ry measures rendered the intervention of the
troops often necessary. The palace was so fortified and guarded as to
resemble a prison. St. Petersburg, filled with the machinery of war,
presented the aspect of a city besieged. Every one was exposed to
arrest. No one was sure of passing the night in tranquillity, there
were so many domiciliary visits; and many persons, silently arrested,
disappeared without it ever being known what became of them. Spies
moved about everywhere, and their number was infinite. Paul thus
enlisted against himself the animosity of all classes of his
subjects--his own family, foreigners, the court, the nobles and the
bourgeois. Such were the influences which originated the conspiracy
which resulted in the assassination of the tzar.

CHAPTER XXIX.

ASSASSINATION OF PAUL AND ACCESSION OF ALEXANDER.

From 1801 to 1807.

Assassination of Paul I.--Implication of Alexander in the
Conspiracy.--Anecdotes.--Accession of Alexander.--The French
Revolution.--Alexander Joins Allies Against France.--State of
Russia.--Useful Measures of Alexander.--Peace of Amiens.--Renewal of
Hostilities.--Battle of Austerlitz.--Magnanimity of Napoleon.--New
Coalition.--Ambition of Alexander.--Battles of Jena and Eylau.--Defeat
of the Russians.

We have before mentioned that Paul I. had three sons--Alexander,
Constantine and Nicholas. The eldest of these, Alexander, was a very
promising young man, of popular character, twenty-three years of age.
His father feared his popularity and treated him with the greatest
severity, and was now threatening him and his mother with
imprisonment. General Pahlen, governor of St. Petersburg, obtained the
confidence of the young prince, and urged upon him, as a necessary
measure of self-defense, that he should place himself at the head of a
conspiracy for the dethronement of his insane father. The sufferings
of the young prince were so severe and his perils so great, and the
desire for a change so universal throughout the empire, that it was
not found difficult to enlist him in the enterprise. Alexander
consented to the dethronement of his father, but with the express
condition that his life should be spared. He might perhaps have
flattered himself with the belief that this could be done; but the
conspirators knew full well that the dagger of the assassin was the
only instrument which could remove Paul from the throne. The
conspiracy was very extensive, embracing nearly all the f