Professor Shaw, in the preface to his translation of Lajetchnikoff's striking and interesting romance, The Heretic, notices the shyness of English novelists in approaching Russian ground. "How happens it," he says, "that Russia, with her reminiscences of two centuries and a half of Tartar dominion—of her long and bloody struggles with the Ottoman and the Pole, whose territories stretch almost from the arctic ice to the equator, and whose semi-oriental diadem bears inscribed upon it such names as Peter and Catherine—should have been passed over as incapable of supplying rich materials for fiction and romance?" The question is hard to answer, and appears doubly so after reading the third volume of Monsieur A. Blanc's recent work on political conspiracies and executions,—a volume sufficient of itself to set those romance-writing who never wrote romance before. It is a trite remark, that romances, having history for their groundwork, derive their attraction and interest far more from the skill and genius of their authors than from the importance of the period selected, and from the historical prominence of the characters introduced. It is unnecessary to name writers in whose hands a Bayard or a du Guesclin, a Cromwell or a Charles of Sweden, would appear tame and commonplace. Our readers need not to be reminded of others of a different stamp,—and of one, great amongst all, the rays of whose genius have formed a halo of grandeur, glory, or fascination around persons to whom history accords scarcely a word. But such genius is not of every-day growth; and to historical romance-writers of the calibre of most of those with whom the British public is now fain to cry content, the mere devising of a plot, uniting tolerable historical fidelity with some claim to originality, is an undertaking in which they are by no means uniformly successful. To such we recommend, as useful auxiliaries, M. Blanc's octavos, and especially the one that suggests the present article. English and Scottish histories, if not used up, have at least been very handsomely worked, and have fairly earned a little tranquillity upon their shelves: the wars of the Stuarts, in particular, have contributed more than their quota to the literary fund. The same may be said of the history of France, so fertile in striking events, and so largely made use of by purveyors to the circulating libraries. Italy and Spain, and even Poland, have not escaped; whilst the East has been disported over in every direction by the accomplished Morier, and a swarm of imitators and inferiors. But what Englishman has tried his hand at a Russian historical romance? We strive in vain to call to mind an original novel in our language founded on incidents of Russian history—although the history of scarcely any nation in the world includes, in the same space of time, a greater number of strange and extraordinary events. M. Blanc's book, notwithstanding a certain air of pretension in the style of its getting up, in the very mediocre illustrations, and in the tone of the introductory pages, is substantially an unassuming performance. It is a compilation, and contains little that is not to be found printed elsewhere. At the same time, perhaps in no other work are the same events and details thrown together in so compact and entertaining a form. The author troubles us with few comments of his own, and his reserve in this respect enhances the merit of his book, for when he departs from it his views are somewhat strained and ultra-French. But his narrative is spiritedly put together; and although it will be found, upon comparison, that he has, for the most part, faithfully adhered to high historical authorities, to the The Russian history, even to our own day, is a sanguinary and cruel chronicle. Its brevity is its best excuse. The youth of the country extenuates the crimes of its children. For if the strides of Russia have been vast and rapid in the paths of civilisation, we must bear in mind that it is but very recently the progress began. "At the commencement of the eighteenth century," says M. Blanc, "it had certainly been very difficult to foresee that fifty years later a magnificent and polite court would be established on the Gulf of Finland; that soldiers raised on the banks of the Volga and the Don would rank with the best disciplined troops; and that an empire, of itself larger than all the rest of Europe, would have passed from a state of barbarism to one of civilisation as advanced as that of the most favoured European states." This is overshooting the mark, and is an exaggeration even a hundred years after the date assigned. If the civilisation of St Petersburg has for some time vied with that of London or Paris, Russia, as a country, has even now much to do before she can be placed on a footing with England or France in refinement and intellectual cultivation. It is difficult to institute a comparison in a case where the nature of the countries, the characters of the nations, and the circumstances of their rise, are, and have been, so dissimilar. The investigation might easily entail a disquisition of a length that would leave very little room for an examination of the book in hand. And all that we seek in the present instance to establish will be readily conceded—namely, that in the throes of a country accomplishing with unprecedented rapidity the passage, usually so gradual, from barbarism to civilisation, some palliation is to be found for the faults and vices of her nobles and rulers, and for the blood-stains disfiguring her annals. The early history of Russia, from the foundation of the empire by Rurik to the reign of Ivan IV.