ALEXANDER I. (ALEKSANDER PAVLOVICH)
(1777-1825)
Walter Alison Phillips
Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, 1910
Vol 1, pgs 556-559
He was emperor of Russia, son of the grand-duke Paul Petrovich, afterwards
Paul I., and Maria Fedorovna, daughter of Frederick Eugene of Wurttemberg. He
was born on the 28th of December 1777. The strange contradictions of his
character make Alexander one of the most interesting as he is one of the most
important figures in the history of the 19th century. Autocrat and
"Jacobin," man of the world and mystic, he was to his contemporaries
a riddle which each read according to his own temperament. Napoleon thought him
a "shifty Byzantine," and called him the Talma of the North, as ready
to play any conspicuous part. To Metternich he was a madman to be humoured.
Castlereagh, writing of him to Lord Liverpool, gives him credit for "grand
qualities," but adds that he is "suspicious and undecided." His
complex nature was, in truth, the outcome of the complex character of his early
environment and education. Reared in the free-thinking atmosphere of the court
of Catherine II. he had imbibed from his Swiss tutor, Frederic Cesar de
Laharpe, the principles of Rousseau's gospel of humanity; from his military
governor, General Soltikov, the traditions of Russian autocracy; while his
father had inspired him with his own passion of. military parade, and taught
him to combine a theoretical love of mankind with a practical contempt for men.
These contradictory tendencies remained with him through life, revealed in the
fluctuations of his policy and influencing through him the fate of the world.
Another element in his character discovered itself when in 1801 he mounted the
throne over the body of his murdered father: a mystic melancholy liable at any
moment to issue in extravagant action. At first, indeed, this exercised but
little influence on the emperor's life. Young, emotional, impressionable,
well-meaning and egotistic, Alexander displayed from the first an intention of
playing a great part on the world's stage, and plunged with all the ardour of
youth into the task of realizing his political ideals. While retaining for a
time the old ministers who had served and overthrown the emperor Paul, one of
the first acts of his reign was to appoint a secret committee, called
ironically the" Comite' du salut public," consisting of young and
enthusiastic friends of his own -Victor Gavovich Kochubey, Nikolai Nikolaevich
Novosiltsov, Paul Alexandrovich Strogonov and Adam Czartoryski - to draw up a
scheme of internal reform. Their aims, inspired by their admiration for English
institutions, were far in advance of the possibilities of the time, and even
after they had been raised to regular ministerial positions but little of their
programme could be realized. For Russia was not ripe for liberty; and
Alexander, the disciple of the revolutionist Laharpe, was - as he himself said
- but "a happy accident" on the throne of the tsars. He spoke,
indeed, bitterly of " the state of barbarism in which the country had been
left by the traffic in men."
" Under Paul," he said, " three thousand peasants had been
given away like a bag of diamonds. If civilization were more advanced, I would
abolish this slavery, if it cost me my head." 1.
