In his foreign policy he was selfish and vacillating. He subordinated the national interests of Russia entirely to his own personal whims and prejudices. He formed alliances and cancelled them without cause, and thus made enemies of all foreign powers. The most prominent statesmen and generals became convinced that Russia, which under Catherine’s rule had won a commanding position among the powers of Europe, would lose all prestige if forced into a state of political isolation by the foolish policy of Paul the First.
Plots and conspiracies were formed, of which the most prominent court officials in immediate attendance on the Emperor became members. Some of these men he hated because they had been favorites and counsellors of his mother; others he had in his sudden fits of passion abused and insulted. Most prominent among these were Count Pahlen, the brothers Zubow, and Count Talizin, commander of the Imperial Guards. They added their personal grievances to the public dissatisfaction, and joined hands in bringing about Paul’s dethronement. They commenced working on the Grand Dukes, Paul’s sons, and especially upon the oldest of them, Alexander, whom Count Pahlen convinced that the Emperor held in readiness an order for the arrest of the Grand Dukes, with the exception of Nicholas, his third son, whom he had designated for the succession to the crown. Alexander was of a sentimental turn of mind. For a while he resisted the tempting offers of the conspirators, but when the reports of his impending arrest and transfer to Schlüsselburg were confirmed by others, he finally consented to the arrest of the Emperor and to the demand for his forced abdication. This he did with tears and heart-rending supplications not to harm his father and to treat him with becoming respect. Having received this consent, the conspirators proceeded to work with great promptness and energy. The time was propitious for the immediate execution of their conspiracy; for they knew very well that what originally had been planned only as dethronement by abdication might easily lead to the assassination of the Czar, and they had taken precautions and measures tending towards such a result.
It was during the Masnaliza, the Russian Carnival, that the conspirators resolved to carry their plot into execution. The whole population was in a state of frenzy, drunkenness, and wild excesses. The conspirators knew that during these days they could meet and make all necessary arrangements without attracting the least attention. Paul the First resided in the palace of St. Michael, which he claimed to have built on a direct order of St. Michael himself. He had entirely isolated himself; his most faithful servant, Count Rostopchin, and his wife, whom he had really loved, had been banished from his apartments. It was this Rostopchin who twelve years afterwards burned the city of Moscow. He distrusted them as well as all others. His only confidante (and, as is asserted, his mistress at the same time) was an ugly old cook, who prepared his meals in a kitchen adjoining his bedroom, that he might be secure against poison. The Empress Maria, distinguished by the gentleness and tenderness of her sentiments, who had given him innumerable proofs of her affection and devotion, was in his eyes a traitress who he supposed was plotting with his enemies against his life. He had therefore ordered the doors leading from his own apartments to hers to be walled up.