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CHAPTER XXIX
ASSASSINATION OF PAUL AND ACCESSION OF ALEXANDER

From 1801 to 1807

Assassination of Paul I.—Implication of Alexander in the Conspiracy.—Anecdotes.—Accession of Alexander.—The French Revolution.—Alexander Joins Allies Against France.—State of Russia.—Useful Measures of Alexander.—Peace of Amiens.—Renewal of Hostilities.—Battle of Austerlitz.—Magnanimity of Napoleon.—New Coalition.—Ambition of Alexander.—Battles of Jena and Eylau.—Defeat of the Russians.

We have before mentioned that Paul I. had three sons—Alexander, Constantine and Nicholas. The eldest of these, Alexander, was a very promising young man, of popular character, twenty-three years of age. His father feared his popularity and treated him with the greatest severity, and was now threatening him and his mother with imprisonment. General Pahlen, governor of St. Petersburg, obtained the confidence of the young prince, and urged upon him, as a necessary measure of self-defense, that he should place himself at the head of a conspiracy for the dethronement of his insane father. The sufferings of the young prince were so severe and his perils so great, and the desire for a change so universal throughout the empire, that it was not found difficult to enlist him in the enterprise. Alexander consented to the dethronement of his father, but with the express condition that his life should be spared. He might perhaps have flattered himself with the belief that this could be done; but the conspirators knew full well that the dagger of the assassin was the only instrument which could remove Paul from the throne. The conspiracy was very extensive, embracing nearly all the functionaries of the government at St. Petersburg, the entire senate, and the diplomatic corps. All the principal officers of the royal guard, with their colonel at their head, were included in the plot. The hour for the execution of the conspiracy was fixed for the night of the 23d of March, 1801.

A regiment devoted to the conspirators was that night on guard at the palace. The confederates who were to execute the plot, composed of the most distinguished men in the court and the army, met at the house of Prince Talitzin ostensibly for a supper. With wine and wassail they nerved themselves for the desperate deed. Just at midnight a select number entered the garden of the palace, by a private gate, and stealing silently along, beneath the trees, approached a portal which was left unbarred and undefended. One of the guardians of the palace led their steps and conducted them to an apartment adjoining that in which the tzar slept. A single hussar guarded the door. He was instantly struck down, and the conspirators in a body rushed into the royal chamber.

Paul sprang from his bed, and seizing his sword, endeavored to escape by another door than that through which the conspirators entered. Foiled in this attempt, in the darkness, for all lights had been extinguished, he hid himself behind a movable screen. He was however soon seized, lights were brought in, and an act of abdication was read to him which he was required to sign. The intrepid tzar sprang at Zoubow, who was reading the act, and cuffed his ears. A struggle immediately ensued, and an officer's sash was passed around the neck of the monarch, and after a desperate resistance he was strangled. The dress of one of the conspirators caused him to be mistaken, by the emperor, for his son Constantine, and the last words which the wretched sovereign uttered were, "And you too, Constantine."

The two grand dukes, Alexander and Constantine, were in the room below, and heard all the noise of the struggle in which their father was assassinated. It was with much difficulty that these young princes were induced to give their consent to the conspiracy, and they yielded only on condition that their father's life should be spared. But self-defense required some vigorous action on their part, for Paul had threatened to send Alexander to Siberia, to immure Constantine in a convent, and the empress mother in a cloister.

The conspirators having accomplished the deed, descended into the apartment, where the grand dukes were awaiting their return. Alexander enquired eagerly if they had saved his father's life. The silence of the conspirators told the melancholy tale. The grief manifested by both Alexander and Constantine was apparently sincere and intense. In passionate exclamations they gave vent to sorrow and remorse. But Pahlen, the governor, who had led the conspiracy, calm and collected, represented that the interests of the empire demanded a change of policy, that the death of Paul was a fatality, and that nothing now remained but for Alexander to assume the reins of government.

