The Marquis de Custine and His Russia in 1839 [antikvár]

In January of the year 1843 there was published in Paris, in four volumes, a book entitled La Russie en 1839. The author was a French nobleman of distinguished lineage, Astolphe Louis Léonor, Marquis de Custine. The book was an account of the impressions gained, and the refleetions inspired, by a visit the Marquis had paid to Russia in the summer of 1839. It was at once a sensational success. Within a few years it ran through at least six legitimate French editions. It was promptly pirated and republished, in several editions, in Brussels. Germán and English translations, or condensations, followed shortly.* Although it was not published at that time in the Russian language, and was indeed immediately banned in Russia, French editions leaked into that country almost at once. They were read by Russians everywhere with avid interest, and with feelings that covered the spectrum of reaction from reluctant appreciation to violent indignation. Alexander Herzen, laying the work down after the first reading, pronounced it the best book ever written about Russia by a foreigner; but he then characteristically feli into despair at the thought that it had taken a foreigner to write it-that no Russian could have done it. The Emperor Nicholas I is said to have flung the volume to the floor in anger after perusing the first few pages, moaning something to the effect that "I am alone to blame; I encouraged and patronized the visit of this scoundrel." Later, though, it seems that curiosity got the better of him and that he read considerable parts of it aloud to his family in the long dull evenings of palace life. . * VH