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

THE FRUIT OF DESPOTISM.91

viewed as a kind of liberator, merely because he had incurred legal punishments. The blame can only fall on the judge. People here, avow then- hatred of morals just as others would elsewhere say, " I detest arbitrary government."

I brought witli me to Russia a preconceived opinion, which I possess no longer. I believed, with many others, that autocracy derived its chief strength from the equality which it caused to reign beneath it. But this equality is an illusion. I said, and heard it said, that when one man is all-powerful, the others are all equal, that is, all equally nullities; which equality, if not a happiness, is a consolation. The argument was too logical to prove practically true. There is no such thing as absolute power in the world; there are arbitrary and capricious powers; but, however outrageous they may become, they are never heavy enough to establish perfect equality among their subjects.

The Emperor Nicholas can do every thing. But if he often did all that he could do, he would not retain this power very long. So long, therefore, as he forbears, the condition of the nobleman is very different from that of the mugic or the tradesman whom he ruins. I maintain that there is at this day, in Russia, more real inequality in the conditions of men than in any other European land.

The circumstances of human societies are too complicated to be submitted to the rigour of mathematical calculation. I can see reigning under the Emperor, among the castes which constitute his empire, hatreds which have their source solely in the abuses of secondary power.