Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

powers of his mind, and the elegance of his manners, in the most polished circles of Europe. Our mothers can yet recollect him as having been everything that was agreeable.

' I should not have related to you this romantic

SIR W. SCOTT AND LORD BYRON.103

tale if the circumstances of its occurrence, which would have been so appropriate to the middle-ages, had not belonged as it were to our own times. In everything, Russia is four centuries behind the world.'

When Prince Кhad ceased speaking, we all

exclaimed that the Baron de Sternberg was the type of Byron's Manfreds and Laras.

' It is unquestionable,' said Prince К, who

had no fear of paradox, ' that it is because Byron has drawn his models from real existences, that they appear to us to possess so few of the attributes of the probable. In poetry reality is never natural.

' That is so true,' I replied, ' that the fictions of Walter Scott produce a more perfect illusion than the exact copyings of Byron.'

' Possibly, but yon must look to yet other causes for this difference; Scott describes, Byron creates: the latter cares little for the reality, even in recounting it; the former is imbued with its instinct, even when inventing.'

' Do not you think, prince,' I replied, c< that this instinct of reality, which you ascribe to the great romance-writer, is connected with liis often being common-place? What masses of superfluous detail, and vulgar dialogue!—and, after all, it is in describing the dress and the apartments of his personages that he is most exact.'

' Stay! I shall defend my favourite, Walter Scott,'

cried Prince К, ' I cannot permit so amusing a

writer to be insulted.'

' That he is amusing is just the species of merit which I deny him,' I responded. ' A romance writer F 4

104HISTORICAL ROMANCE.

who needs a volume to prepare a scene is anything but amusing. Walter Scott was very fortunate m appearing at an epoch when people no longer knew what amusement meant.'

' How he describes the human heart,' said Prince

D: for every body was against юе.

' Yes, provided he does not make it speak, for expression fails him whenever he attempts the passionate and the sublime : he draws characters by their actions admirably, for he has more skill and more power of observation than eloquence; his mind is methodical and calculating; he has appeared in a congenial age, and has marvellously revived and embodied the most vulgar and consequently the most popular ideas and images.'

' He has been the first to solve, in a satisfactory

manner, the difficult problem of historical romance :

you cannot refuse him this merit,' added Prince

К.

' Would that it were insolvable,' I replied. ' With what multitudes of false notions have the crowd of illiterate readers been imbued by the mixing of history with romance. This union is always mischievous, and, to me, scarcely appears amusing. I would prefer reading, even for aimisenient, M. Augustin Thierry, or any other equally grave author, to all the fables about real personages that have ever been invented.'

' If it is a matter of taste,' said Prince К,

smiling, ' we will dispute no longer about it; ' and, taking my arm, he begged me to assist him to his state- room, where, offering me a seat, he continued, in a low voice, ' as we are alone, and you like historvj

MARRIAGE OP PETER THE GREAT. 105

I wiH relate to you a story of a higher order than the one you have just heard: it is to you alone that I relate it, because before Russians one must not talk of history.

' You know that Peter the Great, after much hesitation, destroyed the patriarchate of Moscow, in order to unite on the same head the crown and the tiara. The political autocracy thus openly usurped that unlimited spiritual power which it had coveted for so long —monstrous union, unknown before among the nations of modern Europe. The chimera entertained by the popes during the middle-ages is now actually realised in a nation of sixty millions of people, many of them Asiatics, whom nothing surprises, and who are by no means sorry to find a grand Lama in their Czar.

' The Emperor Peter sought to unite himself in marriage with Catherine, the sutler.

' To accomplish this supreme object of his heart it was necessary to begin by finding a family name for the future empress. This was obtained I believe in Lithuania, where an obscure private gentleman was first converted into a great lord by birth, and afterwards discovered to be the brother of the empress elect.

' Russian despotism not only pays little respect to ideas and sentiments, it will also deny facts; it will ¦struggle against evidence, and triumph in the struggle !!! for evidence, when it is inconvenient to power. has no more voice among us than has justice.'

The bold language of the prince startled me. He had been educated at Rome, and, like all who possess any piety of feeling, and independence of mind, in г 5

106 MARRIAGE OF PETER THE GREAT.

Russia, he inclined to the Catholic religion. While various reflections, suggested by his discourse, were passing in my mind, he continued his philosophical observations.

' The people, and even the great men, are resigned spectators of this war against truth ; the lies of the despot, however palpable, are always flattering to the slave. The Russians, who bear so much, would bear no tyranny if the tyrant did not carefully act as though he believed them the dupes of his policy. Human dignity immersed and sinking in the gulf of absolute government, seizes hold of the smallest branch within reach, that may serve to keep it afloat. Human nature will bear much scorn and wrong ; but it will not bear to be told in direct terms that it is scorned and wronged. When outraged by deeds, it takes refuge in words. Falsehood is so abasing, that to degrade the tyrant into the hypocrite is a vengeance which consoles the victim. Miserable and last illusion of misfortune, which must yet be respected, lest the serf should become still more vile, and the despot still more outrageous.

' There existed an ancient custom for two of the greatest noblemen of the empire to walk by the side of the patriarch of Moscow in solemn public processions.

' On the occasion of his marriage, the Czarinian pontiff determined to choose for acolytes in the bridal procession, on one side a famous boyard*, and on the other the new brother-in-law that he had created ; for in Russia, sovereign power can do more than

* The title of a Russian noble.

PRINCE ROMODANOWSKI.107

create nobles, it can raise up relatives for those who are without any; with us, despotism is more powerful than nature; the emperor is not only the representative of God, he is himself the creative power; a power indeed greater than that of Deity, for it only extends its action to the future, whereas the emperor alters and amends the