ALEXANDER II. (Anselmo Baggio), pope from 1061 to 1073, was a native of Milan. As bishop of Lucca he had been an energetic coadjutor with Hildebrand in endeavouring to suppress simony, and to enforce the celibacy of the clergy. His election, which Hildebrand had arranged in conformity with the decree of 1059 (see NICHOLAS II.), was not sanctioned by the imperial court of Germany. This court, faithful to the practice observed by it in the preceding elections, nominatod another candidate, Cadalus, bishop of Parma, who was proclaimed at the council of Basel under the name of Honorius II., marched to Rome, and for a long time jeopardized his rival's position. At length, however, he was abandoned by the Germanic court and deposed by a council held at Mantua; and Alexander's position remained unchallenged. Alexander was succeeded by his associate Hildebrand, who took the title of Gregory VII. (L. D.*)

ALEXANDER III. (Orlando Bandinelli), pope from 1159 to 1181, was a Siennese, and as a teacher of canon law in Bologna composed the Stroma or the Summa Magistri Rolandi, one of the earliest commentaries on the Decretum Gratiani. In October 1150 Eugenius III. created him cardinal deacon SS. Cosmae and Damiani; later he became cardinal priest of St Mark's. Probably about this time he composed his Sentences, based on the Introductio ad theologiam of Abelard. In 1153 he became papal chancellor, and was the leader of the cardinals opposed to Frederick Barbarossa. On the 7th of September 1159 he was chosen the successor of Adrian IV., a minority of the cardinals, however, electing the cardinal priest Octavian, who assumed the name of Victor IV. This antipope, and his successors Paschal III. (1164-1168) and Calixtus III. (1168-1178), had the imperial support; but after the defeat of Legnano, Barbarossa finally (in the peace of Venice, 1177) recognized Alexander as pope. On the 12th of March 1178 Alexander returned to Rome, which he had been compelled to leave twice, namely, from 1162 until the 23rd of November 1165, and again in 1167. The first period he spent in France, the latter chiefly in Gaeta, Benevento, Anagni and Venice. In March 1179 Alexander held the third Lateran synod, a brilliant assemblage, reckoned by the Roman church as the eleventh oecumenical council; its acts embody several of the pope's proposals for the betterment of the condition of the church, among them the present law requiring that no one may be elected pope without the votes of two-thirds of the cardinals. This synod marks the summit of Alexander's power. Besides checkmating Barbarossa, he had humbled Henry II. of England in the affair of Thomas Becket, he had confirmed the right of Alphonso I. of Portugal to the crown, and even as a fugitive had enjoyed the favour and protection of Louis VII. of France. Nevertheless, soon after the close of the synod the Roman republic forced Alexander to leave the city, which he never re-entered; and on the 29th of September 1179 some nobles set up the antipope Innocent III. By the judicious use of money, however, Alexander got him into his power, so that he was deposed in January 1180. In 1181 Alexander excommunicated William the Lion of Scotland and put the kingdom under the interdict. The great pope died at Civita Castellana on the 30th of August 1181.

See Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie, 3rd ed., i. 340-344; Wetzer and Welte, Kirchenlexikon, 2nd ed., 1481. The most elaborate biography is H. Reuter, Geschichte Alexanders III. und der Kirche seiner Zeit (3 vols., 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1860). (W. W. R.*)

ALEXANDER IV. (Rinaldo), pope from 1254 to 1261, was, like Innocent III. and Gregory IX., a member of the family of the counts of Segni. His uncle Gregory IX. made him cardinal deacon in 1227 and cardinal bishop of Ostia in 1231. On the death of Innocent IV. he was elected pope at Naples on the 12th of December 1254. He is described as a stout man, kindly, cheerful, but of no great brilliancy. He succeeded Innocent IV. as guardian of Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufen, promising him his benevolent protection; but in less than a fortnight he conspired against him and bitterly opposed Conradin's uncle Manfred. Alexander fulminated with excommunication and interdict against the party of Manfred, but in vain; nor could he enlist the kings of England and Norway in a crusade against the Hohenstaufen. Rome itself became too Ghibelline for the pope, who withdrew to Viterbo, where he died on the 25th of May 1261. His pontificate was signalized by efforts to unite the Greek and Latin churches, by the establishment of the Inquisition in France, by favours shown to the mendicant orders, and by an attempt to organize a crusade against the Tatars.

The registers of Alexander IV. are published by Bourel de la Ronciere and others in the Bibliotheque des Ecoles francaises d'Athenes et de Rome, Paris, 1895 ff. (W. W. R.*)

ALEXANDER V. (Peter Philarges), pope 1409-1410, was born in Crete of unknown parents and entered the order of St Francis, for which, as for the other mendicant orders, he later manifested his affection in a striking manner. He was a member in turn of the universities of Oxford and Paris, and finally settled in Lombardy, where, thanks to the favour of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, he became bishop, first of Piacenza, then of Vincenza, then of Novara, and afterwards archbishop of Milan. On being created cardinal by Innocent VII. he devoted all his energies from 1408 onwards to the realization of the union of the church, in spite of the two rival popes. He was one of the promoters of the council of Pisa, and after that assembly had declared Gregory XII. and Benedict NIII. deposed, the cardinals assembled in conclave thought they could not do better than crown with the tiara this cosmopolitan prelate, who had an equal mastery of the Latin and Greek languages, and was renowned not only for his learning in theology but for his affability (June 26, 1409). As a matter of fact, the only effect of this election was to aggravate the schism by adding a third to the number of rival pontiffs. During his short reign of ten months Alexander V.'s aim was to extend his obedience with the assistance of France, and, notably, of the duke Louis II. of Anjou, upon whom he conferred the investiture of the kingdom of Sicily, together with the title of gonfalonier of the church. He proclaimed and promised rather than effected a certain number of reforms: the abandonment of the rights of "spoils'' and "procurations,'' the re-establishment of the system of canonical election in the cathedral churches and principal monasteries, &c. But death came upon him almost without warning at Bologna, in the night of the 3rd-4th May 1410. A rumour went about that he had been poisoned by the cardinal Baldassare Cossa, impatient to be his successor, who succeeded him in fact under the name of John XXIII. The crime has, however, never been proved, though a Milanese physician, who performed the task of dissecting the corpse of Peter Philarges, seems to have thought that he found traces of poison. (N. V.)

ALEXANDER VI. (Rodrigo Borgia) (1431-1503), pope from 1492 to his death, is the most memorable of the corrupt and secular popes of the Renaissance. He was born (January 1, 1431) at Xativa, near Valencia in Spain, and his father's surname was Lanzol or Llancol; that of his mother's family, Borgia or Borja, was assumed by him on the elevation of his maternal uncle to the papacy as Calixtus III. (April 8, 1455). He studied law at Bologna, and after his uncle's election he was created successively bishop, cardinal and vice-chancellor of the church, an act of nepotism characteristic of the age. He served in the Curia under five popes and acquired much administrative experience, influence and wealth, although no great power; he was economical in his habits; on occasion he displayed great splendour and lived in a fine palace. His manners were agreeable and his appearance fascinating, but, like many other prelates of the day, his morals were far from blameless, his two dominant passions being greed of gold and love of women, and he was devotedly fond of the children whom his mistresses bore him. Although ecclesiastical corruption was then at its height, his riotous mode of life called down upon him a very severe reprimand from Pope Pius II., who succeeded Calixtus III. in 1458. Of his many mistresses the one for whom his passion lasted longest was a certain Vannozza (Giovanna) dei Cattani, born in 1442, and wife of three successive husbands. The connexion began in 1470, and she bore him many children whom he openly acknowledged as his own: Giovanni, afterwards duke of Gandia (born 1474), Cesare (born 1476), Lucrezia (born 1480), and Goffredo or Giuffre (born 1481 or 1482). His other children—Girolamo, Isabella and Pier Luigi—were of uncertain parentage. Before his elevation to the papacy Cardinal Borgia's passion for Vannozza somewhat diminished, and she subsequently led a very retired life. Her place in his affections was filled by the beautiful Giulia Farnese (Giulia Bella), wife of an Orsini, but his love for his children by Vannozza remained as strong as ever and proved, indeed, the determining factor of his whole career. He lavished vast sums on them and loaded them with every honour. A characteristic instance of the corruption of the papal court is the fact that Borgia's daughter Lucrezia (see BORGIA, LUCREZIA) lived with his mistress Giulia, who bore him a daughter Laura in 1492.

