ted, but, on being questioned, he denied having made
any such reply. The inquisitors then put him to the torture, and there
forced from him the admission that he had spoken those words. Whether
he had really spoken them, or only admitted it to put an end to the
torture, it is impossible to say.

They asked him for the names of the persons whom he had heard express a
desire that the Czar should die, but he said he could not recollect.
He had heard it from several persons, but he could not remember who
they were. He said that Alexis was a great favorite among the people,
and that they sometimes used to drink his health under the designation
of the Hope of Russia.

The Czar himself also obtained a final and general acknowledgment of
guilt from his son, which he sent in to the senate on the day before
their judgment was to be rendered. He obtained this confession by
sending Tolstoi, an officer of the highest rank in his court, and the
person who had been the chief medium of the intercourse and of the
communications which he had held with his son during the whole course
of the affair, with the following written instructions:

"To M. TOLSTOI, PRIVY COUNSELOR:

"Go to my son this afternoon, and put down in writing the answers he
shall give to the following questions:

"I. What is the reason why he has always been so disobedient to me, and
has refused to do what I required of him, or to apply himself to any
useful business, notwithstanding all the guilt and shame which he has
incurred by so strange and unusual a course?

"II. Why is it that he has been so little afraid of me, and has not
apprehended the consequences that must inevitably follow from his
disobedience?

"III. What induced him to desire to secure possession of the crown
otherwise than by obedience to me, and following me in the natural
order of succession? And examine him upon every thing else that bears
any relation to this affair."

Tolstoi went to Alexis in the prison, and read these questions to him.
Alexis wrote out the following statement in reply to them, which
Tolstoi carried to the Czar:

"I. Although I was well aware that to be disobedient as I was to my
father, and refuse to do what please him, was a very strange and
unusual course, and both a sin and a shame, yet I was led into it, in
the first instance, in consequence of having been brought up from my
infancy with a governess and her maids, from whom I learned nothing but
amuse