the South of his empire, he would not have obtained what he wished, a navy; but he would perhaps have better conformed to the character of his nation.  The Russian inhabitants of Petersburg have the look of a people of the South condemned to live in the North, and making every effort to struggle with a climate at variance ’with their nature.  The inhabitants of the North are generally very indolent, and dread the cold, precisely because he is their daily enemy.  The lower classes of the Russians have none of these habits; the coachmen wait for ten hours at the gate, during winter, without complaining; they sleep upon the snow, under their carriage, and transport the manners of the Lazzaroni of Naples to the Sixtieth degree of latitude.  You may see them laying on the steps of staircases, like the Germans in their down; sometimes they sleep standing, with their head reclined against the wall.  By turns indolent and impetuous, they give themselves up alternately to sleep, or to the most fatiguing employments.  Some of them get drunk, in which they differ from the people of the South, who are very sober; but the Russians are so also, and to an extent hardly credible, when the difficulties of war require it.

The great Russian noblemen also show, in their way, the tastes of inhabitants of the South.  You must go and see the different country houses which they have built in the middle of an island formed by the Neva, in the centre of Petersburg.  The plants of the South, the perfumes of the East, and the divans of Asia, embellish these residences.  By immense hot houses, in which the fruits of all countries are ripened, an artificial climate is created.  The possessors of these palaces endeavour not to lose the least ray of sun while he appears on their horizon; they treat him like a friend who is about to take his departure, whom they have known formerly in a more fortunate country.

The day after my arrival, I went to dine with one of the most considerable merchants of the city, who exercised hospitality a la Russe; that is to say, he placed a flag on the top of his house to signify that he dined at home, and this invitation was sufficient for all his friends.  He made us dine in the open air, so much pleasure was felt from these poor days of summer, of which a few yet remained, to which we should have scarcely given the name in the South of Europe.  The garden was very agreeable; it was embellished with trees and flowers; but at four paces from the house the deserts and the marshes were again to be seen.  In the environs of Petersburg, nature has the look of an enemy who resumes his advantages, when man ceases for a moment to struggle with him.

The next morning I repaired to the church of Our Lady of Casan, built by Paul I. on the model of St. Peter’s at Rome.  The interior of this church, decorated with a great number of columns of granite is exceedingly beautiful; but the building itself displeases, precisely because it reminds us of St. Peter’s:  and because it differs from it so much the more, from the mere wish of imitation.  It is impossible to create in two years what cost the labour of a century to the first artists of the universe.  The Russians would by rapidity escape from time as they do from space:  but time only preserves what it has founded, and the fine arts, of which inspiration seems the first source, cannot nevertheless dispense with reflection.