Some days after the death of his natural daughter, the Emperor Alexander entered the house of an English officer to whom he was much attached. He was in deep mourning and appeared very unhappy. "I have just followed to the grave," said he, "as a private person the remains of my poor child, and I cannot yet forgive the unnatural woman who deserted the death-bed of her daughter. Besides, my sin, which I never repented of, has found me out, and the vengeance of God has fallen upon its fruits. Yes, I deserted the best and most amiable of wives, the object of my first affection, for women who neither possessed her beauty nor merit. I have preferred to the Empress even this unnatural mother, whom I now regard with loathing and horror. My wife shall never again have cause to reproach my broken faith." Devotion and his strict adherence to his promise balmed the wound, which, however, only death could heal. To the secret agony which through life had haunted the bosom of the son was added that of the father, and the return of Alexander to the paths of virtue and religion originated in the loss of this beloved daughter, smitten, he considered, for his sins. The friendship of this prince for Madam Krudener had nothing criminal in its nature, though it furnished a theme for scandal to those who are apt to doubt the purity of Platonic attachments between individuals of opposite sexes. In regard to this Emperor's political career, full of ambition and stratagem, we can only re-echo his dying words to his confessor:--"God must be merciful to kings?" His career, however varied by losses on the field or humiliated by treaties, ended triumphantly with the laurels of war and the olives of peace, and he bore to his far northern empire the keys of Paris as a trophy of his arms. His moderation demands the praise of posterity, and excited the admiration of the French nation at large.[10] His immoral conduct as a man and a husband was afterwards effaced by his sincere repentance, and he died in the arms of the most faithful and affectionate of wives, who could not long survive her irreparable loss. His death was deeply lamented by his subjects, who, if they did not enrol his name among the greatest of their rulers, never have hesitated to denote him as the best and most merciful sovereign who ever sat upon the Russian throne. FOOTNOTES: [9] The autopsy exhibited the same appearance generally discovered in those subjects whose death has been caused by the fever of the country: the brain was watery, the veins of the head were gorged, and the liver was soft. No signs of poison were discovered; the death of the Emperor was in the course of nature.