The son of a rich merchant, passing rapidly in his sleigh, muffled in furs, did not perceive the carriage of the emperor which he met, until it had passed.  The police seized him; his sleigh and horses were confiscated.  He was placed in close confinement for a month, and then, after receiving fifty blows from the terrible knout, was delivered to his friends a mangled form, barely alive.

A young lady, by some accident, had not thrown herself upon her knees quick enough at the appearance of the imperial carriage in the streets of Moscow.  She was an orphan and resided with an aunt.  They were both imprisoned for a month and fed upon bread and water; the young lady for failing in respect to the emperor, and the aunt for not having better instructed her niece.  How strange is this power of despotism, by which one madman compels forty millions of people to tremble before him!

One of the freaks of this crazy prince was to court-martial his horse.  The noble steed had tripped beneath his rider.  A council was convened, composed of the equerries of the palace.  The horse was proved guilty of failing in respect to his majesty, and was condemned to receive fifty blows from a heavy whip.  Paul stood by, as the sentence was executed, counting off the blows.[24]

[Footnote 24:  Memoires Secret, tome i., page 334.]

Twelve Polish gentlemen were condemned, for being “wanting in respect to his majesty,” to have their noses and ears cut off, and were then sent to perpetual Siberian exile.  When any one was admitted to an audience with the tzar, it was necessary for him to fall upon his knees so suddenly and heavily that his bones would ring upon the floor like the butt of a musket.  No gentle genuflexion satisfied the tzar.  A prince Gallatin was imprisoned for “kneeling and kissing the emperor’s hand too negligently.”  This contempt for humanity soon rendered Paul very unpopular.  He well knew that his legitimacy was doubted, and that if an illegitimate child he had no right whatever to the throne.  He seemed to wish to prove that he was the son of Peter III. by imitating all the silly and cruel caprices of that most contemptible prince.

The French Revolution was now in progress, the crushed people of that kingdom endeavoring to throw off the yoke of intolerable oppression.  All the despots in Europe were alarmed lest popular liberty in France should undermine their thrones.  None were more alarmed than Paul.  He was so fearful that democratic ideas might enter his kingdom that he forbade the introduction into his realms of any French journal or pamphlet.  All Frenchmen in his kingdom were also ordered immediately to depart.  All ships arriving were searched and if any French subjects were on board, men or women, they were not permitted to land, but were immediately sent out of the kingdom.  Merchants, who had left their families and their business for a temporary absence, were not permitted again to set foot in the kingdom.  The suffering which this cruel edict occasioned was very great.