checks the work of nature, leads genius astray, and prepares for it either a future source of fruitless regrets,— or efforts which few even of the most distinguished men have the leisure or the courage, after the period of early youth is passed, to undertake. All great writers are not Rousseaus. Rousseau studied our language as a foreigner, and it woidd require his genius of expression and his susceptibility of imagination, joined to his tenacity of character, and also his isolation in society, in order to learn French as he learned it. Still the French of the Grenevese is less at variance with that of Fenelon, than the jargon, mixed with English and German, which is now taught in Paris to the children of the highest classes. Perhaps the laboured artifices that too often appear in the sentences of Rousseau would not have existed, if the great writer had been born in France at a time when (as was then the case) the children spoke French.
The study of the ancient languages, then in vogue, far from being attended with a mischievous result,
90DECLINE OF FRENCH LITERATURE.
afforded us the only means of attaining a profound knowledge of our own, which is derived from them. This study led us back to the pure waters of our source, and there strengthened our national genius, independently of its advantages as being the most appropriate to the developeraent of the faculties of childhood, into whose mind, before all else, should be instilled the power of language as the instrument of thought.
Whilst Russia, slowly regenerated by the sovereign who now governs her, from the errors entailed by former monarchs, may hope to attain a language, the poets, the prose writers, the refined and
DISTURBANCES IN RUSSIA.
91
CHAR XVIII.
DISTURBANCES IN RUSSIA. PARALLEL BETWEEN FRENCH AND
RUSSIAN CRIMES AND CRUELTIES.CHARACTERISTICS OF REVOLT
IN RUSSIA. ORDER IN DISORDER.DANGER OF INCULCATING
LIBERAL IDEAS AMONG IGNORANT POPULATIONS. REASONS FOR
RUSSIAN SUPERIORITY IN DIPLOMACY. HISTORY OF THELENEF,
A TALE OF MODERN RUSSIA.
Tnis morning, early, I received a visit from the individual whose conversation is recounted in the last chapter. He brought me a French manuscript, written by the young prince, the son of his patron. It is the relation of an occurrence, only too true, that forms one of the numerous episodes of the yet recent event with which all feeling and thoughtful minds are still silently and secretly occupied. Is it possible to enjoy, without any feelings of uneasiness, the luxury of a magnificent abode, when one thinks that, at a few hundred leagues from the palace, murder is rampant, and society would fall to pieces, were it not for the terrific means employed to uphold it ?
The young Prince, who has written this story,
would be ruined if it could be discovered that he was the author. It is on this account that he has confided his manuscript to me, and entrusted me with its publication. He permits me to insert the account of the death of Thelenef in the text of my travels, where I shall faithfully give it, without, however, compromising the safety of any one. I am assured of the accii-
92 PARALLEL BETWEEN FRENCH AND
racy of the principal facts; the reader can put as much or as little faith in them as he pleases; for my own part, I always believe what people whom I do not know say to me. The suspicion of falsehold never enters my mind until after the proof.
The young Russian, who is the author of the fragment, wishing to justify, by the memory of the horrors of our revolution, the ferocity of his own countrymen, has cited an act of French cruelty, the massacre of M. de Belzunce at Caen. He might have increased his list: Mademoiselle de Sombreuil forced to drink a glass of blood to redeem the life of her father; the heroic death of the archbishop of Aries, and of his glorious companions in martyrdom, within the cloisters of the Carmelite convent at Paris; the massacres of Lyons; the executions, by drowning, at Nantes, surnamed by Carrier, the republican marriages ; and many other atrocities which historians have not even recorded, might serve to prove that human ferocity only sleeps among nations even the most civilised. Nevertheless, there is a difference between the cold, methodical, and abiding cruelty of the Mugics, and the passing frenzy of the French. These latter, during the war which they carried on against God and humanity, were not in their natural state; the mood of blood had changed their character; and the extravagances of passion ruled over all their acts; for never were they less free than at the epoch when everytlung that was done among them was done in the name of liberty. We are, on the contrary, going to see the Russians murder each other without belying their characters; it is still a duty which they are performing. '
RUSSIAN CRIMES AND CRUELTIES.93
Among this obedient people, the influence of social institutions is so great in every class—ideas and habits so rule over characters, that the fiercest excesses of vengeance still appear ruled by a certain degree of discipline. Murder is designed and executed in an orderly manner; no rage, no emotion, no words : a calm is preserved more terrible than the delirium of hate. They struggle with, overthrow, trample, and destroy each other, with the steady regularity of machines turning upon their pivots. This physical impassibility in the midst of scenes the most violent, this monstrous audacity in the conception and calmness in the execution, this silent passion and speechless fanaticism seem, if one might so express it, the innocence of crime. A certain order, contrary to nature, presides in this strange country over the most monstrous excesses; tyranny and revolt march in step, and perform their movements in unison.
As everything is in sympathetic accord, the immense extent of the territory does not prevent things bein ?>` executed from one end of Russia to the other, with a punctuality, and a simultaneous correspondence, which is magical. If ever they should succeed in creating a real revolution among the Russian people, massacre would be performed with the regularity that marks the evolutions of a regiment. Villages would change into barracks, and organised murder would stalk forth armed from the cottages, form in line, and advance in order; in short, the Russians would prepare for pillage from Smolensk to Irkutsk, as they march to the parade in Petersburg. From so much uniformity, there results between the natural dispositions and the social habits of the people,
94 CHARACTERISTICS. OF REVOLT IN RUSSIA.
