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 down.
 
 LIFE AND TIMES 
 
 OF 
 
 ALEXANDER I, 
 
 EMPEROR OF ALL THE RUSSIAS. 
 
 . BY 
 
 C. JOYNEVILLE. 
 
 " My rival in glory and power." NAPOLEON, loq. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND. 
 
 1875. 
 
 [All rights of Translation and Reproduction are reserved.}
 
 LOICDON : 
 
 SAV1LL, El;WAi;D8 AND CO., PK1NTERS, CHANDOS STKEET, 
 COVENT GARDES.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIEST VOLUME. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Ancestors of the Imperial House of Eomanof, 1. Conjugal Unhappi- 
 ness of Peter and Catherine, 4. Opposition to Peter's Accession, 6. 
 Catherine's Coronation, 7. Pugachef 's Insurrection, 8. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE FATHER AND MOTHER OF ALEXANDER. 
 
 The Childhood of Paul, 9. His Treatment by Catherine, 10. Inocu- 
 lation of the Court by Dr. Dimsdale, 10. Paul's Tutors, 11. 
 Catherine's Views as to Paul's Education, 11. Paul's First Mar- 
 riage, 11. Death of the Grand Duchess Natalia, 12. Paul's 
 violent Grief, 12. His temporary Loss of Reason, 13. Second 
 Marriage of Paul, 17. State of Poland, 18. Condition of the 
 Poles, 19. John Sobieski, 21. Treaty between Catherine and 
 Frederick the Great, 23. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ALEXANDER'S EDUCATION AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 Character and Conduct of the Grand Duchess, 26. Birth and Bap- 
 tism of Alexander, 26. Inundation of St. Petersburg, 27. 
 Rejoicings on Account of the Birth of a Prince, 28. Sir J. Harris's 
 Interview with the Empress, 29. Letter of George III. to the 
 Empress, 30. Visit of the Grand Duke and Duchess to Louis XVI.,
 
 vi Contents. 
 
 31. Education of Alexander and Constantine, 35. Paul Banished 
 to the Castle of Gateschina, 41. He is ordered to join the 
 Russian Army in Finland, 43. Catherine's Visit to Cherson, 45. 
 The French Revolution, 46. Gaiety and Dissipation of the Court, 
 48. Insurrection at Cracow, 54. Alexander's Marriage, 56. Illness 
 of Alexander, 60. Extreme Opinions of the Grand Duke, 68. 
 Polish Views as to the Conduct of Prince Adam Czartoriski, 70. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PAUL'S REIGN. 
 
 Expedition against Persia, 71. Illness of Catherine, 74. Her Death, 
 78. Proclamation of Paul, 78. Funeral of Catherine, 81. 
 Paul's Retrenchments, 85. Paul's Coronation at Moscow, 89. 
 Paul's Sympathy with the French Royalists, 95. Treaty of 
 Alliance with Great Britain, 96. Field-Marshal Suvorov recalled 
 from Exile, 99. His Victories over the French in Lombardy and 
 Piedmont, 101. Capture of Schorldam and Bergen, 106. 
 Dismissal of Alexander from the Governorship of St. Petersburg, 
 111. Rostopchine's Friendship for the Emperor, 112. Increasing 
 Irritability of Paul's Temper, 115. Conspiracy for placing him 
 under Restraint, 115. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ALEXANDER'S ACCESSION. 
 
 Republican Feeling in Italy, 120. Paul's Proposal for a Tournament 
 of the Sovereigns of Europe, 124. Conduct of the Legitimists 
 in St. Petersburg, 126. Defeats of Austria at Marengo and 
 Hohenlinden, 129. Passage of the Alps by the French Army, 
 129. Estrangement between Russia and Great Britain, 131. 
 Embargo on English Ships in Russian Ports, 132. Treaty 
 between Russia and Denmark, 133. Louis XVIII. ordered to 
 leave Russia, 135. Building of St. Michael's Palace, 136. Con- 
 spiracy against Paul, 137. Failure of a Plan to Assassinate him, 
 140. Paul's Suspicion of Alexander, 141. Arrest of the Princes 
 ordered, 142. Assassination of Paul, 147. Alarm and Indignation 
 of the Empress, 148. Lying in State of the Body of Paul, 151. 
 Proclamation by Alexander, 155. Abolition of the Secret Police, 
 160.
 
 Contents. vii 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ALEXANDER'S FIRST ACTS. 
 
 Feelings excited by the News of Paul's Death in the European Courts, 
 161. Napoleon's Mortification at the Intelligence, 162. The 
 Empress-Dowager and her Party aid Napoleon's Schemes of 
 Ambition, 164. Alexander's Attitude towards Napoleon, 166. 
 Alexander visits all Classes of his Subjects, 168. His Relations 
 with England, 169. Description of Alexander's Personal Appear- 
 ance, 171. Publication of Important Ukazes, 172. Treaty of 
 Peace between France and Russia, 172. Alexander's Coronation, 
 174. A French Female Spy detected and expelled, 177. Princess 
 Dashkov appointed Lady-in-waiting to the Empress, 178. En- 
 franchisement of the Serfs, 181. The Princess Galitzin appeals 
 to Alexander to protect her Husband from his Creditors, 183. 
 Commission appointed to draw up a New Code of Laws, 184. 
 Luxury and Wealth of the Russian Nobles, 185. Annexation of 
 Georgia, 188. The Widow of the last Georgian Czar, 189. 
 Russian Boundary extended beyond the Caucasus, 190. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE IMPERIAL FAMILT. 
 
 Desertion of St. Michael's Palace, 191. Death of Alexander's Eldest 
 Sister, 192. Marriage of the Grand Duchess Mary, 192. Educa- 
 tion and Training of Nicholas and Michael, 194. Character of 
 Constantine, 195. His Personal Appearance, 197. Splendour of 
 the Imperial Fetes, 200. Annual Appropriation to effect the 
 Emancipation of the Serfs, 201. Personal Adventures of Alex- 
 ander, 203. His Visit to Lithuania and the Polish Provinces, 204. 
 Meeting of the King and Queen of Prussia with Alexander, 206. 
 Departure of the First Two Russian Vessels on a Voyage Round 
 the World, 207. Alexander's Educational Projects, 209. Reor- 
 ganization of the Senate, 213. Coolness between Russia and 
 Sweden, 215. Peace of Amiens signed between England and 
 France, 218. Coronation of Napoleon, 221. Recommencement 
 of Hostilities between England and France, 223. Offer of Mediation 
 by Alexander, 225. Napoleon's Design to Conquer England, 230. 
 End of the Russian Mediation, 231. Napoleon's System of 
 Espionage throughout the Continent, 234.
 
 viii Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF AUSTERLITZ. 
 
 Threatening Aspect of the Continent, 236. Execution of the Due 
 d'Enghien, 237. War Declared between Sweden and Prussia, 
 245. Russian Squadron sent to assist the English on the Coast of 
 Naples, 247. Treaty between England and Russia, 249. Cruelties 
 and Depredations of the French in Germany, 251. Inexperience 
 in Military Tactics of Russian Commanders, 254. General Mack 
 Surrounded in the Fortress of Ulm, 259. Arrival of the First 
 Russian Army in Moravia, 260. Capture of Vienna, 262. Alex- 
 ander's Gallantry at Wischau, 265. Battle between the Russian, 
 Austrian, and French Armies, 272. Destruction of the Imperial 
 Guard, 274. Retreat of the -Russian Infantry, 275. Meeting of 
 the Emperor Francis with Napoleon, 276. Armistice Concluded, 
 277. False Bulletin published by Napoleon, 278. Death of 
 William Pitt, 292. Refusal of Russia to join in the Peace of 
 Presburg, 297. Deposition of the Bourbon Dynasty in Naples, 
 298. Peace Negotiations between France and Russia, 299. Dis- 
 solution of the German Empire, 301. Rejection of the Treaty 
 Signed by D'Oubril, 301. Marriage of the King of Holland, 303. 
 Character of Frederick William III. of Prussia, 305. Battles of 
 Jena and Auerstadt, 309. Napoleon's Arrival at Potsdam, 310. 
 Napoleon's Strictures on the Queen of Prussia, 311. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF ETLAU AND FRIED LAND. 
 
 General Michelsen sent to occupy Moldavia and Wallachia, 313. 
 War declared between Turkey and Russia, 314. Jealousy of 
 the Austrians, 315. Reorganization of the Russian Army, 316. 
 Application to the British Government for a Loan by Alexander, 
 320. Ottoman Army crosses the Danube, 322. Russia's Second 
 Campaign against France, 323. Disorder in the Russian Army, 
 327. Marshal Kamenski's Insanity, 328. Defeats sustained by 
 the French, 328. Action at Seeberg, 331. March of the French 
 Army from Warsaw, 332. Defeat of the French by Benningsen 
 at Eylau, 333. Misrepresentations of Napoleon, 335. Heavy 
 Losses of the French, 337. Medical Staff and Arrangements for 
 the Wounded in the Russian and French Armies, 343. Separate
 
 Contents. ix 
 
 Peace with Russia proposed, 344. Battle of Ostrolenka, 345. 
 General Bertrand sent to propose an Armistice, 347. Alexander's 
 Interview at Memel with the Sovereigns of Prussia, 348. Treaty 
 signed at Barstenstein, 349. Desertion of the Poles, 350. Illness 
 of Benningsen and Plato f, 351. Defeat of Ney at Guttstadt, 353. 
 Russian and French Losses, 355. Armistice suggested by 
 Benningsen, 357. Meeting of Alexander and Napoleon, 359. 
 Napoleon's Opinion of the Russian Troops, 367. Napoleon's 
 Account of the Interview with Alexander, 368. Napoleon's Pre- 
 cautions against Poison, 371. Death of the Sultan Selim, 377. 
 Capture of Anapa, 378. Treaty of Tilsit, 379. Distrust of 
 Russia by the British Government, 383. Alexander's Departure 
 from Tilsit, 385. Napoleon's Demands from the King of Prussia, 
 386. Rapacity of the French Marshals, 386. The Peace of Tilsit, 
 390.
 
 LIFE AND TIMES 
 
 OP 
 
 ALEXANDEK L, 
 
 EMPEROR OF ALL THE RUSSIA S. 
 
 INTEODUCTION. 
 
 IN the thirteenth century the ancestors of the Imperial 
 House of Romanof were chiefs and hereditary high 
 priests at the altars dedicated to the sun in Lithuania. The 
 religious zeal of the Teutonic knights drove them to Moscow, 
 where they embraced Christianity, and were enrolled among 
 the nobles for their services in the wars with the Monguls, 
 who oppressed Russia during 300 years. They shared in 
 the vicissitudes of the empire, at one time marrying daughters 
 of the royal family, and giving a wife to Ivan IV. ; at another 
 being almost exterminated by torture, execution, and exile. 
 But after years of revolution and civil war Michael Romanof* 
 was chosen by a general election, preceded by three days of 
 fasting and prayer, to fill the vacant throne (1613). His 
 father, the Patriarch of Moscow, lingered in a Polish dungeon, 
 Moscow lay in ashes, and the Poles, Swedes, and Crimean 
 Tartars had partitioned Russia, when this youth of fifteen was 
 brought out of a convent to expel the invaders, and restore 
 the honour and fortunes of the empire. 
 
 The Romanofs, through female alliances, could boast of a 
 descent from the Emperor Constantine Monomachus and the 
 Paleologi, from Zingis Khan, from Rurik, the earliest Slavonic 
 princes of Novgorod, and from the last of the Anglo-Saxon 
 kings. The first emperors of this dynasty married Russian 
 
 * His mother was a daughter of Ivan IV., says the Austrian Secretary 
 at Moscow in 1698. His father was appointed to the Patriarchate in 
 1618. 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 Introduction. 
 
 wives, but united with the royal line of Denmark and 
 the Swedish House of Vasa in the person of Peter III., a 
 prince who was the grandson of Peter the Great and the 
 grandfather of Alexander I. 
 
 The long war between Peter the Great and Charles XII. 
 not only ended in the close alliance of Sweden and Russia, 
 but after their death Charles's nephew and intended successor 
 married the daughter and intended heir of Peter the Great. 
 "When the bi-centenary of Peter's birth was celebrated in 
 1872, the Swedish ambassador absented himself from the 
 ceremony, which was attended by the rest of the diplomatists 
 in St. Petersburg. He may not have remembered that in 
 Peter's descendant was united the nearest collateral descendant 
 of his antagonist ; for Charles's family the House of Vasa 
 are replaced by aliens on the throne of Sweden, and the 
 country which enjoyed an ephemeral distinction from their 
 exploits has now entirely cast them off. 
 
 The nephew of Charles XII., the Duke of Holstein, was 
 offered an asylum in Russia when deprived of his throne in 
 Sweden, but soon displeased his protector by his passion for 
 drill and military manreuvres, a taste inherited by his son. 
 With his wife, Anna Petrovna, a clever and handsome woman, 
 he was obliged to quit Russia in 1728, that their first child 
 might not be born in the empire and increase the rival heirs 
 to the throne. The Duchess died of consumption, brought 
 on by grief and disappointment, at the age of twenty-one, 
 two months after giving birth to the unfortunate Peter III., 
 and was taken to St. Petersburg for interment. Her husband, 
 who sank early into a state bordering on imbecility, survived 
 her only ten years ; his cousin Adolphus, the Bishop of 
 Lubeck, taking charge of his orphan son till the Empress 
 Elizabeth of Russia sent to demand him from his guardian, 
 and appointed him her own heir. The youngest daughter of 
 Peter the Great had been raised to the Imperial dignity in 
 the place of her infant cousin, Ivan VI., consigned with his 
 parents* to a prison ; but desiring partially to carry out her 
 father's intention of leaving his crown to his eldest daughter, 
 she resolved never to form a public marriage, but to adopt 
 that deceased sister's son as her successor. When eleven years 
 * See Chap. I., Vol. ii.
 
 Introduction. 
 
 old he was given up to Russia, and accompanied his aunt to 
 her coronation in Moscow. 
 
 The sister of the Prince Bishop of Lubeck was married to 
 Prince Christian of Anhalt Zerbst, a general in the service of 
 Prussia, and a member of an ancient Slavonic family. Their 
 daughter, Sophia Frederica Wilhelmina, was several years 
 older* than young Peter, and had no fortune, but was selected 
 by the Empress Elizabeth as a suitable bride for the heir of 
 Russia. She went to St. Petersburg for the betrothal, and 
 three years was deducted from her age in the baptismal 
 register when she was received into the orthodox Greek 
 Church with the name of Catherine. Her father, a strict 
 Lutheran, objected to her change of faith, but his wife wrote 
 to him that the Greek Church was exactly like the Lutheran 
 in doctrine, and that this rebaptism in reality only answered 
 to the Protestant rite of confirmation. 
 
 As Peter III. is described almost exclusively by the par- 
 tisans of his wife, or those who received their information 
 from that source, little credit can be given to witnesses who 
 had only too much reason to place his character in the worst 
 light, as an excuse for the tragedy which cut short his reign 
 and life. For thirty-five years after his death his name was 
 forbidden throughout Russia, and all memorials of him care- 
 fully suppressed. His portraits represent him as a handsome 
 youth, with fair hair and complexion, up to seventeen, when 
 he was attacked with malignant small-pox, and for three 
 weeks hung between life and death. He grew considerably 
 during his illness, and was of an unusual height, but stooped, 
 and his features were so disfigured that his intended bride 
 nearly fainted when next they met. But to use her own 
 words, though indifferent to the Grand Duke, she was not 
 indifferent to the crown of Russia ; and the marriage was 
 solemnized August 21st, 1745. 
 
 When Peter was twelve years old an embassy arrived from 
 Sweden to offer him the crown on the death of his great-uncle, 
 Frederick I. The Empress refused it, as an existing treaty 
 provided that Sweden and Russia should not be united ; but she 
 advised the Swedes to confer it on the Prince Bishop of 
 Lubeck, whose son, Charles XIII., was the last sovereign of the 
 
 * Plato Zoubof. 
 
 B2
 
 Introduction. 
 
 old native dynasty. Peter's own preference lay with Sweden, 
 for he was prouder of being the great-nephew of Charles XII. 
 than the grandson of Peter the Great, and his ambition was 
 to serve under the most noted military hero of his time the 
 King of Prussia. When the Seven Years' War broke out, 
 and Elizabeth joined the league against Frederick, he made no 
 secret of his hopes that the victory might lie with Prussia, and 
 even obtained the plans of the campaign matured in the 
 Russian cabinet and sent them over to the enemy. The 
 Russian generals were often at a loss to know how far to 
 proceed when they heard of the serious illness of the Empress, 
 and knew the contrary disposition of her heir. 
 
 Eight years of conjugal unhappiness followed Peter and 
 Catherine's marriage, and then a temporary reconciliation, and 
 on October 1st, 1754, she gave birth to a son, afterwards the 
 Emperor Paul. The Empress was delighted. She proclaimed 
 a universal amnesty, and took immediate possession of the child, 
 whose own mother was only permitted to see him at very rare in- 
 tervals as long as Elizabeth lived. A daughter, called Anna 
 Petrovna, born in 1758, but who died when three years old, 
 was also adopted by the Empress ; and her minister, Bcstujef, 
 seeing her atfection for these infants, urged her to name Paul 
 as her successor in place of his father, and to give himself the 
 post of regent. But on her deathbed she was reconciled to 
 Peter and his wife, and bade them farewell with great tender- 
 ness, recommending to the first the welfare of his subjects, to 
 live on good terms with his wife, and to seek to make himself 
 beloved, " and finished by enlarging much on her love for 
 the young Duke Paul, saying to the father that she asked 
 him as the most lively and surest mark of his gratitude to 
 her to cherish his child." She died on Christmas-day, o.s. 
 1761.* 
 
 According to the Princess Dashkov, Catherine's intimate 
 friend, they had plotted the downfall of Peter III. before he began 
 to reign. He soon made himself unpopular by neglecting the 
 national customs, and by his infatuated admiration for the 
 King of Prussia. The Russian arms were victorious in the two 
 last campaigns, Frederick was defeated in a decisive battle, 
 Berlin was threatened, ai*d East Pomerania annexed to 
 
 * Despatches from the French and English ambassadors, 1761.
 
 Introduction. 
 
 Russia. But now all was changed, and Peter's brief reign hud 
 a material effect on the future of Europe. He reclothed and 
 restored the Prussian prisoners, recalling all the Russian 
 officials from the conquered province. He released its in- 
 habitants from the oath they had taken to the late Empress 
 and her heir, and even sent 15,000 of his own troops to assist 
 Frederick against his other enemies, which timely aid com- 
 pletely turned the fortunes of the war. Yet, on the other 
 hand, he passed more than one measure entitling him to the 
 gratitude of his people. He exempted the nobility from 
 corporal punishment, and gave them permission to travel 
 abroad when and where they chose ; he seemed anxious to per- 
 form his duties as a sovereign, for he often rose at two in the 
 morning to give an early audience to his ministers, though he 
 seldom retired to rest till twelve at night, and he showed great 
 kindness to the unhappy prisoner Ivan VI. He recalled hun- 
 dreds of exiles from Siberia, and sent scarcely any one in their 
 place; he, however, alienated the priests by proposing to establish 
 a committee for the administration of the Church estates, a 
 measure which Catherine II. not only effected, but she seques- 
 trated a great part of those lauds and distributed them among 
 her favourites. He is accused of taking no interest in the educa- 
 tion of his son, but it was natural that, being very illiterate, he 
 should leave it entirely to the tutor, one of the most learned 
 Russians of his time, though he was always goodnatured to the 
 child if he happened to come in his way. When asked to 
 see him go through his drill, he came to look on, and saying 
 that " the little rogue seemed to know more about it than he 
 did himself/' added that he would reward him for his diligence 
 by appointing him a sergeant in the Guard. Count Pauine, 
 the tutor, said it would make the child conceited ; on which 
 Peter offered the tutor a military title instead. The Count 
 was a valetudinarian, with a horror of a soldier's duties, 
 and declined it most impress^ely ; but either offer would not 
 have been thought absurd in the reign of Nicholas, whose son, 
 the present Emperor, at eight years old commanded a regiment 
 in a review of 20,000 men, and executed the manoeuvres with 
 the coolness and precision of an old campaigner.* 
 
 At the time of Peter's accession, the party opposed to him, 
 
 * Mdnioires de Marmout.
 
 6 Introduction. 
 
 supported by the French and Austrian ambassadors, was so 
 strong, that a far more practised statesman could hardly have 
 kept his throne without a decisive blow. Keith, the English 
 ambassador, was his friend, and resigned his post at St. 
 Petersburg when he was deposed, for he believed him to be 
 well intentioned, but slandered and beset with snares, though 
 owning that "the perpetual hurry in which he lived seemed iu 
 some measure to have affected his understanding." Peter 
 abolished the secret police, and while depriving himself of 
 their support completely separated from his wife, whose 
 partiality for the gigantic guardsman, Gregory Orlof, gave him 
 just cause for indignation, which was fomented by the Chan- 
 cellor Voronzov who, hoping to see his own daughter 
 Elizabeth share the throne, even tried to set the Emperor 
 against his son. Among those arriving from Siberia were 
 men who as ministers had driven each other into exile, and 
 returned with their mutual hatred increased by the wasted 
 years they had passed in poverty-stricken deserts. They 
 took opposite sides in the approaching struggle, in which Count 
 Panine was gained over for the Empress by the hope of 
 placing his pupil on the throne, and taking an important part 
 in a council of regency till the prince should be of age ; the 
 Guards were also induced to declare for Paul I. 
 
 When the dark deed in the castle of Ropscha was completed 
 (July 7th, 1762), the ministers made an effort to proclaim Paul, 
 who was hastily roused from his sleep, and taken in a droschky 
 to the Winter Palace, where his mother had assembled her 
 Court. The crowd of soldiers in his bedroom and the noise 
 and lights in the streets frightened the timid boy to such an 
 extent that he did not recover from the effect for years, and 
 Panine brought him trembling in his night-clothes to his 
 mother standing in the window, where she presented him to the 
 soldiers. They threw up their caps, shouting, " Long live 
 Paul I. I" She was displeased and drew him back, taking care 
 the next day that her claims should be admitted by a solemn 
 investiture with the sceptre and globe, notwithstanding 
 Panine's bold remonstance. " The proud Russians," he said, 
 " would never permit themselves to be ruled by a Princess of 
 Anhalt while a descendant of Peter the Great survived in her 
 son. Was she of sufficient rank to take her place among the
 
 Introduction. 
 
 Czars ?" Catherine answered that her son would be better off 
 in her charge than in that of a fantastic father, and that when 
 he was of age she would of course retire from public life. She 
 was induced to sign a written engagement* to reign only during 
 his minority, but she more effectually silenced Panine by 
 making him Chancellor in the place of Voronzov, and paying 
 him a handsome sum of money, while she distributed gratuities 
 to all her other followers, the usual mode of accomplishing a 
 coup d'etat. Her entrance into Moscow and coronation were 
 carried out amidst a cold and silent crowd, who warmly cheered 
 the carriage which contained her son ; but having no wish to 
 reign merely as the wife and mother of a Romanof, she called a 
 council of the ministers, and represented to them that Paul's 
 delicate health making it very improbable he could reach 
 manhood, it would be advisable to provide for the succession 
 by forming another marriage, and she proposed the name 
 of Gregory Orlof as in all respects suitable for her second 
 husband. The opposition of men she feared made her renounce 
 this project, and all hope of being able to acknowledge the 
 boy,f who a month after the revolution was born in the se- 
 clusion of Czarco-Selo ; but she spared no pains to make her 
 subjects forget her foreign blood. The kings of France and 
 Sweden refused to admit her title for several years ; she 
 treated these slights with indifference ; her ambassadors re- 
 ceived orders to claim precedence over those of Louis XV. 
 whenever occasion presented itself, and through her influence 
 her old lover, Stanislaus Poniatowski, the son of a house- 
 steward and a spendthrift, was raised to the tottering throne of 
 Poland, and protected by Russia from the hostility of his own 
 subjects. 
 
 It was long before "Russia submitted quietly to Catherine's 
 rule, and in the next ten years disturbances continually broke 
 out in the provinces and at Moscow, where plots were formed 
 for the elevation of Ivan VI. to the throne, and also to substi- 
 tute the young Grand Duke for the Empress. An attempt to 
 liberate the first from his prison ended in his murder by the 
 guard, in accordance with their instructions if there was any 
 fear of his escape ; but five pretenders had appeared in different 
 parts of the country, each claiming identity with Peter III., 
 
 * Dolgorukof. f Alexis, the ancestor of the Counts Bobrinsky.
 
 8 Introduction. 
 
 when a sixth sprung up in 1773, in the person of a Cossack, 
 named Pugachef, whose insurrection seemed to threaten the 
 very existence of the empire. The invasion by the French in 
 1812 was not a greater calamity, for at least 320,000 people 
 fell victims in the civil war ; but as the lower classes and the 
 Dissenters joined Pugachef with an eager ferocity to plunder 
 the aristocracy and the religious establishments of the ortho- 
 dox Church, the nobles perceived that their safety depended on 
 that of the Empress, and rallied round her. The Court had 
 nearly retreated to Riga, for the rebels, having laid waste 
 Eastern Russia, were within a few miles of Moscow ; but they 
 spent their time in besieging minor fortresses, till the Empress's 
 army had received reinforcements, and they were finally sup- 
 pressed. Catherine certainly owed her subsequent security to 
 this outbreak, for henceforward she was supported by the upper 
 classes, and in return allowed them every licence so long as 
 they showed no sympathy for her son ; and in a country where 
 women were maintained in Oriental seclusion till the end of 
 the seventeenth century, a woman for the fifth time within, 
 forty years was permitted to exercise sovereign power.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE FATHER AND MOTHER OF ALEXANDER I. 
 
 only surviving child of Peter IIL and Catherine II. was 
 JL born in the Summer Palace* of St. Peterburg, where his 
 mother, oppressed by the most gloomy forebodings, had been 
 recently brought from Moscow. The Empress Elizabeth had 
 him baptized Paul, after one of her young brothers, who died in 
 infancy, and made him her constant companion in her per- 
 petual journeys from one palace to another, and in her invalid 
 chamber during her last illness. He was brought up in an 
 atmosphere of superstition. The Empress had no stated times 
 for rest or refreshment. She only went to bed when exhausted 
 with fatigue in the day or night, and then her women tickled 
 her feet to compose her, arid told her weird stories of spiritual 
 appearances till she went to sleep. Paul was a small weakly 
 child, with a remarkably vivid imagination, early imbued with 
 a belief in dreams and a dread of ghosts. At four years old 
 he used to sit on Elizabeth's lap during the performances at 
 the theatre, when she praised his beauty and intelligence to the 
 courtiers as fondly as if he had been her son, but under his 
 mother's auspices he was educated on severe Spartan principles. 
 His little court, where presentations were made to him, was 
 abolished, and his only companions were his various tutors, 
 with whom his favourite game was to play at keeping a 
 monastery, his governor being the abbot, and himself one of 
 the monks. 
 
 Catherine showed little affection for Paul during her hus- 
 band's lifetime; but this coldness became aversion as soon as 
 Peter was no more. He was then seven years old, and had 
 one or two defects which had always annoyed her in Peter 
 an inability to pronounce the letter R, a nervous twitching in 
 his features, and incessant restlessness. All her life she dis- 
 
 * Pulled down in 1798 to build the old St. Michael Palace.
 
 10 The Father and Mother 
 
 liked every one who was ill : beauty, size, and strength were 
 necessary for her favour, and Paul was sickly, taking cold 
 with the slightest keen air. Elizabeth indulged and humoured 
 him while she was neglected, and she could not forget the 
 Empress's inclination to appoint him her heir ; nor after 
 Peter's murder that Panine attempted to proclaim him Em- 
 peror, and to give herself only the title of regent. The 
 frightful insurrections which broke out, ostensibly to place him 
 upon the throne, made her look upon him as a rival, and yet 
 one whom she dared not remove. Though in her letters she 
 spoke kindly of him, she took little trouble to conceal her real 
 feelings from those around her, so that when he was ill it was 
 at once supposed that he was a victim to slow poison. The 
 singular medical treatment he received was attributed to foul 
 motives, though it was probably more the result of the igno- 
 rance of the time ; but the appointment of Dr. Kruse, who 
 had mixed a dose of poison for Peter III., as his surgeon, was 
 not likely to allay suspicion. Paul's nerves, never very strong, 
 were much shaken by the alarms of the night of the revolu- 
 tion, and he was subject to convulsive fits at the sound 
 of thunder, or anything which gave him a sudden fright. 
 Dr. Kruse prescribed a diet exclusively of half raw meat as 
 likely to strengthen his nerves, and forbade him milk, hitherto 
 his principal food. The child loathed this regimen, and having 
 been taught by Elizabeth to keep all the fasts of the Greek 
 Church, he thought that to eat meat on those days was a 
 deadly sin. He gradually wasted away, and was afflicted with 
 the scurvy and rickets, till at last it was publicly announced that 
 he was seriously ill. A menacing crowd collected under the 
 walls of the palace, and loudly demanded him. The Empress, 
 pale and alarmed, brought him to the window, and with 
 assumed tenderness allayed the public apprehensions. She 
 also replaced Dr. Kruse by a celebrated Swedish surgeon, 
 Epinus, under whose care he gradually gained strength, 
 though his stunted figure and distorted features showed traces 
 of his youthful maladies through life. 
 
 Catherine dreaded the small-pox, which had been a fatal 
 complaint in her family, besides destroying the good looks of 
 her husband and causing the death of one Russian sovereign ; 
 and she sent for Dr. Dimsdale from England in 1768 to in-
 
 of Alexander I. 11 
 
 oculate the whole Court.* He was rewarded with imperial 
 liberality, the title of baron, "! 2,0007., and an annuity of 500/. 
 The same year she tried to procure the celebrated D'Alembert 
 as tutor for her son. He declined the post, and Paul was 
 educated by very indifferent native tutors, with the exception 
 of Plato, the Archbishop of Moscow, and an Englishman, who 
 taught him mathematics. Plato was. supposed to have im- 
 bibed to a slight degree the so-called philosophical or free- 
 thinking opinions then prevalent in Germany and France, and 
 openly applauded by Catherine, Frederick the Great, and 
 Joseph II. of Austria. An effort was made to instil them 
 into Paul, but he always professed the greatest horror of them, 
 and was a faithful, though by no means illiberal, member of 
 the orthodox Church, The English ambassador writes, in 
 1777,f that Catherine was not desirous for the success of the 
 education of her son, but that he was well informed as to 
 general history and the government of the country ; though, 
 " as his person was awkward, and his address ungenteel, the 
 greatest part of his time was employed in learning to dance, 
 to ride, and to speak French, all which he does to a certain 
 degree of perfection. Till his first marriage he was kept in 
 the most complete subordination and retirement ; and if he 
 has any filial piety, he owes it rather to fear than to affection. 
 He is very temperate in his food, but still more in his drink- 
 ing, and has by these regularities strengthened a constitution 
 naturally infirm.'" 
 
 Paul's first marriage took place in 1773, when he was 
 eighteen years of age. In " Memoirs after the Peace," by 
 Frederick the Great, the king relates his anxiety for the heir 
 of Russia to marry a connection of his own ; and after " em- 
 ploying every engine" to accomplish it, he obtained his hand 
 for one of the princesses of Hesse Darmstadt, whose elder 
 sister was the wife of the Prince of Prussia. She was baptized 
 into the Greek Church by the name of Natalia, and being 
 older than Paul, and educated by a clever politician in her 
 mother, soon acquired an influence over him, which Catherine 
 began to mistrust. During a visit the Court paid to Moscow 
 
 * In the doctor's published account he described Paul as a pale un- 
 healthy boy, with glandular swellings in his neck. 
 
 f Memoirs of the first Lord Malmesbury.
 
 ] 2 The Father and Mother 
 
 after the execution of Pugachef, the people made lively 
 demonstrations in Paul's favour, while he rode without a 
 guard into the Kitaigororl, and talked freely to the citizens 
 who crowded round him, though, as it was not a year since the 
 close of a most formidable rebellion, the Empress was more 
 than usually suspicious. It was the last time she ever allowed 
 him to come to Moscow, and henceforward caused him and 
 his wife to he strictly guarded in the palace, till the princess 
 began to lose both her health and spirits. She had been married 
 three years when there was a prospect of an heir, and at the same 
 time Prince Henry of Prussia was sent to St. Petersburg by his 
 royal brother to soften the Empress's displeasure with an am- 
 bitious daughter-in-law, " whose conduct/' said Frederick, 
 " was not such as was expected from a person of her birth I" 
 " Scarcely," says the same authority,* "had Prince Henry been 
 favoured with an interview by the Empress before the Grand 
 Duchess died, after bringing a dead child into the world. The 
 prince being present at this scene, aided the Empress at a 
 moment so mournful as much as was in his power. He par- 
 ticularly directed his cares to the Grand Duke, who was over- 
 whelmed. He did not quit him, and after having contributed 
 to the restoration of his health, he completed his work by 
 effecting the entire reconciliation of the mother and the son, 
 the misunderstanding between whom had been greatly in- 
 creased since the marriage of the Grand Duke, and had inspired 
 apprehensions that very serious consequences to one or the 
 other might be the result." 
 
 The Grand Duchess Natalia died in May, 1776, apparently 
 a victim to her own ambition or to the Empress's fears.f 
 \\hile Dr. Almann, the cleverest physician in St. Petersburg, 
 was kept away from her deathbed by the threat that if there 
 was a calamity to either mother or child he would answer for 
 it with his head, the nurse who attended her alone with the 
 Empress was most handsomely pensioned and furnished with a 
 residence in St. Petersburg, where even the exclusive Prince 
 Potemkin paid her friendly visits, and Paul's violent grief was 
 abruptly checked by his mother, who told him his wife had 
 
 * Frederick's Memoirs after the Peace. 
 
 f Paul's second wife was convinced that her life had been purposely 
 destroyed. See Dolgorukof, La Duchesse d'Abrantes, Private Anec- 
 dotes of Foreign Courts, YVraxall, &c.
 
 of Alexander T. 13 
 
 deceived him with his greatest friend, and showed him some 
 letters said to have been found in a secret drawer addressed 
 to her by Count Razoumovski. Catherine perhaps hardly 
 expected the effect it would have upon him. He dried his 
 eyes, but it temporarily upset his reason ; the first appearance 
 of that calamity which periodically darkened the rest of his 
 days.* Count Razoumovski was appointed to the embassy at 
 Naples, but it is now believed the scandal was invented by the 
 Empress, and the letters a clever forgery, for the memory of 
 the Princess is held in respect by her husband's family. Her 
 great-niece is the present Empress of Russia, and her brother 
 was forced to give up his betrothed in ordt-r to provide her 
 successor. 
 
 Prince Henry recommended that the young widower of 
 twenty-one should be married again as soon as possible. He had 
 been taken away to Czarco-Selo before the funeral ceremonies 
 began, and the day after his wife's death Prince Henry had 
 already written to the Duchess Eugene of Wiirtemberg, his 
 own niece, telling her to bring her eldest daughter to Berlin, 
 where he hoped soon to conduct Paul, and " to do all that the 
 king would prescribe to her on this subject/' Some objection 
 was raised on the score of the previous engagement to the 
 Prince of Hesse Darmstadt, and he was most unwilling to re- 
 linquish his intended bride, who was only sixteen, but such 
 scruples were utterly disregarded by Frederick and his brothers. 
 Their relatives of Wiirtemberg were poor, with a large 
 family, and the Empress offered them at once 40,000 roubles to 
 pay their debts. " Desire everybody about the Prince and 
 Princess of Wiirtemberg," wrote Frederick to his brother Fer- 
 dinand, " to beg them to make the Prince of Darmstadt 
 desist. If he is at all reasonable, he will not wish to disturb 
 the happiness of two states, whose union may be useful to the 
 peace of Europe ; and if he has any heart he will not obstruct 
 the welfare of a family, who will find themselves in a flourish- 
 ing state, compared to their present one, through the generosity 
 of the Empress and the Grand Duke/' To the Duchess Eugene, 
 Prince. Ferdinand wrote that she might " break politely with 
 the Prince of Darmstadt, by telling him it was the king's wish, 
 and he will yield rather than offend so powerful a sovereign, 
 
 * Dolgorukof.
 
 1 4 The Father and Mother 
 
 who might make him repent of the difficulties he opposed. 
 .... You are in a position to strengthen the bond subsisting 
 between the two Courts. You may render a most essential 
 service to the country which gave you birth. You may pre- 
 vent the effusion of blood. In case of refusal, think what 
 may be the fate of your two sons in the king's service ; while, 
 on the other hand, supported by the title of mother-in-law of 
 the Grand Duke, you can solicit for them most elevated posts ; 
 you can implore your son-in-law's assistance," &c.* Prince 
 Henry added, " I give you my word of honour that your 
 daughter cannot marry a more amiable and more virtuous 
 man than the Grand Duke is, and that she cannot find a more 
 tender and respectable mother-in-law than the Empress/' 
 " She has promised me," he writes again, " that she will 
 endow and marry your two younger daughters." The king 
 closed the correspondence by telling the Duchess that the 
 Empress would give her 60,000 roubles for the journey, 
 which would enable her to save much for her husband and 
 children, " of which they have great need. Such opportuni- 
 ties do not come every day ; they should be caught at when 
 they appear. Your sad situation is known to me, and this 
 marriage will enable me to put you a little more at your 
 ease." He also told her she need not even give the bride a 
 trousseau. The Duthcss owned the money would be a great 
 relief to her, and it was accordingly paid. 
 
 The Prince of Hesse Darmstadt soon found another bride, 
 and in 1827 celebrated his fiftieth wedding-day, while his 
 rival only saw his twenty fourth. He never quite forgave 
 Russia, and lived to wreak his vengeance on Alexander, beii?g 
 one of the first of the German princes to range himself on the 
 side of Napoleon and the French. 
 
 The Duchess Eugene of Wurtemberg was the only daughter 
 of Frederick's second sister, the Margravine of Brandenburg 
 Schwadt, and was married in 1750 to a younger brother of 
 the elector of Wurtemberg, a soldier of some talent, and a 
 general in the service of Prussia. He owned the small prin- 
 cipality of Moritbeliard, united to France in 1792, but then 
 an appanage of the German Empire, and here in the Chateau 
 
 * Memoirs and Correspondence, published by the Historical Society 
 of Bussia.
 
 of Alexander I. 15 
 
 des Etupes, where lie retired in 1769, he brought up a numerous 
 family. Of his eight sous three afterwards entered the Russian 
 service, one the Austrian, another the Prussian, and two more 
 the Swedish; and of his daughters, the eldest, Sophia Dorothea, 
 became the wife and mother of three emperors of Russia ; the 
 second married a prince of Holstein, and died young ; and the 
 third married the Archduke Francis, afterwards Emperor of 
 Germany, who was early left a widower, and consoled himself 
 \\ith three subsequent brides. 
 
 Sophia Dorothea was born October 25th, 1759, at Stettin, 
 in Pomerauia, where her father was governor during the Seven 
 Years' War. Brought up in the Roman Catholic Church, he 
 received the tonsure at Constance when eighteen years of age, 
 but quickly abandoned it at the outbreak of the war, when 
 his courage in the desperate battles with the Russians gained 
 him Frederick's especial notice and a wife. His daughters 
 were taught no particular creed, that they might join without 
 difficulty the Church of the country which would become their 
 home. They passed a happy and domestic childhood in the 
 Castle of Montbeliard during the winter, and in the summer 
 months among the gardens and vineyards surrounding the 
 rural Chateau dcs Etupes. It was here that, in June, 1776, 
 the young Sophia Dorothea received the unexpected command 
 to repair to Berlin as quickly as possible to meet her future 
 husband, the Grand Duke of Russia. 
 
 The Princess was tall and very fair, with aquiline features 
 and bright blue eyes, still enjoying the games of her younger 
 brothers and sisters, and as gay and wild as a mere child. 
 She had never left Montbeliard since she arrived there at the 
 age of nine, and in spite of her previous betrothal heard of 
 the new fate in store lor her with infantile delight. Her 
 mother did not share her joy. She wept bitterly at the idea 
 of the wide separation : perhaps she thought of the doubtful 
 end of Paul's young bride, so lately carried to the grave ; and 
 she almost prophetically exclaimed, " Terrible misfortunes 
 sometimes befall the Czars, and who knows what fate Pleaven 
 has decreed for my poor child \" Her grief cast a passing 
 shadow over the young girl's anticipations of the splendour of 
 the Russian court ; and while amusing herself with practising 
 the ceremony of presentation to the Empress, she sometimes
 
 1 G The Father and Mother 
 
 stopped suddenly, and said, " I am very much afraid of 
 Catherine. She will terrify me, I am sure ; and how foolish 
 I shall seem to her ! O, if I could only succeed in pleasing 
 her and the Grand Duke \" 
 
 The Princess set off with he* father to Berlin, where her 
 baptism and betrothal took place. In the mean time, Prince 
 Henry hardly lost sight of Paul till he had brought him to 
 the same city, escorted by Marshal Romanzov and a detach- 
 ment of troops. He constantly endeavoured to amuse him 
 with stories of military adventures, and excited a desire to. see 
 foreign countries and the heroes of the Seven Years' War. 
 The most flattering welcome awaited the young man, hitherto 
 almost a prisoner. On his road through East Prussia, burgo- 
 masters met him with addresses, and ladies filled his carriage 
 with flowers. "Nothing," wrote the English ambassador 
 from Berlin, " could exceed the attention and even court that 
 his Majesty pays to the Grand Duke, nor the pains he takes 
 to captivate and please him " and the Prussian courticra 
 remarked that the King ordered new clothes for the occasion, 
 else his ordinary garb was snuff-stained and threadbare, and 
 the same coat usually lasted him for many years. They / 
 thought the Prince's first address to the King displayed much 
 tact and self-possession. He dwelt on the pleasure it gave 
 him to make the acquaintance of so renowned a monarch, and 
 after several conversations with him, Frederick wrote to 
 D'Alembert, " This prince possesses great and noble qualities. 
 He is rather serious ; that agrees with his character, but the 
 foundation is excellent." An accident happened on the evening 
 of his arrival, when the Grand Duke took supper with the 
 King, for the dining-room ceiling partly fell in ; but though 
 it caused much confusion, no one was hurt. On July 25th, he 
 was introduced to Sophia Dorothea, and seemed much pleased 
 with her, though Wraxall says, " She did not possess the 
 natural ability of the first Grand Duchess." On her baptism 
 she took the name of Mary Fedorovna. She wrote almost 
 daily to her mother, and appeared perfectly satisfied with her 
 intended bridegroom, representing him as " exceedingly 
 amiable," and, she thought, likely to love her, and relating 
 that she had been given precedence of all the princesses and 
 royal duchesses in Prussia. Nevertheless she cried very much
 
 of Alexander I. 17 
 
 when she parted from her father at Mem el, and was trans- 
 ferred to a Russian and Cossack guard to conduct her to St. 
 Petersburg ; but the dreary aspect of that part of the country 
 to one accustomed to the brighter skies of France was of 
 itself sufficiently depressing. Her marriage took place on Paul's 
 twenty-second birthday, October 1st, 1776. 
 
 The arrangement of a marriage and the reconciliation of a 
 dispute were not Prince Henry's sole motives in his two visits to 
 St. Petersburg. The state of Poland had become a serious embar- 
 rassment to the neighbouring governments, for it was a hotbed 
 of foreign political intrigue and civil war, while the utter absence 
 of all sanitary precautions and the poverty and dirt of the 
 peasantry were a constant source of the plague, cattle murrain, 
 and other epidemics being communicated to the rest of Europe. 
 Poland had long been governed by a semi-barbarous aristocracy, 
 the King being a mere cipher, and the peasants absolute 
 slaves; but a nation where 1,500,000 of its people and their 
 descendants could only occupy themselves in cultivating their 
 own land, if they possessed an estate, or in war, was an 
 anachronism even in the eighteenth century : and as there 
 was no power superior to that of the representatives of these 
 numerous nobles, and they met only for a few weeks about 
 every two years, when all the votes had to be unanimous in 
 order to pass a measure, and every measure had to be 
 unanimous, or the whole series was annulled, Poland was in 
 reality more completely without active law than any country 
 since the most primitive times. The nobles armed their 
 retainers against each other on small provocation; all public 
 works were neglected, or never begun; literature and educa- 
 tion were confined to the Roman priests for Rome, to 
 counteract the influence of the Greek Church, sent the most 
 distinguished members of the Order of Jesuits to protect her 
 eastern frontier and the trade of the country was entirely in 
 the hands of the Jews. The Polish religion had relapsed into 
 infidelity or the extreme of superstition, and public opinion 
 placed no restraint on their excesses. A divorce was obtained 
 so easily that it was no unusual thing for a man to meet in 
 society six or seven ladies who were formerly his wives. 
 Neither party suffered in public estimation, and a beautiful 
 young woman, still a bride, might be cast adrift by her 
 VOL. i. c
 
 1 8 The Father and Mother 
 
 husband for no other reason than because since his marriage 
 he had seen another he preferred. No act of the Russian 
 legislation was more unpopular than that of 1832, which 
 assimilated the marriage law of Poland to that of llussia by 
 forbidding divorce. The case of the Countess de Witt, at the 
 end of the last century, was nothing unusual, when Count 
 Potecki demanded her of her husband, who, to save his life, 
 gave her up on a payment of 2,000,000 florins. 
 
 " The character of the Poles is bad, very bad/' writes an 
 English traveller in January, 1797. "Women and priests 
 have governed the country from time immemorial. The 
 morals of the upper class are detestable, their manners are 
 pleasant. Believe me there is no liberty lost by the revolu- 
 tion of Poland. The peasants are quite as well off as before ; 
 and in the Austrian division infinitely better, without any 
 comparison. Yet the nobles affect to repine that the re- 
 public is ruined : these very nobles exercised the most grievous 
 oppression, and were bought as often as a foreign court chose 
 to buy them."* " In a court and capital such as Warsaw," 
 writes Sir Nathaniel Wraxall in 1776-7, " it is not easy to 
 resist the seduction of example added to the torrent of im- 
 morality. Here all that I see announces not less the internal 
 dissolution than the external destruction of Poland/' He 
 describes the prisons as horrible, gamblingf as being carried to 
 a greater extent than in any country in Europe. " What 
 else could rationally be expected as the natural death of a 
 country where the crown is at once elective, venal, and 
 powerless, where the nobility are independent, uncontrollable, 
 and tyrannical, while the people are sunk in slavery, ignorance, 
 oppression, and poverty. We should rather wonder that in 
 the present progressive state of Europe, Poland has lasted thus 
 long, instead of being surprised at its ruin and approaching 
 extinction. . . . The Poles seem scarcely to be conscious 
 that the Vistula is navigable, and it is rare to see upon it a 
 vessel of any kind, though at Warsaw it is broader than the 
 Thames at Windsor. A bridge of boats conducts to Praga on 
 the eastern side a wretched collection of cottages or huts built 
 of wood, and scattered irregularly in the sand without order or 
 
 * Tweddell's Remains and Correspondence. 
 f Also Baron Ompteda, who says it was a passion with the Poles.
 
 of Alexander I. 19 
 
 plan, such as Tartars, and only Tartars, would construct or 
 inhabit. Yet this is the principal object seen from the windows 
 of the Royal Palace on the opposite bank. Hardly a single 
 public monument of art, taste, or devotion exists in this 
 metropolis. The very churches and palaces are unfinished 
 or fallen to decay. Even in this beautiful season of the year, 
 after violent rain many of the streets are totally impassable 
 on foot, and nearly so on horseback or in a carriage. In 
 front of Stanislaus' palace the smell is pestilential. A nation 
 too indolent to remedy such inconveniences, or so accustomed 
 to them as not to perceive how incompatible they are with 
 safety, comfort, and salubrity, seems not far removed from 
 barbarism. The people accord in their appearance with the 
 aspect of everything around them. I never beheld so many 
 objects of horror or compassion as present themselves in the 
 streets. Warsaw is likewise crowded with Jews, who form 
 a considerable proportion of the inhabitants. From time 
 to time they are plundered, exiled, imprisoned, and massacred ; 
 yet under such accumulated vexations they continue multiply- 
 ing, and are here found in greater numbers than even at 
 Amsterdam/' There were no lamps in Warsaw, and it was 
 dangerous to walk in the streets at night unarmed or alone. 
 Both this writer and Archdeacon Coxe, who travelled through 
 Poland in 1779, assert that it was generally believed " the rise 
 and progress of the terrible disease called the Plica, was chiefly 
 owing to the horrid nutriment and inconceivable filth of the 
 Polish people." " I never before," says Coxe, " observed 
 such an inequality of fortune, such sudden transition from 
 extreme riches to extreme poverty ; wherever I turned my 
 eyes, luxury and wretchedness were constant neighbours. 
 The boasted Polish liberty is not enjoyed in the smallest 
 degree by the bulk of the people, but is confined to the 
 nobles and gentry/ 1 There was a nominal fine imposed on a 
 man who killed his slave, but it was scarcely ever exacted, 
 "on account of the numerous difficulties which attend the 
 conviction of a noble for this or any other enormity. So 
 far indeed from being inclined to soften the servitude of 
 their vassals, the nobles have asserted, and established it 
 by repeated and positive ordinances/' The severest measures 
 were taken to prevent them from deserting their native 
 
 c 2
 
 20 TJie Father and Mother 
 
 villages, so often did they make tlie attempt, though their 
 only alternative was a refuge in the forests. The Polish 
 peasant was distinguishable from the labourer of other lands 
 by his dejected expression, his servile manner, his long, dirty, 
 ragged hair, and the extreme wretchedness of his unfurnished 
 abode. In drawing a comparison between the inhabitants of 
 Poland and Switzerland both republics, and both held up as 
 the seat of liberty Coxe remarks that in the one country, 
 " freedom has spread comfort and happiness through the whole 
 community ; in the other it centres in a few, and is in reality 
 the worst species of despotism. . . . Poland appears to me, 
 as far as I can judge by the specimens which fell under my 
 observation, of all countries the most distressed. Upon 
 expressing my surprise at one instance of the abuse of liberty 
 to which I had been myself a witness, to a person well versed 
 in the laws of the country, he returned for answer, ' If you 
 knew the confusion and anarchy of our constitution you would 
 be surprised at nothing. Many grievances necessarily exist 
 even in the best regulated states ; what then must be the case 
 in ours, which of all governments is the most detestable ?' 
 Another said to me, ' The name of Poland still remains, 
 but the nation no longer exists, a universal corruption and 
 venality pervades all ranks of people. Many of the first 
 nobility do not blush to receive pensions from foreign courts ; 
 one professes himself publicly an ATistrian, a second a Prussian, 
 a third a Frenchman, and a fourth a Russian.' The nation has 
 few manufactures, scarcely any commerce, a king almost 
 without authority, the nobles in a state of uncontrolled 
 anarchy, the peasants groaning under a yoke of feudal despotism 
 far worse than the tyranny of an absolute monarch."* 
 
 " I entered Poland/' writes Sir Jaines Harris, " October 27th, 
 1767, about half way between Glogau and Frauenstadt ; had 
 houses in ruins, great appearance of poverty, and crowds of 
 beggars. And here I may say once for all that the few towns I 
 passed through on the road are of the most pitiful sort. . . . 
 Villages, such as they are, frequent, but the greatest poverty 
 reigns. ^No houses but huts; all the family in one miserable room. 
 The head of it has a sort of mock bed, the rest lie on the floor, 
 and the children that are small enough creep into the stove." 
 * Coxe's Travels in Poland and Russia.
 
 of Alexander I. 21 
 
 There were no inns on the post roads leading direct to Warsaw ; 
 but the Polish nobility exercised sumptuous hospitality, both 
 in their country houses and in Dresden, Vienna, and St. 
 Petersburg, where they lost or renewed their shattered fortunes 
 at play, and the peasantry were transferred by their masters 
 from one estate to another irrespective of marriage or filial ties. 
 Yet with all their faults, the accomplishments, the grace, and 
 the easy manners of the Polish ladies, " combining eastern 
 imagination/' says Madame de Stael, " with the vivacity of 
 the west/' their elegance, their hospitality, and their utter 
 absence of reserve made a favourable impression on all with 
 whom they came in contact, and excited a strong feeling of 
 sympathy for the Polish nation, which the fate of their lords 
 would otherwise have failed to produce. 
 
 While Russia was still struggling against the yoke of the 
 Tartars, Poland assisted the Mahometans in trying to ex- 
 tinguish her very name. From that period till the reign of 
 Peter the Great the two nations were constantly at war. The 
 Poles supported a formidable insurrection in Moscow, and 
 finally invaded and burnt it in 1611, carrying away an 
 almost incredible amount of silver from the Kremlin, and 
 giving to a son of their king the title of Czar. " The high 
 Polish nobility," says the Abbe Pradt, " did nothing else for 
 a hundred years than endeavour by its intrigues to induce 
 Russia to assume the protection of Poland. The cries with 
 which Western Europe has resounded on the subject of this 
 partition, are caused by the prevailing ignorance of all the 
 events that had passed for seventy years between Poland and 
 Russia. Poland is always represented as a free state, and 
 independent at home. On the contrary, Poland had been 
 morally invaded for half a century, and what remained of her 
 strength she employed in disputes to which there was neither 
 object nor end. Peter and Charles XII. were the real authors 
 of the partition of Poland. Charles attracted the Russians 
 into Europe as Napoleon has drawn them to Paris, so much 
 were these thunderbolts of war deficient in understanding."* 
 
 One of the most eminent of the Polish kings, John Sobieski, 
 declared when dying that vice had increased to such a degree 
 among his countrymen as "to be almost beyond the Almighty's 
 * Pradt's Considerations for the Congress of Vienna.
 
 22 The Father and Mother 
 
 forgiveness. I hear a voice perpetually ringing in my ears, 
 ' Yet forty years and Babylon shall be no more/ '' One gift 
 of freedom religious toleration with which Poland is accre- 
 dited was entirely withheld in respect to the Uniates, an off- 
 shoot of the orthodox Greek Church, permitted by one of the 
 Popes to remain in Poland and Hungary, retaining all the 
 forms and doctrines, and even the language of the Eastern 
 Communion, provided they acknowledged the supremacy of 
 the Pope instead of that of the Greek Patriarch. Periodically 
 their houses were burnt and their clergy massacred, and Peter 
 the Great and his successors had interfered both by action and 
 remonstrance on their behalf. In 1768 fresh disturbances 
 arose, when many were murdered, and one Uniate was crucified. 
 The Empress Catherine twice protested against this ill-treat- 
 inent, but her representations obtained not the slightest notice 
 from the King, who was absorbed in his pleasures ; and as 
 indeed the regal authority was utterly powerless to enforce 
 order in the disturbed districts, she caused them to be occupied 
 by a detachment of her own troops. 
 
 During the Seven Years' War Frederick felt the great 
 inconvenience of the disjointed shape of his territories. Ey 
 the acquisition of Posen and the part now known as Polish 
 Prussia his communication by land between Berlin and Konigs- 
 berg would be secured and his dominions compact. In 1769, 
 when a civil commotion, supported by some French officers, 
 was disturbing Poland, at the same time ravaged by the plague, 
 he took the opportunity to advance his troops into their 
 provinces under pretence of forming lines to prevent the spread 
 of the infection, but aware that the security of his new acquisi- 
 tion depended upon the goodwill of Russia and Austria, he had 
 an interview with Joseph II. in 1769, and again in 1770, to 
 suggest the permanent reduction of Poland. Joseph had secretly 
 encouraged the revolutionists, and even begun a negotiation 
 with Turkey against Russia, but now altered his measures, and 
 increased his army towards the Polish frontiers. He followed 
 the King's example in giving the prevention of the plague as 
 a reason for stationing troops within Polish territory, and in 
 1772 occupied the whole of Galicia,* while the Polish rebels 
 thought he was advancing to act in their favour. But Prussia 
 * Coxe's Travels.
 
 of Alexander I. 
 
 was the real gainer by the movement, for though Austria seized 
 on the rich salt mines of Wieclitza, she obtained Posen by far 
 the most advanced and most commercial of the Polish provinces; 
 while it would have been to the advantage of Russia to have 
 preserved Poland in statu quo, for the will of the Empress was 
 fast becoming predominant over the whole country, whereas 
 the partition gave her a district more primitive and unculti- 
 vated than the central provinces in her own empire. 
 
 Frederick waited to impart his scheme to Catherine till she 
 was involved in a war with Turkey and internal disputes. He 
 then sent his brother to St. Petersburg to suggest that Austria 
 was forming an alliance with the Porte, which would create a 
 formidable combination against her ; nevertheless Austria's 
 friendship might be bought by acceding to the partition. On 
 this condition the Emperor was willing to renounce his alliance 
 with the Sultan, and would suffer the Russians to prosecute 
 the war without interruption. Catherine accepted the proposal, 
 and the treaty was signed by the Plenipotentiaries of Russia, 
 Austria, and Prussia (February, 1772). 
 
 Poland was so jealous of the rise of Prussia that till 1764 
 she never acknowledged Frederick by any other title than 
 Elector of Brandenburg, but she was powerless to resist the 
 coalition, which tried to present its claims in a plausible form. 
 Russia had once possessed Lithuania, the cradle of the reigning 
 dynasty, and the Hungarians had once occupied Galicia for a 
 short time by right of conquest, when it formed an independent 
 monarchy; and in return for what they called the restoration of 
 these provinces they put down the insurrection in Poland, and 
 placed the fortresses captured from the insurgents in the hands 
 of the King. The bill for the dismemberment was carried 
 through the Polish Diet probably by the same means of bribery 
 which were found successful in Ireland in 1800, and the Courts 
 of London, Paris, Stockholm, and Copenhagen vainly protested 
 against the act. Subsequent disturbances gave the three 
 partitioning Powers a motive for continuing their work. In 
 1793, when Frederick and Joseph were both in their graves, a 
 second dismemberment was effected ; and in 1795 Poland was 
 blotted out from the list of independent nations. 
 
 As Frederick probably owed his political existence, and 
 certainly his title of " (Treat," to the timely interposition of
 
 24 
 
 Peter III., lie perhaps felt kindly disposed towards that 
 Prince's son, and he relaxed his usual cynical humour so far 
 as to make himself exceedingly agreeable to Paul, who left 
 Berlin perfectly charmed with him. The Grand Duchess had 
 been educated in profound respect for her great uncle, and he 
 gave her much useful advice as to her future conduct. In an 
 age not abundant in eminent men Frederick had acquired 
 great renown, and was regarded as the Nestor of Europe. His 
 long reign, the vast increase of his territories, his energy and 
 perseverance, the Seven Years' War, and his undoubted military 
 genius, rendered him the hero of his time, and enthusiastic 
 young Frenchmen would undertake a journey from Paris for 
 the chance of catching a glimpse of him in the gardens of Sans 
 Souci, where he lived retired from the Court, on ill terms 
 with most of his family, and particularly with his Queen and 
 his heir. His brother-in-law, Prince Anthony of Brunswick, 
 lingered for years in the prison of Kholmogri, on the White 
 Sea, and he appears never to have made an attempt to obtain 
 his release. All his efforts were concentrated in the aggran- 
 dizement of the House of Brandenburg, and he turned to 
 ridicule every theory founded on religion, honour, or public 
 justice. His father bequeathed him a full treasury and a 
 model army, and he wrested Silesia from Austria without a 
 shadow of excuse or even declaring war. In youth he disliked 
 military exercises, and bought his experience at the head of 
 his army after he came to the throne, at first encountering 
 defeat, but by degrees, as his enemies gave him experience, 
 learning how to obtain success. He considered that Prussia 
 ought to be a purely military nation in order to maintain her 
 supremacy, as she possessed no natural frontier ; and he dis- 
 couraged commerce, obliging every Jew to spend a certain 
 sum in porcelain at the royal manufactory before he was 
 permitted to marry, and laying exorbitant duties on all foreign 
 and exported goods.* He was cruel in war, advising indis- 
 criminate pillage, and the most stern though equitable disci- 
 plinarian, apparently inaccessible to any of the ordinary senti- 
 ments of humanity. Wraxall describes him in 1 776 as a little 
 bent man, with an eagle physiognomy, scanty hair, covered by 
 an enormous cocked hat, and wearing high boots, an old uniform 
 * Coxe's Travels.
 
 of Alexander I. 25 
 
 coat, and extremely dirty waistcoat. His chief pleasure lay in 
 his dinner, and he ate largely, for which he paid the penalty 
 of severe attacks of gout. His pockets were lined with tin, so 
 that he might be always well supplied with snufi', and the 
 quantities he took rendered him frequently a disgusting object. 
 Though irritable he possessed a philosophical temperament, 
 and the mean and vindictive motives which sometimes 
 influenced his conduct should be attributed more to the out- 
 breaks so common in the possessors of despotic power than to 
 his natural disposition. Such was the man who excited the 
 enthusiastic admiration of two successive Emperors of Russia. 
 His most enduring policy was the strengthening of those ties 
 by which friendship and marriage had firmly connected them 
 with his House. The power he unscrupulously cemented under 
 the crown of Prussia was swept away in 1806 in a ten days' 
 campaign, but the fascination he exercised over the hearts of 
 the Russian sovereigns survived the fall of his kingdom ; to 
 Russia it owed its restoration, and the feeble existence a 
 remnant was suffered to maintain till the memorable War of 
 Independence, and the support it received from Russia laid 
 the foundation of the modern German empire. 
 
 NOTE TO CHAPTER I. 
 
 The absurd stories once circulated about Paul's birth are now acknow- 
 ledged to have no other source than the political jealousy which invented 
 the same with regard to the Pretender, Louis XIV., Ferdinand VII., 
 Queen Isabella, Napoleon II., the Comte de Chambord, and George II. 
 Even if the book purporting to be Catherine's autobiography were 
 genuine, which is very doubtful, it proves no more than that she was an un- 
 faithful wife two years before his birth. " Ruhliere's book," says the Prin- 
 cess Dashkov, " was merely composed of gossip ;" and early in her reign 
 Catherine may have encouraged such reports as a check to the murmurs 
 publicly uttered at her usurpation of her son's rights. Would Elizabeth, 
 who had children of her own by a private marriage with Razoumovski, 
 have lavished almost maternal affection on Paul if he had no connection 
 with her by blood, and not have tried to substitute one of her sons in his 
 place ? Catherine's very dislike to him proved his descent from Peter, 
 and although his appearance more resembled her (alleged) description of 
 Peter's father, the Duke of Holstein, " ugly, little, sickly, and poor," the 
 Romanof beauty was revived in his children, and even Masson and 
 other hostile writers draw a close comparison between him and Peter III. 
 Talleyrand believed in their relationship, and no one can read Bassewitz's 
 description of Anna Petrovna and Mrs. Vigor's of Elizabeth and Peter II. 
 without being reminded of the present Imperial family.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ALEXANDER'S EDUCATION AND MARRIAGE. 
 17771796. 
 
 rpHE bride from Montbeliard, taking warning by the fate of 
 JL her predecessor, conducted herself with the utmost 
 reserve and prudence from the moment she set foot in her 
 adopted land. Yet it did not protect her from the Empress's 
 jealousy or the most irritating supervision, and when all the 
 delightful anticipations of the dignity of her position had 
 passed into stern realities, she endured the restrictions 
 attendant upon her rank with little to counterbalance them. 
 Catherine even looked unfavourably on her warm attachment 
 to her husband, who was superseded in the position of first 
 subject in the empire by a succession of men of obscure 
 birth, raised in turn to the highest political appointments, 
 acting as masters within the palace, and enjoying enormous 
 revenues, with no other qualification than a good manner and 
 imposing personal appearance. To please the Empress, they 
 studied to neglect and insult her son, and the Chancellor, 
 Potemkin, carried his familiarity so far as to address him as 
 Little Paul, and to laugh ,openly at his plain appearance and 
 short stature. Those letters that the Grand Duchess was able 
 to send to her family by private hand were written in a melan- 
 choly strain, filled with affectionate messages to her old 
 acquaintances round Montbeliard, and saying that to live with 
 her husband as a private citizen in the Chateau des Etupes 
 would be far more to her taste than in a Russian palace. She 
 spoke much of his kindness to her, and their attachment to 
 each other. They read together, and she was teaching him 
 music, for which he had considerable taste. In the following 
 year, Christmas Eve, so dear to every German, was the birth- 
 day of her eldest son (December 24th, 1777), and in a 
 country which had suffered so much from a disputed succes- 
 sion, the arrival of an heir was a subject of great rejoicing 
 to the whole empire.
 
 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 27 
 
 The future autocrat was baptized when he was a week old, 
 and received the name of Alexander Paulovitz, after St. 
 Alexander of the Neva, one of the most popular of ancient 
 Russian heroes. Count Alexis Orlof and Madame Czernichef 
 were his sponsors. The poet Derzhavin wrote an ode for the 
 occasion; and, describing the recent inundation of the Neva, 
 the loss of life and property, and the consequent famine and 
 distress, he showed that the Prince had been bestowed as a 
 consolation to the afflicted people, and ends with a representa- 
 tion of Russia upon her knees receiving the infant in her 
 arms, and offering up prayers for his future happiness. The 
 low and marshy situation of St. Petersburg renders it liable to 
 inundations, occasionally rising so high as to threaten the 
 submersion of the entire city. On September 22nd, 1777, the 
 Neva rose 10 feet 7 inches above its usual level (one authority 
 states 14 feet), but the wind shifted in the course of the day, 
 and the flood subsided with unusual rapidity, though it rose 
 again 7 feet on October 18th. An instance of Russian military 
 discipline and passive courage is recorded of a soldier who 
 was on guard at the Winter Palace. The Court retreated 
 into the upper rooms, and the Empress, looking out of the 
 window, saw the man in danger of being drowned. She 
 called to him to leave his post and save his life. He replied 
 he could not do so even at her command without the per- 
 mission of his corporal, and he remained till, with some 
 difficulty, the corporal was found and ordered to give him his 
 release. 
 
 The inundation disposed of one pretender to the throne, 
 the Princess Tarrakanof, said to be a daughter of Elizabeth 
 by a private marriage, and whom a Polish nobleman endea- 
 voured to set up as a rival to the Empress. A deep-laid plot 
 brought her within Catherine's power, and she was imprisoned 
 for nearly six years in a dungeon in the fortress of St. Peters- 
 burg, when the rising of the Neva filled the cells with water 
 as well as the church which contains the Imperial tombs, and 
 it was officially stated that the unfortunate girl had perished. 
 The flood carried many wooden houses entirely away, and a 
 ship from Lubeck was hurled on to the wooded island of 
 Vassilli Ostrof. The injury sustained by the shipping and 
 merchandize was estimated at several millions of roubles, and
 
 28 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 
 
 the dampness of the houses during the following winter 
 brought on a fearful amount of sickness. 
 
 In the midst of this period of want and gloom Alexander 
 the First came into the world ; but the prevailing scarcity had 
 no effect on the gaiety of the Court, for the fetes and banquets 
 held in honour of the young Prince's birth continued from 
 Christmas till Lent, and began again at Easter, when Prince 
 Potemkin gave a sumptuous entertainment which cost 
 50,000 roubles. The child's nurse was a Scotchwoman, 
 married to a German, and before he was a year old he was 
 surrounded by attendants. An Englishman named Parland, 
 whom he afterwards pensioned, and who long survived him, 
 was appointed his diadka, or bearer, as it would be termed in 
 India a functionary who takes charge of the young Russian 
 nobles as soon as they can walk, but has nothing to do with 
 their education; and he was brought up under the immediate 
 superintendence of the Empress, who took possession of her 
 son's children in exactly the same way as Elizabeth had acted 
 with regard to herself. The fear of her mother-in-law made 
 the Grand Duchess nervous and out of spirits, and when her 
 second son was born, May 8th, 1779, she was extremely ill, and 
 nearly died. The recent conquest of the Crimea had inspired 
 the Empress with a hope of restoring the Greek Empire, and 
 she caused this grandson to be baptized Constantine Paulovitz, 
 and intrusted to a Greek nurse from the Isle of Scio, fully 
 intending before she closed her reign to place him on the 
 throne of Paleologus. 
 
 Sir James Harris arrived in Russia at the end of 1777, 
 with instructions to secure the Empress's alliance in a war 
 with France, who was giving assistance to the American 
 colonists in their struggle for independence. 
 
 St. Petersburg is further east than Constantinople or Smyrna, 
 and Moscow than Aleppo or Jerusalem, yet the Oriental in- 
 dolence, luxury, magnificence, and corruption of the court and 
 nobles seem to have amazed him. He writes that Paul and 
 his wife must be excepted from this description. " They live 
 on the best of terms, and offer an example they neither 
 receive nor can get imitated. . . . He observes the conjugal 
 ties with the most rigid severity. . . . They interfere in 
 nothing. I wish sooner or latter he may not be tempted to
 
 Alexander s Education and Marriage. 29 
 
 take advantage of the confused state of things, and attempt a 
 project -which would prove fatal to him. I know evil spirits 
 are not wanting to excite him to it. . . .A general discontent 
 prevails/' c. 
 
 Though Panine extorted a written engagement from Cathe- 
 rine to relinquish the throne when her son was of age, this 
 was restored to her by Voronzov within a few months, and 
 she destroyed it. When Paul attained his majority, Potemkin 
 had firmly established the Empress's authority, and kept her 
 in constant dread of her son,* as a means of preserving his 
 own influence, which he persuaded her was necessary to her 
 safety. Paniiie gave the Prince sound advice when he urged 
 him to abstain from politics, and to root out of the nation the 
 unfortunate idea that the crown of Russia is the prize of a 
 riotous and bloody night. " You will mount the throne," he 
 said, " perhaps at an advanced age, perhaps not at all, and your 
 elder son may succeed his grandmother, but through your 
 forbearance you can render a signal service to yourdescendants." 
 To a less cautious councillor Paul replied, " I will never give 
 my son an apology for conspiring to dethrone me/' 
 
 Panine was so much opposed to a war on behalf of Great 
 Britain that he suppressed portions of the English minister's 
 despatches before he showed them to the Empress, but at last, 
 in 1779, Sir J. Harris obtained a personal interview. He 
 tried to prove that " France was as much the natural enemy 
 of Russia as of Great Britain," and he asked her assistance 
 against America, France, and Spain. " She objected on the 
 ground that she did not wish to end her reign in a state of 
 war, and hinted at the possibility of restoring peace by 
 renouncing our struggle with our colonies. I asked, if they 
 belonged to her, and a foreign Power proposed peace on 
 such terms, whether she would accept it ? She replied with 
 great vehemence, ' I would rather lose my head. Admitting 
 what you say,' added she, ' what right have I, after all, to 
 interfere in a quarrel foreign to my own concerns on a subject 
 I am not supposed to understand, and with Courts at such a 
 distance from me ?' T answered, that if in the last century a 
 sovereign of Russia held this language I should have been 
 puzzled for a reply, but since Russia was become a leading 
 * Diary and Correspondence of the first Lord Malmesbury.
 
 30 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 
 
 Power in Europe, the answer was obvious she was too great to 
 see any great events with indifference; the concerns of Europe 
 were now the concerns of Russia." It is curious to read of a 
 British minister urging a course on Russia which has formed 
 Western Europe's great complaint against her in the present 
 century. Catherine's policy was before her time, and if it had 
 been followed by her immediate successors, much misery might 
 have been spared to her empire. 
 
 On November 5th, 1779, George III. wrote an autograph 
 letter on the same subject to Catherine, and the English 
 Government tried to hire some regiments of Cossacks. It 
 went so far in its importunity as to offer the island of 
 Minorca to Russia in return for her alliance,* but even that 
 bribe, and the need of a depot in the Mediterranean for her 
 fleet during the Turkish war, was not a sufficient inducement. 
 Harris encouraged a growing coolness between the Courts of 
 Russia and Prussia, having been alarmed by their close friend- 
 ship, for Panine spoke of Frederick as the sentinel of the 
 Russian empire, and when ' the Empress sent her son and 
 daughter-in-law abroad in 1781, with orders not to pass 
 through Prussia, he interested himself in supporting this com- 
 mand. Their children had just undergone inoculation for the 
 small-pox, and they wished to see how they took the disease 
 before leaving home. The question of their departure became 
 quite a party matter. Panine took their view of the subject, 
 and the British ambassador, Orlof, Potemkin, and the Empress 
 tried to hurry them off. 
 
 Tney were soon consoled by Catherine's cheerful letters,f 
 showing they had no cause for alarm. " The inoculation/' 
 she wrote, f{ has not had serious consequences. Mr. Alexander's 
 small-pox goes on very well. The marks are disappearing by 
 degrees." Again, when they had suffered from influenza : 
 " Your children, and particularly Alexander, are better. The 
 youngest still coughs." In an allusion to Gregory Orlof'sJ in- 
 
 * Lord Malmesbury's Correspondence. 
 
 f Memoirs published by the Historical Society in St. Petersburg. 
 
 J Gregory Orlof had lived abroad some years, and married, but on the 
 death of his wife in 1779 he returned distracted to Russia. He reproached 
 the Empress in the midst of a Court ball as the author of his misery, 
 saying he was being punished for the murder of Peter III. He died at 
 Gateschina in 1783 in the last stage of idiocy.
 
 Alexander s Education and Marriage. 3 1 
 
 sanity, she says, " Thank God, he is in the hands of a man 
 who you know how little faith I have in doctors' medi- 
 cine and charlatanism has never yet failed to cure, though 
 only the desperately sick have recourse to him. So 
 
 every doctor is enraged against him Your children 
 
 accompanied me to the Hermitage one Sunday when there 
 was a comedy, during which they played in the upper rooms, 
 but when it was finished they danced the polonaise. They 
 now delight in balls. Yesterday, at Count Skavronski's wed- 
 ding, they danced with all the ladies they could catch. You 
 can imagine how amusing it is to see such babies imitate 
 
 grown-up men You must please to observe that 
 
 Alexander dictated himself what is written in pencil, and that 
 he inked it over. I have told them, in future to follow the 
 same plan with the youngest, that you may receive what they 
 
 say themselves The eldest asked to-day to be shown 
 
 Vienna, Kiof, and Petersburg on the terrestrial globe, ' to see/ 
 he said, ' the distance/ He spells syllables with four letters, 
 and by his own wish spends sometimes two or three hours over 
 his ABC. The depth of this child's questions are astonishing. 
 The youngest begins to talk very distinctly, and becomes more 
 and more amusing ; he comes every day with me to find 
 cherries. He is growing very pretty." She also speaks of 
 taking them out in her sledge, Constantine sitting on her knee, 
 and of Alexander " jumping about on one foot like a bird." 
 She describes the last as being " more inquiring every day," 
 so she had written a little book, which he liked so much 
 that he constantly asked to have it read to him, and had 
 " learned it by heart." She alludes jestingly to the two kisses 
 which the Pope had bestowed on Paul, who waited in St. 
 Peter's at six A.M. to take leave of him as he was quitting 
 Rome on a visit to Vienna, and rather contemptuously to 
 Marie Antoinette and the amusements of the French Court. 
 The Grand Duke and Duchess, under the title of the Count 
 and Countess du Nord, visited Warsaw and Vienna, where 
 they stayed a month, and where Paul wrote to his mother that 
 he Cf had gained much information '" then proceeded to Munich 
 and Italy, whence they made their way to Paris, and met with 
 a brilliant reception from Louis XVI. No royal entertain- 
 ment ever received such a splendid return, for Paul never
 
 32 Alexanders Education and Marriage. 
 
 forgot the attention paid him by the Bourbons, and especially 
 the Prince de Conde, and when the Revolution of 1 789 drove 
 the whole family into exile he warmly embraced their cause. 
 For a time he supported them all in regal state in Russia, and 
 from personal feeling, as well as from dislike of the infidel 
 opinions of the republic, adopted the policy of resistance 
 to its principles which ended with the entry of Alex- 
 ander into Paris. It was only seven years before the 
 destruction of the Bastile, but the ancient regime of France 
 and its oppressive aristocratic government were in full force, 
 and few were far-seeing enough to perceive the coming storm. 
 The Dutch had just refused a loan to Russia, considering the 
 reigning dynasty as most insecure, and her resources an insuf- 
 ficient guarantee ; yet, though the credit of the Bourbons was 
 low, they were regarded as safe in their seats as London on 
 the banks of the Thames. A horde of Tartars might again 
 overrun Russia and sink St. Petersburg beneath its primitive 
 swamps, but was it possible that one Bourbon should not suc- 
 ceed another as month succeeds month in the course of the 
 year, and who imagined that a foreign sovereign would ever 
 enter Paris as a conqueror, and dictate the constitution and 
 form of monarchy to govern humiliated France ? 
 
 Paul made a most favourable impression* there on all with 
 whom he came in contact. The interest he took in the state 
 of the prisons, which were unusually wretchedf in Paris, and 
 his liberal donations to the unhappy inmates ; his extensive 
 information, bon-mots, and the good temper with which he 
 treated the disparaging remarks of the crowd on his personal 
 appearance, observing to the Russian ambassador that the 
 French people were more truthful than polite ; his indefati- 
 gable activity, and even his eccentricities, were attractive to 
 a nation fond of novelty. " He is twenty-eight," writes a lady 
 from Paris : " his first appearance is not prepossessing ; he is 
 very small, and plain even for the northern races, but with a 
 refined and intelligent expression, an astute smile, and his 
 eyes are brilliant and animated ." Of the conduct of the 
 Duke of Orleans he observed, " The King of France is very 
 patient. If my mother had such a cousin he would not remain 
 long in Russia. The consequences of these rebellions in the 
 
 * Madame d'Oberkirch, Princesse de Lamballe, Madame Campan, &c. 
 f See Howard.
 
 Alexander s Education and Marriage. 33 
 
 royal family are of more importance than may at first appear." 
 ..." The Count du Nord made many just and profound 
 reflections/"* she wrote later. " They have often been recalled 
 to my memory by events of which I have been a witness." 
 He was received at the Academy with a eulogistic oration 
 comparing him to his great-grandfather Peter the Great. He 
 replied, " It is my ambition to resemble him one day, and to 
 continue the work he began ; but at present I do not deserve 
 to have my inglorious name inscribed beside his." 
 
 When the Imperial visitors took leave of Louis XVI. and 
 the Queen, June 18th, 1781, Paul kissed little Madame Royale, 
 afterwards the Duchess d'Angouleme, and told her he should 
 never see her again, for he should not come any more to Paris. 
 " Oh, but I shall see you again," said the child ; " for if you do 
 not come to see me I shall pay you a visit in Russia." Years 
 passed, and one gloomy December day she fled with Louis XVIII. 
 from his empire, and the daughter of France, whose birth was 
 too exalted to marry any other than a French prince, was 
 thankful for a piece of black bread to escape starvation, and was 
 lodged in a wretched Polish posting-house half buried in snow. 
 
 On quitting France the travellers visited Poland and the 
 residence of Peter the Great at Zaandam. At Utrecht they 
 were received by the Austrian Governor, Count Lockhart, 
 and his wife, who were Scotch by birth, and were surprised to 
 find Paul well acquainted with Scotch history and the part 
 the Lockhart family had played in it. At Stuttgart they 
 were entertained by the uncle of the Grand Duchess. He 
 lamented to his niece his extravagant youth, when he ex- 
 pended his money in building palaces. Paul overhearing him, 
 said : " The erection of palaces is, after all, not so unwise. 
 The grandeur of princes is the greatness of the people, and all 
 the money you have spent here has only given employment to 
 your subjects and added to their comforts." On September 29th 
 they left for Russia, much grieved on hearing that a nobleman 
 who wrote to Paul on merely the ordinary topics of the day 
 was banished to Siberia for this offence, and the rumour reached 
 them that the Empress had some thoughts of appointing the 
 young Alexander as her successor.* Catherine also found an 
 
 * Lord Alalmesbury'a Correspondence. 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 Alexander s Education and Marriage. 
 
 ingenious mode of tormenting her daughter-in-law, who was 
 fond of dress, and had bought a store of fine clothes in Paris, 
 for she altered the Court costume so as to resemble the ancient 
 Muscovite style rather than that of France, and these ex- 
 pensive dresses were now useless. They visited Mittau on 
 their way to St. Petersburg, and stayed nearly a month with 
 the Baron de Krudener, lately married to the young Julie 
 Veightinhof, the daughter of a Livonian nobleman, and the 
 granddaughter of the celebrated Marshal Munnich. This 
 lady became renowned for her extreme religious opinions and 
 her renunciation of all worldly amusements, when she received 
 her full share of admiration, scorn, and persecution ; but now 
 she was a gay and entertaining hostess, and Paul and his wife 
 spent the Christmas season in the midst of an agreeable family 
 circle, whom they joined in charades, sleighing parties, and 
 other games. While they enjoyed the Baron's hospitality 
 Madame de Krudener's first child was born, and named Paul 
 after his imperial godfather, who held him at the font the day 
 before he left for St. Petersburg. The Empress received her 
 son and daughter with marked coldness in an interview lasting 
 only a few minutes, and they had hardly reached the capital 
 when Panine was struck with apoplexy and never spoke again. 
 Paul watched by his dying bed, and showed great sorrow at 
 his loss. He had been a harsh preceptor, but was his only 
 influential friend in the empire, and when he was gone 
 Potemkin ruled without a rival, and soon made the Prince 
 feel his power. 
 
 Yet though Catherine was deficient in maternal affection, 
 she showed the greatest solicitude for the welfare of her 
 grandchildren, and in their turn Alexander and Constantino 
 regarded her memory with filial indulgence, though perfectly 
 aware of her faults.* They resided with her alternately at 
 Czarco-Selo and the Winter Palace, under the charge of 
 Madame Benkeudorf, the wife of an Esthonian nobleman, till 
 Alexander was five years old, when a governor was chosen for 
 them in Count Nicholas Soltikof, the President of the War 
 
 * It is curious that Alexander II. is the first Russian Emperor since 
 1684 not educated under female superintendence Peter ., Peter II., Ivan 
 VI., Peter III., Paul, Alexander I., and Nicholas having all been sub- 
 jected to the guardianship of a sister, a grandmother, a mother, or an 
 aunt.
 
 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 35 
 
 Office, who accompanied Paul on his foreign tour. At the 
 same time Pratasov, a Russian of the old school, was ap- 
 pointed sub-tutor to Alexander; and Sacken, formerly one of 
 Paul's tutors, to Constantine, who was attended by a Greek 
 officer and Greek servants. Even at this early age the cha- 
 racteristics which afterwards distinguished these princes were 
 displayed, and Alexander's gentleness, intelligence, conscientious- 
 ness, and amiability were in strong contrast to Constantino's 
 fretfulness, caprice, and violence. It was with great difficulty 
 that the younger brother was taught to read, and, unlike 
 Alexander, who was fond of natural history, and would not 
 willingly hurt a living creature, he delighted in tormenting 
 animals and killing flies and cats. His oddities amused his 
 grandmother, who humoured him in every whim, though she 
 said of them that Alexander was an angel, but Constantine a 
 fury, for when opposed in his wishes he would attack his tutors 
 and playmates with his nails and teeth. He was attached to 
 his brother, and they shared the same rooms and amusements, 
 as Catherine, hoping that he might profit by the companion- 
 ship, relinquished her first intention to educate them separately, 
 one with young Greeks, and the other with Russians. They 
 were delicate children, but received extreme care. Their meals 
 were regulated entirely according to medical advice, and 
 Pratasov and Sacken made a minute report of their health 
 every day to Soltikof ; but they were, nevertheless, kept much 
 too closely to their tasks, and both in consequence grew up 
 most inconveniently short-sighted, while Constantine hated 
 anything connected with literature for the rest of his life. 
 Catherine composed a plan for the education of her grandsons, 
 compiled from Locke and Rousseau, in the form of a letter 
 addressed to Count Soltikof, and she particularly desired they 
 should not be allowed to study either poetry or music. Peter 
 III. used to play on the violin, and she had since hated every 
 kind of harmony. She wrote a series called the " Alexander- 
 Con stantine Library/' and as children's books were very scarce 
 at that time, they obtained a large circulation in Prussia. The 
 princes were certainly taught to the utmost extent that a 
 juvenile capacity would admit. Their games were dancing and 
 military exercises; their walks were devoted to natural history 
 and botanical researches ; their recreation was to share in the
 
 36 Alexander s Education and Marriage. 
 
 private theatrical performances and gambling parties at the 
 Hermitage. By the time Alexander was fourteen years old he 
 was able to read and speak the Russian, Polish, French, German, 
 and English languages, besides being a good Latin and Greek 
 scholar. He was remarkably well informed in ancient and 
 modern history, geography, polite literature, fortification and 
 drawing, and had been initiated in the duties of a sailor on 
 board a little frigate built expressly for the purpose, and 
 launched on the lake at Czarco-Selo. Colonel Masson instructed 
 him in mathematics, for which he showed some ability, though 
 he preferred the study of history and classics. He also took a 
 particular interest in horticulture and natural philosophy, and 
 was a very fair artist, a talent common to several members of 
 his family. 
 
 Pratasov, described by his colleagues as " ignorant, fanatical, 
 and reserved/' was the Princes' religious instructor, and they 
 were frequently heard when very young to leave their beds in 
 the same room and kneel down to ask the Divine forgiveness, 
 in their own simple words, for some childish misdemeanor 
 before they ventured to go to sleep. Catherine, professing to 
 be a follower of Voltaire, was alarmed lest her grandchildren 
 should grow up what she considered superstitious, and she 
 desired the reigning favourite, General Lanskoi, to look out 
 for another tutor of similar views to her own. He recom- 
 mended La Harpe, a young Swiss from the Pays du Vaud, who 
 was a Republican and of Protestant descent, though he had 
 early imbibed the free religious opinions which were fast 
 spreading through Germany and France. He is sometimes 
 confused with Jean Fran9ois La Harpe, the French .corre- 
 spondent of the Grand Duke Paul, and the author of the 
 " Cours de Litterature," who was born in Paris in 1 739, and 
 died in 1803, but they were not even related. Frederick 
 Charles La Harpe was born at Rolle, on the Lake of Geneva, 
 in ] 754, and was made a Doctor of Laws in Tubingen when 
 only twenty years old. Lanskoi heard of him from Baron 
 Grimm, and after the death of Lanskoi, in 1784, the Empress 
 felt the more partial to La Harpe for his sake. His political 
 opinions were no drawback in her eyes, as it was an age in 
 which the despots of Eastern Europe affected to be Republi- 
 cans, before the French Revolution warned them of the extent
 
 Alexander s Education and Marriage. 37 
 
 to which such principles might go. La Harpe commenced his 
 duties in 1783, and as his education was far superior to that 
 of the Russian tutors, who were more numerous than efficient, 
 he soon became the Princes' chief instructor, with the excep- 
 tion of Michael Muravief, a member of a distinguished 
 Russian family, appointed in 1785 to give them lessons in 
 Russian literature, Russian history, and Russian philosophy. 
 The last wrote several books for the benefit of his pupils, and 
 two of his nephews, with Prince Alexander Galitzin, were 
 their fellow students. Pallas also gave Alexander lessons in 
 botany, and Kraft in astronomy and experimental physics. 
 When he was eleven years old Kraft was speaking to him of 
 the various conjectures on the nature of light, and said that 
 Newton considered it to be a continual emanation from the 
 sun. The boy answered, " That cannot be true, for the sun 
 would become smaller every day/' Constantine was quick, 
 but seemed perfectly incapable of fixing his attention upon 
 any subject except military exercises. He learned Greek from 
 his nurse, but when a Greek tutor was provided for him he 
 refused to speak the language, and said he would always be a 
 Russian and nothing else. On one occasion Sacken was 
 endeavouring to make him read, when he declared he was 
 resolved not to learn to read, for he saw Sacken always 
 reading, and found him growing more and more stupid every day. 
 La Harpe occupied a house near the Palace of Czarco-Selo, 
 which stands in a park stretching over several miles of garden, 
 field, and forest ; but he spent a great part of every day with 
 his pupils, who learned here to ride, to shoot, and to steer a 
 boat, as well as sword practice and drill Constantine being 
 placed at the head of a corps of 200 young Greek cadets, and 
 Alexander of the same number of Russians, chiefly sons of the 
 nobility. This juvenile band included the Princes Galitzin, 
 Dolgorukof, the Muraviefs, Aratchaief, and others whose names 
 were prominent in the history of their country at a latter 
 period. La Harpe received strict rules as to his method of 
 education from the Empress, and in obedience to her instruc- 
 tions gave Alexander lessons on the various forms of govern- 
 ment, and especially on the duties of an absolute sovereign. 
 He always denied having tried to put Republican notions 
 into their heads, but he requested permission to inflict any
 
 38 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 
 
 chastisement he thought proper when it was required, and 
 compelled Constantine to submit to his authority. He has 
 gained credit for his system from those who imagine that 
 Alexander's character was due to it ; but it should be 
 remembered that he also formed Constantine, and from his 
 earliest infancy Alexander was represented by his instructors 
 as a remarkably clever and well-disposed boy. The Swiss 
 Republicans of those days, pupils of Rousseau, were very 
 severe trainers of royal youth : it was their object to convince 
 princes that they were but dust of the earth like their subjects, 
 and it may be doubted if the sensitive feelings of a child of 
 seven were not too much worked upon ; and on the other hand, 
 if Constantine was not rendered callous, by being compelled to 
 dwell too long on his faults, from seeing them written up for a 
 week before his eyes. Alexander was made to keep a journal 
 of the occupations of each week, and his own shortcomings, 
 and also what La Harpe styled, " the archives of shame of the 
 Grand Duke Alexander," written down by himself from the 
 time he was seven -years old. Constantine had a similar task 
 imposed upon him. When they had committed some fault 
 they were obliged to write an account of it, and their 
 unavowed motives for being idle or negligent. Alexander was 
 fond of reasoning with his masters, and he was made to write 
 out the whole conversation as a punishment, with comments 
 on the folly of his arguments ; and the writing was then posted 
 up on the wall of his study till replaced by a more favourable 
 report. Some of these documents in his own hand are 
 preserved, and the wafers still attached to them show that 
 the last penalty was no mere threat. "The Grand Duke 
 Alexander having forgotten himself so far as to say uncivil 
 things, has been sent away, and to remind him that incivility 
 is inexcusable, this paper is hung up in his study as a fit 
 ornament for it." . . . " The Grand Duke Alexander has read 
 so badly and with so little attention that we have been obliged 
 to make him spell like a child of eight years old. This 
 second proof of it has been hung up." Another, when he 
 was thirteen, states : " Instead of redoubling my efforts to profit 
 by the years of study which remain to me, I become every 
 day more careless, inattentive, and incapable. The older I 
 grow, the more I approach zero. What shall 1 become?
 
 Alexanders Education and Marriage. 39 
 
 Nothing, according to all appearances. Sensible men when 
 they bow to me will shrug their shoulders with pity, and will 
 perhaps laugh at my expense because I shall attribute to my 
 distinguished merits the external respect they show me. 
 Thus they offer incense to an idol, though laughing at such a 
 farce. I the undersigned have told an untruth by pretending 
 I had not time to finish what was given me to do two days 
 ago, while my brother has completed the same things in the 
 same space of time. I have trifled, chattered, and conducted 
 myself from the beginning of the week like a man devoid 
 of ambition, and insensible to shame and reproaches. I 
 console myself with the idea that I shall always know as 
 much as men of my rank whom I do not wish to offend by 
 acquiring too much knowledge/'' . . . " I am a bare table as 
 regards ambition and desire to learn. I shall always be 
 clever enough. Why should I give myself the trouble to 
 become so? Princes such as 1 am know everything without 
 having learnt it," &c. 
 
 On Constantino's " Tables of Shame" we read, under date 
 of 1790, in very bad spelling : "As I was uncivil they 
 reproved me, telling me I was a little boy ; at which I was so 
 much offended that I answered very boldly that I was a prince, 
 but hardly had I finished when they burst out laughing, and 
 I felt that I had said a very silly thing."* " At more than 
 twelve years old I do not kno\v anything, not even how to read. 
 To be rough, uncivil, and impertinent are my only aspirations. 
 My knowledge and my ambition are worthy of a drummer." 
 One day Constantine said that a subordinate ought to execute 
 everything his commander ordered, even if it were a crime 
 a soldier was a pure machine. La Harpe made him write out 
 all the consequences of such a maxim. An officer who ordered 
 his soldiers to fire on passers-by must then be punctually 
 obeyed. An officer who received an order from his commander 
 to commit an infamy was punishable if he dared only to require 
 an explanation or show the least doubt. An officer must, 
 then, make no use of his own good sense. Information, 
 reasoning, sentiments of honour were hurtful to good disci- 
 pline, &c. ; " but," added the tutor, " I have vainly tried to 
 make Monseigneur reflect on the folly of uttering unreservedly 
 * He signed himself " the ass Constantine."
 
 40 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 
 
 maxims which give a false idea of his heart, and I have begged 
 him to avoid repeating them to me for the future."* 
 
 Even the best education of a prince is very inferior to the 
 mental training boys obtain in a large school, forced to make 
 their way through a crowd of rivals, and able to exercise some 
 choice in their studies and pursuits. It would also have been 
 far happier for Alexander if he had been brought up in the 
 doctrines of the Church he was ultimately to direct, instead 
 of in the most profound ignorance of the orthodox faith. La 
 Harpe instructed his pupils in moral precepts such as were 
 taught by the sages of Greece and Rome, but he depicted the 
 Christian religion as a mere system of philosophy, the most 
 suitable perhaps for the early stages of a nation, but to be 
 cast aside when it had reached its full growth; and to consider 
 the ceremonies of the Greek Church as antiquated forms which 
 it might be necessary for the leaders of a people to respect 
 from political motives so long as they were held as efficacious 
 by a large portion of their subjects, but utterly disbelieved as 
 realities by all enlightened men. This doctrine,! laid on to 
 the foundation imbibed from Pratasov and the attendants of 
 his earliest years, added to the views of his grandmother, who 
 professed to believe in destiny, and when her horses ran away 
 with her near Sevastopol, coolly remarked to the English 
 ambassador that she confided in her lucky star, must have 
 made rather a strange confusion in the mind of a reflecting 
 boy, and it was the substance of an energetic remonstrance 
 from his father when La Harpe was appointed in 1783. 
 Besides possessing a strong religious feeling, Paul had long 
 been impatient at his paternal claims being utterly ignored, 
 and he now considered he had ample cause of complaint. 
 More than one very angry discussion took place between him 
 and the Empress, in which his wife was obliged to take a part, 
 and a great deal was said on both sides that neither rould 
 easily forget. In his early years Catherine frequently told 
 her son that his understanding was as deformed as his appear- 
 ance, and he retaliated by saying she neglected her duties as 
 a sovereign in permitting the nation and herself to be governed 
 
 * Kecueil de la Societe d'Histoire de Russie. 
 
 f Chateaubriand says Alexander was brought up an atheist, but he 
 probably means what is generally called a deist.
 
 Alexander s Education and Marriage. 41 
 
 by unworthy favourites. She had threatened to marry Potem- 
 kin in order to spite him, for the crown should then descend 
 to their children. But even stronger language "was used at 
 this moment, and he said that she wished to deprive him of 
 his children, as she had already deprived him of 'a father and 
 of his paternal inheritance. The result was that the Empress 
 banished him to the Castle of Gateschina, just left vacant by 
 the death of the wretched Gregory Orlof, and he was no longer 
 permitted to reside at Paulovski, his palace near Czarco-Selo, 
 except when she was absent from that neighbourhood, or to 
 occupy rooms in the Winter Palace. She could not bear to 
 hear him mentioned during the next twelve years. His wife 
 shared his disgrace. She went to Czarco-Selo or to the 
 Winter Palace, according as to whether it was winter or 
 summer, to give birth to each member of their numerous 
 family, and cheerfully leaving her children to the care of the 
 Empress, returned to Gateschina as soon as she could bear 
 the journey over the bad road between the two establishments. 
 There she gave herself up to the task of amusing her husband 
 and joining in his pursuits, and even in a capital as slanderous 
 as St. Petersburg no breath of scandal ever ventured to approach 
 her name. She was allowed to visit her children once a week 
 if she chose to do so, and as they grew older they called at 
 Gateschina for a few hours once or twice in the summer to 
 see their father, though SoJtikof, who attended them on these 
 occasions, had strict orders not to leave them alone with him. 
 Paul was remarkably fond of children, arid the separation was 
 a bitter trial to him. In January, 1783, immediately after his 
 return from abroad, his eldest daughter, Alexandra, was born 
 at Czarco-Selo ; a second, Helena, at St. Petersburg, December 
 24th, 1784; and a third, Mary, February 21st, 1786. On the two 
 last occasions he was forced to remain at Gateschina. He became 
 melancholy, and begged his mother to allow him to take part, if 
 only as a common soldier, in the Turkish war. " All Europe," 
 he wrote to her, " knows my desire to fight against the Otto- 
 mans. What will they think of me on hearing that I stay at 
 home ?" " They will think you an obedient son/' she 
 answered, drily, and always refused to let him hold any post 
 in the public service. As heir to the throne he bore the 
 title of Grand Admiral of Russia, yet he was never once
 
 42 Alexander s Education and Marriage. 
 
 permitted to visit the head-quarters of the fleet at Cron- 
 stadt. 
 
 Paul regulated his expenses at Gateschina with close 
 economy; for while the Empress expended 17,000,000 roubles, 
 besides estates, on the Orlofs, and a still larger sum on their 
 successors and Potemkin, who received more titles than the 
 heir-apparent, and the cost of each courtier was 600 roubles 
 a day, he was restricted to an allowance of 30,000 paper 
 roubles yearly ; which, owing to their depreciation, became 
 worth little more than 1000/. Catherine sent a lady and 
 gentleman from her own household, who were changed every 
 fortnight, to wait on him and his wife ; and they were allowed 
 a corps of soldiers for an escort. He farmed his estate ; and 
 Sir John Sinclair, who visit him in 1786, thought it much to 
 his credit that in his trying circumstances he could occupy 
 himself with agriculture, his garden, drawing and music, and 
 take a pleasure in entertaining strangers. "Never did a 
 private family," writes the Count de Segur, who also went 
 there, " do the honours of a house with more ease, grace, and 
 simplicity. Their dinners, balls, plays, and fetes were all 
 marked with the stamp of a rigid decorum, the best style, and 
 most delicate taste. But we soon perceived in Paul a restless- 
 ness and apprehension, a mistrust and extreme susceptibility ; 
 in short, those eccentricities which were in the end the cause 
 of such errors."* 
 
 Another guest describes him as a devoted husband and fond 
 father, but morbidly sensitive ; and in consequence a self- 
 tormentor. On the few occasions when he was summoned to 
 St. Petersburg, he affected a disregard of his own children 
 he by no means felt ; as he said, if the Empress thought he 
 cared about them he should never see them at all. His 
 oddities were developed by seclusion, and his once amiable 
 disposition soured by his wrongs and indifferent health. He 
 possessed the same military mania which made his father 
 and grandfather ridiculous, and was inherited by his son 
 Constantine, fortifying Gateschina, and holding miniature 
 
 * At St. Petersburg Segur was presented to Alexander, then seven 
 years old, it being the first time he had received an ambassador. " I 
 have always," he writes, " thought it ridiculous to address serious lan- 
 guage to a child, so I only said a few words to him on his education and 
 the hopes entertained of him at a future day." Memoirs of Segur.
 
 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 43 
 
 reviews with his guard. But he also established a school for the 
 sons and daughters of military men, which became his wife's 
 chief object of interest during the long years of her widowhood. 
 She was naturally of a placid temperament, and sustained her 
 spirits in adversity with the hope of not only sharing her 
 husband's throne, but ascending it some day in her own right. 
 The separation from her children, who enjoyed Imperial honours 
 while she met with no consideration, gave rise to a jealous 
 feeling towards her elder sons, whom she regarded as rivals, 
 and the obstacles to her future hopes. Constantino's plain 
 face, marked with the small-pox, his dislike to the idea of a Greek 
 throne, and the very trouble he gave his attendants were more 
 pleasing to her than Alexander's good looks and accomplish- 
 ments, as offering less probability that he would attract the 
 Russian people and stand in her way. Her own family were 
 also constantly asking her for money, or appointments in the 
 Russian service ; and she knew they looked forward to her 
 elevation for unlimited aid. She was much attached to 
 them, and had many trials respecting them between 178690. 
 Her next sister, married to the Duke of Oldenburg, to whom 
 Paul had relinquished his paternal right in Holstein, died in 
 1786, leaving two infant sons. Her youngest sister, married 
 to Francis of Austria, was also dead. Her eldest brother was 
 expelled from St. Petersburg for cruelty to his wife, and that 
 wife was now imprisoned for life in Russia, owing to a dispute 
 at cards with the Empress. 
 
 The Grand Duchess's fourth daughter, Catherine, was born 
 May 21st, 1788, and immediately afterwards Paul was ordered 
 to join the Russian army in Finland, as an aide-de-camp, to 
 oppose the Swedes. Gustavus had suddenly attacked Russia 
 without declaring war, and St. Petersburg seemed at his mercy. 
 Every available soldier was engaged against the Turks at the 
 other extremity of the empire, so that even the stove-heaters of 
 the Imperial Palace were compelled to serve. Catherine pre- 
 pared to retire to Moscow, but did not wish Paul to follow 
 her to a city which had once shown him proofs of attachment, 
 and she was too suspicious to leave him near St. Petersburg. 
 In Finland he joined in several engagements, showing cool- 
 ness and intrepidity ; but the campaign was early closed by a 
 victory over the Swedish fleet, commanded by the king's
 
 44 Alexanders Education and Marriage. 
 
 brother, afterwards Charles XI II., and the capital was saved. 
 The conquest of Finland, in Alexander's reign, was partly due 
 to this war, which showed how completely St. Petersburg lay 
 open to a treacherous ally. Paul returned to Gateschina 
 seriously indisposed, it was said, from disappointment at not 
 having received at least the lowest Order of St. George. 
 
 Even Masson,* no favourable authority, speaking of Paul in 
 1799, said he had " several excellent attainments, and above 
 all a sobriety and regularity of manners ; till now, very rare 
 in a Russian autocrat." But his character and intellect were 
 represented to his sons in the most unfavourable light, for 
 Catherine took La Harpe into her confidence, and desired him 
 to prepare Alexander to set aside his father and proclaim him- 
 self Emperor whenever she should be no more. " Tell me/' 
 she said to the tutor, " what do you think of that madman ?" 
 as she often styled her son ; " and what will become of Russia, 
 if he ever reigns ? What a difference between him and his son 
 Alexander ! That amiable child consoles me, and reassures 
 me for the future. He is so precocious that if he already 
 remarks his father's whims, I hope it may be to avoid them. 
 Point out to him the dangers and absurdity of such follies in 
 a man born to reign, and give him, above all, boldness and 
 self-confidence : it is best to prepare him for the steps that his 
 father's conduct will perhaps render necessary/' From time 
 to time she pressed this advice on La Harpe, who felt some 
 difficulty in trying to set a child against his father; but still 
 he carried out her directions so far as to teach him that the 
 welfare of many millions must occasionally be superior to filial 
 duty ; and others about him asserted that his life or liberty 
 would be in positive danger if Paul were ever permitted to wear 
 the crown. Yet Alexander could not but feel that his parents 
 were treated with injustice ; and a sentiment, natural to any 
 well-disposed youth, made him contemplate a collision with his 
 father, or a rival candidature for the throne, with the utmost 
 repugnance. So as he grew up he thought of settling the 
 difficulty by retiring to another country, and living on the 
 banks of the Rhine ; but he never seems for a moment to have 
 contemplated carrying the Empress's idea into effect. 
 
 Yet many important events were to occur before this mode 
 * A Republican whom Paul dismissed from Alexander's service.
 
 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 45 
 
 of solving a hard problem seemed the most feasible course. 
 The arms of Russia were victorious in several engagements 
 over the Turks, and the Crimea was added to her territories. 
 The town of Cherson rose in the midst of a desert, and 
 Catherine looked upon it as the nucleus of a restored Greek 
 empire. She prepared to pay a visit to this new portion 
 of her dominions, and wished to take Alexander and Con- 
 stantine, then seven and nine years old, that the youugest 
 might be crowned Emperor of the Greeks at the edge of his 
 future sovereignty, and Alexander be proclaimed at the same 
 time Czarovitz, or heir-apparent of Russia. Everything was 
 arranged for the journey to take place January 7th, 1787, 
 when Constantiue fell ill with the measles, and Catherine, 
 fearing Alexander might already have taken it, was obliged to 
 leave them both behind. The foreign ambassadors accompanied 
 her, and she was joined on the road by Stanislaus of Poland, 
 and the Emperor Joseph, who travelled under the name of 
 Count Falkenstein. Suvorov and other generals distinguished 
 in the Turkish war met the Imperial cortege at Kiov and at 
 Cherson. Catherine drove under an archway inscribed with 
 "The way to Byzantium," a device afterwards copied at 
 Antwerp and Amiens by Napoleon when engaged in war with 
 England. Potemkin was the hero of the occasion, for he was 
 not only the director of the campaign, which he had prosecuted 
 with vigour, saying it would both add to Catherine's glory 
 and be good for trade, but he governed all the southern half 
 of Russia. The Empress never questioned his proceedings or 
 raised a voice in favour of the hapless people driven from the new 
 province of Taurida, to make room for the Russians, and sent 
 to occupy remote Muscovite deserts. She was fond of classical 
 literature, and particularly pleased with the acquisition of an 
 ancient Greek colony in the former kingdom of Mithriclates ; 
 but had scarcely quitted the borders of the Turkish empire on 
 her return to St. Petersburg when the war was renewed 
 through the intrigues of the French ambassador in Constanti- 
 nople, who fomented hostilities between Russia and Turkey, to 
 divert her attention from the affairs of Poland. The sieges of 
 Oczakov and Ismail were its most noted incidents, and accom- 
 plished by a reckless expenditure of money and blood; but 
 Potemkin had the whole treasure of the empire at his dis-
 
 40 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 
 
 posal, and was able to increase her forces from a population of 
 thirty-three millions. 
 
