eyes
had been opened to the bright blaze spreading across the river, "Ah!" he
exclaimed, "then Heaven itself is against us!"

CHAPTER XII IRKUTSK

IRKUTSK, the capital of Eastern Siberia, is a populous town, containing,
in ordinary times, thirty thousand inhabitants. On the right side of
the Angara rises a hill, on which are built numerous churches, a lofty
cathedral, and dwellings disposed in picturesque disorder.

Seen at a distance, from the top of the mountain which rises at about
twenty versts off along the Siberian highroad, this town, with its
cupolas, its bell-towers, its steeples slender as minarets, its domes
like pot-bellied Chinese jars, presents something of an oriental aspect.
But this similarity vanishes as the traveler enters.

The town, half Byzantine, half Chinese, becomes European as soon as
he sees its macadamized roads, bordered with pavements, traversed by
canals, planted with gigantic birches, its houses of brick and wood,
some of which have several stories, the numerous equipages which drive
along, not only tarantasses but broughams and coaches; lastly, its
numerous inhabitants far advanced in civilization, to whom the latest
Paris fashions are not unknown.

Being the refuge for all the Siberians of the province, Irkutsk was
at this time very full. Stores of every kind had been collected
in abundance. Irkutsk is the emporium of the innumerable kinds of
merchandise which are exchanged between China, Central Asia, and Europe.
The authorities had therefore no fear with regard to admitting the
peasants of the valley of the Angara, and leaving a desert between the
invaders and the town.

Irkutsk is the residence of the governor-general of Eastern Siberia.
Below him acts a civil governor, in whose hands is the administration
of the province; a head of police, who has much to do in a town where
exiles abound; and, lastly, a mayor, chief of the merchants, and a
person of some importance, from his immense fortune and the influence
which he exercises over the people.

The garrison of Irkutsk was at that time composed of an infantry
regiment of Cossacks, consisting of two thousand men, and a body of
police wearing helmets and blue uniforms laced with silver. Besides,
as has been said, in consequence of the events which had occurred, the
brother of the Czar had been shut up in the town since the beginning of
the invasion.

A journey of political importance had taken the Grand Duke to these
di