CHAPTER I. 



THE NEVA. 



THE steamer plying between St. Petersburg and Lake 

 Onega takes its departure from a quay nearly opposite to 

 the Finnish Railway Terminus. Of the passage by water 

 from the centre of the city to this, I have given an 

 account in the companion volume, entitled Forests and 

 Forestry in Finland. The drive by land from the centre of 

 the city to the quay of the Onega steamer may be less 

 striking, but it is not less interesting. 



Starting from Vassiliostroff, or from the English 

 Quay, passing along this brings us upon the Isaac's 

 Plain, now the Alexandra Sadd. This was the scene 

 of the military insurrection which occurred in Decem- 

 ber 1825, on Nicolas I. succeeding to the throne. I write 

 from memory of what was told to me fifty years ago 

 oy men who had seen, and men who had acted in the 

 conflict, and of what I then read of the trial and condemna- 

 tion of leaders in the fight, and the visions which rise before 

 me may be more vivid than absolutely correct, but they 

 are my remembrances accurately given. The conspiracy 

 had been progressing rapidly during the later years of 

 Alexander I. His death, and the succession of the Grand 

 Duke Constantine, intensified the desire of many to effect 

 a change in the government of the Empire. By a family 

 compact Constantine had ceded to his younger brother 

 Nicolas all claim to the throne. There, as here, the Sovereign 

 never dies. The oath of allegiance to Constantine had 

 been taken when the death of Alexander was proclaimed ; 

 and now the soldiery were required to take an oath of 

 allegiance to Nicolas. The disaffected officers, assuming 



