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

PETER THE GREAT.229

dukes : all are now placed in the new sepulchre, of which you see the stone."

I could not have replied without causing an unpleasant commotion in the mind of a provincial governor as attached to the duties of his office as is the governor of iSajni: I therefore followed him, in silence, to the little obelisk of the square, and towards the immense ramparts of the Kremlin of Nijni.

We here see what is understood by veneration for the dead, and respect for historical monuments in Russia. The emperor, who knows that ancient things are venerable, desires that a church, built yesterday, should be honoured as old; and to produce this, he says that it is old, whereupon it becomes so. The new church of Minine is the ancient one: if you doubt this truth, you arc seditious.

Every where is to be seen the same system — that of Peter the Great—perpetuated by his successors. That man believed and proved that the will of a Muscovite czar might serve as a substitute for the laws of nature, for the rules of art, for truth, history, and humanity, for the ties of blood, and of religion. If the Russians still venerate him it is because their vanity outweighs their judgment. ¢¢ Behold," they say, " what Russia was before the accession of that great prince, and what she has become after: see what a monarch of genius can do !" This is a false mode of appreciating the glory of a nation. I see, among the most civilised states in the world, some whose power extends to none except their own subjects; and these, even, are few in number. Such states have no influence in universal polities. It is not by the pride of conquest, nor by political tyranny