SKRINE’S ESTIMATE OF ALEXANDER I
Of Alexander I it may be truly said that no monarch ever wielded unlimited power with a loftier resolve to promote the happiness of his people. And not theirs alone; for he sympathised with all the myriads doomed to suffering by false ideals and effete institutions. In him men saw the long-expected Messiah who was to give peace to a distracted world. But his nature had an alloy of feminine weakness, unfitting him to bear the reformer’s cross. He was too sensitive of impressions derived from without; too easily led by counsellors who gained his confidence but were not always worthy of it. In youth he was swayed by noble infatuations and enamoured of the most diverse ideas in turn. But when he stood confronted with a crisis in his country’s fortunes he rose superior to vacillation and kept a great design steadily in view. The will-power thus developed, and the resources at his command, made him for a brief period the leading figure in the civilised world. Despondency came with the inevitable reaction which followed the effort. He was drawn into the mazes of German illuminism, which lessened his capacity for persistent resolve. Its effect was heightened by his failure to pierce the dense phalanxes of ignorance around him, and by the unvarying ingratitude which requited his efforts for the public weal. Increasing physical weakness hastened the death of his generous illusions. An excessive devotion to duty exhausted his flagging powers and he became unequal to the task of governing all the Russias. As a dying tree is strangled by parasitical growths, so was Alexander in his decadence attacked by the enemies of human progress. When Metternich and Araktcheiev gained the mastery, all hope of domestic reform and consistent foreign policy disappeared. But despite the shadows which darkened his declining years, Alexander I of Russia will stand out in history as one of the few men born in the purple who rightly appraised the accident of birth and the externals of imperial rank; who held opinions far in advance of his age, and never wittingly abused his limitless powers; who displayed equal firmness in danger and magnanimity in the hour of triumph.[h]
FOOTNOTES
[60] In the year 1812 Alexander had granted a charter to the Jesuit College of Polotsk, raising it to the rank of an “academy” and giving it rights and privileges equal to those of the university; he was then probably governed by political considerations concerning Poland, and in the charter he refers to the college as “affording great advantages for the education of youth” and trusts that the “Jesuits will labour in Poland dans le bon sens” (along the right lines.)
[61] Much earlier, in 1807, the emperor had expressed himself to General Savari upon this question in the following words: “I want to bring the country out of the state of barbarism in which this traffic in men leaves it. I will say more—if civilisation were more advanced, I would abolish this slavery even if it were to cost me my head.”
[62] Étienne de Grelle Mobillier was born in France in 1760 and was brought up in the Roman Catholic faith. At the beginning of the French Revolution he went to America and there entered the society of Friends or Quakers. He subsequently repeatedly visited Europe with various philanthropic aims, mainly in order to strengthen the principles of a morally religious life amongst mankind.
[63] [Prince A. N. Galitzin.]
[64] General-adjutant, chief of the guards staff.
[65] [“Little father,” a title sometimes given to the Russian sovereigns by their subjects.]
[66] The informer was an inferior officer of lancers. His name was Sherwood, and he was of English origin.