hermit in his palace, but thirsting for the enjoyments of domestic life, sought a temporary respite to his anxiety in frequenting the houses of some highly respectable families in middle life, for the most part Germans, to whom his rank was known, but where he insisted upon

VIII.

1824.

CHAP. being treated as an ordinary guest. There he often expressed his envy at the happiness which reigned in those domestic circles, and sighed to think that the Emperor of all the Russias was compelled to seek, at the hearth of others, that felicity which his grandeur or his faults had denied him at his own. But the hand of fate was upon him; he was to be pierced to the heart through the fruit of his own irregularities. His daughter, who was now seventeen, had returned from France, apparently restored to health, and in all the bloom of youth and beauty. She was engaged to be married, with the entire consent of her father: the magnificent trousseau was ordered at Paris, but when it arrived at St Petersburg she was no more. So sudden was the death of the 1Schnitzler, young fiancée, that it occurred when the emperor was Madlle. out at a review of his guards. An aide-de-camp, with a Gouffier, melancholy expression, approached, and requested leave Mém. Hist. to speak to him in private. At the first words he andre, 358; divined the whole: a mortal paleness overspread his

i. 101, 102;

Choiseul

sur Alex

Chateaub.

Vérone, i.

Congrés de visage, and, turning up his eyes to heaven, he struck his 207. forehead and exclaimed, "I receive the punishment of my sins!" 1

101.

These words were not only descriptive of the change Reconcilia- in the emperor's mind in the latter years of his life, but emperor and they presaged, and truly, an important change in his empress. domestic relations, which shed a ray of happiness over

tion of the

his last moments. His mind, naturally inclined to deep and mystical religious emotions, had been much affected by the dreadful scenes which he had witnessed at the inundation of St Petersburg, and this domestic bereavement completed the impression that he was suffering, by the justice of Heaven, the penalty of his transgressions. Under the influence of these feelings, he returned to his original dispositions; and that mysterious change took place in his mind, which so often, on the verge of the grave, brings us back to the impressions of our youth.

VIII.

1825.

He again sought the society of the empress, who had re- CHAP. turned to St Petersburg, was attentive to her smallest wishes, and sought to efface the recollection of former neglect by every kindness which affection could suggest. The change was not lost upon that noble princess, who still nourished in her inmost heart her first attachment; and the reconciliation was rendered complete by the generous tears which, in sympathy with her husband's sorrow, she shed over the bier of her rival's daughter. But she, too, was in an alarming state of health; long years of anxiety and suffering had weakened her constitution, and the physicians recommended a change, and return to her native air. But the empress declared that the sovereign must not die elsewhere but in her own dominions, and she refused to leave Russia. They upon this proposed the Crimea; but Alexander gave the preference of TAGanrog. The emperor fixed his departure for the 13th September 1825, some days before that of the empress, in order to prepare everything for her reception. Though his own health was broken, as he had not recovered from an 1 Madlle. attack of erysipelas, he resolved upon running the risk Choiseul of the journey; an expedition of some thousand had no terrors for one the half of whose life was in travelling.1

Gouffier,

miles 384, 386;

Schnitzler,

spent i. 105.

vice in the

Notre Dame

Sincerely religious to the extent even of being super- 102. stitious, the emperor had a presentiment that this jour- Solemn serney was to be his last, and that he was about to ex- cathedral of pire beside the empress, amidst the flowery meads and de Kazan. balmy air of the south. Impressed with this idea, he had Sept. 13. fixed his departure for the 1st September (old style, 13th), the day after a solemn service had been celebrated in the cathedral of Kazan, on the translation of the bones of the great Prince Alexander Newski from the place of his sepulture at Vladimir to that holy fane on the banks of the Neva. On every departure for a long journey, the emperor had been in the habit of repairing to its altar to

CHAP. pray; but on this occasion he directed the metropolitan

VIII.

bishop in secret to have the service for the dead chaunted for him when he returned on the following morning at four o'clock. He arrived there, accordingly, next day at that early hour, when it was still dark, and was met by the priests in full costume as for the burial service, the service of which was chaunted as he approached. He drove up to the cathedral by the magnificent street of Perspective Newski in a simple calèche drawn by three horses abreast, without a single servant, and reached the gate as the first streaks of light were beginning to appear in the eastern sky. Wrapped in his military cloak, without his sword, and bareheaded, the emperor alighted, kissed the cross which the archbishop presented to him, and entered the cathedral alone, the gates of which were immediately closed after him. The prayer appointed for travellers was then chaunted; the Czar knelt at the gate of the rail which surrounded the altar, and received the benediction of the prelate, who placed the sacred volume on his head, and, receiving with pious care a consecrated cross and some relic of the saint in his bosom, he again kissed the emblem of salvation, "which gives life," and departed alone and unattended, save by the priests, who continued to sing till he was beyond the gates of the cathedral the chaunt, "God save thy People." 1

The archbishop, called in the Greek Church "the Seraphim," requested the emperor, while his travelling carriage was drawing up, to honour his cell with a visit, which he at once agreed to do. Arrived at this retreat, the conversation turned on the Schimnik, an order of peculiarly austere monks, who had their cells in the vicinity. The emperor expressed a wish to see one of them, and immediately the archbishop accompanied him to their chief. The emperor there found only a

* A term consecrated in the Russian Church.

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1825.

small apartment furnished with deal boards, covered CHAP. with black cloth, and hung with the same funeral garb. "I see no bed," said the emperor. "Here it is," said the monk, and, drawing aside a curtain, revealed an alcove, in which was a coffin covered with black cloth, and surrounded with all the lugubrious habiliments of the dead. "This," he added, "is my bed; it will ere long be yours, and that of all, for their long sleep." The emperor was silent, and mused long. Then suddenly starting from his reverie, as if recalled to the affairs of this world, he bade them all adieu with the words, "Pray for me and for my wife." He ascended his open calèche, the horses of which bore him towards the south with their accustomed rapidity, and was soon out of sight; but he 1Oertel, 60, was still uncovered when the carriage disappeared in the i. 110, 114. obscure grey of the morning.1

64; Schnitz.

Alexander made the journey in twelve days; and as 104. the distance was above fifteen hundred miles, and he was His arrival at Taganrog. obliged to stop at many places, he must have gone from a hundred and fifty to two hundred miles a-day. He was fully impressed with the idea of his approaching death the whole way, and often asked the coachman "if he had seen the wandering star?" "Yes, your majesty," he replied. "Do you know what it presages? Misfortune and death: but God's will be done." Arrived at Taganrog, he devoted several days to preparing everything for the empress, which he did with the utmost solicitude and care. She arrived ten days after, and they remained together for some weeks, walking and driving out in the forenoon, and conversing alone in the evening with the utmost affection, more like newly-married persons than those who had so long been severed. The cares of empire, however, ere long tore the emperor from this charming retreat; and on the urgent entreaty of Count Woronzoff, governor of the Crimea, he undertook a journey in that province. He set out on the 1st Novem