VIII. 1815. knowing nothing beyond their village, their fields, their CHAP. steppe. For which of these different people is the Emperor to legislate? for the enlightened few or the ignorant many; for the three hundred thousand travelled and highly-polished nobles, or the seventy millions of simple and unlettered peasants? Yet must institutions of some kind be established, legislation of some sort go on; and the great difficulty in Russia is, that the one class in secret desires what the other in sincerity abominates, and what would be beneficial to the former would prove utter 95. ruin to the latter.1 Schnitz ler, ii. 44, 45; Cus tine, iii. 56. ideas with troops re turned from France and This great difficulty, by far the most serious which exists in Russian society, was much aggravated after the Liberal termination of the war by the feelings with which the which the officers of the army returned from the fields of their conquest and their fame. In the hard-fought campaigns of Germany and France they had stood side by side with the ardent youth of the Teutonic universities, whose feelings had been warmed by the fervour of the Tugendbund, whose imaginations had been kindled by the poetry of Körner; at the capture of Paris they had seen the world in transports at the magnanimous words of the Czar in praise of Liberal institutions; many of them had shared in his reception in London, and witnessed the marvellous spectacle of a free people emerging unscathed from a contest, from which they themselves had been extricated only by committing their capital to the flames. Immense was the influence which these circumstances came ere long to exercise on the highly-educated youth of Russia, speaking French and English as well as natives, associating with the very highest society of these nations, and contrasting the varied excitements and intellectual pleasures at their command, with the stillness and monotony, save from physical sensations, of their own fettered land. They saw civilisation on its bright side only: they had basked in its sunshine, they had not felt its shade. They returned home, as so many travellers do, to VIII. 1814. CHAP. the cold regions of the north, discontented with their own country, and passionately desirous of a change. These sentiments were dangerous; their expression might consign the utterer at once to Siberia: they were shrouded in silence, like a secret passion in the female heart from a jealous husband; but like all other emotions, they only 1 Schnitz became the more violent from the necessity of being concealed, and came in many noble breasts entirely to absorb the mind, to the exclusion of all objects of pacific interest or ambition.1 ler, ii. 45, 49; Custine, iii. 95, 99. Ignorant of the spread of passions which were destined ere long to cause the earth to quake beneath his feet, and carried away by the intoxicating incense which the loudly expressed admiration of the world had lavished upon him at Paris, the Emperor Alexander returned to St Petersburg in 1814, after his magnificent reception in London, with a mind set rather on vast projects for the pacification of the world, the extirpation of war, and the spread of the sway of the Gospel in every land, than the establishment of any safe or practicable reforms in his own. His benevolence was great, his heart large, his imagination warm; but his practical acquaintance with men was small, and he aimed rather at reforming mankind at once by the ukases of despotism, than putting matters in a train for the slow and almost imperceptible growth of real improvement, working through the changed habits and desires of the people. He re-entered his capital after his long absence on the 24th July, and his arrival, after such marvellous events as had signalised his absence, was prepared to be celebrated by extraordinary demonstrations of joy. By an order from the Emperor they were all stopped. "The events," said he to the governor of St Petersburg, "which have terminated the bloody wars of Europe, are the work of the Most High; it is before Him alone that it behoves us to prostrate ourselves." 2 He refused the title of "the Blessed" which the VIII. 1815. 58. cent mea Senate had decreed should be conferred upon him. His CHAP. first care was to efface, so far as possible, the traces of the war; his next, to grant a general pardon to all the persons, of whom there were many, who had, during its con- His benefitinuance, been drawn into traitorous correspondence with sures. the enemy. He remitted the capitation tax to the peasants in the provinces which had suffered the most from invasion, and opened at Berlin and Königsberg banks, where the notes of the Bank of Russia which had been given in payment during the war were retired from the holders at the current rate of exchange. Soon after, he concluded a peace with the Sultan of Persia, by which, in consideration of a very large district of country ceded to Russia, he promised his aid in supporting the son whom the Shah might design for his successor. By this treaty the Russians acquired the whole important country which lies between the Black Sea and the Caspian, and became masters of the famous gates of Derbend, which so often in former ages had opened to the Tartars an andre). entrance into Southern Asia.1 1Biog. Univ. lvi. 181, 182 (Alex Alexander's Prince of Orange, and Grand las to the Prussia. A full account has already been given