THE STREETS of Petersburg present a strange appearance to the eyes of a Frenchman. I will endeavor to describe them; but I must first notice the approach to the city by the Neva. It is much celebrated, and the Russians are justly proud of it, though I did not find it equal to its reputation. When, at a considerable distance, the steeples begin to appear, the effect produced is more singular than imposing. The hazy outline of land, which may be perceived far off between the sky and the sea, becomes, as you advance, a little more unequal at some points than at others; these scarcely perceptible irregularities are found on closer approach to be the gigantic architectural monuments of the new capital of Russia. We first begin to recognize the Greek steeples and the gilded cupolas of convents; then some modern public buildings—the front of the Exchange, and the white colonnades of the colleges, museums, barracks, and palaces which border the quays of granite, become discernible. On entering the city, you pass some sphinxes, also of granite. Their dimensions are colossal and their appearance imposing; nevertheless these copies of the antique have no merit as works of art. A city of palaces is always magnificent, but the imitation of classic monuments shocks the taste when the climate under which these models are so inappropriately placed is considered. Soon, however, the stranger is struck with the form and multitude of turrets and metallic spires which rise in every direction: this at least is national architecture. Petersburg is flanked with numbers of large convents, surmounted by steeples; pious edifices, which serve as a rampart to the profane city. The Russian churches have preserved their primitive appearance; but it is not the Russians who invented that clumsy and capricious Byzantine style, by which they are distinguished. The Greek religion of this people, their character, education, and history, alike justify their borrowing from the Lower Empire; they may be permitted to seek for models at Constantinople, but not at Athens. Viewed from the Neva, the parapets of the quays of Petersburg are striking and magnificent; but the first step after landing discovers them to be badly and unevenly paved with flints, which are as disagreeable to the eye as dangerous to the feet, and ruinous to the wheels. The prevailing taste here is the brilliant and the striking: spires, gilded and tapering like electric conductors; porticoes, the bases of which almost disappear under the water; squares, ornamented with columns which seem lost in the immense space that surrounds them; antique statues, the character and attire of which so ill accord with the aspect of the country, the tint of the sky, the costume and manners of the inhabitants, as to suggest the idea of their being captive heroes in a hostile land; expatriated edifices, temples that might be supposed to have fallen from the summit of the Grecian mountains into the marshes of Lapland;—such were the objects that most struck me at the first sight of St. Petersburg. The magnificent temples of the pagan gods, which so admirably crown, with their horizontal lines and severely chaste contours, the promontories of the Ionian shores, and whose marbles are gilded by the sunshine amid the rocks of the Peloponnesus, here become mere heaps of plaster and mortar; the incomparable ornaments of Grecian sculpture, the wonderful minutiae of classic art, have all given place to an indescribably grotesque style of modern decoration, which substitution passes among the Finlanders as proof of a pure taste in the arts. Partially to imitate that which is perfect, is to spoil it. We should either strictly copy the model, or invent altogether. But the reproduction of the monuments of Athens, however faithfully executed, would be lost in a miry plain, continually in danger of being overflowed by water whose level is nearly that of the land. Here, nature suggests to man the very opposite of what he has imagined. Instead of imitations of pagan temples, it demands bold projecting forms and perpendicular lines, in order to pierce the mists of a polar sky, and to break the monotonous surface of the moist gray steppes which form, farther than the eye or the imagination can stretch, the territory of Petersburg. I begin to understand why the Russians urge us with so much earnestness to visit them during winter: six feet of snow conceals all this dreariness; but in summer, we see the country. Explore the territory of Petersburg and the neighboring provinces, and you will find, I am told, for hundreds of leagues, nothing but ponds and morasses, stunted firs and dark-leaved birch. To this somber vegetation the white shroud of winter is assuredly preferable. Everywhere the same plains and bushes seem to compose the same landscape; at least until the traveler approaches Finland and Sweden. There, he finds a succession of little granite rocks covered with pines, which change the appearance of the soil, though without giving much variety to the landscape. It will be easily believed that the gloom of such a country is scarcely lessened by the lines of columns which men have raised on its even and naked surface. The proper basis of Greek peristyles are mountains: there is here no harmony between the inventions of man and the gifts of nature; in short, a taste for edifices without taste has presided over the building of St. Petersburg.
