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

SLAVISHNESS OP THE NOBILITY.11

agencies gives birth to, it is the expression of a real state of suffering, the indication of an organic malady.

I believe that in no part of the world do the men enjoy less real happiness than in Russia. ^We are not happy among ourselves, but we feel that happiness is in our power: among the Russians it is unattainable. Imagine republican passions (for, once again, fictitious equality reigns under a Russian emperor) boiling under the silence of despotism ! This is a terrific combination, especially as viewed with regard to its future influence upon the world. Russia is a cauldron of boiling water, well closed, but placed over a fire which is ever becoming more fiercely heated; I dread the explosion, and the Emperor has several times experienced the same dread during the course of his laborious reign ; laborious in peace as in war, for, in our days, empires, like machines, are ruined by remaining inactive.

It is, then, this head without a body, this sovereign without a nation, who gives popular fetes! It appears to me that before creating popularity he should create a people.

In sooth this country lends itself marvellously to every species of fraud: there are slaves elsewhere. but to find a nation of courtly slaves it is necessary to visit Russia. One scarcely knows at which most to wonder, the inconsistency or the hypocrisy. Catharine II. is not dead, for notwithstanding the open character of her grandson, it is still by dissimulation that Russia is governed. Here, to avow the tyranny would be to make a beneficial progress.

On this point, as on many others, the foreigners who have described Russia have combined with the в G