imputation that reminds one of the justice of the wolf of La Fontaine. These cruelties and reciprocal iniquities are preludes to the convidsions of the coming result, and suffiee to apprise us of its character. But in a nation governed like this, passions boil a long time before they explode; the peril may be increasing, yet the crisis is still distant, and the evil meanwhile continues: perhaps our grandchildren will not see the explosion; which, notwithstanding,
216ТПЕ PIUNCESS TROUBETZKOI.
we can now prognosticate as inevitable, though we cannot predict the time and the season.
We may not cease to repeat that the Russian revolution, when it does come, will be the more terrible, because it will be in the name of religion. The Russian policy has melted the church into the state, and confounded heaven and earth : a man who sees a god in his master, scarcely hopes for paradise, except through the favour of the emperor.
I shall never get away. Fate seems to interfere. Once more a delay — yet, this time, it is a legitimate one. I was just preparing to enter my carriage when a friend insisted upon seeing me. He brought a letter, which he would have me read at the very moment. But what a letter, gracious God ! It is from the Princess Troubctzkoi, who addresses it to a member of her family charged to show it to the emperor. I wished to copy it in order to print it without changing a syllable, but this I was not permitted to do. ' It would go the round of the whole earth,' said my friend, alarmed by the effect winch it produced upon me.
' The greater reason to make it known,' I replied.
' Impossible. The safety of several individuals would be compromised; besides, it has only been lent me in order to show you on your word of honour, and on condition that it shall be returned in half an hour.'
Unhappy land, where every stranger appears as a saviour in the eyes of a herd of oppressed beings, merely because he represents truth, publicity, and liberty among a people deprived of all these blessings.
Before alluding to the contents of this letter, it will be necessary to recount, in a few words, a lamentable
THE PRINCE TROUBETZKOI.217
history. The principal facts will be known to many, yet vaguely, like every thing else that is known of a distant country, in which people only take a cold interest. Let the public read and blush, — yes, blush; for whoever has not found means to protest, with his utmost power, against the policy of a country where such acts arc possible, is to a certain extent an accomplice and a responsible party. I sent back the horses by my fcldjager, under pretext of indisposition, and told him to state at the establishment of the Posts that I should not leave until the morrow. Once rid of this officious spy, I sat down to write.
The Prince Troubetzkoi was condemned as a convict to hard labour, fourteen years ago. He was at that time young, and had taken a very active part in the revolt of the fourteenth December.
The first object of the conspirators on that occasion was to deceive the soldiers s regards the legitimacy of the Emperor Nicholas. They hoped, by the error of the troops, to produce a military revolt, and to profit by this, in order to work a political revolution, of which, fortunately or unfortunately for Russia, they alone at that time felt the necessity. The number of these reformers was too limited to afford any chance that the troubles excited by them could end in the result proposed. The conspiracy was defeated by the presence of mind of the Emperor, or rather by the intrepidity of his countenance. That prince, on the first day of his authority, drew from the energy of his bearing all the future power of his reign.
The revolution thus crushed, it was necessary to
VOL. II.L
218THE PRINCE TROUBETZKOI.
proceed to the punishment of the culpable. The Prince Troubetzkoi, one of the most deeply implicated, unable to exculpate himself, was sentenced to labour in the Uralian mines for fourteen or fifteen years, and for the remainder of his life was exiled to Siberia, among one of those distant colonies that malefactors are destined to people.
The prince had a wife whose family was among the most distinguished in the land. This princess could not be dissuaded from following her husband to his tomb. ' It is my duty,' she said, ' and I will fulfil it; no human power has a right to separate a wife from her husband; I will share the fate of mine.'
This noble wife obtained the favour of being buried alive with her unhappy partner. I am astonished, since I have seen Russia and the spirit of its government, that, influenced by a lingering relic of shame, they have thought it right to respect this act of devotion during a period of fourteen years. That they should favour patriotic heroism is very natural, for they profit by it; but to tolerate a sublime virtue that does not accord with the views of the sovereign was an act of remissness for which they must have often reproached themselves. They feared the friends of Troubetzkoi; an aristocracy, however enervated it may be, always preserves a shadow of its independence,— a shadow that serves to cast a cloud over despotism. Contrasts abound in this dreadful society; many men speak among themselves as freely as if they lived in France: this secret liberty consoles them for the publie slavery which forms the shame and the eurse of their land.
THE PRINCESS TROTJBETZKOI.219
From the fear then of exasperating certain influential families, the government yielded to a kind of prudent compassion. The princess departed with her husband the convict, and, which is more extraordinary, she reached her destination. The journey was alone a frightful trial: hundreds, — thousands of leagues in a telega, a little open cart without springs, over roads that break both carriages and human bodies. The unhappy woman supported these and many other hardships and privations, which I shall not describe for want of the precise details : for I wish to add nothing to the strict truth of tliis history.
Her conduct will appear the more heroic when it is known that, · until the husband's ruin, the married pair had lived somewhat coldly together. But is not a fervent devotion a substitute for love ? Or rather, is it not love itself? Love flows from many sources, and of these, self-sacrifice is the most abundant.
They had never had children at Petersburg; they had five in Siberia.
This man, rendered glorious by the generosity of his wife, had become a sacred object in the eyes of all who approached him. Who indeed would not venerate the object of an affection so sacred ?
However criminal the Prince Troubetzkoi may have been, his pardon, which the Emperor will perhaps never grant, for he believes that he owes it both to his people and himself to maintain an implacable severity, has been doubtless accorded by the King of Kings. The almost supernatural virtues of a wife could appease the wrath of a God, they could not l 2
220FOURTEEN YEARS AT
disarm human justice. The reason is, that Divine Omnipotence is a reality, whilst that of the Emperor of Russia is a fietion.
He would have long since pardoned the criminal had he been as great as he pretends to be; but clemency, independently of its being repugnant to his natural disposition, appears to him a weakness by which a king would degrade the kingly offiee: habituated as he is to measure his power by the fear whieh he inspires, he would regard mercy as a violation of his code of political morality.
For my part, I only judge of a man's power over others by that whieh I see him exercise over himself, and I cannot believe his authority safely established, until he can venture to forgive: the Emperor Nicholas ventures only
