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r ifr * THE LEADER [ Mo . 308 , Saturday ,
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to forget his unhappy brother . Meanwhile , the young French gill , when she received the dreadful intelligence , hastened to St . Petersburg , and demanded from Count Benkendorf permission to jom Tvasheff in his captivity . Nicholas instructed Benkendorf to dissuade her ; she remained firm . He represented to her the miserable condition of women who followed their husbands to the galleys , and the terrible destinies of their children . He added that much consideration would be extended to wives who knew not that their husbands had been compromised , but that she was free , and knowing what her betrothed was , could expect no mercy . 1 he young girl persisted . Nicholas , astonished , shrugged his shoulders , and gave her a passport . He kept his word- No favour was ever shown to this devoted woman . " When she reached her husband ' s prison the authorities , Having
received no orders , refused her an entrance . She remained , therefore , at a hamlet some miles distant , waiting for an order from St . Petersburg , and surrounded by a population of common criminals and liberated convicts . Among these she met a man who was employed on the fortifications . Relating her story , she begged him to acquaint Tvasheff with her arrival : he undertook to convey a letter and the answer . The devotion of this woman , which had not touched the heart of Nicholas , made a deep impression on the rude nature of the convict . Several times a week , after finishing his task , he issued at nightfall from the fortress , walked several leagues across the snow }' plains , amid the desolation of Eastern Siberia , to carry her a few words of affection , written by Tvasheff . At last the reply of the government arrived , and these unhappy ones were married in the fortress .
nose , it may be imagined that my hero did not captivate me by his beauty My Russian teacher was the first who began to engage my mind . He was young , roble , full of that liberalism which vanishes with marriage , with the first grey hair , vith the attainment of a stable position , but which , while it lasts , still dignifies the man . " May God will / ' he said to me , " that you shall never abandon these sentiments ; " and he began to teach me fragments of Poushkins's and Ryleief ' s songs , which I committed to writing little dreaming that , thirty years after , I—I first—should print them . I read no more romances ; I found in the library a history of the French revolution , written by a legitimist of the empire . His exaggerations were so absurd that I suspected them . Resolved at any cost to decide for myself I thought of asking Monsieur Bouchot , my French master , who was at Paris durmg the Revolution . Bouchot was a rough man , not much inclined to converse with me . He dictated verses , conjugated verbs , scolded , tattooed the ground with his foot , and did not invite my inquiries . At last , I took courage , and seeing him in an unusually good humour , said m the middle of a lesson , " Ah , Monsieur Bouchot , I have long wanted to ask you why they guillotined Louis XVI . ?" The old man looked at me steadily , raised one eyebrow and depressed the other , pushed his heavy spectacles over his forehead , took from his pocket his blue handkerchief , and , after having blown his nose violently , said in a dismal voice , " Because he was a traitor to his country !" '" ? " * yOU ^ ad been pne of tne Jud S > would you have signed the war-1 & . X 1 X 7 " With both hands ! " said he , and he took a pinch of smiff . That lesson was worth many participles and conjunctions . ^ I was now enlightened . Evidently they had done right to guillotine the King . Bouchot himself had said so ! ' A . Herzen .
Ten years passed . Tvasheff s punishment was then commuted from forced labour toi exile at a penal settlement . The condition of his wife and himself was "thus ameliorated ; but the struggle had worn her out—the struggle of seeking a husband at the galleys , and of ten years passed within a fortress in an uaclement arid bitter climate , bad exhausted her strength , and she died , leaving two children ; Tvasheff , still young , fell into a profound in elancholy , and some months after followed her to the grave . Imagine the situation of the orphans without civil rights , doomed at their birth to live as soldiers in a penal colony * abandoned , friendless , in the solitudes of Siberia !
