The Comte d’Artois, the presumptive heir to the throne, was born in

1757, and was consequently fifty-seven years old on his return to Paris.

He was ultra-Royalistic in his political views and was considered the

head of the extremists. His eldest son, the Duc d’Angoulême, was born in

1775, and had retired from France with his father at the commencement of

the Revolution. He was a man of very mediocre ability, but of exemplary

character. In 1799 he was married to his cousin Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte,

daughter of Louis the Sixteenth, who had passed her unhappy childhood in

prison, which she had left only in 1795. She was worshipped by the

entire royal family as an angel of kindness and mercy. They had no

children.

The younger son, the Duc de Berry, was born in 1778, and had passed his

youth and early manhood in exile. He had a more manly character than his

brother, and the French nobility of the old _régime_ looked upon him as

the hope of the Bourbon dynasty. Far from being a genius, the Duc de

Berry was a man of good intelligence, brave, dashing, and the very type

of a French officer, prior to the Revolution. He had many of the

generous traits, but also some of the vices of that elegant and

high-spirited class of young men. While living in exile, in England, he

formed a liaison with a young Englishwoman, who bore him two daughters,

to whom he was greatly attached and whom he took to Paris and placed in

a young ladies’ academy. In 1816 the King married him to a Neapolitan

princess, Caroline, daughter of the Crown Prince of that kingdom, a

handsome, high-spirited, healthy young woman, who gave promise of giving

the dynasty direct heirs. The newly married couple lived very happily

together, and enjoyed life in the French capital to its fullest extent.

They were really the official representatives of royalty and its

splendors,--neither the King nor the Duc d’Angoulême caring much for the

entertainments, balls, and receptions of court life. The prominence thus

given to the Duc de Berry, and the expectation that through him the

elder line of the Bourbons would be continued explain fully why he was

singled out as the victim of assassination. He was not only identified

with the extreme Royalists, so odious to the people, but, with him out

of the way, it was only a question of time when the elder branch of the

dynasty would die out entirely, no more issue being expected from the

Duc d’Angoulême, who had been married already twenty years without

having children. Such were at least the considerations of the young man

who undertook the perilous task of killing the Duc de Berry, and who

fully accomplished his purpose.

This young man was Jean Pierre Louvel, a resident of Versailles, an

enthusiastic admirer of Napoleon, whom he considered the living

embodiment of the greatness and honor of France. Napoleon’s dethronement

he wanted to revenge on the Bourbons, in whose interest it had taken

place, and who, in his opinion, were utterly unworthy to rule over the

French nation. Louvel was a saddler, thirty-two years of age,

debilitated in appearance, and considered a political fanatic by all who

knew him. He had no family or relations except one sister, considerably

older than himself, who had brought him up, and with whom he lived. He

hated the Bourbons so intensely that in 1814, when the royal family

landed at Calais on their return from exile, he intended to make an

attempt on the life of Louis the Eighteenth; but the great enthusiasm of

the people discouraged him. During all these years his wrath against the

Bourbons had steadily grown, and he had never for a moment abandoned his

plan of killing the whole family,--first the Duc de Berry, then the Duc

d’Angoulême, then the Comte d’Artois, and finally the King. He

considered De Berry the most important and the most dangerous man of the

whole family because in him were centred the hopes of continuing the

dynasty.

He had been very persistent; he had found employment in the royal

stables at Versailles, and whenever the Duc de Berry was out hunting, he

tried to find an opportunity to get near him; he frequently went to

Paris and studied the advertisements of new plays or operas, expecting

that the Duke would attend a first performance. Twenty times he had been

close to him on such occasions, but had always been prevented by the

number of friends or attendants surrounding him from getting near enough

to stab him, and stab him so well that he could not escape; for

everything depended on making a success of the attempt.

After long and patient waiting he found his opportunity. It was during

the last days of the carnival preceding the season of Lent, in February,

1820. The grand masquerade ball at the opera was to take place on the

thirteenth, and it was a matter of absolute certainty that both the Duc

and the Duchesse de Berry, who were very fond of dancing, would attend

it. When Louvel got up and dressed, he had a joyful presentiment that

that day would bring him the realization of his long-cherished plan. He

had in his possession two daggers of very superior quality, both sharp

as razors and strong enough to penetrate flesh and sinew to the handle.

He had studied the human anatomy well enough to know exactly where to

strike his victim. He chose the smaller dagger of the two because he

could more easily conceal it; took his supper with good appetite and

without betraying unusual agitation; and then he started on his mission

of death. He was promptly at his post at eight o’clock when the carriage

of the Duc de Berry drove up to the private entrance reserved for the

members of the royal family. The Duke was not expected so early in the

evening, and consequently there were not so many attendants gathered

near the entrance. The Duke jumped out of the carriage, and held out his

arm to help the Duchess to alight. This was the proper moment for

Louvel, if he wanted to commit the crime. He was on the point of rushing

toward the Duke, when the smiling and lovely face of the Duchess

appeared in the light of the lantern, and this sight paralyzed the arm

of the murderer. He hesitated at the thought that his crime would plunge

these two happy persons into nameless misery, and before he had

recovered his equanimity, the Duke and his wife had disappeared behind

the entrance door of the theatre.

Louvel blamed himself for his faintness of heart and wanted to postpone

the deed to some later day; but the thought that he would have to go

back to Versailles in a few days and that no such opportunity might

offer itself for a long time, caused him to change his mind. That very

night his plan must be executed, and either the Duke or himself should

perish. For several hours he strolled through the streets in the

neighborhood of the Opera House, went to the garden of the Palais Royal

and back again, always keeping a watchful eye on the carriages that

stood waiting for the call of their owners. At twenty minutes past

eleven the carriage of the Duc de Berry drove up to the entrance door.

Louvel stood near by, almost hidden in the shadow of the wall, and

entirely unnoticed by the attendants of the royal equipage. He was not

kept waiting for a long time; for a little accident had occurred which

induced the Duchess to return much sooner than they had anticipated.

Their box at the Opera House was near that of the Duc and Duchesse

d’Orléans, who were also at the theatre that evening; the two families

were on terms of great intimacy, especially the two duchesses, both

being Neapolitan princesses. At one of the intermissions of the

performance De Berry and his wife went to the box of the Duc d’Orléans

for a friendly chat, but on their return to their own box, a door

opposite was quickly opened and struck the Duchess with such violence

that she felt very unwell. In her delicate condition (she was enceinte

at the time) she thought it would be better for her to return home than

to wait for the close of the performance and the masquerade ball. The

Duke therefore conducts his wife back to the carriage and lifts her into

it; the Comtesse de Bétysi, her lady of honor, takes her seat by her

side; the duke shakes hands with both ladies and with a smiling “_au

revoir_, I’ll be home soon,” steps back from the carriage. At this

moment Louvel rushes forward, lays his left hand on the duke’s right

shoulder and plunges his dagger with so much force into the Duke’s right

side that the weapon remains in the wound. The Duke, mortally wounded,

sinks to his knees, and utters a slight scream, more of surprise than of

pain. As is usually the case in such assaults, the victim had rather

felt the shock than the wound, and only when he reached out with his

hand to the spot where he had been hurt, he found the handle of the

dagger, and comprehended the meaning of the attack. He then cried out:

“I am struck to death, I have been assassinated!” and as he pulled the

dagger from the wound, a stream of blood gushed forth. The Duke fainted

in consequence of the loss of blood, and was carried back into the Opera

House, where the Duchess followed him with loud screams. In the first

confusion Louvel made his escape, but he was soon overtaken and brought

back to the scene of the murder. The excitement and the indignation of

the people were so great that he would have been torn to pieces but for

the active protection of the police and of the servants of the Duc de

Berry who were afraid that by his death his accomplices and accessories

to the crime might be shielded.

The most eminent surgeons of Paris were immediately summoned to the

assistance of the Prince. But the wound was fatal, and all their efforts

were in vain. In the presence of death the Duc de Berry showed a very

generous and magnanimous heart. He implored his wife, his brother, and

all others surrounding his bed to use their influence with the King to

get his murderer pardoned, and expressed his profound sorrow that he had

been stabbed by a Frenchman. Up to his last moment the thought that his

murderer would be executed in a cruel manner disturbed him, and when

toward morning the King came to bid him farewell, he repeated his

request that the murderer should be forgiven and not be executed; but

without eliciting the promise from his uncle. With this dying request

for the life of his murderer on his lips, he expired very early in the

morning.

The sensation which the assassination of the Duc de Berry created not

only in Paris, but throughout France and Europe, was enormous. All

parties equally condemned and lamented the crime. While the

ultra-Royalists deplored in the murder the extinction of all their hopes

for the establishment of the old Bourbon dynasty on a sure foundation,

the liberal parties foresaw that it would put an end to the liberal

tendencies of the government of Louis the Eighteenth. The sinister

forebodings of the liberals were only too well founded. The Royalists

tried at first to create the impression that the murder was but the

symptom of a widespread conspiracy organized by the revolutionary

elements of the kingdom against the royal family and the entire

nobility, and boldly charged the liberal policy of the government as

being the cause of it. In a session of the Chambers one of the deputies

went even so far as to move the impeachment of M. Decazes, Minister of

the Interior, as an accessory to the crime committed by Louvel. While

the Chambers refused to act upon this infamous motion, the entire

Royalistic press demanded the dismissal of Decazes, and the King

reluctantly yielded to the universal demand. “M. Decazes has slipped in

the blood shed by Louvel’s dagger,” wrote Chateaubriand in commenting on

the dismissal of the liberal minister. And that era of reaction and

repression commenced which ten years later ended in the dethronement of

the elder branch of the Bourbon dynasty and in the flight and exile of

Charles the Tenth. The entire liberal party was punished for the crime

of one fanatic.

Louvel was tried before the Chamber of Peers. He pleaded guilty. He

denied having any accomplices. He had conferred with nobody. He

recognized the dagger as his own; he gave his hatred and abhorrence of

the Bourbon family as his only motive for the crime. He was convicted

unanimously. He expressed no regret for what he had done, and died with

stoical indifference. He was guillotined June 7, 1820.

CHAPTER XXII

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

[Illustration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN]

CHAPTER XXII

ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

(April 14, 1865)

In the annals of this nation no tragedy more pathetic has been recorded

than the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United

States.

The Civil War which had divided the country into two hostile camps for

four years and had laid waste the Southern States of the Union--or the

Confederate States of America, to designate them by the name they

adopted--was at an end. General Lee had surrendered the army of

Virginia, the flower of the Confederate fighting forces, to General

Grant at Appomattox Court House, and while General Johnston’s army in

North Carolina, and a few separate minor corps, still remained in the

field, Lee’s surrender was generally construed as the termination of the

long and cruel war, and joy ruled supreme throughout the North. Liberty

had triumphed, and four million slaves had been emancipated!

The surrender of Lee took place on the eighth of April, 1865. On the

following day President Lincoln visited the late capital of the

Confederacy. He traversed the city in all directions, and everywhere he

manifested the kindest disposition towards the South, and expressed the

wish that all traces of the unfortunate war should disappear as soon as

possible and that cordial relations between the two sections of the

country should be reëstablished at once. Very likely there was not a man

in all the Northern States happier at the prospect of a lasting peace

than Abraham Lincoln. His great and noble heart, sensitive as a woman’s,

had been bleeding for years at the sight of the gigantic fratricidal

war, of which Providence had made him the most conspicuous figure. But

five weeks before, he had entered upon his second presidential term, and

in his inaugural address he had foreshadowed the policy of leniency and

moderation which he intended to show to the “rebels” in case of the

final victory of the Union armies. That address revealed the true

inwardness of the great man; it was spoken with an eloquence peculiarly

his own; it was full of thought, sweetness, firmness, unswerving

fidelity to duty, high morality made more impressive even by the

simplicity and originality of language. At the same time it breathed a

tenderness for the vanquished which made it almost an olive-branch

tendered to those who were still in arms against the government and

inviting them to return to the hearthstones of the nation of which they

had been the favored sons and daughters for nearly a century. Although

the triumph of the Union and its armies was already in sight as an event

of the near future, nothing in that address indicated boastfulness and

supercilious pride. No arrogance, no pompous reference to the

superiority of the North in heroism or exploits! On the contrary, the

President humbles himself before the decrees of the Almighty, he

confesses the great national crime and the justice of the immense

punishment.

