Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/444

430 NICHOLAS I. Christians to unite against the Turks. He abandoned in favor of this crusade all the revenues of the church, the tenths due to his treasury, and all the imposts of which he had the disposal. His generosity and the assis- tance of Alfonso, king of Sicily, enabled him to place a large force in the field under Scan- derbeg, who gained several important victo- ries. He also displayed great munificence in welcoming the Greek refugees, and providing honorable employment for their men of let- ters. He purchased the manuscripts of every description saved from the sack of Constan- tinople, encouraged the translation into Latin of all the great literary monuments of Greece, enlarged the great Roman schools, embellished Eome with sumptuous buildings, and may be said to have founded the Vatican library. When the plague which ravaged Italy in 1449 and 1450 forced the pope to fly from Rome, his temporary abodes in Fabriano, Spoleto, Assisi, and Tolentino were filled with men of letters, booksellers, and bookbinders. In De- cember, 1452, he frustrated a conspiracy formed against his life. He succeeded in terminating the feuds which had so long disturbed Italy, and gave its people several years of peace. He was free from the charge of nepotism, and an enemy to all duplicity and hypocrisy. NICHOLAS I. (NIKOLAI PAVLOVITOH), empe- ror of Russia, born in St. Petersburg, July 6, 1796, died there, March 2, 1855. He was the third son of Paul I. by his second wife, a daughter of the duke Eugene of Wiirtemberg. With the exception of political economy, he showed little interest in scientific attainments, but was quick in mastering foreign languages. From the peace in 1815 to his accession in 1825, he devoted himself to military matters, but never gave evidence of any real strategi- cal capacity. In 1816 he visited England and the Russian provinces. On July 13, 1817, he married Charlotte of Prussia (Alexandra Feo- dorovna), eldest daughter of Frederick William III. ; she gave birth on April 29 (O. S. 17), 1818, to the present emperor Alexander II. About 1821 the family pact was secretly agreed upon, by which his elder brother Constantine re- nounced the succession in his favor. Nicho- las, however, on the news of the death of the eldest brother, the emperor Alexander I. (Dec. 1, 1825), took the oath of allegiance to Constan- tine, and did not assume the reins of power until the latter had publicly signified his de- termination not to reign. The accession of Nicholas became the signal of a formidable in- surrection, in the suppression of which the new emperor showed personal courage and pres- ence of mind, but an unrelenting disposition. Capital punishment, abolished by the empress Elizabeth, was inflicted by Nicholas upon the leaders of the insurrection. Four were pub- licly executed, one after another, in St. Peters- burg. The fifth was the poet Rileyeff. The rope broke, and he fell to the ground still alive. The sight of his agony created such sympathy in the assembled multitude, that the gover- nor general sent for instruction to the empe- ror. The command of Nicholas was : " Take a stronger rope and proceed with the execution." The other parties to the insurrection were ban- ished to Siberia, some for life, and others for 20 years or for shorter periods ; but the sen- tence of none of them was. ever commuted. The brilliant victories of Paskevitch and Die- bitsch over Persia and Turkey in 1827-'9 add- ed prestige to his government, especially as the Turkish war also saved the independence of Greece, as well as the autonomy of the Danu- bian principalities, which were now reorganized under a Russian protectorate. The revolution of 1830-'31 in Poland terminated in the anni- hilation of Polish nationality. These events, accomplished in rapid succession, surrounded Nicholas with a halo of glory. He now for some time relaxed the rigor of the censorship, com- bated the venality of public men, and ordered the codification of the laws. But the tempta- tions of power caused him to relapse into rigid absolutism ; and Russia soon presented again the spectacle of a vast empire ruled by the iron hand of a single man. The United Greeks, who acknowledged the authority of the pope while preserving the usages of the Greek church, were compelled to unite with the or- thodox establishment ; the Protestants of the Baltic provinces were persecuted ; and the Jews were subjected to a barbarous treatment. He indirectly supported Don Carlos in Spain, but considered Dom Miguel of Portugal a usurper. During the political complications in connection with the conflict between the viceroy of Egypt Mehemet Ali and the sultan, Nicholas secured his predominance in the East by a speedy intervention against the advance of Ibrahim Pasha in 1833, and acted in alliance with England and the German powers in 1840. In 1844 he paid a visit to Queen Victo- ria, and subsequently he visited the emperor of Austria, and in 1846 Pope Gregory XVI. The attempted Polish rising of 1846 was sup- pressed with little bloodshed. He abstained from interfering during the political excitement of 1848, except in the Danubian principalities, until his assistance was invoked by the empe- ror of Austria against the Hungarians, whose revolution was in 1849 crushed by the aid of Russian troops. In the East, Nicholas followed the traditions of his house in his wars of con- quest in Persia, the Caucasus, and Turkey. His ambition of gaining preponderance in Turkey was constantly perceptible during his reign, and led in 1853 to the rupture with Turkey, which resulted in the war with England and France. The repeated defeats and losses of his armies and fleet produced a deep effect upon his powerful constitution, and hastened his death, the more immediate cause of which was atrophy of the lungs. Nicholas had a commanding presence, and great capacity for labor and endurance. He travelled day and night to inspect fortresses and review troops,