^ Tyasheff ' s father \ vas dead . His son , a distinguished Colonel of Engini ^ rs , denianded and obtained the Emperor ' s permission to adopt these eBildren . Some years passed , and he requested a second favour , —the restoration of their name and civil rights . This , which the Emperor , with such a scandalous outburst of ferocity , had denied to the Princess Troubetskoff , he ( conceded to the colonel , not perceiving , however , that it amounted to a restitution of their estatesj which the worthy man only held in trust for them . Ajndng devoted w 6 men , and among men paralysed by fear , there sprang up v Trtultitude of ^ enslaved fanatics . Some were dragged to baseness by selfish ealeulations , others , disinterested and unconscious , degraded themselves withnt a motive .
My thougjhts were at once awakened , I know not how it was , but on the first- 'day , I felt in my heart that I was not on the side of those who fired tlife Imperial guns . The execution of Pestal and his friends did the rest . Everyone expected a commutation of tb « i . r nii « iei » mAnt-.. TCvm » n >« ^ a « -Vio « with his discreet and sceptical reserve , said that the sentences and the gibbets were only meant to strike terror , and that no executions could possibly be ordered on the very eve of the coronation . But one day we read in the official gazette , — " On the 5 th of July , at five o'clock in the morning , five traitors were hanged by the public executioner /' We had known too little of Nicholas ! As for him , after signing the warrants , he left St . Petersburg , and , without calling at Moscow , awaited the news at the Petrovsky palace .
An universal horror prevailed . The Russian people , degraded by slavery , ind by the rod , were , nevertheless , unaccustomed to the infliction of death peixaities . Since the monstrous punishment of the officer Mirovitch , for having , byorder of Catherine the Second , assassinated the unhappy Prince Feon , and that of Pougatscheff and his two accomplices , there had not been a single executioti for fifty years . During the reign of Paul , an insurrection of Cossacks occurred , in which two officers were implicated . Paul invested his Hetman with an unlimited
jurisdiction over the offenders . The two officers were condemned to decapitation ; but no one would assume the responsibility of the execution , and the Emperor was applied to . " The Hetman is a fool / ' said Paul . " He had fullpbwer , but he would throw the odium on me . " The criminals were sent to the mines , and the Hetman was dismissed . Nicholas—and history should never ignore this trait of his character—reintroduced the punishment of death , by a surprise , and legalised it twenty years afterwards , in , a monstrous criminal code , drawn up by the Polish German Grube and confirmed by the Czar .
- ' Soinedays after the famous 26 th , a grand Te Deum was chaunted in a rich payiUori , erected in the Court of the Kremlin . Philarete , the metropolitan of Moscow ,: officiated , surrounded by the high clergy , and gave thanks to God forthe victory obtained over the five patriots by the pubnc executioner . The Imperial family , tlie ministers , and the senate , surrounded the altar , and , further off , were heard the acclamations of the Imperial Guard . While the Te JOeum was performed the soldiers knelt , and from the Courts to the domes of the ; Kremlin rose the cry , " God save the Emperor ! " Never was there ¦ $ M&k $ j $ tei of the gallows . ' : ^ was there , with my mother , and I already learned to hate the unnatural ; p < w € tf 6 f that implacable man . Nevertheless , my political ideas were somewhatt confused . I believed that the insurgents had really designed to place $$# !^ " £ 0 ^ j * fo throne , to govern by a constitution . Hence , I conceived a S ^^ rJTj ytototoptyk for him , as Czarovitch . At the commencement of the ? v ^ - ^ K ^' ^ ' was "lu ch more in fowwu- than his brother with TOE ^ g ^ , r ^ whom ; l ] ie had conferred no benefits , and with the soldiery , who 'S ^ S ^? ^ ' ^^!^ " 0 ^ 1 1 treatment at his hands . It was a popular ffil wi ? * * ° . *«*« »* W * for all by the act of abdication . J ^ JKE v \ Sl ? > * V ° y ftfte * * « coronation of Nicholas . He SSSaaKSTfto ^ iSSffif *' : ***^^ M ! . « « r - ? # ™ * cathedral . His brow , ftCh , £ & £ ^ f ^^^ T ^ ^^ expression . He wore the Lithua ^ aian uniform » and with bis high bUowWow , his drooping head , and retrowsi
