te interest, it was necessary
that Russians should remain enslaved. What was it to Russia whether
Bourbons or Bonapartes should reign over France? If she had an interest
in the question, it was rather favorable to the Bonapartes, whom she
overthrew, than to the Bourbons, whom she set up in order that the
French might again overthrow them. The old Bourbons were never friendly
to Russia, and would gladly have headed a coalition to drive her back to
her forests; and the first Bonaparte was very desirous of being on good
terms with the Northern Colossus, as if he were dimly forewarned of his
coming fate at its hands. Led away from the true path, Alexander I.
squandered on foreign affairs the time, the industry, and the money that
should have been devoted to the prosecution of those internal reforms
that were necessary to convert his subjects into men. Nicholas inherited
from his unwise brother that policy which he so vehemently supported,
and which caused him to waste on France and Austria the attention and
the energy which, as a conscientious sovereign, he was bound to bestow
upon Russia. The danger now is that Alexander II. will walk in the same
wrong path that was found to lead only to destruction by his uncle and
his father. The world was never so unsettled as it is now, and wars of
the most extensive character threaten every country that is competent to
put an army into the field. The Italian question is yet to be solved,
and its solution concerns Russia, which is strongly interested in
every movement that threatens to break up the Austrian Empire, or that
promises to create in the Kingdom of Italy a new Mediterranean nation.
The Schleswig-Holstein question is yet to be settled, and Russia has an
immediate interest in its settlement, as Denmark, she expects, will one
day be her own. The Eastern question is as unanswerable as ever it has
been, and it is but a few weeks since the belief was common that Russia
and France were to unite for the purpose of settling it, which could
have meant nothing less than the partition of the Turkish Empire,--the
union of one of the "sick man's" old protectors with his enemy, for the
perfect plundering of his possessions. This arrangement, had it been
completed, would have led to a war between France and Russia, on the one
side, and England and Austria on the other, while half a dozen lesser
nations would have been drawn into the conflict. But if an alliance for
any such purpose was ever t