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 «>«<vfl«siTy Of 
 
THE CZAR 
 
 AND 
 
 THE SULTAN; 
 
 OR, 
 
 NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID : 
 BY ADRIAN GILSON. 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED, 
 
 THE TURKS IN EUROPE 
 
 THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 
 
 By Francis Bouvet. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 329 & 331 PEARL STREET, 
 FRANKLIN SQUARE 
 
 18 53. 
 
Add to Lib. 
 
 GIFT 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 Author's Preface Page vii 
 
 THE CZAR NICHOLAS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Renunciation of the Crown by Constantino — The Conspira- 
 cies of Ryleief and Pestal 11 
 
 II. 
 
 The Commission of Inquiry — The Sentences passed on the 
 Conspirators — Public Executions of the Leaders — The 
 Coronation of the Czar 21 
 
 m. 
 
 The Czar Nicholas — His mixed Russian and German De- 
 scent — His personal Appearance — The Czarina — Nicho- 
 las's Mistresses — His Popularity 30 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Polish Revolution — The Grand-duke Constantine — 
 His mysterious Death — Count Orloff— Capture of War- 
 saw 42 
 
 V. 
 Mutiny at the military Colonies— The War of the Cau- 
 casus 49 
 
 313 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 THE SULTAIST ABDUL MEDJID. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Death of Sultan Mahmoud — Abdul Medjid ascends the 
 Throne — His Indulgence in the Pleasures of the Seraglio 
 — ^Valide- Sultana — Khosrew — The Reforms commenced 
 by Mahmoud Page 62 
 
 II. 
 
 The Hatti-Cherif of Gul-Hane — Personal Appearance of 
 the young Sultan — The Turkish Females' Admiration of 
 him — Hig Harem 75 
 
 m. 
 
 Abdul Medjid's Love of Literature — His Patronage of the 
 French Drama — The educational Institutions of Turkey 
 — Its civil and religious Jurisprudence — The mild but 
 firm Character of the Sultan's Administration — Degrada- 
 tion of Khosrevr — The Finances — The Army and Navy 
 — Present personal Appearance of the Sultan — Conclu- 
 sion 84 
 
 THE TURKS IN EUROPE 
 
 I. 
 
 Advent of the Ottoman Empire — Its Extent — Progress of 
 its Conquests — Siege of Constantinople by Bajazet — Its 
 Capture by Mohammed 11. — Character and Quarrels of the 
 Greeks — Conquests of Soliman I. — His Power, the Ex- 
 tent of his Dominions, and Grandeur of his Reign 97 
 
 11. 
 State of Europe in the Middle Ages — Feudal Wars — Misery 
 
CONTENTS. ' V 
 
 of the People — Religious Schism — The Turks invade Po- 
 land — Embassadors at Constantinople — The Speech of 
 Mohammed IV. on the Situation of the Ottomon Empire 
 — Commencement of Hostilities against the Russians — 
 War of Poland — Treaty with France — League of Chris- 
 tian States — Treaty of Carlowitz, and its Consequences 
 
 Page 117 
 III. 
 Russia demands Peace of the Porte — Treaty of Azov — First 
 Embassador from the Porte — Troubles at the Holy Shrines 
 — Violation of the Treaty of Azov by Russia — War — The 
 Czar made Prisoner, and restored to Liberty — Treaty of 
 the Pruth — War with Austria — Treaties of Belgrade and 
 Passarowitz — Establishment of Consuls — New Quarrels 
 at the Holy Shrines — Conspiracy to restore the Armenian 
 Kingdom — Position of France and England at Constanti- 
 nople — Treaty of 1740 — Encroachments of Russia. . 131 
 
 IV. 
 
 Internal Causes of Decline in the Ottoman Empire — Russia 
 and the Porte — War with Poland — Treaty of Kainardji 
 — Bad Faith of Russia as to the Crimea — The Porte de- 
 clares War against her — The Turks Conquer the Germans, 
 and are routed by the Russians — Treaty of Jassy — Na- 
 poleon's Eastern Policy — The English Fleet in the Turk- 
 ish Waters — Disunion of France and England, and its Re- 
 sults 141 
 
 V. 
 
 Rivalry of England and France — The Sultan Mahmoud's 
 Reforms — Insurrection of the Pacha of Janina, and ot 
 Greece — The Powers agree to put an End to the Disturb- 
 ances — Attempt on Navarino — Russia seeks a Quarrel 
 with the Porte — Dignity and Courage of the latter — The 
 Turkish Forces defeated — Treaty of Adrianople — Russia 
 dominates over Turkey 155 
 
Tl • CONTENTS. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Consequences of the Exclusion of the Porte from the Treaty 
 of Vienna — Rebellion of the Pacha of Egypt — The Treaty 
 of London — Prince MenschikofF's Mission to Constanti- 
 nople in 1853 — Proceedings of France and England — The 
 Pretensions of Russia — The Guardianship of the Holy 
 Places, and of the Christian Subjects of the Porte — Dis- 
 cussions and Negotiations Page 164 
 
 VII. 
 
