But, according to her own words, an inward voice told her that the matter was not to end there; the final aim of her aspiration was a friendship with the emperor Alexander, whose spiritual condition at that time was fully known to her from her conversations with Mademoiselle Sturdza as well as after the emperor’s interviews with Johann Jung which took place during his majesty’s stay at Bronchsaal. During the congress of Vienna Juliane Krüdener kept up an active correspondence with Mademoiselle Sturdza; in it she referred to the emperor Alexander and the great and beautiful qualities of his soul. “I have already known for some time that the Lord will grant me the joy of seeing him,” wrote Baroness Krüdener; “if I live till then, it will be one of the happiest moments of my life. I have a multitude of things to tell him, for I have investigated much on his behalf: the Lord alone can prepare his heart to receive them; I am not uneasy about it; my business is to be without fear and reproach; his, to bow down before Christ, the truth.” With these spiritual effusions were artfully mixed mysterious prophecies, such as: “The storm draws nigh, the lilies have appeared only to vanish.”
Mademoiselle Sturdza was struck by these mysterious prognostications and showed the letter to the emperor Alexander; he commissioned her to write to Baroness Krüdener that he would esteem it a happiness to meet her. The correspondence was further prolonged in the same spirit and finally the “prince of darkness” appeared on the scene, preventing her conversing with Alexander, that instrument of mercy, of heavenly things. “But the Almighty will be stronger than he,” wrote Baroness Krüdener; “God, who loves to make use of those who in the eyes of the world serve as objects of humiliation and mockery, has prepared my heart for that submission which does not seek the approval of men. I am only a nonentity. He is everything, and earthly kings tremble before Him.” The emperor Alexander’s first religious transport, in the mystical sense, had manifested itself in the year 1812, when heavy trials fell upon Russia and filled his soul with alarm. His religious aspirations could not be satisfied with the usual forms and ceremonies of the church; in the matter of religion he sought for something different. Having separated himself, under the influence of fatal events, from those humanitarian ideals which to a certain degree had animated him in his youth he had adopted religious conventions; but here, also, by the nature of his character, he was governed by aspirations after the ideal, without, however, departing from the sentimental romanticism that was peculiar to him. Under such conditions Alexander must necessarily have been impressionable to the influence of pietists and mystics.
When he came to Heilbronn he was overwhelmed with weariness and sadness after the pompous receptions at the courts of Munich and Würtemberg, and his soul thirsted for solitude. During the first interview Baroness Krüdener lifted the veil of the past before the eyes of Alexander and represented to him his life with all its errors of ambition and vain pride; she proved to her listener that the momentary awakening of conscience, the acknowledgment of weaknesses, and temporary repentance do not constitute a full expiation of sins, and do not yet lead to spiritual regeneration. “No, your majesty,” said she to him, “you have not yet drawn near to the god man, as a criminal begging for mercy. You have not yet received forgiveness from him, who alone has the power to absolve sins upon earth. You are still in your sins. You have not yet humbled yourself before Jesus, you have not yet said, like the publican, from the depths of your heart: ‘God, I am a great sinner; have mercy upon me!’ And that is why you do not find spiritual peace. Listen to the words of a woman, who has also been a great sinner, but who has found pardon of all her sins at the foot of the cross of Christ.” Baroness Krüdener talked to Alexander in this strain for nearly three hours. Alexander could only say a few broken words, and bowing his head on his hands, he shed abundant tears. All the words he heard, were, as the Scripture expresses it, like a two-edged sword, piercing to the very depths of the soul and spirit, and trying the feelings and thoughts of his heart. Finally, Baroness Krüdener, alarmed by the agitated state into which her words had thrown Alexander, said to him: “Sire, I beg you to pardon the tone in which I have spoken. Believe that in all sincerity of heart and before God I have said to you truths which have never before been said to you. I have only fulfilled a sacred duty to you.” “Do not be afraid,” answered Alexander, “all your words have found a place in my heart: you have helped me to discover in myself what I had never before observed; I thank God for it, but I must often have such conversations, and I ask you not to go away.”
From that day such conversations became a spiritual necessity to the emperor Alexander and a moral support in the pathway upon which he from thenceforth stood. According to the opinion of Prince Galitzin, Alexander’s conversations with Baroness Krüdener were of a spiritual tendency, and perhaps only in part touched upon contemporary events. “There is no doubt,” says Prince Galitzin, “that Baroness Krüdener, who lived by faith, strengthened the development of faith in the emperor by her disinterested and experienced counsels; she certainly directed the will of Alexander to still greater self-sacrifice and prayer, and perhaps at the same time revealed to him the secret of that spiritual, prayerful communion which, although designed by God as an inheritance for all mortals, is unfortunately the portion of a very few chosen ones.” From that time it only remained for Prince Galitzin to experience a lively feeling of satisfaction as he observed, “with what giant strides the emperor advanced in the pathway of religion.”
If the moral sphere in which Alexander began to move awakened the entire sympathy of Prince Galitzin, others looked upon the matter from another point of view.
In accordance with the course he had adopted during the campaigns of 1813 and 1814, the emperor desired to remain at the centre of military operations. This intention was not to the taste of the Austrians, and from their headquarters at Heidelberg they sent a notification that it was difficult to find suitable premises in such a small place and that his majesty would be far more tranquil if he prolonged his stay at Heilbronn. The emperor ordered an answer to be sent to the effect that he requested that only one or two houses should be allotted for his occupation in Heidelberg, and that his headquarters should be established in the neighbouring villages. After this, on the 6th of June, Alexander removed to Heidelberg and finally took up his abode outside the town, upon the banks of the Necker, in the house of an Englishman, named Pickford, and here remained until the 10th of June, awaiting the approach of his army to the Rhine. The Baroness Krüdener also did not delay removing to Heidelberg; she settled not far from the house occupied by the emperor. He spent most of his evenings with her and, listening to her instructions, in confidential intercourse he told her of the griefs and passions which had darkened his sorrowful life. In these conversations, the fellow traveller and collaborator of Baroness Krüdener, Empaitaz, also took part. Baroness Krüdener did not flatter Alexander, she possessed the gift of speaking the truth without giving offence. According to the opinion of her admirers she might have become a beneficent genius for Russia, but this was hindered by the hypocrisy of various unworthy persons, who took advantage of this new frame of mind of the emperor, using it as a means for the attainment of aims which were not at all in accordance with Alexander’s lofty sentiments and intentions.
Becoming more and more convinced of the power of repentance and prayer, the emperor once said to Empaitaz: “I can assure you that when I find myself in awkward situations I always come out of them through prayer. I will tell you something which would greatly astonish everyone if it were known: when I am in counsel, with ministers, who are far from sharing my principles, and they show themselves of opposite opinions, instead of disputing, I lift up an inward prayer, and little by little they come round to principles of humanity and justice.”
Alexander had adopted the habit of daily reading the Holy Scriptures and began to seek in them immediate answers to his doubts. “On the 7th of June,” relates Empaitaz, “he read the 35th psalm; in the evening he told us that this psalm had dispersed all remaining anxiety in his soul as to the success of the war; thenceforth he was convinced that he was acting in accordance with the will of God.”