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.