 Regeneration of the West — ^Fundamental Law of the Mus- 
 sulmans — The Koran — The Sunnah and the Constitutions 
 of the Princes — Characteristics of the Middle Ages — The 
 Turks as a People, and as Individuals — Causes of Decay 
 of the Ottoman Empire — Means of possible Regenera- 
 tion 179 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 To satisfy the curiosity so vividly excited by 
 the present aspect of affairs in the eastern ex- 
 tremities of Europe, I have been requested to 
 write a double biographical notice on Nicholas 
 the First and Abdul Medjid — the fact of my 
 having resided for some period in the Danubian 
 Principalities being considered to offer guaran- 
 tees of novelty and truthfulness on the subject. 
 The Moldo-Wallachian boyars — in the midst of 
 whom I lived — are, in fact, admirably situated 
 for ascertaining the truth between the two au- 
 tocrats who dispute the privilege of protecting 
 them. Their unfortunate country, invariably 
 the victim of all the quarrels between the Turks 
 and Russians, has as much to fear from their 
 friends of the Pruth as from those of the Bal- 
 kans. Consequently, all that takes place at St. 
 Petersburg is discussed by them with no less 
 interest than that which passes at Constantino- 
 ple. If among them I have not learned any 
 more than is already known by the public writ- 
 
viii author's preface. 
 
 ers of France and England, I have at least been 
 enabled to control the statements put into cir- 
 culation by the press, and to strip them of the 
 exaggerations of partisanship and calumny. 
 
 In this short work there will be found no 
 trace of political bias. I have selected from the 
 materials furnished by my memory and books 
 all that has appeared to me characteristic, in- 
 teresting, and true. When, on the same ques- 
 tion, evidences have presented themselves for 
 and against, I have impartially struck the bal- 
 ance. What will be found most to abound in 
 these pages is anecdote. 
 
 With an historical contrast, instructive 
 enough — or, at least, curious — I will conclude. 
 
 In 1850, I saw at Constantinople the new 
 palace of the Russian embassy at Pera. I was 
 greatly struck by the colossal proportions of this 
 edifice — rebuilt after its destruction by fire in 
 1844. It seemed that I was looking on the 
 tnaterial image of the absorbing power which 
 ^ihe Czar=^ has acquired in Turkey. It is in 
 
 * Tzar, Tsar, or Czar (pronounced Tchar), is derived, ac- 
 cording to some, from Caesar ; according to others, it is the 
 same word as the termination of the names of the Assyrian 
 emperors — Nabopolas-sar, Phalas-sar, &c. However it may 
 be, the word formerly was used to designate the Emperor 
 of Constantinople, the Grand Khan of the Golden Tribe — 
 the sovereign Tartars of Keutcheck, of Kusan, &c. Peter 
 
author's preface. ix 
 
 this palace that Menschikoff was installed, sur- 
 rounded by a regal pomp. It was there he re- 
 ceived deputations from a great part of the Sul- 
 tan's subjects. It was from thence he issued 
 his audacious commissions of inquiry in various 
 points of the Turkish empire. Finally, it was 
 from thence that he emerged to attend the au- 
 dience at the Pachalik — with insolent message 
 — and dressed in the disrespectful paletot of 
 which so much has been said. 
 
 On the 25th of January, 1668 — nearly two 
 hundred years ago— under the reign of the Sul- 
 tan Mahmoud lY., an embassador of the Czar 
 Alexis Mikhailovitch was conducted to the se- 
 raglio, to be received by the Sultan. The Rus- 
 sian of 1668 was no more disposed to humility 
 than he of 1853. The introducing functiona- 
 ries found that he did not bow down low enough 
 before their master. Faithful to a barbarous 
 and degrading custom, they applied their hands 
 to the back of his head to force him to bend it 
 as much as possible. The Sclavonian cour- 
 ageously stood upright ; but the chamberlains, 
 instead of loosening their hold, only pressed the 
 
 the Great, who strove to imitate all Western forms, intro- 
 duced the spelling of Ccssar at the same time as he assum- 
 ed the title of Emperor — imperator. Previously, the Czars 
 had called themselves poveletet — Master Autocrat. 
 
author's preface. 
 
 harder, to such a degree that the visitor fell to 
 the ground. 
 
 His dragoman, seeing this, lost all self-pos- 
 session, and was not in a state to offer a single 
 word. 
 
 The Sultan, out of patience, ordered his kai- 
 makam to relieve him of the infidePs presence. 
 The minister obeyed, and drove out with a 
 cudgel, which he applied with his own hand, 
 the embassador, the secretary, and the drago- 
 man. 
 
 " Et nunc erudiminiy 
 
THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN. 
 
 THE CZAR NICHOLAS. 
 I. 
 
 RENUNCIATION OF THE CROWN BY CONSTANTINE 
 
 THE CONSPIRACIES OF RYLEIEF AND FESTAL. 
 
 Alexander dying at Taganrog, and leaving 
 no direct heir, a law of Paul the First — a fun- 
 damental law of the Russian empire — appoint- 
 ed Constantine, the eldest of Alexander's three 
 brothers, to succeed him. Among the four sons 
 of Paul, Constantine was the only one who re- 
 sembled that Emperor, of gloomy memory. Like 
 him, he possessed all the hideous characteristics 
 of the Calmuck type. Deep blue eyes, shaded 
 by dense eyebrows, whose shaggy hairs, of a 
 light hemp color, bristled menacingly; a flat 
 nose, entirely disconnected from his forehead; 
 and a rough, hectic complexion, which increased 
 the ugliness of his features. He was known to 
 be whimsical — passionate ; possibly, somewhat 
 cruel. In the midst of the unanimous regrets 
 excited by the death of his brother, the people 
 found it difficult to love him. They were pre- 
 
12 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 pared, however, to accept him, when it became 
 known that it was his intention to renounce the 
 empire in favor of his brother Nicholas. 
 
 Nicholas, like Constantine, had been brought 
 up by his grandmother, Catharine ; he had, till 
 then, lived obscurely about the person of his 
 brother the Emperor. No more than Constan- 
 tine was he blessed with the charm of popular- 
 ity ; it is even certain that his passion for mili- 
 tary maneuvers, and his taste for exaction in 
 the petty matters of discipline, had earned him 
 the hatred of the greater portion of the army. 
 On receiving his brother's act of abdication, 
 Nicholas refused to accept it as irrevocable. It 
 is a question as to whether this refusal was 
 sincere or not. Like Caesar and Cromwell, he 
 played with the crown, but was destined to be 
 more fortunate than them. 
 
