The crown of Catharine was the wonder of Europe, but it was not rich enough for the brow of Paul.  A new one was constructed, and his coronation at Moscow was attended with freaks of expenditure which impoverished provinces.  Boundless gifts were lavished upon his favorites.  But that he might enrich a single noble, ten thousand peasants were robbed.  The crown peasants were vassals, enjoying very considerable freedom and many privileges.  The peasantry of the nobles were slaves, nearly as much so as those on a Cuban plantation, with the single exception that custom prevented their being sold except with the land.  Like the buildings, the oaks and the elms, they were inseparably attached to the soil.  The emperor, at his coronation, gave away eighty thousand families to his favorites.  Their labor henceforth, for life, was all to go to enrich their masters.  These courtiers, reveling in boundless luxury, surrendered their slaves to overseers, whose reputation depended upon extorting as much as possible from the miserable boors.

The extravagance of Catharine II. had rendered it necessary for her to triple the capitation, or, as we should call it, the poll-tax, imposed upon the peasants.  Paul now doubled this tax, which his mother had already tripled.  The King of Prussia had issued a decree that no subject should fall upon his knees before him, but that every man should maintain in his presence and in that of the law the dignity of humanity.  Paul, on the contrary, reestablished, in all its rigor, the oriental etiquette, which Peter I. and Catharine had allowed to pass into disuse, which required every individual, whether a citizen or a stranger, to fall instantly upon his knees whenever the tzar made his appearance.  Thus, when Paul passed along the streets on horseback or in his carriage, every man, woman and child, within sight of the royal cortege, was compelled to kneel, whether in mud or snow, until the cortege had passed.  No one was exempted from the rule.  Strangers and citizens, nobles and peasants, were compelled to the degrading homage.  Those on horseback or in carriages were required instantly to dismount and prostrate themselves before the despot.

A noble lady who came to St. Petersburg in her carriage, in great haste, to seek medical aid for her husband, who had been suddenly taken sick, in her trouble not having recognized the imperial livery, was dragged from her carriage and thrust into prison.  Her four servants, who accompanied her, were seized and sent to the army, although they plead earnestly that, coming from a distance, they were ignorant of the law, the infraction of which was attributed to them as a crime.  The unhappy lady, thus separated from her sick husband, and plunged into a dungeon, was so overwhelmed with anguish that she was thrown into a fever.  Reason was dethroned, and she became a hopeless maniac.  The husband died, being deprived of the succor his wife had attempted to obtain.