Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/348

338 with nature, he chose to spend the midnight hours in prayer and study of the Scriptures, none need know it.

But Ivan suddenly remembered that a grand review of the whole Imperial Guard was to take place that morning at six o'clock, so he dismissed the idea of writing at once to tell Clémence the wonders he had witnessed, and wisely threw himself upon his pallet to snatch a few hours of necessary slumber.

When he came to the parade-ground in the morning he felt like one bewildered. There, in the midst of his brilliant staff, their uniforms glistening with gold and jewels, and the costly trappings of their magnificent horses glancing in the sunlight, stood the Czar, at once the centre and the heart of all that martial pomp and pride. As Ivan, in his place in the Chevalier Guard, advanced, retreated, wheeled to the right or the left, in instant obedience to the word of command that issued from those imperial lips, he wondered silently which was the dream—this splendid pageant, or the scene last night in the lowly cottage; but when he looked again upon the calm and joyous face of the Czar he knew that both were real.

It was not until long afterwards that he heard the story of how God had spoken to the heart of the Czar. Madame de Krudener for some time past had been acquainted with the Empress Elizabeth, and other persons belonging to the Russian Court. What she heard from every one of the noble character of Alexander awakened in her mind an intense desire to be of use to him. "I have great things to say to him," she wrote to a friend; "for I have felt much upon his account. My business is to be without fear and without reproach, his to be at the feet of Christ." Such impulses are sent from above.

It was late in the night of the 4th of June. Alexander sat in his quarters at Heilbronn, depressed and weary, trying to read a book of devotion, but unable to profit by what he read. He had heard of the conversations of Madame de Krudener with his wife, and the thought passed through his mind, "I wish she