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

218 AN AGREEABLE RENCONTRE.

exhibit themselves in a manner that would drive to despair a traveller as attached to his country as I am. Imagine, then, my joy on finding here, at the

governor's dinner-table, M., one among living

men the most capable of giving a favourable idea of young France to foreigners. In truth, he belongs to old France by his family; and it is to the mixture of new ideas with ancient traditions that he owes the elegance of manners and the justness of views which distinguish him. He has seen well, and describes well what he has seen ; he does not think more of himself than others think, and perhaps even a little less; and he therefore greatly edified and amused me, after leaving the table, by the recital of all that he has daily learnt since his stay in Russia. Dupe of a coquette in Petersburg, he consoles himself for his mistake by studying the land with redoubled attention. His mind is clear, he observes carefully, and recounts with exactness ; which does not prevent him from listening to others, nor even — and this recalls the memory of the flourishing days of French society — from inspiring them with the wish to talk. In conversing with him we fall into an illusion ; we believe that conversation is always an interchange of ideas, that refined society is still founded among us upon the relations of reciprocal pleasures : in short, we forget the invasion that brutal, unmasked egotism has· made on our modern saloons, and fancy that social life is, as formerly, a commerce beneficial to all, — an old-fashioned error, which dissipates on the first reflection, and leaves us conscious of the melancholy reality, the pillage of ideas, and of bons mots, the literary treasons, the laws, in short, of war,