peech, often to the verge of insult,
laconic in his despatches, and--a soldier in grain--treated with
stinging sarcasm all whose lack of activity or of courage invited his
contempt. It was by this spirit that he incurred the enmity of the
Emperor Paul, when, in his half-mad thirst for change, the latter
attempted to change the native dress of the Russian soldier for the
ancient attire of Germany. His fair locks, which the Russian was used to
wash every morning, he was now bidden to bedaub with grease and flour,
while he energetically cursed the black spatterdashes which it took him
an hour to button every morning. Orders to establish these novelties
among his men were sent to Suwarrow, then in Italy with the army, the
directions being accompanied with little sticks for models of the tails
and side curls in which the soldiers' hair was to be arranged. The old
warrior's lips curled contemptuously on seeing these absurd devices, and
he growled out in his curt fashion, "Hair-powder is not gunpowder;
curls are not cannon; and tails are not bayonets."

This sarcastic utterance, which forms a sort of rhyming verse in the
Russian tongue, got abroad, and spread from mouth to mouth through the
army like a choice morsel of wit. The czar, to whose ears it came, heard
it with deep offence. Soon after Suwarrow was recalled from the army, on
another plea, and on his return to St. Petersburg was not permitted to
see the emperor's face. This injustice may have been a cause of his
death, which occurred shortly after his return, on May 18, 1800. No
courtier of the Russian court, and no diplomatist, except the English
ambassador, followed the war-worn veteran to the grave.

Suwarrow was the idol of his men, whose favorite title for him was
"Father Suvarof," and who were ready at command to follow him to the
cannon's mouth. In all his long career he never lost a battle, and only
once in his life of war acted on the defensive. With a superb faith in
his own star, the inspiration of the moment served him for counsel, and
rapidity of movement and boldness and dash in the onset brought him many
a victory where deliberation might have led to defeat.

A striking instance of this, and of his usual brusque eccentricity, took
place in 1799 in Italy, where Suwarrow was placed in command of all the
allied troops. This raising of a Russian to the supreme command excited
the jealousy of the Austrian generals, and they called a council of war
to examin