Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796

Chapter 173 030 Alexander's Secret Committee

As Louisa's belly grew, she was taken care of more by the servants sent by Alexander, and Solovyov's happy life of chatting with her was almost coming to an end.

And he was very clear about his position. He was not like those officers of the Guards. After all, he succeeded, and like Louisa, both sides were playing an ambiguous game of keeping a certain distance and being very close.

He was going to go back to Alexander, after all, the Tsar also needed him, and the reward during the coup had not been redeemed.

"Your Majesty, Solovyov has been ordered to return."

"Ah, you are here, sit here, I have been thinking about where to take up a position for you these days, do you want to be a diplomat?"

"Your Majesty, although I can speak a few foreign languages, and even Chinese, I am not very good at diplomatic rhetoric, and I am as stupid as the British ambassador."

When mentioning Lord Whitworth, Alexander knew that he was not directly involved in the regicide. All parties wanted Paul to step down, so there was no excessive anger in his words, but some sarcasm.

"If you were in England, you might be sent to St. Petersburg as an ambassador. Going to London or Paris would be very suitable for you. I learned from Lisa that your stepmother is French."

"Yes, Your Majesty, my stepmother is French, but she is from the West Indies."

"Maybe she has some relationship with the wife of the First Consul of France. I heard that the lady is from the West Indies, I think it's Martinique. Where is the Baroness from?"

"It's Guadeloupe, even though they are on an island, they are not that closely related, right?"

"That doesn't matter. You can choose to go to Paris. Those French People always say that Paris is the center of the world. "

"Some people say that Cusco is the belly button of the world, Your Majesty."

"Haha. You are good at making jokes. You succeeded in making me laugh. So, you will go to my restaurant for duty at noon today. You are an adjutant who is willing to study hard. You are hired by Peter's uncle. You are one of us anyway."

Soloviev could not imagine how many hidden figures were hidden in the Moscow Grenadiers. He followed his superiors from the garrison to St. Petersburg. His old superiors were from the Volkonsky family and brought a lot of effects.

"In addition, how is the relationship between Peter and Sonya going?"

"Your Majesty's staff officer and Her Majesty's maid are very close and always go for a walk in the pond behind the Tavrid Palace."

"That's great. I hope they can make some progress, but don't be nervous. I won't arrange marriages for you like your father did. You have to adapt. If you want to get married, you have to see what kind of families the girls come from."

No wonder Alexander and Constantine can chat with Duke Enghien. The Tsar is more willing to be a "friend of women" rather than a "marriage agency."

At lunch time, Solovyov knew all the people who came here. In addition to Count Stroganov and Czartoryski, the "Little Poland next door", there were Kochubey and Novosiltsev.

These four people can be said to be Alexander's closest friends in the inner circle. Although he failed to hook up with Count Pavel's wife and was almost pushed down by his Polish friend, this did not affect their friendship.

In Solovyov's view, only Kochubey had served as the deputy prime minister of the empire, so he always had some diplomatic and administrative experience. The other three mainly made suggestions as friends on political policies. In short, this was a high-end political exchange meeting, much higher than the keyboard warriors, and they could really go straight to the point after they finished speaking.

Behind Alexander stood Peter Volkonsky, who was already a general of the aide-de-camp. Solovyov played the role of aide-de-camp. Alexander's other friends had not returned to St. Petersburg, so some people were absent from this meeting.

They all had the right to enter and exit Alexander's restaurant at will, and they could speak more freely, and occasionally they could change to Alexander's name when addressing "Your Majesty".

"Adam, it's great that you're back. Today our committee is fully staffed."

"But there's one more general and one more adjutant, Sasha, what are you going to do?"

"From today on, we can discuss political matters here. Petya and Misha are the aide-general and aide-de-camp. They are just here to supplement military issues. After all, you are palace eunuchs, diplomats and administrative officials. Among the five of us, only I am a soldier."

"We all know, Sasha, how are you and Lisa doing recently?"

Czartoryski still misses Louisa, and Alexander is relatively calm about asking about his wife.

"Lisa is pregnant again. She has been resting in the Tavrid Palace during this period. You know she is always sick or very weak, but she is much better there. She looks like she was when she first arrived in St. Petersburg."

Alexander's best impression of Louisa is the image of a girl in a nightgown, wearing a wreath on her head and curled up in his arms. It is always the best when she is just married.

"I hope she is in good health"

Obviously, the man from next door still misses it, but he doesn't have the chance to go to Tafrid Palace. Alexander will arrange many tasks for him.

"Adam, you should also prepare to get married. You are the only one among us who is single. By the way, we have to add the major, Misha, but you are too young, so this situation is different."

It seems that among Louisa's suitors, only these two are the closest, and one of them has succeeded.

And Alexander often unfolds the great prophecy skill unconsciously, and it is not known whether he really knows it or not. This game sounds very exciting, and the risk factor is not low.

"It's hard for me to get married until our common and personal careers come to fruition. Your Majesty, you also know that Alexander, what you are going to do is groundbreaking not only in Russia, but also in the world. "

"So I need you. Today we have to think about what we can do."

Alexander's problem is that he has a wide range of interests and the topics are very broad, so it is easy to miss the key points.

But Count Stroganov quickly condensed the topic and said directly: "Your Majesty, I think that at this time, what needs to be solved is the issue of the serfs' affiliation and the national financial difficulties. There is always a lot of pressure on our financial budget. Her Royal Highness the Queen can save you 800,000 rubles. This is only the budget cost saved by the virtuous Queen. Compared with our country's annual budget of tens of millions, this is Just a fraction."