 In 1789 General Tamara was charged with recruiting the 
 Russian naval force in the Mediterranean at the various foreign 
 ports, for service against the Turks. Napoleon, at that time 
 twenty-one years of age, had returned from Paris to his native 
 island of Corsica, where he was elected commander of the 
 local militia in Ajaccio. At the moment there did not seem to 
 be any prospect of his future advancement in France, and he 
 possessed no small share of the Corsican bitterness to the recent 
 conquerors of his native land.* He asked Tamara to obtain a 
 commission for him in the Russian armies, but was refused 
 because he wanted the rank of major as equivalent to 
 that of lieutenant-colonel of militia, and Russia would only 
 receive foreign officers on condition that they accepted a 
 grade lower than they held in their own country. The 
 letter is still preserved in which he made this request.f 
 
 In the same year the outbreak of the French revolution 
 appeared likely to shake the foundation of every despotic 
 throne. Autocracy seemed to be dying a natural death ; 
 liberal opinions in religion and politics were rapidly gaining 
 ground ; and the new republic of America was setting an 
 example of sobriety and prosperity which in time might have 
 found an echo in the mother continent. But as a violent 
 religious perseciition has never been proved to do otherwise 
 than strengthen the doctrines it was intended to eradicate, so 
 the extravagance of the leaders of the new French govern- 
 ment brought liberty into disrepute with all interested in the 
 maintenance of peace, and enabled Napoleon to turn against 
 the patron who had raised him from obscurity, and re-establish 
 aristocratic and monarchical institutions in France. Before 
 the revolution there was a rage for everything French in 
 Germany. The Germans were ashamed of their native 
 language, and French milliners were taken as governesses to 
 German princesses, hairdressers from Paris as tutors to their 
 boys. Learned men and theologians in Germany were eagerly 
 embracing modified views of the doctrines of D'Alembert 
 
 * When at the Military College at Brienne Napoleon used to say he 
 hated the French, and would do them all the harm in his power. 
 
 f Kostopchine.
 
 Alexander s Education and Marriage. 47 
 
 and Voltaire, and a love of liberty and unbelief went together 
 as a matter of course. The influence of France in Germany 
 was far greater than since they have experienced the exactions 
 of their models during the war between 1806 and 1814. 
 Napoleon tried to substitute material for moral force, and lost 
 both. " Germany/' wrote Jung Stilling at this epoch, " will 
 be severely punished by France for becoming her partner in 
 her sin." An immense association allied with the French 
 demagogues existed in Germany, and . they opened the doors 
 to the army of the French Republic, which in 1792 overran 
 Belgium and the Rhenish provinces, and a few years later to 
 the armies of Napoleon, whom they regarded with enthusiasm 
 as the offspring of the Republic. 
 
 The French revolution had a great effect upon Catherine, who 
 in her youth sustained with courage the threatened destruc- 
 tion of her empire by the hordes of Pugachef, but now in her 
 old age above all things dreaded civil war, and feared lest the 
 torch of Jacobinism flaring on the banks of the Seine 
 should fling sparks to light up insurrections as far as Russia. 
 She no longer coquetted with liberalism or infidelity. The 
 censorship of the press was strictly enforced, the busts of 
 Voltaire and Charles Fox were displaced from their pedestals 
 at Czarco-Selo, and Novikov and other men of letters who 
 had professed liberal views or joined secret societies were 
 thrown into prison. She expressed the utmost aversion to 
 revolutionists, to Washington, the American patriot, to 
 Cromwell, and the ancient heroes of the Greek republics. The 
 French emigrants flocked to Russia, and the exiled princes 
 were partly maintained by her bounty in the foreign countries 
 they had made their home. Paul felt as strongly as his 
 mother, though from different motives, on the same side of the 
 subject, and when the Republic raised the standard of atheism, 
 and erected a statue to the Goddess of Reason in Paris, his 
 increased dislike to the idea of La Harpe remaining in the 
 post of tutor to his children, secured him for the time at least 
 in his office. " Have you still that Jacobin always about you ?" 
 he said to Constantine the next time his son called at 
 Gateschina. " You see, my children, the result of a weak and 
 timid government, and that a ruler ought to keep his subjects 
 as thoroughly in hand as a Kamschatkadate his dogs/' was the
 
 48 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 
 
 lesson he tried to impress on them, when on another 
 occasion they came to see him and he had just heard of a 
 fearful outbreak of the demagogues in Paris. To repress 
 liberal opinions in religion and policy became his fixed idea, 
 and when after the execution of Louis XVI., the Empress 
 ordered all Frenchmen to take the oath of allegiance to his 
 young son or else depart from her dominions within a week, 
 Paul exacted it from even his French cook. It proved a safe- 
 guard to the immigrants, for it showed the undoubted loyalty of 
 those who remained, and the brother of Marat appeared openly 
 at the Court of St. Petersburg in a moment when he could 
 hardly have shown himself with safety in a London street. 
 
 La Harpe was dismissed at the beginning of 179 4-, owing 
 to a scene with the Empress, in which he said, " she found she 
 had to deal with a man as proud as herself/' Alexander much 
 regretted his departure, and corresponded with him regularly 
 for some years. The tutor requested to be informed how 
 Constantine conducted himself, and in 1796, his brother 
 reported of him that he was " very violent, very self-willed, 
 his views not often coinciding with reason ; military matters 
 turned his head, and he was sometimes brutal with the soldiers 
 of his company." A description borne out by all contem- 
 porary authorities. Constantine continued to write to La 
 Harpe after Alexander's death, and to the year 1829, while the 
 tutor returned to Switzerland and lived till 1836 in the en- 
 joyment of a handsome pension from Russia. 
 
 No contrast could have been greater than the sombre pro- 
 priety of the household at Gateschina, and the feverish excite- 
 ment of the Court where Alexander and Constantine were 
 educated, one of the most profligate of modern times. The 
 princes grew up amidst a round of gaiety and dissipation, which 
 proceeded with reckless extravagance as if there was no future 
 beyond the current year. Fortunes of a million roubles, hun- 
 dreds of serf's, and many acres of valuable estate, were all lost 
 and gained at cards in a single night ; and it is recorded that 
 on one occasion during a card-party in the Hermitage, the 
 Empress rang the bell for a glass of water, and as it was not 
 answered, went out herself to look for a page, when she found 
 the gentlemen and ladies of the antechamber, the servants 
 on the staircase, and the very guards at the entrance of the
 
 Alexander s Education and Marriage. 49 
 
 palace, all too much absorbed in their own cards to be able 
 to attend to the summons. The income Catherine might have 
 preserved for the benefit of the empire, and which she had 
 derived from the confiscation of property in Poland and of 
 the Church lands in Russia, was wasted among the nobles, who 
 expended it in every species of folly, French actresses, and 
 foreign luxuries, while a heavy national debt was fast growing 
 to hang as a weight round the necks of her successors. Her 
 victories, like those of Napoleon, have partially veiled the great 
 errors of her administration from the eyes of posterity. The 
 law was a dead letter as regarded the nobles, for they paid no 
 tradesmen's bills unless they chose, and instances were known 
 of a police agent being kicked out of the house of a nobleman 
 into the street. No amount of immorality received a censure, 
 and in Catherine's old age the chosen companions of her 
 evenings and out-door exercise were Plato and Valerian Zoubof, 
 two of the most dissolute young men in St. Petersburg, with 
 other youths of the same stamp. On the departure of 
 Potemkin for Moldavia, in 1791, she brought Alexander more 
 prominently forward ; when he dined with her she placed him 
 at the head of her table in the seat usually occupied by the 
 favourite, and he received all distinguished foreign visitors, 
 and acted the part of master of the Court. 
 
 Before setting out for the army on the Danube, Potemkin 
 gave a sumptuous entertainment in the new Taurida Palace, 
 which he bestowed as a truly imperial gift on the Empress. 
 The fete had been months in preparation, and every costly 
 luxury the four continents could provide was produced. The 
 musicians were concealed in enormous chandeliers, and Alex- 
 ander and Constantine at the head of a band of young nobles, 
 all dressed in white velvet, performed a ballet, after which they 
 came forward and sang an ode in praise of the Empress. 
 Catherine stayed till midnight, and a few days afterwards took 
 leave of Potemkin for the last time. "The Grand Duke 
 Alexander is an angel, a prince after my own heart, born and 
 educated to be a blessing to the nation," were almost the last 
 words he said to her. Soon the news arrived that the most 
 powerful subject in the world had died on the side of a 
 deserted road near Jassy. Potemkin had been ill for several 
 weeks, but paid no regard to his health, and refused to follow 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 Alexanders Education and Marriage. 
 
 his physician's advice. As he was driving with his niece in 
 his travelling carriage, he became worse, and was laid on the 
 grass, where in a few minutes he expired. Catherine fainted 
 three times when she heard of it, and months passed away 
 before she recovered from the loss. She looked upon him as 
 her safeguard against the possible designs of her son, and she 
 felt she wanted a protector. For this she turned to her 
 grandson Alexander, with whom she began to hold frequent 
 conversations in private, apparently instructing him in her 
 views of government, and preparing to proclaim him publicly 
 as her successor; for her greatest wish now was to see him 
 married and in the possession of an heir. Some thought in 
 that event she meant to cast aside the cares of royalty and 
 place the crown on her grandson's head with her own hands. 
 But before her abdication she must procure a settlement for 
 Constantine, and put down the spirit of republicanism begin- 
 ning to manifest itself in Poland. 
 
 When Alexander, then thirteen years old, heard of the 
 death of Potemkin, he observed that there was one bad man the 
 less in the world. Soltikof begged him to be careful of what 
 he said, and told him of the Empress's distress. The Prince 
 replied, that he loved and valued his grandmother, but that he 
 loved his country still more, and Potemkin was an enemy to 
 her real interests. The old courtier was not unfrequently 
 a little alarmed by his pupil's expression of opinion on public 
 affairs ; he openly showed his horror at the fearful loss sus- 
 tained at the siege of Ismail, and at the frivolous recklessness 
 which led- to its attack, for Potemkin sent the order to Suvorov 
 to take it at all risks in three days, merely for the sake of 
 gaining a bet. Soltikof advised his pupil never to join an 
 opposition. " A man," he said, making use of the common 
 simile, " who rows a boat with the tide has a fair voyage, and 
 arrives safely to the shore ; but he who persists in making head 
 against the stream has a fatiguing journey, and is probably up- 
 set in the end." 
 
 In 1791 a deputation of Greeks waited on the Empress, 
 and read an address : " Heaven has reserved our deliverance,'' 
 they concluded, " for your Imperial Majesty. It is under your 
 auspices that we hope to rescue from the hands of the barba- 
 rians the empire they have usurped, and our Patriarch and holy
 
 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 51 
 
 religion which they have despised. Our superb ruins speak to 
 our eyes and tell us of our ancient grandeur. Give us for a 
 sovereign your grandson Constantine it is the wish of our 
 nation, as the family of our Emperors is extinct/ 7 The Empress 
 dismissed them with assurances of redress and support, and 
 they were introduced to her grandsons. The deputation 
 offered to kiss Alexander's hand, but he pointed to his brother 
 Constantine, telling them, in Greek, that it was to him they 
 were to address themselves. They did homage to Constantine, 
 and stated their mission, giving him the title of Basileus-ta 
 Ellenon. Constantine answered them in the same language, 
 " Go, and let everything be done according to your wishes /' 
 and Catherine caused a medal to be struck bearing the inscrip- 
 tion, " Constantine, Emperor of the Greeks." 
 
 But England had seen with great dissatisfaction the transfer 
 of the Crimea to Russia, and now stepped forward on behalf 
 of the remains of the Turkish Empire. A Christian govern- 
 ment could in reality say nothing in the cause of a Mahome- 
 tan Power who had stolen from Christians every foot of its 
 empire, and ruled the prostrate nation with a tyranny and bar- 
 barism seldom equalled even in the East. The cathedral of 
 St. Sophia and other churches throughout Roumelia, Greece, 
 Asia Minor, and Syria were stripped of all the accessories of 
 Christian worship, and set apart for the use of the followers 
 of Mahomet. The conquerors were fast diminishing as a 
 people from the enervating influence with which the luxury of 
 the old Greek monarchy had told upon the savage yet manly 
 warriors who traversed half Asia to arrive at Constantinople, 
 where for several centuries they had been the dread of Europe. 
 The world would hardly have been the worse, and much blood- 
 shed might have been spared, if Russia and Austria had 
 completed the partition of Turkey at that moment, and 
 the crown of the restored sovereignty of the Byzantines 
 had been placed on the head of a Russian prince and made 
 independent of Russia. Probably Russia would not have 
 been so strong as it is now, for Catherine's scheme included 
 the annexation of the Crimea to the new Greek Empire, 
 and she woidd therefore have been completely cut off from the 
 Black Sea. 
 
 England now fears for her Indian possessions and her in- 
 
 E2
 
 52 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 
 
 fluence in Egypt when she hears that Russia 'has formed a 
 political friendship with a neighbouring state, but then she 
 thought the safety of her Protestant ally Prussia might be com- 
 promised by the preponderance of the Roman and Greek 
 Catholic Powers.* " His Britannic Majesty cannot see with 
 indifference the dissolution of the Turkish Empire/' was the 
 message conveyed to the Courts of Vienna and St. Petersburg, 
 and which, with the republican sympathies of his own subjects 
 on the borders of France, was sufficient to draw the German 
 Emperor from the alliance. Joseph II. and Potemkin were 
 dead, and, as if taking advantage of their departure from the 
 scene, and of the advancing years of the Empress, Poland, 
 imitating the example of revolutionized France, adopted a 
 constitution which, though it made the crown hereditary in 
 the House of Poniatowski, completely annihilated the small 
 remains of regal power. The death of her ally, and of the 
 chief promoter of the original Turkish war, the defection of 
 Joseph's successor, and the advance of Prussia into Poland 
 to take possession of Dantzic and Thorn, two of the most impor- 
 tant towns still left to it. induced Catherine to conclude the peace 
 of Jassy, January, 1792, and content herself with the acquisi- 
 tion of Oczakov, and the territory between the Dniester and 
 the Bog, to be prepared for contingencies with regard to Poland. 
 The captivity of Louis XVI., by alarming the Austrian and 
 Prussian monarchs, in reality hastened the fate of Poland ; aud 
 to prevent their frontiers from extending as far as Lithuania, 
 
 * " The way to the very gates of Constantinople lay open to the Russian 
 arms. Great Britain attempted a mediation between the belligerents. 
 Her services were cavalierly rejected by Catherine, who refused to renew 
 the commercial treaty with this country, consequently Mr. Pitt announced 
 to the House of Commons an approaching rupture with Russia. Mr. Fox 
 went at large into the matter. He maintained that Prussia could not be 
 endangered by the victories of the Russians over the Turks, and that 
 whatever pride the Empress might have shown in declining a peace 
 dictated by us. yet that her offer to cede all her conquests between the 
 Dniester and the Danube, reserving only what she had gained between 
 the Bog and the Dnieper, was a reasonable offer, considering the vast 
 ascendency of her arms. ' Are we to plunge ourselves into war,' said Mr. 
 Burke, ' into bloodshed, debt, and calamity, for the disputed possession 
 of a distant territory, which is either a desert or the haunt of people 
 oppressed with the yoke of savages ? Are we to lavish the lives of English- 
 men in order that Christian nations should be brought back to the do- 
 minion of infidels, whose expulsion from Europe would be a blessing, as 
 their empire is now a scourge to those quarters ?' " Burke' 8 Public and 
 Domestic Idfe of the Right Hon. E. Burke,
 
 Alexander s Education and Marriage. 53 
 
 on the way to Moscow, Catherine agreed to the second parti- 
 tion of her old admirer's states. 
 
 Poland may be compared to a man who has lost his health 
 and fortune through gambling and drunkenness till, finding 
 himself near the end of both his life and estate, he begins to 
 reform his habits and expenses to an extent which would once 
 have saved him, but is now at least twenty years too late. 
 The liberum veto and slavery were to be abolished, and the 
 Roman Catholic religion to be established, though all other 
 denominations were to be tolerated. A hundred years earlier 
 these reforms might have had some effect, but the nation was 
 corrupted to its centre, and the old spirit of insubordination 
 broke out, many preferring submission to Russia rather than 
 the loss of their privileges or their slaves. The country was 
 agitated by the recent partition, and bands of lawless patriots 
 traversed the provinces, so that even without the interference 
 of the neighbouring Powers it is doubtful whether the few 
 enlightened Polish legislators were strong enough to enforce 
 their views upon the entire kingdom. But their last struggle 
 procured for them the sympathy of "Western Europe and of 
 none more than the young heir of Russia. 
 
 When we look back at the views of the old royalist and 
 aristocratic party of the last century, its haughty denial of all 
 educational or other privileges to the labouring classes, whom 
 it regarded as merely created for the benefit of the nobility, 
 monarchs treating their dominions as their private estates 
 formed to yield incomes to supply them with luxuries, and even 
 Frederick the Great considering the interests of the House of 
 Brandenburg as entirely separate from the Prussian people, it 
 is not surprising that a generous and enthusiastic boy, brought 
 up where a despotism was carried out to its fullest extent, yet 
 instructed in ancient classical history, in the glories of the 
 Greek and Roman republics and the debasement and gradual 
 decay of Imperial Rome, should have been disgusted with his 
 surrounding influences, and eagerly hailed the French Revolution 
 as the beginning of a regenerated system for the whole world. 
 Alexander felt absorbing interest in the welfare of the French 
 Republic, so hateful an object to his father and grandmother, 
 and he heard with equal pleasure of the spark of liberty it had 
 apparently lighted in Poland. When that spark of liberty
 
 54 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 
 
 was crushed by the second partition, his feelings were hardly 
 concealed from the vigilant eyes of the Empress. Then came 
 the final act of the Polish tragedy. Kosciusko and Niem- 
 cievicz put themselves at the head of an insurrection at Cracow 
 in March, 1794, and organized a massacre of the Russian gar- 
 risons in Poland. Hundreds of the unsuspecting soldiery fell 
 victims to their assailants, but they were quickly avenged by 
 their countrymen, though the Poles were defeated in fair en- 
 gagements, and the assault on Praga was stopped and the 
 carnage ceased as soon as they offered to lay down their arms. 
 Suvorov's genius and the superiority of the Russian discipline 
 decided the fate of the war. He was so much dreaded by the 
 Poles that when they heard of his approach their commanders 
 tried to make them believe it was another officer of the same 
 name who was advancing against them, and not the formidable 
 general who had put down the insurrection of Pugachef, and 
 wrested Oczakov, Kinburn, Ismail, and Fokshani from the 
 hands of the Turks. The negotiations for the final division of 
 Poland extended several months after the capture of Warsaw, 
 and ended in this town being made over to Prussia, who again 
 obtained the most populous portion of the confiscated territory, 
 while Austria and Russia divided the rest. Catherine, it must 
 be owned, was not exorbitant in her demands when she con- 
 cluded a peace, considering the advantages she had obtained 
 and the amount of blood and treasure expended on a war. She 
 had once meditated forming the Russian share of Poland into, a 
 separate kingdom, but though she might conquer nations, there 
 was only one prince of her own family whom she felt would be 
 equal to the task of government. Her dislike to her son in- 
 creased as years went on, and her partiality for her grand- 
 children could not conceal the fact that Constantino's eccentric, 
 wayward, and childish character rendered him utterly unfit 
 to be placed in any important command. Alexander was there- 
 fore the only hope of her house, and she hastened his mar- 
 riage for the chance of more heirs. She had no difficulty in 
 finding a princess who was willing to change her religion for 
 the prospect of a throne. The French revolutionary army had 
 taken possession of Baden, and obliged the Grand Duke and 
 his family to retreat to Berlin. He had several granddaughters, 
 and their mother, one of those princesses of Darmstadt who
 
 Alexanders Education and Marriage. 55 
 
 had visited St. Petersburg to enable Paul to choose a wife, now 
 accepted the Empress's invitation, and sent the two eldest to 
 Russia, where they arrived without dowry or trousseau, under 
 the charge of Madame Shuvalov, at the beginning of Novem- 
 ber, 1792, and were lodged in the Taurida Palace. They were 
 all wearied out with the journey, as the weather had been par- 
 ticularly unfavourable, and it was late when they reached their 
 destination, but Catherine was there to meet them with one of 
 her ladies, Madame de Branicka, whom they at first mistook 
 for the Empress, and fell down on their knees before her. 
 Catherine received them most graciously, and at once took 
 an extraordinary fancy for the elder princess, whom she thought 
 remarkably like herself when she first came to Russia. The 
 next day she gave them the Order of St. Catherine, besides 
 sending them splendid jewels, and a stock of suitable clothes. 
 In the course of the afternoon she paid them another visit 
 with Alexander and Constantine. The princes were both 
 aware of the Empress's motive in bringing these young ladies 
 to Russia, and Alexander spoke little and seemed rather em- 
 barrassed during the interview. On their return to the palace 
 he said he thought the eldest pretty. " Oh, not at all," said 
 Constantine ; " they are neither of them pretty. They ought 
 to go to Riga for the princes of Corn-land ; they are good 
 enough for them." 
 
 The Princess Louisa Augusta of Baden was hardly fourteen 
 years old when she came to Russia, and her future husband 
 was not fifteen. She remained as she was then, of small 
 stature, and wore her long light hair down her back, like a 
 child. The old-fashioned decorous Court of Baden, where her 
 grandfather, who lived till 1811, ruled his sovereignty like the 
 father of a large family more than a king, was but a small 
 preparation for the brilliancy of the Russian capital, where 
 she never learned to feel herself otherwise than as a stranger, 
 though she was baptized into the Greek Church when she took 
 the name of Elizabeth Alexievna. Her sister was only twelve 
 years old, and an unformed girl, though more lively and 
 clever ; but Catherine did not wish for much ability in her 
 new granddaughter, and at once selected Louisa for Alex- 
 ander's bride. The youngest was impatient to return to her 
 home and friends, while the eldest thought no more of her
 
 56 Alexander s Education and Marriage. . 
 
 parents or of her country, but wished to remain always in 
 Russia, and appeared so struck with the charms of the young 
 prince that the Empress thought it could not fail to be a 
 happy marriage when love was so evidently on one side at 
 least, and it was therefore arranged. At this time Alexander 
 had not yet reached his full height, which was six feet, and 
 was still slender, like a growing boy, but he was a remarkably 
 handsome youth, his hair auburn, and inclined to curl, a fair 
 complexion, as clear and almost as colourless as marble, dark 
 blue eyes, deeply set in his head, a straight, rather short 
 nose and Greek profile, a long chin, and a small, well-formed 
 mouth. He was well proportioned, graceful in his move- 
 ments, a lively talker, and very animated. In the face he 
 recalled Catherine in the days of her innocent girlhood, and 
 held his head in the same fearless, erect posture. The Princess 
 thought herself the most fortunate of women when, added to 
 the possession of such a husband, there was the prospect of a 
 future Imperial Crown. The example followed since the time 
 of Peter the Great of a widowed Empress succeeding to the 
 authority of her deceased spouse, gave reason for the belief 
 that the Princess of Baden might some day wield the sceptre 
 in her own right. Love and ambition were both equally 
 gratified when, in the early part of the year 1793, the cere- 
 mony of betrothal took place. 
 
 The first time the princesses appeared at Court, the 
 future Empress met with an accident, which the Russians 
 thought was an unfortunate omen, and they decided she 
 would not be happy in Russia. On approaching Catherine's 
 throne she caught her foot against the lowest step, and fell at 
 full length before it. Her baptism took place some time 
 before her betrothal, as soon as she had learned a little of the 
 Russian language and been very slightly instructed in the 
 doctrines she was called upon to profess ; and the marriage 
 was solemnized with extraordinary magnificence in May, 
 1793.* 
 
 Russia had just completed three successful wars, and a 
 
 crowd of general officers and other heroes decorated with 
 
 various military orders came to swell the wedding procession, 
 
 accompanied by ambassadors from Bokhara, Tartar khans, 
 
 * Masson's Memoires, &c.
 
 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 57 
 
 Persian satraps, Turkish pashas, Greek and Moldavian depu- 
 ties, Polish magnates, a large number of Swedish nobles, and 
 the French emigrants who were gathering in St. Petersburg 
 with the hope of inducing the Empress to take an active part 
 against the French Republic. The Comte d'Artois (afterwards 
 Charles X.) had arrived, and made the same favourable 
 impression on the aged sovereign as on her daughter-in-law 
 when she visited France. She presented him with a jewelled 
 sword, telling him to go and head the insurgents in La 
 Vendee. But the prince was better fitted to dance at a 
 Court ball than to command an army, and he sold the 
 sword for 4000/. in London for the benefit of his fellow 
 exiles. All tLese foreigners, in addition to the Russian, 
 nobility, increased the brilliant throng, and the Empress 
 herself held the marriage crown for a moment over the 
 youthful bridegroom, and then transferred it to Constan- 
 tine, while Plato Zoubof bore the one over the head of the 
 bride. At the banquet Catherine dined on a throne raised 
 above the guests, and was so covered with diamonds that she 
 appeared like a glittering mass of stones. The evening closed 
 with a ball, joined in by all the Imperial family. A German* 
 guest describes the sight as most fascinating : " The beautifully 
 illuminated hall, the splendid jewels, the handsome chevalier 
 guard, all picked young men of uncommon stature, with their 
 silver armour and the helmet with its waving plume, stationed 
 at the doors, the crowd of pages covered with gold. The 
 ball was opened by the mother of the bridegroom and a noble- 
 man, succeeded by all the younger branches of this noble 
 family, with the grace distinguishing them. Catherine stood 
 in the circle, and smiling attended to the dance of her fair 
 grandchildren. Even Paul was present in a red velvet suit, 
 with that stern and gloomy countenance which nothing in 
 this assembly was able to cheer. He stood with his head 
 thrown back, only half turned towards the company, puffing 
 out his cheeks as usual. A certain resoluteness was the 
 character expressed in his figure, look, and position. He 
 would occasionally converse with some general near him ; in 
 other respects he seemed to interest himself little in passing 
 events ; it was plain he was obliged to be there/' But the 
 * Reinbeck's Travels, pub. 1805,
 
 58 Alexander s Education and Marriage. 
 
 spectacle which most astonished the stranger was the clear- 
 ance of the supper-table, including the gold and silver plate, 
 by the servants and courtiers as soon as the Imperial party 
 had returned to the dancing-room. This was the ordinary 
 conclusion to the fetes of the nobles at that time in Russia. 
 It was thought penurious to use the same table furniture a 
 second time, and was one of the extravagant points which 
 wrecked the fortunes of the Russian courtiers and was 
 checked with despotic severity in the reign of Paul. 
 
 Catherine seldom appeared in public at this period, though 
 more often than early in her reign, and when she did so was 
 surrounded by a large and brilliant suite, on horseback, and 
 accompanied invariably by her grandsons and Prince Zoubof. 
 Though below the middle height, her whole demeanour was 
 imposing, and her face, which had been beautiful in youth, 
 was now adorned with white hair. Her dress was a mixture 
 of the Oriental and European, and she wore the diamond star 
 of St. Andrew's Order ; her mild expression showing little of 
 the unscrupulous determination which had marked her career.* 
 Alexander and his bride continued to reside with her till 1795, 
 when a small palace was built for them at Czarco-Selo. 
 
 Madame Shuvalov was appointed governess or chief lady 
 in waiting to Elizabeth ; and till La Harpe was dismissed, 
 when Alexander was sixteen, he continued to study with 
 his tutors. In a letter to La Harpe the young husband 
 apologizes for not having completed his tasks, because 
 his wife had been ill. " I count the more on your indul- 
 gence," he says, " as you are also a married man, and 
 consequently know the care that a wife requires." But this 
 did not continue long, and at an age when most boys are still 
 playing cricket at school, he was expected to settle down 
 contentedly as a married man in the monotonous round of 
 ceremonies belonging to a Court life. His ardent imagination 
 was to exhaust itself in dancing and cards, with no more 
 serious occupations than to observe a strict neutrality in the 
 midst of family quarrels and ministerial intrigues, and to 
 adhere rigidly to the prescribed points of etiquette and the 
 most elegant form of dress. No life could be less elevating 
 than that in Catherine's palace ; and at the best the mind of 
 * Eeinbeck, Margravine of Anspach, Coxe, Countess Halm-halm.
 
 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 59 
 
 a prince is taught to dwell on the merest trifles, and has little 
 scope for a wholesome development. What can he learn 
 from courtiers who never contradict him, and hardly volunteer 
 an observation ? Compared to other men he is like one born 
 deaf and blind ; and if kept in a womanish seclusion his 
 knowledge of mankind must be theoretical and derived from 
 books very different to that acquired in a barrack, a 
 college, or a public school, or when struggling in a busy 
 world for promotion, preferment, or even the means of 
 existence. The Empress disapproved of hunting and any 
 dangerous pursuit for her grandsons, and while great events 
 were agitating the whole continent, in which some day they 
 would be called upon to take a part, they were neither 
 permitted to travel abroad nor to visit other parts of the 
 Empire. 
 
 There could have been nothing more unlike this fettered 
 existence than the mode in which Alexander's future rival, 
 Napoleon, passed the same period of his youth the one like a 
 hothouse plant forced to flower prematurely ; the other 
 left to grow according to nature, and arrive more slowly to 
 maturity. Napoleon said the happiest days of his life were 
 from sixteen to twenty, when he went about from one Paris 
 restaurant to another, living moderately, and inhabiting a 
 lodging for which he paid three louis a month. There he 
 saw every variety of character, listened to every theory in 
 politics, and heard the voice of public opinion on all passing 
 events. At fifteen, according to the report of his school- 
 master at Brieune, he was advanced in mathematics, but weak 
 in Latin, possessing no modern language except his own; and 
 backward in other elegant accomplishments.* He was four 
 feet ten in height, and that same year (1783) was nominated 
 a pupil at the Royal Military School in Paris. At fifteen 
 Alexander was nearly six feet in height, an excellent linguist, 
 and otherwise remarkably wcil informed. He was master of 
 the ceremonies in the Court of the largest empire in the 
 
 * Napoleon professed to have been born on the 15th of August, 1769, 
 but some authors worthy of credit assert that he was really born on 
 February 5th, 1 768, and from vanity and a desire to be apparently born 
 a French subject (Corsica was only united to France in 1769) deducted 
 eighteen months from his age. His first marriage register states he was 
 born in 1768.
 
 60 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 
 
 world, and already provided with a wife, yet as much re- 
 strained in his actions and occupations as the merest child. 
 Napoleon became a Republican because he was a subaltern ; if 
 he had been a general he said he should probably have adhered 
 to the king. Alexander became at heart a Republican from 
 reflection, and because from his experience of a despotism he 
 imagined that a republic was more likely to conduce to the 
 general happiness of mankind. The poetical sentiments in 
 the mind of most intellectual youths led Napoleon to delight 
 in Ossian and the works of the French and Latin poets ;* but 
 Alexander was not permitted to indulge in such literature, and 
 with him the same feeling effervesced in an enthusiastic admira- 
 tion for the military and patriotic heroes of the day. Napoleon's 
 views were contracted through the narrow channel of self- 
 interest into personal ambition, because he early depended on 
 his own exertions for bread. Alexander had no such care, and 
 being naturally of a noble disposition, his visions consisted of 
 Utopian schemes for the universal amelioration of the lot of man. 
 He only wanted experience to turn these visions into a practicable 
 channel ; but it is unfortunate for a people when its ruler has 
 to buy his experience on the throne, and such was the case with 
 Alexander, who at twenty-three was released from his golden 
 thraldom to wield a despotic sway over a seventh part of the 
 earth. Paul was displeased by his son's marriage, as he had 
 hoped for Madame Royale as a daughter-in-law, though at 
 that time the young French princess was a prisoner in the 
 hands of the revolutionists. Elizabeth was the niece of his 
 first wife, and recalled melancholy associations to his mind ; 
 he had also a particular dislike to Madame Shuvalov, who 
 accompanied her in her drives and visits. When the Court 
 was at Czarco-Selo Alexander went over very frequently to 
 Gateschina to call on his parents, and for a whole year Paul 
 refused to see his son because on each of these occasions he 
 brought his wife. But in 1794 Alexander had a serious illness, 
 apparently arising from inflammation of the membranes of the 
 brain, which after his death were found to be displaced from that 
 cause ; and two medical men were brought over from London ; 
 
 * Bourrienne asserts that Bonaparte was inaccessible to the charms of 
 elegant poetry, but Joseph states that his brother knew by heart, and 
 often recited, the most brilliant passages in the tragedies of Conieille, 
 Bacine, and Yoltaire.
 
 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 61 
 
 then celebrated for the treatment of such complaints. The 
 prince's malady was supposed to arise from over-study; and 
 after a short course of the severe remedies* which formed the 
 soul of the English medical science of that day he recovered 
 his health, though he always felt the effects in a liability 
 to headaches and the entire loss of hearing in one ear, which 
 deprived him of the enjoyment of general conversation and 
 made him shy and reserved. A young man, particularly in 
 a prominent position, feels a personal defect far more keenly 
 than at a later time of life, and in Alexander's case the incon- 
 venience was increased by his shortness of sight. He was 
 advised to abstain from all study, so he employed his leisure 
 hours in music, once a forbidden pleasure, but in which he 
 now made some progress. Beethoven has dedicated three 
 sonatas to him in compliment to his skill on the violin. He 
 became distressed with the idea that he was unfitted to govern 
 the empire, and under its influence he wrote the following 
 letters to Count Victor Kotchoubey lately appointed to the 
 Russian embassy at Constantinople. Kotchoubey was ten 
 years his senior, but had been a Court page, and was one of 
 the young noblemen with whom he had been most intimate 
 before the Count went abroad in 1793. The Englishman 
 mentioned in the letter was an amateur musician who had 
 practised with the prince on the flute : 
 
 "This letter, my dear friend, will be brought to you by 
 Mr. Garrick, whom I mentioned in one of my former letters, 
 so I can speak freely to you on many subjects. You tell me 
 too little of what concerns yourself, for I have just learned 
 that you have asked for leave to go and make a tour in Italy, and 
 will then proceed to England for some time. Why did you 
 not tell me this ? I begin to think you doubt my friendship 
 for you, and have no confidence in me ; though I venture to 
 say that I really deserve it for my unlimited friendship for 
 you. So pray tell me all which happens to you : you cannot 
 do me a greater favour. I am very glad to hear you are leaving 
 that place, which can only procure you des desagrements with- 
 out being compensated by any enjoyment whatever. 
 
 " This Mr. Garrick is an agreeable young man ; he passed 
 * Bleeding, blistering, and the most lowering remedies.
 
 62 Alexander^ Education and Marriage. 
 
 some time here, and is now going to the Crimea, where 
 he will embark for Constantinople. I consider him very 
 fortunate, as he will have the opportunity of seeing you, and 
 in some measure I envy his lot, as I am not happy with my 
 own. I am glad this subject has introduced itself, for I 
 hardly knew how to begin it. Yes, my dear friend, I repeat it, 
 I am not at all satisfied with my position; it is much too 
 brilliant for me, who love tranquillity and peace. The Court 
 is not a dwelling made for me. I suffer every time that I am 
 obliged to show myself, and it makes my blood run cold to 
 see the base means constantly employed to acquire some dis- 
 tinction not worth three sous. It is distressing to be forced 
 to live in the society of men whom I would not have for my 
 servants, and who here enjoy the highest posts, such as this 
 
 P. S - (probably Plato Zoubof, or Soubof), this M. P , 
 
 this P. B , the two C. S , M , and a host of others 
 
 not worthy of mention, who, haughty with their inferiors, crouch 
 before those whom they fear. In short, my dear friend, I do 
 not feel myself at all made for the place I fill at this moment, 
 and still less for the place which is one day destined for me, 
 and which I have inwardly sworn to renounce in one way or 
 another. 
 
 " This, my dear friend, is the great secret I have long been 
 unable to communicate to you, and on which I need not ask 
 you to be silent, for you know that it is a resolution which 
 might ruin me (pent me casser la t&te). I have told Mr. 
 Garrick to burn this letter in case he cannot give it into your 
 own hand, and not to send it to you by any one else. I have 
 weighed this matter well and discussed it with myself, for I 
 must tell you that it occurred to rue even before I knew you, 
 and that I came to an early decision on the subject. 
 
 " Our affairs are in an incredible disorder. Pillaging goes 
 on in every direction ; all the departments are badly adminis- 
 tered ; order seems banished, and the empire does nothing but 
 enlarge its dominions. So how can one man be enough to 
 govern it, and still more to remove the abuses from it ? It 
 is absolutely impossible not only to a man of ordinary 
 capacity like myself, but even to a man of genius. It has 
 always been my principle that it is better not to accept a 
 duty than to fulfil it badly ; it is in accordance with this
 
 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 63 
 
 principle that I have taken the resolution which I have just 
 told you. My plan is, that having once renounced this 
 perilous place I cannot fix the exact time of such renunci- 
 ation I shall go and establish myself with my wife on the 
 borders of the Rhine, where I shall live quietly as a private 
 individual, making my happiness consist in the society of my 
 friends and the study of nature. 
 
 " You will laugh at me you will say it is a chimerical 
 project ; you are at liberty to do so, but wait the event, and 
 after then I permit you to judge. I know you will blame me, 
 but I cannot act otherwise, for the peace of my conscience is 
 my first guide ; and it would never bs easy if I undertook a 
 task above my strength. This, my dear friend, is what I have 
 long wished to tell you, and now I have done so it only 
 remains for me to say, that wherever I may be happy or 
 unhappy, in pomp or in misery one of my greatest con- 
 solations will be your friendship for me, and believe that mine 
 will only end with life. Adieu, my dear and true friend. The 
 happiest thing that could befall me in the mean while would 
 be to see you. My wife sends a thousand messages to you. 
 Her ideas entirely agree with mine. 
 
 " ALEXANDER. 
 
 " 10th May, 1796." 
 
 It is evident from this letter that Alexander meant to refuse 
 the crown when it should fall to him by the death of his grand- 
 mother, who had already informed him that he must regard 
 himself as her immediate successor ; for his father was at that 
 time only forty-one years of age, and in the ordinary course 
 of nature might live for twenty years more ; whereas, in a 
 second letter written a month or two later to Kotchoubey, the 
 prince speaks of the day when he must be called to the head 
 of the empire as not being far off. Alexander evidently did 
 not consider that existence would be desirable in his father's 
 Court, and it was generally supposed that Paul would revenge 
 his mother's harshness towards himself on the son who had 
 supplanted him in her confidence. In other respects this 
 letter was a remarkable one for a boy of eighteen, who was 
 subjected to the authority of only a frivolous old woman and 
 surrounded by her dissipated courtiers. It showed penetration,
 
 64 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 
 
 a strong sense of the duties of a sovereign, honesty, straight- 
 forwardness, and an utter absence of selfish ambition, though 
 it erroneously concluded that his own capacities and judgment 
 were already matured, and would not be further developed by 
 time and experience. In the second letter, written in July of 
 the same year, he says that " the thought that one day, and 
 that day not so far off, when I shall be placed thanks to fate 
 at the head of an empire, makes my very hair stand on end. 
 I am not made to govern. My greatest happiness would be 
 to remain a simple citizen, surrounded with my wife, my 
 children, my friends, and all that I love." He alludes to 
 La Harpe as being a native of the country where Kotchoubey 
 was about to make a tour, and says he owes a debt to him as 
 to a spiritual father, " for he made a man of me." 
 
 In 1795 Alexander formed an intimate acquaintance with 
 Prince Adam Czartoriski, a Polish nobleman, who had been edu- 
 cated at the University of Edinburgh and in London, and fought 
 against llussia in the war of 1792, when his father's estates had 
 been confiscated, but they were restored on condition that Prince 
 Adam and his brother should live as hostages for his fidelity 
 at St. Petersburg. Their sister was married to Alexander's uncle, 
 Louis of "Wurtemberg. The young men were enrolled in the 
 chevalier guards, on constant duty at the Imperial residence ; 
 and Prince Adam was made aide-de-camp to Alexander, and 
 his brother Constantine to the Grand Duke Constantine. 
 Here they heard of the final struggle of their countrymen, 
 when Kosciusko and his fellow patriots were brought prisoners 
 to the Russian capital. Prince Adam was at this time twenty- 
 six, and years afterwards, when in exile, described his early 
 friendship with Alexander to excuse the fact of that friend- 
 ship, with which he has occasionally been reproached : 
 
 " At the end of April St. Petersburg enjoys a few days of 
 fine weather and a clear sky, and the quays are filled with 
 pedestrians ; even the most elegant ladies in careful morning 
 toilettes. The Grand Duke Alexander often walked there, 
 sometimes alone, sometimes with the Grand Duchess. This 
 was another reason for the fashionable world to crowd to it. 
 My brother and I were also among the assembly ; and every 
 time the Grand Duke met either of us, he stopped to talk, and 
 showed us an especial goodwill.
 
 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 65 
 
 " These morning meetings were a continuation of the Court 
 soirees, and we daily became better acquainted with him. 
 In the spring the Court used to remove to the Taurida Palace, 
 where the Empress pretended to be in retreat, and only 
 admitted a select circle in the evening, when the chevaliers 
 were seldom present, unless there was a state concert and 
 they had a special invitation. The Grand Duke walked on 
 the quays as before j meeting me one day, he said he was 
 sorry to see me so seldom, and invited me to call upon him at 
 the Taurida Palace, to walk in the garden, which he wished to 
 show me. I went at the appointed time. My devotion to 
 the Grand Duke began from that day, and a series of events 
 of which the chain still endures and will make itself felt 
 during long years. 
 
 " As soon as I entered, the Grand Duke took me into the 
 garden, which we paraded for three hours in a lively and 
 unbroken conversation. 
 
 " He told me the conduct of my brother and myself our 
 resignation in an existence which must be painful to us, the 
 calmness and indifference with which we had accepted our fate 
 and the favours which could only be displeasing to us had 
 gained his esteem : he sympathized with our sentiments and 
 approved them. He could not bear to think we misjudged 
 him, for he shared none of the doctrines of the Cabinet and 
 the Court ; he was far from approving the policy of his grand- 
 mother; his sympathies had been with Poland in her glorious 
 fall ; he deplored her fate, and Kosciusko was in his eyes a 
 great man, not only for his virtues, but for the cause he had 
 defended, which was that of humanity and justice. 
 
 "He said he detested despotism everywhere, and in what- 
 ever manner it was exercised ; he loved liberty it was the 
 right of every man and he had taken the most lively interest in 
 the French revolution ; while reproving its terrible outbreaks, 
 he wished success to the republic, and rejoiced at it. He 
 spoke with respect of his tutor, M. de La Harpe, as a man 
 of virtue, true wisdom, severe principles, and an energetic 
 character. It was to him that he owed all that there was 
 good in himself, and a knowledge of the principles of truth 
 and justice. 
 
 " While we traversed the length and breadth of the garden 
 VOL. i. F
 
 66 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 
 
 we met the Grand Duchess also taking a walk. The Graiid 
 Duke told me that his wife was his confidante, and she knew 
 and shared his sentiments ; but excepting her, I was the first 
 and only person since the departure of his tutor to whom he 
 had dared to speak of them, for no one in Russia was as yet 
 capable of sharing them,, or even of comprehending them. 
 He was therefore particularly glad to find some one to whom 
 he could open his heart. I was deeply moved. 
 
 " What ! a prince of Russia the successor of Catherine, 
 her grandson, and her beloved pupil, for whom she desired to 
 disinherit her son, and to see him reign after her; of wjhom 
 they said that it would be he who would be a continuation 
 of Catherine this prince denied and detested the principles of 
 his grandmother, repulsed the odious Russian policy ; he 
 passionately loved justice and liberty; he pitied Poland, and 
 wished to see her happy ! Was it not miraculous that in this 
 atmosphere, with these surroundings, such noble thoughts, such 
 high virtues could spring up ? I was conquered. There was 
 so much candour, innocence, resolution, forgetfulness of him- 
 self and elevation of soul in the words and the countenance of 
 this young prince, that he appeared to me a privileged being 
 whom Providence had sent on to the earth for the happiness 
 of humanity and of my country. I devoted unlimited attach- 
 ment to him, and the feeling he inspired in me at that 
 moment has lasted, while the illusions arising from it have 
 successively vanished; it resisted the blows it received later 
 from Alexander himself, and has never been extinguished 
 though sorely tried by so many sad disappointments. It 
 must be remembered, the opinions called liberal were then 
 much less extended than at present; they had not penetrated 
 into all classes of society, and least of all into royal cabinets. 
 All semblance of liberalism was, on the contrary, shunned and 
 cursed in the courts and drawing-rooms of most of the capitals 
 of Europe ; and above all, in Russia and at Petersburg, where 
 the convictions of the old French regime pushed to extremes 
 were grafted on to Russian despotism. To find in the midst 
 of these elements a prince called to reign over this nation, to 
 exercise an immense influence in Europe, with such decided 
 such generous opinions, so opposed to the existing state of 
 things, was it not an accident of the highest importance ?
 
 Alexanders Education and Marriage. 67 
 
 "When at the end of forty years we look at the events 
 since that conversation, we see only too well how little they 
 have responded to our hopes. Liberal ideas were surrounded 
 by a halo since paled, their essays in practice had not yet led 
 to the cruel deceptions perpetually renewed. The French 
 republic, throwing off its terrors, seemed to march invincibly 
 towards an astonishing future of prosperity and glory. Its 
 finest moment was in 1796 and 1797. The Empire had not yet 
 cooled and destroyed the warmest partisans of the revolution. 
 
 " The Court soon set out for Czarco-Selo. The chevaliers 
 (the privates in the chevalier guards were all gentlemen) ap- 
 peared there at the fetes, and on Sundays assisting at mass, 
 at dinner, and at the soirees. We were privileged to join the 
 Empress's evening parties, to share in the promenades, and in 
 the games of bars, which were repeated every fine day. We 
 did not dine at the Empress's table, except when we ucre on 
 duty. That happened once to me, and I was placed oppo- 
 site to Catherine, and charged with serving her, in which I 
 acquitted myself rather awkwardly. She saw with a favour- 
 able eye the intimacy between her grandson and ourselves ; 
 she approved of it, but certainly could not have divined its 
 true motive or its consequences. Perhaps she thought the 
 attachment of an influential family might be useful to her 
 grandson. She little imagined it would confirm him in the 
 sentiments she detested and feared; that it would be one of 
 the causes among a thousand others of the progress of liberal 
 ideas in Europe, and the reappearance alas ! ephemeral on 
 the political arena of Poland, whom she believed she had for 
 ever consigned to the tomb. As the Empress approved of the 
 Grand Duke's marked preference for us, other censors were 
 obliged to shut their mouths, and we were encouraged in 
 our intimacy, which was besides so attractive. 
 
 " The Grand Duke Constantiue, from the spirit of imitation 
 and seeing it pleased the Empress, began to be friendly with 
 my brother, made him come to see him, and obliged him to 
 be on easy terms with his household; but there was no ques- 
 tion there of policy. My brother had in this respect the worst 
 share : none of the motives which bound us to Alexander 
 existed with regard to Constantine, and his capricious, hasty 
 character, restrained only by fear, made any intimacy with him. 
 
 if 2
 
 68 Alexanders Education and Marriage. 
 
 very undesirable. Alexander asked my brother to accept it 
 with a good grace, provided that his confidences should remain 
 unknown to Constantiue, for whom he had, however, a brother's 
 feeling. 
 
 " At the beginning of this summer the Grand Duke was 
 lodged in the great castle (at Czarco-Selo), and did not yet 
 live in the separate palace standing in the park, which was just 
 finished. To look at it was often the object of our walk after 
 dinner. The Grand Duke removed to it, and was then more 
 at liberty to see us. He often made us dine with him, aud 
 the day rarely passed without one of us returning with him 
 after the drawing-rooms were over at the castle. We also took 
 walks every morning, which sometimes extended several leagues. 
 The Grand Duke was fond of walking through the surround- 
 ing villages, when he indulged in his favourite discussions. 
 He was in the charm of a youth hardly begun, which creates 
 images for itself, enjoys them without being stopped by im- 
 possibilities, and builds projects beyond the view for an un- 
 limited future. His opinions were those of a student of 1789, 
 who wished for republics everywhere, and considered that 
 form of government as the only one conformable to the re- 
 quirements and the rights of humanity. Though at that time 
 very enthusiastic myself, and born and educated in a republic,* 
 where the principles of the French revolution had been received 
 with ardour, yet in these discussions I was the cool-headed 
 man who moderated the Grand Duke's extreme opinions. He 
 maintained among other things that the hereditary principle 
 was an unjust and absurd institution, that the supreme autho- 
 rity ought to be confided not by the chance of birth, but by 
 the vote of the nation, who would choose the most capable of 
 governing it. I represented the arguments against this opinion, 
 the difficulty and the risk of an election, that Poland had 
 suffered by it, and how little n't and prepared Russia was for 
 such an institution. I added, that now at least Russia would 
 gain nothing by it, since she would lose him who Avas most 
 worthy of directing her; he who had the most benevolent 
 and the purest intentions. Sometimes in our long walk the 
 conversation turned to other topics from politics to nature. 
 
 * Poland could never properly be styled a republic, the peasants being 
 slaves, and none but nobles possessing rights.
 
 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 69 
 
 The young Grand Duke was a great admirer of its beauties ; 
 enthusiastic over a flower, the verdure of a tree, a view 
 slightly extended opening on rather an undulating prospect 
 for there is nothing less picturesque than the environs of St. 
 Petersburg. He liked to see the agriculturists and the rustic 
 beauty of the villagers; the occupations, the works of the 
 country; a simple life, quiet and retired, in some pietty farm 
 in a varied and sunny country, was the romance he wished to 
 realize, and to which he often rather mournfully returned. 
 
 " I felt it ought not to be so ; that for one destined to work 
 high and great changes in the social order there should be 
 more elevation, strength, ardour, and confidence iu himself than 
 he chose to show ; in his place it was blamable to wish to get 
 rid of the enormous weight reserved for him, and to sigh for 
 the leisure in a quiet life. It was not enough to see difficul- 
 ties in his position and to dread it, but he should have 
 been inflamed with a passionate desire to surmount them. 
 This reflection did not decrease my admiration for him. His 
 sincerity, his uprightness, the ease with which he gave him- 
 self up to beautiful illusions had a charm it was impossible to 
 resist. Besides, still so young, he might acquire what he 
 wanted : circumstances, necessities might develop powers which 
 had not had the time or means of showing themselves; but 
 his views, his intentions remained precious as the purest gold, 
 and though he may have since changed, he preserved to the end 
 of his days a part of the tastes and opinions of his youth. 
 
 " My countrymen have reproached me later with having 
 attached too much faith to Alexander's assurances. I main- 
 tain his opinions were sincere and not affected. When at 
 eighteen he spoke to me with the greatest mystery and with an. 
 effusion that relieved him of the opinions and feelings he con- 
 cealed from the world at large, it was because he really held 
 them and felt the need of confiding them to some one. What 
 other motive could he have had? Whom would he have 
 wished to deceive ? He followed assuredly the inclination of 
 his heart, and confided his true thoughts."* 
 
 When Prince Czartoriski thus wrote in 1834, he had quitted 
 his native country for ever, but could still speak with affection 
 
 * Correspondence de 1'Empereur Alexandra I. et le Prince A. Czar- 
 toriski. M. Ch. Mazade.
 
 70 Alexander's Education and Marriage. 
 
 7 
 
 of his former friend. While the Poles accused him of accept- 
 ing a post in the Russian government, the Russians, on the 
 other hand, declare that he was a traitor to his sovereign 
 when he served in the Foreign Office at St. Petersburg, and 
 only considered the interests of Poland as opposed to those of 
 Russia. They say that at the time he supported Alexander in 
 the idea of giving Poland an independent government by 
 impressing upon him that it would be an indissoluble union and 
 satisfy the aspirations of his fellow patriots, he yet made the 
 Poles believe that he only looked upon it as a stepping-stone 
 to their future entire separation, and that he retarded the real 
 union of Russia and Poland by at least fifty years. But there 
 is no reason to suppose that in 1830 his views had not under- 
 gone a thorough change since 1814, and that, like Alexander's 
 own ideas respecting the superiority of a republican form of 
 government, they had not been altered by unforeseen events. 
 The Poland of 1815 differed so essentially from the bleeding 
 nation of 1796 as probably for the moment to satisfy the 
 immediate desires of every Polish nobleman who had position 
 or estates to lose in another insurrection ; and she had never 
 increased so rapidly in internal wealth and prosperity as 
 between 1815 and 1826. If young statesmen and boy princes 
 were to start in life with stereotyped plans, not to be varied 
 subsequently in a changing world, and in the midst of the 
 most startling episodes or unlooked-for progress, we should 
 be governed by children's theories, and experience would be 
 useless.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PAUL'S REIGN. 
 
 17961800. 
 
 THE year 1796 was an eventful one, and opened in peace ; 
 but during May a military expedition under Valerian 
 Zoubof was organized against Persia, and a levy of 180,000 
 recruits was ordered, to form an army to march under Suvorov 
 against France. Catherine's permission to all officers or 
 public servants to increase their incomes with bribes and 
 plunder made any measure popular which produced a foreign 
 loan and spread money through the country, for her subjects 
 were too shortsighted to perceive the ruin this system must 
 sooner or later entail. Yet one of the highest noblemen did 
 remark on her government, that if " she lived to the natural 
 term of human life she would drag down Russia itself with 
 her to the grave." 
 
 It was a great vexation to the Empress that Alexander and 
 his wife bad no children, and in the hope of securing her 
 dynasty by a larger number of male heirs, she found a bride 
 for Constantine, though he was only seventeen, and much 
 averse to the idea of marriage. Early in 1795 she in- 
 vited the Princess of Saxe-Coburg to bring her three eldest 
 daughters to St. Petersburg, and they arrived in the course of 
 the year. Constantine did not like either of them. He said 
 they were too German to please him, and he preferred 
 Russians ; but at last Catherine chose the youngest, the 
 Princess Julie, who was very pretty, and a mere child of 
 fifteen. The wedding took place in January, 1796. This 
 bride was baptized into the Greek Church by the name of 
 Anna Federovna. Her sister Antoinetta afterwards married 
 Constantine's uncle, Prince Alexander of Wiirtemberg, who 
 entered the service of Russia in 1803.* 
 
 * The Grand Duchess Constantine was the first of the illustrious House 
 of Coburg to marry into an imperial or royal family. Her relatives have 
 since allied themselves with all the leading Powers of Europe. Her 
 brother Leopold became aide-de-camp to Constantine, and in 1814 ac-
 
 72 Pauls Reign. 
 
 Catherine had given up any hope of another grandson, for 
 six princesses followed Constantine into the world; the fifth, 
 Olga, was born in 1792, and died in 1795, some weeks after 
 the birth of the youngest, Anna, who, as widow of a king of 
 Holland, died, the last survivor of her mother's children, in 
 1860. But as this long reign was drawing to a close, Paul's 
 third son was born in the palace of Czarco-Selo (Jnly 6th, N.S., 
 1796), to the great delight of the Empress ; who caused him 
 to be baptized Nicholas, after the patron saint of Russia. She 
 wrote to a friend, " This grandson is born for the throne," and 
 pleased herself with thinking the infant's features resembled 
 her own. She no longer regretted that Alexander and his 
 wife had no heir. 
 
 Since 1793, when Gustavus III. fell by the hand of an 
 assassin, the throne of Sweden was filled by his son, Gus- 
 tavus IV., who was now seventeen, and Catherine had tried to 
 arrange a marriage between him and her eldest granddaughter, 
 Alexandra. The princess was only fourteen, but a contem- 
 porary describes her as already tall and formed, and like most 
 of Paul's children, she inherited the beauty of the earlier 
 Romauofs.* Gustavus came with his uncle to St. Petersburg, 
 and seemed captivated by her charms. Alexander did the 
 honours of the empire to the royal Swedes, who attended him 
 to a review, where Constantine conducted himself with such 
 folly, mimicking everybody present, that his grandmother 
 caused him to be put under arrest for the remainder of their 
 visit, during which the wedding was to take place. But on 
 the very day when the Empress was already in the chapel, and 
 the beautiful bride attired for the ceremony, with her family 
 standing round, Gustavus absolutely refused to sign the mar- 
 riage contract unless a stipulation that the princess should 
 remain in the Greek faith was erased. His uncle, who had 
 
 cornpanied Alexander to England, where he first met his future bride, 
 Princess Charlotte of Wales, but being early left a widower, retired from 
 his adopted country in 1830 to ascend the newly made Belgian throne. 
 His second wife was a daughter of Louis Philippe of France, and his son 
 and daughter married into the House of Austria. His sister became 
 Duchess of Kent, and the mother of Queen Victoria, and his cousin the 
 King Consort of Portugal. His elder brother, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, 
 was the father of the English Prince Consort. 
 
 * See descriptions of Elizabeth Petrovna, Peter II., &c., by Mrs. 
 Vigor, Bassewitz, &c.
 
 Paul's Reign. 73 
 
 secretly offered Finland to Catherine if she would assist him 
 to the throne of Sweden by detaining Gustavus in Russia,* 
 out of revenge for her refusal, worked on his nephew's religious, 
 feelings, and convinced him that he could not marry a Greei 
 Catholic. The company in the chapel waited three hours, and 
 they never appeared. When the Empress heard the reason 
 and rose from her seat to leave the hall, she had a slight attack 
 of apoplexy, a forerunner of the fit which caused her death 
 within seven weeks. The bride preserved her composure till 
 she reached her own room, but never recovered the wound, 
 which for a time it was feared might affect her reason. She 
 died in a melancholy decline at the age of nineteen. 
 
 The day after the intended wedding there was a Court ball, 
 but Alexandra remained ill in her bedroom, and the Empress 
 only appeared for a few moments. Gustavus came and spoke 
 to Alexander, but soon went away, and eight days afterwards 
 left Russia. Two years later he married Alexander's sister-in- 
 law, the Princess Frederika of Baden, hoping this connection 
 would avert any ill consequences which might arise to Sweden 
 from having recklessly incurred the wrath of Russia. But 
 although Catherine did not live to accomplish her revenge, she 
 bequeathed it to Alexander, and while the failure of this mar- 
 riage project cost Russia its Empress, it eventually deprived 
 Sweden of Finland and Gustavus IV. of his crown. 
 
 Alexander's mother attended all the fetes at St. Petersburg 
 given in honour of the King of Sweden, wishing to claim her 
 parental rights when a foreign sovereign was present. The 
 road was very bad between Gateschina and St. Petersburg, 
 and owing to these journeys, Paul had a new one made, for 
 the royal visit lasted more than a month, and she said 
 if all her daughters cost her as much she should really die on 
 the way. The first time they used the new road was to meet 
 at Catherine's death-bed. 
 
 Catherine's sight was beginning to fail, and she was growing 
 infirm from the gout, but she took a daily walk in fine weather, 
 using a stick and either Plato Zoubof's or her grandson's arm. 
 The loss of her teeth was her chief sign of age, and her excellent 
 spirits, which still enabled her to enjoy the jokes of the Court 
 jester, and her temperate habits, seemed to promise her a 
 * Baron Armfelt.
 
 74 Paul's Eeign. 
 
 lengthened life. She never drank wine till she grew old, 
 when it was recommended by her physician, and then only 
 one glass late in the day. She was gradually withdrawing 
 herself from the Court fetes, leaving her grandchildren to 
 take her place, and during the visit of the King of Sweden 
 kept much later hours than usual with her for some time. The 
 shock of being frustrated by a boy, and a nation she despised, 
 coming after she had been tried by so much gaiety, was severe, 
 but she revived,* and on the evening of November 4th, o.s., 
 she laughed and talked as usual with a small party in the 
 Hermitage. She had received news that the Austrians had 
 obliged General Moreau, at the head of a French army, to 
 recross the Rhine, and she announced it in a joking letter to 
 Count Cobentzel, the Austrian Minister. She was in un- 
 naturally high spirits, and having heard of the death of the 
 King of Sardinia that morning, rallied Count Narishkine on 
 his reputed fear of dying. She retired to bed rather early, 
 saying she had given herself a slight pain in the side by 
 talking so much. 
 
 The next morning she rose at her accustomed hour, had her 
 usual early interview with Zoubof, and transacted some busi- 
 ness with her secretaries, telling the last who came to wait in 
 her ante- room till she called him to finish his work. He waited 
 a long time, till one of the equerries opened the door, and saw 
 the Empress lying on the floor. They did not lose a moment 
 in calling Zoubof and the physicians, and raised her on to a 
 mattress placed near the window, to give her the benefit of air 
 and light. She was bled three times, her head bathed, and all 
 the ordinary remedies tried to restore her, but though her 
 heart beat regularly, she showed no other sign of life. She 
 was accustomed to send for Alexander every morning at eleven 
 o'clock, for he lived in the Winter Palace in the quality of 
 heir to the throne, while his brother Constantine was estab- 
 lished in the Marble Palace ; and that morning he had walked 
 out very early to pay Constantine a visit. In his absence the 
 doctors kept the Empress's critical condition as secret as pos- 
 sible, but Zoubof sent for Count Bezberodko, Soltikof, and 
 several officials to consult with them. Perhaps they were 
 
 * Bostopchine says that all about Catherine were convinced that her 
 granddaughter's disappointment hastened her death.
 
 PauTs Reign. 75 
 
 aware that Alexander held them in little esteem, and thought 
 it would be more to their interest to ingratiate themselves with 
 Paul, and offer him the crown ; for before the Prince returned 
 to the Winter Palace at half-past ten, each of them had sent 
 off a courier on his own account to Gateschina, and strict 
 orders were given that no one else was to be allowed to leave 
 St. Petersburg that day. Rumours began to circulate in the 
 city early in the afternoon, but people hardly dared allude to 
 them lest they should be false. Six couriers arrived almost 
 simultaneously at Gateschina, and found Paul and his wife gone 
 out to see a mill he was having built ; but they made up for the 
 delay by taking only three hours for the drive to St. Petersburg, 
 as Zoubofa brother, who acted as his messenger, went on first 
 to procure a relay of horses at Sophia, a village on the road. 
 
 Paul seemed for an instant quite upset when he heard the 
 news, so that Zoubof could hardly tell if it was from joy or 
 sorrow. Count Rostopchine, since conspicuous in the history 
 of Russia, an especial favourite at Gateschina, had accidentally 
 called to see a relative in the Winter Palace, and was sum- 
 moned to an audience with Alexander, who came straight out 
 of Catherine's room. The Prince was very pale, and his eyes 
 filled with tears as he asked Rostopchine if he had heard what 
 had happened to the Empress, and told him there was no longer 
 any hope, so he must go as quickly as possible to announce 
 this fact to his father. Demetrius Zoubof had gone to 
 Gateschina, but he thought it would be more proper the de- 
 tails should be transmitted to Paul direct from himself. Ros- 
 topchine set off, and at six in the evening met the Grand Duke 
 and Duchess at Sophia, where they had just arrived. Paul, 
 hearing his voice, sprang out to speak to him ; then desired 
 him to join the escort ; and the Imperial carriage, drawn by 
 seven horses, sped rapidly on its way. They halted for a 
 moment at Tchesme, when Rostopchine, reflecting on the 
 change probably only a few hours more would produce for his 
 master, to whom, he writes, he was " devoted heart and soul, 
 not less than to his country, on the importance of his first 
 steps, and on the influences which might act on the feelings 
 of an autocratic sovereign full of strength, of health, of fire, 
 and who had lost the power of being master of himself"* 
 * Bostopchine, when on duty at Gateschina, was once not relieved at
 
 76 Paul's Reign. 
 
 seized Paul's hand and said, " Monseignor, what a moment 
 for you \" The Grand Duke answered, " Wait, my friend, 
 wait. I have lived forty-two years. God has sustained me. 
 Perhaps He will yet give me strength and reason to support 
 the state to which He destines me. I hope everything from 
 His bounty." 
 
 They arrived at half-past eight at the Winter Palace, where 
 numbers had assembled, " waiting the end of a long reign and 
 the passage to a new/' Paul was received, not as the heir, but as 
 the sovereign, though all seemed to hope for the Empress's 
 recovery, and when it was reported that strong mustard- 
 plasters had caused her to open her eyes, there was universal 
 congratulation. He went into his mother's room, and after 
 speaking to the physicians and giving tbe necessary orders, re- 
 tired with his wife into the antechamber, where he received the 
 officials, transmitted various directions, and spoke kindly to 
 Plato Zoubof, who was overcome with fear and grief. " Zoubof s 
 despair/" says Rostopchine, " was beyond everything. When 
 he passed across the Empress's room he broke out into sobs. 
 I went into the antechamber and saw him seated in a corner ; 
 the courtiers fled from him as from one infected, who but the 
 day before founded all their happiness on one of his smiles ; 
 the room where they crowded each other to suffocation to 
 approach him was now for him an uninhabited desert." 
 
 So passed the night. The nobility dispersed to arrange their 
 private affairs, not knowing what to expect from their new 
 master. At the Senate-house business was going on ever 
 since the first rumour of the Empress's illness, for there were 
 30,000 suits on hand, and as Paul was known to be very 
 impatient of anything like delay, the senators tried to settle 
 as many of them as they could. Alexander and Constan- 
 tine had kept watch by the dying Empress's bedside, since the 
 previous afternoon, and in the morning Paul returned to the 
 almost deserted chamber, and looked at his mother, but 
 without feigning impressions of filial grief which lie could not 
 feel. Then he asked the physicians if they had still any hope. 
 
 the expiration of his fortnight, and expressed his willingness to remain, 
 which being considered over-zeal, Catherine exiled him tor a year. Paul 
 therefore looked upon him as a mai-tyr in his cause. The foregoing 
 description is taken from Rostopchine's work entitled The Last Day of 
 Catherine's Beign, pub. 1858.
 
 Paul's Reign. 77 
 
 They answered None ; on which he desired the Metropolitan 
 Gabriel and his clergy to be summoned at once to read the 
 prayers for the dying, though by his wish her waiting women 
 and the physicians continued to administer every remedy up to 
 the last moment of her life ; he also ordered seals to be put upon 
 her bureaux, and sent to Bezberodko the President of the 
 College of Foreign Affairs, to inquire if he held any papers of 
 special importance. 
 
 Catherine had executed a will in which she bequeathed the 
 empire to Alexander, and excluded Paul from the throne. 
 According to the law of Peter the Great the sovereign might 
 choose a successor, and consequently since his time the crown 
 had never descended direct from parent to child. She caused 
 Bezberodko to make a copy of this will, and deposit one 
 with the Senate and the other with Plato the Metropolitan of 
 Moscow. Count Bezberodko was sixty-four, and dreaded any 
 violent political change, being only anxious to keep his place. 
 While Catherine still breathed he sent for these two wills and 
 gave the one in the hands of the Senate to Paul on the night 
 of his arrival, and Paul burned it at once. The other came 
 from Moscow a few days later, and was also destroyed. The 
 Count was rewarded by being confirmed in his post, though 
 Paul, still fearing lest Alexander should act upon this will, 
 brought him away from the chamber of death to keep him 
 under his own eye till he had taken the new oath of alle- 
 giance. But at nine o'clock that evening the English physician 
 Rogerson came to inform them that the Empress was in the 
 last agonies, and Paul and his wife went together to her 
 bedside, where they were joined by their sons and the Princesses 
 Alexandra and Helena, with Madame Lieven their governess, 
 Bostopchine, Bezberodko, and a few more attendants. The 
 Empress's face was convulsed, her breath had rattled in her 
 throat for many hours, and the young Grand Duchesses 
 Alexander and Constantino were so deeply affected that they 
 were obliged to be taken away. " That moment/' says Rostop- 
 chine, " I can never forget. A great sovereign, but yesterday 
 the terror of her enemies and the admiration of the world, lay 
 there for thirty-six hours almost inanimate. The silence 
 of all present, their eyes steadily fixed on the same object, the 
 obscurity pervading the room, everything announced the
 
 78 Paul's Reign. 
 
 approach of death. At a quarter past ten Catherine the Great, 
 uttering a last sigh, appeared in common with every mortal 
 before the tribunal of the Most High. Her features resumed 
 their usual expression of grace and grandeur, and she seemed as 
 if plunged in a deep sleep. Her son and her heir after kneeling 
 beside her retired with the tears streaming from his eyes, and 
 in a moment the room was filled with the women long attached 
 to her service, who all displayed open signs of grief. But the 
 ante-rooms contained anxious courtiers only occupied with their 
 own future, to whom this minute was like the last judgment 
 to the sinner." "When Count Somoilof sounded the customary 
 proclamation, " The Empress Catherine is dead, and the Lord 
 Emperor Paul Petrovitz has deigned to mount the throne/' 
 they pressed round Rostopchine begging him to remember them 
 with the new sovereign who had already offered him any post he 
 chose to fill in his government. 
 
 Before eleven the whole Court and many nobles assembled 
 in the Imperial Chapel to take the oath to their master. The 
 Empress Mary was the first to kiss the cross, and the Gospel 
 which in Eussia confirms a vow, and she then advanced to 
 kneel at her husband's feet, but he would not permit either 
 his wife or children to perform this act of homage, and 
 warmly embraced them. Though it was midnight, and all 
 were exhausted with their long vigil, Paul sent Rostopchine 
 to announce the Empress's death to Alexis Orlof, and invite him 
 to come and take the oath. " He has. not appeared at the 
 palace/' said the Emperor, " but I do not wish that he should 
 forget the 29th of June," (the anniversary of the revolution of 
 1762). Orlof left his bed, where he had been ill for eight 
 days, and seemed greatly moved on hearing of the national 
 loss, but apparently had no misgivings with regard to his own 
 fortunes under the new Emperor. In the mean while Paul 
 left the chapel and returned to his mother's room, where she 
 already lay in state. Two deacons were reading portions of 
 the Gospel for the comfort of her soul. He knelt a few 
 moments before the corpse, and then retired to look over her 
 papers for the rest of the night. Among them he found 
 Orlof 's letter to announce the murder of Peter III., and thanked 
 Providence that she had not, as he imagined, authorized the 
 deed ; and also some letters from Potenikin, showing that this
 
 Paul's Reign. 79 
 
 nobleman had been his determined enemy, and tried to widen 
 the separation between them. Perhaps they softened his 
 feelings towards her, though he always avoided any allusion 
 to her, and would even shudder when anything recalled her 
 or his wretched childhood* to his thoughts ; but he took an 
 unworthy revenge on the dead minister, for he ordered his 
 body to be exhumed from its grave at Oczakov and cast 
 into the ditch of the fortress. The religious feeling of the 
 governor prevented him from carrying this command into 
 effect, and he contented himself with erasing Potenikin's name 
 from his monument. 
 
 The citizens of St. Petersburg heard of Paul's succession 
 with some dismay. Those particularly who were con- 
 cerned in the revolution of 1762, felt they had cause to 
 tremble ; and it was known that the strictness he exercised at 
 Gateschina and Paulovski, obliging lights to be put out at a 
 certain hour, forbidding dogs to be kept because he disliked 
 their noise, and interfering in other trifles, completely scared 
 people from the neighbourhood. His daughters regretted 
 their indulgent grandmother, and feared their parents, who 
 were almost strangers to them. It was an agreeable surprise 
 when his first measures seemed to refute the ordinary notion 
 of his character, and he spoke most gently to all attending on 
 his mother's death-bed. Instead of securing his eldest son 
 in the fortress of St. Petersburg, he increased his income from 
 30,000 paper roubles to 200,000 roubles ;f but during the first 
 few weeks kept him constantly employed in writing letters 
 or other occupations close to his side. He also gave him a 
 different regiment from the one he had hitherto commanded, 
 and showed mistrust of his loyalty by finding employments in 
 distant provinces for all his intimate friends. Czartoriski was 
 appointed to the embassy at Rome. It was an old custom 
 that the heir- apparent should live in the Czar's palace, even 
 though his younger brothers might be married and settled 
 
 * He called it so. 
 
 f At this time the official income of more than one of the Russian 
 ambassadors was 44,000 roubles, and they were generally men of large 
 private fortune. Paul borrowed from a merchant, Roghovikof, whom he 
 created a baron; -and Prince Kurakin lent him money, aad mortgaged his 
 estate for the purpose, being munificently repaid. When Constantino was 
 going to be married he sent the money to his father which Catherine had 
 given him. to expend in. presents for the bride.
 
 80 PauTs Reign. 
 
 elsewhere, so there was nothing strange in Paul keeping 
 Alexander in his own residence, and not permitting him to 
 inhabit his new palace at Czarco-Selo ; besides, Czarco-Selo 
 itself was now deserted, and its gardens and gorgeous apart- 
 ments were allowed to fall almost to ruin. He proclaimed 
 him Czarovitz or heir- apparent, and passed a law which 
 revoked the Act of Peter the Great, and settled the succession 
 to the throne invariably on the nearest male heir. A female 
 only inherited if all the princes were extinct. This law much 
 amazed the new Empress, who intended to be her husband's 
 successor, and she tried to persuade him to alter it. For her 
 benefit he passed another law to give the dowager Empress 
 precedence over the wife of the reigning monarch, so that 
 after his death she would rank second in the empire, and 
 before the wife of Alexander ,- a right she always jealously 
 claimed. He also endowed her with a considerable independent 
 revenue, which she well deserved; for she had led a most 
 uncomfortable life for the last twenty years, and had yet 
 remained devoted to her husband and his interests. In an 
 Act he prepared eight years before, in case of his death, when 
 he was going to take part in the Finland campaign, he thanks 
 her for her " patient endurance." 
 
 Alexander was nominated to the post of Governor of 
 St. Petersburg, and General Aratchaieff placed under him as 
 guardian or assistant. It was a post of considerable responsi- 
 bility, and the first time he had come much in contact with 
 his future subjects beyond the atmosphere of the Court ; but 
 the justice and humanity with which he fulfilled his duties 
 soon gained him great popularity. Aratchaief, a celebrated 
 character in the last years of Alexander's reign, was the son 
 of a poor subaltern who lived in Novgorod. He obtained 
 admittance into the cadet corps through the influence of 
 General Melissino, and showed great talent in mathematics 
 and military science, though he had no taste for letters, and 
 learned no language but Russian. A contemporary* accuses 
 him of cruelty and ill-temper, making enemies from his seve- 
 rity as a sergeant among the cadets even when he was a boy, 
 
 * Masson. This writer had been replaced by Aratchaief, and is 
 occasionally inaccurately virulent in his statements ; but Aratchaief was 
 very unpopular.
 
 Paul's Reign. 81 
 
 and asserts that he restored an obsolete barbarity into the 
 training of the Russian array, and more than once caused the 
 death of a soldier by his blows. Yet he was recommended to 
 Count Soltikof as a fitting companion for his pupils Alexander 
 and Constantine when they were boys, and joined them in 
 their lessons on artillery and fortification, and in 1787 he 
 obtained a commission. He was favourably mentioned to Paul 
 by Melissino and Soltikof, and was therefore appointed military 
 instructor to the boys of his new school at Gateschina. At first 
 Paul did not like him, but his punctuality arid energy obtained 
 his favour, and after Catherine's death he was promoted to be 
 a major-general, and received the Grand Cross of the Order of St. 
 Anne. In 1797 he was created a Baron, and received the Grand 
 Cross of St. Alexander Nevskoi a distinction rarely granted to 
 a young man of twenty-eight. The Emperor also gave him 2000 
 peasants on lands at Grusino, near Novgorod. He had no friend 
 except his Imperial master the Russian nobility disliked him for 
 his humble origin and although very wealthy, he lived till the 
 end of his career in an insignificant wooden house, despising 
 all European refinements. In March, 1798, he was suddenly 
 dismissed from his appointments, but recalled the following 
 August, and named quartermaster-general. In January, 
 1799, he was intrusted with the command of a battery of 
 artillery of the Guards, was appointed inspector-general, a 
 Commander of the Order of Malta, and a Count of the Russian 
 Empire. This rapid promotion provoked jealousy, and in 
 October of the same year he was banished to his estates, it is 
 believed through Count Pahlen's influence. 
 
 Plato Zoubof was at first permitted to keep all his honours, 
 and Paul told him he trusted he would serve him as faithfully 
 as he had served his mother. He was charged with the pre- 
 parations for the Empress's funeral. But she was not to be 
 interred alone. Thirty-five years before, her murdered hus- 
 band was hastily buried in a grave in the church of the 
 monastery of St. Alexander Nevskoi, and Paul now caused 
 a service to be read over his remains. The prayers chanted 
 twice a day for the Empress's soul also included the soul of 
 Peter III., and Paul visited the monastery, where two old 
 monks showed him his father's tomb. The coffin was depo- 
 sited beneath the floor near the chancel, unmarked by any 
 
 VOL. i. o
 
 82 Paul's Eeign. 
 
 inscription, and it was raised and opened while he stood by. 
 He took up a mouldering glove covering one of the fleshlcss 
 hands, kissing it several times ; and the next day, when the 
 corpse was removed, came with his sons to meet it. all falling 
 on their knees in the midst of the snow as it was carried past, 
 in most inclement weather, following it bareheaded to the 
 room where it was laid in state by the side of the Empress. 
 Teploff, Bariatinsky, and Orlof, Peter's murderers, were wait- 
 ing here by appointment, and Paul said to them, " I know the 
 active part you took in the last moments of my unhappy 
 parent, and shall therefore consign the guardianship of his 
 remains to your especial care until they are again interred, 
 not as they were by the infamous wretches who employed you 
 to perpetrate the murder, but as the long neglected and much 
 injured Czar of all the Russias by his affectionate son, who in 
 silence bewailed his untimely death, and now takes the first 
 opportunity of doing homage to his memory." Those who 
 stood near the Emperor saw the tears gush from his eyes before 
 the sentence was concluded, and prevented his utterance for 
 some moments. 
 
 Peter had never been crowned or " consecrated/' as the 
 Russians call it, so this service was also read over his corpse, 
 and a fortnight afterwards it was conveyed with the Empress's 
 body to the Imperial vault in the fortress. Orlof and his 
 colleagues were ordered to walk in the funeral procession 
 immediately after the bier, and to stand on guard in the 
 church the night before it was entombed. Orlof sustained 
 his part with composure, and his age, his mild appearance, his 
 gigantic height, which he still carried as in youth, and the 
 remembrance of his public services, excited rather the admi- 
 ration of the spectators than any feeling of horror on account 
 of his crimes; but Bariatinsky fainted repeatedly, and was 
 never well afterwards. At the close of the ceremony they 
 were exiled to Moscow, though, except the Princess Dashkov, 
 who was sent into the country " to reflect on the epoch of 
 1762," Paul left the other actors in the last revolution at 
 peace. He sought out all known as Peter's friends, and 
 rewarded them ; among others Baron Ungern Sternberg, who 
 had lived in philosophical retirement during Catherine's reign, 
 and was now suddenly created a general-in-chief, and sum-
 
 Paul's Reign. 83 
 
 moned to appear at Court. After receiving him most gra- 
 ciously, the Emperor said, " Have you heard what I am doing 
 for my father ?" " Yes, sire," said the old man, " and was 
 astonished/' " And why astonished ?" said Paul ; " is it not 
 a duty that I ought to fulfil ? Look here," he added, turning 
 towards his father's picture, which he had kept secretly for 
 years, and now placed in his room, " I wish him to be a wit- 
 ness of my gratitude towards his old friends." He then em- 
 braced the general, and gave him the Order of St. Alexander. 
 The day after his accession, Paul took Alexander and Con- 
 stantine to visit Kosciusko, who since his capture was lodged 
 in a private house in St. Petersburg, and allowed to see his 
 friends or receive presents, but not to leave his dwelling. 
 Paul complimented his bravery, giving him an unconditional 
 release, and offered him a high command and an estate in 
 Russia. The general declined them on account of his health, 
 but accepted money to take him to England, and with his 
 head still covered with bandages, owing to his uuhealed 
 wounds, he dined with the Imperial family. His companion, 
 Niemciewicz, also obtained his freedom, and the exiled Poles 
 in Siberia were allowed to return. The levy of recruits was 
 stopped, and the wars with France and Persia abruptly closed. 
 Catherine expended two millions of livres on the French emi- 
 grants, and maintained Count Romanzov as her ambassador to 
 Louis XVIII. at the camp of the Allied Princes at Coblentz. 
 Since the death of Gustavus III. she was the soul of the con- 
 federation, but Paul proclaimed a peaceful policy, and for a 
 time seemed absorbed in domestic reforms. He had passed 
 his seclusion at Gateschina in brooding over the unhappy fate 
 of various members of his family, and had made many plans 
 for securing himself and his children from future revolutions, 
 and for reforming the social system of Russia without necessi- 
 tating the triumph of democracy and unbelief which had 
 demolished the ancient regime in France ; but the excitement 
 of the times when all Europe was in agitation, and the cares 
 inseparable from an autocratic government completed the 
 wreck of a mind already disposed to insanity. He wished to 
 convert Russia into a Utopia; but to cleanse the Augean 
 stable would have been a far easier task than to establish jus- 
 tice and honesty in a country systematically corrupt for a
 
 84 Paul's Reign. 
 
 century, when the wealth and privileges of the only educated 
 portion of his subjects was opposed to it. Catherine's extra- 
 vagance and destructive wars, glorious though they may have 
 been, left him a bankrupt exchequer and an exhausted State. 
 Her favourites filled almost every post with their retainers, 
 who, obtaining these places by bribery, had no scruple in 
 realizing a fortune by the same means. Such materials would 
 have perplexed the most practised reformer, but Paul expected 
 perfection from the officials at a time when integrity was most 
 rare. He could not make the best of what he was able 
 to obtain, or bend to suit wavering allies. Those who 
 induced him to alter his line of policy, did so by satisfying 
 him the policy they advocated was that of religion and justice, 
 and would hasten a universal peace. He gave his favour 
 with little reflection, and withdrew it as hastily on the first 
 suspicion that it was abused. In the vain hope of carrying 
 out his theories he concluded treaties, and declared war with 
 almost every European power iu less than four years and 
 a half, and perpetually changed his ministers ; but his confi- 
 dential friends were of long standing, and superior men, with 
 the exception of Count Kutaissof, originally a Georgian slave, 
 sold at Kutais to the Turks. He was rescued by a Russian 
 vessel and brought to St. Petersburg, where he became Paul's 
 valet, and, after his accession to the throne, master of the 
 horse. He was ennobled, to the great indignation of the 
 Russian aristocracy, and exercised a great deal of influence in 
 the last few months of the Emperor's life. 
 
 Paul at first confirmed his mother's ministers in their 
 offices, but the changes he introduced made several resign, and 
 others were subsequently dismissed. He exacted an amount 
 of work to which they were quite unaccustomed ; for in 
 Catherine's reign, though she rose early, no one else after con- 
 stant midnight revels thought of beginning business before the 
 middle of the day. Tersky, the master of requests, and 
 reporter to the senate, had publicly sold justice to the highest 
 bidder. He said that Catherine promised him an order of 
 knighthood and an estate a few days before her death ; and 
 Paul, believing it to be true, gave them to him, but dismissed 
 him from his office. The expenses of the Court were cur- 
 tailed, the constant fetes discontinued, the attendants reduced,
 
 Paul's Reign. 85 
 
 and instead of each member of the Imperial family having a 
 separate table and maintenance, Paul and his children dined 
 together at noon, as he said there was no reason an Emperor 
 should be deprived of a pleasure every citizen enjoyed. He 
 dismissed the Court purveyors, and caused the provisions for 
 the use of the palace to be bought at the markets at market- 
 price, and convoked a meeting of the merchants, personally 
 remonstrating with them on the dishonesty 'of their dealings. 
 As this did not check the immense profits the Imperial 
 stewards and cooks drew from the provisions they supplied, 
 often of very inferior quality, the Emperor boarded the entire 
 household by contract. This system, pursued during the fol- 
 lowing sixty years, originated in the Empress Mary looking 
 over the household accounts, and finding a bottle of brandy 
 for the Grand Duke Alexander was regularly entered every 
 day. She went to her husband, and told him their son must 
 be privately a confirmed drunkard. Paul carefully examined 
 the books, and showed her the entry continued through the 
 Grand Duke's infancy up to the time he was a few months 
 old ; when it was remembered the Court physician ordered 
 him a teaspoonful of brandy when cutting his teeth, and a 
 bottle was furnished by the purveyors ever since, but appro- 
 priated for the benefit of the servants. 
 
 Even before his accession there was a conspiracy among the 
 Guards to depose Paul;* and his whole reign was one of 
 antagonism to the idle, luxurious youths who formerly thronged 
 the Court. They turned him into ridicule, and imitated 
 his peculiarities, even in the ante-rooms of the palace. His 
 appearance had not improved with age, and in the spirit 
 of that day, which had little mercy on personal defects, he 
 was made the subject of numerous foreign caricatures privately 
 circulated throughout Russia. At forty-two he looked ten 
 years older, was bald and much wrinkled, and his nephew, 
 Prince Eugene of Wurtemberg, quite shrank back when he 
 saw him, as he thought there was something unearthly in his 
 leaden complexion and large glaring dark eyes. When young, 
 the cartilage of his nose was removed by a surgical operation, f 
 
 * Masson. 
 
 t MS. of General Svetchine. Without excepting the Kalmucks, he 
 was said to be the ugliest man in Russia.
 
 86 Paul's Reign. 
 
 so that it sank between his cheeks till it affected his breath- 
 ing, making him constantly blow and gasp for air ; in a room 
 he hardly ever sat still, but, panting with heat, would open 
 the window to put his head out, or walk up and down with a 
 hurried step, in which he resembled Peter III. His costume 
 was an old uniform coat reaching to his heels, and an enor- 
 mous shabby cocked hat, which even on the coldest day 
 he carried under his arm. He had a melancholy, almost 
 painful expression, and his manner was nervous and impetu- 
 ous; but his repentance, if he thought he had been unjust, 
 was as violent and undisguised as his anger, and on more than, 
 one occasion gave him a convulsion fit. He thought his own 
 face, which he would never look at, too ugly to be impressed 
 on the coinage, telling his ministers they must wait till they 
 had a better model in his son, and the Russian money has 
 never since borne the head of the sovereign. Constantly by 
 the side of this unattractive figure there was Alexander, one of 
 the handsomest young men of his day, " and not requiring/' 
 writes Masson, " to be Grand Duke of Russia to excite love 
 and interest. Nature has endowed him very richly with the 
 most amiable qualities." The Russians are particularly sensi- 
 tive to European opinion. It is a true pleasure to them when 
 their sovereign is admired for his outward appearance and 
 mental qualities, and they are mortified if they see him a mark 
 for opprobrium. They can laugh at their own follies, and 
 abuse their own government, yet cannot bear foreigners to 
 take the same view when writing of Russia. Therefore all 
 eyes were turned towards the prince whom they thought 
 would be a credit to his country, with the hope of his speedy 
 accession. Paul would have been superior to ordinary human 
 feelings if he had felt no jealousy of a son who for years occu- 
 pied his own place in the Court of Russia, and it was to the 
 credit of both that they kept so long on friendly terms ; but 
 Alexander settled down more willingly than many would have 
 done to the part assigned him by his father, and obtained for 
 a time more influence over him than any one else possessed. 
 He successfully opposed many extraordinary measures, and 
 directed his reforming mania into channels where it was cer- 
 tainly required, and Paul, often mistrusting his own judgment, 
 even asked his advice. An officer was arrested on suspicion,
 
 Paul's Reign. 87 
 
 and brought before a court-martial, when, hesitating in his 
 reply, Paul at once pronounced him guilty and ordered him to 
 be shot. General Svetchine knowing the circumstances hardly 
 warranted such severity forbade the sentence to be carried 
 out, and then went straight to the Emperor to tell him what 
 he had done, expecting nothing less than exile. Paul heard 
 his reasons, and squeezed his hand violently. " You were 
 right/ 3 he said; "I wish I had first spoken to the Grand 
 Duke Alexander. Let the officer have his liberty, but do not 
 let this at least be known in St. Petersburg " 
 
 One of Paul's first acts was to introduce more attention to 
 religion in his empire, and here he had to begin with his own 
 family, who were all educated in the lax opinions then preva- 
 lent. He ordered Wednesdays, Fridays, and other fasts, which 
 he always kept rigorously himself, to be observed ; work was 
 prohibited on the Sabbath (Saturday afternoon and Sunday 
 morning), every member of the government and every foreigner 
 in Russia was to confess and receive the Holy Communion at 
 least once a year according to his own rite, or incur dismissal 
 from his office or from Russia, while the priests were advised 
 to admit none to the service who were not in a suitable frame 
 of mind. The old custom of uncovering the head before the 
 picture of the Virgin in Moscow was revived, and sentinels 
 placed to see that it was done. Jews were ordered to pay 
 double poll-tax, but all dissenters were allowed the free exer- 
 cise of their religion who acknowledged the doctrine of the 
 Trinity. A fanatic who had long asserted that he was the 
 Saviour was sentenced to death, but Alexander interceded for 
 him, saying he was probably insane, so he was sent to Siberia. 
 The clergy were exempted from the knout and raised to the 
 rank of nobles, and Paul visited his old tutor, the Archbishop 
 Plato, in his hermitage near Moscow ; and presented valuable 
 offerings to the Troitza monastery and other ecclesiastical 
 establishments.* He abolished foreign wines from the dinner 
 tables of St. Petersburg to encourage sobriety, allowing only 
 the native kvas and vodka to be served in his palace, and him- 
 self drank nothing but water or tea. He endeavoured to 
 
 * During a visit to Moscow lie entered the church of St. John the 
 Warrior, and there heard a sermon preached by a simple priest which 
 pleased him so much that he asked for a copy, and always kept it, with a 
 book of prayers, by his bedside.
 
 88 Pauls Reign. 
 
 enforce morality, at once banishing three ladies of high rank 
 but unenviable notoriety ; and with his wife set an example of 
 domestic virtue rare indeed at that period in any Court in 
 Europe. But the strict etiquette he inaugurated kept his nobles 
 away from it, and his early hours were much disliked. He rose 
 at five in the morning, and by six was on the parade-ground, 
 where he remained three or four hours, reviewing the troops, 
 receiving petitions, and holding audiences in the open air. 
 He had the power of bearing cold to an extraordinary degree, 
 and in the midst of a St. Petersburg winter was seen every 
 morning between his two eldest sons, with his head bare, but 
 stamping to keep his feet warm, beating time with his cane 
 while the troops marched past. Afterwards he generally 
 visited some of the government offices, and once arriving at the 
 military college rather early he found that the president, Count 
 Soltikof (Alexander's old tutor), had not appeared. The 
 Emperor waited two hours, and when he came he told him if 
 his duties were too arduous he might resign them ; but on 
 Alexander's intercession he was allowed to remain in his 
 place. 
 
 The evening parties at the palace comprised the Imperial 
 family and two or three old generals and aides-de-camp, when 
 the Empress made tea herself for the guests, and at eight the 
 Emperor retired, on which the visitors departed, and all lights 
 in the city were extinguished. 
 
 His changes in the army excited universal discontent. He 
 had dressed up his Guards at Gateschina in the old-fashioned 
 German military costume, the most inconvenient they could 
 wear, too unlike the long robes of an ordinary native Russian 
 ever to find favour in his empire, and now decreed that this 
 dress should be worn by the whole army, in addition to powder 
 and pigtails. He mistrusted the Guards who assisted Cathe- 
 rine in the revolution of 1762, and incorporated them with the 
 regiment of Gateschina, hitherto their laughing-stock, and 
 nicknamed Prusski or Prussians. 
 
 The officers resigned their commissions en masse, being 
 exceedingly angry at their new position under men who in 
 some instances were raised from the ranks. Paul first visited 
 their barracks and tried to flatter or persuade them into com- 
 pliance, but this failing, ordered them to leave St. Petersburg
 
 Paul's Reign. 89 
 
 within twenty- four hours, and as most of them resided in the 
 city, their rapid departure in the middle of winter was attended 
 with great inconvenience. 
 
 "The reforms which the new Emperor is introducing," 
 writes an Englishman,* February 5th, 1797, " are, I fear, some- 
 what precipitate. I wish he may succeed in all his under- 
 takings, for they are wisely aimed; but I have fears. Above 
 1500 officers have given in their resignation, the Emperor's 
 edicts all militating against plunder, which is the motive of 
 entering into his service. I think there will be some great event 
 soon in the Russian empire. I dare not say more ; but I fear 
 it. The Emperor, at the head of his Guards the other day, 
 drew his sword, and said that he drew it once for all against 
 all peculation and all injustice ; and that as soon as he 
 departed in any shape from his own principles of equity, he 
 cared not if any one did as much for him. It is not wise for 
 emperors to talk in this way in these times, particularly before 
 Russians. The Empress entreated the Emperor the other 
 day to proceed more deliberately ; he replied, he was deter- 
 mined to perish or to introduce a spirit of justice and order 
 in his dominions. If that be the alternative .... every part 
 of Paul's conduct is firm and bold, but he has undertaken a 
 fearful task." 
 
 The same writer went to Moscow to see the coronation, 
 April 17th, 1797, which he describes as a splendid ceremony, 
 and " likely to be one of the last things of the sort/' 
 Alexander acted on the occasion as his father's chief aide-de- 
 camp, and held his sword during the most solemn part of the 
 service. " Moscow is the largest city in Europe. The Emperor 
 
 is a caricature of Peter III The troops of the late 
 
 Empress wore certainly the handsomest uniforms in Europe. 
 Paul has stuffed them into the most hideous sacks imaginable. 
 Some of the reforms in the military are however good : he has 
 prevented the plunder exercised by the officers. He is ex- 
 tremely severe, and very despotic much more so than the 
 late Empress ; but he is pacific, a weighty virtue. He has 
 given to one of his ministers at the coronation 16,000 peasants, 
 and in another quarter 36,000 acres of land. The whole 
 amounts to about 750,000/. To Prince Kurakin and his 
 * Letters and Remains of John Tweddell, 1816.
 
 90 Paul's Reign. 
 
 family he has given over a million and a half of our money. 
 At least no other sovereign can do the same at this moment ; 
 and no other sovereign of any country ever, perhaps, did make 
 so prodigal a grant. He exercises his troops at six A.M., with- 
 out his hat on, when the cold is at 16 (helow of Reaumur). 
 He wishes to unite magnificence with economy ; makes superb 
 presents to individuals, and great retrenchments in the general 
 departments of state. He certainly has the most brilliant 
 Court in Europe ; it is truly splendid. He is capricious and 
 minute attaching weight to trifles, .... though he does 
 not want sense. He is a little man, standing on tiptoe ; and 
 reminds me of a poultry-yard when he traverses the palace in 
 the midst of the dames of honour." 
 
 Visiting St. Petersburg, the traveller was struck with the 
 immense number of splendid carriages, and its appearance of 
 wealth. But these carriages were much diminished two years 
 later, from the revival of an old law, obliging everybody who, 
 when driving, met the Emperor, the Empress, or the Czarovitz 
 to dismount and stand in the street till they passed. The 
 Emperor thought driving effeminate, and preferred the old 
 national style of boot to the silk stockings and buckles com- 
 monly worn, and which were liable to be covered with mud 
 if in bad weather the Emperor or his son passed. 
 
 In Catherine's reign, the generals and their staff appeared 
 in plain clothes when off duty; and in the winter drove even 
 to a review in fur cloaks, and carrying muffs. The cuirassiers 
 wore purple mantles embroidered with silver eagles over a 
 silver cuirass. All this was abolished : the uniforms, instead 
 of costing 120 silver roubles, were limited to 22, and the names 
 of 22,000 supernumerary officers were struck off the Guards, con- 
 sisting of civilians who had never appeared in uniform in their 
 lives children, ministers, and even unborn infants, for whom 
 the government paid salaries and allowances as if they were in 
 active service. But even the least unreasonable regulations 
 were made oppressive by the barbarous manner in which they 
 were carried out by the police. Constantine was placed at its 
 head, and to organize the corps into the most passive and 
 unquestioning obedience was a task much to his taste. His 
 severity also set them an example perhaps not required to 
 make them a perfect scourge. Under Catherine, all the
 
 Paul's Reign. 91 
 
 guardians of the public security, except the secret police, had 
 fallen too much into contempt, and now exile to Siberia was 
 the punishment for making them any resistance. In the same 
 reign it was a penal offence to offer a petition to the sovereign. 
 Paul abolished this law, and took all presented to him as he 
 reviewed his soldiers on the morning parade ; but they were 
 so numerous that he opened a special post-office in the palace 
 for letters and petitions, and for a time read them himself, 
 and kept four secretaries to answer them. They still accumu- 
 lated to such a degree that he adopted the plan of publish- 
 ing his refusals in the Gazette, and Kotzebue says, these 
 replies were very prompt ; but it was complained that petitions 
 were suppressed by his secretaries, and that Kutaissof and his 
 aides-de-camp were the frequent arbiters of their fate. 
 
 Paul often declared that a Russian emperor ought not to 
 be a gentleman, and that his eldest sons were brought up with 
 too much refinement to obtain a firm hold over a people so 
 lately introduced to western civilization. His younger sons, 
 he said, should be educated as common soldiers. This senti- 
 ment was much the same as Napoleon's, that " Russia would 
 be truly formidable to Europe when her sovereign grew his 
 beard " at that time considered a mark of barbarism. To 
 please their father, Alexander and Constantine continued inde- 
 fatigable at parade and drill ; and Alexander soon excelled 
 every officer at St. Petersburg in the precision with which he 
 fired at a mark, while Constantine surpassed in beating a 
 drum. "He is the worthy son of his father," writes Masson, 
 of the younger prince : " the same eccentricities, the same 
 passionate temper, the same severity, the same turbulence. 
 He will never possess as much information, nor as much 
 capacity ; but he promises to equal, if not surpass him in the art 
 of mano3uvring automatons. The common people are never good 
 judges, and they mistook the Grand Duke Alexander's reserve and 
 circumspect conduct for pride, and were at first infatuated with 
 his younger brother ; but Constantine has not the amiable and 
 prepossessing appearance of his senior, for with him giddiness 
 takes the place of wit, and his buffoonery procures him popu- 
 larity. In the same way the priests attached themselves to 
 the unfortunate Czarovitz Alexis, with whom Constantine has 
 some points of resemblance, above all, by his distaste for science
 
 92 Paul's Reign. 
 
 and his rudeness." Of his two sons, Constantine was always 
 Paul's favourite, not being regarded as a rival ; and Masson 
 asserts that Alexander was ever treated coldly by his father, 
 on account of Catherine's intentions in his favour. " He per- 
 forms what his father exacts of him, more from obedience 
 than inclination. The Emperor surrounds him with officers of 
 whom he believes himself sure, and Alexander must fear him 
 rather than love him. His beauty and moral purity inspire a 
 sort of admiration. The soldier adores him for his benevolence ; 
 the officer admires him for his sense ; he is the mediator 
 between the autocrat and the unfortunate people who, for 
 trifles, have provoked the Imperial anger."* 
 
 From five A.M. till the evening meetings in the palace, 
 Alexander's time was now filled with incessant military duties 
 and the occupations entailed by bis new post ; considerably in 
 advance of his time, he tried to show that the soldier could be 
 trained without the stick, and forbade it to be used on the men 
 under his command. Desertion was frequent in other regi- 
 ments, for the first time in the Russian annals, on account of 
 the new uniform, and it was like a thunderclap to all Russia 
 when Suvorov, the victor in a hundred battles, was banished 
 to his estates. 
 
 This old man, a relative of the Imperial family, being the 
 great grandson of a sisterf of Peter the Great, entered the 
 army in the reign of Elizabeth, when only twelve years old, 
 and was in active service from that period, with merely an 
 occasional brief intermission when he was suffering from 
 wounds. With an army seldom exceeding 10,000 men, he 
 had never known defeat ; and he spent his pay on them, except 
 just sufficient to keep him in the barest necessities of life. He 
 
 * Masson's Secret Memoirs. As the author wrote under great irrita- 
 tion, some of his statements are not worthy of credit. Paul sent for a 
 copy of the book, and, Masson flattered himself, made some useful altera- 
 tions in consequence, but it is supposed to have irritated him against 
 Alexander. 
 
 Writing a year later, when Alexander was Emperor, Masson says, 
 " They show in the Museum at St. Petersburg a wax figure of Peter I. of 
 striking resemblance and beauty. It has much in common with the young 
 Emperor, his elevated height and his imposing majesty, his eye, his fore- 
 head, and his complexion; but Alexander's features are softer, more 
 regular, and more amiable. He has also his soul, as we should wish to see 
 it in this century." 
 
 t Mary, daughter of Alexis, privately married a priest, who was exe- 
 cuted for presuming to enter the Imperial family.
 
 Paul's Reign. 93 
 
 never accepted plunder, and was of the most tried integrity ; 
 and though his eccentricities, partly assumed to disarm jealousy, 
 have made his sanity doubted, it is certain that he was the 
 most successful general Russia ever possessed. It was his 
 great wish to meet Napoleon in the field : and if he had lived 
 to command at Austeiiitz, there might have been a very 
 different result. He made a joke about the hair powder and 
 pigtails for the army, and a soldier turned it into a burlesque 
 song. This was enough to irritate so susceptible a prince as 
 Paul, who never liked him, for he supported Catherine in the 
 revolution of 1762 ; and apparently much to Suvorov's astonish- 
 ment, he was deprived of his command. 
 
 At this period the Imperial family, all residing together in 
 the "Winter Palace, nine children, two daughters-in-law, and their 
 parents, presented a domestic picture in striking contrast to 
 Catherine's household ; but every subordinate felt the gloom of 
 its head, who sometimes hid himself to escape from his mother's 
 ghost, which he fancied haunted him, or put his sons, and even 
 his daughters under arrest for as much as a week at a time on 
 bread and water, for some trivial breach of the new formalities, 
 or a slight inattention during the long church services. 
 
 Constantine and his wife spent part of the summer at 
 Strelna, but during the winter were lodged in the Imperial 
 palace. The Grand Duchess Constantine hated Strelna, 
 for there she was subjected without redress to her husband's 
 boyish caprices, and distracted by the constant noise he 
 kept up with his drum. " If the Grand Duke's choice," 
 writes her brother Leopold* (the late King of the Belgians), 
 " had fallen on Antoinetta, the second sister, she would have 
 suited the position wonderfully well. I knew much of all 
 this from Constantine himself. He told me that the Empress- 
 mother looking to the two younger sons, did not wish the 
 ' menages' of the two elder brothers to succeed. He was 
 dreadfully teazing, and to make matters worse, the Grand 
 Duke Alexander and his wife were Julie's great friends, and 
 supported her in their little domestic squabbles. Without 
 the shocking hypocrisy of the Empress-mother, things might 
 have gone on. The Grand Duke admired his wife extremely, 
 and with an amiable husband, generous-hearted as she was, she 
 * See his Kecollections in the Early Days of the Prince Consort.
 
 94 Paul's Reign. 
 
 would have been an excellent wife. She felt nnhappy, and 
 ended without a formal separation by leaving Russia in 1802. 
 He always wished for a reconciliation, and went with me in 
 January, 1814, to Elfenav, near Berne ; but she could not bring 
 herself to consent to this reconciliation. The consequence 
 was finally a divorce, much approved by the Empress-mother." 
 
 No one could have filled her difficult position at Gateschina 
 with more good sense or amiability, but now ambition and a 
 desire to mix in public affairs took the place of the Empress's 
 better qualities, and having been her husband's sole consoler 
 during many years, she was jealous whenever Alexander in- 
 fluenced him, and systematically opposed it. Paul founded 
 a hospital for old soldiers in St. Petersburg, and also some 
 schools, which he placed under her superintendence, as well as 
 a periodical distribution of food to the poor. He was very 
 liberal in granting pensions, and she made it her task to find 
 out deserving objects. This charitable employment gained her 
 some popularity, and she seemed to have no wish to renew the 
 brilliancy of Catherine's Court, but quietly sought to form a 
 party for herself. Her patriotic sympathies were centred in 
 Germany, where her family were expelled by the French from 
 her old home at Montbeliard, and she assisted the English 
 ambassador to urge Paul to take an active part in the war. 
 
 Catherine's last financial measure was to double the value 
 of the coin by altering the sum imprinted on it, and also to 
 double the paper money to a ruinous extent. She died two 
 months before the new issue was to be circulated, and Paul 
 caused six millions of assignats to be publicly burned in the hope 
 of raising the national credit, and ordered most of the Imperial 
 plate to be melted up and put into the mint. He created 
 universal dissatisfaction by augmenting the taxes, and yet 
 lavished immense sums on the French emigrant nobility who 
 now flocked to Russia. The old Prince de Conde, who had 
 feted him sumptuously at Chantilly, was accommodated in the 
 Czernichef Palace at St. Petersburg, and supplied with a 
 royal guard; all the expenses of his retinue were paid, and 
 Alexander and Constantino were ordered to treat him with the 
 deference usually only paid to kings. The Prince of Tarentum 
 received an office in the Court, and lived there till 1815. 
 The Comte de Blacas, the Duke de Broglie. Damas, Torcy, La
 
 Paul's Eeign. 95 
 
 Garde, La Maisonfort, Rastignac, the Duke de Polignac, the 
 Chevalier Augarde, and many others of the last adherents of 
 Louis XVI., came to settle in Russia; and the Order of 
 Jesuits, suppressed by the republicans and protected by 
 Catherine, was allowed to increase its establishments in the 
 empire, and received the rest of its property from France. 
 
 The brother of Louis XVI. since the death of the Dauphin 
 was acknowledged by Russia as Louis XVIII. of France, and 
 he had resided in Verona till the approach of Napoleon's vic- 
 torious army in 1796 obliged him to seek another retreat. 
 Paul offered him the palace of the Dukes of Courland, at 
 Mittau, which he gladly accepted, with a pension of 200,000 
 silver roubles, equal to nearly 25,000/. a year. Paul also 
 pensioned his retinue ; but afraid lest the irreligion and frivo- 
 lity of the French emigrants should corrupt his own people, 
 he required those who were particularly notorious to receive 
 the special ministrations of their own clergy with the object 
 of converting them from their evil ways ; and this put some 
 check on the immigration. Madame Royale, the only sur- 
 vivor of the prisoners of the Temple, had been exchanged for 
 several French captured officers by her relative the Emperor of 
 Austria, but was against her will detained at Vienna, and 
 efforts made to induce her to marry an Austrian Archduke. 
 Paul sent a message to Louis to ask if there was any request 
 he could grant him when he first set his foot on Russian soil, 
 and on Louis saying that the society of his niece was now 
 all he could desire, the Czar returned him this laconic reply : 
 " Sire and brother, Madame Royale shall be restored to you, 
 or I shall cease to be Paul I." 
 
