The Emperor loves the simple folk he governs, and showed it plainly when in the earlier part of his reign he moved freely amongst them, standing next to peasants and workmen in Moscow, when he stepped into a church to pray. And after he returned from our own country, from the marriage of King George, I read the other day, "somebody asked him what had impressed him most. 'The crowd outside Buckingham Palace waiting to see Queen Victoria drive out,' he said. 'There they waited, hour after hour, and at last a little black carriage came out of the palace-gates. Very few of the people in the crowd could see the Queen, but they knew that she was there, and they went away satisfied. One day it will be like that in Russia.'" And the writer adds: "I do not think the Emperor's prophecy is likely to be realized in his lifetime; but a day will come when his subjects will forget the mistakes that have been made in his name, and recognize that they owe to him great reforms." I fancy in subsequent editions, for his book well deserves to have them, he will alter those words into "I feel sure that he will live to see it, and not have long to wait." [Illustration: _Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Elizabeth--The Friend of the Poor._] FOOTNOTES: [8] _Our New Ally._ [9] Rothay Reynolds, _My Russian Year_. CHAPTER VII A PATERNAL GOVERNMENT Two years ago, when I was in conversation with one of our leading diplomatists, who has a very intimate knowledge of the Russian people, their Emperor and governing classes, I asked him, "Do you not think that the Russian government is the most paternal in its aim and character of all the governments in Europe?" "Of course I do," he replied; and rather excitedly added, "But when I even hint at such a view of Russian methods to our own countrymen here at home they regard me as if I had taken leave of my senses, and look at me with an incredulous and pitying eye." It is no wonder that this should be so when our own people still, for the most part, look upon Russia as the land of the knout and banishment, with an oppressive and despotic government which on the least suspicion seizes upon unoffending victims and consigns them to Siberia and the mines, where, chained together, they drag out their lingering existence in unfamiliar and degrading toil. No words are wasted, it is believed, upon the weak and ineffective, but the lash comes stingingly down upon their shoulders. Harsh legislation is the rule, it is thought, and if perchance people rise up in masses against it, as they do from time to time, the dreaded Cossack sweeps through the streets, and, at terrible cost to human life, clears them. Again and again I find this is the prevailing idea of Russia, as I am asked if I am not afraid to travel there; and something like it, I have candidly admitted, was my own impression before I went there and saw things for myself. But nothing could be more unlike the actual reality.