It was found that the design of the insurgents was to escape into Mongolia and make their way to Pekin.  This would have been next to impossible, for two reasons:  the character of the country, and the treaty between China and Russia.  The region to be traversed from the Siberian frontier toward Pekin is the Mongolian steppe or desert.  The only food obtainable on the steppe is mutton from the flocks of the nomad inhabitants.  These are principally along the road from Kiachta, and even there are by no means numerous.  The escaping exiles in avoiding the road to ensure safety would have run great risk of starvation.  The treaty between China and Russia requires that fugitives from one empire to the other shall be given up.  Had the exiles succeeded in crossing Mongolia and reaching the populous parts of China, they would have been once more in captivity and returned to Russian hands.

The finding of the court-martial was submitted to General Korsackoff for approval or revision.  The general commuted the sentence of three men in the first grade to twenty years labor.  Those in the second grade sentenced to death were relieved from this punishment and placed on the same footing as their companions.  In the third grade the original sentence (at the time of banishment) was increased by one or two years labor.  Other penalties were not changed.

During my stay in Irkutsk the four prisoners condemned to death suffered the extreme penalty, the execution occurring in the forest near the town.  A firing party of forty-eight men was divided into four squads.  According to the custom at all military executions one musket in each squad was charged with a blank cartridge.  The four prisoners were shot simultaneously, and all died instantly.  Two of them were much dejected; the others met their deaths firmly and shouted “Vive la Pologne” as they heard the order to fire.

I was told that the crowd of people, though large, was very quiet, and moved away in silence when the execution was over.  Very few officers and soldiers were present beyond those whose duty required them to witness or take part in the affair.

One of the most remarkable escapes from Siberia was that of Rufin Piotrowski, a Polish emigrant who left Paris in 1844 to return to his native country, with impossible plans and crude ideas for her relief.  The end of his journey was Kamimetz, in Podolia, where he gave himself out as a Frenchman, who had come to give private lessons in foreign languages, and received the usual permit from the authorities without exciting any suspicion.  He was soon introduced into the best society; and the better to shield his connections, he chose the houses of Russian employes.  His security rested upon his not being supposed to understand the Polish language; and, during the nine months that he remained, he obtained such command over himself, that the police had not the slightest suspicion of his being a Pole.  The warning voice came from St. Petersburg, through the spies in Paris.