A severe trial separated him for ever from his last mistress, who had borne him a daughter; this child was the idol of his heart, and to form her mind was the pleasure of his life. At eighteen the young lady eclipsed every woman in his empire by her dazzling beauty and graceful manners. Suddenly she was seized with an infectious fever, for which no physician in St. Petersburgh could find a remedy. Her mother, selfish and timid, deserted the sick chamber of the suffering girl, over whom the bitter tears of a father were vainly shed, while he kept incessant vigils over one whom he would have saved from the power of the grave at the expense of his life and empire. The dying daughter asked incessantly for her mother, upon whose bosom she desired to breathe her last sigh; but neither the passionate entreaties nor the commands of her imperial lover could induce the unnatural parent to risk her health by granting the interview for which her poor child craved, and she expired in the arms of her father, without the consolation of bidding her mother a last adieu.
Some days after the death of his natural daughter, the Emperor Alexander entered the house of an English officer to whom he was much attached. He was in deep mourning and appeared very unhappy. "I have just followed to the grave," said he, "as a private person the remains of my poor child, and I cannot yet forgive the unnatural woman who deserted the death-bed of her daughter. Besides, my sin, which I never repented of, has found me out, and the vengeance of God has fallen upon its fruits. Yes, I deserted the best and most amiable of wives, the object of my first affection, for women who neither possessed her beauty nor merit. I have preferred to the Empress even this unnatural mother, whom I now regard with loathing and horror. My wife shall never again have cause to reproach my broken faith."
Devotion and his strict adherence to his promise balmed the wound, which, however, only death could heal. To the secret agony which through life had haunted the bosom of the son was added that of the father, and the return of Alexander to the paths of virtue and religion originated in the loss of this beloved daughter, smitten, he considered, for his sins.
The friendship of this prince for Madam Krudener had nothing criminal in its nature, though it furnished a theme for scandal to those who are apt to doubt the purity of Platonic attachments between individuals of opposite sexes.
In regard to this Emperor's political career, full of ambition and stratagem, we can only re-echo his dying words to his confessor:—"God must be merciful to kings?" His career, however varied by losses on the field or humiliated by treaties, ended triumphantly with the laurels of war and the olives of peace, and he bore to his far northern empire the keys of Paris as a trophy of his arms. His moderation demands the praise of posterity, and excited the admiration of the French nation at large.[10] His immoral conduct as a man and a husband was afterwards effaced by his sincere repentance, and he died in the arms of the most faithful and affectionate of wives, who could not long survive her irreparable loss. His death was deeply lamented by his subjects, who, if they did not enrol his name among the greatest of their rulers, never have hesitated to denote him as the best and most merciful sovereign who ever sat upon the Russian throne.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] The autopsy exhibited the same appearance generally discovered in those subjects whose death has been caused by the fever of the country: the brain was watery, the veins of the head were gorged, and the liver was soft. No signs of poison were discovered; the death of the Emperor was in the course of nature.
[10] The French authorities would have removed the trophies of Napoleon's victories, and the commemoration of the Russian share in the disastrous days of Jena and Austerlitz. The Emperor Alexander magnanimously replied, "No, let them remain: it is sufficient that I have passed over the bridge with my army!" A noble and generous reply. Few princes have effaced public wrongs so completely, or used their opportunity of making reprisals so mercifully. (See Chateaubriand's Autobiography.)