 The Czar accordingly wrote to the Emperor of Austria, and 
 his demand was so energetically worded that to have refused 
 it would have been equivalent to war. The Princess was sent 
 from Vienna to Mittau, where she arrived June 4th, 1799, 
 and her marriage with the Due d'Angouleme, arranged in their 
 childhood, was concluded in the chapel of the castle, the Abbe 
 Edgeworth and the Cardinal de Montmorency performing the 
 service, assisted by the Greek and Lutheran ministers of 
 Mittau. The Czar signed the marriage contract, and sent a 
 handsome present to the bride. 
 
 While Paul displayed so much sympathy with the French
 
 96 Paul's Reign. 
 
 Royalists, far more than Louis's relatives in Austria, Sardinia, 
 and Spain, and had never acknowledged the government of 
 the republic, it was natural that the allied nations who had 
 taken up arms against France should spare no pains to per- 
 suade him to join actively in the war. Sir Charles Whit- 
 Avorth, the English ambassador, had particular instructions to 
 this effect, but it was not till the end of the year 1798 that 
 he could be induced to turn from his peaceful policy, in which 
 Alexander warmly supported him, for not even the presence of 
 the Royalist exiles had made the Prince forego his prejudices 
 in favour of the Liberals of France. But Paul was touched 
 by the mournful appeal of the Queen of Naples (who was 
 aunt to the Emperor of Austria, and sister to the unfortu- 
 nate Marie Antoinette). Her youngest son had lately died 
 from the suffering entailed by the rough voyage the Royal 
 family experienced on its flight into Sicily, where their only 
 safety seemed to depend on the English fleet. The Nea- 
 politan territory was distracted by republican commotions, 
 and when their king retreated, the leaders received the French 
 with open arms. Joseph Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon, 
 was sent as French ambassador to Rome, with secret orders to 
 promote the same disloyal and irreligious feeling in the 
 Eternal City; " and if the Pope dies," added his brother, " to 
 try and bring about a revolution/^ The King of Sardinia 
 also appealed to the Czar, as his States were seized to form 
 the Cisalpine Republic. The British Government at the 
 same time renewed its application, and offered an advance of 
 225,000/., besides a monthly subsidy of 75,000^., if Russia would 
 enter the alliance. Paul was easily flattered, and here all his 
 sentiments were touched, of chivalry, policy, and religion, with 
 the chief difficulty, that of finances, partly annulled. He 
 therefore concluded a treaty of alliance, offensive and defen- 
 sive, with Great Britain to put a stop to the further encroach- 
 ments of France. By this treaty Russia engaged to permit 
 an auxiliary force to act with the British army in the North 
 of Germany, and at the same time promised to assist Austria 
 with 40,000 men in restoring the Italian kingdoms and prin- 
 cipalities, and her own influence over Lombardy. Paul fully 
 expected to draw Prussia into the alliance, but at the last 
 * Napoleon's Correspondence with King Joseph.
 
 Paul's Eeign. 97 
 
 moment the young king, Frederick William III V positively 
 declined to take up arms, and evidently intended to remain per- 
 manently at peace with the French republic, for he permitted 
 Louis Bonaparte, who was accredited to his Court, to examine 
 all the fortresses in West Prussia, and take notes and drawings 
 of their extent and capabilities, which information Napoleon 
 afterwards turned to account. Paul declared war against 
 Spain, because she chose this moment to make peace with 
 France ; but it only resulted in both countries withdrawing 
 their ministers. The King of Spain had also refused to ac- 
 knowledge PauFs title to the Grand Mastership of the Knights 
 of St. John of Malta, when he was elected by a Chapter of the 
 Knights, who deposed their former Grand Master, Hompesch, 
 as soon as they heard that the island was surrendered to the 
 French fleet on its way to Egypt. When Paul ascended the 
 throne he restored the Grand Priorate of Poland and con- 
 siderably increased its revenues, distributing pensions, grand 
 crosses, and the knightly dignities with a liberal hand. The 
 Order, which had fallen from its original purpose of converting 
 the infidels to a splendid asylum for the younger sons of the 
 noble families of the Roman Catholic States in Europe, felt its 
 independence threatened by the contending navies of England 
 and France, and oifered to sell the island of Malta to either 
 France or Russia, only waiting to see which would offer the 
 highest price. The appearance of the French fleet decided the 
 question, and Hompesch gave it up for 600,000 francs and a 
 principality in Germany, and a pension of 700 francs per annum 
 to each of the knights. Hompesch was unpopular in the Order, 
 being a German, and those knights who were not Germans 
 hastened to disavow his act, and requested Paul to fill his 
 place. He was solemnly invested with the dignity by the usual 
 ceremonies, and was more proud of the title of Grand Master 
 of the Order than of Autocrat of Russia. The knights who 
 came to Russia received wealth and estates, and the hope of 
 including the restoration of Malta in the future conditions of 
 peace was his only direct personal interest in the war. 
 
 But of whatever faults Paul may be accused, a keen search 
 for his own advantage was not among them. Though pos- 
 sessing martial tastes, he had hitherto resisted the overtures cf 
 Great Britain, and refused the subsidy Catherine was willing 
 
 VOL. i. - H
 
 98 Paul's Eeign. 
 
 to accept, because he said " it ill became a great nation to 
 make herself the pensioner of an ally." He declared that 
 the part of a mediator was far greater than that of leading a 
 successful war. " In whatever light and in whatever circum- 
 stances I view an Emperor of Russia, his noblest part will 
 always be that of a pacificator." He had been only persuaded 
 by an overpowering feeling of duty to take up arms, and 
 having done so he had no idea of being lukewarm in the cause, 
 but plunged into it with all the vehemence of his character. 
 
 This is not the place to inquire into the wisdom or justice 
 of the long hostilities which Great Britain waged against repub- 
 lican France. It is enough that it was a grand mistake on 
 the part of Russia. It involved her for the next fifteen years 
 in the selfish disputes of the Continent, whereas it would have 
 been clearly her interest to have kept out of them, for she had 
 nothing to fear from French encroachments, and her Imperial 
 family were not at that time even connected by marriage with 
 either of the belligerent States. Russia could afford to look 
 with profound indifference at the quarrels of other nations, 
 and the more they weakened themselves by their divisions the 
 stronger and more formidable she would be. This is a truth 
 recognised by the government of Alexander II. ; but in the 
 days of his grandfather there was a feeling among princes 
 that they ought to support each other when seriously menaced, 
 and Great Britain was the most active in theory in carrying 
 this principle into effect ; but she gained much, on the whole, 
 by this campaign in the acquisition of Malta and valuable 
 colonial possessions in the East, while her navy enriched itself 
 with innumerable prizes at sea. It cost her less to pay other 
 nations to come forward in the field than to land forces suffi- 
 cient to make any real demonstration on the Continent ; for 
 in the expedition to Holland alone, a German contractor for 
 a part of the provisions of the army realized a fortune of 
 500,000/., with which he settled down on a fine estate in 
 Prussia, and obtained a title of nobility ; and a British army 
 is put on a war footing at all times at a far greater expense 
 than the armies abroad. But if the struggle had been prose- 
 cuted by all parties with real vigour, the result of 1814 might 
 have been attained in 1799, and an untold amount of blood 
 and treasure preserved to Europe.
 
 PauTs Reign. 99 
 
 Though the force of circumstances may occasionally make 
 Russia pursue a different course, as a rule she follows the same 
 line of policy from one generation to another : an Emperor 
 takes up the thread of his father's administration of public 
 affairs when he inherits his throne, and it is probably this 
 unity of purpose which has enabled her to overcome the 
 fearful reverses she has encountered during the present 
 century ; and yet her seventy populations remain as strongly 
 united, and her power of foreign intercession for good or evil 
 as formidable and as much dreaded as before. Paul entered 
 upon this, his first campaign,* with the same high objects in 
 view as his son afterwards held when he entered captured 
 Paris. The whole order of things swept away by the French 
 republicans was to be restored ; the integrity of the German 
 empire, Naples, Bavaria, and Sardinia guaranteed ; and he 
 hoped to form a permanent league for the suppression of 
 anarchy and democratic principles among the sovereigns of 
 Europe, that all future wars might be prevented and a lasting 
 peace established on the earth. He went further, and proposed 
 that an oecumenical council should be convoked for the settle- 
 ment of religious differences, in order to prepare the way for 
 the union of all forms of Christianity in one* common bond 
 for the preservation of the true faith. The Eastern and 
 Western Churches might join hands once more, and hold out 
 offers of conciliation to the Protestants, which spectacle of 
 unanimity, he declared, would do more to convert Mahometans 
 and confuse the followers of Voltaire than any amount of 
 material victories. But these visionary schemes were not at 
 all shared by his allies, and the inclination of Austria to ap- 
 propriate a portion of the recovered Sardinian territory gave 
 rise to an early dispute between the two empires. 
 
 Suvorov was sixty-nine, yet still the Russian army looked 
 to him as its undoubted leader in the war. Paul sent a letter 
 to recall him from exile, but the irritable old veteran, when 
 he read the direction, " Field-Marshal Alexander Bazilovitz 
 Suvorov," refused persistently to take it, declaring it could 
 not be msant for him, as a field -marshal would be at the head 
 
 * Kostopchine, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, was greatly averse to 
 this war, but the united solicitations of England, Austria, Naples, Sar- 
 dinia, and Louis XVIII. triumphed over his influence with his master. 
 
 H 2
 
 100 PauVs Reign. 
 
 of his troops, and not vegetating on a remote estate. The 
 messenger brought it back to the Czar, who took no other 
 notice than to appoint General Rosenberg to the command. 
 When the Russian army approached Vienna, the sovereigns of 
 Austria came to meet it, but expressed great concern on finding 
 that instead of the renowned conqueror whom they confi- 
 dently expected to see, its chief was an obscure officer whose 
 name they had never heard. Francis II. wrote to Paul, en- 
 treating him to send Suvorov ; so the Czar wrote a second letter 
 to the field-marshal, directed to " my faithful subject Suvorov." 
 As soon as Suvorov saw the letter he kissed it and pressed it 
 to his heart, saying, " This is indeed new life to me," and read 
 the contents in Paul's own hand : " I have resolved to send 
 you into Italy to the assistance of his Majesty the King, my 
 brother and ally. Suvorov has no need of triumphs or laurels, 
 but my country has need of him, and my wishes agree with 
 those of Francis, who has conferred upon you the command of 
 his Italian army, and begs you to accept that dignity. It 
 depends on Suvorov alone to satisfy the hopes of his country 
 and the desire of his Emperor. PAUL."* The delighted old 
 man drove day and night to St. Petersburg ; and when he 
 arrived, and wa's summoned to an audience, entered the throne- 
 room on his hands and knees. The Emperor angrily inquired 
 what he meant. " Sire," he answered, " I am accustomed to 
 the firm ground of the battle-field, and the floors of Imperial 
 palaces are so slippery, that it is only by crouching one can 
 make one's way." Paul saw what he implied, but kept his 
 temper, and told him a council of generals would assist him 
 in forming a plan for the campaign. 
 
 Suvorov listened without a word while the council proposed 
 his march across the Tyrol, and then into the Lombard plains, 
 but at intervals he drew off his boots, bounded up in the air, 
 or in a tone of despair exclaimed, " I am sinking, I am 
 sinking." The Emperor at last dismissed the council, but kept 
 
 * Paul's letters were always very brief compositions. In 1801 he dis- 
 missed Prince Dashkov from the army for openly expressing his belief in. 
 the innocence of a prisoner, in the following note : " As you meddle with 
 things which do not concern you, you are hereby dismissed from your 
 command. PAUL." To the Princess Dashkov he also wrote the previous 
 year: "Princess Catherine Romanovna. As you are desirous of return- 
 ing to your estate in the government of Kaluga you are at liberty to do 
 so. I remain your well wisher and very affectionate PAUL."
 
 Paul's Reign. 101 
 
 Suvorov, and asked him the motive for his conduct. " Sire," 
 said Suvorov, " these generals know nothing of Italy. I followed 
 the road they traced for my army. When I jumped like a 
 chamois, they took me over mountains where chamois alone 
 could climb ; when I took off my boots we were crossing 
 rivers where the water, being up to our knees, would soon 
 have been over our heads. Lastly, when I cried, c I am sink- 
 ing, I am sinking/ they led my artillery into marshes which 
 must swallow us all up." " Then never mind their advice," 
 said the Emperor. " I give you full powers." 
 
 But when Suvorov arrived at Vienna he found more diffi- 
 culty with the Austrian council of war than with his own 
 sovereign. He was commander-in-chief of both armies, and 
 the council expected to direct his operations as well as those 
 of the Austrians. Francis asked for his plan. " I never make 
 any," he answered. " At the time, position and circumstances 
 decide me/' " But you must have some idea of the campaign," 
 the Emperor answered. " If I had, sire," said Suvorov, " 1 
 should not tell it to you. The whole army would know it 
 to-night, and the enemy to-morrow." 
 
 Although Paul refused to adopt the improved modern artillery 
 in his armies, and the Russians were greatly inconvenienced by 
 their new uniform and accoutrements, Suvorov swept the French 
 out of Lombardy and Piedmont in three months by a series of 
 glorious victories, and it was his purpose to penetrate into France 
 by the Jura in concert with the Archduke Charles, the 
 Emperor's brother, who commanded the Austrian detachments. 
 Constantine accompanied the Russian army as one of Suvorov's 
 aides-de-camp, and was mentioned in high terms in the Mar- 
 shal's despatches. He showed great humanity to the wounded 
 French prisoners, and in one of the engagements received a 
 slight wound. Paul showered rewards and promotions on the 
 officers of the victorious army, and in a ukaz commanding that 
 Suvorov should be considered the greatest general who had 
 ever appeared, he gave him the title of Prince Italski (or of 
 Italy), and Constantine was dignified with that of Czarovitz, 
 generally only given to the heir-apparent. 
 
 But this rapid success gained over three French armies gave 
 the Austrians more jealousy than patriotic joy, and they began 
 to be afraid lest Russia should acquire a permanent settlement
 
 102 Paul's Reign. 
 
 beyond the Alps, or prevent them from retaining the conquered 
 territory. Suvorov had defeated the French without adopting 
 the plans of the Austrian council of war, and the Archduke 
 Charles was not superior to the meanness of grudging him his 
 victories, but when writing to him omitted his new title, or to 
 address him in the quality of commander- in-chief of the allied 
 troops. " Very strong and unpleasant language," writes Mr. 
 Wickham, the British Resident at Berne, " is openly holden on 
 the subject ; letters from the (Austrian) army affect sometimes 
 to treat him as a madman, at others to throw ridicule upon 
 his whole conduct, and to consider his military operations, 
 notwithstanding their success, as wild and extravagant projects/' 
 Nothing is more ruinous in the end than only half finished 
 wars, but the Austrians thought it enough to have cleared their 
 own States of the invader, and to possess Piedmont and Turin, 
 which they refused to restore to the Sardinian King. They 
 tried to induce Paul to consent to this arrangement by pro- 
 posing to make it into an independent State for the Archduke 
 Joseph, the Palatine of Hungary, one of the Emperor's 
 brothers, who had lately married the Grand Duchess Alex- 
 andra, the Czar's eldest daughter ; but when they found he 
 still adhered to his guarantees, and to his wish to prosecute 
 the war with vigour till his end was attained, the Austrian 
 council decided to get rid of Suvorov by sending him to occupy 
 Switzerland (the Russians being utterly unaccustomed to 
 mountain warfare), and to despatch in their place the corps of 
 the Archduke, which was stationed among the Alps, on to 
 the Rhine ; to form a junction with the English and Russian 
 army, expected to advance through Holland. A third Russian 
 army was gathered and forwarded to Zurich under Korsakof, a 
 former favourite of Catherine's ; and Bavaria received a sub- 
 sidy from Russia to supply this army with a contingent of a 
 thousand men. 
 
 The defeats of Macdonald, Moreau, and Joubert in the 
 victories of Novi. the Trebbia, the passage of the Adda, and the 
 capture of Milan and Turin deserve more space than they 
 can receive here, and Austria had as much reason to be 
 satisfied with her allies as Paul to be elated at the success of 
 his troops ; but the Austrians began by being accomplices with 
 the French aggressor in the annexation of Venice, and they
 
 Paul's Reign. 103 
 
 were now resolved to consolidate and extend their power in 
 Northern Italy. A letter from a Russian officer to Count 
 Rostopchine, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, gives the feeling 
 of the whole Russian army. " Our glorious operations are 
 thwarted by those very persons most interested in their 
 success. Far from applauding the brilliant triumph of our 
 arms, the cursed Cabinet of Vienna only seeks to retard their 
 march. It insists that Suvorov should divide his army, and 
 direct it to several points, which will save Moreau from total 
 destruction. That Cabinet which fears a too rapid conquest 
 of Italy from designs it dares not avow, as it knows well 
 those of our magnanimous Emperor, has forced the Archduke 
 Charles into a state of inactivity, and enjoined our general 
 to secure his conquests rather than extend them; and the 
 army is to waste its time and strength in the siege of fortresses, 
 which would fall of themselves if the French army were 
 destroyed. What terrifies them even more than the rapidity 
 of our conquests is the generous project openly announced of 
 restoring to every one what he has lost. Deceived by his 
 ministers, the Emperior Francis has with his own hand written 
 to our illustrious general to pause in a career of conquest 
 which fills him with alarm." 
 
 Suvorov, accustomed to a soldier's obedience, followed out 
 the Austrian Imperial order, and detached a powerful train 
 of artillery and considerable reinforcements, besides stores, 
 to assist in the sieges of Mantua and Alessandria, which were 
 both quickly reduced ; and after the battle of Novi he proceeded 
 towards the pass of St. Gothard, and speedily expelled the 
 French from the whole valley of the Reuss. His army was 
 at this time reduced to 12,000 men, and the French were 
 numerous near Zurich, where Korsakof most imprudently gave 
 them battle with a very inferior force, and was disabled by 
 defeat from assisting his chief. The Austrian corps under 
 Jellachich and Lucken was to meet Suvorov in the valley of 
 Mutten, that both might threaten the enemy on the right ; 
 but while Suvorov faithfully performed his part of the campaign 
 amid innumerable difficulties, neither of these reinforcements 
 kept the appointment, by the express but secret orders of the 
 Austrian council. He found himself shut in between the 
 French armies of Massena and Molitor, and only two outlets
 
 104 Pauls Reign. 
 
 remained for him one by advancing to Schwyz, and threatening 
 the rear of the French position at Zurich ; the other by an 
 immediate retreat into Glarus and the Grisons, to join Jel- 
 lachich's army, retired behind the Rhine. The Field-Marshal- 
 had never retreated, and selected the first course, but his offi- 
 cers, with CoKstantine among them, represented the impossi- 
 bility of making any effect with their reduced and starving 
 infantry on the reinvigorated French troops ; and Suvorov 
 was induced to alter his plan, though he wept with disappoint- 
 ment and indignation, wishing the grave had covered him 
 before he was forced to go back on his footsteps. 
 
 This retreat was so admirably conducted, over rivers, glaciers, 
 and precipices, and though harassed perpetually by the enemy, 
 who hoped to secure an Imperial prince as their prisoner, was 
 carried out so successfully, the columns halting more than once 
 to give battle and drive back the French, when they carried 
 off 4000 prisoners, that military critics consider it a greater 
 proof of skill and daring than many an important victory. 
 The French had drained Switzerland of provisions and money, 
 and in one district alone massacred 2000 peasants, though 
 they entered it professedly as her allies ; and the Russians were 
 supplied with neither bridges to ford the torrents, nor any of 
 the requisitions of mountain warfare, and were dependent on 
 the frugal peasantry for their provisions, too often imitating 
 the French army in taking them by force. Heavy falls of snow 
 impeded their progress,, and the rocks over which they passed 
 were bare of wood, so that many of the soldiers died of cold, 
 and the others slept without covering or fire on the newly- 
 fallen snow. They might well suspect the Austrians of treachery 
 when they lured them into those defiles, as they had already 
 discovered their hidden motives in the war; and it was in no ami- 
 able frame of mixid towards them that the remnant of Suvorov's 
 army reached a place of safety at Ilanz, in the valley of the 
 Rhine. Nevertheless, he proposed to the Archduke Charles 
 that they should unite to resume offensive operations in a 
 quarter where they seemed likely to make an impression on the 
 French, who had not followed up their victory at Zurich, but 
 the Archduke sent an entire alteration of his plan, again trans- 
 ferring the Russians to the Swiss valleys ; and Suvorov, annoyed 
 at this conduct from one so much his junior, answered that his
 
 Pauls Reign. 105 
 
 troops were not adapted for any further operations in the 
 mountains, and took them into winter quarters in Bavaria. A 
 letter to Constantine from his mother, containing several family 
 details, was intercepted ; but La Harpe, his old tutor, who held 
 office in Switzerland, sent it back to him, with an earnest 
 appeal to listen to the sentiments of peace and humanity, 
 reminding him that in his childhood he loved to hear stories 
 about this country, now so severely punished. Constantine 
 softened, and horror-struck by the losses in the late retreat, 
 loudly accused the Austrians and the Archduke of being the 
 cause, and was unwilling to fire another shot for their advan- 
 tage. The toils and hardships falling equally on officers and 
 men, and the distress of hearing of Korsakof's defeat, com- 
 pletely upset the worn and aged Suvorov, and he fell seriously 
 ill as soon as he reached his winter quarters, showing symptoms 
 of a failing mind. In this condition Constantine easily influenced 
 him. " Nothing is more just," writes Mr. Wickham,* " than 
 Suvorov's way of seeing things, but he is no longer the master ; 
 and we have lately abundant proof that his resolution and 
 
 firmness is no longer unshaken as it used to be The 
 
 Austrian Cabinet having turned a deaf ear to the necessity of 
 really repelling the French, have begun to think of doing it in 
 
 earnest when too late His Imperial Highness," he 
 
 writes, October 31st, 1799, " is the cause of all this. His 
 ascendency over the Marshal is now so visible as to be notori- 
 ous to the whole army ; as a natural consequence all applica- 
 tions for favours are made to him rather than to the Marshal, 
 and every bad counsel which the Marshal receives either comes 
 directly from him or by his authority. His Imperial Pliglmess 
 takes no pains whatever to conceal his personal jealousy of the 
 Archduke Charles, of whose character and military conduct he 
 talks with the greatest contempt even before the Austrian 
 staff-officers, and this sort of conversation is repeated by the 
 Russian officers, who hold a language on the occasion which 
 leaves no doubt but that his Imperial Highness aspires to the 
 command of the army, and is taking measures to gain the 
 voice of the army in his favour. I am sorry to add that his 
 Imperial Highnesses personal character and conduct is in many 
 other respects such as to give the greatest pain to the friends 
 * Wickham's Diary and Correspondence.
 
 ] 06 Paul's Reign. 
 
 of his illustrious house. Among many other unpleasant facts 
 known to the whole Austrian army, and repeated on every 
 occasion, I will only mention his having corporal punishment 
 inflicted for the most trifling offences on the soldiers and on 
 the peasants in his own presence, often in his own apartments, 
 and not unfrequently with his own hand/" Count Voronzov, 
 he adds, was much distressed at the state of things, and fully 
 determined to press for his own immediate recall, " unless the 
 Grand Duke was removed from the army, and the whole head- 
 quarters assumed a condition and appearance more suitable to 
 the manners and customs of a civilized country/' 
 
 The Russian army of 17,000 men, intended to co-operate 
 in Holland, was conveyed by British vessels from Riga, and 
 at Alkmaar joined an English army of 18,000 under the Duke 
 of York (the second son of George III.), who assumed the 
 chief command. This Prince was indolent and inexperienced, 
 and his habits perfectly unsuited to a campaign. He sat 
 drinking with a brilliant staff far into every night, and was not 
 up and dressed till towards twelve in the day. 
 
 In the first battle, September 19th, the Russians led the 
 advance, drove back the French General Vandamme, and cap- 
 tured Schorldam and Bergen, but they were not supported 
 with equal ardour by the British, who left time for French 
 reinforcements to come up, oil which the Russians were re- 
 pulsed and their General Hermann taken prisoner. Two more 
 battles were fought giving a barren victory and heavy loss to 
 the Allies, but in the end the Duke of York determined on a 
 retreat, and concluded an agreement with the French to 
 evacuate Holland before December 1st, but neglected to pro- 
 vide for the exchange of the Russian wounded and prisoners, 
 who were left in the hands of the French, and despatched the 
 remainder of their contingent to Guernsey and Jersey to be 
 occupied in garrison duty, as if they were hired mercenaries. 
 The British Government proposed to employ them against the 
 rebels in Ireland, but it needed not what he considered as this 
 additional insult to disgust Paul entirely with his allies. The 
 news of Suvorov's retreat, and Korsakof s defeat, and that his 
 armies were reduced to little more than prisoners and invalids, 
 while in spite of a series of victories they had not attained 
 the objects of the war, had already excited the Czar to a state
 
 Paul's Reign. 107 
 
 of frenzy, and he commanded the survivors to return instantly 
 to Russia, and cashiered every officer who was a prisoner in 
 France. He afterwards reversed this decree on Constantine 
 representing that the Austrians were entirely to blame, and 
 then his wrath fell upon Suvorov for not having early informed 
 him of the deceptive policy of the Court of Vienna and pre- 
 vented the Russian armies from being needlessly sacrificed. 
 When he first heard of the Marshal's illness, he sent a kind 
 message and his own physician to attend on him, saying that 
 rooms were prepared for him in the Winter Palace. Suvorov 
 pleaded his health as a reason for remaining at his post, but 
 hearing that Paul was highly displeased, he set off for St. 
 Petersburg. On reaching Riga by forced marches with great 
 difficulty and pain, he was informed that the Emperor had not 
 only deprived him of his well-earned honours, but had cashiered 
 his only son, and ordered the elder Suvorov's disgrace to be 
 officially proclaimed at the head of every regiment in the ser- 
 vice. This quite broke the old man's heart, and he retired 
 into an obscure lodging in St. Petersburg to die. Even his 
 daughter could not visit him, for she was in Moscow, her hus- 
 band, Nicholas Zoubof, being in disgrace ; but Alexander and 
 Constantine obtained permission to do so, and they were with 
 him when he expired (May 18th, 1800). During his last 
 moments he lamented over the change in the empire since 
 Catherine's death, and drew a comparison between her reign 
 and that of her son. Paul hearing he was actually near his 
 end, sent to offer to do anything for him. Suvorov raised 
 himself up to expatiate again on the past lustre and the pre- 
 sent decline of Russia, and broke out into a passionate as- 
 surance of his attachment to the memory of the Empress. " I 
 was only a soldier," said he, " and she felt the inclination I 
 had to serve her. I owe her more than life ; she has given 
 me the means of making it illustrious. Tell her son I receive 
 with gratitude his Imperial word. Here is the portrait of 
 Catherine ; I ask that it may be buried with me in my tomb, 
 and remain for ever attached to my heart." Paul complied 
 with his wish, but vexed at Suvorov's disparaging remarks on 
 his reign to his sons, would not let them attend his funeral, 
 though he went himself to it on horseback, heading a large 
 detachment of troops. Very soon he bitterly repented of his
 
 108 Paul's Reign. 
 
 ingratitude to the Marshal. He restored young Arcadius 
 Suvorov to all his honours, and Nicholas Zoubof to his com- 
 mand. He bestowed estates and pensions on several officers to 
 whom Suvorov, when his mind was wandering, bequeathed 
 money and lands he did not really possess, and gave orders 
 for a colossal statue of bronze to be erected to his memory in 
 the summer gardens. This was completed in the first year of 
 Alexander's reign, and uncovered in presence of the Imperial 
 family and the soldiers stationed at St. Petersburg, to whom 
 Constantine made a suitable public address. The room in 
 which Suvorov died was so small as scarcely to admit sufficient 
 space for a canopy over the body, and his numerous cushions 
 holding his different orders of knighthood. As his coffin was 
 carried out of the house there was a difficulty in taking it 
 through the narrow doorway, when a voice from the crowd 
 exclaimed, " Bring it through, for what ever stopped Suvorov ?" 
 His old antagonist Stanislaus was interred with regal honours 
 two years before in St. Petersburg, where he expired of apoplexy 
 in the Taurida Palace. He frequently said he felt himself 
 more a king at St. Petersburg than he had ever done in Poland, 
 and Paul, with his sons, attended the magnificent funeral 
 ceremonies. 
 
 One evening when the Emperor was much discontented 
 with a review, he complained bitterly of the want of zeal in his 
 troops, saying that with all the care he had bestowed on them, 
 they were not attached to him. Alexander said he could 
 answer for -the loyalty of the garrison under his orders, whom 
 at any moment he would put to the proof by sending a false 
 alarm. Paul took his son at his word, and ordered him to call 
 to arms that night at one A.M. ; but as his memory was become 
 very bad, and he sometimes wondered at the non-appearance 
 of an officer in the afternoon whom he had sent to Siberia in 
 the morning, Alexander took the precaution to put it down in 
 writing, and made his father sign it. 
 
 The Emperor went to sleep, forgetting all about the false 
 alarm, when at one o'clock the bugle sounded in every quarter, 
 and the troops immediately assembled. The citizens came into 
 the streets, and the houses were quickly lighted up. The palace 
 was soon in confusion, under the belief that there was an insur- 
 rection ; and Paul being roused, ordered a horse to be saddled,
 
 Paul's Reign. 109 
 
 and rode off as fast as possible towards Gateschina, followed 
 by only two of his guard. A moment afterwards, Alexander 
 arrived, to inquire if his father was satisfied, and to announce 
 that the troops were all ready, and only waited his orders. 
 When told that Paul had fled he galloped after him, and soon 
 came near enough for the Czar to hear the sound of his horse's 
 feet, but the fugitive thought he was being pursued by his 
 enemies, and only redoubled his speed. At last Alexander left 
 his suite behind, and followed him alone, when finally coming 
 up with him they had an explanation, and rode back to the 
 palace together. 
 
 Much has been written on the unreasonable measures of 
 this unfortunate prince, yet even Plato Zoubof, who with his 
 brothers was an especial sufferer, his immense fortune being 
 confiscated, then restored, and again seized, and himself 
 banished, said of the Emperor that his acts of tyranny and 
 caprice were perpetrated in paroxysms of delirium, and that 
 when restored to mental health he never failed to try to 
 repair the ruin he had caused.* The Abbe Georgel, who came 
 to Russia with a deputation of the Knights of Malta, writes, 
 " The soul of Paul I., notwithstanding great inequalities, was 
 fine ; he developed genius and virtues which adorn a throne." 
 When informed that the Princess Dashkov was visited by sympa- 
 thizing friends in her exile, he said, " Nothing could be more 
 natural; it is the very time for those who owe her gratitude 
 to display it." He refused to listen to either his wife or to 
 Alexander when they spoke in her behalf; but on a letter 
 from her being sent to him in the hand of his little son 
 Michael, then two years old, he took it with a softening 
 countenance, saying, " You know, ladies, how to plead irresis- 
 
 * Two caricatures appeared at this time. In the first Paid was 
 writing an order with one hand, a counter order with the other, and dis- 
 order was inscribed on his forehead. In the second Peter the Great 
 carried a torch he had just lighted ; Catherine II., with a pair of snuffers, 
 was making it burn brighter ; and Paul, with an extinguisher, was stand- 
 ing ready to put it out. 
 
 " With a brilliant but illogical mind," says Dolgoroukof, " this prince 
 presented the strangest mixture of fine qualities and defects, of noble 
 sentiments and wild desires, of chivalrous flights and fits of the most 
 unbridled despotism. We have already related the deplorable cause 
 which originated the constant vacillation of this otherwise brilliant 
 intelligence, but submitted to the influence of the most nervous and the 
 most irritable temper."
 
 110 Pauls Reign. 
 
 tibly '," and gave it a favourable reply. He cancelled the 
 sentence passed on a woman who had murdered her infant 
 child, saying, that her feelings after committing the deed 
 would be a greater punishment than any the law could inflict. 
 Kotzebue, the German dramatist, was sent to Siberia and 
 recalled before he had gone further then Tobolsk, as some one 
 showed the Emperor a play entitled " The Coachman of Peter 
 III." extolling Paul's liberality in pensioning his father's old 
 servant. On his return he was made director of one of the 
 theatres which the Emperor sometimes attended, if the per- 
 formance did not last more than an hour and a half. A year 
 after Paul's death, Kotzebue met Kutaissof at Konigsberg, 
 and asked him the cause of the arrest, as if anybody knew he 
 must. He answered with unscrupulous frankness that " Paul 
 had acted on no particular motive, but that I had given him 
 offence as an author. However," he added, " you saw how 
 readily and with what pleasure he corrected his error, and if 
 he had lived, you would have received further proofs of his 
 bounty." 
 
 It often happens under such a regime that power falls into 
 the hands of unworthy administrators, who plunder the State, 
 and use the means of justice to wreak their own private malice 
 and keep down informers ; and in the last two years of Paul's 
 reign this was the case with the ex-Georgian slave, Count 
 Kutaissof, and the Court-Advocate, Oboulamof, an officer 
 universally detested.* The old nobility kept aloof from 
 Kutaissof, and would not admit his family into the society of 
 their wives and daughters. He hated them in return with 
 truly Eastern warmth, and through his guidance of his unfortu- 
 nate master completed his revenge. The roads were crowded 
 with carriages and kibitkas conveying all ranks to Siberia, and 
 though a pardon often followed so quickly as to overtake them 
 before they reached the Urals, it did not compensate them for 
 the previous alarm and the loss sustained in disposing of their 
 property in so much haste. Alexander often interfered with 
 success on behalf of these exiles, who regarded him with the 
 warmest gratitude before he came to the throne. " All his 
 servants," writes Kotzebue, " copied their master, and were 
 civil and obliging ;" and he relates that driving near Czarco 
 
 * Kotzebue.
 
 Paul's Reign. Ill 
 
 Selo he met him on horseback, commanding the troops at a 
 review. It was raining, so in defiance of the Imperial mandate 
 Kotzebue did not dismount, but the Prince allowed no notice 
 to be taken of it. Paul read every foreign publication, how- 
 ever virulent, on Russia ; and seeing his son's popularity was 
 noticed, he thought Alexander might be secretly acquiring 
 partizans to assist him in a revolution like that of 1762, and 
 therefore dismissed him from his post of Governor of St. 
 Petersburg, and became less disposed to attend to his requests. 
 As Bezberodko gained the Emperor's confidence by delivering 
 Catherine's will into his hands, he sent Alexander to work in 
 his office as a mere copyist. Bezberodko was notorious for 
 his slovenly habits, and the want of order in the A r arious 
 departments he held under the Emperor, though he liked 
 routine aud wrote with ease. Alexander obtained an insight 
 into the correspondence with foreign governments, and 
 perhaps imbibed at that time the taste he afterwards displayed 
 for the direction of foreign affairs ; but he could have learned 
 nothing more. His mother took advantage of Paul's feeling 
 towards him to try and persuade her husband to select the 
 young Nicholas as his heir, and bequeath to her the dignity 
 of Regent in case of a long minority. She could bring no 
 charge against Alexander, who had been a most attentive 
 son, except Catherine's unjust partiality ; and his deafness, 
 which she thought must unfit him for military duties or 
 for the government of the empire ; and as he was still with- 
 out children, the difficulty would be less in setting him aside. 
 On May 29th, 1799, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth gave birth 
 to a daughter, who was named Mary, after her grandmother, 
 but died while cutting her teeth. The Empress thought of 
 the future of her younger sons, for she feared Russia, like 
 Turkey, was not sufficiently advanced to allow of junior branches 
 to the Imperial family. Even in France they were found a 
 scourge, and in Russia had met with a miserable fate. But 
 when Paul's mind was once unsettled as to his successor, his 
 views went considerably beyond his wife's control, and during 
 the last six months of his life they constantly changed. He 
 took a violent fancy to his wife's nephew, Eugene of Wiirtem- 
 berg, and thought of superseding his own sons by this boy, and 
 marrying him to his fourth daughter, Catherine, though she
 
 112 Pauls Reign. 
 
 was hut twelve years old. It has even been said that he 
 deposited a deed with the Senate to this effect. He also 
 thought of Constantine, and again of Nicholas, whom he 
 created a Prior of Malta on his fourth birthday ; and then of 
 his youngest son Michael, because he was the only child born 
 (February 8th, 1798) after his succession to the throne. Like 
 Peter III. though without the slightest ground he began to 
 mistrust his wife, and one day ordered Rostopchine to prepare 
 an edict to transfer the Empress to the convent of Solovetzkoi, 
 and declare their two youngest sons, Nicholas and Michael, 
 illegitimate. The minister tried to recall him to reason, and a 
 few hours afterwards wrote to him : " Sire, Your orders are 
 being executed, and I am occupied in composing the fatal 
 rescript. God grant you may not be so unfortunate as to 
 sign it, and furnish history with a page covering your whole 
 reign with shame. Heaven has given you everything for the 
 enjoyment of happiness, and for making the entire world 
 participate in it ; but you create for yourself a hell of your 
 present existence, and condemn yourself to it. I am too bold. 
 I expose myself to ruin, but I shall console myself in my dis- 
 grace by having acted in a manner worthy of your benefits and 
 of my honour." 
 
 A few moments afterwards he received a note in the Em- 
 peror's own hand : " You are a plain-spoken man, but you are 
 right. Let it be mentioned no more ; let us forget every 
 trace. Adieu, Signor Rostopchine." 
 
 This was not the only occasion on which Rostopchiue 
 showed himself Paul's true friend. One day the Emperor left 
 the parade-ground, angry because the cloth of the soldiers' uni- 
 forms was of bad quality. He ordered his minister to write 
 that moment to Voronzov, his ambassador in London, and 
 direct him to contract with some English manufacturer to 
 supply the whole Russian army. Rostopchine said such a 
 proceeding would close the native manufactories, and ruin 
 many Russian traders ; but as his observations increased the 
 Emperor's irritation, he sat down and wrote the letter, which 
 Paul read and signed. Rostopchine took his pen again and 
 wrote below the Imperial signature, " Do nothing. He is 
 mad." The Emperor was walking quickly up and down the 
 room ; he suddenly stopped and said : " It appears to me, sir,
 
 Paul's Reign. 113 
 
 you have added your own orders to mine." Rostopchine 
 handed him the letter. The Emperor read it, grew pale, and 
 walked up and down still faster; then at the end of a few 
 moments he threw the letter into the fire, and shook Rostop- 
 chine violently by the hand. " I thank you/' he said ; " you 
 are right. Would to Heaven all my servants resembled you." 
 
 Paul is said at one moment to have been so mistrustful of 
 his own judgment as to have thought of abdicating in favour 
 of Alexander ; but his wife prevented a measure which might 
 have prolonged his days, by her anxiety to be nominated his 
 successor, though she never could induce him to annul formally 
 his new law excluding Imperial widows. He created Rostop- 
 chine a privy councillor, in a long decree enumerating his 
 honours and services ; but the foreign policy this minister ad- 
 vocated had already displeased those in St. Petersburg under 
 the influence of England, who continued the deadly foe of 
 France. The exiled Court at Mittau carried on numerous 
 intrigues to force the Czar into a new war with the French 
 republic, while it annoyed Paul by very ungratefully opposing 
 his nomination to the Grand Mastership of the Order of St. 
 John. Dumouriez was sent to St. Petersburg early in 1800, 
 by Louis XVIII., if possible to communicate personally to the 
 Emperor a plan " of advantage to the common cause, and to 
 the glory of the Czar." Rostopchine advised Paul to send him 
 his conge, but as the general was put to much expense in his 
 journey, the Czar gave him 1000 gold ducats. He entreated 
 Rostopchine to let him at least receive the honour of being 
 admitted to kiss the Emperor's hand, and Rostopchine arranged 
 an audience in the riding- school where the troops were exer- 
 cised in the depth of winter. Paul spoke to him for nearly an 
 hour, and asked him to come there every day, forgetting all 
 about the conge. The next morning he became quite confi- 
 dential, and related in detail his dissatisfaction with the Courts 
 of London and Vienna, whom he considered " dishonest and 
 Machiavelian allies." Dumouriez tried to prove that Russia 
 would be the same if she now turned to republican France. 
 He spoke so ably that Paul desired him to put it down in 
 writing ; and said in a letter he wrote to him the same day, 
 " You ought to be the Monk of France." 
 
 The third day Paul stopped the drums and ordered a silent 
 
 VOL. I. i
 
 114 Paul's Eeign. 
 
 parade, which he gave over to Alexander's direction, and talked 
 for more than an hour with Dumouriez on the dangers of the 
 French Revolution, the faults of the last campaign, and the 
 means of remedying them. At the end he said, " You have 
 inspired me with confidence and esteem. I believe you are 
 attached to my interests. I authorize you to treat with the 
 English minister for the subsidy. I am going to order 
 Rostopchine to give you the necessary authority." But 
 Rostopchine and others of his views, including Alexander, per- 
 suaded Paul to wait till he received a categorical answer from 
 Vienna as to the integrity of Sardinia, which would involve a 
 delay of fifteen days. The answer was unfavourable, and a 
 letter from Rostopchine acquainted Dumouriez with the 
 result by the information, that " the general's presence must 
 now be necessary elsewhere, and that his Majesty found it 
 superfluous at St. Petersburg."* This was followed by Bona- 
 parte's successful endeavour to ingratiate himself with the Czar. 
 It is often stated that at this time Paul was influenced by a 
 young lady of honour, a Mademoiselle Lapukhin, at whose 
 request he created her father a Prince; but the scandal that 
 she occupied the position of a Madame de Pompadour was 
 gratuitous. She amused him because she was musical, and 
 taught him ecclesiastical chants ; and when he was out of 
 humour with his family he used to spend the evening with 
 her, and tell her his dreams. He suspected everybody of being 
 in league against him by turns, and when he began to suspect 
 the Empress, he said he should divorce his wife and marry her, 
 upon which she offered to resign her duties at the Court. 
 The Empress earnestly begged her to remain, and in the year 
 1800 she married Prince Gagarine, and was granted a suite 
 of rooms at Czarco-Selo, as well as those she occupied in 
 the Winter Palace. The Emperor practised chants to be able 
 to celebrate mass, at which he said he had a double right to 
 officiate in virtue of holding the ecclesiastical office of Grand 
 Master of an Order of Monastic Knights, and as head of the 
 Orthodox Greek Church. He announced a day for this ser- 
 vice ; but his old tutor Plato came expressly to St. Peters- 
 burg to prevent the profanation. " Sire/' he exclaimed, " you 
 may not celebrate mass." " And why not," said Paul, " since 
 * Yie de Rostopchine.
 
 Paul's Reign. 115 
 
 Greek priests are married ?" " Yes," replied the archbishop, 
 " but they may only marry once, and your Majesty has been 
 married twice/' The Emperor merely answered, "Ah, you 
 are right that had not occurred to me/' and he returned 
 to the subject no more. 
 
 But the acts which gave the greatest alarm to the nobility 
 were those foreshadowing the emancipation of the serfs, for Paul 
 decreed they should be allowed to work three days in every 
 week for their own profit, and also take the oath of allegiance 
 hitherto exacted only from freemen. This caused much fer- 
 ment throughout the country : the peasants refused to work 
 for their masters or pay their rents, and excited by the dis- 
 affected in the upper class rose in revolt, so that troops were 
 obliged to be employed against them ; at a time when Russia 
 was entangled with either an offensive alliance or hostility 
 with every State in Europe. 
 
 Meanwhile his own family and the Court were daily suf- 
 ferers from the Emperor's increasing irritation, which showed 
 itself in an extensive use of his cane, and even in putting the 
 Empress under arrest. Alexander had long shown the utmost 
 patience in trying to repair his father's errors, and keep him 
 on good terms with his subjects, but now found himself a con- 
 stant object of suspicion, harsh treatment, and arrest. He 
 was a daily witness to misery he could often not relieve ; the 
 crown lands were being alienated to reward plausible, design- 
 ing men, who took advantage of the Emperor's weakness ; the 
 country was exasperated, the finances in a desperate state, 
 and Russia threatened by the nation most capable of doing her 
 harm. Those involved in a conspiracy long afloat for placing 
 the Emperor under restraint took the opportunity of some 
 flagrant instances to point out his evident insanity, and the 
 dangers which consequently beset the empire, to his son, who 
 in the autumn of the year 1800 was a sharer in it. He was 
 placed in a most cruel position between his feelings as a sou 
 and a subject towards the sovereign to whom he was bound 
 by an oath, and his duty towards Russia, who looked to him as 
 a protector, and to the memory of Catherine, who bequeathed 
 to him the care of its renown. But his share in this conspiracy 
 has caused him erroneously to be styled a master in dissimu- 
 lation, and its fatal consequences pursued him through the 
 
 i 2
 
 116 Paul's Reign. 
 
 rest of bis life. At that time Portugal and Denmark afforded 
 instances of a kingdom being governed by a regent, owing to 
 tbe insanity of the reigning sovereigns, and the same was pro- 
 posed and afterwards carried out in England from the age and 
 imbecility of George III. A similar arrangement appears to 
 have been the only course Alexander ever contemplated, though 
 Paul's violence, his restless character and frequent lucid inter- 
 vals, and the numerous precautions he took to protect bimself, 
 made some different means necessary to secure him than were 
 employed with the other mild and comparatively harmless 
 monarchs. Admiral Rivas, the Governor of Cronstadt, and 
 Count Panine were the leaders of the conspiracy, and Panine 
 and Pahlen together undertook to get rid of Rostopchine, 
 whose loyalty was inviolable. A forged letter was shown to 
 Paul purporting to be from Ro>topchine to a conspirator. 
 The Emperor did not believe Rostopchine unfaithful to him, 
 but thought he was trying to ruin his correspondent. He 
 cried out, " Rostopchine is a monster; he wishes to make me 
 the instrument of his private vengeance. Ah well ! it is on 
 him that the weight of it shall fall," and the same day the 
 minister was banished from the Court. He was deprived of 
 all his offices through the influence of the conspirators, and 
 just before March, 1801, he was sent back to his estates. 
 Count Pahlen, the chief cause of his last removal, succeeded to 
 the confidence of the Emperor. 
 
 During the short time Pahlen was in office he acquired 
 the unenviable notoriety of a Brutus, but closed his public 
 career probably a disappointed man, without the wealth which 
 rewarded Potemkin and Orlof, or the power wielded by 
 Menzikof and Munnich and other ministers who had formerly 
 assisted in the transfer of the Imperial crown. He was 
 Governor of Riga in 1782, when Paul, then Grand Duke, and 
 his consort passed through the city on their road from the 
 continent, and saluted them with the honours generally paid 
 to members of the Imperial family, but which they seldom 
 received from men of rank ; and Paul remembered the atten- 
 tion wheu fifteen years afterwards he came to the throne, and 
 immediately sent for Pahlen to St. Petersburg, and made him 
 his aide-de-camp. He was recommended to the Emperor for 
 the office of Director of the Police by Rostopchine, who saw
 
 PaiiCs Reign. 117 
 
 the necessity of an active and decided man at a moment when 
 all were inclined to take advantage of their master's unsettled 
 mind to further their own schemes of ambition or revenge, 
 and he quickly ingratiated himself into the Emperor's favour. 
 At the end of 1799 he succeeded Alexander as Governor of 
 St. Petersburg, and later Rostopchine in the department of 
 Foreign Affairs, with which he combined the office of Postmaster- 
 General, Military Inspector, and Governor-General of Inger- 
 mannland and Livonia. Yet at more than fifty years old, 
 with these extensive powers, and decorated with every Order 
 in the empire, he placed himself at the head of a conspiracy 
 involving great personal risk and perhaps ruin, for he was not 
 one of the original conspirators, but was acquainted with it by 
 Count Panine soon after he first held office. He thought it 
 essential to their safety that Alexander should lend his sanc- 
 tion to the plot, and Panine was intrusted with the charge of 
 bringing him round to their views. Perhaps by that time 
 Alexander regretted that he had not followed out Catherine's 
 will: at any rate the negotiation, which opened very cautiously, 
 succeeded, and in November, 1800, he held many secret inter- 
 views with Panine. To insure concealment they met at night 
 in the connecting galleries of the vaults of the Winter Palace. 
 One evening,* as the Count left his house alone and on foot, 
 he thought he saw a spy following. He walked through 
 several streets to elude him, and at last slipped into one of the 
 entrances to the vaults. He was hastening to the place of 
 rendezvous, dimly lighted by lamps, when a hand was laid on 
 his shoulder, and he felt sure he was in the power of the 
 police ; but he suddenly recognised Alexander, who had been 
 some time waiting for him. The Prince's reluctance to pro- 
 ceed to extremities caused considerable delay in the object of 
 the conspiracy being effected, as without his consent they 
 dared not stir; and the Emperor was at this time engaged in 
 building a fortified castle on the Fontanka, smaller and more 
 easily invested than the Winter Palace. It was agreed to 
 wait till he had begun to inhabit it, and in the mean while the 
 conspirators tried to obtain allies. Panine's banishment to 
 Moscow embarrassed them, but he busied himself there in pre- 
 
 * Bulau's narrative of the conspiracy, published in 1850 at Leipsic. 
 He gives this incident on the authority of Count Panine.
 
 118 Paul's Reign. 
 
 paring the nobility for a change, and Pahlen took his place in 
 St. Petersburg. 
 
 One of Paul's aides-de-camp, General Svetchine, was 
 appointed to a post giving him rooms in the palace, towards 
 the end of 1800. One day Admiral Rivas called to congratu- 
 late him on his promotion, and was most flattering. Count 
 
 (Pahlen) also came, contrary to his usual custom of 
 
 paying visits. He asked the General to come and speak to 
 him on business. When Svetchine went at six o'clock in the 
 evening the house was empty ; except the porter, not even a 
 servant visible. The Count received him with a candle in his 
 hand, showing that he was alone, and led him into an isolated 
 room.* 
 
 " General/' he said, et I have to reveal to you, in your 
 quality of chief of the guard, a plot formed against the 
 Emperor. I am the head of it. Remembering the glorious 
 state of Russia at the death of the Empress, humiliated 
 by seeing her now separated from Europe and without alli- 
 ances, a congress of the most illustrious persons of the nation, 
 seconded by England, propose to overturn a violent and 
 shameful government to put the Grand Duke Alexander, our 
 heir-apparent, on the throne, as his age and sentiments give 
 us every hope. The plan is resolved, the means for its exe- 
 cution are secured, the conspirators numerous. We propose 
 to invest the St. Michael Palace as soon as the Emperor takes 
 possession of it, and ask for his abdication in favour of his 
 son. The Emperor will be constituted a State prisoner, shut 
 up in the fortress, guarded with all the care due to the father 
 of the sovereign ; we cannot, however, answer for accidents in 
 the passage over the river in the season when the ice begins 
 to break, and in the obscurity of the night. We want to 
 know the part you will take in this national event." 
 
 " M. le Comte," answered General Svetchine, " I cannot 
 share the opinion that subjects without other authority than 
 their own have a right to change the order of a government. 
 The death of Charles I. and that of Louis XVI. are assassina- 
 tions crimes of high treason. This is my opinion. For the 
 rest be easy; I shall not betray your confidence to obtain 
 favours by a mean denunciation. Forget, M. le Comte, that 
 
 * Memoires de Madame Svetchine, from MS. of General Svetchine.
 
 Paul's Reign. 119 
 
 I have spoken to you, and look at our conversation as a 
 drearn." A few days afterwards Admiral Rivas came, and 
 asked him what part he should take if there was an insurrec- 
 tion, which was not impossible. " I shall take the side of 
 honour/' said the General, " and adhere to my oath." The 
 Admiral embraced him, and advised him always to remain 
 loyal. Two days later he was named a Senator in the morn- 
 ing, and the same evening dismissed from his post.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ALEXANDER'S ACCESSION. 
 
 18001801. 
 
 THE rapid conquest of Northern Italy in 1796 drew public 
 attention to Napoleon Bonaparte, who led the French 
 army, which particularly distinguished itself by its barbarity arid 
 utter disregard of the rules of civilized war. He had obtained 
 the command of the troops through Barras, an influential 
 member of the French Republican Government, as the price 
 of marrying the widowed Madame de Beauharnais, whose 
 husband perished on the guillotine, and left her with two 
 children and small provision for their maintenance. Barras had 
 taken her into his household, and now wished to provide for 
 her. She was older than Bonaparte, but her fascinating 
 manners were sufficient to gain an ascendency over a man who 
 had no acquaintance with refined female society, and from her 
 superior knowledge he obtained an insight into the customs 
 of a higher class than his previous position had placed within 
 his reach. 
 
 The Republican feeling prevailed so strongly in Italy since 
 the French revolution of 1789, that the Directory of Paris fully 
 expected to find there as many friends as foes, and in placing 
 an Italian at the head of their army they imagined the 
 inhabitants would be more likely to ally themselves with 
 the invaders than if their forces were commanded by a 
 Frenchman. All feeling of loyalty to their dynasties had 
 completely died out in the Italian peninsula, which was divided 
 among sovereigns of foreign origin. The people remembered 
 the glory of the republics, and they looked upon the invasion 
 as the means of restoring them to their ancient independence 
 and position among the nations of Europe; but Napoleon 
 was as false to nationality as to republicanism.* His 
 proclamation to his soldiers incited them with the prospect of 
 
 * According to Las Casas, Napoleon said that his Italian birth was 
 most useful to him in Italy.
 
 Alexanders Accession. 121 
 
 wealth and plunder. Parma and Modena never armed against 
 him., but received the French as friends, and yet they were 
 forced equally with the belligerent States to pay enormous 
 subsidies, and to give up their finest works of art for the 
 embellishment of Paris, though in modern warfare paintings 
 and statuary had been a species of property held sacred by an 
 enemy. As Savoy embraced the cause of the French, the 
 gate of Italy was opened without a troublesome march over 
 the Alps, and the wolves in sheep's clothing admitted without 
 resistance into the fold ; but the spoliation of the churches 
 and the exorbitant exactions raised the inhabitants to defend 
 themselves when too late. Pavia was made over to plunder 
 and massacre for twenty-four hours, and at Lugo, where a 
 French squadron was gallantly defeated, the whole of the male 
 population were put to death. The neutrality or even alliance 
 of Venice was not respected, and by the treaty of Campo 
 Formio, October 3rd, 1797, she was given up with Verona and 
 her continental possessions to Austria, who acknowledged the 
 new Cisalpine Republic formed of the Swiss territory of the 
 Valteline and Lombardy, relinquishing this province as well as 
 Flanders and the boundary of the Rhine, including the great 
 fortress of Mayence, which she made over to France. By 
 this appropriation and exchange, Austria constituted herself 
 an accessory to the French system of annexation, and hence- 
 forward alternately allied herself with the Republic and 
 Napoleon, or with Russia, according as to which alliance 
 seemed to offer her the greatest advantage. She never joined 
 Russia with perfectly good faith, and in the wars of 1805 
 and 1813 was at the same time corresponding with the enemy. 
 That honesty and straightforwardness are in the end the best 
 policy is as true of the negotiations between nations as of 
 the inferior transactions of private life. Though the absence 
 of it at first contributed to Napoleon's success it also caused 
 his ruin, while Austria's fickle and dubious system has been 
 equally iojurious to her interests. 
 
 The Bonapartes were a striving family, assisting each other 
 in adversity, all doing their best to push each other's fortunes, 
 which at one time were rather low. The same spirit adhered 
 to Napoleon throughout his career : the fame and enrichment 
 of himself and his brothers and sisters was the moving spring
 
 122 Alexander s Accession. 
 
 of all his acts, and France, forgetful of his foreign origin, 
 meekly lent herself to the same purpose. As a boy of sixteen, 
 he declared he could never forgive his father, who, though 
 adjutant of the patriot Paoli, permitted the annexation of 
 Corsica to France; but when in 1793 he went back to his 
 home in Ajaccio, and Paoli, hoping to obtain the independence 
 of his country from the French Republic, tried to enlist him 
 in the cause/ he had tasted the delights of Paris, and had 
 wider and more ambitious views than could be realized in so 
 narrow a compass as his native isle. He resisted Paoli's 
 overtures, and offered his sword to the advocates of the French 
 supremacy. He had received his commission in the French 
 army from Louis XVI., but became a republican, as he said 
 himself, because he was poor ; and he was well acquainted with 
 Robespierre and some of the chief actors in the Reign of Terror. 
 Talma the tragedian assisted him with money, and for the sake 
 of a livelihood he once proposed to his schoolfellow Bourrienne 
 that they should hire one or two houses, and let them in 
 lodgings. In 1795 he wished to enter the Turkish service as 
 he had formerly wished to enter that of Russia, but his letter 
 on the subject received no answer, though while he expected 
 one he amused himself with thinking he might eventually 
 become either King of Jerusalem or some province in the 
 East, for to play a part which should attract the notice of the 
 populace and raise his family from obscurity, next to wealth, 
 was his great object of ambition.* 
 
 During the campaign of 1799, when Suvorov swept the 
 French out of Italy, Napoleon headed an army in Egypt, 
 intended as the first stage towards an expedition to India. 
 The massacre of the garrison at Jaffa after they had capitulated 
 on the promise of their lives, the abandonment of his sick and 
 wounded soldiers in Syria merely to hasten home and take 
 advantage of a favourable moment for pushing his fortunes 
 in Paris, are acts at which Suvorov or the Emperor Paul 
 would have recoiled, though both are denounced as cruel 
 by many who profess admiration for the personal character 
 of Bonaparte. The Republican Government had provoked 
 the war with the Allies by seizing Turin and expelling the 
 
 * Tt is said that he also applied to Sir Gilbert Elliott for permission to 
 enter the English service.
 
 Alexander's Accession. 123 
 
 King of Sardinia after the treaty of Campo Formio; and 
 the disasters the French army sustained, enabled Bona- 
 parte's old companions and relations to bring forward his 
 successes in a brilliant contrast (but then he had not been 
 opposed by the Russians under Suvorov). Lucien and Joseph 
 Bonaparte were innueutially situated in Paris, and Bernadotte 
 and Murat, their relations, were willing to espouse his cause. 
 The ex-abbes, Talleyrand and Sieves, also did him good service 
 with the idea that a military dictatorship was necessary for 
 the safety of the republic. 
 
 On November 10th and llth, 1799, there were stormy 
 scenes such as have so often occurred in the French capital; 
 and in a fierce discussion in the Assembly, Napoleon's nerves 
 forsook him, and fearing for his life he came out staggering 
 and stammering among the soldiers whom he had collected to 
 take his part ; but Sieyes, accustomed to these disturbances, 
 reassured him, and in the end he was chosen as First Consul 
 for ten years, with two colleagues, Cambaceres and Lebrun. 
 Though he took an oath for the second time to preserve the 
 republic inviolate, he already thought of destroying it, and 
 chose the Tuileries for his residence because it was a good 
 military position. The first act of the new consulate was to 
 try and make peace with England; the second to conciliate 
 the Emperor of Russia. According to the laws of the old 
 Germanic Confederation, which still existed, the electorates of 
 the Empire were bound to assist in Austria's defence ; yet 
 excepting Bavaria they preserved a strict neutrality during 
 the late campaign, the necessary consequence of the fortresses 
 on the Rhine having been given up to France by the treaty 
 of Campo Formio. The immense secret association existing 
 in Germany in alliance with the French demagogues also 
 admitted Napoleon's armies into the heart of Germany before 
 they discovered he no longer represented republicanism. 
 Austria was therefore left without a continental ally, and 
 ascertained too late that her want of faith had completely 
 alienated Russia. It was not only the Emperor, but Rostop- 
 chine and others in the Cabinet were enraged at her conduct. 
 Paul required, before he consented to renew the alliance, that 
 the Austrian ministry " should answer, without if or but, 
 without circumlocution or reserve, whether or not they would,
 
 124 Alexander's Accession. 
 
 according to the terms of the treaty, restore the Pope and 
 the King of Sardinia to their dominions and sovereignty." 
 Cobentzel, the Austrian minister at St. Petersburg, replied, 
 that if Austria were to give back Piedmont to the King of 
 Sardinia, she must still retain Tortona and Alessandria, and 
 that she never would restore the three legations and Ancoiia. 
 He was forbidden to appear at Court, and shortly afterwards 
 ordered to leave Russia. A notice appeared in the St. 
 Petersburg Gazette, October 15th, 1800, to the effect that 
 " according to advices received it has been made known that 
 the Emperor of Germany intended to send an extraordinary 
 embassy to the Court of his Imperial Majesty to offer excuses 
 for what happened at Ancona, and for this purpose named the 
 Prince of Auersperg as his ambassador. It has not pleased 
 his Imperial Majesty either to accept the embassy or the am- 
 bassador, particularly in the person of the Prince of Auersperg, 
 who, during the journey of her Imperial Highness the Grand 
 Duchess Alexandra Paulovna, allowed himself to offer her 
 several indignities. His Majesty orders that no answer shall 
 be returned to this notification." 
 
 In September of the same year Paul held a conversation 
 with the Danish ambassador, and said that instead of a 
 Congress the Allied Powers should convoke a tournament, and 
 that these sovereigns who had not courage to fight themselves 
 might send their ministers to take their places ; but as the 
 ambassador repeated this conversation, he was ordered to quit 
 the capital within twenty-four hours. The relations between. 
 Denmark and Russia were slightly wavering. An order dated 
 August, 1799, decreed that "clubs and societies having been 
 formed throughout Denmark, on principles similar to those 
 which brought about the revolution in France, we order all 
 Danish ships of war as well as merchantmen, and also all 
 subjects of that kingdom to be strictly forbidden to enter any 
 port in our dominions." 
 
 A notice similar to the one affecting Denmark was set forth 
 with regard to the city of Hamburg, March 21st, 1799, but 
 in November a second appeared stating, that "The city of 
 Hamburg having satisfied our wishes by delivering up to the 
 British minister resident at that place the Irish rebel, 
 Napper Tandy, and his companions, and by sending away cer-
 
 Alexander s Accession. 125 
 
 tain Frenchmen of suspicious character, has merited the return 
 of our goodwill. We therefore forget the past, arid direct 
 that every communication with the town of Hamburg be re- 
 established." 
 
 The Emperor was less rapid in his transition from an 
 alliance to hostility with England than with the continental 
 Powers ; for he admired the character and government of the 
 British people, and particularly the Scotch, and they had 
 steadily adhered to the principles of legitimacy ; but they cer- 
 tainly acted with very little courtesy towards Russia, con- 
 sidering the urgency with which they had pressed her to 
 abandon her peaceful policy, and that the Emperor had 
 invariably fulfilled his part of the compact with his allies. 
 
 At first he even allowed the Russian contingent which had 
 assisted the Duke of York to remain in Guernsey, under the 
 command of Viomenil, a French emigre, to join the English 
 in an expedition against Brittany. But he was exasperated by 
 England's refusal to exchange some of the French, of whom 
 its prisons were full, against an equal number of Russians 
 (who had been taken at Alkmaar) ; for he had allowed the 
 prisoners captured by the Russians in Suvorov's campaign to 
 be returned for Austrians and Sardinians. She also refused 
 to listen to any arrangement respecting the Grand Mastership 
 of the Order of Malta, and showed clearly she meant to secure 
 the island for herself. Bonaparte took advantage of this disa- 
 greement to conciliate the Czar. He offered to send back 
 8000 Russian prisoners newly clothed and armed, and wrote 
 to Count Panine, " that he was unwilling to suffer such brave 
 soldiers as these Russians to remain longer away from their 
 native land." The praise was not ill bestowed ; for these 
 prisoners, though in rags, and set to work on the roads for 
 their maintenance, which was kept just above starvation, 
 refused to sell the medals they had gained under Suvorov, or 
 to accept any bribe to enter the service of France. In the 
 same letter Bonaparte offered to place Malta in the hands of 
 the Czar; and the Russian general Spreugporten, who was 
 sent to France to bring away his countrymen, was to 
 occupy Malta with them till some arrangement was effected. 
 Paul had no idea of annexing the island. He had obtained 
 a promise that in case it capitulated to the English fleet, then
 
 126 Alexanders Accession. 
 
 maintaining a strict blockade, it should be ruled till the conclu- 
 sion of a peace by commissioners appointed by Russia, England, 
 and Naples ; and he supposed it would come to the same thing, 
 and save further loss, by receiving it amicably from France. 
 But Nelson, who commanded the English fleet, cared for his 
 own personal glory and British naval fame more than any 
 political question or the peace of Europe. He had besieged 
 the island for some time, and was determined it should 
 capitulate to himself. He refused to allow the Russians to 
 pass through the blockade, and a few days afterwards it was 
 compelled to surrender. Paul had already named Balli de la 
 Ferrette for his commissioner ; but once having obtained their 
 prize, the English declined to keep to their former engagement, 
 or even to receive a Neapolitan in Malta. They also pre- 
 vented the Russian troops from leaving Guernsey when the 
 Czar ordered them to return ; and induced Viomenil to remain 
 some weeks longer, to prevent Bonaparte from hearing of the 
 difference between the two Powers. Paul was excessively 
 indignant, and ordered Sir Charles Whitworth, the English 
 ambassador, to leave St. Petersburg. Viomenil was taken into 
 the English service, for he dared not re-enter Russia. 
 
 At that moment Louis XVIII/s ambassador, the Comte 
 de Blacas, and many of the French emigrants to St. Peters- 
 burg, made the cause of the Legitimists very unpopular. They 
 received Russian gold, and saw their allies fight their battles, 
 while they danced and courted their neighbours' wives in the 
 capital, utterly unable or disinclined to lend any aid to the cause. 
 Paul had long been disgusted by their irreligion and frivolity ; 
 the very qualities he was striving to stamp out of his empire 
 with such a heavy hand. Rostopchine and Alexander openly 
 expressed their opinion that the young military chief, who was 
 restoring order, law, and religion to the distracted republic of 
 France, was far more capable and worthy of guiding the helm 
 than any member of the Bourbon race. There was so little 
 intercourse between the east and west of Europe that they 
 only saw the result, and knew little or nothing of the means 
 by which Bonaparte was obtaining his ends ; and in Alexander's 
 eyes, the hero of humble origin who raised himself by his own 
 sword to the head of a State, was clothed with a halo of 
 romance which could belong to no prince born on the throne.
 
 Alexander's Accession. 127 
 
 In 1799 Rostopchine wrote, that he was a leader with all the 
 attributes of sovereign power except the name, and as soon 
 as the Consulate of France was fairly established, Alexander 
 urged his father to acknowledge it as the real Parisian 
 government, and adhere no longer to the fiction of Louis XVIII. 
 being the only sovereign ruler of France. When Bonaparte 
 restored the Russian prisoners, and offered Malta to the Czar, at 
 the same time sending him a sword given to an ancient Grand 
 Master by Leo X., and promising to re-establish the Pope and 
 the King of Sardinia, which Austria would not do, contrary to 
 her pledged word, there was no longer any reason for main- 
 taining a hostile attitude towards the French republic, and 
 Paul consented to the re- establishment of direct communi- 
 cation between the two Powers who for a long time had only 
 corresponded through Prussia. " The relations of Russia with 
 Bonaparte," says Lanfrey,* " had in nothing the admiring 
 and sentimental character attributed to them on the faith of 
 the memoirs of Napoleon. What Paul liked in him was the 
 man of the eighteenth of Brumaire, the enemy of the Revolution, 
 the destroyer of the Republic. His despotic instincts, more 
 penetrating than so many enlightened spirits, had made him 
 see in Bonaparte the future tyrant, the designated founder of 
 Western Czarism." Napoleon told Las Casas that Paul wrote 
 to him " I set aside the abstractions of your revolution. I 
 confine myself to a fact. In my eyes you are a government, 
 and I address myself to you, because we can understand each 
 other, and I can treat with you." He adds, it was curious 
 the old Cabinets were unable to see the importance of this 
 change (the establishment of the Consulate), and that Paul, 
 who was considered mad, was the first to appreciate it. Yet 
 " Paul's first act in return for all his advances and caresses, 
 was to send M. de Sergeisef to Paris with a note from Rostop. 
 chine, written in a tone so thoroughly autocratic that we can 
 hardly conceive/' says Lanfrey, " how Bonaparte could endure 
 it, greedy as he was to gain Paul's good graces. It treated 
 him much like the governor of a remote province in the 
 Russian empire. This circumstance has been twisted in 
 Napoleon's memoirs with a hardly credible cynicism. 
 Paul," he says, " hastened to send to the First Consul a 
 * Count Lanfrey's Vie de Napoleon I er .
 
 128 Alexander's Accession. 
 
 courier with a letter in which he said, ' Citizen, First Consul, I 
 do not write to you to enter into a discussion on the rights of 
 men or citizens. Every country governs itself as it thinks fit. 
 Wherever I see at the head of a country a man who knows 
 how to govern and to fight, my heart is drawn towards him/ 
 The credulity of readers is seldom mocked to a greater extent. 
 Rostopchine's note, which was accompanied by no letter, has 
 nothing in common with this flattering composition. It is dry 
 aud imperious to insolence. What the Count signified to the 
 Consular Government in this species of ukaz (September 26th, 
 1800) was not the desires, but the will of the Emperor, his 
 master, and the conditions on which a good understanding 
 might be re-established. These conditions were the restitu- 
 tion of Malta, the restoration of the King of Sardinia, the 
 guarantee of the integrity of the States of the sovereigns of 
 Naples, of Bavaria, and of Wiirtemberg. The First Consul 
 made no difficulty in promising everything, but with the secret 
 resolution of eluding his promise sooner or later, at least in 
 what concerned Piedmont. He wished for the moment to 
 satisfy at every price his imperious ally, but this entente cordiale 
 of which he made so great a show reposed at the bottom upon 
 a falsehood ; it prepared us (France) grave dangers for the 
 future." In a flattering letter to Paul, Bonaparte pressed him 
 to realize promptly " the union of the two most powerful 
 nations in the world" (December 2 1st, 1800). He founded 
 this hope on t: the greatness and loyalty" of PauPs character, 
 and six days later he wrote to Fouche, desiring him to seize 
 and suppress every copy of a pamphlet, entitled " No Solid 
 and Durable Peace without the Restoration of Poland," by the 
 Polish citizen, Charles M oiler.* 
 
 The remains of the Polish army of 1794 were already 
 enlisted beneath the banners of the French Republic. The 
 French garrison of Ancona was entirely composed of Poles : 
 and the Polish legion, under Dombrowsky, at the battle of 
 Trebbia, was the most formidable division of cavalry opposed 
 to Suvorov. 
 
 The neutrality of Prussia, in 1799, was of great service to 
 France, and Bonaparte sent Duroc and Bournonville to Berlin, 
 to gain over the King, by offering him the towns of the 
 * Count Lanfrey's Yie de Napoleon I".
 
 Alexander's Accession. 129 
 
 Hanseatic League, which did not even belong to France by 
 right of conquest. Prussia accordingly secured the neutrality 
 of the smaller States of Germany, and now exerted herself to 
 detach Paul entirely from the Coalition; while Austria con- 
 tinued the war alone, and sustained decisive defeats at 
 Marengo (June 14th, 1800), and Hohenlinden (November 3rd, 
 1800), which completely reversed Suvorov's successes. By the 
 treaty of Luneville (February, 1801) in consequence of these 
 defeats, the Austrians were obliged to give up all the Sar- 
 dinian territory to France, though their anxiety to keep it for 
 themselves had originally caused the quarrel with the Czar. 
 This campaign was opened with the famous passage of the Alps 
 by the French army, and historians still differ as to whether 
 Napoleon crossed the Great St. Bernard in person, or went 
 quietly round through Lausanne, where he is said to have 
 waited several days, to enable him to arrive in Italy by Aosta 
 at the same moment with his troops. It is a serious draw- 
 back to the study of this great general's military exploits, that his 
 own word cannot be depended on for the smallest fact, when 
 a departure from the truth could apparently enhance his 
 merit, while at the same time he systematically underrated 
 the achievements of his lieutenants, and was unwilling to 
 admit that their talents, which had already been displayed 
 under the Republic, conduced in any measure to his extra- 
 ordinary success.* 
 
 The withdrawal of the Russian troops from Italy and the 
 Austrian reverses left Naples again at the mercy of the French, 
 and the Queen of Naples set off from Palermo for St. Peters- 
 burg at the beginning of the winter of 18001, personally to 
 implore the Czar's intercession. He was touched by her 
 sorrows and admired her spirit, and despatched M. Lowes- 
 chef, one of his confidential officers, to enforce the fulfil- 
 
 * See his strictures on Macdonald's passage of the Splugen, which 
 paralysed Laudon, and enabled Brune to cross the Mincio. He never 
 liked Moreau after Hohenlinden, which that general gained. General 
 Mitchell asserts that he did not personally cross the Alps. (See Fall of 
 Napoleon.) 
 
 Joseph Bonaparte told an acquaintance of the author that he sat for 
 the picture of Napoleon Crossing the Alps, and had sat for several other 
 portraits of his brother, being very like him, but taller, and with a clearer 
 complexion. Napoleon particularly ordered the painter to depict him on 
 a very restive horse such a horse, in fact, as he never sat in reality, being 
 an awkward and not very bold rider. 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 Alexander's Accession. 
 
 ment of his wishes on the Government of Paris. According 
 to Bourrienne, the alliance with Paul gave Napoleon more 
 pleasure than any event in his subsequent career. A soldier 
 of fortune, who had raised himself to the throne of the Bour- 
 bons, was anxious above all to be accepted as the head of his 
 nation and treated as a brother by the long-established poten- 
 tates of Europe ; and perhaps there was something congenial in 
 Paul's high-handed measures and utter disregard of public 
 opinion or conventional sovereignty, to a man who shortly 
 afterwards exercised in reality as oppressive a tyranny as that 
 of the northern autocrat, but without the check of an old- 
 established nobility, to save France from the ruin which she 
 only escaped in 1814 through the moderation of her enemies. 
 He received M. Loweschef with extraordinary distinction, 
 and on the envoy's departure for Italy he was treated with 
 the honours usually reserved for crowned heads. He arrived 
 in Florence with Murat, and the city was illuminated and 
 decorated with the tricolour and Russian standards. This 
 open display of the alliance of the two nations enabled Talley- 
 rand to menace Austria with the co-operation of Russia, and 
 obtain more severe conditions of peace than she would other- 
 wise have yielded. Bat Paul had no intention of attacking 
 Austria, as England was just now the especial object of his 
 wrath. He obtained the exclusion of the affairs of Naples 
 from the treaty, which Napoleon promised to regulate accord- 
 ing to his wishes. The Roman States were to be evacuated, 
 and an indemnity paid by the Neapolitan Government to the 
 families of certain French emissaries who were murdered when 
 the Court returned from Sicily to Naples, at the time of 
 Suvorov's victories. The severe clauses of the arrangement 
 were comprised in a secret article of the treaty with Naples, 
 who consented to close all her ports against English com- 
 merce ; but within a week of Paul's death the French troops 
 repossessed themselves of her fortresses, and the royal family 
 once more took shelter in Sicily and relinquished Naples, first to 
 Joseph Bonaparte and then to his brother-in-law Murat. 
 
 Baron Krudener was now the Russian ambassador at 
 Berliu, and his daughter was maid of honour to the Emperor's 
 second daughter Helena, who in 1799 married the Hereditary 
 Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The Grand Duchess came
 
 Alexander's Accession. 131 
 
 to Berlin with her infant son Paul, December, 1800, on her 
 road to spend the winter at her father's Court. In company 
 with the Prussian Sovereigns she was being entertained at a 
 grand fete at the Russian Embassy, when a courier arrived 
 from St. Petersburg bringing an order to the Baron to declare 
 immediate war with Prussia. The ambassador was appalled 
 by this totally unexpected command ; but he quietly left his 
 guests for a short time to write to the Czar that he had not exe- 
 cuted and could not execute his orders ; he gave his reasons, 
 and said he was ready to submit to all the consequences of a 
 disobedience which he thought alone worthy of his zeal and 
 devotion to his sovereign. 
 
 The Grand Duchess and her suite left the next day for 
 Russia, and the ambassador remained weeks in suspense, his 
 health and sleep giving way from anxiety, till an autograph 
 letter arrived from Paul, without any direct allusion to the 
 subject of his despatch. " I knew well," he wrote, " that you 
 were a skilful and zealous minister, but I was not aware you 
 were so gallant to ladies. My daughter Helena has told me 
 of the magnificent fete you gave her/' &c. In addition to 
 this letter Orders and presents were lavished on him, but in 
 the last despatch Paul sent to Berlin, the day before his 
 assassination, he again threatened Prussia with a force of 
 80,000 men. Pahlen added to it, " His Majesty is not well 
 to-day, and serious consequences are apprehended." The 
 ambassador had reason to regret his loss, as it left him no 
 further hope of distinction, and owing to the financial embar- 
 rassments of Russia, the pay of the foreign ambassadors was 
 curtailed.* 
 
 During the Grand Duchess Helena's sojourn at Berlin, a 
 French emigre, Count Alexandre de Tilly, wrote some rhymes 
 eulogistic of the Czar, for Mademoiselle de Krudener to sing 
 to the little Prince whom she was charged to hush to sleep 
 during their visit to St. Petersburg. Paul heard them 
 repeated to his grandson, and rewarded the fortunate poet 
 with the Order of St. John. 
 
 Affairs were rapidly coming to a crisis between Russia and 
 Great Britain ; and the estrangement was not decreased by 
 
 * Tie de Madame Krudener. 
 
 K2
 
 132 Alexander s Accession. 
 
 the British ambassador, Sir Charles Whitworth,* who was on 
 intimate terms with some of the Zoubof family, and therefore 
 naturally enough Paul regarded him suspiciously. He revived 
 the idea of the principles of the Armed Neutrality as upheld 
 by his mother in 1780, to which England had yielded with 
 respect to Russia, and he made proposals in May and June, 
 1800, to the Courts of Stockholm and Copenhagen to join 
 with him in resisting the right claimed by the British navy to 
 search all neutral ships carrying merchandize. It was in fact 
 a guarantee of the weak against the strong, for the British 
 ships were then all-powerful at sea ; and the Confederacy was 
 willing to admit of the right of search with respect to vessels 
 not convoyed by a neutral frigate, or when a port was strictly 
 blockaded. It was first resisted July 25th, 1800, when a British 
 man-of-war captured a Danish frigate and the merchant- ships 
 in her charge after a sharp engagement, and the British 
 Government despatched a fleet of sixteen armed vessels to 
 Copenhagen with orders to bombard the city if Denmark did 
 not at once acknowledge England's right of search at sea. No 
 proceedings between Russia and Turkey were ever more tyran- 
 nical ; and Denmark, utterly unable to resist, at once consented 
 not to send her vessels any longer under convoy, and her 
 frigate was released. Paul offered himself as arbitrator, and 
 when Sir Charles Whitworth rejected his interference, he laid 
 an embargo on all the English ships in Russian ports. The 
 Master of Police waited on the English merchant houses in 
 St. Petersburg, requesting that one person from each would 
 attend the Military Governor at six in the morning. When 
 they arrived he politely informed them, " Gentlemen, last 
 night the Emperor laid an embargo on all English ships at 
 Cronstadt." This time it only lasted eight days; and the 
 vessels were released; but in September the English mer- 
 chants were called on to contribute certain sums as an indem- 
 nity for some Russian vessels seized while conveying military 
 stores to Holland. On November 7th, when the English 
 refused to admit commissioners to administer the government 
 of Malta, Paul laid another embargo upon 300 British 
 
 * He spent, besides his official income, between 60001. and 20001. 
 a year in St. Petersburg from the fortune of Madame Scherobzov, sister 
 to the Zoubofs. (See Sir G. Jackson's Diary.)
 
 Alexander's Accession. 133 
 
 vessels in his ports, and sent the whole of their crews 
 into the interior of Russia, allowing them each a few copecks 
 a day for their maintenance. Some of the ships at Narva 
 weighed anchor and escaped the embargo, on which the 
 Emperor ordered the remainder to be burned, and in the 
 official Gazette declared the embargo should not be taken off 
 till Malta was restored. This was contrary to an article in 
 the existing treaty of 1793, providing that in case of a war 
 the merchants on both sides should be allowed a year to dis- 
 pose of their effects. A liquidation office was appointed at 
 St. Petersburg to receive and pay in all debts, but the English 
 merchants lost more than usual in their cargoes, as owing to 
 a bad harvest in England there was an almost unprecedented 
 scarcity of corn, and during the winter of 18001 wheat was 
 selling in London at I/. 4*. the bushel, having risen nearly 
 five times in price since the beginning of the war. The 
 English colony in St. Petersburg also became the especial 
 mark for the interference of the police the ordinary English 
 hat was forbidden and there is little doubt they swelled the 
 number of conspirators against the Emperor, and also the 
 number of opponents to the alliance with France. 
 
 The Danes, emboldened by the approach of winter closing 
 the channels to Copenhagen, renewed their treaty with 
 Russia, and it was signed between the two Powers and Sweden 
 December 17th, in St. Petersburg. Prussia rather ambiguously 
 joined it. Gustavus IV. visited St. Petersburg at Christmas, 
 and was received with great splendour by the Emperor, who 
 seemed to be quite setting aside the economical measures 
 with which he had begun his reign. There was little cor- 
 diality between Alexander and Gustavus, now married to the 
 sister of the Grand Duchess Elizabeth; but the Swedish 
 prince professed a great admiration for Paul, and it was 
 thought afterwards imitated him. A few days before he left 
 St. Petersburg the Emperor gave a tournament a diversion 
 he had liked in earlier days, and in which he took a part as a 
 combatant. In the evening a despatch was received from 
 Napoleon containing several caricatures published in England, 
 representing Paul as a lunatic. The conversation turned on 
 the French success, and the determination of the Northern 
 Confederacy to humble the pride of England, and Gustavus
 
 134 Alexander s Accession. 
 
 complimented the Emperor on his prowess in the tournament. 
 The idea again occurred to him of a European tournament, 
 and he resolved to challenge the other Sovereigns. Gustavus 
 loudly supported the proposal in opposition to Alexander, 
 who tried to dissuade his father from making himself publicly 
 ridiculous, and Paul despatched this notice in his own hand- 
 writing to the Journal of St. Petersburg, where it appeared 
 December 30, 1800 : 
 
 " It is said that his Majesty the Emperor, seeing that the 
 Powers of Europe cannot agree, and wishing to end a war which 
 has raged eleven years, intends to propose a place where he will 
 invite all other potentates, to fight them in closed barriers ; 
 they are to bring with them their most enlightened ministers 
 and skilful generals as squires, umpires, and heralds ; such as 
 Turgot, Pitt, and Bernstoff. He intends himself to have with 
 him Counts Pahlen and Kutaissof." 
 
 Although Alexander's remonstrance had no effect at the 
 time, Paul seems to have reflected on it, for shortly before 
 his death he sent a second notice to the Hamburg Gazette, 
 written in German, commenting upon the first, and stating 
 that it bore evident signs of what the Emperor " had been 
 frequently taxed with/' He gave it to Kotzebue to translate 
 from the original French, and laughing rather nervously, told 
 this writer that he had often acted foolishly, and meant to 
 impose a punishment upon himself. Kotzebue, " courtier-like," 
 laughed too, upon which the Emperor stopped, and rather severely 
 asked him what he was laughing at. " Because your Majesty 
 is so well informed of everything," he replied. Paul also 
 inserted the same paragraph as copied from the Hamburg 
 Gazette, into the Gazette of St. Petersburg. The Governor 
 of Moscow caused the paper to be seized, and was not a little 
 astonished when he found the Czar was the author of it. 
 Napoleon heard that Paul was fond of music, and sent an 
 actress to St. Petersburg. Her lively songs and skill in 
 amusing him gave Madame Chevalier a perfect success, and 
 instructed by Otto, Sieyes, and Talleyrand,* who were all assem- 
 bled at St. Petersburg, she influenced him considerably in the 
 interests of France. " A courier arrived yesterday from Russia 
 who had made the journey in fifteen days/' wrote Napoleon, 
 * The nephew of the celebrated Talleyrand.
 
 Alexander's Accession. 135 
 
 January 20th, 1801. " He brought me an extremely friendly 
 autograph letter from Paul I. It is difficult to negotiate re- 
 specting Germany without his co-operation." Pahlen had 
 agreed with Rostopchiue so far as to disapprove of the crusade 
 against the French, though he equally . objected to a war with 
 England, but Kutaissof and Madame Chevalier were now 
 Paul's advisers in foreign affairs, and Napoleon induced the 
 Czar to send Louis XVIII. from Russia. Till this time 
 the King had received the handsome pension Paul granted to 
 him, but on January 19th, 1801, the Governor of Courland 
 came very respectfully to convey the order, and on the 22nd 
 Louis and his niece the Duchess d'Angouleme took their 
 departure in the midst of rain and snow, the Queen being ill 
 and obliged to remain behind. The Russian Guards paid them 
 regal honours everywhere on their route, but owing to the wea- 
 ther and the primitive state of Poland, they had a miserable 
 journey as far as Warsaw, being obliged to pass their nights in 
 wretched posthouses kept by Jews, or in the Polish peasants' 
 huts. Louis never forgot these privations, and even in 1814 
 had by no means forgiven the Russian Imperial family. 
 
 Although Napoleon gave contradictory opinions on the same 
 subject to his various biographers if their statements are correct, 
 they all show that he invariably spoke kindly of his unfor- 
 tunate ally. He said to Las Casas at St. Helena, " that Paul 
 had been promised Malta the moment it was taken possession 
 of. Malta reduced, the English ministers denied they had 
 promised it to him. It is confidently stated that on the 
 reading of this shameful falsehood, Paul felt so indignant 
 that seizing the despatch in full council, he ran his sword 
 through it, and ordered it to be sent back in that condition by 
 way of answer. If it be madness, it must be allowed that it 
 was the madness of a noble soul, it was the indignation of 
 virtue which was incapable until then of suspecting such base- 
 ness."* " Latterly," he added, in another conversation, " I 
 think Paul was mad. If he had lived, England would have 
 lost India."t They had agreed to send an army of 35,000 
 Frenchmen under Massena, 50,000 Cossacks, and 35,000 
 Russians to be embarked on the Caspian Sea, and after cross- 
 
 * Memoires de St. Helene, par Las Casas. 
 f O'Meara's Yoice from St. Helena.
 
 136 Alexander's Accession. 
 
 ing Persia to proceed to India by the Persian Gulf, but 
 Napoleon's anticipations in setting out on a campaign were 
 always much greater than he realized :* the distance was fur- 
 ther than any he ever attempted elsewhere ; and, considering 
 the climate through which they must have passed, they could 
 hardly have arrived in sufficient force to make any real im- 
 pression on the British power in the East. The Cossacks had 
 assembled at Astrakan, when they were recalled on Alex- 
 ander's accession. At the same time another army was 
 encamped on the frontiers of Germany to overawe Prussia, 
 and Pahlen, Kutusov (afterwards celebrated in the war of 
 1812), and Soltikof were to have the command ; yet the 
 Russian credit was rapidly sinking, and owing to the quarrel 
 with England her commerce temporarily destroyed. " France/' 
 wrote Napoleon to Paul, " can ally herself only with Russia, 
 for Russia is master of the Baltic and Black Sea. She holds 
 the keys of India in her hands. The Emperor of such a 
 country is truly a great prince/' Notwithstanding the com- 
 plications of foreign affairs, Paul found leisure to interest 
 himself in the construction of a new palace called St. 
 Michael's, from a dream in which he thought St. Michael ap- 
 peared to him. It was built on the site of the Summer 
 Palace, and cost between fifteen and eighteen millions of 
 roubles. He insisted on removing from the well-built Winter 
 Palace to inhabit it while the walls were so damp that the 
 water still trickled down them. His physicians often warned 
 him of the danger he would incur by residing in it ; but they 
 were at last wearied into a more favourable judgment, and he 
 removed there with all his family in the depth of winter, 
 being particularly delighted because his mother had never 
 lived in it. The designs for the exterior and the allegorical 
 ornaments and paintings in the interior were sketched by his 
 own hand, and he procured innumerable treasures of art for its 
 embellishment at a great cost from Paris and Rome. A draw- 
 bridge over a canal thirty feet wide conducted to the interior 
 of the palace. 
 
 On November 8th, 1800,f the Emperor celebrated the 
 inauguration of this building, and gave a masked ball to the 
 public, during which all the state rooms were thrown open 
 * Correspondance de Napoleon I er . f Kotzebue's Autobiography.
 
 Alexander s Accession. 137 
 
 and lighted with thousands of wax tapers. A statue of Peter 
 the Great cast in 1744, but never removed from the foundry, 
 was exhumed and put in front of the entrance with an 
 inscription, " The Great Grandson to his Great Grandfather/' 
 It was not inhabited by the Imperial family for much more 
 than four months, but during that time every one's health was 
 materially affected, particularly the Grand Duchess Elizabeth's. 
 The ice in the galleries was generally an inch thick from the 
 roof to the floor, in spite of fires continually burning there, 
 and a dense fog often pervaded the mansion, discolouring the 
 paintings and furniture. It stood facing the lime trees of the 
 Summer Garden, with the bright gilt spire of its chapel rising 
 in the middle. Over the doorwere two verses from Scripture 
 in old Slavonic, " Not unto us, but unto Thy Name give the 
 praise," and " Holiness shall dwell in Thy house for ever." 
 The conspirators carefully wound their toils round the hapless 
 monarch by the time he began to inhabit this fatal palace. 
 The banishment of Panine to Moscow split them into two 
 divisions ; one headed by Admiral Rivas, the other by Count 
 Pahlen. A large number of Russians preferred a female 
 sovereign, and Rivas wished to put the Empress Mary in the 
 place of her husband. Pahlen's party worked for the elevation 
 of Alexander; but the Prince was particularly unwilling to 
 act, because he had originally advised the peace with France, 
 which had gradually led to the war with England, the reason 
 now urged by Pahlen for dethroning the Czar, who stoutly 
 refused any conciliatory measures towards the British Govern- 
 ment. He hoped that the medical treatment Paul had 
 undergone might have the effect of restoring him to calmness, 
 for he was attended by two English physicians. In the 
 meanwhile rumours of a conspiracy were beginning to circulate, 
 and even the Russian priests were alienated bj the report that 
 Paul was going to turn Roman Catholic, based on his idea 
 of reconciling the Eastern and Western Churches, and his 
 encouragement of the Jesuits.* At his request this body was 
 
 * The Abbe de Sendilly, cure" of the Roman Catholic church in St. 
 Petersburg till his death, April 16th, 1817, was introduced to Paul in 
 France, but in 1792 was driven from a rich benefice into Germany, where 
 he was almost starving, when Paul sent him a passport and money to 
 come to Russia, in 1797. He devoted himself to the poor in his adopted 
 country. Alexander gave him a carriage when he grew old, but he sold 
 it for the benefit of his pensioners.
 
 138 Alexander's Accession. 
 
 re-established as an ecclesiastical order (but only in his 
 dominions) by Pius VII ., in a bull dated March 7th, 1801 ; 
 upon which many came to Russia from Germany and other 
 countries, where they had hitherto existed under other 
 names. 
 
 Catherine permitted the Jesuits to establish colleges in 
 Poland, because no papal bull (such as that which dissolved the 
 order) could take effect in her dominions, and it was to prevent 
 the collision between the Jesuits and the recognised orders of 
 the Roman Catholic Church that Paul requested the Pope to 
 legalize them in the eyes of the Roman communion. There 
 was at that time a great scarcity of educated tutors in Russia : 
 Prince Kurakin paid a German 35,000 roubles for instructing 
 his sons during fourteen years, and Prince Dolgoruki gave 
 25,000 for the same purpose to a French emigre who lived some 
 time in his family. Swiss shopkeepers, French cooks, and 
 German porters came to Russia professing to be well educated 
 men, and the children of the nobility were transferred to their 
 care at enormous cost without further trial of their abilities ; 
 so that the fortunes of Zurich and Lausanne were completely 
 made by the wealth of retired tutors and governesses from 
 Russia. Paul knew the Jesuits to be anti-revolutionists and 
 well educated, and placed the University of Vilna in their 
 charge, confiding to them the colonies on the Volga. He 
 admitted their Vicar- General, Father Griiber, to his intimate 
 councils, and the Jesuits soon became the chief instructors of 
 noble youths in Russia. 
 
 At the end of the year 1800 Paul published an amnesty 
 permitting the return to St. Petersburg of dismissed and 
 banished officers, and among them the three Zoubofs took 
 advantage of it, as well as General Benningsen, an old officer 
 who had served under Suvorov against the Cossack Pugachef, 
 and married a daughter of Catherine II., from whom he received 
 large estates in Lithuania. He was a Hanoverian by birth, 
 and Paul consequently suspecting him of being in the interest 
 of England, had sent him to reside on his lauds. He was 
 now enlisted in the service of the conspirators. Paul one day 
 went suddenly into Alexander's room and found Valerian 
 Zoubof with him. He was indignant that he should venture 
 into the palace, but the Prince took occasion to plead his cause,
 
 Alexander's Accession^ 139 
 
 and remind his father of his former services (for Zoubof had 
 lost a foot in the Polish campaign), and he added that although 
 the amnesty restored him to St. Petersburg, he was quite 
 penniless, his estates being confiscated when he was banished. 
 Paul thought over the matter, and gave him the post in the 
 ministry Panine had held, whereupon Pahlen secured him as 
 another member of the plot. Plato Zoubof sought to recover 
 his lost influence in another way. He made a proposal of 
 marriage to the daughter of Count Kutaissof, who was extremely 
 pleased at a connection with a distinguished family. He also 
 bribed Madame Chevalier, and these two obtained his restoration 
 to Paul's favour, and even to his former rooms in the palace. 
 He then worked successfully to gain over Kutaissof, and the 
 Imperial aides-de-camp. Plato Zoubof always declared that 
 he and his companions were actuated by no other motive than 
 to prevent the final ruin of their country, and for this 
 purpose placed their lives and fortunes in peril. Still they 
 doubtless hoped for the immense rewards from the new 
 monarch which had been showered on Catherine's accomplices 
 in the deposition of Peter III., and on those who had 
 transferred young Ivan VI. to a dungeon. Count Voronzov 
 used to relate that shortly after the murder of Peter III. he 
 met Bariatinsky, one of his executioners, and expressed horror 
 at the deed. Bariatinsky shrugged his shoulders and remarked, 
 " How else could I have restored my fortunes ? I was so 
 deeply in debt/'* 
 
 After Panine's dismissal and Valerian Zoubof s return, 
 Alexander was daily informed by the latter of the progress of 
 the conspiracy, and the names of those newly enrolled. It 
 was the knowledge that he was implicated in it that caused 
 many who had little to gain by Paul's deposition to enter so 
 readily into the scheme, for they thought its success would 
 insure their own safety and elevation. But there is as little 
 doubt that he never intended anything more than his father's 
 abdication, or being put under some safe restraint where he 
 could do no further harm. He made Pahlen give him his solemn 
 word of honour that the Emperor should be treated with the 
 
 * Madame Chevalier is said to have macle large sums of money hy 
 accepting bribes from the ministers and nobility to obtain, the banishment 
 to Siberia of persons whom they disliked.
 
 140 Alexander s Accession. 
 
 utmost gentleness, and Pahlen gave it unhesitatingly, but 
 apparently with a mental reserve. 
 
 The plan which Rivas and his party attempted in January, 
 1800, was more simple than Pahlen's, but quite failed. Paul 
 was in the habit of assisting at the extinction of fires; so they 
 arranged to burn a house, and when the Emperor appeared 
 to surround him and kill him, and then spread the report that 
 he had perished accidentally from a falling beam. But for the 
 first time since he came to the throne, Paul did not hasten to the 
 spot. He was fatigued by his exertions during the day, and 
 had just undressed and gone to bed, when his attendants 
 announced there was a blaze. He had taken a sleeping 
 draught, and though he was going to rise as usual his aide-de- 
 camp advised him to remain still, and looking out of the 
 window said it only proceeded from a small wooden house in 
 a poor quarter of the city, and set off to give assistance. 
 Paul went to sleep again, and Rivas and his companions seeing 
 the Emperor's aide-de-camp coming alone towards the building, 
 thought they were betrayed, and returned as fast as possible to 
 Cronstadt. Only a day or two afterwards Rivas was drowned 
 during a hurricane and partial thaw, in trying to assist a 
 vessel in distress among the ice. The Emperor expressed 
 grief at his heroic death, not having an idea that chance alone 
 prevented the Admiral from becoming his assassin. Pahlen's 
 numerous appointments obliged him to see the Emperor 
 constantly, often more than once in the day, and he knew his 
 master had the greatest confidence in him, so that it necessitated 
 a course of deception most distressing to a high-minded man 
 such as Pahlen is represented by his friends. As to Alexander, 
 his father had suspected him, and placed spies about him from 
 the time he came to the throne. In defiance of his own law he 
 talked of superseding him by one of his younger sons or 
 daughters, and openly showed he disliked and feared him. He 
 was released from the necessity of feigning loyalty and attach- 
 ment while he was in league with the conspirators, for he spent 
 much of his time under arrest in his own apartment, or at 
 work in the Foreign Office ; and Pahlen tried to keep up the 
 Emperor's suspicions, lest there should be an explanation 
 between them. Madame Chevalier also stimulated his hostility 
 to his own family, because they tried to persuade him to send
 
 Alexander s Accession. 141 
 
 her away. The Grand Duchess Elizabeth was ill nearly all 
 the time she passed in St. Michael's Palace. 
 
 Aratchaief was still living on his estates, and only ten leagues 
 from St. Petersburg, when Paul sent a courier to recall 
 him. " Come to me," he wrote, with his accustomed brevity ; 
 " I confide to you my throne and my life." Pahlen detained 
 the courier till he was sure that by hastening the execution of 
 his design only a few days, Aratchaief would arrive too late. 
 At the same time Paul sent a note to Rostopchine at Voronovo 
 with these significant words, " I need you. Return quickly." 
 The Count set off" at once for St. Petersburg, but before he 
 had gone further than Moscow he heard of the Emperor's 
 death. His indiguation was extreme : he went home resolved 
 never to visit the Court or to re-enter the public service. 
 Another circumstance besides the despatch of these two 
 couriers showed Pahleu the danger of discovery while so 
 many were involved in the plot. On the 22nd of March he 
 was alone in a room of the Imperial palace, and took a 
 letter from Alexander out of his pocket, in which he referred 
 openly to their project. All at once the letter was taken 
 out of his hand. He turned round and saw the Emperor, who 
 holding the letter up, said, " Ah, a love letter." Pahlen tried 
 to smile, took it from him and put it into his pocket, answering 
 " Yes, sire." He thought it possible the Emperor had recog- 
 nised his son's handwriting ; for looking sternly at Pahlen, 
 he asked for it again. The letter would have revealed 
 everything, but a ready falsehood came to Pahleu's aid. Paul 
 had a particular aversion to either the sight or smell of tobacco 
 and snuff. " I took it," said the minister, " for it is scented 
 with tobacco." This was enough for Paul, who uttered an 
 expression of disgust and walked away; but Pahlen feared it 
 might recur to him, and at once called the chief conspirators 
 together, informing them the Emperor meant to remove him 
 from his post. His dismissal would upset their scheme 
 and lead to its discovery, so the night of March 23rd 
 24th (N.S.) was fixed for carrying it out. It was the 
 week of the Carnival, and the Emperor talked of going to 
 Moscow. 
 
 It was still necessary to bring Alexander to the point, and 
 this Pahlen accomplished with an almost fiendish subtlety.
 
 142 Alexander's Accession. 
 
 He went to Paul, and told him he had discovered details of a 
 conspiracy, and the Empress and his two eldest sons were 
 implicated in it. The Emperor gave him an order to arrest 
 the Princes and send them to the castle of Schusselburg, but 
 he disconcerted Pahlen's plan to obtain the Empress's sanc- 
 tion, for he said that as the mother of all his children he 
 could only treat her with gentleness, and it was perhaps but 
 natural she should have allowed herself to be over-persuaded 
 by her sons. He deeply felt their conduct, but depended on 
 Pahlen's fidelity. The minister took the order to Alexander, 
 and told him he must deprive him of his sword, as the Emperor 
 kept those belonging to imprisoned officers. He showed the 
 danger he ran of incurring the fate of Alexis Petrovitz, and 
 that not only himself but his mother and brother were in 
 peril. Alexander was much concerned when told that his 
 mother would probably be sent to a distant convent, and 
 wished to see his father ; but Pahlen said it was impossible, for 
 the Emperor's commands were so positive he dare not disobey 
 them in the present excited state of his mind, except so far as 
 to lock up Alexander in his own rooms for that night instead 
 of in the fortress. The Prince gave a written promise not to 
 bring the conspirators to justice on receiving Pahlen's repeated 
 engagement that they should treat Paul gently and spare his 
 life.* He also signed the deed requiring his father to abdicate, 
 but the statement sometimes made that he put his name the 
 same evening to the proclamation announcing his father's 
 death from apoplexy, and his own accession, is utterly untrue, 
 for Pahlen wrote it out at Prince Talitzin's, where he passed 
 the evening, and did not see Alexander again till after the deed 
 was done. The Prince had already been under arrest for the 
 last two days, and a guard placed at his door. The room he 
 occupied in the palace was below the Emperor's, on the 
 ground floor, and the adjoining sumptuous chambers inhabited 
 by his wife were the most affected by damp in the whole 
 building. The Grand Duchess's rooms were hung with rich 
 Lyonnese velvet, which, with a carved stand filled with books, 
 and an English piano, were all mouldy, and the latter out of tune. 
 The splendid bedroom, lined with purple velvet, was uninhabitable, 
 and the wax-coloured paintings over the door entirely defaced. 
 * All the accounts by the different conspirators agree in this.
 
 Alexander's Accession. 143 
 
 Alexander's throne-room, or audience-chamber, was next to 
 that in which he remained under arrest, and opened into 
 another containing Greek and Roman antiquities. The gor- 
 geous furniture of even the steam bath-rooms contrasted 
 strangely with the misery which the young Princess endured 
 from cold, for the stoves were perfectly insufficient to warm or 
 dry the air. The little Grand Duke Nicholas, the Princess 
 Gagarine, Count Narishkin, and Kutaissof, with other officials 
 also lived on the ground floor, in rooms equally unfit for use. 
 The Emperor and Empress, Constantiue and his wife, and a 
 lady of honour were lodged on the first floor, and the Grand 
 Duchesses with their governess, Madame Lieven, were on the 
 second. Both here and in the Winter Palace Paul had fitted 
 up a small kitchen close to his rooms, where, to guard against 
 poison, an Englishwoman prepared his food, almost under his 
 own eye. His private apartments were magnificently painted, 
 and furnished with porphyry vases, oriental alabaster, statuary, 
 and landscape paintings. They led out of a gallery hung 
 with copies of the celebrated works in the Vatican, almost 
 covering a wall of 72 feet long. The third room, containing 
 the Emperor's library, comprised in six mahogany bookcases, 
 was the station of a hussar, and out of this one door led into 
 the kitchen, and another to a winding staircase, opening into 
 the courtyard through an entrance guarded by one sentinel. 
 It was by this staircase that Pahlen meant to lead the conspi- 
 rators. The Emperor's bedroom and study opened imme- 
 diately from the library. It was between thirty and forty 
 feet square, wainscoted in white, surrounded with landscapes 
 by Vernet, Wouvermans, and Vandermeulen. In the middle 
 behind a screen stood a small camp bed without curtains. 
 Over the bed was an angel by Guido Reni, and in other parts 
 there was a portrait of an ancient Knight Banneret, and of 
 Frederick II. on horseback, and pictures representing the cos- 
 tumes of the Russian army. On the writing tables were 
 medallions of the Empress, the Grand Dukes, the Grand 
 Duchess Elizabeth, and other specimens of the Empress's skill 
 in carving and modelling. The floor was covered with a rich 
 carpet, but there was no exit* except through the entrance, 
 and the Empress's rooms, separated by folding doors, locked 
 * The trap-door some writers describe is an invention.
 
 144 Alexander's Accession. 
 
 and bolted on both sides. At this time she was sleeping in 
 one at a distance, as it was more nearly dry. A recess led out 
 of the Emperor's bed-chamber, where he deposited the swords 
 of officers under arrest. 
 
 The passages in the palace were so dark as to be lighted by 
 lamps day and night, and so complicated that a stranger could 
 hardly find his way. But Pahlen secured the aide-de-camp 
 on duty, and he acted as guide. He also took upon himself 
 to change the guard at the last moment, for he could not 
 trust Paul's Gateschiua regiment. A portion of Alexander's 
 regiment surrounded the outside of the building on the even- 
 ing of March 23rd, and a detachment of the Preebijansky guards 
 under a conspirator was placed inside. The frowning palace, 
 with its cannons, ditch, and garrison, at all times resembled 
 a besieged fortress. 
 
 Pahleu collected about fifty conspirators, and on the night 
 of the 23rd increased their number by releasing some officers 
 from prison, arrested that morning (it is said at his own insti- 
 gation), and he impressed on them that their only hope of life 
 lay in the Emperor's deposition. He provided for every con- 
 tingency, and secured both Alexander and Constantine by 
 locking them up in their rooms, lest they should be moved at 
 the important moment to go to the rescue of their father. 
 All those connected with the plot met at eight o'clock at the 
 house of General Talitzin, the colonel of the Preebijansky 
 guard, where they dined, and, except Pahlen, the Zoubofs, and 
 Beuningsen, drank very freely. Pahlen showed the order he 
 had received to imprison Alexander, and the Prince's written 
 promise of security, and they all became very enthusiastic in 
 his cause. Among them was Prince Tashwill, a major- 
 general of artillery, the Princes Ouvarof, and Peter Yolkonski, 
 two of Alexander's aides-de-camp, Arkamof (who had succeeded 
 Constantine as head of the police), Scariatin, and others of 
 inferior rank. But on this last day of his life Paul was 
 particularly tranquil. Kotzebue was employed in St. Michael's 
 Palace, and met him on the principal staircase uot twelve hours 
 before his death. A few remarks passed between them about 
 a statue of Cleopatra, just added to this part of the mansion, 
 and Paul expressed his admiration of her " heroic end." He 
 appeared at the morning parade, where he wrote a letter
 
 Alexander's Accession. ]45 
 
 to Bonaparte on the crown of his hat, and went to the school 
 for military orphans, where 800 children were boarded and 
 instructed at his cost. It was a favourite walk, and he 
 returned to the palace to his wife's sitting-room at half-past 
 five, when her younger children were with her, and her secre- 
 tary, whom she had just summoned, waited in the ante-room 
 till the Emperor retired. Paul had either forgotten his sus- 
 picions, or else doubted Pahlen, for he spoke to her tenderly, 
 and brought her a piece of embroidery from the military 
 school, where she was anxious the children should learn the 
 German stitch. He took his two youngest sons on his knee, 
 and remained with them some little time. As he was leaving 
 the room Nicholas, who was four and a half years old, said to 
 him, " Father, why are you called Paul the First ?" for the 
 child had been studying the Imperial monograms which were 
 entwined with the figure 1 in several parts of the room. 
 " Because no one of that name ruled before me," said the 
 Emperor. " Oh, then/' said the boy, " I shall be called 
 Nicholas the First." " If you ever ascend the throne/' his 
 father answered, abruptly. He stood as if lost in thought, 
 fixing his eyes on his son, and then kissed him passionately. 
 He spent the evening with the Princess Gagarine, and more 
 than one of the conspirators, including Nicholas Zoubof, had 
 supper with them. He spoke to her of Alexander in such a 
 threatening manner that when he left her she sent a message 
 on a slip of paper to the Prince, begging him to escape. 
 " Before many days," said Paul, " every one will be astonished 
 by seeing heads fall that were once very dear to me." 
 
