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

trary, he favours everywhere indiscriminately the principles which accord with his system. Is it thus that England is liberal, constitutional, and philan-thropical ?

The Emperor reads daily, from one end to the other, one French newspaper, and only one, the Journal des Débats. He never looks at the others, unless some interesting article is pointed out to him.

To sustain power in order to preserve social order, is, in France, the object of the best and worthiest minds ; it is also the constant aim of the Journal des Débats, an aim prosecuted with an intellectual superiority which explains the consideration accorded to this paper in our own country, as well as in the rest of Europe.

France is suffering under the disease common to the age, she is suffering under it more than any other land ; this disease is a hatred of authority; the remedy, therefore, consists in fortifying authority : such is the sentiment of the Emperor at Petersburg, and of the Journal des Débats at Paris.

But as they agree only in regard to the end to be obtained, they are so much the more opposed as they seem to be united. The choice of means will often cause dissension among those gathered under the same banner ; they meet as allies, they separate as enemies.

The legitimacy of hereditary right appears to the Emperor of Russia the only means of attaining his end ; and in forcing a little the ordinary sense of the old word " legitimacy," under pretext that there exists another more sure,—that, namely, of election