142 CHARLES CALLED TO KUSSIA. 



quently executed these in part very difficult tasks so 

 satisfactorily, that we considered our resolution to 

 entrust him. despite his youth, with such important 

 works as a very happy one. We owe it mainly to 

 his energy and ability that the Russian business now 

 grew so rapidly and to such proportions. 



The emperor Nicolas was then on the throne, and 

 under him the most powerful man in the empire was 

 Count Kleinmichel, chief of the ministry of public ways 

 and communications. I had up till then come into no 

 personal contact with this man so feared throughout 

 Russia, as the negotiations had been carried on through 

 the above mentioned Colonel von Luders. with whom I 

 was on personally friendly terms. When however the 

 latter was taken ill and obliged to try the restorative 

 efficacy of German watering-places in the spring of 

 1853, I was summoned by Count Kleinmichel to St. 

 Petersburg for a conference on telegraph matters, just 

 when I was expecting my brother Charles, to accom- 

 pany him to Warsaw. I accordingly applied as usual 

 at the Russian embassy for the visa of my passport. 

 To my astonishment, in spite of repeated reminders. 

 I failed to obtain the visa. When I complained of 

 this to the ambassador himself, he told me that by 

 order of the St. Petersburg secret police the visa 

 could not be given. As no reason was given for the 

 refusal, nothing was left to me but to write to Count 

 Kleinmichel that I could not comply with his request, 

 the visa of my passport having been refused. It then 

 lasted no longer than the exchange of couriers bet- 



