On his return from the palace he told me that when he acquainted the Emperor with the object of his visit, His Majesty looked very black and deeply displeased; he said that he could have great sympathy with his own misguided subjects who were persuaded by agitators into the belief that they were suffering from grievous wrongs at his hands; but what excuse could be made for the subject of a friendly Power who came to add fuel to the flame? Lord Napier pointed out that there was just this excuse for the gentleman, that his mother was a Pole, and he prayed earnestly for mercy. In the end the Tsar, as a special favour to Lord Napier, granted him a free pardon—of course on parole to leave Poland and not again to take part in the rebellion. It was a generous and kingly act, a gracious favour to Lord Napier, and a proof of the esteem in which my much-loved chief was held.[39] The Emperor Alexander was a most magnanimous ruler. Many and signal were the proofs of the love which he bore his people. His liberation of the serfs, a measure of humanity which has perhaps never been exceeded, and which in 1864 he extended to Poland, in spite of all that had occurred, bore eloquent testimony to his generosity. And at the time when I was in Russia the people returned his love with interest. He was to them like a divinity. Many and many a time have I seen the _mujiks_ in the dead of winter standing bareheaded, facing a cruel blast coming down the river from the Ladoga Lake, until the Emperor’s sledge should be out of sight—a little, simple one-horse sledge, without any guard, nor even an aide-de-camp. He was better protected by the love of his people than he could have been by all the myrmidons of his police. There were no Nihilists in those days; the word had been coined by Dostoievski, the novelist, but in another sense. Years afterwards, when the news came of the hideous murder of the great Tsar, looking back upon those loyal times, I could not believe my ears. It was incomprehensible. So barbarous did it seem—so barbarous and withal so foolish.