"Pasha, have you thought of anything?"

"I think it is necessary for the royal family to save money."

"But it's not easy for me to explain to my mother. In the past few years, I have saved a lot of expenses. It is difficult to save this expense in the courts of Pavlovsk and Gatchina."

For the dowry of Maria and Catherine's wedding, Paul still established a "royal fund" for the royal family using existing jewelry. This has been prepared and cannot be touched until there is an emergency, that is, Those two girls are also quite sensible and usually save money on their expenses. The biggest expense in the palace is mainly on the Queen Mother.

"But the ostentation here between Your Majesty and the Queen can still be appropriately reduced."

Of course, Alexander's own expenses are actually not low, and the part that can be saved is limited. That is to say, Louisa does not want such a high queen's expenses, and suddenly reduces a large amount of expenses.

"This is also feasible. I can also save 250,000 rubles, but it must be used as education funds, especially for running schools in Petersburg and major cities."

Alexander's outfit is still the same uniform he often wore during the Paul period. For an emperor like him who spent money lavishly, it was already considered frugal. That is to say, both Louisa and Maria Naryshkina don't like to dress up. One is a beauty with light makeup, and the other never likes to dress up. She wants everyone present to focus on her magnificent figure. ——The expenses of both of them are really not high, and together they can save Alexander a lot. If it weren't for the hostile relationship between the palace and his mistress, they might even be able to become friends.

"This is just about saving money. What's important is how to improve our country's fiscal revenue on the basis of gradually abolishing the poll tax."

"Pasha is right, Your Majesty, we can't always have this kind of money-grabbing."

Novolisitsev still agreed with his cousin's suggestion, and the time he spent with Alexander should be second only to the Tsar's personal tutor, the Swiss Laharp, and he repeatedly prevented him from committing crimes when he was in the second grade of middle school. stupid.

According to the statistics of the confiscated homes submitted by Alexey Kurakin, this income amounted to ten million rubles. Although it is not as good as the property of Count Stroganov's family, it is still a large amount for Russia's current budget. Not a small expense.

“When raiding a home, we must also consider that real estate and some artworks are themselves relatively slow to realize, and it is impossible to turn them all into usable wealth.”

Stroganov said this, and Alexander nodded all the time. Among the Russian treasury settlements, there are many real estates of the great nobles in Petersburg and Moscow. In fact, due to various reasons such as abandonment of inheritance, donation, and lack of heirs, It was collected and exists as national property, but many properties are now empty and need to bear maintenance fees, which has eaten up a lot of government expenses.

In 1857, after the Crimean War, Russia's fiscal budget for that year was 260 million rubles, but a large part of it was used to fill fiscal deficits and various debts. Now it is 1801, and the fiscal budget left by Paul has already It is close to 100 million rubles, and much of it is still used to fill the fiscal deficit and various expenditures in the late Queen's period. Essentially, four generations have faced this problem.

"Then there is another way. I melted all the gold and silver in the palace to cast currency and use it as a reserve of precious metals. Only with sufficient precious metals as a guarantee can the issuance of banknotes be guaranteed."

Those who were in charge of money were Kochubei, who sometimes listened to reports from the finance minister’s subordinates, and Solovyov, who had some financial knowledge on a daily basis. The banknote ruble was exchanged for 68 kopecks for silver rubles. Through Paul's series of new policies, the exchange rate was improved to 80 kopecks. I am afraid that the banknotes will depreciate again.

"Your Majesty, when issuing banknotes, we must not issue them indiscriminately."

Although Solovyov was listening, he knew the dangers. After all, his family had been dealing with money for three generations.

"You can talk, Misha. I know that your ancestral craft is to deal with money. And"

"Your Majesty, I'd better talk about it myself."

Soloviev's grandfather embezzled money from smuggling in Arkhangelsk for several years, which was equivalent to 8% of the national tax revenue in the last year of Peter the Great. There are many problems involved in this family scandal.

If the governors of various places can severely crack down on the local nobles, they can actually dig out a lot of things.

Even when Solovyov himself talked about these family scandals, he did not forget to think about Peter the Great and the late Emperor Paul. Only these two had time to toss with the nobles. As a result, one insisted on going into the water to save people, which aggravated his kidney disease and died early, and the other was murdered by his own confidants. These two can be said to be the most feared by the nobles. After all, one wants life and the other wants money.

However, the local governors may not be able to do things well. Some of them have to make money when they go down, and some of them are calculated by the local nobles when they go down.

In Russia, after all, there is a precedent that no one can afford to offend except Peter the Great, that is, the rural autonomy of local nobles.

The problems of these nobles are huge. To be honest, this is the root problem of Russia. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the nobles were barely suppressed according to the will of Peter the Great. Soon, a magical Peter III appeared. This uncle loosened the nobles and left all the problems to future generations.

The foundation of the queen was unstable, but she was able to suppress these people with her prestige in the later period. Among the huge expenditures of the country, the largest part was the military expenditure, which once accounted for 73%. The expenses of the royal family have remained high, and the government can only control 12% of the expenditure.

These problems were left to Alexander. Paul himself cracked down severely and reduced the privileges of the nobles, but he did not kill them all. After all, he was still the largest landlord, and the basis of his rule was these people. He could see the power of the serfs, and he also knew that he had the prestige to use this power. The peasants all listened to the words in the emperor's edict, which listened to their opinions, but they could not afford to use it. If they were not careful, they might overthrow the Russian royal family. This dilemma was unavoidable.