Bonaparte, on the other hand, lost no opportunity to reconcile Paul to the great changes which had taken place since the Revolution on the map of Europe. Soon after an interchange of notes marking beyond a doubt the new disposition of the Russian foreign office, the courts of Europe heard with astonishment of a "great project" upon which the armies of France and Russia were about to embark. From the correspondence which was now exchanged between Paul and Napoleon with respect to an invasion of India it is difficult to determine how deeply Napoleon entered into the practical details of the adventurous scheme. His doubts concerning its successful outcome are everywhere apparent. But as a diversion likely to trouble public opinion in Great Britain, and as a lure whereby the Russian monarch might be more firmly attached to his system, he undoubtedly saw in this venture a useful adjunct of his policies. In documents minutely setting forth the military itinerary wliich lay before the Franco-Russian troops may still be seen the objections noted down in the handwriting of the greatest general of his age, followed by the "triumphant" refutations of the Russian Emperor scrawled in an unformed schoolboy's hand. According to this plan thirty-five thousand picked French troops (at Paul's request these were to be commanded by General Massena, the hero of the great Russian disaster at Zurich) were to descend the Danube in vessels requisitioned from the Austrian government. Crossing the Black Sea to Taganrog, flatboats were then to carry them up the course of the river Don to Piati-Isbiankaja. Here it was planned that the expedition should march overland to Tsaritzin on the Volga. Descending that great river to Astrakhan, the French detachment would cross the Caspian to Asterabad, where a corps of 35,000 Russians were to await their arrival.
Impatient to take the first steps in the execution of his "great design," Paul now ordered Russian troops once more to occupy the Caucasus and on the demand of the son of the heroic Tsar Heraclius of Georgia, this warlike httle kingdom was peacefully incorporated in the Russian empire. At the same time General Knorring was ordered to lead a Russian division against the upper Indus, passing through the country under the jurisdiction of the powerful Khans of Khiva and Bokhara. To cooperate with this difficult campaign the hetman of the Cossacks of the Don, Orlov Denissov, was ordered to proceed at once to Orenburg.
The soldier who, of all his officers, could best aid the emperor in carrying out the proposed plan, was a forgotten prisoner in the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. To transfer the ex-hetman Platov from a prison cell to the command of an important military expedition was an act which presented no incongruities to a convinced autocrat like Paul. The imprisoned Cossack chieftain, thus suddenly drawn from the society of rats and convicts by a summons to the Imperial Council, was confident that his last hour had come. Shaved and dressed in his old-fashioned uniform — scorning the assurances of his jailers — he bade farewell to his comrades, and marched bravely forth to his expected execution. His surprise may be imagined when he found himself suddenly introduced by a side door to the Winter Palace, where, after a meal such as he had not enjoyed for months, he was led directly into the private study of the Emperor.
Reassured by the Emperor's manner (which as Platov himself tells us seemed to ignore both the hetman's past wrongs and Paul's share therein) the prisoner of yesterday was invited to give his opinion upon the intricate military affairs which now engaged the Tsar's attention.
On the table before the strangely assorted pair were spread out the only available maps of the almost miknown regions of Asia where Paul had planned to initiate the role of Alexander the Great. No one knew better than Platov himself the unsurmountable difficulties of these desert wastes. "Here is the path I have chosen for you — the route of Alexander the Great," said the Emperor dramatically. "Can you follow it, to India?"