lack
and Caspian seas, was the home of that fair and gifted race which,
fallen from its high estate, had become the victim of the Turks, and,
with its congener Circassia, had long provided the harems of the
Ottoman Empire with beautiful slaves. The Georgians had often appealed
to the Tsars for protection, and in 1810 the treaty was signed which
incorporated the suffering kingdom with Russia.

A portion of the state passed to Russia in 1801, at the commencement of
Alexander's reign; but the formal surrender of the whole by treaty was
not until 1810.

So day by day, while the young Emperor and his friends were living in
their pleasant Utopia, Russia, with all its incoherent elements, with
its vast energies, its vast riches, and its vast miseries, was
expanding and assuming a more dominating position in Europe. What
would be done at St. Petersburg, was the question of supreme
importance; and Alexander was being importuned to join the coalition
against the common enemy Bonaparte.

The night before the 2d of October, 1805, the Russian Emperor and his
young officers, as confident of victory as they were of their ability
to reconstruct Russia, were impatiently waiting for the morrow, and the
conflict at Austerlitz. With a ridiculous assurance the young
Alexander sent by the young Prince Dolgoruki a note addressed--not to
the Emperor--but to the "Head of the French Nation," stating his
demands for the abandonment of Italy and immediate peace! Before
sundown the next day the "Battle of the Three Emperors" had been
fought; the Russian army was scattered after frightful loss, and
Alexander, attended by an orderly and two Cossacks, was galloping away
as fast as his horse could carry him. Then Napoleon was in
Vienna--Francis II. at his bidding took off his imperial crown--the
"Confederation of the Rhine" was formed out of Germanic States; and
then the terrible and invincible man turned toward Prussia, defeated a
Russian army which came to its rescue, and in 1806 was in
Berlin--master and arbiter of Europe!

Alexander, the romantic champion of right and justice, the dreamer of
ideal dreams, had been carried by the whirlpool of events into currents
too strong for him. He stood alone on the continent of Europe face to
face with the man who was subjugating it. His army was broken in
pieces, and perhaps an invasion of his own empire was at hand. Should
he make terms with this man whose career had so revolted him?--or
should