Since the beginning of the nineteenth century it is said one million political exiles have been sent there, and they continue to go at the rate of twenty thousand a year; showing how useful a present was made by the robber Yermak to the "Orthodox Tsar"! This reign, like that of Louis XI.

of France, which it much resembled, enlarged the privileges of the people in order to aid Ivan in his conflict with his nobility.

For this purpose a _Sobor_, or States-General, was summoned by him, and met at long intervals thereafter until the time of Peter the First.
Of the two sons left to Ivan by his wife Anastasia, only one now remained.

In a paroxysm of rage he had struck the Tsarevitch with his iron staff.

He did not intend to kill him, but the blow was mortal.
Great and fierce was the sorrow of the Tsar when he found he had slain his beloved son--the one thing he loved upon earth, and there remained to inherit the fruit of his labors and his crimes only another child (Feodor) enfeebled in body and mind, and an infant (Dmitri), the son of his seventh wife.