1 Savary to Napoleon, Nov. 4, 1807. Tatischeff, p.226.
But the universal corruption, he complained, had left him no men; and the
filling up of the government offices with Germans and other foreigners merely
accentuated the sullen resistance of the "old Russians" to his
reforms. That Alexander's reign, which began with so large a promise of
amelioration, ended by riveting still tighter the chains of the Russian people
was, however, due less to the corruption and backwardness of Russian life than
to the defects of the tsar himself. His love of liberty, though sincere, was in
fact unreal. It flattered his vanity to pose before the world as the dispenser
of benefits; but his theoretical liberalism was mated with an autocratic will
which brooked no contradiction. "You always want to instruct me!" he
exclaimed to Derzhavin, the minister of justice, " but I am the autocratic
emperor, and I will this, and nothing else!" "He would gladly have
agreed," wrote Adam Czartoryski, "that every one should be free, if
every one had freely done only what he wished." Moreover, with this
masterful temper was joined an infirmity of purpose which ever let "I dare
not wait upon I would," and which seized upon any excuse for postponing
measures the principles of which he had publicly approved. The codification of
the laws initiated in 1801 was never carried out during his reign; nothing was
done to improve the intolerable status of the Russian peasantry; the
constitution drawn up by Speranski, and passed by the emperor, remained
unsigned. Alexander, in fact, who, without being consciously tyrannical,
possessed in full measure the tyrant's characteristic distrust of men of
ability and independent judgment, lacked also the first requisite for a
reforming sovereign: confidence in his people; and it was this want that
vitiated such reforms as were actually realized. He experimented in the
outlying provinces of his empire; and the Russians noted with open murmurs
that, not content with governing through foreign instruments, he was conferring
on Poland, Finland and the Baltic provinces benefits denied to themselves. In
Russia, too, certain reforms were carried out; but they could not survive the
suspicious interference of the autocrat and his officials. The newly created
council of ministers, and the senate, endowed for the first time with certain
theoretical powers, became in the end but the slavish instruments of the tsar
and his favourites of the moment. The elaborate system of education,
culminating in the reconstituted, or new-founded, universities of Dorpat,
Vilna, Kazan and Kharkov, was strangled in the supposed interests of
"order" and of orthodox piety; while the military colonies which
Alexander proclaimed as a blessing to both soldiers and state were forced on
the unwilling peasantry and army with pitiless cruelty. Even the Bible Society,
through which the emperor in his later mood of evangelical zeal proposed to
bless his people, was conducted on the same ruthless lines. The Roman
archbishop and the Orthodox metropolitans were forced to serve on its committee
side by side with Protestant pastors; and village popes, trained to regard any
tampering with the letter of the traditional documents of the church as mortal
sin, became the unwilling instruments for the propagation of what they regarded
as works of the devil.
Alexander's grandiose imagination was, however, more strongly attracted by
the great questions of European politics than by attempts at domestic reform
which, on the whole, wounded his pride by proving to him the narrow limits of
absolute power. On the morrow of his accession he had reversed the policy of
Paul, denounced the League of Neutrals, and made peace with England (April
.1801), at the same time opening negotiations with Austria. Soon afterwards at
Memel he entered into a close alliance with Prussia, not as he boasted from
motives of policy, hut in the spirit of true chivalry, out of friendship for
the young king Frederick William and his beautiful wife. The development of
this alliance was interrupted by the short lived peace of October 1801; and for
a while it seemed as though France and Russia might come to an understanding.
Carried away by the enthusiasm of Laharpe, who had returned to Russia from
Paris, Alexander began openly to proclaim his admiration for French
institutions and for the person of Bonaparte. Soon, however, came a change.
Laharpe, after a new visit to Paris, presented to the tsar his Reflexions
On the Trite Nature of the Consulship for Life, which, as Alexander
said, tore the veil from his eyes, and revealed Bonaparte "as not a true
patriot," but only as "the most famous tyrant the world has
produced." His disillusionment was completed by the murder of the duc
d'Enghien. The Russian court went into mourning for the last of the Condes, and
diplomatic relations with Paris were broken off.
The events of the war that followed belong to the general history of
Europe; but the tsar's attitude throughout is personal to himself, though
pregnant with issues momentous for the world. In opposing Napoleon, "the
oppressor of Europe and the disturber of the world's peace," Alexander in
fact already believed himself to be fulfilling a divine mission. In his
instructions to Novosiltsov, his special envoy in London, the tsar elaborated
the motives of his policy in language which appealed as little to the common
sense of Pitt as did later the treaty of the Holy Alliance to that of
Castlereagh. Yet the document is of great interest, as in it we find formulated
for the first time in an official despatch those exalted ideals of
international policy which were to play so conspicuous a part in the affairs of
the world at the close of the revolutionary epoch, and issued at the end of the
19th century in the Rescript of Nicholas II 1 and the conference of the Hague.
