CHAPTER X

ALEXANDER I, MYSTIC AND HUMANITARIAN (1801-1825 A.D.) 499

The complex character of Alexander I, 499. Ministerial influences; Speranski and Araktcheiev, 501. Educational advances; the Lycée and the library, 502. Expulsion of the Jesuits from St. Petersburg, 504. Liberation of the peasants of the Baltic provinces, 505. The emperor and the quakers, 506. Secret societies under Alexander I, 510. Closing of the masonic lodges, 513. Turgeniev’s comment on the secret societies, 514. Literary activity of the period, 516. Alexander I as a patron of literature, 517. Failure of the Polish experiments, 518. Constitutional projects, 520. The military colonies, 521. Alexander and the great uprising, 523. The great inundation of 1824, 525. The close of Alexander’s reign, 527. Death of Alexander I, 530. Alison’s estimate of Alexander I, 531. Skrine’s estimate of Alexander I, 532.

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