In the tone of sadness pervading the beautiful oration there is almost

the presentiment of death and that supreme resignation which sometimes

takes possession of the soul on the verge of the grave. Already he had

planned a proclamation of pardon,--a general amnesty, excluding none, a

full and complete restoration of concord and brotherhood between the

North and the South, when all at once the terrible news “Lincoln has

been assassinated! Lincoln is dead!” flashed over the telegraph wires

and filled the whole North with terror. As if nothing was to be wanting

to make this gigantic Civil War a tragedy to both sides, the man whose

very name was the embodiment of liberty and the symbol of emancipation,

and who more than any other man had contributed to the great triumph,

had to succumb at the moment of victory. The election of Abraham Lincoln

had given the signal for the organization and outbreak of the

slaveholders’ rebellion, and it was certainly a remarkable coincidence

that the tolling of the church-bells in towns and cities through which

Lincoln’s funeral train slowly wended its way from the capital to his

Western home was heard simultaneously with the news of the collapse of

that rebellion and of the final extinction of human slavery on American

soil. This coincidence was almost providential, and if the great

Emancipator could have chosen his own time for his death, he certainly

could not have made a more appropriate and glorious choice. He became,

so to speak, the hero of the great epic of the Civil War--one of the

greatest the world had seen,--and his tragical death marked the

conclusion of the strife. In the eyes of the fanatical advocates of the

Southern cause Abraham Lincoln had always held this prominent position

as the principal author of the feud dividing the North and the South,

and it is therefore not surprising that some of these fanatics had

formed a conspiracy to assassinate him and some of his most intimate

advisers. About a week after Mr. Lincoln’s visit at Richmond this plot

was to be executed.

On the fourteenth of April, 1865, an especially brilliant performance

was to be given at Ford’s Theatre, Washington, and Mr. Lincoln, General

Grant, and Mr. Stanton, Secretary of War, were expected to be present;

in fact, the Washington newspapers of that date had announced that they

would be present. But at the very last moment General Grant was

compelled to leave Washington and go North. Mr. Stanton, being

overburdened with business and unable to find time to go to the theatre,

remained at his office, and only Mr. Lincoln went, accompanied by Mrs.

Lincoln and a few friends. His appearance was the signal for a grand

ovation. He seemed to follow the presentation of the play with close

attention and great interest. The third act had just commenced, when the

audience was startled by the sound of a pistol-shot proceeding from the

President’s box. At the same moment a man appeared in the foreground of

that box, jumped upon the balustrade, and thence down to the stage,

shouting, “_Sic semper tyrannis!_” In leaping from the box, one of the

man’s spurs got entangled with the flag with which Mr. Lincoln’s box was

decorated. He fell and broke a leg, but immediately recovering himself

and getting on his feet he had sufficient presence of mind and power of

will to make his escape. He knocked down those who tried to stop him,

ran through the aisles of the scenery, jumped upon a horse which was

kept in readiness for him by an accomplice, and disappeared in the

darkness of the night.

This man, who with lightning-like rapidity had appeared on the stage and

disappeared from it, was the murderer of Abraham Lincoln; and the murder

had been committed so suddenly that the great majority of the audience,

even after his flight, were in profound ignorance of what had happened.

It was then only that the cries of horror, the loud lamentations of Mrs.

Lincoln and of the other persons in the President’s box conveyed to the

awe-stricken audience the news of the tragedy which had occurred in

their midst. The President, shot through the head from behind, had lost

consciousness immediately, and the blood oozed slowly from the wound.

However, life was not extinct, and immediately the hope arose that Mr.

Lincoln’s life might be saved. He was carried into a neighboring house,

and the best surgeons were called to his assistance. But alas! the

murderer’s ball having passed through the cerebellum had pierced the

cerebrum, and the wound was fatal beyond all hope. Mr. Lincoln died

early in the morning without having regained consciousness. The North

had lost its greatest citizen and the South its best friend.

* * * * *

While this murder was being committed at Ford’s Theatre, another

assassin entered the residence of Secretary of State William H. Seward,

who had been seriously injured by an accident a few days before. The

assassin pretended to be the bearer of a medical prescription, and

demanded to be admitted to the room of the patient. The servant refused

to admit him, but was rudely pushed aside, whereupon the visitor, who

evidently was familiar with the location of the rooms, burst into the

one where Mr. Seward was lying ill in bed, rushed toward him, seriously

wounded Mr. Seward’s son, who threw himself in his way, and thereupon

engaged the invalid in a furious combat, stabbing him several times. In

spite of his disability, the Secretary defended himself bravely and

fought with the courage of despair, until at last the assassin, after

having badly cut and disfigured his face, made his escape.

As has been stated already, the plan of the conspirators was to kill not

only President Lincoln, but other prominent men, such as Andrew Johnson,

the new Vice-President, Secretary Seward, Secretary Stanton, and General

Grant. On several occasions the assassins had been on the point of

perpetrating these murders, but always unforeseen circumstances had

occurred and prevented them. At last this gala performance at Ford’s

Theatre seemed to invite them to execute their plot, and they resolved

to assassinate Lincoln, Grant, and Stanton at the theatre, and Seward

and Johnson at their private residences. By removing these five men the

assassins hoped to decapitate the republic itself and imagined that very

likely during the terror and confusion which these assassinations would

cause, the Southern rebels would take up arms again and capture

Washington city. But only one of the five victims designated was

killed--alas! it was the most illustrious one of the five--while the

others escaped owing to fortuitous circumstances.

As to the murderer of Lincoln, who was identified as John Wilkes Booth,

it was ascertained that he had been inspired by an implacable and

sincere fanaticism. Son of a celebrated English tragedian who had lived

several years in the United States, John Wilkes Booth was himself an

actor of considerable ability, who had frequently played on the very

stage which he was to desecrate by one of the most infamous

assassinations of modern times. Young, handsome, eloquent, and audacious

as he was, Booth had a certain prestige among his companions and great

success with the ladies of his profession. He was an enthusiastic

Democrat, became a prominent member of the “Knights of the Golden

Circle,” and believed in the divine origin of the institution of

slavery. He had been among the lynchers of John Brown and frequently

boasted of his participation in that crime. He often expressed the wish

that all such abolitionists should die on the gallows. He and some

others, equally extreme in their views on the slavery question, met

frequently at the house of a Mrs. Surratt, who was also fanatically

devoted to the Southern cause, and concocted there the plot to murder

the President and his associates.

After having performed that part of the plot which he had reserved for

himself--the assassination of the President--with almost incredible

boldness, Booth fled to Virginia. He had intended to continue his flight

until he had reached the extreme South, and possibly Mexico, but his

injury prevented him from carrying out this plan. In company with one of

his accomplices he hid himself in an isolated barn on the banks of the

Rappahannock, hoping that as soon as the first storm of indignation had

blown over, the search for the murderer would gradually relax, if not

cease altogether, and that he would then have an opportunity to escape.

But in this calculation he was mistaken. A roving detachment of federal

soldiers discovered him in his hiding-place, during the night of the

twenty-sixth of April. His companion, realizing that all resistance

would be useless, surrendered immediately. But Booth wanted to sell his

life as dearly as possible. He tried to break out and escape from his

pursuers, but a pistol-shot brought him down with a fatal wound in his

head, from which he soon afterwards died. The assassin who had assaulted

and seriously wounded Secretary Seward had, a few days before, been

captured at Mrs. Surratt’s house.

The effect of Mr. Lincoln’s assassination on the people of the North was

indescribable. It filled their hearts with bitterness and their minds

with thoughts of revenge. It was averred that the murderer in crossing

the stage of the theatre and defiantly brandishing a long knife had

exclaimed: “The South is avenged!” This exclamation seemed to implicate

the whole South, or at least its government, in the murderous act of

Booth. The natural consequence was that the people of the North, who

immediately after the surrender of Lee’s army were inclined to great

leniency toward the vanquished and willing to receive them back into the

Union with open arms, suddenly turned against them. The army and the

government circles, and in fact the entire population of the national

capital, who had learned to love Mr. Lincoln, demanded the most severe

punishment for the rebels. Then began the long and tedious work of

reconstruction, retarded by party spirit and retaliatory measures on

both sides. It was terminated to the satisfaction of both only during

the last few years, when the sons of the South fought shoulder to

shoulder with the sons of the North for the deliverance of Cuba from

Spanish oppression under the glorious banner of the Union. But how

often during these years of contention, was the great man missed whose

truly humane spirit would have contributed so much to bring the

discordant elements of both sections together in fraternal harmony and

mutual respect, and whose hands had penned the noblest document of the

nineteenth century--the proclamation of emancipation--setting free four

million slaves. Such deeds as his can never be forgotten.

The assassination did a great deal for Mr. Lincoln’s standing in

history. It added the halo of martyrdom to his renown as a statesman,

and it has made him a national hero, who, next to Washington--or with

Washington--holds the highest place in the estimation of the American

people. It is doubtful whether Abraham Lincoln, if he had not crowned

his career with a martyr’s death, would have held this place. It had

especially the effect of wiping out an impression which many had formed

of Mr. Lincoln’s character, and which, during the first years of his

presidential term, lowered him considerably in the eyes of the people.

His Southern enemies and detractors made a great deal of Mr. Lincoln’s

“undignified bearing,” his “lack of tact,” “his mania for telling funny

stories, in and out of season,” and the Northern Democrats were only too

busy repeating and circulating these stories, because they could not

forgive Lincoln for having beaten their idol, Stephen Arnold Douglas.

Mr. Lincoln’s distinction was his strong originality and self-reliance.

As a young man, with no adviser to guide him through the hardships and

embarrassments of life, he took counsel with his own mind, which

fortunately was of peculiar depth, rich in resources,--and the advice he

received from this consultation, the instruction he gained by this

appeal to the fund of his own knowledge and experience served him

splendidly as schooling for the task which was in store for him. And

joined to this self-education nature had bestowed on him some of her

rarest gifts,--humor, kind, genial, and peculiarly humane, blending

tears with laughter, and a mother-wit always ready to make fun of his

own misfortunes and shortcomings, and to joke away any embarrassing

situation in which either untoward circumstances or his own mistakes

might have placed him. In addition to all this he possessed that truly

American characteristic--shrewdness, which far from being an

objectionable quality with him, was modified by his kindness of heart

and his moral uprightness.

