350DANGER ОГ SPEAKING OF
Even the faults in the character of the Russian women are by this writer attributed to the Greek religion. He pretends that if they are light and frivolous, and do not know how to preserve the authority in their families which it is the duty of a Christian wife and mother to exercise, it is because they have never received real religious instruction.
This book having escaped, I do not know by what miracle or subterfuge, the vigilance of the censorship, set Russia in a blaze. Petersburg, and Moscow the holy city, uttered cries of rage and alarm; in short, the consciences of the faithful were so disturbed, that, from one end of the empire to the other, was demanded the punishment of this imprudent advocate of the mother of the Christian churches, an advocacy which did not save him from being reviled as an innovator: for — and this is not one of the smallest inconsistencies of the human mind, almost always in contradiction with itself in the comedies which it plays upon this world — the motto of all sectarians and schismatics is, that we should respect the religion under which we are born — a truth too much forgotten by Luther and
Calvin ;in fine, the knout, Siberia, the mines,
the galleys, the fortresses of all the Russias, were not enough to reassure Moscow and her Byzantine orthodoxy against the ambition of Rome, aided by the impious doctrine of a traitor to his God and country.
The sentence which was to decide the fate of so great a criminal was expected with the deepest anxiety; it was long in appearing, and the people began to doubt in supreme justice : at last, the emperor, in his unfeeling mercy, declared that there was no ground for punishment, that there was no criminal to make
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an example of, but that there was a madman to shut up; and he added that the diseased man should be placed under medical care.
This judgment was put in execution without delay, and in so severe a manner that the reputed madman thought he should have justified the derisive decree of the absolute head of church and state. The martyr of truth had very nearly lost the reason that was denied him. At present, after a three years' treatment, as degrading as it was rigorous and cruel, the unhappy theologian first begins to enjoy a little liberty : but is it not a miracle ! . . . he now doubts his own reason, and, upon the faith of the imperial word, he owns himself insane ! О ! ye depths of human misery ! . . . In Russia, the word of the sovereign, when it reproves a man, equals the papal excommunication of the middle ages!
The pretended madman may now communicate with a few friends. It was proposed, during my stay in Moscow, to take me to see him in his retreat, but mingled fear and pity withheld me ; for my curiosity would have appeared to him insulting. I did not learn what was the punishment of the censors of his book.
This is a quite recent example of the mode of treating affairs of conscience in Russia. I ask again, for the last time, if the traveller so fortunate or unfortunate as to have learnt such facts, has the right to let them remain unknown? In things of this kind, what we positively know enlightens us with regard to what Ave surmise; and from all these things together there results a conviction which we feel under an obligation of communicating to the world if we are able.
I speak without personal hatred, but also without
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PAKALLEL BETWEEN
fear or restriction; for I brave the danger even of wearying.
The country that I have just surveyed is as sombre and monotonous as that which I described formerly is brilliant and varied. To draw its exact picture is to renounce the hope to please. In Russia, life is as gloomy as in Andalusia it is gay ; the Russians are as dull as the Spaniards are full of spirits. In Spain, the absence of political liberty is compensated by a personal independence which perhaps exists nowhere to the same extent, and the effects of which are surprising ; whilst in Russia, the one is as little known as the other. A Spaniard lives on love, a Russian lives on calculation ; a Spaniard relates every thing, and if he has nothing to relate, he invents ; a Russian conceals every thing, or if he has nothing to conceal, he is still silent, that he may appear discreet: Spain is infested with brigands, but they rob only on the road; the Russian roads are safe, but you will be plundered infallibly in the houses : Spain is full of the ruins and the memories of every century; Russia looks back only upon yesterday, her history is rich in nothing but promises: Spain is studded with mountains, whose forms vary at every step taken by the traveller; Russia is but a single unchanging scene, extending from one end of a plain to the other : the sun illumines Seville, and vivifies the whole peninsula ; the mists veil the distances in Petersburg, which remain dim during even the finest summer evenings. In short, the two countries are the very opposite of each other ; they differ as do day and night, fire and ice, north and south.
He must have sojourned in that solitude without
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repose, that prison without leisure which is called Russia, to feel all the liberty enjoyed in the other European countries, whatever form of government they may have adopted. It cannot be too emphatically repeated: liberty is wanted in every thing Russian; unless it be in the commerce of Odessa. The emperor, who is endowed with prophetic tact, little loves the spirit of independence that pervades that city, the prosperity of which is due to the intelligence and integrity of a Frenchman * : it is, however, the only point in his vast dominions where men may with sincerity bless his reign.
If ever your sons should be discontented with France, try my receipt; tell them to go to Russia. It is a useful journey for every foreigner : whoever has well examined that country will be content to live anywhere else. It is always well to know that a society exists where no happiness is possible* because, by a law of his nature, man cannot be happy unless he is free.
Such a recollection renders the traveller less fastidious ; and, returning to his own hearth, he can say of his country what a man of mind once said of himself : e( When I estimate myself, I am modest; but when I compare myself, I am proud."
* The Duke de Richelieu, minister of Louis XVIII.
APPENDIX.
November, 1842. During the course of this year, chance has brought me into the company of two individuals who served in our armies during the campaign of 1812, and who both lived in Russia for some years after having been made prisoners there. The one is a Frenchman, now professor of the Russian language at Paris ; his name is M. Girard; the other is an Italian, M. Grassini, brother of the celebrated singer whose beauty once caused great sensation in Europe, and whose admirable dramatic and musical talents have contributed to the glory of the modern Italian school.