GERMAIN DE LACINT'S KNOUT AND THE RUSSIANS. * THE facts and

opinions about Russia contained in this volume are the result of time spent in the country and of travelling through it. There is, however, a vein of exaggeration in the descriptions and conclusions, which renders it necessary to receive many of the statements with a good deal of caution. This exaggeration is not perhaps in the facts or judgments themselves, so much as in the mode of presenting them. M. de Lagny is a French rhetorician of the most powerful school ; and in order to produce his effects he deems it necessary to heighten his statements by hyperbole. It is probable that what he says may be true ; but it looks like partial

• The Knout and the Russians ; or the Muscovite Empire. the Czar, and his Peo- ple. By Germain De Lagny. Translated from the French, by John Bridgeman. Published by Bogue.

truth,—as if a man were to take the criminal records of a country as a general picture of its manners, or as sonic Anti-Slavery writers actually do, make exceptional eases the normal condition of the slave. It is difficult to see how a nation could continue to exist if the Russians were so generally brutal, corrupt, and dishonest, as this writer represents them.

The principal subjects of M. de Lagny are the Army, the Navy, the Nobility, Religion and the Clergy, the Police and Magistracy, the Serfs or Peasants, all painted as black as possible, except that the author thinks the numerical stsength of the army really as great as the statistics, which is what other authors doubt; though he agrees in the opinion that the aggressive power of Russia is not so great as the largeness of its forces would imply. The finances and the climate come in for no friendlier judgment than the in- habitants ; the climate especially is painted as detestable : but the picture would seem to refer to the Northern part of the empire. The chapter on the Knout and other punishments is simply re- volting, and, let us hope, is exaggerated in its horrors. The description of St. Petershurg is principally a sketch of the interior of the houses and of manners, and would also seem too filthy for reality. " The Emperor Nicholas and his Family" is the only com- plimentary chapter in the volume : but it is difficult so to separate the personal and public character of the monarch, as to reconcile his private virtues and patriotic feelings with his systematic duplicity and hypocrisy, his ruthless indifference to human suffering. M. de Lagny is not, however, so inconsistent as he appears if attention is only fixed upon the panegyric of the Imperial family ; because he holds that the Emperor is the only honest man in his dominions ; the Russians being what they are, not through him, but in spite of him.

An introduction, apparently written in reference to present events, lays down the proposition that Russia has only been able to extend her boundaries when acting in conjunction with other nations, or more truly, making them her instruments. The pro- position, though supported by historical arguments, is perhaps too broadly stated. In many cases, however, it is true enough, espe- cially in the two most dangerous cases for Europe, Poland and Finland. The partition of Poland is indeed one of the most re- markable examples of poeticaljustice in history. Often must Austria and Prussia have felt that the advance of the Russian frontier to their own, and the removal of a bulwark like Poland, in a country naturally richer and better-peopled than Russia, have been dearly paid for by their additional provinces. From the exaggerated tone of M. de Lagny's mind, which colours almost everything it touches, The Knout and the Russians cannot be recommended as a trustworthy book of information. It owes its interest to present circumstances; and of course that in- terest is greater where the facts or opinions bear most directly on those points in the weakness of Russia that may influence future events. On the unity of the empire our author thus writes- " This extent of Russia is what, in the eyes of many persons, constitutes its force. But they are mistaken; it is, on the contrary, the cause of its weakness.

" Of all the various races which acknowledge the authority of the Czars, there is not one which has merged into the great Russian unity which the Emperor Nicholas has so perseveringly attempted to effect. " Each of these races has preserved its nationality, its language, its re- ligion, its customs, and even its own peculiar laws ; and, among those who are the most opposed to these attempts to bring about a fusion, the very members of the great Sclavonic family are not the least ea,,eer to reject them. These races are not bound to each other by any natural affinity, or any com- mon interests, either political or commercial : they all desire to live after their own peculiar fashion, and they can do so. Russian unity is a chimera. All these remarkable races, strangers to each other, arbitrarily agglomerated by the chances of politics and war, and sewn together like so many pieces of various colours, are only maintained in their present condition by skilful Machiavelism and a system of inexorable discipline, the workings of which absolutely stupify the mind..

" If, tomorrow, the genius which 'governs this empire with a will of iron were to disturb this fabulous equilibrium—if an easy or incapable Czar were to succeed the eminent man who at this moment presides over the destinies of the country, and occupies a throne founded on so many different-elements —Russia would, very soon afterwards, fall into a thousand pieces."

The following is the general character of the army as regards military spirit or sense of honour.

"For nearly thirty years the Emperor has been making unheard-of efforts to inculcate in the hearts of his troops what is called a military spirit. Up to the present time he has not succeeded, and he never will succeed, because such a thing is not in accordance with the character of his people. His army is not, and never will be aught but a troop of automata, tricked out in va- rious costumes, which he moves according to his whim, and causes to sink into the earth beneath an irritated look.

