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favours by the emperor, strenu ously manifested an eager desire to be the assassin, objecting to all delay; and it was decided that the regicides should proceed to Taganrog, where his imperial majesty resided: but, upon further deliberation, it was agreed to delay the enterprise till the month of May, 1826, when the conspirators supposed he would review the troops in the neighbourhood of Bela Tserkoff. In the autumn, too, of 1825, another conspirator arrived at Petersburgh, from the extremities of Russia, and, having been affiliated in the northern association, offered his arm to assassinate the emperor.

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It is impossible to conjecture what might have happened, if Alexander had lived to review his troops at Taganrog, where such discoveries had already been made to the emperor of the machinations that were going on, as led to the immediate adoption of measures of precaution, and gave the first information of the plot to the government at St. Petersburg. His unexpected death, however, took them altogether unprepared, and, joined to the knowledge that part of the plot had been already detected, induced them to act rashly, in the hope that the confusion of the moment might supply the want of means and foresight. The submission of Constantine deprived them of one great hold upon the army. Batenkov, who, when the attempt was actually made, was one of the first to desert his party, exclaimed "That the opportunity which they had suffered to escape would not recur in fifty years; that if there had been any wise heads in the council of state, Russia would, at that moment, have been taking an

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oath of fidelity to a new sovereign, and to new laws; but that all was irreparably lost." The intelligence, however, that the grand duke Constantine persisted in his refusal of the crown, gave fresh life to the hopes of the conspirators: they flattered themselves that they could deceive the troops and the people, by persuading them that the grand duke never had renounced the crown, and, under this pretext, excite them to overturn the government. The faction was then to take advantage of the confusion, to establish a provisional government, which should order chambers to be formed throughout the provinces for the election of deputies. Two legislative chambers were to be instituted, the highest to be composed of permanent members. They were next to proceed to form provincial chambers, which were to have a local legislation; to convert the military colonies into a national guard; and place the citadel of St. Petersburg in the hands of the municipality.

According to another plan, developed by Baterkov, the conspirators were to separate, some proclaiming the grand duke Constantine, and others Nicholas; and if the majority should be in favour of the former, the latter was either to have consented to the re-modelling of the public institutions, and to the establishment of a provisional government, or to have postponed his accession to the throne; and then the conspirators, declaring such postponement to be an abdication, were to have proclaimed the grand duke Alexander, his son, as emperor. Batenkov assumed that, at the moment of this revolutionary explosion, an attempt would be made against

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the life of Nicholas, and Rieliev embracing Kahovsky, said to him, "My dear friend, you are alone in the world; you ought to sacrifice yourself for the sake of society assassinate the emperor." At the same instant the other con spirators embraced him, and he promised to do it. He was to have gained access to the palace, disguised as an officer of grenadiers, or to have waited on one of the steps which his majesty was to have passed; but he discovered subsequently that the project was not feasible, and the conspirators concurred in his opinion.

It was known that the manifesto of the emperor Nicholas on his accession to the throne would appear on the 26th of December, and that day was fixed upon by the conspirators for the out-break ing of the revolt; trusting, notwithstanding their want of concert, that their own military influence, and the name of Constantine, the legitimate heir of the throne, whose refusal of the crown was to be represented as a falsehood, or as the effect of compulsion, would seduce the soldiery in the critical moment when they were about to take the oath to Nicholas. Even on the 25th they were sanguine as to their success. Baron Steinbell had already begun a manifesto, announcing that the two grand-dukes had given up to a noble band of patriots the nomination of a sovereign; that the senate had ordered a general convocation of the deputies of the empire; and that in the interval there was to be a provisional government. As the moment approached, the greater number of the conspirators exhibited impatience, and their leaders betrayed irresolution, remorse, and fear.

