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

retained them in his den until tired of them, when they were either despatched by tortures invented expressly for them, or sent back to die of shame among their husbands and families. Nor was this all. The instigator of such abominations obliged his own sons to take part in the orgies of his crimes, by which refinement of tyranny he robbed his besotted subjects of even the future.

To hope for a better reign would have been to conspire against the sovereign; besides — to sound in its profoundcst depths this abyss of corruption — Ivan, in inciting to debauchery, was inflicting another kind of death. In destroying souls he found relief from the fatigue of destroying bodies, while he yet continued to destroy. Such was the tyrant in his hours of relaxation.

In the conduct of public affairs, the life of the monster was an inexplicable mixture of energy and cowardice. He menaced his enemies so long as he felt the strongest; but, when vancµiished, he wept, prayed, cringed, and degraded himself and his people. But even this, even public shame, that last chastisement of nations who fail in their duty to themselves, did not open the eyes of the Russians.

The Khan of the Crimea burnt Moscow; the Czar fled : he returned when his capital was a heap of ashes; his presence produced more terror among the remaining inhabitants than had been caused by the enemy. Yet not a murmur reminded the monarch that he was a man, and that he had erred in abandoning his post as a monarch. The Poles and Swedes witnessed by turns the excess of his arrogance and his cowardice. In his negotiations with the Khan of the Crimea he so lowered himself as to