distinguishing virtue of the Russian people. The real patriarchal chief of the commune is the staroste, elected by the commune from among its own members. It is he who takes the place of the father of the family; he is the representative, the guardian, the natural protector of the commune. What, then, is the office, the duty of the seigneur, that alien intruder who makes, from time to time, at more or less irregular intervals, irruptions upon his estates, like the Baskah Tartar upon the

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towns, and levies contributions? The staroste, on the other hand, is not, and cannot be, a despot; were he so disposed, the force of custom and traditional rights would crush the attempt. The unites commune (Mir) would, by its universal will, reduce him at once to the limits of his authority and of his duty. Elected by the free suffrage of all the working membres for a limited term, be knows well enough that he will have to become a simple moujik again if not reelected. He knows that after having governed the village he will be obliged (as M. Haxthausen so poetically describes) «to come and kneel before the common assembly, lay down before it the staff and insignia of his office, and ask pardon of the commune for any wrongs he may have committed against it».

Surely there is no want of another adoptive father, of a stepfather who lives away from the commune, and who appears from time to time only to snatch away the lion’s share of its produce. If the seigneur were nothing more than the proprietor of the soil he could exact nothing but the rent of his land, but he afflicts the peasant with a capitation tax, he taxes his labour independently of the land, he ransoms his right of locomotion. Thus, to employ an admirable expression escaped from Mr. Haxthausen, «on the basis of a St. Simonism reversed, he makes the impost more severe in proportion as the subject of the impost has more talent».

Beyond the commune there should be nothing but the national unity, the res publica (Semskoie delo) or the directing power. The free communes are assembled by districts (volost), and, according to

Russian law, every commune having its staroste, this aggregation of communes elects its popular chief, called golova. There is many a golova who has thirty thousand men under his orders. Together with this chief there are two judges, a sort of justices of the peace, elected by the peasants for the legal administration of communal affairs and of the police. The police is exercised in the villages by centurions, and decurions elected; the distribution of taxes and of offices is administered by the golova and the ancients. It is a complete socialistic self-government, and it worked very harmoniously till we became indoctrinated with the policy of German or Byzantine order.

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One minister, Mr. Kisseleff, was capable of appreciating a part, at least, of the magnificent institutions on which the commune is based. His reform of the administration would have been almost the beginning of a recognition by the government of St. Petersburg of Russian common law, if the personnel of the administration were not so profoundly vicious. One of the great misfortunes of our government is, that it governs to excess. It mingles in and with everything and everybody; regulats everything, fidgets about everything: the length of the Jewish caftan on the Polish frontier; the length of hair worn by the students of our universities; at one moment it is recommending a husband to reprimand his wife, at another it is advising a young man not to lose all his fortune at cards. Our emperor is not only the head of the Church and of the Slate — he is also the principal clerk, and the busybody in chief. He marries, he unmarries; he manages all and mars all. Talis rex.

Mr. Kisseleff, while he preserved the grand communal institution, contrived to neutralize the purely national and healthy characteristics of his scheme by that excess of administrative intermeddling, that intemperance of regulation, in a country, too, to which all formalism is repugnant, and which, in truth, does not want any artificial supplement to the force of long habits and traditional customs. By way of administrative interference with all the affairs of the peasantry, he introduced a thief into every commune; he opened in every village an Australian mine of spoliation for his bureaucratic diggers. The probity of the minister is not here in question; but was he not old enough to know that the subaltern employés throughout Russia are nothing but patented brigands and veteran robbers?

The solution of continuity between the world of employés, and the people, as between the people and the government, is evident enough. The government of Petersburg is a temporary, provisional government; it is a terrorist dictatorship; a caesarism carried ad absurdum. Its people is the noblesse, and that only so far as it is the enemy of the people. Mr. Haxthausen tries to prove the contrary — that the imperial power such as it exists now is necessary, national, logical, and popular. This very catholic censor appeals to the quasi-atheistical philosophy of Hegel

in support of the schismatic emperor. We know that Hegel has turned a good many heads by presenting the simplest theory in the world as most extraordinary — «all that really is reasonable». Nothing can be clearer; and without entering into scholastic distinctions between the be and the seem, we concede that every phenomenon has its raison d’être, and that an absolute absurdity is absolutely impossible. One need not be a great master in metaphysics to be aware that where there is effect there must be a cause. Geoffroy St. Hilaire discovered and described the very exact laws of teratology; he succeeded admirably in justifying the abnormal development of the foetus, but the monster remained a monster still. In the normal notion of man monstrosity is included as a disturbing possibility from without, but in no sense is it admitted as a rule. A pure and simple inquiry into such monstrosities would have been strictly proper in Russia, but Mr. Haxthausen arms himself with the accursed philosophy of Hegel for quite another purpose. He draws the conclusion that the imperial power in Russia is the best government possible! «Only one thing is wanting», continues our holy doctor, «to this government to be perfect — to be Catholic». Donoso Cortez at Madrid was wont to announce the end of the world if England were not speedily reconciled to catholicism.

Since the separation of the Russian government from the Russian people two Russias have been face to face. On the one hand, Russia governmental, rich, armed, not with the bayonet only, but with all the resources of chicane borrowed from the chanceries of the despotic States of Germany. On the other, Russia, poor, agricultural, laborious, communal, and democratic; Russia disarmed, conquered (conquisita) without having been vanquished. What wonder, then, if the emperors have handed over to their Russia, to the Russia of courtiers and officers, of French fashions and German manners, that other coarse-bearded, barbarous moujik Russia, incapable of appreciating that imported civilization which has descended on it by the grace of the Throne and for which the ignorant peasant openly professes the most unmitigated disgust. And why should he regard that Russia?

«How cross you have been these last few days», — said the

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count, — one of those male concubines in the suite of the empress Catherine, to one of his parasites.

The individual to whom these words were spoken, half in question, half in reproach, was a poor nobleman, the ignoble butt of the ignobler pleasantries of the blasé favourite. The buffoon, a fat, bloated, greedy fellow, used to wait every day eagerly for the moment to devour the count’s dinner. The latter, perceiving the voracity of the wretch, bethought himself of a singulary funny contrivance. He had a horse collar bought, and fastened round the buffoon’s neck, and thus harnessed he was let loose upon the dishes and the wines. He represented very accurately a wild beast gorging himself with the food, and leaving plates and bottles empty. The host was infinitely amused at the beast and his guests too.

— Oh! how much cause have I to be sad, — said the harnessed nobleman. — Of all the persons in your suite, I only have the misfortune not to be the object of your bounty.

— How do you mean?

— Have not you given Cossacks to all the rest? I only am excluded from your favours.

The count burst out laughing, and, to his guests, said:

— What do you think of this fellow? he is not such a fool as he looks. What, you, too, want Cossacks?

— Why not? replied the fool, — they cost you nothing.

— Well, indeed, what do they cost me? Well, you shall have some Cossacks.

— Count! you are joking!

— No, on my word.

And Caliban covered with kisses the hand of his worthy protector.

This was just at the time when Little Russia was being reduced to feudal servitude. Catherine II, that «Mother of her country», possessed by lusts untameable gave away 300 000 male peasants as the price of one of her Babylonian orgies.

The count had but to speak to keep his word, and the nobleman unharnessed went away into Little Russia lord and master of a commune of Cossacks.

I cannot resist recounting a second act of this drama.

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Last year, passing over the St. Gothard, I perceived a Russian name on a traveller’s album. Below that name another traveller had written a biographical notice not without interest. The Russian chamberlain