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1826.

CHAP. tered in all the governments. This was the more essenVIII. tial, since, as already noticed, in a great proportion of the governments the ukases of the emperors had never reached the judges. Great part, indeed, were what may be termed private ukases, being addressed to individuals, not the Senate, and yet binding on the whole community. They formed, as was well observed at the time, "a hidden code of laws yet ruling the empire." To remedy this great defect, a complete collection of the ukases, which formed, like the rescripts of the Roman emperors, the laws of Russia, was formed, printed, and codified by the order of Nicholas. The great work proved to be one of immense labour; but by the vigilant attention and incessant energy of the emperor, it was completed in a surprisingly short space of time. The printing commenced on 1st May 1828, and was concluded on 1st April 1830. It then embraced 35,993 ukases or acts, of which 5075 had been pronounced since the accession of the present emperor, and the collection which was sent to all the judges amounted to fifty-six large quarto volumes. In addition to this, Nicholas undertook, and successfully carried through, a still more difficult undertaking-viz., the construction of a uniform code, forming a complete system of law, out of the enormous and often heterogeneous materials. This gigantic undertaking, akin to the Institutes and Pandects of Justinian, was completed in seven years more, and now forms the "sood" or body of Russian law. Thus had Nicholas the glory, after having rivalled Cæsar in the courage with which he had suppressed military revolt, of emulating Justinian in the zeal with which he prosecuted legal reforms. Yet must his antagonists not be denied their share in the honour due to the founders of the august temple; for if the emii. 134, 140. peror raised the superstructure, it was the blood of the martyrs which cemented the foundations.1

1 Ann. Hist. ix. 342;

Schnitzler,

Yet was the crime of these generous but deluded men great, and their punishment not only necessary, but just.

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147.

the insur

The beneficial results which followed their insurrection CHAP. were accidental only, and arose from its defeat; had it been suppressed by other hands, or proved successful, it could not have failed to have induced the most terrible Crime of calamities. Met and crushed by Ivan the Terrible or gents. the Empress Catherine, it would have drawn yet closer the bands of tyranny on the state, and thrown it back for centuries in the career of real freedom. No man had a right to calculate on the suppression of the revolt being immediately followed on the part of the conqueror by the compilation of the Pandects. It was utterly impossible that a military revolt, of which a few officers only knew the object, into which the private soldiers had been drawn by deceit, and to which the common people were entire strangers, could, if successful, terminate in anything but disaster. Even the Reign of Terror in France would have been but a shadow of what must have ensued in the event of success; the proscriptions of Marius and Sylla, the slaughter of Nero, the centralised unmitigated despotism of the Lower Empire, could alone have been looked for. Benevolent intentions, generous self-devotion, patriotic spirit, are neither alone sufficient in public men, nor do they afford, even in the light of morality, an adequate vindication of their acts, if the laws are infringed. It is the first duty of those who urge on a movement to consider in what it must terminate, and whether the instruments by which it is to be accomplished are capable of performing the new duties required of them, if successful. Nations have seven ages, as well as man; and he is their worst enemy, who, anticipating the slow march of time, inflames childhood with the passions of youth, or gives to youth the privileges of manhood.

The coronation of the emperor and empress took place, with extraordinary pomp, at Moscow on the 22d August (3d September) in the same year. The youth and beauty of the two sovereigns, the dreadful contest which

VOL. II.

R

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CHAP. had preceded their accession to the throne, the generous abnegation of self by which the mutual renunciation of the throne by the two imperial brothers had been chaCoronation racterised, gave an extraordinary interest to the august spectacle, and crowds of the most distinguished strangers from every part of Europe flocked together to witness it. (Sept. 3). The entry of their imperial majesties took place on the

