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

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prehensible than any thing else to these people. Those who pretend to judge our country, say to me, that they do not really believe our king abstains from punishing the writers who daily abuse him in Paris.

" Nevertheless," I answer them, " the fact is there to convince you."

" Yes, yes, you talk of toleration," they reply, with a knowing air ; " it is all very well for the multitude and for foreigners : but your government punishes secretly the too audacious journalists."

When I repeat that every thing is public in France, they laugh sneeringly, politely check themselves; but they do not believe me.

The city of Vladimir is often mentioned in history : its aspect is like all the other Russian cities — that eternal type with which the reader is only too familiar. The country, also, that I have travelled over from Xijni resembles the rest of Russia — a forest without trees, interrupted by towns without life — barracks, raised sometimes upon heaths, sometimes upon marshes, and the spirit of a regiment to animate them. When I tell the Russians that their woods are badly managed, and that their country will in time be without fuel, they laugh me in the face. It has been calculated how many thousands of years it will require to consume the wood which covers the soil of an immense portion of the empire ; and this calculation satisfies every body. It is written in the estimates sent in by each provincial governor, that each province contains so many acres of forests. Upon these data the statistical department goes to work ; but before performing their purely arithmetical