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

by Astolphe De Custine

  After all, what is this crowd, whose respectful familiarity in presence of its sovereign has been so much extolled in Europe ? Do not deceive yourselves: these are the slaves of slaves. The oreat lords send to the fete of the empress chosen peasa'nts, who, it is pretended, arrive by chance. This elite of the serfs is joined by the most respectable and best known tradespeople, for it is necessary to have a few men with beards to satisfy the old-fashioned Russians. Such is, in reality, the people whose excellent disposition has been held up as an example to other people by the sovereigns of Russia from the time of the Empress Elizabeth. It is, I believe, from her reign that this kind of fete dates. At present the Emperor Nicholas, notwithstanding his iron character, his admirable rectitude of intention, and the authority with which his public and private virtues invest him, could not perhaps abolish the usage. It is therefore true that, even under governments the most absolute in appearance, circumstances are stronger than men.

  Nothing is so perilous for a man, however elevated

  14NO MIDDLE CLASS IN RUSSIA.

  his position may be, than to say to a nation " You have been deceived, and I will be no longer accessory to your error." The vulgar cling to falsehood, even to that which injures them, rather than to truth, because human pride prefers that which comes from man to that which comes from God. This is true under all governments, but doubly so under despotism,

  An independence like that of the mugics * of Peterhoff can alarm nobody. It forms the liberty and equality which despots love ! It may be boasted of without risk; but advise Russia to a gradual emancipation, and you will soon see what is said of you in the country.

  I, yesterday, heard the courtiers as they passed near me boasting of the politeness of their serfs, " I should like to see such a fete in France," they said. I was strongly tempted to answer them : " In order to compare our two people, we must wait until yours exists."

  I called to mind at the same time a fete which I once gave to the lower orders at Seville. It was under the despotism of Ferdinand VII., but the true politeness of those Spaniards, free de facto, if not de jure, furnished me with an object of comparison little favourable to the Russians.†

  Russia is a book, the table of whose contents is magnificent, but beware of going further. If you turn over the leaves you will find no performance answering to the promise: all the chapters are headed, but all have to be filled np. How many of

  * Russian peasants.

  † See " Spain under Ferdinand VII."

  CHILDREN OF THE PRIESTS.15

  the Russian forests are only marshes, where you will never cut a faggot! How many distant regiments are there without men, and cities and roads which exist only in project! The nation itself is as yet nothing more than a puff placarded upon Europe, dupe of a diplomatic fiction. I have found here no real life except that of the emperor's; no constitution except that of the court.

  The tradespeople who ought to form a middle class are too few in number to possess any influence in the state; besides, they are almost all foreigners. The authors amount to one or two in each generation : the artists are like the authors, their scarcity causes them to be esteemed; but though this favours their personal prospects, it is injurious to their social influence. There are no legal pleaders in a country where there is no justice: where, then, is to be found that middle class which constitutes the strength of other states, and without which the people is only a flock, guided by a few well-trained watch-dogs? I have not mentioned another class of men who are not to be reckoned either among the great or the little. These are the sons of the priests, who almost all become subaltern employes—the commissioners and deputies who are the plagues of Russia. They form a species of obscure noblesse, very hostile to the great nobles; a noblesse whose spirit is anti-aristocratic in the true political signification of the word, and who at the same time are very burdensome to the serfs. These are the men (inconvenient to the state, and fruits of the schism which permits the priest to marry) who will commence the approaching revolution of Russia.

  16

  CAPITAL PUNISHMENTS.

  The punishment of death does not exist in this land, except for the crime of high treason; but there are certain criminals whom they nevertheless kill. The way in which they reconcile the mildness of the code with the traditional ferocity of manners is this: when a criminal is condemned to more than a hundred strokes of the knout, the executioner, who understands the meaning of such a sentence, kills him through humanity, by striking him at the third blow on a mortal part. And yet the punishment of death is abolished ! To making the law thus lie, the proclamation of the most audacious tyranny would be preferable.

  If it is thought that I judge Russia too severely, I must plead the involuntary impression that I receive each day from persons and from things, and which every friend of humanity would receive in my place, if like me, he endeavoured to look beyond that which would be shown him.

  This empire, immense as it is, is no more than a prison, of which the emperor keeps the key. Nothing can exceed the misery of the subjects unless it be that of the prince. The life of the gaoler has always appeared to me so similar to that of the prisoner, that I am astonished at the mental illusion which makes the one believe himself so much less to be pitied than the other.

  Man here knows neither the real social enjoyments of cultivated minds, nor the absolute and animal liberty of the savage, nor yet the independence of action of the half-savage — the barbarian; I can see no compensation for the misery of being born under this system, except the dreams of vanity and the

  ABJECT STATE OF THE PEOPLE. 17

  love of command; on these passions I stumble every time I return to the endeavour of analysing the moral life of the inhabitants of Russia. Russia thinks and lives as a soldier ! A soldier, to whatever country he may belong, is scarcely a citizen ; and here less than any where can he be called one; he is rather a prisoner for life, condemned to look after other prisoners.

