The faults of Alexander are comprised in his infidelity to a beautiful, accomplished, and affectionate wife. He respected her even while wounding her delicate feelings by his criminal attachments to other women. After many years of mental pain, the injured Elizabeth gave him the choice of giving her up, or banishing an imperious mistress, by whom the Emperor had a numerous family. Alexander could not resolve to separate for ever from his amiable and virtuous consort,--he made the sacrifice she required of him. His gallantry sometimes placed him in unprincely situations, and brought him in contact with persons immeasurably beneath him. He once fell in love with a tailor's wife at Warsaw, and not being well acquainted with the character of the pretty grisette, construed her acceptance of the visit he proposed making her, into approbation of his suit. The fair Pole was too simple, and had been too virtuously brought up, to comprehend his intentions. Her husband was absent, so she thought it would not be proper to receive the imperial visit alone; she made, therefore, a re-union of her own and her husband's relations--rich people of the bourgeoisie class--and when the emperor entered her saloon, he found himself in company with thirty or forty persons, to whom he was immediately introduced by his fair and innocent hostess. The astonished sovereign was obliged to make himself agreeable to the party, none of whom appeared to have divined his criminal intentions. He made no further attempt to corrupt the innocence of this beautiful woman, whose simplicity formed the safeguard of her virtue. A severe trial separated him for ever from his last mistress, who had borne him a daughter; this child was the idol of his heart, and to form her mind was the pleasure of his life. At eighteen the young lady eclipsed every woman in his empire by her dazzling beauty and graceful manners. Suddenly she was seized with an infectious fever, for which no physician in St. Petersburgh could find a remedy. Her mother, selfish and timid, deserted the sick chamber of the suffering girl, over whom the bitter tears of a father were vainly shed, while he kept incessant vigils over one whom he would have saved from the power of the grave at the expense of his life and empire. The dying daughter asked incessantly for her mother, upon whose bosom she desired to breathe her last sigh; but neither the passionate entreaties nor the commands of her imperial lover could induce the unnatural parent to risk her health by granting the interview for which her poor child craved, and she expired in the arms of her father, without the consolation of bidding her mother a last adieu.