 A few years before the death of Alexander, 
 the Grand-duke Constantine had been united, 
 by a left-handed marriage, to Jane Grudzinska, 
 the daughter of a Polish gentleman, and a Cath- 
 olic in religion. In consenting to this union, 
 the Emperor had exacted from his brother a 
 formal renunciation of his hereditary rights, the 
 act of which was secretly placed in charge of 
 the Imperial Council. Such were the causes 
 of Constantine's abdication — an abdication in 
 which he persisted, in spite of the refusals of 
 Nicholas. 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 13 
 
 On the 25th of Decemher, the manifesto of 
 the new Emperor's advent to power was final- 
 ly promulgated. 
 
 All these hesitations — sincere or feigned — 
 had occupied a period of three weeks, during 
 which a council of regency had governed the 
 Empire. In a despotic country, an interreg- 
 num is, of all things in the world, the most 
 dangerous. If the uncertainties of those three 
 weeks were not really the sole causes of the 
 explosion which immediately ensued, it may at 
 least he affirmed that they were the chief means 
 of its provocation. 
 
 In notifying his advent to power, the new 
 Emperor had decreed that the oath of suhmis- 
 sion should be exacted on the 26th in all the 
 military stations of the capital. On the morn- 
 ing of the eventful day, Nicholas — ^lodged in 
 the imperial winter palace — waited for the news 
 of the ceremony in a state of the most painful 
 anxiety, a letter from the Lieutenant Rostolof 
 having informed him that an immense conspir- 
 acy was on the eve of bursting out — and this 
 letter had spoken the truth. 
 
 Under the liberal and indulgent Alexander, 
 numerous secret societies had been long organ- 
 ized. No opportunity could be more favorable 
 for them than the advent of a prince little 
 known, wholly unpopular, and substituting him- 
 self under singular circumstances, easily inter- 
 
14 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 preted in various senses, for the legitimate heir 
 to the throne. 
 
 The obscurity which shrouds all public events 
 in a country not boasting a press, was, on this 
 occasion, favorable to the conspirators. They 
 did not suffer the advantage to escape them. 
 
 Two great ramifications held the whole of 
 the Russian Empire in a perfect net- work of 
 plots. That of the south, of which we shall 
 have occasion to speak hereafter ; and that of 
 the north, which was about to display itself in 
 the capital. The poet Ryleief was the soul of 
 the society of the north. The sworn brethren, 
 in the event of success, had named as dictator 
 the Prince Troubetzkoi, chosen in consideration 
 of his historic name and his extensive influ- 
 ence. It is difficult to indicate clearly the 
 aims of this conspiracy ; however, an examin- 
 ation of the trials proves that opinions of the 
 class known as constitutional were in the ascend- 
 ant — a national guard — two deliberative assem- 
 blies — provincial legislation : the whole a little 
 confused. 
 
 The officers were in great numbers among 
 the conspirators ; most of them young men, 
 exaggerating their influence upon the soldiers, 
 hoped to avoid any thing like bloodshed, and to 
 obtain from the Autocrat an immediate convo- 
 cation of National Deputies. Every thing, how- 
 ever, leads to the belief that several among the 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 15 
 
 most ardent had designs against the person of 
 Nicholas ; and Ryleief himself was of opinion 
 that regicide alone could avert civil war. 
 
 On the 25th it was rumored mysteriously 
 about the guard-houses that an illegal oath 
 was about to be imposed on the army. Con- 
 stantine, it was said, had not renounced the 
 throne. He was marching toward St. Peters- 
 burg to reduce the traitors and perjured rebels 
 to order. 
 
 With these and similar rumors the officers 
 excited their companions. The first to be roused 
 to action assembled in the Place of the Senate, 
 behind the statue of Peter the G-reat, amid 
 shouts of Hourrah Const antine ! (Long live 
 Constantine). Soon, some well-dressed men 
 started the cry of Hourrah Constitutzia! 
 (Long live the Constitution), which was well 
 received by the soldiers. In their ignorance 
 they believed they were cheering the wife of 
 their Emperor ! 
 
 When Nicholas had learned the progress the 
 insurrection was making, he decided to march 
 in person against the rebels. Already the ex- 
 cited population had taken part with the latter, 
 and blood had flown at the attacking of several 
 important stations. The Count Milorodovitch 
 — the Murat of Russia — was killed while ha- 
 ranguing the revolted troops. An attempt of 
 the same kind on the part of the old Archbish- 
 
16 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 op of St. Petersburg had met with but little 
 more success. The Pontiff and his assistant 
 clergy — ^baffled and insulted — ^had seen them- 
 selves compelled to fly. Nicholas, pale and 
 cast down, with sadness on his countenance, 
 seemed able to arrive at no decision : was it 
 from fear or from horror of bloodshed ? 
 
 At two o'clock he at length decided upon vio- 
 lent measures. A charge was commanded. The 
 rebels had formed themselves into a square, pro- 
 tecting, in the midst, a mass of citizens. The 
 charge was repulsed victoriously. From the 
 height of the advantageous position occupied 
 by them, they defended themselves for several 
 hours. The night approached ; the Emperor 
 ordered out the artillery: he had deferred do- 
 ing so up to this moment from mistrust of the 
 gunners. It is even said that the Grrank-duke 
 Michael was compelled to seize a match from 
 the hands of a bombardier, to let off the first 
 piece. The grape-shot made frightful ravages 
 among the insurgent ranks ; they were swept 
 away in a few instants. The most moderate 
 of the narrators of this bloody episode make the 
 number of killed 500, and the number of pris- 
 oners 800. 
 