On the death of Pope Innocent VIII. the three likely candidates for the Holy See were Cardinals Borgia, Ascanio Sforza and Giuliano della Rovere; at no previous or subsequent election were such immense sums of money spent on bribery, and Borgia by his great wealth succeeded in buying the largest number of votes, including that of Sforza, and to his intense joy he was elected on the 10th of August 1492, assuming the name of Alexander VI. Borgia's elevation did not at the time excite much alarm, except in some of the cardinals who knew him, and at first his reign was marked by a strict administration of justice and an orderly method of government in satisfactory contrast with the anarchy of the previous pontificate, as well as by great outward splendour. But it was not long before his unbridled passion for endowing his relatives at the expense of the church and of his neighbours became manifest. For this object he was ready to commit any crime and to plunge all Italy into war. Cesare, then a youth of sixteen and a student at Pisa, was made archbishop of Valencia, his nephew Giovanni received a cardinal's hat, and for the duke of Gandia and Giuffre the pope proposed to carve fiefs out of the papal states and the kingdom of Naples. Among the fiefs destined for the duke of Gandia were Cervetri and Anguillara, lately acquired by Virginio Orsini, head of that powerful and turbulent house, with the pecuniary help of Ferdinand of Aragon, king of Naples (Don Ferrante). This brought the latter into conflict with Alexander, who determined to revenge himself by making an alliance with the king's enemies, especially the Sforza family, lords of Milan. In this he was opposed by Cardinal della Rovere, whose candidature for the papacy had been backed by Ferdinand. Della Rovere, feeling that Rome was a dangerous place for him, fortified himself in his bishopric of Ostia at the Tiber's mouth, while Ferdinand allied himself with Florence, Milan, Venice, and the pope formed a league against Naples (April 25, 1493) and prepared for war. Ferdinand appealed to Spain for help; but Spain was anxious to be on good terms with the pope to obtain a title over the newly discovered continent of America and could not afford to quarrel with him.

Alexander meditated great marriages for his children. Lucrezia had been married to the Spaniard Don Gasparo de Procida, but on her father's elevation to the papacy the union was annulled, and in 1493 she was married to Giovanni Sforza. lord of Pesaro, the ceremony being celebrated at the Vatican with unparalleled magnificence. But in spite of the splendours of the court, the condition of Rome became every day more deplorable. The city swarmed with Spanish adventurers, assassins, prostitutes and informers; murder and robbery were committed with impunity, heretics and Jews were admitted to the city on payment of bribes, and the pope himself shamelessly cast aside all show of decorum, living a purely secular and immoral life, and indujging in the chase, dancing, stage plays and indecent orgies. One of his boon companions was Jem, the brother of the sultan Bayezid, detained as a hostage.

The general political outlook in Italy was of the gloomiest, and the country was on the eve of the catastrophe of foreign invasion. At Milan Lodovico Sforza (il Moro) ruled, nominally as regent for the youthful duke Gian Galeazzo, but really with a view to making himself master of the state. He made many alliances to secure his position, but fearing himself isolated he sought help from Charles VIII. of France, and as the king of Naples threatened to come to the aid of Gian Galeazzo, who had married his grand- daughter, he encouraged the French king in his schemes for the conquest of Naples. Alexander carried on a double policy, always ready to seize opportunities to aggrandize his family. But through the intervention of the Spanish ambassador he made peace with Naples in July 1493 and also with the Orsini; the peace was cemented by a marriage between the pope's son Giuffre and Dona Sancha, Ferdinand's grand-daughter. In order to dominate the Sacred College more completely he created twelve new cardinals, among them his own son Cesare, then only eighteen years old, and Alessandro Farnese, the brother of Giulia Bella, one of the pope's mistresses, creations which caused much scandal. On the 25th of January 1494 Ferdinand died and was succeeded by his son Alphonso II. Charles of France now advanced formal claims on the kingdom, and Alexander drew him to his side and authorized him to pass through Rome ostensibly on a crusade against the Turks, without mentioning Naples. But when the French invasion became a reality he was alarmed, recognized Alphonso as king, and concluded an alliance with him in exchange for various fiefs to his sons (July 1494). Preparations for defence were made; a Neapolitan army was to advance through the Romagna and attack Milan, while the fleet was to seize Genoa; but both expeditions were badly conducted and failed, and on the 8th of September Charles crossed the Alps and joined Lodovico il Moro at Milan. The papal states were in a turmoil, and the powerful Colonna faction seized Ostia in the name of France. Charles rapidly advanced southward, and after a short stay in Florence set out for Rome (November 1494). Alexander appealed to Ascanio Sforza for help, and even to the sultan. He tried to collect troops and put Rome in a state of defence, but his position was most insecure, and the Orsini offered to admit the French to their castles. This defection decided the pope to come to terms, and on the 31st of December Charles entered Rome with his troops and the cardinals of the French faction. Alexander now feared that the king might depose him for simony and summon a council, but he won over the bishop of St Malo, who had much influence over the king, with a cardinal's hat, and agreed to send Cesare, as legate, to Naples with the French army, to deliver Jem to Charles and to give him Civitavecchia (January 16, 1495). On the 28th Charles departed for Naples with Jem and Cesare, but the latter escaped to Spoleto. Neapolitan resistance collapsed; Alphonso fled and abdicated in favour of his son Ferdinand II., who also had to fly abandoned by all, and the kingdom was conquered with surprising ease. But a reaction against Charles soon set in, for all the powers were alarmed at his success, and on the 31st of March a league between the pope, the emperor, Venice, Lodovico il Moro and Ferdinand of Spain was formed, ostensibly against the Turks, but in reality to expel the French from Italy. Charles had himself crowned king of Naples on the 12th of May, but a few days later began his retreat northward. He encountered the allies at Fornovo, and after a drawn battle cut his way through them and was back in France by November; Ferdinand II. with Spanish help was reinstated at Naples soon afterwards. The expedition, if it produced no material results, laid bare the weakness of the Italian political system and the country's incapacity for resistance.

Alexander availed himself of the defeat of the French to break the power of the Orsini, following the general tendency of all the princes of the day to crush the great feudatories and establish a centralized despotism. Virginio Orsini, who had been captured by the Spaniards, died a prisoner at Naples, and the pope confiscated his property. But the rest of the clan still held out, and the papal troops sent against them under Guidobaldo duke of Urbino and the duke of Gandia were defeated at Soriano (January 1497). Peace was made through Venetian mediation, the Orsini paying 50,000 ducats in exchange for their confiscated lands; the duke of Urbino, whom they had captured, was left by the pope to pay his own ransom. The Orsini still remained very powerful, and Alexander could count on none but his 3000 Spaniards. His only success had been the capture of Ostia and the submission of the Francophile cardinals Colonna and Savelli.

Now occurred the first of those ugly domestic tragedies for which the house of Borgia remained famous. On the 14th of June the duke of Gandia, lately created duke of Benevento, disappeared; the next day his corpse was found in the Tiber. Alexander, overwhelmed with grief, shut himself up in Castle St Angelo, and then declared that the reform of the church would be the sole object of his life henceforth—a resolution which he did not keep. Every effort was made to discover the assassin, and suspicion fell on various highly placed personages. Suddenly the rumour spread about that Cesare, the pope's second son, was the author of the deed, and although the inquiries then ceased and no conclusive evidence has yet come to light, there is every probability that the charge was well founded. No doubt Cesare, who contemplated quitting the church, was inspired by jealousy. of Gandia's influence with the pope. Violent and revengeful, he now became the most powerful man in Rome, and even his father quailed before him. As he needed funds to carry out his various schemes, the pope began a series of confiscations, of which one of the victims was his own secretary, in order to enrich him. The process was a simple one: any cardinal, nobleman or official who was known to be rich would be accused of some offence; imprisonment and perhaps murder followed at once, and then the confiscation of his property. The disorganization of the Curia was appalling, the sale of offices became a veritable scandal, the least opposition to the Borgia was punished with death, and even in that corrupt age the state of things shocked public opinion. The story of Alexander's relations with Savonarola is narrated under the latter heading; it is sufficient to say here that the pope's hostility was due to the friar's outspoken invectives against papal corruption and to his appeals for a General Council. Alexander, although he could not get Savonarola into his own hands, browbeat the Florentine government into condemning the reformer to death (May 23, 1498). The pope was unable to maintain order in his own dominions; the houses of Colonna and Orsini were at open war with each other, but after much fighting they made peace on a basis of alliance against the pope. Thus further weakened, he felt more than ever that he had only his own kin to rely upon, and his thoughts were ever turned on family aggrandizement. He had annulled Lucrezia's marriage with Sforza in 1497, and, unable to arrange a union between Cesare and the daughter of Frederick, king of Naples (who had succeeded Ferdinand II. the previous year), he induced the latter by threats to agree to a marriage between the duke of Bisceglie, a natural son of Alphonso II., and Lucrezia. Cesare, who renounced his cardinalate, was sent on a mission to France at the end of the year, bearing a bull of divorce for the new king Louis XII., in exchange for which he obtained the duchy of Valentinois (hence his title of Duca Valentino) and a promise of material assistance in his schemes to subjugate the feudal princelings of Romagna; he married a princess of Navarre. Alexander hoped that Louis's help would be more profitable to his house than that of Charles had been and, in spite of the remonstrances of Spain and of the Sforza, he allied himself with France in January 1499 and was joined by Venice. By the autumn Louis was in Italy and expelled Lodovico Sforza from the Milanese. In order to consolidate his possessions still further, now that French success seemed assured, the pope determined to deal drastically with Romagna, which although nominally under papal rule was divided up into a number of practically independent lordships on which Venice, Milan and Florence cast hungry eyes. Cesare, nominated gonfaloniere of the Church, and strong in French favour, proceeded to attack the turbulent cities one by one (for detail see BORGIA CESARE.) But the expulsion of the French from Milan and the return of Lodovico Sforza interrupted his conquests, and he returned to Rome early in 1500. This year was a jubilee year, and crowds of pilgrims flocked to the city from all parts of the world bringing money for the purchase of indulgences, so that Alexander was able to furnish Cesare with funds for his enterprise. In the north the pendulum swung back once more and the French reoccupied Milan in April, causing the downfall of the Sforzas, much to Alexander's gratification. But there was no end to the Vatican tragedies, and in July the duke of Bisceglie, whose existence was no longer advantageous, was murdered by Cesare's orders; this left Lucrezia free to contract another marriage. The pope, ever in need of money, now created twelve new cardinals, from whom he received 120,000 ducats, and fresh conquests for Cesare were considered. But while a crusade was talked of, the real object was central Italy, and in the autumn Cesare, favoured by France and Venice, set forth with 10,000 men to complete his interrupted enterprise. The local despots of Romagna were dispossessed and an administration was set up, which, if tyrannical and cruel, was at least orderly and strong, and aroused the admiration of Machiavelli (q.v..) On his return to Rome (June 1501) he was created duke of Romagna. Louis XII., having succeeded in the north, determined to conquer southern Italy as well, and concluded a treaty with Spain for the division of the Neapolitan kingdom, which was ratified by the pope on the 25th of June, Frederick being formally deposed. The French army proceeded to invade Naples, and Alexander took the opportunity, with the help of the Orsini, to reduce the Colonna to obedience. In his absence he left Lucrezia as regent, offering the astounding spectacle of a pope's natural daughter in charge of the Holy See. Shortly afterwards he induced Alphonso d'Este, son of the duke of Ferrara, to marry her, thus establishing her as heiress to one of the most important principalities in Italy (January 1502). About this time a Borgia of doubtful parentage was born, Giovanni, described in some papal documents as Alexander's son and in others as Cesare's.

