§2
In Europe, especially in France, the eighteenth century produced an extraordinary type of man, which combined all the weaknesses of the Regency with all the strength of Spartans or Romans. Half like Faublas and half like Regulus, these men opened wide the doors of revolution and were the first to rush into it, jostling one another in their haste to pass out by the “window” of the guillotine. Our age has ceased to produce those strong, complete natures; but last century evoked them everywhere, even in countries where they were not needed and where their development was bound to be distorted. In Russia, men who were exposed to the influence of this powerful European current, did not make history, but they became unlike other men. Foreigners at home and foreigners abroad, spoilt for Russia by European prejudices and for Europe by Russian habits, they were a living contradiction in terms and sank into an artificial life of sensual enjoyment and monstrous egoism.
Such was the most conspicuous figure at Moscow in those days, Prince Yusúpov, a Tatar prince, a grand seigneur of European reputation, and a Russian grandee of brilliant intellect and great fortune. He was surrounded by a whole pleiad of grey-haired Don Juans and freethinkers—such men as Masalski, Santi, and the rest. They were all men of considerable mental development and culture; but they had nothing to do, and they rushed after pleasure, loved and petted their precious selves, genially gave themselves absolution for all transgressions, exalted the love of eating to the height of a Platonic passion, and lowered love for women into a kind of gluttonous epicureanism.
Old Yusúpov was a sceptic and a bon-vivant; he had been the friend of Voltaire and Beaumarchais, of Diderot and Casti; and his artistic taste was beyond question. You may convince yourself of this by a single visit to his palace outside Moscow and a glance at his pictures, if his heir has not sold them yet by auction. At eighty, this luminary was setting in splendour, surrounded by beauty in marble and colour, and also in flesh and blood. Púshkin, who dedicated a noble Epistle to him,[[38]] used to converse with Yusúpov in his country-house; and Gonzaga, to whom Yusúpov dedicated his theatre, used to paint there.
[38]. To a Great Man (1830).