—that is to say from the middle of the ninth to the middle of the sixteenth century—is a chaos of traditions and uncertainties, which M. Blanc has deemed unfavourable to the project of his book, and which he accordingly passes over in an introductory chapter. His business, as may be gathered from his title-page, is with the internal convulsions of the country; and these are difficult to trace, until Ivan Vassilivitch threw off the Tartar yoke, and his grandson Ivan IV., surnamed the Tyrant, or the Terrible, began, with an iron hand, it is true, to labour at the regeneration of his country. A bloodthirsty despot, Russia yet owes him much. The people, demoralised by Tartar rule, needed rigid laws and severe treatment. Ivan promulgated a code far superior to any previously in use. He invited to Russia foreign mechanics, artists, and men of science; established the first printing-press seen in the country; and laid the foundation of Russian trade, by a treaty of commerce with our own Elizabeth. By the conquest of Kazan, of the kingdom of Astracan, and of districts adjacent to the Caucasus, he extended the limits of the Russian empire. But his wise enactments and warlike successes were sullied by atrocious acts of cruelty. In Novogorod, which had offended him by its desires for increased liberty, he raged for six weeks like an incensed tiger. Sixty thousand human beings, according to some historians, fell victims on that occasion. Similar scenes of butchery were enacted in Tver, Moscow, and other cities. His cruel disposition was evident at a very early age. He was but thirteen years old when he assembled his boyarins to inform them that he needed not their guidance, and would no longer submit to their encroachments on his royal prerogative. "I ought to punish you all," he said, "for all of you have been guilty of offences against my person; but I will be indulgent, and the weight of my anger shall fall only on Andrew Schusky, who is the worst amongst you." Schusky, the head of a family which had seized the reins of government during the Czar's minority, endeavoured to justify himself. Ivan would not hear him. "Seize and Ivan dead, his son Feodor, who should have been surnamed the Feeble, as his father was the Terrible, ascended the Russian throne. He was the last of Rurik's descendants who occupied it. Even during his reign he recognised as regent of the empire his brother-in-law, the insolent and ambitious Boris Godunof. Possessed of the real power, this man coveted the external pomp of royalty. The crown was his aim, and to its possession after the death of Feodor, who, as weak of body as of mind, was not likely to be long-lived, only one obstacle existed. This was a younger son of Ivan IV., a child of a few years old, named Dmitri or Demetrius. The existence of this infant was a slight bar to one so unscrupulous as Godunof, a bar which a poniard soon removed. Feodor died, and his brother-in-law accepted, with much show of reluctance, the throne he had so long desired to fill. For the first time for many years he breathed freely; his end was attained; he thought not of the many crimes that had led to it, of the spilt blood of his child-victim, or of that of two hundred of the inhabitants of Ouglitch, judicially murdered by his orders in revenge of the death of Demetrius' assassins, whom the people had risen upon and slain; the tears of Ivan's widow, now childless and confined in a convent, and of her whole family, condemned to a horrible captivity, troubled not his repose or his dreams of future prosperity. But whilst he exulted in security and splendour, his joy was suddenly troubled by a strange retribution. Demetrius was dead; of that there could be no doubt; his emissary's dagger had done the work too surely—but the name of the rightful heir survived to make the usurper tremble. It is curious to observe in how many details Godunof's own crimes contributed to his punishment. His manoeuvres to suppress the facts of Demetrius' death, by stopping couriers and falsifying despatches, so as to make it appear that the young prince had killed himself with a knife in a fit of epilepsy, had thrown a sort of mystery and ambiguity over the whole transaction, favourable to the designs and pretensions of impostors. One of the many dark deeds by which he had paved his way to the supreme power was the removal of the metropolitan of the Russian church, who was deposed and shut up in a convent, where it was pretty generally believed he met a violent death. In lieu of this dignitary, previously the sole chief of the Russian church, Godunof created a patriarchate, and Jeremiah of Constantinople went to Moscow to install the first patriarch, whose name was Job. This prelate, whilst visiting the convent of Tchudof, was struck by the intelligence of a young monk named Gregory Otrepief or Atrepief, who could read, then a rare accomplishment, and who showed great readiness of wit. The patriarch took this youth into his service as secretary, and often carried him with him when he went to visit the Czar. Dazzled by the brilliancy of the court, and perceiving the ignorance and incapacity of many high personages, Otrepief conceived