As France and Spain were quarrelling over the division of Naples and the Campagna barons were quiet, Cesare set out once more in search of conquests. In June he seized Camerino and Urbino, the news of which capture filled the pope with childish joy. But his military force was uncertain, for the condottieri were not to be trusted. His attempt to draw Florence into an alliance failed, but in July Louis of France again invaded Italy and was at once bombarded with complaints from the Borgia's enemies. Alexander's diplomacy, however, turned the tide, and Cesare, in exchange for promising to assist the French in the south, was given a free hand in central Italy. A new danger now arose in the shape of a conspiracy against him on the part of the deposed despots, the Orsini and some of his own condottieri. At first the papal troops were defeated and things looked black for the house of Borgia. But a promise of French help at once forced the confederates to come to terms, and Cesare by an act of treachery seized the ringleaders at Senigallia, and put Oliverotto da Fermo and Vitellozzo Vitelli to death (Dec. 31, 1502). As soon as Alexander heard the news he decoyed Cardinal Orsini to the Vatican and cast him into a dungeon, where he died. His goods were confiscated, his aged mother turned into the street and numbers of other members of the clan in Rome were arrested, while Giuffre Borgia led an expedition into the Campagna and seized their castles. Thus the two great houses of Orsini and Colonna, who had long fought for predominance in Rome and often flouted the pope's authority, were subjugated, and a great step achieved towards consolidating the Borgia's power. Cesare then returned to Rome, where his father wished him to assist Giuffre in reducing the last Orsini strongholds; this for some reason he was unwilling to do, much to Alexander's annoyance, but he eventually marched out, captured Ceri and made peace with Giulio Orsini, who surrendered Bracciano. Three more high personages fell victims to the Borgia's greed this year, viz. Cardinal Michiel, who was poisoned in April, J. da Santa Croce, who had helped to seize Cardinal Orsini, and Troches or Troccio, one of the family's most faithful assassins; all these murders brought immense sums to the pope. About Cardinal Ferrari's death there is more doubt; he probably died of fever, but the pope immediately confiscated his goods.

The war between France and Spain for the possession of Naples dragged on, and Alexander was ever intriguing, ready to ally himself with whichever power promised at the moment most advantageous terms. He offered to help Louis on condition that Sicily be given to Cesare, and then offered to help Spain in exchange for Siena, Pisa and Bologna. Cesare was preparing for another expedition into central Italy in July 1503, when, in the midst of all these projects and negotiations, both he and his father were taken ill with fever. The occurrence was of course attributed to poison, although quite without foundation, being merely due to malaria, at that time very prevalent in Rome. On the 18th of August Alexander died at the age of 72. His death was followed by scenes of wild disorder, and Cesare, being himself ill, could not attend to business, but sent Don Michelotto, his chief bravo, to seize the pope's treasures before the demise was publicly announced. When the body was exhibited to the people the next day it was in a shocking state of decomposition, which of course strengthened the suspicion of poison. At the funeral a brawl occurred between the soldiers and the priests, and the coffin having been made too short the body without the mitre was driven into it by main force and covered with an oil-cloth. Alexander's successor on the chair of St Peter was Francesco Todeschini-Piccolomini, who assumed the name of Pius III.

Alexander VI. has become almost a mythical character, and countless legends and traditions are attached to his name. As a matter of fact he cannot be regarded in any sense as a great man. His career shows no great political ideas, and none of his actions indicate genius. His one thought was family aggrandizement, and while it is unlikely that he meditated making the papacy hereditary in the house of Borgia, he certainly gave away its temporal estates to his children as though they belonged to him. The secularization of the church was carried to a pitch never before dreamed of, and it was clear to all Italy that he regarded the papacy as an instrument of worldly schemes with no thought of its religious aspect. During his pontificate the church was brought to its lowest level of degradation. The condition of his subjects was deplorable, and if Cesare's rule in Romagna was an improvement on that of the local tyrants, the people of Rome have seldom been more oppressed than under the Borgia. Alexander was not the only person responsible for the general unrest in Italy and the foreign invasions, but he was ever ready to profit by them. Even if we do not accept all the stories of his murders and poisonings and immoralities as true, there is no doubt that his greed for money and his essentially vicious nature led him to commit a great number of crimes. For many of his misdeeds his terrible son Cesare was responsible, but of others the pope cannot be acquitted. The one pleasing aspect of his life is his patronage of the arts, and in his days a new architectural era was initiated in Rome with the coming of Bramante. Raphael, Michelangelo and Pinturicchio all worked for him, and a curious contrast, characteristic of the age, is afforded by the fact that a family so steeped in vice and crime could take pleasure in the most exquisite works of art.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—The chief contemporary authorities for this reign are: the diary of Alexander's master of ceremonies, Johannes Burchardus, edited by L. Thuasne (Paris, 1883-1884), which is characterized by accuracy and extraordinary candour often amounting to gross indecency; the despatches of Giustiniani, the Venetian ambassador, edited by P. Villari (Florence, 1876), which show great insight and are based on the most accurate information; and Paolo Cappelli's "Diarii'' in E. Alberi's Relazioni, series ii., iii. Among modern works the most important are: F. Gregorovius's Geschichte der Stadt Rom (3rd ed., Stuttgart, 1881), a work of immense research and admirable synthesis, giving a very unfavourable view of the Borgia; A. von Reumont's Geschichte der Stadt Rom (Berlin, 1867-1870), also a valuable book; M. Creighton's History of the Papacy (London, 1897) is very learned and accurate, but the author is more lenient towards Alexander; F. Gregorovius's Lucrezia Borgia (Stuttgart, 1874) contains a great deal of information on the Borgia family; P. Villari's Machiavelli (English translation, new ed., 1892) deals with the subject at some length. Of the Catholic writers L. Pastor, Geschichte der Papste (Freiburg i. B, 1886) should be consulted, for although the author tries to extenuate the pope to some extent, on the whole he is fair. (L. V.*)

ALEXANDER VII. (Fabio Chigi), pope from 1655 to 1667, was born at Siena on the 13th of February 1599. He was successively inquisitor at Malta, vice-legate at Ferrara and nuncio in Cologne (1639-1651). Though expected to take part in the negotiations which led in 1648 to the peace of Westphalia, he refused to deliberate with heretics, and protested against the treaties when completed. Innocent X. subsequently made him cardinal secretary of state. When Innocent died, Chigi, the candidate favoured by Spain, was elected pope on the 7th of April 1655. The conclave believed he was strongly opposed to the nepotism then prevalent. In the first year of his reign Alexander VII. forbade his relations even to visit Rome; but in 1656 he gave them the best-paid civil and ecclesiastical offices, also palaces and princely estates. Alexander disliked business of state, preferring literature and philosophy; a collection of his Latin poems appeared at Paris in 1656 under the title Philomathi Labores Juveniles. He also encouraged architecture, and in particular constructed the beautiful colonnade in the piazza of St Peter's. He favoured the Jesuits, especially in their conflict with the Jansenists, forbade in 1661 the translation of the Roman Missal into French, and in 1665 canonized Francis of Sales. His pontificate was marked by protracted controversies with France and Portugal. He died on the 22nd of May 1667. (W. W. R.*)

ALEXANDER VIII. (Pietro Ottoboni), pope from 1689 to 1691, was born in 1610 of a noble Venetian family, was created cardinal, and then successively bishop of Brescia and datary. The ambassador of Louis XIV. succeeded in procuring his election on the 6th of October 1689 as successor to Innocent XI.; nevertheless, after months of negotiation Alexander finally condemned the declaration made in 1682 by the French clergy concerning the liberties of the Gallican church. Charities on a large scale and unbounded nepotism exhausted the papal treasury. He bought the books and manuscripts of Queen Christina of Sweden for the Vatican library. Alexander condemned in 1690 the doctrines of so-called philosophic sin, taught in the Jesuit schools. He died on the 1st of February 1691. (W. W. R.*)

