be propitious to liberty; he forgot that it cannot be favourable even to
the development of the Sclave nationality, because Sclavonic nations
would by this idea be degraded into mere Russians, that is, absorbed by
despotism.

Russia got hold of the fanciful idea very readily! May be that young
Alexander had in the first moment noble inclinations; the warm heart of
youth is susceptible to noble instincts. It is not common in history to
find young princes so premature in tyranny as Francis-Joseph of Austria.
But a few years of power were sufficient to extinguish every spark of
noble sentiment, if there was one, in Alexander's heart. Upon the
throne of the Romanoffs the man is soon absorbed by the Autocrat. The
traditional policy of St. Petersburg is not an atmosphere in which the
plant of regeneration can grow, and the fanciful idea became soon a
weapon of oppression and of Russian preponderance--Russia availed
herself of the idea of Panslavism to break Turkey down, and to make an
obedient satellite out of Austria. Turkey still withstands her, but
Austria has fallen into the snare. Russia sent out its agents, its
moneys, its venomous secret diplomacy; it whispered to the Sclave
nations about hatred against foreign dominion--about independence of
religion connected with nationality under its own supremacy; but chiefly
it spoke to them of Panslavism under the protectorate of the Czar. The
millions of his large empire also, all oppressed--all in servitude--all
a tool to his ambition; them too he flattered with the idea of becoming
rulers of the world, in order that they might not think of liberty: he
knew that man's breast cannot maintain in ascendancy two great passions
at once. He gave them ambition and excluded the spirit of liberty. This
ambition got hold of all the Sclave nations through Europe; so
Panslavism became the source of a movement, not of nationality, but of
the dominion of languages. That word "language" replaced every other