the audacious design of elevating himself above those to whom he felt himself already far superior in ability. He was acquainted with the details of the death of young Demetrius; and from some old servants of the Czarina Mary he obtained particulars of the character, qualities, and tastes of the deceased prince, all of which he carefully noted down, as well as the names and titles of the officers and attendants who had been attached to his person. Having prepared and studied his part, he asked leave to return to his convent. This was granted. His fellow-monks wondered to see him thus abandon the advantageous prospects held out to him by the favour of the patriarch. "What should I become by remaining at court?" replied Otrepief, with a laugh: "a bishop at most, and I mean to be Czar of Moscow." At first this passed as a joke; but The Jesuits, never negligent of opportunities to increase their power, saw in the pretender to the czardom a fit instrument for the propagation of Romanism in Russia. They enlisted Sigismund king of Poland in the cause of the false Demetrius, who was treated as a prince, and lodged in a palace. Thence he negotiated with the pope's nuncio, who gave him assurance of the support of all Catholic Europe in exchange for his promise to unite Russia to the Latin church. An army of Poles and Russian refugees was raised, and the southern provinces of Russia were inundated with florid proclamations, in which the joys of an earthly paradise were offered to all who espoused the cause of their legitimate sovereign, Demetrius. The Don Cossacks, whose robberies had been recently checked by Godunof, flocked to the pretender's banner, and so formidable was the army thus collected, that the Czar began heartily to regret having paid such small attention to the words of the monk Otrepief. The Ukraine declared for the self-styled son of Ivan IV.; the voevÓda of Sandomir, whose daughter he had promised to marry, acknowledged him as his prince; towns submitted, and fortresses opened their gates to the impostor, now in full march upon Moscow. Blinded by success, Otrepief fancied himself invincible; and, with scarcely fifteen thousand soldiers, he hurried to meet the Muscovite army, fifty thousand strong, Notwithstanding the strength of this evidence, a noble, named Basil Shusky or Zulski,—of the family whose chief Ivan IV. had thrown to his hounds,—still contended against the usurper. He had himself seen the corpse of Ivan's son Demetrius, and he declared as much to his friends and partisans, whom he offered to head and lead against the impostor. Before his plans were ripe, however, he was arrested and brought to trial. Otrepief offered to pardon him if he would name his accomplices, and publicly admit that he had lied in stating that he had seen the dead body of the son of Ivan IV. "I will retract nothing," was Shusky's firm reply; "for I have spoken the truth: the man who now wears the crown of the Czar is a vile impostor. I know the fate reserved for me; but those you uselessly urge me to betray will revenge my death, and the usurper shall fall." As he persisted in his courageous assertions, the judges ordered him to be put to the torture. The executioner tied his hands behind him and placed upon his head an iron crown, bristling internally with sharp points; then, with the palm of his hand, he struck the top of the crown, and blood streamed over the victim's face. "Confess your guilt!" said the judge. The intrepid Shusky repeated his asseveration of Otrepief's imposture. The judge signed to the executioner, who again clapped a heavy hand upon the iron diadem. But suffering only augmented the energy of the heroic Muscovite, who continued, as long as consciousness remained in his tortured head, to denounce the false Czar. At last, when the whole of the forehead and the greater part of the skull were bared to the bone, he fainted and was removed. The terrible crown had been pressed down to his eyes. He was condemned to decapitation; but Otrepief pardoned him upon the scaffold, and, sometime afterwards, was imprudent enough to take him into favour and make him his privy counsellor. Shusky had vowed revenge, and waited only for an opportunity. This was accelerated by Otrepief's fancied security. One morning the false Demetrius was roused by alarm-bells, and, on looking from a window, he beheld the palace surrounded by a host of armed conspirators. The doors were speedily forced; pursued from room to room by overwhelming numbers, his clothes and the doors through which he fled riddled with balls, the Czar at last leaped from a window, and, notwithstanding serious injuries received in falling, he reached a guardhouse occupied by the Strelitz. The post was soon surrounded by an armed and menacing crowd; but the officer commanding "He whom you call your sovereign is a monk who has usurped the crown," said Shusky to the officer. "He is the son of the Czarina Mary," was the reply. "The Czarina herself declares him an impostor." "Show me her written declaration to that effect, and I will give him up; but only on that condition." Shusky ran to the convent where Mary lived in a kind of semi-captivity, told her what was passing,—that the capital was in his power, and that she could not now refuse to proclaim the imposture of the wretch who had compelled her to recognise him as her son. Mary yielded the more easily that her timorous conscience