Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796.

The charge of being a French spy was indeed a charge that Balashov often fabricated.

Although it sounds a bit embarrassing, this crime can cause a huge stir as long as it is charged, even without any direct evidence.

The reason why Solovyov was fine despite his French kinship was because his combat record was still guaranteed, and Balashov also had to consider who was behind the person he was dealing with.

Although Solovyov seemed to have the emperor and the queen mother as his backers, he actually did not rely on them. Behind him were the two Grand Dukes Constantine and Nicholas.

Although Grand Duke Nicholas is still young, he can now be considered to have his own independent political power.

Middle school students with independent political power. Before this age, Peter the Great had his own group of playmates, and Peter II briefly overthrew Menshikov before he contracted smallpox. They each had their own power.

Nicholas is still in middle school now, but he already has a strong ability to intervene in trivial matters.

For example, when his master got married, if he had not embarrassed the old witch in front of Princess Saltykov's wife, Katya might have become someone else's wife, and her married life would not have been happy.

Alexander didn't care what his younger brothers did. He had no son until now, so he naturally paid attention to his younger brothers' performance. Constantine privately stated that no matter whether it was a possible nephew or an existing younger brother who inherited the throne in the future, he was willing to assist them, just like he was in front of his elder brother.

Therefore, it was actually tacitly agreed that Nicholas should be given free rein to interfere in trivial matters and to start cultivating his own people among his classmates and entourage.

Russia is obviously very stable, but after Alexander imitated King Zhuang of Chu, he has now transformed into King Zhao.

But there is a very clear rule in the inheritance law. Paul has stipulated the order of succession: the eldest son and grandson, followed by the second son, the third son, and the youngest son.
It can be said that it was a strange historical reversal, from the Qing Dynasty back to the Ming Dynasty.

Peter the Great's idea was to follow the instructions, but he did not consider that someone might tamper with the edict.

Paul's idea was to follow the order of succession law. He didn't expect that his sons would be humble for the throne. The one sitting on the throne would more or less hold power together with his second brother and the queen mother. Although he had absolute say, he wanted to issue his own decree of succession.

That is to say, the Winter Palace does not have a plaque of "open and aboveboard", otherwise it would be quite convenient to have a secret system of appointing the crown prince.

Alexander had already begun to pay attention to the training of Nicholas at this time. After all, the throne of the family could not be left without an heir. Considering that there were six sisters between the brothers, the gap was enough for a generation, so letting Nicholas succeed to the throne was not an impossible option.

Because the Tsar himself always had a superstitious belief, that is, all his children were girls. This seemed scientific no matter how you looked at it, but he wanted to explain it with metaphysics. He became interested in some special sects within the Orthodox Church and even visited the Freemasonry in person.

The priest was a Freemason. In fact, the origins of Freemason membership were very complicated.

Speransky was a Freemason, Kutuzov was a Freemason, Pierre was a Freemason, and Balashov wanted to control some Masonic organization.

This is bound to lead to some factors of power struggle. If there is any place that can escape the inspection of the Minister of Police, it is probably some Freemasonry with relatively secretive rules.

Balashov would certainly be dissatisfied with these issues, so after the first confrontation with Speransky ended due to off-field interference, he is now going to launch a second round of offensive.

The problem was that the time he chose happened to be Speransky's wedding day.

At this time, many of his relatives and friends will also attend the ceremony.

Even Speransky's political enemy Arakcheev was in the church, as well as Sergei Kuzmich, the governor-general of St. Petersburg, and the family of the tutor Saltykov.

More importantly, it is the relatives on the girl's side. Speransky himself does not have many relatives, so his background is only the Tsar and the church.

As for Adela's relatives, they were mainly from Solovyov's side, Katya's family. There were at least three families from Dolgorukov's side alone, including Prince Peter's eldest son Vladimir, who was here to treat his old injuries recently. When he heard about what happened in Solovyov's family, he also came to join in the fun.

In fact, among the three brothers in his family, he was the only one who was seriously injured during the war, but he was lucky enough to survive until now, but he was in reserve most of the time.

Given his injury, it is not easy for him to return to his post. Many old wounded soldiers are in the same situation, and war is always very costly.

Solovyov felt a little sad when he saw him.

Among the young men who had served as aide-de-camp at the time, it seemed that he was the only one left in St. Petersburg, and many of the others had even died on the battlefield.

This was partly because Alexander was a Tsar who went to the battlefield, so the loss rate of his attendants and adjutants was also very high. Some died of illness, and some, like Mikhail, had become generals but were killed in battle.

"Seeing you, Valodia, I don't know what to say."

"It's okay. My brothers also encountered these things. You are not so lucky. Be careful of the court in Petersburg."

"why?"

Vladimir was different from his two younger brothers. He had served in the regular army before he was seriously injured, so he knew something about the situation.

"We, father and son, are both loyal to the Emperor and will never change our hearts, but there are some conspiracy groups. You are familiar with this, right?"

"Of course I know. Are you talking about the conspiracy cases in those places when Emperor Paul was still alive? You seemed to be implicated at the time, and it was old Prince Peter who found a way to get you out."

"It's good that you know. Besides, I heard a few days ago that someone was targeting the people around you."

"I understand they can target me, but the parties involved are all here now."

"Count Arakcheev will not target you. He is always straightforward and puts the problem on the table."

"You want me to be careful of the poisonous snakes in the shadows?"

"You can think so, but you have the care of the princes, so it's not easy for anyone to threaten you."

The one who should be worried is Speransky, who has a higher status. After all, he is still a second-class civil servant and Secretary of State. With this status, he can easily be targeted by conservatives.