But, however shocked our perceptions of the beautiful may be by the foolish imitations which spoil the appearance of the Russian capital, it is impossible to contemplate without a species of admiration an immense city which has sprung from the sea at the bidding of one man, and which has to defend itself against a periodical inundation of ice, and a perpetual inundation of water.
The Kronstadt steamboat dropped her anchor before the English quay opposite the customhouse, and not far from the famous square where the statue of Peter the Great stands mounted on its rock. One remained anchored for a long time.
I would gladly spare my reader the detail of the new persecutions, which, under the name of simple formalities, I had to undergo at the hand of the police, and its faithful ally the customhouse; but it is a duty to give a just idea of the difficulties which attend the stranger on the maritime frontier of Russia: the entrance by land is, I am told, more easy.
For three or four days in the year the sun of Petersburg is unbearable. I arrived on one of these days. Our persecutors commenced by impounding us (not the Russians, but myself and the other foreigners) on the deck of our vessel. We were there, for a long time, exposed without any shelter to the powerful heat of the morning sun. It was eight o’clock, and had been daylight ever since one hour after midnight. They spoke of 30 degrees of Réaumur[1]; which temperature, be it remembered, is much more inconvenient in the North, where the air is surcharged with vapor, than in hot climates.
At length I was summoned to appear before a new tribunal, assembled, like that of Kronstadt, in the cabin of our vessel. The same questions were addressed to me with the same politeness, and my answers were recorded with the same formalities.
“What is your object in Russia?”
“To see the country.”
“That is not here a motive for traveling.”
(What humility in this objection!)
“I have no other.”
“Whom do you expect to see in Petersburg?”
“Everyone with whom I may have an opportunity of making acquaintance.”
“How long do you think of remaining in Russia?”
“I do not know.”
“But about how long?”
“A few months.”
“Have you a public diplomatic mission?”
“No.”
“A secret one?”
“No.”
“Any scientific object?”
“No.”
“Are you employed by your government to examine the social and political state of this country?”
“No.”
“By any commercial association?”
“No.”
“You travel, then, from mere curiosity?”
“Yes.”
“What was it that induced you, under this motive, to select Russia?”
“I do not know,” &c. &c. &c.
“Have you letters of introduction to any people of this country?”
I had been forewarned of the inconvenience of replying too frankly to this question; I therefore spoke only of my banker.
At the termination of the session of this court of assize, I encountered several of my accomplices. These strangers had been sadly perplexed, owing to some irregularities that had been discovered in their passports. The bloodhounds of the Russian police are quick-scented, and have a very different manner of treating different individuals. An Italian merchant, who was among our passengers, was searched unmercifully, not omitting even the clothes on his person, and his pocketbook. Had such a search been made upon me, I should have been pronounced a very suspicious character. My pockets were full of letters of introduction, and though the greater number had been given me by the Russian ambassador himself, and by others equally well known, they were sealed; a circumstance which made me afraid of leaving them in my writing case. The police permitted me to pass without searching my person; but when my baggage came to be unpacked before the customhouse officers, these new enemies instituted a most minute examination of my effects, more especially my books. The latter were seized en masse, and without any attention to my protestations, but an extraordinary politeness of manner was all the while maintained. A pair of pistols and an old portable clock were also taken from me, without my being able to ascertain the reason of the confiscation. All that I could get was the promise that they would be returned.
I have now been more than twenty-four hours on shore without having been able to recover anything, and to crown my troubles, my carriage has, by mistake, been forwarded from Kronstadt to the address of a Russian prince. It will require efforts, and explanations without end, to prove this error to the customhouse agents; for the prince of my carriage is away from home.