In that great and distinctly English book, Robinson Crusoe, we find a

young Englishman in consequence of a shipwreck thrown upon a deserted

island in midocean. He is cut off from civilization and its resources

and thrown upon his own ingenuity to carve out a living for himself

which, to a degree at least, comes up to the experience which he has had

while living in civilized society. A few tools and instruments which he

saves from the wrecked ship are the only things to assist him in the

building up of his future life, yet by industry, shrewdness, and

perseverance he really succeeds in making that life not only tolerable,

but to a degree comfortable. Possibly the trying circumstances in which

young Robinson was placed whetted and sharpened his wits, strengthened

his nerve, and inspired him with enough confidence to become equal to

his difficult task; at all events, he succeeded, and the book narrating

his experience, his trials, and his sufferings forms one of the most

delightful and at the same time one of the most instructive books for

young and old ever written. Its educational value can hardly be

overestimated. It may be said that Robinson Crusoe is but a novel, and

that his adventures and achievements all originated in the fertile mind

of Daniel Defoe. But even if it was so, which is by no means proven, the

feat of Defoe’s genius shows that a young man of strong character and

full of resources, with an ideal placed before his mental eye, can find

the means to raise himself to a higher level than he could have reached

under ordinary circumstances and without the stimulating influence of

personal hardships and pressing necessity.

It was so with Abraham Lincoln. The means of education which the wild

West offered to him were of the most elementary kind, but his innate

genius and energy knew how to make them serviceable to the high aim and

to the ideals which he had proposed to himself. The loneliness of the

primeval forests in which his childhood was passed fostered the tendency

to reverie and thoughtfulness which formed one of the principal traits

of his character. An American boy in the full meaning of the word he

learned to love and appreciate that Union from which the West expected

its development, and on which it depended as on the natural source of

its future greatness. As if to prepare him for the great part he was to

act in American history, he was made to see at an early day the wrongs

and cruelties of slavery. His pure mind, which had been strengthened and

refined by immediate contact with nature, felt the stain which soiled

the American name and flag. As he went down the Mississippi river on a

flatboat and became witness of a slave-auction, where family ties were

brutally torn asunder, he vowed to himself to do his share as a man and

citizen to wipe out that wrong against humanity. How nobly he redeemed

that vow and how cruelly he suffered for redeeming it, we have told in

the preceding pages, and the crown of immortality is his just reward.

If we should wish to compare the great martyr-president with any

historical personage of preceding ages, it would be Henry the Fourth of

France. While unquestionably there are many differences in their traits

of character, they have nevertheless so many traits in common that the

comparison is, in our opinion, a decidedly just one. Both were placed in

leading positions at a time when their country was torn up by civil war.

In the case of Henry the Fourth religion, or rather Protestantism, was

the cause of the fratricidal strife; in the case of Abraham Lincoln it

was negro slavery. Both were enlisted in the cause of humanity and

progress. It is true, Henry the Fourth renounced Protestantism to win a

crown, in the possession of which he alone could hope to render immortal

service to the Protestant Church and the principle upon which it is

founded, religious toleration; and by the promulgation of the Edict of

Nantes he gloriously performed the historical task which Providence had

allotted to him. Abraham Lincoln was willing to make any sacrifice for

the maintenance of the American Union, for only as President of the

United States and as conqueror of the rebellious South, could he hope to

become the champion of the abolition of negro slavery. He was fortunate

enough to live through the gigantic Civil War, and Clio, the Muse, of

History, has entered in imperishable letters on the asbestos leaves of

our national annals his immortal declaration of the emancipation of the

black race. As two great reformers they will both live in

history,--Henry the Fourth, as the embodiment of the principle of

religious toleration, Lincoln as the evangelist of negro emancipation.

It is a strange coincidence that these two great men were endowed by

nature with so many analogous traits, but rarely found in other great

men. Both had a keen relish for humor, fun, and wit, and indulged this

taste under the most trying circumstances; both were lenient and

forgiving to a fault; both displayed statesmanship and executive ability

of a high order; and if Henry the Fourth has won greater laurels as a

warrior, Lincoln has crowned his great life with the glory of being a

great orator. Mankind has grown better by having produced these two

men.

CHAPTER XXIII

ALEXANDER THE SECOND OF RUSSIA

[Illustration: ALEXANDER II.]

CHAPTER XXIII

ASSASSINATION OF ALEXANDER THE SECOND OF RUSSIA

(March 13, 1881)

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln leads up to that of the other great

emancipator of the nineteenth century, Alexander the Second of Russia,

which occurred on the thirteenth of March, 1881, and which filled the

world with horror.

In one of Goethe’s most famous poems a magician’s apprentice, in the

absence of his learned master, sets free the secret powers of nature

which his master can control by a magical formula. The apprentice has

overheard the formula, and has appropriated it to his own use; but lo!

when the apprentice wants to get rid of the powers he has let loose, he

has forgotten the magic words by which to banish them, and miserably

perishes in the attempt. The poem is symbolical of the life and

experience of Czar Alexander the Second of Russia. As a young man,

enthusiastic and desirous to promote his country’s welfare, he set loose

the turbulent and revolutionary powers slumbering in his gigantic

empire, and they grew to such enormous proportions that even his power,

great though it was, was insufficient to curb them; finally he paid with

his life for his attempt to confer blessings upon his subjects. In

order to comprehend the difficulties which confronted Alexander the

Second on his accession, it is necessary to take a retrospect of the

preceding reign.

The Emperor Nicholas the First died on the second of March, 1855. He had

reigned twenty-nine years and nine months. During all these years he had

ruled his gigantic empire with an iron hand and had stood before the

world as the most brilliant as well as the most imperious ruler who had

sat upon the throne of the Czars since the death of Peter the Great. He

was the model for the other sovereigns of Europe, and his policy was

adopted with almost servile humility by the monarchs of Austria and

Prussia, the former of whom he reinstated on his throne by overthrowing

the Hungarian revolution, while the latter was allied to him by ties of

marriage. His dislike for reform and “the modern spirit” was caused, it

is said, by the sad experience he had made but a few weeks after his

accession, when a rebellion of the Imperial Guards in his own capital

compelled him to throw shot and shell into his own regiments, and to

quell a widespread conspiracy by the severest measures. At that time

cheers coming from the ranks for “Constantine and the Constitution” had

made the very name of a constitution odious to him. He might not have

taken the demonstration so seriously if he had known that the soldiers,

on being asked by their officers to cheer for Constantine and the

Constitution had asked: “Who is the Constitution?” and were told that

she was Constantine’s wife, whereupon the soldiers cheered lustily. At

all events, Nicholas, who had intended to introduce a number of Western

reforms, took suddenly a great aversion to anything which deviated in

the least from the most autocratic form of government; he punished the

slightest disagreement in political opinion or the most timid opposition

to his imperial will as an act of rebellion. The whole system of

government had been fashioned upon a half Asiatic, half European model;

it combined the absolute--almost divine--power of the Oriental ruler

with a formidable and well-drilled bureaucracy blindly obedient to the

Czar and knowing no other law than his will.

Nicholas the First was a man of superior intelligence, of indomitable

will, and of great vigor of mind, which enabled him to pay strict

attention to the different departments of the public service. His most

effective instrument was the third section of the Czar’s personal

bureau,--a secret political police by which he overawed the empire and

whose very name caused terror in the heart and home of every Russian

family. Whosoever was unfortunate enough to fall under the suspicion of

this terrible Hermandad--more cruel and more vindictive than the Spanish

Inquisition--might just as well resign himself at once to his

fate,--life-long exile to Siberia or a secret execution, most probably

by strangulation, in one of the prisons of Russia. It was the office of

this secret police, which reported directly to the Emperor, not only to

ferret out crime and bring criminals to justice, but to protect the

subjects of the Czar from contact with hurtful foreign influences, to

confiscate books and newspapers from abroad, to open and read letters,

and to learn family secrets which might be used against the

correspondents or their friends. Everything, in fact, which the imperial

government could think of to cut off Russia from the current of

European ideas, to prevent its subjects from receiving a liberal

education at the universities, to expand their minds by travelling

abroad, to become familiar with the great political and philosophical

questions of the day by a study of literature and newspapers, was done

with rigorous care by the police and approved by the Czar.

Occasionally the Emperor became indignant at the venality and corruption

of high public officials; but he did not see that this venality and

corruption were but the logical consequence of the system of despotism

and Byzantinism which his will imposed even on the highest members of

the aristocracy. His smile, his praise, was the highest distinction, the

highest aim of the ambition of the aristocracy, and for this servile

subjection to the imperial will they compensated themselves by unbridled

licentiousness and beastly excesses, and by robbing the public treasury.

Because it was well known that the Emperor looked with suspicion on the

universities as nurseries of liberal or revolutionary ideas, the

nobility did not send their sons thither, for fear that the young men

might become infected with these ideas, and that transportation to

Siberia might suddenly interrupt their studies. The nobility, therefore,

deemed it more prudent to send the lads to court or to the military

schools, where they were safe at least from the contagion of European

liberalism. It is really a wonder that, with such an organization of

society and with a system of police surveillance perhaps never equalled

in the world, with a Damocles’ sword always suspended over their heads,

there still remained a number of liberal-minded men, who never abandoned

the hope of better days, never renounced their dream that the time would

come for Russia, as it had come for western Europe, to enter socially

and politically the family of enlightened nations, blessed with liberal

institutions and freed from the despotism of semi-Oriental rulers. These

liberal-minded men and true patriots--professors of the universities,

literary men, and a very small number of young noblemen--lived mostly at

Moscow, where the distance from the observing eye of the ruler and his

court saved them from detection, although their secret influence

pervaded the whole empire, and kept the flame of liberalism burning in

the hearts of the intellectual élite. While Nicholas had thus succeeded

in building up an Eastern despotism on the banks of the Neva, he

endeavored at the same time to impress Europe with the idea of his

unrivalled power. His army was considered one of the best in Europe, and

the immense population of his empire--larger than that of any two of the

other great powers--gave him almost unlimited material for recruits. The

generals commanding these armies were also renowned throughout Europe.

They had won their laurels in the battles against the revolutionary

armies of Poland and Hungary, in conquering the warlike population of

the Caucasus, and subjecting large territories in western Asia to the

white eagle of the Czar. The Russian diplomats had the reputation of

being the shrewdest in Europe, and had either by secret treaties or by

matrimonial alliances succeeded in making Russian influence preponderant

on the continent of Europe. The Emperor Nicholas stood, therefore, on a

commanding height when he provoked the great western powers of Europe,

together with Turkey, to mortal combat. It was a challenge born in

arrogance and political short-sightedness, and it found its deserved

rebuke in a total defeat of the Russian armies and a thorough

humiliation of the Russian Emperor. Nicholas ought to have known that,

in engaging in war with the western powers, he not only endangered his

military prestige, but put to the test also his system of domestic

administration, based entirely on his autocratic will, and silently,

although reluctantly, submitted to by his subjects, as a tribute to his

dominant position in Europe. When by the disasters of the Crimean War

that position was lost, when it became clear to the Russian people that

the Emperor was not absolutely the universal dictator of Europe, not

only his military prestige was destroyed, but his system of domestic

government lost immensely in public estimation. Nicholas felt this

double humiliation so keenly that it was just as much personal chagrin

as physical disease which caused his death even before the war was over.

