ality of a separate prince or
hospodar, gave to each an elective parliament, and admitted of a partial
fusion, under a kind of central commission, for the 'united
Principalities.' This was a species of compromise which was no doubt
satisfactory to the guaranteeing Powers, with their conflicting
interests, but was not at all to the taste of the young nation
struggling for union and independence. By a clever and perfectly
justifiable manoeuvre the people of Moldavia and Wallachia proceeded to
supplement the deliberations and decisions of the Powers, by each
choosing the same ruler, Captain John Couza, and, in spite of
protestations from the Porte, which refused to recognise this as a
lawful proceeding, Couza, under the title of Alexander John I., mounted
the united throne as _Prince of Roumania_. In 1861, chiefly in
consequence of the recommendation of the guaranteeing Powers, the Porte
assented to the union.

[Footnote 168: P. 183.]

XI.

Prince Couza was born at Galatz in 1820. He was of an old boyard family,
and was educated at Jassy, Athens, and Paris. In 1845 he married Helena,
the daughter of another boyard, Rosetti, and subsequently held high
offices in the State. His princess was a patriotic lady who founded and
supported many charitable institutions, amongst others the orphan asylum
known as the Asyle Helene, of which we have already spoken; and had her
husband recognised her virtues, and remembered his own obligations to
her; he would probably have still sat upon the throne of Roumania. For
there is no doubt that during the earlier part of his reign, which
lasted from 1859 to 1866, he enjoyed the cordial support of all parties
in the State; but he soon endeavoured to render himself absolute, and in
1864 he effected a _coup d'etat_, very similar to the one which has
recently been perpetrated by the Prince of Bulgaria, in all probability
under the same tutelage. In his case, however, the nation refused to
submit to such an arbitrary proceeding, and although it succeeded for a
time, that, coupled with his avarice, gross immorality, and general
misgovernment, led to his ultimate downfall. In 1864 the monasteries
were secularised, that is to say, they were claimed as State property, a
proceeding which was sanctioned by the guaranteeing Powers against
payment of an indemnity. In 1865 a complete reform took place in the
relations between the landed proprietors and the peasantry, who were
freed from feudal obligat