eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, so that we may clearly apprehend the nature and tendency of the changes that have occurred, and discern also the character of the present movements.

There can be no doubt that the emancipation of the peasantry of Europe, which has taken place within the last one hundred years, has placed the masses, as a whole, in a better position as regards opportunities for individual exertion and improvement than formerly. But the method of the emancipation has greatly affected that position, and in the degree in which the process has been due to natural causes rather than to autocratic legislation, will be the amount of solid security, and the resulting well-being.

But there is a necessary antagonism between political absolutism and social well-being. Wherein, then, does that antagonism consist?

In replying to that question, we shall refer to the two best known instances of modern times. There is a remarkable similarity between the condition of Russia of to-day, and of France before the Revolution of 1789. In both there is a great centralised autocratic power, administering throughout the country by means of a widespread ramification of place-seeking and venal bureaucratic officials. According to the personal character of the autocrat, will be, for the time, the character of the administration. It will be either hard and relentless, as under the military régime of Louis XIV., or the iron Czar Nicholas; or it will be humane and full of reforms, as under the mild rule of Louis XVI., or the present Emperor of Russia, Alexander II. When it is severe, the spirit of repression will weigh heavily upon the people, and the privileged classes will prove that they are, as is said, well-intentioned' towards the government, by favouring all its plans, and glorifying the wisdom of the ruler. The result of this behaviour will be to intensify the character

of the administration. While generally the tendency of a despotic government is towards military aggression, rather than commercial extension, is to favour the arts and increase the instruments of war, rather than to foster peaceful internal development-that tendency is intensified when a sovereign, whose character is competent to carry out a repressive system, finds his every wish gratified, and it only receives a check when the results of foreign war are disastrous.

The whole of Russia was held by Nicholas in the sternest bonds of absolutism. Men were forbidden everywhere to deal with any matters of a social or political kind. If they possessed active minds, should they desire to extend their energies beyond the immediate sphere of their everyday business, they must find employment for them in the arts or belles-lettres. Thus an intellectual lethargy, a perfect indifference to political and social measures, laid hold of the educated minds of Russia during the reign of Nicholas. It was only when the disasters of the Crimean war proved to everyone the rottenness of the whole system, which had been so rigidly adhered to, that an intellectual awakening took place; and many who had never before dreamt of criticising, vigorously denounced, though in secret, the governmental measures that had been the means of procuring such a catastrophe. Everything, indeed, had been sacrificed to the military power and grandeur of the State, and it could not fail to be galling to awakening patriotic feeling to find that the sacrifice had been made in vain.

Thus a natural revulsion took possession of the mind of the nation, and the new Emperor shared it along with his people. The reign of Alexander II. has been characterised by the mildness of the individual ruler. It has been one of humane reforms, dictated by compassion for the miseries of the people, and considerations for the

necessity of internal development. The emancipation of the serfs has immemorably signalised the present reign, and that step has been followed by the institution of a new and a higher kind of administration to supplement that of the commune, as well as a complete reform of the law courts. While, however, the character of the government has changed for the better, and the harassing and narrow restrictions placed upon the lives and energies of the people have been largely removed, there is no letting down of the Imperial authority. Local administration must in no case trench upon the position occupied by the central government. Though the bureaucracy may be, in some measure, a reformed one, and less amenable to gross bribery, and less given to glaring injustice, it is there still, equally necessary to dispense the will of the government. Though the gendarmerie may be less cruel and capricious in its actions than heretofore, yet it is there still to spy upon the behaviour of individuals whom the government may regard with suspicion. The machinery is still in active exercise, the intimate connection that existed between the numerous officials and the central bureaucratic office exists unchanged; and the manifold reports and documents that flow from the extremities to St. Petersburg, and the ukases, regulations, and circulars that flow back again from St. Petersburg to the extremities, have not ceased: there is, indeed, no more approach in Russia of to-day towards an extension of political power amongst the people, than there was in the days of the repressive rule of Nicholas.

In thus describing the course of feeling and of action that has taken place in Russia, we describe at the same time the history of France under the old régime. It is true that there are some notable differences that might be recorded between the positions of the two countries under the rule of absolutism. Thus while in Russia the masses

of the agriculturists were serfs, in France they were, for the most part, free men, and the free peasantry had, to a large extent, become owners of the ruined estates of the nobility. But the actual condition of the people scarcely differed on that account; indeed if there was a difference, it was in favour of the Russian serf, who, when under a humane master, which was not unseldom the case, was able to lead a comfortable and easy life. The French peasantry, upon the other hand, were one and all ground down to the dust by the exorbitant and ruinous pressure of taxation, so that it was scarcely profitable to cultivate the land; much of it lay waste, and the people died of misery and starvation.

Under Louis XIV., the country was exhausted by the extravagant expenses of the government, chiefly incurred in foreign wars. Everything was sacrificed to military glory and drawing-room display, and a reign of hard and unscrupulous repression prostrated the energies and the spirit of the people. When the tide of fortune in war, however, turned, a public opinion began to manifest itself against the continuance of a system that was at last found to lead to ruin, and that opinion ultimately took possession of the court. No one could have proclaimed more loudly and clearly against the monstrous cruelty of his predecessors and the system that had been handed down to him than did the amiable and unfortunate Louis XVI.; indeed his expressions were only too well fitted to rouse the spirit of the nation against the continuance of such a system any longer. But it was not easy to change everything at once, for men had been long accustomed to certain modes of life, certain ways of action, and certain means of living. A great part of the better classes were intimately connected with the government, and derived their incomes from it. The military officers, the clergy, and bureaucratic officials, whose numbers included almost eryone of any position, could not be stripped of their

emoluments without raising up a hostility that could not be encountered. It therefore happened that while everyone lamented the miserable fate of the great body of the common people, no one was willing to sacrifice much towards its alleviation. The whole system, indeed, had become so rotten that no mere alleviatory measures could touch it, and nothing but a complete regeneration could meet the case. The nobility, who still retained their feudal privileges without performing the correlative duties, often yielded charitably so much for the relief of the abounding misery, but they would not consent to part with any portion of those special class privileges which had so much to do with the ruin of the lower classes. While a spirit of humanitarianism took possession of everyone, it was impossible to give effect to that spirit by instituting a radical change in the government of the country.

Thus we find that there is a wonderful parallelism between the history of French and Russian absolutism. There is one great central power, supported by classes which are privileged, and whose interests, therefore, lie in supporting the government against the people as a whole, which is taxed to support an administration that is all-powerful and irresponsible. There is, indeed, no check to the most wanton extravagance except the actual ruin of the country. The possession of such a power, therefore, must lead at length to such an increase of taxation as will be too heavy to be borne.

But in the very every-day administration of such a government there lies radical evil. We have seen that the tendency after a period of repression, when there is any opportunity of a public opinion being formed and expressing itself, is towards humane reforms. These, however, do not spring naturally out of the wants of the people as an organic growth: they are imposed from

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