ALEXANDER I. (ALEKSANDER PAVLOVICH) (1777-1825), emperor of Russia, son of the grand-duke Paul Petrovich, afterwards Paul I., and Maria Fedorovna, daughter of Frederick Eugene of Wurttemberg, was born on the 28th of December 1777. The strange contradictions of his character make Alexander one of the most interesting as he is one of the most important figures in the history of the 19th century. Autocrat and "Jacobin,'' man of the world and mystic, he was to his contemporaries a riddle which each read according to his own temperament. Napoleon thought him a "shifty Byzantine,'' and called him the Talma of the North, as ready to play any conspicuous part. To Metternich he was a madman to be humoured. Castlereagh, writing of him to Lord Liverpool, gives him credit for "grand qualities,'' but adds that he is "suspicious and undecided.'' His complex nature was, in truth, the outcome of the complex character of his early environment and education. Reared in the free-thinking atmosphere of the court of Catherine II. he had imbibed from his Swiss tutor, Frederic Cesar de Laharpe, the principles of Rousseau's gospel of humanity; from his military governor, General Soltikov, the traditions of Russian autocracy; while his father had inspired him with his own passion of military parade, and taught him to combine a theoretical love of mankind with a practical contempt for men. These contradictory tendencies remained with him through life, revealed in the fluctuations of his policy and influencing through him the fate of the world. Another element in his character discovered itself when in 1801 he mounted the throne over the body of his murdered father: a mystic melancholy liable at any moment to issue in extravagant action. At first, indeed, this exercised but little influence on the emperor's life. Young, emotional, impressionable, well-meaning and egotistic, Alexander displayed from the first an intention of playing a great part on the world's stage, and plunged with all the ardour of youth into the task of realizing his political ideals. While retaining for a time the old ministers who had served and overthrown the emperor Paul, one of the first acts of his reign was to appoint a secret committee, called ironically the "Comite du salut public,'' consisting of young and enthusiastic friends of his own—Victor Gavovich Kochubey, Nikolai Nikolaevich Novosiltsov, Paul Alexandrovich Strogonov and Adam Czartoryski—to draw up a scheme of internal reform. Their aims, inspired by their admiration for English institutions, were far in advance of the possibilities of the time, and even after they had been raised to regular ministerial positions but little of their programme could be realized. For Russia was not ripe for liberty; and Alexander, the disciple of the revolutionist Laharpe, was—as he himself said—but "a happy accident'' on the throne of the tsars. He spoke, indeed, bitterly of "the state of barbarism in which the country had been left by the traffic in men.'' "Under Paul,'' he said, "three thousand peasants had been given away like a bag of diamonds. If civilization were more advanced, I would abolish this slavery, if it cost me my head.''1 But the universal corruption, he complained, had left him no men; and the filling up of the government offices with Germans and other foreigners merely accentuated the sullen resistance of the "old Russians'' to his reforms. That Alexander's reign, which began with so large a promise of amelioration, ended by riveting still tighter the chains of the Russian people was, however, due less to the corruption and backwardness of Russian life than to the defects of the tsar himself. His love of liberty, though sincere, was in fact unreal. It flattered his vanity to pose before the world as the dispenser of benefits; but his theoretical liberalism was mated with an autocratic will which brooked no contradiction. "You always want to instruct me!'' he exlaimed to Derzhavin, the minister of justice, "but I am the autocratic emperor, and I will this, and nothing else!'' "He would gladly have agreed,'' wrote Adam Czartoryski, "that every one should be free, if every one had freely done only what he wished.'' Moreover, with this masterful temper was joined an infirmity of purpose which ever let "I dare not wait upon I would,'' and which seized upon any excuse for postponing measures the principles of which he had publicly approved. The codification of the laws initiated in 1801 was never carried out during his reign; nothing was done to improve the intolerable status of the Russian peasantry; the constitution drawn up by Speranski, and passed by the emperor, remained unsigned. Alexander, in fact, who, without being consciously tyrannical, possessed in full measure the tyrant's characteristic distrust of men of ability and independent judgment, lacked also the first requisite for a reforming sovereign: confidence in his people; and it was this want that vitiated such reforms as were actually realized. He experimented in the outlying provinces of his empire; and the Russians noted with open murmurs that, not content with governing through foreign instruments, he was conferring on Poland, Finland and the Baltic provinces benefits denied to themselves. In Russia, too, certain reforms were carried out; but they could not survive the suspicious interference of the autocrat and his officials. The newly created council of ministers, and the senate, endowed for the first time with certain theoretical powers, became in the end but the slavish instruments of the tsar and his favourites of the moment. The elaborate system of education, culminating in the reconstituted, or new-founded, universities of Dorpat, Vilna, Kazan and Kharkov, was strangled in the supposed interests of "order'' and of orthodox piety; while the military colonies which Alexander proclaimed as a blessing to both soldiers and state were forced on the unwilling peasantry and army with pitiless cruelty. Even the Bible Society, through which the emperor in his later mood of evangelical zeal proposed to bless his people, was conducted on the same ruthless lines. The Roman archbishop and the Orthodox metropolitans were forced to serve on its committee side by side with Protestant pastors; and village popes, trained to regard any tampering with the letter of the traditional documents of the church as mortal sin, became the unwilling instruments for the propagation of what they regarded as works of the devil.

Alexander's grandiose imagination was, however, more strongly attracted by the great questions of European politics than by attempts at domestic reform which, on the whole, wounded his pride by proving to him the narrow limits of absolute power. On the morrow of his accession he had reversed the policy of Paul, denounced the League of Neutrals, and made peace with England (April 1801), at the same time opening negotiations with Austria. Soon afterwards at Memel he entered into a close alliance with Prussia, not as he boasted from motives of policy, but in the spirit of true chivalry, out of friendship for the young king Frederick William and his beautiful wife. The development of this alliance was interrupted by the short-lived peace of October 1801; and for a while it seemed as though France and Russia might come to an understanding. Carried away by the enthusiasm of Laharpe, who had returned to Russia from Paris, Alexander began openly to proclaim his admiration for French institutions and for the person of Bonaparte. Soon, however, came a change. Laharpe, after a new visit to Paris, presented to the tsar his Reflexions on the True Nature of the Consulship for Life, which, as Alexander said, tore the veil from his eyes, and revealed Bonaparte "as not a true patriot,'' but only as "the most famous tyrant the world has produced.'' His disillusionment was completed by the murder of the duc d'Enghien. The Russian court went into mourning for the last of the Condes, and diplomatic relations with Paris were broken off.

The events of the war that followed belong to the general history of Europe; but the tsar's attitude throughout is personal to himself, though pregnant with issues momentous for the world. In opposing Napoleon, "the oppressor of Europe and the disturber of the world's peace,'' Alexander in fact already believed himself to be fulfilling a divine mission. In his instructions to Novosiltsov, his special envoy in London, the tsar elaborated the motives of his policy in language which appealed as little to the common sense of Pitt as did later the treaty of the Holy Alliance to that of Castlereagh. Yet the document is of great interest, as in it we find formulated for the first time in an official despatch those exalted ideals of international policy which were to play so conspicuous a part in the affairs of the world at the close of the revolutionary epoch, and issued at the end of the 19th century in the Rescript of Nicholas II.2 and the conference of the Hague. The outcome of the war, Alexander argued, was not to be only the liberation of France, but the universal triumph of "the sacred rights of humanity.'' To attain this it would be necessary "after having attached the nations to their government by making these incapable of acting save in the greatest interests of their subjects, to fix the relations of the states amongst each other on more precise rules, and such as it is to their interest to respect.'' A general treaty was to become the basis of the relations of the states forming "the European Confederation''; and this, though "it was no question of realizing the dream of universal peace, would attain some of its results if, at the conclusion of the general war, it were possible to establish on clear principles the prescriptions of the rights of nations.'' "Why could not one submit to it,'' the tsar continued, "the positive rights of nations, assure the privilege of neutrality, insert the obligation of never beginning war until all the resources which the mediation of a third party could offer have been exhausted, having by this means brought to light the respective grievances, and tried to remove them? It is on such principles as these that one could proceed to a general pacification, and give birth to a league of which the stipulations would form, so to speak, a new code of the law of nations, which, sanctioned by the greater part of the nations of Europe, would without difficulty become the immutable rule of the cabinets, while those who should try to infringe it would risk bringing upon themselves the forces of the new union.''3

Meanwhile Napoleon, little deterred by the Russian autocrat's youthful idealogy, never gave up hope of detaching him from the coalition. He had no sooner entered Vienna in triumph than he opened negotiations with him; he resumed them after Austerlitz. Russia and France, he urged, were "geographical allies''; there was, and could be, between them no true conflict of interests; together they might rule the world. But Alexander was still determined "to persist in the system of disinterestedness in respect of all the states of Europe which he had thus far followed,'' and he again allied himself with Prussia. The campaign of Jena and the battle of Eylau followed; and Napoleon, though still intent on the Russian alliance, stirred up Poles, Turks and Persians to break the obstinacy of the tsar. A party too in Russia itself, headed by the tsar's brother the grand-duke Constantine, was clamorous for peace; but Alexander, after a vain attempt to form a new coalition, summoned the Russian nation to a holy war against Napoleon as the enemy of the orthodox faith. The outcome was the rout of Friedland (June 13 and 14, 1807). Napoleon saw his chance and seized it. Instead of making heavy terms, he offered to the chastened autocrat his alliance, and a partnership in his glory.

