is fearful in all things. At
present, the inhabitants, and even the animals of this extremity of
the inhabited globe are almost penetrated with the cold, which makes
nature expire, a few leagues beyond their country; the color of the
animals is confounded with that of the snow, and the Dearth seems to
be lost in the ices and fogs which terminate this lower creation. I
was struck with the countenances of the inhabitants of Kamstchatka,
which are perfectly imitated in the museum at Petersburg. The
priests of that country, called Shamanes, are a kind of
improvisators; they wear, over their tunick of bark, a sort of steel
net, to which some pieces of iron are attached, the noise of which
is very great when the improvisator is agitated; he has moments of
inspiration which a good deal resemble nervous attacks, and it is
rather by sorcery, than talent, that he makes an impression on the
people. The imagination, in such dreary countries, is scarcely
remarkable but by fear, and the earth herself appears to repel man
by the terror with which she inspires him. I afterwards saw the
citadel, in the circumference of which is the church where the
coffins of all the sovereigns, from the time of Peter the Great,
are deposited: these coffins are not shut up in monuments; they are
exposed in the same way as they were on the day of their funeral,
and one might fancy one's self quite close to these corpses, from
which a single board appears to separate us. When Paul I. came to
the throne, he caused the remains of his father, Peter I. To be
crowned, who not having received that honor during his life, could
not be placed in the citadel. By the orders of Paul I. the
ceremonial of interment for both his father and mother was
recommenced. Both were exposed afresh: four chamberlains once more
kept guard over the bodies, as if they had only died the day before;
and the two coffins are now placed by the side of each other,
compelled to live in pe*&ce under the empire of death. Among the
sovereigns who have stayed the despotic power transmitted to them by
Peter I. there are several whom a bloody conspiracy has cast from
the throne. The same courtiers, who have not the strength to tell
their master the least truth, know how to conspire against him, and
the deepest dissimulation necessarily accompanies this kind of
political revolution; for they must load, with the appearance of
respect, the person whom they wish to assassinate. And yet, what
would b