IV. Constantine; he was chilling the healthy zeal of CHAP. his ablest servants if he lived idle days making no approach to the Bosphorus. nature. Upon the whole, it resulted from the various Its irresolute motives tending to govern the policy of the State that the ambition of the Russian emperors in the direction of Constantinople was generally alive and watchful, and sometimes active, but was always irresolute. The first Napoleon said, in the early years of this century,* that the Czars were always threatening Constantinople and never taking it; and what he said then had already been true for a long time, and his words continued to be a true description of the Russian policy for half a century afterwards. Evidently it answered the purpose of the Czars to have it thought amongst their own people that they were steadily advancing towards the conquest, but they always suffered their reasons for delay to prevail. They had two minds upon the question. They were willing, but they were also unwilling, and this clashing of motives caused them to falter. At home they naturally tried to make their ambition apparent― abroad, as might be expected, they were more careful to display the inclinations forced upon them by prudence; but it would seem that this double face was not simply a deceptive contrivance, but resulted from imperfect volition. The project against Constantinople was a scheme of conquest continually to be delayed, but never discarded; and happen what *La Russie a trop menacé Constantinople sans le prendre.' IV. CHAP. might, it was never to be endured that the prospect of Russia's attaining some day to the Bosphorus should be shut out by the ambition of any other Power. The Of course it followed that a great State ambition of this watchful but irresolute kind would be stimulated to an increased activity by the disappearance of any of the chief obstacles lying in the way of the enterprise; and especially this would be the case whenever the course of affairs seemed to be unfavourable to an alliance against Russia between the other great Powers of Europe. The Emperor Nicholas held an absolute sway over his Empire, and his power was not moderated by the salutary resistance of ministers who had strength enough to decline to take part in acts which they disapproved. The old restraints which used sometimes to fetter the power of the Russian monarchs had fallen away, and nothing had yet come in their stead. Holding the boundless authority of an Oriental Potentate, the Czar was armed besides with all the power which is supplied by high organisation and the clever appliances of modern times. What he chose to do he actually did. He might be sitting alone and reading a despatch, and if it happened that its contents made him angry, he could touch a bell and kindle a war without hearing counsel from any living man. In the room where he laboured he could hear overhead the clicking of machinery, and he liked the sound of the restless magnets, for IV. they were giving instant effect to his will in CHAP. regions far away. He was of a stern, unrelenting nature. He displayed, when he came to be tried, a sameness of ideas and of language and a want of resource which indicated poverty of intellect; but this dearth within was masked by the brilliancy of the qualities which adorned the surface; and he was so capable of business, and had such a vast activity, that he was able to arrogate to himself an immense share of the actual governance of his subjects. Indeed, by striving to extend his management beyond the proper compass of a single mind he disturbed the march of business, and so far superseded the responsibility of his servants that he ended by lessening to a perilous extent the number of gifted men who in former times had taken part in the counsels of the State. Still, this widely-ranging activity kept alive the awe with which his subjects watched to see where next he would strike; and made the nation feel that, along with his vast stature and his commanding presence, he carried the actual power of the State. He had been merciless towards the Polish nation; but whilst this sternness made him an object of hatred to millions of discomfited men, and to other millions of men who felt for them in their sorrows, it tended, perhaps, at the time to increase his ascendancy, by making him an object of dread, and it trebled the delight of being with him in his gentle mood. When he was friendly, or chose to seem so, there was a glow and frankness in his manner which had an irresistible VOL. I. E СНАР. charm. He had discarded in some measure his predecessor's system of governing Russia through the aid of foreigners, and took a pride in his own people, and understood their worth. In the great empire of the North religion is closely blended with the national sentiment, and in this composite shape it had a strong hold upon the Czar. It did not much govern him in his daily life, and his way of joining in the service of the Church seemed to disclose something like impatience and disdain, but no one doubted that faith was deeply rooted in his mind. He had the air of a man raised above the level of common worshippers, who imagined that he was appointed to serve the cause of his Church by great imperial achievements, and not by humble feats of morality and devotion. It will be seen but too plainly that the Emperor Nicholas could be guilty of saying one thing and doing another; and it may be supposed, therefore, that at once and in plain terms he ought to be charged with duplicity; yet there are circumstances which make one falter in coming to such a conclusion. He had reigned, and had personally governed, for some seven-and-twenty years; and although during that period he had done much to raise bitter hatred, the most sagacious statesmen in Europe placed faith in his personal honour. It is certain that he had the love of truth. When he sought to speak of what he deemed fair and honourable, he travelled into our language for the word which spoke his meaning, and claimed to have the same standard of upright IV. ness as an English 'gentleman.'* It is known CHAP. also that his ideal of human grandeur was the character of the Duke of Wellington. No man could have made that choice without having truth in him. It would seem, however, that beneath the virtues which for more than a quarter of a century had enabled the Czar to stand before Europe as a man of honour and truth, there lurked a set of opposite qualities; and that when he reached the period of life which has often been found a trying one to men of the Romanoff family, a deterioration began to take place which shook the ascendant of his better nature. After the beginning of 1853 there were strange alternations in his conduct. At one time he seemed to be so frank and straightforward that the most wary statesman could not and would not believe him to be intending deceit. Then, and even within a few hours, he would steal off and be false. But the vice which he disclosed in those weak intervals was not the profound deceit of statecraft, but rather the odd purposeless cunning of a gypsy or a savage, who shows by some sudden and harmless sign of his wild blood that, even after years of conformity to European ways, he has not been completely reclaimed. For the present, however, the Emperor Nicholas must be looked upon not merely as he was, but as he * Sometimes when declaring his reliance upon the honour of our public men he would with great energy extend his open hand, and vow that with our people he never wanted more than what-in somewhat composite language-he called the 'parole de gentleman.' |