reproached her with the falsehood by which she had confirmed an adventurer in the imperial dignity; she signed and sealed the declaration demanded, and Shusky hastened with it to the officer of Strelitz. Otrepief was given up. Shusky assembled some boyarins and formed a tribunal, of which he himself was president, and before which the Czar, thus rapidly cast down from the throne to which his address and courage had elevated him, was forthwith arraigned. "The hour of expiation is come," said Shusky. "The head you so barbarously mutilated has never ceased to ponder vengeance. Monk Otrepief, confess yourself an impostor, that God, before whom you are about to appear, may have pity on your soul." "I am the Czar Demetrius," replied Otrepief, with much assurance: "it is not the first time that rebellious subjects, led astray by traitors, have dared lay hands on the sacred person of their sovereign; but such crimes never remain unpunished." "You would gain time," replied Shusky; "but you will not succeed; the Czarina Mary's declaration is sufficient for us to decide upon your fate, and, so doing, we doom you to die." Thereupon four men seized the culprit and pushed him against a wall; two others, armed with muskets, went close up to him and shot him. He struggled an instant, and then expired. His corpse, dragged by the mob to the place of common execution, was there abandoned with outrage and mutilation. His death was the signal for the massacre of the Poles, whom Otrepief had always favoured, affecting their manners, and selecting them for his body-guard. Moscow just then contained a great number of those foreigners; for Marina, daughter of the voevÓda of Sandomir, had arrived a few days before for her nuptials with the Czar, and had been closely followed by the King of Poland's ambassadors, with an armed and numerous suite. After an orgie at the palace, the Poles had committed various excesses, beating peaceable citizens and outraging women, which had greatly exasperated the people. Besides this, their religion rendered them odious; and scarcely had the false Demetrius fallen when the Russian priests and monks raised the cry of massacre. With shouts of "Down with the Pope!" and "Death to the heretics!" they spread through the city, pointing out to the people the dwellings of the Poles, whose doors were already marked by the conspirators. It was a St Bartholomew on a small scale. Blood flowed for six hours in the streets of Moscow: more than a thousand Poles were slaughtered; and, when the work was done, the murderers repaired to the churches to thank God for the success of their enterprise. Shusky was proclaimed Czar by the will of the people, which, at that moment, it would not have been safe to thwart. The brilliant success of one impostor, temporary though it had proved, soon raised up others. Shusky was no sooner on the throne than the report spread that Czar Demetrius had not been shot—that a faithful adherent had suffered death in his stead. And a runaway serf, Ivan Bolotnikof by name, undertook to personate the defunct impostor. But although he collected a sort of army of Strelitz, Cossacks, and peasants, glad of any pretext for pillage, and although he was recognised by two powerful princes, one of whom, strange to say, was his former owner, Prince TÉliatevski, his abilities and his success were alike far inferior to those of Otrepief. Astracan and several other towns revolted in his favour; but Shusky marched against him, won a The annals of this period of Russian history are painful from the atrocities they record; and M. Blanc is prodigal of horrors. The interval of a quarter of a century between the extinction of the line of Rurik and the accession of the Romanoff dynasty, still paramount in Russia, was occupied by constant struggles between usurpers and pretenders, none of whom dreamed of a milder fate than death for the foe who fell into their hands. And happy was the vanquished chief who escaped with a prompt and merciful death by axe or bullet. The most hideous tortures were put in practice, either for the extortion of confessions, or for the gratification of malice. Even Shusky, whom we have shown enduring with noble fortitude the agonising pressure of the iron crown, learned not mercy from suffering. His treatment of an enthusiastic boyarin, sent by the third false Demetrius to summon him to vacate the throne, was such as Red Indians or Spanish inquisitors might have shuddered to witness. It is recorded, in all its horrible details, at page 52 of the Histoire des Conspirations, &c. The torture of individuals, which was of frequent occurrence, was varied from time to time by the massacre of multitudes. We have mentioned that of the Poles. In 1611, after Shusky's dethronement, it was the turn of the Muscovites. The Poles having seized Moscow, insisted that Vladislaus, son of the King of Poland, should be elected Czar. The nobles consented, but the patriarch steadily refused his consent; and, by the law of the land, his opposition nullified the election. Thereupon the Poles ran riot in the city, plundering, murdering, and ravishing; and at last, unsheathing the sword for a general slaughter, twenty thousand men, women, and children fell in one day beneath the murderous steel. A Muscovite army then closely blockaded the place: and the Poles were reduced to the greatest extremity of famine. They at last surrendered on condition of