In January 1857 he started on a tour in Europe; he visited Paris, and, while there, witnessed an execution which gave him his life-long horror of capital punishment. He declares that he had previously accepted it as a necessity, but, when he saw the ghastly preparations, when he heard the dull sound made by the head falling into the basket, he realised suddenly that, no matter what laws or customs countenanced this act, it was wrong and would always remain wrong. Even the horrors of war did not inspire him with an aversion quite so sickening; what he so disliked was the cold-blooded, premeditated violence wreaked upon a bound and helpless man. Tolstoy also visited Switzerland--Geneva and Lucerne. At the latter place he was disagreeably impressed by the arrogance of the English tourists. One of the most charming of his minor tales--a little sketch entitled _Albert_--tells the story of a wandering {26} musician treated with haughty severity by the English and, as the candid narrator admits, entertained by Tolstoy himself, with a somewhat exaggerated and theatrical kindness. It shows Tolstoy's habit of digging down to the very foundations of social life in seeking a remedy for the simplest injustice. In 1860 consumption declared itself in Nicolas Tolstoy and he was soon seriously ill; he went in search of health to Soden and afterwards to Hyères. Leo went to help in nursing him, and, on September 20th, Nicolas died in his brother's arms. This event made a deep and tragic impression upon Tolstoy: it was not only the personal loss, though he loved Nicolas more than any other human being, but the worst horror lay in his brother's fear of death, and in the unavailing struggle against it. The circumstances are described in the death of Nicolas Levin in _Anna Karénina_. Tolstoy next studied elementary education in France, Germany, and England. In February 1861 the Russian serfs were liberated, and a new era in Russian history began; Tolstoy tried to play his part by starting peasants' schools upon his estate. In his theories of education he was largely influenced by Rousseau; it was from Rousseau that he obtained his ideas of "freedom," and of permitting unchecked development to the child; he organised his schools in a very original manner, and his theories seem to have had a far-reaching effect on Russian education in making it more free and flexible than that of Western Europe. The tales he wrote for his peasant children, and embodied in various school-readers, form a charming portion of his work; they are exquisitely simple, and full of that fresh observation of the ways of animals and plants and the ways of children themselves which the young so love.