Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/113

Rh during life, and presented by Peter to his friend Cardinal Yalenti at Rome. It was missing for a long time, but was finally discovered about the middle of this century by a patriotic Russian, who bought it and presented it to the gallery.

"There is a clock in the same room which is said to have contained at one time the draft of a constitution which Catherine the Great intended giving to her people. Immediately after her death her son and successor, Paul, rushed to the clock in her bedroom, drew out the paper, and destroyed it. At least this is the tradition; and whether true or not, it is worth knowing, as it illustrates the character of Paul I."

Our friends imitated the course of many an Imperial favorite, not only in Russia, but in other countries, by going from a palace to a prison, but with the difference in their case that the step was voluntary.

As they crossed the bridge leading from the Winter Palace in the direction of the grim fortress of Sts. Peter and Paul, Doctor Bronson told the youths that Peter the Great shut up his sister in a convent and exiled her minister, Prince Galitzin. "Since his time," the Doctor continued, "his example has been followed by nearly every sovereign of Russia, and a great many persons, men and women, have ended their lives in prison or in exile who once stood high in favor at the Imperial court. Catherine was accustomed to dispose of the friends of whom she had wearied by sending them to live amid Siberian snows, and the Emperor Paul used to condemn people to prison or to exile on the merest caprice. Even at the present day the old custom is not unknown."