This spirit of absolutism took its most offensive form in Nicholas’s attitude toward Europe.  He was the very incarnation of reaction against revolution, and he became the demigod of that horde of petty despots who infest Central Europe.  Whenever, then, any tyrant’s lie was to be baptized, he stood its godfather; whenever any God’s truth was to be crucified, he led on those who passed by, reviling and wagging their heads.  Whenever these oppressors revived some old feudal wrong, Nicholas backed them in the name of religion; whenever their nations struggled to preserve some great right, Nicholas crushed them in the name of law and order.  With these pauper princes his children intermarried, and he fed them with his crumbs and clothed them with scraps of his purple.  The visitor can see today, in every one of their dwarf palaces, some of his malachite vases or porcelain bowls or porphyry columns.

But the people of Western Europe distrusted him as much as their rulers worshipped; and some of these same presents to their rulers have become trifle-monuments of no mean value in showing that popular idea of Russian policy.  Foremost among these stand those two bronze masses of statuary in front of the Royal Palace at Berlin, representing fiery horses restrained by strong men.  Pompous inscriptions proclaim these presents from Nicholas; but the people, knowing the man and his measures, have fastened upon one of these curbed steeds the name of “Progress Checked,” and on the other “Retrogression Encouraged.”

A few days before Nicholas’s self-will brought him to his deathbed we saw him ride through the St. Petersburg streets with no pomp and no attendants, yet in as great pride as ever despotism gave a man.  At his approach, nobles uncovered and looked docile, soldiers faced about and became statues, long-bearded peasants bowed to the ground with the air of men on whose vision a miracle flashes.  For there was one who could make or mar all fortunes—­the absolute owner of street and houses and passers-by—­one who owned the patent and dispensed the right to tread that soil, to breathe that air, to be glorified in that sunlight and amid those snow crystals.  And he looked it all.  Though at that moment his army was entrapped by military stratagem, and he himself was entrapped by diplomatic stratagem, that face and form were proud and confident as ever.

There was in this attitude toward Europe—­in this standing forth as the representative man of absolutism, and breasting the nineteenth century—­something of greatness; but in his attitude toward Russia this greatness was wretchedly diminished.  For, as Alexander I was a good man enticed out of goodness by the baits of Napoleon, Nicholas was a great man scared out of greatness by the ever-recurring phantom of the French Revolution.