Reminiscences of the Public and Private Life (1799-1449)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1858. Excerpt: ... remarkable proof of his great' courteousness, a quality for which he had been noted throughout his life time, and likewise a mark of respect for the memory of his late father, who died many years previously, and of his fidelity and attachment to a promise once exacted from him by that father. As often as the Emperor felt himself obliged to turn round and turn his back to me, he made me his apologies for so doing, and when he consulted me concerning the use of Dutch or European remedies, which might alleviate his sufferings, he added he would only try them, if I could assure him with truth, that no opium was amongst the ingredients; for he had sworn to his father, the late emperor, when he was on his deathbed, who had committed great excesses in the use of opium, never to use this pernicious and intoxicating remedy. But this Monarch, who in his dying hour gave such proofs of a tender conscience, was far from being so consciencious in other and more essential respects, during his whole life; for then he was any thing but fearful of doing wrong; alas! on the contrary he shewed himself in the light of most oriental despots to be immoral, cruel and thoroughly depraved. Besides many murders of which he had been guilty in his youth, in maturer life, he had committed the most cruel infanticide possible, by poisoning his daughter, an attractive and charming princess of 17 or 18, when she was pregnant by her lover and future husband, her cousin, the son of the Emperor's brother, Prince Mankoloemie, to whom she was shortly to be married with her father's consent;--but both young victims died at the same time by poison. During a period of ten days I was invested with the Imperial dignity and never left the palace. After this, the Crown Prince, the son of the deceased...