The emperor sent a note of the following content to Adjutant-General Diebitsch: “In order to afford effectual relief to the sufferers from the inundation of the 7th of November, and on account of the destruction of the bridges and the difficulties of communication between the various parts of the town, the following military governors are temporarily appointed under the direction of the military governor-general, Count Miloradovitch: for Vasili Oetroo, Adjutant-General Benkendorv; for the St. Petersburg side, Adjutant-General Komarovski; and for the Viboz side, Adjutant-General Depreradovitch.”
Tverski Gate, Moscow
On the 8th of November the emperor sent for the newly appointed military governors and declared his will to them—that the most speedy and effectual assistance should be given to the unfortunate sufferers from the awful catastrophe. Count Komarovski, in describing the reception given to him and the other military governors, says that tears were observed in the emperor’s eyes. “I am sure that you share my feelings of compassion,” continued Alexander; “here are your instructions, which have been hastily drawn up—your hearts will complete them. Go from here straight to the minister of finance who has orders to give each of you 100,000 rubles to begin with.” According to Komarovski the emperor spoke with such feeling and eloquence that all the assembled governors were deeply touched.
At the time of the inundation in a space of five hours about 5,000 persons perished and 3,609 domestic animals; 324 houses were destroyed or carried away, and 3,581 damaged; besides this pavements, foot ways, quays, bridges, etc., were either destroyed or damaged. Considerable destruction and damage was also occasioned in the environs of the capital, on the Petershov road, in old Petershov, Oranienbaum, and Kronstadt, along the northern shore. More than 100 persons perished in these places, while 114 buildings were destroyed and 187 damaged.
On the 22nd of November the emperor assisted at a requiem service in the Kazan cathedral for those who had perished during the inundation. The historian Karamzin writes that the people as they listened to the requiem wept and gazed at the czar.[b]
THE CLOSE OF ALEXANDER’S REIGN
The czar, deeply affected by the sad spectacles he had witnessed, never recovered from the shock. This increased his disgust of life and the heavy melancholy that had of late being growing upon him. The whole aspect of Europe gave fearful tokens that the policy of the Holy Alliance was false and untenable; it was everywhere the subject of execration, and its destruction was the aim of an almost universal conspiracy, extending even into Alexander’s own dominions. Poland inspired him with deep alarm, and his native country, notwithstanding her habits of immobility, seemed ripe for convulsions. Thus his public life was filled with disappointment and care, and his private life was deeply clouded with horrors.
The diet of Warsaw had become so refractory, that in 1820 Alexander had found it necessary to suspend it, in violation of the constitution given by himself; and though he opened a new diet in 1824, he did so under such restrictions, that the Poles rightly considered it a mere mockery of representative forms.
Russia herself was by no means tranquil. In the year 1824 insurrections of the peasants occurred in several governments, and especially in that of Novgorod, in dangerous vicinity to the first-founded of the military colonies. The latter themselves shared the general discontent, and threatened to become a fearful focus of rebellion, as was actually the case in 1832. There existed also in Russia other centres of disaffection, the existence of which might have been long before known to Alexander, but for his culpable habit of allowing petitions to collect in heaps in his cabinet without even breaking their seals. He, however, learned the fact on his last journey into Poland in June, 1825, or immediately after his return.[66] He then received the first intimation of the conspiracy which had for many years been plotting against himself and against the existing order of things in Russia—a conspiracy which, as many believe, involved the perpetration of regicide. It is a curious fact, but one by no means unparalleled, that in a country where the police is so active, such a plot should have remained for years undetected. In 1816, several young Russians who had served in the European campaigns of the three preceding years, and who had directed their attention to the secret associations which had so greatly contributed to the liberation of Germany, conceived the idea of establishing similar associations in Russia; and this was the origin of that abortive insurrection which broke out in St. Petersburg on the day when the troops were required to take the oath of allegiance to Alexander’s successor.