demn to the casemates, to the rods, or to instant death, every one that came in his way. His favourite officers, of course, exaggerated, if possible, the fury of their master. One soldier returning drunk to barracks, caused, perhaps, four divisions to be punished, or the whole infantry corps to be sent to expiate the crime by forced marches through the sands of the Vola. So strictly was discipline maintained, that on one occasion, when a non-commissioned officer ventured to send in a petition to the Czarowicz, knowing the hopelessness of obtaining redress from his own officers, the insubordination was punished in the following manner. He was bound to a truck, and so dragged through the ranks of five battalions, each man in them striking his back with a rod; long before the sentence was completed, the blows fell upon a senseless, macerated corpse. This was the usual punishment for a breach of discipline. Nor was the brutality of Constantine confined to the rank and file of his army. We will but cite one instance of the treatment to which officers of the most honoured families in the country were alike subjected. The Czarowicz in his rounds one day found a young Polish lieutenant absent from his post—it was within the town—the lad having left for a moment to procure a sheet of paper from a shop close at hand, on which to draw up the report he had to give in at head-quarters. Constantine had scarely arrived when he returned; he explained his absence, but to no purpose; the Romanoff tore the epaulets from the lieutenant’s shoulders, and made the Russian soldiers on duty beat him “bez pozadi” (without mercy), until at the end of half-an-hour he lost all consciousness, and was carried to the hospital. Strange to say, the Czarowicz repented the next morning of this proceeding, and summoning the regimental surgeons, charged them to cure the young man under pain of being sent to Siberia. They, doubtless, tried to obey; but the poor boy died within a few days. His mother, who all that time watched at the hospital door, was not allowed to see him until he no longer lived, when Constantine sent for her, expressed his regret that the affair should have terminated so unpleasantly, and by another strange freak of what he doubtless thought was generosity, offered her 5000 Polish florins (121l.).
“Do you think, barbarian, I will make a bargain with you for my child’s tortures? His blood be upon your head!” was the only reply she gave.
Constantine soon found it necessary to change the military system he found existing in the remnant of the Polish army: promotion by merit was neither profitable nor politic. He immediately consulted with his brother upon the subject, and the result was the gradual introduction of the Russian system, by which a military hierarchy was secured, bound alike by interest and common infamy to the Russian dynasty. Colonelcies and generalships were put up to sale; in an infantry regiment the latter was found a profitable investment to the buyer at 26,000 florins, in a cavalry regiment it usually went for 5000 less. The dress and food of the men became a business speculation of their officers, and the poor wretches perished of cold and hunger to enrich those who preyed on their misery. With rare exceptions the old generals who had served under Napoleon, held aloof, as much as possible, from their new master; and though few among them threw up their commands, their opposition, though silent, made them not less hateful to him. One of the number was a man whose bravery, shown in a hundred battles, and personal character, had made him so popular with the troops, that even the Czarowicz dared not insult him without some pretence. At length the opportunity, so long desired, came: on a grand field-day, a certain trooper in the general’s division appeared with his breast padding somewhat unsymmetrical: the Czarowicz’s hawk’s-eye at once detected the abomination, and the Imperial hand the next instant dragged the man out of his saddle, unbuttoned his coat, pulled from it we know not what soiled linen, and threw it in the general’s face. The white-haired veteran instinctively grasped at his sword-hilt; then, as the miserable character of the insult rushed on his mind, he turned pale, and fell insensible into the arms of his friends. Constantine succeeded in his aim—the general resigned.
Even the most favoured of the Commander-in-chief’s officers, those who held a high position in his secret police system, were scarcely less exposed to his rage than honest men. One of them, General Gendre, was thrice degraded to the ranks, and thrice restored to his generalship, finally obtaining besides a high appointment in the civil service.
Constantine took great pains in organising military colleges; they were eagerly attended by the youth of the noblest and most patriotic families, and in his blindness he thought he thus secured an infallible means of subjecting the country by the arms of its own children. The year 1831 was strangely to undeceive him. All the subaltern officers were soon supplied from these colleges, and the men for years before the revolution was spoken of as a definite necessity, felt it coming, and more and more attached themselves to their young leaders. The first years after 1815 passed quite quietly; the country, paralysed by its previous sufferings, gazed with a helpless wonder at the changes going on.
In 1819, some signs of discontent appeared, and the government was greatly alarmed. Arrests, courts-martial and tortures followed; but these were kept as quiet as possible, and no one condemned to the horrors of Constantine’s dungeons was allowed to speak of them to living man.
The Emperor visited Poland in 1821, and was received with enthusiasm: the people knew nothing of him but from the “Constitution” to which he had sworn in 1815; and as the amnesties and pardons he had since frequently issued, were most discreetly worded, his brother had little trouble in evading their apparent intention. Possibly Alexander felt some compunction at the policy on which he had entered; at any rate, he promised the country a regeneration based on the union of all the Russian provinces once included under