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

170REMARKS ON PETERSBURG.

this noisy abode will be more silent than Athens or Home, Syracuse or Carthage ; but to no man is it o·iven to foresee the hour nor the immediate cause of the destruction; whereas, the disappearing of St. Petersburg may be foreseen, it may take place tomorrow, in the midst of the triumphant songs of its victorious people. The decline of other capitals follows the destruction of their inhabitants, but this will peri§h at the moment even when the Russians will see their power extending. I believe in the duration of Petersburg, just as I believe in that of a political system, or in the constancy of man. This is what cannot be said of any other city in the world.

What a tremendous power is that which can thus cause a metropolis to spring up in the wilderness, and which, with one word, can restore to solitude all that it has taken ! Here real existence seems to belong only to the sovereign: the fate, the power, the will of an entire people are all centred in one single head. The Emperor is the personification of social power; beneath him reigns the equality that forms the dream of the modern Gallo-American democrats, the Fourriórists, &c. But the Russians acknowledge a cause of storm that is unknown to others, the wrath of this emperor. Republican or monarchical tyranny is preferable to atitocratic equality. I fear nothing so much as a strict logic applied to politics. If France has been practically prosperous during the last ten years, it is, perhaps, because the apparent absurdity which presides over her affairs is a high practical wisdom ; action, instead of speculation, полу governs us. In Russia the spirit of despotism always exerts itself