Autocracy at home, a mystical and sentimental
alliance with autocrats abroad, were incompatible with the indulgence of
liberal proclivities. "After the Congresses of Aix-la-Chapelle and
Troppau," writes M. Rambaud (_History of Russia_, 1888, ii. 384), "he
was no longer the same man.... From that time he considered himself the
dupe of his generous ideas ... at Carlsbad, at Laybach, and at Verona,
Alexander was already the leader of the European reaction." But even to
the last he believed that he could run with the hare and hunt with the
hounds. "They may say of me," he exclaimed, "what they will; but I have
lived and shall die republican" (ibid., p. 398).

Alexander was a man of ideas, a sentimentalist, and a _poseur_, but he
had an eye to the main chance. Whatever cause or dynasty suffered, the
Emperor Alexander was still triumphant. Byron's special grudge against
him at this time was due to his vacillation with regard to the cause of
Greek Independence. But he is too contemptuous. There were points in
common between the "Coxcomb Czar" and his satirist; and it is far from
certain that if the twain had changed places Byron might not have proved
just "such an Alexander." In one respect their destiny was alike. The
greatest sorrow of their lives was the death of a natural daughter.]

[317] [For Alexander's waltzing, see _Personal Reminiscences_, by
Cornelia Knight and Thomas Raikes, 1875, p. 286. See, too, Moore's
_Fables for the Holy Alliance_, Fable I., "A Dream."]

[em] _Now half inclining_----.--[MS.]

[318] {564} ["Pulk" is Polish for "regiment." The allusion must be to
the military colonies planted by "the corporal of Gatchina," Araktcheef,
in the governments of Novgorod, Kharkof, and elsewhere.]

[319] [Frederic Cesar La Harpe (1754-1838) was appointed by Catherine
II. Governor to the Grand-Dukes Alexander and Constantine. It was from
La Harpe's teaching that Alexander imbibed his liberal ideas. In 1816,
when Byron passed the summer in Switzerland, La Harpe was domiciled at
Lausanne, and it is possible that a meeting took place.]

[320] [Alexander's platonic attachment to the Baronne de Kruedener (Barbe
Julie de Wietenhoff), beauty, novelist, _illuminee_, was the source of
amusement rather than scandal. The Baronne, then in her fiftieth year,
was the channel through which Franz Bader's theory or doctrine of the
"Holy Alliance" was conveyed to the enthusiastic and receptive Czar. It
was only a passing whim. Alex