The two emperors met at Tilsit on the 25th of June. Alexander, dazzled by Napoleon's genius and overwhelmed by his apparent generosity, was completely won. Napoleon knew well how to appeal to the exuberant imagination of his new-found friend. He would divide with Alexander the empire of the world; as a first step he would leave him in possession of the Danubian principalities and give him a free hand to deal with Finland; and, afterwards, the emperors of the East and West, when the time should be ripe, would drive the Turks from Europe and march across Asia to the conquest of India. A programme so stupendous awoke in Alexander's impressionable mind an ambition to which he had hitherto been a stranger. The interests of Europe were forgotten. "What is Europe?'' he exclaimed to the French ambassador. "Where is it, if it is not you and we?''4

The brilliance of these new visions did not, however, blind Alexander to the obligations of friendship; and he refused to retain the Danubian principalities as the price for suffering a further dismemberment of Prussia. "We have made loyal war,'' he said, "we must make a loyal peace.'' It was not long before the first enthusiasm of Tilsit began to wane. Napoleon was prodigal of promises, but niggard of their fulfilment. The French remained in Prussia, the Russians on the Danube; and each accused the other of breach of faith. Meanwhile, however, the personal relations of Alexander and Napoleon were of the most cordial character; and it was hoped that a fresh meeting might adjust all differences between them. The meeting took place at Erfurt in October 1808, and resulted in a treaty which defined the common policy of the two emperors. But Alexander's relations with Napoleon none the less suffered a change. He realized that in Napoleon sentiment never got the better of reason, that as a matter of fact he had never intended his proposed "grand enterprise'' seriously, and had only used it to preoccupy the mind of the tsar while he consolidated his own power in central Europe. From this moment the French alliance was for Alexander also not a fraternal agreement to rule the world, but an affair of pure policy. He used it, in the first instance, to remove "the geographical enemy'' from the gates of St Petersburg by wresting Finland from the Swedes (1809); and he hoped by means of it to make the Danube the southern frontier of Russia. Events were in fact rapidly tending to the rupture of the Franco-Russian alliance. Alexander, indeed, assisted Napoleon in the war of 1809, but he declared plainly that he would not allow Austria to be crushed out of existence; and Napoleon complained bitterly of the inactivity of the Russian troops during the campaign. The tsar in his turn protested against Napoleon's encouragement of the Poles. In the matter of the French alliance he knew himself to be practically isolated in Russia, and he declared that he could not sacrifice the interest of his people and empire to his affection for Napoleon. "I don't want anything for myself,'' he said to the French ambassador, "therefore the world is not large enough to come to an understanding on the affairs of Poland, if it is a question of its restoration.''5 The treaty of Vienna, which added largely to the grand-duchy of Warsaw, he complained had "ill requited him for his loyalty,'' and he was only mollified for the time by Napoleon's public declaration that he had no intention of restoring Poland, and by a convention, signed on the 4th of January 1810 but not ratified, abolishing the Polish name and orders of chivalry.

But if Alexander suspected Napoleon, Napoleon was no less suspicious of Alexander; and, partly to test his sincerity, he sent an almost peremptory request for the hand of the grand- duchess Anne, the tsar's youngest sister. After some little delay Alexander returned a polite refusal, on the plea of the princess's tender age and the objection of the dowager empress to the marriage. Napoleon's answer was to refuse to ratify the convention of the 4th of January, and to announce his engagement to the archduchess Marie Louise in such a way as to lead Alexander to suppose that the two marriage treaties had been negotiated simultaneously. From this time the relation between the two emperors gradually became more and more strained. The annexation of Oldenburg, of which the duke was the tsar's uncle, to France in December 1810, added another to the personal grievances of Alexander against Napoleon; while the ruinous reaction of "the continental system'' on Russian trade made it impossible for the tsar to maintain a policy which was Napoleon's chief motive for the alliance. An acid correspondence followed, and ill-concealed armaments, which culminated in the summer of 1812 in Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Yet, even after the French had passed the frontier, Alexander still protested that his personal sentiments towards the emperor were unaltered; "but,'' he added, "God Himself cannot undo the past.'' It was the occupation of Moscow and the desecration of the Kremlin, the sacred centre of Holy Russia, that changed his sentiment for Napoleon into passionate hatred. In vain the French emperor, within eight days of his entry into Moscow, wrote to the tsar a letter, which was one long cry of distress, revealing the desperate straits of the Grand Army, and appealed to "any remnant of his former sentiments.'' Alexander returned no answer to these "fanfaronnades.'' "No more peace with Napoleon!'' he cried, "He or I, I or He: we cannot longer reign together!''6

The campaign of 1812 was the turning-point of Alexander's life; and its horrors, for which his sensitive nature felt much of the responsibility, overset still more a mind never too well balanced. At the burning of Moscow, he declared afterwards, his own soul had found illumination, and he had realized once for all the divine revelation to him of his mission as the peacemaker of Europe. He tried to calm the unrest of his conscience by correspondence with the leaders of the evangelical revival on the continent, and sought for omens and supernatural guidance in texts and passages of scripture. It was not, however, according to his own account, till he met the Baroness de Krudener—a religious adventuress who made the conversion of princes her special mission—at Basel, in the autumn of 1813, that his soul found peace. From this time a mystic pietism became the avowed force of his political, as of his private actions. Madame de Krudener, and her colleague, the evangelist Empaytaz, became the confidants of the emperor's most secret thoughts; and during the campaign that ended in the occupation of Paris the imperial prayer-meetings were the oracle on whose revelations hung the fate of the world.

Such was Alexander's mood when the downfall of Napoleon left him the most powerful sovereign in Europe. With the memory of Tilsit still fresh in men's minds, it was not unnatural that to cynical men of the world like Metternich he merely seemed to be disguising "under the language of evangelical abnegation'' vast and perilous schemes of ambition. The puzzled powers were, in fact, the more inclined to be suspicious in view of other, and seemingly inconsistent, tendencies of the emperor, which yet seemed all to point to a like disquieting conclusion. For Madame de Krudener was not the only influence behind the throne; and, though Alexander had declared war against the Revolution, Laharpe was once more at his elbow, and the catchwords of the gospel of humanity were still on his lips. The very proclamations which denounced Napoleon as "the genius of evil,'' denounced him in the name of "liberty,'' and of "enlightenment.'' A monstrous intrigue was suspected for the alliance of the eastern autocrat with the Jacobinism of all Europe, which would have issued in the substitution of an all-powerful Russia for an all-powerful France. At the congress of Vienna Alexander's attitude accentuated this distrust. Castlereagh, whose single-minded aim was the restoration of "a just equilibrium'' in Europe, reproached the tsar to his face for a "conscience'' which suffered him to imperil the concert of the powers by keeping his hold on Poland in violation of his treaty obligation.7

Yet Alexander was sincere. Even the Holy Alliance, the pet offspring of his pietism, does not deserve the sinister reputation it has since obtained. To the other powers it seemed, at best "verbiage'' and "exalted nonsense,'' at worst an effort of the tsar to establish the hegemony of Russia on the goodwill of the smaller signatory powers. To the Liberals, then and afterwards it was clearly a hypocritical conspiracy against freedom. Yet to Alexander himself it seemed the only means of placing the "confederation of Europe'' on a firm basis of principle8 and, so far from its being directed against liberty he declared roundly to all the signatory powers that "free constitutions were the logical outcome of its doctrines.'' Europe, in fact, owed much at this time to Alexander's exalted temper. During the period when his influence was supreme, the fateful years, that is, between the Moscow campaign and the close of the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, it had been used largely in the interests of moderation and liberty. To him mainly it was due that France was saved from dismemberment, and received a constitution which, to use his own words, "united crown and representatives of the people in a sense of common interests.''9 By his wise intervention Switzerland was saved from violent reaction, and suffered to preserve the essential gains of the Revolution. To his protection it was due that the weak beginnings of constitutional freedom in Germany were able for a while to defy the hatred of Austria. Lastly, whatever its ultimate outcome, the constitution of Poland was, in its inception, a genuine effort to respond to the appeal of the Poles for a national existence.

