The Sun.
London, England, 1855-03-03 00:00:00

by his nobles in consequence of an alliance which his infatu-
ated admiration for the Emperor Napoleon the First had in-
duced him to contract, it is unnecessary to speak. His
mother, a woman of intelligetice, superintended his educa-
tion, which she committed to General de Lambsdorf, who was
assisted, amongst others, by the Countess de Lieven, the
philologist Aliening, and the Councillor Stork. At an early
_period ho applied himself with great ardour to military pur-
suits, in which he evinced considerable proficiency, especially
iu the art of fortification. He also studied the science of po-
litical economy, and became as familiar with the French and
German languages as with his native tongue. He cultivated
music, alaste which he gratified after his accession to the
throne, not only by the composition of several military airs,

but by attracting to his capital the most diStingnishedmusi-
clans of Europe. However, in youth his instructors formed
no high estimate of his abilities. He was taciturn, melan-
choly, and, when not engaged in his military studies, absorbed
in trifles. In after life ho distinguished himself as a patron '
of the Fine Arts, to gild, with the tinsel of an imported
civilisation, the native and barbaric splendour of his Court.
When the French invasion took place ,Nicholas was too young
to take part in the noble defence which Russia made, or to
join in those great military operations which ultimately led
to the overthrow of Napoleon and the occupation of his capi-
tal. He was, however, old enough to be .an observant,
though distant, spectator of the greatest struggle in which
the people that he was afterwards called upon to govern
were ever engaged; and the recollection of the enthusiasm
and devotion then exhibited by them, in a just cause, may
have lured him on-to those fatal and boundless schemes of
aggression which now suddenly have been brought to a close.
.On the restoration of peace in 1814, he left Russia to travel,
and visited the principal battle-fields of Europe. In 1816 he
arrived in England, where he received a cordial welcome.
On returning home, he visited tile different provinces of
Russia, for the purpose of becoming acquainted with the
actual condition of the population. In July, 1817, he mar-
ried Charlotte Louisa, the eldest daughter of Frederick Wil-
giant of Prussia, and sister of the present King. Four sons
and three daughters are the issue of this marriage, the eldest
son, Alexander Nicolaiewitch, having been been born in the
year 1818. At this time Nicholas had little expectation of
obtaining the Imperial Crown ; but in the year 1825, his
eldest brother, the Emperor Alexander, died at Taganrog, in
the Crimea, it is supposed by poison. The next heir to the
throne was the Grand Duke Constantine, who was then at