1. Circular of Count Muraviev, Aug.24, 189S.
The outcome of the war, Alexander argued, was not to be only the liberation
of France, but the universal triumph of "the sacred rights of
humanity." To attain this it would be necessary "after having
attached the nations to their government by making these incapable of acting
save in the greatest interests of their subjects, to fix the relations of the
states amongst each other on more precise rules, and such as it is to their
interest to respect." A general treaty was to become the basis of the
relations of the states forming " the European Confederation "; and
this, though "it was no question of realizing the dream of universal
peace, would attain some of its results, if, at the conclusion of the general
war, it were possible to establish on clear principles the prescriptions of the
rights of nations." " Why could not one submit to it," the tsar
continued, "the positive rights of nations, assure the privilege of
neutrality, insert the obligation of never beginning war until all the
resources which the mediation of a third party could offer have been exhausted,
having by this means brought to light the respective grievances, and tried to
remove them? It is on such principles as these that one could proceed to a
general pacification, and give birth to a league of which the stipulations
would form, so to speak, a new code of the law of nations, which, sanctioned by
the greater part of the nations of Europe, would without difficulty become the
immutable rule of the cabinets, while those who should try to infringe it would
risk bringing upon themselves the forces of the new union." 2.
2 Instructions to M. Novosiltsov, Sept. 11, 1804. Tatischeff, p.82.
Meanwhile Napoleon, little deterred by the Russian autocrat's youthful
idealogy, never gave up hope of detaching him from the coalition. He had no
sooner entered Vienna in triumph than he opened negotiations with him; he
resumed them after Austerlitz. Russia and France, he urged, were "
geographical allies "; there was, and could be, between them no true
conflict of interests; together they might rule the world. But Alexander was
still determined " to persist in the system of disinterestedness in
respect of all the states of Europe which he had thus far followed," and
he again allied himself with Prussia. The campaign of Jena and the battle of
Eylau followed; and Napoleon, though still intent on the Russian alliance,
stirred up Poles, Turks and Persians to break the obstinacy of the tsar. A
party too in Russia itself, headed by the tsar's brother the grand-duke
Constantine, was clamorous for peace; but Alexander, after a vain attempt to
form a new coalition, summoned the Russian nation to a holy war against
Napoleon as the enemy of the orthodox faith. The outcome was the rout of
Friedland (June 13 and 14, 1807). Napoleon saw his chance and seized it.
Instead of making heavy terms, he offered to the chastened autocrat his
alliance, and a partnership in his glory.
The two emperors met at Tilsit on the 25th of June. Alexander, dazzled by
Napoleon's genius and overwhelmed by his apparent generosity, was completely
won. Napoleon knew well how to appeal to the exuberant imagination of his new
found friend. He would divide with Alexander the empire of the, world; as a
first step he would leave him in possession of the Danubian principalities and
give him a free hand to deal with Finland; and, afterwards, the emperors of the
East and West when the time should be ripe, would drive the Turks from Europe
and march across Asia to the conquest of India. A programme so stupendous awoke
in Alexander's impressionable mind an ambition to which he had hitherto been a
stranger. The interests of Europe were forgotten. "What is Europe?"
he exclaimed to the French ambassador. " Where is it, if it is not you and
we?" 1
1. Savary to Napoleon, Nov. 18, 1807. Tatischeff, p.232.
The brilliance of these new visions did not, however, blind Alexander to
the obligations of friendship; and he refused to retain the Danubian
principalities as the price for suffering a further dismemberment of Prussia.
"We have made loyal war," he said, "we must make a loyal
peace." It was not long before the first enthusiasm of Tilsit began to
wane. Napoleon was prodigal of promises,. but niggard of their fulfilment. The
French remained in Prussia, the Russians on the Danube; and each accused the
other of breach of faith. Meanwhile, however, the personal relations of
Alexander and Napoleon were of the most cordial character; and it was hoped
that a fresh meeting might adjust all differences between them. The meeting
took place at Erfurt in October 1808, and resulted in a treaty which defined
the common policy of the two emperors. But Alexander's relations with Napoleon
none the less suffered a change. He realized that in Napoleon sentiment never
got the better of reason, that as a matter of fact he had never intended his
proposed "grand enterprise" seriously, and had only used it to
preoccupy the mind of the tsar while he consolidated his own power in central
Europe. From this moment the French alliance was for Alexander also not a
fraternal agreement to rule the world, but an affair of pure policy. He used
it, in the first instance, to remove " the geographical enemy " from
the gates of St Petersburg by wresting Finland from the Swedes (1809); and he
hoped by means of it to make the Danube the southern frontier of Russia. Events
were in fact rapidly tending to the rupture of the Franco-Russian alliance.
