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T HE
J. MICHELE'I‘,
ll
AUTHOR. or
MESTS, WOMEN, AND FAMILIES," “THE PEOPLE," ETC.
Eranstatc'n',
BY PERMISSION AUTHOR.
~.W_\\~w““\~§w;;=¢w \ »
LONDON:
1851.
-
Q. \
‘cnrdv
THE ' ' w
MARTYRS OF RUSSIA,
BY
J. MICHELETL L
AUTHOR OF
Eranfilatw,
BY PERMISS!ON OF THE vAUTHOR.
LONDON =
REEVES AND TURNER, 98, CHANCERY LANE.
1851.
— WM 7
_.I=
RICHARD KINDER, PRINTER,
GREEN ABBOUR COURT 0 OLD BAILEY.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
mrnonuc'rony LETTER . . . . . . . . . 1
CHAPTER I.
RUSSIA . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
SIBERIA . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
CHAPTER V.
SlBERlA.—THE nxscunons . . . . . . . - 39
iv CONTENTS;
\ CHAPTER VI.
PAGE
or THE GROWING 'rmmomsm 0F RUSSIA.——MARTYRDOM or PESTAL
AND OF RYLEIEFF . . . ' . . . . . . 47
0
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
INTRODUCTORY LETTER.
GENTLEMEN,
ANOTHER human sacrifice! Even so late as the 20th July last,
Warsaw, seized with horror, beheld four prisoners (without either
cause or pretext) suddenly dragged from their dungeons, judged
and condemned by your military tribunals, crushed beneath the lash.
No recent plot explains this atrocity; they were former political
prisoners. Their families had consoled themselves with the belief
of a pardon, on the arrival of the Emperor, and the celebration of
the twenty-fifth anniversary of his accession. Vain hope! death
was their pardon.
Was it, indeed, you, gentlemen, who could order these barbarous,
these ignoble torments? You—imbued with the spirit of France,
and nurtured by her; you—whose mind is her mind; you—French,
rather than Russians?
We are not ignorant of the terrible fear which hangs over you.
An iron hand wrests from you these frightful judgments; and forces
you to sign these condemnations. More than one among you
would break his sword in pieces, were death the only thing to be
feared.
We know you well—and are convinced, that if left to yourselves,
you would dare to be human. I could say where, and in what
manner; but I will not denounce you. We believe, that on the
B
2 THE MARTYRS OF RUSSIA.
20th July, you held back several of the victims demanded of you.
Of thirty-four, whom you were forced to judge, thirty will live-—
they are destined for Siberia. _
What was the crime of these Poles? That of thinking exactly as
you think.
Who, more than you, detests and execrates the barbarous go
vernment of these bastard Germans which is crushing Russia?
Could we but lay bare your hearts, we should find implanted in
most of you, if not, indeed, the Revolution, at least the faith of
the 14th December, the imperishable spark of Pestal and of Ryleieif.
Lamentable destiny! You march through Europe, combating or
condemning the accomplices of your thoughts, and the martyrs of
your faith, those whose sentiments you admire, and whose death
you envy.
Yes, you admire those Hungarians, who, in 1849, broke up the
Russian intervention; and you resent, as we do, the tortures which
followed, and the execrable outrages inflicted even upon the women.
You admire those heroes of the Polish revolution, who, in 1837,
from the end of Siberia, by a stroke of almost incredible boldness,
undertook to arm the desert; and you were more dead than they,
on the day when they fell, under the strokes of your weeping and
broken-hearted soldiers.
How deeply must your hearts have been wounded, when, in
1M7, Wisniowski, from the gibbet, uttered that sublime sentiment,
“ Love one another, and forgive.”
One frightful picture will ever haunt the memory of those who
served in 1831; calling forth their lamentations by day, and dis
turbing their midnight slumbers. The solemn martyrdom of the
Polish army, in the frequented port of Cronstadt, under the indig
nant eyes of all the sailors of the earth, will form a scene to them,
never, never to be forgotten. Several hundred brave men, prisoners
of war, and by capitulation, refusing to abjure their country and be
come Russians, were flogged, and, as their wounds closed up, flogged
again and again, persevering invincible, until the carts removed
their mutilated remains—shapeless and hideous masses—in which
no trace of the human form could be recognised.
What are your secret sentiments in the midst of these terrible
INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 3
scepticism, upon the very verge of the abyss. Who knows where
right is to be found? ask they. True—we are corrupted; but are
they of the West less so? Let us enjoy life and then die.
Yes, the West is corrupt ; but much more so in the upper classes
of'society, with which you are alone acquainted, than in the lower
classes. In France, however, though more or less corrupt, there
always exists a powerful means of moral regeneration—and that by
the force of opinion. France lives by thought, and derives there
from an inexhaustible source of regenerating power. Her falls are
mighty—then the world exclaims aloud, “ She is dead l” Such
was the cry at Rosbach. Yet, from that very epoch it was, that a
feeble spark, kindling into a flame, imparted force and warmth into
her dying embers, reanimating those who thought her extinct, till
transfigured by her genius, she became the world’s luminary.
This regenerating power is to he found in opinion, which is ever
putting forth new buds. What would be the state of that people,
who should lose their ancient character—who should be severed
from all other nations—who should he isolated—shut out from all
living communications ; and who should have the very air they
breathe prevented from reaching them?
Such is the exact case with the Russian people.
They lived in a Community, a little patriarchal association which
divides the soil amongst its members, and allots to each its alter
nate culture; thus forming a powerful link to bind mankind toge
ther. Now man is at one blow rooted out from the soil, and from
the Community—once the possessors of the soil—then serfs; and
for more than two centuries aliixed to it, they consoled themselves
with the belief that the soil was in its turn affixed to them. Now
man is no more than a mere moveable; an implement to be sold
for mines and factories.
Alas! the affecting, the woeful spectacle. This population, de
voted to servitude, had made an heartfelt effort to reconcile it to the
sentiments of nature; the serf called the master his father. He
was the child of the noble, and the noble himself was the son of the
Czar. All this little world was bound together, by the idea ofpater
nity. In that was centred Russian faith, and all the affections of
the Russian heart—and that heart you have broken.
INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 5
From 1812 to 1825, you sought public action. The mild and
paternal Alexander was himself the encourager of your philanthropy.
But the stroke of the 14th December oppressed your hearts, and trod
them back into egotism.
Yet in literature activity still prevailed, and took the place of
public enterprise. Even in this innocent career, however, Russian in
tellect was persecuted, and poetry and the poets together died. . . .
Lermontoff? slain. Griboledofi'? slain. Puschine? slain, and by
what cruel death !*
Your literature perished shortly after 1840. Then followed a last
ing silence. You no longer speak. Do you imagine therefore you
are forgiven? No: a new career of persecutions is before you—
more deep, more terrible. This despotism, up to the present time
external, and material only, will soon penetrate into your innermost
soul, and eat up your religion.
“ You obey. It is well. Like to Poland and Russia you are
trodden under foot. It is well. Yet something is wanting, without
which I refuse all. It is that you do acknowledge me, as the rule
of right, and as the arbiter of faith, that in me you do honour the
union of those two powers without which there is nothing. If both
meet in me, I am perfect, I am God.”
Thus spoke the modern Nehuchadnezzar, and caused it to he
proclaimed by one of his serfs (in January 1850). He also declared
Rome to be at an end, and the Latin united with the Greek Church,
to be the sole Catholic and universal Church, and the Czar, the sole
Pontitf of the World l
The Grand Duke Michael had pronounced it twenty years ago.
