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revolt broods in the army. I say, with the emperor, the Russians have travelled too much; the nation has become greedy of information: the custom-house cannot confiscate ideas, armies cannot exterminate them, ramparts cannot arrest their progress; ideas are in the air, they pervade every region, and they arc сЬашшш the world.*
From all that has gone before, it»follows that the"fu-. ture— that brilliant future dreamt of by the Russians — does not depend upon them; they have,no ideas of their own ; and the fate of this nation of imitators will be decided by people whose ideas are their own. If passions calm in the West, if union be established between the governments and their subjects, the greedy hope of the conquering Slavonians will become a chimera.
Is it proper to repeat, that I write without animosity, that I have described things without traducing persons, and that, in expatiating upon certain facts which have shocked me, I have generally accused less than I have recounted ?
I left Paris with the opinion, that the intimate alliance of France and Russia could alone set to rights the affairs of Europe: but since I have seen the Russian nation, and have recognised the true spirit of its government, I have felt that it is isolated from the rest of the civilised world by a powerful
* Since this has been written, the emperor has permitted a crowd of Russians to make a stay in Paris. He, perhaps, thinks he may cure the innovators of their dreams, by showing them France, which is represented to him as a volcano of revolutions, as a country, the residence in which must for ever disgust them with political reforms: he deceives himself, Q 5
346 ALLIANCE OF FRANCE AND GERMANY.
political interest, supported by religious fanaticism; and I am of opinion, that France should seek for allies among nations whose interests accord with her own. Alliances are not to be formed on opinions in opposition to wants. "Where, in Europe, are wants which accord ? I answer, among the French and the Germans, and the people naturally destined to serve as satellites to those two great nations. The destinies of a progressive civilisation, a civilisation sincere and national, will be decided in the heart of Europe : every thing which tends to hasten the perfect agreement of French and German policy is beneficent ; every thing which retards that union, however specious be the motive for delay, is pernicious.
War is going to break out between philosophy and faith, between politics and religion, between Protestantism and Catholicism; and the banner raised by France in this gigantic struggle will decide the fate of the world, of the Church, and above all, of France herself.
The proof that the kind of alliance to which I aspire is good, is that a time will come when we shall not have it in our power to choose any other.
As a foreigner, especially as a foreigner who writes, I was overwhelmed with protestations of politeness by the Russians: but their obliging civilities were limited to promises; no one gave me facilities for seeing into the depths of things. A crowd of mysteries have remained impenetrable to my intellect. A year spent in the journey would have but little aided me; the inconveniences of winter seemed to me the more formidable, because the inhabitants assured me that they were of little consequence. They think nothing of paralysed limbs and frozen faces;
THE GREEK RELIGION IN RUSSIA.347
though I could cite more than one instance of accidents of this kind happening even to ladies in the highest circles of society, both foreign and Russian ; and once attaeked, the individual feels the effects all his life. I had no wish uselessly to brave together these evils, with the tedious precautions that would be necessary to avoid them. Besides, in this empire of profound silence, of vast empty spaces, of naked country, of solitary towns, of prudent physiognomies, whose expression, by no-means sincere, made society itself appear empty, melancholy was gaining hold upon me ; I fled before the spleen as much as the cold. Whoever would pass a winter at Petersburg must resign himself for six months to forget nature, in order to live imprisoned among men who have nothing in their characters that is natural.* I admit, ingenuously, I have passed a wretched summer in Russia, because I have not been able well to understand beyond a small portion of what I have seen. I hoped to arrive at solutions; I bring back only problems.
There is one mystery which I more especially regret my inability to penetrate : I allude to the little influence of religion. Notwithstanding the political servitude of the Greek Church, might it not at least preserve some moral authority over the people ? It does not possess any. What is the cause of the nothingness of a church whose labours every thing seems to
* I have found, in the newly-published Letters of Lady Montague, a maxim of the Turkish courtiers, applicable to all courtiers, but more especially to the Russian ; it will serve to mark the relations, of which more than one sort exist, between Turkey and Muscovy : — " Caress the favoured, shun the unfortunate, and trust nobody."
348
INTOLERANCE OF
favour ? This is the problem. Is it the property of the Greek religion to remain thus stationary, contenting itself with external marks of respect ? Is such a result inevitable whenever the spiritual power falls into absolute dependence upon the temporal? I believe so: but this is what I could have wished to be able to prove by means of facts and documents. However I will, in a few words, give the resiút of my observations on the relations between the Russian clergy and people.
I have seen in Russia a Christian church, which no one attacks, which every one, in appearance at least, respects — a church which every thing favours in the exercise of its moral authority; and yet this church has no influence over the heart; it makes no other than hypocritical or superstitious votaries.
In a land where religion is not respected, it is not responsible: but here, where all the influence of absolute power aids the priest in the accomplishment of 'his work, where doctrine is not attacked either in print or in discourse, where religious practices have, so to speak, become a law of the state, where the customs of the people, which among us oppose faith, serve its cause, the church may be reasonably reproached for its sterility. That church is lifeless; and yet, to judge by what passes in Poland, it can persecute, though it has not the high virtues and talents that might enable it to proselyte : in short, the Russian church, like every thing else in the country, wants that spirit of liberty without which the light of life goes out.
Occidental Europe is not aware of the degree of religious intolerance that enters into Russian policy.
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349
The worship of the United Greeks (the Uniates) has been, after long and heavy persecutions, abolished. The following fact will show the danger run in Eussia by speaking of the Greek religion, and of its little moral influence.
Some years ago, a man of mind, and highly esteemed by every one in Moscow, noble both by birth and character, but, unfortunately for himself, devoured with a love of truth — a passion dangerous everywhere, but mortally so in Russia, — ventured to print that the Catholic religion is more favourable to the development of mind, and to the progress of arts, than the Russian Byzantine. The life of the Catholic priest, he says in his book, a life altogether supernatural, or which at least ought to be so, is a voluntary and daily sacrifice of the gross inclinations of nature ; a sacrifice incessantly renewed on the altar of faith, to prove to the most incredulous that man is not subjected in all things to the tyranny of material laws, and that he may receive from a superior power means of escaping from them: he adds, " By virtue of the changes operated by time, the Catholic religion can no longer employ her virtuality except in doing good:" in fact, he maintained, that Catholicism was wanting to the great destinies of the Slavonian race, because in it alone could, at the same time, be found, sustained enthusiasm, perfect charity and pure discernment ; he supported his opinion by a great number of proofs, and endeavoured to show the advantages of an independent, that is an universal religion, over local or politically-limited religions ; in short, he professed an opinion which I shall never cease to defend with all my powers.