and grow their own vegetables. Any necessary punishment would consist of teaching the child to be ashamed of his misbehavior. Rebukes were to be delivered in private; praise in public. Corporal punishment was forbidden.
In 1784, Catherine appointed a Swiss, Frederic-Cesar de La Harpe, to be the boys’ primary tutor. A republican, skeptical of autocracy, he won Alexander’s respect and affection and, with Catherine’s permission, continued to preach the blessings of liberty and the duties of a sovereign toward his people. Alexander listened to these teachings; Constantine rebelled against them. Once he shouted at La Harpe that when he came to power, he would enter Switzerland with his army and destroy the country. La Harpe replied calmly, “There is in my country, near the little town of Morat, a building in which we keep the bones of those who pay us such a visit.”
From Alexander’s earliest years, Catherine nourished a hope that she could put him in place of her son, Paul, as her successor. Just as it had not taken Paul long to suspect that his mother’s intention to disinherit him was behind her possessive behavior regarding his son, Alexander, as he grew older, realized that he was the object of a struggle between his parents and his grandmother. He learned to adapt himself to the company he was in. At Gatchina, he listened to his father’s diatribes against the empress; back at court, he concurred with whatever his grandmother said. Unable to choose, he retreated into irresolution and equivocation; throughout his life, Alexander had difficulty making straightforward, unambiguous decisions.
Paul and Maria’s ten children were produced over a period of nineteen years. There were four boys and six girls. Their third son, Nicholas, arrived in 1796, the last year of Catherine’s life, and he escaped her strict supervision. The girls, unlike their older brothers, were left with their parents, who were allowed to educate them however they wished. Alexander remained Catherine’s primary concern, and her anxiety about the succession and the future of the dynasty led her to push him to marry early. Although his tutors believed that he was too immature for marriage, Catherine, in October 1792, invited two German princesses from Baden to visit St. Petersburg for scrutiny. The elder sister, Louisa, was fourteen; Fredericka was a year younger. Louisa was shy but quickly fell in love with the Russian prince. Alexander admitted that he liked her. This was sufficient for Catherine. In January 1793, Louisa converted to Orthodoxy and became the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Alekseyevna. The wedding of Alexander when he was still fifteen and the newly named Elizabeth was fourteen took place in September 1793. Unfortunately for Catherine’s dynastic hopes, Elizabeth never gave birth to a living child. Constantine, who refused the throne at the end of Alexander’s reign in 1825, remained without legitimate children. That left Nicholas, the grandson Catherine had left to his mother to educate, to inherit the throne and, through his descendants, to carry on the dynasty.
Catherine permitted Paul and Maria to keep their daughters at home, but when she believed that the young women were ready to marry she took charge. The eldest of her granddaughters, Alexandra Pavlovna, was thirteen years old when the empress decided the time had come. Catherine wanted a marriage to Gustavus Adolphus, the young uncrowned king of Sweden, the son of Gustavus III, who had been assassinated four years earlier. A marriage to young Gustavus would ameliorate the long-standing hostility between Russia and Sweden and secure the Russian position on the upper Baltic.
There was an obstacle. In November 1795, Gustavus’s engagement to Princess Louisa, the Protestant daughter of the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, had been announced. Catherine was not deterred. Word was passed to the Swedish regent, the Duke of Sudermania, brother of the murdered Gustavus III and uncle of the young uncrowned king, that hundreds of thousands of rubles would be available to subsidize the Swedish treasury once the empress’s wish was granted. At the beginning of April 1796, the regent agreed to postpone his nephew’s marriage until the young man reached his majority at eighteen in November of that year.