On his visiting Saint Peter’s, at Rome, at the moment of the Pope’s
officiating, he exclaimed, “ This is indeed a grand and magnificent
ceremony; but how much more so will it be when we officiate
here l”
The Emperor has given deeds rather than words. He has acted
the part of a Pope by his atrocious persecutions of the Uniates,
(Greeks who have joined the Latin Church,) and Poland herself,
politically crushed, has furnished forth yet more victims for these
religious executions.
' See Des ide'e: réuolutiomzaires en Russia, by Iscander. Paris, 1851.
INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 7
What now remains to the new God, save to wage war against
Russia and against the crowd of sectarians who there seek protection
from the nobles? These unhappy wretches annually furnish five
hundred victims to Siberia!
Thus it is that this fatal power marches onward destroying and
devouring. Were there nothing to fill its murderous jaws, it would
feed upon itself.—Political existence? devoured. Literary life?
devoured. And now it seeks for food amongst the religions of
Russia and Europe. It advances with gaping mouth. Why is
Revolution intolerable? The organ of the Czar has answered the
question with great candour. Because the French Revolution is itself
a religion.
But neither France nor the Revolution are troubled—they fear
nothing. Who ought to fear? You—above all, gentlemen. The
engine by which this power acts upon the world rests upon you. It
weighs upon you and crushes you. It cannot act externally without
acting internally also.
Observe, that it is not a mere man—it is an engine. The death
of an individual, (although his personal violence adds to the pres
sure,) his death, I say, is not sufficient to relax the spring once so
tightly compressed.
Who is able to relax it? You, sooner than any one. The Czar
himself can do nothing without your help.
Allowing that he has forced the mechanism, by the violence
natural to despotic power, and by the employment of strangers
ignorant of the Russian character.——You also have forced it, by
aggravating the condition of the serf, and by calling in the inter
vention of the imperial power for the suppression of revolt. Yes :
you have added to the throne of the Czar this new and fearful
weight, under which Russia lies groaning.
Your position is still strong—your power is still extensive, either
for good, or for evil. The people, if forced to choose between your
rule, and that of the Czar, would not hesitate; they would prefer
you. Nominally free, they are condemned to a harder bondage,
to that servitude of venal and grasping ofiicials who are dead to feel
ing, and who know not the name of honour. What the people
require of you is, that associating your interest with the good of the
8 THE MARTYRS 0F RUSSIA.
race and habits; and you find yourselves unhappin exiled to the
North. Come! warm yourselves in the sunny South, ye shivering
people. Descend into the fertile steppes, which once properly cul
tivated, will be more valuable far than Poland— there you will find
a second Italy. The true inclination of Russia is towards the Black
Sea. Men as rivers rush down by their own impulse. Each time
man draws near to this Paradise of Crimea, then he believes he has
been restored to his true country.
By returning to your legitimate and natural mission—viz. the
conquest of the southern desert, you will finish without regret an
unnatural struggle. You will make reparation to your sister Poland.
You will aid her to extricate herself from Germany; and with
your own hands you will remould her. On her part, she will be the
means of reconciling you to God and to Europe, and thus blessed,
you will enter into the human brotherhood.
J. MICHELET.
September, 1851.
C H A P TE R I.
RUSSIA.
that the humblest police-officer arrests the freeman, and causes him
to be flogged! These milliners were not serfs; but most probably
French—as most milliners are.
Two Germans, on leaving Russia, and stepping on board an
English ship, threw themselves into each other’s arms:—“ Ah!
my friend,” exclaimed one of them—“ here at least we can respire.”
I do not know whether all who leave Russia can so congratulate
each other. Most leave behind, a considerable part of themselves.
Those who have resided there for any length of time—whether it
be that they are under the influence of some lingering terror, which
never leaves them; or whether it be that they are assimilated to
that strange country, and so to speak, become Russianized—be it
how it may—they never speak of Russia, but with the utmost pru
dence. They do not deny that there exist many things most
odious—most unnatural; they admit all; but they blame not. It
is owing to this, that their moral character, enfeebled and ener
vated, resembles no longer that of other men. They are incapable
of forming a firm and serious opinion.
Russia, besides her terrors, possesses a very considerable ener
vating power. That life of stoves and warm baths. Those houses
heated by night and by day. The luxurious habits of countries,
where slavery prevails—all this assists to relax the moral tone.
The heart at first wounded on the barbarous side of slavery, learns
to be silent—then the sensual side prevails. He who was at first
disgusted, afterwards excuses, and finishes by discovering its
sweetness.
A writer who has passed twenty years in Russia, describes the
impression made upon him the first time he ever heard the women
flogged z—their piercing and harrowing shrieks burst upon his
ear, mingled with all manner of childish cries of the most painful
simplicity, and with all the caressing words with which the victims
hoped to soften their tor-mentors. The young girl cried: “ Mercy !
mercy! not to day —I am ill—spare me.” The woman: “ Have
pity on me, my friend. I am with child, and you will kill two per
sons ;”—iu fact, all that intensest suffering could call forth to soften
the human heart. . . . . He burst into tears. The lady of the
house surprising him in this state, and not understanding how
C
14 THE MARTYRS OF RUSSIA.
the sight of these torments could so move him, said : —“ Are you
aware that you are afflicted by that which you yourself have occa
sioned? Knowing you were fond of strawberries, I sent these girls
into the wood—they forgot themselves, and joined the village
dance.” . . . . . It was from kindness and attention shown to a
stranger, that she had ordered the chastisement of eighty of her
servants.
In Russia, the female population greatly exceeds that of the males,
which is owing to the enormous consumption of the army. An idle
and debased domesticity is the lot of the generality of the women,
who work little, either in the house, or in the fields. A Russian
lady observed to me:-~“ On a small estate of one hundred and
fifty peasants, which I never visit, I have forty femmes de chambrea,
who literally do nothing.” The female part of the population is so
little considered, that the Banks only advance money upon the male
serfs; the others are counted over and above.
The prostitution of the women, entirely at the will of the master,
is a principal cause of the debasement of Russia. The Russian
family has less of security than that of the negro. There exists no
difl'erence of colour between the serf and the master; so that how
ever mixed the blood, the only accusing characteristic which could
possibly betray the true parentage, is thereby taken away. Hence
spring those horrible results, little seen in our colonies. The mas
ter enslaves his own brother—prostitutes his sister, and often his
daughters ;—-and in speaking of the master, be it understood, we
speak less of the lord, than of the positive master, the brutal agent
and overseer, who placed in a distant province, without either
superintendence, or control, and far away from all human restraint,
violates at his pleasure, this miserable people.
Whatever may be said with respect to the insensibility of the
serf, it is not less true, that this continual profanation of the family
is a very martyrdom to the Russians. No man is so degraded, but
that he must sometimes suffer from the bitter uncertainty as to
whether the children he embraces are his own or those of strangers.
No race or country is so sensitive of the ties of relationship as the
Russian. He stoops beneath the weight of insult, nor can we be
surprised at it. Revolts are isolated, and afford no hope of enfran
RUSSIA. 15
Paris, and would not even hear of returning to Russia. Her hus
band, tired with continually writing, suing, and commanding in
vain, ceased to supply her with money, hoping, doubtless, that want
would oblige her to return. She still persevered, however, and
dismissing all her servants, she took up her abode at a convent in
Paris, at little cost. The young Catya shared the fate of the other
servants. Her mistress dismissed her suddenly, with the same
roughness with which she had carried her off. She actually sought
to lose her, by having her taken, at nightfall, from the house where
she then lived, in the neighbourhood of the Pantheon. to the
Marais, Rue du Chaume, and there leaving her, under a doorway.
