eign
antagonist. There have been persons enough to argue that Alexander I.
was assassinated, after all, and also that Nicholas was disposed of in
the same constitutional way; but we can see no evidence on which to
found any such argument. When, in the days of the Polish War, (1831,)
the Grand Duke Constantine and Marshal Diebitsch died rather suddenly,
it was generally believed that they had been assassinated by order of
Nicholas, but without any foundation for the belief.

One of the last of the Swedish kings of the line of Vasa, Gustavus III.,
was assassinated in 1792, being shot by Count Anckarstroem, at a masked
ball, March 16th. This murder was the result of an aristocratical
conspiracy, the King having done much to lessen the power of the
nobility. He was engaged at the time he was shot in getting up a crusade
against revolutionary France, of which he purposed being the head. He
survived his wound thirteen days.

An attempt to assassinate Joseph I., King of Portugal, was made in 1758,
when the celebrated Marquis of Pombal was the real ruler of that
country. Many executions took place, including several of the highest
nobles. The Jesuits, who were then very unpopular, and against whom most
European governments were directing their power, were charged with this
crime, and some of them were put to death, and the rest banished from
Portugal.

In the year 1831, Count Capo d'Istria, then President of Greece, was
assassinated at Nauplia, by the brothers Mauromichalis. He was supposed
to be a mere tool of Russia, in whose service much of his life had
passed. He was by birth a Greek of the Ionian Islands; and after they
had become a portion of Napoleon I.'s empire, he took office in Russia,
rising very high. Employed to look after Russia's interests in Greece,
he was ultimately chosen President of the latter country in 1827.
Popular at first, he soon became odious, and was nothing but a Russian
agent. His death probably cut short plans which, had they succeeded,
would have had much effect on the course of European events. In the old
land, where it was considered a sacred duty to kill tyrants, he was
suddenly slain as he was entering a church. His death caused little
regret, though the deed of the Mauromichalis was warmly condemned; many
persons being ready to profit from crimes the perpetration of which they
are swift to condemn, and as ready to execute the perpetrators.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] The word _assassin_, accordin