Alexander, indeed, assisted Napoleon in the war of 1809, but he declared
plainly that he would not allow Austria to be crushed out of existence; and
Napoleon complained bitterly of the inactivity of the Russian troops during the
campaign. The tsar in his turn protested against Napoleon's encouragement of
the Poles. In the matter of the French alliance he knew himself to be
practically isolated in Russia, and he declared that he could not sacrifice the
interest of his people and empire to his affection for Napoleon. " I don't
want anything for myself," he said to the French ambassador, therefore the
world is not large enough to come to an understanding on the affairs of
Poland, if it is a question of its restoration."1
1. Coulaincourt to Napoleon, 4th report, Aug. 3, 1809. Tatischeff, p.496.
The treaty of Vienna, which added largely to the grand-duchy of Warsaw, he
complained had "ill requited him for his loyalty," and he was only
mollified for the time by Napoleon's public declaration that he had no
intention of restoring Poland, and by a convention, signed on the 4th of
January 1810 but not ratified, abolishing the Polish name and orders of
chivalry.
But if Alexander suspected Napoleon, Napoleon was no less suspicious of
Alexander; and, partly to test his sincerity, he sent an almost peremptory
request for the hand of the grand- duchess Anne, the tsar's youngest sister.
After some little delay Alexander returned a polite refusal, on the plea of the
princess's tender age and the objection of the dowager empress to the marriage.
Napoleon's answer was to refuse to ratify the convention of the 4th of January,
and to announce his engagement to the archduchess Marie Louise in such a way as
to lead Alexander to suppose that the two marriage treaties had been negotiated
simultaneously. From this time the relation between the two emperors gradually
became more and more strained. The annexation of Oldenburg, of which the duke
was the tsar's uncle, to France in December 1810, added another to the personal
grievances of Alexander against Napoleon; while the ruinous reaction of "
the continental system " on Russian trade made it impossible for the tsar
to maintain a policy which was Napoleon's chief motive for the alliance. An
acid correspondence followed, and ill-concealed armaments, which culminated in
the summer of 1812 in Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Yet, even after the French
had passed the frontier, Alexander still protested that his personal sentiments
towards the emperor were unaltered; but," he added, " God Himself
cannot undo the past." It was the occupation of Moscow and the desecration
of the Kremlin, the sacred centre of Holy Russia, that changed his sentiment
for Napoleon into passionate hatred. In vain the French emperor, within eight
days of his entry into Moscow, wrote to the tsar a letter, which was one long
cry of distress, revealing the desperate straits of the Grand Army, and
appealed to any remnant of his former sentiments." Alexander returned no
answer to these " fanfaronnades." " No more peace with
Napoleon!" he cried, "He or I, I or He: we cannot longer reign
together! 2
2. Alexander speaking to Colonel Michaud. Tatischeff, p.612.
The campaign of 1812 was the turning-point of Alexander's life; and its
horrors, for which his sensitive nature felt much of the responsibility,
overset still more a mind never too well balanced. At the burning of Moscow, he
declared afterwards, his own soul had found illumination, and he had realized
once for all the divine revelation to him of his mission as the peace maker of
Europe. He tried to calm the unrest of his conscience by correspondence with
the leaders of the evangelical revival on the continent, and sought for omens
and supernatural guidance in texts and passages of scripture. It was not,
however, according tp his own account, till he met the Baroness de Krudener - a
religious adventuress who made the conversion of prince her special mission -
at Basel, in the autumn of 1813, that his soul found peace. From this time a
mystic pietism became the avowed force of his political, as of his private
actions. Madame de Krudener, and her colleague, the evangelist Empaytaz, became
the confidants of the emperor's most secret thoughts; and during the campaign
that ended 'in the occupation of Paris the imperial prayer-meetings were the
oracle on whose revelations hung the fate of the world.