their lives being spared, notwithstanding which compact many were massacred by the Cossacks. "And yet," says M. Blanc, "the aspect of the town was well calculated to excite compassion rather than hatred. In the streets the cadaverous and emaciated inhabitants looked like spectres; in the houses were the remains of unclean animals, fragments of repasts horrible to imagine; and what is still more frightful, perhaps unprecedented, salting tubs were found, filled with human flesh." It was under the reign of Alexis, the second Romanoff and father of Peter the Great, that there appeared in Russia the most extraordinary robber the world ever saw. He claimed not to be a Czar or the son of a Czar; the Demetrius mask was out of date, The characters of few sovereigns admit of being judged more variously than that of Peter I. of Russia, surnamed the Great. According to the point of view whence we contemplate him, we behold the hero or the savage; the wise legislator or the lawless tyrant; the patient pursuer of science 'Betrayed! betrayed everywhere and always!' cried he, striding wildly about the room, and striking his brow with his clenched fist. 'Oh! revenge! revenge!' Before the close of day he left the palace, alone, wrapped in a coarse cloak, his feet in nailed shoes whose patches attested their long services, his head covered with a fox-skin cap which came down over his eyebrows and half concealed his eyes. He soon reached Ivanowa's house, where the lovers deemed themselves perfectly secure, for the Czar had spread a report of his departure for Moscow. Moreover, the faithful Livonian slave kept watch in the antechamber, to give an alarm at the least noise. Peter knew all this, and had taken his measures accordingly. Opening an outer door with a key of his own, he bounded into the anteroom, upset the slave, and, with a kick of his powerful foot, burst the door that separated him from the lovers. All this occurred with the speed of lightning. Daniloff and Ivanowa had scarce time to rise from their seats, before the Czar stood over them with his drawn sword in his hand. Ivanowa uttered a cry of terror, fell on her knees, and fainted. Prompt as the Czar, Daniloff bared his sabre and threw himself between 'No,' he said, 'the revenge were too brief.' He opened a window and cried hourra! At the signal, a hundred soldiers crowded into the house. Mastering his fury, the Czar ordered the young officer to be taken to prison, there to receive one hundred blows of the battogues or sticks. Ivanowa was also confined until the senate should decide on her fate. The next day Daniloff received his terrible punishment. Before half of it had been inflicted, his back, from, the loins to the shoulders, was one hideous wound," &c. &c. We omit the revolting details. "Nevertheless the executioners continued to strike, and the hundred blows were counted, without a complaint from the sufferer. The unfortunate Daniloff had not even fainted; he got up alone,5 when untied, and asked to have his wounds carefully dressed. 'I have need to live a short time longer,' he added." Meanwhile Ivanowa was brought before the senate, and accused of high treason and of trying to discover state secrets—a charge of Peter's invention. The supple senate, created by the Czar, condemned her to receive twenty-two blows of the knout in the presence of her accomplice Daniloff, already punished by the emperor's order. On the day appointed for the execution, Peter stood upon the balcony of his winter palace. Several battalions of infantry marched past, escorting the unfortunate Demetrius, who, in spite of the frightful sufferings he still endured, walked with a steady step, and with a firm and even joyful countenance. Surrounded by another escort, was seen the young and lovely Ivanowa, half dead with terror, supported on one side by a priest and on the other by a soldier, and letting her beautiful head fall from one shoulder to the other, according to the impulse given it by her painful progress. Even Peter's heart melted at the sight. Re-entering his apartment, he put on the ribbon of the order of St Andrew, threw a cloak over his shoulders, left the palace, sprang into a boat, and reached the opposite side of the river at the same time as the mournful procession which had crossed the bridge. Making his way through the crowd, he dropped his cloak, took Ivanowa in his arms, and imprinted a kiss upon her brow. A murmur arose amongst the people, and suddenly cries of "pardon" were heard. The knights of St Andrew then enjoyed the singular privilege that a kiss given by them to a condemned person, deprived the executioner of his victim. This privilege has endured even to our day, but not without some modification. Daniloff had recognised Peter. He approached the Czar, whose every movement he had anxiously watched, stripped off his coat, and rent the bloody shirt that covered his shoulders. "'The man who could suffer thus,' he said, 'knows how to die. Czar, thy repentance comes too late! Ivanowa, I go to wait for thee!' And drawing a concealed poniard, he stabbed himself twice. His death was instantaneous. Peter hurried back to his palace, and the stupified, crowd slowly dispersed. Ivanowa died shortly afterwards in the convent to which she had been permitted to retire." If we are frequently shocked, in the course of M. Blanc's third volume, by the tyrannical and brutal cruelty of the Russian sovereigns, we are also repeatedly disgusted by the servility and patient meanness of those who suffered from it. We behold Muscovite nobles of high rank and descent, cringing under the wanton torments inflicted on them by their oppressor, and submitting to degradations to which death, one would imagine, were, to any free-spirited man, fifty times preferable. As an example, we will cite the conduct of a Prince Galitzin, who, after long exile in Germany, where he had become a convert to the Romish church, solicited and obtained permission "The same day, Galitzin, although upwards of forty years old, was ordered to take his place amongst the pages: a few days later he received a notification that the empress, contented with his services, had been pleased to raise him to the dignity of her third buffoon. 