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

made me afraid of leaving them in my writing-case. The police permitted me to pass without searching my person ; but when my baggage came to be unpacked before the custom-house officers, these new enemies instituted a most minute examination of my effects, more especially my books. These were seized en masse, and without any attention to my protestations, but an extraordinary politeness of manner was all the while maintained. A pair of pistols and an old portable clock were also taken from me, without my being able to ascertain the reason of the confiscation. All that I could get was the promise that they would be returned.

I have now been more than twenty-four hours on shore without having been able to recover any thing, and to crown my embarrassment, my carriage has, by mistake, been forwarded from Kronstadt to the address of a Russian prince. It will require trouble, and explanations without end, to prove tins error to the custom-house agents; for the prince of my carriage is from home.

Between nine and ten o'clock I found myself, personally, released from the fangs of the custom-house, and entered Petersburg under the kind care of a German traveller, whom I met by chance on the quay.

STATUE OF PETER THE GREAT.13J

If a spy, he was at least a useful one, speaking both French and Russian, and undertaking to procure me a drowsky; while, in the mean time, he himself aided my valet to transport in a cart to ]Coulon`s hotel such part of my baggage as had been given up.

Coulon is a Frenchman, who is said to keep the best hotel in Petersburg, which is not saying much. In Russia, foreigners soon lose all trace of their national character, without, at the same time, ever assimilating with that of the natives.

The obliging stranger found even a guide for me who could speak German, and who mounted behind in the drowsky, in order to answer my questions. This man acquainted me with the names of the buildings we passed in proceeding to the hotel, which occupied some tune, for the distances are great in Petersburg.

The too celebrated statue of Peter the Great, placed on its rock by the Empress Catherine, first attracted my attention. The equestrian figure is neither antique nor modern; it is a Roman of the time of Louis XV. To aid in supporting the horse, an enormous serpent has been placed at his feet; which is an ill-conceived idea, serving only to betray the impotence of the artist.

I stopped for one moment before the scaffolding of an edifice which, though not yet completed, is already famous in Europe, the church, namely, of St. Isaac. I also saw the facade of the new winter palace; another mighty result of human will applying human physical powers in a struggle with the laws of nature. The end has been attained, for in one year this palace has risen from its ashes; and it is the largest, I

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THE WINTER PALACE.

believe, which exists; equalling the Louvre and the TuiIIcries put together.

In order to complete the work at the time appointed by the emperor, unheard-of efforts were necessary. The interior Avorks were continued during the great frosts; 6000 Avorkmen were continually employed; of these a considerable number died daily, but the victims were instantly replaced by other champions brought forward to perish, in their turn, in tliis inglorious breach. And the sole end of all these sacrifices was to gratify the caprice of one man !

Among people naturally, that is to say, anciently civilised, the life of men is only exposed when common interests, the urgency of which is universally admitted, demand it. But how many generations of monarchs has not the example of Peter the Great corrupted!

During frosts Avhen the thermometer Avas at 25 to 30 degrees below 0 of Reaumur, 6000 obscure martyrs — martyrs without merit, for their obedience was involuntary — Avere shut up in halls heated to 30 degrees of Reaumur, in order that the Avails might dry more quickly; in entering and leaving tliis abode of death, destined to beeome, by virtue of their sacrifice, the abode of vanity, magnificence, and pleasure. Thus these miserable beings Avould have to endure a difference of 50 to 60 degrees of temperature.

The Avorks in the mines of the Uralian mountains are less inimical to life; and yet the Avorkmen employed at Petersburg Avere not malefactors. I Avas told that those who had to paint the interior of the

MEANS EMPLOYED FOR ITS ERECTION. 137

most highly heated halls were obliged to place on their heads a kind of bonnet of ice, in order to preserve the use of their senses under the burning temperature. Had there been a design to disgust the world with arts, elegance, luxury, and all the pomp of courts, could a more efficacious mode have been taken ? And yet the sovereign was called father, by the men immolated before his eyes in prosecuting an object of pure imperial vanity. They were neither spies nor Russian cynics who gave me these details, the authenticity of which I guarantee.

The millions expended on Versailles supported as many families of French workmen as there were Slavonian serfs destroyed by these twelve months in the winter palace; but, by means of this sacrifice, the mandate of the emperor has realised a prodigy ; and the palace, completed to the general satisfaction, is going to be inaugurated by marriage fetes. A prince may be popular in Russia without attaching much value to human life. Nothing colossal is produced without effort; but when a man is in himself both the nation and the government, he ought to impose on himself a law, not to press the great springs of the machine he has the power of moving, except for some object worthy of the effort. To work miracles at the cost of the life of an army of slaves may be great; but it is too great, for both God and man will finally rise to wreak vengeance on these inhuman prodigies. Men have adored the light, the Russians worship the eclipse : when will their eyes be opened ?

I do not say that their political system produces nothing good; I simply say that what it does produce is dearly bought.

138CITATION FROM IIEEBEESTEIN.

It is not now for the first time that foreigners have been struck with astonislmient at contemplating the attachment of this people to their slavery. The following passage, which is an extract from the correspondence of the Baron Herberstein, ambassador from the Emperor Maximilian, father of Charles V., to the Czar Vassili Ivanowich, I have found in Karamsin.

Did the Russians know all that an attentive reader may gather even from this flattering liistorian, in whom they glory, and whom foreigners consult with extreme distrust, on account of his partiality as a courtier, they would entreat the emperor to forbid the perusal of his, and of all other historical works, and thus be left in a darkness equally favourable to the repose of the despot and the felicity of Iris subjects, who believe themselves happy so long as others do not stigmatise them as victims.

Herberstein, in characterising the Russian despotism, writes as follows: — ' He (the czar) speaks, and it is done ; the life and fortunes of laity and clergy, nobles and burghers, all depend on his supreme will. He is unacquainted with contradiction, and all he does is deemed as equitable as though it were done by Deity ; for the Russians are persuaded that their prince is the executor of the Divine decrees. Thus, ( God and the prince have willed,'' ( God and the prince know] are common modes of speech among them. Nothing can equal their zeal for his service. One of his principal officers, a venerable gray- haired person, formerly ambassador in Spain, came to meet us on our entry into Moscow. He galloped his horse, and displayed all the activity of a young man, until