Besides, political dissentions, everywhere and at all
times, distort national character, and there is nothing more
deplorable than that succession of masters, whom crimes have
elevated or overturned; but such is the fatal condition of absolute
power on this earth. The civil servants of the government, of an
inferior class, all those who look to make their fortune by their
suppleness or intrigues, in no degree resemble the inhabitants of
the country, and I can readily believe all the ill that has been and
may be said of them; but to appreciate properly the character of a
warlike nation, we must look to its soldiers, and the class from
which its soldiers are taken, the peasantry.
Although I was driven along with great rapidity, it seemed to me
that I did not advance a step, the country was so extremely
monotonous. Plains of sand, forests of birch tree, and villages at a
great distance from each other, composed of wooden houses all built
upon the same plan: these were the only objects that my eyes
encountered. I felt that sort of nightmare which sometimes seizes
one during the night, when you think you are always marching and
never advancing. The country appeared to me like the image of
infinite space, and to require eternity to traverse it. Every
instant you met couriers passing, who went along with incredible
swiftness; they were seated on a wooden bench placed across a little
cart drawn by two horses, and nothing stopped them for a moment.
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