Devereux — Complete

  CHAPTER IV.

  CONVERSATIONS WITH THE CZAR.--IF CROMWELL WAS THE GREATEST MAN (CAESAREXCEPTED) WHO EVER _ROSE_ TO THE SUPREME POWER, PETER WAS THE GREATESTMAN EVER _BORN_ TO IT.

  IT was singular enough that my introduction to the notice of Peterthe Great and Philip le Debonnaire should have taken place undercircumstances so far similar that both those illustrious personages wereplaying the part rather of subjects than of princes. I cannot, however,conceive a greater mark of the contrast between their characters thanthe different motives and manners of the incognitos severally assumed.

  Philip, in a scene of low riot and debauch, hiding the Jupiter under theSilenus,--wearing the mask only for the licentiousness it veiled,and foregoing the prerogative of power, solely for indulgence in thegrossest immunities of vice.

  Peter, on the contrary, parting with the selfishness of state in orderto watch the more keenly over the interests of his people, only omittingto preside in order to examine, and affecting the subject only to learnthe better the duties of the prince. Had I leisure, I might here pauseto point out a notable contrast, not between the Czar and the Regent,but between Peter the Great and Louis le Grand: both creators of a newera,--both associated with a vast change in the condition of two mightyempires. There ceases the likeness and begins the contrast: the bluntsimplicity of Peter, the gorgeous magnificence of Louis; the sternnessof a legislator for barbarians, the clemency of an idol of courtiers.One the victorious defender of his country,--a victory solid, durable,and just; the other the conquering devastator of a neighbouringpeople,--a victory, glittering, evanescent, and dishonourable. The one,in peace, rejecting parade, pomp, individual honours, and transforminga wilderness into an empire: the other involved in ceremony, and thronedon pomp; and exhausting the produce of millions to pamper the bloatedvanity of an individual. The one a fire that burns, without enlighteningbeyond a most narrow circle, and whose lustre is tracked by what itruins, and fed by what it consumes; the other a luminary, whose light,not so dazzling in its rays, spreads over a world, and is noted, not forwhat it destroys, but for what it vivifies and creates.

  I cannot say that it was much to my credit that, while I thoughtthe Regent's condescension towards me natural enough, I was a littlesurprised by the favour shown me by the Czar. At Paris, I had _seemed_to be the man of pleasure: that alone was enough to charm Philip ofOrleans. But in Russia, what could I seem in any way calculated to charmthe Czar? I could neither make ships nor could sail them when they weremade; I neither knew, nor, what was worse, cared to know, the sternfrom the rudder. Mechanics were a mystery to me; road-making was anincomprehensible science. Brandy I could not endure; a blunt bearingand familiar manner I could not assume. What was it, then, that madethe Czar call upon me, at least twice a week in private, shut himself upwith me by the hour together, and endeavour to make me drunk with Tokay,in order (as he very incautiously let out one night), "to learn thesecrets of my heart"? I thought, at first, that the nature of my missionwas enough to solve the riddle: but we talked so little about it that,with all my diplomatic vanities fresh about me, I could not help feelingI owed the honour I received less to my qualities as a minister than tothose as an individual.

  At last, however, I found that the secret attraction was what the Czartermed the philosophical channel into which our conferences flowed. Inever saw a man so partial to moral problems and metaphysical inquiries,especially to those connected with what ought to be the beginning or theend of all moral sciences,--politics. Sometimes we would wander out indisguise, and select some object from the customs or things around us,as the theme of reflection and discussion; nor in these moments wouldthe Czar ever allow me to yield to his rank what I might not feeldisposed to concede to his arguments. One day, I remember that hearrested me in the streets, and made me accompany him to look upon twomen undergoing the fearful punishment of the battaog;* one was a German,the other a Russian: the former shrieked violently, struggled in thehands of his punishers, and, with the utmost difficulty, was subjectedto his penalty; the latter bore it patiently and in silence; he onlyspoke once, and it was to say, "God bless the Czar!"

  * A terrible kind of flogging, but less severe than the knout.

  "Can your Majesty hear the man," said I, warmly, when the Czarinterpreted these words to me, "and not pardon him?" Peter frowned, butI was not silenced. "You don't know the Russians!" said he, sharply, andturned aside. The punishment was now over. "Ask the German," said theCzar to an officer, "what was his offence?" The German, who was writhingand howling horribly, uttered some violent words against the disgraceof the punishment, and the pettiness of his fault; what the fault was Iforget.

  "Now ask the Russian," said Peter. "My punishment was just!" said theRussian, coolly, putting on his clothes as if nothing had happened; "Godand the Czar were angry with me!"

  "Come away, Count," said the Czar; "and now solve me a problem. I knowboth those men, and the German, in a battle, would be the braver ofthe two. How comes it that he weeps and writhes like a girl, while theRussian bears the same pain without a murmur?"

