The Portland daily press., 1881-06-07
The New Russian Saint.
Stories Told About the Nihilist, Sophie
Perowsky.

The Paris journals are bound to make a
heroine out of the executed Sophie Perowsky.
General Chanzy, who is on a visit to Paris, is
reported as saying that the czarina is in very
debilitated state, owing to her fear of the
nihilists. A New York Tribune correspondent
says:
She is now in mortal terror lest the nihilists
should, as they threatened before the execu-
tion of the five, avenge on her children the
death of Sophie Perowsky. 1t would have
been good policy to have made a hostage Of
that extraordinary heroine, who is already re-
garded, it appears, as martyr by the discon-
tented classes in Russia high and low. Her
posthumous influence and prestige are said to
be immense. Although political assassination
is not a crime that tempts French men and
women, admiration is expressed everywhere
for Sophie Perowsky, of whom the pretty
Viscountess de Rainnevile, leader ofsfashion
in the Orleanist part of the Faubourg ST. Ger
main, was first cousin. The uncle of Sophie
was also the first tutor of the present czar, and
an intimate friend of MouriavieH. 1t is whis-
pered, too, in Madame de Rainnevilles draw
ing room that the nihilist heroine was q natu-
Ial daughter of Alexander II. Be this as it
may, she would not have joined in her six
teenth year the nihilists, and set out from a
luxurious home ON self-imposed mission had
it not been that General Mouriavieff was "the
butcher of Poland" Her hand was destined by
her parents to Constantine, the generals SoD.
Sophie recoiled from the marriage A teacher
beloved by her was Polish lady, who had
seen the Warsaw atrocities which Mouriavieff
perpetrated. Mile. Perowsky at that time had
eyes of sapphire, golden hair, and complex
ion of such delicacy that rose petal only af-
forded standard of comparison for it. She
had naIve, innocent, wondering expression
in her young face, which confirmed the suspi-
cion of her unavowed relationship to the czar.
Her schoolfellows called her bebe when she
was quite big girl. Her forehead was vast
almost to deformity, and the mouth beauti-
fully and firmly modelled, though somewhat
rosebud" She was at the head of her class
always at school, but from generosity refused
to compete for prizes.
STRANGE CAREER.
Her parents. when she came home, pressed
her to become the wife of the promising young
official whom they had destined to become
her husband. She refused. They continued
to press. Then she disappeared, taking no
money but her own small savings. Letters
were occasionally received. They were sent in
some mysterious way and stated that she was
we'll and happy. AS she was girl of slender
form and apparently delicate organization, it
never occurred to them that she had embraced
life of the most fearful hardship. They i'm
agined she had run away with some married
man who was keeping her hidden. She was
not. This beautiful young creature was brav-
ing every i'll to which poverty y-stricken human
ity is liable, to instil socialist doctrines into
the minds of peasantry and working folk. She
worked with her hands for subsistence, choos-
ing the tasks which were most likely to bring
her into contact with those socially lowest and
most burdened with misery. Her propaganda
was auricular, for she was a low-voiced, timid
girl, and of hesitating speech when many lis
tened to her. The news fell like thunder
bolt five years ago that she was arrested by the
police under the charge of heading socialis-
fin ID hnro 10 do in tJn
eastern provinces. The country of the Volga
which she went to stir up, has a mercurial
population of gypsies, Jews, Tartars and hy-
brids She chose the Volga, because ideas are
more rapidly communicated along the courses
of rivers than elsewhere. A river brings with
it commercial stir and is great instrument of
exchange. Sophie was treated with fearful
harshness, but offered pardon if she would re-
veal the secrets of the nihilist organization;
which did not then aim at regicide. She kept
close mouth. For twenty-four months she
was in cell in the prison on the north bank
OF the Neva, and was almost frozen to death in
winter. AT the end of that she stood her trial,
and was banished to town on the White sea.
When she escaped and got to st. Petersburg
she fell in with Hartman, OF whom she became
the intimate associate, but not the mistress.
They lived together for a few years. Sophie
was supposed to be washerwoman and me-
chanic. What an extraordinary career hers
was
ON THE SCAFFOLD.
The st. Petersburg correspondent of the
Triboulet states that she kissed in the dock her
fellow convicts, and with quiet cheerfulness
told them to rejoice. He was told by Baranoff,
project of police, not to telegraph this detail,
which was sent by letter. Another forbidden
detail was a statement made by Michaeloff, to
the effect that he had invented a balloon sus-
ceptible of being directed, and that unless the
Gar gave constitution it would be used
against him. The Voltaire's st. Petersburg
correspondent compares Sophie for beauty, ar
istocratc elegance of form, and for candor, to
Rosalind and Viola. Yet she could be secre-
tive, and ner ruses IN ovadins tho Folioo woro
endless. The account given by Figaro's corre-
spondent of the manner in which her slender
little feet danced in the air when the execu-
tioners strung her up to the gallows has excited
the greatest horror in Paris. That extraordi-
nary artist, "Alceste,'' has taken this dance of
death of Sophie's feet for the theme of an arti-
BILE, the most weird, grim, striking, extraordi-
nary and, for czarism, ominous that remem-
ber ever reading. Poe might have written in
the same strain if he had had to treat the same
grave subject.