The Coinage Of Alexander I, 1801–1825
During the early morning hours of March 12, 1801, a small group of army officers breached the security of the Mikhailovsky Palace in St. Petersburg and headed towards the upper-floor apartment of Russian Czar Paul I. Forcing their way into his bedroom, they demanded his abdication and the naming of his son Alexander as czar. Paul refused, there was a brief argument, and he was quickly strangled by one of the conspirators.
Paul had come to the throne upon the death of his mother, Catherine II (the Great), in November 1796 but his irrational hatred of everything she had stood for unbalanced his mind, and by early 1801 his orders often bore no relationship to reality. Even his second son, Constantine, was overheard remarking, “My father has declared war on common sense, and will never conclude a truce.”
Perhaps the final straw for many was the bizarre order in January 1801 for 20,000 Cossacks to march against British India, which Paul believed would be easy to conquer. The troops were sent without any thought of provisions and most certainly would have perished in large numbers on the barren lands that had to be crossed.
Although he knew that a plot was unfolding under the wing of Count Peter Pahlen, Alexander was told that his father would simply be exiled to some luxurious estate and that
