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

336 ANECDOTE OF CONSTANTINE.

This fact, which occurred in 1577, reminds me of another, which belongs to the history of Russia in our days. There is less difference than some may think between the past and the present in this land. The event happened at Warsaw, under the Grand Duke Constantine, and in the reign of the Emperor Alexander, the most philanthropieal of the Czars.

One day, Constantine was reviewing his guard, and desirous of proving to a foreignev the point to which discipline was carried in the Russian army, he descended from horseback, approached one of hisgeneraïs, and, without addressing him a word, quietly ran his sword into his foot. The general remained immoveable, and did not breathe a complaint. He was carried away after the Grand Duke had drawn back his sword. Such stoicism of the slave justifies the definition of the Abbé Galiani: " Courage," he said, " is nothing more than a very extreme fear! "

The spectators remained silent witnesses of this scene, which took place in the public square of Warsaw, in the nineteenth century !

The Russians, then, of our epoch, are worthy de

scendants of the subjects of Ivan. Let it not be

said, in excuse, that Constantine was mad. That

madness, if real, must have been known ; for from

his early youth his conduct had been marked by

similar public acts of insanity. After so many

proofs, then, of mental alienation, to give him the

command of armies and the government of kingdoms,

was to proclaim, in a manner the most revolting, con

tempt for the human race. But I do not believe

in this insanity of Constantine ; I see in his life the

mad excesses only of cruelty,k