  It should be observed that the word prison signifies something more here than it does elsewhere. When one thinks on all the subterranean cruelties concealed from our pity by the discipline of silence, in a land where every man performs an apprenticeship to discretion, it makes one tremble. He who would conceive a hatred for reserve should come here. Every little check in conversation, every change of expression, every inflexion of voice, teaches me the danger of confidence and candour.

  The very appearance of the houses brings to my mind the unhappy condition of human existence in this land.

  If I cross the threshold of the palace of some great nobleman, and see there a disgusting and ill-disguised uncleanliness reigning amidst an ostentatious display of luxury; if I, so to speak, inhale vermin, even under the roof of opulence, — my mind will not stop at that which is presented merely by the senses ; it wanders further, and sees all the filth and corruption which must poison the dungeons of a country where even the rich do not shrink from loathsome contact. When I suffer from the dampness of my chamber, I think of the unfortunate beings exposed to that of the sub-marine dungeons of Kronstadt, the fortress

  18

  RULES FOR OBTAINING

  of Petersburg, and of many other subterranes of which I forget even the name. The ghastly visages of the soldiers whom I meet in the streets remind me of the plunder of those employed in provisioning the army. The fraud of these traitors, paid by the emperor to feed his guards, is written in lines of lead on the livid faces of the unfortunate wretches, deprived of wholesome and even sufficient nutriment by men who care only to enrich themselves as rapidly as possible, unmindful of the disgrace they are bringing on their government, and of the maledictions of the regiments of slaves whom they kill. Finally, at each step I here take, I see rising before me the phantom of Siberia, and I think of all that is implied in the name of that political desert, that abyss of misery, that tomb of living men, —a land peopled with infamous criminals and sublime heroes, a colony without which this empire would be as incomplete as a palace wi
thout cellars.

  A traveller who would allow himself to be indoctrinated by the people of the country, might overrun the empire from one end to the other, and return home without having surveyed any thing but a series of facades. This is what he should do in order to please his entertainers. I am aware that such is the case, but so high a price for their hospitality I cannot afford to pay.

  Provided a stranger shows himself rdiculously active, rises early after having retired to rest late, never fails to attend every ball and review, in short, provided he keeps too constantly in motion to be able to think, he is well received everywhere, well thought of, and well feted ; a crowd of strangers press his

  POPULARITY IN RUSSIA.

  19

  hand every time that the emperor may have spoken to him, smiles are lavishly bestowed, and on leaving, he is pronounced a distinguished traveller. He reminds me of the bourgeois gentleman played upon by the Mufti of Molière. The Russians have coined a French word that admirably designates their political hospitality; in speaking of foreigners whom they blind by means of fetes — " we must garland them*," they say. But let the stranger be on his guard lest he should for a moment betray any relaxation of zeal; at the least symptom of fatigue, or of penetration, he will see the Russian spirit, the most caustic of all spirits, rising up against him like an enraged serpent. †

  Ridicule, that empty consolation of the oppressed, is here the pleasure of the peasant, as sarcasm is the accomplishment of the noble; irony and imitation are the only natural talents which I have discovered among the Russians. The stranger once exposed to the venom of their criticism would never recover from it; he would be passed from mouth to mouth like a deserter running the gauntlet; and finally be trampled under the feet of a crowd the most hardened and ambitious in the world. The ambitious have always a pleasure in ruining others :
  * II faut les euguirlander.

  † A well known means of flattery, and one of which the success is certain, is to exhibit one's self in the streets of Petersburg before the eyes of the Emperor without great coat or cloak : a heroic flattery of the climate which may cost the life of him who practises it. It is not difficult to displease in a land where such modes of pleasing are in use.

  20PICK-POCKETS IN THE PALACE.

  less; every man must be viewed as a rival because it is possible that he may become one."

  I have no greater belief in the probity of the mugic. They tell me that he would not conceal a flower in the garden of his emperor; that I do not dispute. I know that fear will produce miracles, but I know also that this model people, these peasant courtiers do not scruple to rob their lordly rivals on a day, when too much affected by their presence at the palace, and too confident in the honourable sentiments of the serf ennobled for the hour, they cease for one moment to watch the movements of the said serf's hands.

  Yesterday, at the imperial and popular ball of the palace of Peterhoff, the Sardinian ambassador had his watch very adroitly extracted notwithstanding the chain which formed its guard. Several people lost also their handkerchiefs and other articles in the press. I myself lost a purse lined with a few ducats, and consoled myself for the loss in laughing at the eulogies lavished on the probity of this people by its lords, The latter well know the real value of all their fine phrases, and I am not sorry to know it also. In observing their futile finesses, I seek for the dupes of falsehoods so puerile, and I cry, with Basil, " Who is deceiving here ? All the world is in the secret."

  In vain do the Russians talk and pretend ; every honest observer can only see in them the Greeks of the Lower Empire formed in accordance with the rules of modern strategy by the Prussians of the eighteenth and the French of the nineteenth century.

