And during the [Vienna] Congress Elizabeth ... saw Adam Czartoryski again; ... and they fell in love with each other again. In the GARF archives lies Elizabeth´s draft of a moving letter (dated February 13, 1815) that tells us much about the empress´s feelings for him. She complains of the destiny that forces her "to sacrifice to the legal order the true happiness of her life, in separating her from the being who[m] she had been accustomed during the fourteen best years of her existence to regard as another self." On March 8, when Elizabeth was to leave Vienna the same day, Czartoryski begged her to divorce Alexander and marry him; out of loyalty he informed Alexander of his request for marriage. But Alexander was hostile to the plan, less out of attachment to Elizabeth than for reasons of state: while difficult negotiations were opening in Vienna about the future of Poland, the divorce and remarriage of the empress of Russia with a Polish prince known for his commitment to reestablishing the Polish state, would not be accepted by Russian public opinion and would risk compromising the current Russo-Polish rapprochement. This argument ultimately convinced the dutiful Elizabeth to renounce her own happiness, and in November 1815 she went back to St. Petersburg for good. After having traversed a deep crisis and envisaging retiring to a convent or even ending her life, she decided by the end of 1815 or the beginning of 1816 to remain in Russia, "to suffer in silence," and to "submit herself entirely to the will of Providence."
Alexander I: The Tsar Who Defeated Napoleon by Marie-Pierre Rey
