The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1881-05-03
THE CZAR'S PALACE.
Precautions That Were Taken to
Preserve the Monarch's Life.

The Winter palace is a huge oblong build
ing, five stories high, and painted in a staring
red brick color. On one side 1t borders a quay
of the Neva: on the other it fronts the enor-
NOUS square which is adorned with a mono
lith granite column erected to the memory of
Alexander l. To The right OF the palace
stands the Admiralty, aud IA little further on
the same side The barracks of the Chevaliers
Gardes to the left are the Museum Of the
Hermitage and the imperial printing office.
Facing the Admiralty runs the Newskl
Prospect, Which is the principal
tho~roughfare in ST. Petersburg, so TIA the
car could see from his palace windows all
the animation OF the city. The Winter
palace is said to have cost hundreds of lives
in the erecting, for when the old one. which
stood on the same site, had burned, Nicholas
ordered that the new one should be built
within six months. This necessitatpd the
employment of thousands Of Worknlen day
and night thorough the winter, and many Of
these uufortunateS were frozen. As fast d,
the lower stories were completed the walls
were dried with roaring fires while the works
were carried on above aud the uphOIsters
and decorators completed the furnishing of
the. principal rooms before the attics were
rooted. Within ten days after the workmeu
had left the building 1t was Inhabited by the
ear and his court; aud Nicholas, first care on
arriving was to 20 the round OF the whole
palace with the a~rclitecg and contractors To
see that none OF the work had been '~'ocamlped."
Being satisfied with whal he saw he paid the
bill-about a million stecllng-Wlthout d
urmur.
1t was in this palace, 50 strangely erected,
that the late emperor always spent the six
winter months; and before the nihilist
troubles began, the life he led was a pleas
ant one. Alexander H., as above said, never
affected the Spartan simplicity Of his father
Nicholas, who used to sleep Oh a camp bed,
eat the most frugal fare and spend most ofthe
time he could spare from state business in
inspecting his soldiers. He (Alexander) was
addicted to conViviality and home pleasures.
He had a very few intimate friends-the Bar
i~atanskies, the Adlerberes, Sclouvafotfs and
otbers-with whom he spent a good deal of
his time, and from whom he heard all that
went on in the world. Every evening one
or the other of these families attended the
private court dinner, and afterwards charades
or comediattas used to be performed either
by the ladies and gentlemen of the court. or
by comedians from the French theatre. Dur
ing the daytime when it was fine the emperor
would take walking exercise in the public
garden of the palace, the gravel walks of
which were boarded over, and his only at
tendant usually was a big dog: or ne would
get into his sleigh and drive about the city
without escort. Sometimes he aligh'e ed and
walked all down the Newskl Prospect, look
ing into the shops, or he would stroll into
some friendly house and pay a visit. He was
known to everybody, but it was not the ETH
auette to salute HIM, still less to accost him,
unless he courted recognition by one of those
good-natured mods of which he was never
chary towards his personal acquaintance.
All this easy style of living, however, came
to an end last year, aud the precautions taken
to guard the car made his life for a time alb
solutely burdensome. He was scarcely al.
lowed to go out. and when he did so was
closely followed by detectives with loaded re.
volvers and by an armed ossack hetman,
who walked behind him or sat opposite him
in his carriage. The vehicle in which the
emperor road-whether it were a chach oil
railway carriaee-was cased in iron, and il
had nothing about it to attract attention
Thus in the streets, when several court car.
RACES passed together, the one that looked
like the cars was never that which contained
his majesty; and on the railroads, the mos
brilliant saloon ear remained empty, while
the empeor travelled in what appeared to bt
9 ~second-class compartment or baggage van
At one time the car was prevailed upon tt
wear a chain breast-plate under his tunic
but though one of the lightest Kind wa.
made for him he could not bear its weight, 81
the expedient was adopted of causing hi
TUNES to be padded with cotton wool STEPPED
i'm a preparation that hardened it and render
ed il, il not bullet-proof, at least knife-proof
and difficult for even a bullet to pierce at