'The custom of buffoons,' says an historian, 'was then in full force in Russia; the empress had six, three of whom were of very high birth, and when they did not lend themselves with a good grace to the tomfooleries required of them by her or her favourites, she had them punished with the battogues.' The empress appeared well satisfied with the manner in which the prince fulfilled his new duties; and, as he was a widower, she declared she would find him a wife, that so valuable a subject might not die without posterity. They selected, for the poor wretch's bride, the most hideous and disgusting creature that could be found in the lowest ranks of the populace. Anne herself arranged the ceremonial of the wedding. It was in the depth of one of the severest winters of the century; and, at great expense, the empress had a palace built of ice. Not only was the building entirely constructed of that material, but all the furniture, including the nuptial bed, was also of ice. In front of the palace were ice cannons, mounted on ice carriages. Anne and all her court conducted the newly-married pair to this palace, their destined habitation. The guests were in sledges drawn by dogs and reindeer; the husband and wife, enclosed in a cage, were carried on an elephant. When the procession arrived near the palace, the ice cannons were fired, and not one of them burst, so intense was the cold. Several of them were even loaded with bullets, which pierced thick planks at a considerable distance. When everybody had entered the singular edifice, the ball began. It probably did not last long. On its conclusion, Anne insisted on the bride and bridegroom being put to bed in her presence: they were undressed, with the exception of their under garments, and were compelled to lie down upon the bed of ice, without covering of any kind. Then the company went away, and sentinels were placed at the door of the nuptial chamber, to prevent the couple from leaving it before the next day! But when the next day came, they had to be carried out; the poor creatures were in a deplorable state, and survived their torture but a few days." This patient submission to a long series of indignities on the part of a man of Galitzin's rank and blood is incomprehensible, and pity for his cruel death is mingled with contempt for the elderly prince who could tamely play the page, and caper in the garb of a court jester. But the Russian noble of that day—and even of a later period—united the soul of a slave with the heart of a tyrant. To the feeble a relentless tiger, before the despot or the despot's favourite he grovelled like a spiritless cur. The memoirs of the eighteenth century abound in examples of his base servility. We cite one, out of many which we find recorded in an interesting Life of Catherine II. of Russia, published at Paris in 1797. Plato Zouboff, one of Catherine's favourite lovers, had a little monkey, a restless, troublesome beast, which everybody detested, but which everybody caressed, by way of paying court to its master. Amongst the host of ministers, military men, and ambassadors, who sedulously attended the levees of the powerful favourite, was a general officer, remarkable for the perfection and care with which his hair was dressed. One day the monkey climbed upon his head, and, after completely destroying the symmetry of his hyacinthine locks, deliberately defiled them. The officer dared not show the slightest discontent. There are not wanting, however, "The sentence read, the magistrate and his assistant left the scaffold. 'Now, then,' said Pugatscheff to the executioner, 'let us have no mistakes; the prescribed order must be strictly observed. So you will first cut off my head——' 'The head first!' cried the executioner. 'So runs the sentence. Have a care! I have friends who would make you dearly expiate an error to my prejudice.' It was too late to call back the magistrate; and the executioner, who doubted, at last said to himself that the important affair, after all, was the death of the criminal, and that there was little difference whether it took place rather sooner or rather later. He grasped his axe; Pugatscheff laid his head on the block, and the next moment it rebounded upon the scaffold. The feet and hands were cut off after death; the culprit escaping torture by his great presence of mind." It has been asserted that an order from the empress thus humanised the cruel sentence; but this is exceedingly improbable, for she was bitter against Pugatscheff, who, ignorant Cossack as he was, had made the modern Semiramis tremble on her throne; besides, it is matter of history that, after his execution, the headsman had his tongue cut out, and was sent to Siberia. Catherine, who had affected to laugh at Pugatscheff during his life, was so ungenerous as to calumniate him after death. "This brigand," she said, in one of her letters quoted by M. Blanc, "showed himself so pusillanimous in his prison, that it was necessary to prepare him with caution to hear his sentence read, lest he should die of fear." It is quite certain, M. Blanc observes, that to his dying hour Pugatscheff inspired more fear than he felt. The misfortunes of the unhappy young Princess Tarrakanoff supply M. Blanc with materials for the most interesting chapter in this volume of his work. The Empress Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, and predecessor of Peter III.