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Alexander I. Nicholas I.
(1801-1825.) (1825-1855.)
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Alexander II. Constantine. Nicholas. Michael.
(1855-1881.)
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Nicholas. Alexander III. Alexis. Marie. Sergius. Paul.
(Died in (1881-1894.) (Duchess of (Assassinated
1865.) | Edinburgh.) Feb. 17, 1905.)
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Nicholas II.
(1894--.)

The Whig statesman, Charles James Fox, once made the profound though
seemingly paradoxical assertion that the most dangerous part of a
Revolution was the Restoration that ended it. In a similar way we may
hazard the statement that the greatest danger brought about by war lies
in the period of peace immediately following. Just as the strain
involved by any physical effort is most felt when the muscles and nerves
resume their normal action, so, too, the body politic is liable to
depression when once the time of excitement is over and the artificial
activities of war give place to the tiresome work of paying the bill.
England after Waterloo, France and Germany after the war of 1870, afford
examples of this truth; but never perhaps has it been more signally
illustrated than in the Russia of 1878-82.

There were several reasons why the reaction should be especially sharp
in Russia. The Slav peoples that form the great bulk of her population
are notoriously sensitive. Shut up for nearly half the year by the
rigours of winter, they naturally develop habits of brooding
introspection or coarse animalism--witness the plaintive strains of
their folk-songs, the pessimism that haunts their literature, and the
dram-drinking habits of the peasantry. The Muscovite temperament and the
Muscovite climate naturally lead to idealist strivings against the
hardships of life or a dull grovelling amongst them. Melancholy or vodka
is the outcome of it all.

The giant of the East was first aroused to a consciousness of his
strength by the invasion of Napoleon the Great. The comp