University of Virginia Library

27. CHAPTER XXVII
AS ATTACHé AND BEARER OF DESPATCHES IN WAR-TIME—1855

THE spring of 1855 was made interesting by the ar-rival of the blockading fleet before the mouth of the Neva, and shortly afterward I went down to look at it. It was a most imposing sight: long lines of mighty three-deckers of the old pattern, British and French,—one hundred in all,—stretched across the Gulf of Finland in front of the fortresses of Cronstadt. Behind the fortresses lay the Russian fleet, helpless and abject; and yet, as events showed during our own Civil War half a dozen years later, a very slight degree of inventive ability would have enabled the Russians to annihilate the hostile fleet, and to gain the most prodigious naval victory of modern times. Had they simply taken one or two of their own great ships to the Baird iron-works hard by, and plated them with railway iron, of which there was plenty, they could have paralleled the destruction of our old wooden frigates at Norfolk by the Merrimac, but on a vastly greater scale. Yet this simple expedient occurred to no one; and the allied fleet, under Sir Richard Dundas, bade defiance to the Russian power during the whole summer.

The Russians looked more philosophically upon the blockade than upon their reverses in the Crimea, but they acted much like the small boy who takes revenge on the big boy by making faces at him. Some of their caricatures on their enemies were very clever. Fortunately for such artistic efforts, the British had given them a fine

opportunity during the previous year, when Sir Charles Napier, the commander of the Baltic fleet, having made a boastful speech at a public dinner in London, and invited his hearers to dine with him at St. Petersburg, had returned to England, after a summer before Cronstadt, without even a glimpse of the Russian capital.

I am the possessor of a very large collection of historical caricatures of all nations, and among them all there is hardly one more spirited and comical than that which represents Sir Charles at the masthead of one of his frigates, seeking, through a spy-glass, to get a sight at the domes and spires of St. Petersburg: not even the best efforts of Gillray or "H. B.,'' or Gavarni or Daumier, or the brightest things in "Punch'' or "Kladderadatsch'' surpass it.

Some other Russian efforts at keeping up public spirit were less legitimate. Popular pictures of a rude sort were circulated in vast numbers among the peasants, representing British and French soldiers dese-crating churches, plundering monasteries, and murdering priests.

Near the close of my stay I made a visit, in company with Mr. Erving, first secretary of the legation, to Moscow,—the journey, which now requires but twelve hours, then consuming twenty-four; and a trying journey it was, since there was no provision for sleeping.

The old Russian capital, and, above all, the Kremlin, interested me greatly; but, of all the vast collections in the Kremlin, two things especially arrested my attention. The first was a statue,—the only statue in all those vast halls,—and there seemed a wondrous poetic justice in the fact that it represented the first Napoleon. The other thing was an evidence of the feeling of the Emperor Nicholas toward Poland. In one of the large rooms was a full-length portrait of Nicholas's elder brother and immediate predecessor, Alexander I; flung on the floor at his feet was the constitution of Poland, which he had given, and which Nicholas, after fearful bloodshed, had

taken away; and lying near was the Polish scepter broken in the middle.

A visit to the Sparrow Hills, from which Napoleon first saw Moscow and the Kremlin, was also interesting; but the city itself, though picturesque, disappointed me. Everywhere were filth, squalor, beggary, and fetishism. Evidences of official stupidity were many. In one of the Kremlin towers a catastrophe had occurred on the occasion of the Emperor's funeral, a day or two before our arrival: some thirty men had been ringing one of the enormous bells, when it broke loose from its rotten fastenings and crashed down into the midst of the ringers, killing several. Sad reminders of this slaughter were shown us; it was clearly the result of gross neglect.

Another revelation of Russian officialism was there vouchsafed us. Wishing to send a very simple message to our minister at St. Petersburg, we went to the telegraph office and handed it to the clerk in charge. Putting on an air of great importance, he began a long inquisitorial process, insisting on knowing our full names, whence we had come, where we were going, how long we were staying, why we were sending the message, etc., etc.; and when he had evidently asked all the questions he could think of, he gravely informed us that our message could not be sent until the head of the office had given his approval. On our asking where the head of the office was, he pointed out a stout gentleman in military uniform seated near the stove in the further corner of the room, reading a newspaper; and, on our requesting him to notify this superior being, he answered that he could not thus interrupt him; that we could see that he was busy. At this Erving lost his temper, caught up the paper, tore it in pieces, threw them into the face of the underling with a loud exclamation more vigorous than pious, and we marched out defiantly. Looking back when driving off in our droshky, we saw that he had aroused the entire establishment: at the door stood the whole personnel of the office,—the military commander at the head,—all gazing

at us in a sort of stupefaction. We expected to hear from them afterward, but on reflection they evidently thought it best not to stir the matter.