It was already dark; and the rain came down in torrents. A
lady, who was passing, hearing the child’s sobbing, approached her,
and with no little surprise beheld this fine tall girl, angelically beau
tiful, drowned in tears, and incapable of speaking. She scarcely knew
two words of French, but God had taken pity upon her. This lady
was Madame Leroy, sister of Mr. Belloc. Moved by the situation of
Catya, and horrified at the cruel barbarity which could expose a
young girl to the dangers of a great capital, which she was the
more liable to by reason of her bewitching beauty, she took her
home, educated her, taught her French, and treated her with a
kindness totally unknown to her since the day when she had left her
home.
Madame Leroy, upon leaving Paris, placed her in the hands of
two beloved, honoured, and revered ladies. There is nothing to
prevent me from naming them here; and in so doing I shall recall
some of the happiest hours of my life, spent in the society of this
amiable and pious family. They were the clever and active Madame
de Montgolfier, then eighty years of age, the wife of the inventor of
balloons; and her very worthy daughter, a good writer, whose pen
has been wielded in the cause of charity, rather than for personal
fame; and who has therefore seldom signed her productions. We
need scarcely say, that one so generous and tender-hearted, proved a
kind friend to Catya. The young girl had need of great care—and
almost required to be personally waited upon. She had grown
much, and had become so weak, that the mere lifting the lightest
weight, or'ascending a single flight of stairs, caused her a difficulty
20 THE MARTYRS OF RUSSIA.
tender nature, but pure and cold as the icebergs of the North;
indeed, in this respect, she seemed little to have changed, since the
time when she had been carried away from her home. She sought
solitude, and, without priestly persuasion, was often at church.
Had her mind been more cultivated, it might perhaps have led her to
become a mystic. The reason she quitted service, sought a room of
her own, and lived by her needle, might probably be ascribed to this
feeling. In Paris, the lot of the workwoman is, perhaps, of all posi
tions, the most difl‘icult ; and Catya therefore found herself obliged,
from time to time, as her work failed her, to return again to ser
vice. But when she was able, she continued her lonely life, in her
humble garret, where her thoughts could always return to her native
village.
Her patroness, who never lost sight of her, often advised her to
marry. Opportunities were not wanting; but whether it was, that
like all melancholy natures, she feared consolation; or whether it
was, that those good and honest, but rather rough men, who sought
her hand, shocked her delicacy, and could little enter into her poetic
nature; certain it is,.that she always shrank from the bare idea of
matrimony. However dressed, she always bore the appearance of a
lady, and a lady full of nobility and sweetness. There was nothing
either proud or servile about her. One thing only recalls her past
life ; when she visits these ladies, to whom she is much attached, she
kisses their hands, after the Oriental fashion. But years roll 011-—
and the once beautiful Catya must now be about forty-seven years
of age. She has associated herself lately with a person of advanced
years, who still lives by her needle. Madame Paul, who is a poor
workwoman, crooked, and a dwarf, shares her lodging. I do not
know how they manage; for notwithstanding their great poverty,
they still find the means of doing good to their poorer neighbours.
Some years ago the heart of Catya was severely tried. She met
in the street an old lady, ill-dressed, wearing an old shawl and
bonnet, whom she seemed to recognise. Strange reverse of fortune!
It was her old mistress, who had become even poorer than herself.
Catya approached her, bowed, and kissed her hand—the other, con
fused and astonished, let fall from her lips some expression, reveal
ing her great state of misery. “Ah, madam !” exclaimed Catya,
22 THE MARTYRS OF RUSSIA.
from pure goodness of heart, sinking again into the serf, “ you are
still my mistress, and all I have belongs to you.” The same day
she received her wages, and left her place. She immediately ran to
her garret, collected her savings, and placed them in the hands of
her former mistress.
s * a: a: e * a
Our readers will be astonished, that in so short a work, wherein
we only enumerate the sufferings of Russia, in order to arrive at
those crowning martyrs, who have, as it were, borne_the whole weight
of her cruelty upon their shoulders, we should have occupied so
large a space, with the simple history of this humble girl. We
reply: that the intimate knowledge of one single life has initiated
us more completely into the Russian character, than any book or
any communication, gleaned from foreign sources, could ever have
done.
Russiais one living torture! This is but too evident. Now as
to how far the Russian character is tainted, we are unable to say.
Her unhappy victims oppose a seeming insensibility to all her
stripes and outrages. Their language is but little known, and if
it were, one is certain, that in the natural distrust which they bear
towards their tyrants, they would be careful of revealing the true
feelings of the heart. Their life is so uncertain—their dearest ties
so little secured, that they are always afraid of giving offence; and
whoever visits them, will ever find a smile upon their lips. They dare
not appear unhappy, and almost ask pardon for the cruelty they en
dure—Then how should I seize the real feelings—the secret soul, of
a speechless world? Nor do the sad melodies of that apparently
happy man reveal aught to me—in vain may he pour them forth in
solitude, or at his labour; or as he wends his way into the deep
forests!
In Catya, a whole world was unfolded to me. Her simple appear
ance, and her history, explained a thousand things, that I had read,
without understanding.
The first and only time I saw her, one single word escaped me:
“Broken hearted l” This is the true definition of the Russian spirit.
We do not lightly generalize here, we have often deeply consi
dered the question; and scarcely a year passes, that our attention
HISTORY OF CATYA, A RUSSIAN SERF. 23
ONE fact tells more against the Russian army, than many words;
viz. the scarcity of men in Russia. The women are certainly the
most numerous, and what proves it still more, is the number of dis
proportioned marriages which are forced upon them; a child of
twelve years of age, being often given to a woman of twenty-five or
thirty, sooner than she should be left a widow. This small number
of men is not natural, but is caused by the government. It arises
from the excessive number swallowed up by the army; for in Russia
there do not exist those wearing and unhealthy trades, which carry
off so many of our workmen. The Russian serf is not overburdened
with labour, his work is light and easy, and he never toils with the
overstrained ardour of our labourers.
What an army is that then, which, even in the time of peace, so
visibly thins a population of sixty millions of men! for Caucasus, be
it remarked, is quite a secondary thing to be taken into account.
Whatever be the monstrous figure at which we calculate the army,
the enormous consumption of men remains incomprehensible; did
we not take into consideration the inhuman manner in which it is
recruited, fed, and rendered fit for service. Three times more men
are drawn from the people than are to be found in the actual nume
rical strength of the forces. What becomes of the rest? Few, very
few, return to their homes—“ not one man in a hundred.” I quote
the very words of Paskewitz. Nowhere does one see in Russia
those old invalided soldiers, so frequently to be met with in other
countries. They all recover by means of that doctor who never
fails to cure,—deatk ./
When the Duke of Ragusa, in his essentially Russian work, reckons
D
26 THE MARTYRS OF RUSSIA.
that the cost of the Russian soldier is a third less than the cost of
the French soldier, he forgets, in his calculation, that in order to
arrive at one hardy and well-disciplined Russian, two or three must
first fall victims. He passes over this particular, thinking doubt
less, that so fearful a sacrifice of human life is beneath his attention.
Three principal causes combine to produce this frightful mor
tality: first, the Russian, physically from race, life and education,
is the man least fitted for military life. Secondly, he serves against
his will; dies of ennui and of nostalgia; never being able to console
himself for the loss of his home and family. Thirdly, no means are
used to inure him and reconcile him to his ~lot; he is roughly trans
ported to a life quite contrary to the one he has been accustomed to
lead.
Another observation which merits the attention of physiologists,
is, that this race seems little formed, is immature and in its infancy;
their heads are often prettily shaped, though rarely strong; and
the brain little capacious and deep. One meets a great number of
good-looking, rosy-checked old men, who appear still young, be
neath their white beards.
With the Russians, as with children, life has little organization,
and is but weakly developed, continually producing all kinds of
strange creations; I mean vermin, with which they are devoured.
