Russia Against Napoleon

66 On Lazarev, see http:www.svoboda.org/programs. For examples of ex-rankers being censured for poor behaviour after the war, see e.g. the cases of lieutenants Beliankin and Kirsanov of the 45th Jaegers (RGVIA, Fond 489, Opis 1, Delo 1855, fos. 19–20) or of three officers of the Iamburg Lancers (Lt. Krestovskii, Istoriia 14-go Ulanskago Iamburgskago E.I.V. velikoi kniagini Marii Aleksandrovny polka, SPB, 1873, appendices). Of course, many ex-rankers flourished.

67 ‘Imperator Aleksandr I: Ego kharakteristika po sochineniiu N. K. Shil’dera’, RS, 99/3, 1899, pp. 98–114, at p. 99.

68 The catalogue of the excellent recent exhibition at the Hermitage on Alexander contains articles with many insights into his personality: Aleksandr I: ‘Sfinks ne razgadannyi do groba’, SPB, 2005.

69 Quoted in N. Shil’der, Imperator Aleksandr pervyi: Ego zhizn’ i tsarstvovanie, 4 vols., SPB, 1897, vol. 3, a letter to Alexander from Professor Parrot, p. 489.

70 D. V. Solov’eva (ed.), Graf Zhozef de Mestr: Peterburgskie pis’ma, SPB, 1995, no. 72, de Maistre to de Rossi, 20 Jan./1 Feb. 1808, p. 99.

71 There is a dearth of work on provincial society and administration under Alexander. The reign of Catherine II and the period from the 1861 Emancipation to 1917 are much better covered. For a good overview of local administration, see Janet Hartley, ‘Provincial and Local Government’, in Lieven (ed.), Cambridge History of Russia, vol. 2, pp. 446–67.

72 The book which best expresses Alexander’s dilemmas is S. V. Mironenko, Samoderzhavie i reformy: Politicheskaia bor’ba v Rossii v nachale XIX v., Moscow, 1989.

73 Metternich to Hardenberg, 5 Oct. 1812, in W. Oncken, Österreich und Preussen in Befreiungskriege, Berlin, 1878, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 378–80.

74 RD, 5, no. 520, Caulaincourt to Champagny, 19 Sept. 1810, pp. 138–40.

Chapter 3: The Russo-French Alliance

1 N. F. Dubrovin, ‘Russkaia zhizn’ v nachale XIX v.’, RS, 29/96, 1898, pp. 481–516.

2 RD, 4, no. 334, Caulaincourt to Champagny, 3 Oct. 1809, pp. 110–16.

3 e.g. RD, 1, no. 52, Caulaincourt to Champagny, 25 Feb. 1808, pp. 161–74; 2, no. 165, Caulaincourt to Napoleon, 8 Sept. 1808, pp. 344–6; 3, no. 187, Caulaincourt to Champagny, 15 Jan. 1809, pp. 27–32.

4 Zapiski Sergeia Grigorovicha Volkonskago (dekabrista), SPB, 1902, pp. 60–62.

5 A. Vandal, Napoléon et Alexandre Premier, 3 vols., Paris, 1891, vol. 1, pp. 196–7. SIRIO, 89, 1893, no. 15, Tolstoy to Rumiantsev, 26 Oct./7 Nov. 1807, pp. 183–5; no. 86, Tolstoy to Alexander, Dec. 1807, pp. 312–13; no. 111, Tolstoy to Rumiantsev, 25 April/7 May 1808, pp. 519–27.

6 Correspondance de l’Empereur Alexandre, no. 12, Catherine to Alexander, 25 June 1807, pp. 18–19. On the French émigrés in Russia, see André Ratchinski, Napoléon et Alexandre Ier, Paris, 2002.

7 VPR, 4, no. 219, Stroganov to Alexander, 1/13 Feb. 1809, pp. 490–91.

8 On Mordvinov, see e.g. AGM, 4, pp. xliv–xlv: see in particular his memorandum on the Continental System dated 25 Sept. 1811 (OS), pp. 479–86. For Gurev’s statement, see C. F. Adams (ed.), John Quincy Adams in Russia, New York, 1970, p. 277. Since official policy on the surface remained committed to the French alliance until the moment Napoleon crossed the border, diplomats usually camouflaged this view. The main but by no means only exception was Petr Tolstoy, who was already arguing for rapprochement with Britain as early as the summer of 1808. See e.g. SIRIO, 89, 1893, no. 111, Tolstoy to Rumiantsev, 25 April/7 May 1808, pp. 519–27; no. 176, Tolstoy to Rumiantsev, 26 July/7 Aug. 1808, pp. 631–5. But see also e.g. VPR, 4, no. 101, Alopaeus to Rumiantsev, 18/30 April 1808, pp. 233–5, for just one of many examples of other Russian diplomats expressing very ‘Tolstoyan’ views.

9 Mémoires du Général Bennigsen, 3 vols., Paris, n.d., vol. 1, 4th letter, pp. 33–52; vol. 3, annex 53, pp. 377–95.

10 The main English-language source on Speransky remains Marc Raeff’s classic Mikhail Speransky: Statesman of Imperial Russia, The Hague, 1969, but at the very least the anglophone reader should also turn to John Gooding, ‘The Liberalism of Michael Speransky’, Slavonic and East European Review, 64/3, 1986, pp. 401–24.