From the end of the year 1818 Alexander's views began to change. A revolutionary conspiracy among the officers of the guard, and a foolish plot to kidnap him on his way to the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (q.v.), are said to have shaken the foundations of his Liberalism. At Aix he came for the first time into intimate contact with Metternich, and the astute Austrian was swift to take advantage of the psychological moment. From this time dates the ascendancy of Metternich over the mind of the Russian emperor and in the councils of Europe. It was, however, no case of sudden conversion. Though alarmed by the revolutionary agitation in Germany, which culminated in the murder of his agent, the dramatist Kotzebue (q.v.), Alexander approved of Castlereagh's protest against Metternich's policy of "the governments contracting an alliance against the peoples,'' as formulated in the Carlsbad decrees, 1819, and deprecated any intervention of Europe to support "a league of which the sole object is the absurd pretensions of absolute power.''10 He still declared his belief in "free institutions, though not in such as age forced from feebleness, nor contracts ordered by popular leaders from their sovereigns, nor constitutions granted in difficult circumstances to tide over a crisis. "Liberty,'' he maintained, "should be confined within just limits. And the limits of liberty are the principles of order.''11

It was the apparent triumph of the principles of disorder in the revolutions of Naples and Piedmont, combined with increasingly disquieting symptoms of discontent in France, Germany and among his own people, that completed Alexander's conversion. In the seclusion of the little town of Troppau, where in October of 1820 the powers met in conference, Metternich found an opportunity for cementing his influence over Alexander which had been wanting amid the turmoil and feminine intrigues of Vienna and Aix. Here, in confidence begotten of friendly chats over afternoon tea, the disillusioned autocrat confessed his mistake. "You have nothing to regret,'' he said sadly to the exultant chancellor, "but I have!''12 The issue was momentous. In January Alexander had still upheld the ideal of a free confederation of the European states, symbolized by the Holy Alliance, against the policy of a dictatorship of the great powers, symbolized by the Quadruple Treaty; he had still protested against the claims of collective Europe to interfere in the internal concerns of the sovereign states. On the 19th of November he signed the Troppau Protocol, which consecrated the principle of intervention and wrecked the harmony of the concert. (See TROPPAU, CONGRESS OF.)

At Laibach, whither in the spring of 1821 the congress had been adjourned, Alexander first heard of the revolt of the Greeks. From this time until his death his mind was torn between his anxiety to realize his dream of a confederation of Europe and his traditional mission as leader of the Orthodox crusade against the Turks. At first, under the careful nursing of Metternich, the former motive prevailed. He struck the name of Alexander Ypsilanti from the Russian army list, and directed his foreign minister, Count Capo d'Istria, himself a Greek, to disavow all sympathy of Russia with his enterprise; and, next year, a deputation of the Greeks of the Morea on its way to the congress of Verona was turned back by his orders on the road. He made, indeed, some effort to reconcile the principles at conflict in his mind. He offered to surrender the claim, successfully asserted when the sultan had been excluded from the Holy Alliance and the affairs of the Ottoman empire from the deliberations of Vienna, that the affairs of the East were the "domestic concerns of Russia,'' and to march into Turkey, as Austria had marched into Naples, "as the mandatory of Europe.''13 Metternich's opposition to this, illogical, but natural from the Austrian point of view, first opened his eyes to the true character of Austria's attitude towards his ideals. Once more in Russia, far from the fascination of Metternich's personality, the immemorial spirit of his people drew him back into itself; and when, in the autumn of 1825, he took his dying empress for change of air to the south of Russia, in order—as all Europe supposed—to place himself at the head of the great army concentrated near the Ottoman frontiers, his language was no longer that of "the peace-maker of Europe,'' but of the Orthodox tsar determined to take the interests of his people and of his religion "into his own hands.'' Before the momentous issue could be decided, however, Alexander died at Taganrog on the 1st of December (November 18, O.S.) 1825, "crushed'', to use his own words, "beneath the terrible burden of a crown'' which he had more than once declared his intention of resigning. A report, current at the time and often revived, affirmed that he did not in fact die. By some it is supposed that a mysterious hermit named Fomich, who lived at Tomsk until 1870 and was treated with peculiar deference by successive tsars, was none other than Alexander.14

Modern history knows no more tragic figure than that of Alexander. The brilliant promise of his early years; the haunting memory of the crime by which he had obtained the power to realize his ideals; and, in the end, the terrible legacy he left to Russia: a principle of government which, under lofty pretensions, veiled a tyranny supported by spies and secret police; an uncertain succession; an army permeated by organized disaffection; an armed Poland, whose hunger for liberty the tsar had whetted but not satisfied; the quarrel with Turkey, with its alternative of war or humiliation for Russia; an educational system rotten with official hypocrisy; a Church in which conduct counted for nothing, orthodoxy and ceremonial observance for everything; economical and financial conditions scarce recovering from the verge of ruin; and lastly, that curse of Russia,—serfdom.

In private life Alexander displayed many lovable qualities. All authorities combine in praising his handsome presence and the affability and charm of his address, together with a certain simplicity of personal tastes, which led him in his intercourse with his friends or with the representatives of friendly powers to dispense with ceremonial and etiquette. His personal friendship, too, once bestowed, was never lightly withdrawn. By nature he was sociable and pleasure-loving, he proved himself a notable patron of the arts and he took a conspicuous part in all the gaieties of the congress of Vienna. In his later years, however, he fell into a mood of settled melancholy; and, though still accessible to all who chose to approach him with complaints or petitions, he withdrew from all but the most essential social functions, and lived a life of strenuous work and of Spartan simplicity. His gloom had been increased by domestic misfortune. He had been married, in 1793, without his wishes being consulted, to the beautiful and amiable Princess Maria Louisa of Baden (Elizabeth Feodorovna), a political match which, as he regretfully confessed to his friend Frederick William of Prussia, had proved the misfortune of both; and he consoled himself in the traditional manner. The only child of the marriage, a little grand-duchess, died on the 12th of May 1808; and their common sorrow drew husband and wife closer together. Towards the close of his life their reconciliation was completed by the wise charity of the empress in sympathizing deeply with him over the death of his beloved daughter by Madame Narishkine.

See also EUROPE; RUSSIA; FRANCE; TURKEY; VIENNA, CONGRESS OF; NAPOLEON; METTERNICH; CAPO D'ISTARIA.

AUTHORITIES.—F. de Martins, Recueil des traites conclus par la Russie, &c. (St Petersb., 1874, &c.); Wellington Despatches Castlereagh Correspondence; Prince Adam Czartoryski, Memoires et correspondance avec l'empereur Alexandre I. (Paris, 1887, 2 vols.). P. Bailleu (ed). Briefwechsel Konig Friedrich Wilhelm's III. und der Konigin Luise mit Kaiser Alexander I. (Leipzig, 1900); Laharpe, Le Gouverneur d'un Prince (F. C de Laharpe et Alexandre I. de Russie) 1902; Serge Tatischeff, Alexandre I. et Napoleon d'apres leur correspondance inedite (Paris, 1901); Joseph de Maistre, Memoires historiques et correspondance diplomatique, ed. A. Blanc (2nd ed., 1859); Comtesse de Choiseul-Gouffier, Memoires historiques sur l'empereur Alexandre (1829), and Reminiscences sur l'empereur Alexandre I., &c. (Paris, 1862); Rulemann Friedrich Eylert, Charakterzuge und historische Fragmente aus dem Leben Konig Friedrich Wilhelm's III. (1846); H. L. Empaytaz, Notice sur Alexandre Empereur de Russie (2nd ed., Paris, 1840); Comte A. de la Garde- Chambonas, Souvenirs du Congres de Vienne; publ. avec introd. et notes par le Cte. Fleury (1901).

LIVES.—The principal life of Alexander I. is that, in Russian, by Nikolai Karlovich Schilder, Imperator Aleksander, &c. (4 vols., St Petersb., 1897, 1898). See also Bogdanovich, History of the Government of the Emperor Alexander I. (St Petersburg, 1869-1871, Nikolaus I. Band i. Kaiser Alexander I. und die Ergebnisse seiner Lebensarbeit (Berl., 1904), a valuable study based upon much new material from the state archives of St Petersburg, Paris, Berlin and Vienna; A. Vandal, Napoleon et Alexandre I.: l'alliance Russe sous le premier empire (3 vols., Paris, 1891-1896); A. N. Pypin, Political and Literary Movements under Alexander I. (Russian, 2nd ed. St Petersburg, 1885; German, Berlin, 1894). Among the numerous less authoritative biographies may be mentioned Ivan Golovin, Histoire d'Alexandre I. (Leipzig, 1859), and C. Joyneville, Life and Times of Alexander I. (3 vols., 1875). This last contains much valuable information, but the references in footnotes are often wanting in precision, and it has no index. (W. A. P.)

1 Savary to Napoleon, Nov. 4, 1807. Tatischeff, p. 226.

2 Circular of Count Muraviev, Aug. 24, 1898.

3 Instructions to M. Novosiltsov, Sept. 11, 1804. Tatiseheff, p. 82.

4 Savary to Napoleon, Nov. 18, 1807. Tatischeff, p. 232.

5 Coulaincourt to Napoleon, 4th report, Aug. 3, 1809. Tatischeff, p. 496.

6 Alexander speaking to Colonel Michaud. Tatischeff, p. 612.

7 Castlereagh to Liverpool, Oct. 2, 1814. F.O. Papers. Vienna VII.

8 Martens IV. oart i. p. 49.

9 Etat des negociations actueelles, &c., mem. prepared by order of the Tsar, July 16, 1815, enclosed in Castlereagh to Liverpool, F.O. Cont. papers. Congress Paris, Castlereagh, 22.

