Note 41 — Chapter 3 The Death of Alexander I. and the Fourteenth of December—Moral Awakening—The Terrorist Bouchot—My Kortcheva Cousin

Nicholas’s victory over the Five was celebrated by a religious service in Moscow. In the midst of the Kremlin the Metropolitan Filaret thanked God for the murders. The whole of the Royal Family took part in the service, near them the Senate and the ministers, and in the immense space around packed masses of the Guards knelt bareheaded, and also took part in the prayers; cannon thundered from the heights of the Kremlin. Never have the gallows been celebrated with such pomp; Nicholas knew the importance of the victory!

I was present at that service, a boy of fourteen lost in the crowd, and on the spot, before that altar defiled by bloody rites. I swore to avenge the murdered men, and dedicated myself to the struggle with that throne, with that altar, with those cannons. I have not avenged them, the Guards and the throne, the altar and the cannon all remain, but for thirty years I have stood under that flag and have never once deserted it.—(Polar Star, 1855.)