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" STAY AT HOME . " A . little drama in two acts , under this title , was produced on Monday evening at the Olympic . It is from a French original , and a version in English has already appeared at the Haymarket . The present translation is very free , with large interpolations of original humour , and the scene is transferred from Paris to London , and to the sylvan retirement of Cremome . Mr . Frank Lauriston ( Mr . George Tining ) is a young author with a young wife , whom he leaves at home in solitude while he amuses himself a la Pepys , and flirts with a gay widow because it flatters his vanity . He is followed by his wife , disguised in a domino , to a masqued ball at Cremorne , where , after sundry cross-purposes , all is brought to an appropriate conclusion . These are the chief figures and incidents ; but there is a fussv old physician , Dr . Metcalfe ( excellently played by Mr . Emery ) , who , by communicating to Lauriston the various fnrmiful ailme . nt . « iinrW . uilit » i > + i . o .. ov widotv labours—now a headache , now " her nerves "—acts unconsciously as a go-between for the lady and her lover , each ailment having a special and secret meaning . Another character is the doctor ' s wife ( played by Mrs . Stirling )—a lady bored by her too uxorious husband , and longing for a little jealousy , which she finally obtains ; for , dropping in at Cremorne to see what the place is like , she encounters the doctor ,-who has escorted Mrs . Lauriston to that retreat . She thus finds a temporary motive for fearing that the homeloving physician is becoming " fast . " The whole piece sparkles with wit and satire ; and is not only epigrammatic , but full of movement . The final moral is in favour of the advice embodied in the title ; but the author has reserved to himself great liberty of comment on social " make-believes . " Of the acting , we may say it was good throughout . Miss Fanny Ternan played the half-broken-hearted wife with touching sweetness : her efforts to keep her husband awake by playing and singing , and the way in which she continues the song after she finds he is asleep , until , the voice getting more and more tremulous , she falls forward in a fit of sobbing , —all this was truly and beautifully felt . 'Mr . George Vining was easy and audacious as the husband ; and Mrs . Stirling , as Mrs . Metcalfe , shone wickedly delightful . The vivacity with which she flashes forth her comments on the stupidity of too-loving husbands , and the inner chuckle with which , when asking Mrs . Lauriston to go to the masqued ball , she adds , " It ' s rather improper , arc matters to be remembered .
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A capital farce , under the homely and nutritious title of That Blessed Baby , was produced at the Adelphi on Monday evening , for the return of the Keeleys , with complete success . The author , new to fame , has hit upon a novel and interesting ' situation , " and lias worked it out with roaring fun and comicality . The piece—which , by the way , is of home ami not foreign extraction—is written to the very measure of the admirable talent of the Ivbeleys , whose acting is simply unsurpassable for mirth and humour , whether in its broad effects , or in those finer touohes , which sometimes elude the public , but arc full of meaning to the critical sense .
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" The Stranger" is becoming quite the man in possession at the Baymarkbst . He is constantly putting in a distress upon the premises . But if he would always appear under the fat and florid aspect of the Mr . Simpson who appeared the other night in that character , he would be a little less of a bore . Alphonae Karr imagined ( and shuddered at the thought ) une femme chauve , en lunettes , comolant fes voeuw de son amant . Who could the amant foe but Mr . W . H . Simpson , in the character of the " Stranger V
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Mxss P . Horton ' s entertainment at the Gallery op Illustration J » becoming increasingly popular . It is cleverly written , and furnishes nn infinite variety of opportunities for the displny of tlie accomplished lady a wit , vivacity , and grace . When she sings , we cannot help reflecting with pain that there arc few such voices to be heard at the Opera .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 16, 1856, page 164, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2128/page/20/
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