At the close of this stay in France, by the kindness of the American minister to Russia, Governor Seymour, of Connecticut, I was invited to St. Petersburg, as an attach<e'> of the American Legation, and resided for over six months in his household. It was a most interesting period. The Crimean War was going on, and the death of the Emperor Nicholas, during my stay, enabled me to see how a great change in autocratic administration is accomplished. An important part of my duty was to accompany the minister as an interpreter, not only at court, but in his interviews with Nesselrode, Gortschakoff, and others then in power. This gave me some chance also to make my historical studies more real by close observation of a certain sort of men who have had the making of far too much history; but books interested me none the less. An epoch in my development, intellectual and moral, was made at this time by my reading large parts of Gibbon, and especially by a very careful study of Guizot's ``History of Civilization in France,'' which greatly deepened and strengthened the impression made by his ``History of Civilization in Europe,'' as read under President Woolsey at Yale. During those seven months in St. Petersburg and Moscow, I read much in modern European history, paying considerable attention to the political development and condition of Russia, and, for the first time, learned the pleasures of investigating the history of our own country. Governor Seymour was especially devoted to the ideas of Thomas Jefferson, and late at night, as we sat before the fire, after returning from festivities or official interviews, we frequently discussed the democratic system, as advocated by Jefferson, and the autocratic system, as we saw it in the capital of the Czar. The result was that my beginning of real study in American history was made by a very close examination of the life and writings of Thomas Jefferson, including his letters, messages, and other papers, and of the diplomatic history revealed in the volumes of correspondence preserved in the Legation. The general result was to strengthen and deepen my democratic creed, and a special result was the preparation of an article on ``Jefferson and Slavery,'' which, having been at a later period refused by the ``New Englander,'' at New Haven, on account of its too pronounced sympathy with democracy against federalism, was published by the ``Atlantic Monthly,'' and led to some acquaintances of value to me afterward.