The house of Romanoff had received the diadem by a species of election. Michael Romanoff, a descendant of the house of Ruric only by the female line, had been chosen by all the heads of the nation. The law of primogeniture was declared. But Peter the Great, disgusted by the vices or the imbecility of his son Alexis, had changed the law of succession, and enacted, that the sovereign should have the choice of his successor, not even limiting that choice to the royal line. Nothing is so fatal to the peace of a country as an unsettled succession; and this rash and prejudiced change produced all the confusions of Russian history from 1722 to 1797, when the Emperor Paul restored the right of primogeniture in the male line, in failure of which alone was the crown to devolve on the female line. In which case, the throne was to devolve on the princess next in relation to the deceased emperor; and, in case of her dying childless, the other princesses were to follow in the order of relationship. Alexander, in 1807, confirmed the act of Paul, and strengthened it by an additional act in 1820; stating, that the issue of marriages, authorised by the reigning emperor, and those who should themselves contract marriages, authorised by the reigning emperor, should alone possess the right of succession. Alexander had left three brothers—the Grand-duke Constantine, born in 1779; the Grand-duke Nicholas, born in 1796; and the Grand-duke Michael, born in 1798: two of his surviving sisters had been married, one to the Grand-duke of Saxe Weimar, and the other to the King of Holland. Thus, according to the law of Russia, Constantine was the next heir to the throne.