It was therefore a heavy burden which his successor, Alexander the

Second, assumed when he ascended the throne on the second of March,

1855. His first duty--and it was a painful and humiliating duty--was to

terminate the Crimean War by accepting the unfavorable terms demanded by

the western powers. In the exhausted condition of the Russian treasury,

and after the disorganization of the Russian armies by a series of

disastrous defeats, nothing was left to the young Czar but to submit to

the inevitable. In doing so he also signed the sentence of death of the

autocratic rule established by his father. A general clamor for reform,

for greater freedom and more liberal laws arose, and Alexander the

Second was only too willing to grant them. He was liberal-minded himself

and kind-hearted, and he was anxious to let the Russian nation partake

of the progress of European civilization. He opened the Russian

universities to all who desired a higher education. He reduced to a

reasonable rate the price for passports, which had been enormous under

Nicholas, he rescinded the burdensome press laws, and modified the law

subjecting all publications to a most rigorous government supervision;

he issued an amnesty to Siberian exiles, including many who had been

banished for political crimes; and he finally crowned this system of

liberal measures by the emancipation of many million serfs, freeing them

from their previous condition of territorial bondage and placing them

directly under government authority. Important changes were also made in

the personnel of the different departments of the public service; a

thorough investigation of these departments proved that the grossest

abuses existed throughout the empire. The army magazines were filled

with chalk instead of flour, and officers who had been dead for twenty

years still remained on the pension lists. Numerous other frauds and

depredations were disclosed, which were eating up the public revenues,

and which had been practised for years by high officials who had enjoyed

the protection of the late Czar. The reforms which Alexander the Second

introduced did not find favor with the officials, and the emancipation

of the serfs fully estranged the nobility, whose interests were damaged

by the loss of their slaves. The Czar therefore soon found himself

between two fires: the Liberals were immoderate in their demands for

still greater liberty, and the nobility attacked the government for

having granted those liberal measures, predicting that the new policy

would terminate in disaster, revolution, and assassination.

It should not be supposed, however, that Alexander was liberal-minded

in the American sense of the word; he was not,--not even as liberalism

is understood in the western states of Europe. What he tried to be

during the first years of his reign was a liberal-minded autocrat like

Frederick the Great of Prussia and Joseph the Second of Austria; but the

slightest attempt to limit his authority by any constitution he resented

as a personal insult. When the landed proprietors of the province of

Tver sent him a petition worded in the most humble language, in which

their desire for a constitution was expressed, he flew into a rage, and

sent the two leaders of the meeting to Siberia. But he was inclined to

grant as a personal favor what some of his subjects demanded as their

right, which they wanted guaranteed by law. The system of police

espionage and persecution ceased, because Alexander hated police

denunciations. This change had almost immediately its marked effect on

public life; the people commenced breathing easier. The nightmare of

Siberian exile or perpetual imprisonment ceased haunting their minds.

After a few years Russian society seemed to have changed its character,

its ideas, its manners; it showed its independence openly, and acted as

though its liberties and rights were safely secured by a magna charta or

constitution. Many thousands of Russian noblemen went to France and

England, no longer simply to amuse themselves and to live well, but to

study western institutions or to place their sons in the colleges; and

no nationality has a greater faculty of assimilation than the Russian.

The ideas of central and western Europe found ready and intelligent

reception in their minds. Hundreds of newspapers, periodicals, and

magazines were founded, and most of them found numerous and eager

readers. Some of these papers became a real power and shaped public

opinion to a remarkable degree. While direct criticism of Russian

affairs and Russian institutions was prohibited, the newspapers

nevertheless found a way to keep their readers posted on all public

events and public men. They published sketches of every-day life in

which every particular was true except the names, and in this human

comedy, scarcely veiled by the transparent fiction, the governors of

provinces, the generals of the army, and especially the directors of the

police, and all the high government officials were exhibited in their

true character; their frauds were exposed, their arbitrary actions,

their abuses of power, and their excesses were denounced. The reading

public were in the secret, and the daily and weekly newspapers became a

regular _chronique scandaleuse_ without subjecting the editors or

publishers to prosecution.

While these periodicals, published in Russia under the very eyes of the

Czar and of Russian censors, did their share in undermining the

authority of the government, there was another class of Russian

periodicals, published at Paris, London, and Leipsic, which were free

from the embarrassing observation of Russian censors, and which

consequently could speak openly, mention names, attack high officials

and the imperial family. The most famous of the editors of these

periodicals (which were printed abroad, but had nearly their entire

reading public in Russia) was Alexander Herzen, the famous editor and

publisher of “The Bell” (Kolokos). Mr. Herzen was a man of great talent,

and his newspaper soon gained an influence in Russia which became a real

danger to the government. “The Bell” did more for the spread of

socialism in Russia than all other publications combined. It was more

active and more successful than all other newspapers in showing up the

official wrong-doers of the empire and breeding among the masses

contempt for the government and its officers, because every Russian who

could read, read “The Bell,” and got his information about Russian

affairs from Alexander Herzen. The mystery always was: How did “The

Bell” get into Russia? since the government made a most relentless war

on the paper. Nobody could ever tell; the most searching investigations

of the secret police failed to discover the mysterious channel through

which the dangerous paper found its way into Russia. As soon as it had

crossed the frontier, secret printing establishments, unknown to the

police, struck off many thousand copies and circulated them gratuitously

throughout the empire. It was evident that a socialistic or

revolutionary committee was identified with its circulation in Russia.

But the most notable result brought about by “The Bell” was the change

of attitude in which the Russian government was placed, and (since the

government was the Czar) the attitude in which the Czar suddenly found

himself toward his subjects. The imperial government, under Nicholas,

has been bold and aggressive; under Alexander the Second it was placed

on the defensive; it was compelled to plead with public opinion in order

to clear itself of the attacks made against it, and when these pleas

failed to convince, it resorted again to the old repressive and despotic

measures which were even more odious from having become obsolete for a

number of years. Autocracy, which in the hands of a strong man like

Nicholas the First had been a source of strength and protection, became

in the hands of a weak and vacillating man a source of weakness and

danger. Public opinion, which under Nicholas had been silent, because it

dared not assert itself, turned openly against Alexander, who had

removed the bars which kept it in check and the fear which repressed its

utterances.

* * * * *

It is time here to refer shortly to the origin and growth of a political

doctrine which at this time appeared in Russia and which has had a great

and pernicious influence on Russian history,--Nihilism. The name appears

for the first time in the famous novel of Ivan Turgenieff, “Fathers and

Sons,” and designates a political programme which has found its most

numerous and most enthusiastic adherents among the young men and women

of Russia, especially of the educated and professional classes, the

students and professors of the universities. It first manifested its

existence shortly after the death of the Emperor Nicholas, when, through

the liberal measures of his successor, the high schools and academies of

the empire were opened to the people, when the universities were filled

with thousands of young students, eager to learn and imbibe

philosophical and political principles which until then had been unknown

to them. The Nihilistic party aimed at a total regeneration of society

and at the destruction of its present organization in state, church, and

social institutions, and it found its explanation and excuse in the

widespread corruption, brutality, and despotism of the officials. It is

a mistake to confound the Nihilists with the Liberals or even with the

Socialists who are advocating reforms or the abolition of certain

political or social abuses. The Nihilists are not aiming at reforms;

they simply demand the overthrow and complete annihilation of the

existing social system with all its institutions, until nothing (nihil)

remains standing. The reconstruction of society, based upon principles

of reason and justice, is their ideal; but they leave the realization of

this ideal to future generations, and advocate for the present the

employment of all means, even the most reprehensible, for the attainment

of their immediate aim. The originators and great apostles of the new

party were Alexander Herzen and Bakúnin, who imbued the young persons of

both sexes with an implacable hatred for the present system of

government and social organization. They made not only despotism but all

authority odious.

The first public manifestation of Nihilism was Karakasow’s attempt on

the life of Alexander the Second in 1866. It failed, and at the trial it

appeared that the attempt was not founded on individual hostility, but

on abhorrence of authority in general. The attempt on the life of

General Trepow, minister of police, in 1878, showed the dangerous and

rapid progress which the party had made. The assailant was an educated

young woman, Vera Sassoulitch, who wanted to revenge official injustice

by punishing one of its most prominent representatives. She was

acquitted by a jury at St. Petersburg on February 5, 1878; and this

acquittal, brought about by the ostentatious manifestation of the

sympathy of the higher classes during her trial, caused a sensation

throughout Europe. The Czar himself was enraged at the result of the

trial, and devoted himself to the extermination of Nihilism by all means

in his power. The issue had then been dearly made. Nihilism had by that

time become very aggressive. It was no longer satisfied with preaching a

philosophical doctrine, but it openly advocated a policy of murder and

incendiarism, in order to frighten and disorganize society, and

especially public officials. On the other hand, the government resorted

to the most rigorous measures to exterminate the Nihilists wherever they

could be found.

Alexander the Second suffered terribly when he became aware, too late

for him to master it, of the new intellectual movement and its political

results in his empire. The situation was the more painful to him,

because his own conscience as well as the old Russian party held him

principally responsible for it. It was he who had set free that liberal

propagandism which had culminated in this terrible agitation for the

destruction of society, and which had entirely outgrown his control.

Alexander’s mental condition, on this discovery, would form an

interesting subject for the psychologist. From the day when he began to

reign as an enthusiastic, well-intentioned man of thirty-seven, to the

days of his disappointments as a ruler and reformer, ending with one of

the most terrible catastrophes of modern times, his career challenges,

for adequate treatment, the genius of a Shakespeare. No wonder that he

became despondent and thought of abdication,--a thought which reappeared

with ever increasing force to the end of his reign.

Nor was this feeling of discouragement and weariness of life caused

exclusively by the fear of personal danger; on the contrary, Alexander

knew only too well that he was not the only object of Nihilistic

persecution, but that all those dear to his heart and also those whom he

honored with his confidence and friendship were equally exposed.

The attempt on the life of General Trepow had still another effect on

the Czar. It effectually eradicated from his mind his previous

predilection for liberal reforms and a paternal government; it stirred

up a feeling of resentment and hatred against revolutionists, reformers,

and liberals which had never been noticed in him before, and which

manifested itself in the most severe measures of repression. To his

great chagrin he saw soon that these measures were utterly unavailing to

repress the spirit of rebellion in the empire and in his own capital.

Nihilism spread with the unconquerable fury of a contagious epidemic and

defied all measures of the authorities to check it. On the twenty-first

of February, 1879, Prince Krapotkine, Governor of Charkow, was

assassinated; and shortly after, attempts were made on the lives of

General Drentelen, a great favorite at court, and of Count Lewis

Melikow, Secretary of the Interior.

* * * * *

Alexander himself was exposed to a number of murderous attempts. His

escape from the one made by Alexander Sokoloff, a school-teacher of

Toropetz, in the district of Pskoff, is almost miraculous. On the

fourteenth of April, 1879, at nine o’clock in the morning, the Emperor,

seated in an open carriage, was waiting in front of the palace of Prince

Gortschakoff, his Secretary of State. Sokoloff approached the carriage

without having been noticed by the attendants. He was well dressed, wore

a military cap, and looked like a retired officer. Standing within a few

feet of Alexander, he suddenly pulled forth from under his coat a

revolver, and, in rapid succession, fired four shots at him, all of

which, however, missed their aim. The would-be murderer was immediately

overpowered by the Emperor’s attendants; but during the struggle he

fired a fifth shot which severely wounded one of the servants. Sokoloff

had two capsules containing poison, fastened with wax under his armpits.

He succeeded in swallowing one of them before he could be prevented, but

an antidote was immediately administered and saved his life. He was

sentenced to death and executed without having confessed the motive of

his assault or given the names of any accomplices.

After this attempt the most vigorous and ingenious measures were taken

for the Emperor’s protection. When, in the summer of the same year,

Alexander travelled from St. Petersburg to Livadia, he was taken to the

depot in an iron carriage and escorted by four companies of cavalry.

Moreover the depot was surrounded by several regiments of infantry and

cavalry, and nobody was permitted to approach it. Similar measures of

precaution had been taken at all railway stations along the route where

the imperial train was expected to stop. At all railroad crossings

police officers and detectives had been stationed to prevent even the

possibility of a collision with the imperial train. Another train filled

entirely with the body-guards and high police officials preceded, at a

short distance, the Emperor and his family. A large detective force was

stationed along the whole route, and scoured the country for miles on

both sides of the railroad, making it impossible for anybody to approach

the track without being closely observed. At night, the entire route was

lit up on either side with immense bonfires built at short distances in

order to make the surveillance of the road as complete during the night

as during the day. In order not to delay the imperial train on the road,

all other trains were stopped for days, and the most stringent orders

were issued that no persons should approach either the depots or any

part of the railroad.