10 Despatch of Lieven, Nov. 30 (Dec. 12), 1819, and Russ. Circular of Jan. 27, 1820. Martens IV. part i. p. 270.

11 Apercu des idees de l'Empereur, Martens IV. part i. p. 269.

12 Metternich Mem.

13 Martens IV. part i. pp. 307, &c.

14 See W. Gasiorowski, Tragic Russia, translated by Viscount de Busancy (London, 1908).

ALEXANDER II. (1818-1881), emperor of Russia, eldest son of Nicholas I., was born on the 29th of April 1818. His early life gave little indication of his subsequent activity, and up to the moment of his accession in 1855 no one ever imagined that he would be known to posterity as a great reformer. In so far as he had any decided political convictions, he seemed to be animated with that reactionary spirit which was predominant in Europe at the time of his birth, and continued in Russia to the end of his father's reign. In the period of thirty years during which he was heir-apparent, the moral atmosphere of St Petersburg was very unfavourable to the development of any originality of thought or character. It was a time of government on martinet principles, under which all freedom of thought and all private initiative were as far as possible suppressed vigorously by the administration. Political topics were studiously avoided in general conversation, and books or newspapers in which the most keen-scented press-censor could detect the least odour of political or religious free-thinking were strictly prohibited. Criticism of existing authorities was regarded as a serious offence. The common policeman, the insignificant scribe in a public office, and even the actors in the "imperial'' theatres, were protected against public censure as effectually as the government itself; for the whole administration was considered as one and indivisible, and an attack on the humblest representative of the imperial authority was looked on as an indirect attack on the fountain from which that authority flowed. Such was the moral atmosphere in which young Alexander Nicolaevich grew up to manhood. He received the education commonly given to young Russians of good family at that time—a smattering of a great many subjects, and a good practical acquaintance with the chief modern European languages. Like so many of his countryman he displayed great linguistic ability, and his quick ear caught up even peculiarities of dialect. His ordinary life was that of an officer of the Guards, modified by the ceremonial duties incumbent on him as heir to the throne. Nominally he held the post of director of the military schools, but he took little personal interest in military affairs. To the disappointment of his father, in whom the military instinct was ever predominant, he showed no love of soldiering, and gave evidence of a kindliness of disposition and a tender-heartedness which were considered out of place in one destined to become a military autocrat. These tendencies had been fostered by his tutor Zhukovsky, the amiable humanitarian poet, who had made the Russian public acquainted with the literature of the German romantic school, and they remained with him all through life, though they did not prevent him from being severe in his official position when he believed severity to be necessary. In 1841 he married the daughter of the grand-duke Louis II. of Hesse, Maximilienne Wilhelmine Marie, thenceforward known as Maria Alexandrovna, who bore him six sons and two daughters. He did not travel much abroad, for his father, in his desire to exclude from Holy Russia the subversive ideas current in Western Europe, disapproved foreign tours, and could not consistently encourage in his own family what he tried to prevent among the rest of his subjects. He visited England, however, in 1839, and in the years immediately preceding his accession he was entrusted with several missions to the courts of Berlin and Vienna. On the 2nd of March 1855, during the Crimean War, he succeeded to the throne on the death of his father.

The first year of the new reign was devoted to the prosecution of the war, and after the fall of Sevastopol, to negotiations for peace. Then began a period of radical reforms, recommended by public opinion and carried out by the autocratic power. The rule of Nicholas, which had sacrificed all other interests to that of making Russia an irresistibly strong military power, had been tried by the Crimean War and found wanting. A new system must, therefore, be adopted. All who had any pretensions to enlightenment declared loudly that the country had been exhausted and humiliated by the war, and that the only way of restoring it to its proper position in Europe was to develop its natural resources and to reform thoroughly all branches of the administration. The government found, therefore, in the educated classes a new-born public spirit, anxious to assist it in any work of reform that it might think fit to undertake. Fortunately for Russia the autocratic power was now in the hands of a man who was impressionable enough to be deeply influenced by the spirit of the time, and who had sufficient prudence and practical common-sense to prevent his being carried away by the prevailing excitement into the dangerous region of Utopian dreaming. Unlike some of his predecessors, he had no grand, original schemes of his own to impose by force on unwilling subjects, and no pet crotchets to lead his judgment astray; and he instinctively looked with a suspicious, critical eye on the panaceas which more imaginative and less cautious people recommended. These traits of character, together with the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed, determined the part which he was to play. He moderated, guided and in great measure realized the reform aspirations of the educated classes.

Emancipation of the serfs.

Though he carefully guarded his autocratic rights and privileges, and obstinately resisted all efforts to push him farther than he felt inclined to go he acted for several years somewhat like a constitutional sovereign of the continental type. At first he moved so slowly that many of the impatient, would-be reformers began to murmur at the unnecessary delay. In reality not much time was lost. Soon after the conclusion of peace important changes were made in the legislation concerning industry and commerce, and the new freedom thus accorded produced a large number of limited liability companies. At the same time plans were formed for constructing a great network of railways, partly for the purpose of developing the natural resources of the country, and partly for the purpose of increasing its powers of defence and attack. Then it was found that further progress was blocked by a great obstacle, the existence of serfage: and Alexander II. showed that, unlike his father, he meant to grapple boldly with the difficult and dangerous problem. Taking advantage of a petition presented by the Polish landed proprietors of the Lithuanian provinces, praying that their relations with the serfs might be regulated in a more satisfactory way—meaning in a way more satisfactory for the proprietors—he authorized the formation of committees "for ameliorating the condition of the peasants,'' and laid down the principles on which the amelioration was to be effected. This was a decided step and it was followed by one still more significant. Without consulting his ordinary advisers, his majesty ordered the minister of the interior to send a circular to the provincial governors of European Russia, containing a copy of the instructions forwarded to the governor-general of Lithuania, praising the supposed generous, patriotic intentions of the Lithuanian landed proprietors, and suggesting that perhaps the landed proprietors of other provinces might express a similar desire. The hint was taken, of course, and in all provinces where serfage existed emancipation committees were formed. The deliberations at once raised a host of important, thorny questions. The emancipation was not merely a humanitarian question capable of being solved instantaneously by imperial ukaz. It contained very complicated problems affecting deeply the economic, social and political future of the nation. Alexander II. had little of the special knowledge required for dealing successfully with such problems, and he had to restrict himself to choosing between the different measures recommended to him. The main point at issue was whether the serfs should become agricultural labourers dependent economically and administratively on the landlords, or should be transformed into a class of independent communal proprietors. The emperor gave his support to the latter project, and the Russian peasantry accordingly acquired rights and privileges such as are enjoyed by no other peasantry in Europe. In the numerous other questions submitted to him be{sic} began by consulting carefully the conflicting authorities, and while leaning as a rule rather to the side of those who were known as "Liberals,'' he never went so far as they desired, and always sought some middle course by which conflicting interests might be reconciled. On the 3rd of March 1861, the sixth anniversary of his accession, the emancipation law was signed and published. Other reforms followed in quick succession during the next five or six years: army and navy organization, a new judicial administration on the French model, a new penal code and a greatly simplified system of civil and criminal procedure, an elaborate scheme of local self-government for the rural districts and the large towns, with elective assemhljes possessing a restricted right of taxation, and a new rural and municipal police under the direction of the minister of the interior. These new institutions were incomparably better than the old ones which they replaced, but they did not work such miracles as inexperienced enthusiasts expected. Comparisons were made, not with the past, but with an ideal state of things which never existed in Russia or elsewhere. Hence arose a general feeling of disappointment, which acted on different natures in different ways. Some of the enthusiasts sank into a sceptical, reactionary frame of mind; while others, with deeper convictions or capable of more lasting excitement, attributed the failure to the fact that only half- measures and compromises had been adopted by the government. Thus appeared in the educated classes two extreme groups: on the one hand, the discontented Conservatives, who recommended a return to a more severe disciplinarian regime; and on the other, the discontented Radicals, who would have been satisfied with nothing less than the adoption of a throughgoing socialistic programme. Between the two extremes stood the discontented Moderates, who indulged freely in grumbling without knowing how the unsatisfactory state of things was to be remedied. For some years the emperor, with his sound common-sense and dislike of exaggeration, held the balance fairly between the two extremes; but long years of uninterrupted labour, anxiety and disappointment weakened his zeal for reform, and when radicalism assumed more and more the form of secret societies and revolutionary agitation, he felt constrained to adopt severe repressive measures.

Nihilism.

The revolutionary agitation was of a very peculiar kind. It was confined to a section of the educated classes, and emanated from the universities and higher technical schools. At the beginning of the reform period there had been enthusiasm for scientific as opposed to classical education. Russia required, it was said, not classical scholars, but practical, scientific men, capable of developing her natural resources. The government, in accordance with this view, had encouraged scientific studies until it discovered to its astonishment that there was some mysterious connexion between natural science and revolutionary tendencies. Many of the young men and women, who were supposed to be qualifying as specialists in the various spheres of industrial and commercial enterprise, were in reality devoting their time to considering how human society in general, and Russian society in particular, could be reconstructed in accordance with the latest physiological, biological and sociological principles. Some of these young people wished to put their crude notions immediately into practice, and as their desire to make gigantic socialist experiments naturally alarmed the government, their activity was opposed by the police. Many of them were arrested and imprisoned or exiled to distant provinces, but the revolutionary work was continued with unabated zeal. Thus arose a struggle between the youthful, hot-headed partisans of revolutionary physical science and the zealous official guardians of political order—a struggle which has made the strange term Nihilism (q.v.) a familiar word not only in Russia but also in western Europe. The movement gradually assumed the form of terrorism, and aimed at the assassination of prominent officials, and even of the emperor himself, and the natural result was that the reactionary tendencies of the government were strengthened.

