ment which
intended nothing less than to subjugate the civilized West under the
barbarian East, the town under the country, trade, manufactures,
intelligence, under the primitive agriculture of Slavonian serfs. But
behind this ludicrous theory stood the terrible reality of the
_Russian Empire_; that empire which by every movement proclaims the
pretension of considering all Europe as the domain of the Slavonic
race, and especially of the only energetic part of this race, of the
Russians; that empire which, with two capitals such as St. Petersburg
and Moscow, has not yet found its centre of gravity, as long as the
"City of the Czar" (Constantinople, called in Russian Tzarigrad, the
Czar's city), considered by every Russian peasant as the true
metropolis of his religion and his nation, is not actually the
residence of its Emperor; that empire which, for the last one hundred
and fifty years, has never lost, but always gained territory by every
war it has commenced. And well known in Central Europe are the
intrigues by which Russian policy supported the new-fangled system of
Panslavism, a system than which none better could be invented to suit
its purposes. Thus, the Bohemian and Croatian Panslavists, some
intentionally, some without knowing it, worked in the direct interest
of Russia; they betrayed the revolutionary cause for the shadow of a
nationality which, in the best of cases, would have shared the fate of
the Polish nationality under Russian sway. It must, however, be said
for the honor of the Poles, that they never got to be seriously
entangled in these Panslavist traps, and if a few of the aristocracy
turned furious Panslavists, they knew that by Russian subjugation they
had less to lose than by a revolt of their own peasant serfs.

The Bohemians and Croatians called, then, a general Slavonic Congress
at Prague, for the preparation of the universal Slavonian Alliance.
This Congress would have proved a decided failure even without the
interference of the Austrian military. The several Slavonic languages
differ quite as much as the English, the German, and the Swedish, and
when the proceedings opened, there was no common Slavonic tongue by
which the speakers could make themselves understood. French was tried,
but was equally unintelligible to the majority, and the poor Slavonic
enthusiasts, whose only common feeling was a common hatred against the
Germans, were at last obliged to express themselves in the hated
Germa