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

numbers is a privilege of the Russian police: I am ignorant whether they arrive correct before the eyes of the Emperor; but I do know that no misfortune is published under his reign until he has consented to the humiliating confession of the superiority of Providence. The pride of despotism is so great that it seeks to rival the power of God. Monstrous jealousy ! into what aberrations hast thou not plunged princes and subjects ! Who will dare to love truth, who will defend it in a country where idolatry is the principle of the constitution ? A man who can do every thing is the crowned impersonification of a lie.

It will be understood that I am not now speaking of the Emperor Nicholas, but of the Emperor of Russia. We often hear mention made of customs which limit Iris power : I have been struck with its abuse, but have seen no remedy.

In the eyes of real statesmen, and of all practical minds, the laws are, I admit, less important than our precise logicians and political philosophers believe them ; for it is the manner in which they are applied that decides the life of the people. True ; but the life of the Russian people is more gloomy than that of any other of the European nations ; and when I say the people, I speak not only of the peasants attached to the soil, but of the whole empire.

A government that makes profession of being vigorous, and that causes itself to be dreaded on every occasion, must inevitably render men miserable. Wherever the public machine is rigorously exact, there is despotism, whatever be the fiction, monarchical or democratical, which covers it. The best government is that which makes itself the least felt;