With the death of Empress Catherine the Great in November 1796 her son ascended the throne. Born in 1757, Emperor Paul I had hated his mother for decades, ever since learning that she had ordered the murder of his father, Peter III, in 1762. He also knew that Catherine II had attempted to disinherit him by naming Alexander, Paul’s eldest son, in his place; the attempt had failed when Alexander had refused to accept the offer.
At the funeral of his mother, Paul caused the body of his father to be exhumed from its grave at a convent and carried in the same procession. Alexis Orlov, who had murdered Peter III, was forced to be one of the pallbearers in this macabre cortege. The royal couple were buried side-by-side in the St. Petersburg fortress church designed by Peter I as the burial place of the imperial family. (This church is only a few hundred feet from the Mint.)
Paul ruled from November 1796 to March 1801 in a reign characterized by sudden and inexplicable changes of mood. At one moment he would be extremely kind and generous and another would see him in the worst of moods, ready to do evil to all those he hated.
The favorite residence of the czar was at Pavlovsk, southwest