In reviewing this first of my sojourns in Russia, my thoughts naturally dwell upon the two sovereigns Nicholas I and Alexander II. The first of these was a great man scared out of greatness by the ever recurring specter of the French Revolution. There had been much to make him a stern reactionary. He could not but remember that two Czars—his father and grandfather—had both been murdered in obedience to family necessities. At his proclamation as emperor he had been welcomed by a revolt which had forced him

a revolt which had deluged the great parade-ground of St. Petersburg with the blood of his best soldiers, which had sent many coffles of the nobility to Siberia, and which had obliged him to see the bodies of several men who might have made his reign illustrious dangling from the fortress walls opposite the Winter Palace. He had been obliged to grapple with a fearful insurrection in Poland, caused partly by the brutality of his satraps, but mainly by religious hatreds; to suppress it with enormous carnage; and to substitute, for the moderate constitutional liberty which his brother had granted, a cruel despotism. He had thus become the fanatical apostle of reaction throughout Europe, and as such was everywhere the implacable enemy of any evolution of constitutional liberty. The despots of Europe adored him. As symbols of his ideals, he had given to the King of Prussia and to the Neapolitan Bourbon copies of two of the statues which adorned his Nevsky bridge—statues representing restive horses restrained by strong men; and the Berlin populace, with an unerring instinct, had given to one of these the name "Progress checked,'' and to the other the name "Retrogression encouraged.'' To this day one sees everywhere in the palaces of Continental rulers, whether great or petty, his columns of Siberian porphyry, jasper bowls, or malachite vases—signs of his approval of reaction.

But, in justice to him, it should be said that there was one crime he did not commit—a crime, indeed, which he did not dare commit: he did not violate his oath to maintain the liberties of Finland. That was reserved for the second Nicholas, now on the Russian throne.

Whether at the great assemblages of the Winter Palace, or at the reviews, or simply driving in his sledge or walking in the street, he overawed all men by his presence. Whenever I saw him, and never more cogently than during that last drive of his just before his death, there was forced to my lips the thought: "You are the most majestic being ever created.'' Colossal in stature; with a face such as one finds on a Greek coin, but overcast with a shadow of Muscovite melancholy; with a bearing dignified, but with a manner not unkind, he bore himself like a god. And yet no man could be more simple or affable, whether in his palace or in the street. Those were the days when a Russian Czar could drive or walk alone in every part of every city in his empire. He frequently took exercise in walking along the Neva quay, and enjoyed talking with any friends he met—especially with members of the diplomatic corps. The published letters of an American minister—Mr. Dallas—give accounts of many discussions thus held with him.

There seemed a most characteristic mingling of his better and worse qualities in the two promises which, according to tradition, he exacted on his death-bed from his son —namely, that he would free the serfs, and that he would never give a constitution to Poland.

The accession of this son, Alexander II, brought a change at once: we all felt it. While he had the big Romanoff frame and beauty and dignity, he had less of the majesty and none of the implacable sternness of his father. At the reception of the diplomatic corps on his accession he showed this abundantly; for, despite the strong declarations

