A story worth remembering comes from Russia. It is asserted
that shortly after the last attempt to blow up the Czar's train, the officer commanding the Guards, a Prince of the Oldenburg family, was asked what would have happened had the attempt succeeded. "I should have ordered the Guard" —sixty thousand men in full possession of the capital—" to- swear allegiance to the Grand Duke Vladimir," the Czar's brother, said to be the ablest of the Imperial House. It is highly improbable that any such reply was made ; but it may serve as a reminder that in Russia, as in every despotic country, the succession is always surrounded by uncertainties. Even in the confusion caused by a catastrophe, the Guard, which would for the moment be in possession of the situa- tion, could not dismiss the race of Rurik ; but within that House it might affect the order of the succession. That very nearly occurred when the Emperor Nicholas ascended the throne,—indeed, would have occurred but for his own nerve, and his elder brother's consciousness of some incapacity to reign.
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