 The Emperor retired as usual between eight and nine 
 o'clock, and a Scotch surgeon, Dr. Grieve, came into his room 
 to give him a composing draught. The surgeon was much in 
 his confidence, but thought that on this evening Paul enter- 
 tained some suspicion of him, for while shaking the draught 
 he walked to the other end of the room and fixing his eyes 
 on him, said, " Mais a propos, mon cher, ne vous faites-vous 
 pas une affaire de conscience de guerir 1'ennemi de vos coin- 
 patriotes ?"* Dr. Grieve answered, " that men of his profession 
 had no other object than to fulfil the duties of humanity." 
 
 * " Is it not against your conscience to cure the enemy of your 
 country?" 
 
 VOL. I, L
 
 146 Alexander's Accession. 
 
 Paul embraced him, saying, " I do not doubt you, and I have 
 never doubted you." An hour afterwards the conspirators 
 appeared. The drawbridge was pulled up for the night, but 
 they crossed the frozen ditch, disconcerted for a moment by 
 the crows in the lime-trees of the Summer Garden setting up 
 a loud noise. Benuingsen, Plato and Nicholas Zoubof, 
 Tashwill, and several more, all masked, led the first detach- 
 ment to penetrate into the Emperor's bedroom, while the 
 rest waited below to follow if necessary. Officers were placed 
 on duty instead of ordinary sentinels at the various points, 
 but no artifice could induce the faithful hussar who stood at 
 Paul's door to leave his post. As the Emperor's aide-de- 
 camp was admitted to bring despatches at any time in the day 
 or night, he led them without difficulty as far as the library, 
 and told the hussar to open the bedroom door, for he brought 
 important despatches for his Majesty. The man opened the 
 door, but immediately suspecting something was wrong, shut 
 it again, and called to the Emperor. The conspirators struck 
 him down and disarmed him, but he escaped covered with 
 blood to summon assistance, and was seized and detained by 
 the second detachment, while the first forced their way into 
 the room. Beuningsen and Zoubof in full uniform, with 
 their swords in their hands, advanced first. The bed was 
 empty, and for an instant they thought the Emperor had fled, 
 but in a moment he reappeared from behind the screen, 
 bringing a sword from the recess. He was half dressed and 
 seemed confused, so as hardly to recognise them, and the 
 large room was only lighted with one night-lamp. 
 
 " Sire/' said Benningseu, " you are a prisoner, in the name 
 of the Emperor Alexander. Be composed and sign this paper, 
 and your life will be safe ;" and he handed to him the deed 
 requiring his abdication. But as Paul read it his auger rose ; 
 he accused those who had drawn it up of ingratitude, and said 
 he had loaded them with benefits. He declared he would rather 
 die than abdicate in favour of his son, and he tore up the 
 paper and threw it at his feet. 
 
 At this moment the second detachment was heard approach- 
 ing, and Benniugsen, who had locked the door, went to open 
 it for them. Some state that Paul took the opportuuity to reach 
 the window, and severely cut his hand, being dragged down
 
 Alexander s Accession. 147 
 
 again by Zoubof and Tashwill ; others that the cut was given by 
 TashwilFs sword, which he tried to wrench out of his hand 
 by seizing hold of the blade ; and that this nobleman, who had 
 sworn to revenge his own dismissal from office, laid hold of the 
 Czar directly he threw down the deed of abdication, compelled 
 him to loose his weapon by breaking his arm with a blow, and 
 assisted by the rest, beat him to force him to abdicate till he 
 was so much injured they thought it better to put him to death. 
 At any rate, when the second detachment entered it found Paul 
 struggling violently with Tashwill and four others ; the lamp was 
 overturned, and until another was procured, after some delay, 
 they fought in darkness. Paul was heard to ask what they had 
 to complain of from him, and several answered that he had 
 tyrannized over them for four years, and they ought to have 
 settled matters with him long ago. Benniugsen said that he im- 
 plored the Emperor not to resist, for his life was at stake ; 
 but Savary declares he loaded his victim with insults and 
 abuse, and used to boast of it when he commanded the Russian 
 army in Germany. Paul resisted for a long time, and was 
 struck by the butt-end of a pistol, which fractured his skull, 
 and drew from him a shriek, when the leaders of the con- 
 spiracy, afraid of a rescue, closed in upon him and held him 
 down while the rest compressed him round the waist with an 
 officer's scarf, intended to tie his feet. They dared not strangle 
 him round the neck, lest he should be much disfigured, as the 
 body would lie in state ; but when it was given over to the 
 surgeons for embalming,* it presented the most unmistakable 
 marks of violence. Besides a broken arm, and the wound on 
 his hand and head, one eye had been put out, and he was bruised 
 from head to foot. Benningsen kept his boot over the Emperor's 
 .mouth while Zoubof and Tashwill deliberately adjusted the scarf. 
 Paul took the heel of the boot oft' with his teeth, which pene- 
 trated to the officer's skin, and caused him to raise it for an in- 
 stant, when the Emperor, for the first time, asked their mercy. 
 " Gentlemen," he said, " give me one moment to commend my 
 soul to God \" but he was silenced almost before he had 
 completed his sentence, and Tashwill and Zoubof, or others 
 
 * After the murder several memorials presented to the Emperor, but 
 unopened, were found in Kutaissof's pocket, acquainting him with all 
 the details of the conspiracy. 
 
 L2
 
 148 Alexander's Accession. 
 
 say Benningsen, pulled at each end of the scarf till he 
 expired. 
 
 Though the walls of the palace are very thick, the con- 
 fusion in the Emperor's bedchamber reached the other parts 
 of the building. The English cook, in great alarm, escaped 
 from the private kitchen, and rushed off to an English mer- 
 chant's house in the city to report that the Czar was being 
 murdered. Constantino, who was unacquainted with the con- 
 spiracy, tried to go to his father's aid, but found himself locked 
 in his room. The Empress attempted to make her way through 
 the folding doors separating her rooms from her husband's, and 
 finding them locked, went the other way, but was intercepted 
 in the library by a detachment with strict orders not to let her 
 pass. Here she was joined by her daughters, Mary and 
 Catherine, with their governess, who, aware that a movement 
 was going on against the Emperor, tried to tranquillize her 
 by assuring her the rest of the family would be safe. She 
 persisted in trying to pass the soldiers, when Benuingsen 
 appeared from her husband's room, and she immediately 
 appealed to him, and asked if she was a prisoner. He 
 answered she was, and if he allowed her to proceed she would 
 only risk her life needlessly. He added, " The Emperor 
 
 Alexander " " Alexander \" she interrupted. " Who has 
 
 made him Emperor ?" " The nation, madame," replied Beu- 
 ningsen. " All classes were concerned in it : military, civilians, 
 and courtiers. The life of Paul is ended \" At these words 
 she sank into a chair, and a soldier brought her a glass of 
 water, which her daughter was afraid to offer her lest it was 
 poisoned. The soldier drinking half of it, presented it to the 
 Empress. " You may take it, madame," he said ; " there is no 
 poison in it." Benningsen left her to the care of her daughters, 
 and accompanied Pahlen to join Alexander. The Count 
 remained in the courtyard till the reappearance of those 
 conspirators who had no office in the palace informed him 
 that all was over, when he ascended the winding staircase and 
 came into the Emperor's room. He turned pale for a moment 
 at the sight of the disfigured corpse,* but quickly recovering, 
 assisted in placing it on the bed. Then Benningsen ob- 
 
 * From the length of time which all accounts agree was three- 
 quarters of an hour it looks as if the conspirators were bent upon 
 securing the Emperor alive.
 
 Alexander s Accession. 149 
 
 served it was time to offer their congratulations to the new 
 Emperor. 
 
 Alexander had listened during the last hour to the sounds 
 of the tumult over head, and was pacing his room in his morn- 
 ing-dress with agitated steps when Pahlen, Benningsen, and 
 Valerian Zoubof made their appearance. He was a close 
 prisoner, being locked in the innermost of two rooms, with the 
 guard outside the entrance of the first, and it was nearly one 
 in the morning when they came to give him his release. He 
 asked if the Emperor had abdicated. Pahlen told him he had 
 died of convulsions brought on by the agitation which the 
 necessity to abdicate had produced in him. Alexander was 
 exceedingly distressed, and he was soon acquainted with the 
 whole truth by his brother, who entered his room indignant 
 with the assassins. He refused to accept the crown from 
 blood-stained hands, and declared that with such a beginning 
 his reign could be only unfortunate. His scruples completely 
 frustrated Pahlen's scheme for exacting an oligarchical consti- 
 tution in return for the crown, for he now repelled the idea 
 of succeeding to the Imperial dignity over the dead body of 
 his father ; and far from offering a price for his elevation, was 
 anxious to hide himself from all eyes. Pahlen reasoned that 
 to refuse the empire from motives of remorse would be the 
 public avowal of a misfortune which was not his fault. The 
 cause of his father's death should be concealed, but it was most 
 essential to proclaim him at once, and take the oath from the 
 household and the troops. 
 
 Already the Preebijansky guards in the palace had shown 
 symptoms of insubordination, for when the wounded hussar 
 gave the alarm their officer only kept them from hastening to 
 the Emperor by threatening to shoot the first man who stirred. 
 Alexander must show himself to them, or risk the safety of all 
 the Imperial family. The discussion was still going on when 
 the Empress-mother appeared and claimed the crown for herself 
 in virtue of her coronation. Pahlen and Zoubof moved into 
 the background, but her angry words to her son were easily 
 heard where they stood. She would never take the oath to 
 him, and unless she was permitted to reign she would appeal 
 not only to the nation, but to Europe.* Pahlen knew there were 
 
 * Hitherto every Empress who had not succeeded her husband had 
 retired into a convent to pray for his soul.
 
 150 Alexander s Accession. 
 
 many who would consent to this arrangement, but in that case 
 Ms own ruin was secured. He came forward and told Alex- 
 ander somewhat peremptorily that unless he assumed the reins 
 of government himself the nation would depose the House of 
 Romanof and elect another dynasty. 
 
 At these words the Empress, greatly excited, accused her 
 son without reserve of being a traitor to his Sovereign, and 
 a parricide. The confinement in his damp rooms, and the 
 excitement of the night, had tried his nerves to their full 
 extent, and this charge was now more than he could bear. 
 He fell down utterly unconscious, and an hour passed before 
 he showed any signs of recovery.*" Pahlen led away the 
 Empress, and compelled her to waive her pretensions and 
 swear fealty to her son. He called in her physician, who 
 persuaded her to be bled lest her distress should bring on 
 apoplexy. She submitted to his regimen ; and after the 
 operation was twice repeated, grew calmer, being relieved by 
 a flood of tears. In the mean time Alexander slowly revived 
 (though it was months before his health was completely 
 restored), and Pahlen again urged him to show himself to the 
 troops. It was still not six in the morning, but crowds were 
 collecting round the palace, for the news was evidently 
 spreading outside. " It is not the hour/' he said, " for childish 
 scruples and woman's vanity. You have mourned enough for 
 your father, you must now think of your empire/' " What a 
 page for the commencement of my history \" he answered. 
 "Sire," said Pahlen,"the succeeding ones will make it forgotten." 
 Alexander asked anxiously after his mother, and then accom- 
 panied his minister to a carriage which had waited ready 
 for several hours to convey Paul to the fortress. It was 
 used instead to bring Alexander across the Summer Gardens 
 to the Winter Palace, where he was quickly mounted, and 
 with his face deadly pale he rode slowly before the troops, 
 who were mustering in front for their usual morning parade, 
 while his accession was being proclaimed by torchlight through 
 the streets. The soldiers of Paul's regiment were at first 
 silent, and almost menacing; but the conspirators among the 
 other detachments loudly shouted " Long live Alexander !" 
 
 * He had several similar attacks in the course of his life.
 
 Alexanders Accession. 151 
 
 arid the cry was taken up by the new Emperor's own regiment, 
 and extended itself to all. Everything went off satisfactorily, 
 and at eight the principal nobility assembled in the chapel to 
 take the oath to the young monarch. Pahlen and those who 
 agreed with him to demand a new constitution from Alexander 
 were frustrated at the outset by his aides-de-camp Volkonski and 
 Ouvarof, as well as Benningsen and Valerian Zoubof. These 
 represented that their only hope of escaping punishment lay in 
 preserving Alexander on the throne ; and his character was a 
 sufficient guarantee without any further constitution for a 
 mild and reasonable government. The Empress-mother bad the 
 old-fashioned notions of Germany, and hated constitutional 
 government they would never obtain one from her ; the tor- 
 ture and execution of the murderer of Gustavus III. in Sweden 
 furnished her with a horrible precedent of which she would be 
 likely to avail herself if she obtained the crown. It would 
 be wiser to leave things as they now were than to run the 
 risk of agitating Alexander any more and perhaps bringing on 
 a fatal attack of illness, or an obstinate resolution not to reign. 
 So Pahlen lost already one of the advantages he hoped to 
 obtain from making Alexander an accessory to his father's 
 dethronement. His treachery, though unpunished, received 
 no reward ; and his short term of ministerial power was soon 
 closed, and followed by a long eclipse. 
 
 Alexander's surgeon, Dr. Wylie, embalmed the body of the 
 deceased Emperor, and signed a certificate that he died from 
 the effects of apoplexy.* The face was carefully painted, the 
 corpse dressed in uniform, and the hands encased in gloves to 
 conceal the marks of violence. It lay in state for a fortnight, 
 in the hall of St. George in St. Michael's Palace, and according 
 to the usual custom, the Imperial family assembled twice every 
 day to hear the prayers offered up for the repose of his soul, 
 when Alexander's eyes were always seen to be filled with tears. 
 The corpse was afterwards removed with great state and 
 ceremony to the church of St. Peter and St. Paul, the sons 
 and son-in-law of the deceased following the coffin bareheaded 
 and on foot, while carriages containing the Empress-mother, 
 
 * Dr. Wylie also thought that, allowing for the injuries caused by the 
 mode of death, the state of his brain rendered it highly probable that he 
 would soon have died of apoplexy.
 
 152 Alexander s Accession. 
 
 her daughters, and daughters-in-law, and other ladies of the 
 Court, accompanied the funeral procession, extending over more 
 than a mile. The body was finally interred in its last resting- 
 place, March 26th, o.s., among its ancestors and predecessors. 
 On one side of the high altar of the church standing in the 
 midst of the gloomy citadel, lie the remains of Peter the Great 
 and his successors and descendants, except Peter II., down 
 to Catherine II. and Peter III. On the other, rest the bodies 
 of Paul and his family ; opposite to a full-length painting of 
 his patron saint, the great Apostle. An inscription on the 
 Emperor's tomb states that he died "on the llth or 12th of 
 March, 1801" (23rd or 24th, N.S.), the murder having been 
 committed between half-past eleven and a quarter-past twelve 
 at midnight. 
 
 The Prussian ambassador wrote, that on the morning of 
 Paul's death he sent for Pahlen, and said, " I suspect you 
 are like the rest. I think there is some design against me. 
 I do not like the intimacy between my sons and the Zoubofs." 
 Pahlen answered, " My life is in your hands. You ought not 
 to mistrust my fidelity," and stated that he had joined the 
 conspiracy to obtain information and defend his master. 
 Another foreign attache,* writing home two months later, says : 
 " I have been over the' palace where the scene was acted, 
 accompanied by Dr. Grieve, who was much in the confidence 
 of the last Emperor. . . . For a long time, but particularly 
 the last ten days, his mind was in a state of constant irritation. 
 His naturally suspicious temper preyed upon himself, and con- 
 jured up to his fancy an enemy in every person he saw. He 
 suspected some plot was going on, but could not fix on the 
 author of it. It is more than probable that had he lived 
 forty-eight hours longer, his sons would have been shut up in 
 the fortress. The business took up nearly three-quarters of an 
 hour : it is singular that a Hanoverian should have assisted 
 in despatching him, and that his body should have been given 
 to three Scotch surgeons for dissection, Drs. Green, Whaley 
 (Wylie), and Guthrie. The next morning all was quiet. The 
 people were seen embracing each other, and giving each other 
 joy in the streets. The Empress- Do wager openly expresses 
 
 * Mr. Ross, who was attache to the first British Embassy sent on 
 Alexander's accession.
 
 Alexander s Accession. 153 
 
 her detestation of all concerned in it. She has taken into 
 her service the persons who were the principal sufferers 
 by her husband's death. The Emperor pays her every 
 attention/' 
 
 The day after Paul's death, as Kotzebue waited with a 
 crowd in the young Emperor's ante- chamber, there was a 
 general rush to the window to look at a man walking undis- 
 turbed in an English hat. " Nothing was to be seen among 
 the hundreds present but cheerful, laughing countenances." 
 A few days later Plato Zonbof gave a dinner to a hundred of 
 his friends and accomplices at the cost of twenty-five roubles a 
 head, and exulted so much over the success of the con- 
 spiracy that he received an order to retire to Moscow. There 
 he was waited upon by a deputation from the nobility to 
 thank him for his services to the country, and they were fol- 
 lowed by a deputation of merchants, bringing him a handsome 
 present. Benningsen was made Governor of Lithuania, 
 which took him away from St. Petersburg, but Prince Tashwill, 
 the most virulent of the conspirators, was treated more 
 severely, and banished to his estates. As soon as Madame 
 Chevalier heard of the death of her Imperial patron she pre- 
 pared to fly with her booty, amounting to nearly a million of 
 roubles. A police officer was sent to inspect her property, 
 and among many far more valuable articles found a diamond 
 cross which had belonged to Peter the Great, and was much 
 prized by the Imperial family. He took this from her, though 
 she made a stout resistance ; and with her husband and 
 brother, and the rest of her property, Alexander allowed her 
 to quit Russia, although the Empress-Dowager and the nobi- 
 lity clamoured for her punishment. Kutaissof* retired to 
 Konigsberg, and the inferior conspirators were gradually 
 drafted off into regiments in distant parts of the country, 
 where they fretted over what they considered as the ingrati- 
 tude of the young Sovereign, and in many instances kept up 
 an irritation against the measures of the new reign. The empire 
 was accustomed to conspiracies, but the conspirators were accus- 
 tomed to rich rewards; their deed was publicly esteemed a 
 patriotic act, so that numbers professed to have been concerned 
 
 * Kutaissof was said to have been a relative of Napoleon's Mameluke 
 Eastern, who was also once a Georgian slave.
 
 154 Alexanders Accession. 
 
 in it who really are supposed to have had no share. In 1802 
 there were nearly 200 such officers left in St. Petersburg. 
 
 Volkonski and Ouvarof, Alexander's two aides-de-camp, 
 retained their places. They excused themselves by declaring 
 that when they saw the conspirators meant murder, and not 
 imprisonment, they first remonstrated, and then endeavoured 
 to leave the Emperor's bedroom, but Benningsen prevented 
 them/* and Volkonski remained attached to Alexander 
 throughout his life, and held a post in the Winter Palace 
 under Nicholas till he died an octogenarian in 1852. Pahlen 
 continued in office for two months, in spite of the enmity of 
 the Dowager-Empress, who, while lamenting the death of her 
 husband with ostentatious grief, could not pardon the Minister 
 for opposing her succession to the throne. The widows of 
 the only two married Sovereigns, except Paul, who reigned 
 over Russia during the eighteenth century, succeeded their 
 husbands, and she thought that the very brief period she had 
 enjoyed the rank of Empress gave her an especial claim. 
 Pahlen had also an enemy in Constantino, who was enraged 
 that his father should have been led to suppose he was capable 
 of assisting in his murder ; for the unhappy Emperor, in the 
 dim light of his room, mistook Ouvarof lor his second son, 
 and expressed his grief that even he should have turned against 
 him. Alexander told Pahlen it would be wise to conciliate 
 his brother instead of treating his indignation with contempt, 
 and he added, " Remember, if anything happened to me, 
 Constantine would be your absolute master." " Your Majesty 
 may rest assured/' said Pahlen, " that if anything were to 
 happen to you, Constantine Paulo vitz would not reign a single 
 day over Russia/' 
 
 At last Pahlen's fate was decided by the Empress placing 
 a picture in the chapel of the Foundling Hospital, representing 
 her husband on his knees before the Blessed Virgin, and under- 
 neath the inscription, " God will avenge the murder of Paul 
 the First/' The people crowded to look at it, and afraid it 
 would create a reaction of the public feeling in favour of the 
 deceased Emperor, he requested Alexander to ask her to let it 
 be removed. She answered her son, " Take for yourself the 
 just threats of Heaven and men against those who have 
 * bee also De Maisstre.
 
 A lexander's A ccession. 155 
 
 strangled my husband, their Emperor, and your father. You 
 must choose between Pahlen and me." The picture remained, 
 and Pahlen entreating Alexander to order it away never- 
 theless, he replied, " You forget she is my mother." On this 
 Pahlen took the matter into his own hands, and removed it him- 
 self. The next morning he was commanded to retire to his 
 post at Riga, the very town where he first attracted the 
 favourable notice of the murdered Czar. He told the aide- 
 de-camp who brought the message it was only what he 
 expected, and his travelling-carriage was prepared. Within 
 an hour he had resigned all his offices in St. Petersburg, and 
 within two had started for Riga,* where he stayed for some 
 months, but was finally requested to retire from public life. 
 He passed the greater part of his remaining days in a hermit- 
 like seclusion on his estates and in Moscow, but was always 
 obliged to leave the city when it was visited by the Dowager- 
 Empress. 
 
 The proclamation drawn up before Paul's death, and which 
 Alexander signed early the next morning, stated that 
 
 "On receiving thelmperial hereditary crown of all theRussias 
 we receive the obligation to govern the people committed unto us 
 by 1 he Almighty according to the laws and the heart of her who 
 rests with God, our most august grandmother, Sovereign, and 
 Empress, Catherine the Great, whose memory will be dear for 
 ever to us and the whole country. Following the steps of her 
 wise intentions, we hope to arrive at the object of carrying 
 Russia to the summit of glory, and to procure an uninter- 
 rupted happiness to all our faithful subjects, whom we invite 
 to seal their fidelity to us by oath before the face of the all- 
 
 * In Sir R. Wilson's diary he alludes to Pahlen, whom he met at 
 Baldone, a Russian watering-place near Riga, July 30th, 1830, and says 
 he was treated with universal respect. " He is certainly a very sensible 
 man, with a fine open countenance and manly figure." He died of 
 apoplexy, February, 1826, brought on, it was thought, by the news of 
 Alexander's death two months before, which placed him in some un- 
 certainty as to his own fate, for, although eighty years old, he was in full 
 health and vigour, not unfrequently referring to the deed of March 23rd, 
 saying it was justified by peculiar circumstances, and that he had sacri- 
 ficed his personal gratitude and his fame for the safety of his throne and 
 country ; yet his neighbours asserted that he was haunted by Paul's 
 spectre. His four sons were all distinguished in the Russian service. 
 One was ambassador in Paris in
 
 156 Alexanders Accession. 
 
 seeing God, Whose assistance we implore to grant us power 
 to support the weight now resting upon us. ALEXANDER. 
 " Given at St. Petersburg, 12th March (o.s.), 1801." 
 
 Catherine used to say that her son would not long survive 
 her, and her conduct to him was thought to be justified by 
 his reign ; yet though disastrous, it was not so destructive to 
 the vital energies of the nation as hers, which was lauded by 
 Voltaire, and laid down as the model by which it was hoped 
 her grandson would frame his government. The venality and 
 corruption long prevailing in Russia, as in most Eastern coun- 
 tries, had reached an unprecedented height, and the Empress 
 was aware of it, and encouraged it, once observing of a lieu- 
 tenant-colonel, whose nominal pay would scarcely furnish him 
 with the necessaries of life, that it was his own fault if he 
 was poor, for he had means of making money in his regiment.* 
 " The cause is decided when the judge has taken a present," 
 has long been a common proverb in Russia. Peter the Great 
 once observed, that if in the church in the middle of prayer, 
 one of his subjects found the moment to rob his neighbour he 
 would do it in the face of the altar; and he refused to allow 
 the Jews to settle in St. Petersburg on the payment of certain 
 dues, because, he said, " my nation only follows too much 
 the fraudulent maxims of the Jews ; if I admitted Jews into 
 my States they would corrupt them still more."t In Ca- 
 therine's time a Russian could have learned nothing from a 
 Jew, for even at the post-office a letter was never given up to 
 its owner without a bribe. The gambling and dissipation of 
 her Court produced from Diderot the observation, then more 
 applicable than at the present time, " The Russians are rotten 
 before they are ripe." Her reign prepared the troubles which 
 beset her grandson as much as the reign of Louis XIV. 
 prepared that of Louis XVI., and it was probably only the very 
 opposite characters of the two Sovereigns that prevented a 
 similar result. She wielded the sceptre for a longer period 
 than any Russian Sovereign during the three last centuries, 
 except Peter the Great, but in spite of professing to be a 
 republican in spirit, did absolutely nothing towards the develop- 
 
 * Napoleon made the same answer with regard to General Nansovty, 
 who had commanded in Hanover. f Prince A. Galitzin.
 
 Alexander's Accession. 157 
 
 ment of more liberal institutions ; on the contrary, she trans- 
 formed the free peasants of the Ukraine into serfs, and when 
 alarmed by the French revolution, threw those into prison 
 whom she suspected of an admiration for the new republic. 
 The schools she founded were for the satisfaction of Europe, 
 not for Russia, as she stated in a letter to the Governor of 
 Moscow, for she did not suppose the education of the people 
 was compatible with the maintenance of an autocratic govern- 
 ment. There was as much oppression and as much violence 
 in her reign as in Paul's, but it was more carefully concealed, 
 and directed against those who endeavoured to reform an 
 utterly corrupt system, and not against the agents of that 
 system, who were the principal sufferers under her son ; for it 
 may be safely asserted that there were few exiled to Siberia, 
 or degraded to the ranks by his orders, who were not deserving 
 of punishment for peculation or some other offence. Opinions 
 differ as to his military innovations : some say he improved 
 the army by introducing European discipline, others that he 
 spoilt it by depriving it of its ancient ardour and esprit de 
 corps in giving it a foreign uniform and drill. Suvorov's 
 system required no educated sub-officers, for he did not 
 possess them ; he never made reconnaissances, and trusted to 
 the efficiency of prayer and the physical courage of his troops. 
 Those under his immediate orders were well fed and clothed ; 
 but the eye of a single general can extend over a very small 
 portion of the extensive Muscovite Empire, and the condition 
 of the greater part of the Empress Catherine's infantry of the 
 line was most miserable. Howard's letters from Southern 
 Russia in 1789* describe the waste of human life when the 
 army was supplied with recruits : " They were brought by 
 forced marches hundred of miles over horrid roads, ill clothed 
 and worse fed, so that thousands fell sick by the way, and 
 were either left to die of starvation or transferred to wretched 
 hospitals, where fever soon finished what famine and fatigue 
 had so well begun. In the government calculations this loss 
 of life was known and actually allowed for, while in a few 
 places a kind of rude provision was made to meet it." Howard 
 saw a hospital recently erected at Krementschuk, on the 
 Dnieper, which contained, he said, " 400 patients in its un- 
 * Life of John Howard the Philanthropist, by Hepworth Dixon.
 
 158 Alexander's Accession. 
 
 wholesome wards. Reflect a moment on the condition of 
 these poor destitute wretches, forced from their homes and all 
 their dearest connections, and compare them with those one has 
 seen cheerful, clean, and happy at a wedding, or village festival ; 
 let them be viewed quitting their birth-place with all their 
 little wardrobe, and their pockets stored with roubles, the 
 gifts of their relations, who never expect to see them more, 
 now joining their corps in a long march of one or two thou- 
 sand versts, their money gone to the officer who conducts 
 them and deprives them of the government allowance, arriv- 
 ing fatigued and half naked in a distant dreary country, and 
 exposed immediately to military hardships with harassed . 
 bodies and dejected spirits, and who can wonder that so many 
 droop and die in a short time without any apparent illness ? 
 The devastations I have seen made by war among so many 
 innocent people, and this in a country where there are 
 such immense tracts of land unoccupied, are shocking to 
 human nature." 
 
 It was those who had grown rich on the misfortunes of their 
 countrymen who were chiefly deprived of office or driven into 
 exile by Paul ; and who can regret their fate ? In his en- 
 deavour to reduce the expenses of the State by diminishing the 
 superfluous government officials 20,000 were thrown out of 
 employment, and swelled the number of malcontents. There 
 were some independent patriots among the Russians who 
 thought this state of confusion inevitable before any reform 
 could be really effected, and had hoped to see an improved 
 administration arise out of 'chaos. They thought no reign 
 could prosper ushered in by violence, and feared lest a young 
 man educated in Catherine's Court, and now surrounded by her 
 favourites, would restore the old regime, which was all that 
 the Senate and Council of the Empire required ; and they 
 would not lend their support to his government while any of 
 these advisers remained. Such were Count Simon Voronzov, 
 Rostopchine, General Svetchine, and the old Archbishop Plato ; 
 but the young nobility, educated by ignorant foreign tutors, 
 and imitating the French emigres in their thoughtlessness and 
 vice, expected the Emperor's first proclamation would act like 
 an enchanter's wand, and that everything would henceforward 
 roll on smoothly, with an occasional foreign campaign to give
 
 Alexander's Accession. 159 
 
 them an opportunity of displaying their military talents. 
 Alexander took far the most accurate view of the difficulties 
 and responsibilities before him, and the real requirements of his 
 empire ; but where was he to find the fit tools to carry out his 
 work ? Could upright, disinterested, practical reforming states- 
 men have been formed under Catherine's ministers ? or educated 
 politicians and officials in an empire which till PauPs reign 
 possessed no school for the young noblemen, but selected 
 tutors for its future ministers from French and German barbers 
 and valets? This accounts for the preponderance of foreigners 
 in Alexander's early councils, who were gradually replaced by 
 Russians. A long course of painful experience somewhat 
 modified his views as regarded the best form of government 
 for Russia, but he always remained the consistent friend of 
 liberty, though not of its abuse, which is merely the tyranny 
 of the mob supplanting that of the despot. He wrote to the 
 republican La Harpe soon after his accession : " I feel the 
 load of responsibility I have taken upon myself, and how un- 
 equal I am in my inexperience to wield the sceptre of such an 
 empire. All that I can hope is that I may be guided by the 
 precepts you have taught me. I entreat if ever you find me 
 departing from them to remind me of them. Do not wait for 
 me to send for you (this I probably shall not do) when I act in 
 opposition to them, but write to me, come to me, to recall 
 me from my errors." He wrote another letter at the same time 
 to Czartoriski, dated five days after his accession, to desire him 
 to return to St. Petersburg : 
 
 " 17th March (o.s.), 1801. 
 
 " You have already learned that by the death of my father 
 I am at the head of affairs. I reserve the details till I see 
 you. I write to tell you to make over immediately all the 
 business of your mission to the senior below you, and to come 
 to St. Petersburg. I need not tell you with what impatience 
 I am expecting you. Adieu, my dear friend, I cannot say 
 more. I enclose a passport for you to show at the frontier." 
 
 The Prince returned to St. Petersburg about the middle of 
 August, but for two years took no active part in public affairs. 
 On the 26th of March, 1801, Alexander established the Privy
 
 160 Alexander s Accession. 
 
 Council, for hitherto the only assembly at all resembling it 
 was the temporary Court Council appointed by Paul to assist 
 him in the war with France. Marshal Soltikof, Valerian 
 Zoubof, Plato Zoubof, Prince Kurakin, Lamb, Belkleshef, 
 Vassilief, Pahlen, Prince Gagarine, Count Kouchelof, and 
 Troschinsky were the earliest members, though Pahlen and 
 Plato Zoubof were soon obliged to resign. If age, rank, 
 and experience were the chief qualifications for a councillor, 
 it was decidedly the best that could have been formed under 
 the circumstances. Kurakin was the tried friend of Paul, and 
 the others had all held office, but they were men who M 7 ould 
 willingly return to the old regime, and by no means supported 
 the reforming tendencies of the young Czar. Still, the aboli- 
 tion of the secret police gave satisfaction to all classes. On 
 the 1st of April (o.s.) Alexander went to the Senate and read 
 aloud the decree to announce this decision, drawn up and 
 written out by his own hand. After referring to the reasons 
 which caused it originally to be instituted, he declared it to be 
 now abolished, and that in future all crimes should be left to 
 the general laws for investigation and punishment. Pending 
 cases were to be destroyed and prisoners in its hands to be 
 released, and the Senate was ordered to determine how such 
 cases should be dealt with in future.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 18011802. 
 
 ALEXANDER'S FIRST ACTS. 
 
 JETAT. 23. 
 
 THE news of Paul's death was received with mingled 
 feelings in the different Courts of Europe. At Berlin 
 it was first conveyed to Madame Scherobzov, the sister of the 
 Zoubofs, who had gone there to aid her brothers in case the 
 failure of the conspiracy compelled them to fly from Russia. 
 She read the despatch in the midst of a Court ball, and pro- 
 claimed the murder with the greatest joy. Frederick William 
 III. ordered her to quit the country, and the Court put on 
 mourning, sending messages of sympathy to the Imperial 
 family.* At Stockholm Gustavus IV. refused to receive the 
 ambassador sent to make the formal announcement of Alex- 
 ander's accession ; but it produced an immediate peace with 
 England, where a fleet was prepared under Sir Hyde Parker 
 and Nelson, to advance against Cronstadt on the breaking up 
 of the ice in the Baltic. The English vessels came as far as 
 the coasts of Esthonia, but were soon recalled, and Alexander 
 wrote an autograph letter to George III., expressing his desire 
 to renew amicable relations between the two empires. He 
 removed the prohibition to export corn, which was of great 
 importance at that moment to the famine-stricken British 
 isles, and also to his nobles, whose barns were overstocked by a 
 more than usually abundant harvest. He restored to liberty 
 the sailors arrested by Paul's order before the declaration of 
 war, commanding that they should be carefully conducted 
 to the several ports whence they were taken, and repaid 
 the loss sustained by the British merchants in the burning 
 of their ships, which amounted to 700,000 roubles. The 
 English fleet had just bombarded the defenceless town of 
 
 * Prince Charles Alexander of Prussia, born June, 1801, was Alex- 
 ander's godson. 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 Alexander's First Acts. 
 
 Copenhagen, and Nelson was anxious to proceed at once to 
 Cronstadt, and strike a blow against the Russian fleet before 
 the impending peace should be finally arranged. As soon as 
 he was left in sole charge of the English ships by the 
 departure of Sir Hyde Parker to England, he sailed direct to 
 Bevel, and anchored there May 14th. The Russian fleet, 
 sawing through the ice, escaped to Cronstadt, and hearing the 
 young Emperor was in the fortress, he sent off a despatch 
 to congratulate him on his accession and ask for an audience ; 
 but Alexander refused all intercourse, and expressed surprise 
 at the appearance of the British admiral in the Russian 
 waters.* 
 
 When Talleyrand carried the first report of Paul's death to 
 Napoleon at Malmaison, the First Consul was excessively 
 mortified at this counter- stroke to his policy, and expressed the 
 greatest horror and disappointment. Talleyrand observed it was 
 the Russian mode of changing an unpopular ministry; but 
 Napoleon at once accused the English of being accessories, if 
 not the promoters of the deed, and before he had received any 
 despatch on the subject or any additional proof, announced it 
 in the Moniteur in these words, " Paul I. died in the night 
 of the 24th to the 25th of March. The English squadron 
 passed the Sound on the 31st. History will unfold the 
 connection which must exist between these two events/'f He 
 returned to this charge in his Memoirs, where he states " it 
 has been thought the goodwill of Paul to France proved fatal 
 to him. It might well have been the case, for there are 
 Cabinets with whom nothing is sacred/' 
 
 He wrote to his brother Joseph, April llth, 1801 : 
 " The Emperor of Russia died on the 24th of March of a 
 stroke of apoplexy. I am so deeply afflicted by the death of 
 a prince whom I so highly esteemed that I can enter into no 
 more details. He is succeeded by his eldest son, who received 
 the oaths of the army and the capital/' Shortly afterwards 
 he caused a pamphlet to be compiled, entitled " Notice on the 
 Death of Paul I. Emperor of Russia," which had a large 
 circulation in France. Of Rostopchine it spoke highly. 
 
 * Sir E. Gust's "Wars of the Nineteenth Century, 
 f Lanfrey. According to the Annual Eegister for 1801, the plot to 
 compel Paul to abdicate was known to several persons in London long 
 before his death.
 
 Alexander's First Acts. 163 
 
 " Pahlen's first care was to remove from PauFs favour all whom 
 he had not gained. To this effect he worked a long time, and 
 succeeded at last in disgracing a man whose devotion to the 
 person of the Emperor, and above all whose talents gave him 
 umbrage; it was Rostopchine, Vice- Chancellor of Foreign 
 Affairs," &c. On this, as on other occasions, Napoleon 
 expressed his indignation at such an Oriental mode of 
 destroying a political alliance ; and the Duchess of Abrantes 
 says he held Paul in very high esteem. It would have been 
 natural that the Empress Mary should have viewed at least 
 with toleration the head of a powerful government, parvenu 
 though he might be, who protested so boldly against the 
 authors of the deed she deplored, yet she always entertained 
 the utmost antipathy to Napoleon, which he attributed to a 
 conversation he held with the Russian ambassador Markof. 
 Speaking of the party among the nobles who supported her 
 claims, he said she deserved her partizans, but that the time 
 when women held the reins of government was too far from 
 our manners and from our present enlightenment for them to 
 be put into the hands of the Empress Mary, above all in a 
 great country like Russia. " I know very well," he added, 
 " that the conduct of the Dowager Empress both as a wife 
 and mother justifies her in every point for seeking to make 
 them proclaim her Sovereign of Russia ; but why has she not 
 used her power over the multitude to prevent the expression 
 of those wishes which prove to us that there exists a party 
 for her V 
 
 Benningsen made his peace with the Empress-Dowager, and 
 was invited to her private parties at Paulovsky, where she 
 treated him with special attention in consequence of two letters 
 he produced from himself to a fellow conspirator before the 
 murder, in the first of which he wrote : " If they wish to 
 shut him (Paul) up for the safety of the State I consent to let 
 myself be shut up with him for the rest of niy days ;" and in 
 another that deposition and seclusion were indispensable, 
 " yet death is a brutality." But De Maistre, commenting on 
 this distinction, observes that Benningsen was the most de- 
 termined of the assassins. Panine succeeded Pablen as 
 Chancellor of the Empire, a post he had already held, for 
 Rostopchine, to whom Alexander first offered it, refused 
 
 M 2
 
 164 Alexander's First Acts. 
 
 office, and always declared if he had remained in St. Peters- 
 burg the Emperor's murder should never have taken place ; 
 but this appointment was equally distasteful to the Empress, 
 who would not meet him, and even in 1824 he was obliged 
 to leave Moscow when she visited it. At the time of all 
 others that Russia required a firm, united government to 
 resist the Republican torrent in Western Europe and counter- 
 act the aggressive Empire which was just springing into life 
 in France, with England urging her to war on one side, 
 Germany, Sardinia, and Naples appealing to Paul's guarantee 
 of their territories on the other, and France concluding a 
 triumphant treaty with Austria, which raised up a strong ally 
 on her eastern frontier in the Confederation of the Rhine, the 
 Empress- Dowager and her party were doing their best to aid 
 Napoleon's schemes of ambition by keeping up a systematic 
 opposition in Russia, as if with an inexperienced Sovereign, 
 only twenty-three, the empire was not sufficiently imperilled 
 without domestic enemies. The cool old politicians, whose 
 years numbered more than double those of their Emperor, 
 and who had seen two Russian revolutions, were compelled by 
 turns to resign their posts to make room for young, inex- 
 perienced theorists without weight in their own country, and 
 neither dreaded nor respected abroad. With Poland and the 
 Crimea still only half subdued, the Caucasus in chronic agita- 
 tion, no credit and an empty exchequer, party spirit should 
 have been silent till all these difficulties were surmounted, 
 instead of adding to the dangers which beset the throne ; but 
 the English, Austrian, and French agents, who were most 
 active during these years in St. Petersburg, each on behalf of 
 his own government, were sure, when they opposed Panine 
 and Pahlen, of securing the Empress-mother and her influen- 
 tial coterie for an ally; or if they countenanced Benningsen 
 and the Zoubofs, of exciting the animosity of Rostopchine 
 and Aratchaief. 
 
 These two eminent men belonged to the old Russian party, 
 which at that period were the upholders of Oriental despotism 
 and serfdom, but accredited with more national spirit than the 
 Europeanized statesmen of St. Petersburg. The first was an 
 admirable landlord,* and he remained on his estates near 
 * He was born in 1 765, a descendant of Zingis Khan.
 
 Alexander's First Acts. 165 
 
 Moscow after Paul's death, refusing to act in any of the 
 numerous offices to which Alexander restored him, and even 
 trying to deter his friends, like General Zizianof, from attend- 
 ing the Court. He was particularly incensed at the Emperor's 
 murder having been perpetrated in consequence of the war 
 with England, whose policy he did not approve, and to whose 
 alliance he had always preferred that of France. Alexander 
 desired to reward his father's two faithful adherents in his first 
 agony of remorse, but Rostopchine resisted any compromise 
 with the regicidal ministry. Aratchaief was more pliable. He 
 arrived in St. Petersburg at the end of March, 1801, and had 
 an interview with the young Emperor, when he spoke with 
 much vehemence of his devotion to Paul, and cursed his own 
 absence at the fatal moment, saying, like Rostopchine, that 
 if he had been there the crime would never have been 
 committed. Alexander was touched by the sincerity of his 
 grief, and from that hour entertained a high opinion of him. 
 He was reinstated in his post as Inspector-General of Artillery, 
 and became Alexander's most devoted servant. 
 
 Nowhere had a man of humble origin more difficulties to 
 contend with than in Russia, for in no country were the 
 aristocracy more exclusive : children followed the trade or 
 profession of their fathers without hope of elevation, and the 
 separation of different classes was as strictly practised as 
 between castes in India or Georgia. 
 
 Alexander wrote to the First Consul on his accession, 
 expressing his wish to continue on peaceful terms with France ; 
 he remained perfectly consistent to his yotithful admiration of 
 the Revolution, and the spirit which had made him induce Paul 
 to acknowledge the government of the Republic. He had 
 seen by experience the evils of a hereditary despotism, but 
 Napoleon having also seen by experience the evils of re- 
 publicanism, and the superior power which a despot enjoyed 
 to that of the president of a democracy dependent on the 
 will of the people, could not believe that Alexander was sincere. 
 Who had ever seen a really liberal autocrat or a sovereign 
 willing to curtail his privileges for the benefit of mankind ? 
 Napoleon would not credit such an anomaly, or understand 
 disinterestedness in a man born to the position which of all 
 others he thought most desirable. But Alexander was no
 
 106 Alexander's First Acts. 
 
 ordinary prince, as even his detractors* acknowledged, and 
 Thiers, though writing on the opposite side and accusing him 
 of " singularity" and " hereditary infirmity," still admits that 
 " there was a depth of understanding in his enlarged quick 
 perception of things, which escaped the discrimination of the 
 closest observers/'f and that " he was one of the noblest 
 characters of modern times." 
 
 Napoleon had not ventured to unite Piedmont to France 
 while Paul lived, and wrote to M. de St. Marsan that for 
 friendship for Russia he was disposed to do something for the 
 King of Sardinia (in fact he was bound to do so by their 
 agreement), but as soon as he heard of his death he took 
 possession of it, and ante-dated the decree. Alexander 
 ordered the Russian Minister in Paris, M. Kalitschef, to 
 complain of this breach of faith. He was answered that the 
 First Consul was angry at the want of respect shown to him 
 by the King of Sardinia, that he had lost patience, that 
 nothing was decided ;J and Napoleon immediately sent Duroc 
 to St. Petersburg on a confidential mission to try and con- 
 ciliate the Emperor, but ostensibly to congratulate him on 
 his accession. The ambassador reported the substance of 
 several couversations Alexander held 'with him alone. " I 
 am at heart a friend of France," said the Emperor, " and 
 have admired your new ruler for a long time. He has 
 strengthened social order in Europe by establishing authority 
 in your country. I willingly concede to him all that he has 
 conquered, even Egypt, though this conquest brings France 
 too near to Constantinople, and weakens the Ottoman Empire 
 still necessary for the equilibrium of the world ; but I should 
 prefer Egypt to belong to France rather than to England. I 
 renounce the island of Malta, and the superannuated idea of 
 reconstituting under my protection an institution deceased 
 with the superstition which gave it birth." Here spoke the 
 pupil of La Harpe, and the grandson of the friend and 
 admirer of Voltaire. " I would even yield to him Piedmont 
 without a dispute, provided that he indemnifies my old ally 
 the King of Sardinia. As to England, I am as interested as 
 
 * Brougham's Introduction to Speech on the Holy Alliance. 
 
 f Histoire du Consulat et Congres de Vienne. + Lanfrey. 
 
 Lamartine. Histoire de la Eussie, M. Thiers, vol. iii.
 
 Alexander s First Acts. 167 
 
 you are in not making over to her the liberty of the seas, 
 the only guarantee of my immense commerce with her and 
 with the maritime Powers. I would willingly come to an 
 understanding with you to limit or check her. I interest 
 myself very little in the great Powers of Germany, who 
 deserted her own cause by her egotistical negotiations, like 
 Prussia, and her want of energy on the field of battle, like 
 Austria at Zurich. These Powers may feel the fatal con- 
 sequences of their perfidy and their cowardice. I shall not 
 make war for their glory. Treat with them as you choose, only 
 tell the First Consul to regard appearances, to limit his 
 conquests to the treaties he has made, and not to furnish 
 Europe or my own ministers with ground for declaiming on 
 his insatiable ambition, and for drawing me in spite of myself 
 to oppose him in my quality as the born protector of the 
 weak and the oppressed." On another occasion Alexander 
 told Duroc that his removal of the embargo his father laid 
 on English vessels was only strict justice. "But I have no 
 intention," he added, " of becoming a satellite of England. 
 It depends entirely upon the First Consul whether I shall 
 continue to be his ally. I am bound to the Kings of Pied- 
 mont and Naples by treaties. I am conscious their conduct 
 has not been straightforward ; but how were they to act, 
 hemmed iu as they were and domineered over by England ?" 
 He went on to say, that the seizure of Piedmont and part 
 of Naples was unworthy of the ambition of the First Consul, 
 and tarnished his glory. It gave alarm to the minor princes 
 of Europe, who were continually importuning Russia ; but 
 if these difficulties were removed France and Russia might in 
 future keep up a good understanding. In fact, France must 
 not take advantage of the weaker Powers, and their inability 
 to resist her ; for by the treaty of Teschen in 1779 Russia had 
 guaranteed the independence of the smaller States of the 
 German empire ; but that Austria and Prussia ought to be 
 able to defend their own interests. Consequently the French 
 Government began secretly to purchase the allegiance of the 
 smaller German States, so that without actually defying their 
 protector Russia, it might procure their voluntary alliance, 
 and make use of them as an outpost for the intimidation of 
 Austria and Prussia.
 
 168 Alexander's First Acts. 
 
 Nothing could be more open and clear with regard to 
 Napoleon than this language, and his most intimate friends 
 long regretted his mistrust of a monarch whom they were wise 
 enough to see was by position and inclination their only true 
 ally in Europe. The smallest hereditary prince in Italy and 
 Germany thought himself superior to Napoleon when Emperor, 
 on account of his longer pedigree, and objected to ministers 
 and chamberlains who were not of noble birth; whereas 
 Alexander declared the doctrine of the divine right of kings* 
 to be an exploded idea, and valued a man according to his 
 personal qualities. He refused to allow his head to be 
 impressed on the new coin, because he said it belonged as 
 much to the people as to the Sovereign. He visited his sub- 
 jects of all classes ; and while Napoleon, when he assumed the 
 Imperial crown, created Court functionaries, and attempted to 
 graft on to a military despotism, almost destitute of the old 
 French nobility, the Court and style of Louis XIV., Alexander 
 curtailed all state ceremonies ; and even deprived the Court 
 chamberlains and other attendants of any rank or precedence 
 merely in virtue of their office. He abolished the custom of 
 kissing the Sovereign's hand, which is still never done in 
 Eussia, except to the Empress on New Year's Day. His 
 whole career showed his liberal principles, which he tried to con- 
 form to his position as the autocrat of forty millions of people. 
 Perhaps Napoleon never forgave his part in the conspiracy of 
 1801, \vhich had so entirely upset his own schemes of ambition 
 in the East; for he reserved it as his most poignant barb 
 whenever Russia and France were involved in political dis- 
 putes. Alexander answered other charges afterwards made 
 against him by the French Government, with the assertion 
 that they were impudent falsehoods ; but on this subject he 
 never attempted to justify himself. On the contrary, he care- 
 fully shielded his father's memory, and sought to carry out 
 every reasonable measure he had designed, particularly his 
 scheme for a bond of religious union between the Christian 
 Powers, in the project afterwards called the Holy Alliance. 
 The Western Cabinets imagined that the murder of the Russian 
 Sovereign implied a total change of policy, and each Power 
 in its own interests thought itself deceived. " The Emperor of 
 * See his conversation with Louis XVIII.
 
 Alexander's First Acts. 169 
 
 Russia never dies/' wrote De Maistre. " What Paul has 
 promised, Alexander must perform. Sardinia's only hope is 
 in Russia." England expected Alexander at once to become 
 her close ally, and was disappointed; for like his father he 
 felt she had not treated Russia well. The notification of his 
 accession, sent by Pahlen to Sir Hyde Parker, was carefully 
 worded. It condemned the attack on Denmark, at the very 
 time that the English envoy in Berlin was authorized to open 
 a conference with the Russian minister in that city. It 
 declared that if this attack and the arrival of a hostile fleet 
 had not been made before the Emperor's proposal* could have 
 reached London, " it would have entirely frustrated his wish 
 for peace." It asserted that his Imperial Majesty was prepared 
 to repel force with force, and could only conclude a peace 
 " which should reconcile the duties of humanity with the 
 honour of his crown, and the interests of his allies." Yet 
 France chose to suspect him of connivance with the English 
 Cabinet, because he offered restitution where Paul had clearly 
 been unjust. Far from unravelling complications, Paul's 
 deathf in the end rather increased them, for a Nemesis seemed 
 to work in the external affairs of Russia. 
 
 But if Napoleon was mistaken in Alexander, the Czar was 
 equally mistaken in Napoleon. With the want of knowledge 
 of the world of a young Russian who had never been out of 
 Russia, he imagined that the faults he saw in his own people 
 were peculiar to them, and not shared to some degree by man- 
 kind at large, and that beyond the Elbe and the Rhine lay the 
 Utopia which the old French and German authors and his 
 own foreign tutor loved to portray. He believed in the 
 cleansing powers of the Revolution, and thought he saw in 
 Napoleon 'the champion of liberty and the offspring of the 
 French Republic, which had proclaimed freedom to the oppressed 
 bondsmen, and cast from its borders the worthless nobility 
 who were doing their best to corrupt his own people. The 
 Inquisition was abolished in Northern Italy through Napoleon's 
 victories, and Alexander regarded the Roman Catholic religion 
 as the superannuated ally of tyranny, and looked upon its 
 
 * Alexander's letter to George III. was written before he heard of the 
 bombardment of Copenhagen. 
 
 f " A shocking crime," said Napoleon, " of which my alliance has been 
 the principal cause."
 
 170 Alexander s First Acts. 
 
 overthrow and the stability of the Greek Church as not only a 
 blessing to mankind, but a national triumph. The doctrine 
 that forty millions of men are worth more than one Sovereign, 
 was the only ground on which he could excuse his own acces- 
 sion, and was a principle held by none of his brother monarchs ; 
 but he immediately adopted it as his motto, and rejected the 
 notion that kingdoms were private estates vested in royal 
 families. He maintained that a prince was himself but the 
 servant of the State, and he who was most popular, and most 
 capable of reigning, was the one who ought to be placed on 
 the throne. As for himself, he hoped to obliterate the dark 
 commencement of his authority by the benefits he would 
 bestow on his own people and the world at large ; and by the 
 superiority of his government to that of his unfortunate father 
 in some way atone for his early possession of it. He as- 
 cended the throne in the enjoyment of an almost unprece- 
 dented popularity. The filial respect and obedience he had long 
 shown through much provocation, his invariable courtesy to 
 those about him, his regular life, extensive information, and 
 other qualities, added to his being regarded during Paul's 
 reign as rather a victim for his father's uneasy jealousy was 
 widely known gave him a particular interest in the eyes of 
 his subjects ; and he had grown up among them, and not in the 
 seclusion of a half imprisonment like his predecessors. A wit- 
 ness* of his first appearance from the Winter Palace to receive 
 the homage of his troops, said he might have been taken as 
 the model Sovereign. " With a high stature, but slight and 
 flexible, his delicate appearance added to the grace of his 
 figure ; the carriage of his head recalling the majesty of 
 Catherine. He had a broad, high forehead, where study 
 and a soldier's hat early made his hair rather scarce; 
 very open blue eyes, limpid and profound, like a soul with 
 nothing to conceal ; a nose too short for the perfection of his 
 Greek profile ; a mouth closely shut when silent, soft in tone ; 
 a complexion of a death-like marble whiteness, often coloured 
 with a blush ; a self-possession without heaviness ; a fine seat 
 on horseback ; a majestic, but never theatrical action/' " Such 
 was Alexander," adds Lamartine, " as we saw him ourselves 
 some years later, when maturity still left him his attractions. 
 
 * M. Choiseul Gouffier.
 
 Alexander's First Acts. 171 
 
 Sir Robert Porter, in 1807, and Carr, in 1804, draw much the 
 same portrait ; and add that his deafness was very obvious, 
 and obliged him to stoop when he wanted to hear. " In the 
 discharge of his duties he displays great activity and acuteness, 
 but witho.ut show or bustle ; the leading features of his mind 
 are sound discretion and humanity." 
 
 A picture of Alexander in 1801 represents a tall, straight, 
 very slender youth, with thick, short, curly, chestnut hair, 
 and the regulation military pigtail, which he soon abandoned ; 
 a very young face, rendered more boyish than usual at twenty- 
 three by the soft complexion and total absence of moustache. 
 His searching eyes showed his short sight, which obliged him to 
 use a strong glass. He wondered why he was constantly 
 losing it, but his aides-de-camp could have explained, as if he 
 put one down for a moment it was appropriated and kept, or 
 even sold, as a memento. " He has taken every step to show 
 his respect for his father's memory/' says a letter from 
 St. Petersburg in the summer of 1801, " but a melancholy and 
 uneasiness constantly hangs about him in spite of the wisdom 
 and humanity of his government."*' Even within a year or two 
 of his accession he could hardly conceal the gloomy moods 
 that came over him, and was seen to ride away from his aides- 
 de-camp and wander miles alone over the country, and at St. 
 Petersburg to plunge into the deserted streets at night, and 
 walk backwards and forwards till daybreak. Yet this tempe- 
 rament, which was perhaps partly constitutional, and not 
 altogether entirely the result of what Capefigue calls " a cruel 
 accident in his life weighing upon him with the power of 
 remorse," did not detract from the energy with which he 
 undertook his duties, and he showed an almost feverish im- 
 patience in pushing forward his reforms. 
 
 On Monday, March 24th (N.S.), he left St. Michael's Palace 
 with his wife to take up his residence in the Winter Pa- 
 lace, facing the Neva, and four days later published these 
 ukazes : 
 
 " All prisoners of State are to be set at liberty. 
 
 " All the late laws relative to contraband are abolished. 
 
 " The tariff of tolls and customs of 1782 is reintroduced. 
 
 " The English seamen are released from confinement. 
 
 * Annual Register for 1801.
 
 172 Alexander's First Acts. 
 
 " All societies and clubs are permitted. 
 
 " The Orders of St. Vladimir and St. George are to be 
 restored. (Paul had suppressed them.) 
 
 " Everybody may dress as he pleases, provided he does not 
 violate common decorum. 
 
 " The importation of books and literary productions of 
 every sort is permitted. 
 
 " The regiments are to bear their old names, and the former 
 regiments of guards are to be reorganized. 
 
 " Every person, whether native, foreign, or exile, shall freely 
 enter or quit the Russian dominions without any molestation 
 or difficulty on the frontiers." (This brought hundreds from 
 Siberia.) 
 
 The importation of china, earthen and glass wares, 
 steel tools and instruments, hardwares, silks, cottons, and 
 linens, lately forbidden, was permitted, " because our manu- 
 factures have not yet attained the necessary perfection, nor 
 are sufficient to supply the exigence of our empire, so that for 
 the present year the tariff of 1797 be in force." At the same 
 time Alexander appointed Marshal Soltikof to be vicar or 
 substitute of the office of Grand Master of the Order of St. 
 John until an agreement had been concluded with the other 
 Powers for the election of a Grand Master " who is worthy to 
 preside and capable of restoring to the Order its ancient 
 constitution," and no one in future was to dismount when 
 the Emperor or Empress appeared in sight, or to make 
 any further token of respect than the ordinary military 
 salute. 
 
 Lord St. Helens, formerly ambassador at the Court of 
 Catherine, was sent to St. Petersburg on the conclusion of a 
 peace, which he signed in the Russian capital June 17th 
 (N.S.), 1801. The formal treaty of peace, which had never 
 yet been actually signed, between France and Russia, was 
 concluded at Paris on October 8th, Count Markof, one of 
 Catherine's old favourites/ having succeeded Kalitchef as 
 Alexander's representative in Paris. The articles not imme- 
 diately published in connection with this treaty, but signed at 
 the same time, related to the division of the indemnities 
 provided by the treaty of Luneville for the princes dis- 
 possessed on the left bank of the Rhine. The second article
 
 Alexander's First Acts. 173 
 
 provided that the high contracting parties should amicably 
 arrange the affairs of Italy and of the Holy See. The sixth 
 stipulated that " the First Consul and the Emperor of Russia 
 shall act in concert in relation to the King of Sardinia, and 
 with all the regard possible to the actual state of affairs." 
 The ninth guaranteed the independence of the Republic of 
 the Seven Islands (under the protection of Russia), and the 
 eleventh declared that " as soon as possible after the signature 
 of the present treaty and these secret articles, the two con- 
 tracting parties shall enter upon the consideration of the 
 establishment of a general peace upon the following basis : 
 To restore a just equilibrium in the different parts of the world, 
 and to insure the liberty of the seas, binding themselves to act 
 in concert for the attainment of these objects by all measures, 
 whether of conciliation or vigour, mutually agreed on between 
 them for the good of humanity, t;he general repose, and the 
 independence of governments." The treaty between France 
 and the Turkish empire at the same time recognised the 
 separation from Turkey of the Republic of the Seven Islands 
 and Dalmatia, their independence to be guaranteed by Russia 
 and France. Paul's alliance with Bonaparte had already 
 obtained the restoration to liberty of several French prisoners 
 who had lingered long in the dungeons of Constantinople, 
 and Napoleon's anxiety to remain on a friendly footing with 
 his son was further shown by sending one of his aides-de-camp, 
 Colonel Caulaincourt, to Russia, to represent him at the coro- 
 nation of the Emperor at Moscow, and also to observe 
 minutely the forms and ceremonies used on the occasion, for 
 the First Consul already contemplated his own elevation to 
 the Imperial dignity. Caulaincourt was one of the very few- 
 members of the old French nobility attached to the cause of 
 the Republic, but these were marked for distinction. More 
 than 100,000 peasants came from the country to witness the 
 coronation, although Paul's had been celebrated with unusual 
 magnificence only four and a half years before, and Alexander 
 was everywhere received with the warmest loyalty. A Russian 
 Emperor places the crown on his own head, to signify that 
 he receives it from God alone, and not, as Ivan the Terrible 
 once expressed it, " from the seditious will of men." He 
 becomes himself half an ecclesiastic, and may take the part of
 
 1 74 Alexander's First Acts. 
 
 a deacon in any office, receiving the Holy Communion, not 
 as before with the laity, but with the priests and bishops. 
 This was a privilege originally obtained for the Csesars by 
 Constantine the Great, and, with many other customs derived 
 from Rome and Constantinople, was inherited by the Grand 
 Dukes and Czars of Russia. The religion, the churches, the 
 ceremonial offices in Moscow, all forcibly recall the Christian 
 city of Constantinople ; and the crown, orb, and sceptre still 
 used were presented by a Greek emperor in 1113 A.D. to a 
 former Russian Sovereign, the grandson of Constantine 
 Mouomachus. 
 
 An Englishman wrote from Moscow, October 1st, 1801 ; 
 " The ceremony of the young Emperor's coronation was par- 
 ticularly grand ; so much so that I feel recompensed for the 
 very comfortless journey of 2000 miles I encountered to be 
 present at it. 
 
 " The Emperor arrived at the palace of Petrovsky on the 
 22nd ult., where he resided till the 27th ; during the interval he 
 repeatedly visited the city in private. On the morning of Sunday 
 he made his public entry (when he was saluted by seventy-one 
 gun-shots), the procession was led by the heralds and Constan- 
 tine' s regiment of cavalry ; to these succeeded a long line of 
 empty carriages belonging to the nobility ; a regiment of 
 hussars, richly dressed, well mounted, and in all respects the 
 finest corps I ever saw, followed ; and then the nobility in 
 their carnages of state, and all the superior officers of the 
 government. The equipages were most magnificent ; the 
 carriages in general were drawn by six horses, and attended 
 by eight servants in the richest liveries. 
 
 " The Empress-Dowager in her state carriage came next, 
 then the present Empress (a most lovely woman), and then 
 the sisters of the Emperor, followed by another regiment of 
 hussars like the former. Next came the Emperor, mounted 
 on a fine horse,, with the Grand Duke Constantine riding on 
 his right, and a vast body of guards closed the procession. 
 
 " The church ceremony began by the Archbishop Plato con- 
 seci'ating the crown, &c. At nine o'clock the Empress-mother 
 entered the cathedral under a salute of cannon, and took her 
 seat, which was prepared on the left hand of the throne, the 
 Emperor and Empress followed, and then the nobility of both
 
 Alexander's First Acts. 175 
 
 sexes, who, superbly dressed, were seated on each side of the 
 cathedral ; the centre was occupied by those of the first class. 
 The cathedral is small, but the ceremony was managed with sin- 
 gular precision.* The city was illuminated for three nights, 
 and was very brilliant. The English and other strangers 
 were presented to their Majesties on Tuesday, and in the 
 evening there was a splendid ball at Court. To-day, October 
 18th, a fete is given to the populace ; a large field is enclosed, 
 and tables placed for the accommodation of 30,000. A profu- 
 sion of wine and viands are prepared, with a variety of amuse- 
 ments. The weather continues most favourable." 
 
 The Emperor spends the night before the coronation in the 
 church where his ancestors lie entombed ; and on the morning 
 previous to the ceremony observes a strict fast. The Sovereign 
 went on foot to the cathedral under a canopy of gold and silver, 
 supported by thirty-two generals, and followed by the courtiers 
 and the chevalier guards. They were received at the entrance 
 by the Metropolitan and assistant clergy, with the holy water 
 and sacred relics. Bowing before them, they walked to the 
 throne, where four noblemen bearing the regalia placed it at 
 their feet, taking their stand on the lowest step, and the 
 service began with the 101st Psalm. The Archbishop handed 
 a book to the Emperor, who, kneeling down, read the Gospel 
 for the day, after which he rose, and, taking the crown from 
 the hands of the old prelate, placed it on his own head during 
 this address : " Very pious, very powerful, and very great 
 Emperor of all the Russias, the visible and material ornament 
 which adorns thy forehead is the image of the mysterious act 
 by which Jesus Christ, the King of Glory, crowns thee in this 
 moment ; thou, the chief of the Russian people, by the means 
 of His Holy Benediction, confirming thee in the unlimited 
 and supreme power that thou exercisest over thy subjects," &c. 
 
 Two noblemen handed the sceptre and globe to the Arch- 
 bishop, who gave them to the Emperor, with a similar address, 
 after which the Sovereign seated himself on his throne, while 
 the Empress kneeling down, he touched her head with his 
 crown, and then replaced it, four ladies of the highest rank 
 coming forward to adjust it. He also decorated her with the 
 Mantle and Order of St. Andrew. His style and titles were 
 
 * There were seventeen English gentlemen present.
 
 176 Alexanders First Acts. 
 
 read out in a loud voice by a priest, and on his knees he read 
 the confession of his faith in the Nicene belief. A hundred- 
 and-one reports of artillery here interrupted the ceremony, 
 and the Emperor, again kneeling, received a book from the 
 Metropolitan, and recited a prayer to ask the Divine blessing 
 and assistance in governing his people, to the glory of God, 
 and their own happiness. It concluded with these words : 
 " May I be in a condition to answer Thee without fear in the 
 day of Thy dreaded Judgment, by the merits and the grace of 
 Jesus Christ Thy Son, Whose Name is glorified for ever with 
 Thine and with that of Thy Holy and Life-giving Spirit. 
 Amen." At the end of this prayer the Emperor rose, and the 
 Metropolitan and clergy, kneeling in their turn, repeated the 
 same on behalf of the Sovereign. Then Plato, whose preach- 
 ing had once drawn a compliment from Voltaire, gave the 
 sermon :* 
 
 ".This crown, sire, on your head, a pledge to us of glory 
 and renown, imposes upon you duties and labours ; this 
 sceptre in your right hand, a guarantee to us of repose, demands 
 of you watchfulness ; this emblem of empire in your left hand, 
 a promise to us of security, exacts of you care; this purple, 
 a shield for us, challenges you to contests. Finally, all this 
 Imperial attire, to us a source of consolation and confidence, is 
 for you a burden ; yes, a burden and a labour. For see ! to your 
 eyes there will appear an empire, the largest that ever the sun 
 shone upon ; from your wisdom it looks for the harmonious 
 connection of its parts, the regulation of the whole. . . . Thou 
 wilt see nocking to thy throne widows, orphans, starving men, 
 the victims of the abuse of power, of partiality, and corruption. 
 
 Thou wilt hear their prayers But near the angels of 
 
 light your eye will discover the spirits of darkness. Flattery, 
 calumny, and cunning, with all their wretched brood, will 
 surround your throne, and foolishly imagine that their 
 hypocrisy will beguile you. Bribery and partiality will 
 raise their glossy heads and labour to lower the scale 
 of justice. Dissipation will in the laughing dance pre- 
 sent the intoxicating draught of perilous joys, to lead astray 
 from the path of virtue the pure spirit and engulf it in the 
 slough of indolence and sensuality. Besieged by this riotous 
 band, you will undoubtedly turn to truth, justice, wisdom, and 
 * Much curtailed here.
 
 A lexander's First Acts. 177 
 
 religion, and united with you they will raise their voice to 
 God, that He may rise again in you and scatter your enemies. 
 
 " Monarch of Russia, this struggle awaits you. For this 
 contest gird on thy sword. Draw it with valour, young hero. 
 Fight, conquer, and govern. The Omnipotent arm of the 
 Almighty will wonderfully protect thee. We say rightly, won- 
 derfully : for here not to fall, here to conquer, here to maintain 
 order and peace truly for this more than human strength is 
 required ; and though the decree of the Eternal Being has 
 appointed for you an exalted rank among men, you are never- 
 theless a man like any of us." 
 
 The Te Deum followed the sermon, and then the 
 Liturgy. The Metropolitan anointed the Czar with holy 
 oil to another salute of artillery, after which he was admitted 
 into the Holy of Holies (the chancel of a Greek church care- 
 fully screened off from the laity) during High Mass, having 
 given his sword to his brother and his crown to four of his 
 nobles, who restored it when the service was finished. 
 
 The procession returned in the same order, and the Sovereigns 
 walked round the Kremlin, when it was observed that the Em- 
 peror looked very much fatigued. Gold and silver were thrown 
 among the crowd, and the Imperial party proceeded to the 
 banquet hall, where, after the old custom, the Emperor dined 
 alone at a table elevated above all the rest, while the Imperial 
 family and the nobility were seated according to their rank. 
 The Emperor went into the Hall of Nobles to read aloud the 
 list of promotions and Imperial favours. All officers up to 
 colonels received as a gratuity one-fourth of their pay. For 
 the remainder of the year no recruits were to be drawn ; the 
 taxes were reduced, and all still in arrears to the government 
 were to be excused. The insolvent debtors to the Crown were 
 to be released ; and on September 23rd every kind of torture 
 was prohibited, an aide-de-camp being sent to Kazan to make 
 inquiries into a case said to have recently occurred there. Alex- 
 ander transacted business regularly with his ministers during 
 the six weeks he remained in Moscow, though also occupied 
 with a succession of fetes. Of those held by the nobility that 
 of Prince Sheremetev was the most magnificent, when a distance 
 of sixty-six English miles to his country palace was entirely 
 lighted with lamps. A French female spy whom Napoleon 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 Alexander's First Acts. 
 
 employed in Russia was detected and expelled, owing to an 
 intercepted letter in which she made an oft-quoted remark : 
 " I attended the new Emperor's coronation. It was a fine 
 ceremony. I saw him set out from the Kremlin to the 
 cathedral. Behind him walked the assassins of his grand- 
 father, by his side those of his father, and behind him his own." 
 As the conspirators of 1762, Alexis Orlof and the Princess 
 Dashkov, formed part of the procession, this description was 
 not much overdrawn. They were among the friends and guides 
 of Alexander's childhood, and during Paul's reign he had re- 
 gretted that the trusted confidants of his grandmother, criminal 
 though they might have been, should be disgraced and exiled 
 in their old age. The Princess Dashkov had applied to him 
 to obtain permission for her to return to St. Petersburg, and 
 he had vainly pleaded her cause ; but directly he ascended the 
 throne he wrote to appoint her the first lady in waiting to the 
 young Empress. Her health was failing, and she had lost both 
 her son and daughter, but she arrived by short stages at St. 
 Petersburg, to show the world that she was no longer in dis- 
 grace, though after the Emperor's coronation she bade adieu to 
 modern politics and retired once more to her mansion near 
 Moscow. Her resignation was hastened by the changes the 
 Emperor contemplated in the administration, which were most 
 distasteful to her, as she was completely bigoted to Catherine's 
 system of government. She forgot that Catherine's ministers 
 were young when they entered on their office, and could 
 believe in no official under forty years of age, a period only 
 just attained by even the Dowager-Empress. " If I found 
 great pleasure," she writes, " in seeing the Emperor, whom I 
 had been accustomed to love during twelve years, I felt still 
 more in admiring the beauty which was the least charm of his 
 companion. However, I saw with pain that Alexander was 
 only surrounded by young men too much disposed to ridicule 
 or depreciate their elders, and that a certain timidity, produced 
 perhaps by the feeling of his deafness, prevented him from 
 keeping them in order. The four years of the reign of Paul, 
 who would have made only corporals of his sons, had been lost 
 by them for any purposes of information and study ; the 
 parades of the guards and the soldiers' uniforms were the 
 objects on which their attention was principally fixed. I fore-
 
 Alexander's First Acts. 179 
 
 saw that the Emperor's goodness of soul, and the principles of 
 justice and of humanity that other cares had inculcated in him, 
 would not prevent him from giving blindly his confidence to 
 those who immediately surrounded him. At the coronation 
 the Emperor and his charming spouse conquered the hearts of 
 all their subjects/'' 
 
 The young men of whom the old revolutionist thought so 
 contemptuously were Prince Czartoriski, Victor Kotchoubey 
 (whom Paul had created a Count in 1799), Prince Alexander 
 Galitzin, Count Paul Strogonof, Nicolas Novossilzof, and 
 the Princes Dolgoruki. The last were the same age as 
 Alexander, and were not on such an intimate footing with their 
 Sovereign as the rest, who were all his seniors by eight or nine 
 years, and had made the grand tour of Europe, or already oc- 
 cupied important diplomatic posts. Kotchoubey was appointed 
 Minister of the Interior, and his duties gave him an audience 
 of his Sovereign every day. The liberal party in Europe re- 
 garded them as the hope of Russia, and they were almost the 
 only noblemen in the empire not opposed to Alexander's 
 reforms. He wrote to La Harpe, " If Providence would allow 
 me to lead Russia to the first step of that pinnacle of greatness 
 on which I desire to see her placed, my first wish would be to lay 
 down the burden of government and retire to some quiet and 
 beautiful part of Europe, where I may peacefully enjoy 
 the happiness secured for my country/' He dismissed the 
 Court Advocate-General (March 29th, 1801), a species 
 of Vizier, interposing between the Sovereign and the other 
 ministers. " Temperate, active, and indefatigable, he transacted 
 the government through direct correspondence or personal 
 superintendence, and familiar with the statistics, topography, 
 and interests of the various nations inhabiting his extensive 
 empire, he encouraged the general prosperity by a policy 
 adapted to the wants of each and all/'* He required detailed 
 accounts of their proceedings from the great officers of State, 
 and having examined them caused them to be published, a 
 thing unheard of in Russia. He reduced the number of offences 
 for which the criminal was liable to receive the knout, and 
 abolished the horrible addition of slitting the nostrils or cut- 
 ting out the tongue. On the 8th of April, 1801, he ordered 
 * Sir R. Wilson's Sketch of the Military Power of Russia. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 Alexanders First Acts. 
 
 the public gibbets to be taken down, which were erected in 
 every town and inscribed with the names of convicts. On 
 April 23rd he passed a law for the protection of criminal 
 lunatics. On May 5th he confirmed the law passed by 
 Peter III., that no corporal punishment should touch a noble- 
 man ; and May 22nd renewed the Act passed by Paul, but 
 often broken, to exempt all degrees of the clergy from flogging 
 by the knout. He declared that for the future no hereditary 
 property should be liable to confiscation, an edict which has 
 since proved an immense protection to the nobility, for even 
 the families of the conspirators of 1825 were not entirely 
 deprived of their estates, these being passed on to the next 
 heirs, who in almost every instance restored them to those 
 exiles who lived to profit by the amnesty of 1855. Alexander 
 early strove to deal with the subject of universal peculation, 
 which had proved too much for his father, and no other 
 Russian Sovereign had yet attempted to remedy. He esta- 
 blished pecuniary fines for magistrates convicted of evading 
 or abusing their duties, and having seen by experience that 
 it was one thing to make a law in Russia, and quite another 
 to have it carried out in remote provinces, he took frequent 
 journeys in an open sledge or the unpretending vehicle used 
 for conveying messengers over the enormous distances of 
 Russia, and attended only by his coachman and an aide-de- 
 camp, entered suddenly into distant villages which had never 
 seen a Sovereign, received petitions, and satisfied himself 
 by personal supervision that his orders were being obeyed. 
 
 But in spite of the laws passed to protect them from the 
 caprice of future autocrats, the nobility were soon alienated by 
 the inclination the Emperor showed to ameliorate the position 
 of the serfs. We have seen sixty years later the difficulties 
 and even dangers which surrounded a Sovereign whose per- 
 severance and courage have finally effected their emancipation ; 
 at a time when the institution of serfdom is viewed with general 
 opprobrium and has long been blotted out from all the rest 
 of Europe. In the early years of Alexander the First it had 
 only recently been abolished in France through the violence 
 of the revolution, and was still a recognised system in the 
 greater part of Germany, Prussia, Hungary, and Denmark, 
 and virtually in Sweden and Spain. The whole constitution
 
 Alexander's First Acts. 181 
 
 of Russia was formed upon it, and the feeling of the nobles 
 respecting laws affecting their absolute power over their 
 serfs was much what the feeling of the English landowner 
 would be if deprived of or controlled in the management of 
 the trees and game on his estates, and in the investments 
 from which he derives his income in short, it was consi- 
 dered an unwarrantable interference with private property. 
 There were two species of peasants at that time the slaves, 
 often descendants of prisoners of war, and the serfs who 
 were attached to the land, from which they had been for- 
 bidden to remove themselves without the permission of 
 their seigneurs since 1598. Paul made the first step towards 
 recognising them as human beings by ordering them to take 
 the oath of allegiance. On April 14th, 1801, Alexander 
 passed a law permitting a peasant to hold land of his own, 
 and authorizing a nobleman to sell a portion of his estate to 
 his serfs, and to free them. This was another step in advance, 
 as it was the beginning of a class of free peasantry, such as 
 existed in Russia before 1598, and the number of peasants 
 who became free from 1803 to 1811 was 13,575 men, besides 
 women and children. 
 
 In 1802 the enfranchisement of the serfs of Esthonia 
 began and was completed in 1816, and that of the serfs of 
 Courland in 1817. In both these provinces slavery was the 
 more severe as the peasants possessed no land ; the nobility 
 were of Swedish, German, and Polish origin, and therefore of 
 a different race from their serfs ; and it was thought that with 
 the seaport towns and the more dense population of those 
 districts the labourers would be able to find employment and 
 support themselves without the exclusive protection of the 
 nobility, and without being liable to the fearful famines 
 which have been the dread of the friends of emancipation in 
 the internal provinces. But long habits of dependence on 
 their superiors deprived them of all thrift or idea of providing 
 against the winter seasons and old age. In a time of scarcity 
 the nobles refused to supply the freed peasants from their own 
 barns, or to keep their superannuated labourers from starva- 
 tion, as heretofore. Many emigrated across the frontier into 
 Prussia, and others (probably prompted by the reactionists) 
 sent a deputation to St. Petersburg, to lay their cause before
 
 182 Alexanders First Acts. 
 
 the Empress-mother, who was known to be opposed to any 
 schemes of emancipation, to ask her to entreat the Emperor 
 to restore them once more to slavery. Owing to this distress 
 another arrangement was made, by which the emancipation 
 was not finally effected till 1816; but such a failure, though 
 only temporary, gave support to its enemies, who were almost 
 as numerous as were the nobles in the empire. 
 
 Since Peter the Great, the fortunes of the nobility had been 
 made, not by industry or accumulation, but chiefly by enor- 
 mous grants of lands and peasantry to those who had gained 
 the ephemeral favour of the Sovereign. It was a great shock 
 to the avaricious when it was announced that this source of 
 income was gone for ever, for the Emperor had resolved to 
 bestow no more peasants as gifts upon his subjects, and 
 without peasants, land was at that time almost valueless in 
 Russia. Paul had given away 2,000,000 of human beings, and 
 Catherine nearly 5,000,000 ; but when a lady of rank applied 
 to Alexander requesting a present of a peopled estate, he wrote 
 to her, " The peasants of Russia are for the most part slaves. 
 I need not expatiate upon the degradation or the misfortune 
 of such a condition. Accordingly, I have made a vow not to 
 augment the number, and to this end I have laid down the 
 principle that I will not give away peasants as property/' 
 
 The world is governed, more or less, by mercenary motives, 
 "Every man has his price" is a saying reported of many 
 statesmen well acquainted with human nature : the soldiers 
 of the French Republic, and afterwards of the Empire, were 
 urged on to victory with the hope of plunder and estates ; 
 glory (as the French understood the word) is nothing but 
 personal distinction, which requires wealth to keep its place. 
 The nobles of Russia were not dependent on their official 
 incomes for a maintenance, and they had rank without 
 striving for military titles. With no further hope of increas- 
 ing their estates, they had no object in seeking employment 
 under government ; and in the first years of Alexander's 
 reign there was a very great want of men of sufficient educa- 
 tion to fill even the humblest civil departments in the State. 
 The Emperor appealed to their patriotic feelings to assist him 
 in maintaining the laws of the country, and was forced to fill 
 up the gaps in public offices with foreign emigrants. The
 
 Alexanders First Acts. 183 
 
 government of Odessa, which had risen rapidly since its first 
 foundation in 1793, was placed under the Due de Richelieu, 
 while the Marquis Paulucci, Count Xavier de Maistre, the 
 Princes of Oldenburg, the Emperor's uncle, Prince Alexander 
 of Wiirtemberg and others were gradually appointed to 
 important posts in the empire : the native nobility still holding 
 aloof, and preferring their own pleasures, being roused to 
 occasional opposition to the Emperor's schemes when insti- 
 gated by foreign enemies. " The Russians," says Golovin, 
 himself a liberal writer, " thought that the governing power 
 weakened itself when it gave up any of its habits of oppres- 
 sion ; they had no regard for the laws, and always relied on 
 the favour of the Czar for evading them." In 1803 Prin- 
 cess Galitzin appealed to Alexander to protect her husband 
 from the just demands of his creditors, as " the Emperor was 
 above the law." He answered, " I do not wish, madame, to 
 place myself above the laws, even if I could, for in all the 
 world I do not recognise that authority legitimate which does 
 not flow from the laws ; on the contrary, I feel more than 
 anybody the obligation of watching their observance, and 
 even in cases where others may be indulgent I can only be just." 
 The code of laws Catherine projected had never been 
 brought into force, for though it obtained the approbation of 
 the French savants of the day, it was fitted for a more equal 
 community than for Russia, where society was formed of the 
 two great classes of nobles and serfs; and a portion of the 
 ancient laws of Yaroslaf (1054) still find place in the judicial 
 system of Russia. Vladimir Monomachus (1113), Ivan III., 
 Ivan IV., and Alexis (1645), all put forth legal codes well 
 calculated for the time in which they were made, but not 
 adequate to the requirements of the modern empire. The 
 laws of Peter the Great and his successors were issued in 
 ukazes of which one, by the fundamental rules of the country, 
 was always binding till expressly annulled by another; but 
 there was no regular arrangement of these systems, or of the 
 innumerable ukazes which had appeared during centuries. 
 Alexander very early appreciated the necessity of a clear 
 definition of the authorized body of existing laws, and in the 
 first year of his reign appointed a commission, with Count 
 Zavodosky at its head, for the revisal of all former ukazes and
 
 184 Alexanders First Acts. 
 
 decrees, and the forming of a new code. " In the law alone/' 
 he wrote to the president, " I place the source and principle 
 of national prosperity. The Codex of the Czar Alexis 
 Michaelovitz was made for Muscovy, not for Russia/' The 
 secretary of the commission, and the only member really 
 zealous in the matter, was Michael Speranski, born in 1771, 
 the son of the priest of a village in the province of Vladimir. 
 He was educated at the Theological School at the monastery 
 of St. Alexander Nevskoi, in St. Petersburg ; and as the office 
 of a priest was hereditary, he only escaped this destiny 
 through the influence of Prince Kurakin, who admitted him 
 as a mathematical tutor in his family, and afterwards obtained 
 for him a humble office in the civil service, where Alexander 
 met him when employed himself as a clerk in the Foreign 
 Department. As soon as he ascended the throne he made 
 Speranski secretary to the new privy council, where he dis- 
 played great activity, and drew up several important official 
 writings, especially the ministerial reports. Like Aratchaief, 
 he owed his promotion entirely to his diligence, loyalty, and 
 probity ; but, like Aratchaief, his rapid rise procured him 
 many enemies. 
 
 The difficulties a reforming Czar encountered from all sides 
 can, only be understood by a glance at the character of his 
 people. The nobility saw no necessity for reform, except to 
 secure their own privileges from the usurpation of a Sovereign 
 like Paul, and the mercantile classes were too completely 
 Asiatic in education and feeling to have the smallest compre- 
 hension of a representative government. If the Emperor 
 stripped himself of his arbitrary power, the mantle which he 
 cast aside would be taken up by the nobles, and instead of one 
 despot they would have a thousand. Utter idleness and the 
 payment of no taxes was the serfs idea 'of the enjoyments of 
 emancipation. Alexander knew that real reforms, to be last- 
 ing, must proceed from the will of the nation, and he tried to 
 interest all classes in his project of leading them on towards a 
 constitution, but in vain. Rostopchine and others like him 
 scoffed at the notion of a ministry or parliament sharing the 
 government with a Sovereign, who could only be .pardoned, in 
 their opinion, when he divided his duties with a male or female 
 favourite. At the Niemen, Europe seemed to merge into
 
 Alexander's First Acts. 185 
 
 Asia, and the Russian nobility, while adopting the external 
 courtesy and refinement of the courtiers of Louis XIV., still 
 refused to bind themselves with social restraints which their 
 fathers had disdained. They were kind husbands and chival- 
 rous, yet their domestic arrangements were most frequently of 
 the Mahometan or Mormon type. " What riches must be 
 required to support a double or even treble household, and 
 several dozen servants to each ! What short of the wealth of 
 Peru could support this complicated system of extravagance ? 
 Hence the greater part of the nobility are verging fast to 
 ruin," writes a German in 1805. One nobleman had 13,000 
 servants in constant attendance ; many had 300. Theatres, 
 private libraries, museums, and chapels with beautiful 
 choirs were attached to private houses of any wealth; and 
 England alone could vie with them in the comforts as well as 
 magnificence they displayed. They kept open house, and 
 drove at least six horses to their carriages, followed by as 
 many attendants. Paul tried to reduce their idle retainers, 
 and Alexander and his wife followed his example of using only 
 four horses, even on State occasions, and a small number of 
 servants. But the Russian nobility were 'as a rule more 
 humane and civilized masters than the Esthonian and Livonian 
 aristocracy, whose old serfs begged their bread at the towns 
 thirty miles from their estates, and of whom instances of 
 tyranny are recorded* perfectly shocking to humanity. In 
 the reign of Alexander, who marked out and honoured phi- 
 lanthropists, then* charities and endowments were munificent, 
 and a splendid hospital, one of the finest in the world, was 
 founded by Count Sheremetev out of gratitude to the Emperor 
 for legalizing his marriage with a serf. 
 
 " Nowhere does the Government do more for the improve- 
 ment of the provinces," writes Seume in 1805 ; " yet nowhere 
 is so little effected as to justice. There is in Russia no 
 middle class only wealth and penury, magnificence and 
 wretchedness. If Alexander succeeds in establishing solid 
 boundaries of justice, for the obstacles are gigantic, he will 
 have done more than Peter the First."f 
 
 * Seume's Travels in 1805. He was a German in the Russian service, 
 f " May his feelings never be deadened by the heavy cares of govern- 
 ment," writes another German traveller in 1805 ; " may his strength be
 
 186 Alexander s First Acts. 
 
 Alexander abolished caste in a ukaz, and declared that 
 parents might bring up their children to other trades or pro- 
 fessions than their own ; but a law alone will not alter the 
 customs of centuries. He mixed with all ranks, and allowed 
 the wives of merchants to be presented to him as well as the 
 wives of the nobility. He administered the law alike to all, 
 and January 21st, 1804, passed sentence on two successive 
 governors of Tambov, convicted of abuses in the circle of their 
 government. The injured parties were fairly compensated for 
 their loss of time and money. A few months after his acces- 
 sion Tumanski, the commander of the police at Riga, sent him 
 a memorial denouncing a number of the principal inhabitants 
 and officers, including the governor, merely to revenge slights 
 received from them, as for years he had been the scourge of the 
 place. Alexander read this libel, said that Tumanski must be 
 out of his senses, and at once dismissed him from his post. 
 He confirmed the sentence of perpetual exile to Siberia passed 
 on Baron Ungern Sternberg of Dago, though great efforts 
 were made to procure his pardon. This son of the old 
 friend of Peter III. became a wrecker on the island where 
 he ruled as chief proprietor, and hung out false lights which 
 deceived many a mariner. A memorial in his favour was 
 signed by the most influential of the nobility, but the day it 
 was to be brought to the Emperor the case of a young man 
 came before him, condemned to the mines for forgery. 
 Alexander observed it was a severe judgment, but as it was 
 the law he " could not help the unfortunate man ; but now/' 
 he added, " I am anxious to see what punishment is decreed 
 for that villain of the Baltic." His secretary did not venture 
 to present the memorial, but gave the original sentence, which 
 he signed without comment. The Baron's name was struck 
 off the list of nobility, but his children's title and inheritance 
 remained untouched ; and though he never returned from 
 Siberia, he became one of the most upright magistrates in 
 Russian Asia. 
 
 The first years of a mild government after a severe one 
 allow evils to come to light that had previously existed, but 
 
 commensurate with the fatigue which his duties must cause, that he may 
 prove the rescuer of his people, and gain renown which will be sacred in 
 the estimation of posterity."
 
 Alexanders First Acts. 187 
 
 hidden from view with an iron hand. Hence those satisfied 
 with the old regime are apt to complain that the social state 
 of a country is retrograding, and lament after the rigour of a 
 former day. The lower classes rejoiced at seeing their superiors 
 as hardly dealt with as themselves by Paul, and when they 
 heard that the nobility were again exempted from corporal 
 punishment, they feared it would be of no more use to appeal 
 for protection to the monarch. At Kovno, in 1805, General 
 Zapolsky, a Polish officer, was notorious for his cruelty, yet 
 the citizens dare not make a representation to the Emperor 
 until they could do it ia person, lest he should, after all, be 
 left at his post. " Heaven is high, and the Emperor lives 
 far off,"* is a Russian proverb ; and the case of an innocent 
 man, Sontag, whom a jealous superior tried to get rid of by a 
 tissue of feeble and unconnected charges, and whose defence 
 being carefully investigated was declared sufficient by the 
 Senate and the Emperor, who repaid him for his loss of time, 
 was considered another proof that Alexander was prone to 
 pardon, and would be likely to let off a criminal. Certainly, a 
 people who have been only ruled according to the caprice of their 
 superiors must learn what law and justice mean before they can 
 reap their benefits. f Yet many drew the brightest auguries 
 from the new system, and the aged Klopstock hailed Alexander's 
 accession with his " Ode to Humanity." " The endeavours 
 of this prince," writes an English resident in 180.2, " to 
 diminish the taxes, to improve the condition of the peasantry, 
 to unfetter commerce, and diffuse knowledge over his 
 
 * " The police," says Reinbeck, writing in 1805, " had sunk too low 
 under Catherine ; under Paul it was too terrible ; but under Alexander it 
 seems confined to its proper limits. It is their province to watch over the 
 public safety, the peace and cleanliness of the streets, to superintend fire 
 engines, prisons, &c." 
 
 f A German officer, writing the same year, is inclined to regret the loss 
 of Paul's prompt judgments, which he thought were better than leaving 
 a process to be carried on through the slow machinery of the law. " That 
 misrepresented, unfortunate Prince," he says, speaking of his old master, 
 " was a monarch who wished what was right, but physically and mentally 
 an invalid. All the portraits of him, not one of which is devoid of interest, 
 and not one quite unlike him, declare this. Even at the very idea of 
 irregularity and injustice he was forcibly and even convulsively affected. 
 When he could hear and decide upon a case perfect justice was sure to 
 follow. The impartial perceive the good effects of his severity. It ex- 
 cited fear, and made some at least, through fear of him, keep within the 
 bounds of moderation. It seems unfortunately as if the mildness of his 
 son would again open a field to the insolence of petty despots."
 
 188 Alexander s First Acts. 
 
 empire, open a prospect of happiness hitherto unknown to 
 his people." " He has justified what we predicted/' writes 
 Masson in 1801 . " Uniting the gentleness and amiability 
 which made Catherine and Elizabeth beloved to the eminent 
 qualities that might be expected from a true descendant of 
 Peter I., he appears destined to carry Russia to the highest 
 degree of glory and prosperity." 
 
 One act of Paul's reign which excited hardly a comment 
 in Europe* was the annexation of Georgia, declared to be united 
 to Russia in a ukaz published February 7th, 1801 (o.s.). This 
 country had steadily preserved the Christian religion, though 
 hemmed in for ages between the Mahometans of Persia, Asia 
 Minor, and Daghestan, and harassed by the heathen and bar- 
 barous nations of the Caucasus. From one or other it was 
 subjected to constant invasion and pillage, and for some years 
 had been conquered by Persia, who committed the most fright- 
 ful atrocities among the Christian inhabitants. In 1678 
 Georgia placed herself under the dominion of Russia, but at 
 that time the Muscovite power was too weak at this extremity 
 of its empire to maintain any successful resistance against the 
 hostility of the intervening mountain tribes, and in 1795 the 
 Khan of Persia for the last time overran the country, burning 
 Tiflis and carrying many of the people into captivity. The 
 following year a Russian army under Valerian Zoubof entered 
 the country and gained several victories over the Persians, but 
 it was recalled on Paul's accession and Georgia left to its fate. 
 A dispute between the heirs of the last Czar Heraclius, who 
 died in 1798, added to her miseries, and his son bequeathed 
 his possessions to Paul as the only hope of saving them from 
 the Mahometans. Paul's ukaz briefly explained the reasons 
 of the annexation : " For many years past Gurgistan (or 
 Georgia), tormented by neighbours of a different religion, and 
 exhausted by a continually defensive posture, has felt the 
 inevitable consequences of a war always unfavourable. The 
 divisions in the royal family in the midst of that war added 
 to the calamities of the State and threatened its ruin. The 
 King Heraclius, seeing the end of his days approach, the 
 principal persons of his Court, and even the people of Gur- 
 gistan, now implore our protection, and seeing no other means 
 
 * The British Government remonstrated several years afterwards.
 
 A lexa nders First Acts. 189 
 
 to escape ruin and slavery, have sent envoys from Gurgistan 
 to pray us to receive them into the dominion of the Imperial 
 throne of all the Russians. Listening to this prayer with a 
 natural sympathy for all of our religion, and with the interest 
 we have always felt for whatever concerned the Georgian nation, 
 we have determined to gratify the wish of Prince Heraclius 
 and that of the people of Gurgistan. Therefore, as much to 
 secure the internal peace of the State as to protect it against 
 attacks from without, we have ordered our armies to occupy 
 Georgia, and we give our Imperial word that immediately after its 
 definitive union to the States of our dominion, not only all the 
 rights,privileges,and property of all and every of our new subjects 
 in Georgia and the provinces thereunto belonging shall be main- 
 tained and preserved, but, further, that from that sera the 
 inhabitants of these new provinces shall enjoy all the rights, 
 privileges, and advantages which the old Russian subjects enjoy, 
 by the favour of our ancestors, by our own, and under our 
 protection. Moreover, we expect from these new subjects and 
 their posterity inviolable fidelity to us and our successors, and 
 an unlimited devotion to the interests of our empire. PAUL." 
 
 Yet Georgia was considered so useless and inconvenient a 
 possession, that Alexander's ministers seriously advised him to 
 withdraw from his father's word, and abandon it to the mercy 
 of the Persians ; but in a ukaz, dated Moscow, September 24th, 
 1801, he confirmed the degree of the previous February, 
 adding that he decided upon its annexation, " not for the 
 aggrandizement of our power, not with interested motives, but 
 merely to establish justice and the security of persons and 
 property. All the taxes paid by your country shall be em- 
 ployed for your own advantage, and in the re-establishment of 
 your ruined towns and villages. Your happiness and welfare 
 will be the most agreeable, and the only reward for us." 
 
 General Zizianof, a relative of the Georgian royal family, 
 was appointed Viceroy of the kingdom for the Emperor of 
 Russia, with the support of a considerable army, and the 
 Persians quickly made their retreat. The widow of the last 
 Georgian Czar, with her seven children, continued at Tiflis; 
 but owing to a family dispute she corresponded with the 
 mountain tribes, and a conspiracy against the Russian authority 
 was promptly checked by her removal from Georgia to St.
 
 190 Alexander's First Acts. 
 
 Petersburg.* She made some resistance, and stabbed a Russian 
 officer, who died on the spot ; but after a short residence in a 
 convent, she was established in rooms in the Taurida Palace, 
 and continued regularly to attend all the Imperial festivities 
 until her death, at an advanced age, in 1844. Her sons and 
 more distant relatives entered the service of Russia, as had 
 not been unusual with the princes of Georgia for several cen- 
 turies ; a son of the Sovereign of that day having fought under 
 Peter I. at Narva, and died a captive in the hands of the 
 Swedes. 
 
 Before finally annexing Georgia, Alexander sent General 
 Knoring to ascertain the real state of the country and, as far 
 as he could, the wishes of the inhabitants ; and it was after his 
 report that the Russian boundary was extended beyond the 
 Caucasus. No extensive change in a government can be 
 effected without some loss of position to one or more of its 
 late rulers ; but there can be no question that Georgia has 
 greatly benefited by the protection of Russia, and that it has 
 not advanced still further in social progress is due to the long 
 and expensive warfare maintained for fifty years by the 
 Mahometan and heathen mountaineers. Like the High- 
 landers of old, they were accustomed to levy blackmail on the 
 surrounding towns, and to look upon robbery and plunder as 
 their regular means of support. Russia established herself as 
 a bulwark between these wild tribes and Georgia, but at a 
 fearful cost to herself of money and life, and it was not till the 
 reign of Alexander II. that they were completely subdued. 
 The union of Georgia brought Russia into contact with Persia, 
 and produced future complications when she was afterwards 
 engaged in a war with France ; but as regarded the internal 
 government of the country, Alexander directed that the old 
 code of laws and ancient constitution should be as far as 
 possible preserved ; and an English traveller writes in 1822 
 that "the Russians are ruling their new possessions with so 
 much justice and humanity, that the poor oppressed Christians 
 of Armenia and other parts of Asia Minor look eagerly for the 
 period when their homes may also be included within the 
 limits of the Muscovite empire." 
 
 * Bishop James describes them in 1813 in the train of the Empress- 
 Dowager.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 18011804. 
 
 THE IMPERIAL FAMILY. 
 J2TAT. 23-26. 
 
 ST. MICHAEL'S Palace was deserted by the Imperial family 
 soon after Alexander came to the throne, and the works 
 of art and treasures it contained were sent to Paulovsky and 
 other public buildings. It remained for a long time a mere 
 object of curiosity to the traveller, but towards the end of this 
 reign it was turned into a college for military cadets, and the 
 room sealed up in which Paul closed his days. The Empress 
 Mary retired with her younger children to her old residence 
 at Paulovsky, and for many years steadily refused to pass a 
 night in St. Petersburg, except on the anniversary of her 
 husband's death, when she repaired to the fortress of St. Peter 
 and St. Paul,* to join in the prayers offered up for the repose 
 of his soul. A contemporaryt accuses her of endeavouring to 
 stir up a party in her cause for several months after the 
 accession of her son, and of having had some success; and 
 asserts that she went to the coronation at Moscow with the 
 hope of exciting the popular sympathies on her behalf; " so 
 quickly, and so completely," says Lamartine, " had the 
 seduction of supreme power predominated over the feelings of 
 the wife, and the tenderness of the mother in this widow's 
 heart."J Alexander exercised the utmost kindness and for- 
 bearance towards her, and endeavoured to satisfy her love of 
 power by placing the management of the various public insti- 
 tutions which he founded or enlarged in her bands, and 
 the minute direction of their discipline and arrangements 
 formed her chief amusement. She jealously asserted her right 
 to the sole guardianship of her younger children, in accordance 
 with her husband's will, and Alexander left her all the external 
 
 * Vie de Madame Svetchine (formerly her maid of honour), 
 f The Annual Register for 1801. 
 
 Lamartine's Histoire de la Russie, vol. ii.
 
 192 The Imperial Family. 
 
 token of Imperial rank, parading his own as little as possible 
 before her. His attendants were no more numerous than 
 when he was Grand Duke, and the traditional state and 
 etiquette was reserved for her Court, where he appeared like a 
 submissive and respectful son, not one who had inherited the 
 sceptre. In the course cf years his consistent attention drew 
 her towards him, and she professed admiration for his character. 
 Yet it was not from her that he expected sympathy in his 
 hours of depression or success. He neglected nothing likely 
 to add to her happiness. She wished for a country house at 
 Vassilli Ostrof, and he built one and presented it to her, 
 furnished entirely by Russian manufacturers. His example 
 was followed by all her children, five of whom preceded her to 
 the grave. 
 
 Alexander's eldest sister died at Pesth, six days before her 
 father, but the news did not reach St. Petersburg for more 
 than a week. She had never recovered her early disappoint- 
 ment, and her disposition to melancholy rapidly increased 
 after her marriage, when she took the most touching farewell 
 of all her family, particularly her father, who was much 
 attached to her. The second sister, Helena, came to St. 
 Petersburg in December, 1800, and spent the next summer at 
 Paulovsky. She returned to Germany after her brother's 
 coronation, and died of consumption at Ludwigslust, October, 
 1803. Count Lavallette saw her at Berlin in the winter of 
 1801-2. He speaks of her as " a dazzling beauty, who 
 already bore in her noble face all the traces of the illness of 
 which she died a short time afterwards. Her look and the 
 whole expression of her physiognomy was so deep a melancholy 
 that she appeared in speaking to you to give you a last 
 adieu/' 
 
 Paul used to say that his daughters should be consulted as 
 to their marriages, but he had talked of Charles Frederick of 
 Saxe-Weimar, his first wife's nephew, as a possible son-in-law, 
 and after his death his wish was law to his wife. The Grand 
 Duchess Mary, at the age of seventeen, was therefore married 
 to this German Prince, and quitted Russia in August, 1804. 
 " We have taken leave of the charming Grand Duchess Mary," 
 writes De Maistre,* the Sardinian ambassador. " You have seen 
 * De Maistre, Mcmoires Diplomatiques et Correspondance.
 
 The Imperia I Family. 193 
 
 nothing so sad. The poor little princess went out with her 
 eyes enough to moisten those of every one else. The diplo- 
 matic corps were drawn up in a circle to wish her good-bye. 
 She made a rapid tour, and offered her pretty hand to us all 
 without having strength to proffer a syllable. Everybody was 
 touched above all when they saw the husband, who was also 
 present. He is a little German corporal, as round as his 
 boots, and with fewer subjects than his brother in-law has 
 grenadiers. It is he who carries away this beautiful angel. 
 Every one cries out ' What a bad marriage \ } The same 
 evening she went to wish the public good-bye at the theatre, 
 and was received with enthusiasm, while some, remembering the 
 sad fate of her two elder sisters, were heard to exclaim, ' May 
 you be happy/ The poor child began to weep." Schiller 
 saluted her with " The Homage of the Fine Arts/' in which 
 he spoke of her beautiful soul in a beautiful form ; and in 
 later years Goethe said of her to Varnhagen, that she was 
 made to rise above her peers in whatever condition she might 
 have been placed, and excited admiration even in the highest 
 position of life.* " At the theatre," writes an Englishman 
 resident in Weimar, March 2nd, 1805, " I saw the wonder of 
 the North, and the object of every one's idolatry here the 
 hereditary princess of Saxe-Weimar. A few months since our 
 hereditary prince brought home his bride, the sister of the 
 Emperor of Russia and a daughter of Paul. All tongues are 
 lavish of her praise ; and indeed she seems to be really an 
 extraordinary person. She is young, and possesses a most 
 cultivated mind and accomplished address/' -but like her 
 brother Alexander she suffered from deafness. 
 
 After the marriage of this sister, Catherine and Anna were 
 the only two Grand Duchesses left in Russia. The elder was 
 twelve years old when her brother came to the throne. Her 
 extreme liveliness, literary tastes, and sparkling wit, though 
 allied to rather a nervous temperament, were considered tokens 
 of great promise by her parents. She inherited the brilliant 
 dark eyes which were her father's only beauty, and is described 
 by contemporaries as a plain likeness of her brother Alexander. 
 " Nothing," writes De Maistre, " equals the goodness and 
 
 * Thackeray speaks of her ability in a letter to Lewes Life of Goethe. 
 The Emperor Nicholas, in his will, spoke of her most warmly. 
 VOL. I. O
 
 1 94 The Imperial Family. 
 
 good graces of Madame the Grand Duchess. If I was a 
 painter I would send you one of her eyes." She was her 
 "mother's constant companion till her marriage in 1809, when 
 she made the stipulation that her husband should remain 
 in Russia. Anna more resembled her sister Mary in her 
 pure Greek profile, fair complexion, and blue eyes, but as she 
 was only six years old at the time of her father's death, her 
 marriage was still far in the future, and she was the playfellow of 
 her brothers Nicholas and Michael, under the superintendence 
 of a distinguished German lady, Frau von Adlerberg, and 
 Madame Lieven, a Livonian. Paul had appointed a military 
 tutor for Nicholas ; but the Empress-Dowager considering him 
 too young to be subjected to entirely military discipline, 
 restored him for a time to the charge of women, when she 
 retired with her children to Paulovsky. They were excited 
 and alarmed by their father's murder, and to stifle the 
 recollection of it their attendants told them stories of equal 
 horror, in the execution of Louis XVI. and the sufferings 
 of his poor little son. The boys shed many tears over the 
 fate of the orphan in the Temple, and it is not unlikely that 
 Nicholas imbibed at this early date the consistent hatred of 
 Jacobins and revolutions he always manifested in later life. 
 At eight years old he was transferred, with his brother Michael, 
 to the care of General Lambsdorf, a Courlander, and four 
 other officers. Alexander was establishing a school for the 
 sons of the nobility at Czarco-Selo, and wished his brothers to 
 enter it as students to give them companionship and emulation, 
 and also as a much needed example to the Russian nobility of 
 enrolling their sons under regular discipline with other boys, 
 instead of educating them privately with foreign tutors in a far 
 too luxurious home. But the Empress-Dowager preferred to 
 isolate her sons in the gloomy palace of Gateschina, though it 
 was associated with the ravings of the insane favourite of 
 Catherine II. and their father's melancholy seclusion. It was 
 her wish that they should be kept under strict authority and 
 apart from all the world, but neither over-excited nor over- 
 taught. Yet though here they were certainly removed from 
 the baneful atmosphere of a large capital or a Court, with no 
 amusements or public spectacles to interrupt their studies, 
 they lost more than they gained by the dullness and monotony
 
 The Imperial Family. 195 
 
 of their existence, and always declared that it rather injured 
 
 J / 
 
 than developed their faculties. Adelung and Storch also 
 assisted in their tuition, but their minds ran almost exclusively 
 on the wars in which Russia was engaged, and which could 
 not be entirely concealed from them, even within the bounds 
 of their scholastic prison, and their energies chiefly concen- 
 trated on their military exercises. They admired and revered 
 their brother Alexander, from whom their banishment to 
 Gateschina completely separated them for years, except when 
 from time to time he paid a visit to their schoolroom, and 
 presented them on their birthdays with a sword, or gave them 
 a nominal rank in the regiment of cadets. They remained 
 here till the year 1812, when they were brought to St. Peters- 
 burg ou the French invading Russia ; and Nicholas used to 
 say he had reason to be grateful to Napoleon for being the 
 cause of their release from banishment. 
 
