The Czar Paul had around him a number of that class of jesters who found favour with Peter; and he was further delighted to be made merry by the comic French actors who visited his capital. It was not always safe for these, however, to jest with him too roughly; as may be seen in the case of Fougère, the actor, who taking the jester’s privilege to speak freely to Paul once at supper, and to mock at his vaunted abilities, was punished for it by being dragged from his bed, in the night, tossed into a van which did not admit the light of day, and carried off, as he was politely informed, to his extreme horror, to Siberia. After several weeks had been spent in the journey, Fougère reached his destination, and on his eyes being unbandaged, he found himself in presence of Paul and a joyous number of _convives_, all of whom laughed heartily at the capital jest, whereby Fougère had been made to believe that he was being conveyed to Siberia, when he was only being drawn round and round St. Petersburg, for whole weeks. Nicholas, who may be said to have swam to his throne in the blood of his subjects in the capital, and to have been washed from it by the same sanguinary deluge at Sebastopol, had, like his father Paul, his frolicsome humours and facetious whims. Of course he did not keep court fools; but he would sometimes catch a fool and compel him to exhibit for the amusement of his court. He once captured an individual of this species in the person of Save Saveitch Yakovloff. The young gentleman with this cacophonous appellation had been an officer in the Guards, and had been commissioned to purchase horses for his regiment. As, however, he had not cheated the vendors, and brought back steeds worth double the money which had been entrusted to him wherewith to buy them, his condition in his regiment was rendered intolerable, and he was forced out of it by a series of small but wearying nuisances. He applied for permission to travel, but was refused. In disgrace and involuntary idleness, all state employment denied him, Save was puzzled for a time as to what occupation he could turn to. After consideration, he resolved to set up in the capital as the glass of fashion, and he appeared in public in the most exaggerated costumes, founded on French and English books of fashion. He one day presented himself on the Nevski Prospect in the following guise. On his head was a little peaked hat like a flowerpot reversed; his beard was _à la Henri Quatre_; his cravat was a thick scarf tied in a gigantic bow; his cloak was a little _Almaviva_; in one hand he carried a knotted cudgel, with the other he held a small glass to his eye, and between his legs, or at his side, waddled the most ugly and costly of bulldogs. He was thus airing himself when the Imperial carriage passed; Nicholas sat therein; his eye rested for a moment on the “exquisite,” and then the Czar beckoned to the “fool,” who hurried up, thinking that his fortune was re-established.