That travelling under such circumstances was not a pleasure, and would

make a man exceedingly nervous, if not absolutely ill, may well be

imagined. But in spite of these and other precautions almost passing

human belief, a new attempt on the Emperor’s life was made during his

return trip from Livadia to Moscow. On the first of December, 1879,

Alexander had arrived at Moscow safely; but about ten or fifteen minutes

later a mine exploded, which had been established under the railroad

track in the immediate vicinity of the depot. The explosion occurred at

the moment when the second imperial train was passing. It demolished the

baggage car and threw seven or eight passenger cars off the track.

Fortunately nobody was seriously hurt. The Emperor and his suite were on

the first train this time, while the Nihilists had supposed they would

be on the second.

Less than three months later, on the seventeenth of February, 1880, the

Czar was in much greater danger at St. Petersburg. At about seven

o’clock P.M., on that day, as he was on the point of entering the

dining-room of his palace, suddenly a terrible dynamite explosion

occurred underneath the hall occupied by the Imperial Guards. The

explosion was so violent that all the windows in that wing of the palace

were shattered, the ceilings of the rooms in the lower story and of the

hall of the guards were full of holes, and the floors torn to pieces,

while the tables and the dishes in the imperial dining-room were hurled

in all directions. Eight soldiers and two servants of the imperial

household were killed, while forty-five were more or less seriously

wounded.

This new attempt on his life, with the attending number of victims,

impressed the Czar’s mind so deeply that it brought on a new attack of

melancholy which his physicians were powerless to subdue. Domestic

troubles added to his mental depression, and caused apprehensions of a

total collapse of his mental faculties. His general health had also

greatly suffered from the long continued strain of his nervous system.

In June, 1880, his wife died after a lingering illness. She was a

princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, very handsome and highly accomplished when

he married her, in 1841. But the marriage was not a happy one. For quite

a number of years the Czar carried on a liaison with the beautiful

Princess Dolgorouki, and shortly after the death of the Empress he

contracted a morganatic marriage with her, in spite of the energetic

protests of the Czarowitz and his other children. The Princess had great

influence over Alexander’s decisions as a ruler; and when he seemed to

have made up his mind to abdicate and retire to private life, she

prevented the consummation of this design by her emphatic protests.

Alexander had formed the plan to transfer the crown to his son, but only

on one condition: that the Princess, his wife, should always be treated

by the imperial family with the same consideration as the deceased

Empress, and that her children should also be treated as brothers and

sisters by the Czar. But when he informed the Princess of this plan, she

flew into a passion, rejected the proposition most angrily, saying that

she knew the feelings of the Czarowitz toward her too well to place any

confidence in his promises, and demanded, as a proof of his affection

for her, that Alexander should forever renounce his plan of abdication.

Alexander therefore remained, much against his own inclination, on the

throne until the day of his death, the thirteenth of March, 1881.

On the forenoon of that day he returned from the residence of the

Princess to the Winter Palace, driving along the St. Michael’s Canal. He

was escorted by a small detachment of cavalry and an adjutant of the

Director of Police. About midway between the residence of the Princess

and the Winter Palace a man ran up to the imperial carriage throwing a

bomb charged with dynamite under the horses. It killed two men of the

Czar’s escort and wounded three others. In spite of the protests of the

police officer and the driver, who insisted on taking the Czar as

rapidly as possible to the Winter Palace, he alighted, unhurt as he was,

to look after the victims of the attack. In doing so, he exclaimed:

“Thank God, I was not hurt!” But the man who had thrown the bomb and

been seized by the escort, hearing the Czar’s exclamation, replied:

“Perhaps it is not time yet to thank God!” At the same time another

person hurled a bomb at the feet of the Emperor. His legs were broken by

the explosion, his abdomen was torn open so that the intestines

protruded, and his face was badly disfigured. The Emperor fell to the

ground, exclaiming: “Help me! Quick to the Palace! I am dying!” The

explosion was so violent that the windows of a church and of the

imperial stables situated on the opposite side of the Canal were

shattered. Many persons were killed or wounded. The imperial carriage

was also considerably damaged. The Emperor was therefore lifted into a

sleigh, which returned to the Winter Palace at a gallop. The blood

flowed in great quantity from his wounds, and as he was carried up the

large stairway of the Palace he fainted. The surgeons found it

impossible to stop the hemorrhage, and at thirty-five minutes past three

o’clock in the afternoon he breathed his last without having recovered

consciousness for a moment.

The assassination caused the most intense excitement in the capital. A

shout of triumph went up from the Executive Committee of the Nihilists,

and a few days afterward the people of St. Petersburg could read the

following manifesto, which, in spite of the care of the police, had been

posted in several conspicuous places:

“The Executive Committee consider it necessary once more to

announce to all the world that it repeatedly warned the tyrant now

assassinated, repeatedly advised him to put an end to his homicidal

obstinacy, and to restore to Russia its natural rights. Every one

knows that the tyrant paid no attention to these warnings and

pursued his former policy. Reprisals continued. The Executive

Committee never drop their weapons. They resolved to execute the

despot at whatever cost. On the thirteenth of March this was done.

“We address ourselves to the newly crowned Alexander the Third,

reminding him that he must be just. Russia, exhausted by famine,

worn out by the arbitrary proceedings of the administration,

continually losing its sons on the gallows, in the mines, in exile,

or in wearisome inactivity caused by the present _régime_,--Russia

cannot longer live thus. She demands liberty. She must live in

conformity with her demands, her wishes, and her will. We remind

Alexander the Third that every violator of the will of the people

is the nation’s enemy and tyrant. The death of Alexander the Second

shows the vengeance which follows such acts.”

These accusations were only partly true. Alexander, on ascending the

throne, had honestly tried to introduce reforms, abolish abuses and pave

the way for a progressive, liberal government. But his liberal policy

did not satisfy the Nihilists. And when in self-protection he fell back

on the former policy of repression, the Nihilists began a war of

reprisals, and finally murdered the Czar.

CHAPTER XXIV

WILLIAM McKINLEY

[Illustration: WILLIAM McKINLEY]

CHAPTER XXIV

ASSASSINATION OF WILLIAM McKINLEY

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

(September 6, 1901)

The North-American Republic had lived eighty-nine years before political

assassination made its entrance into its domain. From 1776 to 1865, a

period occasionally as turbulent, excited and torn by political discord

and strife as any other period in history, political assassinations kept

away from its shores, and appeared only at the close of the great Civil

War between the North and the South, selecting for its victim the

noblest, gentlest, most kind-hearted of Americans who had filled the

Presidential chair.

Sixteen years later, on July 2, 1881, the second political assassination

took place in the United States, resulting in the death of President

James A. Garfield, after months of intense suffering from a wound

inflicted by a bullet fired by Charles J. Guiteau, a disappointed

office-seeker. By removing the President this man hoped to restore

harmony in the Republican party, which, in the state of New York at

least, had been disturbed by the feud between James G. Blaine and Roscoe

Conkling. Guiteau imagined that President Garfield had become an

interested party in this feud by appointing Mr. Blaine his Secretary of

State. His was the act of a vindictive madman.

Twenty years had elapsed since Guiteau’s horrible crime, and again a

President of the United States was prostrated by the bullet of an

assassin, who, at the moment of committing the crime, proclaimed himself

an Anarchist. When William McKinley was reëlected President in November,

1900, a successful and perhaps glorious second term seemed to be in

store for him. During his first term the policy of the Republican party

had earned great triumphs, and the President, who was in full accord

with his party on all economical questions, and was even its most

prominent leader on the tariff question, had justly shared these

triumphs.

Quite unexpectedly the question of armed intervention in Cuba had been

sprung in the middle of Mr. McKinley’s first term of office, and after

having exhausted all diplomatic means to prevent war and to induce Spain

to grant satisfactory terms to the Cubans, the President was forced into

a declaration of war by the enthusiasm of the Senators and

Representatives assembled at Washington. But, as if everything

undertaken by Mr. McKinley was to be blessed with phenomenal success,

the war with Spain was not only instrumental in securing the thing for

which it had been undertaken,--the liberty and independence of the

island of Cuba,--but it had also an entirely unexpected effect on the

international standing of the United States. Up to the time of the

Spanish-American War the United States had always been considered an

exclusively American power, and while the European powers seemed to be

willing to concede to it a leading position--a sort of hegemony--in all

American affairs (including Central and South America), which the

United States had assumed by the promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine in

1823, they had never invited the American government to their councils

treating of European or other non-American affairs. The Spanish-American

War was a revelation to Europe. It opened its eyes to the fact that over

night, while Europe had been sleeping and dreaming only of its own

greatness, a young giant had grown up on the other side of the Atlantic

who was just beginning to feel his own strength and who seemed to make

very light of time-honored sovereignty rights and inherited titles of

possession. As the Atlantic cable flashed over its wires the reports of

American victories and achievements of astounding magnitude,--the

destruction of two powerful Spanish fleets, followed by the surrender of

the large Spanish armies in the Philippine islands and Cuba,--Europe

stood aghast at this superb display of power and naval superiority, and

European statesmen reluctantly admitted that a new world-power of the

first order had been born, and that it might be prudent to invite it to

a seat among the great powers. History is often a great satirist; it was

so in this case. Spain had for a long time made application for

admission to a seat among the great powers of the world and had pointed

to her great colonies and to her splendid navy as her credentials

entitling her to membership in the illustrious company. But England and

Germany, fearing that Spain would strengthen France and Russia by her

influence and navy, kept her out of it. And now comes a young American

nation which nobody had thought of as a great military and naval power,

makes very short work of Spain’s navy, robs her of all her colonies, and

coolly, without having asked for it, takes the seat which Spain had

vainly sighed for.

In a monarchy a large part if not the whole of the glory of these

achievements on land and sea would have been ascribed to the ruler under

whose reign they occurred. It was so with Louis the Fourteenth and Queen

Elizabeth, but William McKinley was entirely too modest to claim for

himself honors which did not exclusively belong to him. Nevertheless a

great deal was said about imperialism and militarism during the

campaign, and these charges were even made a strong issue against Mr.

McKinley’s reëlection. However, the good judgment of the American people

disregarded them and reëlected Mr. McKinley by a considerably larger

majority than he had received four years before.

It might have been supposed that this flattering endorsement of Mr.

McKinley’s first administration would have allayed all opposition to him

personally, because certainly his experience, his conceded integrity and

ability, his great influence in the councils of his party, and his

immense popularity would have been of inestimable value in adjusting and

solving the new problems of administration arising from the acquisition

of our new insular possessions in the Pacific and the West Indies. While

the two great political parties, and in fact all other parties, had

bowed to this decision of the people at the ballot-box, there was,

unfortunately, a class of men in the United States as well as in Europe

who made war upon the present organization of society as unjust to the

poor man, and upon all government, which they declared hostile and

detrimental to the rights of individuals, and which they considered the

source of all wrongs and miseries. This doctrine was originated by a

French philosopher, Pierre Joseph Proudhon, in his famous pamphlet

published in 1850 and entitled: “What is Property?” He denounces the

unequal division and distribution of property among men and the unjust

accumulation of capital in the hands of the few as the source of all

social evils, and, concluding with the emphatic declaration that all

property is theft, demands its readjustment and re-apportionment on a

basis of strict justice as the sole hope for happiness. Proudhon’s ideas

and arguments found an echo throughout Europe. He had considered the

question only in its economical bearings; but some of his disciples

extended the inquiry in all other directions, and showed the hurtful

influence of accumulated power and property on all other social

conditions, especially on politics and the government of nations. They

demanded the reinstatement of the individual in all his natural rights,

and a destruction of all those powers and laws which stood in the way of

the free and unobstructed exercise of those rights. This meant a

declaration of war on all established authority and government. It meant

anarchy in the literal sense of the word, and the men who had adopted

this doctrine as their political platform called themselves Anarchists.

