Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

in this manner, five, six, or seven times! The exact number of these unions is unknown. He repudiated, killed, or neglected all his wives; not one long resisted either his caresses or his fury : but, notwithstanding his avowed indifference to the objects of his past passion, he set about avenging their loss with a scrupulous rage, which, on each death of an empress, spread terror throughout the realm. Nevertheless, most frequently, the death whicli formed the pretext for so many executions had been caused or commanded by the Czar himself. His mournings were merely opportunities for shedding the blood and the tears of others. It was always said that the pious Czarina, the beautiful Czarina, the unfortunate Czarina, had been poisoned by the ministers or counsellors of the Czar, or by the boyards, of whom he wished to rid himself. It seems to have been in vain that he himself strove to throw off his mask : he continued to lie by habit, if not by necessity; such is the inseparable union of falsehood and tyranny.

The calumnies of Ivan IV. were always intimations of death. Whoever was touched by the venom of his words, fell: corpses were heaped up around him, yet death was the least of the evils with which he loaded the condemned. His profoundly skilful cruelty found out the art of making his victims Ì0n2; for the last stroke. Expert in giving torture, he amused himself with their agony; he protracted it with diabolical address, and in his cruel solicitude, he gently nursed their torments, and dreaded their death as much as they longed for it. Death was, in fact, the only good that he accorded his subjects.

It will be necessary, however, to enumerate, once