It was an ancient Russian usage that all who met the Czar, male or female, should quit their carriage, be it in mud or snow, to salute, and even to prostrate themselves before him. Peter the Great used to cudgel soundly any person who did so, and Catherine II. had abolished the practice; but Paul revived it, and exacted its observance most severely. Of course, amid a crowd of carriages continually passing at full speed, it was easy to neglect it, without intentional disrespect; but no such excuse was admitted. A lady, wife of a general in the army, hastening into St. Petersburgh, from the country, to procure medical advice for her sick husband, passed the Czar inadvertently, and was immediately arrested and sent to prison. Alarm and anxiety threw her into a burning fever, which terminated in madness; and her husband died from the same causes, and for want of proper care and attendance. On being presented to Paul, it was necessary to drop plump on your knees, with force enough to make the floor ring as if a musket had been grounded, and to kiss his hand with energy sufficient to certify to all present the honour which you had just enjoyed. Prince George Galitzin was placed under arrest for kissing his hand too negligently. When enraged he lost all command of himself, which sometimes gave rise to very curious scenes. In one of his furious passions, flourishing his cane, he struck by accident the branch of a large lustre and broke it; whereupon he commenced a serious attack, from which he did not relax until he had entirely demolished his brittle antagonist.
Under a sovereign of such a temper no man could feel secure for an hour. The police kept strict watch over the words, the actions, the correspondence of every one; and the knout, exile to Siberia, or at the best deportation without the frontiers, were unsparingly dealt out for involuntary or chimerical offences: and suspected persons were continually hurried out of the country without time being allowed for the arrangement of their affairs, and in ignorance at once of their offence and of the nature of the intended punishment. Such a state of things was not likely to last very long in Russia, with so many examples to prove how easy the descent is from the palace to the grave.
Towards the close of his reign his conduct became more and more intolerable, and at last he took care to advertise all Europe of his folly or madness, or both, by inserting in the St. Petersburgh Gazette a notice to the following effect: “That the Emperor of Russia, finding that the powers of Europe cannot agree among themselves, and being desirous to put an end to a war which has desolated it for eleven years, intends to point out a spot to which he will invite all the other sovereigns to repair and fight in single combat, bringing with them as seconds and esquires their most enlightened ministers and able generals, such as Turgot, Pitt, Bernstorff, and that the Emperor himself proposes being attended by Generals Count Pahlen and Kutusoff.” This piece of extravagance appears to have completed the disgust of the nobility, and consummated his ruin.
A plot was formed, at the head of which was Count Zoubow, the man to whom he had been indebted for the important service of suppressing Catherine’s will. Paul’s aversion to every thing which his mother had favoured soon overcame his gratitude, and Zoubow was ordered to quit the court, and reside upon his estates. Fresh intrigues again brought him into favour, and the first use he made of it was to plan the murder of his master. He opened his mind gradually to other noblemen: it was resolved, as private crime will often assume the guise of public virtue, that the safety of the empire required the deposition of Paul; and as there is but one prison whose doors can never open to a dethroned monarch, they resolved, in conformity with all Russian precedent, to put him to death. The details of this catastrophe are interesting, and, it is presumed, authentic and accurate, since they were thus related to Mr. Carr by an eye–witness, and therefore an agent in the deed.
“The Emperor used to sleep in an outer apartment, next the Empress’s, upon a sofa, in his boots and regimentals; the other branches of the imperial family being lodged in different parts of the same building. On the, 10th March, o.s. 1801, the day preceding the fatal night (whether Paul’s apprehension, or anonymous information suggested the idea, is not known), conceiving that a storm was ready to burst upon him, he sent to Count P——, the governor of the city, one of the noblemen who had resolved on his destruction. ‘I am informed, P——,’ said the Emperor, ‘that there is a conspiracy on foot against me: do you think it necessary to take any precaution?’ The Count, without betraying the least emotion, replied, ‘Sire, do not suffer such apprehensions to haunt your mind; if there were any combination forming against your Majesty’s person, I am sure I should be acquainted with it.’ ‘Then I am satisfied,’ said the Emperor, and the governor withdrew. Before Paul retired to rest, he unexpectedly expressed the most tender solicitude for the Empress and his children, kissed them with all the warmth of farewell fondness, and remained with them longer than usual; and after he had visited the sentinels at their different posts, he retired to his chamber, where he had not long remained, before, under some colourable pretext that satisfied the men, the guard was changed by the officers who had the command for the night, and were engaged in the confederacy. An hussar, whom the Emperor had particularly honoured by his notice and attention, always at night slept at his bed–room door, in the antechamber. It was impossible to remove this faithful soldier by any fair means. At this momentous period, silence reigned through the palace, except where it was disturbed by the pacing of the sentinels, or at a distance by the murmurs of the Neva; and only a few lights were to be seen distantly and irregularly gleaming through the windows of this dark colossal abode. In the dead of the night, Z—— and his friends, amounting to eight or nine persons, passed the drawbridge, easily ascended a private staircase which led directly to the Emperor’s chamber, and met with no resistance till they reached the anteroom, where the faithful hussar, awakened by the noise, challenged them, and presented his fusee. Much as they must have admired the brave fidelity of the guard, neither time nor circumstances would admit of an act of generosity which might have endangered the whole plan. Z—— drew his sabre and cut the poor fellow down. Paul, awakened by the noise, sprung from his sofa; at this moment the whole party rushed into the room: the unhappy sovereign, anticipating their design, at first endeavoured to entrench himself in the chairs and tables; then recovering, he assumed a high tone, told them they were his prisoners, and called on them to surrender. Finding that they fixed their eyes steadily and fiercely on him, and continued advancing towards him, he implored them to spare his life, declared his consent instantly to relinquish the sceptre, and to accept of any terms they would dictate. In his raving he offered to make them princes, and to give them estates, and titles, and orders, without end. They now began to press upon him, when he made a convulsive effort to reach the window; in the attempt he failed, and indeed so high was it from the ground, that, had he succeeded, the attempt would only have put an end to his misery. In the effort, he very severely cut his hand with the glass; and as they drew him back, he grasped a chair, with which he felled one of the assailants, and a desperate resistance took place. So great was the noise, that, notwithstanding the massy walls and double folding–doors which divided the apartment, the Empress was disturbed, and began to cry for help, when a voice whispered in her ear, and imperatively told her to remain quiet, otherwise she would be put to instant death. While the Emperor was thus making a last struggle, the Prince Y—— struck him on one of his temples with his fist, and laid him upon the floor: Paul, recovering from the blow, again implored his life; at this moment the heart of Z—— relented, and on being observed to tremble and hesitate, a young Hanoverian resolutely exclaimed, ‘We have passed the Rubicon: if we spare his life, before the setting of to–morrow’s sun we shall be his victims.’ Upon which he took off his sash, turned it twice round the naked neck of the Emperor, and giving one end to Z—— and holding the other himself, they pulled for a considerable time with all their force, until their miserable sovereign was no more: they then retired from the palace without the least molestation, and returned to their respective homes.”[147]
After the accession of the new emperor, Zoubow was ordered not to approach the court, and Count P—— was transferred from the government of St. Petersburgh to that of Riga. No other notice was taken of the actors in this tragedy. Whether this extraordinary lenity is to be ascribed to fear, or to a sense of the necessity of removing Paul from the throne (for the high personal character of Alexander places him above the suspicion of having been an accomplice), the late emperor would better have consulted justice, the interests of his throne, and his own reputation, if he had exacted a severer retribution for the murder of a father and a sovereign.[148]
