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

160ABSURD ARCHITECTURE.

ever faced an imminent danger with more energy and greatness of soul!

After the insurrection of 13th December, M. de la Ferronnays exclaimed, "I see Peter the Great civilised!" an observation that had point because it had truth. In contemplating this prince, in his court, developing his ideas of national regeneration with an indefatigable, yet quiet, unostentatious perseverance, one might exclaim with still greater reason, :: I sec Peter the Great come to repair the faults of Peter the Blind."

In striving to form a judgment of the present Emperor with all the impartiality of which I am capable, I find in him so many things worthy of praise, that I do not suffer myself to listen to any thing that might disturb my admiration.

Kings are like statues; people examine them with so minute an attention that their smallest faults, magnified by criticism, cause the most rare and genuine merits to be forgotten. But the more I admire the Emperor Nicholas, the more I may be thought unjust towards the Czar Peter. Nevertheless, I appreciate the efforts of determination that were needed to rear a city like Petersburg in a marsh, frozen during eight months of the year ; but when my eyes unfortunately encounter one of those miserable caricatures which his passion, and that of his successors, for classic architecture has entailed upon Russia, my shocked senses and taste cause me to lose all that I had gained by reasoning. Anticrue palaces for barracks of Finns, pillars, cornices, pediments, and Roman peristyles under the pole, and all these things to be renovated every year with fine white stucco, — such