nt would
turn all those qualities into their reverse. To-day he was ready to
devote himself to the cause of Europe; every soldier of Russia must
march: but, when the morrow came, he revoked the order for his troops,
and cashiered the secretaries who had been rash enough to take him at
his word. The secret was in his brain; disease was gathering on his
intellect, and he was daily becoming dangerous to those nearest him. The
result was long foreseen. In Spain, Gil Blas recommends that no man who
wishes for long life should quarrel with his cook. In Russia, let no
Czar rouse the suspicions of his courtiers. As the Pagans hung chaplets
on the statues of their gods in victory, and flogged them in defeat, the
Russians, in every casualty of their arms, turned a scowling eye upon
their liege lord: and the retreat of Suwarrow, the greatest of Russian
soldiers, from Switzerland, at once stripped the Emperor of all his
popularity.

My position now became doubly anxious. Even despots love popularity, and
the Czar was alternately furious and frightened at its loss. Guards were
planted in every part of the city, with orders to disperse all groups.
Every man who looked at the Imperial equipage as it passed through the
streets, was in danger of being arrested as an assassin. Nobles were
suddenly exiled--none knew why, or where. The cloud was thickening
round the palace. It is a perilous thing to be the one object on which
every eye involuntary turns, as the cause of public evil. Rumours of
conspiracy rose and died, and were heard again. In free governments
public discontents have room to escape, and they escape. In despotisms
they have no room to evaporate, and they condense until they explode. St
Petersburg at length became a place of silence and solitude by day, and
of murmurs and meetings by night. It reminded one of Rome in the days of
Nero; and I looked with perpetual alarm for the catastrophe of Nero.

The Russian is a submissive man, and even capable of strong attachment
to the throne: but there is no spot of the earth where national injury
is more deeply resented; and Paul had been regarded as tarnishing the
fame of Russia. His abandonment of Suwarrow--a warrior, of whom the
annals of the Russian army will bear record to the end of time--had
stung all classes. More than a soldier, Suwarrow was a great military
genius. He gained battles without tactics, and in defiance of them. He
had astonished the Austrian generals by the fie