It was decided that their chief should go the following day to the senate-house, and head the troops who refused to take the oath; but the two captains, who were to command under his orders, contrived to be absent; the one, because, having been but newly initiated into the conspiracy, he did not thoroughly understand its object; the other, because he sus pected the majority of the leaders. Of the principal conspirators who were to have appeared at the rendezvous to take the command of the troops, Bulatov presented himself merely as a spectator; Yakubovitch did not remain an instant; and prince Trubetsky hastened to take the oath to Nicholas, thus hoping to efface a part of his crime; and then fled to the Austrian minister, his wife's brother-in-law, where count. Nesselrode claimed him by order of the emperor. Batenkoff followed his example. The inferior traitors behaved with greater courage, and, at least, did not betray their cause, wicked and impracticable as it was, in the moment of danger. Rieliev had succeeded in seducing the officers in the marine barracks, who, after a long resistance, determined to take part in the insurrection; and the sailors, led away by them, refused to take the oath. General Schipo, who had been commissioned to administer it, placed the officers under arrest; but they were speedily liberated by the conspirators, exclaiming, "Do you hear those vollies? your comrades are being massacred!" At these words, the battalion darted from the barracks, and met with a lieutenant of the regiment of Finland, who cried out to them, "Form against the cavalry."

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revolt in the southern provinces, were arrested in consequence of the discoveries which had been made even before the death of Alexander. Some disturbance was excited at Vossilkov, by the brothers Muraviev, who from the beginning had been active in the conspiracy escaping from their prison, and, in conjunction with some other officers, endeavouring to seduce the military, instead of seeking safety in flight. The mutiny was immediately quelled by a detachment of hussars: the conspirators being given up by their men, or killed in the action. bet

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encouraged his soldiers, directed them to fill their cartouche-boxes and load their arms with ball cartridge, to seize the grenadiers flag, and to drive back the troops who remained faithful. In doing this, general Fredericks, majorgeneral Schenschin, and several other officers were wounded. The rebels succeeded in seizing the flag, and moved towards the senate house. Yet this traitor Stchapine, notwithstanding his conduct in the barracks, in the morning when he rose had addressed the following prayer to God:"Oh God! if our enterprise is just, grant us thy support; if not, may thy will Such was the substance of the be accomplished." Nearly similar information collected from the means caused the revolt of the papers and evidence of the conguard of grenadiers, who united spirators themselves regarding the themselves to the companies se- character, the constitution, the obduced by prince Stehapine; and jects, and the proceedings, of these many persons armed indiscrimi- traitorous associations, from their nately with pistols, poignards, and first institution in 1816 down to sabres, mixed in their ranks. But their first open attempt at revolt in the fidelity of the great body of 1825. The success with which etherrs troops in Petersburgh, the they were concealed for ten years, energetic measures immediately gradually augmenting their numadopted by those at their head, bers, and extending their ramificaand the intrepidity and presence tions, exposed all the time to a of mind of the new emperor him- strict and active vigilance, would self, instantly crushed the moment- lead us to think that their memary success of the mutineers; they bers must have been persons of no had no longer a plan or leaders, ordinary tact and prudence; were and any farther struggles were it not, that the consuming of these -the mere efforts of individual ten years, without having formed -frenzy or despair. A conspirator even the rudiments of any feasible named Kahovsky, who mortally plan the fantastical arrangements dwounded general Miloradovitch, and classifications of their internal after committing another murder economy their vague and mystical oby killing colonel Sturler, threw philanthropy, while they looked away his pistol, saying "I have upon assassination with indulgent done enough to day; I have al- eyes the rashness of the attempt ready two upon my conscience." on which they at last resolved The enterprise having failed, those and the want of concert and fideliwho shad been concerned in itty among themselves when it was -thastened to give information actually made compel us to acdagainst each other. The conspi- knowledge, that they neither knew arators who were preparing for very distinctly what they wished

