SPERANSKY AND THE DECEMBRlSTS 309Senate Square, the government proceeded to arrest and interrogate the
leaders, and their suspected accomplices. It did not prove difficult for
Nicholas I and his assistants (Generals Benkendorf, Chernyshev, and
Levashev) to obtain extensive confessions from the accused and draw
up a list of all participants and their sympathizers. The result, as noted
by Emperor Nicholas, was that "among the testimonies incriminatory
of individuals, but without adequate evidence to start interrogation,
there were such as to involve N. S. Mordvinov, Senator Sumarok,ov;
and even M. M. Speransky. Such testimonies gave rise to doubts -and
distrust which for a long time could not be dispelled completely." 1
Naturally, Nicholas lost no time in ordering a thorough investigation
of the relations Speransky (and the other prominent officials) had or
might have had with the Decembrists. This investigation was conducted
in utmost secrecy, unknown to (if perhaps not entirely unsuspected by)
its objects. The documents and papers pertaining to it were kept
separate from the general file on the Decembrist affair. The chief
secretary of the committee of investigation, Borovkov, recalled in his
memoirs: "The investigation of the connection between these persons
and the criminal society [of the Decembrists] was conducted in such
secrecy that even the officials of the committee [of investigation] knew
nothing about it. I myself wrote the protocols and kept them separately
and did not merge them into the general file." 2
Speransky's name came up when several of the leaders testified that
he - along with Admiral Mordvinov, Senator Stolypin, General Ermolov
- had been considered as a prospective candidate for a provisional
administration or Duma which they would set up. 3 According to some
sources his name was put forward to reconcile the programs and plans
of action of the Southern and Northern societies of the Decembrists.^4
In replying to his interrogator, the leader of the Northern Society and
1 B. E. Syroechkovskii, Mezhdutsarstvie 1825 g. i vosstanie dekabristov ... (Moscow-
Leningrad 1926), p. 30.
2 N. A. Borovkov, "Avtobiograficheskie zapiski," Russkaia Starina, 95 (Nov. 1898)
p.348.
3 lakushkin, Zapiski, p. 146 and M. Murav'ev, "Ideia vremennogo pravitel'stva
u dekabristov i ikh kandidaty," Tainye obshchestva v Rossii v nachale XIX v.,
(Moscow 1926), pp. 68-88 passim.
4 Ryleev recalled: "In the course of the conversation on the formation of a Great
Assembly (sobor), we also talked about a Provisional administration. This was, it
seems, at the house of Mit"kov. M. Murav'ev-Apostol proposed to nominate to it the
directors of Pestel's Society, one more from the Southem Directorate, and N.
Turgenev or Trubetskoi. To this the latter objected that the Provisional administra-
tion should include people already known to all of Russia and proposed Mordvinov
and Speranskii. To this all agreed. I also was in agreement, and from then on, to
the very 14 December, this idea remained unchanged in the Northern Society,"
Vosstanie dekabristov, vol. I, p. 176, quoted by Nechkina, Vosstanie 14 Dekabria
1825 g. p. 28. Also Semevskii, Politicheskie i obshchestvennye idei dekabristov, p. 492.