of the part which 59. Russia took in the Congress of Vienna, and the acquisi- Marriage of tion of Poland in a former work ;2 and of the magnanimous sister to the sentiments which Alexander displayed at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in this.3 Two important alliances, des- of the tined to influence materially the international relations of duke NichoEurope, were concluded during this period. The first Princess of was the marriage of his sister, the Grand-duchess Ann, 2 Hist. of to the Prince of Orange, which took place when he visited Europe, Brussels and the field of Waterloo in September 1815; c. xcvi. §§ the second, the conclusion of the arrangements for the 3 Ante, c. marriage of his brother Nicholas, who has since become vi. $$ 61, emperor, to Charlotte, Princess of Prussia, who is still Empress of Russia, which was solemnised some years after. From thence he proceeded to Warsaw, where he Sept. 19, concluded the arrangements for the establishment of the 1815. kingdom of Poland, and left General Zayonchek, a Pole 1789-1815, 53, 60. 70. VIII. 1815. July 13, 1817. CHAP. by birth, in command as viceroy. He returned to St Petersburg on 13th December, having, by this acquisition of territory and family alliances, extended the Russian influence in a direct line, and without any break, over 1 Ann. Reg. the whole north of Europe, from the Niemen to the Rhine. Biog. Univ. Thus was the Netherlands restored to its proper position and rank in Continental affairs; instead of being the outVivantes, work of France against Europe, it became the bulwark of Europe against France.1 1815, 101; lvi. 185; Biog. des Hommes iv. 542. 60. Incessant travels of from 1815 to 1825. Consumed with the desire to heal the wounds of war, and convince himself with his own eyes of the necessities Alexander of the districts for which succour was petitioned, Alexander gave himself only a few months' repose at St Petersburg. His life, for the next ten years to his death, was more than half spent in travelling, and flying with almost incredible rapidity from one part of his vast dominions to another. The postilions, urging their horses to the utmost speed, carried him over the rough roads of Russia at the rate of seventeen miles an hour: wrapt in his cloak, meditating acts of justice, dreaming of projects of philanthropy, the Czar underwent, for days and nights together, with almost incredible patience, the exhausting fatigue. Hardly was his departure from St Petersburg heard of, when the thunder of artillery announced his arrival at Moscow, Warsaw, or Odessa. But although Alexander thus wasted his strength and passed his life in traversing his dominions, his heart was elsewhere. The great events of Paris had got possession of his imagination; the Holy Alliance, the suggestions of Madame Krudener, occupied his thoughts; and he dreamt more of his supposed mission as the apostle of peace, the arbiter of Christendom, than of his duties as the Czar of Russia, the supreme disposer of the lives and liberties of sixty millions of men.2 2 Schnitz ler, i. 75; Biog. Univ. lvi. 185. The heart of the emperor, however, was too warm, his disposition too benevolent, for him not to feel keenly the sufferings of his subjects, and engage in any measures VIII. 1816. 61. beneficent measures introduced 1816. that appeared practicable for their relief. Various bene- CHAP. ficent acts signalised the pacific years of his reign; but they were such as went to relieve local distress, or induce local advantage, rather than to stimulate the springs of in- Various dustry over his whole empire, or remove the causes which obstructed civilisation over its vast extent. In August by him. 1816 he visited Moscow, then beginning to rise from its Aug. 25, ashes; and in a touching manifesto, which evidently came from the heart, testified his profound sympathy for the sufferings induced by its immortal sacrifice. At the same time, he set on foot or aided in the establishment of many valuable undertakings in different parts of the empire. He rebuilt, at a cost of 160,000 rubles, the bridge over the Neva; he took the most efficacious measures for restoring the naval forces of the empire, which had been unavoidably neglected during the pressure of the war-several ships of the line were begun both at Cronstadt and Odessa; no less than 1,500,000 rubles was advanced from the treasury to set on foot several new buildings in the two capitals; the completion of the splendid façade of the Admiralty; the building of a normal school for the training of teachers; an imperial lyceum, in which the imperial founder ever took a warm interest; and several important regulations adopted for the encouragement of agriculture and the establishment of colonies in desert districts. The finances of the empire engaged his special and anxious attention. By a ukase, dated 16th April 1817, he devoted to the payment of April 16, the debts contracted during 1812 and 1813, which were still in floating assignats, 30,000,000 rubles annually out of the imperial treasury, and a like sum out of the hereditary revenue of the Crown. At the same time he advanced 30,000,000 rubles to establish a bank specially destined for the support of commerce; and decreed the "Council of Public Credit," which, by its constitution, presented the first shadow of representative institutions. Such was the effect of these measures, that when the 1817. |