6 
PETERSBURG. 
CHAP. 
I. 
from his under-lip against the end of his short 
nose. In one of his furious passions, flourishing 
his cane about, he struck by accident the 
branch of a large glass lustre, and broke it. 
As soon as he perceived what had happened, 
he attacked the lustre in good earnest, and did 
not give up his work until it was entirely 
demolished. 
In the rare intervals of better temper, his 
good-humour was betrayed by an uncouth way 
of swinging his legs and feet about in walking. 
Upon those occasions he was sure to talk with 
indecency and folly. 
But the instances were few in which the 
gloom spread over a great metropolis, by the 
madness and malevolence of a suspicious 
tyrant, was enlivened even by his ribaldry. 
The accounts of the Spanish Inquisition do not 
afford more painful sensations than were excited 
in viewing the state of Russia at this time. 
Hardly a day passed without unjust punish- 
ment. It seemed as if half the Nobles in the 
Empire were to be sent to Siberia. Those who 
were able to leave Petersburg went to Moscoiv. 
It was in vain they applied for permission to 
leave the country : the very request might 
incur banishment to the mines. If any family 
