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

222MERCY OF THE EMPEROR.

civilised city, in order to receive a suitable education.

The petition was laid at the feet of the Czar, and the worthy successor of the Ivans and of Peter I. answered that the children of a convict, — convicts themselves, would always be sufficiently learned!

After this answer, the family — the mother and the condemned man, — were silent for seven more weary years. Humanity, honour, Christian charity, outraged religion, alone pleaded in their favour ; but this was done silently : not a voice was raised to appeal against such justice. Nevertheless, a renewal of misery has now called forth a last cry from the depths of this abyss.

The prince has completed his term of labour in the mines, and now the exiles, liberated, as they call it, are condemned to form, they and their young family, a colony in the most remote corner of the desert. The locality of their new residence, designedly chosen by the Emperor himself, is so wild that the name of that howling wilderness is not even yet marked on the ordnance maps of Russia, the most exact and minute geographical maps that exist.

It will be easily understood that the condition of the princess (I name her only) is more wretched since she has been permitted to inhabit this solitude. It should be observed that in the language of the oppressed, as interpreted by the oppressor, permissions are obligatory. At the mines, she could find warmth in the bosom of the earth, her family had companions in misfortune, silent consolers, admiring witnesses of her heroism. The human eye contemplated and respectfully deplored her martyrdom, a circum-