FROM THE FRENCH OF ALEX. DUMAS, BY MISS STRICKLAND.
The knowledge of an extensively organized conspiracy embittered the last years of the Emperor Alexander, and increased his constitutional melancholy. His attachment to Tzarsko Zelo made him linger longer at his summer palace than was prudent in a man subject to erysipelas. The wound in his leg reopened with very unfavorable symptoms, and he was compelled to leave his favorite residence in a closed litter for St. Petersburgh; and the skill and firmness of Mr. Wyllie, his Scotch surgeon, alone saved the diseased limb from amputation. As soon as he was cured, he returned again to Tzarsko Zelo, where the spring found him as usual alone, without a court or chamberlain, only giving audience to his ministers twice a-week. His existence resembled rather that of an anchorite weeping for the sins of his youth, than that of a great Emperor who makes the happiness of his people.
He regulated his time in the following manner:—in summer he rose at five, and in winter at six o'clock every morning, and as soon as the duties of the toilette were ended, entered his cabinet, in which the greatest order was observed. He found there a cambric handkerchief folded, and a packet of new pens. He only used these pens in signing his name, and never made use of them again. As soon as he concluded this business, he descended into the garden, where, notwithstanding the report of a conspiracy which had existed two years against his life and government, he walked alone with no other guards than the sentinels always stationed before the palace of Alexander. At five he returned, to dine alone, and after his solitary meal was lulled to sleep by the melancholy airs played by the military band of the guard regiment on duty. The selection of the music was always made by himself, and he seemed to sink to repose, and to awake, with the same sombre dispositions and feelings which had been his companions throughout the day.
His empress Elizabeth lived like her consort, in profound solitude, watching over him like an invisible angel. Time had not extinguished in her heart the profound passion with which the youthful Czarowitz had inspired her at first sight, and which she had preserved in her heart, pure and inviolate. His numerous and public infidelities could not stifle this holy and beautiful attachment, which formed at once the happiness and misery of a delicate and sensitive woman.
At this period of her life, the Empress at five-and-forty retained her fine shape and noble carriage, while her countenance showed the remains of considerable beauty, more impaired by sorrow than time. Calumny itself had never dared to aim her envenomed shafts at one so eminently chaste and good. Her presence demanded the respect due to virtue, still more than the homage proper to her elevated rank. She resembled indeed more an angel exiled from heaven, than the imperial consort of a Prince who ruled a large portion of the earth.
In the summer of 1825, the last he was destined to see, the physicians of the Emperor unanimously recommended a journey to the Crimea, as the best medicine he could take. Alexander appeared perfectly indifferent to a measure which regarded his individual benefit, but the Empress, deeply interested in any event likely to restore her husband's health, asked and obtained permission to accompany him. The necessary preparations for this long absence overwhelmed the Emperor with business, and for a fortnight he rose earlier, and went to bed later, than was customary to him.
In the month of June, no visible alteration was observed in his appearance, and he quitted St. Petersburgh, after a service had been chanted, to bring down a blessing from above on his journey. He was accompanied by the Empress, his faithful coachman, Ivan, and some officers belonging to the staff of General Diebitch. He stopped at Warsaw a few days, in order to celebrate the birthday of his brother, the Grand-Duke Constantine, and arrived at Tangaroff in the end of August 1825. Both the illustrious travellers found their health benefitted by the change of scene and climate. Alexander took a great liking to Tangaroff, a small town on the borders of the sea of Azof, comprizing a thousand ill-built houses, of which a sixth-part alone are of brick and stone, while the remainder resemble wooden cages covered with dirt. The streets are large, but then they have no pavement, and are alternately loaded with dust, or inundated with mud. The dust rises in clouds, which conceals alike man and beast under a thick veil, and penetrates every where the carefully closed jalousies with which the houses are guarded, and covers the garments of their inhabitants. The food, the water, are loaded with it; and the last cannot be drunk till previously boiled with salt of tartar, which precipitates it; a precaution absolutely necessary to free it from this disagreeable and dangerous deposit.
