The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, September, 1851Various
History
The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, September, 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
With these documents all traces of his terrible agitation disappeared.
He was quite calm, and his countenance betrayed nothing of the emotion
that had harassed him the preceding night.
Count Woronzoff, notwithstanding his apparent calmness, found him
difficult to please, and unusually irritable, for Alexander was
constitutionally sweet-tempered and patient. He did not delay his
journey on account of this internal disquietude, but gave orders for
his departure from Tangaroff, which he fixed for the following day.
His ill-humor increased during the journey; he complained of the
badness of the roads and the slowness of the horses. He had never been
known to grumble before. His irritation became more apparent when Sir
James Wyllie, his confidential medical attendant, recommended him to
take some precaution against the frozen winds of the autumn; for he
threw away with a gesture of impatience the cloak and pelisse he
offered, and braved the danger he had been entreated to avoid. His
imprudence soon produced consequences. That evening he caught cold,
and coughed incessantly, and the following day, on his arrival at
Orieloff, an intermittent fever appeared, which soon after, aggravated
by the obstinacy of the invalid, turned to the intermittent fever
common to Tangaroff and its environs in the autumn.
The Emperor, whose increasing malady gave him a presage of his
approaching death, expressed a wish to return to the Empress, and once
more took the route to Tangaroff; contrary to the prayers of Sir James
Wyllie, he chose to perform a part of the journey on horseback, but
the failure of his strength finally forced him to re-enter his
carriage. He entered Tangaroff on the fifth of November, and swooned
the moment he came into the governor's house. The Empress, who was
suffering with a complaint of the heart, forgot her malady, while
watching over her dying husband. Change of place only increased the
fatal fever which preyed upon his frame, which seemed to gather
strength from day to day. On the eight, Wyllie called in Dr.
Stephiegen, and on the thirteenth they endeavored to counteract the
affection of the brain, and wished to bleed the imperial patient. He
would not submit to the operation, and demanded iced water, which they
refused. Their denial irritated him, and he rejected every thing they
offered him, with displeasure. These learned men were unwise, to
deprive the suffering prince of the water, a safe and harmless
beverage in such fevers. In fact, nature herself sometimes, in
inspiring the wish, provides the remedy. The Emperor on the afternoon
of that day wrote and sealed a letter, when perceiving the taper
remained burning, he told his attendant to extinguish it, in words
that plainly expressed his feelings in regard to the dangerous nature
of his malady. "Put out that light, my friend, or the people will take
it for a bier candle, and will suppose I am already dead."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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