DISGRACE AND EXILE 173policy of friendship with France, and more particularly against Spe-
ransky who was believed to be the most influential and convincedfrancophile. It was easy for the disgruntled landowners to disguise
their selfish economic grievances behind a screen of pious phrases about
the country's welfare, for the landlord's difficulties affected the peasantry
as well. Finally, the religious and patriotic feelings of both the provin-
cial and Muscovite nobility were deeply hurt at the sight of the
orthodox Tsar friendly with the "usurper" and tyrant of Europe, whom
the Russian Church had recently anathemized. Was the result of
Catherine's glorious reign to be a Russia humiliated by the Corsican?
The conservative nobility was convinced that Alexander's domestic
and foreign policies after Tilsit - whose duplicity and ultimate purpose
the Emperor could not reveal - was the work of a French agent, thedespised plebeian State Secretary. It was clear that Napoleon's agent
worked for the political and economic destruction of Russia's old
families.
Lastly, personal motives, too, played a role in building up Moscow's
dislike of Speransky. In this the most influential figure turned out
to be Count Rostopchin, in whom the lazy and passive nobility found
an energetic leader and an eloquent voice. A favorite of Paul I, Count
Rostopchin had been implicated in the plot of March 1801. Alexander
exiled him to his estates and forbade him to reappear in St. Petersburg.
Rostopchin then made his residence in Moscow. Despite his typically
18th century French education, and though he was to end his life in
voluntary exile in Paris, Count Rostopchin was fanatically anti-French
during the years preceding 1812. He persecuted everything that was
French, wherever he found it. Even before his appointment as Governor
General of Moscow on the eve of the :French invasion of 1812, he
campaigned actively against all manifestations of gallomania in the
old capital. By means of indirect social pressure he attempted, albeit
without much success, to ban the French language, manners, and
clothes from Moscow's aristocratic homes. Paradoxically, the man who
had participated in the conspiracy against Paul I and had almost be-
come a regicide, was an ardent defender of absolutism. Rostopchin's
great fear was that Russia might become a constitutional state, which,
in his opinion, would spell the doom of the nobility and of serfdom.
Russia's traditions and ideals were threatened by the ideas of the French
revolution. Equally great, Rostopchin believed, was the danger coming
from the new religious and ethical teachings of German-inspired
mystics, Free Masons, Martinists, Illuminates, and the like. The Free
Masons and mystics were in conspiracy to subvert the Russian soul,