s
of which the Arabian Nights have given the models; these fortunes
are also frequently lost by the unbridled passions of their
possessors. When I arrived at Moscow, nothing was talked of but the
sacrifices that were made on account of the war. A young Count de
Momonoff raised a regiment for the state, and would only serve in it
as a sublieutenant; a Countess Orloff, amiable and wealthy in the
Asiatic style, gave the fourth of her income. As I was passing
before these palaces surrounded by gardens, where space was thrown
away in a city as elsewhere in the middle of the country, I was told
that the possessor of this superb residence had given a thousand
peasants to the state: and another, two hundred. I had some
difficulty in accommodating myself to the expression, giving men,
but the peasants themselves offered their services with ardor, and
their lords were in this war only their interpreters.

As soon as a Russian becomes a soldier, his beard is cut off, and
from that moment he is free. A desire was felt that all those who
might have served in the militia should also be considered as free:
but in that case the nation would have been entirely so, for it rose
almost en masse. Let us hope that this so much desired emancipation
may be effected without violence: but in the mean time one would
wish to have the beards preserved, so much strength and dignity do
they add to the physiognomy. The Russians with long beards never
pass a church without making the sign of the cross, and their
confidence in the visible images of religion is very affecting.
Their churches bear the mark of that taste for luxury which they
have from Asia: you see in them only ornaments of gold, and silver,
and rubies. I was told that a Russian had proposed to form an
alphabet with precious stones, and to write a Bible in that manner.
He knew the best manner of interesting the imaginations of the
Russians in what they read. This imagination however has not as yet
manifested itself either in the fine arts or in poetry. They reach a
certain point in all things very quickly, and do not go beyond that.
Impulse makes them take the first steps: but the second belong to
reflection, and these Russians, who have nothing in common with the
people of the North, are as yet very little capable of meditation.

Several of the palaces of Moscow are of wood, in order that they may
be built quicker, and that the natural inconstancy of the nation, in
every thing unconne