vulgar, the clowns and the fops, the Russians of every class consent to let such things quietly go on in their presence, without troubling themselves about their legality. Elsewhere, the citizen is protected by the whole community against the agent of unjust power; here, the public agent is protected against the just accusations of the injured individual. The serf never accuses.
The Emperor Nicholas has made a code ! If the facts I have related are in accordance with the laws of this code so much the worse for the legislator; if they are illegal, so much the worse for the administrator of the law. The Emperor is, in both cases, responsible. 'What a misfortune to be no more than a man in accepting the office of a god, and yet to be forced to accept it! Absolute government should be confided only to angels.
I pledge myself to the accuracy of the facts that are here related. I have neither added nor retrenched one circumstance in the recital, and I recount it while the slightest features of the scene continue present to my mind. *
If such details could be published at Petersburg, with the commentaries indispensable to make them noticed by minds inured to all kinds of brutality and injustice, they would not effect the good that might be expected. The Russian administration would so order matters, that the police of Petersburg should henceforth seem to be more mild in its treatment of the people, were it only out of respect for the
* It may not be useless to repeat that this chapter, like almost all the others, was preserved and concealed with care during my sojourn in Russia.
72UNCIVILISED STATE OF THE PEOPLE.
squeamish sentiments of foreigners; but this would be all.
The manners of a people are gradually formed by the reciprocal action of the laws upon the customs, and of the customs upon the laws ; they do not change as by the stroke of a wand. Those of the Russians, in spite of the pretensions of these half-savages, are, and will yet long remain cruel. It is little more than a century since they were true Tartars : it was Peter the Great who first compelled the men to admit females into their social meetings; and under all their modern elegance, several of these parvenus of civilisation still wear the bear skin.
Seeing that they can now no longer avail themselves of the age of chivalry — that age by whose spirit the nations of western Europe were so much benefited in their youth — all that can remain for the Russians is an independent and influential religion. Russia has a faith, but a political faith does not emancipate the human mind ; it shuts it up in the narrow circle of its natural interests. With the Catholic faith the Russians would soon acquire general ideas, based on a rational course of instruction, and on a liberty proportioned to their state of enlightenment. Could they but obtain this elevation, lam persuaded that they might rule the world. The evil of their system is deeply seated, and the remedies hitherto employed have only acted upon the surface — they have healed the wound over without curing it. A genuine civilisation spreads from the centre to the circumference, that of Russia tends from the circumference tOAvards the centre ; it is a barbarism, plastered over, and nothing more.
THE EMPEROR A REFORMER.73
Because a savage may have the vanity of a votary of fashion, does it follow that his mind is cultivated ? I repeat, and may, perhaps, repeat again, that the Russians care much less for being civilised than for making us believe that they are civilised. So long as this public disease of vanity shall continue to prey upon their hearts and to corrupt their minds, they will have certain great lords who will be able to make a display of refinement both among themselves and us; but they will remain barbarians at heart. Unfortunately, however, savages understand the use of fire-arms.
The endeavours of the Emperor Nicholas justify my views. He has thought, before I did, that the time for the display of appearances is past in Eussia, and that the entire edifice of civilisation in that land has to be reconstructed.
Peter the Great woidd have overthrown it a second time in order to rebuild it. Nicholas is more skilful. I am filled with respect for this man, who, with the whole energy of his mind, struggles in secret against the work of the genius of Peter the Great. While continuing to deify that mighty reformer, he is all the while bringing back to their proper position a nation led astray among the paths of imitation for upwards of a hundred years. The views of the present emperor manifest themselves even in the streets of Petersburg. He does not amuse himself with building, in haste, colonnades of stuccoed bricks ; he is everywhere replacing appearance with reality; stone is everywhere superseding plaster, and fabrics of a strong and massive architecture are rising; above the showy monuments of a false splendour. It is by first
YOL. II.E
74THE COLUMN OF ALEXANDER.
bringing back a people to their primitive character, that they are rendered capable and worthy of true civilisation, without which a nation cannot know how to work for posterity. If a people would rear a monument to their own power and greatness, they must not copy foreigners — they must study to develope the national genius instead of thwarting it. That which in this creation most nearly approaches to Deity, is nature. Nature calls the Russians to great things, while they, under their pretended civilisation, have been occupied with trifles. The Emperor Nicholas has appreciated their capabilities better than his predecessors, and under his reign, by a general return to truth, everything is becoming great. In Petersburg stands a pillar, which is the largest piece of granite that has ever been cut by the hands of man, not excepting the Egyptian monuments. Seventy thousand soldiers, the court, the city, and the surrounding country, gathered together without inconvenience or pressure in the square of the imperial palace, to witness, in a religious silence, the miraculous erection of this monument, conceived, executed, and placed by a Frenchman, M. de Montferraiid ; for the French arc still necessary to the Russians. The prodigious machines worked successfully, and at the moment when the column, rising from its fetters, lifted itself up as if animated with a life of its own, the army, the crowd, the emperor himself, fell on their knees to thank God for so great a miracle, and to praise him for the stupendous achievements which he permitted them to accomplish. This I call a real national fete ; not a flattery that might, like the masquerade of Petcrhoff, have been also taken for
REFORM OF COURT LANGUAGE. 75
a satire, but a grand historical picture. The great, the little, the bad, the sublime, and all other op-posites, enter into the constitution of this singular country, while silence perpetuates the prodigy and prevents the machine from breaking.
The Emperor Nicholas extends his reforms even to the language of those who surround him; he requires Russian to be spoken at court. The greater number of the women of the highest circles, especially those who have been born at Petersburg, are ignorant of their native language; but they learn a few Russian phrases, which they utter through obedience to the emperor, when he passes into the saloons of the palace where their duties may retain them. One of them acts always as a sentinel, to announce to the others, by some conventional sign, the arrival of the monarch, on whose appearance French conversation immediately ceases, and Russian phrases, destined to flatter the imperial ear, are heard on every side. The prince observes, with self-complacency, the extent of his power as a reformer; and the fair rebels begin to laugh as soon as he has passed.
However, like every reformer, the Emperor is endowed with an obstinacy which must ultimately produce success.
At the extremity of that square, vast as a mighty region, in which stands the column, is to be seen a
