eance against them in case they made any movement to resist his
authority while he was away. At such times he would utter most dreadful
imprecations against those who should dare to oppose him, and would work
himself up into such a fury as to give those who conversed with him an
exceedingly unfavorable opinion of his temper and character. The ugly
aspect which his countenance and demeanor exhibited at such times was
greatly aggravated by a nervous affection of the head and face which
attacked him, particularly when he was in a passion, and which produced
convulsive twitches of the muscles that drew his head by jerks to one
side, and distorted his face in a manner that was dreadful to behold. It
was said that this disorder was first induced in his childhood by some
one of the terrible frights through which he passed. However this may
have been, the affection seemed to increase as he grew older, and as the
attacks of it were most decided and violent when he was in a passion,
they had the effect, in connection with his coarse and dreadful language
and violent demeanor, to make him appear at such times more like some
ugly monster of fiction than like a man.

The result, in respect to the conduct of his enemies during his absence,
was what he feared. After he had been gone away for some months they
began to conspire against him. The means of communication between
different countries were quite imperfect in those days, so that very
little exact information came back to Russia in respect to the emperor's
movements. The nobles who were opposed to him began to represent to the
people that he had gone nobody knew where, and that it was wholly
uncertain whether he would ever return. Besides, if he did return, they
said it would only be to bring with him a fresh importation of foreign
favorites and foreign manners, and to proceed more vigorously than ever
in his work of superseding and subverting all the good old customs of the
land, and displacing the ancient native families from all places of
consideration and honor, in order to make room for the swarms of
miserable foreign adventurers that he would bring home with him in his
train.

By these and similar representations the opposition so far increased and
strengthened their party that, at length, they matured their arrangements
for an open outbreak. Their plan was, first, to take possession of the
city by means of the Guards, who were to be recalled for this purpose
fro