The Emperor took possession of the governor's house, where he sometimes slept and took his meals. His abode there in the daytime rarely exceeded two hours. The rest of his time was passed in wandering about the country on foot, in the hot dust or wet mud. No weather put any stop to his outdoor exercise, and no advice from his medical attendant nor warning from the natives of Tangaroff, could prevail upon him to take the slightest precaution against the fatal autumnal fever of the country. His principal occupation was, planning and planting a great public garden, in which undertaking he was assisted by an Englishman whom he had brought with him to St. Petersburgh for that purpose. He frequently slept on the spot on a camp-bed, with his head resting upon a leather pillow.
If general report may be credited, planting gardens was not the principal object that engrossed the Russian Emperor's attention. He was said to be employed in framing a new Constitution for Russia, and unable to contend at St. Petersburgh with the prejudices of the aristocracy, had retired to this small city, for the purpose of conferring this benefit upon his enslaved country.
However this might be, the Emperor did not stay long at a time at Tangaroff, where his Empress, unable to share with him the fatigues of his long journeys, permanently resided, during his frequent absences from his head quarters. Alexander, in fact, made rapid excursions to the country about the Don, and was sometimes at Tcherkask, sometimes at Donetz. He was on the eve of departure for Astracan, when Count Woronzoff in person came to announce to his sovereign the existence of the mysterious conspiracy which had haunted him in St. Petersburgh, and which extended to the Crimea, where his personal presence could alone appease the general discontent.
The prospect of traversing three hundred leagues appeared a trifle to Alexander, whom rapid journeys alone diverted from his oppressive melancholy. He announced to the Empress his departure, which he only delayed till the return of a messenger he had sent to Alapka. The expected courier brought new details of the conspiracy, which aimed at the life, as well as the government of Alexander. This discovery agitated him terribly. He rested his aching head on his hands, gave a deep groan, and exclaimed, "Oh, my father, my father!" Though it was then midnight, he caused Count Diebitch to be roused from sleep and summoned into his presence. The general, who lodged in the next house, found his master in a dreadfully excited state, now traversing the apartment with hasty strides, now throwing himself upon the bed with deep sighs and convulsive starts. He at length became calm, and discussed the intelligence conveyed in the dispatches of Count Woronzoff. He then dictated two, one addressed to the Viceroy of Poland, the other to the Grand-Duke Nicholas.
With these documents all traces of his terrible agitation disappeared. He was quite calm, and his countenance betrayed nothing of the emotion that had harassed him the preceding night.
Count Woronzoff, notwithstanding his apparent calmness, found him difficult to please, and unusually irritable, for Alexander was constitutionally sweet-tempered and patient. He did not delay his journey on account of this internal disquietude, but gave orders for his departure from Tangaroff, which he fixed for the following day.
His ill-humor increased during the journey; he complained of the badness of the roads and the slowness of the horses. He had never been known to grumble before. His irritation became more apparent when Sir James Wyllie, his confidential medical attendant, recommended him to take some precaution against the frozen winds of the autumn; for he threw away with a gesture of impatience the cloak and pelisse he offered, and braved the danger he had been entreated to avoid. His imprudence soon produced consequences. That evening he caught cold, and coughed incessantly, and the following day, on his arrival at Orieloff, an intermittent fever appeared, which soon after, aggravated by the obstinacy of the invalid, turned to the intermittent fever common to Tangaroff and its environs in the autumn.
The Emperor, whose increasing malady gave him a presage of his approaching death, expressed a wish to return to the Empress, and once more took the route to Tangaroff; contrary to the prayers of Sir James Wyllie, he chose to perform a part of the journey on horseback, but the failure of his strength finally forced him to re-enter his carriage. He entered Tangaroff on the fifth of November, and swooned the moment he came into the governor's house. The Empress, who was suffering with a complaint of the heart, forgot her malady, while watching over her dying husband. Change of place only increased the fatal fever which preyed upon his frame, which seemed to gather strength from day to day. On the eight, Wyllie called in Dr. Stephiegen, and on the thirteenth they endeavored to counteract the affection of the brain, and wished to bleed the imperial patient. He would not submit to the operation, and demanded iced water, which they refused. Their denial irritated him, and he rejected every thing they offered him, with displeasure. These learned men were unwise, to deprive the suffering prince of the water, a safe and harmless beverage in such fevers. In fact, nature herself sometimes, in inspiring the wish, provides the remedy. The Emperor on the afternoon of that day wrote and sealed a letter, when perceiving the taper remained burning, he told his attendant to extinguish it, in words that plainly expressed his feelings in regard to the dangerous nature of his malady. "Put out that light, my friend, or the people will take it for a bier candle, and will suppose I am already dead."
