Twice the emperor and his family passed in all directions through the palace that was thronged with the public. An eye-witness writes that " the public by prolonging their visitation for seven hours so filled the palace with damp, steamy, suffocating air that the walls, the columns, and carvings on the lower windows sweated, and streams of damp poured down on to the parquet flooring and spoiled everything, while the marble changed to a dull yellowish hue." 35,000 paper rubles were required to repair the damage. But the matter did not terminate with this; during one night that summer, fortunately while the imperial family were staying at Peterhov, the ceiling in the saloon of St. George fell down with the seventeen massive lustres depending from it.
THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CORONATION OF NICHOLAS I (1851 A.D.)
In August 1851, upon the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his coronation the emperor Nicholas left St. Petersburg for Moscow, accompanied by his family. For the first time the journey was accomplished by the newly completed Moscow railway, constructed in accordance with the will of the emperor, and in opposition to the desires of many of his enlightened contemporaries. The opening of the railway to the public followed only on the 13th of November. In Moscow the emperor was met by Field-marshal Paske- vitch, prince of Warsaw. On the eve of the festivities in honour of the anniversary of the coronation Nicholas visited the field-marshal, and addressed the following memorable words to him:
" To-morrow will complete twenty-five years of my reign — a reign which you, Ivan Feodorovitch, have made illustrious by your valiant service to Russia. ^ It was under sorrowful prognostications that I ascended the throne of Russia and my reign had to begin with punishments and banishments. I did not find around the throne persons who could guide the czar — I was obliged to create men; I had none devoted to me. Affairs in the east required the appointment there of a man of your intellect, of your military capacity, of your will. My choice rested on you. Providence itself directed me to you. You had enemies: in spite of all that was said against you, I held fast to you, Ivan Feodorovitch. You proved, commander, that I was right. Hardly had affairs in the east quieted down when my empire was overtaken by a public calamity — the cholera. The people ascribes every misfortune to the person who governs. God knows how much suffering this national affliction cost me. The war with Poland was another grievous trial. Russian blood was shed because of our errors or because of chastisement sent from above. Our affairs were in a bad way. And again I had resource to you, Ivan Feodorovitch, as the only means of salvation for Russia; and again you did not betray my trust, again you exalted my empire. By your twenty years' administration of the Polish land you have laid the foundation for the happiness of two kindred yet hostile elements. I hope that the Russian and the Pole will constitute one Russian Empire — the Slavonic Empire; and that your name will be preserved in history beside the name of Nicholas. It is not so long ago — when western Europe was agitated by aspirations after wild, unbridled freedom; when the people overthrew lawful authority and thrones; when I decided to give a helping hand to my brother and ally, the monarch of Austria — that you, commander, led my soldiers to a new warfare: you tamed the hydra of rebellion. In six weeks you had finished the war in Hungary, you supported and strengthened the tottering throne of Austria, Ivan Feodorovitch. You are the glory of my twenty-five years' reign. You are the history of the reign of Nicholas I."
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS' VIEWS ON LOUIS NAPOLEON
When Prince Louis Napoleon had accomplished his coup d'etat of the 2nd of December, 1851, and the restoration of the second empire was to be expected, the emperor Nicholas, judging by a letter which he had received from Frederick William IV, said: "Before the end of next year Louis Napoleon will become our colleague. Let him become what he likes, even the great mufti, if it pleases him, but to the title of Emperor or King I do not think he will be so imprudent as to aspire." According to the emperor's opinion, as soon as Louis Napoleon desired to make himself emperor he would become a
usurper, because he did not possess the divine right — he would be emperor in fact but never by right; in a word, " a second Louis Philippe, less the odious character of that scoundrel."
When the French diplomatic representatives in St. Petersburg and Warsaw evidenced an intention to celebrate the 15th of August, the emperor Nicholas drew up the following resolution: "A public church service for Napoleon cannot be allowed, because he ceased to be emperor, being banished and confined to the island of St. Helena. There is no propriety in celebrating the birthday of the late Napoleon in our country, whence he was despatched with befitting honour." The Napoleonic empire had already transcended the limits which the emperor Nicholas would at one time have allowed; it was in direct contradiction to the stipulations of the congress of Vienna, which formed the basis of the national law of Europe. The emperor's allies, however, looked on the matter somewhat differently. Austria and Prussia recognised Napoleon III; it therefore only remained to the emperor Nicholas, against his will, to follow their example; but still he departed from the usually «■ accepted diplomatic forms, and in his letter to Napoleon III he did not call him brother, but "le bon ami" (good friend). Soon on the political horizon appeared the Eastern question, artfully put forward with a secret motive by Napoleon III; his cunning calculations were justified without delay; the Russian troops crossed the Pruth in 1853, and occupied the principality, as a guarantee, until the demands presented to the Ottoman Porte by the emperor Nicholas were complied with. Austrian ingratitude opened a safe path for the snares of Anglo-French diplomacy. The Eastern War began, at first upon Turkish territory and afterwards concentrated itself in the Crimean peninsula around Sebastopol; France, England, and afterwards, in 1855, little Sardinia, in alliance with Turkey, took up arms against Russia; on the side of the allies lay the sympathy of all neutral Europe, which already dreamed of wresting Russia's conquests from her.6
EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE CRIMEAN WAR
The revolution of July, 1830, by threatening Europe with the ideas then triumphing in France, had tightened the bonds, previously a little relaxed, between the czar and the two great German powers, Austria and Prussia. Independently of diplomatic conferences, the three monarchs had frequent interviews for the purpose of adopting measures to oppose the invasion of the revolutionary principle. Even whilst affecting to abandon the west to the dissolution towards which he felt it was marching, and to regard it as afflicted with approaching senility, Nicholas by no means lost sight of its development. But the East, then in combustion, remained the true mark of Russian policy. A movement was on foot for the overthrow of the declining Ottoman power, and its substitution by an Arab power, inaugurated by Muhammed Ali, the pasha of Egypt. France regarded this movement with no unfriendly eye, but Russia entered a protest. By giving the most colossal proportions to this Eastern Question, which extended as far as the countries of central Asia, the situation created grave embarrassments for the British government. For, to begin with, when, in 1833, Ibrahim Pasha, at the head of the Egyptian army, was ready to cross the Taurus and march on Constantinople, within two months the northern power (summoned to aid by that very sultan whom Russia had hitherto so greatly humiliated) landed on the Asiastic coast of the Bosporus a body of fifteen thousand men in readiness to protect that
capital; then the secret treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi (July 8th, 1833) granted .her, as the price of an offensive and defensive alliance with the Porte, the withdrawal in her exclusive favour of the prohibition forbidding armed vessels of foreign nations to enter the waters of Constantinople; finally, by the conclusion of the Treaty of London July 15th, 1840, which left France, still obstinately attached to the cause of Muhammed Ali, outside the European concert, she had the joy of causing the rupture of the entente cordiale between that country and Great Britain — but only momentarily, for a new treaty, concluded the 13th of July, 1841, likewise in London, readmitted the French government to the concert.