It was an ancient Russian usage that all who met the Czar, male or female, should quit their carriage, be it in mud or snow, to salute, and even to prostrate themselves before him. Peter the Great used to cudgel soundly any person who did so, and Catherine II. had abolished the practice; but Paul revived it, and exacted its observance most severely. Of course, amid a crowd of carriages continually passing at full speed, it was easy to neglect it, without intentional disrespect; but no such excuse was admitted. A lady, wife of a general in the army, hastening into St. Petersburgh, from the country, to procure medical advice for her sick husband, passed the Czar inadvertently, and was immediately arrested and sent to prison. Alarm and anxiety threw her into a burning fever, which terminated in madness; and her husband died from the same causes, and for want of proper care and attendance. On being presented to Paul, it was necessary to drop plump on your knees, with force enough to make the floor ring as if a musket had been grounded, and to kiss his hand with energy sufficient to certify to all present the honour which you had just enjoyed. Prince George Galitzin was placed under arrest for kissing his hand _too negligently_. When enraged he lost all command of himself, which sometimes gave rise to very curious scenes. In one of his furious passions, flourishing his cane, he struck by accident the branch of a large lustre and broke it; whereupon he commenced a serious attack, from which he did not relax until he had entirely demolished his brittle antagonist. Under a sovereign of such a temper no man could feel secure for an hour. The police kept strict watch over the words, the actions, the correspondence of every one; and the knout, exile to Siberia, or at the best deportation without the frontiers, were unsparingly dealt out for involuntary or chimerical offences: and suspected persons were continually hurried out of the country without time being allowed for the arrangement of their affairs, and in ignorance at once of their offence and of the nature of the intended punishment. Such a state of things was not likely to last very long in Russia, with so many examples to prove how easy the descent is from the palace to the grave.