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

right, and that they are caused by the men against whom they are directed."

Never shall I forget my feelings in travelling from Niemen to Tilsit: it was more especially then that I did justice to the observation of my host at Lübeck. A bird escaped from its cage could not have been more joyous. I can speak, I can write all that I think: I am free! were my exulting exclamations. The first real letter that I despatched to Paris was sent from this frontier: it would cause quite a sensation in the little circle of my friends, who, until they received it, had, no doubt, been the dupes of my official correspondence. The following is the copy of that letter:

"Tilsit, Thurs(%, 26th September, 1839.

¢¢ You will, I hope, have as much pleasure in reading the above date as I have in writing it: here I am beyond the empire of uniformity, minutia, and difficulties. I hear the language of freedom, and I feel as if in a vortex of pleasure, a world earned away by new ideas towards inordinate liberty. And yet I am only in Prussia: but in leaving Kussia I have again found houses, the plan of which has not been dictated to a slave by an inflexible master, but which are freely built: I see a lively country freely cultivated (it is of Prussia I am speaking), and the change warms and gladdens my heart.

'•' In short, I breathe ! I can write to you without carefully guarding my words for fear of the police — a precaution almost always insufficient; for there is as much of the susceptibility of self-love as of political prudence in the espionnage of the Russians. Russia is the most gloomy country, and is inhabited by the