The Life and Reign of Nicholas the First, Emperor of Russia - Softcover

From the preface: "THE position which the late Czar Nicholas I. will occupy in the history of the nineteenth century, is an equivocal one. So far as he is regarded as the great representative of Absolutism and Despotism, in an age of general progress and improvement, when the millions are loudly proclaiming to the privileged few, that the day of their tyranny will soon be forever ended;—as such a representative of the feudal past, Nicholas I. must ever be regarded as a pernicious and bad man, who employed his prodigious power to turn back, as far as he could, the great dial-hand of human progress. The only aspect in which Nicholas I. presents himself favourably to view, is with reference to the stern and inflexible qualities of his mind;—the immovable decision, the daring resolution, the self-supporting and fiercely defiant obstinacy, with which he ventured to confront the united current of public opinion, which swept almost around the civilized world; and arrayed himself, alone, against the many-toned voices of the race, which proclaimed the approach of the inevitable era of the enfranchisement of the nations. That the history of the life and reign of such a man would possess not only great interest, but even considerable importance, cannot well be doubted. His position was too prominent, and his qualities were too peculiar, ever to permit his name, his influence, and his memory, to descend to the shades of the common oblivion. A few men there have been, in this nineteenth century, who loom far upward into the political heavens, and tower like mighty Alps above the ordinary level; who astonish, delight, and even terrify, mankind by their superior vastness and greatness, both of natural abilities, and of acquired, or inherited, official station. Napoleon I. was one, and certainly the greatest, of these. Napoleon III. is without question another. And Nicholas I. may well be classed among the most memorable of the men whose careers have illustrated the present century."