 The Erhpress humoured and flattered Constantine when she 
 wished to obtain him as a partisan in any political difference 
 between herself and Alexander, but was otherwise not displeased 
 with his evident unpopularity. His wild and reckless behaviour 
 was conspicuous in his father's reign, but on a campaign in a 
 subordinate capacity his conduct, though always singular, was 
 more praiseworthy : and when he served in Italy in 1799 
 Suvorov wrote of him to Count Razoumovski at Vienna : " His 
 Imperial Highness Constantine, notwithstanding his youth, acts 
 in the service like a veteran. Always accompanying the 
 soldiers, he lives in the camp and in the tent, and with 
 wonderful firmness he supports the excessive heat of the climate. 
 Such an example excites the admiration both of the Russian 
 and the Austrian armies." But on his return to St. Peters- 
 burg his over-energy exhausted itself in tormenting his soldiers 
 with incessant drill and playing foolish and mischievous practical 
 jokes. " In speaking of the Imperial family," writes Seume 
 in 1805, " the Russians give them all a character for humanity 
 and goodness, with the exception of Constantine, who is here 
 and there loudly censured. The companions and assistants in 
 his youthful frolics are laying on themselves a heavy responsi- 
 bility. They must lose his regard as soon as he arrives at 
 serious reflection/' 
 
 In 1802 the departure of his wife left Constantine, at the age
 
 196 The Imperial Family. 
 
 of twenty-one, to plunge unfettered into every gaiety in St. 
 Petersburg, where a foreign contemporary asserts he was 
 the best and liveliest dancer he ever saw. He invigorated 
 his constitution with active exercises, often riding unbroken 
 horses, and like his brothers, showed extraordinary endurance 
 in bearing exertion and privation, heat or cold, hunger or 
 thirst. He rose at four in the morning, dined at twelve, and 
 was abstemious in his food and moderate in drinking. Indeed, 
 several travellers at that period bear testimony to the ab- 
 stinence of the higher classes in Russia a striking contrast 
 to the English and other northern nations of that date.* He 
 had great powers of imitation and mimicry, and a very reten- 
 tive memory, but though really possessing much information 
 affected to despise and ridicule all professors of literature and 
 science. His attaches knew his temper, and turned its alter- 
 nate phases to their own advantage ; but his wild humours and 
 inconsiderate actsf kept Alexander in constant uneasiness, and 
 he was several times called up before his Imperial brother 
 and severely reproved. This occurred more than once in the 
 presence of the Emperor's aides-de-camp, and on one occasion 
 Alexander seemed extremely angry with him, addressed him in 
 the strongest language, and threatened him with a sharp visi- 
 tation of his displeasure should he ever again be guilty of a 
 similar offence. Yet Constantine was sincerely attached to 
 Alexander ; to an extent which astonished the foreign princes 
 of the time, as brotherly affection is not common between a 
 Sovereign and his heir. In the year 1802 he visited the 
 Courts of Vienna and Berlin, and the Emperor Francis gave 
 him the colonelcy of a regiment of hussars, but except the 
 rank of a general of brigade, it was some years before he 
 received the high command to which he aspired in Russia. 
 Paul passed a law elevating all military titles above personal 
 rank, except with regard to the direct heir to the throne ; and 
 as Constantine was only presumptive heir, the exception did 
 not apply to him, and a general -in -chief took nominal pre- 
 cedence of him as long as he was merely the general of a 
 brigade. He submitted to this arrangement, and set an ex- 
 
 * Webster, Cochrane, Lyell, Wilson, Eeinbeck, Porter, &c. 
 t He delighted in tormenting cats, and on one occasion fired a quantity 
 of rats out of a cannon to celebrate Alexander's birthday, for which he 
 received a reproof.
 
 The Imperial Family. 197 
 
 ample of obedience to a superior officer ; so by enforcing his 
 father's law, Alexander found a means of keeping his brother 
 in check when at a distance from him as well as when he was 
 under his own eye, for . he conducted himself with the greatest 
 decorum as long as Alexander was present. The French am- 
 bassador, Caulaincourt (180711), draws almost the only 
 pleasing portrait of him. Constantine " is very ugly, but ad- 
 mirably well made. He has charming, unaffected manners ; 
 he talks of everything, and above all, agreeably, and without 
 any pretence. He joins to much perception (finesse) the 
 naivete of a child. I remember one day in the Emperor's 
 drawing-room, we joked about his dandyism, the elegance of 
 his figure, and a thousand other follies. ' What would you 
 have ?' said he, laughing. ' I redeem myself a little from the 
 neck to the feet, and if Nicholas would give me his head (the 
 Grand Duke Nicholas is good-looking) I would give him my 
 rights of seniority/ ' Would you really do it, Constantine ?' 
 asked the Empress, in her gentle voice. ' I would lay down 
 the contract at your Majesty's feet.' ' What a fool you 
 would be/ said Alexander, who was standing by ; ' who would 
 give a crown for a handsome face ?' ' As handsome as mine/ 
 answered Constantine/' at which the Frenchman -could not 
 forbear a laugh. A page of the Court of France who saw 
 him enter Paris in 1814, asserts that " his face was hardly 
 human. He wore spectacles, and when he looked at anything 
 contracted his eyes very disagreeably : his voice is rude, his 
 manner brusque and military." He spent a large income on 
 his regiment, and would embrace a private trooper if he thought 
 him worthy of praise; but he was most unpopular among 
 the Russians of the higher classes, and particularly with ladies. 
 " Look back," said Prince Czartoriski to the Prince de Ligne 
 at Vienna, in 1814, "on your description of his father in one 
 of your letters to Prince Kaunitz ; it applies to Constantine 
 with a very few exceptions. His heart is sound, but the 
 rectitude of his judgment is a matter of chance. He is 
 amiable in society, intractable in business, and a passionate 
 lover of justice, but his enthusiasm frequently prevents him 
 distinguishing the truth. Woe to his friends, and to his ene- 
 mies, and woe to his subjects should he ever have any. He is 
 extremely changeable, seeming to be fixed in nothing but the
 
 198 The Imperial Family. 
 
 worship of his brother. Whether he loves or hates, it is always 
 with violence."* 
 
 Alexander knew his brother too well to advise him to 
 accept a kingdom, and Constantine also preferred to remain a 
 Russian subject. A party in Finland, headed by Spreng- 
 porten, offered him the throne of the Grand Duchy during 
 the reign of Paul. The Diet of Sweden proposed later 
 that he should be asked to assume the Swedish Crown, in the 
 hope of obtaining the restoration of their lost province. As 
 early as 1804 the Poles looked to the reunion of their divided 
 country under this brother of the Czar, for the Russian 
 government in Lithuania and the border provinces was not so 
 distasteful as the Austrian rule in Galicia, and the Prussian in 
 Posen and Warsaw. His oddities increased with years, and 
 his fits of anger and melancholy were as uncontrolled as his 
 other qualities. The Russians longed to see him supplanted 
 as heir to the largest empire in the world ; and the Empress 
 knowing this, fretted continually because she had no son. A 
 second daughter was born in 1802, but within six months was 
 placed by the side of its little sister in the church of the 
 monastery of Alexander Nevskoi, and its mother grieved over 
 its death till it quite affected her health. In June, 1802, she 
 wrote to the Princess Dashkov, alluding to it, and saying that 
 without being seriously ill, she had been continually more or 
 less indisposed for several months. The Emperor added his 
 compliments at the end of the letter. In December, 1801, 
 her father, the hereditary Prince of Baden, was killed by a 
 fall from his carriage when travelling near Arboga, in Sweden; 
 and her favourite sister's unhappy union with the weak 
 Gustavus IV., who sometimes actually beat his wife, was an 
 additional cause of distress. Her widowed mother, the Mar- 
 gravine of Baden, lived secluded at Bruchsal, where her third 
 sister was married in 1802, to Duke Charles of Brunswick, 
 afterwards killed at Waterloo ; and the same year her fourth 
 sister, Amelia, came to reside in Russia. The Margravine had 
 such a vivid recollection of the trials and fatigues of the long 
 journey to St. Petersburg when she went there in 1773, that 
 she could never be induced to repeat the experiment, even to 
 
 * Letters of a nobleman at Vienna. Tytler, writing in 1814, says " he 
 is remarkably like the Marquis of Queensbury."
 
 The Imperial Family. 199 
 
 make acquaintance with her son-in-law, or visit her daughter, 
 whom she had last seen as a mere child. The aged Land- 
 gravine of Darmstadt, Elizabeth's grandmother, was still 
 living at Strelitz ; and her grandfather, the .Elector of Baden, 
 was secured through the connection with Russia on his throne 
 at Carlsruhe. She longed to see those relations once more, and 
 the home from which they had all been expelled in her childhood, 
 for her sympathies were entirely with the small German States. 
 The Empress-Dowager sought to eclipse her by a more majestic 
 demeanour, and at every State pageant occupied a place by the 
 side of the Emperor. Even as late as 1816 she still cherished 
 the hope that if anything happened to her son she might 
 enforce her own pretensions to the succession, and regarded 
 Elizabeth as her chief rival a feeling she showed by some haugh- 
 tiness towards her daughter-in-law, who, since her residence in 
 the damp palace of St. Michael, suffered every winter from the 
 Russian climate, and frequently lost her voice for several 
 months a misfortune the more trying from her husband's 
 deafness, though at all times they had not much in common, 
 for she possessed little information and no enlarged ideas. 
 Though fearing and disliking her mother-in-law, she was led 
 by her, and joined in opposing the emancipation of the serfs, 
 or any liberal measure likely to hasten the revolution which 
 Paul's widow constantly predicted for Russia. A cold and fret- 
 ful beauty, she met her husband with reproaches instead of 
 affectionate consolation when he returned wounded in spirit 
 after the disastrous battles of Friedland and Austerlitz. 
 Naturally jealous, she lent too ready a belief to the scandals 
 circulated by even an interested enemy like Napoleon, and 
 Alexander's sensitive temperament gave double force to the 
 sarcastic remarks which she did not always restrain even in 
 public. He believed them to arise from indifference to him 
 or even dislike, so he was accustomed to receive them in 
 silence, but began to avoid her society, and spent his evenings 
 at work with his secretary. He had invited the Empress's 
 sister to Russia, thinking she would be happier with a member 
 of her own family for a companion, as his duties often took 
 him to distant parts of the empire ; but he had reason to 
 regret it, for the Princess Amelia did not add to the peace of 
 the Imperial family.
 
 200 The Imperial Family. 
 
 Nothing was more splendid than the Imperial fetes, but they 
 were only held on special occasions, and not almost every 
 night as in Catherine's reign, and when these occasions took 
 place no one ever made himself more agreeable to his guests 
 of all ages than Alexander, of whom De Maistre's description 
 in ] 81 6, at the time when he had reached the highest pinnacle 
 of earthly power, equally applied in the year 1802 : " The 
 Emperor invariably lays aside the Sovereign in these sort 
 of fetes, and has the tone, the ease, and the formulas of 
 good society. He has the honour of being presented to a 
 lady ; he begs that they will excuse him, &c. ; he says, ' will 
 you permit ?' as well as others. He is right, for he is a true 
 gentleman, which is not quite so easy as some believe." His 
 permission to his subjects to visit foreign countries transferred 
 the gay world of the Russian capital to France diiring the 
 short interval of peace, and in 1802 there were more Mus- 
 covites than natives in the drawing-rooms of Paris. Their 
 enthusiasm for their Emperor was so great that it infected the 
 French Republicans with Imperial predilections, which were 
 soon put to the test. An Englishman writes from St. Peters- 
 burg, August, 1801: "Alexander is the idol of his subjects, 
 especially the inhabitants of the two capitals. Every morning 
 he works with his secretaries from six till ten, when he attends 
 the daily parade, and holds a military levee till twelve. From 
 that hour till two he walks about with the Empress ; dinner is 
 then served, and he generally rises from table at three, and 
 despatches business till five. From five till eight in the 
 evening concerts are given, in which he sometimes takes a 
 part himself. Supper is served a little after eight, and as 
 soon as the clock strikes ten the officers in waiting withdraw, 
 and Alexander retires. He lately ordered a loan of 25,000 
 roubles, free of interest for thirty years, to be granted for the 
 immediate relief of the inhabitants of the town of Bielev, of 
 which 458 houses had been destroyed by fire ; and he gave 
 130,000 roubles to the distressed town of Vilna." 
 
 In 1803 Count Joseph de Maistre was accredited to the 
 Court of St. Petersburg by his adopted Sovereign the King of 
 Sardinia, and he remained at the Russian capital till 1817. 
 He was a staunch Legitimist and Ultramontane, with a strong 
 predilection for France as it existed under the old regime ; but
 
 The Imperial Family. 201 
 
 even with these opposite tendencies he found much to esteem 
 in the liberal and philosophic Czar. He admired in Alexander 
 " the rather sad gravity of his youth, his enthusiasm for high- 
 mindedness and virtue, his gracious bashfulness, his sympathy 
 for all les noblesses de coeur et les puissances d'esprit. His 
 dream of universal peace was not born with Madame de 
 Krudener; it was spontaneous, and of the same kind as that of 
 the Abbe de St. Pierre and Henry IV. of France/'* The 
 Count was first presented to the Emperor and Empress 
 May 13th, 1803. " There certainly does not exist," he 
 writes, " so handsome a royal couple in Europe. The affability 
 of these two great persons is beyond all expression. They 
 please themselves in forgetting their grandeur and wearying 
 no one." Before his reign the Sovereign of Russia dined at 
 a table alone or with his family, but Alexander disliked even 
 assuming a place above the courtiers and ambassadors, and 
 when he entertained the diplomatic corps at dinner he sat 
 among them. " The Emperor's two ideas," writes De Maistre, 
 July 17th, 1803, " are peace and economy. His expenses are 
 fixed at so much for a term of four months. I know that 
 virtues pushed to excess become faults, but I assure you, 
 M. le Comte, that I cannot help admiring this wisdom in a 
 young Sovereign surrounded by all imaginary seductions. He 
 has no suite. If he meets any one on the quay (the public 
 walk in St. Petersburg) they need not dismount ; it is enough 
 to salute. He wears neither a ring nor a watch, nor any orna- 
 ment. Unfortunately all this, which is good for Southern 
 eyes who can read majesty across simplicity, does not appear to 
 have the same effect on Russian organs, and the respect for 
 him personally has diminished ; but who can help admiring his 
 love of mankind and of his duties? One must be young to 
 live at St. Petersburg, where generals are only twenty-five." 
 " The Emperor is a philosopher," he adds in 1805, " and if it is 
 permitted to say so, he is too much of one. If the nation 
 were ripe for a constitutional government he would ask nothing 
 better than to give it." 
 
 Alexander began his reign by laying aside a million of 
 roubles every year to enable him to effect the emancipation of 
 the serfs, with the purchase for each of the small allotment of 
 * Memoires Diplomatiques du Comte de Maistre.
 
 202 The Imperial Family. 
 
 land to which he was attached ; but, like many other excellent 
 measures, it was checked by the French war. In 1803 he 
 deprived the nobility of the privilege of sending their serfs to 
 Siberia without a trial. He forbade the sale of serfs apart 
 from the land, for hitherto they were advertised like cattle in 
 the newspapers; and he prohibited the custom of paying the 
 debts of proprietors by hiring out serfs to the creditors. The 
 permission to the nobility to free their own peasants in their 
 lifetime, though not by will, led to innumerable legal disputes 
 between the free serfs and the heirs-at-law ; and in many 
 instances, when the serfs were freed without land, Alexander 
 advanced them sums of money to purchase their homesteads. 
 He continued his father's practice of receiving petitions, and 
 for some time after he came to the throne he passed every morn- 
 ing through a triple row of applicants on his way from the 
 palace to the parade ; so that he often sent his adjutants first to 
 collect them, when they brought in as many as 300. Some were 
 merely requests for money, for a woman even wrote to inform 
 him she had lost a cow, and to beg another in its place. " I 
 have been highly gratified/' writes Seume, " at beholding this 
 amiable, handsome young man pass to and from parade through 
 an immense crowd of mingled classes and nations without its 
 being necessary that any one should have a ticket of per- 
 mission to be near him. The other day I was at the Empress's 
 family theatre, on the eighth birthday of the Grand Duke 
 Nicholas. Everything was devoid of constraint. The Emperor 
 came, sat, and walked away without any guard. There was 
 merely the usual number of police- officers at the door. This 
 is a confidence which is sure to gain its end." 
 
 Alexander encouraged the French theatre at St. Petersburg, 
 and admitted the chief performers to the musical entertain- 
 ments in the palace, with the hope of substituting this amuse- 
 ment for gambling, which he discountenanced in every possible 
 way. A ukaz at the time of his coronation prohibited artizans 
 and servants from betting in private houses or taverns. Heads 
 of families or innkeepers were liable to a fine of twenty-five 
 florins for each offender. He forbade playing at cards for 
 money in his own palace ; but the Empress- Dowager continued 
 it at Paulovsky, and allowed her Court and attendants to follow 
 her example. He had a great taste for drawing and archi-
 
 The Imperial Family. 203 
 
 tecture, aud drew plans for several public buildings which were 
 erected during his reign ; but besides music this was his only 
 personal diversion, for he neither hunted, smoked, nor took 
 snuff, and within a very few years, owing to his increased deaf- 
 ness, he ceased to find gratification in the sound of any instru- 
 ment but a loud brass band. The long solitary walks in which he 
 indulged were perhaps a source of enjoyment as well as neces- 
 sary to his health. When the Empress did not accompany 
 him he often walked out in plain clothes, without any attendant, 
 three or four leagues into the country and back between twelve 
 and two o'clock, the hours he allowed for exercise, and some- 
 times met with curious adventures. One day he had exceeded his 
 usual distance, and could not get back by the exact hour he had 
 named. He was a slave to punctuality, a virtue quite unknown 
 in the empire before Paul's reign, so he mounted the first 
 sledge he met, and desired the peasant who drove it to take 
 him to the Imperial palace.* " Yes, my officer/' said the man, 
 " I will take you as near as I can. The guards will not let us 
 go up to it." He drove to a little distance from it, near a 
 row of other sledges waiting for hire, and stopped. The 
 Emperor sprang out, and finding he had no money in his 
 pocket, desired the man to wait and he would send him his fare. 
 "Ah no, my officer/' said the man ; " I have driven many young 
 nobles like you, and they have short memories, and if I once 
 lose sight of them they always forget to pay me !" Alexander 
 questioned him, and heard that the officers of the guards were 
 less addicted than any others to paying their debts, however 
 trifling. " Here is my cloak," he said. " It is worth more than 
 twenty kopecks, though neither new nor handsome. Keep it, 
 and restore it to the person whom I send out with the money." 
 
 Ten minutes afterwards a footman came out of the palace 
 and asked which of the drivers had brought the Emperor. 
 They were silent. He inquired which had a cloak to restore. 
 The peasant came forward, and received in exchange for it a 
 
 * Souvenirs de Caulaincourt, Dae de Yicence. " He is so much an 
 enemy to parade," writes an English traveller in 1804, "that he is 
 frequently seen wrapped up in his regimental cloak, riding about the 
 capital upon a little common drosky. In this manner he has been known 
 to administer to the wants of the poor. It is his wish, if he should be 
 recognised in this state of privacy, that no one should take off their 
 hats."
 
 204 The Imperial Family. 
 
 hundred-rouble-note, which the Emperor had sent to pay for 
 himself and those officers who were still in the driver's debt. 
 The man had never seen so much money in his life. He took 
 it, exclaiming, " Great St. Nicholas \" and drove off at his 
 utmost speed amidst the shouts of his comrades. His grand- 
 son still possesses the note, which the driver would never change 
 into silver, and it is probably the last of that value left in the 
 empire. The next morning at his military levee on the parade, 
 when the commanders of the various regiments clustered round 
 him, the Emperor said, " Gentlemen, your regiments are 
 splendidly well kept, but say from me to your officers that 
 yesterday they gave me the humiliation of leaving my cloak 
 as a pledge." All looked astonished. " It is true," he added. 
 " A driver yesterday would not give me credit, ' because, my 
 officer/ he said, ' your comrades often forget to pay me/ '' 
 
 In 1802 Alexander visited Lithuania and the Polish pro- 
 vinces. He dismounted at a post-house, where his carriage 
 was to change horses, not far from Novgorod, and told his 
 attendants to follow him while he walked on first alone ; when 
 as he was proceeding by a river a man drawing a boat to land 
 broke the cable he held, and no longer sustained by the 
 resistance, fell violently to the earth, and was completely 
 stunned. Alexander ran to him, loosened his belt, and sup- 
 ported him in his arms till his surgeon, Dr. Wylie, who 
 travelled with him, came up with the other attendants and 
 administered medical assistance. On a subsequent occasion 
 he was the means of aiding in a more serious accident on a 
 similar journey. It occurred in 1805, and is related in a letter 
 from Mr. Grange to the President of the Royal Humane 
 Society, dated March 24th, 1806 : " The Emperor Alexander 
 in one of his journeys through Poland solely by his own per- 
 severance and personal exertions restored to life a peasant of 
 that country who had been drowning a considerable time. This 
 took place between Kovno and Vilna in Lithuania, on the banks 
 of the little river Wilia. The Emperor had ridden on consi- 
 derably in advance of his attendants, and perceived several 
 persons assembled near the edge of the water, out of which 
 they appeared to be dragging something. He instantly alighted, 
 and approaching the spot, saw it was the body of a man ap- 
 parently lifeless. Without any other assistance than the ignorant
 
 The Imperial Family. 205 
 
 boors, to whom he was unknown, though his dress indicated a 
 Russian of superior rank, he had him laid on the side of a 
 bank, and proceeded with his own hands to assist in taking off 
 the wet clothes of the apparent corpse and to rub his temples, 
 wrists, &c., which his Majesty continued for a considerable time, 
 using every other means, though destitute of medical advice, 
 likely to restore animation. In the midst of this occupation 
 he was joined by the gentlemen of his suite, among whom were 
 Prince Volkonski, Count Lieven, and Dr. Wylie, his Majesty's 
 head surgeon, who always travels with him, and indeed never 
 quits his Majesty at any time. Their exertions were imme- 
 diately added to those of the Emperor, and on the doctor's 
 attempt to bleed the patient his Majesty held and rubbed his 
 arm and gave every other assistance in his power. (Dr. Wylie 
 looked round for something to stop the bleeding with and tie 
 up his arm, and the Emperor instantly took out his handker- 
 chief, tore it in pieces, and with his own hands bound the poor 
 fellow's arm with it.) However, that and all other means 
 they could devise proved equally ineffectual, and after above 
 three hours' fruitless attempts to recover him, the doctor 
 declared, to the extreme chagrin of the Emperor, who was by 
 this time becoming very anxious about it, that in his opinion 
 life was quite gone, and it was useless proceeding any fur- 
 ther. Fatigued as he was with such continued exertions, 
 the Emperor entreated Dr. Wylie to persevere and make a 
 fresh attempt to bleed him. Though the doctor, as he told 
 me himself, had not the slightest hope of being successful, 
 he proceeded nevertheless to obey, when the whole of them, even 
 the noblemen, making a last effort in rubbing, the Emperor 
 had at length the satisfaction of seeing the blood make its 
 appearance, accompanied by a slight groan. The Emperor 
 exclaimed, ' Thank God, this is the brightest day of my life V 
 and the tears sprang to his eyes. They remained with the man 
 till they saw him conveyed to a place where he would have 
 proper care, besides giving him a considerable present of money 
 and having since provided for him and his family/' 
 
 Always anxious to promote public benevolence, Alexander 
 took notice of any one, either Russian or foreign, whom he 
 found to be engaged in the welfare of the lower classes of his 
 subjects. " I met the Emperor," writes an English merchant
 
 206 TJie Imperial Family. 
 
 of this type, " on the English quay in one of his daily walks, 
 and observed (as I thought) the head of a man clinging to 
 the edge of the ice in the river. The Emperor being short- 
 sighted could not see it, but he instantly ordered two men 
 going for water to hasten to his assistance with the pole they 
 had in their hands for carrying the bucket. They found the 
 man nearly exhausted. They drew him on the ice, and brought 
 him safe to the spot whence the Emperor had sent the timely 
 aid. He gave the two men 500 roubles" (20A).* The 
 English Royal Humane Society gave him a medal, afterwards 
 making him an honorary member of their useful institution, 
 something similar to which he established in Russia, as well 
 as a Philanthropic Society in St. Petersburg. 
 
 On Alexander's visit to Russian Poland in 1802 he gratified 
 the people by his ability to speak their language. At Mohilof 
 Michael Oginski thanked him for having been restored to 
 his country after eight years of exile. He returned by way 
 of Memel, where for the first time in his life he crossed the 
 borders of his native land to meet the King and Queen 
 of Prussia, who were making a tour through their dominions. 
 Frederick William III. had succeeded his father in 1797, and 
 was nearly eight years older than Alexander, who was also 
 about two years younger than the Queen. The royal couple 
 were first cousins to each other, and each was individually first 
 cousin to the Empress Elizabeth. They had heard much of 
 Alexander from his sister Helena, one of the Queen's greatest 
 friends, and were mutually anxious to become acquainted, and 
 as Memel contained a large society of merchants, only 
 rescued from impending ruin by the cessation of the conti- 
 nental war, Alexander, who was regarded as the chief author 
 of the peace of Europe, received a most cordial welcome from 
 the people. The streets were crammed with spectators, in- 
 cluding many English and foreign sailors, all anxious to catch 
 a sight of the Czar. The Sovereigns dined together in public, 
 
 * Memoirs of John Yenning, a Russian Merchant. Russia and Eng- 
 land were then at war. 
 
 On another occasion he promoted a Russian police officer, and presented 
 him with a ring, at the same time cordially thanking him for having 
 plunged into the Neva and rescued a man, who, regardless of the order 
 not to cross till the ice was pronounced safe, had tried to walk over and 
 fallen in.
 
 The Imperial Family. 207 
 
 and two days after their arrival attended a ball, which 
 the Queen, who was extremely fond of dancing, opened with 
 the Emperor. Six days afterwards they parted, Alexander 
 returning to St. Petersburg ; and to commemorate the meet- 
 ing, the streets in which the Sovereigns had lodged were re- 
 named Kaiser Strasse and Louisen Strasse. 
 
 It was most unlikely that two princes should have met 
 at that time without discussing to some extent the critical 
 state of Europe, but no political combination arose directly 
 from this visit. Frederick William was a dry, taciturn, nar- 
 row-minded, and rather slow-witted man, only anxious to keep 
 aloof from surrounding difficulties ; he had resisted the over- 
 tures of Austria and Russia to join in the league against 
 France in 1798, and quietly allowed French agents and sur- 
 veyors to examine all his fortresses and map out his territo- 
 ries. " The King's chief happiness (say those who knew 
 him well) consists in the absence of all trouble/' writes the 
 British minister at Berlin,* May 4th, 1803. " His disposition 
 is slothful, he is guided by his fears, and distrusts his own 
 powers/' He had none of the high flights of imagination which 
 characterized his Imperial friend. He was no reformer, but 
 adhered with obstinacy to the ancient groove in the civil and 
 military administration marked out by Frederick the Great. 
 He was a more religious man than most of the higher classes 
 of that day, but a bigoted Lutheran His wife was a com- 
 plete contrast lively, highly educated, and one of the most 
 beautiful princesses in Europe. She was benevolent and 
 domestic, though she has been accused of frivolity and love of 
 excitement. The Emperor greatly admired her, and she ap- 
 pears to have been much attracted by him, though not beyond 
 the limits permitted with a relation and the brother of a most 
 intimate friend. 
 
 On July 26th (o.s.), 1802, the first two Russian vessels 
 intended to sail round the world, and commanded by Captain 
 Krusenstern and Lieutenant Lizianski, left Cronstadt for the 
 East of Asia, whence they took home three Japanese sailors, 
 wrecked on the coast of Kamschatka, who had since resided 
 at Irkutzk. Some presents were sent to the Tycoon of Japan, 
 and two German naturalists accompanied the expedition, which 
 * Sir George Jackson.
 
 208 The Imperial Family. 
 
 was supported by a government grant of 250,000 roubles. A 
 few islands were discovered in the Pacific Ocean, and named 
 after the Emperor and other Russian celebrities, and a colony, 
 since abandoned, was settled on the coast of California. At 
 the same time a herring fishery was established on the White 
 Sea, and the trade was greatly increased in the ports on the 
 Euxine. The prosperity of the country was shown by the 
 erection of 500 noblemen's houses in St. Petersburg alone 
 during the year 1804. This city was then declared by all 
 travellers to be the most beautiful in Europe, as Moscow was 
 the largest and most picturesque. Paul planted the Nevskoi 
 Prospeckt (the principal street in St. Petersburg) with lime 
 trees, a kind of decoration then quite unknown in the narrow 
 streets of continental cities. London was almost the only 
 town in the world with a smoothly paved foot-road for pedes- 
 trians along the side of each of its streets, and Paris consisted of 
 a cluster of monasteries in the present Rue de Rivoli, and dark 
 narrow alleys and thoroughfares, such as are now to be seen 
 in the oldest part of the French capital. The revolutionists 
 had destroyed the monuments of the Bourbons, not yet re- 
 placed by those of the Empire; and the Italian cities had 
 suffered severely from the ravages of recent wars. 
 
 The Foundling Hospital in Moscow contained the largest 
 school for children in the world, and Paul established another 
 at St. Petersburg, and bought two noblemen's palaces for the 
 purpose. The same Sovereign left two unfinished cathedrals ; 
 St. Isaac, begun by Catherine II., and the Church of Our 
 Lady of Kazan, founded in 1799. Alexander paid for their 
 completion, and set aside a special tax for the maintenance of 
 the asylums and schools. 
 
 The means of secular education were at that time at the 
 lowest ebb in Russia : there were schools attached to the 
 monasteries for the clergy, but these were impoverished when 
 Catherine seized the Church revenues, and were fast declining, 
 and the military schools founded by Alexander's predecessors 
 were not more than enough to supply officers for only the 
 guards. The Sovereign took up the subject with a zeal which 
 entirely ignored the danger of educating the lower classes, an 
 idea commonly held at that day. He divided the whole 
 empire in 1802 into six divisions, each of which was to
 
 The Imperial Family. 209 
 
 possess one university j and as at that time only three, those 
 of Viina, Moscow, and Kief, existed, four were successively 
 opened at Dorpat, Kharkov, Kazan, and St. Petersburg. 
 There had once been an old Swedish university at Dorpat, 
 but all the students and professors retreated to Stockholm 
 during the war between Peter and Charles XII. When 
 Alexander restored it in 1802 he assigned to it a sufficient 
 revenue to procure the services of learned foreigners as 
 lecturers and professors, and also to found museums and 
 travelling fellowships, and send out its members on scientific 
 expeditions and discoveries. 
 
 According to the new organization dividing Russia into six 
 districts, each of these districts was composed of several 
 governments, and each government was divided into com- 
 partments. Every chief seat of a government was to have a 
 gymnasium or college, and every chief town of a compartment 
 a village school ; while the principal villages were supplied 
 with parochial schools, in which the teachers were often the 
 village priests. TVo thousand of these schools were founded 
 at that time, and notwithstanding much opposition, an 
 English writer in 1826* states that most of them continued to 
 exist. The direction of all matters connected with public 
 education was committed in each division to a board composed 
 of professors of the university presided over by the rector, who 
 was elected by the professors from among themselves ; and in 
 each government it was intrusted to a board formed of the 
 masters of the different schools. At St. Petersburg a council 
 was created for the general management of educational affairs, 
 consisting of the curators of the universities, and this was 
 under the control of the Minister of Public Instruction. To 
 encourage the Russian youth to devote themselves to study, the 
 different degrees of the learned hierarchy were entitled to 
 certain privileges ; that, for instance, of doctor of any of the 
 faculties was assimilated to a rank which conferred hereditary 
 nobility. 
 
 Count Romanzov, a son of the eminent field-marshal, and 
 related to Peter the Great, was one of the few noblemen who 
 supported Alexander's educational projects. As President of 
 
 * See the article on Russian Literature in the first volume of the Foreign 
 Quarterly Review. 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 The Imperial Family. 
 
 the Board of Commerce he also promoted improvements in 
 the internal and foreign trade of Russia; but his views were 
 always strongly biassed by a partiality for the French nation, 
 though not for the Legitimists, to whom he was accredited at 
 Coblentz ; and in 1812 he was perhaps the most unpopular 
 man in the empire. Under his protege, the Due de Richelieu, 
 the new schools for both rich and poor in Odessa especially 
 nourished, and there the Abbe Nicolle* was placed at the head 
 of the Lyceum, or college for the nobility, and numbered 
 among his pupils the distinguished names of Narishkin, 
 Gagarine, Galitzin, Menzikof, and Orlof. 
 
 Alexander opened the Imperial Lyceum at Czarco-Selo in 
 the year 1804, for the sons of the nobility, and he always 
 took great personal interest in its prosperity, and frequently 
 attended the annual ceremony, at which the pupils read aloud 
 their prize compositions and received degrees of merit. The 
 academy was lodged in a wing of the palace, and the 
 education embraced every branch of literature and science 
 commonly taught, and was intended to enable them to enter 
 any profession or government office. Among its students in 
 the founder's lifetime was the future poet Pushkin, and the 
 eminent statesman Prince Gortchakof. " It was not pos- 
 sible," says a writer in 1826, " that such exertions could be 
 made for any length of time without producing corresponding 
 good effects, and we have seen that the sciences have of late 
 nourished very much in Russia."f The university of Dorpat 
 particularly has sent forth many scientific men, whose dis- 
 coveries with regard to the mineral produce of the empire have 
 been of much benefit to the State. Thirty years after its re- 
 erection it supported forty professors, and contained 600 
 students, and one of its members, M. Parrot, accomplished the 
 first recorded ascent of Mount Ararat. J 
 
 There were many native prejudices and popular superstitions 
 to overcome before medical science could make much way in 
 Russia, and it is doubtful whether the importation of foreign 
 
 * He came to Russia with the children of M. Choiseul Gouffier, a 
 French ambassador, released through Paul's influence from the prison of 
 the Seven Towers in Constantinople. 
 
 f Russian Literature, in Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. i. 
 
 J Like other Russian universities, it temporarily suffered from the 
 blighting policy of the Emperor Nicholas in 1848.
 
 The Imperial Family. 211 
 
 physicians did not produce more harm than good at that time, 
 from the extreme lengths to which they carried bleeding and 
 other lowering modes of cure. Low fevers, ague, and nervous 
 disorders were very prevalent in Russia, yet in all these cases 
 the foreign doctors applied leeches, the lancet, and cathartics 
 without distinction, and without any fear that it was the 
 proper mode of treatment. Peter the Great established at 
 Moscow what Voltaire asserts was the best pharmaceutical 
 establishment in Europe, yet in the reign of Catherine II. 
 there was little or no provision for the wounded or sick 
 soldier in a campaign : he generally died where he fell ; and in, 
 the provinces a charm blessed by the priest was the only 
 remedy sought for in illness. Foreign medical men were often 
 attached to the houses of the nobility, and three Scotchmen, 
 Sir Alexander Crichton, Dr. Leighton, and Sir James Wylie, 
 afterwards became chiefs of the Civil, Naval, and Military 
 Medical Departments. Paul established in every government a 
 uprava, or medical staff, consisting of an inspector, an operator, 
 and a surgeon exclusively for women ; and Alexander placed a 
 surgeon in every district in every government. " No Sove- 
 reign ever did so much for medicine as Alexander," says 
 De Maistre. All the surgeons were subject to the upravas, 
 and Dr. Lyell, by no means partial to Russia, asserts in 1824, 
 that " though in many places there may still be a deficiency of 
 medical men, this is not the fault of government, but is to be 
 attributed to the widely spread population. Besides, all the 
 army practitioners regularly exercise their talents in the 
 vicinity of their stations, and often make considerable sums of 
 money from this incidental practice."* 
 
 "VYylie was the son of obscure Scotch parents, and educated 
 at the university of Edinburgh. He came a mere boy to seek 
 his fortune in Russia, and resided successively in the families of 
 two Russian noblemen, and occasionally attended at the Court 
 in Catherine's reign; but an accident brought him under the 
 notice of Paul, whose valet, Kutaisof, he cured of an abscess in 
 the throat, which threatened suffocation. The Emperor re- 
 warded him with the post of physician to the heir- apparent ; 
 and four years later he was called upon to embalm Paul's body, 
 after assisting at his murder. Though constantly with Alex- 
 * Lyell's Travels in Russia. 
 
 p2
 
 212 The Imperial Family. 
 
 ander in the early part of his reign, he was often detached to 
 serve in the army when Russia was at war, and to establish 
 military hospitals on the field. He was a tall, powerful man, 
 six feet two in height, and after a long residence in Russia, 
 completely lost his mother tongue. De Maistre asserts that 
 his mode of practice was very severe, and that " he would pro- 
 pose to cut off a man's head to cure a headache." He tells a 
 story of his attendance on a young German officer who 
 wounded himself mortally in attempting to commit suicide 
 from some love affair or debt. " Dr. Wylie, his Majesty's 
 surgeon, a man of great skill,* but hard as his tools, an 
 anatomist, that is to say, decoupeur, in all the force of the 
 term. By the side of the dying man, who heard him, he 
 said to some young officers : ' Gentlemen, when you wish to 
 kill yourselves, remember and fire into the mouth. You will 
 save me the trouble of coming to see you/ "f 
 
 Even in 1825 an English physician settled at Moscow for 
 twenty-two years told Dr. Lee that the Russian nobility were 
 mere spoiled children, persons full of absurd prejudices ; and 
 of the lower classes, that the physician should constantly be 
 accompanied with the knout, otherwise his orders will receive 
 no attention. This kind of ignorance, however, is by no 
 means confined to Russia.^ 
 
 The so-called coterie of young wits who formed Alexander's 
 most intimate society when he first came to the throne, brought 
 his reforms into disrepute by the imprudence with which they 
 talked in St. Petersburg, wounding the feelings of the older 
 statesmen by calling the reigns of Catherine II. and Paul a 
 " time of barbarism/' and they soon became objects of calumny 
 and suspicion. They constantly spent the evening with the 
 Emperor and Empress, forming what they designated as " the 
 circle," in which they discussed public affairs; but towards 
 the end of the year 1804 the diplomatic gossip asserted that 
 they, or at least Czartoriski, had more influence with the* 
 Empress than with Alexander. " Nothing is more fatal to 
 empires or to republics/'says Lamartine, speaking of Czartoriski, 
 " than these ill-naturalized foreigners, either by conquest or 
 by the favour of a nation introduced into the councils of 
 
 * Particularly in lithotomy, f De Maistre's Correspond an ce Diplomatique 
 J Dr. Lee's Journal kept in Russia.
 
 TJie Imperial Family. 213 
 
 princes. The policy of an emigrant is always a policy of 
 chimeras. Good sense is forgotten in the dreams for their 
 country/' Czartoriski favoured alliances only with a view to 
 Poland, and Baron Grimm affirms that he was the cause of 
 Alexander's unpopularity in 1805.* 
 
 On the 5th of June, 1801, the Emperor desired the Senate 
 to propose a scheme for its own reorganization, but it neglected 
 to do so ; and in September, 1802, he published two ukazes in 
 which he defined its duties and rights. It was constituted 
 the highest court of appeal in civil and military causes, but 
 its chief function was to promote the observance of the laws 
 in all parts of the empire. The number of senators was not 
 limited, and the board was divided into eleven parts : six held 
 their sittings in St. Petersburg, three in Moscow, and two in 
 Vilna. The Emperor was also President of the Senate, and 
 possessed the right of annulling any decision of either the 
 Council of the Empire or of the Senate. The Holy Governing 
 Synod, which regulated the ecclesiastical affairs of the empire, 
 was equal with the Senate, and at its sittings the Emperor 
 was represented by the first procurator, who is always a privy 
 councillor. Till the reign of Paul the word minister was 
 unknown in Russia, those answering to that term being styled 
 the Chief or President of the College of Commerce, the Chief 
 of the College for Foreign Affairs, &c., with beneath them an 
 unlimited supply of secretaries and clerks. Paul established 
 one minister, and on September 8th Alexander abolished the 
 old colleges, which were generally receptacles of idleness and 
 fraud, and nominated eight ministerial boards in their place. 
 General Voronzov was made Minister of Foreign Affairs, and 
 shortly afterwards Czartoriski was appointed as his coadjutor. 
 The department of Justice was given to the poet Derjarvin. 
 Kotchoubey, Alexander's earliest and wisest friend, who ac- 
 companied Catherine on her celebrated tour to the Crimea in 
 1786, was appointed the new Minister of the Interior, with 
 Paul Strogouof as his assistant, and he selected Speranski for 
 his secretary. Vassilief was made Minister of Finance, with 
 Gourief as his assistant ; Count Romanzov of Commerce, and 
 Count Zavadovsky of Public Education, with Muravief as his 
 
 * Life of Alexander Federovna.
 
 214 Tlie Imperial Family. 
 
 assistant ; Admiral Mordvenof of Marine, hut soon succeeded 
 by Admiral Tchicehagof ; General Viasmatinof of War. It was 
 some time before they all fitted into their new duties ; and they 
 were inclined to treat their offices as private estates, in which 
 each was to act independently without any reference to his 
 colleagues or to the Privy Council and the Senate. There 
 was also a deficiency of upright statesmen to fill the newly 
 created offices, as there was a deficiency of educated tutors to 
 supply the newly established schools. The ministers had yet 
 to learn that like those below them they were equally subject 
 to the law, and could not break it with impunity. It was 
 their mutual jealousies, and disposition to trample on the ordi- 
 nances they were called upon to protect, which proved that 
 a real constitutional government would be still premature 
 in Kussia. In a ukaz of August 20th, 1802, Alexander com- 
 plains of the nobles and citizens avoiding all public employment. 
 " We hear," he says, " that the first among the nobility 
 and citizens avoid appearing at the elections (for municipal 
 and local judges), and consequently estrange themselves from 
 all public offices. From this it naturally results that the 
 distribution of justice will fall into the hanps of persons who 
 offer no guarantee," &c. In fact, those who sought to fill 
 these offices were the poorest and most ignorant, only anxious 
 to maintain themselves by illicit profits. 
 
 Alexander had carefully studied the judicial system of 
 England, and tried to establish an arrangement like that of 
 the county justices of the peace. His penal code was cer- 
 tainly the mildest in Europe, for in England a man was still 
 liable to be hanged for all cases of petty theft without violence ; 
 the pillory was not abolished ; the rebels in Ireland were put 
 to the torture for it was nothing less when they were flogged 
 while hanging by one wrist to a gallows, with a spike as the 
 only support for their naked feet ; and the horrible punish- 
 ment for high treason in a commoner still remained on the 
 statute books of Great Britain, while a man was condemned 
 to lose his hand who raised it against another in the presence 
 of the King. At Munster, in Prussia, a criminal was broken 
 on the wheel so late as the year 1826. The climate of Siberia, 
 of which the name used to cause a shudder throughout 
 Europe, is far more healthy than British India, and criminals
 
 The Imperial Family. 215 
 
 sent there survived to extreme old age ; yet banishment to 
 Siberia was the most dreaded Russian punishment. Twenty- 
 five strokes with the knout (which was generally fatal) was the 
 utmost given in cases of aggravated murder : the victim was 
 permitted to stupefy himself with opium or spirits ; and was 
 attended beforehand and accompanied to the place of execu- 
 tion by a priest, who supported his failing courage and 
 repeated prayers for his soul. The penal code was considered 
 too mild, and increased in severity under Nicholas ; but 
 Alexander's leniency had a good effect on the provincial 
 governors, who were proportionately more merciful, as under 
 a cruel or capricious despot they are always inclined to be more 
 hard. A few nobles responded to his wishes for the eman- 
 cipation of the serfs. A nobleman in Voronesch in 1803 
 purchased an estate containing 10,000 serfs from Prince 
 Trubcztkoi, and promised to place it in their hands when 
 they should repay the purchase-money. The grateful pea- 
 sants addressed their thanks to the Emperor for passing the 
 law which enabled them to be free. 
 
 But in the midst of his cares for the internal condition of 
 the country, Alexander's attention was constantly turned to 
 the threatening state of Europe. His brother-in-law of 
 Sweden was the first who ventured to disturb his peace, by 
 endeavouring to advance his frontier on the side of Finland, 
 and openly declaring his intention to obtain the restoration 
 of Russian- Finland, which included part of St. Petersburg, 
 and had now long formed an integral portion of the em- 
 pire. Alexander promptly despatched a regiment to that 
 quarter, and the Swedes retired; but in November, 1802, 
 Gustavus caused his son to be christened Duke of Finland, 
 to show he had not abandoned the idea. " Russia and 
 Sweden," writes Lord Malmesbury, " are near a quarrel about 
 a bridge on the river Vymene, on the frontier of Finland. It 
 may end by Russia taking all the rest of that country from 
 the Swedes/' Again, September 25th, 1804, Sir George 
 Jackson writes from Berlin : " The coolness between Russia 
 and Sweden is a remnant of the animosity which the discus- 
 sions respecting the frontiers in Finland gave rise to. The 
 proceedings of the King were generally thought to be ill 
 advised, and Count Voronzov conceived so much personal
 
 216 The Imperial Family. 
 
 enmity towards him, that but for the Emperor's forbearance 
 and his consideration of the closeness of their family con- 
 nection, the opportunity would have been seized of taking pos- 
 session of Finland. The King's long absence from his do- 
 minions and his residence at Munich and Carlsruhe have 
 been unfavourably looked upon at St. Petersburg. But the 
 anxious wish of the King to take a conspicuous part against 
 France has not met with the consideration to which he 
 thinks it entitled ; his overtures on the subject have been 
 answered by a recommendation from the Emperor to return 
 to Stockholm/' 
 
 Gustavus was nearly the same age as Alexander, but too 
 weak and vain to mix himself in the troubled sea of Europe. 
 In the year 1803 he seemed anxious to form an alliance with 
 France, and remained nearly two years from his own king- 
 dom, amusing himself at the Courts of his wife's grandfather 
 and brother-in-law,* both of whom had bowed to the dic- 
 tates of the Republic. Without real military talent, or even 
 common courage, his one idea was to follow in the footsteps 
 of his ancestors, Charles XII. and Gustavus, and play a con- 
 spicuous part as an arbitrator in the affairs of the Continent, 
 and to effect this end he was willing to take either side as an 
 ally. Alexander had seen enough of him at St. Petersburg to 
 place no confidence in his consistency, and had moreover been 
 deeply offended by his conduct in former days ; but Gustavus 
 was utterly regardless of this circumstance, and continued to 
 provoke his powerful relative. Among other puerile efforts to 
 annoy him, a cast of the head of a well-known Swedish 
 murderer was placed in the Museum at Stockholm, with the 
 statement that it was the head of the Emperor Paul. But in 
 1802 Alexander was sincerely desirous to maintain peace, 
 even at the price of a valuable acquisition of territory which 
 he might have gained by a Swedish war. His army was 
 below the usual standard for the sake of relieving the finances, 
 and the economy of his government and the increase of the 
 Russian commerce seemed likely to restore the national credit 
 at no very distant date. He hoped by a union with the other 
 Powers of Europe to establish the principles of universal peace 
 
 * The Elector of Bavaria, who married a sister of the Queen of Sweden 
 and Empress of fiuasia.
 
 The Imperial Family. 217 
 
 to the end of time; and though this idea was derided by 
 English politicians, there is little doubt he was perfectly 
 justified in believing that if three of the great Powers honestly 
 joined together and insisted upon peace, peace would be main- 
 tained. Napoleon at St. Helena acknowledged that his own 
 policy had always been to separate the alliance between two 
 of the great Powers, for that if they had acted cordially in 
 concert and together, he must have been checked at the very 
 outset. If the Prussians had waited till the Russians 
 joined them before the battle of Jena, we ha.ve his own 
 authority for asserting that it would have been a victory for 
 the Allies. If Austria had not advanced in 1805 till the 
 Russians were only within a few days' march, and had then 
 not been more afraid of her ally than her enemy, the efforts 
 of the two armies might have been crowned with signal 
 success. At Marengo whole battalions of the Austrians threw 
 down their arms before they had fired a shot because their 
 favourite general was deprived of his command, and after 
 "Wagram, the Archduchess Anthony of Austria openly 
 rejoiced in the public theatre, saying that the sooner the 
 Austrians were defeated the sooner there would be peace. 
 "With such divided sentiments a general of inferior ability 
 might have conquered a nation when he commanded the 
 finest troops of France. But though in this instance Alexander 
 showed more foresight than the oldest politicians in Europe, 
 his proposals were received in England with something like 
 disdain. In April, 1802, " Count Voronzov complains much," 
 says the Malmesbury Correspondence, " of the inattention of the 
 English Government at the Foreign Office. An offer he had 
 made officially in the Emperor's name, and which he conveyed by 
 sending Lord Hawkesbury a copy of the Emperor's letter, was 
 left without any answer from March 27th/' and Lord Hawkes- 
 bury had altogether behaved with great want of courtesy towards 
 the ambassador. This nobleman, who was brother to the 
 Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, went to St. Petersburg in 
 the course of the year with the intention of accepting an 
 office in the Imperial Cabinet ; but his personal dislike of 
 the young ministers who surrounded the Emperor, as well 
 as of the older political veterans who shared his confidence, 
 induced him to return to his former diplomatic post.
 
 218 The Imperial Family. 
 
 and he continued to reside in London for the rest of his 
 life. 
 
 In the summer of 1802 the King's nephew, Prince William 
 of Gloucester, paid a visit to the Court of Russia. The Peace 
 of Amiens was signed between France and England March 27th, 
 1802. Pitt is said by his intimate friends to have regarded it 
 only as a truce, but England acknowledged the Consular 
 Government, the independence of Malta, and the Republic of 
 the Seven Isles, and required an adequate compensation for 
 the House of Orange, displaced by the Dutch in favour of a 
 republic like France, while she retained for herself the impor- 
 tant acquisitions of the islands of Trinidad and Ceylon. 
 Napoleon and the other heroes of the French Directory had 
 no more enthusiastic admirers than the Liberal party in Great 
 Britain, headed by the brilliant leader of the Opposition, 
 Mr. Fox. This party was supported by the Prince of 
 Wales, a man of forty, supposed to be fixed in his political 
 creed, and not likely to change it when the time arrived for 
 him to ascend the throne, and the infirmities and increasing 
 childishness of the aged King seemed to render it highly 
 probable that this time was not far distant. In view of such 
 a contingency, England was not regarded by the other Powers 
 as a very secure ally. While the Liberals in both Houses of 
 Parliament urged upon the country the necessity and policy 
 of a permanent peace with France, while the London mob showed 
 the prevalent feeling of the Democrats by drawing the carriage 
 of the French ambassador into Westminster under the belief 
 that he was a brother of the First Consul, and the Liberal 
 publications boasted of the French exploits as if they had been 
 achieved by their own party, and cried down or affected to dis- 
 believe any success on the part of the enemies of France 
 England might in vain attempt to form a general league to 
 oppose Napoleon's aggressive policy, for it was supposed that 
 a defeat of the Ministry, or the total imbecility of a Sovereign of 
 sixty-two, might at any moment transfer the effective forces of 
 Great Britain from the side of their allies to those of the com- 
 mon foe. Party spirit ran so high in England that a Tory 
 was hardly on speaking terms with a Democrat or follower of 
 Mr. Fox ; and this divided state of feeling was not peculiar to 
 Great Britain, but was quite as great in Italy, Germany, and
 
 T7ie Imperial Fa mily. 219 
 
 Prussia, and prevailed to some extent in Austria and even in 
 Russia. In Austria the Emperor Francis was a dull, not un- 
 amiable character, whose chief amusement was catching 
 butterflies and reading the letters stopped by the officials in 
 the post-office. He was ruled by each of his four wives in 
 succession, but had little real influence over the affairs of his 
 empire, which had long been a bureaucratic government, for 
 which the ministers were supplied from the noble families in. 
 his dominions. These, educated by French tutors, were 
 biassed in favour of France, and comprised the landed interest 
 of the country, which thought the aggrandizement of France 
 less formidable in the future than the nearer approach of the 
 frontiers of Russia. They looked upon the French Empire as 
 a useful and almost necessary counterpoise to their gigantic 
 neighbour; and if France had not opposed the Austrian interest 
 in Italy, which to the aristocracy of Vienna was a sort of Pro- 
 mised Land, they would willingly have conceded much in her 
 favour, and, as they repeatedly showed by their conduct, would 
 have early formed an offensive and defensive alliance. 
 
 The mutual jealousies of the Continent never offered a more 
 splendid scope for French ambition than in the beginning of 
 the present century, and, as Napoleon said, 500 years might 
 elapse before another such opportunity appeared. Even those 
 in favour of aristocracy and legitimacy were inclined to hail 
 his assumption of Imperial power as the deathblow to repub- 
 licanism, which during many years had menaced the internal 
 peace of the whole Continent. They saw in it a return to law 
 and order in France, which they conjectured could only be 
 kept in hand by a strong persona] government; but this was 
 exactly what Napoleon found himself unable to accomplish. 
 He had risen as a military leader of the armies of the Republic, 
 and the enormous force he maintained for the sake of keeping 
 a hold on the young men of the country, the promoters of 
 revolutions, required employment to retain it in subordination, 
 and that employment was only obtained at the expense of 
 Europe. He was probably led by circumstances rather than 
 the author of them ; and after fifteen years of excitement it 
 would have required a more devoted and disinterested ruler to 
 have induced the Democrats to live under a peaceful govern- 
 ment, when they saw constantly before their eyes the spectacle
 
 220 The Imperial Family. 
 
 of men who had raised themselves by means of the Revolution 
 to rank and importance, and considered that a second revolu- 
 tion might end by conferring the same honours upon them. 
 An attempt on the life of the First Consul in 1801 furnished 
 him with a pretext for putting eighteen of these unruly spirits 
 to death and sending 200 to die on the pestilential shores of 
 Cayenne. The following year he took an important step in 
 the restoration of political order by concluding a Concordat 
 with the Pope, and proclaiming that the Christian religion was 
 re-established throughout the French territory. No measure 
 that he passed was ever more opposed. A generation 'had 
 grow n up ignorant of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian 
 faith, which had been almost extirpated by the leaders of the 
 Revolution, who affirmed there was no Deity, and tried to set 
 up an idol in Notre Dame. The First Consul attended a grand 
 religious ceremony in the old cathedral to celebrate the recon- 
 ciliation with Religion, though his aides-de-camp could hardly 
 be induced to look in at the door, for they identified all Church 
 services with tyranny and a monarchy, and thought they saw in 
 this measure a stepping-stone to both. Alexander and the King 
 of Prussia publicly expressed their satisfaction when they heard 
 that France had again asserted her claim to be called " the 
 eldest son of the Church/' and the Emperor of Austria styled 
 it " a service truly rendered to all Europe." 
 
 The philosophical tenets of the eighteenth century, and the 
 power which the Protestant and Greek Catholic sovereignties 
 had acquired in Europe, had lowered the Papal dignity to a 
 degree from which it has risen considerably during the last 
 fifty years. " Nothing," writes an English diplomatist in 1768, 
 " proves the vicissitudes of things more than to see the Pope's 
 Nuncio wait an hour and a half in the Russian ambassador's 
 antechamber (in Warsaw), and that merely to compliment him 
 on the Empress's birthday. This actually happened Decem- 
 ber 5th, 1767." The Papal thunders had been launched in- 
 nocuously on her recreant sons, and the Vatican had viewed 
 with horror, without the power of interference, the long years 
 of spiritual disorder which prevailed in France. Marriage had 
 become a civil and not a religious contract, and was almost as 
 easily set aside as in the Oriental atmosphere of Poland. The 
 Roman Catholic religion has always been willing to smooth
 
 Tlie Imperial Family. 221 
 
 obstacles and widen the road for a return to her communion, 
 and in more than one Eastern branch of the Church she has 
 conceded questions of discipline and even doctrine to facilitate 
 the gathering of doubting sons into the fold. The Pope was 
 not inclined to be strict, or to require any expiatory penance on 
 the part of France, but received her, still stained with the blood 
 of the Legitimists and ecclesiastics and enriched with the spoils 
 of the churches and monasteries, with open arms. The first 
 proof of filial reverence paid to him for years past had come 
 from the most unexpected quarter. The prodigal son had 
 thrown himself down at his father's feet, and though arriving 
 rich instead of poor, renowned and feared instead of reduced 
 to beg, had declared his repentance for his former sins and 
 asked to be taken back and received once more in the paternal 
 home. The strayed sheep which had been wandering in the 
 wilderness had at last been found. It was not terror, but a 
 real sense of approbation of the champion who had risen up 
 in the cause of the persecuted Church, that induced the Pope 
 in November, 1804, to take the journey from Italy to Fontaine- 
 bleau to assist at the ceremony of coronation, for Napoleon- 
 the previous May had assumed the style and title of Emperor. 
 The Republicans began to thirst for the regal pomp which has 
 always been dear to the French heart, and their votes were 
 almost unanimous on the subject of the hereditary succession 
 of Napoleon's family, for they longed to display in the new 
 Imperial Court the airs and rich costumes they had envied 
 under the Bourbon dynasty. 
 
 The coronation was a curious mixture of the service used 
 for the King of France at Rheims and that observed by 
 Caulaincourt at the consecration of the Emperor of Russia; 
 and from the last Napoleon borrowed the act of placing the 
 crown upon his own head and afterwards crowning the Empress. 
 The titles and etiquette under the new regime presented the 
 same intermingling of the fashions of every country in Europe, 
 and he took lessons in Imperial attitudes from his old friend 
 the actor Talma, inhaled snuff in enormous quantities to 
 resemble Frederick the Great, and, according to Madame de 
 Stael, imitated even the Bourbon personal tricks. " "Whoever," 
 she says, " could suggest an additional piece of formality from 
 the olden time, propose an additional reverence, a new mode of
 
 222 The Imperial Family. 
 
 knocking at the door of an antechamber, a more ceremonious 
 method of presenting a petition or folding a letter, was received 
 as if he had been the benefactor of the human race/' " There 
 was never seen elsewhere than at Napoleon's Court/' says 
 Madame de Genlis, " that confusion of etiquette which showed 
 every foreigner some of the usages of his own country, for the 
 royal customs and ceremonies of other Courts were adopted 
 indiscriminately, though the language and manners of some of 
 the great personages of this Court presented the most singular 
 contrast with its dazzling magnificence." Napoleon's family 
 were created Imperial Highnesses, and he delighted to speak 
 of them by their titles, even in writing of one to another. His 
 mother received that of Madame la Mere, but he inaugurated so 
 stiff an etiquette that she was not allowed to sit down without 
 permission in his presence. He had long complained of the 
 council called the Tribunate, saying they wished to attack him 
 like Louis XVI., and " were mere vermin only fit to be thrown 
 into the Seine/' because in 1802 they objected to the ex- 
 pression " subjects of France " in the treaty with Russia, as 
 they were citizens, not subjects ; and he took the first oppor- 
 tunity to suppress them. The Senate was permitted to con- 
 tinue its existence till the last days of the Empire, but it had 
 little real power. The government was in fact a thorough 
 despotism, conducted by Napoleon when he was in France, and 
 by Maret, Due de Bassano, or Cambaceres when he was engaged 
 in a foreign war ; for he did not attempt to unite the powers 
 of a civil and military Sovereign, but returned to his legisla- 
 tive functions when the campaign was ended and he found 
 himself again in Paris. 
 
 But long before his coronation (December 2nd, 1804) the 
 short peace with England had come to an end, and the 
 two great Western Powers of Europe were again at war. It 
 was most wounding to the pride of the British nation that 
 after such long and glorious efforts a treaty was concluded 
 not entirely obtaining the original objects of the strife, and 
 toth sides betrayed a mistrust of the other, and a slowness 
 in carrying out the measures to which both had agreed. 
 Napoleon usually tried to overreach the other party in a 
 transaction, and was apt to suspect every one else of doing the 
 same ; but this time he really seems to have desired to remain
 
 The Imperial Family. 223 
 
 at peace with England ; and when Mr. Fox was presented 
 at the Tuileries on a visit to France in 1802, he began to 
 talk of the separation of Europe into two sections, and of 
 the great Western family which was to give peace to the 
 world. He also encouraged the return of the emigrant 
 aristocracy with the offer of restoring their confiscated 
 estates ; but this measure was never fully carried out, either 
 because he found he was unable to effect it on account 
 of the lands having passed into other families, or was afraid 
 to strengthen a party which still mourned for its legitimate 
 monarchs. 
 
 The causes of the recommencement of hostilities were 
 the English retaining their garrisons in Malta and Egypt, 
 in consequence of a suspicious mission of General Sebas- 
 tiani to Syria, and the free comments passed on Napoleon's 
 conduct in the English newspapers, which he made the 
 subject of a grave remonstrance, with the request that the 
 British Government would curb the liberty of the press, 
 and also banish the French refugees. The British Ca- 
 binet answered with great courtesy, but of course de- 
 clined to concede his demand, and in two subsequent 
 levees he assailed Lord Whitworth, the English ambassador, 
 with the utmost rudeness. War was again declared by the 
 British Government on the 16th, and by the French on 
 the 24th of May, 1803, when, imitating the example of his 
 ally Paul, and even going further, Napoleon seized on all 
 the English travellers who were at that moment found in 
 France, and most of them remained in captivity for eleven, 
 years. The attempt on his life seemed to have filled his 
 head with ideas of conspiracy and assassination, and for a long 
 time nothing could convince him that the English did not 
 keep murderers in France in their pay. An imprisoned English 
 officer, Captain Wright,* was put to the torture, and it is 
 believed privately murdered, merely to make him confess 
 the identity of these imaginary conspirators. It was a dread 
 that came over Napoleon on several occasions in the course 
 of his reign, and he thought all means justifiable to prevent 
 his own assassination. Caulaincourt says he feared the fate of 
 Paul, which at the time had made such a strong impression 
 * Secret History of Bonaparte, by Lewis Goldsmith.
 
 224 The Imperial Family. 
 
 upon him, and he never took more precautions than when 
 in the company of Russians, or when he met the Emperor 
 Alexander at Tilsit and at Erfurt (1807-8). His old com- 
 panion in arms, General Moreau, who had been first offered 
 the Dictatorship of France but declined it, being too honour- 
 able a man to trespass on the liberties of the Republic, was 
 banished from France, and General Pichegru found dead* 
 in prison, while many others of inferior rank were trans- 
 ported to Cayenne or put to death. Yet the French were 
 so eager for a settled government, that after Joubert (killed 
 at Novi) and Moreau had been proposed as Dictators, and the 
 Prussian Prince Louis (killed at Jena) had actually been 
 suggested by the Abbe Sieyes as a successor to the Bourbon 
 throne, they gladly received the First Consul as their here- 
 ditary Emperor, and viewed with less than indifference the 
 violent measures he took to maintain his crown and life. The 
 Republicans saw in a strong and unopposed monarchy their 
 newly- acquired possessions and rank secured to them, for 
 they dreaded above all the return of a Bourbon to avenge 
 perhaps the death of Louis XVI. and restore the ecclesias- 
 tical estates now distributed among the people to their old 
 proprietors. The shopkeepers hoped for the lavish expendi- 
 ture entailed by a Court; all classes needed excitement, and 
 since the Concordat the clergy warmly embraced the cause 
 of the new Empire. The French had long been unac- 
 quainted with royalty or aristocracy, except as caricatured 
 on the boards of a stage, so that the charlatanry of the 
 Tuileries appeared to them both effective and grand. It 
 was only the superior men among them who could see the 
 incongruity of the coarse manners of a barrack joined to the 
 high-sounding titles and regal sceptre of a country which had 
 once thought itself the most refined in Europe. The immo- 
 rality of Napoleon's Court was not less than that of Louis XIV., 
 without the false polish and smooth exterior by which the 
 faults of Versailles had been in some measure concealed 
 from the public eye. Yet Napoleon yielded to none in 
 conciliatory and nattering language when he thought it 
 would be more likely to please, and when he came in 
 contact with persons of a higher cultivation than himself, 
 * There is now no doubt that Pichegru was privately murdered.
 
 The Imperial Family. 225 
 
 though he had learned by experience that rough, and even 
 brutal, words and deportment were the most likely to awe 
 into submission the military mob who had assisted to raise 
 him to the throne. To judge by the revelations of his 
 most attached dependents, the frequenters of the Tuileries 
 put up with as many insults and as much personal violence as 
 had ever been offered to the courtiers of the Emperor Paul ; 
 but with the new French aristocracy an existence as the 
 hangers-on of a court had the charm of novelty, and they 
 prided themselves rather than otherwise on this base treat- 
 ment. 
 
 A year before Napoleon was proclaimed Emperor, he sent 
 an emissary to Warsaw (then part of Prussian Poland), where 
 Louis XVIII. had resided since his expulsion from Mittau, 
 and tried to purchase the surrender of the Bourbon claims. 
 The King of Prussia, Napoleon's warm ally, despatched 
 a rough message to his unfortunate visitor, urging the 
 necessity of compliance, and desiring his commissioners to 
 point out his probable sufferings and penury if he refused. 
 Louis answered with much dignity, acknowledging Napoleon's 
 services to France, but declining to relinquish his hopes of 
 the throne. The residence of the Bourbons was conse- 
 quently rendered most unpleasant, and even dangerous, in 
 Prussia, for the police declined to interfere in an attempt to 
 poison Louis through some French agents ; and although he 
 supported this insult without complaint, Frederick William, 
 at Napoleon's request, ordered him to leave Prussia. When 
 Alexander first came to the throne he offered to renew a 
 portion of his father's pension to the Bourbons, and again 
 placed the castle of Mittau at their disposal ; but while they 
 gladly accepted the money, they preferred to remain at 
 "Warsaw. Now, however, they were forced to ask for his 
 protection, which was at once bestowed, and Louis left 
 immediately for Mittau. The weather was so cold that his 
 wife and niece passed the winter at Warsaw, and did not join 
 him in Russia till April, 1805. 
 
 Alexander was too strong to fear offending France, but he 
 was not the less anxious to preserve the peace of Europe ; 
 and he offered his mediation to adjust the new dispute 
 between the Consulate and Great Britain in 1803. He could 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 The Imperial Family. 
 
 hardly believe that so small an island as Malta was the real 
 object of the contest ; and upon his interference being suggested, 
 he said that for this reason it would be of no use, till he 
 heard that Great Britain declined to accept Napoleon's offer 
 to allow Malta to be given up to Russia, Prussia, or 
 Austria, on the ground that Russia, the only power indepen- 
 dent of France, had positively refused to be a party to any 
 such arrangement. The communication to the British Govern- 
 ment, signifying his willingness to act as mediator, was dated 
 May 24th, and was not delivered by his Ambassador till all 
 diplomatic relations between France and England had ceased 
 by the declaration of war, May 16th. On his own part he 
 addressed a note to Bonaparte with reference to the French 
 scheme of separating Syria and Egypt from Turkey. " The 
 long despatch/' says Lord Malmesbury,* "written by Voronzov 
 (the Russian Minister of Foreign affairs in January, 1803), 
 was quite a political sermon, full of good advice, and even 
 admonition, to Bonaparte, well written, strong and ingenious, 
 and expressing in distinct terms, that if any attempt is made 
 by France on the Turkish Empire, the Emperor will be obliged 
 to intervene actively." Lord Malmesbury complains at the 
 same time that the English are acting foolishly, and not in 
 concert with Russia, either from want of communication or 
 from carelessness and inability. Again he writes, May 18th, 
 1803, that "it is evident from what Voronzov (the Ambas- 
 sador) says, his court is unfavourable to us, and gained over 
 by France, through Czartoriski and the Empress." 
 
 On May 27th, 1803, Fox urged on the British Government 
 to avail itself of the goodwill of the Emperor of Russia to 
 conclude a peace. He observed that no Power in Europe had 
 a greater right to prescribe peace. Lord Hawkesbury replied, 
 the Government had always wished for peace, but the only 
 method of effecting this was on a broad and liberal basis. 
 (" Hear, hear," by Pitt.) He agreed that Russia was the only 
 Power likely to arrest French ambition, but he opposed the 
 principle, on the ground that it was calculated " to unhinge 
 the public mind." The Czar proposed that Malta should be 
 declared neutral in all future wars, its independence gua- 
 ranteed by the Powers of Europe, the Giaud Master reinstated, 
 * Malmesbury Correspondence (second series)..
 
 The Imperial Family. 227 
 
 the Order to remain as it was before the war, and Malta to be 
 under the immediate protection of Naples. He also protested, 
 through his organ, the Hamburg Correspondenten, against the 
 recent French occupation of Hanover, as a violation of the 
 Treaty, and of the rights of the German Empire ; and also, 
 through Count Markof, against the French occupation of 
 Naples. He therefore acted with strict impartiality between 
 the two belligerents, but, like most neutrals, was suspected by 
 each of a secret understanding with the other side. The Tory 
 Ministers supposed that France was tempting both Russia and 
 Austria with offers of a partition of Turkey. Addington, Lord 
 Hawkesbury,and the other members of the Cabinet knew nothing, 
 and cared less, about the internal reforms in Russia, or the need 
 she had for repose and time to develop her resources, already 
 greatly overtaxed. They only saw the extent she occupied 
 on the map of Europe. They had Malta within their grasp, 
 and were determined to keep it, even if its possession entailed 
 another war. "I know nothing so revolting as the English policy," 
 writes Rostopchine to General Zizianof. The British Cabinet 
 was indignant at Russia not joining them at once against 
 France, though the quarrels of the two Western Powers need 
 not have affected her in any single interest. "Alexander 
 means well, but is weak and philanthropical,"* writes one of 
 its angry politicians. Was philanthropy so ordinary a virtue 
 in a Russian autocrat, or, indeed, in any occupant of a Euro- 
 pean throne, that it was to be stigmatized as weakness ? or was 
 it a matter of such indifference to humanity that a philanthro- 
 pist should rule over a seventh portion of the globe ? Was it 
 a reason for embroiling all Eastern Europe, that England 
 might be permitted to annex a small island unopposed ? Yet 
 the Continent was called upon to drive France to death, no 
 matter what more formidable people might rise upon her 
 wreck. She must be hunted down, even if it brought ruin 
 on her pursuers. But after appealing to Russia in this strain for 
 years, the English ministers began to fear her more than the 
 enemy, when she was England's most active ally, and followed a 
 very dubious policy respecting her.f Napoleon only imitated the 
 
 * Malmesbury Correspondence. 
 
 f In the secret treaty between France, Austria, and Great Britain, at 
 the Congress of Vienna, 1814*.
 
 228 The Imperial Family. 
 
 example of Great Britain when, by inaugurating the conti- 
 nental system, he endeavoured to bring every country in 
 Europe to contribute to her fall. At this time he thought 
 the Czar was England's secret ally. He was greatly irritated 
 by the debate in the Houses of Parliament on the question of 
 accepting Alexander's mediation. He went up to Count 
 Markof, at a levee at the Tuileries, June 5th, 1803, and said 
 to him, " I know Count Voronzov is not favourable to the 
 French ; he loves the English, and has not done his best to 
 prevent war. If the intentions of the Emperor are good, he 
 is very ill served. There is something double in this, and if 
 Count Voronzov had chosen, he might have controlled Eng- 
 land. The Emperor's conduct is most vague with regard to 
 France." The old courtier and favourite of Catherine II. 
 would not brook such language from the First Consul of 
 France without a reply. He sent a written answer through 
 Talleyrand, declaring that, as to the first point, Voronzov 
 had always acted impartially. As to the second, it is a most 
 ungrounded reflection to suppose his Imperial Majesty's minis- 
 ters ever acted contrary to his instructions. These were such 
 as became him to give, and were based on a principle of jus- 
 tice and equity, as became a great Sovereign who had nothing 
 to hope or fear. As to the third, it was an accusation requiring 
 an explanation ; for to insinuate that his Imperial Majesty's con- 
 duct was one of duplicity was a charge every act of his reign 
 disproved; it had been invariably the same from the first 
 moment, and would remain so. As to the fourth point, to 
 call his Majesty's conduct vague towards France was equally 
 groundless. The Emperor desires to cultivate and maintain 
 friendship with the First Consul. To acquire this he has acted, 
 and ever will act, frankly and equitably ; but he is too great a 
 Sovereign to solicit a favour. If he joined with France in the 
 German politics, it was because he thought the general inte- 
 rests of Europe were benefited by what he did ; and as to any 
 separate interest, it never had made part of this system, nor 
 would of any other. Markof ended his remonstrance by saying, 
 he trusted he should have some explanation, and be told why sub- 
 jects were brought into discussion in a public circle, which ought 
 only to be treated in the calm of a cabinet. He intimated 
 that he suspected some jealous stranger had been meddling
 
 The Imperial Family. 229 
 
 in the matter, and indirectly pointed out the Prussian Ambas- 
 sador, Lucchesini. 
 
 On June 14th, 1803, the Malmesbury Correspondence states, 
 " The Emperor of Russia is going into Livonia, taking Count 
 Kotchubey with him, a right-thinking, honest man." Czartoriski 
 is affirmed to be the favourite of the Empress.* 
 
 Lord Whitworth said Napoleon had two distinct phases 
 of manner one reserved for occasions of ceremony and 
 state, and his ordinary deportment, which not unfrequently 
 showed itself in public when thrown off" his guard. Then his 
 language was coarse and vulgar ; he had an Italian accent, 
 and wrote French in an uneducated style. He again 
 spoke very rudely to Count Markof at a levee, t and turning 
 to a general officer standing near, said, " Were you in the 
 army of Massena when we beat the Russians at Zurich?" 
 Markof shrugged his shoulders and withdrew. 
 
 In July, 1803, a Russian fleet sailed to protect the Sound, 
 on the representation of Sir J. B. Warren that it was menaced 
 by France, and an English fleet would otherwise be sent there. 
 Bonaparte had obtained the most extraordinary influence- 
 over the King of Prussia, partly through the Prussian Minister 
 Lombard, whom he had met in Holland, and it was even 
 asserted by the same indirect means he had employed to work 
 upon the wavering mind of the Emperor Paul.J A French 
 actress was installed in the household of the old Duke of 
 Brunswick, the Commander-in-Chief of the Prussian army; 
 and Cobentzel, the Austrian Ambassador in Paris, was a French- 
 man by education, and devoted to the interests of France. 
 Kurakin, the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs till Sep- 
 tember, 1802, is accused by an English publication of being 
 a pensioner of the French Government. He had lived much 
 in Paris, and preferred her alliance to that of England; but 
 although constantly in difficulties in former years, he received 
 such an enormous sum of money from Paul as an acknow- 
 ledgment of old obligations, that it seems hardly credible he 
 should have thought it worth his while to accept a bribe from 
 a foreign Power. Bonaparte still continued to try to keep 
 
 * Diary and Correspondence of Lord Malmesbury. 
 f Goldsmith's Secret History of Bonaparte. He states that he was 
 present at this interview. 
 
 J De Maistre. Goldsmith.
 
 230 The Imperial Family. 
 
 Alexander in good humour. He wrote to Prussia in July, 
 1803, that he committed with confidence the interests of 
 France to the wise and impartial judgment of the Emperor of 
 Russia. "Yet/* writes Sir George Jackson from Berlin, 
 " his Imperial Majesty has so strongly urged the King not 
 to be ensnared by the artifices of France, but to adopt more 
 energetic measures, that military preparations have actually 
 been set on foot/'* 
 
 Napoleon was at this moment bent upon the conquest of 
 England, and was making great naval preparations at Hel- 
 voetsluys and Boulogne. He sent Duroc a second time to St. 
 Petersburg, to interest Alexander in the quarrel, and persuade 
 him to declare war against England on account of Malta, 
 whose independence under the protection of the great Powers 
 was one of the articles of the Treaty between France and 
 Russia ; but Alexander replied by demanding the evacuation 
 of Germany, and the promised indemnity for Naples and 
 Sardinia. In . the mean time he settled a pension of 50,000 
 crowns on the King of Sardinia, and helped to maintain the 
 deposed House of Orange. De Maistre writes from St. Peters- 
 burg, August 5th, 1803, "The Emperor conceived the sublime 
 project of advancing into Germany at the head of 50,000 men, 
 to guarantee the German Federal union. But they (the 
 Russian Cabinet) have prevented it, and these are the words 
 used by a Minister : * We wish to preserve him, for if he 
 perishes, there is yet one more whom it would be necessary to 
 sacrifice the Grand Duke Constantine/ These are traits which 
 show the country and the manners of the people." 
 
 This argument was used to Alexander himself, and as it was 
 still not two years and a half after the murder of his father, it 
 came with some force. Count Markof continued to make 
 energetic representations to Bonaparte, and went so far as to 
 say that behind the Czar there were Russians, meaning that 
 the nation also possessed a voice, which had been more than 
 once distinctly heard; though, as Czartoriski was now the 
 Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, and thought to be 
 strongly inclined to France, she had expected more compliance. 
 The First Consul vented his ill-humour on Markof; and one 
 Sunday, at a public audience, said to Lucchesini, in his presence, 
 * Diary of Sir G. Jackson.
 
 The Imperial Family. 231 
 
 " What think you, Marquis, Russia is striving even to 
 protect the emigrants." Count Markof interposed, " Sir, if 
 his Majesty my august master wishes to extend protection to 
 any one, I am sure he has both right and reason." " It was 
 not to you, Count, I spoke," answered Bonaparte. " Sir," 
 said Markof, " if any one speaks in my presence of my 
 sovereign, I always reply." Having said this he turned his 
 back upon the First Consul. Bonaparte ordered Talleyrand 
 to send him forthwith back to Russia, but Markof refused to 
 go. He would not stir till his master recalled him. Both 
 despatched messengers to St. Petersburg with details of the 
 affair ; Bonaparte complaining that Markof mixed himself up 
 frequently, and in a disagreeable way, in the affairs of the 
 country, which gave him a right to ask the recall of this 
 " polisson" (blackguard) ; but the courier who brought Alex- 
 ander's letter to Markof desiring him to return, also carried to 
 him the insignia of a Russian order enriched with diamonds, 
 and the grant of a pension. The Charge d'Affaires who 
 replaced him was instructed to renew a demand for the release 
 of a French emigrant seized in Italy, on neutral territory, and 
 Napoleon at last gave it. 
 
 The First Consul's letter crossed a note from Alexander, 
 detailing the concessions he thought likely to produce a 
 reconciliation between France and Great Britain. But Napo- 
 leon now thought his own original conditions too small. He 
 wrote to Talleyrand, he did not wish to treat with England on 
 the affairs of the Continent. He was ready to evacuate 
 Holland and Switzerland, but he would never stipulate that 
 clause in an article.* As to the indemnities demanded by the 
 King of Sardinia, he would only consent to them if England 
 restored Ceylon to Holland (now virtually, though by its own 
 act, annexed to France), or Trinidad to Spain. He went on to 
 say, that he in no way menaced the neutrality of the small 
 states ; if he had marched his troops into them, it was only 
 because Eugland kept Malta, and violated the Germanic 
 independence. This ended the Russian mediation ; and 
 Markof quitted France Nov. 28th, 1803, M. d'Oubril, his 
 subordinate, being lelt in Paris as Charge d' Affaires. He was 
 followed as far as Carlsruhe by about twenty disguised 
 * Lanfrey's Histoire de Napoleon I er .
 
 232 The Imperial Family. 
 
 gendarmes, headed by Colonel Beauvoisin, with orders to rob 
 him on the road if he travelled by night. He disconcerted 
 their plans by arranging his journey so as to arrive at an 
 inn every evening before it became dark ; and the banditti, not 
 thinking it prudent to remain longer on German territory, 
 returned to Paris.* At Vienna, he dined tete-a-tete with the 
 Emperor of Germany, being the first foreign subject ever 
 admitted to that honour, in order to conciliate Russia ; for a 
 recent levy by the French army of 200,000/. on the free 
 towns of Hamburg, Lubeck, and Bremen, at a time of peace, 
 had even roused the fear of the apathetic Austrian cabinet. It 
 was a direct defiance of the pretensions of both Prussia and 
 Austria to be the leading members and natural protectors of the 
 German Confederation ; yet England and Russia were the only 
 powers who raised a voice in support of its independence. Baden, 
 Bavaria, and Wurtemberg, perhaps intimidated by the vicinity 
 of the stronghold of Strasburg, were already in reality allies of 
 France, though under the protection of Alexander ; and Switzer- 
 land holding out her hand, as she thought, to a sister republic, 
 agreed to furnish France with a perpetual contingent of 16,000 
 men. This was arbitrarily increased by the French Govern- 
 ment to 25,000, forming a twentieth part of the male popula- 
 tion. 
 
 On November 18th, Sir George Jackson, writing at Berlin, 
 says, " The Emperor of Russia insists that the immediate 
 evacuation of Hanover by France is indispensable to the safety 
 of the north of Germany. Prussia/' he said, " must be left 
 entirely to herself if she persisted in seconding the views of 
 France." Prussia, like Austria, had already committed herself 
 to France, by seizing on several of the independent German 
 Episcopal Electorates on her western frontier ; and now, to 
 escape the difficulty of resisting the Russian demands, 
 Napoleon involved her still further in his policy, by offering to 
 give her Hanover; a bribe she could not resist, though its 
 hereditary sovereign was her ally. This conduct for a 
 moment completely checkmated Alexander : it was of no 
 further use to protest against a French encroachment on the 
 German federation when the Germans were turning traitors 
 to their own cause, and preying upon each other. And Prussia 
 
 * Goldsmith.
 
 The Imperial Family. 233 
 
 was, moreover, bound to him by ties of near relationship, and 
 an alliance of at least forty years. His minister Voronzov 
 drew up a long paper, and laid it before him, detailing the 
 whole selfish policy of Prussia for the last half-century, and 
 concluded by recommending a permanent alliance with Austria. 
 So far, England and Russia were the only great Powers who 
 had come out with untarnished honour from the wars succeed- 
 ing the Revolution of 1789. England had acquired Ceylon 
 from the Dutch and Trinidad from Spain; but the possession 
 of Malta, though not according to the Treaty, was to coun- 
 teract the continued intrigues of France in Egypt and the 
 Turkish Empire, and was justified by Napoleon's declaration 
 to Lord Whitworth, that Egypt would, sooner or later, belong 
 to France. The British Cabinet feared that, in such an event, 
 her Indian possessions would be imperilled, and retained Malta 
 as a naval dep6t, in case future operations were necessary to 
 support her authority in the East. At this time Russia kept 
 a garrison in Corfu and the Ionian Islands; but it was in 
 accordance with its Treaty with France, who agreed to it lest 
 they should be seized by the English fleet. She had not 
 otherwise obtained one foot of territory by her wars on behalf 
 of the independence of the Continent, while Austria, France, 
 and Prussia were all gradually enriching themselves at the 
 expense of the smaller States. Yet the heir to Catherine and 
 the fickle Paul was viewed with distrust by the other 
 great Powers, either of whom might at that moment have 
 turned the balance, and, acting cordially with Russia, by diplo- 
 macy alone, would have stopped the French aggressions. Sir 
 J. B. Warren, writing from St. Petersburg,* expressed great 
 disappointment at the neglect with which the English Ministry 
 treated the chance of a Russian alliance. He rarely received 
 a single despatch from the British Foreign Office in exchange 
 for the numerous letters he addressed to it on the subject. 
 Yet the postal arrangements were more regular and secure 
 between Russia and England than between St. Petersburg 
 and either Vienna or Paris. A letter from Paris, July 16th, 
 1803, says that " a Russian courier, carrying despatches from 
 St. Petersburg to Vienna, was lately murdered on the Austrian 
 frontiers. It is now reported here that the assassin, a Po. 
 * Diary of Sir George Jackson.
 
 234 The Imperial Family. 
 
 lander, has been arrested, and confessed by whom he was paid 
 to commit this crime, and that this political assassination has 
 been traced to a French Secretary of Legation at one of the 
 Northern Courts.'" 
 
 Napoleon had already, by means of Savary and Fouche, 
 inaugurated the system of espionage which he carried on suc- 
 cessfully throughout the Continent. He revealed its intricacies 
 to his companions at St. Helena. In the reign of Louis XV., 
 letters between foreign ambassadors were regularly opened in 
 France ; and some of the postal police of that day and their 
 descendants were still alive to reorganize -the system by which 
 the French Government soon acquainted itself with even the 
 most trivial affairs relating to its own subjects and to foreign 
 Courts. The greater Powers employed special couriers to 
 carry their despatches; but the smaller Governments, even 
 Prussia, for economy, sent their letters through the ordinary 
 post, and these often exposed the confidence of the Courts of 
 London, Vienna, and St. Petersburg. The French actors 
 employed in the theatres at St. Petersburg and Vienna were 
 also in the First Consul's pay ; and hardly a French tutor, 
 valet, dressmaker, ladies' maid, or cook in either capital was 
 not converted, sooner or later, into a Government spy. As 
 the Russian nobility, and even the two Empresses, had a great 
 predilection for French attendants, everything that occurred in 
 the Imperial establishment was as well known to the First 
 Consul as to the Russian Emperor. It was much the same 
 at Vienna; and as, owing to the more dense population and 
 more favourable climate of France, it takes far less time to 
 collect an army and equip it there, than to gather together a 
 Russian force across wide uncultivated steppes, and over roads 
 often several feet deep in half- melted snow, it was not surpris- 
 ing that France should have known her plans and was prepared 
 with an overwhelming force whenever Russia and the new 
 Empire went to war. The abolition of the secret police in 
 Russia, and Alexander's refusal to make use of spies, though 
 doubtless an admirable measure in a period of ordinary tran- 
 quillity, deprived him of a most powerful weapon to counteract 
 the French intrigues in diplomacy and arms. His wife's 
 German relations were also the channels through which much 
 information concerning the Russian Court reached Napoleon;
 
 The Imperial Family. 235 
 
 for her brother married Josephine's niece in 1806, and both 
 the Empress Elizabeth and her sister Amelia corresponded 
 very freely with their own family. If Alexander became 
 suspicious and reserved, it was not till his confidence was 
 repeatedly betrayed ; those around him who were con- 
 sistently open and straightforward never lost his regard.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 18041806. 
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF AUSTERLITZ. 
 
 JETAT. 2628. 
 
 npHE aspect of the Continent looked very threatening at the 
 JL close of the year 1803 ; but the French and English war 
 was only active in India and on the sea. It especially irritated 
 Napoleon to be defied by an adversary whom he could not 
 reach, and who would not put herself directly in his way ; 
 and it was only the fear of a declaration of war on the part of 
 Russia that prevented him from concentrating his forces on 
 the projected invasion of Great Britain. A medal still exists 
 in the museum at Boulogne, which was struck to commemorate 
 this intended invasion and its success. It bears the inscrip- 
 tion " Descente en Angleterre. Frappe a Londres, 1804." 
 Russia was still harassed by the desultory war with Persia 
 and the Caucasus, which she had inherited with the posses- 
 sion of Georgia ; nevertheless, the position assumed by 
 Paul of protector of the smaller nationalities of Europe 
 seemed likely to draw Alexander into a more important struggle, 
 for to his repeated representation as to the indemnities, the 
 First Consul only answered with unfulfilled promises or evasive 
 replies. As already shown, Alexander was never a thorough 
 legitimist, but looked to the people's happiness more than to 
 the personal advantage of the monarch. He would not have 
 interfered with the federal union of Holland and Switzerland 
 with France, as it was to all appearance voluntary, if their 
 confidence had not been grossly betrayed, and such heavy 
 contributions exacted from them as to reduce the inhabitants 
 to great distress. He was prepared for action at the beginning 
 of 1804; but still hoped by a strong menace to ward it off, as 
 from all appearance, if he undertook war, it might be against 
 France and Prussia, without a single cordial ally. This 
 year he refused to allow Prussia to refit her light cavalry in
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 237 
 
 Russia ; on which Frederick William retaliated by annulling a 
 long existing agreement for the exchange of deserters and 
 criminals. The Queen of Prussia exerted her influence to 
 allay the Czar's irritation ; for their late meeting at Memel, and 
 her near relationship to the Empress, gave her an opportunity 
 of effecting this by letter, as well as through the Empress's 
 sister, who had married Prince Charles William of Brunswick, an 
 officer in the Prussian service, stationed at Berlin. The Land- 
 gravine of Hesse-Darmstadt, the grandmother of the Empress, 
 the King, and the Queen, and a political intriguante of great 
 ability in an earlier day, also endeavoured to keep peace 
 between them; and the Empress-Dowager of Russia never 
 forgot that she was a niece of Frederick the Great, and looked 
 to the Sovereign enthroned at Berlin as to the head of her 
 paternal House. 
 
 In the mean time, Bonaparte was seized with a panic, owing 
 to a report that the Comte d'Artois had assassins in his pay in 
 Paris. The Due d'Eughien, the grandson of the Prince de 
 Conde, was paying a visit at Ettenheim, within the territory of 
 Baden, engaged in hunting, and courting a lady to whom he 
 was attached. He had been an exile since 1789, living on a 
 pension from Russia. He had never mixed himself up with 
 politics, except so far as bearing arms in the Emigrant forces 
 in ] 793 ; but Napoleon believed him to have a covert motive 
 in approaching the French frontier, and gave orders to Savary 
 to take measures for his arrest. The Duke, warned by a 
 foreign diplomatist that he was not safe, wished to join his 
 grandfather at Warsaw, but he could not enter Austria with- 
 out a special passport ; and though he applied for it, the offi- 
 cials were so slow that it did not arrive till after his death. 
 On the night of March 15th, 1804, he was seized in his bed 
 by 300 French gendarmes, and conveyed across the Rhine to 
 Strasburg, whence, by a special order from the First Consul, he 
 was forwarded to Vincennes, in the vicinity of Paris, and 
 without further trial shot. Napoleon seems at the time to have 
 really believed he was residing at Ettenheim for a sinister 
 purpose ; but mere precaution could not excuse such pro- 
 ceedings, with no shadow of a proof ; and the ignoble way in 
 which he afterwards tried to lay the blame of a crime he felt 
 to be such upon his minister, shows his conduct in the affair
 
 238 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 in a still worse aspect. To destroy the character of his victim 
 in the eyes of posterity, he also said the Duke had proposed 
 to enter his service, and wrote a letter to him from Strasburg, 
 which Talleyrand had kept back till two days after his death ; 
 all of which, Bourrienne and others state was an entire fabri- 
 cation. The Duke was thirty-two, and unmarried ; so with him 
 expired the last hope of the family of the great Conde in France. 
 His father, the Duke de Bourbon, died a suspicious death in 
 1831, and the vast family estates, which were restored in 1815, 
 are now inherited by the Duke d'Aumale. 
 
 When the news of this murder reached St. Petersburg, where 
 the Duke had been far the most popular of the French princes, 
 the whole court was placed in mourning for a fortnight, and 
 Alexander passed the French ambassador, General Hedouville, 
 in the course of the morning parade without raising his eyes, 
 or taking the slightest notice of him. The Empress-Dowager 
 remembered the bright handsome boy of eleven, who had 
 assisted in receiving her when she visited with her husband at 
 Chantilly in 1782, and mourned over the melancholy fate of a 
 family who, from regal opulence, were now reduced to be the 
 pensioners of her son. A solemn funeral service for the repose 
 of the Duke's soul was held in St. Petersburg, and attended 
 by the Emperor and all the Court. But the other Powers of 
 Europe looked on with an indifference assumed by fear. The 
 Austrian minister Cobentzel said to the French ambassador at 
 Vienna, that " his master knew the necessity of policy. It 
 was a strong proof of his friendly sentiments towards the 
 First Consul, and the interest he took in all that concerned him, 
 that he had observed a perfect silence respecting the late events 
 in the Electorate of Baden, events ending in a catastrophe oc- 
 casioned no doubt by considerations of personal safety on 
 the part of the First Consul, and that as to the violation 
 of German territory, his Majesty attributed it to the over- 
 zeal of a few gendarmes acting without orders/' The French 
 ministers attached to various foreign Courts were instructed 
 to enter into a spontaneous justification of the act; and 
 Prussia did not relax her intimate relations with France, for 
 at this time, writes Sir G. Jackson, " no one objectionable to 
 Bonaparte is safe in Berlin. 3 ^ The little Germanic Courts 
 found it convenient to ignore the event ; and it has been
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 239 
 
 asserted that the Crown Prince of Baden was an accessory ; 
 but Russia protested energetically before communicating with 
 any other Power on the subject. Alexander desired his 
 minister to represent to M. Talleyrand, that " the recent 
 infraction of the neutral rights of the Elector of Baden, result- 
 ing in an act filling Europe with horror, was in his Imperial 
 Majesty's estimation a proceeding irreconcilable with any 
 principle of justice, or the generally received laws of nations ; 
 and that if such acts of flagrant violation of neutral territory 
 were permitted, there would be no security for the independence 
 of other sovereign States. He considers it his duty, in his 
 quality of guarantee of the German Empire, to notify to the 
 Diet the manner in which he views it ; and to represent to 
 it, and to the head of the Empire, the necessity of remon- 
 strating with the French Government. A similar note was sent 
 to the Russian resident at Ratisbon, and laid before the Diet ;* 
 but intimidated or republican Germany did not choose to 
 support her. It required a much shorter time for the French 
 to arrive on her territory than for Russia to come from her 
 remote frontier, and Austria declared she was ready to content 
 herself with a simple promise of explanation. If Napoleon 
 affirmed that his conduct was dictated by secret motives he 
 could not yet unveil, she would be satisfied; and the old 
 Elector of Baden, the grandfather of the Empress of Russia, 
 went further still, and said that he was already satisfied with 
 the light thrown on the subject. 
 
 Bonaparte was extremely indignant when he received this 
 message from Russia, and he sent instructions of a violent 
 nature to General Hedouville; but the cooler counsels of 
 
 * " The event which has taken place in the States of his Highness the 
 Elector of Baden, the conclusion of which has been so melancholy, has 
 occasioned the most poignant grief to the Emperor of Russia. He views 
 with the greatest concern the violation committed on the tranquillity and 
 integrity of the German territory. His Imperial Majesty is the more 
 affected by this event, as he never could have expected that a Power 
 which had undertaken, in common with himself, the office of a mediator, 
 and was consequently bound to exert its care for the welfare and tran- 
 quillity of Germany, could have departed in such a manner from the sacred 
 principles of the laws of nations, and the duties it had so lately taken upon 
 itself. It would be unnecessary to call the attention of the Diet to the 
 srri us consequences to which the German Empire must be exposed if 
 acts of violence, of which the first example has just been seen, should be 
 passed over in silence."
 
 240 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 Talleyrand prevailing, he despatched a second messenger, with 
 orders to take a shorter route to overtake the first, and bring 
 back the note. The two couriers arrived at the same time at 
 Berlin, and the first instructions were recalled. The note 
 which reached St. Petersburg was published in the Moniteur ; 
 " The complaint of Russia in this matter leads one to ask 
 whether, when England meditated the assassination of Paul, 
 and it was known that the proposed assassins were within a 
 league of the frontier, the Russian government could have had 
 any hesitation in seizing them ? A war, conducive as any 
 struggle between France and Russia must be to no other 
 interest but those of England, will never be voluntarily under- 
 taken by the First Consul; but commence it who will, he 
 would prefer it to a state of things inconsistent in the highest 
 degree with the equality subsisting between the great Powers. 
 He claims no superiority over them, but he will submit to no 
 degradation. He interferes with none of the measures of the 
 Russian Cabinet, and he requires a corresponding forbearance 
 on her part/' 
 
 This unnecessary mention of Paul's murder was intended to 
 wound Alexander in his tenderest point, and to allude to the 
 impunity the conspirators enjoyed, which had caused much 
 comment even in Russia. Yet it was a proof of his honour- 
 able character, and of his courage in submitting to wear in 
 the eyes of the world what he felt to be an indelible stain, 
 when, as the absolute master of such an empire, it would have 
 been so easy to rid himself of these troublesome remem- 
 brances, or to have exonerated himself from the suspicion of 
 being a participator in the deed, by bringing the direct authors 
 of it to open punishment. He had the generosity to admire 
 truth even in an enemy ; and the more he abhorred himself 
 for his share in the conspiracy the more he despised those 
 who, believing him to be guilty, treated it as a light matter, 
 or one of which he had rather cause to be proud than ashamed. 
 He was more attracted than repelled by the men who, far 
 from considering it a state necessity, regarded it as a horrible 
 crime, and such Napoleon always declared it both in public and 
 among his intimate friends. Yet the young Emperor was not 
 the less hurt at the moment by such allusions, though, on 
 reflection, he did not resent them ; and Bonaparte followed
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 241 
 
 this up by causing a book to be compiled and circulated in Paris, 
 entitled " L'Histoire de Russie reduite aux seuls faits," pro- 
 fessing to give a biographical account of all the Sovereigns of 
 Russia. " A more libellous production/' says Goldsmith, writing 
 in 1811, "was never put before the public. It directly 
 accused the present Emperor, Alexander, of being the insti- 
 gator of the murder of his father Paul/' It was the second 
 publication on this subject that Bonaparte had caused to be 
 issued from the French press, and a third work of a similar 
 description was composed in 1812, intended for distribution in 
 Russia. " I do not wish for a war," were his words to 
 Talleyrand, when he dictated to him the language he must hold 
 with St. Petersburg, May, 1804, " but I do not fear it with 
 anybody. . . . It is quite enough to swallow on the sea the 
 outrages of England, without being obliged to submit to the 
 insolence of Russia. All Europe renders me the justice to say 
 that I do not mix in the internal affairs of any State, and I 
 shall not suffer them to do the contrary in France." Alas for 
 human foresight ! within ten years from this time France was 
 only suffered to exist as an entire nation through the modera- 
 tion of England and Russia. Bonaparte seems to have for- 
 gotten when he talked of not mixing in the internal affairs of 
 any State, his transactions with regard to Spain, Holland, 
 Italy, and even England ; and at that very moment he was 
 compelling the Court of Rome, in contempt of all rights, to 
 deliver up the emigrant Vernegues, a naturalized Russian, 
 whom he wanted to implicate in the late plot ; but perhaps not 
 wishing to go too far with Russia he ultimately let him 
 escape.* In spite of Austria and Prussia's apathy at the 
 seizure of the Due d'Enghien, Alexander would not leave the 
 matter alone, but sent an answer to Napoleon's reply, and a 
 declaration of Russia's claims on behalf of her allies. It stated 
 again that no government could behold with indifference the 
 blow given to the independence and security of nations by the 
 recent arrest and execution of the Due d'Enghieu. Russia, 
 by the peace of Teschen (in 1779), engaged to guarantee and 
 act as mediator in the settlement of the German empire, and 
 in that character was not only entitled but bound to inter- 
 fere : desirous to extinguish the flames of war, she had pro- 
 
 * Lanfrey'a Yie de Napoleon I". 
 VOL. I. K
 
 242 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 posed to act as mediator between France and England, but 
 was not accepted ; since the renewal of the war the French 
 Government had disregarded all the rights of neutral Powers 
 by marching its troops to the coasts of the Adriatic, and 
 levying contributions on, and taking military possession of 
 the Hanse Towns, though these States had no connection 
 whatever with the depending contest. Portugal and Spain were 
 compelled to purchase their neutrality by enormous pecuniary 
 sacrifices ; Switzerland, Holland, and great part of Italy were 
 mere French provinces; one part of the German empire 
 was occupied by French troops, and in another arrests were 
 committed by French detachments in open violation of the 
 law of nations. Russia had no wish to interfere in the inter- 
 nal affairs of France, but she could not remain a passive 
 spectator of the successive trampling under foot of all the 
 weaker States of Europe by its armies. With regard to the 
 allusion to Paul's murder, the memoir said, that " Russia could 
 hardly have believed that to sustain an erroneous principle the 
 Cabinet of St. Cloud should so completely set aside all 
 customary rules and courtesy as to choose among the examples 
 quoted one that was most inapplicable to the present, and to 
 recall in an official paper the death of a father to his august 
 son, while striving against all truth and credit to affix an 
 atrocious accusation to a government (Great Britain) which 
 France never ceases to calumniate merely because she is at 
 war with it." The note ended by saying that M. d'Oubril could 
 not prolong his stay in Paris unless those points of the treaty 
 of October, 1801, were adjusted which referred to the French 
 evacuation of Naples, and a joint settlement between France 
 and Russia of the affairs of Italy, besides the indemnity for 
 the King of Sardinia. " In virtue of the obligation implied 
 in a common mediation and guarantee, the French Government 
 must also evacuate the North of Germany, and undertake to 
 respect the neutrality of the German Confederacy." 
 
 Talleyrand replied, July 29th, in a note which hardly sup- 
 ports his claim to be one of the first diplomatists of the age ; 
 but in this 'case he had no basis to rest upon, and could only 
 excuse his government by counter- accusations, which for 
 the most part were purely imaginary. " Was the mourning 
 assumed by the Russian Court for a man whom the French
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 243 
 
 tribunals had condemned for having conspired against the 
 safety of the First Consul (yet whom Napoleon at St. Helena 
 asserted to be innocent) conformable to the letter or spirit of 
 the third article of that treaty, which provides that the two 
 contracting parties shall not suffer their respective subjects to 
 maintain any correspondence direct or indirect with the 
 enemies of the two States ? a wise provision, totally neglected 
 by the Imperial ambassador, M. Markof, the true author of 
 the disunion between the two Powers/' He accused Russia 
 of violating the ninth article of the treaty by keeping a 
 garrison in the Ionian Islands, and changing the government 
 of the country (by giving it a constitution) without any con- 
 cert with France. "Finally, France claims the execution of 
 the eleventh article of the same treaty, which evidently requires, 
 that instead of evincing a spirit so unduly partial to England, 
 and rendering herself perhaps the first auxiliary of its ambition, 
 Russia should unite with France to consolidate a general peace, 
 and re-establish a just equilibrium in the different parts of the 
 world to secure the liberty of the seas." 
 
 Russia answered again, August 28th, by accusing the French 
 Government of changing the whole organization of Italy 
 without any concert with his Imperial Majesty. "If the 
 Russians have a second time occupied the Ionian Isles, it is 
 with the consent of the Ottoman Porte, at the request of the 
 inhabitants, and in virtue of a previous concert with France. The 
 Emperor only awaits the intelligence of his charge d'affaires* 
 departure from Paris to give notice to the French Mission to 
 quit his capital. He sees with regret the necessity of sus- 
 pending his relations with a government which refuses to 
 perform its engagements, but he will remain in that suspen- 
 sive position, which it lies with the French Government to 
 convert, if it pleases, into one of open hostility." 
 
 The following day D'Oubril received his passports, but 
 Napoleon now seemed inclined to recede. He detained him 
 on various pretences, and dictated a new note to Talleyrand, 
 asserting his good intentions, and requesting that the past 
 might be forgotten. " His private inclinations had always 
 leaned towards ties of confidential esteem and friendship with 
 the Emperor Alexander." But the Czar paid no attention to
 
 244 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 this long-delayed species of apology, and D'Oubril quitted 
 Paris. Napoleon ordered him to be detained at Mayence till 
 the French charge d'affaires quitted Russian territory ; on 
 which Alexander directed the French charge d'affaires to be 
 detained at Riga till it was known D'Oubril had left Mayence. 
 This suspension of relations prevented the Czar from acknow- 
 ledging Napoleon's Imperial title, assumed about this time ; 
 but Austria and Prussia forwarded their congratulations to 
 the new monarch on his coronation, and shortly afterwards the 
 Emperor of Germany exchanged his elective title for the here- 
 ditary one of Austria, giving as a reason " the preservation of 
 that degree of equality which should subsist between the great 
 Powers, and the just rank of the House and State of Austria 
 among the nations of Europe." The step was justified on 
 " the precedent formerly afforded by the assumption of the 
 Imperial crown by the Czars of Russia, and more recently by 
 the ruling Sovereign of France." 
 
 On December 27th, 1804, Napoleon opened the legislative 
 session in Paris with a speech, in which he said he wished for 
 peace, and that the King of Prussia " showed himself the 
 friend of France. . . . The spirit of Catherine the Great would 
 watch over the counsels of Alexander, and he would remember 
 the friendship of France is for him a necessary counterpoise in 
 the balance of Europe ; as placed far from her, he could 
 neither reach her nor trouble her repose/' Yet he felt evident 
 anxiety lest Russia should enter into a stricter alliance with 
 Great Britain, and tried to separate them by libellous pamphlets, 
 professing to be translated from the English press. In the 
 summer of 1804, Russia was as much abused as England in 
 the Moniteur, the one being called the tyrant of the land, 
 and the other of the seas. f ' The notes you have transmitted 
 to me on the powerlessness of Russia," he wrote to Talleyrand, 
 "are by a man of much ability; cause them to be printed in 
 a newspaper as translated from an English journal : you must 
 choose one of which the name is little known." Several 
 printed effusions, supposed to be written by members of the 
 English Opposition, which appeared at this time in England, 
 entitled, " Why do we go to War ?" and others, more than 
 once with the name of a well-known English writer attached 
 to them, were sent over from France to be translated and pub-
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 245 
 
 lished in London, to try and influence public opinion in favour 
 of the Bonapartists. 
 