On the fourteenth of November, the physicians again urged their refractory patient to take the medicines they prescribed, and were seconded by the prayers of the Empress. He repulsed them with some haughtiness, but quickly repenting of his hastiness of temper, which in fact was one of the symptoms of the disease, he said, "Attend to me, Stephiegen, and you too, Sir Andrew Wyllie. I have much pleasure in seeing you, but you plague me so often about your medicine, that really I must give up your company if you will talk of nothing else." He however was at last induced to take a dose of calomel.
In the evening, the fever had made such fearful progress that it appeared necessary to call in a priest. Sir Andrew Wyllie, at the instance of the Empress, entered the chamber of the dying prince, and approaching his bed, with tears in his eyes advised him "to call in the aid of the Most High, and not to refuse the assistance of religion as he had already done that of medicine."
The Emperor instantly gave his consent. Upon the fifteenth, at five o'clock in the morning, a humble village priest approached the imperial bed to receive the confession of his expiring sovereign.—"My father, God must be merciful to kings," were the first words the Emperor addressed to the minister of religion; "indeed they require it so much more than other men." In this sentence all the trials and temptations of the despotic ruler of a great people—his territorial ambition, his jealousy, his political ruses, his distrusts and over-confidences, seem to be briefly comprehended. Then, apparently perceiving some timidity in the spiritual confessor his destiny had provided for him, he added, "My father, treat me like an erring man, not as an Emperor." The priest drew near the bed, received the confession of his august penitent, and administered to him the last sacraments. Then having been informed of the Emperor's pertinacity in rejecting medicine, he urged him to give up this fatal obstinacy, remarking, "that he feared God would consider it absolutely suicidal." His admonitions made a deep impression upon the mind of the prince, who recalled Sir Andrew Wyllie, and, giving him his hand, bade him do what he pleased with him. Wyllie took advantage of this absolute surrender, to apply twenty leeches to the head of the Emperor; but the application was too late, the burning fever continually increased, and the sufferer was given over. The intelligence filled the dying chamber with weeping domestics, who tenderly loved their master.
The Empress still occupied her place by the bed-side, which she had never quitted but once, in order to allow her dying husband to unbosom himself in private to his confessor. She returned to the post assigned her by conjugal tenderness directly the priest had quitted it.
Two hours after he had made his peace with God, Alexander experienced more severe pain than he had yet felt. "Kings," said he, "suffer more than others." He had called one of his attendants to listen to this remark with the air of one communicating a secret. He stopped, and then, as if recalling something he had forgotten, said in a whisper, "they have committed an infamous action." What did he mean by these words? Was he suspicious that his days had been shortened by poison? or did he allude, with the last accents he uttered, to the barbarous assassination of the Emperor Paul? Eternity can alone reveal the secret thoughts of Alexander I. of Russia.
During the night, the dying prince lost consciousness. At two o'clock in the morning, Count Diebitch came to the Empress, to inform her that an old man, named Alexandrowitz, had saved many Tartars in the same malady. A ray of hope entered the heart of the imperial consort at this information, and Sir Andrew Wyllie ordered him to be sent for in haste. This interval was passed by the Empress in prayer, yet she still kept her eyes fixed upon those of her husband, watching with intense attention the beams of life and light fading in their unconscious gaze. At nine in the morning, the old man was brought into the imperial chamber almost by force. The rank of the patient, perhaps, inspiring him with some fear respecting the consequences that might follow his prescriptions, caused his extreme unwillingness. He approached the bed, looked at his dying sovereign, and shook his head. He was questioned respecting this doubtful sign. "It is too late to give him medicine; besides, those I have cured were not sick of the same malady."
With these words of the peasant physician, the last hopes of the Empress vanished; but if pure and ardent prayers could have prevailed with God, Alexander would have been saved.