"I shall be accused," exclaimed Alexander bitterly, "of being the assassin of my father. You promised me not to attempt his life. I am the most unhappy man in the world."

The dead body of the emperor was placed upon a table, and an English physician, named Wylie, was called in to arrange the features so that it should appear that he had died of apoplexy. The judgment of the world has ever been and probably ever will be divided respecting the nature of Alexander's complicity in this murder. Many suppose that he could not have been ignorant that the death of his father was the inevitable end of the conspiracy, and that he accepted that result as a sad necessity. Certain it is that the conspirators were all rewarded richly, by being entrusted with the chief offices of the state; and the new monarch surrounded his throne with counselors whose hands were imbrued in his father's blood. A lady at St. Petersburg wrote to Fouché on the occasion of some ceremony which soon ensued,

"The young emperor walked preceded by the assassins of his grandfather, followed by those of his father, and surrounded by his own."

"Behold," said Fouché, "a woman who speaks Tacitus."

At St. Helena, O'Meara enquired of Napoleon if he thought that Paul had been insane. "Latterly," Napoleon replied, "I believe that he was. At first he was strongly prejudiced against the Revolution, and every person concerned in it; but afterwards I had rendered him reasonable, and had changed his opinions altogether. If Paul had lived the English would have lost India before now. An agreement was made between Paul and myself to invade it. I furnished the plan. I was to have sent thirty thousand good troops. He was to send a similar number of the best Russian soldiers, and forty thousand Cossacks. I was to subscribe ten millions for the purchase of camels and other requisites for crossing the desert. The King of Prussia was to have been applied to by both of us to grant a passage for my troops through his dominions, which would have been immediately granted. I had, at the same time, made a demand to the King of Persia for a passage through his country, which would also have been granted, although the negotiations were not entirely concluded, but would have succeeded, as the Persians were desirous of profiting by it themselves." ²⁸

On another occasion, speaking upon this same subject, Napoleon said to Las Casas, "Paul had been promised Malta the moment it was taken possession of by the English. Malta reduced, the English ministers denied that 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 dispatch in full council, he ran his sword through it, and ordered it to be sent back, in that condition, by way of answer. If this be a folly, it must be allowed that it is the folly of a noble soul. It is the indignation of virtue, which was incapable until then of suspecting such baseness.

"At the same time the English ministers, treating with us for the exchange of prisoners, refused to include the Russian prisoners taken in Holland, who were in the actual service and fought for the sole cause of the English. I had hit upon the bent of Paul's character. I seized time by the forelock. I collected these Russians. I clothed them and sent them back without any expense. From that instant that generous heart was altogether devoted to me, and, as I had no interest in opposition to Russia, and should never have spoken or acted but with justice, there is no doubt that I should have been enabled, for the future, to dispose of the cabinet of St. Petersburg. Our enemies were sensible of the danger, and it has been thought that this good-will of Paul proved fatal to him, It might well have been the case, for there are cabinets with whom nothing is sacred."

The death of Paul brought the enemies of France and the friends of England into power at St. Petersburg. The new emperor, the first day after his accession to the throne, issued a proclamation declaring his intention to follow in the footsteps of his grandmother, Catharine. He liberated all the English sailors whom Paul had taken from the ships laid under sequestration. All the decrees against the free importation of English merchandise were abolished; and the young emperor soon wrote, with his own hand, a letter to the King of England, expressing his earnest desire again to establish friendly relations between the courts of Russia and England. This declaration was received in London with shouts of joy.

Alexander was twenty-three years of age when he ascended the throne. A Swiss, by the name of Laharpe, a man of great intelligence and lofty spirit, and a republican in principle, had been for many years the prominent tutor of the young prince, and had obtained a great control over his mind. The instructions of Laharpe, who wished to make a Washington of his pupil, were much counteracted by the despotic lessons he had received from Catharine, and by the luxury, servility and corruption which crowded the Russian court. Naturally amiable, and possessed of by no means a strong character, the young monarch was easily moulded by the influences which surrounded him. He evidently commenced his reign with the best intentions, resolved, in every way, to promote the prosperity of his subjects. It is painful to observe the almost inevitable tendency of power to deprave the soul. History is filled with the records of those sovereigns who have fallen from virtue to vice.

