352 LAST YEARS - CONCLUSIONnew commlsslon on laws. The more "liberal" intelligentsia saw in
Speransky's return the solution of all Russia's ills, as witness the
emotional outburst of the director of the Lycee at Tsarskoe Selo,
Engel'gardt, who wrote: "Please be to Godl This [the State Secretary-
ship] is the most important post in the entire mechanism of state ad-
ministration; it has been created by him [Speransky] and there is no
other man in the state who could occupy it. He, and only he, has all
the qualities requisite for the post: intelligence, goodness of heart,
firmness, knowledge of affairs, clarity of concepts, and the ability to
carry out business easily, rapidly, and well. May it please God that he
be with us, may it please God that at the throne of our father Tsar
there be three or four men like Mikhail Mikhailovich, who would
inform him of the truth without fear; we would have an earthly
paradisel" 1 And we have seen that the Decembrist conspirators were
toying with the idea of securing his participation in their revolutionary
government.
With "society" welcoming him back - as if shamefacedly making up
for its treatment of him in 1812 ~ and Speransky's awareness of the
danger of social isolation, it would seem that nothing stood in the
way of his social success. Speransky bought a relatively big house where
his daughter could be hostess to large gatherings. He himself frequent-ed soirees, balls, receptions, and in tum had his regular "days". To
these days there came not only young men interested in obtaining the
hand of Miss Elizabeth Speransky, but also the Privy Councillor's col-
leagues, members of the higher ranks of the bureaucracy, courtiers.
The American Minister - Henry Middleton - and his family were
also frequent visitors. Apparently, these receptions were quite success-
ful affairs, for Speransky ('Guld be a charming host when he chose to. 2
But his decision to lead a social life seems to have been due so
much to rational considerations that it failed to carry the warmth and
softness of sincere emotion and personal feeling. Speransky had real-
ized the political error of social isolation, but he still did not feel the
need of the company of others, of the friendship and devotion of his1 N. Gastfreind, Tovarishchi Pushkina po lmperatorskomu Tsarskosel'skomu Litseiu,
Vol. II, p. 39 (Letter to F. Matiushkin, 25 June 1821).
2 Thus Count Kankrin, the Minister of Finance, was telling a younger official
who had been invited to Speransky's house: "I would advise you to follow suit to
the request of Mikhail Mikhailovich. You know it, my dear, that this is our most
intelligent and interesting person, and you will be perfectly satisfied with his
charming conversation. I shall also tell you that he is a clever man, and also a
good-hearted one, and this is a rare combination." I. A. Bychkov (ed.), "Dopolnitel'-
nye zametki i materialy dlia 'Zhizni M. M. Speranskogo'," Russkaia Starina, 115
(Sept. 1903), p. 515.