* M. Bi·ulow has copied several of Raphael's works; but I was especially struck with the beauty of the one here mentioned.
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demoiselle Taglioni herself (alas ! for Mademoiselle Taglioni!) is not a perfect dancer at St. Petersburg. What a fall for La Sylphide ! But when she walks in the streets — for she walks at present — she is followed by footmen in handsome cockades and gold lace; and the newspapers overwhelm her every morning with articles containing the most preposterous praises I have ever seen. This is all the Russians, notwithstanding their cleverness,, ean do for the arts and for artistes. What the latter want is a heaven to give them life, a public which can understand them, a society which can excite and inspire them. These are necessaries : rewards are supererogatory. It is not, however, in a country contiguous to Lapland, and governed under the system of Peter the Great, that such things are to be sought for. I must wait for the Russians' establishment in Constantinople, before I can know of what they are really capable in the fine arts and in civilisation.
The best method of patronising art is to have a sincere desire for the pleasures it procures: a nation that reaches this point of civilisation will not be long-compelled to seek for artists among foreigners.
At the time of my leaving St. Petersburg, several persons were secretly deploring the abolition of the Uniates*, and recounting the arbitrary measures by which this irreligious act, celebrated as a triumph by the Greek church, has been accomplished. The unknown persecutions to which many priests among the Uniates have been exposed would be viewed as revolt-
* The Uniates are Greeks reunited to the Catholic church, and therefore regarded as schismatics by the Greek church. о 3
294 SUPERIORITY OF A REPRESENTATIVE
ing by even the most indifferent parties ; but in a country where distances and secrecy lend their aid to the most tyrannical acts, all these violences remain concealed. This reminds me of the significant words too often repeated by Russians deprived of protectors — " God is so high, and the emperor so far off!"
Here, then, is the Greek church busy making martyrs. What has become of the toleration of which it boasts before men who are ignorant of the East ? Glorious confessors of the Catholic faith are now languishing in convent prisons ; and their struggle, admirable in the eyes of heaven, remains unknown even to the church for whom they generously fight upon earth, — that church which is*mother of all the churches, and the only church universal; for it is the only one untainted by locality, the only one which remains free, and which belongs to no particular country.*
When the sun of publicity shall rise upon Russia, how many injustices will it expose to view! — not only ancient ones, but those which are enacted daily will shock the senses of the world. They will not be sufficiently shocked; for such is the fate of truth upon earth, that, so long as people have a great interest in knowing it, they remain ignorant of it, and when at last they have their eyes opened, it has become to them no longer a matter of importance. The abuses of a destroyed power excite only cold exclamations : those who recount them, pass for ungenerous strikers
* Has it not taken three years to carry to Koine the cry of these unfortunate beings ?
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of the slain; whilst, on the other hand, the excesses of this iniquitous power remain carefully concealed so long as it maintains itself; for its first aim is to ítifîe the cries of its victim: it exterminates, hut avoids lightly wounding; and applauds itself for its mercy in having recourse to none save indispensable cruelties. But its boasting is hypocriticaclass="underline" when the prison is as silent and closely shut as the tomb, there is no mercy in saving from the scaffold.
I left France scared by the abuses of a false liberty; I return to my country persuaded that, if logically speaking, representative government is not the most moral, it is, practically, the most wise and moderate, preserving the people on one side from democratic licence, and on the other from the most glaring abuses of despotism: I therefore ask myself if we ought not to impose a silence upon our antipathies, and submit without murmur to a necessary policy, and one which, after all, brings to nations prepared for it more good than evil. It is true that hitherto this new and wise form of government has only been able to establish itself by usurpation. Perhaps these final usurpations have been rendered inevitable by preceding errors. This is a religious question, which time, the wisest of God's ministers upon earth, will resolve to our posterity. I am here reminded of the profound idea of one of the most enlightened and cultivated intellects in Germany, M. Varnhagen von der Ense:
" I have often laboured," he wrote to mc one day, " to discover who were the prime movers of revolutions ; and, after thirty years' meditation, I have come to the conclusion that my earliest opinion was О 4
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right, and that they are caused by the men against whom they are directed."
Never shall I forget my feelings in travelling from Niemen to Tilsit: it was more especially then that I did justice to the observation of my host at Lübeck. A bird escaped from its cage could not have been more joyous. I can speak, I can write all that I think: I am free! were my exulting exclamations. The first real letter that I despatched to Paris was sent from this frontier: it would cause quite a sensation in the little circle of my friends, who, until they received it, had, no doubt, been the dupes of my official correspondence. The following is the copy of that letter:
"Tilsit, Thurs(%, 26th September, 1839.
¢¢ You will, I hope, have as much pleasure in reading the above date as I have in writing it: here I am beyond the empire of uniformity, minutia, and difficulties. I hear the language of freedom, and I feel as if in a vortex of pleasure, a world earned away by new ideas towards inordinate liberty. And yet I am only in Prussia: but in leaving Kussia I have again found houses, the plan of which has not been dictated to a slave by an inflexible master, but which are freely built: I see a lively country freely cultivated (it is of Prussia I am speaking), and the change warms and gladdens my heart.
'•' In short, I breathe ! I can write to you without carefully guarding my words for fear of the police — a precaution almost always insufficient; for there is as much of the susceptibility of self-love as of political prudence in the espionnage of the Russians. Russia is the most gloomy country, and is inhabited by the
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most handsome men that I have ever beheld; a country in which women are scarcely seen, cannot be gay. Here I am, escaped from it, and without the smallest accident. I have travelled two hundred and fifty leagues in four days, by roads often wretched, often magnificent; for the Russian spirit, friend as it is to uniformity, cannot attain a real state of order: the characteristics of its administration are meddlesomeness, negligence, and corruption. A sincere man in the Empire of the Czar would pass for a fool.
" I have now a journey of two hundred leagues tc perform before I reach Berlin; but I look forward to it as a mere excursion of pleasure."
Good roads throughout the distance, good inns, beds on which one may lie down, the order of houses managed by women — all seemed delightful and novel. I was particularly struck with the varied architecture of the buildings, the air of freedom in the peasants, and the gaiety of the female sex among them. Their good humour inspired me with a kind of fear: it was an independence, the consequences of which I dreaded for them, for I had myself almost lost the memory of it. I saw towns built spontaneously, before any government had imagined a plan of them. Ducal Prussia does not assuredly pass for a land of licence; and yet, in passing through the streets of Tilsit, and afterwards those of Königsberg, I could have fancied myself at a Venetian carnival. My feelings brought to my memory a German of my accpiaint-ance, who, after having been obliged, by business, to pass whole years in Russia, was at last able to leave that country for ever. He was accompanied by a о 5