The commencement of the reign of Alexander was hailed with general joy. All his first proclamations breathe the spirit of benevolence, of generosity, of the desire to ameliorate the condition of the oppressed millions. The ridiculous ordinances which Paul had issued were promptly abrogated. By a special edict all Russians were permitted to dress as they pleased, to wear twilled waistcoats and pantaloons, instead of short clothes, if they preferred them. They were permitted to wear round hats, to lead dogs with a leash, and to fasten their shoes with strings instead of buckles. A large number of exiles, whom Paul had sent to Siberia, were recalled, and many of the most burdensome requirements of etiquette, in the court, were annulled.

Though Alexander was an absolute monarch, who could issue any decree, subject to no restraint, he conferred upon the senate the power to revise these decrees, and to suggest any amendment; and he also created a legislature who were permitted to advise respecting any regulations which they might think promotive of the interests of the empire. The will of the emperor was, however, absolute and unchecked. Still the appointment of these deliberative and advising bodies was considered an immense stride towards constitutional freedom. The censorship of the press was greatly mitigated, and foreign books and journals were more freely introduced to the empire.

Two new ministries were established by Alexander, with extensive responsibilities—the Ministry of the Interior, and that of Public Instruction. All the officers of government were rendered accountable to the senate, and responsible to the sovereign. These elements of accountability and of responsibility had hitherto been almost unknown in Russia. Charitable institutions were established, and schools of different grades, for the instruction of all classes of the people. Ambitious of rendering the Russian court as brilliant in all the appliances of luxury and art as any court in Europe, the emperor was indefatigable in the collection of paintings, statuary, medals and all artistic curiosities. The contrast thus became very marked between the semi-barbarism of the provinces and the enlightenment and voluptuousness of the capital.

It is worthy of remark that when Alexander ascended the throne there did not exist in all Russia, not even in St. Petersburg, a single book-store. ²⁹ The Russian sovereigns had wished to take from civilization only that which would add to their despotic power. Desiring to perpetuate the monopoly of authority, they sought to retain in their own hands the privileges of instruction. The impulse which Alexander had given to the cause of education spread throughout the empire, and the nobles, in the distant provinces, interested themselves in establishing schools. These schools were, however, very exclusive in their character, admitting none but the children of the nobles. The military schools which Catharine had established, with so much care, Alexander encouraged and supported with the utmost assiduity.

As Catharine II. had endeavored to obliterate every trace of the government of her murdered husband, Peter III., so Alexander strove to efface all vestiges of his assassinated father, Paul. He entered into the closest alliance with England, and manifested much eagerness in his desire to gratify all the wishes of the cabinet of St. James. He even went so far as to consent to pay a sum of eight hundred thousand rubles ($600,000), as an indemnity to England for the loss the English merchants had incurred by the embargo placed by Paul upon their ships. Every day the partiality of the young emperor for England became more manifest. In the meantime Napoleon was unwearied in his endeavors to secure the good-will of a monarch whose sword would have so important an influence in settling the quarrel between aristocracy and democracy which then agitated Europe. Napoleon was so far successful that, on the 8th of October, 1801, a treaty of friendly alliance was signed at Paris between France and Russia. The battle of Marengo had compelled Austria to withdraw from the coalition against France; and the peace of Luneville, which Napoleon signed with Austria in February, 1801, followed by peace with Spain and Naples in March, with the pope in July, with Bavaria in August and with Portugal in September, left England to struggle alone against those republican principles which in the eyes of aristocratic Europe seemed equally obnoxious whether moulded under the form of the republic, the consulate or the empire.