It seems that their blood is cold, or that it is mixed with water;
they drink spirit with impunity, in quantities which would burn men
of a more ardent temperament, or of a richer and more generous
blood.
Our western races, which have passed through so many vicissi
tudes, possess a vigorous solidity of character, unknown to the
Russian. The Russian is in comparison with us what the slender
poplar is to the time~w0rn oak or elm; a tall plant, suddenly sprung
up, a rapid and delicate improvisation of nature. In the English
man, of a sanguine temperament, and living upon meat, whose an
cestors have always forged the iron, and from forgers have risen to
be mechanics, there exists in-that single man wherewith to form
fifty Russians. 'l‘he frugal French peasant, full of good sense and
vigour, who passes his winters in the open field, while the Russian
enervates himself in his heated habitation, is much more fitted than
THE MINOTAUR.—OF THE ARMY AS A TORTURE. 27
brave men, who had only been wounded in front, bore upon their
backs the cruel stigma of their training, and these veterans of a
hundred battles were still flagellated for the veriest trifle.
No, Barbarians, this is not necessary for a military education!
Russian discipline, as even your own oflicers avow, is a horrible
bar-rack despotism. A hard monastic rule, where the lightest errors,
that can scarcely be considered faults, are punished so severely, that
no chastisement remains for real offences.
The Czarowitz Constantine carried this atrocious cruelty to the
greatest height. 'If he found a glove not of the most perfect white
ness, he ordered the owner to receive five hundred lashes. The
soldiers terrified, economized secretly, in order to purchase gloves
for themselves; however, these after a. second washing, would have
cost them a flogging. “ I do not like war,” said Constantine, “it spoils
the soldier, and soils his clothes ;”—-and on one occasion, upon a
person endeavouring to excuse an officer, remarking to him, “ He
is at least a man of great courage.”—“ Courage?” said he, “ what
matters that to me? I care not for courage.”
In this, his brutal candour, he laid open the very mind of autho
rity, which cares neither for courage nor for energy—for heroism,
even in its own cause, would be open to suspicion. A man must
not select the part of a hero, in order to arrive at distinction
and advancement; he must rather be a good and humble subject,
who will always follow in the rear, and wait for orders.
If this severe government were proportionally firm and unvarying,
there would be but half the evil. Unfortunately for the soldier, the
administration is much left to chance; and there exists much ir
regularity and abuse, which, although well known to those higher
in authority, is left without a remedy. How can the government
remain blind to the enormous profits raised upon the provisions
and even upon the life of these men ; and wherefore has it not yet
hazarded that simple and elementary form, everywhere else adopted,
of separating the administration from the command ; of taking out
of the hands of the Colonels, the lucrative distribution of the pro
visions? How great would be the indignation of our French officers,
if any function were imposed on them, by which they were likely to
enrich themselves!
THE MINOTAUR.-—OF THE ARMY AS A TORTURE. 29
Thus is the poor soldier, beaten, badly fed, and ill clothed, led to
the mountain passes of the Caucasus; his youthful habits, the
shutting himself up during the winter, (and so long a winter !) form
a cruel contrast to these mountain bivouacs, these violent changes
from heat to cold, the burning sun, and the fierce hail-storms :
his quarters are bad, and frequently do not exist at all. They are
only marked out on the map, on which the Emperor follows all
the operations. Twenty-five years ago, he ordered the construc
tion of a fort, and gave money every year for the purpose of pushing
on the work: General Woronzotf, who with the Emperor believed
in the existence of this fort, sent a battalion thither. They searched
for it a long time; but in vain. At length, they discovered a large
post, which had been placed, to point out its intended site. The
battalion bivouacked—in the mountain snows.
I will not speak of the Caucasus, nor of that race of warriors
superior not only to the Russians, but also to all other races in the
world. We know that the Tcherkesses furnished to Egypt the
Mamelukes, by whom she was governed; and likewise chiefs to
many other eastern nations. If we turn to the excellent engravings
upon the subject, we cannot but perceive that they are evidently
a race of kings. By their royal arms; their hereditary swords ;
their mpskets formed of platina, which never miss their mark; their
wonderful horses, obedient to the voice without either bit or bridle.
—They are to the Russian, what the eagle is to the lamb: they
often do not stop to kill their enemy; but carry him off on their
swift charger, and when at the top of their speed, it is vain to en
deavour to overtake them.
Even the warlike, the busy, and strangely-mounted Cossack him
self, seems a ridiculous being before these kings of the mountain.
The melancholy and the disgust generally experienced by the
Russian officers, in a. war where blows are always received but never
returned, must not be wondered at. They are scarcely less miser
able than their unfortunate soldiers. Though often of noble and
rich families, and accustomed to every enjoyment from their youth,
they have been early shut up in a military school, where they learn
nothing.
What can be more sorrowful and lugubrious‘than the account given,
D 3
30 THE MARTYRS OF RUSSIA.
ence; the Russian draws his cap down to his eyes, and advances
without looking whither ; whilst the Frenchman advances with his
eyes open.
The Russians never form their front ranks but of old soldiers; it
may therefore be thought, that those who grow old under so hardy
a discipline are men of no common resistance and unshaken troops,
that only such as these ought to be opposed to them, and that in
the face of such an enemy, every European army ought to strengthen
itself by means of continual re-engagements.
The Russian army was fanatic of old. Is it so at the present day?
Not at all. Is it enthusiastic? And of what should it be enthusi
astic? Held ready for action for the space of thirty years, in the
presence of Europe, harassed and grown callous by this eternal
parade, it believes less and less in that god of war, who has always
preferred diplomatic means to those of the army.
Nothing has served more to enervate the army, than the spirit of
excessive distrust, caused by the restlessness of the police. All are
spies and observers of everything that happens. Each officer is
fearful of being denounced by his neighbour, and too often antici
pates him. The soldier is perfectly conscious of this wretchedly
moral condition of his commanders; he holds them in respect, but
he bears them no esteem; his internal obedience is utterly shaken
by it.
No one possesses a perfect knowledge of the Russian soldier;
under that automaton bearing, under that countenance of wood, he
preserves sometimes a most critical judgment, though it is very
seldom that he allows it to be seen. I will quote a choice ex
ample. Remark well that it relates to the fanatical time of Suwar
row. In the very natural, and evidently exact and truthful recital
which follows, there is nothing of fanaticism, but a slight vein of
irony, and a very touching tendency to excite compassion—a vague
hope of quitting the service, and the love of his birthplace and of his
family, an affection which never leaves the Russian breast.
It was upon the death of Catherine, that Niemcewicz, from his
prison, heard the following conversation: “ At last we shall have
a Czar,” said one; to which the other replied, “ It is a long time
since we have had one; our old Matuoz/la (little mamma) has sulfi
32 THE MARTYRS or RUSSIA.
' SIBERIA.
MUCH has been said of the Martyrs of Siberia; but why distinguish
them? The line of separation would be altogether fictitious. With
the exeeption of an aggravation of cold, the whole of Russia is
Siberia—beginning at the Vistula.
One speaks of the condemned; but every Russian is condemned.
In a country where the law is a mere mockery there can be no
serious judgment. All are condemned ; and yet no one is judged;
there is no distinction between suffering and .punishment.
The universal punishment is not such and such a positive evil—it
is that breaking of the heart, that moral anxiety of a spirit, crushed
beforehand, by an inevitable combination of misfortunes. In that
merciless world where everything seems to possess the fixed rigidity
of its native ice, nothing is fixed—all is pregnant with chance and
doubt.
