a harmony, the effects of which might become prodigious in good as in evil.
Everything is obscure in the future prospects of the world; but, assuredly, it will see strange scenes enacted before the nations by this predestined people.*
It is almost always under the influence of a blind respect for power, that the Russians disturb public order. Thus, if we are to believe what is repeated in secret, had it not been for the emperor's speech to the deputies of the peasants, the latter would not have taken up arms.
J trust that this fact, and those that I have elsewhere cited, will show the danger of inculcating liberal opinions among a population so ill-prepared to receive them. As regards political liberty, the more we love it, the greater care should we take to avoid pronouncing its name before those who would only compromise a holy cause by their manner of defending it. It is this which induces me to doubt of the truth of the imprudent reply attributed to the emperor. That prince knows, better than any one, the character of his people, and I cannot believe that he could have provoked the revolt of the peasants, even unwittingly.
The horrors of the insurrection are described by the author of Thelenef, with an accuracy the more
* There will be some readers who can scarcely read this and similar prophecies in the present work, without being reminded of the great northern nation of more inspired prophecy, the chief prince of Meshech (whence the word Muscovite is generally derived,) who, with all his bands, and with numerous Asiatic allies, is to devastate the Levant and Syria at some period that has'yet to come.—
RUSSIAN DIPLOMACY.95
scrupulous, as the principal incident occurred in the family of the narrator.
If he have allowed himself to ennoble the character and the passion of his hero and heroine, it is because he has a poetical imagination ; but while embellishing the sentiments, he has preserved the picture of national manners: in short, neither in the facts, the sentiments, nor the descriptions, does this little romance appear to me misplaced in the midst of a work, all the merit of which consists in the verisimilitude of its delineations.
I may add that the bloody scenes are yet being daily renewed in various parts of the same country where public order has been disturbed, and reestablished in so terrific a manner. The Russians have no right to reproach France for her political disorders, and to draw from them consequences favourable to despotism. Let but the liberty of the press be accorded to Russia for twenty-four hours, and we should learn things that would make us recoil with horror. Silence is indispensable to oppression. Under an absolute government every indiscretion of speech is equivalent to a crime of high treason.
If there are founcl among the Russians, better diplomatists than among nations the most advanced in civilisation, it is because our journals inform them of every thing which is done or projected among ourselves, and because, instead of prudently disguising our weaknesses, we display them, with passion, every morning; whilst, on the contrary, the Byzantine policy of the Russians, working in the dark, carefully conceals from us everything that is thought, done, or feared among them. We march exposed on all
96THE HISTORY OF THELENEF.
sides, they advance tinder cover. The ignorance in which they leave us blinds our view; our sincerity enlightens theirs ; we suffer from all the evils of idle talking, they have all the advantages of secrecy ; and herein lies all their skill and ability.
THE HISTORY OF THELENEF.*
The estates of Princehad been for several years
managed by a steward, named Thelenef. The prince, occupied with other matters, seldom thought of his domains. Disappointed in his ambitious views, he had travelled for a long time, in the hope of dissipating his chagrin as a disgraced courtier. At length, weary of seeking from the arts and from nature, consolation for his failure in politics, he returned to his own country, in order again to approach the court, and to endeavour by dint of care and diligence to recover the favour of the sovereign.
But while fruitlessly wasting his life and fortune in ](laying by turns the courtier at Petersburg, and the virtuoso in Southern Etirope, he lost the attachment of his peasants, exasperated by the ill-usage of Thelenef. This man ruled as a king in the extensive estates of Vologda, where his manner of exercising the lordly atithority made him generally execrated.
Thelenef had, however, a charming daughter, called
* I have purposely changed the names of the persons and places, with the especial objeet of disguising the true ones ; and I have also taken the liberty of correcting, in the style, a few I'xpressions foreign to the genius of our language.
THE HISTORY OF TIIELENEF.97
Xenie.* The amiability of this young person was an inborn virtue ; for, having early lost her mother, she had received no other education than that which her father could give her. He taught her French, and she learned, as it were by heart, some of the classics of the age of Louis XIV.; which had been left in the castle of Vologda by the father of the Prince. The Bible, the ' Thoughts of Pascal,' and Telema-chus were her favourite books. When but a small number of authors are read, when those authors are well chosen, and when their works are often re-perused, reading becomes very profitable. One of the causes of the frivolity of modern minds is the number of books badly read, rather than badly written, with which the world is inundated.
It would be rendering a service to the risin«· f>`ene-ration to teach them how to read, an acquirement which has become more rare since every one has learned how to write.
Thanks to her reputation for learning, Xenie, at the age of nineteen, enjoyed a well-merited influence
throughout the whole government of . People
came to consult her from all the neighbouring villages. In sickness, in disputes, in all the grievances of the poor peasants, Xenie was their guide and their support.
Her conciliating temper often brought upon her the rebukes of her father ; but the knowledge of having done some good, or prevented some evil, compensated for every thing. In a country where, in general, women have little influence, she exercised a power
* This pretty name is that of a Russian saintess.
VOL. П.F
98THE HISTORY OF THELENEF.
which no man in the district could dispute with her, the power of reason over brutish minds.
Even her father, violent as he was both by disposition and habit, felt the influence of her benevolent nature, and too often blushed to find himself checking the violence of his wrath through fear of giving pain to Xenie. Like a tyrannical prince, he blamed himself for his clemency, and accused himself of being too easy. He gloried in his angry passions, to which
he gave the title of justice : the serfs of Prince
called them by another name.
The father and daughter resided in the castle of Vologda, which was situated in a widely extended plain, whose scenery, for Russia, is very pastoral. The castle was built on the border of a lake, which surrounded it on three sides. This lake, whose banks are fiat, communicates with the Volga by several tributary streams, which, in their short and gentle course, wind through the plain, deeply embedded in the soil, and are discoverable to the eye from afar, only by the lines of stunted willows and other sickly shrubs growing here and there along their borders. They intersect the prairie in every direction, without beautifying or enriching it; for the flowing water does not improve the marsh}'- soil.