The English cabinet, thus left to struggle alone, was compelled, though very reluctantly, by the murmurs of the British people, to consent to peace with France; and the treaty of Amiens, which restored peace to entire Europe, was signed in March, 1802. A few days after this event, peace was signed with Turkey, and thus through the sagacity and energy of Napoleon, every hostile sword was sheathed in Europe and on the confines of Asia. But the treaty of Amiens was a sore humiliation to the cabinet of St. James, and hardly a year had elapsed ere the British government, in May, 1803, again drew the sword, and all Europe was again involved in war. It was a war, said William Pitt truly, "of armed opinions."

The Russian embassador at Paris, M. Marcow, who under Catharine II. had shown himself bitterly hostile to the French republic, was declared to be guilty of entering into intrigues to assist the English, now making war upon France, and he was ordered immediately to leave the kingdom. Alexander did not resent this act, so obviously proper, but rewarded the dismissed minister with an annual pension of twelve thousand rubles ($9,000).

During this short interval of peace Alexander was raising an army of five hundred thousand men, to extend and consolidate his dominions on the side of Turkey. His frontiers there were dimly defined, and his authority but feebly exerted. He pushed his armies into Georgia and took firm possession of that vast province extending between the Black Sea and the Caspian, and embracing some eighteen thousand square miles. At the same time the blasts of his bugles were heard reverberating through the defiles of the Balkan, and his fortresses were reared and his banners planted there. The monarchs of Russia, for many generations, had fixed a wistful eye upon Constantinople, but no one had coveted the possession of that important city so intensely as now did Alexander. "Constantinople," said he often, "is the key of my house."

The arrest of the Duke d'Enghien, in the territory of the Duke of Baden, and his execution as a traitor for being in arms against his own country, excited the indignation of Alexander. Napoleon, immediately after the arrest, had made an apology to the Duke of Baden for the violation of a neutral territory, and this apology was accepted by the duke as satisfactory. Nevertheless, Alexander through his embassador, sent the following message to the court of the First Consul:

"The Emperor Alexander, as mediator and guarantee of the continental peace, has notified the States of the German empire that he considers the action of the First Consul as endangering their safety and independence, and that he does not doubt that the First Consul will take prompt measures to reassure those governments by giving satisfactory explanations."

Napoleon regarded this interference of Alexander as impertinent, and caused his minister to reply,

"What would Alexander have said if the First Consul had imperiously demanded explanations respecting the murder of Paul I., and had pretended to constitute himself an avenger? How is it, that when the sovereign of the territory, which it is said has been violated, makes no complaint; when all the princes, his neighbors and his allies, are silent—how is it that the Emperor of Russia, least of all interested in the affair, raises his voice alone? Does it not arise from complicity with England, that machinator of conspiracies against the power and the life of the First Consul? Is not Russia engaged in similar conspiracies at Rome, at Dresden and at Paris? If Russia desires war, why does she not frankly say so, instead of endeavoring to secure that end indirectly?"

In May of 1804, Napoleon assumed the imperial title. Alexander, denying the right of the people to elect their own sovereign, refused to recognize the empire. Hence increasing irritation arose. England, trembling in view of the camp at Boulogne, roused all her energies to rally Europe to strike France in the rear. In this effort she was signally successful. Russia, Sweden, Austria, Turkey and Rome, were engaged in vigorous coöperation with England against France. Holland, Switzerland and Bavaria ranged themselves on the side of Napoleon.

On the 8th of September, 1805, the armies of Austria and Russia were on the march for France, and the Austrian troops, in overwhelming numbers, invaded Bavaria. Napoleon was prepared for the blow. The camp at Boulogne was broken up, and his troops were instantly on the march towards the Rhine. In the marvelous campaign of Ulm the Austrian army was crushed, almost annihilated, and the victorious battalions of Napoleon marched resistlessly to Vienna. Alexander, with a vast army, was hurrying forward, by forced marches, to assist his Austrian ally. At Olmutz he met the Emperor of Austria on the retreat with thirty thousand men, the wreck of that magnificent army with which he had commenced his march upon France. Here the two armies formed a junction—seventy thousand Russians receiving into their ranks thirty thousand Austrians. The two emperors, Alexander and Francis, rode at the head of this formidable force.

