A French Painter of Repute. Born 1733. Died 1808. One of Mme. Lebrun's
Contemporaries.]

Several persons who, I doubt not, were initiated into the
revolutionary conspiracy under progress urged me to defer my departure
for a few days, promising they would go to St. Petersburg with me. But
in my complete ignorance of the plot, I persisted in starting--in
which I made a great mistake. For by waiting a little I might have
avoided the hardships I underwent on those abominable roads, again
rendered well-nigh impracticable by a thaw.

It was on the 12th of March, 1801, when I was half-way between Moscow
and St. Petersburg, that I heard the news of Paul's death. I found in
front of the posthouse a number of couriers, who were about to spread
the news in the different towns of the empire, and, since they took
all the horses, I could obtain none for myself. I was obliged to
remain in my carriage, which had been put by the roadside on the bank
of a river; such a bitter wind was blowing that it froze me.
Nevertheless, I was compelled to pass the night there. At last I
contrived to hire some horses, and I reached St. Petersburg only at
eight or nine on the morning of the following day.

I found that city in a delirium of joy; people were singing and
dancing and kissing one another in the streets; acquaintances of mine
ran up to my carriage and squeezed my hands, exclaiming "What a
blessing!" They told me that the houses had been illuminated the
evening before. In short, the death of the unhappy Prince gave rise to
general rejoicings.

None of the particulars of the dreadful occurrence were secret from
anybody, and I can aver that the accounts given me that day all
agreed. Palhen, one of the conspirators, had taken every means to
frighten Paul with a plot he alleged to have been hatched by the
Empress and her children for the purpose of seizing the throne.
Paul's habitually suspicious mind incited him only too strongly to
credit these false confidences, which enraged him to the degree of
ordering his wife and the Grand Dukes to be shut up in the fortress.
Palhen declined to obey without the Emperor's signed authority. Paul
gave his signature, and Palhen at once went to Alexander with the
document. "You see," he said, "that your father is mad, and that you
are all lost unless we forestall him by locking him up first."
Alexander, though believing his life and his family's in jeopardy, did
nothing but consent through silence to