"From the crown jewels we went to a room whose history is connected with a scene of sadness—the death of the Emperor Nicholas. It is the smallest and plainest room of the palace, without any adornment, and containing an iron bedstead such as we find in a military barrack. His cloak, sword, and helmet are where he left them, and on the table is the report of the quartermaster of the household troops, which had been delivered to the Emperor on the morning of March 2, 1855, the date of his death. Everything is just as he left it, and a soldier of the Grenadier Guards is constantly on duty over the relics of the Iron Czar.
NICHOLAS I.
"If what we read of him is true, he possessed one characteristic of Peter the Great—that of having his own way, more than any other Emperor of modern times. He ascended the throne in the midst of a revolution which resulted in the defeat of the insurgents. They assembled in Admiralty Square, and after a brief resistance were fired upon by the loyal soldiers of the Empire. Five of the principal conspirators were hanged after a long and searching trial, during which Nicholas was concealed behind a screen in the court-room, and listened to all that was said. Two hundred of the others were sent to Siberia for life, and the soldiers who had simply obeyed the orders of their leaders were distributed among other regiments than those in which they had served.
"Through his whole reign Nicholas was an enemy to free speech or free writing, and his rule was severe to the last degree. What he ordered it was necessary to perform, no matter what the difficulties were in the way, and a failure was, in his eyes, little short of a crime. He decided questions very rapidly, and often with a lack of common-sense. When the engineers showed him the plans of the Moscow and St. Petersburg Railway, and asked where the line should run, he took a ruler, drew on the map a line from one city to the other, and said that should be the route. As a consequence, the railway is very nearly straight for the whole four hundred miles of its course, and does not pass any large towns like the railways in other countries.
"A more sensible anecdote about him relates an incident of the Crimean war, when the Governor of Moscow ordered the pastor of the English Church in that city to omit the portion of the service which prays for the success of British arms. The pastor appealed the case to the Emperor, who asked if those words were in the regular service of the English Church. On being answered in the affirmative, he told the pastor to continue to read the service just as it was, and ordered the governor to make no further interference.
"His disappointment at the defeat of his armies in the Crimean war was the cause of his death, quite as much as the influenza to which it is attributed. On the morning of his last day he received news of the repulse of the Russians at Eupatoria, and he is said to have died while in a fit of anger over this reverse. Though opposed to the freedom of the Press and people, he advised the liberation of the serfs; and before he died he urged his son and successor to begin immediately the work of emancipation.
"The Hermitage is close to the palace, and is large enough of itself for the residence of an emperor of medium importance, and certainly for a good-sized king. The present building is the successor of one which was built for the Empress Catherine as a refuge from the cares of State, and hence was called the Hermitage. It is virtually a picture-gallery and museum, as the walls of the interior are covered with pictures, and there are collections of coins, gems, Egyptian antiquities, and other things distributed through the rooms.