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

tion which the Russians give to all their sovereigns

оо

indiscriminately.

Under this Czar, death became the slave of a man; it lost its terrors in proportion as life lost its pleasures. The pleasure of the prince was the despair of the people; his power was extermination, his life an inglorious Avar against beings deprived of defence, or even of will, and whom God had placed under his protection ; his law was a hatred of the human race, and his moving passion, fear.

When he revenged himself, he carried his justice to the last degree of ^relationship, exterminating entire families—young girls, old men, women with child, and unweaned infants. Nor did he confine himself to destroying merely a few families; he annihilated whole provinces, sparing nothing that had life, not even the animals; he poisoned the very fishes in the lakes and rivers; and — can it be believed? — he commanded the sons to become the executioners of the fathers!—and was obeyed !! Men, then, are capable of carrying the love of life to the point of killing those who gave it, rather than lose it themselves !

Using human bodies as clocks, Ivan invented poisons which operated at fixed intervals, so that he had the satisfaction of counting his hours and dividing his time by the deaths of his subjects — the most scrupulous precision presiding over this infernal amusement. He assisted himself at all the executions he commanded: the steam of blood intoxicated without satiating him ; he was never so happy as after having presided at the toi*ments of numerous victims. The monster, after having given so many