" Stay! I shall defend my favourite, Walter Scott,"
cried Prince К, " I cannot permit so amusing a
writer to be insulted."
" That he is amusing is just the species of merit which I deny him," I responded. " A romance writer F 4
104HISTORICAL ROMANCE.
who needs a volume to prepare a scene is anything but amusing. Walter Scott was very fortunate m appearing at an epoch when people no longer knew what amusement meant."
" How he describes the human heart," said Prince
D: for every body was against юе.
" Yes, provided he does not make it speak, for expression fails him whenever he attempts the passionate and the sublime : he draws characters by their actions admirably, for he has more skill and more power of observation than eloquence; his mind is methodical and calculating; he has appeared in a congenial age, and has marvellously revived and embodied the most vulgar and consequently the most popular ideas and images."
" He has been the first to solve, in a satisfactory
manner, the difficult problem of historical romance :
you cannot refuse him this merit," added Prince
К.
" Would that it were insolvable," I replied. " With what multitudes of false notions have the crowd of illiterate readers been imbued by the mixing of history with romance. This union is always mischievous, and, to me, scarcely appears amusing. I would prefer reading, even for aimisenient, M. Augustin Thierry, or any other equally grave author, to all the fables about real personages that have ever been invented."
" If it is a matter of taste," said Prince К,
smiling, " we will dispute no longer about it; " and, taking my arm, he begged me to assist him to his state-room, where, offering me a seat, he continued, in a low voice, " as we are alone, and you like historvj
MARRIAGE OP PETER THE GREAT. 105
I wiH relate to you a story of a higher order than the one you have just heard: it is to you alone that I relate it, because before Russians one must not talk of history.
" You know that Peter the Great, after much hesitation, destroyed the patriarchate of Moscow, in order to unite on the same head the crown and the tiara. The political autocracy thus openly usurped that unlimited spiritual power which it had coveted for so long —monstrous union, unknown before among the nations of modern Europe. The chimera entertained by the popes during the middle-ages is now actually realised in a nation of sixty millions of people, many of them Asiatics, whom nothing surprises, and who are by no means sorry to find a grand Lama in their Czar.
" The Emperor Peter sought to unite himself in marriage with Catherine, the sutler.
" To accomplish this supreme object of his heart it was necessary to begin by finding a family name for the future empress. This was obtained I believe in Lithuania, where an obscure private gentleman was first converted into a great lord by birth, and afterwards discovered to be the brother of the empress elect.
" Russian despotism not only pays little respect to ideas and sentiments, it will also deny facts; it will ■struggle against evidence, and triumph in the struggle !!! for evidence, when it is inconvenient to power. has no more voice among us than has justice."
The bold language of the prince startled me. He had been educated at Rome, and, like all who possess any piety of feeling, and independence of mind, in г 5
106 MARRIAGE OF PETER THE GREAT.
Russia, he inclined to the Catholic religion. While various reflections, suggested by his discourse, were passing in my mind, he continued his philosophical observations.
" The people, and even the great men, are resigned spectators of this war against truth ; the lies of the despot, however palpable, are always flattering to the slave. The Russians, who bear so much, would bear no tyranny if the tyrant did not carefully act as though he believed them the dupes of his policy. Human dignity immersed and sinking in the gulf of absolute government, seizes hold of the smallest branch within reach, that may serve to keep it afloat. Human nature will bear much scorn and wrong ; but it will not bear to be told in direct terms that it is scorned and wronged. When outraged by deeds, it takes refuge in words. Falsehood is so abasing, that to degrade the tyrant into the hypocrite is a vengeance which consoles the victim. Miserable and last illusion of misfortune, which must yet be respected, lest the serf should become still more vile, and the despot still more outrageous.
" There existed an ancient custom for two of the greatest noblemen of the empire to walk by the side of the patriarch of Moscow in solemn public processions.
" On the occasion of his marriage, the Czarinian pontiff determined to choose for acolytes in the bridal procession, on one side a famous boyard*, and on the other the new brother-in-law that he had created ; for in Russia, sovereign power can do more than
* The title of a Russian noble.
PRINCE ROMODANOWSKI.107
create nobles, it can raise up relatives for those who are without any; with us, despotism is more powerful than nature; the emperor is not only the representative of God, he is himself the creative power; a power indeed greater than that of Deity, for it only extends its action to the future, whereas the emperor alters and amends the past: the law has no retroactive effect, the caprice of a despot has.
'cThe personage whom Peter wished to associate with the new brother of the empress was the highest noble in Moscow, and after the Czar, the greatest individual in the empire, his name was Prince Romodanowski. Peter notified him through liis first minister that he was to attend the ceremony in order to walk by the emperor's side — an honour which he would share with the brother of the empress."
" ' Very well,' replied the prince; ' but on which side of the Czar am I expeeted to place myself?'
" e My dear prince,' replied the courtier, i how can you ask sueh a question? Of course the brother-in-law of his majesty will take the right'
" e I shall not attend, then,' responded the haughty boyard.
" This answer reported to the Czar provoked a. second message.
"fYou shall attend!' was the mandate of the tyrant ; e you shall either attend, or I will hang you !'
" i Say to the Czar,' replied the indomitable Muscovite, ' that I entreat him first to execute the same sentence on my only son: this child is only fifteen years old; it is possible that, after having seen me perish, fear will make him consent to walk on the left hand of his sovereign ; but I can depend on myself, both f б
108
RUSSIAN AUTOCRACY.
before and after the execution of my child, never to do that which can disgrace the blood of Romodanowski.'"
" The Czar, I say it in his praise, yielded ; but to revenge himself on the independent spirit of the Muscovite aristocracy, he built St. Petersburg.
"Nicholas," added prince К, "would not
have acted thus ; he would have sent the boyard and his son to the mines, and have declared by an ukase, conceived in legal terms, that neither the father nor the son соггк! have children ; perhaps he would have deci`eed that the father had never been married ; siieh things still often take place in Riissia, the best pi`oof of which is that Ave are foi`bidden to recount them."
Be this as it гпау, the pi*ide of the ]VIuscovite гюЫе gives a perfect idea of that singular combmation of which the acüial state of Russian society is the result. A monstrous compound of the petty ì`efineinents of Byzantium, and the ferocity of the desei`t horde, a striiggle between the etiqiiette of the Lower Empire, and the savage virtiies of Asia, have produced the mighty state which Europe now beholds, and the mfluence of which she will pi`obably feel hei`eafter, without being able to understand its operation.