Such was Alexander's mood when the downfall of Napoleon left him the most
powerful sovereign in Europe. With the memory of Tilsit still fresh in 'men's
minds, it was not unnatural that td cynical men of the world like Metternich he
merely seemed to be disguising "under the language of evangelical
abnegation " vast and perflous schemes of ambition. The puzzled powers
were, in fact, jthe more inclined to be suspicious in view of other, and
seemingly inconsistent, tendencies of the emperor, which yet seemed all to
point to a like disquieting conclusion. For Madame de Krudener was not the only
influence behind the throne; and, though Alexander had declared war against
.the Revolution, Laharpe was once more at his elbow, and the catchwords of the
gospel of humanity were still on his lips. The very proclamations which
denounced Napoleon as the genius of evil," denounced him in the name of
" liberty," and of "enlightenment." A monstrous intngue was
suspected for the alliance of the eastern autocrat with the Jacobinism of all
Europe, which would have issued in the substitution of an all-powerful Russia
for an all-powerful France. At the Congress of Vienna Alexander's attitude
accentuated this distrust. Castlereagh, whose single-minded aim was the
restoration of "a just equilibrium" in Europe, reproached the tsar to
his face for a "conscience" which suffered him to imperil the concert
of the powers by keeping his hold on Poland in violation of his treaty
obligation.3.
3 Castlereagh to Liverpool, Oct. 2, 1814. F.O. Papers. Vienna VII
Yet Alexander was sincere. Even the Holy Alliance, the pet offspring of
his pietism, does not deserve the sinister reputation it has since obtained. To
the other powers it seemed, at best "verbiage" and "exalted
nonsense," at worst an effort of the tsar to establish the hegemony of
Russia on the goodwill of the smaller signatory powers. To the Liberals, then
and afterwards it was clearly a hypocritical conspiracy against freedom. Yet to
Alexander himself it seemed the only means of placing the ''confederation of
Europe'' on a firm basis of principle 4 and, so far from its being directed
against liberty he declared roundly to all the signatory powers that "free
constitutions were the logical outcome of its doctrines." Europe, in fact,
owed much at this time to Alexander's exalted temper. During the period when
his influence was supreme, the fateful years, that is, between the Moscow
campaign and the close of the congress of Aix-la Chapelle, it had been used
largely in the interests of moderation and liberty. To him mainly it was due
that France was saved from dismemberment, and received a constitution which, to
use his own words, "united crown and representatives of the people in a
sense'of common interests." 5 By his wise intervention Switzerland was
saved from violent reaction, and suffered to preserve the essential gains of
the Revolution. To his pro tection it was due that the weak beginnings of
constitutional freedom in Germany were able for a while to defy the hatred of
Austria. Lastly, whatever its ultimate outcome, the constitution of Poland was,
in its inception, a genuine effort to respond to the appeal of the Poles for a
national existence.
4. Martens IV. part i. p.49.
5. Etat des negociations actuelles, &c., mem. prepared by order
of the Tsar, July 16, 1815, enclosed in Castlereagh to Liverpool, F.O. Cont.
papers. Congress Paris, Castlereagh, 22.
From the end of the year 1818 Alexander's views began to change. A
revolutionary conspiracy among the officers of the guard, and a foolish plot to
kidnap him on his way to the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (q.v.), are
said to have shaken the foundations of his Liberalism. At Aix he came for the
first time into intimate contact with Metternich, and the astute Austrian was
swift to take advantage of the psychological moment. From this time dates the
ascendancy of Metternich over the mind of the Russian emperor and in the
councils of Europe. It was, however, no case of sudden conversion. Though
alarmed by the revolutionary agitation in Germany, which culminated in the
murder of his agent, the dramatist Kotzebue (q.v.), Alexander approved
of Castlereagh's protest against Metternich's policy of "the govern ments
contracting an alliance against the peoples," as formulated. in the
Carlsbad decrees, 1819, and deprecated any intervention of Europe to support
"a league of which the sole object is the absurd pretensions of absolute
power." 6
6. Despatch of Lieven, Nov. 30 (Dec. 12), 1819, and RUSL Circular of
Jan.27, 1820. Martens IV part 2.9.270.
He still declared his belief in "free institutions, though not in such
as are forced from; feebleness, nor contracts ordered by popular leaders from
their sovereigns, nor constitutions granted in difficult circumstances to tide
over a crisis. " Liberty," he maintained, " should be confined
within just limits. And the limits of liberty are the principles of
order."'
