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

by Astolphe De Custine

  How does a power to influence the politics of Europe benefit Russia ? Factitious interests! vain, foolish passions ! Its real interests are to have within itself the principles of life, and to develop them : a nation which possesses nothing within itself but obe-p 2

  316THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS.

  dience docs not live. The nation of which I speak has been posted at the window; it looks out — it listens — it feels like a man witnessing some exhibition. When will this game cease ?

  Russia ought not only to stop, but to begin anew: is such an effort possible ? can so vast an edifice be taken to pieces and reconstructed ? The too recent civilisation of the empire, entirely artificial as it is, has already produced real results — results which no human power can annul: it appears to me impossible to controul the future of a people without considering the present. But the present, when it has been violently separated from the past, bodes only evil: to avert that evil from Russia, by obliging it to take into account its ancient history, which was the result only of its primitive character, will be henceforward the ungrateful task, more useful than brilliant, of the men called to govern this land,

  The altogether national and highly practical genius of the Emperor Nicholas has perceived the problem : can he resolve it ? I do not think so ; he does not let enough be done — he trusts too much to himself and too little to others to succeed ; for in Russia, the most absolute will is not powerful enough to accomplish good.

  It is not against a tyrant, but against tyranny, that the friends of man have here to struggle. There would be injustice in accusing the emperor of the miseries of the empire and the vices of the government : the powers of a man are not equal to the task imposed upon the sovereign who would suddenly seek to reign by humanity over an inhuman people.

  He only who has been in Russia, who has seen

  PETER I. AND CATHERINE II.317

  close at hand how things are there conducted, can understand how little the man can do, who is reputed capable of doing every thing; and how more especially his power is limited, when it is good that he would accomplish.

  The unhappy consequences of the work of Peter I. have been still further aggravated under the great, or rather the long reign of a woman who only governed her people to amuse herself and to astonish Europe — Europe, always Europe! — never Russia!

  Peter I. and Catherine II. have given to the world a great and useful lesson, for which Russia has had to pay: they have shown to us that despotism is never so much to be dreaded as when it pretends to do good, for then it thinks the most revolting acts may be excused by the intention; and the evil that is applied as a remedy has no longer any bounds. Crime exposed to view can triumph only for a day ; but false virtues for ever lead astray the minds of nations. People, dazzled by the brilliant accessories of crime, by the greatness of certain delinquencies justified by the event, believe at last that there are two kinds of villany, two classes of morals, and that necessity, or reasons of state, as they were formerly called, exculpate criminals of high lineage, provided they have so managed that their excesses should be in accord with the passions of the country.

  Avowed, open tyranny would little terrify me after having seen oppression disguised as love of order. The strength of despotism lies in the mask of the despot. When the sovei`eign can no longer lie, the people are free; thus I see no other evil in this world except that of falsehood. If you dread only violent

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  318 THE TASK OF THE AUTHOR.

  and avowed arbitrary power, go to Russia; there you will learn to fear above all things the tyranny of hypocrisy. I cannot deny it; I bring back with me from my journey ideas which I did not own when I undertook it. I therefore would not have been spared for any thing in the world the trouble which it has cost me : if I print the relation of it, I do so precisely because it lias modified my opinions upon several points. They are known by all who have read me : my disappointment is not: it is a duty to publish it.

  On setting out, I did not intend writing this my last journey : my method is fatiguing, because it consists in reviewing for my friends, during the night, the recollections of the day. Whilst occupied with this labour, which bears the character of confidential communications, the public appeared to my thoughts in only a dim and vapoury distance — so vapoury that I scarcely yet realise its presence ; and this will account for the familiar tone of an intimate correspondence being preserved in my printed letters.

  I pleased myself with thinking that I should this time be able to travel for myself alone, which, would have been a means of observing with tranquillity; but the ideas with which I found the Russians prepossessed with regard to me, from the greatest personages down to the smallest private individuals, gave me to see the measure of my importance, at least of that which I could acquire in Petersburg. " What do you think, or rather, what shall you say of us?" This was at the bottom of every conversation held with me. They drew me from my inaction: I was playing a modest part through apathy, or perhaps cowardice; for Paris renders those humble whom it does not render exces-

  THE TASK OF THE AUTHOR.319

  sìvely presumptuous; but the restless self-love of the Russians restored to me my own.