All are condemned, said we; the serf perhaps the least so, even
in his servitude and misery; for he is not even sure of that very
misery—to-morrow, all may change for him; he may perhaps be car
ried ofi', either for the army or the factories; his wife given to
another; his family dispersed.
17w soldier is condemned—not only because he was, all of a sud
den, carried off from his home; and has ever since been subject to
that continual bastinado, called military service; but also because
he is totally ignorant of the time of his liberation: the law was
thirty years formerly—nowltwenty; but what is the law in Russia?
The qflfcer is condemned; he is forced against his will into a mili
tary school—he follows, in spite of himself, the rude and monotonous
path of nnceasing exercises, parades, and changes from one garrison
341 THE MARTYRS OF RUSSIA.
his heated room, can with difficulty keep out the furious north
wind, what must it be in this second Russia, where the cold eats
into you, where steel breaks like glass, where even the dogs that
draw the sledges would inevitably perish were they not cased
with fur?
To arrive there without resource would be deliverance, for one
would die; but death must not come too quickly. Established in
a small fort, in the midst of the icy desert—during two or three
years, sometimes longer, digging the earth, or drawing the barrow,
fed upon sour milk and bad fish, the exiles die slowly beneath
the lash.
Even those who are not condemned to this terrible doom, but
who have a kind of half liberty—a sort of physical existence, almost
tolerable, find the moral efl'ect scarcely less dreadful. If, to them,
Siberia is not an eternity of suffering, it is one of forgetfulness,
where they feel themselves disappear—dying away from the living
world, from their families, from their friends. To lose one’s name,
to be called Number 10 or Number 20, and, if your family still
remain, to beget children without a name, a miserable race, which
will perpetuate itself in eternal wretchedness! The ruined man
ruins his children—he is cursed—so are they—and by a frightful
crescendo it happens, that the children of a man who is himself
condemned to the mines for twenty years, will remain miners for
forty or their
and all fifty posterity.
years, or even unto death, their children
I after them,
-
SIBERIA.—THE EXECUTIONS.
tion ; and his simple history displays the tender and pious melan
choly of the Lithuanian soul. His book seems to testify to a
moral revolution. Poland is changed, she has the gift of tears.
“I walked by the sea-shore, and when the weather was stormy,
I beheld all kinds of strange beasts, whales, lions, and sea-dogs.
At times, stones would assail me; they came from the bears, who
threw them against me, evidently with the intention of first wound
ing me, to render their after-attack the more easy. In autumn, the
sea is so violent, and rages to such a degree, that Kamschatka
trembles to its foundations. The days are grey, and the nights
are black. When a storm arises and the ocean roars, immense
bands of dogs, who live upon fish, (they number there, perhaps,
twenty thousand) bowl to the waves, and the bears reply with dis
mal growls; all the while, the volcanoes thunder and vomit forth
flames and ashes. Ah! what a hellish spectacle! and what must
be the situation of a poor simple man, in the midst of those dis
astrous enemies!”
Kopeo here complains of nature, and but little of man; yet he
'was treated with great barbarity. Wounded and ill, regardless
of his sores, which the cold caused to re-open, he was dragged
along night and day, in a large chest, lined with iron. Not being
able to bear up any longer, he implored a short halt of the officer
who conducted him. “My orders are to proceed without stop
ping,” said he; “ I will, at least, carry with me your body; you are
at perfect liberty to die on the road.”
Another thing increased his sorrow; he often fell in with im
mense droves of poor Poles, their hair closely shaved, their fore
heads branded, and their noses torn away. They were being driven
into Siberia. As he advanced, the road could only be recognized
by the bones of bears, of horses, or of men, and some few graves
of exiles who had died in the desert, waiting to be filled up with
the bones of their successors.
At one stage, he saw a distinguished looking woman, acting as a
servant. “Who are you?” said he.—“Formerly, the wife of a
colonel, now that of a blacksmith ;” and she turned away, without
revealing her name. But for a lucky chance, Kopec would have
been lost, and doomed to linger on and die in Siberia. Other
SIBERIA.-—-THE EXECUTIONS. 41
Generals who have been sought for, in order to call them home,
could never be found. “ I was standing upon the wreck of a vessel,
looking upon the sea, filled with so many monsters. I suddenly
perceived a young man, noble, handsome, and dressed in a foreign
habit; I was struck with the apparition. ‘Of what nation are
you 9’ said he to me.-—‘ Of the unhappy nation.’——‘Ahl you are
a Pole. . . . I am a merchant, I am returning to Russia. . . . Write
to your relations . . . I care not. . . . I know the risk I run . . .
No matterl Go, write.’ ” He braved the danger, took charge of
the letter, and delivered it faithfully.
Months and years flew by. One day, his host entered, all pale,
into his room. “A vessel has been seen at sea,” said he.—“ In
deed! so much the better!" replied the Pole.-—“ So much the
worse," said the host; “the commander here will accuse us of
plotting, as he has often done; he will confiscate our goods, and
take away our lives. He knows very well that it takes three years
for a complaint to arrive.” '
The vessel brought the pardon of Kopec, and the order for his
deliverance. He would hardly credit it, but when he had read the
paper he fainted away. In order to restore himself, he went
towards the sea. “ A storm was gathering, and the monsters flocked
in troops to the shore. I thought I recognized men, and well
known faces, and scenes of our national life, processions, and
monks bearing the cross towards me. I threw myself forward. . . .
but I was held back.
" On my return, I could with difficulty enter my room. All came
to congratulate me. The women brought me presents, valuable and
scarce things, rum, sugar, and candles, (the most precious of all in
this land of eternal night).
“ The priest, a good old man eighty-four years of age, and an
exile like others, came in his sacerdotal habits with his choristers,
six children, belonging to a neighbour, whom he had trained up,
and who sang very well, and with great feeling. I lit up all my
candles; the tender voices of the singers touched our hearts. I
always possessed the gift of tears; but this time I burst forth into
sobs, or, rather, into wild slm'eks.
“ We afterwards sat round my table made of stones; every one
s 3
42 THE MARTYRS or RUSSIA.
Let us here repeat a history more deserving, but less known, and
related by a person too pure minded and heroic for it to possess
aught of falsehood. In 1825, a young Russian (we will call him
Ivan) was sent to Siberia. He loved and was beloved by a young
French lady, a governess in his family, whom he had engaged to
marry. His friends, not ignorant of, but fearing, this union, sent her
away. The moment she learned that her lost, ruined, and miserable
lover, abandoned by all, was about to be sent away in chains to
Siberia, she remembered her promise of marriage, went straight to
St. Petersburg, and bravely sought the Emperor. He thought her
mad, and endeavoured to recall her from her persistance to become
the wife of a galley-slave.—Alas ! he might so easily be a slave no
longer. . . . But the only mercy granted to her was, that she might
follow herv lover, suifer, and die with him. . .. . The poor girl was but
too truly the victim of her attachment; her delicate lungs could not
support this terrible climate. At the end of a year she died; her
husband did not survive her; whether it was from sorrow or misery,
be accompanied her to the grave.
They left a child, an unhappy orphan, born to ruin and disgrace.
The father’s property passed to a natural son of his grandfather;
be, however, (and nothing is more honourable than the Russian cha
racter,) refused to profit by the cruelty of the law, and restored ever
thing to the orphan. >
The greatest danger in Siberia is that of dying before one’s death.
The infinite variety of destinies, and the absolute tyranny which
reigns over all, renders it but too easy to extinguish and crush the
soul of the strongest. Russia has no occasion, like Austria, to
build up wise prisons, where the condemned are obliged to take to
scrvile employments and occupations, fit only for women, and which
tend to enervate the mind. She trusts rather to that icy climate
which, too rigid for man, destroys and breaks up his constitution.