It was the apparent triumph of the principles of disorder in the
revolutions of Naples and Piedmont, combined with increasingly disquieting
symptoms of discontent in France, Germany and among his own people, that
completed Alexander's conversion. In the seclusion of the little town of
Troppau, where in October of 1820 the powers met in conference, Metternich
found an opportunity for cementing his influence over Alexander which had been
wanting amid the turmoil and feminine intrigues of Vienna and Aix. Here, in
confidence begotten of friendly chats over afternoon tea, the disillusioned
autocrat confessed his mistake. "You have nothing to regret," he said
sadly to the exultant chancellor, "but I have!" 2. The issue was
momentous. In January Alexander had still upheld the ideal of a free
confederation of the European states, symbolized by the Holy Alliance, against
the policy of a dictatorship of the great powers, symbolized by the Quadruple
Treaty; he had still protested against the claims of collective Europe to
interfere in the internal concerns of the sovereign states. On the 19th of
November he signed the Troppau Protocol, which consecrated the principle of
intervention and wrecked the harmony of the concert. (See TROPPAU, CONGRESS
OF.)
At Laibach, whither in the spring of 1821 the congress had been adjourned,
Alexander first heard of the revolt of the Greeks. From this time until his
death his mind was torn between his anxiety to realize his dream of a
confederation of Europe and his traditional mission as leader of the Orthodox
crusade against the Turks. At first, under the careful nursing of Metternich,.
the former motive prevailed. He struck the name of Alexander Ypsilanti from the
Russian army list, and directed his foreign minister, Count Capo d'Istria,
himself a Greek, to disavow all sympathy of Russia with his enterprise; and,
next year, a deputation of the Greeks of the Morea on its way to the congress
of Verona was turned back by his orders on the road. He made, indeed, some
effort to reconcile the principles at conflict in his mind. He offered to
surrender the claim, successfully asserted when the sultan had been excluded
from the Holy Alliance and the affairs of the Ottoman empire from the
deliberations of Vienna, that the affairs of the East were the "domestic
concerns of Russia," and to march into Turkey, as Austria had marched into
Naples, " as the mandatory of Europe." 3. Metternich's opposition to
this, illogical, but natural from the Austrian point of view, first opened his
eyes to the true character of Austria's attitude towards his ideals. Once more
in Russia, far from the fascination of Metternich's personality, the immemorial
spirit of his people drew him back into itself; and when, in the autumn of
1825, he took his dying empress for change of air to the south of Russia, in
order - as all Europe supposed - to place himself at the head of the great army
concentrated near the Ottoman frontiers, his language was no longer that of
"the peace-maker of Europe," but of the Orthodox tsar determined to
take the interests of his people and of his religion "into his own
hands." Before the momentous issue could be decided, however, Alexander
died at Taganrog on the 1st of December (November 18, 0.S.) 1825,
"crushed," to use his own words., "beneath the terrible burden
of a crown" which he had more than once declared his intention of
resigning. A report, current at the time and often revived, affirmed that he
did not in fact die. By some it is sup posed that a mysterious hermit named
Fomich, who lived at Tomsk until 1870 and was treated with peculiar deference
by successive tsars, was none other than Alexander. 4.
1Apercu des ide-es de l'Empereur, Martens IV. part i. p.269.
2 Metternich Mem.
3 Martens IV pp.307, &c.
4 See W. Gasiorowski, Tragic Russia, translated by Viscount de
Busancy, London, 1908).
Modern history knows no more tragic figure than that of Alexander. The
brilliant promise of his early years; the haunting memory of the crime by which
he had obtained the power to realize his ideals; and, in the end, the terrible
legacy he left to Russia: a principle of government which, under lofty
pretensions, veiled a tyranny supported by spies and secret police; an
uncertain succession; an army permeated by organized disaffection; an armed
Poland, whose hunger for liberty the tsar had whetted but not satisfied; the
quarrel with Turkey, with its alternative of war or humiliation for Russia; an
educational system rotten with official hypocrisy; a Church in which conduct
counted for nothing, orthodoxy and ceremonial observance for everything;
economical and financial conditions scarce recovering from the verge of ruin;
and lastly, that curse of Russia,-serfdom.
