"TO ALEXANDER THE FIRST, GRATEFUL RUSSIA."
Frank made a sketch of the monument together with the buildings of the État-major and a company of soldiers that marched past the foot of the column. Doctor Bronson said the soldiers belonged to the guard of the palace, where they had been on duty through the day, and had just been relieved.
From the column and the buildings surrounding it the trio of strangers walked to the bank of the river and watched the boats on the water, where the setting sun slanted in long rays and filled the air with the mellow light peculiar to high latitudes near the close of day. It was early in September, and already the evening air had a touch of coolness about it. St. Petersburg is in latitude 60° North, and consequently is quite near the Arctic Circle. Doctor Bronson told the youths that if they had come there in July they would have found very little night, the sun setting not far from ten o'clock and rising about two. In the four hours of night there is almost continuous twilight; and by mounting to the top of a high building at midnight one can see the position of the sun below the northern horizon. Any one who goes to bed after sunset and rises before sunrise would have very little sleep in St. Petersburg in summer.
"On the other hand," said the Doctor, "the nights of winter are very long. Winter is the gay season here, as the city is deserted by fashionable people in summer, and one is not expected to make visits. The Imperial court goes away; the Emperor has a palace at Yalta in the Crimea, and there he passes the autumn months, unless kept in St. Petersburg or Moscow by the affairs of the nation. They have some public festivities here in summer, but not generally, most of the matters of this kind being reserved for the winter."
PETER THE GREAT.
Boats were moving in all directions on the placid waters of the river, darting beneath the magnificent bridge that stretches across the stream, and carrying little parties, who sought recreation or were on errands of business. On the opposite side of the Neva, and beyond the Winter Palace, was the grim fortress of Sts. Peter and Paul, with whose history many tales of horror are connected, and where numerous prisoners of greater or less note have been confined. "It was there," said Doctor Bronson, "that Peter the Great caused his son Alexis to be put to death."
"Caused his son to be put to death!" exclaimed the youths together.
"Yes, it is generally believed that such was the case," the Doctor answered, "though the fact is not actually known. Alexis, the son of Peter the Great, was opposed to his father's reforms, and devotedly attached to the old superstitions and customs of Russia. Peter decided to exclude him from the throne; the son consented, and announced his desire to enter a monastery, from which he managed to escape to Austria, where he sought the protection of the Emperor of that country. Peter sent one of his generals in pursuit of Alexis; by a combination of threats and promises he was induced to return to St. Petersburg, where he was thrown into prison, and afterwards tried for high-treason and condemned to death. Peter pardoned but did not release him. On the 7th of July, 1718, he died suddenly, and it was and is now generally believed that he was poisoned or beheaded by his father's order."
"And was he really guilty of high-treason?" Fred asked.
"According to Russian law and custom, and particularly according to the law and custom of Peter the Great, he certainly was," Doctor Bronson replied. "Remember, the Emperor is autocratic in his power, at least in theory, and in Peter's time he was so actually. The will of the founder of the Russian Empire was law; Alexis was opposed to that will, and consequently opposed to the Imperial law. The progress of Russia was more in the eyes of Peter than the life of any human being, not even excepting his own son, and the legitimate heir to the throne. The proceedings of the trial were published by Peter as a justification of his act.
ASSASSINATION OF PETER III.
"Peter II., the son of Alexis and grandson of the great Peter, died suddenly, at the age of fifteen; Peter III., grandchild of Peter the Great through his daughter Anna, was the husband of the Empress Catherine II.; but his reign was very short. His life with Catherine was not the happiest in the world, and in less than eight months after he became Emperor she usurped the throne, deposed her husband, and caused him to be strangled. Catherine was a German princess, but declared herself thoroughly Russian when she came to reside in the Empire. If history is correct, she made a better ruler than the man she put aside, but this can be no justification of her means of attaining power.
PAUL I.
"Her son, Paul I., followed the fate of his father in being assassinated, but it was not by her orders. She brought him up in complete ignorance of public affairs, and compelled him to live away from the Imperial court. Until her death, in 1796, she kept him in retirement, although she had his sons taken to court and educated under her immediate supervision. Treatment like this was calculated to make him whimsical and revengeful, and when he became emperor he tried to undo every act of his mother and those about her. He disbanded her armies, made peace with the countries with which she was at war, reversed her policy in everything, and became a most bitter tyrant towards his own people. He issued absurd orders, and at length his acts bordered on insanity.
"A conspiracy was formed among some of the noblemen, who represented to his son Alexander that it was necessary to secure the abdication of his father on the ground of incapacity. Late at night, March 23d, 1801, they went to his bedroom and presented a paper for him to sign. He refused, and was then strangled by the conspirators. Alexander I. was proclaimed emperor, and the announcement of Paul's death was hailed with delight by his oppressed subjects. Among the foolish edicts he issued was one which forbade the wearing of round hats. Within an hour after his death became known, great numbers of round hats were to be seen on the streets.
"You've had enough of the history of the Imperial family of Russia for the present," said the Doctor, after a pause, "and now we'll look at the people on the streets. It is getting late, and we'll go to the hotel, making our observations on the way.
