empresses, filling Europe with the sound of their profligacy, but who, under this unfeminine conduct, conceal a commanding and profoundly observing mind. By virtue of the spirit of intrigue that distinguishes these Aspasias of the North, there is scarcely a capital in Europe without two or three Russian ambassadors:
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FEMALE POLITICIANS.267
the one, public, accredited, recognised, and clothed with all the insignia of office; the others, secret, irresponsible, and playing, in bonnet and petticoat, the double part of independent ambassador, and spy upon the official envoy.
In all ages, women have been employed with success in political negotiations. Many of our modern revolutionists have availed themselves of female aid to conspire more skilfully, more secretly, and more safely. Spain has seen these unfortunate women become heroines in the courage with which they have submitted to the punishment entailed by their tender devotion — for love always forms a great part of the courage of a Spanish woman.
Among the Russian women love is only the accessory. Russia possesses a completely organised female diplomacy; and Europe is not, perhaps, sufficiently attentive to so singular a means of influence. With its concealed army of amphibious agents, its political Amazons with acute masculine minds and feminine laniruase, the Russian court collects information, ob-tains reports, and even receives advice, which, if better known, would explain many mysteries, furnish a key to many inconsistencies, and reveal many littlenesses.
The political preoccupation of mind of the greater number of Russian women renders their conversation, interesting as it might be, insipid. This is more especially the ease with the most distinguished women, who are naturally the most absent when the conversation does not turn upon important subjects. There is a world between their thoughts and their discourse, from whence there results a want of accord, an absence of natural manner in short, a duplicity, that is
268
DOMESTIC HAPPINESS
disagreeable in the ordinary relations of social life-Polities are, from their nature, but poor amusement; their tediousness is supported by a sense of duty, and sometimes, when statesmen speak, by flashes of mind which animate conversation; but the politics of the amateur are the curses of conversation.
I have been assured that the moral sentiment is scarcely developed among the Russian peasants, and my daily experience confirms the accounts that I have received.
A nobleman has related to me, that a man belonging to him, and skilful in some particular handicraft, had permission to remain in Petersburg, in order to exercise his talent there. After the expiration of two years, he was allowed to return for a few weeks to his native village to visit his wife. He came back to Petersburg on the day appointed.
' Are you satisfied with having seen your family?' asked his master. ' Perfectly so,' answered the workman, with great simplicity ; ' my wife has presented me with two more children in my absence, and the sight of them gave me great pleasure.'
These poor people have nothing of their own; neither their cottages, their wives, their children, nor even their own hearts ; they have, therefore, no jealousy. Of what could they be jealous ?—Of an accident ? Love among them is nothing better. Such, however, is the existence of the happiest men in Russia—the serfs! I have often heard the great express envy of their lot, and perhaps with good reason,
They have no cares, they say; we take all the charge of them and their families (God knows how this charge is acquitted when the peasants become old
OF THE SERFS.
269
and useless). Assured of the necessaries of life for themselves and their children, they are a hundred times less to be pitied than the free peasants are among you.
I did not reply to this panegyric on servitude; but I thought, if they have no cares, they have also no families, and therefore no affections, no pleasures, no moral sentiment, no compensation for the physical evils of life. They possess nothing; though it is individual property which makes the social man, because it alone constitutes the divisions of family.
Moral truth is the only principle that merits our devotion : to grasp it, aU the efforts of the human mind tend, whatever may be their sphere of action. If, in my journeys, I take every pains to describe the world as it is, my object is to excite in the breasts of others, and in my own, regret that it is not as it should be, to arouse in human minds the sentiment of immortality, by recalling, at the sight of every injustice, every abuse inherent in the things of earth, the words of Jesus Christ, ' My kingdom is not of this world.'
Never have I had so frequent occasion to apply these words as since my sojourn in Russia; they occur to me at every moment. Under a despotism, all the laws are calculated to assist oppression ; that is to say, the more the oppressed has reason to complain, the less has he the legal right or the temerity. Surely, before God, the evil actions of a free citizen are more criminal than the evil actions of a serf. He who sees every tiling, takes into account the insensibility of conscience in the man debased by the spectacle of iniquity always triumphant.
270CASUISTICAL REFLECTIONS.
It will be said that evil is evil, wherever committed; and that the man who steals at Moscow, is just as much a thief as the pickpocket in Paris. It is precisely this which I deny. On the general education that a people receives, depends in a great measure the morality of each individual; from whence it follows that a fearful and mysterious relativeness of merits and of demerits has been established by Providence between governments and subjects, and that moments arrive in the history of communities when the State is judged, condemned, and destroyed, as though it were a single individual.
The virtues, the faults, and the crimes of slaves have not the same signification as those of freemen; therefore, when I examine the character of the Russian people, I can assert as a fact which does not imply the same blame as it would with us, that in general they are deficient in spirit, delicacy, and elevation of sentiment, and that they supply the want of these qualities by patience and artifice.
' The Russian people are gentle,' is often said to me. To this I answer, 'I cannot give them any credit for being so : it is their habit of submission.' Others say, ' The Russian people are only gentle because they dare not show what is in their hearts; their fundamental sentiments are superstition and ferocity.' To this I reply, ' Poor creatures ! they are so ill educated!'
From all that I see in this world, and especially in this country, I conclude that happiness is not the real object for which man was placed here upon earth. That object is purely religious in its character: it is moral
