The two grand dukes, Alexander and Constantine, were in the room below, and heard all the noise of the struggle in which their father was assassinated.  It was with much difficulty that these young princes were induced to give their consent to the conspiracy, and they yielded only on condition that their father’s life should be spared.  But self-defense required some vigorous action on their part, for Paul had threatened to send Alexander to Siberia, to immure Constantine in a convent, and the empress mother in a cloister.

The conspirators having accomplished the deed, descended into the apartment, where the grand dukes were awaiting their return.  Alexander enquired eagerly if they had saved his father’s life.  The silence of the conspirators told the melancholy tale.  The grief manifested by both Alexander and Constantine was apparently sincere and intense.  In passionate exclamations they gave vent to sorrow and remorse.  But Pahlen, the governor, who had led the conspiracy, calm and collected, represented that the interests of the empire demanded a change of policy, that the death of Paul was a fatality, and that nothing now remained but for Alexander to assume the reins of government.

“I shall be accused,” exclaimed Alexander bitterly, “of being the assassin of my father.  You promised me not to attempt his life.  I am the most unhappy man in the world.”

The dead body of the emperor was placed upon a table, and an English physician, named Wylie, was called in to arrange the features so that it should appear that he had died of apoplexy.  The judgment of the world has ever been and probably ever will be divided respecting the nature of Alexander’s complicity in this murder.  Many suppose that he could not have been ignorant that the death of his father was the inevitable end of the conspiracy, and that he accepted that result as a sad necessity.  Certain it is that the conspirators were all rewarded richly, by being entrusted with the chief offices of the state; and the new monarch surrounded his throne with counselors whose hands were imbrued in his father’s blood.  A lady at St. Petersburg wrote to Fouche on the occasion of some ceremony which soon ensued,

“The young emperor walked preceded by the assassins of his grandfather, followed by those of his father, and surrounded by his own.”

“Behold,” said Fouche, “a woman who speaks Tacitus.”

At St. Helena, O’Meara enquired of Napoleon if he thought that Paul had been insane.  “Latterly,” Napoleon replied, “I believe that he was.  At first he was strongly prejudiced against the Revolution, and every person concerned in it; but afterwards I had rendered him reasonable, and had changed his opinions altogether.  If Paul had lived the English would have lost India before now.  An agreement was made between Paul and myself to invade it.  I furnished the plan.  I was to have sent thirty thousand good troops.  He was to send a similar number of