  "Will your Majesty forgive me," said I, "but I cannot help wishing thatthe Russian had complained more bitterly; insensibility to punishment isthe sign of a brute, not a hero. Do you not see that the German felt theindignity, the Russian did not? and do you not see that that very pridewhich betrays agony under the disgrace of the battaog is exactly thevery feeling that would have produced courage in the glory of thebattle? A sense of honour makes better soldiers and better men thanindifference to pain."

  "But had I ordered the Russian to death, he would have gone with thesame apathy and the same speech, 'It is just! I have offended God andthe Czar!'"

  "Dare I observe, Sire, that that fact would be a strong proof of thedangerous falsity of the old maxims which extol indifference to death asa virtue? In some individuals it may be a sign of virtue, I allow; but,as a _national trait_, it is the strongest sign of national misery. Lookround the great globe. What countries are those where the inhabitantsbear death with cheerfulness, or, at least, with apathy? Are they themost civilized, the most free, the most prosperous? Pardon me; no! Theyare the half-starved, half-clothed, half-human sons of the forestand the waste; or, when gathered in states, they are slaves withoutenjoyment or sense beyond the hour; and the reason that they do notrecoil from the pangs of death is because they have never known the realpleasures or the true objects of life."

  "Yet," said the Czar, musingly, "the contempt of death was the greatcharacteristic of the Spartans."

  "And, therefore," said I, "the great token that the Spartans were amiserable horde. Your Majesty admires England and the English; you have,beyond doubt, witnessed an execution in that country; you have noted,even where the criminal is consoled by religion, how he trembles, andshrinks,--how dejected, how prostrate of heart he is before the doom iscompleted. Take now the vilest slave, either of the Emperor of Moroccoor the great Czar of Russia. He changes neither tint nor muscle;he requires no consolation; he shrinks from no torture. What is theinference? _That slaves dread death less than the free_. And it shouldbe so. The end of legislation is not to make _death_, but _life_, ablessing."

  "You have put the matter in a new light," said the Czar; "but you allowthat, in individuals, contempt of death is sometimes a virtue."

  "Yes, when it springs from mental reasonings, not physical indifference.But your Majesty has already put in action one vast spring of a systemwhich will ultimately open to your subjects so many paths of existencethat they will preserve contempt for its proper objects, and not lavishit solely, as they do now, on the degradation which sullies life and theaxe that ends it. You have already begun the conquest of another anda most vital error in the philosophy of the ancients,--that philosophytaught that man should have few wants, and made it a crime to increaseand a virtue to reduce them. A legislator should teach, on the contrary,that man should have many wants: for wants are not only the sources ofenjoyment,--they are the sources of improvement; and that nation willbe
the most enlightened among whose populace they are found the mostnumerous. You, Sire, by circulating the arts, the graces, create a vastherd of moral wants hitherto unknown, and in those wants will hereafterbe found the prosperity of your people, the fountain of your resources,and the strength of your empire."

  In conversation on these topics we often passed hours together, andfrom such conferences the Czar passed only to those on other topics moreimmediately useful to him. No man, perhaps, had a larger share of themere human frailties than Peter the Great; yet I do confess that when Isaw the nobleness of mind with which he flung aside his rank as a robe,and repaired from man to man, the humblest or the highest, the artisanor the prince,--the prosperity of his subjects his only object, and theacquisition of knowledge his only means to obtain it,--I do confess thatmy mental sight refused even to perceive his frailties, and that I couldalmost have bent the knee in worship to a being whose benevolence wasso pervading a spirit, and whose power was so glorious a minister toutility.

  Towards the end of January, I completed my mission, and took my leave ofthe court of Russia.

  "Tell the Regent," said Peter, "that I shall visit him in France soon,and shall expect to see his drawings if I show him my models."

  In effect, the next month (February 16), the Czar commenced his secondcourse of travels. He was pleased to testify some regard for me on mydeparture. "If ever you quit the service of the French court, and yourown does not require you, I implore you to come to me; I will give you_carte blanche_ as to the nature and appointments of your office."

  I need not say that I expressed my gratitude for the royalcondescension; nor that, in leaving Russia, I brought, from the exampleof its sovereign, a greater desire to be useful to mankind than I hadknown before. Pattern and Teacher of kings, if each country in eachcentury had produced one such ruler as you, either all mankind would_now_ be contented with despotism or all mankind would be _free_! Oh!when kings have only to be good, to be kept forever in our heartsand souls as the gods and benefactors of the earth, by what monstrousfatality have they been so blind to their fame? When we remember themillions, the generations, they can degrade, destroy, elevate, orsave, we might almost think (even if the other riddles of the presentexistence did not require a future existence to solve them), we mightalmost think a hereafter _necessary_, were it but for the sole purposeof requiting the virtues of princes,--or their SINS!*

  * Upon his death-bed Peter is reported to have said, "God, I dare trust,will look mercifully upon my faults in consideration of the good Ihave done my country." These are worthy to be the last words of a king!Rarely has there been a monarch who more required the forgiveness ofthe Creator; yet seldom perhaps has there been a human being who moredeserved it.--ED.