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

94THE PRESENT POLICY A RESULT OF

by maintaining ignorance, is more terrible than stable: a feeling of uneasiness in the nation—a degraded brutality in the army—terror around the administration, a terror shared even by those who govern—servility in the chureh — hypocrisy in the nobility — ignoranee and misery among the people— and Siberia for them all: such is the land as it has been made by necessity, history, nature, and a Providence ever impenetrable in its designs.

And it is with so decayed a body that tins giant, scarcely yet emerged out of Asia, endeavours now to influence by his weight, the balance of European poliey, and strives to rule in the councils of the West, without taking into account the progress that European diplomacy has made in sincerity during the last thirty years.

At Petersburg, to lie is still to perform the part of a good citizen; to speak the truth, even in apparently unimportant matters, is to conspire. You would lose the favour of the emperor, if you were to observe that he had a cold in his head. *

But once for all, what is it that can have induced this badly-armed colossus to eome to fight, or at least to struggle, in the arena of ideas with which it does

* While this is going through the press, the Journal desDél·at* is protesting in favour of a Russian who has ventured to print in a pamphlet that theRomanows, less noble than he is. ascended the throne, as all the world knows, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, by means of an election contested with theTroubetzkoi (who were first elected), and against the claims of several other great families. This accession was agreed to in consideration of some liberal forms introduced into the constitution. The world has seen to what these guarantees have brought Russia.