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

complaisance of the director deserved much gratitude, though I expressed but little, and that little was more than I felt: fatigue renders a man almost as ungrateful as ennui.

The object that we most admired in this tedious inspection was a machine of Bramah's, invented to prove the strength of the largest chain-cables : the enormous links that can resist the force of this machine may hold the mightiest vessels of war at anchor in the highest seas. An ingenious application of water-pressure, to measure the strength of iron, is the invention which appeared to me so marvellous.

We also examined sluices destined to serve in extraordinary floods of water. It is especially in springtime that they are useful. Without them, the stream which moves the various machines would cause incalculable damage. The canals of these sluices are lined with thick sheets of copper, because that metal is found to resist the winters better than granite. I was told that I should see nothing like them elsewhere.

When we entered the carriage to return to Petersburg, it was already night, and very cold. The length of the road was lightened by a charrning conversation, of which I have retained one anecdote. It will serve to prove to what extent the creative power of an absolute sovereign can be carried. Hitherto I had only seen it exercised upon buildings, upon the dead, upon historic facts, upon prisoners, — in short, upon all things that could not protest against an abuse of power : this time we shall see a Russian emperor imposing upon one of the most illustrious families of France, a relative of whom it knew nothing.

Under the reign of Paul I. a Frenchman of the