in his speech, his tears betrayed him. Reforms began at once—halting, indeed, but all tending in the right direction. How they were developed, and how so largely brought to naught, the world knows by heart. Of all the ghastly miscalculations ever made, of all the crimes which have cost the earth most dear, his murder was the worst. The murders of William of Orange, of Lincoln, of Garfield, of Carnot, of Humbert I, did not stop the course of a beneficent evolution; but the murder of Alexander II threw Russia back into the hands of a reaction worse than any ever before known, which has now lasted nearly a generation, and which bids fair to continue for many more, unless the Russian reverses in the present war force on a better order of things. For me, looking back upon those days, it is hard to imagine even the craziest of nihilists or anarchists wild enough to commit such a crime against so attractive a man fully embarked on so blessed a career. He, too, in the days of my stay, was wont to mingle freely with his people; he even went to their places of public amusement, and he was frequently to be seen walking among them on the quays and elsewhere. In my reminiscences of the Hague Conference, I give from the lips of Prince Munster an account of a conversation under such circumstances: the Czar walking on the quay or resting on a seat by the roadside, while planning to right a wrong done by a petty Russian official to a German student. Therein appears not only a deep sense of justice and humanity, but that melancholy, so truly Russian, which was deepest in him and in his uncle, the first Alexander. There dwell also in my memory certain photographs of him in his last days, shown me not long before his death, during my first official stay at Berlin. His face was beautiful as of old, but the melancholy had deepened, and the eyes made a fearful revela-tion; for they were the eyes of a man who for years had known himself to be hunted. As I looked at them there came back to me the remembrance of the great, beautiful frightened eyes of a deer, hunted down and finally at my mercy, in the midst of a lake in the Adirondacks—eyes which haunted me long afterward. And there comes back the scene at the funeral ceremony in his honor at Berlin, coincident with that at St. Petersburg—his uncle, the Emperor William I, and all about him, in tears, and a depth of real feeling shown such as no monarch of a coarser fiber could have inspired. When one reflects that he had given his countrymen, among a great mass of minor reforms, trial by jury; the emancipation of twenty millions of serfs, with provision for homesteads; and had at that moment—as his adviser, Loris Melikoff, confessed when dying—a constitution ready for his people, one feels inclined to curse those who take the methods of revolution rather than those of evolution.

My departure from Russia embraces one or two incidents which may throw some light upon the Russian civilization of that period. On account of the blockade, I was obliged to take the post from St. Petersburg to Warsaw, giving to the journey seven days and seven nights of steady travel; and, as the pressure for places on the post was very great, I was obliged to secure mine several weeks beforehand, and then thought myself especially lucky in obtaining a sort of sentry-box on the roof of the second coach usually occupied by the guard. This good luck was due to the fact that, there being on that day two coaches, one guard served for both; and the place on the second was thus left vacant for me.

Day and night, then, during that whole week, we rumbled on through the interminable forests of Poland, and the distressingly dirty hamlets and towns scattered along the road. My first night out was trying, for it was very cold; but, having secured from a dealer in the first town where we stopped in the morning a large sheet of felt, I wrapped my legs in it, and thenceforward was comfortable. My companions in the two post-coaches were very lively, being mainly French actors and actresses who had just finished their winter campaign in Russia; and, when we changed horses at the post-houses, the scenes

were of a sort which an American orator once characterized as "halcyon and vociferous.''

Bearing a despatch-bag to our legation at Paris, I carried the pass, not only of an attaché, but of a bearer of despatches, and on my departure our minister said to me:

"The Russian officials at the frontier have given much trouble to Americans of late; and I hope that if they trouble you, you will simply stop and inform me. You are traveling for pleasure and information, and a few days more or less will make little difference.'' On arriving at the frontier, I gave up my papers to the passport officials, and was then approached by the officers of the custom-house. One of these, a tall personage in showy uniform, was very solemn, and presently asked: "Are you carrying out any specie?'' I answered: "None to speak of; only about twenty or thirty German dollars.'' Said he: "That you must give up to me; the law of the empire does not permit you to take out coin.'' "No,'' I said; "you are mistaken. I have already had the money changed, and it is in German coin, not Russian.'' "That makes no difference,'' said he; "you must give it up or stay here.'' My answer was that I would not give it up, and on this he commanded his subordinates to take my baggage off the coach. My traveling companions now besought me to make a quiet compromise with him, to give him half the money, telling me that I might be detained there for weeks or months, or even be maltreated; but I steadily refused, and my baggage was removed. All were ready to start when the head of the police bureau came upon the scene to return our papers. His first proceeding was to call out my name in a most obsequious tone, and, bowing reverently, to tender me my passport. I glanced at the custom-house official, and saw that he turned pale. The honor done my little brief authority by the passport official revealed to him his mistake, and he immediately ordered his subordinates to replace my baggage on the coach; but this I instantly forbade. He then came up to me and insisted that a misunderstanding had occurred. "No,'' I

said; "there is no misunderstanding; you have only treated me as you have treated other Americans. The American minister has ordered me to wait here and inform him, and all that I have now to ask you is that you give me the name of a hotel.'' At this be begged me to listen to him, and presently was pleading most piteously; indeed, he would have readily knelt and kissed my feet to secure my forgiveness. He became utterly abject. All were waiting, the coach stood open, the eyes of the whole party were fastened upon us. My comrades besought me to let the rascal go; and at last, after a most earnest warning to him, I gave my gracious permission to have the baggage placed on the coach. He was certainly at that mo-ment one of the happiest men I have ever seen; and, as we drove off from the station, he lingered long, hat in hand, profuse with bows and good wishes.

