ng, and Elizabeth's real successor was a foreigner,
who not only was capable of comprehending Peter the Great's ideas and
purpose, but who had the advantage of understanding that world the
civilization and vices of which Peter had sought to engraft on the
Russian stock. The grand barbarian himself never could understand more
than one-half of the work to which he devoted his life, as there was
nothing in his nature to which Occidental thought could firmly fasten
itself. He knew little of that the effects of which he so much admired.
His mind was essentially Oriental in its cast, and the creation of his
Northern capital was a piece of work that might have been done by some
Eastern despot; and in the preceding century something like it had
been done by Shah Jehan, when he created the new city of Delhi. In no
European country could such an undertaking have been attempted. It
pleased Catharine II., in after-days, to say of Peter, that "he
introduced European manners and European costumes amongst a European
people"; but this was only a piece of flattery to her subjects, whom
she did so much to Europeanize by making them believe that they were of
Europe, and were destined to rule that continent. She it was who did
what Peter planned, and by making use of Russians as her agents. Her
statesmen, her generals, and her "favorites" were Russians; and it was
after her character and purposes became known that the rulers of Western
Europe were forced to the conclusion that a change of policy was
inevitable. But for the occurrence of the French Revolution, that
Anglo-French Alliance which has been regarded as one of the prodigies of
our prodigy-creating age would have been anticipated by more than sixty
years. By destroying Poland and humiliating Turkey, Catharine forever
settled the character of the Russian Empire; and her successors were
enabled to solidify her work in consequence of the course which events
took after the overthrow of the old French monarchy. Russian support
was highly bidden for by both those parties in Europe which were headed
respectively by France and by England; and it is difficult to decide
from which Russia most profited in those days, the friendship of England
or the enmity of France. One thing was sufficiently clear,--and that
was, that, when the war had been decided in favor of the reactionists,
Russia was the greatest power in the world. In the autumn of 1815, a
Russian army one hundred and sixty thousand str