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

154PEOPAGANDISM OF NAPOLEOtf*

niards have addressed to us for thirty-five years past, If the mischievous intentions which the Russians attribute to Napoleon were real, no interest, no patriotism could justify them. We cannot save one part of the world by deceiving the other. Our religious propagandism appears to me sublime, because the Catholic church accords with every form of government and every degree of civilisation, over which it reigns with all the superiority of mind over body: but political proselytism, that is to say, the narrow spirit of conquest, or to speak yet more justly, the spirit of rapine justified by that skilful sophistry called glory, is odious; for, far from drawing together the human race, this contracted ambition divides them : unity can only give birth to elevated and extended ideas; but the politics of national interference are always little; its liberality is hypocritical or tyrannical ; its benefits are ever deceptive : every nation should derive from within itself the means for the improvements it requires.

To resume: the problem proposed, not by men, but by events, by the concatenation of circumstances, to an emperor of Russia, is to favour among the nation the progress of knowledge in order to hasten the emancipation of the serfs; and further to aim at this object by the improving of manners, by the encouraging of humanity and of legal liberty; in short, by ameliorating hearts with the view of alleviating destinies. Such is the condition imperative upon any man who would now reign, even at Moscow: but the peculiarity of the Emperor's position is, that he has to shape his course towards this object, keeping clear on the one side of the mute though well-organised