The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-03-20
Rnle OF the R0man0ffs.

Michael Feodorovitch, who founded
the line in 1912, mounted the throne
when Polish King was the virtual
lord of Russia, and when the ashes of
Moscow was still wet with the blood of
100000 men. The very first year of his
reign was marked by hair breadth es-
cape from assassination, and its subse-
quent troubles were neither few nor
slight. The thirty years. rule of his
son and successor, Alexey, was one
long war. Feodor died exhausted by
the vain effort TO civilize State whose
mobiles were beasts of prey, and whose
peasants beasts of burden. Peter the
Creator his blind and imbecile half
brother, Ivan, is hardly worth mention
ing-as the strongest of the Romanoffs,
was also the one who suffered most.
Twice all but murdered in his child
hood by the emlssaries of his own sis
ter, his early youth was disturbed by q
formidable rebellion, and his mature
life spent in the thankless and heart
breaking toll of raising, in spite of it.
self, a Nation sunk in groveling ignor-
ance and brutal degradation, while the
son in whom he had hoped to find an
efficient colleague grew up weak and
worthless prohigate, whom his stern
father deliberately put to death, "to
save Russia from a tyrant." His widow,
Catharine L., survived her possession
of the imperial crown barely eighteen
months. Peter H., having disgraced,
during his short life, both himself
and his country, saved the latter
by the untimely death which was
the sole good deed of his reign. Anna
Ivanovna having sacrificed the inter-
ests of Russia to those of q few
worthless favorites, was herself sacri-
feed by the latter the moment her
power began to wane. Her infant sue
cessor, Ivan was cruelty murdered.
Elizabeth, who plunged Russia into
bloody and disastrous war to avenge a
hasty word of Frederick the Great, was
simply vulgar, quarrelsome, drunken
old virago, with the manners of fish
woman and the morals of a dGnseuse,
whose life fully bore out the tremen-
dous sarcasm of Tacitus, F." to commit
every crime with impunity, this is to be
monarch" Her nephew, Peter ILL.,,
who might have become great villain
had he not been an utter idiot, was
murdered after six months of misrule,
by three of the countless lovers of his
wife, Catherine III. Catharine herself
surprising Cesar in her ambition, and
Messalina in her debauchery, lived q
life unmarked by single virtue, and
died death whose horrors might have
tasked the pen of Dante. Her son
Paul was strangled in his own palace
by four of his most trusted officers.
Alexander l., having seen the burning
of Moscow and the flooding of st.
Petersburg, the failure of his most cher
ished schemes, and the growth of q
formidable plot against himself, died
broken hearted. Nicholas, snatching
a crown still wet with the blood of
civil war, checked Russia's progress for
half century, destroyed by his mad
ambition both her and himself, lived
like tiger, and died like dog. The
present Gar, called to the throne when
Russia was still bleeding al every pore
from the most disastrous of her count
less wars, has seen his favorite son die
before him, his wife perishing by inches
of mortal disease, his country wasted
by pestilence and famine, his armies
thrice routed under his very eyes be-
fore their final triumph, and his own
life darkened by the ever-present
shadow of secret murder. M Y. Tunes.
A VICTIM of domestic infelicity, who
is in the habit of dreaming, should
never go to sleep in church. A con-
gregation near Quincy was somewhat