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

94 CHARACTERISTICS. OF REVOLT IN RUSSIA.

a harmony, the effects of which might become prodigious in good as in evil.

Everything is obscure in the future prospects of the world; but, assuredly, it will see strange scenes enacted before the nations by this predestined people.*

It is almost always under the influence of a blind respect for power, that the Russians disturb public order. Thus, if we are to believe what is repeated in secret, had it not been for the emperor's speech to the deputies of the peasants, the latter would not have taken up arms.

J trust that this fact, and those that I have elsewhere cited, will show the danger of inculcating liberal opinions among a population so ill-prepared to receive them. As regards political liberty, the more we love it, the greater care should we take to avoid pronouncing its name before those who would only compromise a holy cause by their manner of defending it. It is this which induces me to doubt of the truth of the imprudent reply attributed to the emperor. That prince knows, better than any one, the character of his people, and I cannot believe that he could have provoked the revolt of the peasants, even unwittingly.

The horrors of the insurrection are described by the author of Thelenef, with an accuracy the more

* There will be some readers who can scarcely read this and similar prophecies in the present work, without being reminded of the great northern nation of more inspired prophecy, the chief prince of Meshech (whence the word Muscovite is generally derived,) who, with all his bands, and with numerous Asiatic allies, is to devastate the Levant and Syria at some period that has'yet to come.—Trans.