other. Laharpe, filled with youthful enthusiasm for his task, recognized its importance and the responsibility it entailed. In order to fulfil his mission to the best advantage, he soon obtained entire direction of all matters touching the education of the young Grand Dukes. History and a philosophical interpretation of the events it records was a favorite method of study for both the republican teacher and his imperial charges.

Besides Laharpe, several other foreign “governors" and teachers were attached to their household. Kraft taught them experimental physics and "science." Pallas taught them botany, and took them on long excursions near Pavlovsk. Masson taught them mathematics. But regarding matters essentially Russian, Catherine wisely insisted that her grandchildren should remain under the control of their own compatriots. Muraviev taught them Russian history and "moral philosophy," while their religious education was placed in the hands of their confessor, Father Andrew Samborski. Alexander's devotion as a pupil foreshadowed the generally "suggestionable" character which he developed in after life. His teachers not only found him a diligent student-a great contrast to his brother Constantine-but he also appears to have become ardently attached to all those who could satisfy his precocious curiosity.1

In 1791, when Alexander was barely fourteen, the Empress Catherine decided upon his marriage. Besides the importance of assuring the succession in direct line, she impatiently awaited the moment when it would be possible to give the Grand Duke a separate court and household, thus increasing his prestige at the expense of the Tsarevitch, his father. Catherine's choice fell upon the Princess Louisa Augusta, the third daughter of the reigning Grand Duke of Baden. The princess and her sister were subsequently invited to visit the Court of St. Petersburg, where the docile Alexander promptly fell in love, with a sincerity which at least did honor to his grandmother's perspicacity.2

Alexander's marriage, which took place September 25, 1793, at first scarcely interrupted Laharpe's philosophic discourses.3

1 Bogdanovitch, Alexander I, p. 16.

'The story of this imperial idyl is charmingly told in Elizabeth's own letters. See Les Lettres de l'Imperatrice Elizabeth, published with an introduction by Grand Duc Nicolas Mikhailowitch.

Czartoryski, Mémoires, vol. 1, p. 53.

But in 1794, the year of Thermidor, the young teacher's Jacobinism began to offend the Tsarina, and his dismissal was suddenly signified to him "without rank or cross" 1 or any of the distinctions usually accorded a royal tutor who had completed his task. Probably, through the intervention of his pupil, he obtained a postponement of his enforced departure. He used the opportunity which this unexpected delay afforded him to complete his work, impressing upon the receptive mind of Alexander the lessons of democracy and liberalism which had already fired the imagination of the future autocrat. The Grand Duke had now become a disciple rather than a pupil. Laharpe alone could influence the curious blending of gentleness and stubborn determination which, even at this early age, formed the basis of Alexander's character.

The moment of separation arrived May 9, 1795. Alexander's grief and resentment at the departure of his friend and preceptor was manifested publicly and without reserve. Czartoryski in his Mémoires records that "he was heard to declare himself with unmeasured harshness respecting his grandmother's actions, using terms of almost inconceivable abuse." 2 The sincerity and constancy of this ideal friendship was only proved by time. Laharpe left behind him directions for the guidance of his pupil, which specified in detail remedies for the faults which his interrupted education might develop. In these instructions he advised Alexander to overcome his natural timidity and to mingle as often as possible with his future subjects. Only thus, he declared, could the Grand Duke hope to win their love and devotion. That his misgivings were not without cause is shown by the sequel.

Catherine died suddenly in 1796, and was succeeded by the Tsarevitch, whose chief ambition was to make the heir of the Romanovs a soldier. In the company of the young garrison blades who now surrounded him, Alexander lost sight not only of his earlier ideals, but also of all that could remind him of the teachings of Laharpe. His friend Czartoryski recounts the efforts he made at this time to surround the Grand Duke with more sympathetic and profitable influences. With this unselfish end in

1

Rain, op. cit., p. 42, quoting the proceedings of the Société Impériale de l'Histoire Russe, vol. v, remarks on Laharpe's unrepublican indignation at this slight. 2 Czartoryski, Mémoires, vol. 1, p. 111.

view, he asked leave to present to his patron two young men, Novosiltzov and Count Stroganov. In this fashion the nucleus of what became known as the "Young Liberal Circle" was introduced to the Tsarevitch during the Emperor Paul's coronation at Moscow. These new friendships deserve more than passing notice in considering the development of Alexander's character.

Novosiltzov, somewhat pedantic and overconscious of the advantages of this new connection, soon "prepared in Russian the translation of a French work filled with good advice for a young Prince about to mount the throne." This was read by Alexander with characteristic "attention and satisfaction." Under these new influences, Czartoryski 1 notes with approval that "the philosophic and idealistic side of the Tsarevitch's character quickly recovered its ascendancy." These new friendships brought him into renewed contact with the political philosophy of the French Revolution. Stroganov, a pupil of the philosopher Rom and a disciple of Rousseau, had visited Paris during the Terror and listened to the dangerous eloquence of the Jacobin clubs. Novosiltzov, sent to Paris by the elder Count Stroganov to rescue the aristocratic young liberal from this dangerous atmosphere, had himself become infected with the doctrine of "liberty and equality." He returned to Russia almost as great a revolutionary as his ward. Thus, in the company of these more traveled compatriots, Alexander heard reechoed the lessons of Laharpe-and the voice of the spirit of liberty.

career.