—whose marriage with the Princess of Anhalt Zerbest, afterwards Catherine the Great, was brought about by her—had had three children by her secret marriage with Alexis Razumoffski. The youngest of these was a daughter, who was brought up in Russia under the name of the Princess Tarrakanoff. When Catherine trampled the rights of Poland under foot, the Polish prince, Charles Radzivil, carried off the young princess, and took her to Italy, thinking to set her up at some future day as a pretender to the Russian throne. Informed of this, Catherine confiscated his estates; and in order to live, he was compelled to sell the diamonds and other valuables he had taken with him to Italy. These resources exhausted, Radzivil set out for Poland to seek others, leaving the young princess, then in her sixteenth year, at Rome, under the care of a sort of governess or duenna. On reaching his native country he was offered the restoration of his property if he would bring back his ward to Russia. He refused; but he was so base as to promise that he would take no further trouble about her, and leave her to her fate. Catherine pardoned him, and forthwith put Alexis Orloff on the scent. He was a keen bloodhound, she well knew, capable of any villany that might serve his ambition. Gold unlimited was placed at his disposal, and promise of high reward if he discovered the retreat of the princess, and lured her within Catherine's reach. Orloff set out for Italy; and on arriving there he took into his employ a Neapolitan named Ribas, a sort of spy, styling himself a naval officer, who pledged himself to find out the princess, but stipulated for rank in the Russian navy as his reward. M. Blanc asserts that he demanded to be made admiral at once; and that Orloff, afraid, notwithstanding the extensive powers given him, to bestow so high a grade, or compelled by the suspicions of Ribas to produce the commission itself, wrote to Catherine, who at once sent the required document. Whether this be exact or not, more than one historian mentions that Ribas subsequently commanded in the Black Sea as a Russian vice-admiral. When certain of his reward, Ribas, who then had spent two months in researches, revealed the retreat of the unfortunate The princess was at Rome. Abandoned by Radzivil, she was reduced to the greatest penury, existing only by the aid of a woman who had been her servant, and who now served other masters. Alexis Orloff visited her in her miserable abode, and spoke at first in the tone of a devoted slave addressing his sovereign; he told her she was the legitimate empress of Russia; that the entire population of that great empire anxiously longed for her accession; that if Catherine still occupied the throne, it was only because nobody knew where she (the princess) was hidden; and that her appearance amongst her faithful subjects, would be a signal for the instant downfall of the usurper. Notwithstanding her youth, the princess mistrusted these dazzling assurances; she was even alarmed by them, and held herself upon her guard. Then Orloff, one of the handsomest men of his time, joined the seductions of love to those of ambition; he feigned a violent passion for the young girl, and swore that his life depended on his obtaining her heart and hand. The poor isolated girl fell unresistingly into the infamous snare spread for her inexperience: she believed and loved him. The infamous Orloff persuaded her that their marriage must be strictly private, lest Catherine should hear of it and take precautions. In the night he brought to her house a party of mercenaries, some wearing the costumes of priests of the Greek church, others magnificently attired to act as witnesses. The mockery of a marriage enacted, the princess willingly accompanied Alexis Orloff, whom she believed her husband, to Leghorn, where entertainments of all sorts were given to her. The Russian squadron, at anchor off the port, was commanded by the English Admiral Greig. This officer, either the dupe or the accomplice of Orloff, invited the princess to visit the vessels that were soon to be commanded in her name. She accepted, and embarked after a banquet, amidst the acclamations of an immense crowd: the cannon thundered, the sky was bright, every circumstance conspired to give her visit the appearance of a brilliant festival. From her flag-bedecked galley she was hoisted in a splendid arm-chair on board the admiral's vessel, where she was received with the honours due to a crowned head. Until then Orloff had never left her side for an instant. Suddenly the scene changed. Orloff disappeared: in place of the gay and smiling