Instead of the Russians being the aggressors and the cause of the war, the English were always accused of it, and, according to the people in St. Petersburg, our Queen would have declared war long before she did so had our government been sure of the co-operation of the French. “Vous prenez la France par la manche, because if you do not guide her she may turn against you.” At another time we were told that the chief object for which the English made war was that of obtaining possession of the gold-mines in Siberia. In England people would scarcely credit that anything so absurd could be believed even in Russia, yet it undoubtedly was so. I remember when Mr. Pim, the naval lieutenant, came to St. Petersburg, proposing to cross overland to the north of Siberia in search of Sir John Franklin, all the Russians were convinced that he was sent merely as a spy to look out for the gold-mines,[23] whilst some went so far as to say that his designs were to corrupt the nomads of Asia, only they forgot to add what we intended to do with them when we had them.
We heard a Russian gentleman remark that, in fighting with the Anglo-French powers, they should at the least have the advantage of doing so with people more enlightened than themselves, and, gain or lose, they should still profit, for, even if they were beaten, they should acquire greater civilization; and he adduced Prussia in illustration of the proposition, “for she would never be the nation she is were it not for her wars with France.”
Intense indignation was also expressed on account of the new warlike inventions. “Look at those long-range guns and asphyxiant balls; it is a perfect disgrace to any people to invent such, and it is cowardice and baseness to make use of them.” The knowledge of the superiority of English mechanism and wonderful machinery, of which even the lower classes in St. Petersburg have some idea, seemed more than anything else to inspire them with terror, and by them nothing was considered impossible for the English to perform. I heard a common man say one day to another, with a grave shake of his head, “The English, ah! there is no getting on against them!” and such seemed to be the universal impression. I was informed that many of the lower classes in the capital had the idea that, if the English conquered them, they should be no longer slaves, and not have a poll-tax to pay. If this be true, and I was assured it was so, who can calculate what the consequences of such a belief spread among the populace might be, or how soon the hollow fabric of the Russian government would fall into ruins? If this conviction once enter into the national mind, the nobility may soon find that they have a greater enemy in their oppressed peasantry than in a foreign army. They have a thousand years of wrongs and slavery to avenge, and, like the heaving of ground in an earthquake, they will shake and topple down the mighty strongholds and towers of those who vainly hope to tread them under their feet for ever. It was the opinion of many when I left St. Petersburg that the eighty thousand soldiers (as the Russians said) bivouacked in the streets and billeted on the houses, were a great deal more for the purpose of ensuring peace within the barriers of the town than for that of repelling a foreign invader au dehors.[24]
Everything that could be done by the government for raising the anger and fanaticism of the people against the English was resorted to, and it was nothing uncommon to hear many of the lower classes declare that they would cut the throats of all the heretics within reach as soon as they heard the sound of the cannon at Cronstadt, as the sacrifice of a certain number of them was necessary in order to ensure the victory on their side. A pleasant prospect for our poor countrymen left in the capital! But it is not astonishing, taught, as they are, that we are heretics, that all their fanatical feelings are raised and all their barbarian antipathy set in antagonism to us and the French.
The upper classes were equally enraged against us, and even in society they sometimes could not restrain the expression of their anger and spite within the bounds of politeness or propriety. One day I called on a lady of rank, and I had scarcely entered the room ere she began to attack me in a rather violent manner concerning the present war. It was in vain that I assured her that I knew nothing at all about it, and that it was the affair of our government. “Ah!” said she, “you pretend to be very cool and unconcerned now, but you will tell another tale when you see the Russian flag flying over the Tower of London!”
Before the war began the Russians were always boasting of their navy and the excellence of their seamen. “Our sailors,” said the senator L——ski one day, “are, you must allow, quite equal to those of England—le mâtelot Russe ne cédera jamais à qui que ce soit.” Since the Declaration of war they have wisely been silent. It is strange, however, that a people possessing nautical qualities in so admirable a degree should be glad to run behind stone walls and keep there whilst the enemy’s ships are sailing merrily over their seas. “What inconceivable insolence,” said a court lady once, as she was reading the gazette, “what inconceivable insolence of those English to call their squadrons by the names of the ‘Baltic fleet,’ the ‘Black-Sea fleet!’ the seas are our Emperor’s, and not theirs.” I had a great mind to ask her why they did not assert it in a stronger manner than by words only; but I reflected that I was in an enemy’s land, and the vision of Count Orloff’s office and the birch had a great deal to do with my prudence.
The boastings of the Russians are intolerable. To hear them talk you would think that, like the Khan of Tartary, their Czar bids all the kings and potentates of the earth to eat their dinner; and I do believe, if St. Petersburg were demolished by the Allies, and Moscow in ruins, they would still declare that they were invincible. If their Emperor is not exactly the brother of the sun and moon, he is Heaven’s first lieutenant at the very least. Perhaps this fanfaronnade is a remnant of their Asiatic habits, which may possibly shortly be cured by European remedies.
How much soever the Czar might have sought to disguise his intentions concerning Turkey and Constantinople, his nobles did not attempt to do so, and that even two years ago, long ere this war was certain.
“Quant à Constantinople, nous l’aurons; soyez tranquille,” said a nobleman one evening.