Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796

Katya is really great. Solovyov feels that if he doesn't find something else to do, he will probably be sent to see his mother by this girl.

She wants to have another child as planned, a half-grown girl who has not grown up yet, and when she gets married, she has just reached the legal marriage age of the nobles. I don't know what she is thinking.

However, this job opportunity still came, because a carriage stopped at the gate of his manor. It may not be noticeable to look at the noble logo, but looking at the nameplate with the job label next to it, it is quite eye-catching.

Speransky has been working on a reform plan recently, and it is a relatively comprehensive plan, so he is also willing to find members of the secret committee and qualified participants to discuss.

Now he came to Solovyov's house and had to wait for the notification.

Solovyov is indeed very happy with Katya, but he also has to consider that he still has things to do.

"Master, someone has come from Petersburg. He should be a big shot familiar to you. He claims to be Mikhail Mikhailovich Speransky."

The current housekeeper of the manor has been replaced by Katya's family. He may be more familiar with Moscow, but he doesn't know enough about big shots like Speransky.

There is no way. The servants of each family are different. Solovyov turned Adela into a mobile dictionary of Petersburg before she was adopted by her father. She is very familiar with each family.

Now, I miss her a little bit. The lovely flower girl is also my lovely sister. She does things neatly.

For Solovyov, the biggest trouble is that he is with Katya. He is more or less nostalgic for the gentle land, and even his sensitivity to many things has decreased.

It was no wonder. Although his manor was not far from Petersburg, it was a piece of land granted by the emperor, and there were still woodlands around it. It always looked deserted, except for some members of the royal family who would come here regularly for tutoring. It was summer vacation recently, and Nicholas asked Charlotte to go to the villa of the Royal Aquarium for fun, so no one would come.

He himself was a little lax, so he had to let Speransky have a cup of coffee in the reception room and enjoy some desserts. He had to change his clothes before coming out.

Since his wife died early, Speransky has been a widower. He lives with his only daughter Elizabeth and has no plans to remarry.

He was only amazed at the beauty of Solovyov's adopted sister Adela, but he was not moved. The girl was very young, and Solovyov, this guy, always cared for his sisters and would definitely find a good husband for her.

In addition to his daily state affairs, as the Tsar's personal secretary and actual state secretary, his greatest pleasure is probably to teach his daughter's studies, and he spends the same amount of time every day as the old duke.

Recently, he sent his daughter to Novgorod. The child is not very healthy and always needs to be nursed back to health. Moreover, the circle there is always better than that in Petersburg.

In this case of sending his daughter to other places, his pleasure is probably to work and complete the Tsar's great cause.

Solovyov also admires his wisdom. He just likes to innovate technology along the technology tree. In terms of reforming politics and the national system, he just likes to say a few nice words, as his teacher Suvorov said, but the implementation of specific content and the formulation of the program.

This area is far behind.

Speransky is good at this. After meeting him in Erfurt, Napoleon praised him as "the smartest man in Russia" and said to Alexander in a serious tone: "I am willing to exchange a kingdom under my rule for Speransky!"

Although his political enemy Arakcheev was an enemy, he also said: "If I had one-third of Speransky's wisdom and thoughts, I would be a great man."

It's just that his measures are more popular with Europeans, but they are seriously resisted in Russia.

In comparison, Arakcheev and he are both enemies and friends. After all, they are both important officials serving the emperor, but the communication between thinkers can only be said to be enemies of colleagues.

He is very patient when drinking coffee here, because he knows Solovyov too well.

Since he is at home and has been semi-unemployed recently, he must be more relaxed, as relaxed as a Frenchman.

If he is working, although he is a little worse than himself, he is always very efficient because he is a soldier.

He also thought that if he was like him, marching dozens of miles every day during the war, and still being alive and kicking at the next stop, it felt unlikely.

Even among the civil servants, he was already in good health.

"Mikhail Mikhailovich, I've kept you waiting for too long. How about my coffee and desserts?"

"It's said that you are the most particular about life at home. This coffee is really good, but this biscuit..."

"Too much sugar intake is not good. The desserts in Petersburg are okay, but if they are Turkish, I'm afraid they will choke people to death."

"Yes. But it's okay now. I thought about it for a while. What should I do? Some of the content of the reform plan that the emperor asked me to draft still needs to be adjusted."

"I'm afraid some people will object to your "liberal" proposals and the "dangerous revolutionary ideas" in your bills."

"You are right, that's why I came to you and asked you to take a look at the recent separation of powers bill."

Soloviev knew the task that Alexander gave to Speransky, and the final result of this decree. With Alexander's temperament, he could not complete this reform.

If the paranoid emperor Paul, or the resolute Constantine, or Nicholas who was not frightened by the Decembrists and wanted to maintain a neutral attitude between the liberals and conservatives, they might have done a good job.

Only Alexander, because he always wanted to be a "messiah" and didn't want to get blood on his hands, the reform progressed slowly and was always wavering.

Now Speransky's plan is very clear.

"Introduction to the State Code?"

"Take a look at the content, Misha. I know you are smart, quick-witted, and can understand the content. At a meeting, I remember you criticized the American system, saying that if the opposition between parties is serious, it will tear the country apart. Therefore, I also made some adjustments."

Soloviev looked at what Speransky wrote. He didn't speak a word of Russian. When writing the introduction to the code, he used French. After all, there were too many people in the court who could not master Russian fluently.