On the sixteenth of November, according to the usual method of measuring time, but on the first of December, if we follow the Russian calendar, at fifty minutes after ten in the morning, Alexander Paulowitz, Emperor of all the Russias, expired. The Empress, bending over him, felt the departure of his last breath. She uttered a bitter cry, sank upon her knees, and prayed. After some minutes passed in communion with heaven, she rose, closed the eyes of her deceased lord, composed his features, kissed his cold and livid hands, and once more knelt and prayed. The physicians entreated her to leave the chamber of death, and the pious Empress consented to withdraw to her own.[9]
The body of the Emperor lay in state, on a platform raised in an apartment of the house where he died. The presence-chamber was hung with black, and the bier was covered with cloth of gold. A great many wax tapers lighted up the gloomy scene. A priest at the head of the bier prayed continually for the repose of his deceased sovereign's soul. Two sentinels with drawn swords watched day and night beside the dead, two were stationed at the doors, and two stood on each step leading to the bier. Every person received at the door a lighted taper, which he held while he remained in the apartment. The Empress was present during these masses, but she always fainted at the conclusion of the service. Crowds of people united their prayers to hers, for the Emperor was adored by the common people. The corpse of Alexander I. lay in state twenty-one days before it was removed to the Greek monastery of St. Alexander, where it was to rest before its departure for interment in St. Petersburgh.
Upon the 25th December, the remains of the Emperor were placed on a funeral car drawn by eight horses, covered to the ground with black cloth ornamented with the escutcheons of the empire. The bier rested on an elevated dais, carpeted with cloth of gold; over the bier was laid a flag of silver tissue, charged with the heraldic insignia proper to the imperial house. The imperial crown was placed under the dais. Four major-generals held the cords which supported the diadem. The persons composing the household of the Emperor and Empress followed the bier dressed in long black mantles, bearing in their hands lighted torches. The Cossacks of the Don every minute discharged their light artillery, while the sullen booming of the cannon added to the solemnity of the imposing scene.
Upon its arrival at the church, the body was transferred to a catafalco covered with red cloth, surmounted by the imperial arms in gold, displayed on crimson-velvet. Two steps led up to the platform on which the catafalco was placed. Four columns supported the dais upon which the imperial crown, the sceptre, and the globe, rested.
The catafalco was surrounded by curtains of crimson velvet and cloth of gold, and four massy candelabra, at the four corners of the platform, bore wax tapers sufficient to dispel the darkness, but not to banish the gloom pervading the church, which was hung with black embroidered with white crosses. The Empress made an attempt to assist at this funeral service, but her feelings overpowered her, and she was borne back to the palace in a swoon; but as soon as she came to herself she entered the private chapel, and repeated there the same prayers then reciting in the church of St. Alexander.
While the remains of the Emperor Alexander were on their way to their last home, the report of his dangerous state, which had been forwarded officially to the Grand-Duke Nicholas, was contradicted by another document, which bore date of the 29th of November, announcing that considerable amendment had taken place in the Emperor's health, who had recovered from a swoon of eight hours' duration, and had not only appeared collected, but declared himself improved in health.
Whether this was a political ruse of the conspirators or the new Emperor remains quite uncertain; however, a solemn Te Deum was ordered to be celebrated in the cathedral of Casan, at which the Empress Mother and the Grand-Dukes Nicholas and Michael were present. The joyful crowds assembled at this service scarcely left the imperial family and their suite a free space for the exercise of their devotions. Towards the end of the Te Deum, while the sweet voices of the choir were rising in harmonious concert to heaven, some official person informed the Grand-Duke Nicholas that a courier from Tangaroff had arrived with the last dispatch, which he refused to deliver into any hand but his own. Nicholas was conducted into the sacristy, and with one glance at the messenger divined the nature of the document of which he was the bearer. The letter he presented was sealed with black. Nicholas recognized the handwriting of the Empress Consort, and, hastily opening it, read these words:
"Our angel is in heaven; I still exist on earth, but I hope soon to be re-united to him."
The bishop was summoned into the sacristy by the new Emperor, who gave him the letter, with directions to break the fatal tidings it contained to the Empress Mother with the tenderest care. He then returned to his place by the side of his august parent, who alone, of the thousands assembled there, had perceived his absence.
An instant after, the venerable bishop re-entered the choir, and silenced the notes of praise and exultation with a motion of his hand. Every voice became mute, and the stillness of death reigned throughout the sacred edifice. In the midst of the general astonishment and attention he walked slowly to the altar, took up the massy silver crucifix which decorated it, and throwing over that symbol of earthly sorrow and divine hope a black veil, he approached the Empress Mother, and gave her the crucifix in mourning to kiss.
The Empress uttered a cry, and fell with her face on the pavement;—she comprehended at once that her eldest son was dead.
