This book describes the Russian life and the hopeless misery in which the Russian peasant is plunged, the heartless despotism which his Government exercises, the certainty of a coming revolution to which the French Terror will seem as nothing. The hero Paul Howard Alexia, a Russian Prince, but half English by descent; His courage, his phlegmatic calm, his unfailing sagacity, illuminated, all of them, by a certain half-cynical humor, make an admirable study. The part of villain is played by a French ex-diplomat.