The Czar now sought to foster other good efforts, especially those made by some earnest nobles to free their serfs by will.  But this plan also the serf-owning caste entangled and thwarted.  At last the storm of war set in with such fury that all internal reforms must be lost sight of.  Russia had to make ready for those campaigns in which Napoleon gained every battle.  Then came that peaceful meeting on the raft at Tilsit—­worse for Russia than any warlike meeting; for thereby Napoleon seduced Alexander, for years, from plans of bettering his empire into dreams of extending it.

Coming out of these dreams, Alexander had to deal with such realities as the burning of Moscow, the Battle of Leipsic, and the occupation of France; yet, in the midst of those fearful times—­when the grapple of the emperors was at the fiercest; in the very year of the burning of Moscow—­Alexander rose in calm statesmanship, and admitted Bessarabia into the empire under a proviso which excluded serfage forever.  Hardly was the great European tragedy ended, when Alexander again turned sorrowfully toward the wronged millions of his empire.  He found that progress in civilization had but made the condition of the serfs worse.  The newly ennobled parvenus were worse than the old boyars; they hugged the serf system more lovingly and the serfs more hatefully.  The sight of these wrongs roused him.  He seized a cross, and swore that the serf system should be abolished.

Straightway a great and good plan was prepared.  Its main features were:  a period of transition from serfage to personal liberty, extending through twelve or fourteen years; the arrival of the serf at personal freedom, with ownership of his cabin and the bit of land attached to it; the gradual reimbursement of masters by serfs; and after this advance to personal liberty, an advance by easy steps to a sort of political liberty.  Favorable as was this plan to the serf-owners, they attacked it in various ways; but they could not kill it utterly.  Esthonia, Livonia, and Courland became free.  Having failed to arrest the growth of freedom, the serf-holding caste made every effort to blast the good fruits of freedom.  In Courland they were thwarted; in Esthonia and Livonia they succeeded during many years; but the eternal laws were too strong for them, and the fruitage of liberty had grown richer and better.

After these good efforts, Alexander stopped, discouraged.  A few patriotic nobles stood apart from their caste, and strengthened his hands, as Lafayette and Lincourt strengthened Louis XVI.  They even drew up a plan of voluntary emancipation; formed an association for the purpose and gained many signatures; but the great weight of that besotted serf-owning caste was thrown against them, and all came to naught.  Alexander was at last walled in from the great object of his ambition.  Pretended theologians built, between him and emancipation, walls of Scriptural interpretation; pretended philosophers built walls of false political economy; pretended statesmen built walls of sham common-sense.  If the Czar could but have mustered courage to cut the knot!  Alas for Russia and for him, he wasted himself in efforts to untie it.  His heart sickened at it; he welcomed death, which alone could remove him from it.