Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

152CHILDEEN OF THE POPES.

follows that they can never satisfy real wants. This class of employes, hostile in their hearts to the order of things which they direct, are recruited in a great measure from among the sons of the popes* — a body of vulgar aspirants, of upstarts without talent, for they need no merit to oblige the state to disembarrass itself of the burden which they are upon it; people who approach to all the. ranks without possessing any; minds which participate alike in the popular prejudices and the aristocratic pretensions, without having the energy of the one or the wisdom of the other: to include all in one clause, the sons of the priests are revolutionists charged with maintaining the established order.

Half enlightened, liberal as the ambitious, as fond of oppressing as the slave, imbued with crude philosophical notions utterly inapplicable to the country which they call their own, though all their sentiments and s`emi-enlightened ideas come from abroad, these men are urging the nation towards a goal of which they are perhaps ignorant themselves, which the Emperor has never imagined, and which is not one that true Russians or true friends of humanity will desire.

This permanent conspiracy dates as far back as the time of Napoleon. The political Italian had foreseen the danger of the Russian power; and wishing to weaken the enemy of revolutionised Europe, he had recourse in the first place to the influence of ideas. He profited by his friendly relations with, the Emperor Alexander, and by the innate tendency of that prince towards liberal institutions, to send to Petersburg,