4 Zapiski Sergeia Grigorovicha Volkonskago (dekabrista), SPB, 1902, pp. 60– 62.
5 A. Vandal, Napoleon 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 emigres in Russia, see Andre Ratchinski, Napoleon 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 Memoires du General 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.
11 For de Maistre’s views, see 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, pp. 98–101. For Caulaincourt, see RD, 1, no. 18, Caulaincourt to Napoleon, 13 Jan. 1808, pp. 48–51. Count A. de Nesselrode (ed.), Lettres et papiers du Chancelier Comte de Nesselrode 1760–1850, Paris, n.d., vol. 3, Nesselrode to Speransky, 2/14 April 1810, pp. 251–2. See also Joanna Woods, The Commissioner’s Daughter: The Story of Elizabeth Proby and Admiral Chichagov, Witney, 2000.
12 RA, 2, 1876, Prozorovsky to Golitsyn, 23 July/4 Aug. 1807, pp. 157–9. On the British angle, see Brendan Simms, Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, 1714–1783, London, 2007.
13 On Ireland, see S. J. Connolly, Religion, Law and Power: The Making of Protestant Ireland 1660–1760, Oxford, 1992, pp. 249–50.
14 On the global context, see Christopher Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World 1780– 1914, Oxford, 2004, part 1, chs. 1–3, pp. 27–120; John Darwin, After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire, London, 2007, ch. 4, ‘The Eurasian Revolution’, pp. 158–217.
15 RD, 5, no. 563, Caulaincourt to Champagny, 14 Dec. 1810, pp. 235–43.
16 Adams, Adams, p. 209.
17 Ibid., pp. 87, 432.
18 The debate on the origins of the Industrial Revolution seldom bothers even to mention Russia as a potential candidate. Apart from the reasons set out in the text, it is generally assumed that industrial take-off required a densely concentrated population. See e.g. the interesting discussion in Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy, Princeton, 2000.
19 RD, 4, no. 334, Caulaincourt to Champagny, 3 Oct. 1809, pp. 110–16; no. 423, 11 March 1810, pp. 325–8.
20 P. Bailleu (ed.), Briefwechsel Konig Friedrich Wilhelm III’s und der Konigin Luise mit Kaiser Alexander I, Leipzig, 1900, no. 157, Alexander to Friedrich Wilhelm, 2 Nov. 1807, pp. 167–8. VPR, 4, no. 146, Kurakin to Rumiantsev, 16/28 Aug. 1808, pp. 320–21, is merely one of many Russian appreciations on the damage done to any hopes of peace by Napoleon’s debacle in Spain. Another is no. 198, Rumiantsev to Alexander, 16/28 Dec. 1808, p. 441.
21 N. Shil’der: ‘Nakanune Erfurtskago svidaniia 1808 goda’, RS, 98/2, 1899, pp. 3– 24, Marie to Alexander, 25 Aug. 1808 (OS), pp. 4–17. The Erfurt convention is in VPR, 4, no. 161, pp. 359–61.
22 RS, 98/2, 1899, Alexander to Marie, n.d. but certainly late Aug. 1808, pp. 17– 24.
23 Correspondance de l’Empereur Alexandre, no. 19, Alexander to Catherine, 26 Sept. 1808, p. 20.
24 This paragraph is based on reading all the Russian diplomatic correspondence in these six months and it is impossible to cite all the relevant dispatches. The key ones are: VPR, 4, no. 131, Kurakin to Alexander, 2/14 July 1808, pp. 291–8; no. 143, Alexander to Kurakin, 14/26 Aug. 1808, pp. 316–17; no. 144, Rumiantsev to Kurakin, 14/26 Aug. 1808, pp. 317–19; no. 150, Alexander to Kurakin, 27 Aug./8 Sept. 1808, pp. 331–2; no. 174, Rumiantsev to Alexander, 26 Oct./7 Nov. 1808, pp. 387–9; no. 186, Anstedt to Saltykov, 22 Nov./4 Dec. 1808, pp. 410–12; no. 217, Rumiantsev to Alexander, 30 Jan./11 Feb. 1809, pp. 485–7; no. 220, Alexander to Rumiantsev, 2/14 Feb. 1809; no. 224, Alexander to Rumiantsev, 10/22 Feb. 1809, pp. 502–4; no. 246, Rumiantsev to Anstedt, 11/23 March 1809, pp. 543–5.
25 SIRIO, 89, 1893, no. 94, Rumiantsev to Tolstoy, March 1808, pp. 496–7; no. 112, Tolstoy to Rumiantsev, 26 April/8 May 1808, pp. 525–7.
26 Correspondance de l’Empereur Alexandre, Marie to Catherine, 23 Dec. 1809 (OS), pp. 251–7; Catherine to Marie, 26 Dec. 1809 (OS), pp. 259–60.
27 On the non-ratification of the convention, see RD, 4, no. 410, Caulaincourt to Champagny, 26 Feb. 1810, pp. 296–9; Barclay de Tolly’s memorandum is reproduced in MVUA 1812, 1/2, pp. 1–6.
28 VPR, 4, no. 221, Rumiantsev to Kurakin, 2/14 Feb. 1809, pp. 496–7.
29 The statistics are drawn from A. A. Podmazo, ‘Kontinental’naia blokada kak ekonomicheskaia prichina voiny 1812 g.’, Epokha 1812 goda: Issledovania, istochniki, istoriografiia, 137, TGIM, Moscow, 2003, vol. 2, pp. 248–66, and M. F. Zlotnikov, Kontinental’naia blokada i Rossiia, Moscow, 1966, ch. IX, pp. 335 ff. For Caulaincourt’s comment, see RD, 2, no. 179, Caulaincourt to Napoleon, 9 Dec. 1808, pp. 387–8.
30 Adams, Adams, pp. 236–8, 364; J. Hanoteau (ed.), Memoires du General de Caulaincourt, Duc de Vicenze, 3 vols., Paris, 1933, vol. 1, pp. 282–3. AGM, vol. 4, no. 1050, 25 Sept. 1811, pp. 479–86 for Nikolai Mordvinov’s memorandum on the Continental System.
31 SIRIO, 121, 1906, Chernyshev to Barclay de Tolly, 31 Dec. 1811/12 Jan. 1812, pp. 196–202. V. M Bezotosnyi, Razvedka i plany storon v 1812 godu, Moscow, 2005, pp. 51–5.
32 The quote is from a letter to Rumiantsev from Chernyshev dated 6/18 June 1810: SIRIO, 121, 1906, no. 7, pp. 55–8.
33 Nesselrode (ed.), Nesselrode, vol. 3, 5/17 July 1811, pp. 375–9.
34 The memorandum is reprinted in N. K. Shil’der, Imperator Aleksandr pervyi: Ego zhizn’ i tsarstvovanie, 4 vols., SPB, 1897, vol. 3, pp. 471–83, but note the comment in VPR, 5, note 246, pp 692–3, which corrects Shil’der’s error as to when this report reached Alexander.
35 All this is drawn from Chernyshev’s reports to Alexander, Barclay de Tolly and Rumiantsev published in SIRIO, 121, 1906, parts 2 and 4, pp. 32–108 and 114–204. The quote is from report no. 6, to Barclay, dated Nov. 1811, pp. 178–87. Chernyshev’s one error was a moment of carelessness on departure in