She relies upon the brutality of military caprice, which, as a mill
stoue, continually grinds the condemned. This increasing grinding,
practised by the rough soldier, finishes by wearing out his unfor
tunate victim, who gradually falls lower and lower, until he sinks
into apathy, and loses all power of opposition. In his extremity
his spirit rises to his assistance, but only to prove to him, that it
44 THE MARTYRS or RUSSIA.
military school. Whilst in that situation, this man, weak and deli
cate in body, but energetic and strong in mind, conceived the hardy
project of imitating and even surpassing the boldness of Beniowski,
of doing that for Siberia which he had done for Kamschatka,——-of
raising in a body at once the exiles and the whole of Siberia. This
country, municipally governed, would doubtless have been greatly
benefitted by its separation from that vast empire which only colonises
the South by making a desert of the North. These old northern
tribes, formerly so happy in their wandering and pastoral life, now,
no longer able to lead out their deer to browse, live only by hunting,
or, rather, die and disappear like the savages of America.
An immense association was formed; it being arranged, that if
incapable of resisting, they should force a passage as far as Bucharia,
or even as far as India. Three of the conspirators betrayed the
cause. Criminal proceedings brought on at St. Petersburg in 1834,
were not terminated till 1837. During the whole of this time,
Sierocinski remained calm and immoveable, and composed verses in '
his prison. At length the horrible sentence arrived from St. Peters
burg—several Poles and one Russian were to receive seven thousand
lashes each! “ without mercy-without abetting a single one .I ” The
others were each condemned to receive three thousand, a number
more than sufficient to cause death. General Gatafiejew, whose
ferocity appalled even the Russians, was sent expressly to superin
tend the execution. At break of day, two battalions composed
each of one thousand men, were marched outside the town, and there
ranged in line, the more easily to count the number of blows,
Gatafiejew taking up his position in the centre of them—The rods
used were thick sticks, and the soldiers were placed nearer the
victims, in order to give more effect to the blows.
“ It was bitterly cold (March in Siberia). Sierocinski was stripped,
attached (such is the custom) to the mouth of a gun, the bayonet
of which was pointed to his breast. He was then led by two soldiers
throughout the ranks, in order that he might proceed at an equal
pace. The surgeon of the regiment approached to re-animate him
with drops of cordial, for his feeble constitution had been worn out
by three years’ imprisonment, and he looked more like a shadow than
a man, but he had preserved all his strength of mind and firmness
46 MARTYRS or RUSSIA.
of purpose. Upon the doctor offering him the cordial, he turned his
head aside, and said : “ Drink our blood and mine among the rest,
I have no need of your cordials.” When the signal was given, he
repeated aloud the psalm Miaerere. “ Strike harder! harder l
harder l” thrice roared out Gatafiejew in his fury. The blows were so
severe, that when the sufferer had arrived for the first time at the
other end of the battalion, after a thousand blows, he fell fainting
upon the snow covered with blood. They lifted him up; but his
legs could no longer sustain him. A scaffold raised upon a sledge
had already been prepared, upon which Sieroeinski was placed upon
his knees, his body bent forward, and his hands bound behind his
back. In this position he was attached to the scaffold, thus render
ing all movement impossible. They commenced dragging him along
the ranks, Gatafiejew crying out continually, “Harder l harder !
harder 1” At first the excessive pain called forth groans from the
unhappy victim, which becoming gradually fainter, and fainter, at
length ceased altogether.
“ He continued to breathe, after having received four thousand
blows; then he expired. The three thousand blows, which remained
to be given, fell upon his corpse, or rather upon his skeleton. All the
sufl'erers, especially Sierocinski, were so overwhelmed with blows,
that according to the testimony both of Poles and Russians, with
whom I have spoken, the flesh fell off in strips at each stroke;
nothing was to be seen but broken bones. This slaughter, till then
unheard of, caused an universal indignation among the Poles, and
even among the Russians.
“ Two of the sufl'erers who died upon the spot, and those who in
fearful agony were carried to the hospital—all the Poles, and one
Russian, were immediately afterwards buried in one and the same
grave. The Poles were permitted to raise a simple cross over the
grave of these martyrs, and even to this day may be seen this great
black wooden cross, standing alone in the vast steppe, stretching
its arms over the last resting-place of the victims, as a sign of pro
tection, and as if to implore the mercy of heaven.”
CHAPTER VI.
. ..v._..,_.4_.-_ . Egg
48 THE MARTYRS OF RUSSIA.
_
GROWING TERRORISM OF RUSSIA. 49
this act, did not the less cause his brother to be proclaimed, and
the oath of fidelity to be taken to him. Then came the fresh
renouncement of Constantine; he persisted in his refusal, and the
senate, with closed doors, at two o’clock, after midnight, proclaimed
Nicholas emperor. No explanation was offered either to the peo
ple, or to the army—they were treated like a herd; they had sworn
fidelity to one, and they were now called upon to perjure themselves
by swearing fidelity to another.
One is touched with pity at the thought of the uncertainty, and
the complete moral darkness in which the conscientious soul of the
Russian soldier was left by his chiefs. Some of them, partisans of
Nicholas, did not deign to make him acquainted with the change of
situation ; others, the conspirators, not being able to make him
understand their ideas of liberty, misled him with the belief that
Constantine, to whom he had just sworn fidelity, was the true
Czar—and that he was on his march to punish those who should go
over to Nicholas. Filled with fears and scruples, these poor fellows
for the most part remained inert and immoveable. Some few of
them, upon hearing the discharges of musketry, and upon learning
that their comrades were being massacred, were drawn on by mere
generous sympathy and humanity.
The Emperor had filled the palace and the citadel with troops, and
had completely isolated them from any outer communication. To
make himself more sure of those in the palace, he placed in their
hands his son, a beautiful child eight years of age ; they received it
in tears, and although belonging to the Finland troops which took
part in the insurrection, they remained unshaken in their fidelity.
The conspirators only succeeded in drawing over to them the
Finland regiments, a troop foreign to Russia, and servingagainst their
will, the Moscow regiments, the body of marine guards, and the
grenadier guards—these latter with much difficulty, and only after a
short but violent combat, in which the Bestoujefs sabred their
ofiicers and carried off their flag. _
They planted it on the immense square, or rather plain, of
St. Isaac, and posted themselves behind the statue of Peter the
Great. There were a great number of conspirators, not of the mili
tary, but yet armed to the teeth, besides a numerous concourse of
r 3
54 THE MARTYRS or RUSSIA.
him their plan, their object was, the assassination of the Emperor,
and the massacre of the imperial family. When we consider, that
during so many years, and among so many people, there was not a
single traitor; when we remember the known intrepidity of the
chiefs, and their simple, but sublime death, how can we believe,
that they could willingly denounce and abandon their friends?
History will reserve its blackest page for the names of those
judges, who, not content with immolating these great victims, have _
endeavoured, in a pamphlet, adorned by the false name of inquiry,
to dishonour and vilify their memory. What, say I P Rather to stab
them in a point, which often wounds the noble-hearted, even more
than the loss of fame or glory—to wound them in that which was
to these heroic and great men more than their very existence—I
mean in their friendship !
Read only the enthusiastic eulogy, which Ryléiefl', in his poem,
pronounces upon his young friend Alexander Bestoujef, whom he
promised as a hero to his country—there will be felt the depth of
tenderness of that great soul.