"If you write it in Russian, I think Karamzin will object. He will say that this goes against Russia's long-standing tradition, but this tradition was destroyed during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, and a gap was opened, and it was further destroyed by Boris Godunov. If you need a debater, I can challenge this gentleman."

After listening to what Solovyov said, Speransky couldn't help laughing, and he also made a more serious joke: "If you duel, a hundred Karamzins are not enough for you, but what we have to do is to solve this problem ideologically."

Speransky's reform plan is also based on the rule of law in Russia, and the separation of powers is implemented on the basis of legislation, administration and justice, but all of this is carried out under the absolute monarchy of the tsar, and the tsar can still guarantee absolute power.

There is no way. If it were in another country, Speransky might change to a constitutional monarchy.

In Solovyov's opinion, Karamzin would still object. Although this design has decentralization, it does not affect the tsar's ruling power.

The Tsar himself has the right to appoint the Grand Justice, or even dismiss him directly; the Tsar himself also has the right to convene or dissolve the parliament; as for the executive power, the civil servants headed by the Prime Minister of the Empire are also under the Tsar.

Although it seems that the president has been replaced by the hereditary Tsar, the power of the ruler is still high (you can refer to the King of Understanding), and it is still a form of big government, but the conservatives are afraid that they will not buy it.

Moreover, the Dumas at all levels set up by Speransky, from the District Duma to the State Duma, the Speaker of the State Duma is appointed by the Tsar himself, and those important Duma members also need the consent of the Tsar himself.

No matter how you look at it, it is centralized. As for the administrative organs under the charge of the Prime Minister of the Empire, they must indeed be approved by the Tsar himself.

The bill cannot take effect without the deliberation and discussion of the administrative organs and the final approval of the Tsar.

No matter how you look at it, it is not the French.

Karamzin's previous rumors are difficult to understand. Speransky has already made adjustments based on the power of the Russian side to ensure the stable operation of the four-level structure of local-district-province-state.

From the design point of view, it is still very clever.

As for the class problem inside, according to Russian tradition, serfdom has not been abolished at this time.

Therefore, it is divided into three main levels. The top level is naturally the registered nobles, and the two levels below are civilians.

The second level is the "middle class", including self-employed farmers, merchants and petty bourgeoisie with free status, who have certain property.

The third level is the "working people", including serfs, craftsmen and servants. After the property level reaches a certain level, serfs and servants can be free, and craftsmen can be promoted.

Although the noble class is more difficult to enter, the promotion standard from the third level to the second level in the two levels of the civilian class is not that high.

Speransky probably played a trick here, hoping to solve Russia's serf problem bit by bit through the sausage slicing tactic.

Judging from the reaction of Russian conservatives, it is indeed an idea to gradually adjust and lower their threshold over a period of ten to twenty years.

"Great, Mikhail Mikhailovich, your design is very clever, but there is a problem. If someone like Karamzin directly expresses opposition, it will be like overturning the table. He doesn't want to follow the plan you designed for the emperor step by step, and simply doesn't want to play cards on the table. What will you do then?"

"You are really familiar with these people. It seems that your years as an aide-de-camp have not been in vain."

Speransky also knows the problem, but he is a truly humble public servant. Apart from the happiness of his daughter's life after she grows up, he has no personal wishes now. He still wants to complete the reform in Russia, which is a truly great cause.

To be honest, Count Stroganov is the one who supports him the most. After all, he is a member of the Jacobin Club in Paris, but he also believes that the current situation in Russia is not suitable for revolution, so he naturally takes the route of reform.

Soloviev was present at the closed-door consultations of the secret committee in the first few years, and he also heard some of them. However, because he later went to Paris as a military attaché and had many overseas missions, he did not participate too deeply in the committee.

After all, he and Peter Volkonsky seemed to be the doorkeepers of the committee.

In fact, there are many contents in it, which are completely Alexander's own ideas.

In places like Russia where the power of the great nobles is relatively strong, if you want them to be honest and obedient and act according to the will of the monarch, then there are really only a few oppositions that have collapsed, or their property has been confiscated and exiled to Siberia.

However, in the murder against Paul, only the main culprit, Palen, was hanged in the square.

There is no way. The personality of the Russian Tsar, although he can be iron-blooded when expanding the territory, in addition to being tough internally, sometimes he has to play the role of "Tsar's little father" and compromise with the nobles.

Paul is just too stubborn. Although he has almost tossed the people below in one breath, he has overturned the car with his confidants under the light.

Alexander naturally had to learn from this lesson, and since he had always been an actor, it became like this.

Although what Speransky wrote was more or less the Tsar's own idea, when there were dissenting voices outside, Alexander might not agree with this series of operations.

If he didn't pay much attention to a close minister like Speransky, he would probably take him out first to blame.

Solovyov didn't know that after all his troubles, he had cleared out a lot of conservatives who might appear around Alexander.

For example, Amfelt, whose skull was taken back by the Kalmyks as a ritual weapon for the lamas, gained Alexander's trust after running from Sweden, and began to target Speransky and attack his reforms.

Catherine was forced to marry far away in France, and Solovyov had to go to escort her, which prevented the emergence of an anti-liberal circle around this girl. Although Karamzin had been introduced to Alexander, his influence was not that great.

After all, the imperial sister was going to Paris, so he just presented his own work and sang a different tune.

The remaining troubles are probably the great nobles and the Minister of Police, Balashov. (End of this chapter)