 Although Prussia obstinately refused to join Russia in her 
 protest on the subject of the Due d'Eughien, she entered into 
 a secret but strictly defensive alliance with Alexander in 
 May, 1804 ; and Austria signed a similar treaty, November 6th 
 of the same year. Both these Powers wished to buiy all past 
 differences, and only arm in case of a new French invasion. 
 Yet, as if to show that he did not choose to listen to the com- 
 plaint of violating the rights of neutrals, Bonaparte ordered a 
 body of gendarmes to carry off" Sir George Rumbold, the 
 British representative at Hamburg. He was dragged to 
 Paris, and would have been executed had not Russia urged on 
 Prussia, in virtue of this treaty, to make a lively remonstrance; 
 on which Napoleon wrote an apologetic letter, protesting friend- 
 ship, abusing England, and regretting what he called the 
 ingratitude of Alexander ; but lie released Sir George Rumbold, 
 though without his letters and personal effects, which were 
 never restored. " The Emperor of Russia," writes Sir George 
 Jackson from Berlin, " declares that the release of Sir George 
 Rumbold is a totally inadequate satisfaction for the violation 
 of German territory, but the King of Prussia positively declares 
 he will not go to war for a box of papers." On November 5th 
 Jackson writes, that the Grand Duchess Mary of Russia (the 
 newly-married hereditary Princess of Saxe- Weimar) had arrived 
 in Prussia, but refused an invitation to Potsdam. Her refusal 
 appeared to give offence, and her father-in-law, the Duke, 
 wished to change her resolution. 
 
 The King of Sweden was impatient to begin the war at 
 once, and though the small possession, called Swedish Pome- 
 rania, which he still owned on the Continent lay completely 
 at Prussia's mercy, he took the initiative ; and while Russia 
 was still negotiating, and hoping to keep Frederick William to 
 his agreement of the previous May, Gustavus declared war 
 between himself and Prussia. Alexander again advised him 
 to return to Sweden, which was much discontented at his long 
 absence, but sent another letter to the King of Prussia to 
 induce him to join the Allies, and prevented him from seizing 
 Swedish Pomerania, by ordering his own troops in Livonia 
 and Esthonia to march for its protection. Napoleon also
 
 246 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 wrote to the King in the most conciliatory manner, signing 
 himself, " Good Brother, Friend, and Ally " and in April, 
 1805, conferred the Legion of Honour on the King's great 
 uncle, Prince Ferdinand, the only surviving brother of Frede- 
 rick the Great; Prince Louis Ferdinand, the old Duke of 
 Brunswick, who had formerly led the emigrant army against 
 the French Republic ; and three generals. Prince Ferdinand 
 was great great uncle to Alexander through his mother, and 
 had always been a warm admirer of the French Revolution. 
 In exchange for these favours the King of Prussia gave the 
 Black Eagle to Napoleon, Joseph, Murat, Cambaceres, Talley- 
 rand, and two of the French generals; an act which would 
 have almost defied Russia, only that these Orders are distributed 
 among so many hundreds of recipients that, when bestowed on 
 persons of rank, they have long ceased to mean anything but 
 the merest compliment. 
 
 Napoleon was incensed at Alexander giving a refuge to Louis 
 XVIII. and the French emigrants, whom he then imagined, 
 or pretended to imagine, were plotting against his life ; and as 
 in 1801* he had accused England of harbouring assassins, and 
 for that reason among others refused to fulfil the conditions of 
 the peace of Amiens, he now made the same charge against 
 Russia. When he found she resisted his overtures after the 
 murder of the Due d'Enghien, so long as the articles of the 
 Treaty of Paris were unfulfilled, he reversed his policy and tried 
 to make peace with England, addressing a long letter to George 
 III. Lord Mulgrave answered it to Talleyrand, speaking of 
 Napoleon as the " Chief of the French Government," instead of 
 by the Imperial title used in the note to the King. He said 
 peace could only be made on a firm basis by arrangements which 
 provided for the future tranquillity of Europe, and would pre- 
 vent a renewal of the misfortunes by which it is now over- 
 whelmed. " With these sentiments His Majesty feels that he 
 cannot give a more specific answer to the overture he has 
 
 * Talleyrand, by Bonaparte's order, transmitted to Lord Hawkeslrary 
 a note, in which, after complaining of the slowness of the British Cabinet, 
 he said : " That as to the small number of assassins who migrht act in the 
 interval by the instigation of England, they were very little formidable, 
 and the English Government must not form great hopes on their help." 
 He went on to say, that the sentiments of Alexander I. and of his Cabinet 
 were ill known in London if they believed that he would ever betray the 
 cause of the continental Powers.
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 247 
 
 received until he has communicated with the continental 
 Powers, to whom he is united in the most confidential manner, 
 and particularly with the Emperor of Russia, who has given 
 the strongest proofs of the wisdom and elevation of his senti- 
 ments and of the lively interest he takes in the security and 
 independence of Europe." If Napoleon had succeeded in con- 
 cluding a peace with England it would have been on condition 
 that it joined him against Russia, and the alliance of 1853 
 might have been anticipated by half a century. " I am forced/' 
 he said on another occasion, " to combat and conquer in order 
 to preserve. You must accomplish something new every three 
 months to captivate the French people. With them, whoever 
 ceases to advance is lost." 
 
 The Russian fleet consisted of forty-eight vessels, and of 
 these a squadron of nine ships and several frigates were sent 
 by the Straits of Gibraltar to assist the English on the coast 
 of Naples in case of war. At the same time 7000 men were 
 landed from Sevastopol on the Ionian Isles. Admiral 
 Tchichagof engaged many Greeks and lonians for the Russian 
 service, and the army received new artillery, the old having 
 been very inferior to that of the enemy in the last campaign. 
 
 In the year 1803 more than 200 families from Switzerland 
 came to settle in Russia, where they received a gratuity and 
 lands in the neighbourhood of Odessa. The Emperor decreed 
 that emigrant nobles who chose to become naturalized in Russia 
 should receive the same privileges as the Russian boyards. 
 These privileges were not so inconsiderable as is often supposed. 
 Some were confirmed by Alexander at the beginning of his 
 reign, and others granted afresh when he reorganized the 
 government of the empire. Every province had a right to 
 form an assembly of its nobility, who were permitted to make 
 representations to the Legislative Senate and to the Emperor 
 by deputation. These assemblies might expel such members 
 as had committed offences before they were tried by the civil 
 courts. Every nobleman of age had the right of entry to 
 these assemblies, but unless he was possessed of landed pro- 
 perty, and had risen to the rank of an officer, he could not 
 vote. The nobles were exempted from the poll-tax, though 
 they were responsible for that of their serfs. They could only 
 be judged by their peers ; they could not be condemned till
 
 248 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 tried, and were exempted from corporal punishment. On their 
 own estates they might establish fairs, markets, or manufac- 
 tories. The village magistrates or judges were elected by the 
 peasants from among the local nobility, and one of these 
 elections was generally the source of great local excitement. 
 But the provincial nobility preferred to gamble and dance .in 
 St. Petersburg and Moscow, or in times of peace to loiter 
 round the tables of Baden and Horn burg, rather than trouble 
 themselves about the affairs of their country. " All that is 
 the Emperor's business, and not ours/' was a remark very 
 often heard. A constitutional form of government -was espe- 
 cially unpopular, because it was supposed that the French con- 
 stitution granted by Louis XVI. had hastened the Revolution, 
 and as the Revolution had entailed the destruction of the 
 nobility and the emancipation of the serfs in France, there was 
 not a real Liberal to be found among the true Muscovites 
 possessing wealth or land. 
 
 Alexander intended to visit the Crimea and Odessa in the 
 autumn of 1805, and the provincial magistrates repaired the 
 roads along which he was likely to pass, but war breaking out 
 in the course of that year obliged him to put off this journey 
 till a more propitious moment. He made another effort to 
 obtain an amicable arrangement of the continental disputes, 
 and sent Novossilzof with a note to London, Paris, and Berlin. 
 This envoy was one of those " young " councillors whose pre- 
 sence in the Cabinet gave so much offence to the Princess 
 Dashkov, though he is described by Sir George Jackson as being 
 " nearly forty, but looking very young, with a frank and open 
 manner, evidently very honest," and making the most favourable 
 impression at Berlin, where he was received in the middle of July, 
 1805. He visited London in the first week of January, and laid 
 Alexander's plan before Pitt, who closed his long premiership in 
 little more than a twelvemonth later. With the foresight of 
 Russian statesmanship, apt to lose its grasp of present advantage 
 in too earnest a contemplation of the future, the Emperor wished 
 not only to repress the encroachments of France, but to assure 
 the happiness and security of the European sovereignties by 
 a more equitable repartition of territory and the adoption of 
 a strong code of public law to be sanctioned by all. The war 
 of 1799^ when Paul proposed some similar suggestions, opened
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 249 
 
 Alexander's eyes to the fact that it was as well that allies 
 should agree on their basis, and not discover in the course of 
 a campaign that they were fighting for opposite interests. But 
 Pitt would hear of nothing but the discomfiture of the French. 
 He listened to the note, and then told the envoy that, instead 
 of troubling themselves about the welfare of the human race, 
 they must keep at present to the possible, and that to make 
 Napoleon's ambition recoil behind formidable barriers was suf- 
 ficient for the moment. He thought every other object was 
 secondary to this, and would only create difficulties. When 
 this end was once attained they might have time to discuss 
 Alexander's plan for a Utopia. He struck out all the innova- 
 tions of the Russian note, and left little but the stipulations 
 of the treaties of Luneville and Amiens.* Alexander's scheme, 
 which he considered the production of a Quixote, was eventually 
 carried out, and maintained peace between the continental 
 nations during forty years. 
 
 Novossilzof returned to St. Petersburg, where he signed a 
 treaty with England on April llth, 1805, in conjunction with 
 Lord Leveson-Gower, the new British ambassador to Russia. 
 A special article stipulated that the two contracting Powers 
 would not mix themselves in any way in the internal govern- 
 ment of France ; they would appropriate no conquests, and at 
 the end of the war a general Congress should regulate the state 
 of Europe. But as England still refused to promise the evacua- 
 tion of Malta, Alexander would only sign this treaty condition- 
 ally, and adjourned the ratification, reserving to himself the 
 power of making new overtures of mediation to Napoleon in 
 
 * According to M. Thiers, the annexation of Georgia had produced a 
 note from Great Britain, in which the integrity of the Ottoman Empire 
 was declared to be a principle of European policy. " This is not the course 
 to follow when confidence is sought to be established between allies," 
 Count Novossilzof said to Mr. Pitt. " Of all men living my master 
 possesses the most exalted and generous character, and his probity may 
 be justly trusted ; but the endeavour to stop him by threats, or even by 
 insinuations, would only offend him fruitlessly. He would be instigated 
 
 rather than restrained by such means And, after all, what harm 
 
 could accrue if Constantinople belonged to Russia instead of to a bar- 
 barous race like the Turks ? Would not your trade in the Black Sea 
 gain considerably? England would never find any reason to complain." 
 Mr. Pitt answered, that for his part he saw no great peril in Constanti- 
 nople falling into the hands of Kussia, but that a strong prejudice pre- 
 vailed in England against such an event, which he was obliged to regard," 
 &c. M. Thiers quotes the above from Novossilzof's despatch to hia 
 government.
 
 250 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 order to avoid the war. The British ministers misunderstood 
 his moderation, but he felt that the co-operation of England 
 alone, as she was without a continental army, would not be 
 enough to enable him to make a salutary impression on France 
 unless he secured at least the neutrality of the intervening 
 German States, for Prussia had promised that if the Russian 
 army crossed her frontier she would make it a cause for war 
 with the Czar ; and eome ill-will had existed between Russia 
 and Austria since 1799. He preferred, if possible, to solve by 
 diplomacy the difficulties Pitt wished to meet by war, and 
 again mane use of Novossilzof, who was instructed to insist on 
 the evacuation of Naples and Hanover and the independence 
 of Switzerland and Holland, but was authorized to offer that in 
 Italy things should remain much in their present state, the King 
 of Sardinia receiving Parma and Placentia as an indemnity 
 for Piedmont, and the kingdom of Italy being given to a prince 
 of the Bonaparte family. Novossilzof set out for Berlin, where 
 he had to ask for a French passport, as diplomatic relations 
 were suspended, and in May, 1805, Napoleon received at 
 Milan a letter from the King of Prussia, informing him of the 
 mission of the ambassador, whom he did not meet till the 
 middle of July, when he returned to France. In the interval 
 he wrote to the King that he expected nothing from this 
 mediation, and could hope nothing good from a general peace. 
 He spoke slightingly of Alexander, and added, " I wish for 
 peace. I have no ambition. I owe no more account to Russia 
 on the affairs of Italy than she owes to me on those of Turkey 
 and Persia. Every peace with England to be certain ought to 
 contain the clause of ceasing to give an asylum to the Bour- 
 bons and the emigrants, and to repress their miserable 
 writers." 
 
 In January, 1805, Napoleon wrote to the Queen of Naples, 
 desiring her to withdraw her ambassador from Russia, and tell- 
 ing her that the first war of which she would be the cause should 
 drag her from her kingdom and send her children to beg through- 
 out Europe. He now insulted the ambassador whom she sent 
 to congratulate him on his new dignity of King of Italy, and 
 took possession of the Republics of Genoa and Lucca, the last 
 of which he gave to his eldest sister, Eliza Bonaparte. On 
 this news reaching Russia, Novossilzof received orders to
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 251 
 
 return to St. Petersburg, and Austria, being nearly related to 
 Naples, began to arm. Prussia still remained so friendly to 
 France that the journals of Berlin dared not publish Alex- 
 ander's last proposals to Napoleon, lest it should give offence, 
 but they were inserted in the Hamburg Gazette. The Russians 
 at once prepared for war, but Napoleon tried to conceal the fact 
 as long as possible, and wrote to Fouche, telling him to print 
 some letters in the French journals professing to come from 
 St. Petersburg, and affirming that the French are very well 
 treated there, that the Court and town feel the necessity of an 
 alliance with France, that the English are in disrepute in 
 Russia, and the plan of the coalition fallen through, and that 
 in every case Russia will interfere in nothing.* 
 
 As Alexander's relatives reigned in Baden, Wiirtemberg, 
 and Bavaria, and Russia had guaranteed the integrity of Ger- 
 many, these States were considered under his especial protec- 
 tion since the Treaty of Mediation in 1802, and he felt secure 
 of their attachment, but the efforts he made to preserve their 
 independence were rewarded by their all joining France, and 
 increasing her armies with 40,000 men. The Elector of Hesse- 
 Darmstadtf also placed at Bonaparte's disposal 3000 infantry, 
 some artillery, and 1000 horse; while Hesse-Cassel came 
 forward with a similar contingent. The French cruelties and 
 depredations, and their enormous exactions in the provinces 
 through which they passed, forced the weaker Powers to court 
 their friendship to obtain toleration, as the Christian nations 
 in the East had formerly yielded from dread of torture and 
 extermination to the Mahometans. But Prussia was supposed 
 to be equal in a military point of view to the new Empire, 
 only waiting to see from which side she could obtain the most 
 valuable acquisition of territory, and coveting the Russian 
 Baltic provinces. The Queen and Hardenberg felt this dis- 
 graceful situation, and the King's subjection to the agents of 
 the French Government. With the advice of Duroc, he 
 induced Alexander to suspend his orders to his troops by 
 requesting an interview, leading him to suppose he might 
 accede to his views and allow him to take them through 
 Prussian Poland. When Alexander had agreed to meet him 
 at Warsaw, he procured a further delay by pretending that he 
 * Lanfrey. f He had a personal motive. See ante.
 
 252 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 could not leave Berlin. " What have France and Russia to 
 embroil them?" asked the Moniteur, July 18th, 1805. "If 
 the Emperor of France exercises a great influence in Italy, the 
 Czar exercises a still greater over Turkey and Persia. If the 
 Cabinet of Russia pretends to have a right to affix limits to 
 the power of France, without doubt it is equally disposed to 
 allow Napoleon to prescribe the limits it is not to pass. Do 
 you wish a general Congress in Europe ? Let every Power 
 begin by restoring the conquests it has made during the last 
 fifty years. Let them re-establish Poland, restore Venice to 
 its senate, Trinidad to Spain, Ceylon to Holland, the Crimea 
 to the Porte, the Caucasus and Georgia to Persia, the kingdom 
 of Mysore to the sous of Tippoo Saib, and the Mahratta States 
 to their lawful owners, and then the other Powers may have 
 some title to insist that France shall retire within her ancient 
 limits/' This argument convinced Frederick William that he 
 was acting consistently with the policy of other nations as well 
 as of his own by taking possession of Hanover, as England 
 had repaid herself by her colonial conquests ; but he was 
 shaken out of his apathy by the French army crossing his 
 territory at Anspach, in defiance of his neutrality, pillaging 
 an estate of Hardenberg's, and committing various other acts 
 of violence on unarmed Prussian subjects. 
 
 When Austria armed, Napoleon relinquished his plan of 
 invading England, and assembled a larger army to overrun 
 the Continent than modern Europe had ever beheld. The 
 alliance of the smaller sovereignties of Germany was of the 
 greatest use to him, as it kept a free communication between 
 his vanguard and France. For almost the first time in her 
 history Austria acted with too great haste, and sent one army 
 into Italy and another to the Bavarian frontier, to open the 
 campaign before the Russians could perform the long march 
 necessary to unite with her, for the Russian guard, forming 
 the most effective portion, had to travel 1000 miles, and this 
 precipitation caused the ruin of the campaign, while a second 
 time Prussia refused to take the opportunity of completely 
 annihilating the power of France. The war was very un- 
 popular, except in St. Petersburg and Riga, on account of its 
 involving an alliance with Austria and no real Muscovite 
 interests,, and it began under unfavourable auspices ; for the
 
 The Campaign of Amierlitz. 253 
 
 aged Metropolitan of Moscow refused to draw up a form of 
 prayer for the success of the Russian arms. " If," said he, 
 " they are really contrite and penitent, let them shut up the 
 places of public amusement for a month, and I will then cele- 
 brate public prayers." " He seems to contemplate the success 
 of Bonaparte as an inevitable and not very alarming prospect," 
 writes an English traveller. " He described the power of an 
 Emperor of Russia, the dangers surrounding him, and the 
 improbability of any rapid improvement, I suspect he does 
 not wish particularly well to us in our war with France."* 
 It was only five years since Austria proved faithless to Russia, 
 and England and Prussia in the last Turkish war stepped 
 forward to prevent infidels from being inclosed within the 
 sanctuary of the Orthodox Church. These were the true 
 enemies of Russia in the opinion of the ecclesiastics; and 
 France, who had exalted herself above them, ought rather 
 to be greeted as an ally. War was only justifiable for 
 the defence of the country and the extension of the Christian 
 faith ; but the voice of the Church had no influence in the 
 Russian Cabinet, though Alexander's personal opinions had 
 undergone some change since he had imbibed Voltairian 
 notions of religion from his tutor La Harpe. As the head 
 of the Russian Greek Church he attended her public 
 services in his official capacity, yet was still not suf- 
 ficiently imbued with her spirit to care for the intercession 
 of the priesthood on behalf of the Russian army ; but the 
 officer he selected as the geueral-in-chief had served under 
 Suvorov, and well knew the influence it exercised over 
 his men. Count Michael Kutuzov was at this time sixty years 
 of age; he had been a favourite of the Emperor Paul, and 
 since Alexander's accession Governor-General of St. Peters- 
 burg. He made the Polish campaign in 1765, and was Quarter- 
 master-General during the Turkish war of 1771, but being 
 deprived of this rank for disrespect to a superior, he became 
 from that time the most finished courtier. At Schumla, in 1774, 
 he was dangerouslv wounded by a ball entering his left temple 
 and coming out at his right eye. He survived, merely sustaining 
 the loss of one of his eyes, and after several months spent in 
 Paris at the Empress's expense, to complete his cure, again joined 
 * Bishop Heber's MS. Journal.
 
 254 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 the active army under Suvorov in 1776. At the storming of 
 Oczakov he received a second ball through his head, from which 
 he again recovered, and commanded one of the storming columns 
 at the assault on Ismail, where the town was defended by 250 
 Turkish guns against forty on the side of the besiegers. Suvorov 
 wrote in his report of the victory, " Kutuzov acted on the left 
 wing, but he was my right hand." He was appointed ambas- 
 sador extraordinary to Constantinople, and in 179H to Berlin, 
 being richly rewarded for his services ; and Paul sent him to 
 succeed General Hermann in Holland, but before he arrived at 
 the Russian head-quarters the Duke of York had signed the 
 armistice which gave such oifence to the Czar. 
 
 At a time when Russia was without commanders who were 
 experienced or even initiated into the military tactics of the 
 West, Kutuzov was considered her best general. Paul had 
 introduced among his younger officers and private soldiers the 
 stiff manoeuvres and formal drill then in vogue at Berlin, which 
 were destined to ruin Prussia ; but his older officers, accus- 
 tomed to lead armies as Suvorov had led them, without tactics 
 and trusting to the first shock and individual bravery, were 
 completely at fault when set to move their troops according to 
 the comparatively slow system observed during the last century 
 in all the other armies of Europe. They took no trouble to 
 inform themselves of the changes going on around. " The 
 Russian armies had always beaten the Germans/' said they; 
 " then why copy them 1" But a very different fashion of war 
 was brought in by the French Republic. Her forces were not 
 raised exclusively from the peasants, but drawn from all classes, 
 and young students and professional men were forced to 
 serve in the ranks. These, fired with the current ideas of 
 liberty and equality, would not submit to the strict discipline 
 and severe drill of Frederick the Great. Each man thought 
 himself free to reason on all that he was called upon to under- 
 take, and instead of mere uneducated machines their comman- 
 ders led reflecting and cultivated men. The old notions were 
 therefore cast aside, and they trusted to circumvent their 
 enemies by rapid movements, a more complete system of spies 
 and reconnaissance, and the concealment of their strength till 
 they could suddenly bring an irresistible force to bear upon 
 the enemy's weakest point. Napoleon did not practise a new
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 255 
 
 system of war : he had been brought up in that of the He- 
 public, and followed it, but he commanded the resources of a 
 country then more thickly populated compared with its extent, 
 and more favourably situated than any in Europe, and ex- 
 pended more human life than would have been possible any- 
 where else, even in Russia. He never beat the Russians with 
 an inferior force. When by defeating them he had taught 
 his manoeuvres to his enemies, they succeeded in turning them 
 against himself, as Peter the Great had learned to conquer 
 Charles XII. The old chivalrous feeling still lingered in the 
 aristocracy of Europe, which prompted a military chief to seek 
 open pitched battles, but the ancient code of honour was 
 unknown^to the young democrats of France, and they had the 
 same advantage which a pugilist might at first gain over an 
 adversary if he refused to abide by any of the received rules of 
 the ring. They were also greatly aided by the faults and 
 dissensions of their enemies, who never agreed in wishing for 
 the humiliation of France, but, on the contrary, thought it to 
 their interest to preserve her in strength, and only fought to 
 restrain her from troubling the peace of Europe.' 35 ' 
 
 * Rostopchine, writing from "Voronovo to General Zizianof, laments 
 over the prospect of a war between Russia and France, which could only 
 end to the advantage of England. " War with France," he wrote, No- 
 vember, 1803, " will be a sacrifice made to Voronzov's love for the English. 
 What profit can we draw from it ? If Bonaparte, by invading Hanover, 
 injured our Emperor, who had guaranteed the integrity of Germany, it 
 is much more the duty of its chief to enter the lists than ourselves. In 
 the mean while the English will not restore Malta. Prussia either will 
 not move, or will deceive us. The Austrians will be beaten completely in, 
 a single campaign, and we should be fighting for what ? for who ?" Again, 
 in September, 1804, he laughs at the French for turning a general of 
 brigade into their Sovereign. After the years of revolution and crime 
 they had undergone to secure a republic, " every crowned head seems to 
 
 be amusing himself by getting his promotion We might save 
 
 England ; she cannot render us the same service Why go to the 
 
 help of Germany when their chief himself is silent, and only thinks of 
 fishing ? . . . . But all empires have had their time of glory. It seems to 
 
 be past for us, and humiliation to have arrived I always return 
 
 to my opinion that Russia, Prussia, and Austria could force France to 
 return to her old borders, but England never, if they limit themselves to 
 making war in Europe. To reach England we must share Turkey after 
 my old plan that is to say, take Moldavia and Roumelia, with Con- 
 stantinople ; give the rest to Prussia and to Austria, who would make an 
 exchange of territory ; turn Greece and the islands into a republic, and 
 give Egypt to France. Then send 50,000 men, under thy command, across 
 Persia into India, and completely destroy there all the English posses- 
 sions." Again, on March 20th, 1805, he says: "According to Adam
 
 256 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 The Russian infantry under Kutuzov was transported in 
 waggons at the rate of six and eight German miles (about 
 twenty-seven or thirty-five English) a day to the borders of 
 Hungary, and the second army, composed of the Imperial 
 Guard under Constantine, paused on the frontier for permission 
 to enter Polish Prussia. Although the want of union between 
 Austria and Prussia had led to a treaty between France and the 
 German Princes, it seemed reasonable to hope that if Prussia, 
 even at this eleventh hour, could be brought to join the Allies, 
 eveiy German patriot would rise in defence of the common 
 Fatherland against its ancient enemy. Alexander was sanguine 
 enough to take this view, and thought it worth the delay. He 
 arrived on November 1st at Pulawy, near Warsaw, the mag- 
 nificent seat of the elder Czartoriski, and sent a message to 
 Frederick William, that hearing he could not leave his capital, 
 he would himself visit Berlin, but particularly desired all 
 ceremony to be omitted. The public records were searched to 
 find a precedent in the etiquette for his reception, for no 
 Russian Emperor had left his dominions since the time of 
 Peter the First. He entered the city under the title of Comte 
 du Nord, at two o' clock on November 13th, and was received 
 by the whole of the Royal family in front of the palace, with 
 great military display. An hour later he accompanied them 
 to Potsdam, his suite comprising Prince Dolgoruki, Counts 
 Tolstoi and Lieven, General Voronzov, Czartoriski, and two 
 secretaries. After being entertained with the usual number of 
 
 (Czartoriski), in six months we shall know what concerns us on the 
 subject of the Porte. We may suppose they are expecting a favourable 
 moment for the partition of the Turkish porridge, but it is impossible 
 that every government is so blind as not to see the ambitious designs of 
 Bonaparte. Kussia will again become the instrument of the English 
 
 policy, and will make a useless war Cobentzel will take Moldavia 
 
 and W a n ac hi a ' Would it not be better to share Turkey without a war 
 by giving Egypt to France ?" 
 
 On the 28th of August, 1805, Sir George Jackson writes from Berlin : 
 " The Russian army entered Galicia at Brody on the 22nd. The vigour 
 and resolution of the Emperor Alexander and the prospect of a conti- 
 nental war have caused great excitement in Berlin." . . . . " September 
 29th : The march of the Russian army through the Prussian territory is 
 suspended until after the Emperor's interview with the King, but under 
 the supposition that this Court will yield to the views of Russia. The 
 Lombard interest is, however, just now completely in the ascendant, 
 besides which, military men are much piqued at the pretensions of Russia, 
 and a feeling of resentment against her has sprung up amongst them, go 
 that a contest with that Power would perhaps be popular."
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 257 
 
 reviews and fetes he returned to Berlin, and gave private 
 audiences to the ministers of the various friendly States. He 
 was enthusiastically welcomed at the Opera, and completely 
 turned the tide of popular favour towards Russia. He held 
 long conferences with the King, his ministers, and the Duke 
 of Brunswick, and devoted several hours every day to business. 
 " The members of his own suite/' writes an attache, " have 
 had no idle time on their hands. All have been constantly 
 employed, and many couriers daily arriving from or departing 
 to St. Petersburg and the different Russian armies."* 
 
 The Archduke Anthony of Austria also appeared, with the 
 ostensible object of healing old rivalries between Austria and 
 Prussia, and furthering the alliance, and Prince Eugene of 
 Wiirtemberg,t Alexander's uncle, came, sent by Napoleon to 
 dispose his nephew to peace ; but Alexander refused to see 
 him on such an errand, though Eugene succeeded in convinc- 
 ing Frederick William of the inexpediency of the war. The 
 Archduke was also not personally averse to the French, yet 
 the Queen and her party were very sanguine from the favour- 
 able impression Alexander was making on the King and his 
 counsellors, in spite of the news of the French success at Ulm. 
 " Nothing/' writes Mr. Jackson, from Berlin, November 3rd, 
 " can exceed the Emperor's affability and condescension but 
 his good understanding. He determined yesterday to leave 
 Potsdam to-day, but the business in hand did not allow of 
 his doing so. He therefore will not set out till Tuesday, in 
 compliance with a Russian custom of not beginning a journey 
 on a Monday. During his stay here he has principally 
 applied himself to gain over those individuals (as the Duke of 
 Brunswick) who stood in the way of the object to which we 
 owe his visit. His attention to their Majesties and every 
 person belonging to their Court has been unremitting. He is 
 a very fine, handsome young man, and the evident goodness 
 and amiability of his character seem everywhere to have made 
 their due impression." 
 
 A week passed before the Prussian Cabinet yielded so far 
 as to sign a provisional alliance with Austria and Prussia, 
 
 * Sir G. Jackson's Diary, &c. 
 
 t The Empress-Dowager was constantly asked for money by her 
 brothers, and expended large sums on them. 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 called the Treaty of Potsdam, and the French ambassador 
 left Berlin with a handsome present from the King.* Alex- 
 ander also quitted it early on the 5th, being assured that 
 Count Haugwitz should start for Napoleon's head-quarters 
 that very day, and carry him the substance of the treaty ; but 
 as soon as he was gone, the ministers, either from fear or a 
 resolution not to adhere to the treaty, kept Haugwitz a 
 week longer in Berlin. Czartoriski throughout urged Alex- 
 ander to ally himself with Austria alone, and by declaring 
 himself King of Poland to become at once the antagonist 
 of Prussia ; but he was influenced in political matters by his 
 desire for Polish independence, and believed it would be 
 more easy to satisfy Austria for the loss of Galicia by per- 
 mitting her to take an equivalent from Italy or Turkey than 
 to recompense the loss of Posen to Prussia, who was hemmed 
 in by the allies of Russia or by France. The system of 
 inspecting all diplomatic correspondence through Western 
 Germany was now carried to perfection by the French, who 
 were acquainted with the efforts of Russia to gain Prussia, 
 Frederick William's hesitation, and the insufficient amount of 
 the armaments of the allies. Every foreign letter posted at 
 any town within their reach was conveyed to a special depart- 
 ment of the French post-office and opened. Handwriting 
 was closely imitated, and fac-similes of the various seals 
 procured. They saw that speed was essential to begin the 
 campaign before the Russians could join the Austrians, or 
 Prussia decide to bring her armies into the field. The 
 Austrians played into their hands by spreading their forces 
 over the hostile territory of Bavaria, utterly regardless that 
 the immense army collected at Boulogne for the descent on 
 England was advancing against them, and they despatched 
 their most distinguished general, the Archduke Charles, 
 with 100,000 of their best troops into Italy, to increase 
 their possessions in that quarter before providing for the 
 safety of Vienna itself. Their minister, Cobentzel,f received 
 false intelligence that Napoleon's army had embarked for 
 England, and also trusted to the strong fortifications of 
 
 * Sir G. Jackson's Diary, &c. 
 
 f Cobentzel was unfriendly to Russia, having been summarily dismissed 
 from the empire by Paul.
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 259 
 
 U 1m, the bulwark of the empire ; but within less than three 
 weeks after crossing the Rhine (September 26th) the French 
 captured 20,000 Austrian prisoners, and compelled Schwartzen- 
 berg and the Archduke Ferdinand, the Austrian com- 
 manders, to retire to their head-quarters in Bohemia, and 
 await the arrival of the Russian detachments. 
 
 As Baden and Wiirtemberg, though secretly allied to 
 Napoleon, had never declared war against Russia or Austria, 
 the ministers of the Allied Powers were left at Stuttgard and 
 Carlsruhe. Napoleon ordered their hotels to be broken open, 
 their papers seized, and themselves imprisoned as soon as he 
 entered those capitals, but in Carlsruhe the Russian ambas- 
 sador made his escape. At Stuttgard Ney even plundered 
 the Elector's palace, and carried off the horses, and the 
 peasants were treated with as little mercy as if their 
 Sovereigns had openly armed against France. Yet their armies 
 proved of considerable use to Napoleon throughout the cam- 
 paign. There had been great dissensions in the Court of 
 Stuttgard, where the Elector's mother, who was Alexander's 
 grandmother, still lived, but was influenced entirely by the 
 fickle politics of Prussia, while the Elector himself, a rude, 
 coarse martinet, given up to the pleasures of the table, was 
 inclined to favour the progress of France, for he had never 
 forgiven being expelled from Russia in the reign of Catherine 
 II., and his son, though on bad terms with him, entered 
 Napoleon's service, and frequently bore arms against his 
 relative and future brother-in-law, the Czar. 
 
 The old Austrian general, Mack, surrounded in the fortress 
 of Ulm with 30,000 men, was quite unequal to the daily 
 harass of a siege. He heard that all Germany was armed 
 against Austria except Prussia and Saxony, and that they 
 wavered between the two belligerents; and when Napoleon 
 sent to inform him that if the garrison did not immediately 
 capitulate, he should treat it as he had done the garrison at 
 Jaffa, and put every man to the sword, for " it was the sad 
 right of war," the old general completely lost his head. Segur 
 was sent to parley with him, and states that he was like a man 
 troubled with delirium : he was easily made to believe that he 
 could expect no relief from his allies, for Boulogne, where 
 the French army had been first assembled, was nearer to 
 
 2
 
 260 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 Ulm than Russia. On October 20th he gave up all his cannon 
 and soldiers to the enemy an act which had a most unfavour- 
 able influence on the Prussian Cabinet, and made the king 
 draw back from his pledged word, and delay the order for 
 the movement of his troops. As Napoleon watched the 
 officers marching out of Ulm, he roughly addressed them, 
 abusing the policy of their Government for betraying Europe 
 by introducing into her disputes hordes of Asiatics. " Instead 
 of attacking me," he said, " the Aulic Council ought to have 
 sought my alliance to drive back the Russians to the north. 
 The union formed by your Cabinet is a compact of the dogs 
 and shepherds with wolves against the sheep. It is fortunate 
 for you that I have not been worsted." In his bulletins he 
 placed no limit to the terms in which he described Alexander 
 and his troops : the Emperor was " a Cossack," " a barbarian," 
 &c., and his army the terror of its allies. He wrote to his 
 brother Joseph from Breunau, October 3()th, 1805, " The 
 Russian army looks down on the Austrians, who seem no 
 longer to like fighting." When the first Russian army of 
 40,000 men arrived in Moravia, exhausted by their long 
 march, they found the Austrian force they had been ordered 
 to join entirely dispersed, and Kutuzov only remained on the 
 right shore of the Danube, instead of returning to wait for 
 the Guards, at the request of the Emperor Francis ; but one 
 division under Bagration quickly repulsed Murat at Lam- 
 bach, and another beat Mortier at Krems, capturing 1500 
 prisoners, five guns, and two standards. Napoleon was 
 mortified at this first repulse in the campaign, and tried to 
 separate the allies by accusing Russia of ambitious designs 
 to Austria, who was very ready to believe therein. He pro- 
 claimed in the provinces he had occupied that maledictions 
 were heaped upon the Russians wherever they passed, and 
 that Austria was being sacrificed to England. " Peace ought 
 not," he said, " to depend on Alexander, whose interests 
 are so different." Many of the Austrian Cabinet, even 
 those who had advocated war, began to take alarm, and 
 as in Suvorov^s Italian campaign, lamented the Russian 
 victories. Talleyrand suggested that Napoleon should gain 
 Austria by offering her Moldavia and Wallachia, to embroil 
 her with Russia, in exchange for Venice, and a secret corre-
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 261 
 
 spondence was carried on between the French and German 
 Emperors, which Mack revealed in an imprudent confidence 
 to Kutuzov. Napoleon wrote to Joseph from Schonhrunn, 
 November 15th : " The Emperor of Germany writes beautiful 
 letters to me, but he has allowed me to occupy his capital : 
 he has not yet shaken off the influence of Russia." A letter 
 from Napoleon to Francis fell into Kutuzov's hands, but 
 courtesy to the Austrian officers present prevented him from 
 breaking the seals. These underhand negotiations paralyzed 
 the remains of the Austrian army, who allowed Napoleon to 
 continue his advance, trusting to the arrival of the Archduke 
 Charles in time to cover Vienna, and to the Russian resistance. 
 " This war/' he wrote to Francis, " is for Russia a war of 
 fancy ; it is for your Majesty and for me a war which absorbs 
 all our means, all our sentiments, all our faculties." " Russia 
 is the only nation," he said on another occasion, " which can 
 afford to wage a fancy war." The Russians finding that they 
 were drawing an army of 140,000 upon them, and being almost 
 without provisions, at last retraced their steps to meet 
 Alexander ; and to protect Vienna burned one bridge com- 
 municating with her over the Danube, the other being in the 
 charge of the Austrian general, Prince Auersperg. He was 
 aware of the negotiation between Francis and Napoleon, and 
 hourly expected peace, so that when Murat assured him on 
 the honour of a Prince* that an armistice was concluded, 
 and that one of its articles stipulated for a French corps to be 
 posted near Vienna as a security for Austria's goodwill, the 
 French were quietly allowed to cross the bridge and enter the 
 capital, when Prince Auersperg discovered that no armistice 
 whatever had been signed, and that, though the son of the 
 Gascon publican might be dignified with the title of Prince, 
 he was utterly wanting in the honourable spirit 'formerly 
 identified with that rank. Napoleon or any other Sovereign 
 could turn ploughmen into noblemen, but he could not 
 succeed in making a gentleman of this grandson of a French 
 serf. Murat tried the same ruse with Kutuzov, but the 
 wily Russian was not so easily deceived, and Prince Bagra- 
 tion's corps was posted to protect his march. Bagration 
 held his ground at Amstetten and Grund with 8000 men 
 * Goldsmith's Secret History of Bonaparte (1810).
 
 262 The Campaign of A'usterlitz. 
 
 against the repeated attacks of Murat, Lannes, Oudinot, and 
 Soult, who had received a message from Napoleon to " march, 
 and destroy the Russian army." Midnight saw them still strug- 
 gling, and the Russians greatly reduced, when Bagration, 
 satisfied that Kutuzov was beyond their reach, cut his way 
 with hardly 5000 men through 40,000 enemies, and joined 
 the main army, which met the Guards under Constantine at 
 "Wischau in Moravia on the 19th; Alexander having also 
 arrived there the previous night. 
 
 The capture of Vienna placed the cannon and commissariat 
 stores* intended to supply the allies in the hands of the 
 French, and instead of finding a strong Austrian army, as had 
 been stipulated, they were met by Francis with only 14,000 
 fresh recruits under dispirited and rather doubtful officers. 
 Francis longed for peace, but he dared not propose it to his 
 allies after their fatigues and sacrifices, and he therefore 
 advised a battle, as in one way or another it must decide the 
 fate of the war. If the Russians were defeated it would enable 
 him more easily to withdraw from the alliance, whereas if they 
 were successful Alexander might insist upon prolonging the 
 campaign till he had obtained the fulfilment of all the articles 
 of his orignal treaty with France. The Austrian Emperor did 
 not count upon Prussia, for whom he had an hereditary jealousy, 
 and if she joined and was victorious where Austria had been 
 defeated, her preponderance would be worse than the advanced 
 frontier of France. He sent Count Giulay and Stadion to 
 negotiate with Napoleon, but they were coolly received, for as 
 the Czar had arrived, Bonaparte preferred to try and withdraw 
 him from the alliance by a bribe of increased territory on the 
 side of Turkey. 
 
 Alexander left Berlin at one o'clock in the morning of 
 November 5th. According to the Russian custom he intended 
 to visit a church before undertaking his journey, and the King 
 and Queen conducted him at midnight into the garrison chapel 
 at Potsdam, containing the remains of Frederick the Great 
 and Frederick William the First. They accompanied their guest 
 to see the tombs of their illustrious relativesf in the small 
 
 * The stores captured in Vienna were 2000 pieces of artillery, 1 00,000 
 muskets, 600,000 quintals of powder, 600,000 balls, and 160,000 bombs. 
 
 t The Empress-Dowager (Alexander's mother) was Frederick William's 
 groat granddaughter.
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 263 
 
 chamber in which they stand, and as time pressed, took leave 
 of him in the vault, and he mounted his carriage at the church 
 door to set off to Weimar. The French newspapers stated 
 that the King and Alexander took an oath of alliance on 
 Frederick's sword, but nothing was known of it in Berlin ; and 
 as the three Sovereigns were without any attendance, the 
 French editors were not likely to be better informed on such 
 a point than any of the Prussian ministers or the ambassadors 
 residing in the Prussian capital. If such an oath were taken, 
 the Prussian Sovereign broke it before a month had passed; 
 but the story, though only invented to accustom the French to 
 see an enemy and no longer an ally in Prussia, has been 
 repeated and easily believed by the lovers of historical 
 romance. That no trust can be placed in the French news of 
 that day, or the official bulletins, is evident from the fact that 
 the French post-office had special orders not to transmit any 
 copies to the army, who would at once have detected their 
 want of truth, and an official who sent a Monileur to a general 
 in active service was severely punished. 
 
 Alexander spent a day with his sister at Weimar, and 
 pushed on through Saxony, where he narrowly escaped falling 
 into the hands of a band of Napoleon's emissaries who, dis- 
 guised as travellers, had been sent to entrap him. Being with- 
 out escort, as usual on a journey, the Elector of Saxony made 
 a few soldiers accompany him to the frontier. From Dresden 
 he took the road to Prague, but before he had gone a German 
 mile he heard that a French force of 6000 men was at Petsen, 
 with orders to stop the communication between Prague and 
 Vienna. He therefore changed his route, and travelled by 
 Bautzen and Breslau, and met the Emperor of Austria at the 
 strongly fortified position of Olniutz. According to private 
 letters, which were not likely to understate them, before the 
 battle the entire forces numbered 70,000 men, including the 
 Austrian and Russian Guards. The irregular cavalry may have 
 increased them to 75,000 or 80,000 ; but historians have 
 generally given the number which originally left Russia, 
 entirely forgetting the losses already sustained. Even the 
 Russian official returns are by no means to be depended upon, 
 from an old standing practice on the part of their officers, who 
 increased their salaries by drawing rations and pay for de-
 
 264 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 ceased or discharged soldiers.* Napoleon's bulletins are always 
 inexact on the point of the numbers of either the French 
 or the enemy. " Where there is no danger there is no glory/' 
 he wrote to Murat, and it encouraged his men to make them 
 believe they had gained such successes with an inferior force. 
 Nothing varied more than his reports of the relative strength 
 of his own army and the enemy before and after an engage- 
 ment. 
 
 On this occasion, everything combined to make it of the 
 utmost importance that the Russians should gain time and 
 avoid another battle till they had rested after their long 
 march. One corps had been constantly engaged, and the re- 
 serves were considerably delayed from being obliged to avoid 
 Prussian Poland, and the difficulty of provisioning a large 
 army in the wild districts through which they passed. Haug- 
 witz had at last left Berlin with the King's ultimatum to 
 Napoleon, and the Prussian army amounted to 140,000 
 experienced men. The Archduke Charles was recruiting his 
 forces in Hungary, though he was nominally the commander- 
 in-chief of the two armies, and was expected to reach the 
 head-quarters in two or three weeks, while the Archduke 
 John with another corps was on his road ; but the stores pro- 
 vided for the Russian commissariat were taken by the French 
 at Vienna and Brunn, and Alexander's army was threatened 
 with starvation. If Kutuzov had been left to follow his own 
 judgment he would have delayed, for over-caution was his 
 fault in war ; but he was too good a courtier to raise his voice 
 except to acquiesce in any measure proposed by his Emperor ; 
 and the jealousies which openly manifested themselves between 
 the officers of the allied forces made each anxious for a battle 
 in which the Austrians might repair their shattered credit, 
 and the Russians display their superior prowess. The Em- 
 peror of Austria's healthf inclined him always to consult his 
 own comfort before other considerations, and he longed for 
 the calm of his palace, now occupied by the French, and to 
 bring the campaign to an end. The loss of Ulm greatly dis- 
 couraged him, and he wished, by a peace between the two 
 
 * Muffling, Wilson, and Jomini assert that no army differs more widely 
 on paper and in reality than the Russian, owing to this cause. 
 
 f He was subject to dyspepsia, and also, like the Archduke Charles, to 
 epileptic fits.
 
 The Campaign of Ausierlitz. 265 
 
 nations, to stop the slanders concerning himself with which 
 Napoleon filled the public press, not even sparing the Empress. 
 When he saw the formidable warriors collected round his 
 Imperial brother of Russia, he seems to have felt it might 
 tend to the future safety of his own dominions if their 
 bones were left to whiten on the German plains, instead 
 of being allowed to return angry and dissatisfied with 
 Austria to their native land. Constantine arrived at Olmutz 
 with the corps of Guards in as fine order as if it had only left 
 the parade ground at St. Petersburg the previous day ; but 
 the want of provisions made it impossible to maintain 
 the rigorous discipline hitherto exacted to prevent depre- 
 dations on the soil of Austria, and the Russians sent out 
 foraging parties to obtain food and hay.* Alexander marched 
 with a portion of his vanguard, which surprised a French 
 detachment of cavalry and infantry at Wischau, penetrated iuto 
 the village, and carried off more than a hundred prisoners. 
 He conducted himself most gallantly during the conflict, but 
 when it was over the sight of the killed and wounded made 
 him faint and sick, as many a young officer had been before at the 
 first aspect of a field of battle. On November 27th, Napoleon 
 sent General Savary, his future Minister of Police, to Alexander's 
 head-quarters with proposals of peace. He thought it useless 
 to make a separate treaty with Austria while Russia was in 
 the field, but as Mack assured him that Russia had induced 
 Austria to go to war upon which he answered, " Then you 
 are but the servants of Russia" he considered it better to 
 go at once to the master, and desired his aide-de-camp to make 
 arrangements for an interview between himself and the Czar. 
 
 Savary asserts that Napoleon really wished for peace at 
 this moment, hardly supposing that the Russians would 
 hazard a battle before they were joined by the Prussians or 
 either of the reinforcements. Haugwitz waited at Vienna, 
 and did not deliver his note on hearing that the Austrians 
 were trying to conclude a separate peace, though Napoleon 
 expecting it had already begun to assail the character of the 
 Queen, and accuse her of an undue partiality for Alexander 
 a charge perhaps contributing to the unwillingness the King 
 showed to enter into an alliance with the Czar. 
 
 * Major-General Stutterheim's Battle of Austerlitz,
 
 266 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 Savary arrived at Olmutz, and was conducted through a 
 street crowded with Russian soldiers to the house where 
 Alexander lodged ; but though it was still early he was gone 
 out, and the French aide-de-camp waited a considerable time 
 in an ante-room, among a number of young officers whom he 
 thought seemed very confident of victory. " At ten in the 
 morning a bustle in the street announced the Emperor's 
 approach. He stopped before the house where I was and 
 alighted." . . . . " He made a sign," continues Savary, " for 
 all present to retire, and we were left alone. I could not help 
 feeling timid. He awed me by the majesty and nobleness of 
 his expression. Nature had done much for him, and it would 
 have been difficult to find a model so perfect and so graceful. 
 He was then twenty-six years old. I felt regret at seeing him 
 engaged in so bad a business as that of Austria then was, but 
 I was aware of the facilities possessed by intrigue to influence 
 a mind that could not yet have sufficient experience to contend 
 successfully with all the complications on the political horizon 
 of Europe in the winter of 1805. I delivered to him my 
 letter, saying that the Emperor my master, being informed of 
 his arrival at the army, ordered me to carry to him this despatch, 
 and to salute him in his name. Alexander was already some- 
 what hard of hearing with his left ear, and he turned the right 
 to hear what was said to him. He spoke in broken sentences. 
 He laid great stress upon his finals, so that his discourse was 
 never long, and he spoke the French language in all its purity 
 without a foreign accent, and always used its elegant academical 
 expressions. As there was no affectation in his language, it 
 was easy to see that this was one of the results of an excel- 
 lent education. Taking the letter, he said to me, ' I duly 
 appreciate this proceeding of your master. It is with regret 
 that I have armed against him, and I shall seize with great 
 pleasure the opportunity of giving him that assurance. I will 
 go and read his letter, and bring an answer to it. 33 ' 
 
 " Sire," Napoleon wrote, " I send my aide-de-camp, General 
 Savary, to your Majesty, to offer you my compliments on 
 your arrival at the head- quarters of your army. I have charged 
 him to express the esteem I entertain for your Majesty, and 
 the anxious desire I feel to cultivate your friendship. I indulge 
 the hope that you will receive him with that condescension for
 
 The Campaign of A usttrlitz. 267 
 
 which you are so eminently distinguished, and will regard me 
 as one of the men most desirous to be agreeable to you. I 
 pray God to keep your Imperial Majesty in His holy keeping." 
 Alexander replied, " I have received, sire, your letter with the 
 gratitude it deserved, and hasten to return my best acknow- 
 ledgments. I have no other desire but to see the peace of 
 Europe established on safe and honourable conditions. I wish 
 at the same time to seize every occasion of being personally 
 agreeable to you. Receive the assurance of it, as well as of 
 my high consideration." 
 
 The Emperor returned to the room where Savary was waiting, 
 and brought this answer in his hand. " Tell your master," 
 he said, " the sentiments expressed in his letter gave me 
 great pleasure. I will do all I can to return them. He has 
 long been the object of my admiration. I have no wish to be 
 his enemy or that of Prance. He must recollect that in the 
 time o the late Emperor Paul, while I was yet but Grand 
 Duke, when the interests of France were thwarted and had 
 to encounter opposition in most of the Cabinets of Europe, I 
 interfered, and greatly contributed, by causing Russia to take 
 the lead, to induce the other Powers of Europe to recognize 
 the new order of things in your country. If now I am swayed 
 by other sentiments, it is because France has adopted different 
 principles, dangerous to the peace of Europe. I have been 
 called on to concur in establishing a more suitable order of 
 things which may satisfy all parties, and for that I have left 
 my own country. Fortune has served you, I admit ; but as a 
 faithful ally I will not desert the Emperor of Germany when 
 he is in a critical situation, not yet irremediable. I command 
 brave men, and if your master compels me I shall order them 
 to do their duty." 
 
 " Sire," replied Savary, " I shall not fail to remember the 
 message. If your Majesty would deign to listen to me I 
 could satisfy you on many points. The Emperor is more 
 than inclined to peace. This very step proves it." 
 
 " Very possibly," said the Emperor ; " but the proposals 
 which preceded it ought to have agreed with the sentiments 
 which dictated it. It does the greatest honour to his modera- 
 tion ; but does it argue a wish for peace to propose conditions 
 so disastrous to a State as those offered to the Emperor of
 
 268 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 Germany ? To obtain a durable peace reasonable conditions 
 should be proposed."* 
 
 " Yes, sire," said Savary, " but peace must not be made at 
 his expense. Your Majesty must consider what the Emperor 
 sacrifices by his departure from Boulogne; what an oppor- 
 tunity he loses for putting an end to the war with England ; 
 the time uselessly employed ; and lastly, sire, the fleet 
 which he has just lost in consequence of all this." (The 
 news of the defeat of the French fleet by the English at Tra- 
 falgar had arrived.) " What would the nation say were it not 
 to see some compensation ? Whatever peace the Emperor 
 makes with Austria, the Allies alone will be gainers by it ; the 
 only advantage he can. derive from it is the reduction of the 
 enemy." 
 
 " It is precisely this disposition to diminish the power of 
 his enemies," said Alexander, " and to increase his own that 
 alarms everybody, and is continually exciting wars against 
 him. You are already so strong by yourselves, from your 
 position and. the uniformity of your language, customs, and 
 laws, that you must always be formidable to your neighbours. 
 What need have you for continual aggrandizement ? Since 
 the peace of Luneville you have acquired first Genoa, and 
 then virtually Italy." 
 
 " Genoa has been acquired by us," said Savary, " in spite of 
 ourselves. Necessity compelled them to throw themselves into 
 the arms of a foreign Power. As to Italy, it is altogether 
 our conquest. If it began with republican institutions it was 
 in order to be in harmony with its protecting Power. The 
 changes that have since taken place in its government were 
 intended to make it still follow the phases of our constitution. 
 It must lean on some foreign Power, and has only France 
 and Austria to choose between," &c. 
 
 Alexander said, " If Napoleon is really peacefully dis- 
 posed, he might add to his immense labours the greatest of all 
 glories that of putting an end to the calamities of the Con- 
 tinent by sacrificing the advantages which he claims. I am 
 persuaded that he will not be insensible to the gratitude felt 
 for him when he wins by his moderation the glory and respect 
 which he cannot wrest by force." 
 
 * Alexander carried out this principle in Paris in 1814.
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 269 
 
 After a little more conversation Alexander gave the letter 
 to Savary. " Here is my answer," he said. " The address 
 does not express the title he has lately assumed. I attach no 
 importance to such trifles, but it is a rule of etiquette, and I 
 shall have great pleasure in changing it as soon as he furnishes 
 me with the occasion to do so." It was addressed " To the 
 Chief of the French Government." 
 
 When Napoleon received this letter he thought for a time, and 
 then sent Savary again to Olmutz to propose a personal inter- 
 view for himself with the Czar. Alexander declined it, " having 
 an appointment with the Emperor of Germany," but sent 
 his aide-de-camp, Prince Dolgoruki, a young officer of his own 
 age, to the French camp. Savary took this opportunity to 
 complete his observations on the strength and resources of the 
 Allies, and obtained some information from the imprudent con- 
 versation of their officers. Napoleon took precautions that 
 Dolgoruki should not have the same chance, and met him 
 at the entrance to the French cantonments, encouraging him 
 in the idea that they contained a very inferior force. He 
 was annoyed that so young a man* should be sent on such an 
 important mission. Dolgoruki only stated the old disputed 
 points as the terms on which his master would gladly conclude 
 a peace. " What do you wish of me ?" said Napoleon. " Why 
 does the Emperor Alexander make war against me ? What 
 does he want ? Is he jealous of the growth of France ? Ah well, 
 let him extend his frontier at the expense of his neighbours 
 on the side of Turkey, and all will be ended." Dolgoruki 
 answered, that Russia did not care to increase herself, but to 
 maintain the independence of Europe, to assure the evacuation 
 of Holland, Switzerland, and the indemnity she had never 
 ceased to claim for the King of Sardinia. Napoleon cried out 
 he would yield nothing in Italy, not even if the Russians 
 were encamped on the heights of Montmartre. " The Emperor 
 will never desert his allies," said Dolgoruki. " Then he must 
 fight," rejoined Napoleon. " I wash my hands of the conse- 
 quences." 
 
 The two armies were for several days within a few leagues of 
 each other; yet for want of spies and scientific officers among 
 
 * Dolgoruki was killed in the campaign, of 1806, and his brother in that 
 of Finland in 1808.
 
 270 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 the Russians, Prince Bagration was ignorant of the situation 
 occupied by the French advanced guard or the nurnher of the 
 enemy ; and the Austrian staff, while it professed to know the 
 country, made some fatal mistakes as to the battle-field and 
 its facilities. A council of war was held November 27th, when 
 Count Langeron, a French emigrant in the Russian service, 
 counselled delay in giving battle, but was overruled by General 
 Weyrother, an officer attached as Austrian aide-de-camp to 
 Alexander, and the real commander at Hohenlinden, under the 
 Archduke John. He was a theoretical more than a practised 
 general, though his military system was that of Frederick the 
 Great, which Alexander had learnt on the parade-ground at 
 St. Petersburg; but at Austerlitz it proved its inferiority to 
 the new system of the French Republic. Kutuzov wrote to 
 the Emperor Francis to recommend delay, though he would 
 not oppose Alexander; but he had irritated Francis by disre- 
 garding the orders of the Aulic Council when they would have 
 ruined his army, and the Kaiser was therefore little inclined 
 to act by his advice, if he had no other reason* for urging a 
 speedy engagement. 
 
 The plan of attack was delivered to the Austrian and 
 Russian general officers soon after midnight, on the morning 
 of December 2nd, having been formed by the Austrian staff 
 with Alexander's sanction ; the old pupils of Suvorov sitting 
 by inwardly disapproving, but without lifting a voice against 
 it, and Kutuzov even fell asleep. It consisted in spreading 
 out the Allies into one immense line after Frederick's system, 
 and turning the enemy's right flank, to drive him into the 
 Bohemian mountains, where the Archdukes might complete 
 his ruin. This plan appears to have been communicated by 
 treachery to Napoleon even before it was handed over to the 
 Russian brigade officers. " No one doubts here," writes De 
 Maistre, January 31st, " that the plan of the battle was sent to 
 Bonaparte." Langeron did ask Weyrother, " What would be 
 done if Napoleon attacked them at Pratzen before their move- 
 ment was completed ?''f and when the German replied, "he 
 
 * De Maistre. 
 
 f Napoleon told Las Casas at St. Helena that if he had attacked the 
 Russians six hours earlier he would probably have been defeated. The 
 assertion of M. Thiers, that the battle was fought without Napoleon's 
 reserves, is now contradicted by all the best authorities. 

 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 271 
 
 would have done so already, if strong enough/' Langeron 
 said, " he felt sure the French were very numerous by the 
 sounds from their camp." These were caused by the approach 
 of the reserves under Bernadotte, which raised their army to 
 more than 90,000 men. In his report that night, Napoleon 
 admits that his troops amounted to 80,000 men ; and these 
 80,000 all took a part in the contest. In his address to his 
 soldiers the same evening, he informed them that the positions 
 the French occupied were formidable ; and " while the 
 Russians are marching to turn my right, they will present 
 their flank to your blows. I will myself direct all your 
 battalions. I will keep myself at a distance from the fire if 
 with your accustomed valour you carry disorder and confusion 
 into the enemy's ranks, but should victory appear for a 
 moment uncertain, your Emperor will expose himself to the 
 first strokes." He directed that no soldier should leave the 
 ranks on the pretence of helping the wounded, and that 
 each was to remember he was opposing the pensioners of 
 England, " who is animated by such a great hatred against 
 our nation." 
 
 Even in the position of the Emperors we see the modern 
 system of warfare opposed to that now long become obsolete; 
 for Napoleon in this and nearly all his subsequent battles was 
 beyond the range of the fire a place obviously the best for a 
 commander-in-chief, where he can coolly survey all points of 
 the two armies, and give orders undisturbed, without subject- 
 ing his army to the confusion which a fatal shot fired in his 
 direction would inevitably cause ; while Alexander and Francis 
 were in the hottest part of the battle, so that two horses 
 Alexander successively rode were wounded, and Kutuzov, the 
 nominal general-in-chief, was struck close by his side. 
 
 The Russian army, following its usual custom, kept a strict 
 fast the day before the battle, and prayers were chanted in the 
 oamp. The French force was disposed to the number of 
 90,000 within the space of two leagues, in the villages 
 between Brunn and Austerlitz, and all, except the advanced 
 posts, slept till four in the morning of December 2nd, 
 when Napoleon mounted his horse. But an hour earlier the 
 Allies began to move from an elevated position called the Hill 
 of Pratzen they occupied in front of the enemy, to execute
 
 272 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 their manoeuvre. A dense fog rising from a lake in the neigh- 
 bourhood impeded their operations, and under cover of it 
 Marshal Soult advanced on to the height and almost separated 
 the two wings of their army before they were aware of the 
 presence of his corps ; but the sun rose in all its splendour 
 over the French camp, as if Nature herself was arrayed on the 
 side of the enemy. 
 
 The first Russian column was led by Doctorof and Buxhow- 
 den ; the second, consisting of Russians and Austrians, by 
 Langeron ; the third by Przybyovsky ; the fourth by Milo- 
 radovitz and Kollowrath ; the fifth by Prince John of Lichten- 
 stein, commanding Russians and Austrians ; the advanced 
 corps by Prince Bagration, with Constautine for his reserve ; 
 and the Elizabethpol Hussars by General Ouvarof, Alexan- 
 der's aide-de-camp, a youthful general of twenty-six. Alex- 
 ander and Francis, with Kutuzov, Czartoriski, and other aides- 
 de-camp, were posted with the central column, which consisted 
 of 12.000 men, and was attacked by double that force, 
 Napoleon being extremely anxious to secure the persons of 
 the two Sovereigns. 
 
 This battle was the last in which the Russians laid their knap- 
 sacks on the field before they began to fire. They formed a 
 wide semicircle, while the French occupied an interior position, 
 whence their columns started like rays from a centre. Bux- 
 howden's column drove the French from the village of Teluitz, 
 proceeding beyond the enemy's extreme right, when Davoust 
 with his corps came forward to check them, as having carried 
 the second village of Sokolnitz, they issued from it rather dis- 
 ordered. He received them with a tremendous shock, and 
 the village was alternately twice carried by the Russians and 
 French. At this crisis, Soult was thrown on to the Russian 
 centre, just as the 3rd column had left the hill of Pratzen, 
 and the 4th, under Miloradovitz and Kollowrath, were as- 
 cending it. Alexander saw the danger, and at once brought 
 the 4th column into action, for according to the plan, 
 its services would not have been required before eight o'clock. 
 Kutuzov* seemed utterly indifferent, and remained motionless. 
 
 * Kutuzov asserted in the salons of St. Petersburg that he went in the 
 middle of the night before the battle to Count Tolstoi, the Emperor's 
 Grand Marshal, and said to him, " Count, you have his Majesty's ear ; in 
 mercy prevent him from giving battle ; we shall certainly lose it." The
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 273 
 
 " Why do you not move forward ?" the Emperor said to him. 
 " I am waiting," he replied, " till the others are gone/' allud- 
 ing to the 4th column, originally ordered to pass over the hill 
 before the centre advanced, but at Alexander's direction now 
 wheeled round in order of battle, and made every disposition 
 to receive the enemy. The Emperor again urged the old 
 general to advance. " It is not a sham fight/' he answered ; 
 " your Majesty may command." He saw the battle was lost, 
 and that an early retreat would be the wisest step. He also 
 thought the head of a corps of 12,000 opposed by the chief 
 strength of the French army was not the place where his 
 Sovereign ought to be. He was slightly wounded in the cheek, 
 and Alexander ordered Dr. Wylie to attend to him. " My 
 wound is not dangerous/' he said ; " the mortal wound is 
 there," and he pointed to the French divisions of St. Hilaire 
 and Vaudamme, which had just succeeded in ascending the 
 heights. After a desperate fight of two hours' duration, the 
 heights of Pratzen were carried by the French, and six Russian 
 battalions upon it were completely cut to pieces. " During 
 this sanguinary conflict," says the Austrian General Stutter- 
 heim, " Alexander remained with his infantry, and incessantly 
 exposed his own person in trying to remedy the confusion. 
 He ordered his battalions to advance, and try to take the 
 enemy in flank," &c. General Miloradovitz and Kamensky 
 maintained their ground well, but their subordinate generals 
 were wounded, and they had not enough officers left to lead 
 them. Prince Volkonsky succeeded in rallying Kollowrath's 
 men, and for a moment turned the tide of the battle. On the 
 Russian right wing, Bernadotte, Murat, and Lannes attacked 
 with equal vigour, also under cover of the fog, and received 
 repeated orders from Napoleon to prevent the Russian Guards 
 and other troops forming that division of the army from 
 forwarding any succour to the centre where the decisive blow 
 was to be struck. Stutterheim says that Constantino/* in a 
 
 Grand Marshal repulsed him, and refused to have anything to do -with it. 
 " Neither of them," says De Maistre, " opened the Emperor's eyes they 
 were too good subjects for that." 
 
 * Thiers says that Prince Lichtenstein did not come forward as early 
 as he had been ordered, and that the Imperial Russian Guard came up to 
 supply his place ; but we can hardly expect the Austrian general to state 
 this fact. 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 brilliant charge, attacked too soon, and with too much impetuo- 
 sity ; for although his corps formed the reserve of the right 
 wing, it was one of the first divisions to find itself engaged ; 
 but he charged Kellerman and Murat successively with the 
 Imperial Guard, trampling three battalions of French infantry 
 under foot, and carrying off an eagle. The French Imperial 
 Guard, under Marshals Bessieres and Rapp, was brought up to 
 oppose them, and they fought man to man, so closely inter- 
 laced that the Russian infantry stood by and dared not fire, for 
 fear of wounding their own men. The French artillery were 
 not so scrupulous, and added to the mutual carnage, so that 
 the ground was soon strewed with the dead. But the Russian 
 Guards maintained their place till hardly a man among them 
 was left unwounded ; and the remainder were captured, or 
 forced back under the very walls of Austerlitz, " with a loss," 
 wrote Napoleon, " which will cause tears of blood to be shed 
 at St. Petersburg/' Prince Repnin was taken prisoner, and 
 Constantine received a wound ; but his aide-de-camp seized 
 his horse by the bridle and turned it round, and its speed pro- 
 bably saved his life. 
 
 Alexander and Francis saw the destruction of the Imperial 
 Guard from a hill, where they had rallied Prince Lichten- 
 stein's corps and the remnant of the shattered centre in order 
 to make a fresh effort against the enemy on the heights of 
 Pratzen; and the hussars, under Ouvarof, still kept up some 
 communication between the centre and the right wing of the 
 Allies. But the whole corps of Bernadotte, the guards and 
 grenadiers of Oudinot, in all 25,000 fresh troops, were brought 
 up to support Soult, and the Russians now fought for exis- 
 tence rather than victory. The survivors of Langeron's division, 
 twice driven by Davoust out of the village of Sokoluitz, were 
 the first to begin a retreat, flying for refuge into Buxhowdeu's 
 column, which was unacquainted with the disasters of the 
 centre. Buxhowden formed his troops into close column to 
 join the remains of the army clustered round Austerlitz, by 
 a road leading between the marshes of the Littawa and 
 the high grounds adjoining them to the north. Here the fog 
 again impeded them, and they were attacked in flank at 
 different points, till, after a stout resistance, they were over- 
 whelmed. The French bulletins stated that many trying
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 275 
 
 to cross the frozen lake of Satschan, Napoleon gave orders 
 that the ice should be broken by the artillery; and further, 
 that the Russians, finding themselves on an island of ice, 
 fell on their knees,* while the batteries fired on them and 
 on the ice, till the last man was killed or drowned ; the 
 number thus perishing being computed by different French, 
 authorities at 2000, 6000, and 10,000. But this story was 
 denied by the Russian Gazette of February 2nd, 1806 ; and a 
 military author states that the following summer the water 
 of the lake was purposely drawn off and searched, when very 
 few bodies were found in it.f 
 
 The battle continued between the right wing of the Russian* 
 and the French left five hours after it had become a hope- 
 less contest ; the last cheered on by the sight of their standards 
 on the heights of Pratzen and the shouts of victory proceeding 
 from their right. Kutuzov retired with a brigade very early 
 from the field, as if by his absence to protest against the battle j 
 but Alexander was the last Russian officer who turned his back 
 on the enemy, after he had remained the whole day in the 
 hottest fire, and displayed a coolness admired by the Emperor 
 Francis. The Austrian cavalry under Prince Lichtenstein 
 cleared the narrow defile to secure the Russian retreat. The 
 Russian infantry, wearied out with thirteen hours of battle 
 after a night of marching and prayer, " retired very slowly /' 
 says Stutterheim, " being plied with the enemy's artillery. 
 The troops marched the whole night under a heavy fall of rain, 
 which completely destroyed the roads, so that their remaining 
 artillery sank in the sloughs and was abandoned, for the 
 Russian horses, weak for want of forage, could not drag them 
 out/' " At Austerlitz," says Sir Robert Wilson, " the Russian 
 cannon fell into the French hands from an error in the road, 
 not as trophies gained on that day." The Russian army kept 
 together, maintaining perfect order, and remained the next 
 day nearly on the same ground they occupied before the battle, 
 in the very teeth of the French. Some French officers taken 
 by the Russians declared that " no one but Bonaparte could 
 have kept them so long from giving way to the tremendous 
 attack of the Russian Guards." On December 4th, Bagration 
 
 * Editor of Napoleon's Correspondence with Joseph, 
 f General Mitchell.
 
 276 The Campaign of Amterlitz. 
 
 defeated some French cavalry in a trifling skirmish. The 
 Emperor Francis went to Zeitsch, at no great distance from 
 the French outposts, and sent word to his ally he should con- 
 clude peace with the French. Alexander desired he would not 
 include the Russians in it, and on December 4th crossed the 
 river Morava with his army, comparatively unmolested, and 
 took up his quarters in the castle of Holitsch. He was 
 extremely cast down by his defeat and impressed by the scenes 
 of horror at which he had assisted, much more so than Francis, 
 who took it with great composure, and made up for his 
 fatiguing day by a long night's sleep. 
 
 "The enemy was caught in a false position while he was 
 manoeuvring/' wrote Napoleon the day after the battle. He 
 received Prince Repnin, the most distinguished prisoner, with 
 great good nature. " Your regiment/' he said, " nobly per- 
 formed its duty/' " The best reward for a soldier," answered 
 the Prince, " is the approbation of a great captain/' " And 
 you have mine," replied Napoleon, who sent him with another 
 proposal to Alexander for an interview wherever the Czar 
 should choose. " What a strange idea that was/' he said, " to 
 scatter his army over such an immense space ! But it is 
 Alexander's first battle, and my fortieth." 
 
 The Emperor Francis met Napoleon two days after the 
 battle at a windmill on the road side near Sarutchitz, at the 
 most advanced post of the French camp. Napoleon's two 
 secretaries, Meneval and Fleury, besides General Duroc, 
 Savary, and Bertrand, and a dramatic author named Long- 
 champs, Murat's secretary, were present on the occasion, and 
 the French Emperor, addressing his future father-in-law as 
 " Mon frere," said he was expecting him to sign an armistice 
 at once. " If you do not consent/' he said, " I shall send a 
 courier to Vienna with an order to raze that town. I know 
 that to-morrow Alexander intends to attack me, but it signifies 
 little. Conqueror or conquered I am going to execute what I 
 have just told you, not only in Vienna, but in all the towns 
 in your States occupied by my troops."* This threat was 
 unnecessary as far as Austria was concerned, for the Germans 
 
 * Goldsmith, in his Secret History of Bonaparte, published in 1810, 
 gives this on the authority of one of those present, whom, from prudential 
 motives, he does not specify.
 
 The Campaign of Austerlits. 277 
 
 were crying out for peace on account of the taxes and the 
 enormous requisitions which the French made wherever they 
 appeared ; but it had the effect of making Francis give his 
 word of honour that Alexander would also accept the armistice, 
 and that the Russians should evacuate Moravia and Hungary 
 in fifteen days, and Galicia in a month. He also agreed to 
 separate his cause from that of Russia, and sign a separate 
 peace. Napoleon laid the blame of the whole war upon 
 England, and in a bulletin describing this meeting said 
 Francis entered into the same accusations against both Eng- 
 land and Russia, and asserted he was forced into the war; but 
 this description is as little to be relied on as other conver- 
 sations which Napoleon put into the mouths of both his enemies 
 and allies. His early schoolfellow and aide-de-camp, Bour- 
 rienne, complained of his habit of inventing dying speeches for 
 his officers killed on the field of battle, and, as is always the 
 case, the habit of invention grew upon him with years, till 
 probably in his last days at St. Helena his thoughts hardly 
 framed themselves in accordance with strict truth.* The con- 
 ference between Francis and Napoleon lasted two hours, when 
 they embraced, and sent their respective generals Stutterheim 
 and Savary to Alexander at Holitsch, to acquaint him with 
 the result. 
 
 The Russian army was expected to retreat on Olmutz, and 
 Davoust followed it in that direction; but the French were 
 not aware of its extreme weariness and destitution, and 
 Bagration's gallant stand prevented them from continuing 
 the pursuit. They were informed by a note from Alexander 
 of the conference between Francis and Napoleon on the 4th, 
 and gladly availed themselves of this excuse for a pause ; 
 otherwise if they had felt sure of success, it would have been 
 considered none at all. " After the loss of a battle," said 
 Napoleon, " the physical difference in the conqueror and the 
 conquered is little : the moral difference is enormous, as we see 
 from the effect which two or three squadrons may produce on 
 a beaten army." " It has been asserted on the faith of a 
 bulletin of Napoleon's," says Lanfrey, " and a boast of Savary, 
 that Alexander was in a desperate situation, and owed his safety 
 
 * Even his admirer Alison speaks of "his usual disregard of truth." 
 Alison's .History of Europe, ch. xl.
 
 278 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 only to the magnanimity of Napoleon ; but this magnanimity 
 appears very doubtful, for Napoleon was then totally ignorant 
 of the real position of the Russians, and thought it better than 
 it was, since he had pursued them in an opposite direction to 
 the one they had taken ; and Alexander's retreat was covered 
 by an army which, notwithstanding its losses, was yet strong. 
 Napoleon even contradicts his own bulletin in his corre- 
 spondence, as he affirms to Talleyrand, December 4th, that 
 Alexander had with difficulty drawn himself away." For 
 probably the first time in his life, Alexander was three days 
 without a change of linen, all the Russian baggage not left 
 at Olmutz having fallen into the hands of the French, and he 
 passed the night after the battle in a wretched hut, on a bed 
 of straw. He reached Holitsch in a feverish, depressed state, 
 and had shiverings and an attack of faintness, with other 
 symptoms of ague. Dr. Wylie sent over to the head-quarters 
 of the Emperor of Austria, to ask for a bottle of wine ; and 
 received for answer, that as his Majesty was asleep, his 
 aides-de-camp could not take upon themselves to dispose of 
 his stores. The Russians were indignant when they ascer- 
 tained that both before and after the battle the Austrians had 
 a large reserve of provisions for their own army,* which dis- 
 tributed to their allies would have enabled them to keep their 
 position at Olmutz. Savary accompanied Francis back to 
 Zeitsch, and then proceeded with Stutterheim to Holitsch, 
 where they arrived, Savary says, at four in the morning of 
 December 5th, Stutterheim says at twelve on the night of 
 the 4th ; but Stutterheim obtained immediate access to Alex- 
 ander, and received his word of honour to conform to the 
 conditions of the armistice. All his counsellor* except Czar- 
 toriski thought that he could not do otherwise without dis- 
 owning and turning against his ally ; and as the treachery of 
 the Austrian authorities was loudly discussed in the Russian 
 camp, no one was in a mood to continue the war on their 
 behalf, particularly as Francis requested him to release them 
 both from their mutual engagements. A bulletin, subsequently 
 published by Napoleon's orders in the Moniteur, dated Decem- 
 ber 5th, from Austerlitz, but not permitted to be circulated 
 in the French camp, asserts that Savary had also had an in- 
 terview with Alexander at four in the morning, that Alexander 
 
 * De Maistre.
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 279 
 
 said to Savary " his brother Napoleon was a great warrior, he 
 could not think of comparing himself with him ; that he, Alex- 
 ander, never was witness of any battle ; he was now serving as a 
 private, and it would require a century to bring the Russian 
 army to the degree of perfection which the French army had 
 acquired," &c. Goldsmith* asserts that Savary was not al- 
 lowed to penetrate further than the Russian advanced posts, 
 it being supposed that he had again come to act as a spy. 
 When Alexander saw this passage in the Moniteur, he stated, 
 through the Hamburg Correspondenten, that the contents of 
 that bulletin were a glaring, impudent falsehood, declaring on 
 his Imperial word of honour that he had never seen Savary 
 on that occasion, and appealed to Savary himself as to the fact 
 of his having seen him, and to all the Russian officers whether 
 he had not given positive orders that this general should 
 not be allowed to penetrate beyond the Russian advanced 
 posts. 
 
 " I can assure the Russian Emperor," says Goldsmith, who 
 was then in France, " the contents of that bulletin did not 
 surprise him more than it did Savary himself, when he read it 
 in the Moniteur;" and although Napoleon contradicted some of 
 Goldsmith'sf statements, he did not attempt to refute this. 
 An article appeared in the Gazette of St. Petersburg, dated 
 Holitsch, December 5th : " The exhausted powers of the Court 
 of Vienna, the- misfortunes it has sustained, together with a 
 want of provisions, have compelled the Roman Emperor, in 
 spite of the strong and vigorous support he received from 
 the Russian troops, to conclude a convention with France, to 
 which a peace must soon succeed. His Imperial Majesty 
 having come to his assistance as an ally, had no object in 
 view than his defence, and averting those dangers which 
 threatened his empire ; and since his Majesty the Emperor, 
 under the present circumstances, deems the presence of the 
 
 * Goldsmith's Secret History of Bonaparte. 1810. 
 
 f Savary has repeated the bulletin in his Memoirs, hut the man whose 
 very office obliged hitn to adopt a course of falsehood and intrigue, and 
 who could even rob the Queen of Etruria of the jewels which she placed 
 in his protection, is no more to be relied on than his master. 
 
 The thirty-fourth bulletin, dated Brunn, December 10th, says: "The 
 first adjutant, Junot, despatched by his Majesty to the Emperors of 
 Kussia and Austria, saw the last at Holitsch, and was very graciously 
 received, but he could not fulfil tha object of his mission, as the Emperor 
 of Russia and General Kutuzov were both on their way to St. Petersburg."
 
 280 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 Russian troops unnecessary in Austria, his Majesty is pleased 
 to order them to leave Austria and return to Russia." Tn a 
 postscript it is added, that the Emperor Alexander took leave 
 of his Imperial Majesty of Austria at ten on the morning of 
 the 6th, and immediately proceeded to St. Petersburg. He 
 was accompanied by Dr. Wylie and two or three officers in 
 his rapid journey incognito over the Carpathian mountains, 
 where, owing to a want of money, they met with some adven- 
 tures, and the Emperor bought a new shirt from a Jew. 
 Alexander has been often blamed for not remaining longer in 
 the Austrian dominions, and disavowing any share in the 
 armistice, for Kutuzov offered to renew the battle two days 
 after the defeat, and Czartoriski wished the Russians to wait 
 till the arrival of the Archduke Charles, and agree with him 
 to continue the war. But he had no reason to suppose that 
 the Archduke, who had only reluctantly consented to the war 
 at all, would now disavow the preliminaries of peace signed 
 by his brother Francis, and differ in opinion from the ministers, 
 or from the Austrian people at large, who were crying loudly 
 for peace, and suffered intensely from the unscrupulous 
 depredations of the French. A sum of 100,000,000 francs 
 had been demanded from Vienna and Upper Austria, besides 
 the maintenance of all the French garrisons, who, if the 
 armistice had been broken, would undoubtedly have car- 
 ried out their master's threat, and laid the towns in ashes. 
 On subsequent occasions Napoleon showed he was fully equal 
 to it when influenced by revenge. To have come originally as 
 the Emperor of Austria's ally, and then exposed him to such 
 outrages, would have been perfectly unjustifiable, and Alex- 
 ander was always true to his plighted word ; a slave, as conti- 
 nental politicians considered it, to his personal honour. The 
 provisioning of his army was another difficulty, for the Russians 
 were subsisting on less than half rations, which must soon 
 fail ; the French were fast clearing the neighbourhood of 
 forage, and a retreat having been decided upon, Alexander's 
 presence was more required in St. Petersburg. Those about 
 him hoped that a change of scene might remove the painful 
 impression which the battle had left upon his mind : he had 
 not slept for several nights, and was too accustomed to long 
 and rapid journeys to feel them anything but a rest. He
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 281 
 
 openly regretted that Kutuzov had not insisted more on his 
 own opinion, and fifteen years afterwards, December 2nd, 1820, 
 he was transacting business with Miloradovitz, then governor 
 of St. Petersburg, and said to him, " Do you remember that 
 this is the anniversary of the unfortunate day ?" " I do 
 not see why your Imperial Majesty should call a day unfor- 
 tunate," said the courtly soldier, " in which officers and men 
 fought like lions." 
 
 " Yes, the soldiers did their duty well," said the Emperor ; 
 " but it is their duty to be massacred when the commanders 
 take false steps. The divisions Langeron* and Przybyovsky 
 were alone found wanting in valour, and both generals lost 
 their command." 
 
 The Prussian negotiator, Haugwitz, had an interview with 
 Napoleon at Brunn November 23rd, but had since waited at 
 Vienna without presenting the King's ultimatum, and he now 
 suppressed it altogether, congratulating him instead. On De- 
 cember 15th, 1805, he signed a treaty making over to France 
 Anspach and Neufchatel in Switzerland (which then belonged 
 to Prussia) in exchange for permission to keep Hanover, and 
 also Swedish Pomerania; the Emperor Alexander having failed 
 to effect a reconciliation between Sweden and Prussia during his 
 last visit to Berlin. Alexander was still ignorant of Prussia's 
 bad faith ; and the day he left Holitsch he gave orders to his 
 brother Constantine to proceed to Berlin and offer the assist- 
 ance of his army to Prussia before it evacuated Poland ; 
 and he also despatched Strogonof to London, to carry 
 assurances of Russia's non-acceptance of the peace with 
 France. He travelled with the speed of a courier to St. Peters- 
 burg ; and a letter announces, December 22nd, that " yesterday, 
 at five in the morning, our beloved Sovereign returned in good 
 health, to the great joy of this capital, where he was met by 
 the glad acclamations of its inhabitants. A day of thanks- 
 giving for his safety had been observed at St. Petersburg." 
 An English traveller was much struck by the enthusiasm 
 exhibited on his arrival, though coming, as was well known, 
 after a defeat. The Russian army brought away 200 of its 
 
 * Langeron and Buxhowden quarrelled during the battle. Buxhowden 
 said that Langeron saw the enemy everywhere, and Langeron accused 
 Buxhowden. of being drunk.
 
 282 The Campaign of Austerlilz. 
 
 guns, and was refitted at Robryn, a small town in Prussian 
 Poland, where a Prussian newspaper of the day states that all 
 tailors and shoemakers were brought into requisition, and 
 most liberally paid for the rapidity with which they supplied 
 new boots and cloth uniforms. The St. Petersburg Gazette 
 (February 2nd, 1806) contained a refutation of some of the 
 French accounts of the battle, particularly their false estimate of 
 the two armies, the Russians having been 15,000 or 20,000 less 
 than the French. u The scarcity of provisions was so great 
 that for nearly two days before the battle the Russians had 
 nothing to eat ; the horses were famished to such a degree that 
 those belonging to the artillery could no longer draw, so it 
 was of little use. The total failure of provisions and forage 
 was alone sufficient to prevent our maintaining our post any 
 longer at Olmutz. The Imperial Guard, stated to have lost 
 all its colours, is still in possession of them, and has taken one 
 pair from the enemy. If our loss were as great as the bulletin 
 pretends, why were we not pursued, as that bulletin falsely 
 asserts ? The armistice was concluded only with the Emperor 
 of Germany, at whose particular desire the Russians first 
 began their retreat, which was effected in good order and 
 without loss. The bulletin says that the French Guard, the 
 reserve troops, took no part in the battle. It afterwards 
 asserts that when the French battalions were broken by 
 the Russian Guard, Bonaparte ordered Marshal Bessieres to 
 advance, and that the Imperial Guards on both sides immedi- 
 ately came into action," &c. As even the French returns 
 gave 212,000 men encamped on the soil of Germany, with the 
 command of the Austrian military stores and the resources of 
 Italy and Hungary, they would have had an enormous pre- 
 ponderance in strength if the Russians had waited to give 
 battle till the arrival of the two Archdukes; and the difficiilty 
 of bringing up recruits in the winter through Poland, which 
 contained nothing worthy of a road, was shown in the French 
 campaigns of 1807 and 1812. The delays Prussia interposed 
 at .Napoleon's instigation by forbidding the Russian troops to 
 cross her territories completely ruined the campaign for that 
 season, but it might have been retrieved if she had entered 
 the lists at the stipulated time. Although since Catherine II. 
 exerted some influence over the Emperor Joseph, Austria had
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 283 
 
 shown herself very jealous of Russian interference in European 
 affairs, Alexander had involved himself in her quarrel from 
 the expectation of having Prussia and all Germany for an ally, 
 in which case a simple demonstration would probably have 
 been enough to obtain their moderate demands from France. 
 Yet even the provisions for his army in Austria, which he had 
 agreed to purchase, were never supplied. 
 
 The Queen of Prussia and her husband's cousin, Prince 
 Louis, though unable to influence the King, still headed a 
 powerful party indignant at the contempt with which Prussia 
 was treated by France ; and she* herself wrote to Alexander 
 to beg him to keep up the war. The higher officers of the 
 Prussian army believed themselves as superior to the French 
 as they were in the days of the great Frederick; but the 
 ministers were supposed to be in the pay of France, and afraid 
 to quarrel lest Bonaparte should reveal their intrigues. 
 Haugwitz was known to be a dissipated man of fashion and 
 loaded with debt ; and the King's favourite minister, Lombard, 
 was loudly accused of having sold his country's honour. In 
 the year 1803, just before the battle of Jena, when im- 
 poverished and very ill, he declared to Gentz that when he 
 saw Napoleon at Brussels in 1803, he was completely duped 
 by him. " He gained me less," said Lombard,t " by his 
 cajoleries than by the ideas that he inspired me with of the 
 greatness and nobility of his character, by his philanthropic 
 and peaceful language, by the hypocrisy with which he spoke 
 of Prussia and of his particular attachment for her. Before 
 the end of the year 1803 I was undeceived. But I could do 
 nothing. Do you know the King ? My complete justification 
 is in that question." 
 
 Sir George Jackson writes of the battle of Austerlitz, 
 from Berlin, December llth, that Alexander exposed himself 
 recklessly, but the Russian loss was not so great as the 
 French assert, and such another victory would nearly ruin 
 Bonaparte. A week later, he says, Constantine had been 
 in Berlin for ten days, and being as fond of dancing as the 
 Queen herself, several balls were held by the Court, with other 
 gaieties which seemed rather unseasonable. The impression 
 Alexander made on the Berlinese was extraordinary, and they 
 * De Maistre. f He was the son of a French hairdresser.
 
 284 Tlie Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 grew enthusiastic in speaking of him. If the King had been 
 in the battle of the 2nd they could hardly have shown more 
 anxiety as to his fate. 
 
 The King of Prussia hoped to keep Hanover through the 
 Czar's mediation with England, and he had promised Alex- 
 ander not to accept it without her permission. But he felt 
 himself driven to consent to its annexation by the French 
 taking possession of Anspach and Neufchatel, according to 
 the treaty signed by Haugwitz, ostensibly in exchange, 
 though really to stop all further clamour about their viola- 
 tion of neutral territory in this province ; and hoping to 
 appease the Czar, he sent the Duke of Brunswick to St. 
 Petersburg (March, 1806) to negotiate a marriage between 
 his brother Prince Henry and the Grand Duchess Catherine 
 Paulovna. To make the annexation more palatable he 
 offered to form an establishment for the princess at Hanover, 
 and to assign the whole revenue of the electorate for the 
 support of her Court. The Duke was received with great 
 distinction in Russia, but the suit was refused, and the 
 English in Berlin saw Napoleon's influence prevail more 
 than ever over Frederick William after the battle of Auster- 
 litz, and Alexander made no effort to recover his, though he 
 again prevented Prussia from seizing Swedish Pomerania. 
 The ministers of the Italian deposed potentates at St. Peters- 
 burg having looked forward to this campaign for the 
 restoration of their princes, murmured loudly at the mode 
 in which the war had been conducted. " It is a miracle," 
 writes De Maistre, speaking of Alexander,* " how the wisest 
 of princes, the least confident above all in his own lights 
 for that is the strangest point of all how, I say, such a 
 prince should have given battle against the advice of all his 
 generals on the opinion of a few young courtiers. A few 
 steps behind him there was an army coming to join him. 
 .... This young and valiant Emperor has on this occasion done 
 not only all that he ought, but more than perhaps his high 
 quality required. He threw himself two or three times into 
 the middle of the Austrians, and neglected nothing to 
 reanimate and unite them/' De Maistre further asserts 
 that the Austrians yielded with scarcely a struggle, asking 
 * Mdmoires et Correspondance Diplomatique.
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 285 
 
 mercy of the French almost before they were struck. He 
 says the Germans were crying out for peace at any price, 
 and Francis urged Alexander to give battle ; the Czar was too 
 prudent and too much afraid of alienating the Austrians, so 
 allowed their plan to be followed. He repeats that Alexander 
 was greatly shocked by the sight of the wounded, and had 
 since been much depressed. " He thinks himself useless to his 
 country because he is not a great general : he might as well 
 wish to be an astronomer. He has since Austerlitz occupied 
 himself unceasingly in drilling his troops. This over-energy 
 displeases the Russians, who hate order and minutiae, and the 
 officers begin to send in their resignations even the Guards 
 want theirs. His heart is the most naturally good and honest 
 one can imagine. Unfortunately his subjects like better to 
 criticise him than to instruct him. Men like us would bear 
 him to the clouds ; here they amuse themselves with throwing 
 him to earth. I assure you he is more really loved by the 
 King of Sardinia's subjects than by his own. You do not 
 know what precautions he takes not to be deceived, and not 
 to espouse the passions of the men whom he employs. When 
 I think that he has been brought up by a master who only 
 taught him the philosophy of the 18th century, and by a 
 father who only taught him the corps de garde, in thinking 
 what he is," &c. 
 
 De Maistre adds that Bonaparte was anxious for an 
 interview with Alexander, that he might publish it in Paris. 
 " He certainly wanted for some reason to see him. He made 
 a great effort to persuade him to have an interview. Savary 
 said he had kept sight of him through the battle, and had 
 observed him twice mount a fresh horse, twice white and once 
 bay. They say here that to moderate Alexander he ought 
 always to have a grey head near him." 
 
 The Emperor offered the King of Sardinia a residence 
 at Odessa until he should be more successful in his 
 attempts to restore him to his throne ; and continued 
 to pay the expenses of his embassy at St. Petersburg, 
 and of the small Sardinian colony which resided there, 
 till 1814, when by his efforts the kingdoms of the 
 Italian peninsula were restored to independence. From 
 the year 1799, when the King of Sardinia maintained a
 
 286 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 regiment of sharpshooters at the cost of the Emperor Paul, 
 the Court of Sardinia was supported by Russia till the peace 
 of Paris, and we have seen how she repaid her protector in 1855. 
 The old Russian nobles, like Rostopchine, accused the 
 Livonian and other non-Muscovite officers, and the ministers 
 in authority, of the failure of the late campaign. " Arat- 
 chaief," writes Rostopchine to Zizianof, January 24th, 1806, 
 " has spoilt the artillery, and it was not only unable to act 
 at Austerlitz, but it has been taken. . . . Nevertheless he is 
 always in great favour. Notwithstanding my love for my 
 country, I have become calmer, for I see that God alone can 
 save us. Everything is falling into ruins, and in the shock 
 will crush unhappy Russia. In a time of peace last year 
 there was a deficit in the budget of four millions. In the 
 army there are neither generals nor officers, and even the 
 spirit of the soldiers is not Russian. Salt is wanting in 
 three governments, the peasants beat the governors, every 
 body steals ; and yet the Emperor only thinks of doing good, 
 and would be incapable of doing harm, even to a fly .... If 
 Bonaparte sees Prussia waver he will treat her like Austria, 
 and will not give her allies time to come to her assistance. 
 .... I need not describe to you the consternation of all Russia : 
 the defeat, the treason of the Germans, the uncertainty of 
 the future, the recruiting, the bad harvest, all join to 
 impress a seal of sadness on the nobility and the people. 
 Every one is silent, except the ministers, who dispute and 
 drink to obtain forgetfulness." To one of his sisters-in-law 
 he observed of the late battle, " How could God protect the 
 arms of a bad son ?" a remark with which Alexander was 
 made acquainted through one of Rostopchine's numerous 
 enemies, and which struck him to the heart. It was believed 
 that he never forgot it, for it was often said of him that he 
 could forgive but could not forget. 
 
 Lord Castlereagh declared in the House of Commons, 
 January 28th, 1806, that Austria had not kept to " her agree- 
 ment with Russia, or to the military plan she had herself 
 drawn out, but was guilty of an absolute breach of the under- 
 standing entered into with Alexander by her advance beyond 
 the Inn and the consequent capitulation at Ulm. But Russia 
 conformed most strictly to the plan. Her aid was limited in
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 287 
 
 the first military view of the operation to the first army of 
 56,000 men, which arrived two days sooner than was expected 
 at Brannau, on the Inn." In the speech in which George III. 
 opened Parliament, January 21st, he said : " It is a great con- 
 solation to his Majesty that, although the Emperor of 
 Germany has felt himself compelled to withdraw from the 
 contest, his Majesty continues to receive from his august 
 ally, the Emperor of Russia, the strongest assurances of 
 unshaken adherence to that generous and enlightened policy 
 by which he has hitherto been actuated, and his Majesty 
 has no doubt that you will be fully sensible of the impor- 
 tant advantages to be derived from preserving at all times 
 the closest and most intimate connection with that Sovereign." 
 As was only to be expected, the battle of Austerlitz did 
 not heal the bitterness existing between the Russians and 
 Austrians since the war of J799 only six years before. The 
 Russians remembered the cruel snare set for old Suvorov, 
 because he laughed at the Aulic Council's plans, and how his 
 allies attempted to draw his whole army into the jaws of the 
 French ; and they said that Francis and his councillors, being 
 jealous at the checks Kutuzov opposed to their enemies, had 
 played the same game, and secretly bought hetter terms for 
 Austria by offering to lead Alexander and his forces to 
 destruction. Napoleon had long been a terror to the Austrians, 
 and a panic seemed to seize them as soon as they were face to 
 face with the French.* But Czartoriski still held by Austria 
 for the sake of Poland, and asked for the war to be sustained 
 only against Prussia. He was thought to be influenced by the 
 reigning Empress, who was jealous of the Queen, and he 
 addressed a long letter to Alexanderf (March 22nd, 1806), in 
 which, after enlarging on the empire's peril, he asked for his 
 own discharge, as he foresaw that the Poles might be impli- 
 cated in coming events ; and if the war approached their 
 borders, he could not answer for them. He would not even 
 answer for the Russians, who were now hardly able to bear 
 their diminished national glory. " The various reports cir- 
 culating in the two capitals make us very uneasy on .this subject." 
 He said that Alexander " took upon himself the sole responsi- 
 
 * Correspondan.ee du Prince A. Czartoriski, par Mazade. 
 t Sir Gr. Jackson, De Maistre, and others.
 
 288 Tlie Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 bility of every measure, and of its execution in the smallest 
 details, whereas the spirit of a bureaucracy ought to transfer 
 it to the ministers;" that in the most important crises he 
 decided matters involving the safety of the empire without 
 consulting any one ; that he had paid no attention to his 
 (Czartoriski's) advice in his choice of envoys and diplomatists. 
 " You have shown that you will not yield to importunate 
 suggestions, so now my resignation would not be attributed to 
 intrigues, which never influence your decisions, and it will 
 please many." He enclosed a memoir dated twelve days 
 later, intended only for the Emperor, as it is of his conduct 
 he particularly speaks. Yet it was written out in another 
 handwriting, a fact to which Alexander alludes in his reply. 
 It complains that he had rejected, " in a manner which gave no 
 hope that he would recur to any of them again, the plans 
 constantly laid before him during the last two years ; such as 
 taking possession of Moldavia and Wallachia, making the 
 Vistula -his frontier, the reunion of the Slavonic and Greek 
 people, &c. in short, acquiring those provinces for Russia 
 and securing commercial outlets. But events have shown the 
 urgent need of extending and securing our influence, of in- 
 creasing the limits and the means of the empire, either for 
 maintaining Russia in the place she ought to occupy, or for 
 establishing a durable peace. All would be based on the 
 purest and most disinterested sentiments ; but in the develop- 
 ment of measures required for the general welfare and common 
 defence circumstances would have led you in spite of yourself, 
 and without having dreamed of it, to obtain considerable 
 personal advantages. It was certainly the finest means, and 
 perhaps the surest of success ; and in two consecutive instances 
 we have been so near to it that we had only to persevere to 
 attain it." 
 
 Czartoriski adds, that he is perfectly aware no State measure 
 could ever be carried out of which Alexander did not thoroughly 
 approve, and that no system not based on patriotic and 
 generous motives would gain his approbation : yet that he 
 had evident misgivings as to their late policy, " and gave him- 
 self over to regrets painful for himself, and still more for his 
 Cabinet." Czartoriski had pointed out they had gone too far to 
 recede, but Alexander would certainly be reproached with
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz, 289 
 
 the over-caution his ministers had displayed, through fear of 
 acting contrary to his wishes. " When the news of the Due 
 d'Enghien's death reached us, anxious as I was in my private 
 capacity to express my horror and relieve the noble and 
 energetic sentiments which guided my heart, I proposed no 
 step such as those taken ; the despatches I prepared contained 
 very warm, but not public representations, and it was you who 
 alone gave the impulse on that occasion. I own that, far 
 from seeing this flight with regret, I rejoiced, and would 
 not stop it by remonstrances, though knowing the conse- 
 quences, and that the threatened war would now be inevitable/' 
 He was sure Alexander " hoped throughout to avoid active 
 hostilities, thinking that Austria had not courage to begin, for 
 he refused to call out a sufficient levy of recruits in 1804, 
 in spite of repeated representations. His Majesty must also 
 blame himself for two great faults : the first, not employing, 
 as he had been advised, large forces in Georgia to put an end 
 to the Caucasian war (though, as the result proved, it was not 
 of a nature to be finished at once) ; and of not ordering his 
 troops to march earlier for Austria, and against Prussia. 
 Suvorov said, that one moment decides a battle, an hour the 
 campaign, and a day the fate of empires; but Bonaparte is 
 the only man in Europe who knows the value of time, and 
 that is enough to give him constant success. He profits by the 
 present moment without troubling himself about the con- 
 sequences." England and Austria had both approved of using 
 force with Prussia, and the plan had been arranged with that 
 view. Yet Alexander told his ministers he only wished to 
 join against France, on the great probability, and almost 
 certainty, that the King would be his ally. Czartoriski 
 entreats Alexander to believe that his freedom of speech is the 
 result of his loyalty, for he attributes their disasters to the 
 interview at Memel. " I regard that interview as one of the 
 most unfortunate of events," both from. its immediate con- 
 sequences, those present, and those to come. " The warm 
 friendship you contracted there with the King at the end of a few 
 days, caused Prussia to be looked upon as a person who was 
 dear to you and to whom you were indebted, not in the light 
 of a political State. This personal tie with the Sovereign of a 
 Power whose interests are chiefly opposed to Russia, tram- 
 VOL. i. a
 
 290 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 melled your Cabinet, and prevented it from acting vigorously 
 at the opening of the campaign. You would not permit any 
 hostile plan against Prussia; you even reproached yourself for 
 your middle course, instead of weighing the interests of a 
 State against a State ; the more so as the King has proved he 
 is perfectly incapable of appreciating or responding to such 
 sentiments." Alexander suspended the entrance of the troops 
 into Prussia instead of making war with her, as his Cabinet 
 proposed on receiving certain despatches from his envoy at 
 Berlin, which after all were in error, and Russia had only 
 exacted submission to her will : whereas, by Prussia's conduct 
 towards Napoleon after the violation of her territory at 
 Anspach, she showed that she might always be intimidated, and 
 she would have wished to treat before the Russians had 
 defeated her in one battle. " We should have hastened to 
 reduce Prussia as Bonaparte reduced Austria, and it would 
 have cost us less. I consider this counter-order and your 
 departure for the army as the causes of the late calami- 
 ties/' 
 
 He then reminds the Emperor that he had used every argu- 
 ment to induce him not to join his army, lest Court and party 
 intrigues should be removed to the camp. The generals would 
 no longer pay the same attention to their business, and a 
 sovereign ought never to run the risk of sharing in a defeat. 
 The whole army longed to attack the Prussians, and then 
 the Poles would have rallied round him ; but every day's delay 
 in the Russians entering Prussia was a day gained for France 
 and lost for Europe. He complains that on the journey to 
 Pulawy and Berlin, Alexander had given his ministers few 
 opportunities of consulting with him, except at the post-houses 
 on the way; that he had reproached himself for all that had 
 been done, and visibly regretted it; that he had shown a predilec- 
 tion for the Prussians which in their eyes weakened the arguments 
 of his ministers, and " made worse the stipulations of the 
 unfortunate Treaty of Potsdam, to which I shall always regret 
 that the concourse of circumstances forced me to put my 
 name/' 
 
 " On your arrival at Olmutz two ruling opinions prevailed. 
 Some wished to quit the neighbourhood without striking a 
 blow ; others to fight as soon as possible, and then leave it.
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 291 
 
 We heard of nothing but complaints of famine and the Aus- 
 trians, .... so that the two allied armies soon hated each other 
 more than the French. As to the famine, the same want of 
 food had been endured till then ; the army had been more 
 fatigued, yet you heard no complaints. The troops fought, 
 supposing you wished to bring your enterprise to a fortunate 
 end, cost what it might. As soon as you arrived you were 
 overwhelmed with complaints, which ought to be severely 
 repressed, as they only make hardships more poignant. What- 
 ever privations the troops had to support they should have 
 been endured patiently, rather than ruin Europe and the credit 
 of the Russian armies. 
 
 " It signified little, sire, that you showed personal courage 
 in a battle. . . . Instead of constantly visiting the advanced 
 posts, or later exposing yourself in front of the columns, you 
 should have remained in the rear of the army, not accompany- 
 ing any of its movements. . . . The prosperity of Russia and 
 the fate of Europe were attached to your person, so that to 
 let you incur danger was to place on a card the fate of the 
 country which had put its safety in your hands, and of the 
 millions of men to whom it belonged. It was to make them 
 risk the same dangers, and to act culpably towards them. 
 There was no sort of entreaty we did not offer, but without 
 effect, and at last you did not even let us speak to you on the 
 subject. Yet if you had taken this advice, and your reputation 
 for personal courage had been compromised, you would have had 
 time enough to re-establish it. If you had not been with 
 the army, but approached it and shown yourself to the troops 
 after the battle, the sight of you would have produced the 
 same useful and touching effect which you saw with so much 
 pleasure at Olmutz. But you have weakened that charm ; 
 your presence was no advantage at Austerlitz ; and your 
 departure from Holitz, which was only a consequence of your 
 arrival and, if I dare say so, ill-judged increased the general 
 discouragement. Before this last crisis the generals felt how 
 much your person increased the difficulty of their operations, 
 and insisted that you should not expose yourself to gratuitous 
 dangers. You would not listen, and may reproach yourself 
 with being influenced only by personal feelings, without respect 
 to the welfare of Russia and all Europe,"
 
 292 The Campaign of Ausferlitz. 
 
 Czartoriski apologizes for the length of his memorial, which 
 he is afraid the Emperor will find " at least fatiguing/' but 
 begs that he will hear him to the end. He draws an ideal 
 picture of a sovereign, and warns Alexander against the fear 
 of being influenced by those around him, and the desire to 
 direct everything in person, so as not to leave himself time to 
 attend to his own task, " which is the most essential and most 
 difficult, and without which all the rest cannot move. A 
 sovereign," he adds, " placed at the centre of reunion of so 
 many different rays should only occupy himself with grand 
 directions and general outlines. A man's time and faculties 
 are limited ; the same person cannot be at once officer, colonel, 
 general, secretary, minister, &c., and sovereign." Czartoriski's 
 Polish birth, his English education, and his residence in Austria 
 had given him an oligarchical notion of government ; but if 
 he had looked back only fifteen years into the history of Russia, 
 he would have seen how the system he advocated had been 
 carried on under Catherine, and produced misery and mal- 
 administration in the provinces distant from the seat of empire. 
 An order emanated from the highest authorities, and was 
 obeyed at a cost of life and treasure far out of all proportion 
 to the object. To keep apart from the executive government 
 to leave all to the ministers has ever been the advice of a 
 powerful aristocracy to their rulers, whose greatest sin in the 
 eyes of the nobles was interfering between the privileged 
 classes and their serfs. Czartoriski possessed the old-fashioned 
 views of a Polish magnate, and showed the same indifference 
 to the sufferings of the common soldier, particularly when he 
 was a Russian, who, though exhausted by fatigue and famine, 
 must still be called upon to perform his task, which in this 
 instance was no patriotic duty, but only that of protecting the 
 Austrian empire, for which Czartoriski hoped to procure from 
 her gratitude the liberation of Galicia. He was disappointed 
 at the failure of his cherished scheme ; and, as he had pressed 
 for the alliance with Austria entirely in the Polish interest, he 
 was now anxious to exonerate her. 
 
 The death of William Pitt, January 23rd, 1806, and the 
 accession to power of the Liberal ministry, including Charles 
 Fox, produced a considerable change in the aspect of the war, 
 for the new British Cabinet protested against its continuance
 
 T7ie Campaign of Austerlitz. 293 
 
 before it entered office, and now seemed bent on obtaining an 
 honourable peace. Alexander had no wish to begin another 
 campaign without a single ally, and without the means of pro- 
 curing the necessary funds except by imposing an additional 
 tax upon his people; and at the instigation of the French 
 minister at Constantinople, the Turks were defying their ancient 
 enemy, so that with a war still dragging on with Persia, and 
 the need of a strong force on the Danube, he had every reason 
 to look favourably on Napoleon's overtures, and resolved to 
 send an envoy to Paris. But a peace at this juncture would 
 completely destroy Czartoriski's hope of wresting Posen by 
 force or intimidation from Prussia, and bribing Austria to 
 relinquish Galicia by offering to exchange it with Moldavia and 
 Wallachia, or some other convenient province in the Turkish 
 empire. It was Poland's interest to exhaust the Russian em- 
 pire in men and money, by sustaining the war with France, 
 that hereafter they might meet on an equality. While he 
 complains that his sovereign would not listen to his counsels, 
 but followed his own views, he still admits that the whole 
 Russian army were disgusted with the Austrians, and anxious 
 to conclude the campaign ; and in a subsequent letter he com- 
 plains of Alexander having carried out the unanimous wishes 
 of the Russian ministry, bat then it was a matter which 
 affected the Poles, and decreed the confiscation of the property 
 of those who had taken up arms under Napoleon against 
 Russia. As regarded Alexander's presence with his army, this 
 criticism seems to have had effect on later occasions, till dis- 
 sensions in the Russian camp rendered it necessary to secure 
 order; and it is acknowledged, both by his enemies and allies, 
 that the campaigns of 1813-14 would never have been carried 
 out successfully if he had not accompanied his own troops; yet 
 even then his safety was thought too great a stake to be placed 
 on any interest not immediately connected with the direct 
 integrity of his empire. Czartoriski says that Alexander 
 exhausted his time and strength in " employments of little 
 use." These were a minute inspection of hospitals, prisons, 
 schools, regiments, legal procedures, and other institutions 
 still in their infancy. Poland was an awful warning of the 
 danger, in a primitive country, of the lax exercise of the 
 sovereign power. He adds, that if Alexander had not beeiji
 
 294 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 with the army/ and the battle had been lost, the generals 
 would have performed impossible feats to draw themselves out 
 of the scrape. He refers to the confusion at Holitz, where 
 the Russians accused the Austrians of treachery. " It was said 
 you had done enough for others, and ought to think of Russia, 
 as if your safety had nothing in common with the fall of 
 Austria; and this is what you thought fit to reply when I spoke 
 in favour of the King of Naples. I requested the Emperor 
 Francis several times to explain himself to you, hoping it would 
 obtain a favourable answer, but on setting out you told him 
 he could no longer count on your army. This I heard after 
 your departure." It therefore appears that Francis regretted, 
 or pretended to regret, the hasty peace he had concluded ; and 
 having heard from his brothers, only wished the Russians to 
 feign a retreat towards their own frontiers a retreat he had 
 engaged for them to complete within a month. But he could 
 not expect Russia to follow the intricacies of his vacillating 
 policy ; and, except in the eyes of a biassed diplomatist like 
 Czartoriski. her proper course was to fulfil the conditions he 
 had accepted on her behalf. Haugwitz had already ignored 
 the Treaty of Potsdam, and concluded another with the French, 
 for the faction opposed to a Russian alliance still held office 
 in Berlin, where Napoleon was secretly influencing the King. 
 