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to attain, nor had formed any ra- that it might apportion, the pu tional judgment how it was to be nishment of the guilty. By their attained. They were exagger- sentence, out of one hundred and ated copies of German originals; twenty convicted criminals, who, but they were more dangerous, by the laws of Russia, were a all wor because their strength lay in the thy of death, five were condemned army, to whose voice, if it once to the pain of death, to be inflicted spoke in the language of disaffec- by their being quartered, and thirtion, nothing could be successfully ty-one to death by decapitation; opposed, and because they num- nineteen were condemned to pobered among their adherents a litical death, and to hard labour greater number of men whose during life; thirty-eight, to labour rank and situation gave them in- hard for a limited term, and, at fluence, and ought to have given its expiry, to be exiled for life them education. With the most to Siberia; eighteen, to perpetual contemptible means, they specula- exile in Siberia, being first deprived ted on carrying through the most of their nobility and disgraced; one extensive schemes, beset with individual, to serve in the ranks as innumerable difficulties. Their a common soldier, being first deleaders acknowledged that their graded, and deprived of his nobility, ideas were neither understood nor with the faculty of future advancerelished by the citizens of Peters- ment, according to his service; burgh and Moscow: yet these citi- eight individuals, to serve as comzens are wealthy, powerful, and mon soldiers, without deprivation well informed; but they displayed of their nobility, and with the no predilection for the political faculty of future advancement. theorists. To shake the fidelity The clemency of the emperor, of the army was the only hope of however, interfered to lessen the -the conspirators; that object itself number of the capital punishments. was to be effected by a momentary The law was allowed to take its illusion acting on that very fidelity; course only against Pestel, Serg and the whole plot, from its open- Muraviev, and Rumeni, who, ing to the catastrophe, proved that from the first institution of the a military revolution was the only societies, had been their most acsone which Russia had as yet to fear. tive and dangerous leaders; Rieliev, de To the report of the commission who had proposed, and Kahovsky, hof inquiry was subjoined a scale of who had undertaken, the assassinthe different degrees of guilt which ation of Nicholas, the last, moreit thought imputable to the va- over, having likewise been the rious parties implicated; but it had murderer of general Miloradovitch been made no part of its duty to and colonel Sturler, on the 26th © pronounce sentence. For this lat- of December. Even in regard to ter purpose the emperor appointed these the sentence of being quara special tribunal, whose members tered alive was changed into the were taken from the council of punishment of the gibbet. The the empire, the directing senate, sentences of the other prisoners and the synod, with the addition of condemned to death were comsome other persons both civil and muted, in the greater number of inmilitary. To this high court was re-stances into hard labour for life with ferred the report of the commission, degradation and loss of nobility, in

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a few cases into hard labour for twenty years with a similar degradation, and exile for life to Siberia, after these twenty-years shouldhave expired. Pestel and his accomplices were executed on the 26th of July; and, on the same day, in front of their gibbet, the ceremony of degradation was performed on the prisoners of whose sentence that punishment formed a part, except the naval officers, who were sent to Cronstadt, to be degraded on board a man of war. The fate of the officers condemned for life to labour in the mines, or drag out existence in Siberia, was scarcely to be envied in comparison with the lot of those who suffered on the scaffold. Any man may nerve himself to meet the mere extinction of life, and every man does it at last, whether he meet it on his couch, or on the scaffold; but protracted death, the lingering torture of hopeless banishment, the privation of all that can render life itself acceptable, permission to breathe, when every moment brings with it the wish to die, is an accumulation of misery at which the heart sickens. Yet this was the destiny to which many staff and superior officers of Russia were doomed, had not the well-judged policy of the emperor intervened. After a careful inquiry into the extent to which they had approved, or actively forwarded, the treasonable views of the conspirators with whom they were involved, he ordered them to be discharged from any sentence pro nounced by criminal courts, and to be liable only to correctional punishments. The same merciful disposition, not more humane than wise, was manifested in the punishment of the conspirators implicated in the insurrection excited by Muravier at Kiev. Baron

Soloviev, and two lieutenants, being condemned to death, their sentence was commuted into hard labour; one officer was sent to Siberia, and four were degraded to serve as common soldiers in distant garrisons. As those of Muraviev's band, who had fallen in the conflict with the troops who dispersed them, were beyond the reach of the executioner, gibbets, with their names, were ordered to be placed upon their graves instead of crosses. Of the officers not engaged in the conspiracy, prince Meschtchaki, and several others, were punished with imprisonment on account of their cowardice.

The whole progress of this judicial inquiry, as well as its termination, was most honourable to the character of the Russian government, and the new emperor. It was begun in no passionate or vindictive humour; it was prosecuted steadily and calmly, without those tedious delays which in some countries prevent the infliction of punishment till the impression made on the public mind by the guilt of the accused has been almost effaced by lapse of time. The sources of evidence, too, on which the commission seems to have relied, were trust-worthy. An allegation of political crime, under a despotic government, generally supplies the place of proof; fear and suspicion serve the purposes of conviction: but here there was displayed no disposition to condemn at random; no inclination to exaggerate imputed guilt, no attempt to force an improbable meaning upon actions and words, to combine artificially circumstances which had no connexion with each other, and, in the absence of that precision and particularity, without which there can be no evidence, to

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