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

74THE COLUMN OF ALEXANDER.

bringing back a people to their primitive character, that they are rendered capable and worthy of true civilisation, without which a nation cannot know how to work for posterity. If a people would rear a monument to their own power and greatness, they must not copy foreigners — they must study to develope the national genius instead of thwarting it. That which in this creation most nearly approaches to Deity, is nature. Nature calls the Russians to great things, while they, under their pretended civilisation, have been occupied with trifles. The Emperor Nicholas has appreciated their capabilities better than his predecessors, and under his reign, by a general return to truth, everything is becoming great. In Petersburg stands a pillar, which is the largest piece of granite that has ever been cut by the hands of man, not excepting the Egyptian monuments. Seventy thousand soldiers, the court, the city, and the surrounding country, gathered together without inconvenience or pressure in the square of the imperial palace, to witness, in a religious silence, the miraculous erection of this monument, conceived, executed, and placed by a Frenchman, M. de Montferraiid ; for the French arc still necessary to the Russians. The prodigious machines worked successfully, and at the moment when the column, rising from its fetters, lifted itself up as if animated with a life of its own, the army, the crowd, the emperor himself, fell on their knees to thank God for so great a miracle, and to praise him for the stupendous achievements which he permitted them to accomplish. This I call a real national fete ; not a flattery that might, like the masquerade of Petcrhoff, have been also taken for