of the em

peror and

empress at Moscow. Aug. 22

5th August (17th), the emperor riding between the Grand-duke Michael and Prince Charles of Prussia; the empress followed in a magnificent chariot, drawn by eight horses, having her son, the heir of the empire, by her side. Enthusiastic acclamations burst from the immense crowd, which advanced several miles on the road to St Petersburg to meet them. Moscow exhibited the most splendid spectacle. All traces of the conflagration of 1812 had disappeared, magnificent buildings had arisen on every side, and the quarters which had suffered most from its ravages could now be traced only by the superior elegance and durability of the stone structures, by which the former wooden palaces and buildings had been replaced. On the 15th, when, according to the custom of Russia, a great religious ceremony took place, an unexpected event threw the people into transports of joy. The emperor appeared, holding with his right hand the Grand-duke Constantine, who had arrived the evening before in Moscow, and with his left the Grand-duke Michael. Shouts of joy arose from the assembled multitude, but the cry which resounded above all, "Hourra, Constantine!" at first startled the emperor; he had heard it on the Place of the Senate on the 26th December. It was but for a moment, however, and his countenance was soon radiant with joy, when that prince was the first to do him homage, and threw himself into his arms. The universal acclamations now knew no bounds, the reality of the self-sacrifice was demonstrated; future concord was anticipated from the happy union in the imperial family. Splendid reviews of fifty thousand of the guards

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and chosen troops of the empire, and a hundred and sixty CHAP. guns, succeeded, and the coronation took place on the day fixed, 22d August (3d September), in the cathedral of Moscow, with circumstances of unheard-of magnificence ix. 353,356; and splendour. The Grand-duke Constantine was the ii. 350, 357. first to tender his homage to the new sovereign.1

1 Ann. Hist.

Schnitzler,

of the Em

cholas, and parallel be

tween him

and Peter

Nicholas I., who, under such brilliant circumstances, 149. and after the display of such invincible resolution, thus Character ascended the throne of Russia, and whom subsequent peror Nievents have, in a manner, raised up to become an arbiter of Eastern Europe, is the greatest sovereign that that country has known since Peter the Great; in some re- the Great. spects he is greater than Peter himself. Not less energetic in character and ardent in improvement than his illustrious predecessor, he is more thoroughly national, and he has brought the nation forward more completely in the path which nature had pointed out for it. Peter was a Russian only in his despotism: his violence, his cruelty, his beneficence, his ardour for improvement, his patriotic ambition, were all borrowed from the states of western Europe. As these states were greatly farther advanced in the career of civilisation than his was, his reforms were in great part premature, his improvements abortive, his refinements superficial. He aimed at doing by imperial, what so many ardent men have endeavoured to effect by democratic despotism-to engraft on one nation the institutions of another, and reap from the infancy of civilisation the fruits of its maturity. The attempt failed in his hands, as it has ever done in those of his republican imitators, as it will do in those of their successors, whether on the throne or in the tribune, to the end of the world. His civilisation was all external merely; it made a brilliant appearance, but it did not extend beneath the surface, and left untouched the strength and vitals of the state. He flattered himself he had civilised Russia, because he ruled by a police which governed it

CHAP. by fear, and an army which retained it in subjection by discipline.

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1826. 150.

tially Rus

sian.

Nicholas, on the other hand, is essentially Russian in He is essen- all his ideas. He is heart and soul patriotic, not merely in wish, but in spirit and thought. He wishes to improve and elevate his country, and he has done much to effect that noble object; but he desires to do so by developing, not changing the national spirit, by making it become a first Russia, not a second France or England. He has adopted the maxim of Montesquieu, that no nation ever attained to real greatness but by institutions in conformity with its spirit. He is neither led away by the thirst for sudden mechanical improvement, like Peter, nor the praises of philosophers, like Catherine, nor the visions of inexperienced philanthropy, like Alexander. He has not attempted to erect a capital in a pestilential marsh, and done so at the expense of a hundred thousand lives; nor has he dreamt of mystical regeneration with a visionary sybil, and made sovereigns put their hands to a holy alliance from her influence. He neither corresponds with French atheists nor English democrats; he despises the praises of the first, he braves the hostility of the last. His maxim is to take men as they are, and neither suppose them better nor worse. He is content to let Russia grow up in a Russian garb, animated with a Russian spirit, and moulded by Russian institutions, without the aid either of Parisian communism or British liberalism. The improvements he has effected in the government of his dominions have been vast, the triumphs with which his external policy have been attended unbounded; but they have all been achieved, not in imitation of, but in opposition to, the ideas of western Europe. They bespeak, not less than his internal government, the national character of his policy. But if success is the test of worldly wisdom, he has not been far wrong in his system; for he has passed the Balkan, heretofore impervious to his predecessors; he has conquered Poland, converted

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