On the twenty-ninth of September, 1872, a violent schism occurred at the

congress of the International Association of Laborers, held at the

Hague, between the partisans of Carl Marx and those of Bakúnin, and from

this date we must count the origin of the anarchistic party. In the

United States the first symptoms of an anarchistic movement appeared in

1878. At the Socialist congress held at Albany, N. Y., the majority of

delegates, who were advocates of peaceable methods of propagandism,

were opposed by a minority of revolutionists preaching the most extreme

measures. The leader of this minority was Justus Schwab, who was then

publishing a socialistic newspaper, “The Voice of the People,” at St.

Louis. He was a friend and admirer of John Most, who had been imprisoned

in England for his revolutionary and seditious articles, and who was,

unquestionably, the intellectual leader of the radical minority at

Albany. The final rupture between the two factions occurred a year

later, at the congress at Alleghany, Pa., in 1879, when the radical

revolutionists, who were in a majority, expelled the moderate faction

from the convention. The radical wing has grown rapidly in numbers and

power, and its influence has made itself felt repeatedly on lamentable

occasions, the last of which was the assassination of William McKinley,

President of the United States, during the Pan-American Exposition at

Buffalo, on September 6, 1901.

The great American cities, from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific, are

hot-beds of extreme political radicalism; Italian Carbonarism and

Russian Nihilism are represented in those cities by some of their most

daring representatives, whose official programme is destruction of

authority by the assassination of its most exalted heads, and subversion

of law. By placing William McKinley in line with the monarchs who were

the special targets of their inflammatory harangues and writings, danger

and death were attracted to his person with magnetic power: and what in

the intention of party opponents was but a forcible means of attacking

Mr. McKinley’s and his party’s colonial policy (to disappear again with

his election) may have lingered in the heated imaginations of these

avowed regicides, and may have intensified their feelings against him,

as the most exalted representative of law and order (with alleged

imperial designs) in this country. Several months before the

assassination took place it was reported that detectives had ferreted

out at Paterson, N. J., which is known as a gathering-place of Italian

anarchists and assassins, a conspiracy which had for its object the

assassination of all European monarchs and of President McKinley. This

report, when published in the newspapers, was received with laughter and

contempt by the reading public. The mere idea appeared too absurd to

deserve even a moment’s attention, and the result was that to the recent

assassinations of the Empress of Austria and King Humbert of Italy was

added the tragedy of Buffalo.

Only a few months after Mr. McKinley was inaugurated for his second term

of office, the Pan-American Exposition was held at Buffalo. Mr. McKinley

had, from the very inception of the great undertaking which was to shed

new lustre upon his administration, given to it great attention and

cordial encouragement. For the first time, such an exposition was to

exhibit all the products, natural and artificial, of the two Americas in

one common presentation, challenging the admiration or the criticism of

the world on the intellectual and industrial standing which this display

manifested. The result was grand, and in many respects surpassed

expectation. It emphasized the impression already created by the Chicago

World’s Fair of 1893, that America would within a short time become a

dangerous rival for Europe in many departments of industry, not only at

home, but even in foreign countries which up to that time had almost

held a monopoly for supplying certain articles of manufacture. The

departments in which articles of steel and iron manufacture, electrical

machines, etc., were exhibited showed such superiority over what old

Europe could show that even the most prejudiced visitors from abroad had

to concede it.

It had been expected that President McKinley, by his presence on several

days in some official capacity, would heighten the interest and

emphasize the importance of the Exposition. He had promised and planned

to do so. In the summer of 1901 he made a trip to the Pacific coast, and

was everywhere welcomed with boisterous enthusiasm. Mrs. McKinley

accompanied him, sharing his popularity and triumphs. Perhaps no

President since George Washington had to a higher degree possessed the

confidence and love of the whole people than Mr. McKinley did at the

time of his second inauguration. Even his political opponents conceded

his eminent worth, his integrity, his loyalty to duty, and his sincere

desire to promote the general welfare of the country. The short

addresses which he made during his trip to California found an

enthusiastic echo in the hearts of his fellow-citizens, East and West;

the ovations he received and which he accepted with becoming modesty and

tact, were heartily endorsed by the nation as symptomatic of the

universal feeling of harmony and of good-will toward the administration.

The ante-election charges of imperialism were laughed at, and both

parties seemed to be willing to make the best of the results of the war.

Moreover the great urbanity of manners, and the personal amiability

which distinguished Mr. McKinley were the strongest refutations of these

ridiculous imperialistic charges and of Mr. McKinley’s ambition to be

clothed with royal honors. He showed equal courtesy to rich and poor,

and his grasp of the laborer’s hand was just as cordial as of the rich

merchant’s.

The Presidential party had reached San Francisco, and its reception

there was fully as enthusiastic as it had been in the cities along the

route to the Pacific. It had been the President’s intention to stop at

Buffalo on his return from his trip to California, to be the guest of

the managers of the Exposition for a few days, and to perform those

duties and ceremonies which were expected of him as head of the nation.

Unfortunately this programme could not be carried out. Mrs. McKinley,

always in very delicate health, fell seriously ill at San Francisco, and

for several days her life was despaired of. She recovered; but as soon

as she was able to bear the discomforts of transportation, without

inviting the danger of a relapse, the President’s return to the East was

decided on, and all his previous appointments were cancelled. His

intention to visit Buffalo, during the continuance of the Exposition,

was, however, not abandoned, but simply postponed to a more opportune

time, after Mrs. McKinley should have recovered her usual strength.

Mr. McKinley came to Buffalo in the first week of September. The

Exposition had attracted many thousands of visitors who were anxious to

greet the President. On the fifth--which had been made President’s

Day--he delivered an address to a very large audience, in which he spoke

feelingly of the blessings bestowed by Providence on this country, and

in eloquent terms referred to the unexampled prosperity enjoyed by its

citizens. That secret and unaccountable influence which frequently

inspires men on the verge of the grave and endows them with almost

prophetic foresight seemed to have taken possession of Mr. McKinley on

this occasion. The speech was, perhaps, the best he had ever made. It

was the speech of a statesman and patriot, full of wisdom and love of

country. He did not know, when he made it, that it would be his farewell

address to the American people; but if he had known it and written it

for that purpose, he could not have made it loftier in spirit, more

patriotic in sentiment, and more convincing in argument.

On the afternoon of the next day a grand reception had been arranged for

the President at the Temple of Music. An immense multitude had

assembled, eager to shake hands with Mr. McKinley and to have the honor

of exchanging a few words with him. He was in the very best of spirits

and performed the ceremony of handshaking with that amiable and cordial

expression on his features which won him so many hearts. It had been

arranged that only one person at a time should pass by him, and that

after a rapid salutation his place should be taken by the next comer.

Hundreds had already exchanged greetings with the President, when a

young man with smooth face and dark hair stepped up to him. Mr. McKinley

noticed that the right hand of the young man was bandaged, as though it

had been wounded, and he therefore made a move to grasp his left hand;

but at that moment the young man raised his right hand, and in quick

succession fired two shots at the President, which both wounded

him,--the one aimed at his chest, lightly, because the bullet deflected

from the breastbone; the other, which had penetrated the abdomen, very

seriously. The assassin had carried a revolver in his right hand and

had covered it with a handkerchief in order to avoid detection. Mr.

McKinley did not realize immediately that he was wounded, although from

the effects of the shot he staggered and fell into the arms of a

detective who was standing near him.

“Am I shot?” asked the President. The officer opened the President’s

vest, and seeing the blood, answered: “Yes, I am afraid you are, Mr.

President.”

The assassin was immediately thrown to the ground. Twenty men were upon

him, and it was with some difficulty that he was rescued from their

grasp. At first he gave a fictitious name, and, when asked for his

motive, replied: “I am an Anarchist, and have done my duty.” His

statements shortly after his arrest seemed to implicate a number of more

or less prominent Anarchists in the crime and to make it appear as the

result of a widespread conspiracy. In consequence a number of the

recognized leaders of the party--especially Emma Goldmann, whom the

assailant named as the person whose teachings had inspired him with the

idea of committing the crime--were arrested and held for a preliminary

examination; but nothing could be proven against them, and they were

discharged.

After a few days the assailant made a full confession. His name was Leon

Czolgosz; he was a Pole by birth, and his family lived at Detroit. He

was a believer in Anarchism and had murdered the President because he

considered him the chief representative of that authority which, in his

opinion, was hurtful to the development of a society founded on the

equal rights of all its members. He had had no accomplices: he had not

consulted with anybody concerning the plan, time, or execution of the

crime, but he had resolved upon and executed it on his own

responsibility. While his confession fully exonerated both the Anarchist

party at large and all its members individually, it nevertheless showed

what terrible consequences may arise from the propagandism of a party

which has declared war on the existing organization of society, when its

doctrines inflame the mind of a fanatic or of an unthinking proselyte.

Public opinion in the United States was stirred to its very depths, all

parties vying with one another in showing not only their abhorrence of

the crime, but also their love and admiration for the illustrious

victim.

Unfortunately the hopes of the American people that Mr. McKinley would

survive the foul and senseless attempt on his life were disappointed.

For about a week his condition seemed to improve, and his strong

vitality seemed to rise superior to the weakening effects of a dangerous

surgical operation which failed to produce the second bullet, deeply

seated as it was in the spine. At first he rallied from the severe

shock, and his physicians were hopeful of saving his life, but in the

afternoon of September 12, a sudden change for the worse occurred which,

it was soon noticed, indicated the approach of dissolution. He remained

conscious till about seven o’clock in the evening of September 13, and

faced death in the same spirit of calmness and submission to the will of

God which had characterized his whole career. “Good-bye, all; good-bye.

It is God’s way. His will be done!” were his last conscious words to the

members of his cabinet and other friends who, overcome with emotion,

were at his bedside. The end came shortly after two o’clock in the

morning, on September 14, apparently without pain.

President McKinley’s death made a profound impression on the American

people. The rage of the people of Buffalo against the assassin was

boundless, and but for the efficient measures for protecting him at the

station-house in which he was imprisoned, he very likely would have

fallen a victim to the fury of the thousands who surrounded it. The

entire police force and several companies of soldiers were kept under

arms to be ready for any emergency.

The body of the dead President was first taken to Washington, and thence

to its final resting-place at Canton, Ohio. The obsequies were of

imposing grandeur and magnificence; but even more impressive than these,

and more honorable to his memory, was the sorrow of a whole nation in

tears over his untimely and cruel death.

President McKinley’s death is typical of the modern attempts on the

lives of sovereigns and prominent men. These attempts have lost much of

the personal character which in former times made them so interesting.

They are much more the results of a wholesale conspiracy against the

organization of society than against great individuals. Unfortunately

political assassinations have not become of rarer occurrence during the

last fifty years, as might have been hoped from the progress of

education and civilization. On the contrary, they have multiplied with

the spread and development of Anarchism. The Anarchist makes no

distinction between the bad ruler and the good ruler. The fact that the

ruler occupies an exalted station above his fellow-men makes him an

object of hatred for the Anarchist, and justifies his removal from an

elevation which is a danger to all. At the present time men very high in

authority, whether in a monarchy or in a republic, are always exposed

to the daggers or pistols or--what is much worse--to the dynamite or

other explosives of assassins.

