As his very first act he was forced to put down the revolution of the Dekabrists, the Men of December, officers of the guards regiments and others, the chief of whom was one Pestel, who, under the pretence of putting Constantine on the throne, were plotting for the annihilation of the Imperial autocracy and the granting of a constitution—perhaps they had even wider views. The rising was quelled after feeding the gallows and Siberia. The moment was critical, and Nicholas was not the man to treat rebellion with rose-water. The reign ended, as it began, with a tragedy. Men said that the Emperor died of a broken heart; when the army which he loved was beaten, the ambition of a lifetime faded into thin air, and the proud spirit was humbled in despair. In the country where no historian was at that time allowed to write that the Emperor Paul was murdered, but only that he died suddenly, it was obvious that the death of Nicholas could not openly be discussed. But there were whispers. It was said in secret by many men that the Emperor did not die a natural death. There was a story of a certain German physician who was ordered by the Tsar to give him a sure and painless poison. The physician of course refused and left St. Petersburg. On the following day it was given out that his Majesty was ailing; he had contracted a chill. Worse bulletins followed. After a few days, it was announced that he was dangerously ill; in a few more days that the end had come. Heart failure. The last ukase had been issued. A Russian gentleman whom I knew well told me that as a youngster he was one of the pages of honour in waiting on the day when the death of the Emperor was made known to the public. It was his duty that night to watch with others over the dead Tsar. “Figurez-vous,” he said, “que quoique nous fussions en Février[44] le corps sentait déjà mauvais.” Taken in connection with the whisper to which I have alluded, this seemed to me not without significance. The mystery will in all probability never be cleared up; but at this distance of time there can be no indiscretion in alluding to a story which was widely believed, though it was only uttered in hushed tones and with bated breath. In any case, for the death of the great Tsar England was largely responsible. When he paid his famous visit to Queen Victoria in the year 1844—a visit still commemorated at Newmarket by the Cesarewitch handicap—English statesmen were made thoroughly aware of what was his policy in the Eastern Question. He made no secret of it. His ambition was to drive the Turk, the “Sick Man” of Sir Hamilton’s Seymour’s despatches, out of Europe and to _occupy_ Constantinople, not, as he asserted, to _take_ it. In that, no doubt, he was speaking honestly as regarded his intentions at that time, for he was essentially a truthful man and, as he liked to say, using the English word which he loved, “a gentleman.”