Warsaw, and Nicholas hastened to take the oath of fidelity.
But his brother had already renounced the Crown in a paper
which he had secretly signed on the occasion of his marriage
with the daughter of a private Polish gentlemen. Nicholas,
with expressions of regret, then ascended the throne ;
and now came a terrible struggle. A vast conspiracy, com-
posed of two classes—the enthusiastic lovers of liberty awl
the old Russian party, the supporters of Constantine—were
formed ; but elements so discordant could not long act toge-
ther. The troops were called upon to swear allegiance to the
new Emperor ; but they had previously sworn fidelity to Con-
stantine, and not understanding the reason for the change of
masters, they remained faithful to the oath which they had
taken. When the ceremony commenced, the officers stepped
out of their ranks <and denounced Nicholas as an usurper, and
declared that he held Constantino in confinement. The
soldiers followed officers, with cries of " Constantine and the
constitution." Milarodoviteh, the Governor of St. Peters-
burg, and the veteran favourities of the army, were sent to
parley with them. The archbishop appeared in his ecclesias-
tical robes ; but all in vain. The populace began to sympa-
thise with the troops, and the scene which followed has thus
been described :—" The tide and tumult of death swept on
the imperial palace. The Emperor and the Empress
had proceeded alone to their chapel, and on their
knees upon the altar steps had mutually sworn to
die as Sovereigns. Then placing himself at the head of
the guard, that yet remained loyal, the Czar rode
out and confronted the rebels. Standing before them
with haughty bearing, he cried in a firm tone, ' Return to
your ranks—obey--down upon your knees !' The energy of
his voice —his countenence calm, though pale—and the vene-
ration with which every Russ regards the person of his Sove-
reign—prevailed. Most of the soldiers kneeled before their
master, and grounded their arms in token of submission. They
say in St. Petersburg that while he harangued them,- one of
the conspirators four times came forward to kill him, and
four times sbrunkback in fear. One thing is certain, that to
the intrepid self-possession of that hour he is indebted to the
continuance of his authority. . Victory was now easy. Ho re-
tired from the spot ; wherever resistance was made, the' arta-
lery played upon the gathering crowds, and the fire of mus-
ketry completed the work of destruction." The hopes of the
Liberal and old Russian party. having been thus quenched,
Nicholas found himself the sole and absolute master of the
gigantic Russian empire. The Marquis de Custine, who had
a conveesatiou with the Emperor as to the memorable events
of that clay, records the following words used by Nicholas:
—" I did nothing extraordinary. I said to the soldiers,
Return to your ranks,' and at the moment of pass-
ing the regiment in review I cried On your knees 1'
They all obeyed. What gave me power was, that the in taut
before I had resigned myself to meet death. lam grateful
for having succeeded, but I am not proud of it, for it was by
no merit of my own." On another occasien, lie said, "My
honour was at stake, and it was well worth while for me to
appear courageous." In the punishments inflicted ou the re-
bels, Nicholas evinced the most unappeasable severity, thus
affording a melancholy spectacle of an union of chivalrous
bravery with barbarous cruelty. In September, 1826, the
Emperor was crowned at Moscow, with great pomp and cere-
mony. Absolutism was henceforth his darling doctrine. To
the Marquis of Castillo he said, " I have no conception of a
representative monarchy. It is the Government of falsehood,
fraud, and corruption, and, rather than adopt it, I would fall
back to the borders f China." Again, " Despotism is the
very essence of my Government, and it suits the genius of the
land." Shortly after his Coronation, war was declared with
Persia, which, aftercontinuing more than a year, was concluded
by a treaty, whereby the Shah ceded two fine provinces to
Russia, and bound himself to pay 20 millions of silver roubles
as the penalty of resistance. About a year afterward Nicholas
declared war with Turkey. Adrianople opened its gates, and
Constantinople was itself in danger, although the Turks in the
Balkan, and in the defence of Silistria and Varna, had co-
vered themselves with glory. In 1829 the peace of Adria-
nople was concluded, by which Nicholas was permitted to
retain authority in Wallachia and Moldavia, and the Torte
agreed to indemnify the expenses of the war by a payment of
eleven millions and a-half Dutch ducats—a sum from which
three millions were afterwards deducted. In 1830 the Polish
rel-ofution broke out ; but England and France remained
neuter, and Austria and ,Prussia aided the Czar in crushing
the insurgent patriots. After a heroic resistance, Poland was.
reconquered—the Russians entered Warsaw, and an iron
despotism was substituted for the semblance of constitu-
tional government, which previously had been permitted to
exist. A citadel was built on the heights above Warsaw,
and when, in 1835, the citizens went out to compliment the
Czar, pointing to the citadel, ho exclaimed—" You see that
fortress ; if you stir, I will order your whole city to be de-
stroyed—l will not leave one stone upon another, and when
it is destroyed it will not be rebuilt by me." When the cho-
lera invaded St. Petersburg, the ignorant populace accused
the physicians of having poisoned the sick in the hospitals,
and put some of them to death. Nicholas rode to the
mob, and shouted, in • a voice of thunder, " Down
upon your knees before God, and ask pardon of him
for your offences. I, your Emperor—your master,
order you." The populace obeyed, and Nicholas, in
describing the scene, said to the Marquis de Custine, " These
moments are the finest of my life. I ran in the face of dan-
ger without knowing, as a King, how I should retreat. I did
my duty, and God sustained me." In 1839" war was declared
with Circassia—a war which, with little honour to the Rus-
sian arms, has continued up to the present time. - The causes
which have led to the present war it is unnecessary to detail.
The two ruling passions of the Emperor's life appear to have
been to consolidate and extend despotic institutions, not only
within his own dominions,but in neighbouring countries, and
to acquire, at all sacrifices, Constantinople as the seat of his
great empire. His claim to exercise a protectorate over the
Christian subjects of the Porte may bo contrasted with his
persecution of Christians differing from the Greek Church
in Russia, and his prohibition of the Sacred Scriptures. Ho
never recognised the Sovereignty of Louis Philippe ; and by
that astute policy which distinguishes Russian diplomacy, in
1840, in reference to the Egyptian question, he endeavoured
to detach England from the alliance of Franco. Of his pri-
vate character it is difficult to form a correct opinion. He
has been placed in a position of terrible responsibility; he has
now gone to his account, and his opponents can well efford
to draw the veil over his errors, his failings, his insatiable
ambition, and his iron despotism. Can it be said of his
melancholy fate—
His foes' derision and his subjects' blame,
He steals to death from anguish and from shame.

