Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia
Astolphe De Custine
THE
EMPIRE OF THE CZAR ;
OR,
OBSERVATIONS
ON THE
SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND RELIGIOUS STATE PROSPECTS OF RUSSIA,
MADE DURING A JOURNEY THROUGH THAT EMPIRE. BY
THE MARQUIS DE CUSTINE.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.
" Respectez surtout les étrangers, de quelque quality, de quelque rang qu'ils soient; et si vous n'ètes pas à mème de les combler de presents, prodiguez-leur au moins des marques de bienveillance, puisque de la manière dont ils sont traités dans un pays depend le bien et le mal qu'ils en disent en ie-tournant dans le leur."
Extrait des Conseils de Vladimir Monomaque à ses Enfants en 1126 Histoire de l`Empire de Russie, par Karamsin, t. xi. p. 205.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR
LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS,
PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1843.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE,
The work recently published in Paris, of which these volumes are a translation, has appeared in the form of letters addressed to anonymous friends.
This form has not been preserved in the translation, which is divided into chapters ; an arrangement better adapted to the taste of the English reader, and unobjectionable in other respects, as the division of the chapters still corresponds with that of the original epistles.
In making the alteration, a few very trivial modifications in the phraseology of the text were necessary.
The translator has likewise ventured on some occasions slightly to curtail the French paragraphs. It will, however, be sufficient to add, that no details have been abbreviated, nor one single observation omitted, that appeared likely to interest the general reader. a 2
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The above regulations are equally in force in our Dependencies and Colonial Possessions.
London, July, 1843.
AUTHORS PREFACE,
A taste for travelling has never been with ше а fashion ; I brought it with me into the world, and I began to gratify it in early youth. We are all vaguely tormented with a desire to know a world which appears to us a dungeon because wTe have not ourselves chosen it for an abode. I should feel as if I could not depart in peace out of this narrow Avorld if I had not endeavoured to explore my prison. The more I examine it, the more beautiful and extensive it becomes in my eyes. To see in order to know: such is the motto of the traveller; such is also mine : I have not adopted it; nature gave it to me.
To compare the different modes of existence in different nations, to study the manner of thinking and feeling peculiar to each, to perceive the relations which God has established between their history, their manners, and their physiognomy ; in a word, to travel, is to procure for my curiosity an inexhaustible aliment, to supply my thoughts with an eternal impulse of activity : to prevent my surveying the world would be like robbing a literary man of the key of his libraiy.
But if curiosity cause me to wander, an attachment which partakes of the nature of a domestic affection brings me back. I then take a review of my observations, and select from among the spoil, the ideas
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VÌAUTHORS PREFACE.
which I imagine may be communicated with the greatest likelihood of beins; useful.
During my sojourn in Russia, as well as during all my other journeys, two thoughts, or rather sentiments, have never ceased to influence my heart, — a love of France, which renders me severe in my judgments upon foreigners, and upon the French themselves, for passionate affections are never indulgent; and a love of mankind. To find the balancing point between these two opposing objects of our affections here below, between the love of country and the love of fellow-men, is the vocation of every elevated mind, Religion alone can solve the problem : I do not flatter myself that I have attained it; but I can and ought to say that I have never ceased bending towards it all my efforts, without regard to the variations of fashion. "With my religious ideas, I have passed through an unsympathising world; and now I see, not without a pleasurable surprise, these same ideas occupying the youthful minds of the new generation.
I am not one of those who view Christianity as a sacred veil that reason, in its illimitable progress, will one day tear away. Religion is veiled, but the veil is not religion: if Christianity mantles itself in symbols, it is not because its truth is obscure, but because it is too brightly dazzling, and because the eye is weak : as the vision becomes stronger, it will be able to pierce farther ; and yet, nothing fundamental will be changed : the clouds are not spread over celestial objects, but over our earth.
Beyond the pale of Christianity, men remain in a state of isolation ; or, if they unite, it is to form
author's preface.vü
political communities; in other words, to make war with fellow-men. Christianity alone has discovered the secret of free and pacific association, because it alone has shown to liberty in what it is that liberty consists. Christianity governs, and will yet more rigidly govern the earth, by the increasingly strict application of its divine morals to human transactions. Hitherto the Christian world has been more occupied with the mystic side of religion than with its political bearing. A new era commences for Christianity: perhaps our grandchildren will see the Gospel serving as the basis of public order.
But it woiúd be impious to believe that this was the only end of the divine legislator; tin's is but his means.