  I was sustained in my new resolution by a continual and visible dispersion of illusion. Assuredly the cause of the disappointment must have been strong and active to have allowed disgust to take possession of me in the midst of the most brilliant fetes that I have ever seen in my life, and in spite of the dazzling hospitality of the Russians. But I recognised at the first glance, that in the demonstrations of interest which they lavish upon us, there is more of the desire to appear engaging, than of true cordiality. Cordiality is unknown to the Russians: it is one of those things which they have not borrowed from their German neighbours. They occupy your every moment ; they distract your thoughts; they engross your attention; they tyrannise over you by means of officious politeness; they inquire how you pass your days; they question you with an importunity known only to themselves, and by fete after fete they prevent you seeing their country. They have even coined a French word enguìrlander les étrangers] by which to express these falsely polite tactics. Unhappily they have chanced to fall upon a man whom fetes have always more fatigued than diverted. But when they perceive that their direct attempts upon the mind of a stranger fail, they have recourse to indirect means to discredit his statements among enlightened readers: they can lead him astray with marvellous dexterity. Thus, still to prevent him from seeing things under their true colour, they will falsely depreciate when they can no longer reckon upon his benevolent credulity to permit them falsely to extol. p 4

  320THE TASK OF THE AUTHOR.

  Often have I, in the same conversation, surprised the ¾me person changing his tactics two or three times towards me. I do not always flatter myself with having discerned the truth, but I have discerned that it was concealed from me, and it is always something to know that we are deceived; if not enlightened, we are then at least armed.

  All courts are deficient in life and gaiety; but at that of Petersburg one has not even the permission to be weary. The emperor, whose eye is on every thing, takes the affectation of enjoyment as a homage, which reminds me of the observation of M. de Talleyrand upon Napoleon: " L'Empereur ne plaisante pas ; il veut qu'on s'anmse."

  I shall wound self-love: my incorruptible honesty will draw upon me reproaches; but is it my fault if, in applying to an absolute government for new arguments against the despot that reigns at home, against disorder baptized with the name of liberty, I have been struck only with the abuses of autoeraey, in other words, of tyranny designated good order: Russian despotism is a false order, as our republicanism is a false liberty. I make war with falsehood wherever I discover it; but there is more than one kind of lie : I had forgotten those of absolute power; I now recount them in detail, because in relating my travels I describe without reserve all that I see.

  I hate pretexts: I have seen that in Russia, order serves as a pretext for o
ppression, as in France, liberty does for envy. In a word, I love real liberty — all liberty that is possible in a society from whence elegance is not excluded; I am therefore neither de-

  ARISTOCRACY THE BULWARK OF LIBERTY. 321

  magogue nor despot; I am an aristocrat in the broadest acceptation of the word. The elegance that I wish to preserve in communities is not frivolous, nor yet unfeeling; it is regulated by taste; taste excludes all abuses ; it is the surest preservative against them, for it dreads every kind of exaggeration. A certain elegance is essential to the arts, and the arts save the world; for it is through their agency more than any other that people attach themselves to civilisation, of which they are the last and the most precious recompense. By a privilege which belongs to them alone among the various objects that can shed a halo upon a nation, their glory pleases and profits all classes of society equally.

  Aristocracy, as I understand it, far from allying itself with tyranny in favour of order, as the demagogues who misunderstand it pretend, cannot exist under an arbitrary government. Its mission is to defend, on one side, the people against the despot, and on the other, civilisation against that most terrible of all tyrants, revolution. Barbarism takes more than one form: crush it in despotism and it springs to life again in anarchy; but true liberty, guarded by a true aristocracy, is neither violent nor inordinate.

  Unfortunately, the partisans of a moderating aristocracy in Europe are now blinded, and lend their arms to their adversaries: in their false prudence they seek for aid among the enemies of all political and religious liberty, as though danger could only come from the side of the new revolutionaries; they forget that arbitrary sovereigns were anciently as much usurpers as are the modern jacobins.

  Feudal aristocracy has come to an end in all, except p 5

  322THE TASK OF THE AUTHOR.

  in the indelible glory which will for ever shine around great historical names; but in communities which wish to endure, the noblesse of the middle ages will be replaced, as they long have been among the English, by a hereditary magistracy: this new aristocracy, heir of the old, and composed of many different elements, for office, birth and riches all form its bases, will not regain its credit until it supports itself upon a free religion; and I again repeat, the only free religion, the only one that does not depend on a temporal power, is that taught by the Catholic church: for as to the temporal power of the pope himself, it is now only calculated to defend his sacerdotal independence. Aristocracy is the government of independent minds, and it cannot be too often reiterated, Catholicism is the faith of free priests.

  Whenever I think I perceive a truth, I utter it without reference to the consequences, for I am persuaded that evil is not caused by published truths. but by truths that are disguised. Under this per-suat·ion, I have always regarded as pernicious that proverb of our fathers, which says that a truth must not be always spoken.

  It is because each one picks and chooses in truth only such parts as serve his passions, Iris fears, or his interest, that it ean be rendered more mischievous than error. When I travel, I do not make selections among the facts which I gather, I do not reject those which oppose my favourite opinions. When I relate, I have no other religion than that of a worship of truth; I do not permit myself to be a judge, I am not even a painter, for painters compose; I endeavour to become a mirror; in short, I wish to be, above all

  THE TASK OF THE AUTHOR.323

  things, impartial; and for this object the intention suffices, at least in the eyes of intelligent readers, and I cannot and will not recollect that there are others : such discovery would render the labours of the author too fastidious.

