Petrovitdi Paul I., emperor of Russia, born Oct. 12,1754, assassinated March 23,1801. He was the son of Peter III. and Catharine II., and when, after the assassination of Peter, Catharine assumed the reins of government (1762), she furnished Paul with good instructors, but kept him in ignorance of public affairs. As he grew up, her personal dislike of him became so great that she compelled him to live at a distance from the capital, surrounded him with spies, and would have disinherited him if she could. Such treatment made him morose, revengeful, craven toward his mother, yet wilful and tyrannical toward inferiors. At the age of 19 he was married by order of his mother to a princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, and after her death in 1776 to a princess of Wurtemberg. His second wife bore him four sons (Alexander, Constantine, Nicholas, and Michael) and five daughters. In 1780 Paul travelled through Poland, Germany, Italy, France, and Holland. On his return he continued to live in retirement, 30 m. from St. Petersburg, while his children were brought up at court under the direction of Catharine. Afterward he took part in the war against Sweden, but his mother deprived him of every opportunity of becoming familiar with the duties of his position. Catharine died Nov. 17,1796, and Paul ascended the throne.

One of his first acts was to cause funeral honors to be paid to his murdered father, and he ordered the remains of his mother's former favorite, Prince Potemkin, to be disinterred and thrown into a ditch. To undo whatever Catharine had done seemed to be his guiding principle. He disbanded her armies, declared peace with Persia, disapproved of her policy toward Poland, liberated Kosciuszko and the other Polish prisoners, decreed that the female line should henceforth be excluded from succession, and invited his eldest son to assist in the administration. But his defective education, egotism, and nervous and fitful temper made him an execrable tyrant. His most puerile whims and caprices were raised to the dignity of laws, and a well organized secret police was constantly active in discovering victims for his wrath. His numerous petty oppressions exasperated the people even more than his hatred of liberal ideas, his decrees forbidding the importation of all books or newspapers printed in French, and similar measures.

At first he became a party to the coalition against revolutionary France, and his armies obtained some successes in Italy, Switzerland, and Holland; but having afterward suffered severe reverses, Paul became disgusted with his allies, expelled the French refugees from Russia, and endeavored to get up a coalition against Great Britain. In this he succeeded so far that Denmark, Sweden, and Prussia joined him in a treaty of armed neutrality. But his hatred of Great Britain had become so violent that he was far from being satisfied with this success. Through the " St. Petersburg Journal" he challenged to personal combat all those kings who were unwilling to take sides with him against England. At last his capriciousness and despotism seemed to border on insanity. A conspiracy was formed by a number of noblemen, among whom Counts Pahlen and Zuboff, Generals Benning-sen and Uvaroff, and Lieut. Col. Tatisheff were the most conspicuous. To his son Alexander they represented that they had no other object than to compel the emperor, on the ground of mental incapacity, to abdicate the throne. They forced their way into Paul's chamber late at night, and presented for his signature a letter of abdication.

He refused to sign, whereupon Zuboff knocked him down and kneeled upon him, and, the other conspirators assisting, the emperor was murdered within hearing of his eldest son and successor. All classes in St. Petersburg received the news of his death with great rejoicing.