“The Czar Peter . . . . had not true genius — that which creates and makes all of nothing. Some things which he did were good; the greater part were misplaced. He saw that his people were barbarous; he has not seen that they were not prepared for polishing; he would civilize them when they only wanted training. He wished at once to make Germans and English when he should have commenced by making Russians. He prevented his subjects from becoming what they might be, by persuading them that they were what they are not. It is thus that a French preceptor forms his pupil to shine for a moment in his childhood, and never afterwards to be anything. The empire of Russia would subjugate Europe, and will be subjugated itself. The Tartars, its subjects or neighbors, will become its masters and ours. This revolution appears to me unavoidable: all the kings of Europe labor together to accelerate it.” (Contrat Social, livre ii. chap. viii.) These words are extracted from a pamphlet entitled the “Contrat Social,” or “unsocial,” of the very unsociable Jean Jacques Rousseau. It is not astonishing, that having performed miracles at Venice he should prophesy on Moscow; but as he well knows that the good time of miracles and prophecies has passed away, he ought to believe, that his prediction against Russia is not so infallible as it appeared to him in his first fit of divination. It is pleasant to announce the fall of great empires; it consoles us for our littleness. It will be a fine gain for philosophy, when we shall constantly behold the Nogais Tartars — who can, I believe, bring twelve thousand men into the field — coming to subjugate Russia, Germany, Italy, and France. But I flatter myself, that the Emperor of China will not suffer it; he has already acceded to perpetual peace, and as he has no more Jesuits about him, he will not trouble Europe. Jean Jacques, who possesses, as he himself believes, true genius, finds that Peter the Great had it not.
A Russian lord, a man of much wit, who sometimes amuses himself with reading pamphlets, while reading this, remembered some lines of Molière, implying, that three miserable authors took it into their heads, that it was only necessary to be printed and bound in calf, to become important personages and dispose of empires:
Il semble à trois gredins, dans leur petit cerveau,
Que pour être imprimés et reliés en veau,
Les voilà dans l’état d’importantes personnes,
Qu’avec leur plume ils font le destin des couronnes.
The Russians, says Jean Jacques, were never polished. I have seen some at least very polite, and who had just, delicate, agreeable, cultivated, and even logical minds, which Jean Jacques will find very extraordinary. As he is very gallant, he will not fail to say, that they are formed at the court of the empress of Russia, that her example has influenced them: but that prevents not the correctness of his prophecy — that this empire will soon be destroyed.
This good little man assures us, in one of his modest works, that a statue should be erected to him. It will not probably be either at Moscow or St. Petersburg, that anyone will trouble himself to sculpture Jean Jacques.
I wish, in general, that when people judge of nations from their garrets, they would be more honest and circumspect. Every poor devil can say what he pleases of the Romans, Athenians, and ancient Persians. He can deceive himself with impunity on the tribunes, comitia, and dictatorships. He can govern in idea two or three thousand leagues of country, whilst he is incapable of governing his servant girl. In a romance, he can receive “an acrid kiss” from his Julia, and advise a prince to espouse the daughter of a hangman. These ar............