DISGRACE AND EXILE 183indignantly refused to participate in the plot. But he made the mistake
of not reporting the matter to the Emperor. The intriguers seized upon
this error - particularly serious in view of Alexander's distrustful
personality - and conveyed to the monarch such information on the
"plot" as would imply Speransky's disloyalty.l Alexander's suspicion
was aroused, and he did not fully believe the explanation Speransky
gave of his part in the "plot." This partial success encouraged Vernegue,
Armfelt, and Balashov, in continuing their "siege" of the sovereign.
They were successful in obtaining bits of information which could be
interpreted to the detriment of the State Secretary. Furthermore,
Speransky's seemingly close connections with various mystics and
masonic groups did not contribute to the alleviating of the Emperor's
suspicions. Alexander's suspicions on this score were "kept warm" by
the Procurator of the Holy Synod, Prince A. N. Golitsyn, the Emperor's
childhood friend and active crusader against all mystifying expressions
of religion.
Speransky's enemies were able to exploit to the full his own care-
lessness and indiscretion. As we recall, the secret reports sent by Count
Nesselrode from Paris passed unopened through Speransky's hands. This
circumstance had rendered the State Secretary desirous to know more
of the Emperor's private diplomacy. Some subaltern employees of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the cypher clerk Beck, for instance,
believing that Speransky took part in all government affairs, offered
to show him some of the dispatches that passed through their hands.
Speransky did hot resist the temptation and consented to see the pieces.
Unadvisedly, he sometimes kept them at his house for a few days before
or after reading them. It so happened that his friend, Magnitskii,
noticed them lying on the desk, and although the papers were in an
envelope, Magnitskii recognized their source. Notoriously indiscreet
and braggart, Magnitskii intimated to his friends that he was not
ignorant of what these envelopes contained and that his powerful
patron and friend, State Secretary Speransky, was fully in the know of
the secrets of Russia's diplomacy. Magnitskii's boasts were picked up
by secret agents of the Minister of the Police, Balashov, and duly
reported to Alexander. With this information it was not difficult to
give credence to the rumor that Speransky was maintaining secret, and
surely treasonable, correspondence with France. It now became quite
evident that his unpopular measures and reform proposals had been
taken at the behest of Napoleon in order to-disorganize and weaken1 In exile Speransky seems to have realized it had been a mistake. Grot, "K
istorii ssylki Speranskogo," Russkii Arkhiv, (1871), pp. 2076-2077.