Tsar Alexander I, the man of mystery, became increasingly involved in mysticism and increasingly more suspicious of those around him. On the way to the conference in Aachen, Germany, an attempt had been made to kidnap him. Now he would trust no one. At home, his young daughter, an only child, died, and his wife became ill.
In 1825, the "Tsar of All the Russians" died in the city of Taganrog. After an official announcement of the Tsar's death, a British ambassador at the Russian court said he had seen Alexander boarding a ship. It was later rumored that a monk in Siberia, Feodor Kuzmich, was really the former ruler. Whatever the truth, when the Soviet Government opened Alexander's grave many, many years later, it was empty.
Within weeks of Alexander's death, there was an unsuccessful attempt by liberal-minded military officers to seize power from the crown, now known as the Decembrist Revolt. The Decembrists were caught off guard by confusion regarding the order of succession. Historians believe that the secret societies to wrest power from the crown appeared after the Russian officers' return from their Napoleonic campaigns in Europe in 1815.
