In his heart he believed he deserved the good-will and the gratitude of his subjects.

How gladly would he have ruled over a happy empire! But what could he do?
He had absolute power to make his people miserable--but none to make them happy.

It was not his fault that he occupied a throne which could only be made secure by a policy of stern repression.

It was not his fault that he ruled through a system so elementary, so crude, so utterly inadequate, that to administer justice was an impossibility.

Nor was it his fault that he had inherited autocratic instincts from a long line of ancestors.