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

EXCITEMENT OF A PETERSBURG LIFE. 245

In the evening there are fetes, such as are only seen in Russia ; in the morning, court ceremonies and receptions, public solemnities, or reviews upon sea or land. A vessel of 120 guns has just been launched on the Neva before the whole court; but, though the largest vessel that the river has ever borne, it must not be supposed that there was any crowd at this naval spectacle. Space is that which the Russians least want, and through which they most suffer. The four or five hundred thousand men who inhabit Petersburg without peopling it, are lost in the vast enclosure of the immense city, the heart of which is composed of granite and brass, the body of plaster and of mortar, and the extremities of painted wood and rotten planks. These planks are raised in a solitary marsh like walls around the city, which resembles a colossal statue with feet of clay.* It is like none of the other capitals of the civilised world, even though in its construction all have been copied ; but man in vain seeks for models in distant lands : the soil and the climate are his masters, they oblige him to create novelties, when he desires only to revive the antique. I was present at the Congress of Vienna, but I do not recollect seeing any thing to be compared to the richness of the jewels and dresses, the gorgeous variety of the uniforms, or the grandeur and admirable ordering of the whole spectacle, in the fete given by the emperor, on the evening of the marriage of

* The quays of the Neva are composed of granite, the cupola of Saint Isaac of copper, the "Winter Palace and the column of Alexander of fine stone, marble and granite, ami the statue of Peter I. of brass.