  The popularity of an autocrat appears to me as

  POLITICAL REFLECTIONS.21

  suspicious in Russia, as does the honesty of the men who in France preach absolute democracy in the name of liberty, — both are murderous sophisms. To destroy liberty in preaching liberality is assassination, for society lives by truth ; to make tyranny patriarchal is assassination also.

  I have one fixed political principle ; it is that men can and ought to be governed without being deceived. If in private life falsehood is degrading, in public life it is criminal; every government that lies, is a conspirator more dangerous than the traitor whom it legally condemns to capital punishment; and — notwithstanding the example of certain great minds spoilt by an age of sophists,—where truth is renounced, genius forsakes its seat, and, by a strange reversion of things,'the master humbles himself before the slave; for the man who deceives is below the victim of deception. This is as applicable to politics and to literature as to religion.

  My idea of the possibility of making Christian sincerity subservient to politics is not so chimerical as it may appear to men of business ; for it is an idea also of the Russian Emperor's, practical and clear-sighted as he undoubtedly is. 1 do not believe that there is at the present day a prince upon any throne who so detests falsehood and who falsifies so little as this monarch.

  He has made himself the champion of monarchical power in Europe, and, it is well known, he boldly and openly maintains this position. He is not seen, as is a certain government, preaching in each different locality a different policy according to varying, and purely commercial local interests ; on the con-

  22

  JOURNAL DES DÉBATS.

  trary, he favours everywhere indiscriminately the principles which accord with his system. Is it thus that England is liberal, constitutional, and philan-thropical ?

  The Emperor reads daily, from one end to the other, one French newspaper, and only one, the Journal des Débats. He never looks at the others, unless some interesting article is pointed out to him.

  To sustain power in order to preserve social order, is, in France, the object of the best and worthiest minds ; it is also the constant aim of the Journal des Débats, an aim prosecuted with an intellectual superiority which explains the consideration accorded to this paper in our own country, as well as in the rest of Europe.

  France is suffering under the disease common to the age, she is suffering under it more than any other land ; this disease is a hatred of authority; the remedy, therefore, consists in fortifying authority : such is the sentiment of the Emperor at Petersburg, and of the Journal des Débats at Paris.

  But as they agree only in regard to the end to be obtained, they are so much the more opposed as they seem to be united. The choice of means will often cause dissension among those gathered under the same banner ; they meet as allies, they separate as enemies.

  The legitimacy of hereditary right appears to the Emperor of Russia the only means of attaining his end ; and in forcing a little the ordinary sense of the old word " legitimacy," under pretext that there exists another more sure,—that, namely, of election

  SITE OF PETEEHOFF.23

  based upon the true interests of the country, — the Journal des Déhats raises altar against altar, in the name of the salvation of society.

  From the contest of these two legitimacies, one of which is blind as fate, the other wavering as passion, results an anger the more lively because the advocates of both systems lack decisive reasons, and use the same terms to arrive at opposite conclusions.

  It will be seen ere this that I take pleasure in digressions ; this species of irregularity leads me away like everything else that resembles liberty. I could only correct myself by offering excuses, and each time varying their oratorical expression; for then the trouble would exceed the pleasure.

  The site of Peterhoff is the most beautiful that I have hitherto seen in Russia. A ridge of small elevation commands the sea, which borders the extremity of the park at about a third of a league from the palace ; the latter is built on the edge of this mount, which is almost perpendicular. Magnificent flights of steps have been formed, by which you descend from terrace to terrace into the park, where are found groves of
great extent and beauty, jets d'eau, and artificial cascades in the taste of those at Versailles, and structures raised on certain elevated points, from whence may be seen the shores of Finland, the arsenal of the Russian navy, the isle of Kronstadt, and, at about nine leagues towards the right, St. Petersburg, the white city, which at a distance looks bright and lively, and with its palaces with pointed roofs, its temples of plastered columns, its forests of steeples that resemble minarets, has the appearance towards, evening of a wood of fir-

  24

  PARK OF PETEEHOFF.

  trees, whose silvered tops are illuminated by the ruddy glare of some great fire.

  There is but little variety of vegetation in the scenery of Ingria; that of the gardens is entirely artificial, that of the country consists of a few clumps of birch of a dull green foliage, and of avenues of the same tree planted as limits between marshy meadows, and fields where no wheat grows, for what can grow under the sixtieth degree of latitude ?

  When I think of all the obstacles which men have conquered here in order to exist as a community, to build a city, and to maintain in it all the magnificence necessary to the vanity of great princes and great folks, I cannot see a lettuce or a rose without being tempted to exclaim — " a miracle ! " If Petersburg is a Lapland in stucco, PeterhofF is the palace of Armida under glass. I can scarcely believe in the real existence of so many costly, delicate, and brilliant objects, when I recollect that a few degrees farther north, the year is divided into a day, a night, and two twilights, of three months each.