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

FORTRESS OF PETER THE THIRD.51

magnificent. The Grand-duchess Helena has shown here the taste which presides throughout all her arrangements, and which has made Oranienbaum a charming residence, notwithstanding the dulness of the landscape, and the besetting memories of the scenes formerly enacted there.

On leaving the palace, I asked permission to see the remains of the small but strong fortress, from whence they obliged Peter III. to come forth, and carried him to Ropscha, where he was assassinated. I was conducted to a retired hamlet, where are to be seen dry ditches, broken mounds, and heaps of stones, a modern ruin, in the production of which policy has had more to do than time. But the enforced silence, the purposely-created solitude which reigns around these accursed remains, summon up before the mind precisely that which is sought to be concealed; the official lie is annulled by the historic fact. History is a magical mirror, in which the people see, after the death of men who were influential in public affairs, the real, unmasked reflection of their faces. Those faces have passed away, but their images remain engraved on this inexorable crystal. Truth cannot be buried with the dead. It rises triumphant over the fear of princes and the flattery of people, always powerless when they endeavour to stifle the cry of blood ; and it finds its way through prisons, and even through the tomb, especially the tomb of the great, for obscure persons succeed better than princes in concealing the crimes which stain their memory. If I had not known that the fortress of Peter III. had been demolished, I should have guessed it; but what astonishes me, in seeing the wish here exhibited to D 2