g and fatiguing journeys,
and manifesting much interest in the elevation of the serfs to
freedom. The latter years of Alexander were clouded with sorrow. He
was not on good terms with his wife, and the death of all his children
rendered his home desolate. His health failed and some deep grief
seemed ever to prey upon his spirits. It is supposed that the
melancholy fate of Napoleon, dying in a hut at St. Helena, and of whom
he had said, "Never did I love a man as I have loved that man!"
weighed heavily upon him. He was constantly haunted by fears of a
rising of the oppressed people, and to repel that danger was becoming
continually more despotic.

In the year 1825, Alexander, sick, anxious and melancholy, took a long
journey, with his wife, to Tanganroy, a small town upon the Sea of
Azof, fifteen hundred miles from St. Petersburg. He had for some time
looked forward with dread to his appearance before the bar of God. A
sense of sin oppressed him, and he had long sought relief with prayers
and tears. His despondency led him to many forebodings that he should
not live to return from this journey.

The morning before he left St. Petersburg, at the early hour of four
o'clock, he visited the monastery where the remains of his children
were entombed, and at their grave spent some time in prayer. Wrapped
in his cloak, in unbroken silence he listened to the "chant for the
dead," and then commenced his journey. No peasant whom he met on the
way had a heavier heart than throbbed in the bosom of the sovereign.
For hours he sat in the carriage with the empress, with whom in grief
he had become reconciled, and hardly a word was uttered. At length
they arrived upon the shores of Azof. The emperor took a rapid tour
through these provinces, visiting among other places Sevastopol, which
he had long been fortifying. He was so much struck with the
magnificence of this place that he remarked, "Should I ever resign the
reins of government, I should wish to retire to this city, that I
might here terminate my career!"

Returning to his wife at Tanganroy, he was seized with a fever,
probably caused by care and toil. The disease was so rapid in its
progress as to lead many to suppose that he was falling a victim to
poison. On the approach of death, perceiving that he was dying, he
requested that he might be raised upon his pillow, that he might once
more behold the light of the sun. He simply remarked, "How beautiful
is the day!" and fell ba