take place in the casemate of the citadel, and the
young wife followed her husband to Siberia.

One day, a lady discovering her husband
at the moment the train was starting, by her
cries drew the attention of the banished one.
"Only now?" cried the husband, with all the
bitterness of grief and reproach. The woman
threw herself at the feet of the station-master,
beseeching him to stop the train for a minute.
It was already gone, and the unhappy woman
fell fainting on the platform. This happened
in November, 1863; some months later, the
Russians would not tolerate these farewells; a
line of soldiers was placed between the carriages
and the public, so that they who were taken, and
they who were left, could not shake hands.

Tears were proscribed at Warsaw; mothers
were forbidden to weep for the death of their
children. My mother was not permitted to
wear mourning for my young dead brother.
The widow of one of our heroic chiefs,
Sierakowski, who was shot, when near her
confinement was transported in a cart to Siberia,
and her child was condemned, before it was born,
to be put with foundlings, if it were a male.
Providence willed that it should not be, and
blessed Madame Sierakowski with a daughter.

On my return from Stockholm, whither I had
gone in the quality of political agent to the
national government of Poland, I received an
order from the national government to stop at
Berlin, and to wait there until the place should
be pointed out to me where I was to be employed
next in my country's cause. I arrived at Berlin
at the end of March, last year, and, having found
a modest lodging in a by-street, lived there with
a Swedish passport under a Swedish name, as a
Swede, with a large blue umbrella.

I used to go sometimes and read the papers
at the Café Spargnapani, which is in the most
frequented part of Unter den Linden. A
throng of foreigners is always there, attracted
by the journals of all countries. I often observed
some Poles there, and from time to time
a Russian spy—escorted, without his being
aware of it, by an agent of security of the
national Polish police. My own safety needing
the greatest reserve, I shunned all association
with the other readers, and, not to betray my
nationality, I read the papers of every country
except Poland and Russia.

One morning, the commissary of the Polish
national government came to me at my lodgings,
looking aghast, and informed me that
the Grand-Duke Constantine, younger brother
of the Emperor of Russia, was to pass through
Berlin on his way to St. Petersburg, and that
two persons, formerly Russian officers, but lately
in the service of the Polish insurrection (for we
had many deserters from the imperial army),
intended to make an attempt on the life of the
grand-duke, in order to avenge the unjust death
of three of their best comrades, whom he had shot
upon his arrival in Poland. The story seemed to
me incredible, but the detailed account of one of
our agents in whom I had full confidence, left me
no doubt that the attempt was really projected.

Let me notice here, that I had been myself
charged, in 1863, to seek authority from the
national government of Warsaw for the seizure
of the grand-duke, when he was returning from
the Crimea by way of the Danube, Pesth, and
Vienna.

We were really in consternation. To allow
the attempt to succeed (and that, if made, it
would succeed, there was little doubt) would
have been to afford to the enemies of Poland
the opportunity of belying us to the utmost
content of their hearts. On the other hand,
what were we to do in order not to betray
the two Russians, who, after all, were,
according to their own notion, acting in our
interest, and who yet concealed themselves
from us, though, happily, we knew them by
sight. It was requisite, moreover, for the
Polish national organisation in Berlin not to
betray itself, while it was using every
exertion to prevent the attempt. We were, as
they say in France, between the hammer and
the anvil. For three consecutive days, all the
public-houses in Berlin, all the theatres, all the
numerous casinos, were passed in review; but
of our officers no trace could be found. They
were in Berlin. At length, on the fourth day,
at about two o'clock in the afternoon, just as I
was coming out of a café with a fellow-countryman,
a coach passed, and within it we perceived
one of our heroes. We got instantly into
another carriage and followed him. Our friend
stopped at two different places; this we
allowed, as it was necessary to learn his
comrade's address; but what was our amazement
when he alighted at the Russian embassy!

I followed him, to see whether he entered as
an habitué, or as a mere stranger. I arrived at
the porter's lodge just as the doorkeeper,
profusely belaced, was saying to the officer: "Yes,
sir, we expect his highness the grand-duke to-
day, and he will leave for St. Petersburg at
ten o'clock to-morrow evening."

Information certainly could not have been
sought at a better source. We accosted the
conspirator as he was coming away.

"Sir," I said to him in Russian, "you are
such - and - such a person, and you have the
design of assassinating the Grand-Duke
Constantine at the moment of his departure for
Russia. You will follow me immediately to
the commissary of the national government of
Poland, or I shall give myself up, with you,
to the first Prussian constable."

He turned pale, and tried to rush into the
coach; my companion was already seated there,
so he saw the impossibility of escaping us. We
proceeded to the Hôtel du Nord, where our
commissary was sojourning, but that functionary
had just gone out. We waited in his room for
more than an hour, during which our conspirator
was plunged in gloomy silence. At length the
commissary arrived. The Russian—he was a
young man twenty-four or twenty-five years of
age, slim, fair, and pale—silently bit his moustache,
and did not answer any of our questions.
At last the commissary said to him, impatiently: