by Alan Palmer
* As the importance of this letter from Elizabeth to her mother has sometimes been exaggerated, particularly in translation, it is perhaps advisable to quote the relevant passages in the original French:
‘L’Empereur n’est toujours pas quitté encore de sa fièvre. C’est triste! Cela l’empeche de profiter du plus beau temps du monde et m’ôte la faculté aussi d’en jouir, quoique je sorte tous les jours. Où est le repos dans cette vie! Lorsqu’on croit avoir tout arrangeé pour le mieux et pouvoir le goûter, il survient une épreuve inattendue qui ôte la faculté de jouir du bien dont on est entouré …’
† The printed version of the autopsy says the spleen was normal, but Robert Lee gathered from Wylie a week later that ‘the spleen was enlarged, and softened in texture’ (Lee, The Last Days of the Emperor Alexander, p. 48). This is an odd variation: Lee’s version might well suggest malaria.
‡ Popular legend maintains that the troops cheered for ‘Constantine and Konstitutsia’ in the belief that this was the name of the Grand Duke’s Polish wife. The story first appears in a letter from the wife of the acting British ambassador dated 2 January 1826 (recently reprinted in Anthony Cross, Russia under Western Eyes, p. 379) but she was not herself present on the Senate Square at the time. Tsar Nicholas’s own account of events has the troops declaring merely, ‘We’re for Constantine.’ There is no doubt some of them believed Nicholas and the Generals in St Petersburg were attempting to seize power in order to keep out the allegedly liberal Constantine, a man strangely idealized during his absence in Poland. In a private letter Pushkin, for example, though not a Decembrist, welcomed ‘the accession of Constantine I’ because ‘there is much romanticism in him; his stormy youth, his campaigns together with Suvorov … all call to mind Henry V’. (Thomas Shaw, Letters of Alexander Pushkin, p. 265.)
Reference Notes
Full details of the books and articles cited in this reference section will be found in the Select Bibliography. I have used the following abbreviations:
Adams, Memoirs of J.Q. Adams, comprising parts of his Diary, Vol. 2.
Corr. Alex., Nicholas Mikhailovich, Correspondance de l’Empereur Alexandre I avec sa Soeur la Grande-Duchesse Catherine.
F.O., Foreign Office papers in the Public Record Office, London.
HHSA, Documents in the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Vienna.
JMH, Journal of Modern History.
LPN, Nesselrode, Lettres et Papiers du Chancelier Comte de Nesselrode.
Nap. Corr., Correspondance de Napoleon I.
N.M., Alex. I, Nicholas Mikhailovich, L’Empereur Alexandre I.
N.M., Elis, Nicholas Mikhailovich, L’Impératrice Elisabeth.
Seer, Slavonic and East European Review.
Shilder, Alek. I., N.K. Shilder, Imperator Aleksandr I.
Shilder, Pavel, N.K. Shilder, Imperator Pavel I.
Sirio, Sbornik Imperatorskogo Russkogo Istoricheskogo Obshchestva.
Vandal, A. Vandal, Napoléon et Alexandre.
VPR, Ministry of Foreign Affairs U.S.S.R., Vneshniaia Politika Rossi XIX i nachala XX veka.
Waliszewski, K. Waliszewski, La Russie il y a Cent Ans, Le Règne d’Alexandre.
Webster, Castlereagh, C.K. Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh.
Weil, M. H. Weil, Les Dessous du Congrès de Vienne.
Western MSS. bod., Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
Alexander I
Chapter 1: The Crow in Peacock Feathers
1. Castera, Catherine II, III, pp. 15–16; Shilder, Pavel, pp. 170–1 (quoting a letter from Catherine to Paul of 20 August 1782; Kochan, Life in Russia under Catherine the Great, p. 10 and p. 46.
2. Catherine II, Memoirs, p. 23; Castera, op. cit., I, p. 74; Grey, Catherine the Great, pp. 98–110.
3. Masson, Memoirs of Catherine II and the Court, pp. 177–8.
4. Catherine II to Grimm, 25 December 1777, SIRIO XXIII, p. 71.
5. Harris, Diaries and Correspondence, I, p. 140.
6. Grey, op. cit., p. 147.
7. Ibid. (cf. Klyuchevsky, History of Russia, V, p. 32).
8. Catherine II to Grimm, 13 February 1780, SIRIO XXIII, p. 174.
9. The same to the same, II October and 25 November 1782, Ibid., pp. 250 and 252.
10. Shilder, Alek I, I, pp. 8–9.
11. Catherine II to Grimm, 4 June 1781, SIRIO XXIII, p. 205.
12. The same to the same, 12 June and 16 July 1782, Ibid., pp. 236 and 246.
13. The same to the same, 12 April 1782, Ibid., p. 233.
14. The same to the same, 19 May 1784, Ibid., p. 307.
15. Shilder, Alek I, I, pp. 29–30 and 225–6; SIRIO XXVII, pp. 301–30.
16. Waliszewski, I, pp. 5–7; Shilder, Alek. I, pp. 46 and 229.
17. Shilder, Pavel, pp. 206–7 and Shilder, Alek. I, pp. 35–6 and 259–60.
18. Genet to Dumouriez, 8 June 1792, Ibid., p. 269.
19. Alexander to Catherine II, 11 April 1785, Ibid, p. 261.
20. The same to the same, 19 January 1787, Ibid., p. 262; Catherine II to Grimm, 12 December 1787, SIRIO XXIII, p. 431.
21. Shilder, Pavel, pp. 238–40 and 243; Jenkins, Arakcheev, pp. 39–40; Gielgud, Memoirs of Czartoryski, I, p. 108.
22. Shilder, Pavel, p. 203; Shilder, Alek. I, pp. 49–50.
23. Shilder, Pavel, pp. 209–11.
24. Catherine II to Grimm, II May 1791, SIRIO XXIII, p. 520.
25. The same to the same, 10 May 1791, Ibid., pp. 517 and 519; Shilder, Alek. I, pp. 56–9.
26. Jenkins, Arakcheev, p. 40.
27. Catherine II to Grimm, 25 August, 10 November, 12 November 1792, SIRIO XXIII, pp. 573–4, 577 and 579.
28. N.M., Elis., I, p. 20.
29. Shilder, Alek. I., I, p. 233.
30. Catherine II to Grimm, 18 December 1792, SIRIO XXIII, pp. 579–80.
31. Shilder, Alek. I, p. 74.
32. Elizabeth to her mother, 7 May 1793, N.M., Elis., I, p. 90.
33. Catherine II to Grimm, 25 May 1793, SIRIO XXIII, p. 583.
34. Ibid., Shilder, Alek. I, I, p. 233.
35. Shilder, Pavel, pp. 257–9; Almedingen, Emperor Alexander, p. 31.
36. Shilder, Alek. I, I, p. 84; Protassov Journal quoted in N.M., Elis., I, p. 25.
37. Catherine II to Grimm, 16 August 1793, SIRIO XXIII, p. 506.
38. Shilder, Alek. I, p. 86.
39. Shilder, Pavel, p. 259.
40. Elizabeth to her mother, 13 June 1794, N.M., Elis., I, p. 156; Protassov Journal, Ibid., pp. 30 and 31.
41. Almedingen, op. cit., p. 34.
42. Letters of Elizabeth to Varvara Golovina in N.M., Elis., I, pp. 406–26.
43. Shilder, Alek. I, I, pp. 108–9 and 238.
44. Ibid., pp. 115–16; Gielgud, op. cit., pp. 109–14; Schiemann, Geschichtes Russland I, p. 10; Kukiel, Czartoryski and European Unity, p. 5.
45. Ibid., pp. 3–17.
46. Gielgud, op. cit., p. 115.
47. Mazade, Mémoires de Czartoryski, I, p. 268.
48. Jenkins, Arakcheev, p. 50.
49. Shilder, Pavel, pp. 263–4.
50. Ibid., pp. 269–70.
51. Alexander to Catherine II, 11 October 1796, Ibid., pp. 270–1.
52. Jenkins, Arakcheev, p. 51.
Chapter 2: Empire on Parade
1. Shilder, Pavel, pp. 277–8.
2. Ibid., p. 279.
3. Jenkins, Arakcheev, p. 54; Shilder, Pavel, p. 280.
4. Masson, Memoirs of Catherine II and the Court, pp. 145–8.
5. Shilder, Pavel, pp. 290–3 and 303; Shilder, Alek. I, pp. 355 and 359.
6. Ibid., pp. 309–11.
7. Elizabeth to her mother, 10 February 1797, N.M., Elis., I, pp. 239–40.
8. Ibid., p. 246.
9. Ibid., p. 245.
10. Shilder, Pavel, pp.343, 565–72; Shilder, Alek. I, I, p. 363; N.M., Elis., I, pp. 248–9; Mazade, Mémoires de Czartoryski, I, pp. 146–7.
11. An English translation of the decree is in Vernadsky, Sour
ce Book for Russian History, II, p. 473.
12. Seton-Watson, Russian Empire, pp. 74–5; Narkiewiecz article on ‘Alexander I and the Senate Reform,’ SEER, Vol. 49, pp. 117–19.
13. Shilder, Alek. I, I, p. 153; Elizabeth to her mother, 14 and 19 May 1797, N.M., Elis., I, pp. 284–5.
14. Jenkins, Arakcheev, p. 64.
15. N.M., Alex. I, II, p. III; Jenkins, Arakcheev, p. 62.
16. Ibid., p. 67.
17. Alexander to La Harpe, 8 October 1797, full French text in Shilder, Alek. I, I, pp. 280–2 (Abridged English translation, Vernadsky, op. cit., p. 477).
18. Shilder, Pavel, pp. 431–2.
19. Jenkins, Arakcheev, p. 66; Shilder, Alek. I, I, pp. 284–5.
20. Marie Feodorovna to Catherine Nelidov, 15, 16 August and 22 December 1797; Shilder, Pavel, pp. 573–5. See also the Dowager Empress’s letters in Corr. de Marie Feodorovna, pp. 39–43.
21. Pares, History of Russia, pp. 291–2; Seton-Watson, op. cit., pp. 65–6.
22. Andolenko, Histoire de l’Armée Russe, p. 68.
23. Kukiel, Czartoryski and European Unity, pp. 21–3; Grimsted, Foreign Ministers of Alexander, p. 109 (citing the correspondence of Czartoryski and his sister); Paléologue, Enigmatic Czar, p. 28.
24. Shilder, Pavel, pp. 461–2.
25. Temperley, Unpublished Diary of Princess Lieven, p. 247.
26. Shilder, Pavel, pp. 467 and 471–2.
27. The letters are printed in Shilder, Pavel, p. 416. For a recent assessment of Paul’s changing attitudes to France see the article by Hugh Ragsdale on ‘The Origins of Bonaparte’s Russian Policy’ in Slavic Review, Vol. 27, pp. 85–90.
28. Strong, ‘Russia’s Plans for an Invasion of India,’ Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. 7, pp. 114–26.
29. Shilder, Pavel, p. 463.
30. Almedingen, Emperor Alexander, p. 55; Corr. de Marie Feodorovna, p. 75,
31. There are extensive plans of the Mikhailovsky in Shilder’s Pavel. pp. 417–81, passim.
32. Elizabeth to her mother, 7 March 1801, N.M., Elis., I, p. 390.
33. Strakhovsky, Alexander I, p. 19.
34. Shilder, Pavel, p. 473; Loewenson article on ‘Death of Paul,’ SEER, Vol. 29, p. 224.
35. Jenkins, Arakcheev, pp. 79–80.
36. Strakhovsky, op. cit., p. 22.
37. Shilder, Pavel, p. 489.
38. Loewenson article, loc. cit., pp. 212–13; Almedingen, op. cit., pp. 60–2; Strakhovsky, op. cit., pp. 22–4.
39. Loewenson article, loc. cit., pp. 225–7.
40. N.M., Elis., I, p. 267; Temperley, op. cit., p. 246.
41. Ibid., p. 258.
42. Ibid., p. 261.
43. Elizabeth to her mother, 25 March 1801, N.M., Elis., I, p. 268.
Chapter 3: The Cracking of the Ice
1. Shilder, Alek. I, II, pp. 312–23.
2. Ibid., pp. 309–11; cf. Grimsted, Foreign Ministers, pp. 52–3.
3. Shilder, Alek. I, II, p. 6.
4. Ibid., p. 32.
5. Ibid., pp. 32–6; Waliszewski, I, pp. 36–7.
6. See the article by Olga Narkiewicz, ‘Alexander I and the Senate Reform,’ SEER, Vol. 49, p. 120.
7. N.M., Alek. I, I, pp. 19–24; Shilder, Alek. I, I, p. 172.
8. Raeff, Michael Speransky, pp. 41–2.
9. Narkiewicz article, loc. cit., p. 120; N.M., Stroganov, II, pp. 30–2; N.M., Alek. I, II, appendix 8, no. 101.
10. Narkiewicz article, loc. cit., p. 122; Raeff, op. cit., p. 43; N.M., Stroganov II, pp. 185–96.
11. N.M., Stroganov, I, p. 66.
12. Ibid., II, pp. 55–6.
13. Ibid., II, pp. 30–93.
14. Raeff, op. cit., pp. 66–8; Shilder, Alek. I, II, p. 22.
15. Vernadsky, Source Book for Russian History, II, pp. 482–6; Narkiewicz article, loc. cit., pp. 115–16.
16. N.M., Stroganov, II, pp. 103–4.
17. Almedingen, Emperor Alexander, p. 64, citing a note by Kochubey in Old Slavonic.
18. Ibid., p. 66.
19. Edling, Mémoires, p. 38.
20. Panin to Vorontsov, 24 September 1801, quoted from the Vorontsov archives by Grimsted, Foreign Ministers, pp. 70–1.
21. N.M., Elis., II, p. 11; Shilder, Alek. I, II, pp. 65 and 274.
22. Elizabeth to her mother, 18 September 1801, N.M., Elis., II, p. 43.
23. See the statistical analysis of the population in Blackwell, Beginnings of Russian Industrialization, p. 430.
24. Shilder, Alek. I, II, pp. 66–7; Elizabeth to her mother, 21 September 1801, N.M., Elis., II, p. 45.
25. Shilder, Alek. I, II, p. 69; Waliszewski, p. 57.
26. Elizabeth to her mother, 21 September 1801, N.M., Elis., II, p. 45.
27. The same to the same, 26 September 1801, Ibid., p. 46.
28. Mazade, Mémoires de Czartoryski, I, p. 291; but Marie Feodorovna gives a different point of view, Corr. de Marie Feodorovna, pp. 103–9.