 It is certain that Nicholas, on returning to 
 his winter palace, had good reason to exclaim, 
 "What a sad commencement to a reign!" 
 
 And during this massacre, what were the 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 17 
 
 chiefs of the conspiracy about? Troubetskoi 
 was hiding, quaking and trembling at the sound 
 of every volley. 
 
 But Nicholas — did he display courage or 
 weakness on this day of terrors ? To the for- 
 mer, Grolovine and Noblet say No — Custine 
 Schraitzler says Yes. There is exaggeration 
 on both sides. Nicholas hesitated at first ; he 
 listened too much to his generals — who advised 
 him not to expose himself — it is true ; but he 
 also showed at certain moments a remarkable 
 degree of sang froid^ and the greatest presence 
 of mind. 
 
 On returning from the Place of the Senate 
 he encountered a detachment of the insurgents, 
 who approached him : *^ Grood-day, my chil- 
 dren," he said, in the Russian manner. ''''Hour- 
 rah Constantine V replied the soldiers. "You 
 have mistaken your road," said Nicholas, point- 
 ing in the direction of the Place of the Senate ; 
 ** that is the way to join the traitors." Anoth- 
 er detachment passed. Nicholas gave the same 
 salutation ; the soldiers remained dumb. The 
 Emperor seized the moment of hesitation, and 
 in his sonorous voice, cried out, " Right shoul- 
 der forward — march!" The soldiers obeyed 
 mechanically. 
 
 These facts — probable, and attested by nu- 
 merous witnesses — are deserving of belief. The 
 apologists, however, have multiplied and exag- 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN; 
 
 gerated them to a pitch of absurdity. Accord- 
 ing to some, Nicholas had presented himself in 
 front of the rebels, and with his breast uncov- 
 Cied, exclaimed, *' They have made me Emperor 
 in spite of myself — strike, if you will !" Oth- 
 ers, still greater lovers of the marvelous, repre- 
 sent him as ordering the sappers of the palace 
 — suspected of siding with the rebels — to point 
 their guns to take aim at him ; then, having 
 bravely withstood their looks, crying out to 
 them, '^ Ground arms !" and quietly passing on. 
 These are mere samples of hyperbole and court 
 flattery. 
 
 We have seen the secret society of the north 
 in action ; let us turn to the proceedings of that 
 of the south. This latter was exclusively mil- 
 itary, and had its stronghold amid the portion 
 of the Russian army charged with the guard- 
 ianship of the banks of the Pruth. The seeds 
 of rebellion had been scattered in each division 
 of the army of 40,000 men, which Russia at 
 that period maintained on foot. 
 
 The chief of the conspiracy of the south was 
 a very remarkable man, educated in Grermany, 
 and whom Ryleief had characterized by these 
 words — '' He is a Napoleon, and not a Wash- 
 ington." 
 
 Paul Pestal — such was his name — possessed 
 the talent of fanaticizing all whom he approach- 
 ed. As a colonel in the army of the south, he 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 19 
 
 inspired almost all the officers with a blind de- 
 votion. He was actively seconded by the broth- 
 ers Mouravief. Festal was acting in concert 
 with the Polish malcontents. Poland, Cour- 
 land, and Livonia were ready to rise up at his 
 signal. He had fixed the 1st of January for the 
 explosion of his formidable plan; the treach- 
 ery of one of his confidants destroyed all. Pos- 
 tal was arrested, and measures, promptly taken, 
 stifled in its birth the vast flame that would 
 soon have been kindled throughout the entire 
 army. 
 
 The brothers Mouravief were arrested at the 
 same time as Pestal, but they succeeded in es- 
 caping from prison ; and soon several regiments 
 were raised in the name of Constantine against 
 Nicholas. They employed, it will be seen, the 
 same means as the insurgents of St. Petersburg. 
 Unfortunately, the eldest of the Mouraviefs, 
 Serge, was so much overruled by the ardor of 
 his opinions, that he was unable to conceal 
 them before the soldiers. Seeing that he would 
 no more have Constantine than his brother, a 
 great portion of the regiments abandoned him. 
 He was reduced to only six companies, with 
 whom he engaged in a small battle on the 
 heights of Oustinofska, where his brother Mat- 
 thew perished. As to himself^ — mutilated and 
 covered with wounds — he was saved in time to 
 be reserved for the scaffold. 
 
20 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN) 
 
 The following fact will serve to illustrate the 
 extent of the illusions by which the conductors 
 of this enterprise were supported. Serge, speak- 
 ing to his company, hy whom he was idolized, 
 exclaimed, ^' Why cry ' Long live Constantine !' 
 No more Constantine than any one else, my 
 children. Let us cry, 'Long live the Repub- 
 lic!'" The soldiers, scared by this unknown 
 word, were afraid to repeat it. An old grena- 
 dier, more bold and more curious than the others, 
 took up the word, '' We will cry ' Long live the 
 Republic,' since it pleases your Excellence ; 
 but who is to be Czar ?" " There will be no 
 more Czars." " Oh ! in that case, your Grrace, 
 it can't be in Russia." The soldiers were will- 
 ing enough to accept the Republic, but would 
 not have it without a Czar. 
 
 Such were the principal events of this double 
 revolt, which marked the advent of Nicholas to 
 power. In a few days, all the oaths were taken, 
 and calm re-established on the face of the em- 
 pire. All that remained to be done was to pun- 
 ish those who had for a moment disturbed the 
 general tranquillity. 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 21 
 
 11. 
 
 THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY THE SENTENCES 
 
 PASSED ON THE CONSPIRATORS PUBLIC EXECU- 
 TIONS OF THE LEADERS THE CORONATION OF 
 
 THE CZAR. 
 
 The dungeons of the fortress were thronged 
 with prisoners. Arrests were being made 
 throughout the day of the 27th. None of the 
 conspirators attempted to evade the fate that 
 threatened them by flight. Troubetzkoi and 
 Ryleief were taken in their own houses. Sev- 
 eral of their accomplices gave themselves up 
 to the authorities. Among these unfortunates 
 were a great number of people of importance — 
 princes, high dignitaries, superior officers, sons 
 of academicians. Nicholas displayed great vig- 
 ilance and untiring activity during the exam- 
 inations. A commission of inquiry was ap- 
 pointed, all the members of which, with the ex- 
 ception of two, were military, and consequently 
 quite ignorant of criminal jurisprudence. What 
 was still more grave was, that all were the most 
 familiar courtiers of Nicholas, the blind and 
 habitual executors of his will. He wished, also, 
 that his brother — the Grand-duke Michael — 
 should form one of the commission. This Mi- 
 chael — a great wit, if the Russians are to be 
 
22 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 believed — ^^has a passion for punning. Unfor- 
 tunately, the specimens that have reached us 
 of his talent are not likely to confirm that repu- 
 tation among ourselves. One day, when visit- 
 ing the observatory of Poulkova, v^ith all his 
 suite of generals covered with crosses, ribbons, 
 and stars, he said to the astronomer — far from 
 feeling at ease in so brilliant an assembly — 
 '^ Make yourself comfortable, sir ; you are doubt- 
 less astonished to see so many stars out of their 
 places." But if opinions differ as to the greater 
 or less aptitude of this prince for saying brill- 
 iant things, all the world is decided upon one 
 point, namely, that he is no lawyer. 
 
 Not satified with the presence of his brother 
 in the heart of the commission, Nicholas wish- 
 ed to follow the proceedings himself, and ex- 
 amined, personally, the principals among the 
 accused. From what has transpired of these 
 investigations, it may be supposed that the 
 new Emperor derived considerable information 
 from all he heard. Impotence of laws, venal- 
 ity of judges, extortions of great functionaries, 
 unheard-of injustices of latter years, atrocious 
 punishments inflicted in spite of laws : such 
 were the things of which the revelations of the 
 accused informed him — the whole supported by 
 proofs sufficient to terrify him with the mission 
 which had fallen to his lot. 
 
 Under the Emperor's influence, the commis- 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 23 
 
 sion followed a system which consisted in in- 
 dulgently sparing the soldiers, as having been 
 led away, and striking the chiefs without mer- 
 cy. After five months' labor, a definite report 
 was completed, accompanied by documents. 
 Nicholas appeared highly satisfied with it. 
 This report classed the hundred and twenty 
 accused men, destined to be tried ulteriorly, in 
 various categories. On the 13th of June, 1826, 
 the Emperor published a manifesto, in which 
 he proclaimed the result of the proceedings. 
 This document, which declared the innocence 
 of the common soldiers en masse, was addresed 
 to all Europe. 
 
 It is a coincidence worthy of remark, that 
 on the eve of this publication, on the 12th of 
 June, 1826, the Sultan Mahmoud accomplished 
 a revolution in an inverse sense, by the massa- 
 cre of fifteen thousand janissaries. 
 
 To judge the hundred and twenty prisoners, 
 a high court of justice was instituted. All the 
 members were fit representatives of Old Rus- 
 sia, with its stationary mind, its servile habits, 
 its hostile prejudices to all reform. How can 
 it be believed that such an assembly could at 
 all times preserve the impassibility which 
 should always characterize a judge? Its office 
 was to decide the fate of New Russia, with its 
 desires for innovation and liberty. It is stated 
 that the greatest irritation reigned in the heart 
 
24 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 of the assembly. It refused to admit the ac- 
 cused to its presence, fearing recriminations 
 and scandals. They were examined, one by 
 one, in their separate cells. 
 
 Secret had been the trial, secret was the de- 
 cision. No advocates were called upon to de- 
 fend the accused, the Russian law only admit- 
 ting of verbal pleading in criminal cases. 
 
 Out of a hundred and twenty prisoners, 
 eighty-four were condemned to banishment to 
 Siberia for life or for limited periods, to hard 
 labor, or to serve as private soldiers ; thirty-one 
 to be beheaded ; five to the punishment of 
 death by quartering. 
 
 These five, who had been classed out of all 
 category, as sullied by crimes without a name, 
 were Pestal, Ryleief, Kakofski, Mouravief, and 
 Bestujef 
 
 In Russia, a legal decision, from whatever 
 tribunal it may emanate, must bear the Byt 
 pot cemon^ or So be it^ of the Autocrat, to have 
 the power of a sentence. Before accomplishing 
 this indispensable formality, Nicholas com- 
 muted the sentence of death for the thirty-one 
 to perpetual exile ; the sentences of the eighty- 
 four others were also relaxed. As to those of 
 the last category, he declared that he would 
 not give them a thought, in consequence of the 
 horror with which the mere idea of their crimes 
 inspired him ; he abandoned them to the mercy 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 25 
 
 of the high court. The court deliberated anew, 
 and issued a sentence, by which it was decided 
 that, not to be behindhand with the Emperor 
 in clemency, the five criminals should not be 
 quartered, but hung. 
 
 This kind of execution, entirely new in Rus- 
 sia, was undoubtedly less painful than quar- 
 tering. Nevertheless, we are assured that the 
 accused, being all soldiers, with the exception 
 of Ryleief, the poet, recognized in this a refine- 
 ment of cruelty. They had hoped to meet a 
 soldier's death. 
 