One other occurrence during those seven days and nights of coaching may throw some light upon the feeling which has recently produced, in that same region, the Kishineff massacres.

One pleasant Saturday evening, at a Polish village, our coach passed into the little green inclosure in front of the post-house, and there stopped for a change of horses. While waiting, I noticed, from my sentry-box on the top of the coach, several well-dressed people—by the cut of their beards and hair, Jews—standing at some distance outside the inclosure, and looking at us. Presently two of them—clearly, by their bearing and dress, men of mark—entered the inclosure, came near the coach, and stood quietly and respectfully. In a few moments my attention was attracted by a movement on the other side of the coach: our coachman, a young serf, was skulking rapidly toward the stables, and presently emerged with his long horsewhip, skulked swiftly back again until he came suddenly on these two grave and reverend men, —each of them doubtless wealthy enough to have bought a dozen like him,—began lashing them, and finally drove them out of the inclosure like dogs, the assembled crowd jeering and hooting after them.

Few evenings linger more pleasantly in my memory than that on which I arrived in Breslau. I was once more outside of the Russian Empire; and, as I settled for the evening before a kindly fire upon a cheerful hearth, there rose under my windows, from a rollicking band of university students, the "Gaudeamus igitur.'' I seemed to have arrived in another world—a world which held home and friends. Then, as never before, I realized the feeling which the Marquis de Custine had revealed, to the amusement of Europe and the disgust of the Emperor Nicholas, nearly twenty years before. The brilliant marquis, on his way to St. Petersburg, had stopped at Stettin; and, on his leaving the inn to take ship for Cronstadt next day, the innkeeper said to him: "Well, you are going into a very bad country.'' "How so?'' said De Custine; "when did you travel there?'' "Never,'' answered the inn-keeper; "but I have kept this inn for many years. All the leading Russians, going and coming by sea, have stopped with me; and I have always noticed that those coming from Russia are very glad, and those returning very sad.''

Throughout the remainder of my journey across the Continent, considerable attention was shown me at various stopping-places, since travelers from within the Russian lines at that time were rare indeed; but there was nothing worthy of note until my arrival at Strasburg. There, in the railway station, I was presented by a young Austrian nobleman to an American lady who was going on to Paris accompanied by her son; and, as she was very agreeable, I was glad when we all found ourselves together in the same railway compartment.

Some time after leaving Strasburg she said to me: "I don't think you caught my name at the station.'' To this I frankly replied that I had not. She then repeated it; and I found her to be a distinguished leader in New York and Parisian society, the wife of an American widely known. As we rolled on toward Paris, I became vaguely aware that there was some trouble in our compartment; but, being occupied with a book, I paid little attention to

the matter. There were seven of us. Facing each other at one door were the American lady, whom I will call "Mrs. X.,'' and myself; at her left was her maid, then a vacant seat, and then at the other door a German lady, richly attired, evidently of high degree, and probably about fifty years of age. Facing this German lady sat an elegantly dressed young man of about thirty, also of aristocratic manners, and a German. Between this gentleman and myself sat the son of Mrs. X. and the Austrian gentleman who had presented me to her.

Presently Mrs. X. bent over toward me and asked, in an undertone, "What do you think is the relationship between those two people at the other door?'' I answered that quite likely they were brother and sister. "No,'' said she; "they are man and wife.'' I answered, "That can hardly be; there is a difference of at least twenty years in the young man's favor.'' "Depend upon it,'' she said, "they are man and wife; it is a mariage de convenance; she is dressed to look as young as possible.'' At this I expressed new doubts, and the discussion dropped.

Presently the young German gentleman said something to the lady opposite him which indicated that he had lived in Berlin; whereupon Mrs. X. asked him, diagonally across the car, if he had been at the Berlin University. At this he turned in some surprise and answered, civilly but coldly, "Yes, madam.'' Then he turned away to converse with the lady who accompanied him. Mrs. X., nothing daunted, persisted, and asked, "Have you been recently at the university?'' Before he could reply the lady opposite him turned to Mrs. X. and said most haughtily, "Mon Dieu, madam, you must see that the gentleman does not desire any conversation with you. "At this Mrs. X. became very humble, and rejoined most penitently, "Madam, I beg your pardon; if I had known that the gentleman's mother did not wish him to talk with a stranger, I would not have spoken to him.'' At this the German lady started as if stung, turned very red, and replied, "Pardon, madam, I am not the mother of the

gentleman.'' At this the humble manner of Mrs. X. was flung off in an instant, and turning fiercely upon the German lady, she said, "Madam, since you are not the mother of the gentleman, and, of course, cannot be his wife, by what right do you interfere to prevent his answering me?'' The lady thus addressed started again as if stabbed, turned pale, and gasped out, "Pardon, madam; I am the wife of the gentleman.'' Instantly Mrs. X. became again penitently apologetic, and answered, "Madam, I beg a thousand pardons; I will not speak again to the gentleman''; and then, turning to me, said very solemnly, but loudly, so that all might hear, "Heavens! can it be possible!''