On the 1st of December, Napoleon, leading an army of seventy thousand men, encountered these, his combined foes, on the plains of Austerlitz. "To-morrow," said he, "before nightfall, that army shall be mine!" A day of carnage, such as war has seldom seen, ensued. From an eminence the Emperors of Russia and Austria witnessed the destruction of their hosts. No language can describe the tumult which pervaded the ranks of the retreating foe. The Russians, wild with dismay, rent the skies with their barbaric shouts, and wreaked their vengeance upon all the helpless villages they encountered in their path.

Francis, the Emperor of Austria, utterly ruined, sought an interview with his conqueror, and implored peace. Napoleon, as ever, was magnanimous, and was eager to sheathe the sword which he had only drawn in self-defense. Francis endeavored to throw the blame of the war upon England.

"The English," said he, "are a nation of merchants. To secure for themselves the commerce of the world they are willing to set the continent in flames!"

The Austrian monarch, having obtained very favorable terms for himself, interceded for Alexander. "The Russian army," Napoleon replied, "is surrounded. Not a man can escape me. If, however, your majesty will promise me that Alexander shall immediately return to Russia, I will stop the advance of my columns."

The pledge was given, and Napoleon then sent General Savary to the head-quarters of Alexander, to inquire if he would ratify the armistice.

"I am happy to see you," said the emperor to the envoy. "The occasion has been very glorious for your arms. That day will take nothing from the reputation your master has earned in so many battles. It was my first engagement. I confess that the rapidity of his maneuvers gave me no time to succor the menaced points. Everywhere you were at least double the number of our forces."

"Sire," Savary replied, "our force was twenty-five thousand less than yours. And even of that the whole was not very warmly engaged. But we maneuvered much, and the same division combated at several different points. Therein lies the art of war. The emperor, who has seen forty pitched battles, is never wanting in that particular. He is still ready to march against the Archduke Charles, if your majesty does not accept the armistice."

"What guarantee does your master require," continued Alexander, "and what security can I have that your troops will not prosecute their movements against me?"

"He asks only your word of honor," Savary replied. "He has instructed me the moment it is given to suspend the pursuit."

"I give it with pleasure," rejoined the emperor, "and should it ever be your fortune to visit St. Petersburg, I hope that I may be able to render my capital agreeable to you."

Hostilities immediately ceased, and the broken columns of the Russian troops returned to their homes. The Austro-Russian army, in the disastrous day of Austerlitz, lost in killed, wounded and prisoners, over forty thousand men. It is stated that Alexander, when flying from the bloody field with his discomfited troops, his path being strewed with the wounded and the dead, posted placards along the route, with the inscription,

"I commend my unfortunate soldiers to the generosity of the Emperor Napoleon!"

Alexander, young and ambitions, was very much chagrined by this utter discomfiture. Austerlitz was his first battle; and instead of covering him with renown it had overwhelmed him with disgrace. He was anxious for an opportunity to wipe away the stain. A new coalition was soon formed against France, consisting of England, Russia, Prussia and Sweden. Alexander eagerly entered into this coalition, hoping for an opportunity to acquire that military fame which, in this lost world, has been ever deemed so essential to the reputation of a sovereign. The remonstrance of Napoleon, with Russia, was noble and unanswerable.

"Why," said he, "should hostilities arise between France and Russia? Perfectly independent of each other, they are impotent to inflict evil, but all-powerful to communicate benefits. If the Emperor of France exercises a great influence in Italy, the tzar exerts a still greater influence 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 the Emperor of the French to prescribe the bounds beyond which Russia is not to pass. Russia has partitioned Poland. Can she then complain that France possesses Belgium and the left banks of the Rhine? Russia has seized upon the Crimea, the Caucasus, and the northern provinces of Persia. Can she deny that the right of self-preservation gives France a right to demand an equivalent in Europe?