 The execution of these unfortunate men took 
 place on the ramparts of St. Petersburg, at four 
 o'clock in the morning, in the presence of a 
 triple cordon of soldiers, and a few curious ci- 
 vilians. The thirty-one condemned insurgents 
 whose lives had been spared, first passed in a 
 row at the foot of the gibbet. Their epaulets 
 were torn from them ; their uniforms were rent 
 in strips, and thrown into a brazier with their 
 decorations ; the hangman took their swords 
 from them, breaking each over the head of its 
 owner as a sign of extreme disgrace. After 
 them appeared the five condemned to death ; 
 they were dressed in gray cloaks, the raised 
 hoods of which concealed their heads. The 
 hangman made them mount, in procession, a 
 platform, raised under the ropes which hung 
 from the gibbet. When he had fastened the 
 
26 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 fatal knot round their necks, he retired, and the 
 platform gave way under their feet. The oper- 
 ation succeeded with Kakofski and Pestal ; but 
 the ropes, badly tied and slipping over the hoods 
 of their cloaks, let fall the other three, who 
 rolled at the foot of the scaffold. 
 
 With reference to this frightful accident, it 
 has been stated that the Emperor, when con- 
 sulted as to what ought to be done, replied la- 
 conically, " Hang them again." 
 
 The Emperor was absent from St. Peters- 
 burg : the fact is known. Besides, who would 
 have been daring enough to suspend the execu- 
 tion during the time necessary to go to the 
 palace for the Emperor's decision ? 
 
 Ryleief, although greatly bewildered, reas- 
 cended the fatal ladder with a firm step, say- 
 ing, *' Decidedly, nothing succeeds with me — 
 not even death !" 
 
 Mouravief, equally courageous, cried out, 
 " Beast of a country ! where they can neither 
 conspire, judge, nor hang properly." 
 
 Bestujef had to be carried up to the gibbet: 
 he had broken his legs in his fall. 
 
 For more than eighty years no such thing as 
 a capital punishment had taken place in St. 
 Petersburg. It had been found necessary to 
 import an executioner — expert in the art of 
 hanging — from Sweden. 
 
 The condemned insurgents whose lives had 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 27 
 
 been spared, were compelled to be present at 
 the ghastly ceremony. When it was over, they 
 departed on sledges for their fearful exile in Si- 
 beria. Which were most to be pitied — they, 
 or their comrades who were dangling to and fro 
 in the morning mists of the citadel ? During 
 a journey of eight hundred leagues, they were 
 constantly exposed to the insults of the pop- 
 ulace. The Cossacks charged to conduct them 
 succeeded with difficulty in shielding them 
 from the fury of the peasants. Among these 
 unfortunates was Troubetzkoi, ill and dying, 
 but supported by the hope that he would soon 
 be rejoined by his wife, who had promised to 
 share his fearful exile. This heroic princess 
 kept her word, and was imitated by Mesdames 
 Mouravief, Tchernycheff, and Nairskine. 
 
 Nicholas imposed no unjust responsibility on 
 the families of the condemned ; several among 
 them, on the contrary, were the recipients of 
 his favors. The father of Festal, whose fortune 
 had greatly suffered, was presented with forty 
 thousand roubles, and the ^* usufruct" of an im- 
 perial farm ; his eldest son, appointed one of the 
 Emperor's aides-de-camp, was decorated, which 
 led to the saying that he wore his brother's 
 rope round his neck. Offers were also made to 
 the widow Ryleief : she refused them ; her mis- 
 fortunes had driven her almost mad. 
 
 Thus terminated the gigantic process which, 
 
28 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ,' 
 
 during six months, had occupied universal at- 
 tention, not merely in Russia, but throughout 
 all Europe. 
 
 The son of the Prince of Markof, who hap- 
 pened to be in St. Petersburg at the moment of 
 the outbreak of the 26th, on his return to his 
 father's, concluded his narration of what he had 
 seen by saying, *^In fact, it was exactly as in 
 Paris." '' You are mistaken," said the old man 
 to him, '^for in Paris the cobblers fought to be- 
 come princes, whereas in St. Petersburg the 
 princes have fought to become cobblers." 
 
 This powerfully trenchant bon mot of the old 
 Russian may be considered a resume of all that 
 can be said upon the events of the 26th of De- 
 cember. 
 
 Nicholas felt himself relieved of an enormous 
 burden. When all was concluded, he published 
 a manifesto explaining all that had taken place. 
 In this document, in which he expressed a de- 
 sire to occupy himself with the topics of prog- 
 ress and civilization, he announced an expi- 
 atory sacrifice, to consecrate the memory of the 
 blood that had been shed. This sacriiHce, in 
 fact, took place. An altar was erected on the 
 very site of the civil strife. The Emperor and 
 the Empress were present at the mass that was 
 celebrated. The pontiff sprinkled holy water 
 over the people, and on the earth, still moist 
 with Russian blood. Henceforth all would be 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 29 
 
 effaced, and Nicholas turned his thoughts to- 
 ward preparing for the solemnities of his gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 On the 3d of September (August 22d), 1826, 
 in the Cathedral of Moscow, Nicholas received 
 from the hands of the Archbishop the imperial 
 purple, the globe, and the sceptre. His wife, 
 Alexandra Fevdorowna, was consecrated at the 
 same time. The Emperor's mother, Maria 
 Fevdorowna, and Constantine, his brother, were 
 present at the ceremony ; the greatest pomp 
 was displayed. The festivities were kept up 
 long in the old capital of Russia, where rendez- 
 vous had been given to all the western embas- 
 sadors, and the representatives of the provinces 
 of Georgia, Circassia, Mingrelia, the Kirghis 
 Khans, and the sovereigns of Daghistan — Eu- 
 rope and Asia. As a single specimen of the 
 curious details of these imperial rejoicings, the 
 banquet offered to the people of Moscow by the 
 Czar may be mentioned. Two hundred and 
 forty tables were spread on the plain of De- 
 vitche Pole, and covered with every variety of 
 dishes. Here and there were erected fountains, 
 pouring forth wine and beer. In the midst of 
 all was a tent, where the Emperor and his court 
 were assembled. One hundred thousand mon- 
 jecks pressed round the place of entertainment. 
 At noon — at a given signal from the Emperor, 
 who cried, ''My children, all this is yours" — 
 