officers who an instant previously had obsequiously bowed before her, the unfortunate victim saw herself surrounded by men of sinister aspect, one of whom announced to her that she was prisoner by order of the Empress Catherine, and that soon she would be brought to trial for the treason she had attempted. The princess thought herself in a dream. With loud cries she summoned her husband to her aid; her guardians laughed in her face, and told her she had had a lover, but no husband, and that her marriage was a farce. Her despair at these terrible revelations amounted to frenzy; she burst into sobs and reproaches, and at last swooned away. They took advantage of her insensibility to put fetters on her feet and hands, and lower her into the hold. A few hours later the squadron sailed for Russia. Notwithstanding her helplessness and entreaties, the poor girl was kept in irons until her arrival at St Petersburg, when she was taken before the empress, who wished to see and question her. Catherine was old; the Princess Tarrakanoff was but sixteen, and of surpassing beauty; the disparity destroyed her last chance of mercy. But as there was in reality no charge against her, and as her trial might have made too much noise, Catherine, after a long and secret interview with her unfortunate prisoner, gave orders she should be kept in the most rigorous captivity. She was confined in one of the dungeons of a prison near the Neva. Five years elapsed. The victim of the heartless Catherine, and of the villain Orloff, awaited death as the only relief she could expect; but youth, and a good constitution, struggled energetically against torture and privations. One night, reclining on the straw that served her as a bed, she prayed to God to terminate "'Tis nothing," replied the stupid slave; "the Neva overflowing." "But cannot the water reach us here?" "It is here already." At that moment the flood, making its way under the door, poured into the dungeon, and in an instant captive and jailer were over the ankles in water. "For heaven's sake, let us leave this!" cried the young princess. "Not without orders; and I have received none." "But we shall be drowned!" "That is pretty certain. But without special orders I am not to let you leave this dungeon, under pain of death. In case of unforeseen danger I am to remain with you, and to kill you should rescue be attempted." "Good God! the water rises. I cannot sustain myself." The Neva, overflowing its banks, floated enormous blocks of ice, upsetting everything in its passage, and inundating the adjacent country. The water now plashed furiously against the prison doors: the sentinels had been carried away by the torrent, and the other soldiers on guard had taken refuge on the upper floors. Lifted off her feet by the icy flood which still rose higher, the unfortunate captive fell and disappeared; the jailer, who had water to his breast, hung his lamp against the wall, and tried to succour his prisoner; but when he succeeded in raising her up, she was dead! The possibility anticipated by his employers was realised; there had been stress of circumstances, and the princess being dead, he was at liberty to leave the dungeon. Bearing the corpse in his arms, he succeeded in reaching the upper part of the prison. If we may offer a hint to authors, it is our opinion that this tragical anecdote will be a godsend to some romance-writer of costive invention, and on the outlook for a plot. Very little ingenuity will suffice to spread over the prescribed quantity of foolscap the incidents we have packed into a page. They will dilute very handsomely into three volumes. As to characters, the novelist's work is done to his hand. Here we have the Empress Catherine, vindictive and dissolute, persecuting that "fair girl" the Princess Tarrakanoff, with the assistance of Orloff, the smooth villain, and of the sullen ruffian Ribas. The latter will work up into a sort of Italian Varney, and may be dispersed to the elements by an intentional accident, on board the ship blown up by Orloff's order, for the enlightenment of the painter Hackert. With the exception of the dungeon-scene, we have given but a meagre outline of M. Blanc's narrative; and there are a number of minor characters that may be advantageously brought in and expanded. "This event," says M. Blanc, referring to the kidnapping of the Princess, "caused a strong sensation at Leghorn. Prince Leopold, Grand-duke of Tuscany, complained bitterly of it, and would have had Alexis Orloff arrested; but this vile assassin of Peter III. maintained that he had only executed the orders of his sovereign, who would well know how to justify him. He was supported, in this circumstance, by the English consul, who was his accomplice; and the Grand-duke, seeing he was not likely to be the strongest, suffered the matter to drop." "Some Englishmen," another French writer asserts, "had been so base as to participate in Alexis Orloff's plot; but others were far from approving it. They even blushed to serve under him, and sent in their resignations. Admiral Elphinstone was one of these. Greig was promoted in his place." An Italian prince, indignant, but timid; a foreign consul, sold to Russian interests; a British sailor, spurning the service of a tyrant. We need say no more; for we are quite sure that before they get thus far, the corps of historical novelists will be handling their goose-quills. |