[Footnote G:  For proofs of this see Haxthausen.]

The sight of these wrongs roused him.  He seized a cross, and swore upon it that the serf-system should be abolished.

Straightway a great and good plan was prepared.  Its main features were, a period of transition from serfage to personal liberty, extending through twelve or fourteen years,—­the arrival of the serf at personal freedom, with ownership of his cabin and the bit of land attached to it,—­the gradual reimbursement of masters by serfs,—­and after this advance to personal liberty, an advance by easy steps to a sort of political liberty.

Favorable as was this plan to the serf-owners, they attacked it in various ways; but they could not kill it utterly.  Esthonia, Livonia, and Courland became free.

Having failed to arrest the growth of freedom, the serf-holding caste made every effort to blast the good fruits of freedom.  In Courland they were thwarted; in Esthonia and Livonia they succeeded during many years; but the eternal laws were too strong for them, and the fruitage of liberty has grown richer and better.

After these good efforts, Alexander stopped, discouraged.  A few patriotic nobles stood apart from their caste, and strengthened his hands, as Lafayette and Liancourt strengthened Louis XVI.; they even drew up a plan of voluntary emancipation, formed an association for the purpose, gained many signatures; but the great weight of that besotted serf-owning caste was thrown against them, and all came to nought.  Alexander was at last walled in from the great object of his ambition.  Pretended theologians built, between him and emancipation, walls of Scriptural interpretation,[H]—­pretended philosophers built walls of false political economy,—­pretended statesmen built walls of sham common-sense.

[Footnote H:  Gurowski says that they used brilliantly “Cursed be Canaan,” etc.]

If the Tzar could but have mustered courage to cut the knot!  Alas for Russia and for him, he wasted himself in efforts to untie it.  His heart sickened at it; he welcomed death, which alone could remove him from it.

Alexander’s successor, Nicholas I., had been known before his accession as a mere martinet, a good colonel for parade-days, wonderful in detecting soiled uniforms, terrible in administering petty punishments.  It seems like the story of stupid Brutus over again.  Altered circumstances made a new man of him; and few things are more strange than the change wrought in his whole bearing and look by that week of agony and energy in climbing his brother’s throne.  The portraits of Nicholas the Grand Duke and Nicholas the Autocrat seem portraits of two different persons.  The first face is averted, suspicious, harsh, with little meaning and less grandeur; the second is direct, commanding, not unkind, every feature telling of will to crush opposition, every line marking sense of Russian supremacy.