te success. And
at length death comes, and the mighty builder is snatched away suddenly
in the midst of his unfinished labours, bequeathing to his successors
the task of carrying on the great work.

None of these successors possessed Peter's genius and energy--with the
exception perhaps of Catherine II.--but they were all compelled by
the force of circumstances to adopt his plans. A return to the old
rough-and-ready rule of time local Voyevods was impossible. As the
Autocratic Power became more and more imbued with Western ideas, it
felt more and more the need of new means for carrying them out, and
accordingly it strove to systematise and centralise the administration.

In this change we may perceive a certain analogy with the history of the
French administration from the reign of Philippe le Bel to that of
Louis XIV. In both countries we see the central power bringing the local
administrative organs more and more under its control, till at last it
succeeds in creating a thoroughly centralised bureaucratic organisation.
But under this superficial resemblance lie profound differences. The
French kings had to struggle with provincial sovereignties and feudal
rights, and when they had annihilated this opposition they easily found
materials with which to build up the bureaucratic structure. The Russian
sovereigns, on the contrary, met with no such opposition, but they
had great difficulty in finding bureaucratic material amongst their
uneducated, undisciplined subjects, notwithstanding the numerous schools
and colleges which were founded and maintained simply for the purpose of
preparing men for the public service.

The administration was thus brought much nearer to the West-European
ideal, but some people have grave doubts as to whether it became thereby
better adapted to the practical wants of the people for whom it was
created. On this point a well-known Slavophil once made to me some
remarks which are worthy of being recorded. "You have observed," he
said, "that till very recently there was in Russia an enormous amount
of official peculation, extortion, and misgovernment of every kind, that
the courts of law were dens of iniquity, that the people often committed
perjury, and much more of the same sort, and it must be admitted that
all this has not yet entirely disappeared. But what does it prove? That
the Russian people are morally inferior to the German? Not at all. It
simply proves that the German system of adminis