mans, Swedes, towards the south and the west—the external peril has never ceased.
VI
Speaking of the European coalition against France in 1792, Joseph de Maistre has been able to say that France could only be saved by a Reign of Terror. With how much more reason might one affirm that Russia could only be saved by an autocracy? It is Ivan the Terrible, Peter and Catherine the Great who have been the cruel and stern master-builders of the Russian people, the "gatherers" of the Russian soil.[1]
It is hard for a Briton, who has an instinctive worship and almost a superstition for liberty, to get reconciled with the principle of despotism. It is difficult for him not to see in that principle something diabolical, the source of all moral and political evil. And most difficult of all, most repugnant to his feelings, is it to admit that this abhorred autocracy can ever have been the very condition of the salvation of the country. But let us not forget that in the life of nations the principle of authority, as long as it is accepted by the people, and as
- ↑ See the Russian writings of Danilevski.