How! what had Ryléiefi' to gain by denouncing his friends ?—
he, who from the Very beginning invoked death on his own head,
declaring that the 14th December was his work, and that he alone
was the author qf it. '
The powerful and calm sentiments of Ryléiefi', on his execution,
are shadowed forth, by anticipation, in his poem. By a kind of
second sight, the hero had beheld his fate, and he had already sung
his hymn of death. “That which appeared to our dreams as a
decree of Heaven, was not yet decreed. Let the Colossus heap
crime upon crime. Let him “astc his strength in wishing to
destroy half the universe. Let him, in his swollen pride, parade
himself in the sun’s rays. Patience! The vengeance of Heaven
will not the less overtake him and crash him to powder. God is
himself an avenger! He will not permit that sin, once sown, should
not produce its harvest.”
The inquiry, however, followed up duringethe five months,
revealed to the terrified eyes of the beholders the infinite number
of the guilty. The Emperor never entertained the least idea of his
danger. He believed that the 14th of December had only to do
60 THE MARTYRS OF RUSSIA.
two o’clock in the morning, the instrument of- death was raised on.
the rampart of the ,fortress; an immense gibbet, on which five
bodies could be hung side by side. In this climate there is no night
in the month of July; twilight joins the dawn, so that everything
was visible. The troops arrived; there were but few spectators,
since the hour of the execution had been kept secret. All Russia
seemed sleeping, while these martyrs were dying for her!
At three o’clock the condemned whose lives had been spared,
were led out ;—they were degraded, their uniforms were burnt
before them, and with the galley-slave’s cap on their head,- they
departed for Siberia. At length appeared those five condemned to
death, their heads closely enveloped in great hoods, which com
pletely hid their eyes and features. .
When they had ascended the steps, and the halter had been
passed round their necks, the platform on which they stood gave
way beneath them; two were strangled; as for the other three, the
cord sliding upon their hoods, the unhappy victims fell, pell mell,
with the trap and the steps, into the gaping hole beneath the'
gallows. A man who has been hanged, and who has escaped death,
ought to have been pardoned, according to- several laws of the
middle ages; but who was there who would have dared to have put
off an execution? The Emperor was absent from St. Petersburg,
at the Gardens of Tsarsko-Selo. They were taken up dreadfully
bruised, and the gibbet was re-erected. Ryléiefl' rose with a firm
step, and uttered softly this reproach to destiny: “ It was fated that
nothing should succeed with me, not even death.” An instant
afterwards he had ceased to exist. v
It was said, that this great man had desired to die, feeling that a
shadow ever- followed his noble actions—What shadow? He ex—
plains it himself: “ I have. acted without the consent of the Russian
people.” 1
It was the fault of the times, and not of the man. This people,
in the full night of barbarism—a poor minor—a simple child—
it could neither explain its own instincts, nor see, nor form its own
desires; there Was no means ot consulting it.
Is that a reason why they should have dwelt in perpetual
night? Should one, outof mere respect to this incapacity, render it
MARTYRDOM OF PESTAL AND RYLEIE'FF. 63
A _ ..-......., -.
Han rod. 5 I?! .n , Mum .a .Wal Hi ital . t. d JWH vdau fill “Mpg
C HAPTER VIII.
refused to receive an arbitrary pardon, but said : “ Let the law take
its course.”
Pestal wished for a Dictator, who should re-organise and purge the
administration; and the requirements of the Russian people went
no further. They desired a just judge, who should cause the wicked
to tremble. And it would have been requisite that such ajudge
should have been appointed in all parts of the empire. Russia re
quired not only laws but men. It would have been necessary to
have chosen an honest and impartial judge, between the father and
the children, who, to prevent the sale of justice, should have been
adequately remunerated, and serious examples should have been
made of the first transgressors. Strike not often, but severely,
establish integrity in the courts of justice and the administration,
elevate the moral tone of the nation, and so help it to rid itself of
long-standing corruption, and to become step by step worthy to be
governed. The first point to be gained was, that there should be
placed at the head of the nation, not a man of genius, but a man of
great personal courage and noble-heartedness ; one, who by his
example should raise the Russian character, strengthen it and initiate
it into good, an heroic instructor of the national conscience.
The Emperor was not such a man; badly seconded and naturally
distrustful, be at first tried to perform everything himself, and so
sank beneath the task. It was less acts than men that were de
manded of him; he should have chosen and organised proper
agents.
Like most of the men of this epoch, and like many of the con
v=pirators themselves, he placed a firm reliance in the efficacy of the
laws. Mr. Tourguénieff, one of the conspirators, in his valuable
zvork, seems to think that Russia might be saved, if she were to
.ldOPt such and such an English or French law. The Emperor also
'hought that order would be restored to the empire, when once the
digest of Russian laws had been compiled. He confided this her
culean task to the jurist Speranski, but by so doing, he has served
learning much more than legislation. In this unbounded chaos of
pontradictory ukases, the choice of adopting any one of them is left
{1 the pleasure of the judge, and the arbitrary power remains an
altered.
OF THE EXTERMINATION 0F POLAND. 67
THIs is the greatest crime that has ever been attempted upon
earth. Let us not seek for any term of comparison.
Russia has undertaken not only to kill Poland, her laws, her
religion, her language, her literature, and her national civilization,
but to kill the Poles, to annihilate them as a race, to root out the
heart of the nation, so that even if she subsists as a flock of human
creatures, she has disappeared as a Polish population, as a vitality,
as a power.
Until now I would not believe it. I always persisted in taking -
this word, Kill Poland, for a mere hyperbole, a rhetorical exagge
ration; nevertheless, I must submit myself. I have now under my
eyes, that series of Imperial ukases (yet incomplete) which, from
year to year, follow the plan of this systematic destruction.
How is it that the Poles have never undertaken the simple task
of collecting together and printing the too significant text of these
frightful laws? Why not erect to their enemy this great funereal
monument, which would have explained his true character better
than all the eloquence of oratory P A conqueror of Tartary amused
himself with raising to his glory, on the plain of Bagdad, a pyramid
of one hundred thousand human heads. How much more magni
ficent the monument which we propose, constructed with thousands
of murderous laws ! What a superb trophy of death!
Seek for no comparison.
Ancient Rome thought she had destroyed the Jewish name, and
she only dispersed it throughout the world; neither did the expul
sion of the Jews from Spain bring about their destruction.
The Convention, in the midst of peril, and in a moment of mad
H
74 THE MARTYRS 0F RUSSIA.
carnage. The son of the priest who reads, writes and spells, will find
his post in the police. The young man, stunted, noble, corrupt from
his school days, greedy, ambitious, and eager for anything, will know
well how to make himself a nest in the monstrous buildings of the
central administration at St. Petersburg. If he is base and heartless,
he will soon rise. Advancement is very rapid. Many of the high
est functionaries of the empire are under thirty. If they can draw
near to the master; if they can find means to flatter his only weak
side, that of fury, their fortune is made. It is for them to arouse
unceasingly that fury in the name of his glory, to keep alive in a
man placed at this fatal height that infatuation, that false poetry,
which he finds in imagining he has been able to destroy a nation.
Such fellows will never want for new ukases to propose. In the
Emperor’s ferocity, they work an excellent mine; they work atiit
night and day. In it they find fortune, honours, eminent positions,
sudden and quick advancement which steps over every grade.
Let us return to the time when the Emperor held conquered
Poland in the palm of his hand. Let us behold his fury. A Poland
reduced to three millions of men had dared to lift the sword against
a Russia of fifty millions. These insolent Poles, a Dembinski, for
example, had so little respected the imperial power, that with some
few handfuls of men, they marched at large throughout the Russian
army, without the possibility of stopping them.
Now, he held this Poland in his gripe. The same look that the
honey-loving bear, in the northern forests, fastens upon the bee
which he holds in the grasp of his shaggy paw, does the Emperor
fix upon Poland. Shall he pluck off this wing or that, or shall he
tear off a limb? It is not his wish to stifle it—no, it .must expire
slowly.
