When the intelligence of the emperor’s death reached St Petersburg, Nicholas attended the meeting of the Senate, to take the oath of allegiance to Constantine. But they determined that their first act should be the reading of a packet, which had been placed in their hands by Alexander, with orders to be opened immediately on his decease. The president broke the seal, and found documents dated in 1822 and 1823, from Constantine, resigning the right of succession, and from Alexander accepting the resignation. Constantine’s letter stated thus: “Conscious that I do not possess the genius, the talents, or the strength, necessary to fit me for the dignity of sovereign, to which my birth would give me a right, I entreat your imperial majesty to transfer that right to him to whom it belongs, after me; and thus assure for ever the stability of the empire. “As to myself, I shall add, by this renunciation, a new guarantee and a new force to the engagement which I spontaneously and solemnly contracted on the occasion of my divorce from my first wife. All the circumstances in which I find myself strengthen my determination to adhere to this resolution, which will prove to the empire and to the whole world the sincerity of my sentiments.” Another of those documents appointed Nicholas as the heir to the throne. The Senate now declared that Nicholas was emperor. But he refused the title, until he had the acknowledgment from Constantine himself, that he had resigned. The suspense continued three weeks. At length the formal renunciation of Constantine was received, Nicholas was emperor, and the day was appointed to receive the oath of allegiance of the great functionaries of the army and of the people. The emperor dated his accession from the day of the death of Alexander, December the 1st, 1825. The interregnum was honourable to both the brothers; but it had nearly proved fatal to Russia: it unsettled the national feelings, it perplexed the army, and it gave sudden hopes to the conspirators against the throne.