ABSTRACT
Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, the sister of the Russian Emperor Alexander I, was one of the extraordinary women in nineteenth-century Europe. This chapter focuses on Maria Pavlovna in her role as an unofficial state diplomat in this key period. It examines the attempt to attain the throne of Saxony, and the accompanying diplomatic means employed by Maria Pavlovna, as revealed in her ensuing private correspondence with her brother, the Emperor Alexander I, on the one hand, and her mother, the Dowager-Empress Maria Fedorovna, on the other. Alexander I had other concrete plans for Saxony, in which he would not have himself constricted by his now petty relatives. Despite her diplomatic precautions and participation at the ensuing Congress of Vienna, in the end the Russian Grand Duchess and Weimar Hereditary Princess failed to protect herself from falling into disfavour with both her brother, Emperor Alexander I and her Weimar family.
