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See also: Russia, was See also: born in the Summer Palace in St See also: Petersburg on the 1st of See also: October (N.s.) —the loth of See also: September by the See also: Russian calendar—1754
.
He was the son of the See also: grand duchess, afterwards empress, See also: Catherine
.
According to a scandalous report his See also: father was not her See also: husband the grand duke See also: Peter, afterwards emperor, but one Colonel Soltykov
.
There is probably no foundation for this See also: story except gossip, and the cynical malice of Catherine
.
During his See also: infancy he was taken from the care of his See also: mother by the empress See also: Elizabeth, whose
See also: ill-judged fondness is believed to have injured his See also: health
.
As a boy he was reported to be intelligent and See also: good-looking
.
His extreme ugliness in later See also: life is attributed to an attack of typhus, from which he suffered in 1771
.
It has been asserted that his mother hated him, and was only restrained from putting him to See also: death while he was still a boy by the fear of what the consequences of another palace See also: crime might be to herself
.
See also: Lord Buckinghamshire, the See also: English ambassador at her See also: court, expressed this opinion as early as 1764
.
In fact, however, the evidence goes to show that the empress, who was at all times very fond of See also: children, treated See also: Paul with kindness
.
He was put in See also: charge of a See also: trust-worthy governor, Nikita Panin, and of competent tutors
.
Her dissolute court was a See also: bad home for a boy who was to be the See also: sovereign, but Catherine took See also: great trouble to arrange his first See also: marriage with See also: Wilhelmina of See also: Darmstadt, who was renamed in Russia Nathalie AIexeevna, in 1773
.
She allowed him to attend the council in See also: order that he might be trained for his See also: work as emperor
.
His tutor Poroshin complained of him that he was " always in a See also: hurry," acting and speaking without thinking
.
After his first marriage he began to engage in intrigues
.
He suspected his mother of intending to kill him, and once openly accused her of causing broken See also: glass to be mingled with his See also: food
.
Yet, though his mother removed him from the council and began to keep him at a distance, her actions were not unkind
.
The use made of his name by the See also: rebel See also: Pugachev in 1775 tended no doubt to render his position more difficult
.
When his wife died in childbirth in that See also: year his mother arranged another marriage with the beautiful See also: Sophia Dorothea of See also: Wurttemberg, renamed in Russia Maria Feodorovna
.
On the See also: birth of his first See also: child in 1777 she gave him an estate, See also: Pavlovsk
.
Paul and his wife were allowed to travel through western See also: Europe in 1781-1782
.
In 1783 the empress gave him another estate at See also: Gatchina, where he was allowed to maintain a brigade of soldiers whom he drilled on the Prussian See also: model
.
As Paul See also: grew his character became steadily degraded
.
He was not incapable of affection nor without generous impulses, but he was flighty, passionate in a childish way, and when angry capable of cruelty . The affection he had for his wife turned to suspicion . HeSee also: fell under the influence of two of his wife's maids of honour in succession, Nelidov and Lapuknin, and of his See also: barber, a See also: Turkish slave named Koroissov
.
For some years before Catherine died it was obvious that he was hovering on the border of insanity
.
Catherine contemplated setting him aside in favour of his son See also: Alexander, to whom she was attached
.
Paul was aware of his mother's.
See also: half-intentionfor it does not appear to have been more—and became increasingly suspicious of his wife and children, whom he rendered perfectly miserable
.
No definite step was taken to set him aside, probably because nothing would be effective See also: short of putting him to death, and Catherine shrank from the extreme course
.
When she was seized with apoplexy he was See also: free to destroy the will by which she See also: left the See also: crown to Alexander, if any such will was ever made
.
The four and a half years of Paul's See also: rule in Russia were unquestionably the reign of a madman
.
The excitement of the change from his retired life in Gatchinato omnipotence drove him below the See also: line of insanity
.
His conduct of the See also: foreign affairs of Russia plunged the country first into the second coalition against See also: France in 1778, and then into the armed See also: neutrality against Great Britain in 18o1
.
In both cases he acted on See also: personal pique, quarrelling with France because he took a sentimental See also: interest in the Order of See also: Malta, and then with See also: England because he was flattered by See also: Napoleon
.
But his See also: political follies might have been condoned
.
What was unpardonable was that he treated the See also: people about him like a shah, or one of the craziest of the See also: Roman emperors
.
He began by repealing Catherine's See also: law which exempted the free classes of the population of Russia from See also: corporal punishment and mutilation
.
Nobody could feel himself safe from exile or brutal ill-treatment at any moment
.
If Russia had possessed any political institution except the tsardom he would have been put under restraint
.
But the country was not sufficiently civilized to See also: deal with Paul as the Portuguese had dealt with See also: Alphonso VI., a very similar See also: person, in 1667
.
In Russia as in See also: medieval Europe there was no safe prison for a deposed ruler
.
A conspiracy was organized, some months before it was executed, by See also: Counts Pahlen and Panin, and a half-See also: Spanish, half-Neapolitan adventurer, See also: Admiral Ribas
.
The death of Ribas delayed the execution
.
On the See also: night of the 11th of See also: March 18o, Paul was murdered in his bedroom in the St Michael Palace by a
See also: band of dismissed See also: officers headed by General Bennigsen, a Hanoverian in the Russian service
..
They burst into his bedroom after supping together and when flushed with drink
.
The conspirators forced him to the table, and tried to compel him to sign his abdication
.
Paul offered some resistance, and one of the assassins struck him with a sword, and he was then strangled and trampled to death . He was succeeded by his son, the emperor Alexander I., who was actually in the palace, and to whomSee also: Nicholas Zubov, One of the assassins, announced his accession
.
See, for Paul's early life, K
.
Waliszewski, Autour d'un trone (See also: Paris, 1894), or the English See also: translation, The Story of a See also: Throne (See also: London, 1895), and P
.
Morane, Paul I. de Russie avant l'avenement (Paris, 1907)
.
For his reign, T
.
Schiemann, Geschichte Russlands unter Nikolaus I
.
(Berlin, 1904), vol. i. and Die Ermordung Pauls, by the same author (Berlin, 1902)
.
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