In private life Alexander displayed many lovable qualities. All
authorities combine in praising his handsome presence and the affability and
charm of his address, together with a certain simplicity of personal tastes,
which led him in his intercourse with his friends or with the representatives
of friendly powers to dispense with ceremonial and etiquette. His personal
friendship, too, once bestowed, was never lightly withdrawn. By nature he was
sociable and pleasure loving, he proved himself a notable patron of the arts
and he took a conspicuous part in all the gaieties of the congress of Vienna.
In his later years, however, he fell into a mood of settled melancholy; and,
though still accessible to all who chose to approach him with complaints or
petitions, he withdrew from all but the most essential social functions, and
lived a life of strenuous work and of Spartan simplicity. His gloom had been
increased by domestic misfortune. He had been married, in 1793, without his
wishes being consulted, to the beautiful and amiable Princess Maria Louisa of
Baden (Elizabeth Feodorovna), a political match which, as he regretfully
confessed to his friend Frederick William of Prussia, had. proved the
misfortune of both; and he consoled himself in the traditional manner. The only
child of the marriage, a little grand-duchess, died on the 12th of May 1808;
and their common sorrow drew husband and wife closer together. Towards the
close of his life their reconciliation was completed by the wise charity of the
empress in sympathizing deeply with him over the death of his beloved daughter
by Madame Narishkine.
See also EUROPE; RUSSIA; FRANCE; TURKEY; VIENNA, CONGRESS OF; NAPOLEON;
METTERNICH; CAPO D'ISTRIA.
AUTHORITIES.-F. de Martens, Recueil des traitis conclus per la Russie,
ll'c. (St Petersb., 1874, &c.) ; Wellington Despatches; Castle reagh
Correspondence; Prince Adam Czartoryski, Memoires et correspondence avec
l'empereur Alexandre I. (Paris, 1887, -2 vOls.). P. Baillen (ed).
Briefwechsel Ksnig Friedrich Wilhelm's IlL und der Ksnigin Luise mit Kaiser
Alexander I. (Leipzig, 1900); Laharpe Le Gouverneur d'un Prince (F. C.
de Laharpe et Alexandre I. de Russie)' 1902; Serge Tatischeff, Alexandre
I. et Napolion d'apre's leur correspondance ine-dite (Paris, 1901); Joseph
de Maistre, Me-moires historiques et correspondance diplomatique, ed. A.
Blanc (2nd ed., 1859); Comtesse de Choiscul-Gouffier, Me-moires historiques
sur l'empereur Alexandre (1829), and Reminiscences sur l'empereur
Alexandre I., ll'c. (Paris, 1862); Rulemano Friedrich Eylert, Cha
rakterzuge und historische Fragmente ens dem Leben Konig Friedrich Wilhelm's
III. (I 846); H. L. Empaytax, Notice sur Alexandre Empereur de Russie
(2nd ed., Paris, 1840); Comte A. de la Garde Chambonas, Souvenirs du
Congrhs de Vienne; Pu ft. avec introd. et notes par le Cte. Fleury (1901).
LIVES.-The principal life of Alexander I. is that, in Russian, by Nikolai
Karlovich Schilder, Imperator Aleksander, &c. (4 vols., St Petersb.,
1897, 1898). See also Bogdanovich, History of the Government of the Emperor
Alexander I. (St Petersburg, 1869-1871, 6 vols.); Theodor Schiemann,
Ceschichte Russlands unter Kaiser Nikolaus L Band i. Kaiser Alexander
L und die Ergebnisse seingr Lebensarbeit (Berl., 1904), a valuable study
based upon much new material from the state archives of St Petersburg, Paris,
Berlin and Vienna; A. Vandal, Napole-on et AlexandreL:l'alliance Russe sons
le premier empire (3 vols., Paris, 1891-1896); A. N. Pypin, Political
and Literary Movements underAlexanderL (Russian, 2nded. St Peters- burg,
1885; German, Berlin, 1894). Among the numerous less authoritative biographies
may be mentioned Ivan Golovin, Histoire d'Alexandre I. (Leipzig, 1859),
and C. Joyneville, LIfe and Times of Alexander 1. (3 vols., 1875). This
last contains much valuable information, but the references in footnotes are
often wanting in precision, and it has no index. (W. A. P.)