Alexander I of Russia

Aleksander Pavlovich Romanov or Tsar Alexander I (The Blessed), (Russian: ????????? I ????????) (December 23, 1777–December 1, 1825), Emperor of Russia (reigned March 23, 1801–December 1, 1825), King of Poland (reigned 1815–1825), son of the Grand Duke Paul Petrovich, afterwards Paul I, and Maria Fedorovna, daughter of the Duke of Württemberg.

The campaign of 1812

The campaign of 1812 was the turning-point of Alexander's life; and its horrors, for which his sensitive nature felt much of the responsibility, overset still more a mind never too well balanced. When Napoleon crossed the Russian border with his Grand Army, Alexander I was quite unprepared for the war, trusting the Francophile chancellor Nikolay Rumyantsev more than his French ambassador Alexander Kurakin, who had warned him about Napoleon's bellicose plans. Russia proclaimed a Patriotic War in defence of the Motherland. At the burning of Moscow, he declared afterwards, his own soul had found illumination, and he had realized once for all the divine revelation to him of his mission as the peacemaker of Europe. He tried to calm the unrest of his conscience by correspondence with the leaders of the evangelical revival on the continent, and sought for omens and supernatural guidance in texts and passages of scripture. It was not, however, according to his own account, till he met the Baroness de Krüdener — a religious adventuress who made the conversion of princes her special mission—at Basel, in the Autumn of 1813, that his soul found peace. From this time a mystic pietism became the avowed force of his political, as of his private actions. Madame de Krüdener, and her colleague, the evangelist Empaytaz, became the confidants of the Emperor's most secret thoughts; and during the campaign that ended in the occupation of Paris the imperial prayer-meetings were the oracle on whose revelations hung the fate of the world.

Related Topics:
1812 - Grand Army - Nikolay Rumyantsev - Alexander Kurakin - Patriotic War - Moscow - Soul - Evangelical - Continent - Omen - Supernatural - Scripture - Baroness de Krüdener - Basel - Autumn - 1813 - Mystic - Pietism - Paris - Prayer - Oracle

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