30 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN 
 
 the monjeoks darted on the feast like so many 
 furies. In five minutes, tables, cloths, dishes, 
 meats, and fountains, all had disappeared un- 
 der the ravages of this terrific cohort. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE CZAR NICHOLAS HIS MIXED RUSSIAN AND 
 
 GERMAN DESCENT HIS PERSONAL APPEARANCE 
 
 THE CZARINA NICHOLAS'S MISTRESSES ^HIS 
 
 POPULARITY. 
 
 Nicholas Paulovitch, the son of Paul the 
 First and Maria Fevdorowna, is the fifteenth 
 sovereign of the Romanoff dynasty, if the im- 
 perial historians are to be believed. In reality, 
 he is the eighth sovereign of the Holstein-Gro- 
 torp dynasty, the Romanoff race having become 
 extinct with Peter III. The Holsteins are of 
 German descent; their name is even difficult of 
 pronunciation to Russian lips. Nicholas is far 
 from unav^are that the Muscovite pride would 
 feel but little flattered to owe the sacred person 
 of their sovereign to the detested race of Nemetz 
 (G-ermans) ; he has, therefore, carefully sup- 
 pressed his real family name. The courtiers 
 maintain, in spite of all proof to the contrary, 
 that the blood flowing in the veins of the Czar is 
 Russian to the last drop. Golovine, however, 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 31 
 
 informs us that the poet Pouchkin was of a con- 
 trary opinion. ''He had," says Grolovine, "a 
 habit of illustrating the nationality of the reign- 
 ing faniily in a whimsical manner. He would 
 pour into a vase a glass of pure red wine, in 
 honor of Peter I., whose Russian origin could 
 not be disputed. He should, justly speaking, 
 have stopped there, and turned the glass upside 
 down ; but, faithful to the principle of the Rus- 
 sian government, which makes the Gotorps pass 
 for the Romanoffs, he would pour in another 
 glass — of water — in honor of Catharine H., 
 Princess of Anhalt. This time he should, per- 
 haps, have poured a glass of wine, but, fearing 
 to compromise himself, would pass on and pour 
 another glass of water for Maria Fevdorowna, 
 the mother of Nicholas I. ; then a fourth, for the 
 reigning Empress; and he obtained at last a 
 liquor so slightly tinged with red, that he would 
 excite a general laugh when he called upon his 
 audience to decide as to whether it was wine 
 or water he was showing them, and whether, 
 by comparison, the reigning Czars were really 
 Russians or Grermans." This Muscovite pleas- 
 antry has the merit of expressing the exact 
 truth with reference to the ultra-national pre- 
 tensions of the Emperor Nicholas. 
 
 It is, however, curious to remark, by-the-way, 
 that in spite of the strong desire of the sons of 
 the Grotorp race to pass for Romanoffs, they do 
 
32 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN) 
 
 not carry it so far as to abandon the titles that 
 belong to them as representatives of the elder 
 branch of Holstein ; thus Nicholas invariably 
 adds to the qualifications attached to the Czar- 
 ate those oi Heir of Norway^ Duke of Scliles- 
 wig^ of Stormar^ of Ditmorsen, and Olden^ 
 burg. 
 
 The firmly-established reputation of Nicholas 
 as a handsome man imposes on us the obliga- 
 tion of giving his portrait. Several writers, at 
 once brilliant and faithful, have undertaken 
 this task, but none among them has acquitted 
 himself so ably as the Prince Peter Kolofski, for 
 which reason we quote him in preference. 
 
 '* Nicholas," he writes, '^has the noblest face 
 I have ever seen in my life. The habitual ex- 
 pression of his physiognomy has a certain se- 
 verity which is far from putting the beholder at 
 his ease. His smile is a smile of complaisance, 
 and not the result of gayety or abandon. There 
 is something approaching the prodigious in this 
 prince's manner of existence. He speaks with 
 vivacity, with simplicity, and the most perfect 
 propriety ; all he says is full of point and mean- 
 ing — no idle pleasantry — not a word out of its 
 place. There is nothing in the tone of his 
 voice or the arrangement of his phrases that in- 
 dicates haughtiness or dissimulation, and yet 
 you feel that his heart is closed." 
 
 The Russian portrait painter, it will be seen, 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 33 
 
 confines himself to generalities, and carefully 
 avoids enveloping his model in the fantastic 
 graces habitual to court v^riters. The reader 
 shall now hear what a young artist of our ac- 
 quaintance, who has resided some time in Rus- 
 sia, has to say on the same subject. " The 
 Emperor is of a great height, and is very proud 
 of it — too proud, perhaps, as he has acquired the 
 habit of certain airs, which often give him a 
 strong resemblance to a peacock when about to 
 spread his tail. It is a fact well known in St. 
 Petersburg, that every well-grown man newly 
 recruited for the guard is called into the Em- 
 peror's presence, who measures heights with 
 him. His air is serious, his glance wild — even 
 a little savage ; his entire physiognomy has 
 something hard and stern in it; his gestures 
 are abrupt, and he cuts his words in pronounc- 
 ing them. The Emperor never shows himself 
 but in the military costume, the stiffness of 
 which is in perfect keeping with his tastes, and 
 which makes his great height still more con- 
 spicuous. Meanwhile, there is a want of ease 
 in his movements ; since a fall from his horse, 
 he drags one leg after him in a disagreeably in- 
 elegant manner." 
 
