The Czar As A Social Autocrat

The Wiener Tagblatt, an influential Austrian Journal, has found an extraordinary reason ior praising the demeanor of the czar. He actually allowed Mme. Faure and Mme. Brisson, who are not even hoffahg, to dine at the same table with himself and the czarina. Sueh a concession to republican principies would, the journalist continúes, be absolutely impossible in Vienna, where, though a low-born man might be admitted to the emperor's table, his wife never could be. The fact was correct and was once the occasion of a curious scène at the Hofburg when the emperor had to exert his personal authority to obtain partners for his nremier's hu our contemporary surely mistakes the feeling of the czar. In his mind, as in that of every true autoerat, there is no rank except that derived from hia favor. His notice, in fact, as Nicholas I. once openly said, of itself confers rank. The well-born in Ruasia have social advantages, as everywhere else, but Peter the Great's ablest minister was a cook or butler and the tradition has never been forgotten. In Russia, as in every oriental country without exception, all careers are as