unctionaries
of the government at St. Petersburg, the entire senate, and the
diplomatic corps. All the principal officers of the royal guard, with
their colonel at their head, were included in the plot. The hour for
the execution of the conspiracy was fixed for the night of the 23d of
March, 1801.

A regiment devoted to the conspirators was that night on guard at the
palace. The confederates who were to execute the plot, composed of the
most distinguished men in the court and the army, met at the house of
Prince Talitzin ostensibly for a supper. With wine and wassail they
nerved themselves for the desperate deed. Just at midnight a select
number entered the garden of the palace, by a private gate, and
stealing silently along, beneath the trees, approached a portal which
was left unbarred and undefended. One of the guardians of the palace
led their steps and conducted them to an apartment adjoining that in
which the tzar slept. A single hussar guarded the door. He was
instantly struck down, and the conspirators in a body rushed into the
royal chamber.

Paul sprang from his bed, and seizing his sword, endeavored to escape
by another door than that through which the conspirators entered.
Foiled in this attempt, in the darkness, for all lights had been
extinguished, he hid himself behind a movable screen. He was however
soon seized, lights were brought in, and an act of abdication was read
to him which he was required to sign. The intrepid tzar sprang at
Zoubow, who was reading the act, and cuffed his ears. A struggle
immediately ensued, and an officer's sash was passed around the neck
of the monarch, and after a desperate resistance he was strangled. The
dress of one of the conspirators caused him to be mistaken, by the
emperor, for his son Constantine, and the last words which the
wretched sovereign uttered were, "And you too, Constantine."

The two grand dukes, Alexander and Constantine, were in the room
below, and heard all the noise of the struggle in which their father
was assassinated. It was with much difficulty that these young princes
were induced to give their consent to the conspiracy, and they
yielded only on condition that their father's life should be spared.
But self-defense required some vigorous action on their part, for Paul
had threatened to send Alexander to Siberia, to immure Constantine in
a convent, and the empress mother in a cloister.

The conspirators having accomplished the deed, descended i