RECOLLECTIONS OF POBEDONOSTZEFF- 1892-1894 G9 



and from that moment the archbishop s arm was para 

 lyzed; and it remained so until the penitent prelate sum 

 moned the priest again, by whose prayers the arm was re 

 stored to its former usefulness. There was present at the 

 time another person besides myself who had heard the 

 previous statement as to the blindness of the archbishop ; 

 and, on our both asking the general if he was sure that the 

 archbishop s arm was paralyzed as stated, he declared 

 that he could not doubt it, as he had the account directly 

 from persons entirely trustworthy who were cognizant of 

 all the facts. 



Sometime later, meeting Pobedonostzeff, I asked him 

 which of these stories was correct. He answered im 

 mediately, &quot;Neither: in the discharge of my duties I 

 saw the Archbishop Isidore constantly down to the last 

 hours of his life, and no such event ever occurred. He 

 was never paralyzed and never blind.&quot; But the great 

 statesman and churchman then went on to say that, al 

 though this story was untrue, there were a multitude of 

 others quite as remarkable in which he believed; and he 

 gave me a number of legends showing that Father Ivan 

 possessed supernatural knowledge and miraculous powers. 

 These he unfolded to me with much detail, and with such 

 an accent of conviction that we seemed surrounded by a 

 medieval atmosphere in which signs and wonders were 

 the most natural things in the world. 



As to his action on politics since my leaving Russia, 

 the power which he exercised over Alexander III has 

 evidently been continued during the reign of the young 

 Nicholas II. In spite of his eighty years, he seems to be, 

 to-day, the leader of the reactionary party. 

 ^ During the early weeks of The Hague Conference, 

 Count Minister, in his frequent diatribes against its 

 whole purpose, and especially against arbitration, was 

 wont to insist that the whole thing was a scheme prepared 

 by Pobedonostzeff to embarrass Germany; that, as Russia 

 was always wretchedly unready with her army, The 

 Hague Conference was simply a trick for gaining time 