By this time we were all in distress, the German lady almost in a state of collapse, and her husband hardly less so. At various times during the remainder of the journey I heard them affecting to laugh the matter off, but it was clear that the thrust from my fair compatriot had cut deep and would last long.

Arriving at our destination, I obtained the key to the mystery. On taking leave of Mrs. X., I said, "That was rather severe treatment which you administered to the German lady.'' "Yes,'' she answered; "it will teach her never again to go out of her way to insult an American woman.'' She then told me that the lady had been evidently vexed because Mrs. X. had brought her maid into the compartment; and that this aristocratic dame had shown her feeling by applying her handkerchief to her nose, by sniffing, and by various other signs of disgust. "And then,'' said Mrs. X., "I determined to teach her a lesson.''

I never saw Mrs. X. again. After a brilliant social career of a few years she died; but her son, who was then a boy of twelve years, in a short jacket, has since become very prominent in Europe and America, and, in a way, influential.

In Paris I delivered my despatches to our minister, Mr. Mason; was introduced to Baron Seebach, the Saxon minister

Nesselrode's son-in-law, who was a leading personage at the conference of the great powers then in session; and saw various interesting men, among them sundry young officers of the United States army, who were on their way to the Crimea in order to observe the warlike operations going on there, and one of them, McClellan, also on his way to the head of our own army in the Civil War which began a few years later.

It was the time of the first great French Exposition— that of 1855. The Emperor Napoleon III had opened it with much pomp; and, though the whole affair was petty compared with what we have known since, it attracted visitors from the whole world, and among them came Horace Greeley.

As he shuffled along the boulevards and streets of Paris, in his mooning way, he attracted much wondering attention, but was himself very unhappy because his ignorance of the French language prevented his talking with the people about him.

He had just gone through a singular experience, having, the day before my arrival, been released from Clichy prison, where he had been confined for debt. Nothing could be more comical than the whole business from first to last. A year or two previously there had taken place in New York, on what has been since known as Reservoir Square, an international exposition which, for its day, was very creditable; but, this exposition having ended in bankruptcy, a new board of commissioners had been chosen, who, it was hoped, would secure public confidence, and among these was Mr. Greeley.

Yet even under this new board the exposition had not been a success; and it had been finally wound up in a very unsatisfactory way, many people complaining that their exhibits had not been returned to them—among these a French sculptor of more ambition than repute, who had sent a plaster cast of some sort of allegorical figure to which he attributed an enormous value. Having sought in vain for redress in America, he returned to Europe and

there awaited the coming of some one of the directors; and the first of these whom he caught was no less a person than Greeley himself, who, soon after arriving in Paris, was arrested for the debt and taken to Clichy prison.

Much feeling was shown by the American community. Every one knew that Mr. Greeley's connection with the New York exposition was merely of a good-natured, nominal sort. It therefore became the fashion among traveling Americans to visit him while thus in durance vile; and among those who thus called upon him were two former Presidents of the United States, both of whom he had most bitterly opposed—Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Fillmore.

The American legation having made very earnest representations, the prisoner was soon released; and the most tangible result of the whole business was a letter, very pithy and characteristic, which Greeley wrote to the "New York Tribune,'' giving this strange experience, and closing with the words: "So ended my last chance to learn French.''

A day or two after his release I met him at the student restaurant of Madame Busque. A large company of Americans were present; and shortly after taking his seat at table he tried to ask for some green string-beans, which were then in season. Addressing one of the serving-maids, he said, "Flawronce, donney moy—donney moy— donney moy—''; and then, unable to remember the word, he impatiently screamed out in a high treble, thrusting out his plate at the same time, "beans!'' The crowd of us burst into laughter; whereupon Donn Piatt, then secretary of the legation at Paris and afterward editor of the "Capital'' at Washington, said: "Why, Greeley, you don't improve a bit; you knew beans yesterday.''

