THE
EMPIRE OF THE CZAR ;
SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND RELIGIOUS STATE PROSPECTS OF RUSSIA,
MADE DURING A JOURNEY THROUGH THAT EMPIRE. BY
THE MARQUIS DE CUSTINE.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.
" Respectez surtout les étrangers, de quelque quality, de quelque rang qu'ils soient; et si vous n'ètes pas à mème de les combler de presents, prodiguez-leur au moins des marques de bienveillance, puisque de la manière dont ils sont traités dans un pays depend le bien et le mal qu'ils en disent en ie-tournant dans le leur."
Extrait des Conseils de Vladimir Monomaque à ses Enfants en 1126 Histoire de l`Empire de Russie, par Karamsin, t. xi. p. 205.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS,
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE,
The work recently published in Paris, of which these volumes are a translation, has appeared in the form of letters addressed to anonymous friends.
This form has not been preserved in the translation, which is divided into chapters ; an arrangement better adapted to the taste of the English reader, and unobjectionable in other respects, as the division of the chapters still corresponds with that of the original epistles.
In making the alteration, a few very trivial modifications in the phraseology of the text were necessary.
The translator has likewise ventured on some occasions slightly to curtail the French paragraphs. It will, however, be sufficient to add, that no details have been abbreviated, nor one single observation omitted, that appeared likely to interest the general reader. a 2
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London, July, 1843.
AUTHORS PREFACE,
A taste for travelling has never been with ше а fashion ; I brought it with me into the world, and I began to gratify it in early youth. We are all vaguely tormented with a desire to know a world which appears to us a dungeon because wTe have not ourselves chosen it for an abode. I should feel as if I could not depart in peace out of this narrow Avorld if I had not endeavoured to explore my prison. The more I examine it, the more beautiful and extensive it becomes in my eyes. To see in order to know: such is the motto of the traveller; such is also mine : I have not adopted it; nature gave it to me.
To compare the different modes of existence in different nations, to study the manner of thinking and feeling peculiar to each, to perceive the relations which God has established between their history, their manners, and their physiognomy ; in a word, to travel, is to procure for my curiosity an inexhaustible aliment, to supply my thoughts with an eternal impulse of activity : to prevent my surveying the world would be like robbing a literary man of the key of his libraiy.
But if curiosity cause me to wander, an attachment which partakes of the nature of a domestic affection brings me back. I then take a review of my observations, and select from among the spoil, the ideas
VÌAUTHORS PREFACE.
which I imagine may be communicated with the greatest likelihood of beins; useful.
During my sojourn in Russia, as well as during all my other journeys, two thoughts, or rather sentiments, have never ceased to influence my heart, — a love of France, which renders me severe in my judgments upon foreigners, and upon the French themselves, for passionate affections are never indulgent; and a love of mankind. To find the balancing point between these two opposing objects of our affections here below, between the love of country and the love of fellow-men, is the vocation of every elevated mind, Religion alone can solve the problem : I do not flatter myself that I have attained it; but I can and ought to say that I have never ceased bending towards it all my efforts, without regard to the variations of fashion. "With my religious ideas, I have passed through an unsympathising world; and now I see, not without a pleasurable surprise, these same ideas occupying the youthful minds of the new generation.
I am not one of those who view Christianity as a sacred veil that reason, in its illimitable progress, will one day tear away. Religion is veiled, but the veil is not religion: if Christianity mantles itself in symbols, it is not because its truth is obscure, but because it is too brightly dazzling, and because the eye is weak : as the vision becomes stronger, it will be able to pierce farther ; and yet, nothing fundamental will be changed : the clouds are not spread over celestial objects, but over our earth.
Beyond the pale of Christianity, men remain in a state of isolation ; or, if they unite, it is to form
author's preface.vü
political communities; in other words, to make war with fellow-men. Christianity alone has discovered the secret of free and pacific association, because it alone has shown to liberty in what it is that liberty consists. Christianity governs, and will yet more rigidly govern the earth, by the increasingly strict application of its divine morals to human transactions. Hitherto the Christian world has been more occupied with the mystic side of religion than with its political bearing. A new era commences for Christianity: perhaps our grandchildren will see the Gospel serving as the basis of public order.
But it woiúd be impious to believe that this was the only end of the divine legislator; tin's is but his means.
Supernatural light cannot be acquired by the human race, except through the union of souls beyond and above the trammels of all temporal governments : a spiritual society, a society without limits : such is the hope — such the future prospect of the world.
I hear it said that this object will be henceforward attainable without the aid of our religion; that Christianity, built on the ruinous foundation of original sin, has had its day ; and that to accomplish his true vocation, misunderstood until now, man needs only to obey the laws of nature.
Ambitious men of a superior order of talent, who revive these old doctrines by eloquence ever new, are obliged to add, in order to be consistent, that good and evil exist only in the human mind ; and that the man who creates these phantoms may also destroy them.
The pretended new proofs which they give do not
viiiAUTHOR'S PREFACE.