APRIL 81 



troops.' 1 One reform Peter desired, but had not the 

 confidence to attempt that of prohibiting the imme- 

 morial practice of exposing on the tower of Cettinje 

 the heads of Turks taken by his borderers in their 

 perennial warfare. He told Wilkinson that he would 

 fain have done so, but that it would be understood by 

 the Turks as a symptom of drooping patriotism. It 

 was left for Peter's nephew, Danilo IL, to effect this. 

 Succeeding in 1851, this Prince proved to be a reformer 

 even more ardent than his uncle. Refusing to take 

 holy orders, he became the first secular ruler of 

 Montenegro since the failure of the line of Czernovich 

 in 1516 ; thenceforward temporal and ecclesiastical rule 

 remained distinct systems. But the author of this 

 salutary revolution paid the penalty of his life for 

 violating the moral law which his subjects held most 

 sacred. The one wrong which the Montenegrin will 

 never forgive is tampering with the purity of wife 

 or daughter. Prince Danilo, it is said, seduced the 

 wife of Kadich Radovich. In August 1860 he was 

 staying with his Princess at Perzagno, and when 

 embarking in a boat to return thither from his usual 

 evening stroll on the esplanade at Cattaro, Kadich 

 came up from behind and shot him in the back. The 

 Princess received him as he fell, and he died in her 

 arms. Such was the story told to Lady Strangford in 

 1864; but it is only fair to Danilo's memory to add 

 that another complexion is put upon the crime, and 

 the cause thereof, by the statement that Kadich acted 

 from political motives, being member of a family which 



1 Wilkinson's Montenegro, etc., vol. i. p. 472. 

 F 



