Paul

Paul, emperor of Russia, the second son of the unfortunate Peter III. and the Empress Catharine II., was born October 2, 1754, became heir-apparent on the death of his elder brother in 1763, and succeeded his mother on the imperial throne in 1796. The tragical death of his father when he was still a child, and his mother's neglect, exerted a baneful influence on the character of Paul, who was kept in seclusion while Catharine and her favourites governed. His earliest measures were the exile of his father's murderers, and the pardon of Polish prisoners, including Kosciusko. But he soon revealed his capricious and violent temper, as well as his lack of capacity, and irritated all classes of his subjects by vexatious and imperious regulations. Not less unhappy and variable was his foreign policy. After beginning with an attitude of neutrality in the war between France and the rest of Europe, he suddenly declared in favour of the allied powers, and sent an army of 56,000 men under Suvaroff into Italy. Encouraged by his success, he despatched a second army of equal strength to co-operate with the Austrians, but its defeat in 1799 induced him to recall Suvaroff; whereupon he retired from the allied coalition without giving any reason, quarrelled with England, and entered into a close alliance with the First Consul Bonaparte. Paul now concluded a convention with Sweden and Denmark for the purpose of opposing the right insisted on by England of searching neutral vessels, with the result that the English government sent a fleet into the Baltic under Nelson to dissolve the coalition, at the close of March 1801. He was about to help the Danes, when a conspiracy was formed against him at St Petersburg. Among the conspirators were Count Pahlen, General Bennigsen, and other distinguished officers, and their aim was originally only to compel Paul to abdicate; but a scuffle arose in which the emperor was strangled, March 24, 1801.