316 SPERANSKY AND THE DECEMBRISTS
however, he had his trusted aide, General Dibich, write on July 10,
1826, to the President of the Court, Prince Lopukhin, to the effect that
the Emperor was opposed not only to the cruelty of quartering, but
also to the firing squad, or to any kind of death that would involve the
shedding of blood (e.g. beheading). 1 The only other form of death -
and it was obvious that the five would be sentenced to die - was
hanging. And so it was that the five chief leaders were sentenced to the
gallows and executed on July 13. It is interesting to note, though, that
the first draft of General Dibich's letter to Lopukhin was found to
have been in Speransky's hand. So that in this grisly detail too, Spe-
ransky was the interpreter of Nicholas' will to the Court.
The last action of the drama in which Speransky had to participate,
was the writing of the manifesto, made public on July 13, 1826, which
announced that the sentence of the Court had been carried out. With
it, the Decembrist affair was closed officially.' The Emperor could bewell satisfied with Speransky's services. It had also given him ample
opportunity to observe at close quarter the special abilities of Speransky;
Nicholas I did not forget them.
Like many another loyal official, but with much greater talent and
efficiency, Speransky took an active part in the liquidation of what, in
his eyes, was an open rebellion against the traditional legal authority
in the Russian state. The overwhelming majority of the officials who
sat in judgment over the Decembrists were quite mediocre men, without
much moral strength. Their duty as judges do not seem to have given
rise to any particularly significant conflicts of conscience, not even
to the members of the clergy. The only one who dared to speak out
his mind and raise his voice in defense of mercy and moral justice was
Admiral Mordvinov. Speransky remained silent. We shall probably
never know his inner feelings, his mental and spiritual attitude toward
this role of judge over his own friends and assistants. The only evidence
on the way he might have felt is indirect and comes from long after
the events. One defendant, Basargin, recollected that when he was called
in to answer the three questions put by the Court, he stood near
Speransky at whose house he had been a visitor and who was well
acquainted with his father. Speransky looked at him sadly, and a tear
rolled down his cheek. 2 Speransky's daughter also remembered that
during the entire duration of the trial, her father often cried and spent1 The full text of the letter was first published by Shchegolev, "1'. G. Kakhovskii"
in Byloe (Jan. 1906) and then in Dekabristy, p. 227. Also Golitsyn. "Speranskii v
verkhovnom sude ...... lac. cit., p. 84.