452 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE-I 



the address, the Emperor, turning to the Austrian rep 

 resentative, Count Esterhazy, addressed him with the 

 greatest severity, hinted at the ingratitude of his govern 

 ment, and insisted on Russia s right to a different return. 

 During all this part of the address the Emperor Alexander 

 fastened his eyes upon those of the Austrian minister and 

 spoke in a manner much like that which the head of a 

 school would use toward a school-boy caught in misdoing. 

 At the close of this speech came the most perfect example 

 of deportment I had ever seen : the Austrian minister, hav 

 ing looked the Czar full in the face, from first to last, 

 without the slightest trace of feeling, bowed solemnly, re 

 spectfully, with the utmost deliberation, and then stood 

 impassive, as if words had not been spoken destined to 

 change the traditional relations between the two great 

 neighboring powers, and to produce a bitterness which, 

 having lasted through the latter half of the nineteenth 

 century, bids fair to continue far into the twentieth. 



Knowing the importance of this speech as an indication 

 to our government of what was likely to be the course of 

 the Emperor, I determined to retain it in my mind ; and, 

 although my verbal memory has never been retentive, I 

 was able, on returning to our legation, to write the whole 

 of it, word for word. In the form thus given, it was 

 transmitted to our State Department, where, a few years 

 since, when looking over sundry papers, I found it. 



Immediately after this presentation the diplomatic 

 corps proceeded to the room in which the body of Nicholas 

 lay in state. Heaped up about the coffin were the jeweled 

 crosses and orders which had been sent him by the various 

 monarchs of the world, and, in the midst of them, the 

 crowns and scepters of all the countries he had ruled, 

 among them those of Siberia, Astrakhan, Kazan, Poland, 

 the Crimea, and, above all, the great crown and scepter of 

 the empire. At his fefet two monks were repeating prayers 

 for the dead; his face and form were still as noble and 

 unconquerable as ever. 



His funeral dwells in my memory as the most imposing 



