g Lent in the Kremlin of Moscow between members of the State Church
and Old Ritualists; but these debates are not theological in our sense
of the term. They turn exclusively on details of Church history, and on
the minutiae of ceremonial observance.

A few years ago there was a good deal of vague talk about a possible
union of the Russian and Anglican Churches. If by "union" is meant
simply union in the bonds of brotherly love, there can be, of course, no
objection to any amount of such pia desideria; but if anything more real
and practical is intended, the project is an absurdity. A real union of
the Russian and Anglican Churches would be as difficult of realisation,
and is as undesirable, as a union of the Russian Council of State and
the British House of Commons.*

* I suppose that the more serious partisans of the union
scheme mean union with the Eastern Orthodox, and not with
the Russian, Church. To them the above remarks are not
addressed. Their scheme is, in my opinion, unrealisable and
undesirable, but it contains nothing absurd.

CHAPTER XX

THE NOBLESSE

The Nobles In Early Times--The Mongol Domination--The Tsardom of
Muscovy--Family Dignity--Reforms of Peter the Great--The Nobles Adopt
West-European Conceptions--Abolition of Obligatory Service--Influence of
Catherine II.--The Russian Dvoryanstvo Compared with the French Noblesse
and the English Aristocracy--Russian Titles--Probable Future of the
Russian Noblesse.

Hitherto I have been compelling the reader to move about among what
we should call the lower classes--peasants, burghers, traders, parish
priests, Dissenters, heretics, Cossacks, and the like--and he feels
perhaps inclined to complain that he has had no opportunity of mixing
with what old-fashioned people call gentle-folk and persons of quality.
By way of making amends to him for this reprehensible conduct on my
part, I propose now to present him to the whole Noblesse* in a body, not
only those at present living, but also their near and distant ancestors,
right back to the foundation of the Russian Empire a thousand years ago.
Thereafter I shall introduce him to some of the country families and
invite him to make with me a few country-house visits.

* I use here a foreign, in preference to an English, term,
because the word "Nobility" would convey a false impression.
Etymologically the Russian word "Dvoryanin" means a Courtier
(from Dvo