Between nine and ten o’clock I found myself, personally, released from the fangs of the customhouse, and entered Petersburg under the kind care of a German traveler, whom I met by chance on the quay. If a spy, he was at least a useful one, speaking both French and Russian, and undertaking to procure me a droshky; while, in the meantime, he himself aided my valet to transport in a cart to Coulon’s hotel such part of my baggage as had been given up.
Coulon is a Frenchman, who is said to keep the best hotel in Petersburg, which is not saying much. In Russia, foreigners soon lose all trace of their national character, without, at the same time, ever assimilating to that of the natives.
The obliging stranger found even a guide for me who could speak German, and who mounted behind in the droshky, in order to answer my questions. This man acquainted me with the names of the buildings we passed in proceeding to the hotel, which occupied some time, for the distances are great in Petersburg.
The too celebrated statue of Peter the Great, placed on its rock by the Empress Catherine, first attracted my attention. The equestrian figure is neither antique nor modern; it is a Roman of the time of Louis XV. To aid in supporting the horse, an enormous serpent has been placed at his feet; which is an ill-conceived idea, serving only to betray the impotence of the artist.
I stopped for one moment before the scaffolding of an edifice which, though not yet completed, is already famous in Europe, the church, namely, of St. Isaac. I also saw the façade of the new Winter Palace; another mighty result of human will applying human physical powers in a struggle with the laws of nature. The end has been attained, for in one year this palace has risen from its ashes: and it is the largest, I believe, which exists; equaling the Louvre and the Tuileries put together.
In order to complete the structure at the time appointed by the emperor, unheard-of efforts were necessary. The interior works were continued during the great frosts; six thousand workmen were continually employed; of these a considerable number died daily, but the victims were instantly replaced by other champions brought forward to perish, in their turn, in this inglorious breach. And the sole end of all these sacrifices was to gratify the whim of one man!
Among people naturally, that is to say, anciently civilized, the life of men is only exposed when common interests, the urgency of which is universally admitted, demand it. But how many generations of monarchs has not the example of Peter the Great corrupted!
During frosts when the thermometer was at 25 to 30 degrees below 0 of Réaumur, six thousand obscure martyrs— martyrs without merit, for their obedience was involuntary —were shut up in halls heated to 30 degrees of Réaumur, in order that the walls might dry more quickly. Thus, in entering and leaving this abode of death, destined to become, by virtue of their sacrifice, the abode of vanity, magnificence, and pleasure, these miserable beings would have to endure a difference of 50 to 60 degrees of temperature. The works in the mines of the Urals are less inimical to life; and yet the workmen employed at Petersburg were not malefactors. I was told that those who had to paint the interior of the most highly heated halls were obliged to place on their heads a kind of bonnet of ice, in order to preserve the use of their senses under the burning temperature. Had there been a design to disgust the world with arts, elegance, luxury, and all the pomp of courts, could a more efficacious mode have been taken? And nevertheless the sovereign was called father by the men immolated before his eyes in prosecuting an object of pure Imperial vanity. They were neither spies nor Russian cynics who gave me these details, the authenticity of which I guarantee.
The millions expended on Versailles supported as many families of French workmen as there were Slavic serfs destroyed by these twelve months in the Winter Palace; but, by means of that sacrifice, the mandate of the emperor has realized a prodigy; and the palace, completed to the general satisfaction, is going to be inaugurated by marriage fêtes. A prince may be popular in Russia without attaching much value to human life. Nothing colossal is produced without effort; but when a man is in himself both the nation and the government, he ought to impose on himself a law, not to press the great springs of the machine he has the power of moving, except for some object worthy of the effort. To work miracles at the cost of the life of an army of slaves may be great; but it is too great, for both God and man will finally rise to wreak vengeance on these inhuman prodigies. Men have adored the light, the Russians worship the eclipse: when will their eyes be opened?
I do not say that their political system produces nothing good; I simply say that what it does produce is dearly bought.
It is not now for the first time that foreigners have been struck with astonishment at contemplating the attachment of this people to their slavery. The following passage, which is an extract from the correspondence of the Baron Herberstein, ambassador from the Emperor Maximilian, father of Charles V, to the Czar Vasily Ivanovich, I have found in Karamzin.
