The request made to me for portraits and my agreeable social circle ought to have kept me longer in Moscow, where I stayed but five months, of which I spent six weeks in my room. But I was melancholy and ailing; I felt a need of rest, especially of breathing in a warmer climate. I therefore resolved upon returning to St. Petersburg to see my daughter and then quitting Russia. I was, however, held back for some days by an unusually severe attack of my general indisposition. CHAPTER XIII GOOD-BY TO RUSSIA DEPARTURE FROM MOSCOW -- NEWS OF THE DEATH OF PAUL -- PARTICULARS OF HIS ASSASSINATION -- ET TU BRUTE? -- PAUL'S PRESENTIMENTS OF PERIL -- HIS SUCCESSOR NOT AN ACCOMPLICE IN THE CRIME -- ALEXANDER I. A POPULAR MONARCH -- AN ORDER FROM AN IMPERIAL CUSTOMER AND MODEL -- FAREWELLS TO FRIENDS -- AMONG THEM, CZAR AND CZARINA. When I was sufficiently restored I announced my departure and made my adieus. Everything was done to induce me to stay. People offered to pay more for my portraits than I had received in St. Petersburg--to allow me all the time I required to finish them without fatiguing myself. I call to mind now, the very day prior to my leaving, while I was engaged in packing up on the ground floor of my house, there suddenly appeared before me, unannounced, a man of colossal stature in a white cloak, at whose sight I was nearly frightened to death. In Moscow one continually saw people banished to Siberia by Paul, and although but two French had been exiled--both authors of infamous libels against Russia--I forthwith judged this stranger to be an emissary of Paul. I breathed freely only when I heard him beseeching me not to leave Moscow, and begging me to do a large likeness of his whole family. Upon my refusal, which I made as polite as possible, the good gentleman asked me fervently at least to give my own portrait to the town. I acknowledge that this last request so touched my heart as to leave me an enduring regret that my affairs and the state of my health prevented me from complying. [Illustration: HUBERT ROBERT A French Painter of Repute. Born 1733. Died 1808. One of Mme. Lebrun's Contemporaries.] Several persons who, I doubt not, were initiated into the revolutionary conspiracy under progress urged me to defer my departure for a few days, promising they would go to St. Petersburg with me. But in my complete ignorance of the plot, I persisted in starting--in which I made a great mistake. For by waiting a little I might have avoided the hardships I underwent on those abominable roads, again rendered well-nigh impracticable by a thaw.