Catherine invited Gustavus and his uncle to visit St. Petersburg. As the king was still uncrowned, it would be a “private” visit, and the royal Swedes would come incognito; Gustavus would arrive as “Count Haga” and the regent as “Count Vasa.” On August 15, the two “counts” arrived. The king turned out to be a solemn young man with fair hair down to the shoulders of his black suit. He was introduced to Alexandra, and the pair opened the ball that evening by leading a minuet. Catherine, contrary to custom, stayed until midnight. The next three weeks were crowded with entertainment, but the couple was given time to be alone. The empress was pleased to see that Gustavus was losing some of his stiffness and was often observed speaking in a low voice to Alexandra. Eventually, during a dance, he went so far as to squeeze her hand. “I didn’t know what would become of me,” she whispered to her governess. “I was so frightened I thought I would fall.” Two days later, after a dinner in the Tauride Palace, Gustavus joined Catherine on a bench in the garden and confided that he would like to marry her granddaughter. Catherine reminded him that he was already engaged to someone else; Gustavus promised to break that engagement immediately. Negotiations began regarding the Russian-Swedish alliance that would accompany the marriage. The annual subsidy promised Sweden was to be three hundred thousand rubles.
Pleased with this progress, Catherine set a formal betrothal ceremony for September 11. One significant matter remained to be confirmed: the bride’s religion after marriage. Catherine was determined that Alexandra be free to practice Russian Orthodoxy. Gustavus said he did not see how this would be possible; that he thought it had always been clear that, were he to marry Alexandra, she would be expected to embrace Lutheranism. Catherine reacted by insisting that he guarantee that, even as queen of Lutheran Sweden, her granddaughter would remain a member of the Russian Orthodox Church. In fact, Catherine was surprised; it never occurred to her that an uncrowned adolescent monarch would expect a Russian grand duchess, the granddaughter of an empress, to abandon her religion. For Catherine, personal and national prestige were as important as—perhaps more important than— religious observance. Further, she believed that she was entitled to set the terms because her large subsidies to Sweden would, in effect, be paying for the marriage.
There was still another reason. She had been the same age as Alexandra when she had received a marriage proposal that had been accepted for her and which had forced her, over her father’s objection, to change her religion. Now, she promised herself, her granddaughter would not have to endure what she had been through half a century before. She inserted into the marriage contract a clause not only guaranteeing Alexandra’s right to remain Orthodox as queen of Sweden but permitting her to have a private chapel with an Orthodox priest and confessor in the Swedish royal palace. Gustavus, devoted to his kingdom’s established Protestant religion, and believing that his queen should share his faith, refused. To Catherine’s protest that his ministers had already pledged the guarantees she desired, the young man replied that his ministers and the Russian officials with whom they were negotiating must have misunderstood each other. Catherine then demanded that the king now put his private pledge in his own handwriting. Gustavus hesitated; then, under pressure from his uncle, he agreed to amend the contract.
The way seemed clear for the betrothal ceremony, which was to be followed by a ball at the Tauride Palace. The families and the plenipotentiaries met at noon to witness the signing of the treaty. The Russians quickly discovered, however, that the clause regarding Alexandra’s religion was missing from the treaty text. Gustavus had removed it so that he could discuss the matter again with the empress. That afternoon, he refused to go beyond a promise that “the grand duchess will never be troubled in her conscience with regard to religion.” Catherine interpreted this as a new commitment and suggested to the regent that the couple go ahead with the formal betrothal. After consulting Gustavus, the regent agreed. “With the church’s blessing?” asked Catherine. “Yes,” the regent said. “According to your rite.” Confident that the matter was settled, Catherine saw no need to continue her personal discussions with Gustavus and left the final drafting of the document to Platon Zubov.
At seven, Catherine entered the throne room and took her seat on the throne. Beside her stood the Orthodox metropolitan, Gavril; on a table lay two rings. Two armchairs, upholstered in blue velvet, awaited the king and his bride-to-be. Paul, Maria, and the entire imperial family were present. All eyes were on Alexandra, standing by her grandmother’s throne, waiting for her intended fiance. Time passed … half an hour … then a full hour. Officials glanced at one another. Something was wrong; under Catherine II, the Russian court stressed promptness. At last the double doors opened. But it was not Gustavus, only a secretary who whispered to Zubov and handed him a paper. Zubov hurried out. The king had refused to sign the amended marriage contract in which he read the new clause reinserted by Catherine. He had reverted to his earlier position: that a queen of Sweden must be Lutheran.
