Friedrich Melchior Grimm (revisited)

A lot has been written on the subject and it is more or less common knowledge that Paul never really accepted his problematic heritage and hated his mother for her “Saltycov” affair that brought him to life.

It would be therefore correct to assume that Paul as Tzar also attacked the specific members of Russian nobility that shared his secret and that his “Pauline law”-establishing the succession to the throne to the male hires of the Tzar- and his simultaneous attack on the “old aristocrats” were the basic motives of his murderers.

Paul’s reconciliation with Rome (Paul believed in the unification of the two churches and Pius VII had restored the Jesuit order in Russia following Paul’s written application, shortly before his murder) is furthermore an indication of his attempt to reconcile as well with France (at the time on their way to the Concordat, signed mid 1801, recognising Catholicism as the religion of the 'great majority' of the French people). This part of Paul’s foreign policy must have also seriously disturbed Jacobin plans at the time!

For these reasons our “hero” decided his son’s assassination and replacement by his grandson, Tzar Alexander I, the execution carried out by the known group of assassins, Platon Zubov, Pahlen, Benningsen,Kotchubey* and Paul Alexandrovich Stroganov, our heroe’s other son, the victim’s halfbrother and, according to some sources, leader of the group of assassins . (Paul had cancelled a previous 1800 assassination plan by expellling the conspirators from Russia, among them the british ambassador)

P.A.Stroganov, a Jacobin, member of the “Noeuf soeurs” and the Grand Orient of France (according to Oleg Platonov) , among Russia’s first ministers in 1802 (deputy minister under Kotchubey) is evidence of our heroe’s “strong allegiance” or even submission to the Jacobins and their “D’Orleans” link that enabled members of his family to safely return later to France, (among them propably Alexander I himself in 1825)..

Following a visit to London, P.A. Stroganov died suddenly 1817 on board a vessel bound for Copenhagen thus our hero’s “Stroganov” line came to an end (P.A.Stroganov’s own son was previously killed fighting Napoleon) but, considering his other “child producing” endeavours there was no lack of heirs, thus the following "Stroganovs"....

-In 1828 a count Stroganov was granted a loan of 3.2 million rubbles (some 25 % of the sumtotal loans at the time by Krankin.
"The Modernisation of Russia, 1676-1825" By Simon Dixon p96)

And

-A count Sergei Stroganov senator, member of the State Council, general-governor of Moscow, he owned 94000 adult male serfs and 1400000 hectares of land, *8.11.1794, +Stroganoff Palace 27.5.1882; m.1818 Css Natalia Pavlovna Stroganova (*1796 +1872)…

....both appear to have awfully much in common with the "Saltycov branch"** of the family.

THE END

(Next thread on "Jean Jacques Rousseau": See:
http://www.online-literature.com/for...003#post639003)

*Note: A mysterious character, this "Victor Kotchubey", highly talented and with a western lustre, he was russian ambassador to Constantinople 1796 or so , ie shortly after "Labros Katsonis's" aegean adventures (As "colonel Rooke", was there 1810 too, see footnotes 288,289 of J.C.Hobhaus diary at http://www.hobby-o.com/constantinople.php#fn288). It's not just the latter's name, originally "Caccioni" (Gasparo Caccioni, an older music associate of Gioachino Cocchi) and "Canciani" (Giuessepe Canciani, cooperated with Gluck, founder of russian ballet) linking him to Saint Germain but his portrait too:
See and compare the portraits of Lambros and Victor on the web: The same face! (Victor's portrait at http://european-miniatures2.blogspot.com/ item 1042, Lambros's-by Johann Baptist Lampi, the same who portrayed Alexander S.Stroganov-at Wikipedia).
"Kotchubey" (ie "Katsonis") was also spelled "Kotsebu" in Odessa, Crimea (Odessa's second governor, around 1860-70, after Stroganov- quoting from "Diaspora Merchants in the Black Sea By Vasilēs A. Kardasēs").

In the meantime further traces of “Cocceji” have been discovered: He appears once, early 1758, as Kaiser Friedrich’s aide de camp to disappear soon after and only reappear again as Friedrich’s intermediary for peace (letter to the marquisse de Sachsen Gottha, FREYBERG, 16th February, 1760. The letter is censored). It is highly impropable that “C.L.Cocceji” and Russian general “Soltikow” (Peter Semenovich) were one and the same person but imo they were relatives nevertheless. One should mention here August Friedrich Ferdinand von “Kotzebue’s” birth in Weimar on May 3, 1761:He was not “Carl Ludwig’s”-ie Saint Germain’s- son by La Barberina, as previously believed but, most propably a son of his elder brother Johann Friedrich von Cocceji (see "C.F. Gellerts Briefwechsel" By Christian Fürchtegott Gellert, John F. Reynolds, p 357: Johann Friedrich Heinrich von Cocceji was Kanzler Samuel Cocceji's elder son and Frederic’s adjutant. “Carl Ludwig” was*** thus his younger brother, born in Bohemia) .

**Note: Equally mysterious, propably another alias of "Saint Germain", was count Ivan Petrovich Saltykov who also had a part in Paul I's "removal".

***Note: "pretendend to be" or "used the identity of..." rather.

P.S.

Present day descendants of the Cocchini family, residents of the “Grand Orient” and in “positions of authority”, are by themselves proof of the correctness of all above conclusions:

Placed on both sides of a potential future “hotspot” they seem to me as ready to stage another “opera buffa” which I have no interest whatsoever to witness.

Fortunately one side, “Moscau’s realtor”, is, as far as I am able to distinguish, a talented stage manager of Hesiod’s original “Prometheus bound” whereas the other side, “Bolek and Lolek” etc, are stuck on the disputed Aeschyllus version and while preparing their “Hermes" (agoraeus) part, they are also contemplating Pandora’s reintroduction (via the sea, as a victorious mermaid)!.

It’ll flop, trust me, I know, afterall I am greek!