The first thing to be done was to beat to mummies those prisoners
who refused to become Russians. We have already related the but
chery of Cronstadt; to each man eight thousand lashes. The patients
were carefully healed, in order to render them fit to receive the full
sentence, which was carried out at several different times.
Those who became Russians were sent away to the Caucasus, and
there placed to guard the frontier. The Tcherkesses, excellent
marksmen, soon took pity on them.
THE EXTERMINATION OF POLAND. 77
of the interior replies, that his Majesty has sanctioned these regu
lations, adding with his own hand, they are to serve not only for
Podolia, but for all the western governments, care being taken, only to
send those persons capable of work ; their families could be sent later.
So they are to go alone, separated from all belonging to them;
the wife and the children stay to die of hunger in Poland, and the
husband leaves to meet his death in the Caucasus.
Finally, the Emperor adds, that the nobles of the second class,
not proprietors, shall be placed apart, enrolled among the Cossacks,
without intercourse with the colonies of their countrymen.
These fearful regulations were not merely transitory; they served
and still serve as the basis of fixed measures which cause humanity
to shudder.
For the French conscription, which drew the men by lot, has
been substituted the horror of Russian recruitments, where the
men are chosen and pointed out according to the humour of their
masters and public agents. Judge, then, if those suspected of
energy, of Polandiam, are spared in this far-seeing and partial
operation. . Thus chosen, they proceed to the Caucasus, and,
according to the avowal of Paskewitz, they never return. In this,
Russia has found a. kind of horrid issue, out of which runs the best
blood of Poland, her virility and her strength, keeping her con
tinually weak and ill, as after a bleeding.
All the rigours of this system have fallen upon the second class,
that of the noble peasants, a body essentially military, and which,
more than the citizens of towns, forms the real third order in
Poland. In the first place, they were lowered to the rank of the
soi-diaant free peasants of Russia (odnodwortzi) ; then a means was
found of making them pay four times for once the tax of blood.
All other Russian subjects undergo the recruitment only every two
years, but they every year. Others furnish five men in a thousand,
they furnish ten. Thus, their burden is quadrupled. This unhappy
class, numbering about one million of souls, cannot support this
fearful bleeding. I am assured, nevertheless, that this year (1851),
the Emperor finds it work too slowly, and is advising upon the
means of transporting them in a body, to the wastes of the south of
Russia. -
THE EXTERMINATION or POLAND. 79
rian law. If he had carried out this, he would have become a kind
of Messiah of the serfs—a Messiah cruel and terrible to Europe.
He did not dare, but turning round suddenly in his character of
pope and general of the counter revolution, he declared, after the
siege of Rome, (OctOber, 1849,) that the Latin Church, fallen and
ended, had only now to join itself to the universal Catholic Church
of Moscow.
This strange spiritual father, who converts by means of the sword
and who blesses with the knout, struggling between two principles,
and on that account so much the more violent, has given to the
world, in the short space of twenty years, astonishing and unheard
of signs of his pretensions to the Godhead. Neither the Pontiif
emperors of ancient Rome, when they raised up to themselves altars,
nor the Pontifi-kings of modern Rome, when they parcelled out the
world, or when they forbad the earth to turn round, carried higher
their presumptuous pride.
He has forbidden the age to be the age, he has given the lie to
mathematics and astronomy, he has set up the old calendar, aban
doned by the rest of the world. He has forbidden value to be
value, ordering that three roubles should be worth five. He has
forbidden reason to be reason; and when a wise man has been found
in Russia he has caused him to be confined with madmen. That
which has encouraged him in these monstrous eccentricities, it must
be owned, is, that he finds himself alone and uncontrolled in the
world, all moral force being in his time either weakened or put off.
Rome, the pontificate of the past, was abased, the Pope only
daring to act as a petty Italian prince.
France, the poutificate of the present, was wrapt up in her indus
trial Anglomania, and in her citizen loyalty.
Yet Rome, it must be admitted, has not perished altogether
through the personal weakness of the popes, but by the logical con
sequences of the Catholic doctrines. These doctrines are none
other than obedience. Rome has constantly taught it. Not only in
1831, when dying Poland stretched forth her hand for succour, and
was thrown back upon the mercy of the Czar; but in 1832, Rome
ruined the Polish revolution in enjoining to the Poles obedience to
their executioner.
RELIGIOUS PERSECUTIONS. 85
CONCLUSION.
THE Russian peasant, who sees, in his catechism, the name of the
Emperor, printed in large letters, like that of God, while that of
Jesus is in small type, doubtless forms in his mind a very exalted
idea of the imperial power. He reads there that the Emperor is an
emanation from God. What is meant by an emanation? If he asks
the question of the Russian priest, or of the imperial agent (usually
the son of the priest), he is told that in reality the spirit of God
ought to reside in the Emperor, since the ecclesiastical tribunal, which
represents the patriarch, acknowledges him as supreme head and
judge of the Church, because he has the nomination of the bishops.
It is to him directly that the functionaries of the empire, both civil
and military, attest each year, by certificate, that they have duly
fulfilled their religious duties.
Great is the surprise of this peasant, if he goes to St. Petersburg,
or to Moscow, and should happen to see the Emperor. What! that
is an emanation? What! that religious personage on whom the
bishops depend is an officer with the closely-fitting uniform, and
the stiff bearing of any other Russian officer I
According to a tale, with perhaps very little truth in it, but well
worthy of attention, like every other popular tradition, a soldier,
seeing the Emperor for the first time, and being about to take the
oath of allegiance, refused to do so, not being able to believe, said
he, that this ofiicer could, in reality, be the Emperor.
The Russian has, by nature, a noble, mild and holy idea of the
I 3
90 THE MARTYRS or RUSSIA.
b
CONCLUSION. ' 91
the Pope? Ohl very true; at the siege of Rome, near the Ponti
fical delegate, at the head of the diplomatic corps, sat the Russian
envoy.
But too profound was his joy, too violent his love, to confine
himself to obscure phrases. The Emperor has displayed his con
tempt for Rome, henceforth drowned in blood. He thought, not
without reason, that she would never rise again from such a
triumph. At the very time that he so powerfully advanced her
temporal re-establishment, he caused to be proclaimed her spiritual
fall.
The manner was strange and indirect, but very clear, very authen
tic. No words in this country, on such important matters, but
proceed from the mouth of authority—and in this instance they
had been delivered by the Russian diplomatic agent, a minion of
the Emperor himself. _
There are always to be found near the person of the Czar, young
and eager men, who draw their inspirations from the violent school
of M. de Maistre, and who, in spite of the old diplomatists, burn
to speak and to distinguish themselves. They have visibly pro
fited by an outburst of pride in their master, to obtain his autho
rity to proceed in a most unheard-of step, altogether contrary to
the line of reserve, of silence, and of deceit, always followed by
Russia. -
A letter of the 13th October, 1849, dated from St. Petersbw-y,
and signed, a Russian. diplomatiat, appears in a review. Its author
is the envoy of the Emperor to the Court of Bavaria—the title,
The Popedom and tire Roman question, as viewed at St. Petersburg.
The style, devout and mystical, nevertheless often betrays in its
haughty and semi-ironical features, the hard master, whose inspira
tions the author has followed. Without, perhaps, wishing or per
ceiving it, he occasionally writes in the harsh, bitter and proud tone
of the powerful lord, whose secretary he is.
The article overflows with contempt for France, and for the West,
and with pity towards Rome, but with a pity mingled with con
tempt. -“ Rome, the root of the West, was its only remaining
strength. She sinks. The Roman question is shown to be insolva
ble, for Rome is irreconcileable with Rome; the Pope and the Roman
Qt THE MARTYRS or RUSSIA.
THE END.
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