moonlight, and the Emperor of Russia: these include picturesque, historical, and political Riissia; beyond them, every thing is fatiguing and wearisome to a degree that may be judged of by the preceding chapters.
Many of my friends have already written to advise me not to publish them.
As I was preparing to leave Petersburg, a Russian
32GTHE TASK OF ТЫЕ AUTHOR.
asked me, as all the Russians do, what I should say of his country. ' I have been too well received there to talk about it*,' was my reply.
This avowal, in which I thought I had scarcely politely concealed an epigram, is brought up against me. ' Treated as you have been,' I am told, ' you cannot possibly tell the truth; and as you cannot write except to do so, you had better remain silent.' Such is the opinion of a party among those to whom I am accustomed to listen. At any rate, it is not flattering to the Russians.
My opinion is, that without wounding the delicacy, without failing in the gratitude clue to individuals, nor yet in the respect due to self, there is always a proper manner of speaking with sincerity of public men and things, and I hope to have discovered this manner. It is pretended that truth only shocks, but in France, at least, no one has the right or the power to close the mouth of him who speaks it. My exclamations of indignation cannot be taken for the disguised expression of wounded vanity. If I had listened only to my self-love it would have told me to be enchanted with every thing: my heart has been enchanted with nothing.
If every thing related of the Russians and their country turn into personalities, so much the worse for them: this is an inevitable evil, for things do not exist in Russia, since it is the whim of a man who makes and unmakes them ; but that is not the fault of travellers.
The emperor appears to me little disposed to lay down a part of his authority. Let him suffer, then, * ' J'y ai ete trop bien recu pour en parler.'
THE TASK OP THE AUTHOR.327
the responsibility of omnipotence: it is the first expiation of the political lie by which a single individual declares himself absolute master of a country and all powerful sovereign of the thoughts of a people.
Forbearance in practice does not excuse the impiety of such a doctrine. I have found among the Russians that the principles of absolute monarchy, applied with inflexible consistency, lead to results that are monstrous; and, this time, my political quietism cannot withhold me from perceiving and proclaiming that there are governments to whieh people onght never to submit.
The Emperor Alexander, talking confidentially with Madame de Stael about the ameliorations which he projected, said to her, ' You praise my pliilanthro-pical intentions—I am obliged to you; nevertheless, in the history of Russia, I am only a lucky chance.'
That prince spoke the truth : the Russians vainly boast of the prudence and management of the men who direct their affairs ; arbitrary power is not the less the fundamental principle of the state; and this principle so works that the emperor makes, or suffers to be made, or allows to exist, laws (excuse the application of this sacred name to impious decrees) whieh, for example, permit the sovereign to declare that the legitimate children of a man legally married have no father, no name; in short, that they are ciphers and not men.* And am I to be forbidden to accuse at the bar of Europe a prince who, distinguished and superior as he is, consents to reign without abolishing such a law ?
* See the History of the Princess Troubetzko'i, chap. xxi.
•i2hCHARACTER OF THE EMPEROR.
His resentment is implacable: with hatred so strong, he may yet be a great sovereign, but he cannot be a great man. The great man is merciful, the political character is vindictive: vengeance reigns, pardon converts.
I have now made my last observations upon a prince that one hesitates to judge, after knowing the country where he is condemned to reign; for men are there so dependent upon things, that it is difficult to know how high or how low to look in fixing the responsibility of things done. And the nobles of such a country pretend to resemble the French ! The French kings in barbarous times have often cut off the heads of their great vassals; but those princes, when they destroyed their enemies and seized their goods, did not debase by an insulting decree their caste, their family, and their country: such a forgetfulness of all dignity would have rendered the people of France indignant, even in the middle ages. But the people of Russia suffer even worse things than these. I must correct myself— there is no people of Russia : there is an emperor, who has serfs, and there are courtiers who have serfs also ; but this does not constitute a people.
The middle class, few in number as compared with the others, is at present almost entirely composed of strangers; a few peasants, enfranchised by their wealth, together with the smallest employes, begin to swell its ranks. The future fate of Russia depends upon this new citizen class, the elements of which are so diverse that it seems scarcely possible they can combine together.
The attempt is now making to create a Russian nation; but the task is difficult for one man.
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Evil is quickly committed but slowly repaired : the mortifications of despotism must often, I should think, enlighten the despot on the abuses of absolute power. But the embarrassments of the oppressor do not excuse oppression. I can pity them, because evil is always to be pitied; but they inspire me with much less compassion than the sufferings of the oppressed. In Russia, whatever be the appearance of things, violence and arbitrary rule is at the bottom of them all. Tyranny rendered calm by the influence of terror, is the only kind of happiness which this government is able to afford its people.
And when chance has made me a witness of the unspeakable evils endured under a constitution founded on such principles, is the fear of wounding this or that delicate feeling to prevent my describing what I have seen ? I should be unworthy of having eyes if I ceded to such pusillanimous partiality, disguised as it has this time been under the name of respect for social propriety, as though my conscience had not the first claim to my respect. What! when I have been allowed to penetrate into a prison, where I have understood the silence of the terrified victims, must I not dare to relate their martyrdom, for fear of being accused of ingratitude, because of the complaisance of the gaolers ? Such reserve would be any thing but a virtue. I declare, then, that, after having observed well around me, after endeavouring to see what was attempted to be concealed, to understand what it was not wished I should know, to distinguish between the true and the false in all that was said to me, I do not believe I am exaggerating in affirming, that the empire of Eussia is a
330THE TASK OF THE AUTHOR.
country whose inhabitants are the most miserable upon earth, because they suffer at one and the same time the evils of barbarism and of civilisation. As regards myself, I should feel that I was a traitor and a coward if, after having already boldly sketched the picture of a great part of Europe, I could hesitate to complete it, for fear either of modifying certain opinions of my own which I once maintained, or of shocking certain parties by a faithful picture of a country which has never been painted as it really is. On what, pray, should I ground a respect for evil things ? Am I bound by any other chain than a love of truth ?
In general, the Russians have struck me as being men endowed with great tact; extremely quick, but possessing very little sensibility; highly susceptible, but very unfeeling: this I believe to be their real character. As I have already said, a quick-sighted vanity, a sarcastic finesse are dominant traits in their disposition; and I repeat,