Even if it weren't for the political reform, the control of the Freemasons and internal denunciations might be even more troublesome. Prince Vladimir's reminder was also for the sake of his two deceased brothers. Many of their friends have died over the years, but Solovyov is still okay. He is even very active and has a higher military rank.

As for himself, his promotion was delayed after he was seriously injured. He is currently only a major general of cavalry, and it seems that it will be difficult for him to recover from this injury.

"I know the situation, Valodia. I think you should rest and recuperate. With all your injuries, you should rest."

"But my father is old, and there is no pillar in the family, so I have to show up more often."

"My father is a different story, he's still very active."

"I really envy you and your son, but your brothers are too young, I'm afraid it will be very difficult for you too."

"It doesn't matter. My family has many relatives and we can support each other. In your family, although the various branches are closely related, they can't take care of each other."

As he spoke, Adela had already appeared at the altar in her wedding dress, and the priest was going to bless her marriage to Speransky.

Although she was only his adopted sister, he took great care of her and prepared a generous dowry for her, which was comparable to Julia's dowry.

As for the wedding dress, she likes lighter colors, so she got a sky blue one.
It suited her very well, and Speransky was a little absorbed in watching her on the stage.

For a man whose work efficiency might be affected by a woman, having such a beauty as his second wife who could also serve as his assistant made him very satisfied.

Everyone on the stage was blessing the newlyweds and didn't pay any attention to any off-stage factors.

While everyone's attention was focused here, Balashov sent people to spy on the Freemasonry where Speransky was, and seek opportunities to obtain some materials that were unfavorable to Speransky in the future.

He was also at the wedding, and everyone seemed to be smiling, but after knowing the real situation, they probably wouldn't be so happy.

The issue of Freemasonry is just the first step now.

The material that Balashov wanted to find was Speransky's defeatist remarks expressing his dissatisfaction with the government.

Especially the correspondence between him and the Freemasons, the position of Minister of Police has this advantage, that the letters passing through the postal system can be read by both the Minister of Posts and him.

Therefore, he also knew some of the remarks, and further spying and wiretapping would certainly produce some small notes.

Although Speransky is very cautious now, it does not mean that the officials around him can control their mouths well.

Balashov also had a chance. He just kept an eye on Speransky's network of relationships. Naturally, there were some places that could not be touched.

While everyone was having fun here, they naturally didn't know what was happening outside.

From Soloviev's point of view, these Masonic organizations are probably nothing, they just always make a fuss about them in Russia. When Paul was in power, he banned Russian nobles from leaving the country because they were worried about the wave of revolution.

As a bastion of reactionary rule, Tsarist Russia has always been a contradiction. On the one hand, it suppressed revolutions and expanded its territory; on the other hand, it was liberating the Balkan countries and some Slavic countries (except Poland), and incidentally, it also served as the protector of Christians in the Eastern Mediterranean region.

On the one hand, although it is very cruel as an imperialist country, it is this contradictory country that makes the greatest contribution when dealing with infidels.

Other countries are definitely aiming for sustainable exhaustion of resources, but Russia's purpose is very complicated, and in the end it often sacrifices itself for a certain mission.

Balashov has his eyes on these places and is also checking the lists of some of the organizations.

It is no wonder that revolutionaries were always harassed by spies. At the beginning of the 19th century, when revolutionary ideas were not yet popular in Russia, the Tsar’s Minister of Police had already sent his spies to infiltrate the upper circles of St. Petersburg.

To the extent that when some Freemasonry lodges or associations hold meetings, the contents may be recorded and finally summarized to the Minister of Police or the Tsar.

But the extent of control of this secret police really depends on the focus of the Minister of Police.

Let's not talk about how future ministers will act as lackeys, people like Balashov who use this means to attack their political enemies are asking for trouble within the ruling class.

This approach is actually not recommended. If it were exposed and he lost the Tsar's trust, then it might be a different matter.

There are always some people in Russia who have a natural fear of change, even a fear that transcends class.

Alexander is still watching the show now, but no one can predict how he will make his decision in the future.

Solovyov knew that as long as he used Balashov, he would focus all his energy on attacking his political enemies, and would not be able to do the truly useful counterintelligence work and monitor some dissatisfied young nobles.

The reason for saying this is simple. When facing a powerful enemy, they use the guise of French spies to deal with people, but in fact there is no evidence. Even the real French spies who should be taken care of may be ignored. This is the biggest problem.

Even Napoleon can now carry out illegal surveying and various activities within Russia. It is not easy to control these underground spy organizations. Russia's territory is so vast. If there is really a French spy hiding somewhere, as long as the police force is not enough and is used for internal fighting, the French spies can easily operate in the Dnieper River Basin and the cities along the Baltic Sea. Some spies who have penetrated deep into Russian territory have already arrived in Smolensk and are about to head for Moscow.

But he is not the Tsar, so he cannot control this matter. He also has to pay attention to self-protection and not cause any problems.

Moreover, he himself did not want to be involved in political struggles at this time. 1812 was about to come, and this winter would be very difficult.

The comet is still clearly visible in the sky. Although its brightness has weakened since August, it is still clear in the night sky.

At times like this.
A lot of things will happen this winter, but things with Pierre and Natasha may change a little.

After all, Andre and Lisa are still doing well, and Lisa is even going to have a fourth child - if there are no blocking measures, young couples who already have children can continue to have children as long as the woman's body adjusts.
But with so many children, no matter how weird the old duke is, he will probably be controlled by a few little ghosts. Does the old man always love his grandchildren? (End of this chapter)