laughter of the schoolboys of past ages. I answered my critic by referring him to Bossuet. His exposition of Catholic doctrine, confirmed, approved, always praised and adopted by the court of Rome, sufficiently justifies my principles.
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES.341
eternal principle of life and power. The future is her own, because she has kept herself pure from alloy. Let Protestantism agitate and divide, — to do so is the very principle of its nature; let sects quarrel and dispute, — this is their vocation: the Catholic church waits ! . . . .
The Greco-Russian clergy have never been, and never will be, any thing more than a militia dressed in a uniform rather different from that of the secular troops of the empire.
The distance which separates Russia from the West has wonderfully aided hitherto in veiling all these tilings from us. If the astute Greek policy so much fears the truth, it is because it so well knows how to profit by falsehood; but what surprises me is that it should succeed in perpetuating the reign of that influence.
Can the reader now understand the importance of an opinion, of a sarcastic word, a letter, a jest, a smile, or, with still greater reason, of a book in the eyes of a government thus favoured by the credulity of its people, and by the complaisance of all foreigners ? A word of truth dropped in Russia is a spark that may fall on a barrel of gunpowder.
What do the men who govern the empire care for the want, the pallid visages of the soldiers of the emperor ? Those living spectres have the most beautiful uniforms in Europe; what matters, then, the filthy smocks in which the gilded phantoms are concealed in the interior of their barracks ? Provided they are only shabby and dirty in secret, and that they shine when they show themselves, nothing is asked from them, nothing is given them. With the Q 3
342RUSSIAN ASPIEATIOXS
Russians, appearance is everything, and among them appearance deceives more than it does among others. It follows, that whoever lifts a corner of the curtain loses his reputation in Petersburg beyond the chance of retrieving it.
Social life in that country is a permanent conspiracy against the truth.
There, whoever is not a dupe, is viewed as a traitor, — there, to laugh at a gasconnade, to refute a falsehood, to contradict a political boast, to find a reason for obedience, is to be guilty of an attempt against the safety of the state and the prince; it is to incur the fate of a revolutionist, a conspirator, an enemy of order, a Pole ; and we all know whether this fate is a merciful one. It must be owned the susceptibility which thus manifests itself is more formidable than laughable; the minute surveillance of such a government, in accord with the enlightened vanity of such a people, becomes fearful; it is no longer ludicrous.
People must and ought to employ all manner of precautions under a master who shows mercy to no enemy, who despises no resistance, and who considers vengeance as a duty. This man, or rather this government personified, would view pardon as apostacy, clemency as self-forgetfulness, humanity as a want of respect towards its own majesty, or, I should rather say, its divinity !
Russian civilisation is still so near its source that it resembles barbarism. The Russians are nothing more than a conquering community; their strength does not lie in mind, but in war, that is, in stratagem and ferocity.
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Poland, by its last insurrection, has retarded the explosion of the mine ; it has forced the batteries to remain masked: Poland will never be pardoned for the dissimulation that she has rendered necessary, not towards herself, for she is immolated with impunity, but towards friends whom it is needful to continue making dupes, while managing their stormy philanthropy. The advance-guard of the new Roman Empire, which will be called the Greek Empire, and the most circumspect at the same time that he is the most blind of the kings of Europe*, to please his neighbour, who is also his master, is commencing a religious war. If he can be thus led astray, it will be easy to seduce others.
If ever'the Russians succeed in conquering theAYest, they will not govern it from their own country, after the manner of the old Mongols; on the contrary, there will be nothing in which they will show such eager haste as to issue from their icy plains : unlike theù· ancient masters, the Tartars, who tyrannised over the Slavonians from a distance — for the climate of Muscovy frightened even the Mongols — the Muscovites will leave their country the moment the roads of other countries are open to them.
At this moment they talk moderation ; they protest against the conquest of Constantinople ; they say that they fear every thing that would increase an empire where the distances are already a calamity; they dread — yes! even thus far extends their prudence ! — they dread hot climates ! . . . . Let us wait a little, and we shall see what will become of all these fears.
* Written of the late King of Prussia, in 1839. Q 4
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THE PROSPECTS OF
And am I not to speak of so much falsehood, so many perils, so great an evil ? . . . . No, no; I would rather have been deceived and speak, than have rightly discerned and remain silent. If there is temerity in recounting my observations there would be criminality in concealing them.
The Russians will not answer me; they will say, " A journey of four months ! — he cannot have fully seen things."
It is true I have not fully seen, but I have fully devined.
Or, if they do me the honour of refuting me, they will deny facts,— facts which they are accustomed to reckon as nothing in Petersburg, where the past, like the present and the future, is at the mercy of the monarch : for, once again, the Russians have nothing of their own but obedience and imitation; the direction of their mind, their judgment, and their free-will belongs to their master. In Russia, history forms a part of the crown domain : it is the moral estate of the prince, as men and lands are the material ; it is placed in cabinets with the other imperial treasures, and only such of it is shown as it is wished should be seen. The emperor modifies at his pleasure the annals of the country, and daily dispenses to his people the historic truths that accord with the fiction of the moment. Thus it was that Minine and Pojarski — heroes forgotten for two centuries — were suddenly exhumed, and became the fashion, during the invasion of Napoleon. At that moment, the government permitted patriotio enthu` siasrn.
Nevertheless, this exorbitant power injures itself; Russia will not submit to it eternally. A spirit of