“The affair of December,” 1825—­I mean the abortive attempt at a military insurrection in St. Petersburg, to which I have alluded in the foregoing chapter—­gave the key-note to Nicholas’s reign.  The armed attempt to overthrow the Imperial power, ending in the execution or exile of many young members of the first families, struck terror into the Noblesse, and prepared the way for a period of repressive police administration.  Nicholas had none of the moral limpness and vacillating character of his predecessor.  His was one of those simple, vigorous, tenacious, straightforward natures—­more frequently to be met with among the Teutonic than among the Slav races—­whose conceptions are all founded on a few deep-rooted, semi-instinctive convictions, and who are utterly incapable of accommodating themselves with histrionic cleverness to the changes of external circumstances.  From his early youth he had shown a strong liking for military discipline and a decided repugnance to the humanitarianism and liberal principles then in fashion.  With “the rights of man,” “the spirit of the age,” and similar philosophical abstractions his strong, domineering nature had no sympathy; and for the vague, loud-sounding phrases of philosophic liberalism he had a most profound contempt.  “Attend to your military duties,” he was wont to say to his officers before his accession; “don’t trouble your heads with philosophy.  I cannot bear philosophers!” The tragic event which formed the prelude to his reign naturally confirmed and fortified his previous convictions.  The representatives of liberalism, who could talk so eloquently about duty in the abstract, had, whilst wearing the uniform of the Imperial Guard, openly disobeyed the repeated orders of their superior officers and attempted to shake the allegiance of the troops for the purpose of overthrowing the Imperial power!  A man who was at once soldier and autocrat, by nature as well as by position, could of course admit no extenuating circumstances.  The incident stereotyped his character for life, and made him the sworn enemy of liberalism and the fanatical defender of autocracy, not only in his own country, but throughout Europe.  In European politics he saw two forces struggling for mastery—­monarchy and democracy, which were in his opinion identical with order and anarchy; and he was always ready to assist his brother sovereigns in putting down democratic movements.  In his own Empire he endeavoured by every means in his power to prevent the introduction of the dangerous ideas.  For this purpose a stringent intellectual quarantine was established on the western frontier.  All foreign books and newspapers, except those of the most harmless kind, were rigorously excluded.  Native writers were placed under strict supervision, and peremptorily silenced as soon as they departed from what was considered a “well-intentioned” tone.  The number of university students was diminished, the chairs for political science were suppressed, and the military schools multiplied.  Russians were prevented from travelling abroad, and foreigners who visited the country were closely watched by the police.  By these and similar measures it was hoped that Russia would be preserved from the dangers of revolutionary agitation.