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

THE AUTHOR SUSPECTED.187

Under the government of the lawyers* a sincere man is only useless!

" An indefinite hatred of despotism reigns in France," they say, " but it is exaggerated and unenlightened, therefore we will brave it. The day, however, that a traveller, who convinces because he himself believes, shall tell the real abuses, which he cannot fail to discover among us, we shall be seen as we really are. France now barks at us without knowing us ; when she does know us, she will bite."

The Russians, no doubt, do me too great honour by this inquietude; which, notwithstanding their profound dissimulation, they cannot conceal from me. I do not know whether I shall publish what I think of their country; but I do know that they only do themselves justice in fearing the truths that I could publish.

The Russians have every thing in name, and nothing in reality. They have civilisation, society, literature, the drama, the arts and sciences — but they have no physicians. In case of illness you must either prescribe for yourself, or call in a foreign practitioner. If you send for the nearest doctor you are a dead man, for medical art in Russia is in its infancy. With the exception of the physician of the Emperor, who, I am told, is, though a Russian, learned, the only doctors who would not assassinate you are the Germans attached to the service of the princes. But the princes live in a state of perpetual motion. It is often impossible to ascertain where they may be; or, when that is known, to send

* Alluding to France. — Trans.