THE ORLOFF. 55
August,
1826, his coronation progress was not meant to gladden the people but
to make them quake. When the Czar left the Cathedral of the Assumption,
his crown upon his head and his sceptre in his hand, " his face looked
as hard as Siberian ice." So wrote of him an eyewitness, who further
says the people were too frightened to cheer — they dropped on their
knees with their faces in the dust. It was a gloomy coronation
notwithstanding all the diamonds and glitter of the pageant. There was
but one redeeming incident that spoke of human kindliness and
affection. When the Czar had been crowned his mother, the widow of the
murdered Paul, advanced to do homage to him as her sovereign, but the
Czar knelt before his mother and implored her blessing. After the
Empress Mother came Constantine, the elder brother, who had waived his
rights to the crown, and he was in turn affectionately embraced by
Nicholas. This exhibition of fraternal affection in Russia, where
brothers had been known to
