Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/63

Rh that possessed him. Many a time did he listen to his son, though he never loved him, when he dared bravely to plead for and shelter the victims of his wrath. More than once he said regretfully, after some unusual outburst of violence, 'I wish I had consulted the Grand Duke Alexander.' But such a state of things could not go on. The end came."

"What was the end, dädushka?" queried Ivan. (Dädushka, "little grandfather," the term of endearment constantly used by Feodor, was often adopted by Ivan.)

"Do not ask me of the end," said the old man very sorrowfully. "It was said in official proclamations, it is still written in printed books, that 'the Czar Paul Petrovitch died of apoplexy.' But all the world knows that is false. Some there are, too, who will have cause to know it when they come to stand before the judgment-seat of God."

"He was murdered," said Feodor with decision. "That is what I have always heard."

"Were the people sorry for him, or glad of his death?" asked Ivan.

"Glad exceedingly. They were delivered from a reign of terror. Yet there were men who loved the Czar Paul truly—who love him still, and will take that love with them to the grave. One such I know—my good friend and patron, from whom I have received many favours, Count Rostopchine. He kept proudly aloof from the court of the new Czar, would hold no communication with him, and take no favour from his hands—hands which, he dared to hint, were not pure from the stain of a father's blood. When the great battle of Austerlitz was lost, Count Rostopchine said, 'God would not prosper the arms of a bad son.'"

"How angry the Czar must have been!" said Ivan. "He ought to have sent him to Siberia, to repent of his insolence."

"He did not send him to Siberia, nor have I heard that he was angry. It is the guilty who are angry, and from that stain