Supernatural light cannot be acquired by the human race, except through the union of souls beyond and above the trammels of all temporal governments : a spiritual society, a society without limits : such is the hope — such the future prospect of the world.
I hear it said that this object will be henceforward attainable without the aid of our religion; that Christianity, built on the ruinous foundation of original sin, has had its day ; and that to accomplish his true vocation, misunderstood until now, man needs only to obey the laws of nature.
Ambitious men of a superior order of talent, who revive these old doctrines by eloquence ever new, are obliged to add, in order to be consistent, that good and evil exist only in the human mind ; and that the man who creates these phantoms may also destroy them.
The pretended new proofs which they give do not
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viiiAUTHOR'S PREFACE.
satisfy me; but were they clear as the day, what change would they effect in me ? Man, whether fallen by sin, or standing as nature placed him, is a soldier forcibly enlisted at his birth, and never discharged until death ; and, even then, the believing Christian only changes his bonds. A prisoner of God, — labour and effort are the law of his life; cowardice appears to him like suicide, doubt is his torment, victory his
hope, faith his repose, obedience his glory.
Such is man in all ages and in all countries; but such, above all, is man civilised by the religion of Jesus Christ. It may be said that good and evil are human inventions. But if the nature of man engender phantoms so obstinate, what is to save him from himself? and how is he to escape that malignant power of internal creation, of falsehood if you like, which exists and abides within him despite of himself and of you, and which has done so ever since the commencement of the world ?
Unless you can substitute the peace of your conscience in place of the agitation of mine, you can do
nothing for mePeace ! No, however bold you
may be, you would not dare to pretend to it! — and vet, peace is the right and the duty of the creature rationally endowed ; for without peace he sinks below the brute: but,— О ! mystery of mysteries ! for you, for me, and for all — this object will never be attained by ourselves: for whatever may be said, the whole realm of nature does not contain that which can give peace to a single soul.
Thus, could you force me to assent to all your audacious assertions, you would only have furnished me with new proofs of the need of a physician of souls —
author's preface.
IX
of a Redeemer, to cure the hallucinations of a creature so perverse, that it is incessantly and inevitably engendering within itself contest and contradiction, and which, by its very nature, flies from the repose it cannot dispense with, spreading around itself in the name of peace, war, with illusion, disorder and misfortune.
Xov, the necessity of a Redeemer being once admitted, you must pardon me if I prefer addressing myself to Jesus Christ rather than to you !
Here we come to the root of the evil ! Pride of intellect must be abased, and reason must own its insufficiency. As the source of reasoning dries up, that of feeling overflows: the soul becomes powerful so soon as she avows her want of strength ; she no longer commands, she entreats; and man approaches near to his object when he falls upon his knees.
But when all shall be cast down, when all shall kiss the dust, who will remain erect upon earth? what power shall exist amid the ashes of the world ? The power which shall remain is a pontiff in a churc
If that church — daughter of Christ, and mother of Christianity — has seen revolt issue from her bosom, the fault was in her priests, for her priests; are men. But she will recover her unity, because these men, frail though they be, are not the less direct successors of the apostles, ordained from age to age bv bishops who themselves received, bishop from bishop, under the imposition of hands traced backwards up to Saint Peter and to Jesus Christ, the infusion of the Holy Spirit, with the requisite authority to communicate that grace to the regenerated world.
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XAUTHOR'S PREFACE,
Suppose — for is not every thing possible to God? — suppose that the human race shall wish to become sincerely Christian, will they in that case seek for Christianity in a book ? Xo, they will apply to men who can explain that book. There must, then, always be an authority, even among the preachers of independence; and the authority which is chosen arbitrarily is not likely to equal that established for eighteen hundred centuries.
Will any believe that the Emperor of Russia is a better visible head of the church than the Bishop of Rome ? The Russians have to believe so: but can they ? Such is, however, the religious truth which they now preach to the Poles !
Would you, piquing yourself on consistency, obstinately reject all other authority but that of individual reason ? This would be to perpetuate the war; because the government of reason nourishes pride, and pride engenders division, Alas I Christians little know the Treasure they voluntarily deprived themselves of when they took it into their heads, that people might have national churches I If all the churches in the world had become national, that is-Protcstant or schismatic, there woukl not now be any Christianity; there would be nothing but systems of theology subjected to human policy, which would modify them at its will, according to circumstances and localities.
To sum up : I am a Christian, because the destinies of man are not accomplished upon earth : I am a Catholic, because out of the Catholic churchy Christianity becomes diluted and perishes.
