At St. Petersburg, his objections to court dress were more sympathetically received.  Count Nesselrode, who found this uncompromising American possessed of redeeming qualities, put himself to no little trouble to arrange an interview with the Czar.  Douglas was finally put under the escort of Baron Stoeckle, who was a member of the Russian embassy at Washington, and conducted to the field where the Czar was reviewing the army.  Mounted upon a charger of huge dimensions, the diminutive Douglas was brought into the presence of the Czar of all the Russias.[410] It is said that Douglas was the only American who witnessed these manoeuvres; but Douglas afterward confessed, with a laugh at his own expense, that the most conspicuous feature of the occasion for him was the ominous evolutions of his horse’s ears, for he was too short of limb and too inexperienced a horseman to derive any satisfaction from the military pageant.[411]

We are assured by his devoted biographer, Sheahan, that Douglas personally examined all the public institutions of the capital during his two weeks’ stay in St. Petersburg; and that he sought a thorough knowledge of the manners, laws, and government of that city and the Empire.[412] No doubt, with his nimble perception he saw much in this brief sojourn, for Russia had always interested him greatly, and he had read its history with more than wonted care.[413] He was not content to follow merely the beaten track in central and western Europe; but he visited also the Southeast where rumors of war were abroad.  From St. Petersburg, he passed by carriage through the interior to the Crimea and to Sebastopol, soon to be the storm centre of war.  In the marts of Syria and Asia Minor, he witnessed the contact of Orient and Occident.  In the Balkan peninsula he caught fugitive glimpses of the rule of the unspeakable Turk.[414]

No man with the quick apperceptive powers of Douglas could remain wholly untouched by the sights and sounds that crowd upon even the careless traveler in the East; yet such experiences are not formative in the character of a man of forty.  Douglas was still Douglas, still American, still Western to the core, when he set foot on native soil in late October.  He was not a larger man either morally or intellectually; but he had acquired a fund of information which made him a readier, and possibly a wiser, man.  And then, too, he was refreshed in body and mind.  More than ever he was bold, alert, persistent, and resourceful.  In his compact, massive frame, were stored indomitable pluck and energy; and in his heart the spirit of ambition stirred mightily.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 370:  The speech is given in part by Sheahan, Douglas, pp. 171 ff; and at greater length by Flint, Douglas, App., pp. 3 ff.]

[Footnote 371:  Sheahan, Douglas, p. 186; Flint, Douglas, App., p. 30.]