The object of this was the overthrow of British dominion in India.  Paul was to move with a large army into Hindostan, there to be joined by a French army from Egypt; then they would together sweep through the country of the Great Mogul, gathering up the English settlements by the way and so placating the native population and Princes that they would join them in the liberation of their country from English tyranny and usurpation.  Paul said in his manifesto to the army that the Great Mogul and the Sovereign Princes were to be undisturbed; nothing was to be attacked but the commercial establishments acquired by money and used to oppress and to enslave India.  At the same time he said to his army, “The treasures of the Indies shall be your recompense,” failing to state how these treasures were to be obtained without disturbing the Sovereign Princes.

It is known that Napoleon had plans of an empire in the East, and it is also known that some compact of this kind did exist between him and the Emperor Paul.  In 1801 eleven regiments of Cossacks, the vanguard of the army which was to follow, had started upon the great undertaking, when news was received that the Emperor Paul I. was dead.

The unbalanced course pursued by the Tsar, his unwise reforms, and his capricious policy had not only alienated everyone, but caused serious apprehensions for the safety of the empire.  He had arrayed himself against his wife and his children; had threatened to disinherit Alexander, his oldest son and heir, whom he especially hated.  A plot was formed to compel his abdication.  To that extent his sons Alexander and Constantine were aware of and party to it.

On the night of the 23d of March, 1801, the conspirators entered Paul’s sleeping apartment after he had retired, and, sword in hand, presented the abdication for him to sign.  There was a struggle in which the lamp was overturned, and in the darkness the Tsar, who had fallen upon the floor, was strangled with an officer’s scarf.

On the 24th of March, 1801, Alexander, who was entirely innocent of complicity in this crime, was proclaimed Emperor of Russia.

It is said that when Bonaparte saw the downfall of his vast design, he could not contain his rage; and pointing to England as the instigator of the deed, he said in the Moniteur:  “It is for history to clear up the secret of this tragedy, and to say what national policy was interested in such a catastrophe!”

The Emperor Paul had an acute, although narrow, intelligence, and was not without generous impulses.  But although he sometimes made impetuous reparation for injury, although he recalled exiles from Siberia and gave to Kosciusko and other patriots their freedom, unless his kindness was properly met the reaction toward severity was excessive.  A little leaven of good with much that is evil sometimes creates a very explosive mixture, and converts what would be a mild, even tyranny