Foreign policy.

In foreign policy Alexander II. showed the same qualities of character as in internal affairs, ever trying prudently to steer a middle course. When he came to the throne a peace policy was imposed on him by circumstances. The Crimean War was still going on, but as there was no doubt as to the final issue, and the country was showing symptoms of exhaustion, he concluded peace with the allies as soon as he thought the national honour had been satisfied. Prince Gorchakov could then declare to Europe, "La Russie ne boude pas elle se recueille''; and for fifteen years he avoided foreign complications, so that the internal strength of the country might be developed, while the national pride and ambition received a certain satisfaction by the expansion of Russian influence and domination in Asia. Twice, indeed, during that period the chancellor ran the risk of provoking war. The first occasion was in 1863, when the Western powers seemed inclined to interfere in the Polish question, and the Russian chancery declared categorically that no interference would be tolerated. The second occasion was during the Franco-German War of 1870-71, when the cabinet of St Petersburg boldly declared that it considered itself no longer bound by the Black Sea clause of the treaty of Paris. On both these occasions hostilities were averted. Not so on the next occasion, when Russia abandoned her attitude of recueillement. When the Eastern question was raised in 1875 by the insurrection of Herzegovina, Alexander II. had no intention or wish to provoke a great European war. No doubt he was waiting for an opportunity of recovering the portion of Bessarabia which had been ceded by the treaty of Paris, and he perceived in the disturbed state of Eastern Europe a possibility of obtaining the desired rectification of frontier, but he hoped to effect his purpose by diplomatic means in conjunction with Austria. At the same time he was anxious to obtain for the Christians of Turkey some amelioration of their condition, and to give thereby some satisfaction to his own subjects. As autocratic ruler of the nation which had long considered itself the defender of the Eastern Orthodox faith and the protector of the Slav nationalities, he could not remain inactive at such a crisis, and he gradually allowed himself to drift into a position from which he could not retreat without obtaining some tangible result. Supposing that the Porte would yield to diplomatic pressure and menace so far as to make some reasonable concessions, he delivered his famous Moscow speech, in which he declared that if Europe would not secure a better position for the oppressed Slavs he would act alone. The diplomatic pressure failed and war became inevitable. During the campaign he displayed the same perseverance and the same moderation that he had shown in the emancipation of the serfs. To those who began to despair of success, and advised him to conclude peace on almost any terms so as to avoid greater disasters, he turned a deaf ear, and brought the campaign to a successful conclusion; but when his more headstrong advisers urged him to insist on terms which would probably have produced a conflict with Great Britain and Austria, he resolved, after some hesitation, to make the requisite concessions. In this resolution he was influenced by the discovery that he could not rely on the expected support of Germany, and the discovery made him waver in his devotion to the German alliance, which had been the main pivot of his foreign policy; but his personal attachment to the emperor William prevented him from adopting a hostile attitude towards the empire he had helped to create.

The patriotic excitement produced by the war did not weaken the revolutionary agitation. The struggle between the Terrorists and the police authorities became more and more intense, and attempts at assassination became more and more frequent. Alexander II. succumbed by degrees to the mental depression produced originally by the disappointments which he experienced in his home and foreign policy; and in 1880, when he had reigned twenty-five years, he entrusted to Count Loris-Melikov a large share of the executive power. In that year the empress died, and a few weeks afterwards he married secretly a Princess Dolgoruki, with whom he had already entertained intimate relations for some years. Early in 1881, on the advice of Count Loris-Melikov, he determined to try the effect of some moderate liberal reforms on the revolutionary agitation, and for this purpose he caused a ukaz to be prepared creating special commissions, composed of high officials and private personages who should prepare reforms in various branches of the administration. On the very day on which this ukaz was signed—13th of March 1881—he fell a victim to a Nihilist plot. When driving in one of the central streets of St Petersburg, near the Winter Palace, he was mortally wounded by the explosion of some small bombs and died a few hours afterwards. (D. M. W.)

ALEXANDER III. (1845-1894), emperor of Russia, second son of Alexander II., was born on the 10th of March 1845. In natural disposition he bore little resemblance to his soft-hearted, liberal minded father, and still less to his refined, philosophic, sentimental, chivalrous, yet cunning grand-uncle Alexander I., who coveted the title of "the first gentleman of Europe.'' With high culture, exquisite refinement and studied elegance he had no sympathy and never affected to have any. Indeed, he rather gloried in the idea of being of the same rough texture as the great majority of his subjects. His straightforward, abrupt manner savoured sometimes of gruffness, while his direct, unadorned method of expressing himself harmonized well with his rough-hewn, immobile features and somewhat sluggish movements. His education was not fitted to soften these peculiarities. During the first twenty years of his life he had no prospect of succeeding to the throne, because he had an elder brother, Nicholas, who seemed of a fairly robust constitution. Even when this elder brother showed symptoms of delicate health it was believed that his life might be indefinitely prolonged by proper care and attention, and precautions had been taken for the succession by his betrothal with Princess Dagmar of Denmark. Under these circumstances the greatest solicitude was devoted to the education of Nicholas as cesarevich, whereas Alexander received only the perfunctory and inadequate training of an ordinary grand- duke of that period, which did not go much beyond primary and secondary instruction, practical acquaintance with French, English and German, and a certain amount of drill. When he became heir-apparent by the death of his elder brother in 1865, he began to study the principles of law and administration under Professor Pobedonostsef, who did not succeed in awakening in his pupil a love of abstract studies or prolonged intellectual exertion, but who influenced the character of his reign by instilling into his mind the belief that zeal for Eastern Orthodoxy ought, as an essential factor of Russian patriotism, to be specially cultivated by every right-minded tsar. His elder brother when on his deathbed had expressed a wish that his affianced bride, Princess Dagmar of Denmark, should marry his successor, and this wish was realized on the 9th of November 1866. The union proved a most happy one and remained unclouded to the end. During those years when he was heir-apparent—1865 to 1881—he did not play a prominent part in public affairs, but he allowed it to become known that he had certain ideas of his own which did not coincide with the principles of the existing government. He deprecated what he considered undue foreign influence in general, and German influence in particular, and he longed to see the adoption of genuine national principles in all spheres of official activity, with a view to realizing his ideal of a homogeneous Russia—homogeneous in language, administration and religion. With such ideas and aspirations he could hardly remain permanently in cordial agreement with his father, who, though a good patriot according to his lights, had strong German sympathies, often used the German language in his private relations, occasionally ridiculed the exaggerations and eccentricities of the Slavophils and based his foreign policy on the Prussian alliance. The antagonism first appeared publicly during the Franco-German War, when the tsar supported the cabinet of Berlin and the cesarevich did not conceal his sympathies with the French. It reappeared in an intermittent fashion during the years 1875-1879, when the Eastern question produced so much excitement in all ranks of Russian society. At first the cesarevich was more Slavophil than the government, but his phlegmatic nature preserved him from many of the exaggerations indulged in by others, and any of the prevalent popular illusions he may have imbibed were soon dispelled by personal observation in Bulgaria, where he commanded the left wing of the invading army. The Bulgarians had been represented in St Petersburg and Moscow not only as martyrs but also as saints, and a very little personal experience sufficed to correct the error. Like most of his brother officers he could not feel any very great affection for the "little brothers,'' as the Bulgarians were then commonly called, and he was constrained to admit that the Turks were by no means so black as they had been painted. He did not, however, scandalize the believers by any public expression of his opinions, and did not indeed make himself conspicuous in any way during the campaign. Never consulted on political questions, he confined himself to his military duties and fulfilled them in a conscientious and unobtrusive manner. After many mistakes and disappointments, the army reached Constantinople and the treaty of San Stefano was signed, but much that had been obtained by that important document had to be sacrificed at the congress of Berlin. Prince Bismarck failed to do what was confidently expected of him. In return for the Russian support, which had enabled him to create the German empire, it was thought that he would help Russia to solve the Eastern question in accordance with her own interests, but to the surprise and indignation of the cabinet of St Petersburg he confined himself to acting the part of "honest broker'' at the congress, and shortly afterwards he ostentatiously contracted an alliance with Austria for the express purpose of counteracting Russian designs in Eastern Europe. The cesarevich could point to these results as confirming the views he had expressed during the Franco-German War, and he drew from them the practical conclusion that for Russia the best thing to do was to recover as quickly as possible from her temporary exhaustion and to prepare for future contingencies by a radical scheme of military and naval reorganization. In accordance with this conviction, he suggested that certain reforms should be introduced. During the campaign in Bulgaria he had found by painful experience that grave disorders and gross corruption existed in the military administration, and after his return to St Petersburg he had discovered that similar abuses existed in the naval department. For these abuses, several high-placed personages—among others two of the grand-dukes— were believed to be responsible, and he called his father's attention to the subject. His representations were not favourably received. Alexander II. had lost much of the reforming zeal which distinguished the first decade of his reign, and had no longer the energy required to undertake the task suggested to him. The consequence was that the relations between father and son became more strained. The latter must have felt that there would be no important reforms until he himself succeeded to the direction of affairs. That change was much nearer at hand than was commonly supposed. On the 13th of March 1881 Alexander II. was assassinated by a band of Nihilists, and the autocratic power passed to the hands of his son.