Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-06-13
QUELLING A NIUTINY.


A terrible shock or an imminent danger
awa!1ens the memory of things long dead
and buried; and it would be strange indeed
if, in scattering words of consolation among
his wounded Finnish Guard, the Gar did
not travel back in spirit to another conspira-
cy attempted and detected in the Winter
Palace fifty-fve years ago, and to another
signal act of devotion on the part of the
Finland Guard
On the oath of December, 1926, the EN-
peror Nicholas, who had up to this time in
habited the little Anitchkoff Palace in the
Nevsd Prospect, took up his quarters with
his wife and family in the huge Winter Pal
ace on the Isaac square. On the day follow
ing he received secret communication from
the sub-ieutenant Rostoftsof, which might
well make him exclaim, ''What beginning
of reign!"
He was prepared to hear of revolt break
ing out in the south. His letters from Ia
ganrog had informed him of Colonel Pestel's
conspiracy, the news of which had excited
such CONSERVATION round the dying bed of
Alexander, the wen-intentioned, and had
poisoned his last moments. He knew that
some of the chief families of Russia were
concerned in it, and that captains of frigates
and colonies of regiments were bound by an
oath to ask for a new Constitution; but he
was not prepared to hear that a plot was
ready to break out in the Winter Palace it.
self, and that the regiment of Grenadiers of
the Guard that was on duty about his per-
son had been canvassed for days to join in it.
No sooner, however, had he read Rostoft-
sof's letter than he saw that not moment
was to be lost in getting rid of this armed
band of conspirators, who were his guard
and might very like be his assassins, even
# The revolt were precipated by his SO do
ing
The maneuvre was carried out by Alexis
Orlotf, Nicholas's right-hand man, with con-
summate ability and corresponding success.
A numerous detachment of the Finland
Regiment of Guards was sent for from their
barracks in the dead of the night; the su-
perior force overawed the Grenadiers, who
left the Winter Palace without a show of
resistance, the newcomers taking their
places. This change-and curiously enough,
if reports from Vienna are true, SIM
liar change of the guard was made short
time before the late explosion, two sotnias
of Cossacks making way for the Finland
Regiment-was not carried out one minute
too soon, for the next day the shell burst.
And when the revolt had fairly began, it was
to this same Finland Regiment that Nicholas
entrusted the care of his family. Taking
the little Grand Duke Alexander by the
hand, he said:
"I confde my son to your care it will
be your duty to defend his ife."
The rough Firms, it is said, were moved
to tears. They took up the child, then
only seven years old, in their arms, passed
him from rank to rank swore form a ram
part of their bodies behind which he should
be safe.
All this must have come back to the Gar
of to-day, the baby Czarewitch of 1926,
when he thanked the Finland Regiment for
their recent devotion to his person and
house. 1t is another curious coincidence
that the regiment of Preobrajensk, which
was nearly also playing an important part
in the recent explosion, was, next to the
Finland Regiment, that on which Nicholas
most relied in 1926. Of all the Russian
Praetorians, this regiment, which goes back
for its origin to the days of the great Peter,
has been most concerned in Palace revolu-
tons and in pulling down and setting up
sovereigns of All the Russias. It was at
the head of its first battalion that the Gar
went to meet the mutineers, having left the
Finland Regiment to keep guard over the
two expresses and the imperial family in the
Winter Palace