with the hope of its permanence.

In Santiago's story of the Russian visitor's
achievements and status there was the common
mingling of truth and fiction the exalted never fail
to inspire. Rezanov, although he had accomplished
great ends against greater odds, was too little of a
courtier at heart ever to have been a prime favorite
in St. Petersburg until the accession of a ruler with
whom he had something in common. A dissolute
woman and a crack-brained despot were the last to
appreciate an original and independent mind, and
the seclusion of Alexander had been so complete
during the lifetime of his father that Rezanov barely
had known him by sight. But the Tsarovitz, en-
thusiastic for reform and a passionate admirer of
enterprise, knew of Rezanov, and no sooner did he
mount his gory throne than he confirmed the Cham-
berlain in his enterprise, and two years later made
him a Privy Counsellor, invested him with the order
of St. Ann, and chose him for the critical embassy
to the verdant realm with the blind and gateless
walls.

Rezanov had conquered so far in life even less by
address than by the demonstration of abilities very
singular in a man of his birth and education. When
he met Shelikov, during the Siberian merchant-
trader's visit to St. Petersburg in 1788, he was a
young man with little interest in life outside of its