THE
EMPIRE OF THE CZAR ;
SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND RELIGIOUS STATE PROSPECTS OF RUSSIA,
MADE DURING A JOURNEY THROUGH THAT EMPIRE. BY
THE MARQUIS DE CUSTINE.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.
' Respectez surtout les etrangers, de quelque quality, de quelque rang qu'ils soient; et si vous n'etes pas a meme de les combler de presents, prodiguez-leur au moins des marques de bienveillance, puisque de la maniere dont ils sont traites dans un pays depend le bien et le mal qu'ils en disent en ie-tournant dans le leur.'
Extrait des Conseils de Vladimir Monomaque a ses Enfants en 1126
IN THREE VOLUMES.
LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS,
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE,
The work recently published in Paris, of which these volumes are a translation, has appeared in the form of letters addressed to anonymous friends.
This form has not been preserved in the translation, which is divided into chapters ; an arrangement better adapted to the taste of the English reader, and unobjectionable in other respects, as the division of the chapters still corresponds with that of the original epistles.
In making the alteration, a few very trivial modifications in the phraseology of the text were necessary.
The translator has likewise ventured on some occasions slightly to curtail the French paragraphs. It will, however, be sufficient to add, that no details have been abbreviated, nor one single observation omitted, that appeared likely to interest the general reader. a 2
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AUTHORS PREFACE,
A taste for travelling has never been with ше а fashion ; I brought it with me into the world, and I began to gratify it in early youth. We are all vaguely tormented with a desire to know a world which appears to us a dungeon because wTe have not ourselves chosen it for an abode. I should feel as if I could not depart in peace out of this narrow Avorld if I had not endeavoured to explore my prison. The more I examine it, the more beautiful and extensive it becomes in my eyes.
To compare the different modes of existence in different nations, to study the manner of thinking and feeling peculiar to each, to perceive the relations which God has established between their history, their manners, and their physiognomy ; in a word, to travel, is to procure for my curiosity an inexhaustible aliment, to supply my thoughts with an eternal impulse of activity : to prevent my surveying the world would be like robbing a literary man of the key of his libraiy.
But if curiosity cause me to wander, an attachment which partakes of the nature of a domestic affection brings me back. I then take a review of my observations, and select from among the spoil, the ideas
VIAUTHORS PREFACE.
which I imagine may be communicated with the greatest likelihood of beins; useful.
During my sojourn in Russia, as well as during all my other journeys, two thoughts, or rather sentiments, have never ceased to influence my heart, — a love of France, which renders me severe in my judgments upon foreigners, and upon the French themselves, for passionate affections are never indulgent; and a love of mankind. To find the balancing point between these two opposing objects of our affections here below, between the love of country and the love of fellow-men, is the vocation of every elevated mind, Religion alone can solve the problem : I do not flatter myself that I have attained it; but I can and ought to say that I have never ceased bending towards it all my efforts, without regard to the variations of fashion. 'With my religious ideas, I have passed through an unsympathising world; and now I see, not without a pleasurable surprise, these same ideas occupying the youthful minds of the new generation.
I am not one of those who view Christianity as a sacred veil that reason, in its illimitable progress, will one day tear away. Religion is veiled, but the veil is not religion: if Christianity mantles itself in symbols, it is not
