The Emperor sometimes did striking things in his private capacity. A princess of the first rank applied to him to protect her husband from his creditors, intimating that “the emperor was above the law.”
Alexander answered, “I do not wish, madam, to put myself above the law, even if I could, for in all the world I do not recognise any authority but that which comes from the law. On the contrary, I feel more than any one else the obligation of watching over its observance, and even in cases where others may be indulgent, I can only be just.”
The French war checked all those projects of improvement; and the march of his troops to the aid of Austria in 1805, commenced a series of hostilities, which, for seven years, occupied the resources of the empire, and had nearly subverted his throne. But he behaved bravely throughout the contest. When Austria was beaten and signed a treaty, Alexander refused to join in the negotiation. When Prussia, under the influence of counsels at once rash and negligent—too slow to aid Austria, and too feeble to encounter France—was preparing to resist Napoleon in 1805, Alexander, Frederic William, and his queen Louisa, made a visit by torch-light to the tomb of Frederic the Great in Potsdam; and there, on their knees, the two monarchs joined their hands over the tomb, and pledged themselves to stand by each other to the last.
When Prussia was defeated, Alexander still fought two desperate battles; and it was not until the advance of the French made him dread the rising of Poland in his rear, that he made peace in 1802.
At this peace, he was charged with bartering his principles for the extension of his dominions by the seizure of Turkey, and even of the extravagance of dividing the world with Napoleon. But these charges were never proved.
We, too, have our theory, and it is, that the fear of seeing Poland in insurrection alone compelled Alexander to submit to the treaty of Tilsit; but that he felt all the insolence of the French Emperor, in demanding the closing of the Russian ports against England; and felt the treaty as a chain, which he was determined to break on the first provocation. We think it probable that the knowledge of the “secret articles” of that treaty was conveyed from the Russian Court to England; and, without pretending to know from what direct hand it came, we believe that the seizure of the Danish fleet, which was the immediate result of that knowledge, was as gratifying to Alexander as it was to the English cabinet, notwithstanding the diplomatic wrath which it pleased him to affect on that memorable occasion.
But other times were ripening. It has been justly observed, that the Spanish war was the true origin of Napoleon’s ruin. He perished by his own perfidy. The resistance of Spain awoke the resistance of Europe. All Germany, impoverished by French plunder, and indignant at French insults, longed to rise in arms. The Russians then boldly demanded the emancipation of their commerce, and issued a relaxed tariff in 1811. British vessels then began to crowd the Russian ports. Napoleon was indignant and threatened. Alexander was offended, and remonstrated. The French Emperor instantly launched one of his fiery proclamations; declared that the House of Romanoff was undone; and, on the 24th of June 1812, threw his mighty army across the Niemen.
We pass over the events of that memorable war as universally known; but justice is not done to the Russian emperor, unless we recollect how large a portion of the liberation of Europe was due to his magnanimity. To refuse obedience to the commercial tyranny of Napoleon, where it menaced the ruin of his people, was an act of personal magnanimity, for it inevitably exposed his throne and life to the hazards of war with a universal conqueror. On the declaration of war, he determined to join his armies in the field, another act of magnanimity, which was prevented only by the remonstrance of his generals, who represented to him the obstacles which must be produced by the presence of the emperor. But, when the invasion of France was resolved on, and negotiations might require his presence, he was instantly in the camp, and was of the highest importance to the final success of the campaign. He threw vigour into the councils of the Austrian generalissimo, and, with the aid of the British ambassador, actually urged and effected the “March to Paris.”
In Paris, however, his magnanimity was unfortunate, his generosity was misplaced, his chivalric feelings had to deal with craft, and his reliance on the pledges of Napoleon ultimately cost Europe one of the bloodiest of its campaigns. A wiser policy would have given Napoleon over to the dungeon, or sent him before a military tribunal, as he had sent the unfortunate Duc d’Enghien, with not the thousandth part of the reason or the necessity, and the peace of the Continent would thus have been secured at once. But a more theatric policy prevailed. The promises of a man who had never kept a promise were taken; the stimulant of an imperial title was kept up, when he ought to have been stripped of all honours; an independent revenue was issued to him, which was sure to be expended in bribing the officials and soldiery of France; and, by the last folly of a series of generous absurdities, Napoleon was placed in the very spot which he himself would have chosen, and probably did choose, for the centre of a correspondence, between the corruption of Italy and the corruption of France.
The result was predicted by every politician of Europe, except the politicians of the Tuileries. France was speedily prepared for revolt; the army had their tricoloured cockades in their knapsacks. The Bourbons, who thought that the world was to be governed by going to mass, were forced to flee at midnight. Napoleon drove into the capital, with all the traitors of the army and the councils clinging to his wheels, cost France another “March to Paris,” the loss of another veteran army, and himself another exile, where he was sent to linger out his few wretched and humiliated years in the African Ocean.