mind, the superficial acquirements, to which he condemned them for ages.
Great men, in building up the future, do not destroy the past; on the contrary, they avail themselves of it, even in order to modify its consequences. Far from continuing to deify the enemy of their natural genius, the Russians ought to reproach him with being the cause of their possessing no character.*
That crowned missionary forced nature for a moment, because he had the power to do so; but to this his power was circumscribed. Had he been, in reality, what the superstition of his people, and the exaggeration of writers have made him in history, how differently would he have acted! He would have waited, and by that patience have merited his brevet of great man: he preferred obtaining it in
* The Russians are superficial in every thing, except the art of feigning.
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS.159
advance, and caused himself to be canonised while yet living.
All his ideas, with the faults of character of which they were the consequence, have spread and multiplied under the reigns that followed. The Emperor Nicholas is the first who has endeavoured to stem the torrent, by recalling the Russians to themselves; an enterprise that the world will admire when it shall have recognised the firmness of spirit with which it has been conceived. After such reigns as those of Catherine and Paul, to make the Russia left by the Emperor Alexander a real Russian empire ; to speak Russian, to think as a Russian, to avow himself a Russian—and this, while presiding over a court of nobles who are the heirs of the favourites of the
It is true the courtiers of the Czar have no acknowledged nor assured rights; but they are still strong against then* masters, by virtue of the perpetuated, traditional customs of the country. Directly to rebuke the pretensions of these men, to show himself, in the course of a reign already long, as courageous against hypocritical adherents as he was against rebel soldiers, is assuredly the act of a very superior monarch. This double struggle of the sovereign with his infuriated slaves on the one hand, and his imperious courtiers on the other, is a fine spectacle. The Emperor Nicholas fulfils the promise that brightened the day of his elevation to the throne, and this is saying a great deal; for no prince assumed the reins of power under circumstances more critical; none
160ABSURD ARCHITECTURE.
ever faced an imminent danger with more energy and greatness of soul!
After the insurrection of 13th December, M. de la Ferronnays exclaimed, 'I see Peter the Great civilised!' an observation that had point because it had truth. In contemplating this prince, in his court, developing his ideas of national regeneration with an indefatigable, yet quiet, unostentatious perseverance, one might exclaim with still greater reason,
In striving to form a judgment of the present Emperor with all the impartiality of which I am capable, I find in him so many things worthy of praise, that I do not suffer myself to listen to any thing that might disturb my admiration.
Kings are like statues; people examine them with so minute an attention that their smallest faults, magnified by criticism, cause the most rare and genuine merits to be forgotten. But the more I admire the Emperor Nicholas, the more I may be thought unjust towards the Czar Peter. Nevertheless, I appreciate the efforts of determination that were needed to rear a city like Petersburg in a marsh, frozen during eight months of the year ; but when my eyes unfortunately encounter one of those miserable caricatures which his passion, and that of his successors, for classic architecture has entailed upon Russia, my shocked senses and taste cause me to lose all that I had gained by reasoning. Anticrue palaces for barracks of Finns, pillars, cornices, pediments, and Roman peristyles under the pole, and all these things to be renovated every year with fine white stucco, — such
BEAUTY OF THE QUAYS.161
parodies of Greece and Italy,
Though I were menaced with Siberia, I would not be prevented repeating that the want of good sense in the construction of a building, of finish and of harmony in its details, is intolerable. In architecture, the objeet of genius is to find the most short and simple means of adapting edifices to the uses for which they are destined. Where, then, could be the genius of men who have piled up so many pilasters, arcades, and colonnades, in a land which cannot be inhabited for nine months in the year without double sashes to windows hermetically closed ? At Petersburg, it is under ramparts that they should walk, not under light and airy peristyles. Vaulted galleries should be their vestibules. The heaven is their enemy ; they should banish therefore the sight of it: the sun will not vouchsafe them his beams, they should live by torch-light. With their Italian arelu-teeture, they set up claims to a fine climate, and this only renders the rains and storms of their summer more intolerable, to say nothing of the icy darts that are respired under their magnificent porticoes, during the interminable winter season. The quays of Petersburg are among the finest objects in Europe. Why? Their splendour lies in their solidity. Mighty blocks of granite forming foundations that supply the place of mother earth ! the eternity of marble opposed to the destructive power of eold !... These things give me an idea of strength and of greatness which
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THE GREAT SQUAEE.
is intelligible. Petersburg is both protected from the Neva and embellished, by the magnificent parapets with which that river is lined. The soil fails us; we will therefore make a pavement of rocks that shall support our capital. A hundred thousand men die in the attempt, it matters not; we have now an European city and the renown of a great people. Here, whilst continuing to deplore the inhumanity that has presided over so much glory, I admire, though with regret. I admire also several of the points of view that may be obtained before the winter palace.
Although the largest structures in the city are lost in a space that is rather a plain than a square, the palace is imposing; the style of architecture, which is that of the Regency, has an air of grandeur, and the red tint of the stone with which it is built is not displeasing to the eye. The column of Alexander, the triumphal arch, the Admiralty, Peter the Great upon his rock, the offices of the ministers (which are so many palaces), and, finally, the wonderful church of St. Isaac, facing one of the three bridges thrown over the Neva,—all these objects, lost in the circumference of a single square, are not beautiful, but they are astonishingly great. The square, called the square of the palace, is in reality composed of three immense squares all formed into one: Petrofskii, Isaakskii, and the square of the winter palace. I have found there nmch to criticise ; but as a whole I admire the edifices, lost though they be in the space which they should adorn.
I have ascended the brass cupola of the church of St. Isaac. The scaffoldings of this dome, which is one of the loftiest in the woi`ld, are in themselves
mighty fabrics. The church not being finished, I cannot form an idea of the effect that it will have as a whole. From the summit is seen St. Petersburg, its flat monotonous environs, and its dull though pompous wonders of art,
