onarchy or pure republic he
could understand; but that anything between these he could not
understand. Of his former rule of Poland, as constitutional monarch, he
spoke with loathing.

Of this hate which Nicholas felt for liberal forms of government there
yet remain monuments in the great museum of the Kremlin. That museum
holds an immense number of interesting things, and masses of jewels and
plate which make all other European collections mean. The visitor
wanders among clumps of diamonds and sacks of pearls and a nauseating
wealth of rubies and sapphires and emeralds. There rise rows upon rows
of jewelled cimeters, and vases and salvers of gold, and old saddles
studded with diamonds and with stirrups of gold--presents of frightened
Asiatic satraps or fawning European allies. There too are the crowns of
Muscovy, of Russia, of Kazan, of Astrakhan, of Siberia, of the Crimea,
and, pity to say it, of Poland. And next this is an index of despotic
hate--for the Polish sceptre is broken and flung aside. Near this stands
the full-length portrait of Alexander I, and at his feet are grouped
captured flags of Hungary and Poland--some with blood-marks still upon
them. But below all, far beneath the feet of the Emperor, in dust and
ignominy and on the floor, is flung the _very_ Constitution of
Poland--parchment for parchment, ink for ink, good promise for good
promise--which Alexander gave with so many smiles, and which Nicholas
took away with so much bloodshed.

And not far from this monument of the deathless hate Nicholas bore that
liberty he had stung to death stands a monument of his admiration for
straightforward tyranny, even in the most dreaded enemy his house ever
knew. Standing there is a statue in the purest of marble, the only
statue in those vast halls. It has the place of honor. It looks proudly
over all that glory and keeps ward over all that treasure; and that
statue, in full majesty of imperial robes, and bees, and diadem, and
face, is of the First Napoleon. Admiration of his tyrannic will has at
last made him peaceful sovereign of the Kremlin.

This spirit of absolutism took its most offensive form in Nicholas's
attitude toward Europe. He was the very incarnation of reaction against
revolution, and he became the demigod of that horde of petty despots who
infest Central Europe. Whenever, then, any tyrant's lie was to be
baptized, he stood its godfather; whenever any God's truth was to be
crucified, he led on tho