 Czartoriski says he took upon himself to write to Berlin in 
 quite another sense, and displeased Alexander, though his 
 despatches could have no effect on a Court like Prussia, and 
 that the Czar was enough to prevent it, when on his return he 
 told the Prussian minister he left her at liberty to make terms 
 with France. He had also rejected his counsel to employ the 
 Russian forces in the Mediterranean on behalf of the King of 
 Naples ; and when he had strongly advised him " neither to 
 affront nor embitter Napoleon, but to be very circumspect 
 with regard to him, even to coax him, and not to break off 
 all communication with him," he had neglected a most favour- 
 able opportunity of " sounding his ideas, and ascertaining 
 what offers that extraordinary man would be tempted to make 
 to us/' He complains that Alexander does not place confi- 
 dence in his ministers or value their advice, which they do 
 not care to offer if it is never adopted.* After events proved 
 * The letter and memorial extend over thirty-nine pages.
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 295 
 
 that Bonaparte had no system of policy except self-aggrandize- 
 ment, and the advantage of a personal conference with the 
 French ruler was shown a year later at Tilsit. Czartoriski 
 advised Russia to adopt the very system Alexander condemned 
 in Napoleon, and the chief cause of the war the extension 
 of his frontiers at the expense of his neighbours, and compel- 
 ling them to acquiesce in his views by intimidation or force. 
 Napoleon had undoubtedly increased his own power by disre- 
 garding all principles of justice or international law ; but was 
 Alexander to imitate his example when he had acted so dis- 
 interested a part, only appearing on the arena as the protector 
 of the weak and the champion of national independence ? 
 Czartoriski urged upon him at Pulawy, in October, 1805, the 
 need of at once proclaiming himself King of Poland ; but 
 he refused, on the ground that he should be acting falsely by 
 Austria and Prussia, and throw them both into the arms of 
 France. Czartoriski complained that, from that time, Alexander 
 seemed to avoid him ; but it was natural that the Emperor 
 should not seek for repeated private interviews with a coun- 
 sellor whose only remedy for existing evils was to remind him 
 constantly of the promises of his youth, when, with the gene- 
 rous enthusiasm of seventeen, he had pledged himself to 
 restore a national government and her severed limbs to 
 Poland ; while at this moment he felt himself unable to fulfil 
 them with honour, as to proclaim himself King of Poland 
 would have involved a demand from Austria and Prussia of 
 the Polish provinces incorporated in their empires. His answer, 
 written in pencil, and dated 1806, is commendable for its 
 moderation, as Czartoriski, being well acquainted with his sus- 
 ceptible temperament his habit of accusing himself or his 
 evil destiny when anything went wrong, and the remorse he 
 felt after Austerlitz at the fruitless sacrifice of human life had 
 contrived to inflict many severe wounds : 
 
 " I have received the paper you thought fit to address to 
 me. You desire an audience. I am ready to give it; but I 
 must tell you that I believe it will be of no use, the bases 
 from which we set out being so diametrically opposed. 
 
 " After commenting on the critical position of Russia and the 
 evils that she has to fear, the only means that you propose are 
 nearly reduced to these :
 
 296 The Campaign of Austcrlitz. 
 
 11 First, to declare myself King of Poland. 
 
 " Secondly, to change the individuals at the head of the de- 
 partments of War and of the Exterior. 
 
 " It would be too long to discuss the first article ; but I am 
 ready to explain my views, and the reasons which guide my 
 conduct. As to the second, I am satisfied with the services of 
 the two ministers who are intrusted with the above-mentioned 
 departments. Besides, I see no one who could replace them. 
 Where is this consummate minister who would secure universal 
 approval? Is it General Soutchelen ? I decidedly do not con- 
 sider him to possess the qualities required by a minister of War ; 
 and, between the two, I should not for a moment hesitate in 
 giving the preference to General Viasnitinof" (then in office). 
 " For the rest, I cannot even imagine who else you propose. 
 At the same time I see no one for the department of Foreign 
 Affairs. Is it Panine, or Markof ? I must esteem those with 
 whom I work, else I cannot give them my confidence. I 
 trouble myself little about clamours; they are usually only 
 the effect of party spirit. Are not you an example of it ? and 
 have not you been exposed to criticism, to the animosity of 
 all the public ? I have only one more observation to make, 
 that I cannot pass over in silence. It would have been better 
 that the comite* should not have made use of a strange hand 
 to write a fair copy of a paper such as I am answering. 
 Before reassembling we must first make the agreement that, 
 notwithstanding all that may be said in this circle, our 
 individual and mutual relations remain intact ; taking for 
 example the members of the English Parliament, who, after 
 having said the strongest things at their meetings, carried away 
 by the warmth that is inspired by public affairs, come away 
 still continuing the best friends in the world. Ever yours, &c., 
 
 " ALEXANDER." 
 
 Czartoriski was apparently rather hurt by this brief reply, 
 for his answer elicited a second letter from the Emperor : 
 " 1 was far," writes Alexander, " from intending to give 
 
 * The comite, or circle, has been mentioned before as consisting of 
 Strogonof, Novossilzof, Count Kotchoubey, Galitzin, and Czartoriski, and 
 was so called when they first used to spend their evenings with Alexander 
 iu the time of Catherine II.
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 297 
 
 you pain. Speaking of such serious affairs, I must do so 
 according to my conviction, and I so expressed myself. At the 
 end of the memoir you offered to present me with a detailed 
 and general plan of the measures to be taken in consequence of 
 those that you proposed to me. If you wish you can assemble 
 (I mean the select comite) to-morrow after dinner at six 
 o'clock, and we will discuss this plan together. Ever yours, 
 with heart and soul, " ALEXANDER. " 
 
 The refusal of Russia to include herself in the peace of 
 Presburg (between France and Austria) undoubtedly caused 
 Napoleon to grant comparatively easy terms to his humbled 
 adversary, for he felt he might hereafter require her as an 
 ally if Russia persisted in a hostile attitude. " I will have 
 no alliance with a Power so changeable and so contemptible" 
 (as Prussia), he wrote to Joseph from Wurzburg, October 3rd, 
 1806. " I want a continental alliance to support my mari- 
 time projects. Circumstances led me to one with Prussia;; 
 but she is now as she was in 1740, and always has been, 
 without consistency and without honour. Of the three Powers 
 Russia, Prussia, and Austria, I want one for an ally. Prussia 
 can never be trusted ; there remains Russia and Austria. An 
 Austrian alliance once enabled us to be strong at sea. An 
 alliance based on the independence of Turkey guaranteed by 
 us, and with a mutual understanding securing the peace of 
 Europe, would enable me to turn my attention to my fleet. 
 Austria has often hinted this to me." It was evident to con- 
 tinental statesmen that the interests of Austria and R-ussia 
 were too opposite for them to become firm allies ; while the 
 interests of Prussia and France were more likely to come into 
 collision than those of France and Austria when the Emperor 
 Francis consented to relinquish all claim to Northern Italy. 
 It would have been the height of folly in Napoleon to have 
 turned Austria into an irrevocable enemy, when she had been 
 wavering throughout the war between her adversary and her 
 friend. She was, nevertheless, compelled to pay its expenses, 
 and contributed altogether 5,100,000/., equal to twice the sum 
 in England, to enrich her despoilers ; and a portion of her 
 territory was divided between Baden and Bavaria; but these 
 sacrifices were small in comparison with what was afterwards
 
 298 Tlie Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 exacted from Prussia, though on various pretences the French 
 army allowed far more than the stipulated three months to 
 elapse before it restored her garrison towns. 
 
 One of the earliest consequences of the defeat of Austerlitz 
 was the deposition of the Bourbon dynasty in Naples, which 
 was replaced by Joseph, Napoleon's elder brother, February 
 15th, 1806. The kingdom of the Two Sicilies had been protected 
 for some time by the united fleets of England and Russia 
 although the Queen, an Austrian Princess, had done little to 
 merit Russian assistance, having more than once imperilled 
 diplomatic negotiations by her treatment of Russian subjects. 
 A French army of 50,000 men entered the country as soon as 
 it was known they were no longer required in Germany, and 
 the Court and Government officials fled to Palermo, escorted 
 by the allied fleet ; after which the Russian admiral, Siniavine, 
 sailed to Corfu ; and to strengthen his position in the Ionian 
 Isles, at the request of the Montenegrins, but without Alex- 
 ander's orders, took possession of the old Venetian fort of 
 Castel Nuovo, at the mouth of the Cattaro, on the coast of 
 Dalmatia, just as the Austrians had ceded it to the French, 
 according to an article of the Treaty of Presburg. Lauris- 
 ton, the French commander, seized on Ragusa, which was 
 inhabited by Albanian Christians and belonged to Turkey ; 
 and he was soon closely besieged by the Russians and their 
 Montenegrin allies. This caused some irritation in the 
 Austrian Cabinet, as Napoleon threatened to hold her respon- 
 sible ; and on her sending representations to Russia, Alexander 
 made it the ground for despatching a commissioner to Paris, 
 M. d'Oubril, who was charged with effecting a settlement of 
 the difficulties in Dalmatia, and also to listen to Napoleon's 
 proposals for peace. England was engaged in negotiating a 
 treaty with France ; but after offering to accept the terms of 
 the Peace of Amiens as a basis, the French diplomatists, find- 
 ing that England was willing to go so far, thought they might 
 press her still further, and demanded Sicily as a counterpoise 
 to Malta ; and this was the point upon which it was finally 
 broken off. D'Oubril's instructions, signed by Alexander and 
 Czartoriski, were to conclude a treaty with France, if possible, 
 in concert with England ; and it was only to be a separate 
 one in case England ended her negotiations without con-
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 299 
 
 eluding a peace. He acted contrary to the spirit of his 
 instructions by signing a provisional treaty of peace ; while 
 Lord Yarmouth, the English plenipotentiary, was still cor- 
 responding with his Government, and Charles Fox, the 
 British minister for Foreign Affairs, was corresponding with 
 St. Petersburg, relative to the fate of Sicily ; so that 
 Napoleon, emboldened by having gained Russia, was the 
 more inclined to insist on- the same demands from England, 
 whom he thought would not willingly separate from her 
 one active ally. " In the present circumstances of Europe/' 
 Fox wrote to Lord Yarmouth, "the last hope of averting 
 these dangers (dangers that threatened Germany, Switzer- 
 land, Sweden, the Ottoman Porte, Spain, and Portugal) 
 is to be found in the union of the only two Powers on 
 whom France has made no impression Great .Britain and 
 Russia/'* The contents of this letter were made known to 
 Napoleon through his post-office spies, and he hastened to 
 induce D'Oubril to put his signature to a treaty containing the 
 terms he had proposed, and to which he believed the Liberal 
 Cabinet of Great Britain would accede if they were once 
 accepted by Russia. D'Oubril afterwards declared, that before 
 he signed the treaty Napoleon spent several hours with him, 
 using every argument both of persuasion and menace, till at 
 last, to use his own phrase, " il n'en pouvait plus/' and he took 
 up the pen declaring that he put his name with a halter about 
 his neck to a treaty which he knew would never be ratified. 
 " I go to lay the treaty and my head at the feet of my 
 Imperial master," he said, as he quitted Paris. Yet common 
 report in the French capital declared he was heavily bribed. 
 The treaty stipulated that the mouths of the Cattaro should 
 be surrendered to France, and that the French troops evacuate 
 Germany within three months, the Empire remaining in statu 
 quo. France and Russia were to guarantee the integrity of 
 the Turkish empire, and the King of Naples was to relinquish 
 Sicily, his son receiving the Balearic Islands in exchange for 
 the paternal inheritance. England was to keep Hanover, 
 Malta, and the colonies she had acquired during the war ; and 
 Sweden was to retain her Pomeranian possessions. An inti- 
 mation was conveyed to Alexander that Napoleon would offer no 
 * A Mission to the Court of Austria in 1806, by Sir E. Adair.
 
 300 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 opposition if lie chose to separate Posen, the Duchy of Warsaw, 
 and Galicia from Prussia and Austria, and, uniting them with 
 the Russo-Polish provinces, place his brother Constantine at 
 the head of an independent Poland. Such a proposal would 
 have satisfied Czartoriski; but he resigned his office in the 
 Russian ministry in June, 1806, and the treaty was not signed 
 in Paris till the following July. Napoleon felt certain it 
 would be accepted ; he immediately wrote to announce it to 
 his brother Joseph. " You may proclaim it" he said, " but 
 must not appear too glad, as that would injure our reputation 
 for power/' 
 
 A letter from Alexander to Czartoriski, before his resigna- 
 tion, refers to the peace negotiations, Voronzov being still the 
 Russian ambassador in London, though Count Strogonof was 
 sent there on an extraordinary mission after Austerlitz. 
 
 " 1806. 
 
 " Here, my dear friend, are the papers that you sent me. 
 Voronzov's despatch vexes me exceedingly. Is it right for a 
 single individual* to put on one side the cause of humanity ? 
 Why could not Novossilzof acquit himself of his commission ? 
 When Voronzov is furnished with precise orders, he must fulfil 
 them or quit his place. The note and the ostensible despatch 
 are approved, as well as the despatch concerning Cobentzel. On 
 this, which ought to serve as an explanation, I have some 
 observations to make. First, you have spoilt me by your style, 
 
 and that of M. loses greatly in comparison. Theii it 
 
 appears to me that at the first N.B. we might add at the end 
 of the condition sine qud non, that we might consent to 
 evacuate Corfu in reciprocity, only leaving there the corps " 
 (composed of lonians) " commanded by Nasimof. The second 
 N.B. only concerns the person of Count Stakelberg. Do we 
 know him enough to intrust him with a negotiation so 
 important, and would it not be better to send some one more 
 certain, like Budberg? 
 
 " I cannot approve the composition of the third N.B. ; it 
 
 appears to me inappropriate. How do we find displeasure in 
 
 what is the object of our wishes, and is it not saying in other 
 
 words : ( Try to make the thing fail without it appearing like 
 
 * Probably he meant the King of Naples.
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 301 
 
 our fault ?' These are the observations I have to make to this 
 despatch, of which I otherwise approve. I seal my cover with 
 Count Tolstoi's seal, not having mine with me. Ever yours, 
 
 " ALEXANDER." 
 
 Before D'Oubril reached St. Petersburg with the new treaty, 
 it was already broken by the dissolution of the German empire, 
 long only a phantom, and now pierced to its centre by the States 
 called the Confederation of the Rhine declaring themselves for 
 ever separated from the " Holy Roman Empire," and under the 
 protection of the French Emperor. These were the kingdom of 
 Bavaria, now as large and powerful as Prussia before the victo- 
 ries of Frederick the Great, the kingdom of Wiirtemberg, the 
 Archbishop of Ratisbon, the Elector of Baden,* the Grand 
 Duke of Berg, the Landgrave of Hesse- Darmstadt, the 
 Princes of Nassau Weilberg, Nassau Usingen, Hohenzollern 
 Hechingen, Salm-Salm, and various other German miniature 
 sovereignties. They gave as a reason that, owing to the declin- 
 ing power of the Austrian monarchy, they were forced to seek 
 another protector " from the growing strength of Russia, 
 whom Austria had even summoned to her assistance," and 
 they engaged to furnish France with a perpetual military 
 contingent of 58,000 men. On March 15th Napoleon's 
 brother-in-law, Murat, was invested with the duchies of Berg 
 and Cleves, and towards the end of April the French troops 
 took possession of the abbacies of Werdeii, Essen, and Elten, and 
 united them to Murat's duchies, though they had been long 
 considered as dependencies of Prussia. A little later the 
 French generals burned every species of merchandise sus- 
 pected of being English in the city of Bremen, and made a new 
 requisition of 240,000/. from Hamburg and the free towns of 
 North Germany. When D'Oubril arrived at St. Petersburg 
 with his treaty, which was to set the seal of approval to those 
 violent acts, Alexander repulsed it with scorn, and his new 
 ministry, headed by Baron Budberg and composed of noble- 
 men attached to England by feeling and interest, warmly 
 supported him in his refusal to ratify it, though it was by no 
 means contrary to the private advantage of Russia. " The 
 
 * Thiers says that the politics of Baden were directed in favour of 
 France through the influence of the morganatic wife of the old Elector.
 
 302 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 pretended deed of pacification," said the act of disavowal, " con- 
 cluded by M. d'Oubril was submitted to a council speedily sum- 
 moned, and compared with the instructions he had received here 
 and those transmitted to him before his departure from Vienna, 
 and they found that M. d'Oubril in signing that treaty has not 
 only deviated from them, but acted directly contrary to the sense 
 and spirit of the orders themselves/' D'Oubril was banished 
 to his estates ; for there was an important difference between 
 signing a separate treaty only in case England entirely broke 
 off her negotiations, and in signing one before she had come to 
 any decision on the subject ; a difference which has not been 
 perceived by those who have accused the Russian Cabinet of 
 duplicity on this occasion. Her envoy had certainly shown 
 himself unequal to deal with a minister so slippery and 
 equivocating as Talleyrand ; for as soon as D'Oubril had left 
 Paris, the French minister told Lord Yarmouth that the 
 Emperor having heard from his brother Joseph that he could 
 not maintain Naples without Sicily, this island must not be 
 left as proposed in the hands of England, or of her ally, but 
 the ex-King of Naples should receive Dalmatia, Albania, and 
 Ragusa as a substitute ; offering him a part of the Turkish 
 empire, which France had just engaged to maintain intact. 
 Charles Fox died September 13th, having survived his dis- 
 tinguished rival Pitt scarcely eight months. During this 
 time he owned to " having been weaned from the opinions 
 he formerly held/' and that it was impossible " in the actual 
 state of affairs to be sanguine as to the conclusion of a 
 safe and honourable peace;"* a declaration which, added to 
 the negotiation in Paris being broken off under his auspices, 
 directly contradicts Napoleon's statement at St. Helena, that 
 if Fox had lived he would have concluded peace with France. 
 In fact, with such a perfectly lawless and dishonourable 
 government as that of Napoleon, it was impossible for an 
 upright and independent nation to remain for any length of 
 time on amicable terms. When events proved to him how 
 the short sight and dishonesty of his foreign policy had 
 completely deprived France of the benefit of his victories, 
 he tried to justify himself by alleging that " he was never 
 master of his own movements, but was always governed 
 * In the House of Commons, April 3rd, 1806.
 
 TJie Campaign of Austeiiitz. 303 
 
 by circumstances."* This was probably true, and he was 
 urged on to new encroachments by the rapacity of his 
 brothers and generals, who seeing a comrade rise so far 
 above them, clamoured for sovereignties or fortunes, and 
 would not be suppressed. Murat's officers told him it 
 was shameful that the brother-in-law of the Emperor should 
 only command a small duchy, and a part of the Prussian 
 province of Westphalia was accordingly seized to add to his 
 possessions. Then he wanted to be a king, and Napoleon 
 thought of getting rid of him by making him Sovereign of 
 Poland. As regarded Naples, no government could possibly 
 be much worse than the one Joseph Bonaparte replaced, and 
 the advantages of his administration were soon felt through- 
 out the country. Holland, which received a king in Louis 
 Bonaparte, June 5th, ] 806, was differently situated. She had 
 acquired riches and a naval fame, rivalling even that of 
 England, under republican institutions, and it was a fellow 
 feeling for democracy which induced her to hold out a friendly 
 hand to France. During their alliance she had lost her most 
 valuable colonies, the Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon, Surinam, 
 Java, and Sumatra, which Napoleon could not prevent falling 
 into the hands of the English; and now, stripped of all the 
 sources of her wealth, she was compelled to accept an heredi- 
 tary sovereign in the brother of the Emperor, who was by no 
 means anxious to take on himself so ungrateful an office, and 
 exchange the amusements of Paris for the fogs of the Hague. 
 The new King of Holland was married to Hortense Beauhar- 
 nais, the daughter of the Empress Josephine, who arranged 
 their union in the hope of seeing her own descendants even- 
 tually occupy her husband's throne. In default of direct heirs 
 of Napoleon, the succession was arranged to devolve on the 
 children of Louis, and a son born in 1803 was brought 
 up at the Tuileries, and regarded by most people as the 
 future sovereign of France. Thither Hortense soon resorted, 
 weary of an indifferent husband, and sighing for the gaieties 
 of the Imperial Court. Her brother Eugene, in 1806, was 
 appointed Vice- King of Italy, and married to a princess of 
 Bavaria, who was betrothed to the young Prince of Baden, 
 the brother of the Empress of Russia. But Napoleon supplied 
 * Las Casas, vii. 124.
 
 304 T7ie Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 the disappointed suitor with another bride in Josephine's 
 niece, Stephanie Beauharnais. Altogether the progress of the 
 Bonaparte interests, their continual aggressive policy and 
 the insolence and exactions of the Imperial lieutenants, was 
 sufficient to give alarm to the other Powers of Europe, and 
 these considerations, the manner in which it had been pro- 
 cured, and the pressure the British Cabinet was putting on 
 the Russian ministers, induced Alexander to reject D'OubriFs 
 treaty more than the actual terms which the treaty secured 
 for Russia. Napoleon was much annoyed, as he had just 
 irritated Prussia beyond further forbearance, and had no wish 
 to enter upon a war with both the Northern Powers at the 
 same time. He wrote immediately to his ambassador at 
 Vienna : " I am resolved to be no longer the ally of so versa- 
 tile and contemptible a power as Prussia. I shall keep at 
 peace with her no doubt, because I have no right to shed the 
 blood of my people on vain pretences. However, the want of 
 turning my efforts to the side of my navy renders an alliance 
 necessary to me on the Continent. I have esteemed the 
 Emperor of Austria. I believe him constant and attached to 
 his word. You must explain yourself in that sense without, 
 however, putting a misplaced eagerness in it." 
 
 Both ED gland and Austria were anxious above everything 
 to prevent an alliance between Russia and France, which 
 still seemed possible ; for when Alexander refused to ratify 
 D'OubriPs treaty, he professed his willingness to negotiate on 
 the basis he had already forwarded to the Tuileries, the 
 principal point being the immediate evacuation of Austria ; 
 but before any further adjustment had been proposed, Prussia 
 was most unexpectedly crushed, and the Czar was constrained 
 to step forward for her deliverance, and engage in a desperate 
 struggle with her adversary over her almost lifeless form. 
 Russia had exercised no pressure since Austerlitz to induce 
 her at last to offer some resistance to the ceaseless breach of 
 treaties on the part of France, and prove that she was still an 
 independent Power. The King clung with the greatest tenacity 
 to Hanover and his Polish provinces, and after Napoleon had 
 given him the first Electorate, and he had further irritated 
 the English by excluding their commerce from its ports, he 
 discovered that Talleyrand had offered to restore it to
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 305 
 
 George III. France had engaged to Russia to prevent Prussia 
 from indemnifying herself with the King of Sweden's German 
 provinces, and at the same time offered them to Prussia as an 
 exchange for Westphalia. She proposed to Alexander to 
 restore Poland under his brother Constantino, and in 1806 or- 
 ganized a Polish legion to operate in Germany, and not as 
 heretofore only in Italy, or in a virtual exile like San Domingo. 
 The German property of the King's brother-in-law, the Prince 
 of Orange, was made over to Bernadotte; and the Queen's 
 brother-in-law was insulted by the French, and a bookseller 
 of Nuremburg tried and executed in his domains because he 
 had published a book by Arndt, entitled " The Humiliation of 
 Germany." France offered to permit Prussia to form a league 
 with the States in Northern Germany, but immediately after- 
 wards claimed the Hanse towns for herself, and also specially 
 excepted Saxony and the Elector of Hesse. The public indig- 
 nation at Berlin was no longer to be resisted, and the hatred 
 of France overcame the jealousy of Russia. The Prussian 
 army had been reduced only four months before, and every- 
 thing betokened peace in the North of Europe ; but now 
 Prince Louis and the war party openly boasted that Prussia, 
 single-handed, was perfectly competent to strike down the con- 
 queror who had levelled Austria to the dust, and without waiting 
 for the co-operation of Russia, or endeavouring to reconcile her- 
 self with the sister German empire, still kept in control by 
 French garrisons, she sent an envoy to London to compose 
 her differences with England and Sweden, and prepared -to 
 fling down the gauntlet in the face of France. " The whole 
 of the Prussian army is made mobile in consequence of 
 Bonaparte having announced his intention of taking his Prussian 
 Majesty's Westphalian possessions," writes Jackson, August 
 26th, 1806.* "The King, it seems, is really determined to 
 resist. Alexander's refusal to ratify D'Oubril's treaty will infuse 
 fresh life and vigour at Berlin, but I rather expect the present 
 crisis will result in a peace." 
 
 " Frederick William III. of Prussia began by shedding 
 tears, not for the loss of his father, but from the labour and 
 trouble a crown brought with it, and this not from philosophy, 
 but from an indolent, selfish, sleepy, torpid mind ! He is 
 
 * Sir G. Jackson's Diary and Correspondence. 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 wilful and obstinate/' writes Lord Malmesbury, " yet without 
 a system or opinion ; he thinks he governs, but is governed and 
 betrayed by his ministers."* Yet no enemy could condemn 
 the King more than he accused himself in his answer to 
 Napoleon's information that the accumulation of French troops 
 on his frontiers owed their existence entirely to the armaments 
 of Prussia, and that he would disarm if Frederick William 
 would begin by doing the same. 
 
 In a long letter covering four sheets of large paper the 
 King, in the most open and straightforward manner, showed his 
 conduct towards Bonaparte, and the ingratitude and even 
 treachery with which he had been invariably treated by his 
 professed ally. " How did you requite me/' he wrote,f " for my 
 recognition of your Imperial dignity, for the many concessions 
 I made, for the marks of condescension I showed you ? By the 
 violation of a territory under my especial protection. Who 
 stifled the cry of indignation raised throughout Europe at the 
 murder of a prince who thought himself safe in a country of 
 whose government I again was a member ? Was it not I ? 
 Did not I undertake to convey your proposals to Louis XVIII., 
 and when that unfortunate prince rejected them, did not I 
 oblige him to seek an asylum in another country rather than 
 give you any cause for mistrust by allowing him to remain in 
 mine ? Three times during the last three years have not I 
 been on the point of entering into close alliance with you, and 
 only prevented by the exorbitancy of your demands ? To say 
 nothing of Switzerland, Genoa, &c., when you chose to place 
 the iron crown on your head, was not I the first to recognize 
 the act at the risk almost of violating a treaty? When the 
 Continental war broke out, I armed ostensibly to preserve my 
 neutrality ; but in fact, I was no longer neutral, for all my 
 armaments were directed against your enemies" (this gives a 
 further contradiction to the story of Alexander and Frederick 
 having taken an oath of alliance over the tomb at Potsdam). 
 " And when, in open defiance of your previous assurances, you 
 dared to invade my own immediate territories, and I could 
 no longer be wholly deaf to the indignant voice of my loyal 
 people, yet I hesitated, adopting finally an armed mediation, 
 
 * Lord Malmesbury's Diary and Correspondence, 
 f Sir G. Jackson's Diary, &c.
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 307 
 
 and proposed on your own plan, ' les traites, tous les traites, 
 rien que les traites.' At Vienna, again, with the hope of 
 obtaining better terms for Austria. I consented to forego 
 much on my own account ; but afterwards, when taking your 
 silence for consent to the representations I made to you at 
 Munich, I put my forces on the peace establishment. No sooner 
 had I done so than you took advantage of it to wrest fresh 
 sacrifices from me, offering as an equivalent a country not 
 your own, and which I had declared I could never take with- 
 out the consent of England." The King next accused Bona- 
 parte of intriguing with the German princes to prevent their 
 entering the Northern Confederation, and particularly with the 
 Elector of Hesse, who for his refusal was to be rewarded 
 with the dominions of another prince, " and that prince," 
 said the King, " my broth er-in -law. " He concluded his letter 
 with these words : " By such conduct as this you have at last 
 converted a sincere and even partial friend into a jealous 
 sovereign, alarmed for the safety of his dominions, and even 
 for his own existence." 
 
 This letter was revised by Frederick Gentz. Napoleon 
 called it a wretched pamphlet, merely because it spoke the 
 plain truth. " I am sorry for my brother," he said, " who 
 does not understand the French language, and has certainly 
 never read that rhapsody." 
 
 Once roused, the Government of Prussia lost no time in 
 preparing for action : the navigation of the Elbe was reopened 
 to English vessels, and the King sent Krusemarck to St. Peters- 
 burg to renew the alliance with Alexander on the terms of the 
 Treaty of Potsdam. But the overture was rather coldly received. 
 The Russian Cabinet had so little idea that any provocation 
 would now cause a rupture between Prussia and France, that it 
 believed it to be a plot originating in Paris, and the Emperor 
 answered, he should like to see a proof of her sincere intention 
 to oppose Napoleon before Russia took any active step in the 
 matter, particularly while Haugwitz was in office. The Russian 
 troops had returned to their peace quarters, or advanced to- 
 wards the Danube ; and a war for the benefit of Prussia, after 
 her recent neutrality during the campaign of Austerlitz, would 
 be most unpopular. However, Mr. Stuart, the British Secre- 
 tary of Legation at St. Petersburg, wrote home, October 9th,
 
 308 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 to his Government, that a Russian army under Benningsen had 
 orders to march immediately to Silesia to support the Prus- 
 sians and cover Bohemia, and the Emperor required Austria to 
 maintain at least a neutrality, so as not to permit a French 
 army by crossing her territories to menace the Russian left 
 flank. But he insisted, as the price of his alliance, that 
 Haugwitz should be dismissed from office, and to the great 
 joy of the war party in Berlin the King complied. 
 
 The Prussian army had altered nothing in dress, discipline, 
 or arms since the days of Frederick II., and for either health 
 or freedom of limb their uniform was the most inconvenient 
 they could have worn. Their generals had learned their duty 
 under the same commander, and since his reign had seen 
 very little active service ; a short campaign in Poland, 
 and a demonstration against the Republicans in France, in 
 1792, forming the extent of their military exploits. The 
 Duke of Brunswick, the commander-in-chief, a man of 
 seventy-two, obstinate and mistrustful, has gained an un- 
 deserved credit for barbarity by his proclamation on enter- 
 ing France, when he declared every Frenchman, either 
 soldier or civilian, found with arms, would be treated as a 
 rebel to his King; but there was not an instance in which 
 he really carried this severe sentence into force, and his 
 early defeat by Dumouriez gave him an almost exaggerated 
 impression of the formidable character of French troops. 
 Baron Muffling says that he heard more than once from his 
 own lips that he only accepted the command in 1806 as a 
 means of securing peace. He placed his faith in Lucchesini, 
 the Prussian ambassador in Paris, who assured him that 
 Napoleon would never become the aggressor ; he had also a 
 great predilection for the French nation, and he listened to 
 no advice except that of Prince Louis and the Elector of 
 Saxony, who prevailed on him to press forward his forces 
 through Saxony into S axe- Weimar to meet the enemy. But 
 with the halo of glory left by the Seven Years' War, all Europe 
 looked forward to a prolonged resistance on the part of 
 Prussia, and Napoleon addressing his assembled officers at 
 Mayence, said to them, " We shall have earth to move in 
 this war." The over-drilled Prussian army fell into the same 
 error as the Russians at Austerlitz, and spread out their
 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 309 
 
 forces into one long column. The Saxons turned traitors to 
 their German brothers, and were worse than useless, so that 
 when the French occupied the ground they had quitted in 
 the neighbourhood of Jena, they found the Prussians and 
 Saxons had attacked and pillaged each other, and the field 
 was strewed with broken chariots and arms as if they had 
 already been defeated. The Prussian army, including these 
 unfaithful allies, amounted to 150,000 men, and the French, 
 increased by its Swiss, Belgian, Polish, Italian, and German 
 contingents, numbered a still larger force. On October 15th 
 the battles of Jena and Auerstadt, gained by the French 
 under Napoleon and Davoust over the Prussians, com- 
 pletely annihilated the strength of Prussia. The aged Duke 
 of Brunswick and Prince Louis fell mortally wounded,* and 
 the King and his two brothers were also slightly struck in 
 the engagement ; on the 18th Erfurt capitulated to Murat, 
 and the Queen and her children fled to Stettin, whence they 
 were forced to retreat to Memel, for it surrendered with all 
 its military stores to Marshal Ney November 8th. The 
 Prussian garrisons vied with each other ID their haste to 
 capitulate to the enemy. Napoleon had long possessed him- 
 self of the plans of their fortresses ; the generals, actuated 
 by republican feeling and divided politics, which made many 
 desire peace with the same terms as Austria, rather than 
 owe success to Russia, laid down their arms in all directions, 
 and the French army made its triumphal entry into Berlin 
 October 27th, where the immense stores collected to supply the 
 Prussians furnished the French with arms and clothing 
 throughout the rest of the campaign. Potsdam was occupied 
 by the enemy, and Napoleon even carried off Frederick's 
 sword from the vault in the garrison church. A heavy con- 
 tribution was exacted from the inhabitants of all the districts 
 in the possession of the French, and the officers perpetrated 
 the most wanton mischief in the private houses where they 
 were billeted, imitating the conduct of their chief, who 
 stripped the palaces of all objects of value or especial 
 patriotic interest. With his usual want of chivalry, Napoleon 
 filled not only his bulletins, but paragraphs in the Berlin 
 newspapers with accusations of the unfortunate Queen, to whom 
 * Lord Malmesbury thought the duke had been assassinated.
 
 310 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 he attributed the unexpected energy the King had shown in 
 declaring war. 
 
 " It is singular," he wrote, October 23rd, " that the Emperor 
 Napoleon arrived at Potsdam, and entered the same apart- 
 ment the same day,* and almost at the same hour, as the 
 Emperor of Russia on the journey that this prince made last 
 year, and which was so fatal to Prussia. From that moment 
 the Queen left the care of her domestic affairs, and the 
 serious occupations of the toilette, to mix herself up in State 
 business to influence the King, and spread everywhere the 
 fire which possessed her. The result of the celebrated oath 
 made on the tomb of the great Frederick, November 4th, 
 1805, was the battle of Austerlitz and the evacuation of 
 Germany by the Russian army. Forty-eight hours afterwards 
 a picture appeared in all the shops, which even excites the 
 laughter of the peasants. It represents the handsome Emperor 
 of Russia, near him the Queen, and on the other side the 
 King, who raises his hand over the great Frederick's tomb; 
 the Queen herself in a shawl, rather like the London pictures 
 of Lady Hamilton, is putting her hand on her heart, and 
 gazing at the Emperor. One can hardly imagine how the 
 Berlin police could have allowed so pitiless a satire to be 
 circulated." He added, " The shade of Frederick must have 
 been indignant at this scandalous scene." Again, lest these 
 insinuations should not be sufficiently clear, he published the 
 following : " Every Prussian lays the misfortunes of Prussia to 
 the journey of the Emperor Alexander. The change from 
 that time worked in the mind of the Queen, who from a 
 timid and modest woman has become turbulent and warlike, 
 has been a sudden revolution. Everybody owns that she is 
 the author of Prussia's ills. One hears it said everywhere 
 how much she has changed since that fatal interview with the 
 Emperor Alexander. In the rooms the Queen inhabited at 
 Potsdam we found the picture of the Emperor of Russia 
 which this prince gave to her." A little later it was an- 
 nounced as an extract from the Telegraph of Berlin : " The 
 King of Prussia with his little Court continues his retreat 
 towards the north. It is impossible the sojourn at Memel 
 should not have made some impression on the mind of this 
 * This was not true. 

 
 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 311 
 
 prince's ministers and councillors. At Memel the first inter- 
 view took place between the Emperor of Russia and the 
 Prussian monarch. The journey to Berlin, the oath on the 
 tomb of the great Frederick, the warlike frenzy, the ruin of 
 the monarchy, all hangs on that deplorable interview. But 
 happily for both, it is very doubtful if it is in the power of the 
 Emperor Alexander to leave his capital/' He compared the 
 Queen to Helen of Troy, and said her beauty was equally 
 fatal to her people. What could be more ungenerous or even 
 brutal than to cast aspersions on a defenceless woman at the 
 moment of her deepest distress, when she was being pursued 
 by his armies from place to place; and to endeavour to rob 
 her of the only consolation left to her in her husband's 
 attachment? In an audience she gave to the Chevalier Gentz 
 at Weimar, a few days before the battle of Jena, she spoke 
 unaffectedly of the partiality for the Russians with which 
 they reproached her. She said that she " rendered justice to 
 the ardour, the devotion, the virtues of the Emperor Alexander, 
 but far from regarding Russia as the principal instrument for 
 the deliverance of Europe oppressed by a conqueror sent forth 
 by France, she had never considered his efforts but as a last 
 point of support for the rest, being persuaded that the great 
 means of safety were to be found in the closest union of all 
 who bore the name of Germans." 
 
 Napoleon's strictures on the Queen were not entirely dictated 
 by mere malice, but in the hope of creating difficulties between 
 the Prussians and Russians as well as between Frederick and 
 Alexander, and inducing Prussia to make peace before the 
 arrival of her northern allies; and though the terms required 
 were so severe as to amount to the ruin of Prussia as an inde- 
 pendent monarchy, and the King preferred to throw himself, 
 as he expressed it, into the arms of the Emperor of Russia, 
 yet these reports had undoubtedly a chilling effect on the 
 efforts of the Prussian people. They lay, indeed, with a knife 
 at their throat, for Napoleon exacted an oath of allegiance to 
 himself from the inhabitants of all the occupied districts, and 
 levied both the taxes and recruits, declaring he would reduce 
 the Prussian nobility to beg their bread. The King of Saxony 
 and the Elector of Hesse joined him immediately after Jena, 
 and before the war had lasted a month Saxony was reduced to
 
 312 The Campaign of Austerlitz. 
 
 a worse condition than after the Seven Years' War. The 
 country houses were pillaged, women insulted, and Harden- 
 berg's library wilfully destroyed by the special order of 
 Davoust while he occupied the baron's mansion, and the bar- 
 barities exercised in the agricultural districts equalled anything 
 ever seen in modern warfare. England still stood aloof, only 
 rendering assistance by sending a commissioner Lord Hut- 
 chinson to the King's head-quarters. This nobleman was a 
 particular friend of the Prince of Wales, otherwise he seems 
 to have been selected most inappropriately, for he was Napo- 
 leon's warm admirer, and stated the French would reach St. 
 Petersburg before the Russians could gain the Elbe. Fresh 
 levies of French troops continued to pour across the Ehine, 
 and Prussia's last hope of political existence lay in Russia. 
 " The Emperor of Russia promised to aid me," said the King, 
 " and he has the power to do it." " The powerful and mag- 
 nanimous Alexander is about to take his place by the side of 
 Prussia," he proclaimed to his people. " Our cause is the same; 
 we will stand or fall together."
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 18061807. 
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF EYLAU AND FRIEDLAND. 
 
 . 2829. 
 
 WHILE a peace negotiation was pending between Russia 
 and France, and even before M. d'Oubril quitted Paris, 
 Napoleon sought to compel Alexander to turn his whole atten- 
 tion to the East. According to the existing treaties between 
 Russia and Turkey, the Hospodars or Viceroys of Wallachia 
 and Moldavia could only be elected and deposed in concert 
 with the Czar; and General Sebastiani, the French minister 
 at Constantinople, urged the Sultan Selim III. to depose 
 them, for the sake of dragging the two nations into war. 
 Selim was intimidated, and in June, 1806, he prevented Rus- 
 sian vessels carrying troops from passing the Bosphorus, and 
 three months later sent an army into the Principalities, which 
 turned oat the Hospodars, and lived at free quarters on the 
 inhabitants. Prince Alexander Ypsilanti, the Hospodar of 
 Wallachia, was beheaded at Constantinople in March, 1807, 
 though eighty-five years of age, but his son escaped to Russia. 
 When the news arrived that D'Oubril's treaty was disa- 
 vowed, Sebastiani prevailed on Selim to carry his measures 
 still further, and forbid any Russian merchandise through the 
 Dardanelles, stagnating the trade with Odessa ; yet the terms 
 Alexander required from Napoleon, before their regular diplo- 
 matic relations could be renewed, included the evacuation of 
 the Turkish territory of Albania by the French, in addition to 
 the clauses relating to the abandonment of Dalmatia and 
 Sicily, and an indemnity for the King of Sardinia. 
 
 The Christian inhabitants of Moldavia and Wallachia were 
 under the Czar's protection by a treaty, and he immediately 
 ordered General Michelsen to occupy those provinces with 
 40,000 men. The British Resident at the Porte induced the
 
 314 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 Sultan to reinstate the Hospodars, but the news did not reach 
 St. Petersburg in time to stop the march of the Russians, and 
 Selim, again yielding to the persuasions of the French ambas- 
 sador, declared war with Russia, December 27th, 1806. Michel- 
 sen remained for some time on the defensive, not being strong 
 enough for active operations ; but he formed a junction with 
 Czeriiy George, a rebel chief in Servia, who had defeated the 
 Ottomans in several engagements, and before the end of the 
 year they possessed the whole north of the Danube, and laid 
 siege to Belgrade. 
 
 Nothing could be more inopportune than this campaign, 
 which occupied Russia's best troops while hostilities were 
 about to open on behalf of Prussia ; and a selfish policy would 
 have followed up these advantages and made a permanent 
 impression on Turkey, leaving the neighbouring kingdom to 
 her fate. But Alexander was the Don Quixote of Europe, 
 and the misfortunes which overwhelmed Prussia only stimulated 
 his zeal on her behalf. At the same time, he could not 
 withdraw entirely from the Turkish war without endangering 
 his southern provinces, still peopled by Mahometans, and only 
 recently annexed to Russia. Retreat would have been regarded 
 as weakness, and probably followed up by further aggressions 
 on the part of the Turks. He could not also abandon the 
 Christian population, which he professed to protect, to the 
 wild fury of the Turks. So late as in the war of 1854, when 
 in alliance with a Christian nation, the ravages of a Turkish 
 army on their own territories were so fearful, that the villagers 
 actually fled for protection into the Russian lines to escape 
 from their fellow-countrymen. Then an Austrian (Omar 
 Pasha) was in command of the Turks, and English officers 
 accompanied them ; but in 1806 there was no such check to 
 their natural ferocity, and the war was carried on with all the 
 stimulus of a now exploded fanaticism. Napoleon wrote to 
 Selim, November ] 1th, saying, " Take confidence : the Fates 
 pronounce the duration of your empire. I have the mission 
 of saving it," &c. On December 1st he renewed these assur- 
 ances, and guaranteed to the Porte the integrity of Moldavia, 
 "Wallachia, and Servia. He also engaged to make no peace 
 with Russia except in concert with Turkey.* 
 
 * This engagement was broken by the Treaty of Tilsit.
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 315 
 
 And now came, like a thunderbolt, the news of the cata- 
 strophe at Jena. The King of Prussia, nearly two months 
 before it took place, informed Alexander of his intention to 
 increase his army to resist any further French aggression on 
 his territories ; and his letter, a confidential one, reached St. 
 Petersburg about August 21st. The answer, received before 
 September 1st, held out hopes of aid if the end he was pursu- 
 ing led to a war and Prussia was unable to keep her ground ; 
 but it promised no immediate succour, and General Kruse- 
 marck was not sent to ask for a Russian army till September 
 30th, when he arrived at St. Petersburg with very inadequate 
 instructions. Hanover was in reality the great difficulty, for 
 Prussia was willing to lose the friendship of England rather 
 than give it up, and she feared Alexander might positively 
 require its restoration before he entered upon an offensive 
 alliance. She also imagined that France would be willing to 
 withdraw her pretensions in face of this hostile attitude 
 without risking a war. The King, in October, applied to 
 Austria, but she observed the same course as Prussia during 
 the Austerlitz campaign. First, she must have time to recruit 
 her finances, but would send 70,000 men into Bohemia to 
 cause her neutrality to be respected. Then Francis declared, 
 if he was compelled to take up arms, he would put himself at 
 the head of his subjects, and perish rather than submit to 
 further insults ; but Bonaparte assumed a conciliatory attitude 
 towards him, and after the battle of Jena he thought no more 
 of joining the allies. The Austrians were jealous of the Prus- 
 sians, and still more of Russia; and though they answered 
 with fair promises when Alexander sent Count Pozzi'di Borgo 
 to plead the cause of the distressed King, they broke up their 
 army in Bohemia as soon as they heard of the partial successes 
 of the Russian army in Poland, although for weeks they had 
 objected to an alliance with Russia and Prussia, on the ground 
 that Alexander had sent too small an army to oppose the 
 French ; and if he was driven out of Poland, they must lose all 
 hold on Galicia. Their wavering policy was a serious dis- 
 advantage to the Russians, who dared not leave their own fron- 
 tiers unprotected lest Austria should at last form a junction 
 with France; but a statement made by Count Haugwitz, that 
 Alexander meant to exercise pressure on the Court of Vienna,
 
 316 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 is denied by Sir Robert Adair, the British Resident at that 
 Court, who affirms that it would have been the most impolitic 
 measure he could have pursued. 
 
 Alexander's exertions to recruit and reorganize his army 
 since the battle of Austerlitz were so successful that by the 
 beginning of November he had 70,000 troops in the principali- 
 ties and stationed on the borders of Austria, and 64,000 men 
 under Benningsen, on their road to Silesia. A letter from 
 Vilna, March, 1806, states that the peasantry in some districts 
 pressed in such numbers for enrolment, that the amount 
 required would not admit of a hundredth part of them being 
 received. " This is to be accounted for/' says the writer, " by 
 the enthusiasm the Emperor's conduct created among his 
 people, and by the Russian law emancipating all persons on 
 their becoming soldiers, and admitting them at the end of their 
 military service to all the advantages of citizens." The means 
 of transporting recruits to the depots of their regiments were 
 now so much better arranged, that the fearful loss of life 
 which used to occur among those drawn to serve in Catherine's 
 armies was reduced to merely the ordinary number of casual- 
 ties ; but the military hospitals and commissariat, though im- 
 proving, were still far from sufficient, and the want of officers 
 was greatly felt, it being considered highly unfashionable to 
 serve in anything but the Guards. The habits of the Russian 
 upper classes were not suited to military life. They took their 
 siesta after dinner ; they hardly ever went on foot through St. 
 Petersburg ; and a journey of fifty miles on horseback " would 
 be an expedition," says Sir R. Wilson, " for the city's talk."* 
 The Emperor expressed his approbation of an English officer 
 who was constantly seen walking about the town instead of 
 using a carriage. 
 
 In 1806 he was unpopular with the nobles on account 
 of his measures towards the emancipation of the serfs ; for 
 he organized a committee to consult upon the best means 
 of effecting it, and this was sitting, often presided over 
 by himself, through the year 1807. It is hardly surprising 
 that it should not have met with approval in Russia, since the 
 far more rigorous slavery of the negroes in the West Indies 
 found advocates in the British Parliament in 1830 ; and most 
 * Wilson's War of 180(5-7.
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 3 1 \ 
 
 foreigners visiting Russia at that period considered it would 
 be very premature.* 
 
 When after a levy of recruits had been raised in September, 
 1806, in case of a war on behalf of Prussia the militia were 
 ordered in December to hold themselves in readiness through- 
 out the country for the war with Turkey, and possible hostilities 
 with Austria, there was much discontent among the provincial 
 nobility, who took no interest in German affairs, except so far 
 as to be glad if they could have revenged Austerlitz on the 
 fields of Prussia. They murmured at the troops not being 
 concentrated on Turkey, and ascribed the difficulties with 
 France to foreign influence in the Russian Cabinet. 
 
 Czartoriski now held only the post of a senator and the 
 Curatorship of the University of Vilna ; but there were many 
 natives of the Baltic provinces holding a high position in the 
 army, and these were looked upon most unfavourably by the 
 officers of pure Muscovite descent. f The idea of Benning-sen, 
 a German, and the murderer of his sovereign, being placed as 
 second in command, was naturally reprobated by the old 
 adherents of the Emperor Paul, among whom was Rostop- 
 chine. Yet he was supported by the Empress-Dowager. 
 Alexander did not like him, but the want of good generals was 
 greatly felt, and he believed him to be one of the best he had. 
 Rostopchine seems at this time to have begun to weary of his 
 political inaction after four years of feverish excitement in the 
 reign of Paul. He feared Alexander's liberal tendencies, and was 
 not sparing or reserved in his strictures ; but the fact of a com- 
 mittee being actually summoned to deliberate on the best means 
 of emancipating the serfs induced the ex-minister to address him 
 in a letter of warning and remonstrance (December 29th, 1806).| 
 His oath, he says, is a guarantee of his loyalty, but it 
 
 * Wilson's War of 1806-7. "Wilson also relates that Alexander heard 
 of a noble lady, who lived at a distance from Moscow, leaving her old and 
 sick peasantry in a state bordering on starvation. He sent his own 
 surgeon, Dr. Wylie, to examine into the condition of these peasants, and 
 to remedy the evil if it were true. Accordingly, after inspecting them, 
 Dr. "Wylie sent for flour, meat, and wine to the distance of 200 versts, 
 and obliged the lady to incur heavy expenses, which cured her of her cruel 
 economy. 
 
 f Even at this time there were great impediments placed in the way of 
 officers of foreign birth taking service in the Russian army. 
 
 J This letter was published in the Moniteur, November 1st, 1812, 
 having been found among Eostopchine's papers in Moscow.
 
 318 TJie Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 is his duty to expose to his Imperial Majesty the means 
 necessary in present circumstances to preserve the nobility, 
 who his Majesty himself had said were the true and only 
 support of the throne. " The nobility are proud of the name of 
 Russian, and, animated by the spirit of Minine and Pojarski,* 
 would sacrifice everything for their country. The militia just 
 raised among them could offer a barrier to the world, but all 
 these armaments, unheard of till now, will at once vanish if 
 the desire of acquiring pretended liberty raises the people to 
 overthrow the nobles, the sole object of the mob in all revo- 
 lutions. This class of men will more easily give themselves up 
 to excesses, as they have the recent example of the French, and 
 you are preparing them for it by these fatal rights, which 
 must lead to the destruction of the laws and of the sovereign. 
 The measures taken to send foreigners from the empire only 
 produce evil, for hardly one person out of forty would quit a 
 country where every foreigner finds consideration and fortune. 
 The French in Russia prefer to take the oath of naturalization 
 from fear and avarice ; in reality it does not change their views, 
 which would destroy Russia, as is shown by their insinuations 
 to those bodies of men who are expecting Napoleon, as they 
 imagine, to bring them freedom. Sire, purify Russia, and 
 only keeping the priests (of foreign worship), order a crowd of 
 wretches to be despatched beyond the frontier, whose fatal 
 influence corrupts the soul and spirit of your mistaken subjects. 
 I fulfil a sacred task in exposing the truth to your eyes at a 
 time when your heart renders justice to my sincere attachment. 
 1 implore you then, sire, to think of the past and present, of 
 the treason of Stephanof, of the philosophers, of the Martinists, 
 and of the election of a chief of the militia of Moscow. Appear for 
 some days in this capital, and let your presence restore to their 
 hearts that love which has been almost extinguished by dissen- 
 sions, forgetfulness of laws, and contempt of the ministry," &c. 
 Rostopchine founded an agricultural school at Voronovo, 
 thirteen leagues from Moscow. Although disliking foreigners, 
 he shared Paul's partiality for Scotchmen, and placed over the 
 establishment two emigrants of that nation, Paterson and 
 Hume, but reserved to himself the direction of it, and provided 
 
 * Two ancient Eussian patriots, who expelled the Poles from Moscow 
 in 1612.
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 319 
 
 for the expense. He invited other proprietors to send pupils 
 there for eight months on a very small payment from their 
 lords, in return for which they carried away agricultural imple- 
 ments and a variety of seeds, by which means an improved 
 and extended system of husbandry was .gradually spread over 
 the country. He sent for his farming instruments from 
 Holland, Scotland, and Germany, and cattle and plants even 
 from Georgia. This establishment was destroyed during the 
 French invasion in 1812. In March, 1807, he published a 
 pamphlet in the Russian language at Moscow. It is a vehe- 
 ment satire on France and the French, and reproaches the 
 Russians with their predilection for them. He paid a tribute 
 to the Russian generals who fought a month before at the 
 battle of Eylau, but left out all mention of Benningsen, the 
 commander- in-chief. 700,000 copies were sold, and it was 
 answered, and also parodied, besides many copies being circu- 
 lated, with a eulogium interpolated on Benningsen, from an 
 unknown hand, a proof of the liberality of the censorship at 
 that period. Alexander received Rostopchine's letter very 
 graciously, and visited Moscow before he joined his armies in 
 Prussia. He was greeted with an almost tumultuous welcome, 
 and in a speech explained the cause of the war. A more im- 
 passioned address by the Archbishop of Moscow was read in all 
 the Russian churches, and exhorted the people, as they hoped 
 for salvation, to place a barrier to the advance of the destroyer of 
 peace, who in Egypt preached the Koran of Mahomet, and in 
 France showed his contempt for Christianity by convoking 
 Jewish synagogues. 
 
 On November 27th, 1806, the Empress gave birth to her third 
 and last child, who was again a daughter. Her delicate health 
 detained her husband at St. Petersburg during the early part 
 of the winter ; and perhaps mindful of Czartoriski's reproaches, 
 and the unfortunate campaign of Austerlitz, he left the move- 
 ments of the Russian armies to the. sole guidance of the 
 commander, a veteran of seventy-two, who had served with 
 great distinction under Suvorov, and was an old Muscovite, of 
 the type which was more dear to the Russian people than the 
 half-Germanized natives of the Baltic provinces, the polished 
 courtiers of St. Petersburg, or the French emigrants and Polish 
 magnates who fluttered round the Imperial throne. It was
 
 320 TJie Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 supposed that his subordinates, Benningsen and Buxhowden, 
 would supply the energy naturally wanting in a septuagenarian, 
 though Benningsen was himself sixty-five, and all three were 
 equally deficient in science; but the disorders at the head- 
 quarters rendered the Emperor's presence necessary, as a 
 superior authority to whom all would bow; and Kamenski 
 displayed obvious symptoms of insanity. 
 
 As the Russian Government was in sore need of the real sinews 
 of war, and the contest with all Western Europe seemed likely 
 to fall entirely upon her, Alexander applied to the British 
 Government for a loan of six millions sterling, one of which was 
 to be paid down immediately for the expenses indispensable to 
 the opening of the campaign. It refused the request, but pro- 
 posed that a loan should be contracted for Russia in England, 
 and that for the security of the creditors, the duties on English 
 merchandise at present levied in the Russian harbours should 
 be repealed, and the same duties levied at once in the British 
 harbours, and applied to the payment of the interest of the 
 loan to the British capitalists. This proposal, amounting to a 
 declaration of want of confidence both in the integrity of the 
 Russian Government and the solvency of the Russian finances, 
 was of course rejected, and the result was that no assistance, 
 either in men or money, was afforded by England to her 
 gallant ally in this vital struggle an instance of parsimony 
 and blindness beyond all example calamitous and discreditable, 
 when it is considered that Russia was at that moment bearing 
 the whole weight of France on the Vistula, and that England 
 had at her disposal twenty millions in subsidies, and 100,000 of 
 the best soldiers in Europe.* It was the more unexpected, 
 as the English Cabinet was at this very time assisting Austria 
 with money to do nothing, and had forwarded strong repre- 
 sentations to St. Petersburg when D'Oubril signed his 
 treaty in Paris, before it was known that Alexander had re- 
 jected it, and since then the British Resident at the Russian 
 Court had never ceased to urge the Emperor to renew the 
 war. "A Russian army," writes Mr. Adair, from Vienna, Oc- 
 tober 25th, " is by this time not far from the borders of Silesia ; 
 but the Emperor must send three times that number if he 
 
 * Alison's History of Europe. Parliament had voted that sum for 
 subsidies.
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 321 
 
 wishes to save Poland/' Mr. Stuart writes from St. Peters- 
 burg, November 26th, that, on his "urging the necessity of 
 reducing the means employed by Russia in the South, for the 
 purpose of directing the great mass of her disposable force 
 towards the Vistula, the army in Moldavia was diminished to 
 40,000, and the remainder of Michelson's corps has orders 
 to march to the Prussian frontiers/' Again, Mr. Adair, 
 writing to Mr. Stuart, December 6th, says : " By all I can 
 learn, there are of Russian troops at General Benningsen's 
 head- quarters at Pultusk, little more than 15,000 men ; at 
 Praga there are no more than 6000. At Grodno, indeed, we 
 hear of 70,000 ; but putting all these together, and with the 
 remains of the Prussian army, what is it in comparison with 
 the immense force collected, and still collecting, from all parts 
 of Germany as well as France, to oppose them ? It is really 
 dreadful to think of this. Depend upon it, my dear sir, that 
 unless Russia puts forward the whole forces of her empire 
 immediately, and without the loss of an hour, she is gone as 
 a European Power. Next spring she will be attacked by 
 400,000 men. . . . For God's sake, let me request you, again 
 and again, to press these points upon those in his Imperial 
 Majesty's counsels, who may not yet be thoroughly aware of 
 its extent, or of the celerity with which it is advancing upon 
 them," &c. In a previous letter Mr. Adair announces that, 
 pressed by France, Austria is compelled to attack the fort of 
 Cattaro, still in the hands of the Russians, but he hopes it 
 may not create further coldness between the two Imperial 
 Courts ; and writing home to Lord Ho wick, December 6th, he 
 says : " I have again written in the strongest manner to Mr. 
 Stuart, at St. Petersburg, telling him that all I may be able 
 to effect here will depend upon Russia. There is not that con- 
 fidence between the Austrian and Russian Governments which 
 can alone save them both from perdition." Lord Malmesbury 
 writes in November, that " Bonaparte's progress in Germany 
 and Poland caused great alarm, but ministers took no measures 
 to assist Russia, except in sending Lord Hutchinson to the 
 Prussian army, and the Marquis of Douglas to St. Petersburg. 
 Lord Hutchinson took a staff with him, and it was easy to see, 
 from the cast of his temper and his general turn to admire 
 Bonaparte, that he will effect no good purpose. Luckily a 
 VOL. i. y
 
 322 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 right spirit seems to prevail in Russia, and the Russian army 
 tinder Benningsen is the first that has checked the French." 
 " The entry of the Russian troops into Moldavia/' writes Mr. 
 Adair from Vienna, December 14th, " has given great uneasi- 
 ness here. I learn likewise that the order for their entering 
 that province was the cause of a remonstrance on the part of 
 this Court, extremely ill placed, to say no more of it. No 
 exertion, indeed, ought to be omitted in order to induce the 
 Emperor of Russia to make his principal, indeed, his utmost 
 efforts on the side of Poland." 
 
 " A courier," writes Napoleon to Marmont in Dalmatia,* 
 " has arrived from Constantinople, announcing that war against 
 Russia is declared. Send immediately five engineer officers 
 and as many of artillery to Constantinople. Aid the pashas in 
 every possible way with counsel, provision, and ammunition. 
 It is not unlikely that I may send you with 25,000 men to 
 Widdin, and there you will enter into connection with the 
 Grand Army, of which you would form the extreme right. 
 25,000 French, supported by 60,000 Turks, would soon force 
 the Russians not to leave 30,000 men on the Danube, but to 
 forward twice that number to defend their own frontiers. Send 
 twenty or thirty officers to the pashas if they demand so many. 
 .... Be not sparing in your supplies of all sorts to them. 
 An ambassador from Persia as well as Turkey has just been at 
 
 Warsaw We may look forward shortly to transporting 
 
 40,000 men to the gates of Ispahan, and from thence to the 
 
 shores of the Indus Send your officers over all the 
 
 Turkish provinces I am the sincere friend of Turkey, 
 
 and wish to do it all the good in my power. I consider the 
 Turkish declaration of war against Russia as the most fortu- 
 nate circumstance that could possibly have occurred in my 
 present situation/' In a special message to the French Senate 
 Napoleon informed them that "the Emperor of Persia had 
 resolved to march upon the Caucasus to defend his dominions, 
 being animated by the same sentiments as the Turks." The 
 Ottoman army, reinforced by French officers, and spurred on 
 by Sebastiani, crossed the Danube with 80,000 men, and the 
 Russian army in Wallachia, diminished by the regiments sent 
 to Poland, was, in May, 1807, compelled to retire from Bel- 
 * Jomini, ii. 347-349.
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 323 
 
 grade, captured the previous January by the Servians with a 
 Russian battalion, and take up a defensive position in Mol- 
 davia. Stimulated by French promises, the Government of 
 Constantinople refused a proposal of peace on the part of 
 Russia, and even caused all British property to be confiscated, 
 and all British subjects to be made prisoners throughout the 
 Turkish empire. The Sultan sent a promise to Napoleon that 
 he would conclude no peace with Russia till he had obtained 
 the restoration of the Crimea. 
 
 Under these most unfavourable auspices Russia began 
 a second campaign against France, and it required the courage 
 and self-confidence of a young sovereign of twenty-eight to 
 override all the difficulties which presented themselves, and 
 embark in an enterprise when from the very first every advan- 
 tage was on the side of his opponent. His reserves had to 
 march from the interior of Russia, during a winter exceeding 
 in severity the celebrated year of 1812. Poland was revo- 
 lutionized by the French, and the Russians, therefore, fought 
 on hostile territory. The Prussian depots and magazines were 
 all in the hands of the French, and the Russians supplied 
 themselves from their own country, across marshy tracks 
 several feet deep in snow, so that their army was more than 
 once for several days without bread. The largest force they 
 ever assembled there was 80,000 men,* while the French 
 brought 330,000 men into Germany, and in Poland alone 
 numbered 1 75,000, f besides Murat's cavalry. There is no 
 greater misnomer than the term " European coalition" as 
 applied to Napoleon's enemies in this campaign, or in the 
 campaign of Austerlitz, and on this occasion the coalition was 
 decidedly on his side and against Russia. England stood aloof, 
 Austria professed neutrality, but inclined to the side of the 
 French. Prussia was powerless, while in addition to the 
 French already named, Napoleon commanded the armies of 
 Bavaria, Saxony, Baden, Darmstadt, Nassau, and Wiirtem- 
 berg, and a contingent from Spain. Good roads and a tempe- 
 rate climate lay between Napoleon and France. He recruited 
 his armies from Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and 
 even Prussia, and he disposed of the granaries and wine cellars 
 of the valley of the Rhine. A million pounds sterling was 
 * Jomini ; Wilson. f Lanfrey ; Jackson.
 
 324 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 levied on Westphalia, and 800,OOOJ. on Stettin, which only 
 contained 32,000 inhabitants. " The great stores of wine 
 its cellars contain," wrote Napoleon, of this city, "would 
 be of inestimable importance. It is wine which in winter 
 can alone give the victory." Prussia was fined 6,800,0007. 
 after the battle of Jena, and, collected by dishonest 
 officials, a far larger amount was wrung from the wretched 
 people ; while Hamburg and Lubeck were robbed of 700,0007., 
 under pretence that they had traded with the English. Na- 
 poleon's army was partly clothed from the manufactories of 
 Yorkshire ; for he ordered a larger number of coats for his 
 troops than Bourrienne, who was charged with the commission, 
 could possibly find, so he employed smugglers to obtain cloth 
 from England, as a recent French decree closed all the ports 
 of the Continent against her traffic. 
 
 On November 21st, 1806, Napoleon published what is called 
 the continental system from Berlin, with the especial object of 
 shutting out English merchandize, or the products of British 
 manufactories or colonies from any seaport in Germany, France, 
 and the Mediterranean. No foreign vessel direct from Eng- 
 land was admitted into any of these ports, and any native of 
 England found in the countries occupied by the French troops 
 or their allies was made a prisoner of war. He hoped to ruin 
 England; but Bourrienne, then posted at Hamburg, asserts 
 that he acted by the advice of short-sighted advisers, and it 
 was ridiculous to declare the British Isles in a state of siege 
 when he had no fleet to enforce it. An English squadron did 
 actually blockade every port in France ; but " the continental 
 system was a system of peculation, injustice, and pillage. 
 It is so far from the truth* that such a system had for its 
 only aim to prevent England from disposing of her merchandize, 
 that licences were sold at a high rate to those who had influ- 
 ence sufficient to procure them, and gold alone gave that 
 influence. The traffic of licences was carried to a scandalous 
 extent, only to enrich some flatterer. At Hamburg, for instance, 
 a poor -father of a family was shot for introducing into the 
 department of the Elbe a small loaf of sugar for the needs of 
 his family, while at the very moment, perhaps, Napoleon was 
 placing his signature to a licence for the introduction of a 
 * Bourrienne's Life of Napoleon.
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 325 
 
 million of loaves. Smuggling on a small scale was punished 
 with death, because government had undertaken the trade in 
 the gross. The same cause filled the coffers of the French 
 treasury with gold and the prisons of the Continent with 
 victims. Enormous quantities of English merchandize and 
 colonial produce were perpetually smuggled in. The Emperor 
 Napoleon at last admitted all colonial products into Germany 
 at a duty of 33 per cent., and grumbled when other nations 
 did the same. He lavished his licences," &c. 
 
 On November 7th the French were within three miles of 
 Stralsund, but they retreated towards Stettin and Frankfort 
 on hearing that the Russians were advancing on Posen. 
 " If the King of Prussia does carry on the war," writes Jack- 
 son from the fortress of Graudenz, November 18th, "it will 
 be only because of Bonaparte's indisposition to a peace of any 
 sort ; for I know General Zastrow had authority to agree to any 
 terms, provided they did not affect the relations existing between 
 the King and the Emperor of Russia. Zastrow was about to 
 put his signature to a treaty, by which all the Prussian territory 
 on the left of the Elbe would have been ceded to France, and the 
 payment guaranteed of an immense sum of money, when in- 
 telligence was received of Prince Hohenlohe's defeat and the 
 surrender of Custrin and Stettin. Bonaparte then declined to 
 make peace on these terms, and Zastrow despatched Major 
 Rauch to the King. The Major's instructions, as I was positively 
 assured, authorized Zastrow to sign any terms, however dis- 
 advantageous, that Bonaparte would grant, and the answer is 
 now waited for. The ignorance of the Prussian Government 
 of what is passing in the country is astonishing. It only heard 
 accidentally of the capture of Custrin" (one of the strongest 
 forts on the Oder, given up by the Prussian governor to less 
 than forty French Chasseurs). " The King is as apathetic and 
 as irresolute as ever.* He is accessible only to the French 
 party, Kochritz, Beym, and others of the same stamp, while 
 persons whose counsels at this critical moment might counter- 
 act the baneful influence of the clique surrounding him 
 are received with coldness and reserve." 
 
 The Russian ambassador, Baron Krudener, followed the 
 
 * The King, after Jena, retired to the North, leaving his generals 
 entirely without orders.
 
 326 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 King from Berlin to his new head-quarters at CErtelsburg, 
 where on November 30th the sovereigns were so ill lodged that 
 they had only one room to serve as a bedroom and sitting- 
 room, in a cottage more like an English barn in the dirtiest of 
 villages. " The King," writes Sir G. Jackson, " takes a 
 morning walk while their room is arranged for breakfast. The 
 Queen is obliged to be very cautious both in her words and 
 actions, for the King is of an excessive ill-humour, and turns 
 a deaf ear to all she says. She does not allow herself to be 
 disheartened, and loses no opportunity of endeavouring to 
 counteract the counsels of Kochritz and his associates." 
 
 On November 30th he reports " a repulse of seven squad- 
 rons of the French by three squadrons of the Russian advanced 
 guard. At Plock twenty Cossacks swam across the Vistula 
 and attacked a picket of French dragoons, killed fourteen men 
 and made an officer and a sergeant prisoner." 
 
 On December 10th : " Krudener has been sounded as to 
 what place the Emperor Alexander would wish the Prussian 
 Eoyal family to retire to in case of necessity, and he has 
 consequently sent off a messenger to St. Petersburg." He 
 adds that the Emperor was detained in Russia by the health 
 of the Empress. 
 
 December 10th : " The torpor that reigns here, owing to 
 the inertia of the King, is inconceivable. It is a subject of 
 regret and indignation with every officer one meets." There 
 were serious quarrels among the Prussian officers. General 
 Pfuhl went over to Russia ; several more to Bonaparte. 
 
 The young princes and princesses of Prussia, among whom 
 was the future wife of the Emperor Nicholas, then a girl of 
 eight years old, were sent in all haste to Stettin from Berlin, 
 before the capital was occupied by the French. From Stettin 
 they fled to Konigsberg, where the Queen joined them in the 
 middle of December, while her husband remained at the head- 
 quarters of the remnant of his forces. At Konigsberg she fell 
 seriously ill with a nervous fever, but revived on hearing of 
 the battle of Pultusk, gained by the Russians over the French. 
 The King refused Hardenberg's services because he said, that 
 " with him as minister every hope of a peace with France was 
 lost " and, December, 1806, he again despatched Krusemarck 
 to St. Petersburg to sound the Russian Cabinet as to its
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Frieclland. 327 
 
 disposition to peace. " An armistice, concluded on November 
 16th by the Prussians, which continued even after the Russians 
 were actively engaged with the enemy, gave Bonaparte the very 
 time he wanted to bring up detachments from all parts of 
 Germany and Prance, and to arrange his plans. Lord 
 Hutchinson wrote from Memel, January 26th, 1807, to Mr. 
 Adair at Vienna : " A negotiation for peace is on foot. Kruse- 
 marck having brought the consent of the Emperor from Russia, 
 Zastrow has written a letter to Talleyrand, inclosing one from 
 General Budberg to himself, which states that Russia has no 
 objection to enter into a joint negotiation with Prussia and 
 England, and names Lublin in Galicia where the intended 
 Congress is to meet. I thought it right to mention to Zastrow 
 that I had that moment received a despatch from Petersburg, 
 dated January 19th, stating that the Emperor of Russia never 
 would have agreed to a negotiation had he not been influenced 
 by the absolute refusal of Austria to enter into the war. 
 I said, as I knew from you, the disposition of the latter 
 Court was changed, and that Austria might be induced to 
 co-operate with the Allies I did hope that the negotiation 
 which had been entered into from mistaking the .views of 
 that Power might not be persevered in. In answer, he read 
 me the despatch of Count Finkenstein, which is at least as 
 strong as yours, and states as forcibly the determination of 
 Austria to come forward in the spring/' In the same letter 
 Lord Hutchinson relates that when he told Baron Krudener 
 he meant to send his brother and Sir R. Wilson to the 
 Russian army, he objected in the strongest manner. " I asked 
 for an explanation. He told me that the greatest disorder 
 had prevailed in that army, which was represented to the 
 Emperor by General Tolstoi, and that he knew it would be 
 very disagreeable to General Benningsen and the chiefs of the 
 Russian army, that English officers should see them in their 
 present state. I told him that as probably we were to pay 
 them, we must see them ; that we came to act as soldiers not 
 as spies, and .... I should make the strongest complaint 
 to my Government," c. Unfortunately the British Commis- 
 sioner was entirely mistaken on every point ; the Austrian 
 Cabinet, swayed by the Arch-Duke Charles, entirely declined to 
 join the war, and only advised both Russia and Prussia to
 
 323 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 make the best terms they could with the enemy. No money 
 or other assistance from Great Britain reached Russia, and one 
 of the two officers acted very like a spy. 
 
 The disorders in the Russian army were increased, and per- 
 haps originated from old Marshal Kamenski's insanity,' 55 ' and 
 Benningsen and Buxhowden commanded their different corps 
 without any further reference to him. On hearing of the 
 advance of the French headed by Napoleon to Warsaw, 
 December 18th, he ordered a retreat to Grodno; but as 
 hitherto the desultory warfare had been to the advantage of 
 the Russians, who from the 17th to the 26th of December 
 had fought a battle every day,f his subordinates refused to 
 obey him ; but not before he had done much harm by send- 
 ing letters to stop the supplies, and desiring the artillery 
 to be left behind, as it impeded their retreat. At Pultusk 
 he rushed out into the street in nothing but his shirt, on a 
 freezing December day; and both there and at Grodno per- 
 formed various other eccentricities which caused him to be 
 speedily recalled. Benningsen having formed a plan for 
 reaching Konigsberg, by leaving the French army in the 
 rear, took up his station at Pultusk to give rest to his batta- 
 lion of 50,000 men, who were exhausted with marching back- 
 wards and forwards through bogs and plains of snow. On 
 December 26th Marshal Lannes attempted to dislodge him, 
 but was repulsed with great loss ; and though the Cossacks 
 scoured the country for eight miles the next morning they 
 could find no trace of the French, so precipitate was their 
 retreat. The same day, Davoust, Augereau, and Murat were 
 defeated at Golymin, thirty miles distant from Pultusk, by the 
 Russians, under Prince Galitzin and Doctorof, who, though 
 smaller in force, were superior in artillery. Wilson states 
 that at Pultusk the French lost 8000 men and the Russians 
 5000 ; but because Benningsen left his quarters the next day 
 to form a junction with Galitzin, according to his precon- 
 ceived plan, some French writers have chosen to claim.it 
 as a victory. " During the whole Polish Campaign J attacks 
 
 * Wilson says no sane man could doubt of it. See also Prince Eugene 
 of Wiirtemberg. 
 
 t Sir Robert Adair. 
 
 J Wilson's War of 1806-7. Bernadotte's papers, says Alison, are still 
 in the possession of Benningsen's family.
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 329 
 
 of cavalry by the French were announced that never occurred, 
 and encounters disgraceful to the French were represented as 
 victorious ; but Murat was a candidate for the Kingdom of 
 Poland, and it was necessary to blazon his reputation and 
 warlike achievements." At Mohrungen Bernadotte's baggage 
 was seized by the Russians, "and comprised curious proofs 
 of the arrangements for stage effect and false intelligence 
 made by all the officers of the French army, from the 
 Emperor downwards. An order was there found giving the 
 most minute directions for the reception of Napoleon at 
 Warsaw, with all the stations and crossings where "Vive 
 1'Empereur" was to be shouted ; and official despatches of all 
 the actions of the campaign in which Bernadotte had been 
 engaged, for publication, and private despatches, giving the 
 facts as they really occurred, for the Emperor's secret perusal.'" 
 Both armies suffered considerably from the cold, and the men 
 from a northern latitude seemed less able to bear up against 
 it than those from Italy, France, and even Spain, who had 
 supplied a corps of infantry. The artillery sunk into the 
 morasses, and the troops bivouacked not unfrequently in a sea 
 of mud. The arrangements for the comfort of the Russian 
 army, only accustomed to summer campaigns, were most 
 primitive, and the deaths from mere fatigue and exhaustion 
 were greater in proportion than those of the enemy. Wilson 
 says that they carried no tents, and their arms were coarse 
 and heavy ; the Cossacks, who formed a useful light infantry, 
 and exercised all the functions of foragers and spies, were 
 armed with lances, and the Bashkir regiments from Asiatic 
 Russia with bows and arrows. " The officers seemed very kind 
 to their men, who were not fretted with over-drill ; and the 
 soldiers, of a naturally humane disposition, when almost 
 starving, offered a portion of their miserable pittance to the 
 Polish peasants." The Polish contingents of Napoleon's 
 army gave no quarter, and the Cossacks followed the same 
 practice till Alexander offered a ducat for every wounded 
 Frenchman or prisoner who was brought alive to the Russian 
 camp. The Viceroy of Italy said the last were more useful 
 than formidable to their enemies, by making them aware of 
 the neighbourhood of their allies ; but with indefatigable 
 activity they seized on the French convoys and intercepted
 
 330 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 stores ; and their wild appearance and savage shouts were 
 certainly much dreaded. Even Napoleon* admitted that they 
 are brave, active, dexterous and high-minded soldiers. They 
 were led by their Hetman, Matuei Platof, then fifty-six 
 years of age, who had passed his life on the field of battle, f 
 In Paul's reign he was accused of conspiring with the 
 Circassians to rise against Russia, and brought a prisoner 
 to St. Petersburg, but the Emperor finding the charge 
 was groundless, released and well rewarded him. In 1801 
 Alexander gave him the post of Hetman. He arrived 
 in Hungary too late to assist in the campaign of 
 Austerlitz ; though, if the Russian army had been accom- 
 panied by these valuable pioneers, it would not have suffered 
 from its ignorance of the roads, and would have been also 
 better supplied. In 1807 the Cossacks of the Don took 
 prisoners nine staff-officers, 130 superior officers, and 4196 
 of the lower ranks. There was only one surgeon in the 
 whole corps, and when Alexander offered it another, Platof 
 refused, saying that potions were more fatal to his soldiers 
 than bullets. Although the Bashkirs rivalled any rider at 
 Astley's or Franconi's in their feats of horsemanship, and 
 the arrows brought down every bird on the wing with unerring 
 aim, they were never known to hit a Frenchman ; so that after 
 this campaign Alexander ordered them to be furnished with 
 muskets, and their bows were henceforward kept for sport. 
 Both Cossacks and Bashkirs stripped the bodies of Frenchmen, 
 and loaded themselves with clothes and foreign arms. " The 
 Cossacks are now so rich," writes Wilson, February 17tL, 
 " that many valuable articles are to be bought for a trifle, 
 and crosses of the Legion of Honour are to be had for 
 nothing. Horses have no purchasers : but those taken from 
 the French are worth very little; out of a batch of 500 only 
 forty could serve the Russian army/'' 
 
 * In his official collection of bulletins. 
 
 f Frederick the Great has said of the Russians, that they could be 
 killed but not beaten; and he relates that in the Seven Years' War, 
 although the Russians only fought four battles, they lost 120,000 men, 
 while 1'russia lost only 180,000 in sixteen engagements, and the Austrians, 
 in two sieges and ten battles, did not count more than 140,000 as the 
 number of their dead. The same enormous proportion of killed and 
 wounded was shown in all the battles between the Russians and French 
 Compared with those, fought between the French and any other nation.
 
 f The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 331 
 
 The battle of Pultusk checked Napoleon's plan of marching 
 straight on to Konigsberg; and he began to place his army 
 in winter quarters round Warsaw. " Return slowly/' wrote 
 Berthier, at his dictation, to Ney, who had advanced towards 
 the old Prussian capital ; " it is the first time that the 
 Emperor has made a retrograde march." (18th January, 
 1807.) But Benningsen was resolved to keep the French 
 employed, to allow the Prussians time to provision Konigsberg. 
 He came up with Ney at Heilsberg, January 22nd, and the 
 same day an action took place at Seeberg, whence the French 
 cavalry were driven in the direction of Allenstein. If the 
 Russians had known the scattered condition of Key's troops, 
 the French military historians agree they might easily 
 have made them all prisoners ; but Benningsen's army was too 
 much exhausted with cold, hunger, and fatigue to attack 
 with the necessary rapidity. He contented himself with one 
 or two trifling engagements; and instead of waiting for 
 reinforcements, which were within a few leagues, he led 
 15,000 men against Bernadotte, who was strongly posted at 
 Mohrungen; and after a desperate encounter, where the 9th 
 French regiment lost an eagle, General Makov, who led the 
 Russian advanced guard, was repulsed, both sides losing 2000 
 men. The arrival of a corps under Prince Michael Dolgoruki 
 turned the tide of victory, and the French were in their 
 turn driven back, with the loss of several hundred prisoners, 
 and Bernadotte's private baggage, containing silver plate 
 bearing the arms of almost all the States in Germany, 10,000 
 ducats recently levied on Elbing for his own private use, and 
 2500 for his staff.* He retreated rapidly to Osterade and 
 towards Thorn, severely pressed by the Cossacks, who almost 
 totally destroyed his 'rearguard, and made many hundreds of 
 prisoners ; and Benningsen established himself at Mohrungeu, 
 and remained there till February 2nd, while his subordinate 
 Lestocq compelled the French to raise the blockade of Grau- 
 denz, and threw in supplies of ammunition and provisions, 
 which enabled it to hold out till the end of the war. 
 
 Although the French bulletins styled every battle a victory, 
 the truth began to be partially known,f and caused great un- 
 
 * Alison. f Adair's Correspondence in 1806.
 
 332 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 easiness in Warsaw, where Napoleon had promised to pursue 
 the Russians across the Niemen, and had talked of marching 
 upon St. Petersburg. 
 
 Adair writes from Vienna that this Court and the Arch- 
 duke Charles were a little shaken in their resolution of not 
 assisting Russia, and that the Austrian army consisted of 
 220,000 men. After the battle of Jena, it was expressed to 
 him in the strongest terms that the minister deserved death 
 who persuaded the Emperor of Austria to draw his sword. 
 Since then he had offered, on the part of the British Govern- 
 ment, to guarantee the integrity of the Turkish empire while 
 Russia was in alliance with England ; and obtained from the 
 Russian minister, Pozzo di Borgo, a distinct disavowal of any 
 ulterior designs on the part of Russia with regard to Turkey, 
 other than counteracting the plans of France, and, if possible, 
 form a junction with their isolated forces in Dalmatia. 
 Russia also warned Austria (December, 1806) that she could 
 not sustain the war with France alone ; and after the battle of 
 Pultusk,the Austrian Prime Minister requested Adair to oppose 
 any peace negotiations which did not include the general in- 
 terests of Europe. He added, that the Austrian army could act 
 in two months ; and yet after the battle of Eylau, in February, 
 Austria reduced her army, and refused to make any demon- 
 stration on behalf of the Allies, merely advising them to 
 conclude the best peace they could. Adair also writes, that 
 Benningsen had succeeded, by the 31st of January, in driving 
 Ney and Bernadotte from their positions. " These operations 
 obliged Bonaparte, to the great dissatisfaction of his army, to 
 break up his cantonments, and put his army in march from 
 Warsaw, January 28th. He followed it himself on the 31st, 
 and arrived on the 3rd inst. at Possenheim, where he was on 
 the 5th. General Essen, on February 2nd, attacked the 
 French under General Lannes at Ciechanev on the Bog, 
 defeated him, and took his magazines and some prisoners at 
 Brock. On the 3rd a more serious engagement took place at 
 Wyskrow, in which General Essen obtained a great advantage, 
 took 1600 prisoners and some cannon, and drove the French 
 beyond the Narew." Wilson, riding from Konigsberg to 
 Landsberg, saw the bodies of 1500 French soldiers lying strewn
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 333 
 
 along the side of the road at Mohrungen, and heard from a 
 French colonel that the chief topic of conversation in the French 
 army was, that Benningsen was the only man in Europe who 
 had yet repulsed their Emperor. 
 
 But if Benningsen could gain a battle, the want of enterprise 
 and infirmities* common to his age prevented him from 
 following it up with sufficient activity. His generals of 
 divisions, Barclay de Tolly, Osterman, Tolstoi, Galitzin, 
 Doctorof, Buxhowden, Bagration, and Platof, were making 
 almost their first essay in European warfare; while Bona- 
 parte's subordinates during the last fifteen years had com- 
 manded armies and gained victories in Austria, Germany, 
 Italy, India, and on their native soil of France ; and the 
 French regimental officers were also selected from the finest 
 armies of the West. The Russian army was continually 
 impeded by its want of magazines ; and having constantly 
 slept out on the snow without tents, the soldiers' great-coats 
 were now masses of rags. They were marching through a 
 country as denuded of forage or provisions as the Sahara 
 desert, and the men were reduced to dig up the potatoes 
 which the Polish peasants buried when they fled from their 
 huts. In pursuance of his plan, to leave the mass of the 
 French army in his rear and reach the more fertile provinces 
 of West Prussia, Benningsen pushed on towards Konigsberg, 
 drawing the French army after him, and daily sustaining sharp 
 conflicts, till he formed a junction with Lestocq, and united 
 all his forces at Preussich Eylau. Napoleon at the same 
 time began to concentrate his army ; and the Russians, weary 
 of long marches and starvation, pressed their commander to 
 offer him battle. The village of Eylau contained nothing 
 that could be turned into a position except the cemetery, and 
 the ground was covered with snow, which fell thickly during 
 the engagement; nevertheless, the combat was sustained 
 for three days between the Russians and French; and when 
 at length the French retired, nearly 50,000 were counted 
 among the wounded and dead. The snow was blown straight into 
 the faces of the Russian soldiers, who thought the elements 
 always took the side of the French. " I have seen the 
 * He was suffering from a painful disorder.
 
 334 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 Russians at Eylau/' said Napoleon,* "perform prodigies of 
 valour. They were so many heroes." " If I had been told/' 
 writes Wilson before the battle, " that men could live as the 
 Russians have been doing for six weeks, I could not have 
 believed it. Black bread, snow for water, and snow only to 
 lie on, is tremendous suffering. However, officers have not 
 been at their ease. "We literally had no food all day yesterday. 
 I wonder General Benningsen, with the oppression of respon- 
 sibility, can bear the fatigue. In some respects this army 
 resembles the Turkish army ; but in the charge of their close 
 columns, their determined bearing of the bayonet, and their 
 order for close action, they are equalled only by the British. f 
 He wrote, February 4th, to Lord Hutchinson, " How much I 
 wish you could see this army ! Report has done them wrong. 
 Even the Cossacks are more respectable than you believe. 
 Instead of inhabitants flying, we have seen poultry of all 
 kinds confidently strutting on the dunghills.";); 
 
 " Had anything been wanting/' says Bourrienne, " to 
 confirm the unsuccessful result of the battle of Eylau, it 
 would have been supplied by the anxiety Napoleon showed 
 that his version should be first dispersed throughout Germany. 
 The Russian account, commonly prevailing, might pro- 
 duce troublesome results." " Our loss/' says Madame 
 Junot, " at Eylau was enormous. Why conceal the truth ? 
 Napoleon avowing the truth at Eylau would have appeared to 
 me more truly great than putting forth an official falsehood 
 no child could believe." Savary, who commanded the 5th 
 corps, admits that the victory belonged to Russia ; and after 
 stating officially that the French loss was 7000, Napoleon 
 owned at St. Helena that it amounted to 18,000, which is 
 believed still to fall far short of the real number. The 
 Russians acknowledged at least 12,000 1| as missing from their 
 
 * O'Meara's Voice from St. Helena. See also "Wilson's War in 1807. 
 
 f Wilson's War in Poland, 1806-7. 
 J Letter to Lord Hutchinson, February, 1807. 
 
 Wilson states that the French army never gained the advantage 
 during the whole course of the battle in which he took part. At St. 
 Helena Napoleon half admitted that Eylau was a defeat, and the false- 
 hood respecting it was abandoned on his tomb in the Invalides, where it 
 is not recorded among his victories. 
 
 || Wilson and Benningsen.
 
 The Campaign of EyJau and Friedland. 335 
 
 own ranks, besides seven generals and 800 officers ; and their 
 artillery told with astonishing effect upon their enemies : 
 Augereau's division being completely annihilated, and the 24th 
 regiment destroyed to a man. Colonel Benkendorf carried 
 twelve captured French flags with their eagles to St. Peters- 
 burg, where they can still be seen, besides seven standards 
 taken by the Cossacks, from which the eagles, being of silver, 
 had been unscrewed. Yet Napoleon wrote that only one of 
 his regiments had lost its eagle. The Russians left twelve 
 damaged guns oil the field when they abandoned it the next 
 day, and lost ten during the engagement, but carried away 
 200 French cannon. Their forces consisted at the most of 
 75,000 men, . which included 10,000 Russians and Prussians 
 under Lestocq ; while the French, according to the returns of 
 their own officers before the combat, had 90,000 posted at 
 Eylau,* and, allowing for stragglers and other deficiencies, at 
 the critical moment must have reached at least 80,000. The 
 town of Eylau was taken and retaken; but at length, occu- 
 pied by the division of the younger Kamenski, resisted all 
 Ney's efforts to drive him out. Napoleon was posted behind 
 the church, February 6th, and the divisions of his army were 
 commanded by J3essieres, Augereau, Davoust, Soult, Savary, 
 Ney, and Murat, Bernadotte's corps not having arrived till 
 two days afterwards. At ten o'clock at night he gave orders 
 for his heavy artillery and baggage to quit the field and defile 
 towards Landsberg, and ordered Davoust to draw back to 
 their position of three days before. It was the more humili- 
 ating, as previous to the battle he had made sure of reaching 
 Kb'nigsberg the following morning. He had told his soldiers 
 that " in two days the enemy will cease to exist, and your 
 fatigues will be compensated by a luxurious and honourable 
 
 * Dumas, xviii. 592. Sir R. Wilson. 
 
 In two letters written on the same day to Cambaceres and Dam, 
 March llth, Napoleon values his losses respectively at 1500 dead and 
 3000 wounded, and at 7000 or 8000 wounded. The systematic pillage 
 which the French had exercised since they had occupied Prussia was 
 partly shown hy the amount of money which the Russians found in the 
 pockets of the dead Frenchmen, even of the private soldiers. 
 
 Wilson says that Napoleon " would have been a hopeless fugitive if 
 Benningsen had yielded to the entreaties of every general in the field, 
 and pursued the defeated French army." War in 1806-7.
 
 336 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 repose/' and lie had dictated a letter to Berthier for 
 Josephine, which was intercepted by the Cossacks. " The 
 Russians have fled to Gumbinnen, on the road to Russia. 
 To-morrow Konigsberg will receive the Emperor/' Yet at 
 eleven o'clock that night the French had retreated, and 
 the roar of the cannon entirely ceased, while the Russian 
 generals held a council of war on horseback on the field as to 
 the next step to pursue. Generals Tolstoi and Knorring both 
 strongly advised that Napoleon should not be allowed any 
 pretext for asserting he had gained the victory, and that 
 however unsafe and inconvenient the position might be, they 
 should still remain on the field, and not continue their march, 
 but if possible renew the engagement the next day. But a 
 general of sixty-five, who has been thirty-six hours on horse- 
 back without tasting food, on a bitter winter's night, and whose 
 exertions had been excessive during the last two months, may 
 naturally prefer the path of safety to that of valour, and first 
 look for the shelter of a roof to protect him from the blind- 
 ing snow. There was a chance, he declared, that fresh troops 
 might reinforce the French army ; for Bernadotte's corps was 
 close behind, and he was not sufficiently informed to feel 
 secure that another contingent of 90,000 might not be near 
 at hand. He had passed the whole day under the hottest fire ; 
 but his courage was more tried by the severity of the cold. 
 Disregarding the remonstrances of all his younger generals, 
 he ordered his army to march by Mulhausen towards Konigs- 
 berg, hoping to find both food and covered quarters on the 
 road ;* and ordered Lestocq's division to remain on the field 
 to assist those of the wounded whom they had not carried 
 away. He, with his staff, obtained a few hours' repose in a 
 house filled with several thousands of the dead and dying; 
 and the next day established their forces at Wottenberg 
 
 * The Russian army was entirely unprovisioned, even for the next day, 
 and during the battle foraging parties had dug the ground in quest of food, 
 
 "At Eylau," says Wilson (see Narrative of 1812), "being without 
 bread or water, ate the snow. Benningsen and his staff had but one bowl 
 of small potatoes for food from midday of the preceding day till mid- 
 night after the battle, when nothing would induce Benningsen to take 
 more than one potato, there being only enough to give one to each indi- 
 vidual. This sufficed him till he reached Konigsberg the next morning, 
 after a long night's march. There were about a hundred soldiers having 
 legs and arms cut off in the room where the potatoes were distributed, 
 there being no other tenement on the Russian field of battle."
 
 TJie Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 337 
 
 nine miles in front of K6nigsberg,and half- way between that city 
 and the blood-stained field. He nobly refused to avail himself 
 of more comfortable accommodation than could be given to his 
 army, and was chiefly anxious to spread out his divisions lest 
 the immense number of sick and wounded should produce a 
 pestilence. The aspect of the battle site, which Lestocq soon 
 abandoned, was said to exceed everything in horror that had 
 been witnessed in modern times. Prussians had been forced 
 to fight against the cause of Prussia, and lay intermingled 
 with their sovereign's allies, while the Italian, Spaniard, 
 German, Frenchman, Pole, and Cossack were heaped together 
 with every variety of hideous wound. The Russians had 
 taken 1500 prisoners and 200 ambulance carriages, and their 
 light infantry brought in numerous captures for several 
 succeeding days, while their army was refitted from Konigs- 
 berg, and in its new position obtained a welcome rest ; but 
 this movement enabled Napoleon to proclaim loudly that he 
 had won the victory. The French officers were well fed, but 
 the men were almost as destitute as the Russians had been 
 before the battle, and there was much discontent and misery 
 in their camp. Napoleon had retired with his army to a 
 distance of three miles, but as soon as Lestocq's division left 
 the field, he rode over the plain of Eylau with his generals, 
 and in his bulletin observes it was " a spectacle fitted to 
 inspire princes with the love of peace and a horror of war." 
 He wrote to Duroc, February 9th, that " it is possible, in 
 order to have quiet winter quarters, I may go to the left 
 bank of the Vistula ;" and in his address to his soldiers he 
 gave the same reason for returning to their former positions. 
 He now thought of making a separate peace and even an 
 alliance with Prussia, and sent General Bertrand to the head- 
 quarters of the Russian commander, February 13th, to pro- 
 pose an armistice, but on Benningsen refusing to grant one 
 he ordered a retreat. In the ten days succeeding the battle 
 the desultory warfare with the Cossacks cost the French a 
 thousand dead and as many prisoners, but the only offensive 
 manoeuvre they attempted was a cavalry attack, led by 
 Murat, on the rear-guard of the Russian position before 
 Konigsberg, when he was driven back by 1600 Cossacks, with 
 the loss of 400 killed and 300 prisoners. On February 17th, 
 VOL. i. z
 
 338 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 the whole French army retired to Osterode, leaving their 
 stores and ammunition, besides most of their wounded, to the 
 mercy of the Russians, who immediately overran the country 
 they evacuated, and found the dead of both armies still lying 
 unburied on the field. 
 
 In a house lately occupied by the enemy, 650 Frenchmen 
 and 150 Russian prisoners had been abandoned without pro- 
 visions, with their wounds undressed, and with dead bodies 
 intermingled in almost every room ; some of the Russian 
 wounded crawled into ditches or other places of concealment, 
 and, when recovered, either turned marauders or gradually 
 joined their ranks. 
 
 On February 22nd, several Prussians and twenty-six Rus- 
 sian prisoners were massacred by the French during their 
 retreat, because their wounds prevented them from marching ; 
 but a fortnight before a detachment of 500 Russian prisoners 
 and 800 Prussians, being conveyed to Warsaw, were followed 
 by the Cossacks, their escort destroyed, and themselves set 
 free. The battle of Eylau enabling Benningsen to complete 
 his long march to Konigsberg, had effectually saved the city 
 from falling into the hands of the French. Napoleon's 
 scheme for annihilating the Russians before they could reach 
 its protection had entirely failed, and their wounded, many of 
 whom were found to have been struck with stones, double- 
 headed bullets, and pewter, were being tended in its hospitals, 
 while most of the disabled of his own army were left to perish 
 from cold, or were dependent on the charity of their enemies. 
 Yet he felt that his position in France could not sustain an 
 acknowledged defeat, and in his address to his soldiers he had 
 the assurance to inform them that they had killed and cap- 
 tured 40,000 men, and taken sixty pieces of cannon and 
 sixteen standards.* The standards, he pretended, had been 
 already sent to France, and the cannon, which he could not 
 produce, were melted up, he said, to make a statue to General 
 Hautpoil, killed in the battle. He talked of having com- 
 pletely foiled the Russian commander's plans, though he 
 owned to General Bertrand that Benningsen's retrograde 
 
 * Wilson says the Russians lost none. Benningsen places the French 
 loss at 30,000, but his proclamation to his soldiers was modest and 
 truthful.
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 339 
 
 movement was most ably conducted, and full of instruction. 
 The bulletins he despatched to France were in a still more 
 exaggerated strain, and announced a complete victory; but 
 the Parisians had learnt to distrust official proclamations, 
 and there was hardly a household who had not lost a relative 
 in the war. The depression was so general that the Bnna- 
 partes began to consider their private interests, and Caroline 
 Murat tried to secure the popular favour for her husband, 
 while Josephine supported the pretensions of her son Eugene 
 as a suitable successor to the throne of France. The citizens 
 were aware that during four months Napoleon had made no 
 real progress. He had talked of driving the Russians across the 
 Niernen, and wintering in St. Petersburg, and now he spoke 
 of retiring himself to the German side of the Vistula. He 
 had never touched the frontier of Russia, but announced 
 that he must forestall the conscription, not due till 1808, and 
 demanded from the French Senate a reinforcement of 80,000 
 men. It was the third levy made since the Prussian war 
 began, and 240,000 recruits had been required in seven 
 months. He said afterwards that the junction of Austria 
 with the Allies might at this time have proved his ruin. " I 
 trembled lest ] 50,000 of those mediators had appeared on the 
 Elbe, which, would have plunged me into the greatest diffi- 
 culties. More than once I regretted having suffered myself 
 to be drawn on into those inhospitable countries. The 
 cabinet of Vienna had a safer and more honourable oppor- 
 tunity of re-establishing its preponderance than that which it 
 chose in 1813, but it had not resolution enough to profit by 
 it, and my firm countenance proved my salvation. "* 
 
 Alexander settled on Benningsen a pension of 12,000 
 roubles, and sent half a year's extra pay and allowance to every 
 soldier who had served in the battle, but the insubordination 
 which the general was unable to repress in the Russian army 
 made him ask for his discharge. His hospitality was un- 
 bounded towards the foreign officers who accompanied his 
 troops ; but his left-handed connection with the Empress 
 Catherine through his first wifef being well known, he was 
 looked upon almost in the light of a fratricide by his soldiers, 
 
 * Jomini, ii. 369. 
 
 f He was at this time lately married to his fourth wife. 
 
 z2
 
 340 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 and not spared in the sarcastic songs which both the Russians 
 and Cossacks have a talent for improvising, and which, like 
 the English caricaturists, respected no one. He was not a 
 favourite even with his own countrymen in the Russian ser- 
 vice, and was absolutely hated by the thorough Muscovites. 
 He was challenged by his former colleague, General Buxhow- 
 den, who thought he had misrepresented him to the Emperor, 
 and all joined in condemning his inaction after Eylau. 
 Alexander directed him to continue in the command till he 
 arrived at the head-quarters of the army, and sent the minister 
 Novossilzof to inquire into the cause of the disorders. He was 
 already on his way to Prussia, and visiting Moscow and Vilna, 
 with the other provinces of Russian Poland, to counteract the 
 effect of the French revolutionary proclamations in Posen and 
 Warsaw, and the influence Napoleon's flattery had exercised 
 during his residence within the limits of the dismembered 
 kingdom. 
 
 The cause of Poland and the Poles was a right arm to 
 Bonaparte, and never were a people more completely cajoled 
 and deceived with fairer promises, or requited with more con- 
 tempt. Their enthusiasm was turned into a course useful to 
 France, but most injurious to their own interests, and they 
 shed their blood like water, first on the side of the republic, 
 and then, as the republic merged into a despotism, they found 
 themselves revenging, as they thought, their own partition 
 by assisting to partition other nations. Was the man who 
 divided Italy, and tried to place a French sovereign on the 
 throne of Spain, who suppressed the Dutch republic, and 
 compelled German conscripts to fight against Germany, likely 
 to feel any real indignation against the sovereigns who acted 
 by Poland as he longed to act by all Europe ? Their horse- 
 men formed his finest but fiercest cavalry, and had opposed 
 Suvorov, though unsuccessfully, at Novi and the Trebbia, had 
 overrun Italy, and assisted to place the crown of Naples 
 on the head of Joseph Bonaparte. In the campaign in Italy, 
 and in those with Austria and Prussia, they deserted by 
 hundreds from the allied ranks. Their contingent was re- 
 warded for these services by exile to San Domingo in 1803, 
 but in 1805, for the sake of attracting their countrymen, 
 they were again summoned to the standard of France, and
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 341 
 
 the subsequent year a Polish division was formed, and Napo- 
 leon requested the veteran Kosciusko to put himself at its 
 head. He refused on account of his health, and having been 
 a republican all his life, he could not consistently serve under 
 a monarchical government. On this Napoleon put Kos- 
 ciusko's name to a proclamation he spread in Poland.* The 
 patriot was made to declare that he should shortly appear 
 among them, calling upon the people to arm for their 
 deliverers, the French. Dombrovski and Wybicki lent their 
 aid to this forgery, and in December, 1806, all Posen was in 
 open insurrection, the Prussian arms were torn down through- 
 out the province, and the Duchy of Warsaw received the 
 conquerors of Prussia with open arms. The French officers 
 were fascinated by the charms of the Polish ladies, and 
 Napoleon, who is said to have found his Capua on the Vistula, 
 was so completely captivated by a titled dame as to make 
 Josephine very uneasy, and request to come to the Polish 
 capital. " All capacity and energy in Poland," the French 
 commissioner of Louis XV. wrote home to his master in 
 1770, "have passed from the men to the women, who are 
 occupied in action while the men are leading the life of 
 women." Misfortune seems to have restored energy to the 
 Polish men, but the women still retain their superiority over 
 their husbands, and on their side are governed by the priests 
 of the Roman Catholic Church. Napoleon had the support of 
 the Pope, and the Pope had in reality more power in Poland 
 than in any other part of Europe. At this time Napoleon 
 does not seem to have valued the Poles as soldiers, for he 
 wrote to Joseph, July 30th, 1806, that " with bad troops like 
 the Poles failure is not surprising." " I like them," he said 
 to Rapp on another occasion, " their ardour pleases me. I 
 could wish to render them an independent people, but it is 
 no easy undertaking. Too many nations are interested in 
 their spoils, Austria, Russia, and Prussia. If the match is 
 once lighted, there is no saying where it would stop. My 
 first duty is towards France, and it is no part of it to sacrifice 
 its interests to Poland." Later he spoke more strongly 
 against even the policy of their independence, fearing that 
 " their lawless example would excite revolutions in France." 
 * This proclamation is given in Hardenberg's Memoirs. Goldsmith. '
 
 342 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 But the words he used to them, " that the bright days of 
 Poland have returned/' were naturally interpreted by a 
 people whose sole aim was the restoration of their king- 
 dom in its fullest extent, to mean their emancipation from 
 foreign control, and they long imagined that their country 
 would be restored to independence (and anarchy!) through 
 the medium of Napoleon, and as a reward for their services 
 to France.* 
 
 The foppish Murat, attracted by the Oriental costume and 
 gaudy colours of the Polish national dress, entreated his 
 brother-in-law to make him King of Poland, and his cavalry 
 achievements were boasted of with true Gascon exaggeration, in 
 the hope of making him acceptable to an equestrian people, but 
 the peace of Tilsit prevented their scheme from being carried 
 out. The hope of securing the Polish crown as an hereditary 
 possession brought over Saxony, in the winter of 1 806, entirely 
 to the cause of France, though she had never been anything 
 more than Prussia's half-hearted ally ; but Napoleon's trans- 
 actions with regard to the other members of the northern 
 confederation showed he had no wish to alienate Alexander 
 beyond forgiveness. The Duke of Brunswick was the brother- 
 in-law of George III., and the father of the Princess of 
 Wales; and when dying of his wounds after the battle of 
 Jena was chased from his palace, and not allowed to draw 
 his last breath in his ancestral home ; while his dominions were 
 seized by the French, and his family, though nearly connected 
 with the Elector of Baden, Napoleon's ally, were compelled to 
 take refuge with their relatives in Prussia, Sweden, and Den- 
 mark. The Duchy of Saxe-Coburg was occupied by the 
 French, but not annexed till the beginning of 1807, and 
 then it was gently dealt with, and the ruling family allowed 
 to remain in the palace ; for Coburg had not at that time 
 formed any alliance with Great Britain, and one of its 
 princesses, still residing with her parents, was married to the 
 brother of Alexander. The Duke of Saxe- Weimar com- 
 manded a division in the battle of Jena, and his capital was 
 overrun immediately afterwards, and his palace occupied by 
 Napoleon, who called him a mauvais sujet to his own wife ; 
 
 * Napoleon reserved estates for himself in the Duchy of Warsaw to the 
 value of twenty millions of francs.
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 343 
 
 but his daughter-in-law was the sister of Alexander, and 
 though she was then in a place of safety, this relationship, 
 far more than the courage of the Duchess,* saved his territory 
 from annexation and pillage. Mecklenburg-Schwerin was 
 similarly exempted, as its hereditary prince were the widower 
 of Alexander's second sister, Helena. It was not surprising 
 that an alliance with the Imperial House of Eussia became 
 an object of ambition to the unmarried princes of Europe. 
 
 Before the battle of Eylau, the arrangements for the 
 wounded and the medical staff in the French army were better 
 organized than any other in the world, with the exception of 
 Great Britain. Baron Larrey had introduced flying ambu- 
 lances, which conveyed the sufferers in comfortable vehicles 
 over a wide area, and prevented the miseries inevitable when 
 they are too closely packed, and he dressed their wounds 
 under the hottest fire of the enemy ; but at Eylau the whole 
 of the sick, wounded, and dead of both forces were ultimately 
 left to the Russians either to bury or to cure, and from this 
 period Napoleon displayed the most culpable indifference to 
 the safety of his disabled soldiers, a negligence which was 
 soon communicated to his subordinates. He never allowed 
 his movements to be impeded by them, though every general 
 engaged in a hot campaign has to take into consideration this 
 burden, and interest and humanity should prompt him to 
 furnish them with shelter and proper care. But Napoleon, 
 unlike most generals, having the command of the sources 
 from which he drew his troops, thought it the most econo- 
 mical measure in the end to let them perish of their wounds 
 or of starvation at the side of the roads or in the fields where 
 they fell, as it cost him more to cure them than to bring up 
 fresh conscripts. It doubtless enabled him to surprise 
 his enemies by his rapid movements, but it was not the 
 less unjustifiable, and his reckless expenditure of human 
 life has affected the population of France to the present 
 day. 
 
