of Napoleon,
which first makes all nations a present of the conscription, then of
the war-taxes, and lastly, of the Code Napoleon, in order to govern
in the same manner, nations of totally different characters.

The Dnieper, which the ancients called Borysthenes, passes by Kiow,
and the old tradition of the country affirms, that it was a boatman,
who in crossing it found its waters so pure that he was led to found
a town on its banks. In fact, the rivers are the most beautiful
natural objects in Russia. It would be difficult to find any small
streams, their course would be so much obstructed by the sand. There
is scarcely any variety of trees; the melancholy birch is
incessantly recurring in this uninventive nature; even the want of
stones might be almost regretted, so much is the eye sometimes
fatigued with meeting neither hill nor valley, and to be always
making progress without encountering new objects. The rivers relieve
the imagination from this fatigue; the priests, therefore, bestow
their benedictions on these rivers. The emperor, empress, and the
whole court attend the ceremony of the benediction of the Neva, at
the moment of the severest cold of winter. It is said that Wladimir,
at the commencement of the eleventh century, declared, that all the
waters of the Borysthenes were holy, and that plunging in them was
sufficient to make a man a Christian; the baptism of the Greeks
being performed by immersion, millions of men went into this river
to abjure their idolatry. It was this same Vladimir who sent
deputies to different countries, to learn which of all the religions
it best suited him to adopt; he decided for the Greek ritual, on
account of the pomp of its ceremonies. Perhaps also he preferred it
for more important reasons; in fact the Greek faith by excluding the
papal power, gives the sovereign of Russia the spiritual and
temporal power united.

The Greek religion is necessarily less intolerant than the Roman
Catholic; for being itself reproached as a schism, it can hardly
complain of heretics; all religions therefore are admitted into
Russia, and from the borders of the Don to those of the Neva, the
fraternity of country unites men, even though their theological
opinions may separate them. The Greek priests are allowed to marry,
and scarcely any gentleman embraces this profession: it follows that
the clergy has very little political ascendancy; it acts upon the
people, but it is very submissive to the em