  Every time that I have had occasion to communicate with men, the first thought with which their manner has inspired me has been that they possess more ability than I, that they know better how to speak, act, and defend themselves. Such have been, up to this day, the results of my experience in the world; I do not therefore despise any one, and, least of all, my readers. This is the reason that I never flatter them.

  If there are men towards whom I find it difficult to be equitable, they are those who weary me ; but I scarcely know any such, for I always fly from the indolent.

  I have said that there is only one town in Russia : there is also only one drawing-room in Petersburg: every where is to be seen either the court or fractions of the court. You may change the house, but you cannot change the circle; and in that invariable circle all subject of interesting conversation is interdicted ; but here I find that there is a compensation, thanks to the sharpened wit of the women, who understand wonderfully well how to inspire thoughts without uttering the words that express them.

  Women are in every land the least servile of slaves, because, using so skilfully their weakness as to form for themselves a power out of it, they know better than we do how to evade bad laws; it is they, consequently, who are destined to save individual liberty wherever public liberty is wanting. p 6

  324LIBERTY.

  What is liberty if it be not the guarantee of the rights of the weakest, whom woman is by nature charged with representing in social life ? In France they now pride themselves on every thing being decided by the majority: . . . admirable marvel! When I shall see that some regard is shown to the claims of the minority, I too shall cry Vive la liberté! It must be owned that the weakest now, were the strongest formerly, and that then they only too often set the example of the abuse of superior force that I complain of. But one error does not excuse another.

  Notwithstanding the secret influence of the women, Russia still remains farther from liberty, not in words, but in things, than most of the countries upon earth. To-morrow, in an insurrection, in the midst of massacre, by the light of a conflagration, the cry of freedom may spread to the frontiers of Siberia; a blind and cruel people may murder their masters, may revolt against obscure tyrants, and dye the waters of the Volga with blood; but they will not be any the more free : barbarism is in itself a yoke.

  The best means of emancipating men is not pompously to proclaim their enfranchisement, but to render servitude impossible by developing the sentiment of humanity in the heart of nations: that sentiment is deficient in Russia. To talk liberalism to the Russians, of whatever class they may be, would now be a crime; to preach humanity to all classes without exception is a duty.

  The Russian nation has not yet imbibed the sentiment of justice; thus, one day it was mentioned to me in praise of the Emperor Nicholas, that an obscure private individual had gained a cause against some

  THE TASK OP THE AUTH01í,325

  powerful nobleman. In this instance, the encomium on the sovereign appeared to me as a satire upon the community. The too-highly boasted fact proved to me positively that equity is only an exception in Russia.

  Every thing duly considered, I would by no means advise obscure men to act in reliance upon the success of the person thus instanced, who was favoured perhaps to assure impunity to the usual coiirse of injustice, and to furnish a specimen of equity which the dispensers of the law were in need of, to serve as a reply to reproaches of servility and corruption.

  Another fact, which suggests an inference little favourable to the Russian judiciary, is, that there should be so little litigation in the country. The reason is not obscure ; people would more often have recourse to justice if the judges were more equitable. A similar reason accounts for there being no fighting or quarrelling in the streets. A dread of chains and dungeons is the consideration which usually restrains the two parties.

  Notwithstanding the melancholy picüires that I draw, two inanimate objects, and one living person, are worth the trouble of the journey. The Neva of Petersburg during the nightless season, the Kremlin of Moscow by moonlight, and the Emperor of Russia: these include picturesque, historical, and political Riissia; beyond them, every thing is fatiguing and wearisome to a degree that may be judged of by the preceding chapters.

  Many of my friends have already written to advise me not to publish them.

/>   As I was preparing to leave Petersburg, a Russian

  32GTHE TASK OF ТЫЕ AUTHOR.

  asked me, as all the Russians do, what I should say of his country. " I have been too well received there to talk about it*," was my reply.

  This avowal, in which I thought I had scarcely politely concealed an epigram, is brought up against me. " Treated as you have been," I am told, " you cannot possibly tell the truth; and as you cannot write except to do so, you had better remain silent." Such is the opinion of a party among those to whom I am accustomed to listen. At any rate, it is not flattering to the Russians.

  My opinion is, that without wounding the delicacy, without failing in the gratitude clue to individuals, nor yet in the respect due to self, there is always a proper manner of speaking with sincerity of public men and things, and I hope to have discovered this manner. It is pretended that truth only shocks, but in France, at least, no one has the right or the power to close the mouth of him who speaks it. My exclamations of indignation cannot be taken for the disguised expression of wounded vanity. If I had listened only to my self-love it would have told me to be enchanted with every thing: my heart has been enchanted with nothing.

  If every thing related of the Russians and their country turn into personalities, so much the worse for them: this is an inevitable evil, for things do not exist in Russia, since it is the whim of a man who makes and unmakes them ; but that is not the fault of travellers.