 The Russian arrangements for the wounded had been 
 hitherto inefficient, and their surgeons, both civil and mili- 
 tary, very scarce, for the medical improvements ordered by 
 
 * Thiers is mistaken in saying it was Alexander's sister who con- 
 fronted Napoleon. It was her mother-in-law.
 
 344 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 the Emperor Paul had not shown much effect; and in the 
 learned professions, above everything else, the want of a 
 middle class is most severely felt. "The best cure for a 
 man desperately wounded is a cannon-ball," was a remark 
 of en heard from even humane Russians; but the ameliora- 
 tion of their condition was a favourite subject with Alexander, 
 and at Friedland, during this campaign, for the first time in 
 their history the wounded were conveyed off the field before 
 the end of the battle, and their wounds dressed while still 
 under fire, instead of being overrun by the cavalry and 
 artillery, as in previous engagements. 
 
 On the evening of February 13th, five days after the battle 
 of Eylau, Napoleon's aide-de-camp, General Bertrand, arrived 
 at the Russian camp outside Konigsberg with a flag of truce, 
 and demanded a safe conduct to the King at Memel. Ben- 
 ningsen wrote at the same time to Frederick William : " I 
 will presume to observe, Sire, it is not a moment to listen to 
 an armistice, and the proposal alone serving as a proof of the 
 state of weakness to which the enemy's army is reduced, is a 
 sufficient reason to decline it."* A few days later the French 
 general of the advanced guard asked Benningsen for an 
 armistice, but it was refused. The Russian army moved its 
 quarters the same day with the French, and occupied Eylau, 
 Barstenstein, and the country round; while the greatest 
 alarm began to prevail in Warsaw, where the Poles felt they 
 had compromised themselves with Prussia, and all persons of 
 note prepared to join the French head-quarters at Berlin. 
 
 General Bertrand's mission was first to propose a separate 
 peace with Russia, which Benningsen told him could not be 
 thought of except in concert with their allies, and then he 
 carried the same overtures to the King. He particularly 
 requested to see the Queen, humbly representing that Napo- 
 leon had charged him to assure her of his regret for his 
 calumnious publications, when he was most completely de- 
 ceived as to her conduct. He further said, no one was now 
 more ready to do justice to her many virtues ; and he hoped 
 shortly, at Berlin, to have an opportunity of gaining her 
 
 * As Bertrand returned from Memel he asked Benningsen to propose 
 something which should give the belligerents a little repose, and Wilson 
 says that the French soldiers asked the Cossacks for bread, which they 
 swallowed with painful avidity.
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 345 
 
 esteem.* " I send to your majesty," Napoleon wrote to 
 Frederick William, February 13th, " General Bertrand, my 
 confidential aide-de-camp. He will say things which I hope 
 will be agreeable, that you may believe this moment is the 
 finest of my life. I flatter myself it will be the epoch of a 
 durable friendship between us." This was to offer the 
 restoration of all his dominions, according to Wilson and 
 some other authorities ; but only as far as the Elbe, according 
 to Lanfrey; though either concession was distinctly refused 
 more than once a few months before. Bertrand represented 
 to the King that his alliance with Russia was only a dis- 
 graceful vassalage; the sufferings of his people did not allow 
 of his waiting for the consent of England; Napoleon only 
 wished to have the glory of reorganizing the Prussian 
 nation, whose power was necessary to all Europe ; and that as 
 to Poland, since he knew her he no longer attached a price 
 to her. At the same time, fearing the report of the French 
 losses might have reached Paris, Napoleon wrote to Fouche : 
 " Spread the report, first in the salons, then in the journals, 
 that the Russians are so much weakened some regiments are 
 reduced to 150 men. There remain no more troops in Russia. 
 The Russian army demands peace. She accuses some great 
 nobles of selling the Russians' blood for the English," &c.f 
 
 On February 14th, the battle of Ostrolenka was gained by 
 the Russians, under General Essen, over Savary and Oudinot, 
 each side losing about 1500 men. Both claimed the victory, 
 but even Lanfrey asserts that it belonged to Essen, whose 
 troops chiefly consisted of a corps lately arrived from 
 Moldavia. He withdrew nearer the frontier of Russia, 
 not wishing to leave it quite uncovered, but much to Ben- 
 niugsen's displeasure, as he had expected him to join the 
 head-quarters, and shortly afterwards General Knorring threw 
 up his command, on account of Benningsen having refused to 
 encamp on the field of Eylau after the battle. 
 
 Frederick William and many of his councillors would 
 gladly have accepted these terms, but were deterred by 
 the remonstrances of Hardenberg and the Queen, and 
 delayed a positive answer till Alexander's arrival. The King 
 was now literally without an army, for the corps of 10,000 
 * Wilson ; Sir Gr. Jackson. f Lanfrey's Yie de Napoleon I".
 
 346 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 dispirited Prussians left to him after Jena were nearly all 
 dispersed, and their feeble efforts in the field made them 
 objects of contempt to both their enemies and allies. They 
 grudged the Russians their victories, and would never 
 willingly give them any aid. They were much in the posi- 
 tion of the Spaniards during the Peninsular campaign, or of 
 the Tartars in the Crimea during the Anglo-French and 
 Russian war, as even Lestocq's contingent was almost entirely 
 composed of Russians. The King of Sweden kept to 
 Stralsund, and in spite of his invectives against the French, 
 took no part in the struggle except to conclude an armistice 
 at the most critical moment ; but the English officers at the 
 head-quarters of Benningsen, and the King of Prussia, kept 
 up their hopes of an eventual assistance on the side of Great 
 Britain, and after the battle of Eylau both the cabinets of 
 St. Petersburg and Berlin applied for a British force to 
 co-operate with the Allies in the Baltic, on the shores of 
 Pomerania, or in Holland. But the English were taking advan- 
 tage of Napoleon being occupied elsewhere to strengthen and 
 increase their colonial possessions, and secure their influence 
 in Egypt and Buenos Ayres. Having first summoned the 
 Continent to arm on defence of national rights, they now 
 seemed only bent on turning the war to their private profit. 
 Lord Howick (afterwards Lord Grey), the very minister who, 
 after Jena, had entreated Russia to come to the assistance of 
 Prussia, returned for answer : " The approach of spring is 
 doubtless the most favourable period for military operations, 
 but in the present juncture the Allies must not look for any 
 considerable aid from the land force of Great Britain/' 
 
 In the mean while stores and reinforcements of all kinds 
 were being forwarded from Russia to the head-quarters of her 
 army in West Prussia, and the Imperial Guard began its 
 march from St. Petersburg under Constantino's command as 
 soon as the severity of the winter had relaxed. When 
 Kamenski was appointed chief of the active army, he ac- 
 cepted it only on condition that the Grand Duke should not 
 serve under him, nor any of the wealthy young nobles in the 
 regiments in the capital. There was great jealousy, he said, 
 between the army and the Court, which would be the source 
 of constant intrigues; and he also tried to obtain Count
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 347 
 
 Pahlen's services, but the unfortunate end to his period of 
 authority caused an entire change, and when fresh battalions 
 were required after Eylau the Guards were ordered to the 
 seat of war. The Emperor addressed his general strongly on 
 the subject of maintaining good discipline among the soldiers 
 with regard to the property of the inhabitants of the districts 
 where they were quartered in Prussia, and said he should 
 hold him responsible for all future irregularities. This order 
 was unfortunate, as Beuningsen was already too much dis- 
 posed to inaction, and it resulted in his restraining the 
 Cossack attacks on the French outposts, which had caused 
 so much harass to the enemy as to impel it to retreat, and 
 enable the overtaxed Russian army to obtain a little repose. 
 
 On the 9th of March General Bertrand was sent again with 
 a flag of truce to the Russian outposts to propose an armistice ; 
 but though it was refused, Benningsen would not undertake 
 any further operation till the arrival of the Emperor, as he 
 confidently expected either a junction with Austria or peace. 
 It was not then known that the Russian success had decided 
 Austria to become in reality the ally of France, for she 
 permitted Napoleon to send reinforcements through her 
 territory to operate against the Russians in Dalmatia. 
 Wilson reports that there was great impatience among the 
 Russian generals at sustaining the conflict single-handed ; 
 though, " in the field no military can show more daring, the 
 greater part of the generals now wish to retire with honour." 
 Yet all this time the British envoys at the Courts of Memel 
 and St. Petersburg had particular instructions to urge Russia 
 to keep up -the war. Alexander passed a few hours at 
 Mittau on his way to Prussia, and went through the hospitals 
 crowded with the sick and wounded from both armies. He 
 paid a visit to Louis XVIII. and his family, and thanked the 
 Duchess d'Angouleme for her attention to the wounded, 
 which was, however, particularly directed to the French 
 prisoners, among whom typhus fever extensively prevailed, 
 and from which, a month later, the celebrated Abbe Edge- 
 worth lost his life. The snow was still unusually deep on 
 the roads between Moscow and Vilna, and St. Petersburg and 
 Mittau, and the Emperor, travelling in an open sledge, with 
 one outrider, nearly perished in a storm, and was compelled
 
 348 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 to pass the night in a peasant's hut. Fatal accidents are 
 most common in that climate, if a snowstorm is encountered 
 on a journey, or the thermometer marks seventeen degrees of 
 frost ; but the railways, fast intersecting Russia, will soon 
 make such expeditions a thing of the past. At Memel he 
 was met by the Sovereigns of Prussia, and the haggard, worn 
 face of the Queen would have touched a much harder heart. 
 " Dear cousin/' was all she could find words to say ; but he 
 reassured her, and the same afternoon was closeted for three 
 hours with the King on the subject of Napoleon's proposal 
 for a peace, which had been renewed. " I desire peace with 
 Russia," said the French Emperor in his letter, and " I desire 
 to put a period to the misfortunes of your family, and or- 
 ganize as speedily as possible the Prussian monarchy, whose 
 intermediate power is necessary for the tranquillity of 
 Europe." This language, so different from the declaration 
 after Jena, that " the Prussian nobility should be reduced 
 to beg their bread," and the " House of Brandenburg must 
 resign half its dominions," would certainly have been heeded 
 if the English ambassadors had not held out hopes of some 
 species of succour and Austria's alliance been expected. The 
 Emperor of Russia also doubted if Bonaparte would really 
 resign the fortresses he still held in Prussia until pushed to 
 greater extremity, and thought he only wished to gain time. 
 He insisted upon Hardenberg being recalled to the chief place 
 in the King's councils, and, Sir G. Jackson says, turned the 
 scale in favour of rejecting the offer of peace. His friend and 
 minister, Strogonof, arrived at Memel the day before, Novos- 
 silzof, who had already paid one visit to the army, came with 
 the Emperor, the prime minister, Budberg, eight days after- 
 wards, and Czartoriski, though no longer in office, within a 
 fortnight. " During the Emperor's short stay at Merael," 
 writes Jackson, " everything was arranged, and the basis laid 
 for a very different line of conduct from any we have lately 
 seen pursued by the Prussian Government. We may now 
 fairly hope that the Beym and Lombard system is fairly 
 banished from the councils of their betrayed country." 
 
 The arrival of the Emperor and of the Imperial Guard was 
 delayed by the state of the ice on the river Memel, but Alex- 
 ander reached Barstenstein, the head -quarters of his army,
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 349 
 
 April T3th, having reviewed several corps on his road, and 
 Constantine followed with his division on the 17th. " After 
 overturning the Prussian monarchy " wrote Napoleon to Joseph 
 on March 1st, " we are fighting against the Russians, the 
 Cossacks, the Calmucks, and those hordes of the north who 
 of old overwhelmed the Roman Empire. We are engaged in 
 war in all its might and horrors. In the midst of these 
 terrible fatigues every one has been more or less invalided. As 
 for myself, I never felt stronger, and have even got fatter." 
 The King accompanied his Imperial ally, and from time to 
 time corresponded with Napoleon without Alexander's know- 
 ledge, but the two allied sovereigns signed a treaty at Barsten- 
 stein, April 26th, binding themselves to make common cause, 
 and neither party to entertain separate terms of peace. They 
 also engaged to make no conquest on their own account while 
 the war lasted. Lord Hutchinson refused to accede to it on 
 the part of England, and when it was forwarded to Austria 
 she followed the same course. It was sent to Bonaparte, who 
 at once saw that he had now no need to fear the active oppo- 
 sition of either England or Austria ; and there were certainly 
 many traitors in the Prussian camp, for plans of attack and 
 the most private information found their way from the royal 
 councils to the French generals. The Emperor suspected 
 Beym, who was on particularly intimate terms with the lady- 
 in-waiting, and persistently counteracted Hardenberg's in- 
 fluence, having great power over the King ; and he again 
 endeavoured to remove him, but Frederick William intimated 
 that any further application for that purpose would be offen- 
 sive, and the Emperor desisted. The King's conduct was 
 certainly quite unaccountable. He was of too cold a dis- 
 position to make warm friends, but he can hardly be exone- 
 rated of treachery towards his ally. " If left to themselves," 
 writes Sir G. Jackson, " I am persuaded the Prussians would 
 make peace to-morrow with Bonaparte, and join the confedera- 
 tion of the Rhine." He complains much of his colleague, 
 Lord Hutchinson, who loudly depreciated the allied resources, 
 and extolled those of Bonaparte. " Hardenberg, and even 
 the King and Queen, are anxious to get rid of him, for he tried 
 to delay active operations, and keeps up the same offensive 
 strain of mingled despair and contempt."
 
 350 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 "Every moment that we are in society with the Em- 
 peror," says Wilson, "the impression is more favourable.* 
 His manner at the same time is so frank that the most 
 sceptical misanthrope must allow that he has all the charac- 
 teristics of an honest mind in the exterior." The Guards ar- 
 rived April 23rd, and " a more noble and martial body of men 
 could not be seen. They moved with as much firmness and yet 
 ease as if they were on the parade at St. Petersburg.f The 
 Grand Duke [Constantine] I had only previously seen at table 
 once, so that I had no opportunity of forming any opinion of 
 his talents, but a conversation of an hour and a half now 
 afforded me the means of appreciating them. I can truly 
 affirm that I never heard a prince tell so many serious truths, 
 argue with more political judgment, and show so much com- 
 prehension of the character of the different nations of Europe. 
 1 do not believe the King of Prussia would have remained 
 in the room till the conclusion, so powerfully and with 
 such accurate direction were the thunderbolts launched against 
 him." 
 
 The Poles raised a body of 30,000 men to assist the French, 
 and their leaders received military titles and decorations, or a 
 grade in the rank of nobility, as a recompense for their 
 services ; but after the battle of Eylau, when it was known 
 that Napoleon offered to restore Warsaw to the King of 
 Prussia, they began to desert to both the Russians and 
 Prussians ; and the Prussian conscripts, forced to enrol them- 
 selves under the French standard, returned by hundreds to 
 join Lestocq during the month of April. But large reinforce- 
 ments were arriving from Fiance and West Germany, while 
 the unfavourable spring and the want of arms kept the new 
 militia levies in Russia. On the 10th of May the Neva was 
 still frozen, and the protracted thaw in the central districts of 
 the empire rendered the rivers impassable for weeks. Famine 
 and fever raged in the Prussian towns abandoned by the 
 
 * Sir G- Jackson's Diary and Correspondence. 
 
 f Life of General Sir Eobert Wilson, vol. ii. " Of Wilson," Jackson 
 says, " he rattles away with the Emperor at a great rate, as if laughing 
 and joking with a fellow comrade. It cannot be denied that he is one of 
 the most harum-scarum fellows that ever existed, yet there is an immense 
 deal of good in him," &c. He says, however, that he was too fond of 
 intrigue, and did much mischief.
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 351 
 
 French ; and in the neighbourhood of Eylau and Heilsberg 
 the Russian array fed the inhabitants. Benningsen and Platof 
 were both taken ill at a most inopportune moment, and the 
 leaders of the Russian army strongly deprecated any further 
 offensive movements till they were reinforced. Alexander lost 
 no opportunity of encouraging and rewarding his soldiers. 
 He marched with the Imperial Guards when they moved on 
 towards Heilsberg, and at seven in the morning attended the 
 exercises of various battalions, and presented each man with 
 an extra rouble when particularly satisfied with their ma- 
 noeuvres. Wilson gives them high praise, and declares them 
 to have been better instructed than English troops. " In the 
 conversation the Emperor held with various individuals who 
 had distinguished themselves, the manly replies of the soldiers 
 were admirable. Many were decorated with the newly esta- 
 blished Order of St. George. It might be advantageously 
 introduced in the English service if those who bore it were 
 exempted from corporal punishment, as among the Russians ; 
 but, indeed, corporal punishment is so little frequent among 
 them that there are regiments which for years have not been 
 stripped." As the Emperor, in the midst of pouring rain, 
 was reviewing the Tartar regiments and Leib Cossacks in 
 their national costume, a red vest and large loose light blue 
 trousers fastening under the boot, important despatches arrived 
 from England for Lord Hutchinson. There had been a change 
 of ministry, and Mr. Canning was appointed minister. 
 Wilson told the Emperor and the King he would answer with 
 his head for the new ministers sending, with the news of their 
 appointment, evidence of their disposition to support the 
 common cause ; but nothing of the sort appeared, and the 
 session of Parliament, announced as prorogued, seemed to have 
 been devoted to the discussion of the laws affecting Roman 
 Catholics.* " I could shed tears," Wilson wrote, " and I 
 lament as a source of unceasing affliction that I ever came 
 among the Russians. I might otherwise have heard how they 
 . were wronged and betrayed with merely sentiments of regret 
 for the honour of my country." 
 
 * The Russians could not believe in the discussion with regard to the 
 Roman Catholics being anything more than an excuse, as they have 
 always been Liberals on religious differences.
 
 352 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 English vessels arrived at Merael bringing ballast, but 
 neither men, victuals, nor arms, yet 20,000 English soldiers, 
 and they were all ready, would have given a complete victory 
 to the Allies. In May Bonaparte told Blucher, then a 
 prisoner in the hands of the French, that he wanted no war 
 with Russia, " and if she chooses I am ready at once to ratify 
 the treaty of last July. But with England it is not possible 
 to come to any terms ; a war a outrance is all I can hope for 
 or expect from her duplicity " 
 
 The French had besieged Dantzic for the last two months, 
 and the younger General Kamenski made an attempt to 
 relieve it, but failed, with a heavy loss, May 15th. Jackson 
 writes " that his troops, including Prussians, consisted of 7000, 
 and the enemy, by the statement of the prisoners, 17,000 or 
 20,000. It was intended to be a surprise, but the French 
 had got the whole plan, and even the explanation of the 
 telegraph signals. The weather was unfavourable for the co- 
 operation of the ships. The news caused the greatest de- 
 pression, both here and at head-quarters. Surrender is 
 inevitable. When the Emperor read the despatch he was 
 quite overcome by his feelings : Great scarcity of provisions ; 
 the Russian army so distressed that the men actually pass 
 whole days without bread. Just now, as an amazing effort, 
 the contractors have promised provisions for three days." 
 
 The Russians were incensed by Kalkreuth, one of the 
 advocates for an alliance with France, blaming them for 
 Dantzic being forced to surrender when, during Kamenski's 
 attack, a corps of 2600 Prussians, moving up from Pillau, 
 allowed themselves to be routed without losing a single officer, 
 and left two ships of provisions and three guns with the 
 enemy. This general and the King were both at this time 
 negotiating for a peace with Napoleon unknown to Alexander, 
 and Kalkreuth undertook to bring over Constantine and 
 Benningsen to their view. 
 
 " The Emperor," writes Wilson, May 21st, " is gone to 
 Tilsit, to expedite reinforcements to his army. There is 
 something truly noble in his zeal. The war is not properly 
 his own. He might make for himself a most advantageous 
 peace to-morrow, and so might Prussia, and I feel surprised 
 they do not, since England has behaved so shamefully to-
 
 Hie Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 353 
 
 wards Russia. I also give Alexander more praise for his 
 present conduct, as he sacrifices his pride and military feelings 
 to public utility. His magnanimity is superior to personal 
 consideration, and he disdains the influence of a mischievous 
 vanity that might be injurious to the glory and welfare of his 
 army." This remark refers to his not leading his army in 
 person, though he incurred what were considered unnecessary 
 risks by visiting the advanced outposts. 
 
 Early in May Ney's division was defeated at Guttstadt, 
 and pursued to Deppen, where Napoleon came up to his rescue, 
 and Benningsen retired; but the Cossacks continued to 
 skirmish in the face of the French army, which thereby lost 
 several thousand men. Dantzic fell at the end of May, and 
 Alexander proceeded from Tilsit towards Vilna to ascertain 
 the cause of the delay in the arrival of stores and troops. 
 During his absence the Russian commanders attempted to 
 end the campaign by an engagement at Heilsberg,on June 10th. 
 Beuningsen, Constantine, Gortchakof, Bagration, Osterman, 
 Rosen, Ouvarof, and Chaplitz commanded the Russians, and 
 Napoleon, Ney, Oudinot, Soult, and Davoust led the French. 
 Jackson says the French owned to a loss of 20,000; Wilson 
 estimates it at 12,000, and the Russian loss about 7000. 
 The Russians kept the ground and had the charge of the 
 wounded. They repulsed the enemy at four points, took two 
 standards, and again saved Konigsberg from a meditated 
 attack ; but they lost two generals and many valuable officers, 
 and hearing that Napoleon was about to be reinforced by 
 20,000 men, they crossed the Aller and took up their station 
 at Friedland, where their advanced cavalry drove out a French 
 detachment. On June 13th, Benningsen, having received 
 mistaken information from some prisoners that Oudinot's 
 shattered division was alone in his front, determined to attack it 
 in spite of the extreme fatigue of his own army, and for this pur- 
 pose threw three pontoon bridges across the Aller. " The will 
 of Providence for his destruction," says General Wilson, " could 
 alone infatuate General Benningsen* so far as to cause him to 
 act in this manner. The position he was about to occupy 
 was actually untenable ; and he had reason, moreover, to 
 expect an attack from Schippenheil on the right bank of the 
 
 * Benningsen was in great physical suffering throughout this battle. 
 VOL. I. A. 4
 
 354 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 Aller. He must be forced to fight on both sides, while on 
 neither could he act with vigour or defend himself on any 
 military principles." Fifteen thousand men were detached 
 on other service, and 2000 cavalry had not arrived from the 
 cantonments where they had been sent to refresh. Forty 
 thousand men, therefore, had to defend the two sides of the 
 river, exhausted with fatigue, unfed for twenty-four past hours, 
 and during the long battle afterwards without any suste- 
 nance."* According to Thiers, the French army amounted to 
 80,000, without the divisions commanded by Murat, Davoust, 
 and Soult, which consisted of 65,000 more.f As usual, the 
 French reports greatly exaggerated the number of Russians 
 engaged, and in the 82nd bulletin Napoleon stated their loss 
 at 60,000, being 20,000 more than were actually present. In 
 fact, the inferior force which the Russians possessed was 
 notorious for months, and justified the anxiety they felt for the 
 completion of the thaw and the arrival of their militia ; but 
 the snow that year remained on the ground as far south as the 
 latitude of Moscow till the middle of June, which was almost 
 unprecedented. Wilson declares no troops could have fought 
 better on this occasion than the Russians, who for sixteen 
 hours were under fire, and at first gained a slight success over 
 the corps of Marshal Ney ; it was no credit to Bonaparte 
 when, with a superiority of 40,000, he gained the day. Ben- 
 ningsen seemed physically, as well as morally, imbecile, and 
 discovered too late that he was opposed to the whole French 
 army ; and when at last a retreat was sounded, and the Russians 
 evacuated the burning town and halted a mile distant to rest 
 there for the night, he seemed resolved to kill the survivors 
 with fatigue, and after only two hours of repose dragged 
 them on to Polpitten a distance of twenty miles. The 
 next day the French attacked Kamenski and Lestocq in 
 front of Konigsberg; and though Soult, the French com- 
 mander,, called this a victory, he could not prevent the Russians 
 from entering the city, where they repulsed three subsequent 
 assaults with great loss to the French. On the 18th they 
 received orders from Benningsen to leave Konigsberg to its 
 fate and join the remainder of the Russian army. This 
 movement was effected with great skill ; all the baggage and 
 * Life of General Sir R. Wilson. f Thiers, vii. 606-8.
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 355 
 
 magazines of any importance were saved and transported 
 with the troops across the Niemen by the bridge at Tilsit, 
 which was burned as soon as the last had passed ; while during 
 the passage, which occupied two days, only a few shots were ex- 
 changed between the rear-guard of the Russians and the 
 vanguard of the French. The magistrates of Kb'nigsberg at 
 once sent the keys of the city to Marshal Soult ; but 3000 
 Russian wounded, too ill to be moved, were left to the 
 care of the inhabitants. 
 
 Golovin asserts that Friedland was a voluntary defeat, for 
 even the soldiers saw they were completely led into a trap, 
 and were heard to say, " Where is this German taking us ? 
 If the Prussians do not know how to fight, why should we do 
 their work for them ?" " Scores of soldiers," he says, 
 " when the battle began would carry away one wounded." 
 The Simonovski Guards left the'field without orders. " Where 
 are you going ?" said Constantine to its commander. " I 
 have got the cramp/' he answered, continuing his un- 
 authorized retreat.* The regiments reported to have lost 1000 
 men were rejoined by 700 before they reached the Russian 
 frontier. On the other hand, Jackson says that everything 
 valour and bravery could effect was achieved by the Russians 
 at Friedland, but they were worn out by hard marches and 
 want of food, and greatly over-matched. " The Russian 
 officers are unanimous in their reprobation of Benningsen, 
 who has betrayed them, they say, if not by downright 
 treachery, at least by the grossest ignorance and want of 
 energy." He seemed even anxious to magnify his losses, 
 though he sent word to the Emperor that, when reinforced, he 
 could still fight another battle, and would be much stronger 
 than before. Nearly 17,000 Russians were reported to be 
 missing; and Berthier told a British officer that the French 
 lost at least 8000. The Russians left no standards in their 
 hands, and only seventeen guns, nearly all worn-out ; while, on, 
 their side, they captured two eagles and 400 prisoners. But 
 the portion of the town of Friedland where the Russian 
 wounded were deposited during the battle was fired by French 
 shells, and many perished. This fire first compelled the 
 
 * History of Alexander I. The same story is told in Memoirs of a 
 Eussian Priest. 
 
 A A3
 
 356 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 Russians to begin their retreat, which was conducted with 
 the greatest order across a ford and over the bridge. Lord 
 Hutchinson was present, and said in his despatch that 
 he wanted " words sufficiently strong to describe their valour -" 
 and " whatever may be the event, the officers and men of the 
 Russian army have done their duty in the noblest manner." 
 It is evident they made a serious impression on the French, to 
 have been left to retire unpursued; and immediately after- 
 wards Napoleon's advisers began to press him to renew his 
 former proposals for peace.* 
 
 Alexander met a few battalions of Bashkirs armed with 
 bows and arrows on his road to Vilna, and hearing from a 
 confidential agent that no better weapons could at present be 
 supplied to his new levies, who had to learn the use of them, 
 before they could serve with much effect against the French, 
 he returned quickly towards Tilsit, and received a despatch 
 containing the news of the battle of Friedland at a country 
 house within the Russian frontier belonging to Prince 
 Plato Zoubof, where he had summoned the King of Prussia, 
 Hardenberg, and the foreign ministers for a council of war. 
 He was also told of the great discontent in Livonia, and the 
 feverish restlessness exhibiting itself throughout Russian 
 Poland. The want and misery produced by the unusual 
 length of the winter were very great in Russia, and now all 
 supplies for the army must be brought from his own country, 
 already threatened with famine. The retreat of Benningsen 
 
 * Before Napoleon could possibly have received intelligence that his 
 troops had entered Konigsberg he dated a bulletin the same day from 
 Wehlau, thirty miles distant, asserting that they had found there 100,000 
 quintals of wheat, 160,000 muskets and other military stores sent out by 
 England, and 20,000 wounded. This utter fabrication was partly contra- 
 dicted by a subsequent bulletin, dated Tilsit, June 19th, where the pri- 
 soners dwindle down to four or five thousand, and the guns are not 
 mentioned; in fact, the guns had never yet arrived, which was so well 
 known to the Russians, Prussians, and English commissioners that they 
 thought the falsehood hardly worth contradiction, and they were after- 
 wards landed at a Swedish port ; yet many of the biographers of Napoleon 
 have taken such little pains to sift his statements that they have given 
 the substance of his first bulletin, ignoring the correction in the second. 
 The great scarcity of provisions both in the Rxissian army and in Prussia 
 for weeks before this event is sufficient to show that no wheat was likely 
 to be left in Konigsberg, or any other kind of provision, but the French 
 people were beginning to complain, and Napoleon thought it necessary 
 to show some result of this long campaign.
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 357 
 
 caused the royal family to pack up their effects to be ready 
 for flight, and the Queen of Prussia wrote to her father, June 
 17th, to prepare him for her departure to Riga. 
 
 It was the political theory of the last century that the 
 existence of Prussia was indispensable to the balance of power, 
 yet without further assistance its complete subjection to 
 Napoleon ought to have been foreseen for some weeks by the 
 British Government. An English diplomatist writing from 
 London in May, says " the Prussian commissioner does not 
 offer a very hopeful prospect. I see that his King is as usual 
 null, and the Emperor the only person in his Court or army 
 on whom we can rely. His Imperial Majesty's intentions 
 are excellent, and it is certainly no reproach to him if he is 
 unable fully to execute them for want of proper support 
 from his ministers and generals. Bonaparte would not be 
 where he is if it had not been for the advice and aid of 
 Talleyrand and his marshals, Berthier, Augereau, &c." Von 
 Schladen, one of Hardenberg's only supporters in favour of 
 the war being prolonged, writes on June 7th, " People here 
 (at Tilsit) remark a surprising alteration in the opinions of the 
 Russian authorities, and it is obvious that they wish for a peace. 
 It is a question whether his Imperial Majesty can stand alone 
 in the midst of such a circle as that by which he is sur- 
 rounded." "Even Hardenberg," writes Jackson on the 20th, 
 " now begins to waver, for at the same time that he expresses 
 his conviction that the Emperor will listen to no terms he 
 admits that the door of conciliation should not be quite shut." 
 
 On the 18th of June Benningsen, on his own authority, 
 suggested an armistice, after having constantly refused it when 
 it was demanded by the French, for as a general congress had 
 been proposed it might prevent useless effusion of blood. 
 Napoleon immediately acceded to it, and sent the younger 
 Talleyrand to the Russian head-quarters to recommend its 
 extension on certain conditions for two months. Benningsen 
 could not sign it for more than three days without Alexander's 
 authority, and then Duroc appeared to say it would be easier 
 and better to treat for peace at once with the Czar, instead of 
 merely for an extension of the armistice. His master wished 
 to make a separate peace with Russia, but this was positively
 
 358 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 rejected, and then Napoleon requested an interview with 
 Alexander, who refused it. He however signed an armistice 
 for two months, and stipulated that four weeks' notice should 
 be gi^en on either side before hostilities were renewed; and 
 having ascertained that the Prussians were determined to 
 make peace,* he agreed that each power should negotiate for 
 herself with regard to the conditions. But a conspiracy, 
 headed by Constantine, Kalkreuth, and Benningsen, resolved 
 to compel him to make peace. t " A cabal in fact/' says 
 Jackson, " such as it would be difficult to conceive in any 
 country but Russia or Turkey. A perfect tempest was 
 raised up against him." Hardenberg told Wilson that 
 immediately after Friedland he came to the Emperor, and 
 assured him his brother was at the head of a party which 
 meant to force him to make peace. The Emperor was very 
 
 * Lord Hutchinson had just been superseded at the urgent request of 
 the Prussian ambassador in London, but was ordered to remain as com- 
 missioner to the Russian army. " When war was proposed," says Jack- 
 son, " he told them they were unequal to it, and advised negotiations ; 
 when his advice was followed, and this unfortunate armistice was the 
 result of it, he hesitated to believe it ; said that Bonaparte would never 
 consent to it." 
 
 f " The French were afterwards assured that the proposal of an inter- 
 view came from Alexander, but it is now established that it came from 
 Napoleon through Duroc," says Lanfrey. It was Napoleon's well-known 
 practice to concoct or falsify historical documents. After writing three 
 varying and false accounts of the battle of Marengo, he caused all the 
 original documents to be destroyed. He melted up cannon which he 
 captured to assist in making bronze columns and statues that they might 
 not remain as evidence of the wide difference between the number really 
 taken and the number set forth in his reports. His earlier biographers 
 (including M. Thiers), who wrote before the publication of his corre- 
 spondence, based many of their historical incidents entirely on these false 
 statements, for which M. Thiers rather excuses himself by alleging ex- 
 aggerations on the part of the Eussians, but their superior veracity in the 
 onrse of this campaign and succeeding one in 1812 is now confirmed by 
 both German and English eye-witnesses, and even by the French them- 
 selves, particularly on the point of the meeting at Tilsit, in which, though 
 the Russians asked for an armistice, the French proposed a lengthened 
 one, and then a peace ; and Napoleon also proposed the interview. M. 
 Thiers says that " all Europe has rung with controverted statements 
 relative to this subject, and not only have chimerical conversations been 
 invented, but there have been published a quantity of treaties under the 
 designation of secret articles of Tilsit, which are absolute forgeries. The 
 English in particular have put forth a great many secret articles of Tilsit, 
 as they are called, some really communicated at the time to the Cabinet 
 of London by diplomatic spies, who on this occasion ill earned the money 
 that was lavished on them." M. Thiers gives a series of conversations, 
 chiefly derived from Alexander's subsequent conversations with Savary 
 at St. Petersburg, and fills them up from his own imagination, in which
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 359 
 
 angry with Hardenberg, and said he wished to sow dissen- 
 sion between them, on which the Prussian minister left him, 
 determined never to visit him again. Three hours afterwards 
 Alexander sent for Harden berg, and said to him, " I did you 
 wrong, but who could suspect that my brother was so unna- 
 tural ? He has been with me, and had even the audacity to 
 remind me of my father's fate, but I shall find the means of 
 removing him from my presence."* As a conversation with 
 Alexander generally necessitated loud talking, a considerable 
 part of their discussion reached the ears of the Russian officer 
 stationed outside his master's door, and a fierce altercation 
 seemed to be going on. Both Hardenberg and the aide-de- 
 camp were not a little surprised when the next day they 
 appeared perfectly good friends, and Alexander consented to 
 follow Constantino's advice, and accept Bonaparte's renewed 
 invitation to meet him half-way between their head- quarters, 
 which were on opposite sides of the Niemen at Polpitten and 
 Tilsit. As Czartoriski formerly blamed Alexander for refusing 
 to see Bonaparte after Austerlitz, he probably now pressed a 
 similar counsel on his sovereign; and after sharing in the 
 same battle, and corresponding extensively for the greater part 
 of seven years, they met for the first time (June 25th) on 
 a raft in the middle of the river, while their military escorts 
 formed an imposing line along the opposite banks. 
 
 This meeting has been frequently described both by those 
 on the French side who were present, and those who were 
 not, and in many instances imagination has formed the chief 
 source of their information. Napoleon thought it the 
 greatest epoch in his life. He had always taken remarkable 
 interest in the Russian Imperial family, and adopted several 
 of their customs in his own Court ; he had given his 
 mother, like the Empress-Dowager, the title of directress of all 
 the charitable establishments in France ; with her more an 
 honorary office than with the mother of Alexander. He had 
 crowned himself after the fashion of the Russian Czars. He 
 had even begun to contemplate the possibility of obtaining a 
 
 be a little differs from Napoleon's own statements, but lie adds with truth, 
 " It is certain that Alexander attached himself for some time, not to the 
 person of 2s apoleou, but to his policy." Thiers, vol. vii. 
 * Wilson; Sir G. Jackson.
 
 3GO The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 Russian Grand Duchess for a wife ; and, a parvenu himself, 
 he felt the greatest respect for the position of an hereditary 
 monarch. It was the feeling that, in spite of his superior 
 power, he was looked down upon as an adventurer by legiti- 
 mate sovereigns, which prompted much of the insolence he 
 exhibited towards those kings who had put themselves into 
 his hands. But with Russia the Imperial authority was no 
 mere pretension ; it was a fact. Alexander exercised an 
 autocratic sway over more than half of Europe, such as 
 Napoleon never could hope to exercise over the other 
 half; for while Alexander was at liberty to make peace or 
 war entirely irrespective of the wishes or will of his subjects, 
 and was at this period more sparing of his bounties than any 
 of his predecessors, Napoleon felt that to keep his throne he 
 must for ever overawe, conciliate, flatter, or reward his 
 people. " I was never really my own master," he said 
 at St. Helena ; however anxious he felt for a continued peace, 
 it involved a reckoning with his subjects which throughout 
 his career he was not prepared to show. The marshals, the 
 officials, every one who served him, must be bribed to do so, 
 and to effect this he must possess himself of the spoil of other 
 States, for orders at last became too common to be of much 
 value ; while the lower classes and civilians must be bribed 
 with glory, with a perpetual succession of real or invented 
 triumphs. Within six years of the French Revolution and 
 its sanguinary results, Alexander could still unfetter the 
 Russian press, and attempt to lead his subjects to liberal 
 aspirations, and the ignorant, almost barbarous, serfs towards 
 emancipation ; but Napoleon was forced to gag his people, 
 and independent writers and talkers like Madame de Stael, 
 he could not venture to leave in Paris. To him, essays on 
 liberty seemed as dangerous as to the Emperor Paul; and 
 whatever his own reason dictated, his system was one con- 
 sistent suppression of freedom in France. When Alexander 
 trifled with the prejudices of his people, he only endangered his 
 own life, but Napoleon risked his dynasty and the very existence 
 of his empire. No one ever thought of refusing the Imperial 
 title to the Czar, while Great Britain and even the Duke of 
 Meckleiiburg-Schwerin denied it to Napoleon ; and to the 
 end of his Life this was the sorest point of all. Nowhere did
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 361 
 
 men of long pedigrees receive greater attention when they 
 chose to come there than in Paris. Narbonne, he asserted, 
 was his only real ambassador, on account of his noble 
 birth, because an envoy of plebeian origin was never admitted 
 on an equality into the aristocratic saloons of the European 
 Courts.* At the present day the strong feeling which then 
 prevailed against parvenus can hardly be understood. The 
 present generation smiles at the reason Napoleon gave for his 
 satisfaction at some of his private papers being published when 
 they were found in his carriage taken at Waterloo, " because," 
 he said, " it will show many people that the contents are not 
 the property of a man who slept. They will compare me to 
 the legitimate sovereigns. I shall not lose by it." He was 
 aware of the admiration which Alexander when a youth had 
 felt for him, and how from the midst of Catheri lie's sump- 
 tuous Court he had listened eagerly to the narrative of the 
 exploits of the hero of the French Republic. He was resolved 
 to renew that impression ; and it is generally admitted that 
 when he exerted himself to his utmost powers to obtain the 
 favour of his visitors, he seldom failed to have a complete 
 success. Want of polish or a rough exterior was no barrier 
 to Alexander's goodwill ; some of those he most esteemed 
 were deficient in this respect; plain-speaking, even bluntness 
 and straightforwardness, always commended itself to him, and 
 he enjoyed nothing more than a conversation with a good 
 talker or a well-informed companion. Napoleon took so 
 much trouble to be agreeable to him, that he even deprived 
 himself of the use of his snuffbox when in his company, 
 because he heard that he disliked the practice of taking snuff, 
 or the odour of tobacco in any form. But Alexander 
 resorted to their first place of meeting with a very heavy 
 heart. He who had begun his reign resolved to give repose 
 to Russia, to develop her resources, and bring glory and 
 freedom to her people, had already cost her more in blood 
 and treasure than his predecessor, without the brilliant 
 successes of Suvorov's Italian campaigns. He who had 
 hoped to be the benefactor of not only Russia, but all 
 Europe, was now told by his councillors that he was her 
 scourge, and that unless he changed his policy they must 
 
 * Las Cases.
 
 362 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 change it for him in a manner already familiar to his Empire. 
 The war just concluded was a drawn campaign. The Russians 
 began it under every disadvantage, and the weather was more 
 unfavourable to their operations than had been known for 
 years, only enabling them to bring up provisions or recruits 
 from Russia at a fearful risk. Instead of the power of 
 resistance, or the magazines and stores they expected to find 
 left in Prussia, their allies surrendered the fortresses, and 
 Berlin with its vast supplies, with a speed which could only 
 be explained by collusion with the enemy ; yet for six months 
 Alexander's army had arrested Napoleon's progress, pre- 
 served his own frontier, and forced him several times to 
 demand peace. The Russian victories had been more fre- 
 quent than their defeats ; for eight mouths they had saved 
 the old capital of Prussia from capture, and had brought 
 down the tone of Bonaparte's proclamations from the boast 
 that he would plant his eagles on the towers of St. Peters- 
 burg, and carry his army as far as India, to restore Poiidi- 
 cherry to France, to a justification of his desire for repose, 
 and false statements of the amount of injury he had inflicted 
 on the enemy in default of real trophies of success. What 
 had he to show for the thousands and thousands he had lost 
 on the plains of Poland ? It was so obvious to the French, 
 that at the rate they were proceeding both nations might 
 fight to the last man without any advantage being gained by 
 it, that when the Russian officer went to Tilsit to carry 
 Alexander's acceptance of the proposed interview, they thronged 
 round him, shouting, " Vive la paix ;" and an officer coming 
 up said, "Let us have no more war; if our Emperors will fight, 
 let them fight together and kill each other." 
 
 On the other hand, the Russians never had any direct 
 interest in the war. Alexander would not proclaim himself 
 King of Poland in 1805, as he then expected Prussia to join 
 the Allies; and again in 1806, when it was proposed by some 
 of the Polish magnates; and in the winter of 1807, he refused 
 the same offer, first as it would entirely alienate Austria, 
 whom he hoped to gain as their active ally ; and, secondly, he 
 felt he could not aid in despoiling Prussia when he had come 
 to help her, for she clung most tenaciously to her Polish 
 territories. Beimingsen was on the eve of proclaiming him
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 363 
 
 King of Poland at Barstenstein, just after Eylau, when 
 Bonaparte had proposed terms of peace to Frederick William, 
 and said that he attached no longer any price to the Polish 
 kingdom ; but he was prevented by the arrival of Alexander, 
 who knew that such a step would at once turn the Prussians 
 into the allies of France. Wilson says that " if the King of 
 Prussia had, long before the peace of Tilsit, surrendered all 
 his Polish provinces where his government was most un- 
 popular to Russia, he would then have given the Russian 
 Empire an interest in the war which it never felt, and which 
 was most injurious to Alexander." The Russian Cabinet 
 saw that so long as the struggle continued, it injured their 
 progress in Turkey, and was extremely detrimental to their 
 real interests. And for whom or for what had Russia im- 
 poverished herself, and crippled her influence for years to 
 come ? First, for the smaller German States on the Rhine, 
 who all joined Napoleon, giving as a reason that they feared 
 the progress of Russia, in reality attracted by the titles 
 and orders he bestowed among them, and the protection he 
 afforded the German princes from the republican proclivities 
 of their own subjects. Next, Russia had wasted her re- 
 sources in assisting Austria, who rewarded her by trying to 
 deliver her army up to France ; and after Eylau, when her co- 
 operation would have crushed Napoleon for ever, had pre- 
 ferred to remain his vassal, rather than assist in Russia's 
 triumph. Thirdly, she had expended nearly 100,000 men out 
 of her spare population, in striving to restore the Prussian 
 monarchy, while a large faction in Prussia openly advocated 
 an alliance and dependence on France rather than an alliance 
 with Russia, and evidently dreaded the success of their allies 
 more than that of the enemy. The King chose to employ 
 councillors who negotiated a peace unknown to the Czar, 
 who tried to tamper with his officers, and endeavoured to 
 draw his army to its destruction, by giving up the plans of 
 his generals to the French. In many parts of Prussia the 
 Russians were worse treated than the enemy. " Never/' says 
 Wilson, " was a prince more loyal, more devoted to the 
 common cause, or struggled with greater difficulties than 
 Alexander ;" and Hardeiiberg allowed that no one more re- 
 gretted the result.
 
 364 Tlie Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 And the most provoking circumstance was, that the English 
 commissioners sent to represent the British Government* 
 prevented the conclusion of peace at a most favourable mo- 
 ment, and also early in the war, when, by a cessation of 
 hostilities, thousands of lives might have been spared to the 
 public service. The British Government first stirred up the 
 Emperor Paul from a perfectly safe position, to mix himself 
 in the affairs of the Continent. It afterwards worked on the 
 fears of the Russian ministers, and induced them to demand 
 war, by trying to make them believe that their country was 
 endangered by Napoleon's success ; it had besought Alexander 
 to fly to Prussia's assistance after Jena ; and when affairs were 
 at such a crisis that 20,000 British troops who were all ready 
 to embark, a few cargoes of guns or provisions, or even a 
 loan, would have at once decided the contest, it refused to 
 make the smallest effort to assist the Allies. It also induced 
 her to prolong the struggle, at an immense cost of men and 
 treasure, by holding out delusive hopes of such co-operation 
 as would enable her to demand all the points at issue for the 
 whole Continent, at the edge of the sword ; but it had drawn 
 back when, for a moment, the unassisted bravery of the 
 Russian troops caused Napoleon to retreat. Since the be- 
 
 * Another British diplomatist states : " On the 10th or llth of June 
 Lord Pembroke had an interview with Alexander, who expressed un- 
 doubtedly much dissatisfaction at that time, and with considerable vehe- 
 mence of manner with respect to a supposed want of activity on the part 
 of England in producing a diversion in the north of Germany, but that 
 he had no thoughts of entering into negotiations with France. Eight days 
 after these assurances, without the occurrence of any new event, except 
 the trifling disadvantage of the battle of Friedland, where the Russians 
 scarcely lost 8000 men." Yet Savary, who was present, gives an appalling 
 account of the battle, but makes a curious mistake in speaking as if Alex- 
 ander and Frederick William were also there. " The two fugitive monarchs," 
 he says, " were already on their way to Tilsit on the 16th, Napoleon, 
 with his army, pressing hard on their track. His light cavalry reached 
 Tilsit on the 1 9th, whilst the bridge by which Alexander and Frederick 
 William had passed to the right bank of the Niernen was still burning. 
 As the French army approached the last barrier which separated it from 
 the dominions of Alexander, the impatience of Napoleon became un- 
 controllable," &c. On the contrary, the only road on which the Russian 
 retreat was either opposed or pressed was the way to Konigsberg, and 
 Alexander was in Russia at Tauroggen, a few miles beyond Tilsit, at the 
 time of the battle, and as soon as the news reached him he returned to 
 his head-quarters at Polpitten, on the opposite bank to Tilsit. Savary 
 probably wished to enhance the glory of the victory by depicting the two 
 monarchs as having been forced to fly.
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 365 
 
 ginning of the war, in 1798, Russia had not gained a rouble, 
 or an acre of land in Europe, but, for the sake of furthering 
 the public welfare, had missed many opportunities of con- 
 solidating her own power by rectifying her frontiers and 
 enriching herself at very small expense; while France and 
 England extended themselves, the one on the Continent of 
 Europe, the other in India and in the French and Dutch 
 colonial possessions in the East, besides acquiring incalculable 
 wealth in the prizes they both captured on land and sea. 
 Yet Alexander now saw that Russia was looked upon as an 
 aggressive power, merely seeking to enslave instead of to 
 liberate her allies. England feared her power in Asia, and 
 the Prussian and Austrian statesmen thought her weakness 
 was of itself their strength. Was it strange if he felt no 
 longer called upon to sacrifice Russia for such fickle or faithless 
 allies, who first made use of him, and then turned against him 
 as soon as it suited their purpose ? Was he to be blamed 
 if, on being offered another ally, he should have been induced 
 to change his policy and his colleagues, which had brought 
 nothing but disaster to Russia? His councillors, who had 
 shared in Catherine's victories, mourned over the departure 
 of military glory from her Empire. Napoleon had never 
 forced a war on Russia; their interests did not clash, and 
 she had only taken offence for the sake of those who pre- 
 ferred to be slaves. A treaty with France while she held 
 Germany in her grasp would enable Russia to maintain peace 
 for the future, as what other power was likely to disturb her ? 
 and would also prevent a revolution in Russian Poland and 
 its restoration to independence. Prince Kurakin and Con- 
 stautine had long maintained that the Germans were not 
 worth fighting for, while no greater admirer of Napoleon 
 could be found than the representative of the British Govern- 
 ment at Alexander's camp, and he advised peace. Was a 
 young man of twenty-nine to hold out against all the 
 experienced politicians who surrounded him, and persist in a 
 course of action which it was their deliberate opinion was 
 bringing Russia to ruin ? Czartoriski's correspondence shows 
 that Alexander was inclined to follow his own views instead 
 of the advice of his ministers, and he had the character of 
 being very obstinate among those who knew him intimately.
 
 306 The Ca mpaign of Eylau ' and Friedland. 
 
 But his brother represented the enormous loss of life and the 
 sufferings of the wounded, many of whom were still in the 
 hands of the French, where they received no attention, as the 
 enemy was already encumbered with its own ; and Alexander 
 humbled his pride, and consented to accept a peace, the first 
 which Russia had concluded for a century and a half, except 
 after a victory. 
 
 Yet it was a moral more than a physical triumph on the 
 part of France, and such Napoleon seems to have felt it. 
 On the right bank of the Niemen, the Russian army, still 
 compact and in good discipline, maintained its position, and 
 could probably defy any attempt of the weakened French 
 army to advance beyond it. Both forces needed rest. At 
 the end of the two months' armistice, the Russian militia 
 would be equipped and trained, and if England by that time 
 was brought to her senses, a still more desperate warfare 
 would follow, which might change the whole face of the 
 Continent. General Tolstoi, by the terms of the armistice, 
 kept his ground on the Narew. The French army was weary 
 and clamorous for peace, for there was no money or pillage to 
 be obtained from the Russians. They dreaded another winter 
 campaign in Poland, and though the officers enjoyed their re- 
 ception in the private houses of Warsaw, the men were 
 wretchedly accommodated, from the extreme poverty and dirt 
 of the peasants and Jews with whom they lodged. The streets 
 were unpaved, and often a foot deep in mud, for the nobles always 
 rode, and cared nothing for the comfort of the pedestrian serfs. 
 There was consequently no attraction to these regions, and they 
 had never elsewhere encountered such formidable enemies. 
 Compared with this campaign, their wars in Italy and Germany 
 were the merest child's play. Napoleon looked upon the 
 struggle as one to determine whether Russia or France was to 
 rule central Europe, for the German powers in the present 
 circumstances showed themselves unable to stand alone. 
 The old Muscovite party in Russia objected to her govern- 
 ment troubling itself about foreign States. They advocated 
 an isolated policy, such as Alexander II. adopted in 1856. 
 If Napoleon could induce the Czar to change his ministry, 
 and form a cabinet of such men as Rostopchine, Pahlen, or 
 Romanzov, all he required would at once be accomplished,
 
 Tlie Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 367 
 
 and France left to exercise her will unhindered in the rest of 
 Europe. 
 
 The boats conveying Alexander and Napoleon from the 
 opposite shores of the Niemen to their place of meeting 
 arrived at the raft at the same moment,* says the 83rd bulle- 
 tin, in which the event is described, and Napoleon instantly 
 stepped forward with his hat off, bowing low to meet the 
 Emperor, who disembarked more deliberately, leaving Constan- 
 tine, Benningsen, Prince Labanof, Count Lieven, and Ouvarof 
 in the boat ; while Napoleon did the same with his escort, 
 which consisted of Murat, Berthier, Bessieres, Caulaincourt, 
 and Duroc. The King of Prussia rode up and down on the 
 shore. Napoleon took Alexander's arm, and they retired to 
 a corner of the raft till a heavy shower of rain made them 
 move under a tent, surmounted by the eagles of Russia and 
 France. Here they talked for an hour, and on coming out 
 their officers were summoned and introduced, when Napoleon 
 was profuse in compliments. He asked Benningsen who had 
 commanded the cavalry in Friedland ; and when Ouvarof, an 
 elegant young man, advanced briskly to claim that distinction, 
 the French Emperor told him he knew admirably well how to 
 fight.f " Sire/' he said to Alexander, taking one of his 
 hands, " your army is valiant and devoted. Your troops 
 have performed prodigies of valour." He said he had lost 
 12,000 men at Heilsberg, and was very angry with his 
 cavalry that day, as they not only refused to charge, but 
 executed every order ill ; and he expressed surprise at the 
 Russian resistance, which he owned he had not expected. 
 He was astonished to find the Russian army was not all 
 at Friedland, since he should have supposed it must have been 
 by the prolonged obstinacy of the fight. J "That power of 
 fascination/' says the partial Caulaincourt, " that he exercised 
 over his soldiers, impressed others to the same degree. The 
 Emperor Alexander was imposing from the splendour of his 
 origin, his noble head, his tall figure, which surpassed by a 
 foot that of Napoleon ; the whole was a fabulous scene. The 
 Emperors embraced on parting, when applauses crossed the 
 river, loud huzzas from the two banks lined with troops." 
 
 * Also Sir George Jackson, 
 f Souvenirs de Caulaincourt. J Wilson.
 
 368 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 " My friend," he wrote the same evening to Josephine, " I 
 have just seen the Emperor Alexander. I have been very 
 much pleased with him. He is a very handsome, good, and 
 young Emperor. He has more ability (esprit) than one com- 
 monly imagines." 
 
 The French Emperor, some years afterwards, gave this 
 description of the interview :* " On coming on board the 
 raft, Alexander told me he had as many complaints against 
 England as I had. In that case, I answered, peace is made ; 
 and we gave each other the hand as a sign of reconciliation. 
 We had several other interviews at Tilsit. His exterior was 
 noble, gracious, and imposing ; he appeared to me to have 
 great quickness of comprehension. He seized at a glance 
 the gravest questions ; altogether, rather resembling Francis I. 
 and Louis XIV. One might say also of him, that he was 
 a roi chevalier. He was able to enter into my policy, to put 
 it before me otherwise than I had seen it ; but it is certain 
 that his conduct in 1812 and 1813 was superior to what I 
 should have expected from him, though he prejudiced me 
 in his favour. I recognized ability, but I believed him to 
 have some weakness. In short, it was not only on that 
 point that I deceived myself in the character of this prince. 
 Even La Bruyere might have been embarrassed to define him 
 exactly." And further, after the interviews at Erfurt : " I 
 meant to throw powder in the eyes of my rival in glory and 
 power ; the end proves that he was as skilful as me." 
 
 "My suspicions of Kalkreuth," writes Jackson from 
 Memel, " have proved to be but too well founded. He and 
 the Grand Duke, aided by Benningsen, have been so far 
 successful in their object, that an interview took place yester- 
 day between the Emperor of Russia and the upstart Corsican. 
 Lord Hutchinson is exultant. Bonaparte declared to his 
 Imperial Majesty that he could refuse him nothing that he 
 asked, but, after conceding some points, he suggested that, 
 for fear of wronging himself, recourse should be had to pleni- 
 potentiaries, f Prince Labanof and Kurakin are therefore 
 appointed to treat for the Emperor, Kalkreuth and Goltz for 
 Prussia. Many of the troops of the allied armies are almost 
 perishing for want. No flattery, no art is left untried, to 
 * Jomini. f Also Caulaincourt.
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 369 
 
 win over the Emperor and his subjects. Sweden is evidently 
 to be included in the negotiation, if the King \vill consent. 
 As to the general question of peace, there certainly is but one 
 voice. Even Czartoriski and his party insist on its necessity. 
 Letters from the interior of Russia describe the misery and 
 want that reign there as beyond all conception. But Russia's 
 principal ground of apprehension must be looked for on the 
 side of Russian Poland. Budberg in his letter to the governor 
 of Livonia, announcing the armistice, desires him to give ( all 
 publicity to the news, in order to quiet les esprits, who have 
 been made uneasy by the late events/ He says further, 
 that he has the greatest pleasure in giving him this intelli- 
 gence, as they hope it will be followed by a solid and honour- 
 able peace/' 
 
 On June 26th the two Emperors met again on the Niemen, 
 and this time with the King of Prussia. Tilsit was declared 
 neutral, and garrisoned by three battalions of Russian, 
 Prussian, and French Guards, but the bridge was not rebuilt, 
 so that while Bonaparte had the whole of his army within 
 immediate call, no troops could pass from the Russian side of 
 the stream. On the 27th Alexander took up his residence in 
 an old castle, now destroyed, not far from the house in which 
 Napoleon established himself, and the King came the following 
 day, with his ministers. The Queen remained at the Russian 
 head-quarters till July 4th, when she joined her husband on 
 Napoleon's pressing invitation, but left her children at Memel. 
 Alexander sent a formal notice of his intention to negotiate a 
 peace to Lord Leveson-Gower, the British ambassador then at 
 Memel, and the same day, June 29th, forwarded an auto- 
 graph letter to George III. 
 
 " If the Queen of Prussia/'* said Napoleon, " had come at 
 the beginning of the negotiations, she might have had much in- 
 
 * M. Thiers is contradicted by Napoleon's own statements when he 
 intimates that Alexander only wished to see Prussia restored just enough 
 to save his honour, having been convinced by Napoleon's arguments that 
 Prussia and Germany were the most formidable and jealous of Russia's 
 enemies. Napoleon could enlighten him considerably as to the feeling of 
 all Europe towards .Russia, and doubtless did so, and is believed not to 
 have lost the opportunity of pointing out to him that Russia's misfortunes 
 dated not only from the commencement of his reign, but from the peace 
 with England, forced upon him by the regicides who had seated him on 
 the throne, and whom Napoleon always asserted were bribed with English 
 gold. 
 
 VOL. I. B B
 
 370 The Campaign of Eylau and FriedlanJ. 
 
 fluence. It was thought the King had prevented it from 
 jealousy of a great personage. She had been very beautiful, 
 but was beginning to fade. She received me, demanding 
 crying justice. ' Prussia/ she said, ' was blind with regard 
 to her power ; she dared to fight a hero, to oppose herself to 
 the destinies of France, to despise her happy friendship. She 
 has been well punished. Magdeburg above all was the object 
 of her wishes/ Happily, the husband came in. The Queen 
 with an expressive look reproved this contretemps, and 
 showed temper. In fact the King tried to interfere, spoilt 
 the whole affair, and I was delivered/' 
 
 Napoleon asked the Queen to dinner. " She displayed all 
 her intellect, she had much ; all her coquetry, she was not 
 without charms. It required much watch over myself to 
 make no species of engagement, so much the more as I was 
 carefully observed by Alexander. She sat at table between 
 the two Emperors, who paid her great attention. She was 
 placed near Alexander's good ear ; he can hardly hear at all 
 with the other." The evening came, and the Queen retired. 
 Napoleon had been often so hard pushed that he resolved 
 to conclude it, and advanced the treaty by a week, telling the 
 Queen that all he did for her was only for Alexander's sake.* 
 " One of the high contracting parties told her she ought to 
 have come at first or not at all. He observed to her that for 
 his part he had done all in his power to arrange that 
 she should come immediately, but the husband opposed it. 
 Almost every day at Tilsit the two Emperors and the King 
 rode out together, but the last was always awkward and un- 
 lucky. Napoleon rode between the two Sovereigns ; the King 
 could hardly follow, or even knocked against and incommoded 
 Napoleon. As we returned, the two Emperors sprang at 
 once to the ground, but they had to wait till the King came 
 up,, and as it often rained the two Emperors were soaked on 
 account of the King. This awkwardness was the more 
 striking as Alexander is very graceful, and on a level with the 
 best society in the drawing-rooms of Paris. We broke up 
 early after dinner, but Alexander and I soon met again to 
 take tea, either in his rooms or mine, and talked together till 
 midnight or beyond that." 
 
 * Madame Junot.
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 371 
 
 Yet it was observed by Alexander's attendants, and did not 
 escape his notice, that on more than one occasion when he 
 handed a cup of tea to Napoleon, the Emperor set it down 
 without a drop passing his lips, and that he never touched 
 any food in Tilsit which was not given to him by his own 
 servants. The strong escort by which he was accompanied 
 when he called on Alexander, formed a striking contrast to 
 the confiding carelessness of his ally. In fact, the fatalistic 
 notions which Napoleon professed to hold were more affected 
 than real, and did not prevent him from taking all precau- 
 tions against the risk of assassination or poison. He loved 
 to boast of his courage in this respect, as he boasted of other 
 virtues, but by impressing his people with the idea that men 
 are not free agents, he taught them that it was useless to 
 struggle against fate or attempt his overthrow, and he imi- 
 tated Zingis Khan, Tiuiur, and the great conquerors of the 
 East, the true seat, he declared, of fame and romance. 
 Catherine II. also talked about her star, one of many points 
 of resemblance with her grandson's adversary. Writing to 
 Joseph, May 31st, 1806, on his first establishment as King in 
 Naples, Napoleon says : " You place too much confidence in 
 the Neapolitans. I say this lest you should be poisoned or 
 assassinated. I make a point that you keep your French 
 cook, 'that your household is so arranged that you may always 
 be guarded by Frenchmen. You have not been sufficiently 
 acquainted with my private life to know how much, even in 
 France, I have always kept myself under the guard of my 
 most trusty and oldest soldiers. Take care that your valets 
 de chambre, your cooks, the guards who sleep in your apart- 
 ments are French. No one should enter your room during 
 the night on any pretext." He goes on to advise other 
 modes of safety. " These precautions are important, they 
 may really save your life/' &c. " The Neapolitan character 
 has been notorious in every age/' &c. At St. Helena* he 
 laughed at his proclamation to the Egyptians, in which be 
 gave himself out as inspired and a divine instrument, and 
 called it charlatanism, saying it highly diverted his French- 
 men, but " their disposition to mock at all religion was such 
 
 * According to Las Cases he also expressed his disbelief in fatalism at 
 St. Helena. He never lost the habit of crossing himself. 
 
 B B2
 
 372 TJie Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 he was obliged to speak of it very lightly himself, placing 
 the Jews by the side of Christians, and rabbis by the side of 
 bishops. 1 " He had been brought up a strict Romanist, and 
 although when in company with Goethe and Wieland he put 
 forth most sceptical opinions to show his advanced intellect, 
 apparently throughout his career he retained more religious 
 impressions than he ever ventured to display. 
 
 At Tilsit the three Sovereigns adjourned to the raft on the 
 Niemen every morning, and held a conference for at least 
 two hours, and couriers arrived several times a day from the 
 Russian head- quarters, for Alexander's time when alone was 
 busily employed. Napoleon lost no opportunity of insulting 
 the King of Prussia, and this prince's want of faith to his ally 
 had placed him entirely in the power of his enemy, who asserted 
 at St. Helena that Prussia never really meant to join Russia 
 before the battle of Austerlitz ; if that battle had been de- 
 ferred, she would have evaded the treaty of Potsdam, as 
 events indeed afterwards proved ; and if the Allies had gained 
 Austerlitz,* jealousy would have caused her to join France. 
 Count Bernstorff, one of the first statesmen of the day, told Mr. 
 Jackson that " the King of Prussia deserved his fate, because 
 he kept up to the last secret communications with Bonaparte, 
 and that the disgust of the Emperor Alexander, when he 
 discovered the perfidy of the King, made him precipitate his 
 own negotiations for peace."f Napoleon had no scruple now 
 in revealing all these intrigues to Alexander, who showed 
 either an extremely forgiving disposition, or a political dis- 
 cernment superior to personal resentment, when he strove to 
 preserve any portion of his kingdom to the man who, under 
 the guise of a friend, was the real cause of two campaigns 
 which might otherwise have been most glorious ending in dis- 
 aster and loss. " I know he is your protege/' Napoleon 
 said, " but you can hardly say he has the attitude of a king." 
 At St. Helena he spoke of him as " an ignoramus without 
 talent or information. Not so his wife ; she was a very clever 
 fine woman, but very unfortunate." He had not seen the King 
 more than five minutes, when looking at his gaiters fastened 
 
 * O'Meara. 
 
 f Sir G. Jackson's Diary, &c. Bernstorff had his information from 
 Hardenberg, who had just arrived in Denmark.
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 373 
 
 with numerous buttons, he said : " Are you, Sire, obliged to 
 button all these every day? Do you begin at the top or the 
 bottom ?" Dress and the pattern of military uniforms was the 
 King of Prussia's hobby. Alexander once said of him, that " Na- 
 ture had spoiled a good military tailor in making him a sove- 
 reign/' but as, according to Czartoriski,in conversation he always 
 " served up the meats which he thought would be preferred," 
 his discourse with the King often turned on this subject at 
 Tilsit, rather to Napoleon's amusement. " Bonaparte's lan- 
 guage to the Emperor," says Sir G. Jackson, "as I know from 
 excellent authority, was : ' A few hours will suffice to settle 
 our business. You wish for Moldavia and Wallachia ; why 
 then treat with gentleness a power that has acted treacher- 
 ously by us both ? Beyond that we have no point of contest. 
 Lay down our arms, and we are at peace. As regards 
 Prussia, c'est un vilain roi, une vilaine nation, une vilaine 
 armee. A power which has deceived everybody, and which 
 does not deserve to exist. All that she keeps, she owes to 
 you. This is what I want/ and he pointed out on a map the 
 provinces that he wished to form into the kingdom of West- 
 phalia, and those with which he desired to reward Saxony. 
 ' The rest is jours, you have only to dispose of it. I shall do 
 all for friendship for you. I shall do nothing for the beautiful 
 eyes of the Queen.' '' 
 
 On more than one occasion such high words passed be- 
 tween Napoleon and Frederick William, that Alexander was 
 obliged to interpose,* but all was not entire concord between 
 the Emperors.f " Our Minister for Foreign Affairs/' says 
 Savary, " told me at Tilsit that Napoleon would only obtain 
 what had been previously agreed upon, as Russia was obsti- 
 nately bent on adhering to those bases. He said no more. 
 I think this observation could only relate to certain proposals 
 of fresh arrangements, of which Prussia and Silesia in parti- 
 cular were the objects It was certainly owing to the 
 
 Emperor of Russia that Prussia was preserved at all." Talley- 
 rand wished to erase her altogether from the map of Europe ; 
 
 * De Maistre. 
 
 f The King of Prussia, who lived till 1840, was very indignant at the 
 French exaggeration of this- friendship, and nothing was more like the 
 ordinary meetings of two potentates than even the French official 
 reports.
 
 374 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 and Napoleon thought of enriching Saxony with Silesia, and 
 placing one of his generals over another kingdom formed out 
 of the northern districts ; but although Alexander always 
 owned to having been very much impressed by him, and 
 induced to believe that he was really more actuated by a 
 desire for the public good than by mere vulgar ambition, 
 he maintained throughout that Russia could only make peace 
 on condition that Prussia received as much of her territory as 
 would have been restored the previous January ; and Napo- 
 leon was forced to yield on this ground, rather than from being 
 touched by the feeling Alexander showed for him as he pre- 
 tended at St. Helena. There was a faction in the French 
 army inclined to continue the war, particularly Murat, but 
 Talleyrand thinking the French resources were too much 
 exhausted, said to Napoleon, " You, Sire, make war, but you 
 must allow us to make peace."* 
 
 Napoleon offered all Prussian Poland, and afterwards Pome- 
 rania, to Alexander if Saxony might have Silesia; and told 
 him the Vistula was his natural frontier, and some day he 
 was sure to reach it. He would not profit so far by the 
 misfortunes of his ally, and refused both, but Russia had not 
 made a peace for 140 years without obtaining some advantage, 
 and she consented to receive the circle of Bialystock, which 
 gave her a more secure frontier, when she found that Napoleon 
 otherwise intended to annex this Polish province to Warsaw, 
 which would make it virtually a French district. Wilson 
 says, that in the King of Prussia's weakened condition the 
 
 * Napoleon asserted at St. Helena, that before the war preceding the 
 treaty of Tilsit, it had been his intention to proclaim the King of Prussia 
 King of Poland, " letting Russia retain what she might have insisted on 
 retaining, and indemnities would have been granted to Austria." He 
 would, however, have certainly demanded from Prussia an equivalent in 
 well-affected prosperous German provinces, for poverty-stricken districts 
 peopled with discontented Poles, so she would have lost rather than gained 
 if she had accepted such an offer. " At Tilsit," he continues, " the 
 moment was favourable for the re-establishment of Poland, though it 
 would have been the work of violence and force. The war must have been 
 prolonged ; the French army was suffering from cold and want, and 
 Russia had armies on foot. The Emperor Napoleon was touched " by the 
 generous sentiments which the Emperor Alexander manifested towards 
 him ; he experienced obstacles on the part of Austria, and he suffered his 
 policy to be overruled by the desire ol signing a peace, which he hoped 
 to have rendered lasting if, through the influence of Russia and Austria, 
 England had been prevailed on to consent to a general reconciliation."
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 375 
 
 loss of a most disaffected circle of 200,000 inhabitants was 
 a gain rather than the reverse ; and Jackson writes, that the 
 people of Memel were in great hopes that Alexander would 
 be induced to annex them to his empire, as they would be 
 safer in his possession than left in the hands of their native 
 ruler. Except .Bialystock, all that part of Poland, including 
 Warsaw, which Prussia had annexed since 1772, was formed 
 into a Grand Duchy, and made over to Saxony ; but Davoust 
 was sent there to organize its government, which he did in a 
 style befitting the future brutal robber of Hamburg, and the 
 Poles soon found they had not much to choose between the 
 late administration of the King of Prussia and that of their 
 French tyrant. 
 
 The presence of the English commissioners at Memel and 
 the English vessels in the roads helped to irritate Napoleon 
 against Prussia, as he thought, unless completely crippled, 
 she would immediately throw herself into the arms of Great 
 Britain. He said to the King, " While you are expecting 
 your country from my hands, the Queen goes on board an 
 English frigate (the Astrea), and amuses herself with the 
 English. Then make them aid you. I will give you nothing. 
 The Emperor of Russia may do what he pleases with what is 
 
 restored of Prussia You do not know your own country. 
 
 I took from it one hundred millions of crowns in hard money, 
 and twice as much in contributions. You may yet find some- 
 thing." He also told the King that if Alexander chose he 
 could indemnify him with the dominions of his relatives, the 
 Princes of Oldenburg, Coburg, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and 
 Saxe- Weimar, and with the King of Sweden's Pomera- 
 nian territory, and Stralsund, which Gustavus only used to 
 interfere in the affairs of the Continent. " He induced you 
 to continue the war after Eylau," he added ; " if he likes to 
 give them to you, I shall make no objection." 
 
 On July 8th, the last day of the Tilsit meeting, Wilson, 
 disguised as a Cossack, entered the town in the hope of finding 
 out the result of the deliberations. He contradicts the French 
 assertion, that the Russians fraternized with them, for not the 
 slightest symptoms of cordiality appeared. " Of the Grand 
 Duke, who has been the cause of all this, their language is 
 such as I will not write. About 7.30, after a very long con-
 
 376 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 ferenee, the Sovereigns appeared on horseback, Bonaparte 
 was in the middle, the Emperor of Russia on the left. Bona- 
 parte was grossly corpulent. The Emperor of Russia was 
 majesty itself, he presented a nobility of air and mien which 
 astonished me, and I heard all the French express their 
 admiration Murat was dressed exactly like a May- 
 day chimney sweeper. ... I hardly saw one gentleman 
 among all the French and their troops.* .... Had Alex- 
 ander but been master of the heart of one noble friend, he 
 would have preferred, from his own notions of honour and of 
 his own heart's goodness, to meet the steel of the demi- 
 barbarian who menaced death/' &c. But it was no dread 
 of death that induced Alexander to make peace, though he 
 believed himself doomed to a violent end. " I have it from 
 an eye- witness," says Savary, " that M. de Novossilzof, 
 who was much attached to the Emperor Alexander,f and 
 though he had been one of the advocates for peace, wished 
 it to be merely a withdrawal from the scene of action, and 
 not an alliance with France, said to that prince at Tilsit, 
 ' Sire, I must remind you of your father's fate.' The 
 Emperor replied, ' I know it ; I see it ; but how can I avoid 
 my destiny ?' ' ; 
 
 Prince Czartoriski afterwards made the same representation, 
 and ventured to observe of the war then on the eve of being 
 declared between England and Russia, " that it would make him 
 as unpopular as his father, and might lead to the same result." 
 " I know it," replied the Emperor, without any emotion ; " I 
 believe it to be my destiny. I cannot avert it. I am pre- 
 pared, and submit." 
 
 * Sir R. "Wilson's great objection to Napoleon seems to have been that 
 he was of plebeian origin. He became his admirer during the year 1814. 
 See Diary and Correspondence of Sir R. Wilson, vol. ii. 
 
 t Soult told Lord Holland, that " when at Tilsit he was apprized of a 
 very extensive conspiracy against Alexander, in which Bennmgsen, the 
 assassin of his father and the commander of his army, was concerned. 
 Soult, before he had consulted his own Government on the matter, dis- 
 closed the whole in a private letter to Alexander, and mentioned the 
 names of the conspirators. " He showed me," says Lord Holland, 
 "Alexander's answer in his own handwriting. He thanks Soult in it 
 very warmly for the information, for he says it will be of great use to 
 him, though he did not believe that the matter was quite so important as 
 the Marshal supposes." The same story is told by Madame Choiseul 
 Gouffier, only of the year 1818 (Foreign Recollections).
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 377 
 
 On the 1st of July the news arrived that the Sultan Selim 
 was deposed by the Janissaries and thrown into prison (where, 
 on May 29th, he was strangled), and his nephew Mustapha 
 placed on the throne. Mustapha announced his intention of 
 maintaining the French alliance, and continuing the war with 
 Russia. "A thunderbolt from heaven/' said Napoleon to 
 Alexander when he heard of it, " has disengaged me from the 
 Porte. My ally and friend Selim is cast from his throne, and 
 in irons. I thought we could have made something of the 
 Turks ;* but I see I was mistaken. We must finish with their 
 empire, and take care that its spoils do not go to augment 
 the power of England. Let us understand each other. Why 
 do you not take Finland to repay the expenses of the war. 
 The King of Sweden's relationship is only a reason why he 
 should conform to your policy ; and Sweden is geographically 
 your enemy. The lovely women of St. Petersburg ought not 
 again to hear the sound of Swedish cannon. If the Turks 
 resist we must divide their dominions. You can take 
 Moldavia, Wallachia, Bessarabia, and Bulgaria; and France 
 Albania, Thessaly, the Morea, and Candia." Alexander sug- 
 gested that something must be given to Austria, to soothe her 
 vanity rather than satisfy her ambition. " I thought/' said 
 Napoleon at St. Helena, " it would benefit the world to drive 
 these brutes, the Turks, out of Europe. But when I reflected 
 what power it would give to Russia, from the number of 
 Greeks in the Turkish dominions who may be considered 
 Russians, I refused to consent to it, especially as Alexander 
 wanted Constantinople, which would have destroyed the equi- 
 librium of power in Europe. France would gain Egypt, 
 Syria, and the islands; but those were nothing to what 
 Russia would have obtained." 
 
 This coincides with Savary's statement, that Alexander told 
 him Napoleon said he was under no engagements to the new 
 Sultan, and that changes in the world inevitably changed the 
 relations of states to one another ; and again, Alexander said 
 that in their conversations at Tilsit, Napoleon often told him 
 he did not require the evacuation of Moldavia and Wallachia ; 
 
 * Napoleon had offered Moldavia and Wallachia to Austria as an 
 inducement to her to come forward on his side as early as March, 1807, 
 while his ally Selim still reigned.
 
 378 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 he would place things in a train to dispense with it, and it 
 was not possible to suffer longer the presence of the Turks in 
 Europe. " He even left me," said Alexander, " to entertain 
 the project of driving them back into Asia. It is only since 
 that he has returned to the idea of leaving Constantinople to 
 them, and some surrounding provinces." One day, when 
 Napoleon was talking to Alexander, he asked his secretary, 
 M. Meneval, for the map of Turkey, opened it, then renewed 
 the conversation ; and placing his finger on Constantinople 
 said several times to the secretary, though not loud enough to 
 be heard by Alexander, " Constantinople, Constantinople, 
 never. It is the capital of the world I" 
 
 The capture of Anapa the most important Turkish fortress 
 on the Caucasian coast with a hundred cannon, early in 
 May, revived Alexander's hopes on the side of the Turkish 
 Empire ; and the French intrigues in Constantinople and in 
 the principalities on the Danube, proved to him that his 
 possessions were insecure on that frontier; and that Turkey 
 was virtually a mere English or French province while so 
 weak a Government as the Sultan's existed in the Ottoman 
 Empire. 
 
 In his later days, when he was really master of Europe, it 
 is believed that he did not consider the conquest of the 
 Ottoman Empire a sufficient recompense for the inevitable loss 
 of life and expense.* It is very evident in their conversa- 
 tions, that Napoleon agreed to his possessing himself of the 
 Turkish Empire up to the Balkan, if not beyond ; though 
 Bignon denies that any plan for the actual partition of 
 Turkey was embodied in the treaty of Tilsit. Hardenberg, 
 not always well informed, asserts that it was. Savary says, 
 he could not believe that Napoleon would have abandoned 
 the Turks without a compensation in some other quarter ; 
 and he felt certain Alexander had agreed in return to 
 Napoleon's project for the conquest of Spain, " which the 
 Emperor had very much at heart." 
 
 It was no mere ambition of conquest that made Constanti- 
 nople a great object with the Russian diplomatists. The 
 
 * Duke of Wellington's Supplementary Despatches, &c. Thiers says, 
 the text of the treaty ran to protect the provinces of Europe from the 
 vexations of the Porte, &c.
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 379 
 
 Dardanelles commanded the entrance to the only ports in the 
 Russian Empire open for more than eight months in the year ; 
 and while controlled by the English or French minister, it was 
 liable any day to be closed against merchant vessels : a power 
 which naturally had a serious effect upon Russian commerce. 
 " A man should have the keys of his house in his pocket," 
 said Alexander. "He coveted it," said Napoleon ; " but it 
 was the marsh which prevented my flank from being turned. 
 As to Greece, that is another affair." In fact, Napoleon 
 wished to secure Constantinople to France ; and finding that 
 Alexander would not agree to this, he preferred leaving it in 
 the hands of the Turks. But when the engagements he had 
 entered into with Constantinople are remembered, not a year 
 before, at the time that he first urged her to break the peace 
 with Russia, no policy was ever more fickle, or a diplomatic 
 proceeding more false, on the part of France. He saw his 
 mistake ; and shortly after the meeting at Tilsit tried to 
 withdraw from those promises, saying that Alexander ought to 
 evacuate* Moldavia and Wallachia while the arrangement was 
 being concluded, &c. But both by his own showing, and the 
 memorials of his ministers, these promises were given at the 
 time Moldavia and Wallachia were made over by the treaty to 
 Russia, and no agreement was entered into with regard to 
 their evacuation during the mediation, and in return 
 Alexander relinquished the mouths of the Cattaro and Castel 
 Nuovo to France, as well as the Seven Islands, on condition 
 that these should be bestowed, with Candia, as compensation to 
 the ex-King of Naples. 
 
 As far as regarded his own country, Alexander would 
 therefore have gained the most by the treaty of Tilsit if 
 Napoleon had kept his part of it ; but as, to use Napoleon's 
 own words, he was " weary of his treaty with Prussia at 
 \ienna in 1805" within four months, there was no reason 
 why he should be more faithful to the provisions of that of 
 Tilsit. But here it was his personal influence which misled 
 his companion ; and by the most plausible arguments on the 
 benefits they could both bestow on Europe convinced him that 
 the new system was in reality for the advantage of mankind, 
 
 * M. Lanfrey is mistaken in saying that this formed part of the original 
 agreement.
 
 380 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 and the only means of securing that universal peace and more 
 equitable distribution of power which had been a dream of 
 the Emperor Paul's, and the foundation of Alexander's whole 
 line of policy since he came to the throne. A brotherhood of 
 monarchs was to be established, which England and all the other 
 Powers were to be invited to join : a scheme which Pitt had re- 
 jected, and which Napoleon assured his companion the solely 
 commercial policy of England, and the rivalry and selfishness 
 of Austria and Prussia, had rendered impossible so long as 
 those Governments occupied the position of first-class States. 
 Napoleon enlarged on the iniquities of the old Italian adminis- 
 trations, and the advantages which had accrued to those foreign 
 States who had accepted the French constitution, and he spoke 
 of the weak and intolerant Government of Spain, where the 
 horrors of the Inquisition were still in force. 
 
 At a time when, after a hot debate, the English Parliament 
 refused equal national privileges to Roman Catholics and Jews, 
 and other dissenters in England also laboured under legal 
 disabilities, Alexander exercised the most perfect tolerance of 
 all creeds in his empire, and had little sympathy with a nation 
 like Spain, who tortured heretics, and even refused the rites of 
 Christian burial to a Protestant, and had moreover broken a 
 treaty which bound her to assist Russia by making a diversion 
 in the south of France. Alexander advocated the abolition of 
 serfdom ; and Napoleon proved that under the old prejudiced 
 dynasties of Europe such an abolition was impossible. It 
 would only be effected by revolutions or the establishment of 
 new dynasties, such as his own. The most staunch legitimist 
 could have little to say in defence of the Governments of 
 Naples and Madrid, except that the princes who ruled those 
 countries were among the weakest and most ill-educated of 
 men. There was small difficulty in persuading Alexander to 
 recognize Joseph as King of Naples, as he was formerly 
 willing to recognize Louis as King of Holland, or to give his 
 consent to the exercise of French influence in Spain, where 
 the royal family was, moreover, not a native dynasty, when 
 assured that a strong party in the Peninsula appealed 
 to the French Government for protection, and that the 
 whole country was on the eve of insurrection. Napoleon 
 asserted this could be accomplished without bloodshed ; but
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 381 
 
 even if it had necessitated a war on the part of France, the 
 employment of her forces so far from Russia would certainly 
 have been to Alexander's advantage. The French army was 
 to evacuate the Prussian States by the following October; 
 but no indemnity was mentioned beyond the heavy contribu- 
 tions already exacted ; and the minor arrangements were to 
 be made in a negotiation between Kalkreuth and Talleyrand. 
 Alexander flattered himself that he had placed his ally in a 
 better position than she would have occupied if she had con- 
 cluded peace after Jena without the aid of Russia. It re- 
 quired no duplicity to appear highly pleased with his enter- 
 tainer, who, though he had lost nearly 200,000 men within 
 nine months* from the resistance of Russia and Prussia, and 
 for the first time in his career had encountered defeats, yet 
 received Alexander with a respect and even homage he had 
 shown to no sovereign before, either as an enemy or ally. 
 He lost no opportunity of flattering him, and to such an 
 extent as occasionally to provoke a good-natured but im- 
 patient retort, and was willing to conclude a treaty which 
 French politicians allow was quite opposed to the real interests 
 of France ; even pressing upon him the advantage of extend- 
 ing his frontiers instead of attempting to place a limit to them. 
 Napoleon also engaged to do nothing to augment the power 
 of the new Grand Duchy of Warsaw, or which might lead 
 to the re -establishment of the Polish monarchy. 
 
 Many French writers try to excuse Napoleon for concluding 
 this treaty, by saying he was ''" duped" by Alexander ; and 
 from the manner in which he spoke of these transactions at 
 St. Helena, he (Napoleon) might have been the simplest and 
 most guileless of men. But it is evident, from his correspon- 
 dence, that peace was as urgent a necessity with France as it 
 was with Russia, although France had made war at other 
 countries' expense; and if he was a dupe, he was the dupe of 
 his own greediness and deceit. The refusal of England to 
 accept Alexander's mediation completely marred its advantages 
 to Russia, and turned what was intended to be a long friend- 
 
 * In the French official reports 421,819 sick and wounded soldiers were 
 received into the military hospitals during those nine months, of whom 
 not 40,000 at the very most were allied troops. The number of French 
 wounded, as given in these reports, was at least nine times the number 
 given m the bulletins.
 
 382 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 ship between the great Eastern and Western Empires into 
 nothing but a five years' truce. 
 
 One of the articles of the treaty of Tilsit required Alex- 
 ander to break off all diplomatic intercourse with England, 
 and join the continental system if she would not accept the 
 mediation he offered between her Government and France 
 within a month. Napoleon bound himself by the same 
 agreement as regarded Turkey ; and both appear to have 
 sincerely thought a general peace would be the result. Alex- 
 ander had every reason to suppose the policy of Pitt had died 
 with him, and that England no longer cared to keep up a war 
 on the Continent. The Prince of Wales was known to be in 
 favour of peace ; and Lord Hutchinson, his particular friend, 
 was sent purposely, it seemed, to the allied camps to show 
 them the prevailing feeling in England. On the other hand, the 
 English press had for some time held a more insulting tone 
 towards Russia than towards France. Few Englishmen but 
 diplomatists and merchants visited St. Petersburg, and there 
 was little information about the great Northern Empire. In 
 1806 a book of travels was published, containing an account 
 of Dr. Clarke's visit to that country six years before, when 
 Paul had introduced most vexatious regulations with regard to 
 Englishmen, and the severity of his Government had spread 
 great irritation throughout the country. Dr. Clarke suffered 
 many discomforts and much alarm during his journey, in 
 common with almost every one else at that particular moment ; 
 though he was very hospitably entertained by the Russians in 
 Moscow. But his book was one long tirade against the whole 
 people. He repeated the most improbable stories as authentic 
 facts ; and from a very limited opportunity of making obser- 
 vations during a few weeks' tour, he draws an exaggerated and 
 inconsistent description of the whole empire. Many of his 
 statements have since been denied by Englishmen then living 
 in the country, who say that as it was found he believed 
 everything he was told, people amused themselves with in- 
 venting absurd anecdotes for his benefit. But as, when the 
 book came out, owing to the war, some interest was excited in 
 England on the subject of Russia, it was eagerly read and 
 commented upon by reviews, and had a very unfortunate effect. 
 Even while Russia was still England's ally, the press fulminated
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 383 
 
 pamphlets against her, which were forwarded to Russia 
 by the ambassador, who had special orders to send the 
 Emperor copies of all such publications ; and they assUted in 
 making him suppose that England was weary of the alliance. 
 At the beginning of 1807, English newspaper articles con- 
 fidently consigned Russia to the tomb, and more than once 
 reported that Napoleon had reached St. Petersburg. Alex- 
 ander was accused of apathy, of being too domestic, and, 
 " although most amiable in private life, without heroism, and 
 wrapped up in the amusements suitable to his age and station." 
 They scoffed at the idea of his efforts being directed towards 
 the internal improvement of his country (as if they supposed 
 none were required in Russia), and said that reforms and peace 
 were only phrases signifying pleasure and courtly indolence. 
 His people were styled barbarians, and he a mere Asiatic chief. 
 The correspondence of Eugene Beauharnais* also shows 
 that, perhaps for the same reason, it was fully expected in 
 Paris that the mediation would produce a peace with England ; 
 and the short limit allowed was not blamed, because hitherto, 
 when such negotiations had dragged on to a great length, 
 something always occurred to put an end to them ; and 
 France was feeling the inconvenience of the deprivation of 
 colonial produce. But an English officer had been on most 
 intimate terms with the Russian ministers and generals then 
 in Prussia, and obtained a good deal of their confidence ; for 
 he had lived in the Cossack camp and at the Russian head- 
 quarters for months, and was looked upon as quite one of 
 themselves. He penetrated in disguise into Tilsit, and many 
 of the Russian generals, who were forbidden to enter the 
 town without orders, had done the same ; and by some means 
 or other he had ascertained that the Imperial conversations 
 partly turned upon -the contingency of a war with England, 
 and obtained the substance of the treaty, besides lending 
 faith to mere gossip and conjectures. He carried the news at 
 once to the British Government that there were dark designs, 
 and inspired it with distrust of Russia : the new ministry 
 were also resolved to continue the war.f Turkey, on her 
 
 * " The peace with Russia," he wrote to Marmont, " has given infinite 
 pleasure in Paris, and we are counting much on one with England." 
 
 f The Russian Government seldom condescends to make an explanation 
 or defence.
 
 384 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 side, at once accepted Napoleon's mediation with Russia, and 
 placed him in serious difficulties as to how he should reconcile 
 the stipulations of the treaty with the ties by which he had 
 formerly bound himself to the Ottoman Porte. 
 
 Alexander presented several of the chiefs of his Bashkir 
 regiments to Napoleon, who was much struck by the appear- 
 ance and discipline of the Russian Guards. He offered the 
 star of the Legion of Honour to Benningsen, who refused it, 
 as well as an invitation to dinner. This seemed inexplicable, 
 as the day after the first meeting of the Emperors he said 
 publicly, " the two Emperors have shaken hands Europe has 
 cause to tremble/' unless he thought his own desire for peace 
 would be less suspected in Russia if he were unadorned and 
 not courted by the French Sovereign ; or could not forgive the 
 epithets applied to him in the French bulletins after Eylau, 
 where he was styled " a drunkard, a gambler, and a barbarian." 
 Napoleon took a most unworthy revenge. Benningsen's 
 mother was still alive, at the age of nearly ninety, and resided at 
 Zell, in Hanover. He ordered her to be arrested and 
 conveyed to Paris, and gendarmes were placed in her house ; 
 but the alarm and excitement caused her death before she 
 could be removed. Her property was all seized, and Benning- 
 sen could never obtain it. His difference with Napoleon was 
 explained at St. Helena in another way. "Alexander ob- 
 served to me that I paid a great deal of attention to 
 Benningsen, and begged to know my reasons for it. I 
 answered, because he is your general. But, said Alexander, he 
 is un vilain coquin. It was he who assassinated my father; 
 and policy alone has obliged me to employ him, although I 
 wish him dead, and in a short time will send him about his 
 business. To pay a compliment to Alexander, I intended to 
 have asked Benningsen to dinner. This displeased Alexander, 
 although he asked Benningsen to his own table."* 
 
 Napoleon offered the Legion of Honour to Platof, who 
 refused it, saying he only served and accepted rewards from 
 Alexander. The Czar acted as interpreter between them, and 
 
 * This account, however, is not wholly irreconcilable with the other, 
 and it is certain that Alexander never personally liked Benningsen. 
 Napoleon's description of the meeting at Tilsit to Las Cases does not 
 correspond entirely with his bulletins, and his account of the delay in the 
 King taking leave was quite false.
 
 TJie Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 385 
 
 at Napoleon's request the Hetman exhibited his skill with the 
 bow. 
 
 Napoleon wrote to Joseph, July 9th : " At the last inter- 
 view the Emperor Alexander appeared in the Order of the 
 Legion of Honour, and I in that of St. Andrew. I have 
 given the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour to the Grand 
 Duke Constantine, to the Princes Kurakin and Labanof, and 
 to Count Budberg. The Emperor of Russia has conferred his 
 Order upon the King of Westphalia, the Grand Duke of Berg, 
 and the Princes of Neufchatel and Benevento."* 
 
 Alexander and his suite left Tilsit July llth, and crossed 
 the river to Polpitteu. Napoleon accompanied him to the 
 water's edge, dismounted while he embarked, and did not 
 leave the shore till he had watched him land on the opposite 
 bank. The Czar went to take leave of the King of Prussia 
 (who as soon as he had departed returned to Tilsit), and then 
 travelled with great speed, accompanied by Budberg, to St. 
 Petersburg, resting a day on his road at Tauroggen to see Plato 
 Zoubof, and at Mittau. His army moved its quarters at the 
 same time, and encamped in White Russia, where the scarcity 
 of provisions was not so great as in the northern part of the 
 empire. 
 
 Bonaparte insisted on the King of Prussia dismissing 
 Hardenberg, not only from his service but from the country ; 
 and that patriotic minister set off at once to Riga, in order to 
 embark for Denmark. " I love revenge," said his conqueror. 
 " I would rather make war forty years than allow that 
 Englishman to remain." He made an attempt to induce 
 Alexander to dismiss Budberg, who was a Livonian, and had 
 been one of Catherine's confidential ministers. " He is not a 
 Russian," said Napoleon ; "I do not like foreigners for 
 ministers." He probably intended this as a preliminary to a 
 request for the banishment of the Corsican, Pozzo di Borgo, 
 who had been his rival and enemy from childhood, and was 
 now in the employment of Russia ; but Alexander took .no 
 notice of the remark, and Budberg'sf resignation the following 
 autumn was voluntary, and from real ill-health. But though 
 
 * Many of Napoleon's officers were ashamed of all the titles with which 
 he loaded them, and more than once he reproved the owners for not using 
 them. 
 
 t Sir Robert Adair calls Budberg a strictly honest man. 
 
 VOL. I. C C
 
 386 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 the King of Prussia could no longer employ Hardenberg, who 
 in September went from Denmark to St. Petersburg, he need 
 not have chosen Kalkreuth for his negotiator a man who 
 had always been at heart a republican, and was believed to 
 have delivered up Dantzic for a bribe. It was contrary 
 to Alexander's advice, and Talleyrand twisted him round his 
 finger. Goltz was a patriot, but weak, and allowed Napoleon 
 to interpret the stipulations as he pleased, so that the terms of 
 peace were made infinitely harder after the Czar was gone. 
 Goltz did hesitate to sign, as he said, t( the disgrace and ruin of 
 his country " but Napoleon took him by the ear, shook it, 
 and pulled his head to the paper, saying, " You will sign it ;" 
 and he accordingly subscribed.* 
 
 And now when the Russian army had retired, and the 
 King of Prussia was left entirely to the mercy of his con- 
 queror, Napoleon showed his ignoble nature in its true light. 
 Instead of being satisfied with the maintenance of his array 
 during its occupation, as he had led her to suppose, and that 
 he would require no further indemnity from Prussia than the 
 heavy contributions already levied, he at once demanded 
 eight million pounds without those contributions, to be paid 
 before his army withdrew in October; and his soldiers and the 
 fortresses left in his hands were to be kept up at the Prussian 
 expense. The King was six months in arrear with his own 
 army, but was permitted to draw no revenue till all the 
 French demands were paid; and by one pretext or another 
 the indemnity was increased, and the military occupation 
 extended till 24,590,000^. were squeezed out of the inhabitants. 
 This sum would be equal to at least 50,000,000/. of the pre- 
 sent value of money in Great Britain, and was taken from a 
 country whose yearly revenue was only 6,000,000/., and which 
 contained not ten millions of people, of whom she now lost 
 four and a quarter millions in the provinces ceded to Saxony, 
 her ally, at the beginning of the war. In addition, the French 
 marshals received estates from the Crown lands and the 
 King's personal property to the value of 600,000/. ; and with 
 disgraceful rapacity they carried off 127 paintings, most of 
 them by first-rate masters, and 238 marbles or statues, besides 
 all the manuscripts, curiosities, and antiquities they could lay 
 * Sir George Jackson ; Sir Eobert Wilson.
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 387 
 
 hands on. When all this was paid, the French generals 
 continued to levy contributions on their own account, 
 and, contrary to the stipulations of the treaty, remained 
 in possession of the country till the war of 1812 broke out, 
 and the Prussian army was dragged to perish in the snows of 
 Russia. 
 
 When the King and Napoleon met at Konigsberg to con- 
 clude the Prussian treaty, after the departure of the Russian 
 army, and the King again asked to retain Magdeburg, Bona- 
 parte replied, " I wish to humble Prussia, and to keep 
 Magdeburg to enter when I like into Berlin. I only know 
 two sentiments, vengeance and hatred. For the future, 
 Prussia mast hate the French, but I will put her out of a 
 condition to hurt us."* 
 
 " The King, from the time the Emperor left him to Bona- 
 parte, and he became entirely at his mercy, has shown a 
 degree of constancy and honourable resignation," writes 
 Jackson, " worthy of a better fate. It is to be hoped he 
 will not again sink into that fatal lethargic state of mind 
 which has been the chief cause of his ruin." 
 
 " By the treaty with the Emperor, the Seven Islands are 
 to be offered to the King of Sicily, as an indemnity for the 
 loss of Naples, and the Morea and Egypt to Bonaparte ; the 
 Emperor to have Moldavia and Wallachia. Bonaparte wished 
 to have these acquisitions guaranteed to him by Russia as a 
 sine qud non of the peace, and for a long time he perti- 
 naciously insisted upon it. But the Emperor would not 
 yield to him on that point, and Bonaparte at length contented 
 himself with a stipulation that Russia should remain neutral, 
 and not interfere in any measure he might find it expedient 
 
 to take for securing the possession of these countries 
 
 The Prussian ministers were silenced by Bonaparte with ' You 
 are not here to dictate, but to receive the law. Be satisfied 
 then with what the Emperor deigns to give you/ "* They 
 blamed Alexander, but had in reality no one to blame but 
 themselves. The preliminary treaty, which was all that they 
 signed before he left, deprived Prussia only of that part the 
 King and his councillors were willing to yield many times 
 during the war. The also gave up Memel, which Russia 
 * Sir G. Jackson's Diary, &c.
 
 388 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 afterwards claimed from Napoleon, to preserve it from the 
 French territory of Dantzic ; and Alexander at once restored 
 it to Prussia, contrary to the wishes of its inhabitants. The 
 Prussian ministers fell into the snare Napoleon laid for them, 
 and delayed the final settlement of their affairs till Alexander 
 had left, though he had been above a fortnight at Tilsit. 
 The King at that moment, to his own misfortune, seems 
 to have mistrusted the ally who had maintained the district 
 between the Memel and the Vistula for nine months against 
 Europe, and to have hoped to obtain better terms when he 
 was gone ; but he soon found out his mistake, and that he 
 was so completely entrapped by the French that he could only 
 sign whatever they chose. If the patriotic feeling brought to 
 life by French oppression, which displayed itself in 1814, 
 had existed in 1806, Prussia, with the aid which Russia gave 
 her, might well have resisted her enemies. In the King's 
 announcement to his subjects (November, 1806), that Russia was 
 coming to their assistance, he said that a second Prussian 
 army was in course of formation to support their allies. But 
 that second army never appeared ; recruits would not come 
 forward, and money was not produced ; the commanders gave 
 up their fortresses without an effort, and a republican feeling 
 ami French gold had so long pervaded the country that they 
 seemed to prefer to be the vassals of France. Of 100,000 
 Prussian prisoners, all but 8000 remained in the French 
 service in 1808. The provinces wrested from her were those 
 she had seized with equal injustice from Poland, from Austria, 
 and by means of her first alliance with Napoleon. Alexander 
 had permitted her to lose nothing more. But the half- 
 barbaric tribes of Asia who followed the Russian army acted 
 with more gentleness in Prussia, for they were under stricter 
 discipline than the French ; and as Napoleon had broken 
 every other treaty he concluded, he quickly began to break 
 that of Tilsit, seizing upon New Silesia, and adding it to the 
 Duchy of Warsaw in 1808. In a letter to the King of 
 Sweden, Frederick William complained of the Czar having made 
 a separate peace,* but this was to excuse himself for having 
 
 * The idea of separate negotiations for peace was originally proposed 
 by Kalkreuth, who thought that Napoleon would grant better, terms to 
 Prussia if she separated her cause from Russia, to whom she believed 
 him to be most inimical.
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 389 
 
 signed such terms to an impetuous neighbour, who was in a 
 position to do him considerable mischief. As if to prove 
 more entirely Prussia's prostrate condition to its unhappy 
 King, the remnant of his dominions was only restored, in the 
 words of the treaty, " as a mark of Napoleon's regard for the 
 Emperor of Russia." And was that regard misplaced ? Had 
 not Alexander performed most faithfully all his part of the 
 agreement, in his alliances with Austria and Prussia, and 
 had firmly adhered to their cause, even after he had been 
 cruelly deceived ? Had he not acted in the most disinterested 
 manner, and fought from the first for the liberties of Europe, 
 which was too weak or too blind to follow truthfully and 
 firmly the path of safety pointed out to her by both Russia 
 and England, when the last was ruled by William Pitt ? He 
 had warned Napoleon, at the very beginning of his career, 
 that he must sooner or later oppose him if he continued an 
 aggressor. All between them on his side had been open and 
 straightforward, and even Napoleon could not help acknow- 
 ledging that in Alexander and the Russians he had found 
 worthy adversaries. 
 
 In reply to a remonstrance from Lord Leveson-Gower on 
 the peace negotiation, Baron Budberg wrote from Tilsit, 
 June 30th, 1807, that "his Majesty's firm defence of the 
 common cause for eight months was a proof of the loyalty 
 and purity of his principles, and he would never have deviated 
 from that system if he had been supported by his allies. But 
 the separation of Austria and England left him to combat 
 with his own means the immense military forces France had 
 at her disposal, till it seemed possible that in sacrificing him- 
 self for others he might compromise his own empire. The 
 conduct of the British Government has lately been of a kind 
 completely to justify his Majesty's resolution. Her long 
 promised diversion on the Continent has not to this day taken 
 place, and even if, as the latest advices from London show, the 
 British Government has at length resolved on sending 10,000 
 men to Pomerania, that succour is in no proportion either to 
 the hopes we were authorized to entertain or the importance 
 of the object. Pecuniary succours might in some degree have 
 compensated the want of English troops, but not only did the 
 British Government decline to facilitate the loan the Imperial
 
 390 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 Court intended to negotiate in London, but when it did at 
 length resolve upon making some advances, the sum it des- 
 tined for this purpose, so far from meeting the exigences, of 
 the Allies, would not even have covered the indispensable 
 expenses of Prussia. Instead of co-operating in the common 
 cause, the British Government during this period used its 
 forces in South America and Egypt, the last of which was not 
 even communicated to the Imperial Cabinet, and was entirely 
 at variance with its interests, when by giving them a different 
 destination the necessity of maintaining a Russian army on 
 the Danube might have been prevented, and the disposable 
 force on the Vistula proportionally increased. The Emperor 
 of Russia was therefore virtually released from his engage- 
 ments, and had no course left but to attend to the safety of 
 his own dominions." 
 
 Mr. Ross wrote to Lord Malmesbury, July 23rd, 1807 : 
 " After the battle of the 18th, Bonaparte twice made proposals 
 for an armistice, and was as often refused. At length the evil 
 genius of Europe, in the person of the Grand Duke Constantine 
 (and a more appropriate representative he could not have), 
 supplicated the Emperor Alexander to agree to it, founding 
 his entreaties on the waste of human blood and the sufferings 
 
 of thousands of his wounded soldiers Bonaparte wished 
 
 Alexander to take the country as far as the Vistula, telling 
 him it was the natural boundary of his empire, but it was 
 refused/' &c. Alexander insisted on the domains of his rela- 
 tives and connections, the Duchies of Mecklenburg- Schwerin, 
 Strelitz, Oldenburg, Saxe- Weimar, and Coburg, being restored 
 to their owners ; and several of their princes went to St, Peters- 
 burg to thank him for his interference. An official publication 
 in the St. Petersburg Gazette stated, " The peace of Tilsit was 
 concluded to save the Prussian monarchy." 
 
 The peace of Tilsit put a limit to the progress of the French 
 empire in the east of Europe, and she never established her 
 influence over a foot beyond. Napoleon had declared himself 
 resolved to reduce the power of Russia, but with all the 
 Continent to back him he could not cross her frontier, and 
 signed a treaty on her borders actually augmenting her power. 
 Cambaceres announced its terms to the French Senate : " Out 
 of esteem for the Emperor of all the Russias, the Emperor
 
 The Campaign of Eylau and Friedland. 391 
 
 Napoleon wishes that all the countries, towns, and territories 
 conquered from the King of Prussia should be restored ; 
 Pomerania, the middle and new mark of Brandenburg, &c. 
 Lastly, the kingdom of Prussia as it was on January 1st, 1772 ; 
 those provinces taken from Poland, to be given over to the 
 King of Saxony, and to be called the Duchy of Warsaw ; the 
 Russian frontier to be rectified so far as to make the Russian 
 territory extend to the Bog. The Dukes of Saxe-Coburg, Olden- 
 burg, and Mecklenburg to be restored, but the ports in the 
 Duchies of Oldenburg and Mecklenburg to remain in possession 
 of French garrisons till the definitive treaty shall be signed 
 between France and England. France accepts the mediation 
 within a month of the receipt of the treaty. The Emperor of 
 Russia cedes the Lordship of Jever to Holland,* and acknow- 
 ledges the Confederation of the Rhine, the kingdoms of 
 Naples, Holland, and Westphalia. All hostilities cease be- 
 tween the Porte and Russia. The Emperor of the French 
 and the Emperor of Russia guarantee each other's possessions. 
 Prisoners to be restored en masse. The ceremony between 
 the two Courts of the Tuileries and Petersburg shall be 
 placed on the footing of complete equality and reciprocity. 
 Done at Tilsit, July 7th, 1807." The Vistula free of all 
 tolls, f 
 
 * The Lordship of Jever, iri Holland, was little more than nominal, and 
 was inherited from Catherine II., being her sole patrimony. 
 
 f Wilson, though most indignant at the time of the treaty of Tilsit, 
 admits that " Russia was warranted, after the glorious and sanguinary 
 resistance she has alone opposed to Bonaparte, with all his means," in 
 sheathing an undishonoured sword, if her situation and immediate interests 
 required some repose. She had engaged in the campaign as an ally of 
 Prussia. She had prepared only as an auxiliary, and to support a 
 sovereign who could bring into the field above 200,000 soldiers of high 
 military character, whose country was covered with strong fortresses, and 
 \vlio had the means of abundantly providing every supply. By the loss of 
 a battle and a series of unparalleled treason and misfortunes Prussia was 
 in a few days annihilated. The Russian forces, reinforced by only 10,000 
 dispirited Prussians, instead of the victorious multitude that they had 
 expected to join on the banks of the Rhine, not only resisted his progress, 
 but preserved the Russian territory from the foot of an invader, aud 
 finally maintained an attitude," &c. Wilson's War in 1806-7. 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 SAVILL, EDWARDS AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, 
 COVENT GARDEN.
 
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