"Let every power begin by restoring the conquests which it has made during the last fifty years. Let them reëstablish 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 sons 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. It is the fashion to speak of the ambition of France. Had she chosen to preserve her conquests, the half of Austria, the Venetian States, the States of Holland and Switzerland and the kingdom of Naples would have been in her possession. The limits of France are, in reality, the Adige and the Rhine. Has it passed either of these limits? Had it fixed on the Solza and the Drave, it would not have exceeded the bounds of its conquests."

In September, 1806, the Prussian army, two hundred thousand strong, commenced their march for the invasion of France. Alexander had also marshaled his barbarian legions and was eagerly following, with two hundred thousand of the most highly disciplined Russian troops in his train. Napoleon contemplated with sorrow the rising of this new storm of war and woe; but with characteristic vigor he prepared to meet it. As he left Paris for the campaign, in a parting message to the senate he said,

"In so just a war, which we have not provoked by any act, by any pretense, the true cause of which it would be impossible to assign, and where we only take arms to defend ourselves, we depend entirely upon the support of the laws, and upon that of the people whom circumstances call upon to give fresh proofs of their devotion and courage."

In the battle of Jena, which took place on the 14th of October, the Prussian army was nearly annihilated, leaving in a few hours more than forty thousand men in killed, wounded and prisoners. In less than a month the conquest of entire Prussia was achieved, and Napoleon was pursuing Frederic William, who, with the wreck of the Prussian army was hastening to take refuge in the bosom of the Russian hosts which were approaching. December had now come with its icy blasts, and Napoleon, leading his victorious troops to the banks of the Vistula, more than a thousand miles from France, established them in winter quarters, waiting until spring for the renewal of the campaign.

Alexander, terrified by the destruction of his Prussian allies, halted his troops upon the other side of the Vistula, and from his vast realms collected recruits. For a few weeks the storms of winter secured a tacit armistice.

In February, 1807, Alexander assumed the offensive and endeavored to surprise Napoleon in his encampment. But Napoleon was on the alert. A series of terrific battles ensued, in which the French were invariably the victors. The retreating Russians, hotly pursued, at last rallied on the field of Eylau. Napoleon had already driven them two hundred and forty miles from his encampment on the Vistula.

"It was the 7th of February, 1807. The night was dark and intensely cold as the Russians, exhausted by the retreat of the day, took their positions for the desperate battle of the morrow. There was a gentle swell of land extending two or three miles, which skirted a vast, bleak, unsheltered plain, over which the wintry gale drifted the snow. Upon this ridge the Russians in double lines formed themselves in battle array. Five hundred pieces of cannon were ranged in battery, to hurl destruction into the bosoms of their foes. They then threw themselves upon the icy ground for their frigid bivouac. A fierce storm had already risen, which spread over the sleeping host its mantle of snow."

Napoleon came also upon the field, in the darkness of the night and of the storm, and placed his army in position for the battle which the dawn would usher in. Two hundred pieces of artillery were planted to reply to the Russian batteries. There were eighty thousand Russians on the ridge, sixty thousand Frenchmen on the plain, and separated by a distance of less than half a cannon shot. The sentinels of either army could almost touch each other with their muskets.

The morning had not yet dawned when the cannonade commenced. The earth shook beneath its roar. A storm of snow at the same time swept over the plain blinding and smothering assailants and assailed. The smoke of the battle blended with the storm had spread over the contending hosts a sulphurous canopy black as midnight. Even the flash of the guns could hardly be discerned through the gloom. All the day long, and until ten o'clock at night, the battle raged with undiminished fury. One half of the Russian army was now destroyed, and the remainder, unable longer to endure the conflict, sullenly retreated. Napoleon remained master of the field, which exhibited such a scene of misery as had never before met even his eye. When congratulated upon his victory by one of his officers he replied sadly,

"To a father who loses his children, victory has no charms. When the heart speaks, glory itself is an illusion."

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