54 THE ORLOFF.
a few stragglers, prisoners and beggars having been left.
Alexander
I., strange to say, died peacefully in 1826, leaving the throne to his
brother Nicholas. Nicholas has been aptly called " the Iron Czar." He
was the third son of his father, but his elder brother, Constantine,
having no taste for the perilous glory of a crown renounced his rights
in favor of Nicholas. There was some delay in crowning the new Czar
owing, says the Court Circular with decorous gravity, to the illness
and death of the late Emperor's widow who survived her husband but five
months. In reality, however, the delay was caused by events more
serious to the peace of mind of the new sovereign. A revolution, which
seems an indispensable accompaniment to a change of rulers in Russia,
exploded after the accession of Nicholas and came near to costing him
his life.' This event seems to have further hardened a nature that was
already sufficiently severe, and when Nicholas went to Moscow in
