nto the
apartment, where the grand dukes were awaiting their return. Alexander
enquired eagerly if they had saved his father's life. The silence of
the conspirators told the melancholy tale. The grief manifested by
both Alexander and Constantine was apparently sincere and intense. In
passionate exclamations they gave vent to sorrow and remorse. But
Pahlen, the governor, who had led the conspiracy, calm and collected,
represented that the interests of the empire demanded a change of
policy, that the death of Paul was a fatality, and that nothing now
remained but for Alexander to assume the reins of government.

"I shall be accused," exclaimed Alexander bitterly, "of being the
assassin of my father. You promised me not to attempt his life. I am
the most unhappy man in the world."

The dead body of the emperor was placed upon a table, and an English
physician, named Wylie, was called in to arrange the features so that
it should appear that he had died of apoplexy. The judgment of the
world has ever been and probably ever will be divided respecting the
nature of Alexander's complicity in this murder. Many suppose that he
could not have been ignorant that the death of his father was the
inevitable end of the conspiracy, and that he accepted that result as
a sad necessity. Certain it is that the conspirators were all rewarded
richly, by being entrusted with the chief offices of the state; and
the new monarch surrounded his throne with counselors whose hands were
imbrued in his father's blood. A lady at St. Petersburg wrote to
Fouche on the occasion of some ceremony which soon ensued,

"The young emperor walked preceded by the assassins of his
grandfather, followed by those of his father, and surrounded by his
own."

"Behold," said Fouche, "a woman who speaks Tacitus."

At St. Helena, O'Meara enquired of Napoleon if he thought that Paul
had been insane. "Latterly," Napoleon replied, "I believe that he was.
At first he was strongly prejudiced against the Revolution, and every
person concerned in it; but afterwards I had rendered him reasonable,
and had changed his opinions altogether. If Paul had lived the English
would have lost India before now. An agreement was made between Paul
and myself to invade it. I furnished the plan. I was to have sent
thirty thousand good troops. He was to send a similar number of the
best Russian soldiers, and forty thousand Cossacks. I was to subscribe
ten millions for the purchase of camels