The Empire of the Czar, Or Observations on the Social, Political, and Religious State and Prospects of Russia, Vol. 2 Of 3: Made During a Journey Through That Empire (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Empire of the Czar, or Observations on the Social, Political, and Religious State and Prospects of Russia, Vol. 2 of 3: Made During a Journey Through That Empire

When the emperor opens his palace to the pri vileged peasants and the chosen burghers whom he admits twice a year to the honour of paying their court he does not say to the labourer or the tradesman, You are a man like myself, but he says to the great lord, You are a slave like them, and I, your God, soar equally above you a Such is (all political fiction aside) the moral meaning of the fete: it is this which, in my opinion, spoils it. As a spectator, I remarked that it pleased the sovereign and the serfs, much more than the professed courtiers.

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