ARISTOCRACY THE BULWARK OF LIBERTY. 321
magogue nor despot; I am an aristocrat in the broadest acceptation of the word. The elegance that I wish to preserve in communities is not frivolous, nor yet unfeeling; it is regulated by taste; taste excludes all abuses ; it is the surest preservative against them, for it dreads every kind of exaggeration. A certain elegance is essential to the arts, and the arts save the world; for it is through their agency more than any other that people attach themselves to civilisation, of which they are the last and the most precious recompense. By a privilege which belongs to them alone among the various objects that can shed a halo upon a nation, their glory pleases and profits all classes of society equally.
Aristocracy, as I understand it, far from allying itself with tyranny in favour of order, as the demagogues who misunderstand it pretend, cannot exist under an arbitrary government. Its mission is to defend, on one side, the people against the despot, and on the other, civilisation against that most terrible of all tyrants, revolution. Barbarism takes more than one form: crush it in despotism and it springs to life again in anarchy; but true liberty, guarded by a true aristocracy, is neither violent nor inordinate.
Unfortunately, the partisans of a moderating aristocracy in Europe are now blinded, and lend their arms to their adversaries: in their false prudence they seek for aid among the enemies of all political and religious liberty, as though danger could only come from the side of the new revolutionaries; they forget that arbitrary sovereigns were anciently as much usurpers as are the modern jacobins.
Feudal aristocracy has come to an end in all, except p 5
322THE TASK OF THE AUTHOR.
in the indelible glory which will for ever shine around great historical names; but in communities which wish to endure, the noblesse of the middle ages will be replaced, as they long have been among the English, by a hereditary magistracy: this new aristocracy, heir of the old, and composed of many different elements, for office, birth and riches all form its bases, will not regain its credit until it supports itself upon a free religion; and I again repeat, the only free religion, the only one that does not depend on a temporal power, is that taught by the Catholic church: for as to the temporal power of the pope himself, it is now only calculated to defend his sacerdotal independence. Aristocracy is the government of independent minds, and it cannot be too often reiterated, Catholicism is the faith of free priests.
Whenever I think I perceive a truth, I utter it without reference to the consequences, for I am persuaded that evil is not caused by published truths. but by truths that are disguised. Under this per-suat·ion, I have always regarded as pernicious that proverb of our fathers, which says that a truth must not be always spoken.
It is because each one picks and chooses in truth only such parts as serve his passions, Iris fears, or his interest, that it ean be rendered more mischievous than error. When I travel, I do not make selections among the facts which I gather, I do not reject those which oppose my favourite opinions. When I relate, I have no other religion than that of a worship of truth; I do not permit myself to be a judge, I am not even a painter, for painters compose; I endeavour to become a mirror; in short, I wish to be, above all
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things, impartial; and for this object the intention suffices, at least in the eyes of intelligent readers, and I cannot and will not recollect that there are others : such discovery would render the labours of the author too fastidious.
Every time that I have had occasion to communicate with men, the first thought with which their manner has inspired me has been that they possess more ability than I, that they know better how to speak, act, and defend themselves. Such have been, up to this day, the results of my experience in the world; I do not therefore despise any one, and, least of all, my readers. This is the reason that I never flatter them.
If there are men towards whom I find it difficult to be equitable, they are those who weary me ; but I scarcely know any such, for I always fly from the indolent.
I have said that there is only one town in Russia : there is also only one drawing-room in Petersburg: every where is to be seen either the court or fractions of the court. You may change the house, but you cannot change the circle; and in that invariable circle all subject of interesting conversation is interdicted ; but here I find that there is a compensation, thanks to the sharpened wit of the women, who understand wonderfully well how to inspire thoughts without uttering the words that express them.
Women are in every land the least servile of slaves, because, using so skilfully their weakness as to form for themselves a power out of it, they know better than we do how to evade bad laws; it is they, consequently, who are destined to save individual liberty wherever public liberty is wanting. p 6
324LIBERTY.
What is liberty if it be not the guarantee of the rights of the weakest, whom woman is by nature charged with representing in social life ? In France they now pride themselves on every thing being decided by the majority: . . . admirable marvel! When I shall see that some regard is shown to the claims of the minority, I too shall cry
Notwithstanding the secret influence of the women, Russia still remains farther from liberty, not in words, but in things, than most of the countries upon earth. To-morrow, in an insurrection, in the midst of massacre, by the light of a conflagration, the cry of freedom may spread to the frontiers of Siberia; a blind and cruel people may murder their masters, may revolt against obscure tyrants, and dye the waters of the Volga with blood; but they will not be any the more free : barbarism is in itself a yoke.
The best means of emancipating men is not pompously to proclaim their enfranchisement, but to render servitude impossible by developing the sentiment of humanity in the heart of nations: that sentiment is deficient in Russia. To talk liberalism to the Russians, of whatever class they may be, would now be a crime; to preach humanity to all classes without exception is a duty.
The Russian nation has not yet imbibed the sentiment of justice; thus, one day it was mentioned to me in praise of the Emperor Nicholas, that an obscure private individual had gained a cause against some
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powerful nobleman. In this instance, the encomium on the sovereign appeared to me as a satire upon the community. The too-highly boasted fact proved to me positively that equity is only an exception in Russia.
Every thing duly considered, I would by no means advise obscure men to act in reliance upon the success of the person thus instanced, who was favoured perhaps to assure impunity to the usual coiirse of injustice, and to furnish a specimen of equity which the dispensers of the law were in need of, to serve as a reply to reproaches of servility and corruption.
Another fact, which suggests an inference little favourable to the Russian judiciary, is, that there should be so little litigation in the country. The reason is not obscure ; people would more often have recourse to justice if the judges were more equitable. A similar reason accounts for there being no fighting or quarrelling in the streets. A dread of chains and dungeons is the consideration which usually restrains the two parties.
Notwithstanding the melancholy picuires that I draw, two inanimate objects, and one living person, are worth the trouble of the journey. The Neva of Petersburg during the nightless season, the Kremlin of Moscow by