The field of operation of these murderers--who are generally the deluded

agents of a central organization of Anarchists, and who have frequently

no personal grievance against their victims--extends not only all over

Europe, from Russia to Spain, but also to the western hemisphere.

While these murders fall with the same crushing effect upon the nations

immediately stricken in the persons of their rulers or intellectual

leaders, the interest in the causes leading to them is essentially

diminished since they are all inspired by the same general

motive,--destruction of authority,--and since the hand armed with the

fatal weapon strikes with blind fanaticism, sparing neither age nor sex

nor merit; in fact, quite often slaying those who deserve to live, and

sparing those whose death might be a benefit to their country and the

world. In this way we have seen the Czar Alexander the Second of Russia,

the emancipator of the Russian serfs; General Prim, who, if he had lived

longer, might have secured a constitutional government for Spain and her

political regeneration; the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, a faultless

and much betrayed wife as well as a bereaved mother; King Humbert, whose

best endeavors were made in behalf of a reunited Italy; President Sadi

Carnot, one of the purest and most patriotic statesmen the French

Republic has had; and last, though not least, our genial and

noble-hearted President, William McKinley,--all falling victims to the

senseless vindictiveness of men who do not persecute wrong and

oppression, but power and authority in whatever form they may present

themselves. We have selected the assassination of President McKinley as

representative of this class of political murders, because he was

dearest to the American heart, and also because, in our opinion, he was

the most illustrious of the many victims of anarchistic vengeance.

CHAPTER XXV

ALEXANDER I AND DRAGA

[Illustration: ALEXANDER I. OF SERVIA]

CHAPTER XXV

ASSASSINATION OF ALEXANDER I AND DRAGA, KING AND QUEEN OF SERVIA

(June 11, 1903)

The Balkan countries--Servia, Bulgaria, Roumania, Bosnia, and

Herzegovina--are generally considered the political centre from which

will spread, sooner or later, the conflagration of a gigantic war, which

will eventually place Russia in possession of Constantinople and

European Turkey. Some of these Balkan countries are nominally

independent, others are still under the suzerainty of the Sultan, who

holds on to them with the energy of despair. He watches every change in

the political situation with the carefulness of a physician who knows

that his patient is doomed, but who hopes that he may for a while

prolong his life. The half Oriental, half European character of the

populations of these Balkan states, their unquenchable thirst for

national independence, their defiance and hatred of their oppressors,

their contempt for the impotent Turkish administration, and their hope

of improving their condition by some political change,--are singularly

favorable to insurrections and revolutions. Russia is nursing this

revolutionary spirit with great skill and prudence, trusting to the

proper moment for harvesting the fruit of the seed which she has been

sowing for upwards of a century. Ever since the days of Catherine the

Second Russia has stood, so to speak, like a sentinel on the lookout for

the favorable moment to pounce down on Turkey, to plant the White Eagle

on the peaks of Macedonia and Roumelia, and to take possession of the

Dardanelles as a Russian ship-canal between the Black Sea and the

Mediterranean. Every commotion and revolution in any of the Balkan

states helps her in her far-seeing ambition, especially now since France

will stand by her as an ally. It is in this sense and for this reason

that the terrible tragedy which occurred at Belgrade, Servia, on the

eleventh of June, 1903, may claim a place in this gallery of historical

assassinations. From it sooner or later events of the first magnitude

may develop, and while at present comparative quiet has been restored at

the Servian capital, the change of dynasty may lead to the most serious

international complications.

The reign of Alexander the First of Servia was ushered into existence by

means of a _coup d’état_ at midnight on the sixth of March, 1889; it

terminated after midnight on the eleventh day of June, 1903, by

assassination.

The manner in which King Milan forfeited his throne, and again the

manner in which King Alexander lost both his throne and his life, as

well as the many tragedies and comedies which occurred in the royal

family of Servia between these two events,--all these details seem to be

rather detached chapters of a highly sensational novel than the sober

and truthful records of recent history.

At the age of twenty-one, on the seventeenth of October, 1875, King

Milan of Servia married Princess Natalia Keschko, the daughter of a

colonel in the Russian army; Natalia’s mother, however, was the daughter

of a Roumanian prince. Natalia was seventeen years old at the time, and

of marvellous beauty. She was one of the most admirable beauties of the

Russian capital, and King Milan, who fell desperately in love with her

at first sight, found but little encouragement from her, in spite of his

exalted rank, because the young lady herself was in love with a Russian

officer and was loved in return. But Colonel Keschko, who was ambitious

and prized very highly the honor of a family alliance with a reigning

King, by his paternal veto put an end to his daughter’s sentimental

love-affair and compelled her to accept King Milan’s hand.

It is but just to say that Princess Natalia proved herself in every

respect worthy of the honor conferred upon her. As Queen of Servia she

was not only the most beautiful woman of the kingdom, but she was a

model wife, and opened her heart and mind to all the patriotic

aspirations of the Servian people. When shortly afterwards a war broke

out between Servia and Turkey, she personally appealed to the Czar for

assistance, went to the hospitals to nurse the wounded, cared for the

widows and orphans, and became not only a popular favorite, but

deservedly won the esteem of the Servian nation.

It was a day of public rejoicing, when on August 14, 1876, she bore the

King a son, who was named Alexander after his godfather, Alexander the

Second of Russia. Another son, born two years later, died a few days

after his birth. Soon after the birth of his son Alexander, King Milan

commenced neglecting his wife and bestowed his favor on other women of

the court. The Queen felt the King’s neglect very keenly, and became

often an indignant witness to his liaisons, which he did not think it

worth while to conceal from her. The anger and contempt she felt for the

indelicate voluptuary gave her strength to overcome the love which had

gradually grown up in her heart for the father of her son, and to this

son she transferred all the tenderness her heart was capable of. The

Servian people soon saw and learned what was going on at court, and

while they condemned and despised the King, they praised and idolized

the Queen.

Under such lamentable conditions young Alexander grew up to adolescence.

He was greatly attached to his mother, and applied to her as his adviser

and friend in all questions, while he could hardly conceal his profound

aversion for his father. The King noticed this growing hostility in his

son and heir, and blamed the Queen for having incited it. He saw in it a

deep-laid plot on her part to secure a controlling position which would

enable her, at any given opportunity, to place her son on the throne and

to assume the reins of government under his name. The breach thus

created between the father and the mother, and every day widened by the

excesses and orgies of the King, reached its climax when the question

arose who should be appointed instructors to prepare the prince for his

future duties as the head of the Servian nation. Milan wanted Austrian

instructors for his son, because he had been leaning on Austrian

influence; the Queen, in sympathy with the national demands as well as

prompted by her own impulses, insisted on Russian preceptors, to

initiate him into the maze of European politics and to open his mind to

the aspirations of Servian genius. It is said that one day when the

discussion had grown very warm between husband and wife, and when he

accused the Queen of purposely estranging his son’s heart from him, she

reproached him with the indignities he had heaped upon her, with his

many acts of infidelity, and with his low and vulgar excesses, which,

she said, imperilled the dynasty. The King was dumfounded by this

torrent of invectives, which he could neither stop nor contradict, but

which left in his heart a wound which his pride would not permit to heal

up. It seems certain that from that day his resolution was taken to

obtain a divorce from his wife for a double purpose: first, that he

might not be hindered by her from following his low inclinations;

second, that he might withdraw his son from the Queen’s influence and

surround him with his own creatures. The question was, how could he

obtain this divorce from a wife whose conduct was exemplary, and who was

almost worshipped by the whole people for her private and public

virtues? It was clear to him that to succeed in his design he had to

ruin her character, and on this conviction he built a plot of diabolical

malice. Under a plausible pretext he arranged a private meeting in the

Queen’s apartments between her and the Metropolitan of Servia. This

bishop was known to have an almost worshipful admiration for the Queen;

upon him, therefore, it was supposed, the suspicion of illicit relations

with her could be fastened easily. No sooner had the Metropolitan

entered the Queen’s apartments than the King, accompanied by some of his

intimates, appeared on the scene and “surprised the guilty couple.” The

plot failed miserably; the King’s hand appeared too visibly in the

arrangement and execution to leave any doubt in the public mind as to

the Queen’s innocence. His evident intention to brand an innocent and

much wronged wife as an adulteress lowered Milan even more in the

estimation of the people, and they commenced talking openly of the

necessity for his abdication.

The Queen thereafter refused to live with the King, and this refusal

gave him the desired pretext to obtain a divorce. They separated in

1888. Alexander was then twelve years old. The Queen went to Wiesbaden,

and took her boy with her; but on the application of King Milan to the

German authorities, the boy was taken away from her and sent to

Belgrade. The King’s scandalous conduct had now exhausted the patience

of the Servian people. They insisted on his dethronement, either by

voluntary abdication or by forced removal. A delegation of notables

placed before him the alternative of either abdicating in favor of his

son, or of sharing the fate of his uncle, Michael Obrenovitch, who just

twenty years before was assassinated in a park near Belgrade. Milan did

not hesitate long. He declared his willingness to abdicate, but he

demanded two million dollars as the price of this abdication, and the

Servian people, only too glad to get rid of him at any price, paid the

sum demanded.

On the sixth of March, 1889, Alexander, who was then thirteen years old,

ascended the throne of Servia. A regency of three prominent men--General

Bolimarcovitch, M. Ristitch, and General Protitch--was appointed to

conduct the public affairs of the kingdom. Everything promised a

prosperous reign. There was absolute order and tranquillity in the

country; the people seemed to be satisfied. The Queen returned to

Servia, and the government designated one of the royal palaces of

Belgrade for her residence. She was then at the height of her

popularity, and the young King shared in that popularity because it was

generally supposed that he had great respect and love for his mother.

These happy and peaceful conditions, however, soon underwent a change.

Ex-King Milan, who could not forget the days of luxury he had enjoyed at

Belgrade, was busy stirring up intrigues and conspiracies which might

lead to his restoration; and on the other hand, Queen Natalia, to

counteract his manœuvres, built up a party of her own, and took an

active interest in politics. This became embarrassing to the government,

since it continued to inflame the minds of the people. Through these

conflicting parties the country was actually brought to the verge of

civil war, which very likely would have broken out had not the

government taken energetic measures to put a stop to the strife. The

regents first applied to Milan, and bought him off. They restored to him

the property which had been confiscated when he went into exile, and

paid him one million dollars besides. Milan on his part solemnly

promised never to set foot on Servian soil again, and even renounced his

right of citizenship. The contract between the ex-King and the council

of regency was made on April 14, 1891. Thereupon the regents addressed a

request to the Queen, asking her, in the interest of peace and order, to

leave the country. She refused to comply with the request, and a week

afterwards an attempt was made to remove her by force. She was arrested

in her palace, and rapidly driven in a coach to the quay, where a

steamer was waiting to convey her across the frontier. But a number of

young students delivered her from the hands of the officers who had

charge of her person, conducted her back in triumph to her palace, and

constituted themselves her guard of honor. Quite a bloody conflict

occurred between the students and the police, in the course of which a

number of persons were killed, and many more wounded. However, a second

attempt made by the police authorities a day or two later was more

successful. She was conveyed by railroad to Hungary. The young King

showed that he was a true Obrenovitch by the fact that he never

interfered or even uttered a kind word in behalf of his mother. He

showed the same ingratitude to the three regents in 1893 when he

dismissed them unceremoniously like body-servants for whom he had no

further use. The first _coup d’état_ which Alexander made occurred on

April 14, 1893. It would seem that the radicals had in some way secured

an influence over his mind, for it was to their advantage that the _coup

d’état_ principally turned out. But Alexander showed considerable

self-assurance on that occasion.

