Paul I was born in October 1754, the only son of Catherine and Peter III: despite the rumors of his illegitimacy (and the historical proof of such), Paul always chose to believe that he was the son of Peter III

When Paul was 8, Catherine overthrew Peter and claimed the throne; initially she had seized it in Paul's name, and many of those who had supported her believed that she would only reign as regent until Paul was of age. However, she had no intention of giving up power, and she had very little interaction with her son. As a result, Paul grew up resenting his mother's usurption of his throne, while Catherine feared that he might try to take it from her and kept very tight rein over him as a result.

As he grew older, Paul increasingly tried to be part of the government, but Catherine refused to allow him any power. He was allowed to choose his own wife, and he picked a German princess, with whom he seemed very happy. When she died in childbirth in 1776, three years after their marriage, Paul was devestated. Catherine, perhaps hoping to temper his grief, revealed that his wife had been having an affair and that it was possible that the child she had been carrying was not actually Paul's. Rather than improving their relationship, Catherine's news further alienated Paul from his mother. He remarried five months later, to another German princess, Sophia-Dorothea, who was five years his junior. Well-educated, soft spoken, and fluent in four languages, she believed that family should be valued above all else, and when the engagement was arranged quickly began to learn Russian and prepared to convert to Orthodoxy. She took the name Maria, and when she and Paul were married in October 1776, he seemed to be quite happy. Catherine kept a tight rein on the couple, and finances were so controlled that Maria actually wore Paul's first wife's shoes and dresses for the first year that they were married.

In December 1777, Maria gave birth to a boy, Alexander; Catherine took him away from Paul and Maria and raised him herself, as she did with their second son, Constantine, born in 1779. Catherine also took the first two granddaughters, but left the subsequent children to be raised by their parents; the youngest, Nicholas, would one day come to the throne of Russia, and ironically, only one of the children that Catherine raised, Alexander, would ever become tsar.

Paul as Ambassador

In 1781, Paul and Maria traveled to Europe, where they met with Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI at Versailles; they also travelled through Paris and visited a wide range of shops and factories. They traveled throughout Central Europe, visiting Maria's family, and finally returned to Russia in 1782. Upon their return, they found Catherine furious that Paul had publically criticized her regime in comparison with that of Louis XVI. Even at this early date, rumors began to circulate that Catherine intended to bypass Paul in the succession and instead name Alexander as her heir.

Paul and Maria's trip might have been a disaster for public relations, but they were extremely efficient in producing children. During their 25 year marriage, they had 10 children, only one of whom died in infancy. The others included two future emperors of Russia, a queen of the Netherlands, and a queen of Wurttemburg. In addition, due in part to her outgoing personality and sweet nature, Maria became a favorite of the Russian people, liked far better than her autocratic and sometimes insulting husband. Maria often ran interference for Paul to prevent him from further angering his mother or her courtiers.

Paul as Heir

One of the problems Paul had was that he was bored. He was not allowed to participate in government, and he was constantly looking for things to do. When Catherine gave him the imperial palace at Gatchina for his own, he created a miniature kingdom, replete with schools, churches, and most importantly a military.

Click here for an extremely neat tour of Gatchina

Much has been made of Paul's attempts to model himself after his "father" Peter III, and his military efforts certainly parallel Peter's. He created a community at Gatchina that centered around the military, complete with parades, military ceremonies, and all of the other activities that made the atmosphere like that which Peter III had cultivated. Unfortunately, this also alienated his wife, as Maria was not interested in the affairs of the military. In addition, Paul was in favor of marrying their oldest daughter, Alexandra, to the heir to the Swedish throne, a match that Maria opposed. When the match was called off by the Swedish prince, both Catherine and Paul were humiliated; some court observers claimed that Catherine never recovered from the humiliation she suffered from having her granddaughter rejected. Shortly after the rejection, in November 1796, Catherine suffered a stroke, and she died shortly thereafter of an aneurysm of the brain. Despite rumors (which had been circulating for almsot 20 years) that Catherine had disinherited Paul in favor of Alexander, Paul inherited the throne.

Paul in 1800

Paul in Power

Paul immediately set about to reverse much of what had occurred during his mother's reign. Peter III had not been interred at the Peter and Paul fortress (the burial ground of the Russian rulers since Peter I) because he had not been crowned when he was killed. Paul ordered his body exhumed, and Peter and Catherine were buried together, an act designed both to demonstrate Paul's legitimacy and to make Catherine miserable for all eternity. His other nearly immediate act was to change the law of succession to prevent another woman from inheriting the throne, hence insuring that no one like his mother would become the ruler of Russia. Shortly after coming to power, he dismissed his mother's favorites, closed all of the palaces she had used, had much of her jewelry reset, and began to demand that he be treated the way an emperor should. Catherine had eliminated some of the particularly obsequious actions required in public, such as the need to prostrate one's self when the emperor was near; Paul reinstated these practices, insisting that everyone bow to the ground in his presence.

In foreign affairs, this attitude would be problematic. Paul insisted on handling all diplomatic missions himself, often with disastrous results; in fact, one of his most common solutions was to suggest a duel between himself and his counterpart head of state. These suggestions made him the laughingstock of European politics, and as such Russia began to lose stock in the eyes of many Europeans.

Paul's Removal from Power

Eventually, things got so bad that a group of leading nobles, including Count Peter von Pahlen, the governor general of St. Petersburg, decided that they had to act. von Pahlen was one of the few men that Paul trusted absolutely, so his role in the conspiracy was essential. Paul actually went to von Pahlen claiming that he knew a conspiracy was in the works, and naming Maria as one of the conspirators. von Pahlen took the letter of accusation to Alexander, and the young Tsarevich, recognizing that clearly his father was insane, agreed to take power. He also agreed to assist in the overthrow of Paul, although he later claimed that he had no idea the conspirators intended to kill the Emperor.

Paul, in the meantime, had become a difficult target; convinced that he was being conspired against, he had taken to sleeping in a different palace every night. He finally settled on the Miloslavskii Palace because he believed that the palace was impenetrable. This was true, but only if the conspirators were not among the most trusted of Paul's advisors. In March, 1801, Alexander helped the men get into the palace; Paul was confronted and strangled to death. Alexander bore the guilt of his father's death for the rest of his life, and he felt so awful about the distress that it caused Maria (who, despite all of his eccentricities, etc, still loved her husband) that he gave her precedence over his wife in all court ceremonies for the rest of her life. The palace which had been given to Paul and Maria shortly after their marriage, named Pavlovsk for her husband, remains one of the great treasures in Russia.

This tour of Pavlovsk can be viewed with either Russian or English text