After having surveyed the greater part of the
ÀUTHOE?S PREFACE.XÍ
civilised world, after having applied myself with all ray power during these different travels to discover some of the hidden springs on the action of which depends the life of empires, the following is, according to my attentive observations, the' future that we may venture to predict.
In a human point of view — the universal division or dispersion of minds produced by the contempt felt for the only legitimate authority in matters of faith — in other words, the abolition of Christianity, not as a system of morals or philosophy, but as a religion ; and this suffices for the strength of my argument. In a spiritual point of view — the triumph of Christianity, by the re-union of all the churches in the mother church,—in that shaken but indestructible church which is every age widening its gates for the return of those who went out from it. The universe must again become either pagan or catholic: pagan, in a manner more or less refined, with nature for its temple, sense for its worship, and reason for its idol: or catholic, with priests, of whom a certain number at least, sincerely put in practice before they preach, the precept of their master, " My kingdom is not of thi* world."
Such is the dilemma out of which the human mind will never be extricated. Beyond it, there is nothing on one side but imposture, on the other but illusion.
This prospective result has struck me ever since 1 thought at all: nevertheless, the ideas of the age were so different from mine, that I wanted—not faith, but boldness: I felt all the weakness of isolation; still I did not cease to protest with all my power in favour of a 6
XÜAUTHOR'S PttEFACE.
my creed. But now that it has become popular in я part of Christendom, now that the great interests which agitate the world are those which have always caused my heart to beat, now that the approaching future is big with the problem for the solution of which I have never ceased to search in my obscurity, I discover that I have a place in the world, I feel supported; if not in my own country (still a prey to that destructive, narrow, exhausted philosophy which continues to retain a large portion of France out of the debate upon the great interests of the world), yet at least in christian Europe. It is this support which has emboldened me more clearly to explain my views in various parts of the present work, and to draw from them their ultimate consequences.
Wherever I have set foot on earth, from Morocco to the frontiers of Siberia, I have seen smouldering the fires of religious war; not any longer, let us hope, to be the war of the armed hand, the least decisive of any, but the Avar of ideas. God alone knows the secret of events; but every man who observes and reflects can foresee some of the questions that will be resolved by the future: those questions are all religious. Upon the attitude which France may take in the world as a Catholic power, will depend her political influence. In the proportion that revolutionary spirits leave her, catholic hearts will draw around her. In this respect, the force of things so governs men, that a king supremely tolerant, and a minister who is a Protestant^ have become throughout the world the most zealous defenders of Catholicism, simply because they are Frenchmen.
Such were the constant subjects of my meditation
author's preface.xiii
and my solicitude during the long pilgrimage, the account of which here follows; an account varied as the varying and errant life of the traveller, but in which a love of country, combined with more general views, will be always seen.
Nevertheless, with what a mass of controversy are not these ideas connected which now agitate the world, long absorbed in a civilisation altogether material ?
To acknowledge the divinity of Jesus Christ is undoubtedly to do much, it is more than is done by the greater number of Protestants; still this is only t
he commencement of Christianity. Even the pagans were willing to raise temples to Him who came to demolish all the temples of their religion. Were they Christians because they proposed to the apostles to place Christ among the number of their gods? A Christian is a member of the church of Christ. Now this exclusive church is one; it has its visible head; and it inquires about the faith of each man quite as much as about his acts, because it governs by the mind.
This church deplores the strange abuse that has been made in our days of the word Christian toleration, to the promotion of philosophical indifference. To make a dogma of toleration, and to substitute that hi mm dogma for all those which are divine, is to destroy religion under the pretext of rendering it amiable. In the eyes of the Catholic church, to practise the virtue of toleration is not to enter into any covenant or to make any compromise respecting principles, but to protest against violence, and to employ prayer, patience, gentleness and persuasion in the
XÎVAUTII01ts PREFACE.
service of eternal truth: such is not modern toleration. That creed of indifference which became, more than a century ago, the basis of the new theology, loses its hold upon the esteem of Christians in the proportion that it robs faith of its power: true toleration — toleration confined within the limits of piety — is not the normal state of the soul, it is the remedy which a charitable religion and a wise policy oppose to diseases of the mind.
What is meant by that lately invented appellation, Neo-catholicism ? Catholicism cannot become new without ceasing to exist. New converts, tired of being pushed about by every wind of doctrine, and seeking in the sanctuary a shelter from the torment of the ideas of the age, may be called Neo-catholics, but Nco-catholicism cannot be spoken of except through a misconception of the essence of religion, for the word implies contradiction.
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