The Washington herald., 1913-08-03
BY 4. ID. JACOBSON.

PAUL THE FIRST or RUSSIA. THE son OF
CATHERINE THE GREAT: BY X. wazew-
ski Price. s. Phiadelphia-J. b. Lprncott
Company.
The tragic figure of the son Of the
Great Catherine is an enigmatic one
IN history. Mad rulers have been COM
mon. But was Paul really insane? The
events Of the nearly four years OF his
resign unanimously were regarded as the
disastrous result of the uncontrolled ca
price Of a demented autocrat. But all
this is now contested, and there has been
reversal of the opinions both Of Paul
character and intellect, even of the value
Of his work.
Strange TO say, in the eyes OF MS
recent Russian biographers Paul is not
only not a lunatic; he has become al
most a great man. They incline 10 think
that he had genius. His short reisn'
in the opinion OF these historians lar
from having been a misfortune Tor MS
subjects, was q period OF Dehehceht
activity and development which, had II
not been cut short by his death, might
have been the beginning OF uneNampieo
prosperity and greatness.
All this Of course, gives new aspect
10 the problem. 1t is a plausible sup
position, but not an asCertalned tac''
that his reputed father. Peter III, reali :
was the author of his existence. Hence
the theory of congenial mental insta-
bility is not sound basis for argument. lie
was opposed 10 the ideas of his mother
and he spent all of twenty years attacH-
ing a policy and a government which
with ali its faults, gave Russia powe.
and prestige, which she has not since
recovered Paul plotted and prepared
the overthrow of this system, and when
he came to the throne he endeavorcd 10
carry out his design. He even joined
hands with the hero of the Eighteenth
Brumaire and took a hand with him II
the destruction of the old order OF things
in Europe and in the partition of the
world.
To what does all this point, IL not e
close relationship, with the mob II
unbalanced contemporaries who suffered
from the political hysteria of the time
He may have been neither a Holsteiner
nor a Romanof, but he certainly was
a true child of the revolution which h
affected to detest and to combat. He was
argues the author, neither insane in the
pathological sense, nor even weakminded
But he was capable OF madness and folly
because he was touched by a kind oi
collective frenzy that turned stronger
heads than his.
At the hand Of the aforesaid, tn,
author tries to show how far these cur
rents penetrated and influenced the Rus
sia Of that time: how. in the person o.
Paul / and in the character of his gov
ernment, they were combined with ele
ments Of stability or disorder, Of con
servatism or revolution. The compli
Gated psychology OF the Car and tn
dramatic incidents of : IS career whicl
led up 70 the final tragedy no doub
make him a figure of great interest Bu
the trials suffered during his reign b.
the vast country which he sought t
mold as he thought fit are more inter
ssting still
Revelations by the author, whicl
might modify our ideas about Paul him
self on the eveEts of his time, were no
20 be expected. for GATHERINGS son, witt
his passion for publicity, lived too muci
in broad daylight to conceal any essen
tial even about mis- most intimate con
Germs.
The night Of Paul's murder is one o
the darkest. II not the darkest. page Il
the history of the Romanoffs. He wa
literally kicked and strangied to dealt
by the leaders Of a conspiracy, VIII
dragged the defenseless man out Of bed