The Empire of Russia: From the Remotest Periods to the Present Time

by John S. C. Abbott

Accession of Paul I. to the Throne.—Influence of the Hereditary Transmission of Power.—Extravagance of Paul.—His Despotism.—The Horse Court Martialed.—Progress of the French Revolution.—Fears and Violence of Paul I.—Hostility to Foreigners.—Russia Joins the Coalition against France.—March of Suwarrow.—Character of Suwarrow.—Battle on the Adda.—Battle of Novi.—Suwarrow Marches to the Rhine.—His Defeat and Death.—Paul Abandons the Coalition and Joins France.—Conspiracies at St. Petersburg.

Few sovereigns have ever ascended the throne more ignorant of affairs of state than was Paul I. Catharine had endeavored to protract his childhood, entrusting him with no responsibilities, and regulating herself minutely all his domestic and private concerns. He was carefully excluded from any participation in national affairs and was not permitted to superintend even his own household. Catharine took his children under her own protection as soon as they were born, and the parents were seldom allowed to see them. Paul I. had experienced, in his own person, all the burden of despotism ere he ascended Russia's despotic throne. Naturally desirous to secure popularity, he commenced his reign with acts which were much applauded. He introduced economy into the expenditures of the court, forbade the depreciation of the currency and the further issue of paper money, and withdrew the army which Catharine had sent to Persia on a career of conquest.

Paul I. did not love his mother. He did not believe that he was her legitimate child. Still, as his only title to the

throne was founded on his being the reputed child of Peter III., he did what he could to rescue the memory of that prince from the infamy to which it had been very properly consigned. He had felt so humiliated by the domineering spirit of Catharine, that he resolved that Russia should not again fall under the reign of a woman, and issued a decree that henceforth the crown should descend in the male line only, and from father to son. The new emperor manifested his hostility to his mother, by endeavoring in various ways to undo what she had done.

The history of Europe is but a continued comment upon the folly of the law of the hereditary descent of power, a law which is more likely to place the crown upon the brow of a knave, a fool or a madman, than upon that of one qualified to govern. Russia soon awoke to the consciousness that the destinies of thirty millions of people were in the hands of a maniac, whose conduct seemed to prove that his only proper place was in one of the wards of Bedlam. The grossest contradictions followed each other in constant succession. Today he would caress his wife, to-morrow place her under military arrest. At one hour he would load his children with favors, and the next endeavor to expose them publicly to shame.

Though Paul severely blamed his mother for the vast sums she lavished upon her court, these complaints did not prevent him from surpassing her in extravagance. The innumerable palaces she had reared and embellished with more than oriental splendor, were not sufficient for him. Neither the Winter palace, nor the Summer palace, nor the palace of Anitschkoff, nor the Marble palace, nor the Hermitage, whose fairy-like gorgeousness amazed all beholders, nor a crowd of other royal residences, too numerous to mention, and nearly all world-renowned, were deemed worthy of the residence of the new monarch. Pretending that he had received a celestial injunction to construct a new palace, he built, reckless of expense, the chateau of St. Michael.

The crown of Catharine was the wonder of Europe, but it was not rich enough for the brow of Paul. A new one was constructed, and his coronation at Moscow was attended with freaks of expenditure which impoverished provinces. Boundless gifts were lavished upon his favorites. But that he might enrich a single noble, ten thousand peasants were robbed. The crown peasants were vassals, enjoying very considerable freedom and many privileges. The peasantry of the nobles were slaves, nearly as much so as those on a Cuban plantation, with the single exception that custom prevented their being sold except with the land. Like the buildings, the oaks and the elms, they were inseparably attached to the soil. The emperor, at his coronation, gave away eighty thousand families to his favorites. Their labor henceforth, for life, was all to go to enrich their masters. These courtiers, reveling in boundless luxury, surrendered their slaves to overseers, whose reputation depended upon extorting as much as possible from the miserable boors.

The extravagance of Catharine II. had rendered it necessary for her to triple the capitation, or, as we should call it, the poll-tax, imposed upon the peasants. Paul now doubled this tax, which his mother had already tripled. The King of Prussia had issued a decree that no subject should fall upon his knees before him, but that every man should maintain in his presence and in that of the law the dignity of humanity. Paul, on the contrary, reëstablished, in all its rigor, the oriental etiquette, which Peter I. and Catharine had allowed to pass into disuse, which required every individual, whether a citizen or a stranger, to fall instantly upon his knees whenever the tzar made his appearance. Thus, when Paul passed along the streets on horseback or in his carriage, every man, woman and child, within sight of the royal cortege, was compelled to kneel, whether in mud or snow, until the cortege had passed. No one was exempted from the rule. Strangers and citizens, nobles and peasants, were compelled to the degrading homage.

Those on horseback or in carriages were required instantly to dismount and prostrate themselves before the despot.

A noble lady who came to St. Petersburg in her carriage, in great haste, to seek medical aid for her husband, who had been suddenly taken sick, in her trouble not having recognized the imperial livery, was dragged from her carriage and thrust into prison. Her four servants, who accompanied her, were seized and sent to the army, although they plead earnestly that, coming from a distance, they were ignorant of the law, the infraction of which was attributed to them as a crime. The unhappy lady, thus separated from her sick husband, and plunged into a dungeon, was so overwhelmed with anguish that she was thrown into a fever. Reason was dethroned, and she became a hopeless maniac. The husband died, being deprived of the succor his wife had attempted to obtain.