RUSSIAN AND FINN.
"Here are distinct types of the inhabitants of the Empire," the Doctor remarked, as they passed two men who seemed to be in animated conversation. "The man with the round cap and long coat is a Russian peasant, while the one with the hood over his head and falling down to his shoulders is a Finn, or native of Finland."
"How far is it from here to Finland?" Frank asked.
"Only over the river," the Doctor replied. "You cross the Neva to its opposite bank, and you are in what was once the independent duchy of Finland, but has long been incorporated with Russia. When Peter the Great came here he did not like to be so near a foreign country, and so made up his mind to convert Finland into Russian territory. The independence of the duchy was maintained for some time, but in the early part of the present century Russia defeated the armies of Finland, and the country was permanently occupied. Finland has its constitution, which is based on that of Sweden, and when it was united with Russia the constitutional rights of the people were guaranteed. The country is ruled by a governor-general, who is appointed by Russia; it has a parliament for presenting the grievances and wishes of the people, but all acts must receive the approval of the Imperial Government before they can become the law of the land."
DVORNIK AND POSTMAN.
"What are those men standing in front of a building?" said Fred, as he pointed to a fellow with a broom talking with another in uniform.
"The one in uniform is a postman," was the reply, "and the other is a dvornik, or house guardian. The dvornik sweeps the sidewalk in front of a house and looks after the entrance; he corresponds to the porter, or portier, of other countries, and is supposed to know the names of all the tenants of the building. The postman is reading an address on a letter, and the dvornik is probably pointing in the direction of the room occupied by the person to whom the missive belongs."
"I have read that letters in Russia are examined by the police before they are delivered," said one of the boys. "Is that really the case?"
"Formerly it was, or at least they were liable to examination, and it probably happens often enough at the present time. If a man is suspected of treasonable practices his correspondence is liable to be seized; unless there is a serious charge against him, it is not detained after examination, provided it contains nothing objectionable. The Post-office, like everything else in Russia, is a part of the military system, and if the Government wishes to do anything with the letters of its subjects it generally does it. The correspondence of foreigners is rarely meddled with. Writers for the foreign newspapers sometimes complain that their letters are lost in the mails, or show signs of having been opened, but I fancy that these cases are rare. For one, I haven't the least fear that our letters will be troubled, as we have no designs upon Russia other than to see it. If we were plotting treason, or had communications with Russian and Polish revolutionists in France or Switzerland, it is probable that the Government would not be long in finding it out."
"What would happen to us, supposing that to be the case?" Frank inquired.
"Supposing it to be so for the sake of argument," the Doctor answered, "our treatment would depend much upon the circumstances. If we were Russians, we should probably be arrested and imprisoned; but as we are foreigners, we should be asked to leave the country. Unless the matter is very serious, the authorities do not like to meddle with foreigners in any way that will lead to a dispute with another government, and their quickest way out of the difficulty is to expel the obnoxious visitor."
"How would they go to work to expel us?"
LODGINGS AT THE FRONTIER.
"An officer would call at our lodgings and tell us our passports were ready for our departure. He would probably say that the train for the frontier leaves at 11 a.m. to-morrow, and he would expect us to go by that train. If the case was urgent, he would probably tell us we must go by that train, and he would be at the hotel at ten o'clock to escort us to it. He would take us to the train and accompany us to the frontier, where he would gracefully say good-by, and wish us a pleasant journey to our homes. If matters were less serious, he would allow us two or three days, perhaps a week, to close our affairs; all would depend upon his orders, and whatever they were they would be carried out.
ORDERED TO LEAVE RUSSIA.
"Before the days of the railways objectionable parties were taken to the frontier in carriages or sleighs, the Government paying the expense of the posting; and no matter what the hour of arrival at the boundary, they were set down and left to take care of themselves. An Englishman who had got himself into trouble with the Government in the time of the Emperor Nicholas, tells how he was dropped just over the boundary in Prussia in the middle of a dark and rainy night, and left standing in the road with his baggage, fully a mile from any house. The officer who accompanied him was ordered to escort him over the frontier, and did it exactly. Probably his passenger was a trifle obstinate, or he would not have been left in such a plight. A little politeness, and possibly a few shillings in money, would have induced the officer to bring him to the boundary in the daytime, and in the neighborhood of a habitation.
"Expelled foreigners have rarely any cause to complain of the incivility of their escorts. I know a Frenchman who was thus taken to the frontier after a notice of two days, and he told me that he could not have received greater civility if he had been the guest of the Emperor, and going to St. Petersburg instead of from it. He added that he tried to outdo his guardians in politeness, and further admitted that he richly deserved expulsion, as he had gone to the Empire on a revolutionary mission. On the whole, he considered himself fortunate to have escaped so easily."
The conversation led to anecdotes about the police system of Russia, and at their termination our friends found themselves at the door of the hotel. Naturally, they shifted to other topics as soon as they were in the presence of others. It was an invariable rule of our friends not to discuss in the hearing of any one else the politics of the countries they were visiting.