29. Elizabeth to her mother, 28 September 1801, N.M., Elis., II, p. 47.
30. Shilder, Alek. I, II, p. 68; Waliszewski, p. 58; Bogdanovich, Aleksander, I, pp. 59–61.
31. Shilder, Alek. I, II, p. 275.
32. Mazade, op. cit., p. 292.
33. Elizabeth to her mother, 16 October 1801, N.M., Elis., II, pp. 49–50.
34. Shilder, Alek. I, II, p. 53.
35. Elizabeth to her mother, 2 November 1801, N.M., Elis., II, p. 51.
Chapter 4: The Emperor Wants It Thus
1. N.M., Alek. I, I, pp. 8, 27 and 29.
2. See the extremely perceptive analysis of Alexander’s political character in Grimsted, Foreign Ministers, pp. 31–40.
3. St Helens to Hawkesbury, 24 May 1801, F.O. 65/48/Private.
4. N.M., Stroganov, II, pp. 44–54.
5. St Helens to Hawkesbury, 10 September 1801, F.O. 65/49/33.
6. VPR, I, 98–9.
7. Grimsted, op. cit., pp. 81–3.
8. N.M., Stroganov, II, pp. 110–11 and 118–19.
9. Almedingen, Emperor Alexander, pp. 64–5.
10. Frederick William III to Alexander, 15 October 1801, Bailleu, Briefwechsel, p. 11.
11. The same to the same, 13 January 1802, Ibid., p. 14; Alexander to Frederick William, 8 February 1802, Ibid., p. 15.
12. Kochubey to Simon Vorontsov, 19 May 1802, quoted by Grimsted, op. cit., p. 88; N.M., Stroganov, II, pp. 138–9.
13. Wright, Louise Queen of Prussia, pp. 60–3.
14. Kochubey to Simon Vorontsov, 14 June 1802, quoted by Grimsted, op. cit., p. 89.
15. Shilder, Alek. I, II, p. 70.
16. Almedingen, op. cit., p. 77.
17. Mazade, Mémoires de Czartoryski, I, pp. 294–8.
18. Kochubey to Simon Vorontsov, 30 July 1802, quoted by Grimsted, op. cit., p. 89.
19. Vernadsky, Source Book for Russian History, II, pp. 483–4.
20. Raeff, Speransky, p. 106.
21. Mazade, op. cit., I, pp. 300–1.
22. Raeff, Plans for Political Reform, pp. 75–84.
23. Grimsted, op. cit., pp. 91–3.
24. Lefebvre, Napoléon, I, pp. 164–78.
25. VPR, I, pp. 326–8.
26. Ibid., pp. 342–3; and Alexander to Vorontsov, 13 July 1803, Ibid., pp. 483–4.
27. Ibid., pp. 468–9.
28. Jenkins, Arakcheev, p. 94.
29. Elizabeth to her mother, 26 February 1803, N.M., Elis., II, p. 73.
30. The same to the same, 21 May and 1 June 1803, Ibid,. II, pp. 87 and 89.
31. The same to the same, 10 May 1803, Ibid., II, p. 83.
32. The same to the same, 15 December 1801, Ibid., II, p. 53.
33. Grunwald, Alexandre I, pp. 74–7; N.M., Elis., II, pp. 23–4.
34. Almedingen, op. cit., pp. 84–6.
35. Elizabeth to her mother, 26 February 1803, N.M., Elis., II, p. 73.
36. Ibid., II, p. 24; Elizabeth to her mother, 3 December 1804, Ibid., II, p. 146.
37. Temperley, Unpublished Diary, p. 262; Elizabeth to her mother, 3
April 1801, N.M., Elis., II, pp. 37–8; Ibid., II, p. 2.
38. Elizabeth to her mother, 5 April 1803, Ibid., II, p. 79.
39. Alexander to Catherine Pavlovna, 1 October 1805, Corr. Alex., p. 4.
40. Ibid.
41. Martha Wilmot to her mother, 31 July 1803, Londonderry and Hyde, Russian Journals, p. 27.
42. Almedingen, op. cit., p. 87.
43. Elizabeth to her mother, 13 September 1803, N.M., Elis., II, p. 103.
Chapter 5: Shadow of War
1. Lefebvre, Napoléon, I, pp. 166–213.
2. Grimsted, Foreign Ministers, pp. 104–5; Warren to Hawkesbury, 4 June 1803, F.O. 65/52/Private.
3. Seton-Watson, Russian Empire, p. 85.
4. Ibid.; Mazade, Mémoires de Czartoryski, I, pp. 354–5.
5. Lefebvre, op. cit., p. 202.
6. Ibid.; VPR, I, p. 520.
7. Mazade, op. cit., I, pp. 355–9; Alexander to Morkov, 28 October 1803, VPR, I, p. 532.
8. A. Vorontsov to S. Vorontsov, 2 December 1803, VPR, I, pp. 557–8; cf. A. Vorontsov to Amstedt, 18 October 1803, Ibid., pp. 522–5.
9. Mazade, op. cit., I, pp. 354–5.
10. Anderson, Eastern Question, p. 34; Czartoryski to Alexander, 29 February 1804, VPR, I, pp. 620–4.
11. Anderson, op. cit., pp. 34–5.
12. Grimsted, op. cit., p. 99.
13. Ibid., pp. 97–8; Mazade, op. cit., I, p. 379; N.M., Elis., II, p. 19.
14. Council Minutes, 17 April 1804, VPR, I, pp. 686–92.
15. Duff Cooper, Talleyrand, p. 143; Paléologue, Enigmatic Czar, p. 31.
16. Czartoryski to Alexander, 17 May 1804, VPR, I, pp. 57–9.
17. Grimsted, op. cit., pp. 117–21.
18. Mazade, op. cit., II, pp. 27–33; Webster, Castlereagh, I, pp. 55–7.