On the evening of the day mentioned Alexander had invited the three

regents and the members of the cabinet to take supper with him.

Altogether eight persons sat down at the supper-table. The very best of

humor prevailed among the guests. After the third course had been served

the King rose from his seat, and addressed his guests as follows:

“Gentlemen, for the last four years you have exercised royal authority

in my name, and I sincerely thank you for what you have done. I feel

now, however, that I am able to exercise that power myself, and will do

so from this moment. I therefore request you to hand me your

resignations forthwith.”

Mr. Ristitch was the first to recover his presence of mind. He told the

King that it would be impossible to comply with his request, because by

doing so they would violate the constitution. The King thereupon left

the table without saying another word; but soon afterwards an officer

appeared renewing the King’s demand for the resignation of the members

of the Council of Regency and of the Cabinet.

During that very night the young King, who was then only seventeen years

old, went to the different barracks and armories where the troops were

under arms, proclaimed his accession to the throne, received the

enthusiastic homage of the regiments, and returned to the palace. The

_coup d’état_ was a complete success. Alexander the First was King, not

only in name, but also in fact. He dismissed the old cabinet, and

appointed a new one, composed exclusively of moderate radicals.

A few years afterwards Alexander visited the different courts of Europe,

in the hope, it was commonly reported at the time, of finding a young

princess willing to accept his hand; but in this hope he was either

disappointed, or the report of his intentions was unfounded. At all

events he returned to Belgrade without a bride. It was soon after this

that the eyes of the young King were for the first time directed toward

the woman whose striking beauty and sensual charms inflamed him with a

passion to which he blindly yielded. He elevated her to the throne, and

for this act he paid the penalty with his life. For it is absolutely

certain that the King’s marriage with Draga Maschin, and his blind

subordination to her domineering spirit in private and public affairs,

had much more to do with his tragic downfall than all his political

mistakes.

_Draga_ Lunyewitza, better known as Draga Maschin, was the widow of a

Servian nobleman who had occupied a prominent position at the court of

King Milan. Even more prominent than her husband had been Madame Draga,

not only on account of her beauty, which was of a pronounced sensual

type, but also on account of her brilliant conversational powers. Her

most conspicuous feature was her wonderful eyes, large, lustrous, and

beaming with an intensity of feeling and intelligence so penetrating

that it was said that no man whose conquest she had resolved upon would

be able to resist them if properly brought under their influence. That

Madame Draga Maschin’s eyes had often proved victorious was well known

from the long list of her favored lovers,--a list which included

statesmen, high military officers, bankers, and noblemen, and lastly,

King Milan himself. In the eyes of the people of Belgrade Madame Draga

Maschin was not only a coquette, but a courtesan. By means of her

brilliant mental powers, her wit, her interesting conversation, her

suavity of manners, and her diplomatic skill, she still maintained her

position in society, although shunned by the most exclusive circles.

It was principally on account of those brilliant qualities of mind, and

on account of Madame Draga’s intimate acquaintance with a number of the

leading politicians at Belgrade that the ex-Queen made her one of her

attendants in her exile.

It was in this capacity that King Alexander met Madame Draga Maschin at

Biarritz in the Pyrenees,

[Illustration: QUEEN DRAGA]

where his mother spent the summer of 1900. The experienced coquette

tried the power of her eyes on the young man, who had inherited the

sensual temperament of his father. Alexander was by no means a novice in

love-affairs, but he had never come in contact with so consummate a

mistress of the arts of seduction as Draga Maschin. When he left

Biarritz he was passionately in love with her, and those who had

observed her game predicted that something serious would come of it. His

mother was either too deeply engaged in politics to pay much attention

to the flirtation, or she secretly favored it in the hope of securing a

new and reliable ally.

Some time afterwards Draga Maschin returned to Belgrade, and the game of

love-making was immediately renewed. Their intimacy became a matter of

public notoriety. It also reached the ears of ex-King Milan, who was

overjoyed at hearing it; he hoped that his former “good friend” Draga

would use her influence for his benefit. But Draga Maschin worked

neither for the Queen, nor for the King; she worked for herself only,

and very successfully too.

Almost maddened by passion the King one day called a cabinet meeting and

informed his ministers that he had made up his mind to make Draga

Maschin his wife, and that a proclamation to that effect would appear in

the official newspaper of the kingdom. The members of the cabinet were

struck with amazement, and implored him to desist from his project,

which they said would be fatal to the Obrenovitch dynasty. They employed

every argument they could think of to change the King’s resolution; but

in vain. With his usual stubbornness, he declared: “I am the King, and

can wed whomsoever I please.” As a last protest they all tendered their

resignations. The King coolly accepted them, and the royal proclamation

was published.

When on a July morning of 1900 the people of Belgrade were surprised by

the announcement that the widow Draga Maschin was to be Queen of Servia,

and when she was held up to their wives and daughters as a model of all

womanly virtues, their disappointment and their protests against this

“insane” act of the King were so general and so loud that serious

apprehensions of an insurrection were entertained. These fears were not

realized; but the people of Belgrade remained in a state of sullen

discontent. They knew that a speedy and terrible punishment would

overtake the guilty youth. It was reported that on reading his son’s

proclamation, ex-King Milan, who was then a patient at Carlsbad in

Bohemia, left his sick-room and rushed to the depot to take the train

for Belgrade. He declared that this outrage should never be committed,

and that if the King should persist in accomplishing it, he would kill

him with his own hands. But Milan’s wrath had been telegraphed to

Belgrade, and he was not permitted to enter Servian territory.

No less great was the shame of Queen Natalia. She implored her son to

desist from his pernicious intention, laying stress on the disparity of

the ages,--he being twenty-four and Draga thirty-six, and on the

scandalous reputation of the woman whose beauty had for the moment

infatuated him.

But neither the father’s threats nor the mother’s tears made the least

impression on Alexander, who once more realized the often-quoted Latin

saying:

“Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat.”

The Skuptshina (the Servian Parliament) was amazed at the proclamation,

and its president as well as the Metropolitan of Servia implored the

King on their knees to revoke it. He had only deaf ears for them.

On the fifth of August, 1900, the wedding was solemnized, and Draga

Maschin took her place on the throne of Servia.

If the King had hoped that the irritation of the public would die out

after the wedding, he must have been a badly disappointed man; for the

scandals about Draga continued. Not only was her past life with its many

stains and blemishes laid bare unsparingly, but her life as queen

consort was also unmercifully exposed. Every word and every act of her

married life were carefully weighed in the scales of public opinion, and

hardly ever was a word of praise accorded to her, while vituperation,

insinuations, and direct accusations abounded. The Belgrade

correspondents of foreign newspapers knew that anything they might have

to report of King Alexander, Queen Draga, or any member of her family

would be read with interest. If they could not pick up anything of

interest they invented some unfavorable story. Unquestionably many of

the stories circulated about Draga, and also of Alexander are utterly

untrue. It should also be remembered that the elevation of Draga to a

station which none of her rivals could hope to attain made her an object

of envy, and that they resented this elevation by telling about her all

the bad things they knew. But after making all these allowances, we

still find enough to justify us in saying that the two were an

exceedingly ill-matched couple,--he a voluptuous, ungrateful,

good-for-nothing simpleton, and she a designing, ambitious, unscrupulous

woman of powerful mind.

The scandal which has been most widely circulated referred to the

fictitious pregnancy of the Queen. Unquestionably the young King was

anxious to have a son. Alexander was the last Obrenovitch, and it was

natural for him to desire to have a son so that his dynasty might

continue to rule over Servia. It was equally natural for Draga to desire

to become the mother of an heir, because as such she would have had an

additional claim on the affection of her husband,--a claim which might

have outlasted her physical beauty. This desire was certainly not

unreasonable in a wife twelve years older than her husband. This

pregnancy was officially announced by the court physician, but it was

afterwards stated that the announcement had been premature. These are

the facts in the case; and on these slim facts a superstructure of

rumors and fables has been erected. Very likely the great anxiety of the

couple to have an heir was the real cause of the announcement. The

rumors so widely circulated in the kingdom did certainly not contribute

to improve the reputation of the Queen, or to give the people the

impression of a happy domestic life.

The generally recognized mental superiority of Queen Draga over her

husband had still another unfavorable consequence,--one of a political

character. While Alexander was unmarried, his political mistakes, his

autocratic interference with the work of the Skuptschina, his violation

of the constitution, were charged to himself; but after his marriage all

the political sins of the government were ascribed to Draga’s

instigation.

The political conditions of the Balkan countries are of the most

unsettled kind. They resemble very much the political conditions in the

South American and Central American states, and while nominally they are

regulated by constitutions and by a parliamentary system of government,

they are really controlled by the principle that “might constitutes

right.” It has been so in Servia from the day of the establishment of

its national independence: continuous party strife, revolutions,

assassinations--frequently winked at, if not directly instigated and

supported, by foreign powers. In 1903 the Radicals had been several

years in full control of the government. They had filled all lucrative

offices with their party friends, many of whom belonged to the rural

population, and had so apportioned the public taxes as to place the

principal burden upon the city populations, where the Liberals had their

voting strength. The misgovernment under the Radicals was so great that

it became a national scandal. The public debt had been nearly doubled,

the annual deficit was enormous, the most flagrant corruption and

extravagance existed in all branches of the public service; but the

Servian Congress refused to correct these abuses, and it remained for

the King to interfere personally. He did so by a new _coup d’état_ in

March, 1903; the old Constitution was abrogated, a new Constitution was

promulgated, and new general elections were ordered.

One of the most alarming features of the political situation in Servia

was the dissatisfaction of the army, and especially of its officers.

This dissatisfaction was not, as has been asserted frequently, caused by

patriotic considerations or by disapproval of the King’s personal

conduct, but simply by the unpardonable neglect of the army on the part

of the government. While in the royal palace at Belgrade an

uninterrupted series of festivities, all arranged in the most sumptuous

and expensive style, kept the gay capital on the tiptoe of excitement,

the army was reduced nearly to a state of starvation, because neither

officers nor men had been paid for months, “for want of funds in the

public treasury.” Instead of being a firm support of the government, the

army therefore turned against it. It easily lent itself to propositions

for a change, especially if that change would come in with the payment

of their arrears of wages.

There was another cause of dissatisfaction, which evoked a direct and

strong protest against the Queen and her influence. Disappointed in her

hope of giving the King a son and heir, Draga devised another plan to

perpetuate her own power,--namely, to select an heir to the throne. Her

choice fell upon her own brother, Nicodemus Lunyevitch, a young

lieutenant in the Servian army, and she succeeded in winning the consent

of the King. It is even stated that Alexander intended to adopt this

brother-in-law, who was twenty-four years old, and formally proclaim him

his heir. No sooner had the plan been mentioned than a very loud, and

almost general, opposition to it manifested itself. The cabinet

ministers heard of it, and waited on the King in a body to enter their

protest. When their arrival at the palace was announced to him, the King

knew what they wanted, and kept them waiting for a long time. He finally

received them in the large assembly hall. He was dressed in full

uniform; the Queen was by his side and leaning upon his arm. He turned

to the prime minister and requested him to state the object of the

visit, whereupon the prime minister asked the Queen in a very courteous

manner to withdraw for a short time from the conference. She haughtily

refused, and the King coolly informed the ministers that he had no

secrets either private or public which he wished to conceal from his

wife.