" No noble sentiment ever vibrates in these souls, stultified by serfdom, debauchery, and depravity. * * * " The Russian army is not intelligent. Beneath the European costume in which it is tricked out it still betrays its origin. Look at it ; it presents so heavy and singular an appearance that the least practised eye immediately recognizes the disguised peasant, the savage tamed but yesterday, hardly knowing how to march, and studying, to the best of his power, his part of soldier, for which he was not intended. It is only redoubtable by its masses; which, however, can be very efficaciously acted on by grape-shop, as we have seen at Austerlitz, Friedland, and other places. The Russian soldier is not easily shaken. He does not possess that cool energy and contempt of dan- ger, nor that powerful reasoning of true courage, which characterizes the French army and makes heroes of men : he is merely a machine of war, which never reasons, and is cumbersome to move. His popes, moreover, foster in him the idea that he is invincible, and that the bullet or the cannon-ball destined to kill him will reach him quite as well from behind as from be- fore ; but that, nevertheless, if he turns his back to the enemy, and is spared by he will be beaten with the stick and with the knout. * * *

"Europe ed 'Europe stands, therefore, face to face with a million and a half of armed men, whose number, in a few months, the Czar could double or treble, ac- cording as the necessity of the case should be more or less imperative. It is, most certainly, not a penury of men which will ever embarrass Russia. That is not the cause of its perplexity. What disquiets and worries the Czar is

money and credit. But money and credit are not the only things which trouble him, and of which there is a scarcity ; that which he cannot obtain nor bay at the greatest sacrifice, neither with the knout nor with the stick, is, as I said a few pages back, military intelligence; that unquenchable fire, in a word, of all free nations, the honour of the flag; this he finds impossible to inculcate in his people."

With respect to the navy, M. de Lagny thinks the Czar has ships and cannons enough, although the wood of which the ships are built soon decays. The difficulty is with sailors, who are a good deal worse than the army.

"The truth is, that Russia wants the first and indeed the only vital ele- ment for a navy—seamen. The reason of this is simple enough; she possesses no merchant navy. "The population of Finland, Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia, does not amount to more than a million and a half of inhabitants. That of the Black Sea provinces does not exceed five hundred thousand. It is, therefore, only from this limited number, most of whom, too, devote themselves to agricul- ture, that Russia can raise her levies. Even those who are sailors are en- gaged in the coasting-trade, which they follow in the daytime alone, shelter- ing themselves at night behind the girdle of island and eyots which line all the Russian coast.

"To man its ships, the Russian Government is obliged to fall back on the inhabitants of the interior of the country. In this way it has up to the pre- sent time formed an army of sailors, who are frightened at the sea, which the majority of them never saw before. The levies for the navy, like those for the army, are composed of the strangest and most heterogeneous ele- ments; and it is, therefore, a very difficult task to prepare them for the rough calling for which they are intended.

"Any man who has not from his tenderest childhood been familiar with seafaring life is unfitted for service in the navy. What use can possibly be made of a peasant dragged from his plough and native village, situated some- times hundreds of leagues from the coast, and transported suddenly on board a man-of-war ? Neither the whip nor the knout will ever be able to bend the rebellious and antipathetic nature of the Russian to this kind of service. The cold and fanatical indifference of the Russian soldier on land, before hundreds of cannons belching out death, abandons him entirely on board a ship. "The Russian, in his tastes, his disposition, his manners, and his indolence, is eminently Asiatic. Like the Arab and the Persian, the Cossack and the Tartar, he has a profound feeling of horror for the sea. Besides this, he is destitute of vigour, idle, and without muscular strength, for the muscles be- neath his flabby skin, so often lacerated by the rod, are not capable of any great exertion. An Englishman or Frenchman is two or three times stronger and more active in his movements. A Russian ship, consequently, requires twice as many men as one of our vessels does to make up its full comple- ment.

"Again, it is not on board a number of pontoons, imprisoned in the ice or laid up in dock for the greater part of the year, that sailors are formed or crews receive the practical instruction which it is necessary for them to ac- uire. Every year the Baltic is blocked up by the ice from the month of October to the end of April at least, and even the Black Sea is not always free from a similar state of things ; while, during the summer, the navigation of both seas is so dangerous and difficult, that there is a ukase punishing with degradation and death every officer who has not returned with his veiled be- fore the equinoxes, or who happens to lose it from stress of weather. In ad- dition to all these considerations, good sailors are formed only by long voy- ages; and, I repeat, the Russians of the Black Sea, as well as those of the Baltic, are employed merely in the coasting-trade.

"It is all to no purpose that Russia prides herself on her special schools; up to the present day, they have not produced anything very remarkable, or succeeded in forming a single naval officer. The young men who have been educated there have navigated the Neva for a few weeks only, and inspire no confidence. The Czar, who is always just and clear-sighted, has so plainly perceived the inaptitude of his people for maritime pursuits, that he has been under the necessity of confiding all the important posts to English and Swed- ish officers, whom he has induced to enter his service."