This restaurant of Madame Busque's had been, for some years, a place of resort for American students and their traveling friends. The few dishes served, though simple, were good; all was plain; there were no table-cloths; but the place was made attractive by the portraits

of various American artists and students who had frequented the place in days gone by, and who had left these adornments to the good old madame.

It was a simple crémerie in the Rue de la Michodière, a little way out of the Boulevard des Italiens; and its success was due to the fact that Madame Busque, the kindest old lady alive, had learned how to make sundry American dishes, and had placed a sign in the window as follows: "Aux Américains. Spécialité de Pumpkin Pie et de Buckwheat Cakes.'' Never was there a more jolly restaurant. One met there, not only students and artists, but some of the most eminent men in American public life. The specialties as given on the sign-board were well prepared; and many were the lamentations when the dear old madame died, and the restaurant, being transferred to another part of Paris, became pretentious and fell into oblivion.

Another occurrence at the exposition dwells vividly in my memory. One day, in going through the annex in which there was a show of domestic animals, I stopped for a moment to look at a wonderful goat which was there tethered. He was very large, with a majestic head, spreading horns, and long, white, curly beard. Presently a party of French gentlemen and ladies, evidently of the higher class, came along and joined the crowd gazing at the animal. In a few moments one of the ladies, anxious to hurry on, said to the large and dignified elderly gentleman at the head of the party, "Mais viens donc ''; to which he answered, "Non, laisse moi le regarder; celui-là ressemble tant au bon Dieu.''

This remark, which in Great Britain or the United States would have aroused horror as blasphemy, was simply answered by a peal of laughter, and the party passed on; yet I could not but reflect on the fact that this attitude toward the Supreme Being was possible after a fifteen hundred years' monopoly of teaching by the church which insists that to it alone should be intrusted the religious instruction of the French people.

After staying a few weeks at the French capital, I left for a short tour in Switzerland. The only occurrence on this journey possibly worthy of note was at the hospice of the Great St. Bernard. On a day early in September I had walked over the Tête Noire with two long-legged Englishmen, and had so tired myself that the next morning I was too late to catch the diligence from Martigny; so that, on awaking toward noon, there was nothing left for me but to walk, and I started on that rather toilsome journey alone. After plodding upward some miles along the road toward the hospice, I was very weary indeed, but felt that it would be dangerous to rest, since the banks of snow on both sides of the road would be sure to give me a deadly chill; and I therefore kept steadily on. Presently I overtook a small party, apparently English, also going up the pass; and, at some distance in advance of them, alone, a large woman with a very striking and even masculine face. I had certainly seen the face before, but where I could not imagine. Arriving finally at the hospice, very tired, we were, after some waiting, invited out to a good dinner by the two fathers deputed for the purpose; and there, among the guests, I again saw the lady, and was again puzzled to know where I had previously seen her. As the dinner went on the two monks gave accounts of life at the hospice, rescues from avalanches, and the like, and various questions were asked; but the unknown lady sat perfectly still, uttering not a word, until suddenly, just at the close of the dinner, she put a question across the table to one of the fathers. It came almost like a peal of thunder-deep, strong, rolling through the room, startling all of us, and fairly taking the breath away from the good monk to whom it was ad-dressed; but he presently rallied, and in a rather faltering tone made answer. That was all. But on this I at once recognized her: it was Fanny Kemble Butler, whom, years before, I had heard interpreting Shakspere.

Whether this episode had anything to do with it or not, I soon found myself in rather a bad way. The fatigues of

the two previous days had been too much for me. I felt very wretched, and presently one of the brothers came up to me and asked whether I was ill. I answered that I was tired; whereupon he said kindly, "Come with me.'' I went. He took me to a neat, tidy little cell; put me into bed as carefully as my grandmother had ever done; tucked me in; brought me some weak, hot tea; and left me with various kind injunctions. Very early in the morning I was aroused by the singing of the monks in the chapel, but dozed on until eight or nine o'clock, when, feeling entirely rested, I rose and, after breakfast, left the monastery, with a party of newly made American friends, in as good condition as ever, and with a very grateful feeling toward my entertainers. Against monks generally I must confess to a prejudice; but the memory of these brothers of St. Bernard I still cherish with a real affection.

Stopping at various interesting historic places, and especially at Eisenach, whence I made the first of my many visits to the Wartburg, I reached Berlin just before the beginning of the university term, and there settled as a student. So, as I then supposed, ended my diplomatic career forever.