The influence of these friendships was to become the determining factor of the "liberal phase" which marked Alexander's early The Young Liberal Circle, as they were called, planned a campaign of propaganda to educate public opinion. Suitable books were to be translated into Russian, but at first only those for which official approval could be obtained. It was hoped that the minds of Alexander's future subjects would thus, by slow degrees, be prepared for the measures of reform to which he already looked forward as the glory of his coming reign. "How happy I could be were you only by my side at this moment," he writes to his old master. And Laharpe, filled with honest pride at his own part in the education of so generous a prince, wrote in

reply long letters from his quiet retreat in Switzerland. But the classical maxims and sage advice of a confirmed doctrinaire of the republican era were unequal to the task of guiding his disciple through the fast approaching crisis of his father's reign.

While the Tsarevitch and his companions were busying themselves with their philosophical program of internal reform, impending events were to bring him face to face with the stern realities that beset a ruler. A palace revolution—a sudden, fierce reversion to the customs of the Byzantine court on which the early Tsars had modeled their own-was suddenly to clear the way to Alexander's throne and to place him face to face with problems whose theoretical solution had amused his leisure. The part which he played in the preparation of the plot which ended in his father's assassination has been the subject of long and bitter controversy. Of a guilty foreknowledge of this tragic event, history has, on the whole, absolved him.1

The impression which Paul's character and the circumstances of his death left upon Alexander during the brief period of their relationship as sovereign and subject must be noted in considering the development of the character of the future author of the "Holy Alliance." 2 In spite of a striking physical dissimilarity, there was a curious resemblance between the two autocrats, father and son.3 In both Tsars we find the same tendency to generous impulse marred by an almost morbid egotism; the same restless zeal for governmental reform accompanied by an equal disregard of the prejudices of those most likely to profit by their acts. Finally, a wholly false conception of the historical task of a

'Joyneville, in his Life and Times of Alexander I, analyzes Alexander's responsibility for his father's death in the light of the Memoirs of Mme. Svetchine, Bulau's Narrative, etc. According to the former, the appeal made to Alexander by the conspirators was merely for aid in "constituting the Emperor a state prisoner," (conversation between Count Pahlen and General Svetchine, quoted in Joyneville, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 118). It must also be remembered that at that time Portugal and Denmark were both ruled by regents in the name of imbecile sovereigns. Joyneville (p. 142) also recounts that Pahlen revealed to Alexander that Paul had ordered his arrest, together with the Empress Marie and the Grand Duke Constantine. "The business," according to the British Attaché, Ross, "took more than threequarters of an hour." Joyneville believes this to be a direct proof that the murder of Paul was not decided upon in advance (pp. 147 and 152). See also Waliszewski, Le fils de la grande Catherine: Paul Ier.

Czartoryski, op. cit., p. 253.

'Joyneville, quoting Rostopchine, says that Paul, during his first campaign against the French, desired to form a permanent league for the "suppression of anarchy and democratic principles," a forerunner of the "Holy Alliance" in its later phase.

"benevolent despot" and an unwavering belief in the high-mindedness of their own motives led them both to perform the most astounding and contradictory acts and to adopt policies which were often carried through with ruthless conviction rather than statesmanlike foresight.

Alexander was but twenty-three years old when he succeeded to the throne of the Romanovs. Prince Czartoryski was summoned to the capital to assume the rôle-but not the office-of Prime Minister, which the Tsar had promised him in their youthful conversations. The new ruler soon found himself surrounded with the friends upon whom he might most naturally depend for encouragement and support. The members of the "Young Liberal Circle," the intimates of his boyhood, returned to St. Petersburg from the four quarters of Europe, where the desire of the Emperor Paul to separate the Heir-Apparent from their liberal influences had dispersed them in semi-official exile. From England came Novosiltzov, filled with renewed admiration for the constitution and political life of the British commonwealth. Stroganov, the aristocratic admirer of the French Revolution, returned from the interrupted "grand tour" upon which his overdemocratic ideas had embarked him. Perhaps most welcome of all these unofficial advisers was Alexander's old tutor, Laharpe, who hastened from Switzerland at the new Tsar's summons.1

International questions, however, rather than policies of internal reform, so dear to the "Young Liberals," now forced themselves on the attention of the new government. Just before the Tsar Paul's assassination, that monarch had formed an ill-considered alliance with Napoleon, reversing Russia's former policy. This had resulted in a renewal of the "Armed Neutrality," and an embargo was placed upon all Russian, Swedish and Danish vessels in the harbors of Great Britain. Orders were also given to the West India fleet to attack the Danish possessions in

'Laharpe was now somewhat disabused of many of his youthful enthusiasms for unrestricted "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity." On his return to Switzerland he had taken a prominent part in inviting the French Revolutionary government to interfere in the civil quarrels of his native cantons. But the victories of the French troops over the armies of the Bernese oligarchy had been marked by such scenes of pillage and disorder as to trouble even the "pure" republicanism of Rousseau's pupil. Moreover, his fellow countrymen had, not unnaturally, held him responsible for his share in bringing about their predicament.

2 For a full account of this revival of Catherine's policy of the "Armed Neutrality," see Garden, Histoire générale des traités de paix, vol. v, pp. 347 and 361.