nce of Paul.--His Despotism.--The
Horse Court Martialed.--Progress of the French Revolution.--Fears and
Violence of Paul I.--Hostility to Foreigners.--Russia Joins the
Coalition against France.--March of Suwarrow.--Character of
Suwarrow.--Battle on the Adda.--Battle of Novi.--Suwarrow Marches to
the Rhine.--His Defeat and Death.--Paul Abandons the Coalition and
Joins France.--Conspiracies at St. Petersburg.

Few sovereigns have ever ascended the throne more ignorant of affairs
of state than was Paul I. Catharine had endeavored to protract his
childhood, entrusting him with no responsibilities, and regulating
herself minutely all his domestic and private concerns. He was
carefully excluded from any participation in national affairs and was
not permitted to superintend even his own household. Catharine took
his children under her own protection as soon as they were born, and
the parents were seldom allowed to see them. Paul I. had experienced,
in his own person, all the burden of despotism ere he ascended
Russia's despotic throne. Naturally desirous to secure popularity, he
commenced his reign with acts which were much applauded. He introduced
economy into the expenditures of the court, forbade the depreciation
of the currency and the further issue of paper money, and withdrew the
army which Catharine had sent to Persia on a career of conquest.

Paul I. did not love his mother. He did not believe that he was her
legitimate child. Still, as his only title to the throne was founded
on his being the reputed child of Peter III., he did what he could to
rescue the memory of that prince from the infamy to which it had been
very properly consigned. He had felt so humiliated by the domineering
spirit of Catharine, that he resolved that Russia should not again
fall under the reign of a woman, and issued a decree that henceforth
the crown should descend in the male line only, and from father to
son. The new emperor manifested his hostility to his mother, by
endeavoring in various ways to undo what she had done.

The history of Europe is but a continued comment upon the folly of the
law of the hereditary descent of power, a law which is more likely to
place the crown upon the brow of a knave, a fool or a madman, than
upon that of one qualified to govern. Russia soon awoke to the
consciousness that the destinies of thirty millions of people were in
the hands of a maniac, whose conduct seemed to prove that his only
proper place w