The Empress Elizabeth soon realized the sorrowful hope she had expressed. Four months after the death of her consort she died on the way from Tangaroff, at Beloff, and soon rejoined him she had pathetically termed "her angel in heaven."
The historical career of the Emperor Alexander is well known to every reader, but the minor matters of every-day life mark the man, while public details properly denote the sovereign.
The faults of Alexander are comprised in his infidelity to a beautiful, accomplished, and affectionate wife. He respected her even while wounding her delicate feelings by his criminal attachments to other women. After many years of mental pain, the injured Elizabeth gave him the choice of giving her up, or banishing an imperious mistress, by whom the Emperor had a numerous family.
Alexander could not resolve to separate for ever from his amiable and virtuous consort,—he made the sacrifice she required of him.
His gallantry sometimes placed him in unprincely situations, and brought him in contact with persons immeasurably beneath him. He once fell in love with a tailor's wife at Warsaw, and not being well acquainted with the character of the pretty grisette, construed her acceptance of the visit he proposed making her, into approbation of his suit. The fair Pole was too simple, and had been too virtuously brought up, to comprehend his intentions. Her husband was absent, so she thought it would not be proper to receive the imperial visit alone; she made, therefore, a re-union of her own and her husband's relations—rich people of the bourgeoisie class—and when the emperor entered her saloon, he found himself in company with thirty or forty persons, to whom he was immediately introduced by his fair and innocent hostess. The astonished sovereign was obliged to make himself agreeable to the party, none of whom appeared to have divined his criminal intentions. He made no further attempt to corrupt the innocence of this beautiful woman, whose simplicity formed the safeguard of her virtue.
A severe trial separated him for ever from his last mistress, who had borne him a daughter; this child was the idol of his heart, and to form her mind was the pleasure of his life. At eighteen the young lady eclipsed every woman in his empire by her dazzling beauty and graceful manners. Suddenly she was seized with an infectious fever, for which no physician in St. Petersburgh could find a remedy. Her mother, selfish and timid, deserted the sick chamber of the suffering girl, over whom the bitter tears of a father were vainly shed, while he kept incessant vigils over one whom he would have saved from the power of the grave at the expense of his life and empire. The dying daughter asked incessantly for her mother, upon whose bosom she desired to breathe her last sigh; but neither the passionate entreaties nor the commands of her imperial lover could induce the unnatural parent to risk her health by granting the interview for which her poor child craved, and she expired in the arms of her father, without the consolation of bidding her mother a last adieu.
Some days after the death of his natural daughter, the Emperor Alexander entered the house of an English officer to whom he was much attached. He was in deep mourning and appeared very unhappy. "I have just followed to the grave," said he, "as a private person the remains of my poor child, and I cannot yet forgive the unnatural woman who deserted the death-bed of her daughter. Besides, my sin, which I never repented of, has found me out, and the vengeance of God has fallen upon its fruits. Yes, I deserted the best and most amiable of wives, the object of my first affection, for women who neither possessed her beauty nor merit. I have preferred to the Empress even this unnatural mother, whom I now regard with loathing and horror. My wife shall never again have cause to reproach my broken faith."
Devotion and his strict adherence to his promise balmed the wound, which, however, only death could heal. To the secret agony which through life had haunted the bosom of the son was added that of the father, and the return of Alexander to the paths of virtue and religion originated in the loss of this beloved daughter, smitten, he considered, for his sins.
The friendship of this prince for Madam Krudener had nothing criminal in its nature, though it furnished a theme for scandal to those who are apt to doubt the purity of Platonic attachments between individuals of opposite sexes.
In regard to this Emperor's political career, full of ambition and stratagem, we can only re-echo his dying words to his confessor:—"God must be merciful to kings?" His career, however varied by losses on the field or humiliated by treaties, ended triumphantly with the laurels of war and the olives of peace, and he bore to his far northern empire the keys of Paris as a trophy of his arms. His moderation demands the praise of posterity, and excited the admiration of the French nation at large.[10] His immoral conduct as a man and a husband was afterwards effaced by his sincere repentance, and he died in the arms of the most faithful and affectionate of wives, who could not long survive her irreparable loss. His death was deeply lamented by his subjects, who, if they did not enrol his name among the greatest of their rulers, never have hesitated to denote him as the best and most merciful sovereign who ever sat upon the Russian throne.