EUPATORIA AND ITS CAPABILITIES

TO TIIE EDITOR OF TILE TIMES.

Sir,—Your recent leader on the importance of Eupatoria to
the Allies will attract the attention of the public to that lo-
cality, and doubtless the movements of Omer Pasha will be
followed on the map with an interest only second to that ex-
cited by the siege of Sebastopol.
It is, I fancy, not generally known how almost impregnable
a position Eupatoria furnishes to a Power commanding the
sea, and able by that means to throw supplies and reinforce-
ments at pleasure into the place. 'Beyond the immediate
neighbourhood, which is sanay, and impregnated with salt,
the steppe surrounds it on every side with a barrier more
valuable for defence than a wall of granite. Any army sitting
down to invest Eupatoria would not only have to dig wells
through a horiZontal stratum of limestone of great thickness,
but likewise to bring all its supplies and materiel of war through
a region of wide extent, equally destitute of the first necessary
of life—goad water.
Some idea of the effect of this hindrance may be formed
from the circumstance that the Russian army under Marshal
Munich, in the first invasion of the Crimea, nearly perished
from this cause in its march from Perekop to Eupatoria, in
spite of the greatest precautions. They only found three
streams of fresh water on the whole march (which occupied
them 11 days), and the sufferings of the wretched soldiers
were aggravated by the sight of many brooks, all of which
were the mere overflow of salt pools. These facts will perhaps
give some insight into the cause of the immense loss reported
to have been sustained by the last reinforcements which en-
tered Sebastopol. If an attempt was really made to convey a
large body of troops over the snow from the north of the
peninsula, and if any detention occurred from a sudden thaw,
the unhappy victims of Imperial ambition will have found
themselves exposed to destruction from a more terrible enemy
than frost and cold.
When the steppe is covered by the luxuriant grass of the
spring the task of crossing it in force is of course an easier
'one, as the baggage animals find their provender on the spot,
and, being entirely grass-fed, the scarcity of water is, as far
as they are concerned, much less felt. - But this favourable
period is comparatively short. The he'd of the sun ripens
the herbage very rapidly ; early in June it begins to scorch
up, and becomes in July and August highly inflammable from
its dryness. So remarkable is it in this respect, that it was
a came of great anxiety to Munich lest his camp should
be destroyed by the firing of the steppe'; and every wheeled
carriage was furnished with a large bosom, for the purpose of
instantly extinguishing the first sparks that might be seen. As
a means of defence against an invading army, it is scarcely
necessary to point out how effective such a conflagration must
be. When Munich, the year after the expedition to the
Crimea, laid siege to Ochsakoff, the Turks burnt the steppe
, for three leagues around the town ; and this circumstance of
itself would have compelled Munich to abandon his hope of
taking it, had not one of his shells accidentally exploded a
large powder magazine, causing such destruction that the
Governor surrendered in a panic. In the plain of the Crimea
a westerly breeze generally prevails through the months of
May and June ; and, if necessity required it, nothing would
be easier, after securing as much hay as could be brought,
within the defence of the lines, than to take advantage of thn