Did the Russians know all that an attentive reader may gather even from that flattering historian, in whom they glory, and whom foreigners consult with extreme distrust, on account of his partiality as a courtier, they would entreat the emperor to forbid the perusal of his, and of all other historical works, and thus be left in a darkness equally favorable to the repose of the despot and the felicity of his subjects, who believe themselves happy so long as others do not stigmatize them as victims.
Herberstein, in characterizing the Russian despotism, writes as follows:—“He (the czar) speaks, and it is done; the life and fortunes of laity and clergy, nobles and burghers, all depend on his supreme will. He is unacquainted with contradiction, and all he does is deemed as equitable as though it were done by Deity; for the Russians are persuaded that their prince is the executor of the Divine decrees. Thus, ‘God and the prince have willed,’ ‘God and the prince know,’ are common modes of speech among them. Nothing can equal their zeal for his service. One of his principal officers, a venerable gray-haired person, formerly ambassador in Spain, came to meet us on our entry into Moscow. He galloped his horse, and displayed all the activity of a young man, until the sweat fell from his brow; and when I expressed my surprise to him, ‘Ah, Monsieur le Baron,’ he replied, ‘we serve our sovereign in a manner altogether different from that in which you serve yours.’
“I cannot say whether it is the character of the Russian nation which has formed such autocrats, or whether it is the autocrats themselves who have given this character to the nation.”
This letter, written more than three centuries ago, describes the Russians precisely as I now see them. Like the ambassador of Maximilian, I still ask, is it the character of the Russian which has made the autocracy, or is it the autocracy which has made the Russian character? and I can no more solve the question than could the German diplomatist.
It appears to me, however, that the influence is reciprocal: the Russian government could never have been established elsewhere than in Russia; and the Russians would never have become what they are under a government differing from that which exists among them.
I will add another citation from the same author, Karamzin. He repeats the observations of the travelers who visited Muscovy in the sixteenth century. “Is it surprising,” say these strangers, “that the grand prince is rich? He neither gives money to his troops nor his ambassadors; he even takes from these last all the costly things they bring back from foreign lands.[2] It was thus that the Prince Yaroslavsky, on his return from Spain, was obliged to place in the treasury all the chains of gold, the collars, the costly stuffs, and the silver vessels, which the emperor and the Archduke Ferdinand had given him. Nevertheless, these men do not complain. They say, ‘The great prince takes away, the great prince will restore.’ ” It was thus the Russians spoke of the czar in the sixteenth century.
At the present day you will hear, both in Paris and in Petersburg, numbers of Russians dwelling with rapture on the prodigious effects of the word of the emperor; and, while magnifying these results, not one troubles himself with dwelling upon the means. “The word of the emperor can create,” they say. Yes, it can animate stones by destroying human beings. Notwithstanding this little restrictive clause, every Russian is proud of being able to say to us, “You take three years to deliberate on the means of rebuilding a theater, whilst our emperor raises again, in one year, the largest palace in the universe.” And this puerile triumph does not appear to them too dearly bought by the death of a few thousand wretched artisans, sacrificed to that sovereign impatience, that Imperial fantasy, which constitutes the national glory. Whilst I, though a Frenchman, see nothing but inhuman ostentation in this achievement, not a single protestation is raised from one end of this immense empire to the other against the orgies of absolute power.
People and government are here in unison. That a man brought up in the idolatry of self, a man revered as omnipotent by sixty millions of men (or at least of beings that resemble men), should not undertake to put an end to such a state of things, this does not surprise me; the wonder is, that among the voices that relate these things to the glory of this individual, not one separates itself from the universal chorus, to protest in favor of humanity against such autocratic miracles. It may be said of the Russians, great and small, that they are drunk with slavery.
[1]Nearly 100° Fahrenheit.—Trans.
[2]Dickens, in his travels through the United States, informs us that the same practice is at this day observed in America.