 The Empress Alexandra Fevdorowna is a fair 
 and gentle specimen of a Grerman princess, con- 
 trasting oddly with her noble spouse. In her 
 youth, her pale and amiable countenance gave 
 
 C 
 
34 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN) 
 
 her the appearance, when in company with the 
 son of Paul I., of a victim by the side of the exe- 
 cutioner. Let us hasten to say that he has 
 proved nothing of the kind ; the marriage of 
 Nicholas for some years presented the rare ex- 
 ample of a princely union in which the hus- 
 band was as faithful as the wife. Such is not 
 exactly the state of affairs now. The Emperor 
 is never without a certain number of mistress- 
 es : he is said to be constant in his amours. 
 But what he chooses to allow himself he will 
 not tolerate in others, and he has several times 
 displayed the greatest severity toward his court- 
 iers for offenses of this description. 
 
 Since the revolution of July, Nicholas has 
 conceived the greatest hatred to France and all 
 that comes from it ; such of the courtiers as af- 
 fect French fashions are looked upon unfavor- 
 ably by him, and all he will accept from Paris 
 are his actors and ballet-dancers. 
 
 But the portrait of the Emperor has drawn 
 us from our subject, and it is time we should 
 quit mere anecdotal details to exhibit the con- 
 duct of Nicholas in the early days of his reign. 
 
 The new Autocrat — victorious over rebellion 
 — displayed the firm intention of attacking and 
 uprooting existing abuses ; he had the tact to 
 win from his subjects the popularity in which 
 he had been deficient. In the first months of 
 his reign he would be seen appearing careless- 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 35 
 
 ly on the Exchange, and chatting with the 
 humblest merchants with a cordiality that won 
 all hearts. He caused it to be circulated among 
 all the courts of Europe that it was his inten- 
 tion to follow the same political course as his 
 predecessor in matters relating to foreign coun- 
 tries, as he had announced to his subjects that 
 he would continue the reign of Alexander with 
 regard to interior matters. But neither one 
 nor the other of these engagements was des- 
 tined to be kept. 
 
 Alexander, weak and indolent, allowed him- 
 self to be robbed, Mid took no pains to cure the 
 evil of which he too well knew the depth. The 
 following saying, which has been given to him, 
 and which has every appearance of truthful- 
 ness, shows that he was not unaware of the 
 extent to which corruption was undermining 
 and devouring the administrations of the em- 
 pire. He said of his subjects, *^If they knew 
 where to put them, they would steal my ships 
 of war ; if they could draw my teeth out with- 
 out waking me, they would rob me of them in 
 my sleep."* 
 
 But, although knowing the evil, he did noth- 
 ing to prevent or diminish it, and corruption 
 marched on with head erect. Nicholas, by 
 showing a pitiless severity for offenses of this 
 description — whenever an opportunity offered 
 * Revelations of Russia. 
 
36 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN; 
 
 — has at least effected this result: that the 
 robbers conceal themselves from the eyes of 
 the public, and shroud their evil deeds in ap- 
 propriate darkness. 
 
 Alexander had always managed the foreign 
 affairs of the kingdom personally. Nicholas 
 has imitated his example, and has adopted for 
 confidential minister the Count de Nesselrode 
 — a man of mediocre ability, but pliant, and 
 skillful, and of an admirable flexibility for be- 
 ing always of his sovereign's opinion. 
 
 In his manifesto on attaining to power, the 
 Czar inserted a special paragraph for the king- 
 dom of Poland ; in this paragraph he announced 
 that the ceremony of coronation would be post- 
 poned, and in the mean time he bound himself 
 by the following oath : '^ Poles, we have an- 
 nounced to you that our invariable desire will 
 be to continue the reign of the late Emperor 
 Alexander, of glorious memory ; that is to say, 
 that the institutions which he accorded you 
 will be maintained, and that I swear, in ad- 
 vance, and promise before Grod, to maintain and 
 enforce the execution, with all my power, of 
 the constitutional charter." 
 
 It will soon be seen how Nicholas kept this 
 solemn vow. He took it, moreover, with the 
 most unfavorable dispositions toward Poland. 
 The examinations at St. Petersburg had proved 
 the existence, in Poland, of secret societies; the 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 37 
 
 senate of Warsaw was charged to try the ac- 
 cused members. It allowed them advocates . 
 for their defense, and after the public proceed- ; 
 ings, which lasted a month, the accused were ; 
 either acquitted, or condemned merely to a few j 
 months' confinement. :' 
 
 The Emperor caused the judges to be repri- 
 manded in spite of the Constitution. 
 
 The reign of Nicholas, commenced in the 
 midst of civil war, was destined to be con- 
 tinued among external difficulties. A few days , 
 after the coronation, an imperial manifesto de- *j|^ 
 clared war against Persia. The province of 
 Elizabethpol had been invaded by Abbas Mir- ^ 
 za, heir to the Persian crown. Defeated sev- 
 eral times by Greneral Paskievitch, Abbas Mir- 
 za was reduced to beg for peace after a war* 
 of eighteen months. A treaty was signed, at 
 Tourckmantahoi, on the 22d of February, 1828, 
 by which Russia obtained possession of Khana- 
 tis, of Erivan, and Nakhchevan, in addition to 
 an indemnity of 20,000,000 roubles. 
 
 The treaty of peace with Persia had scarcely 
 been signed three months when the Emperor 
 was compelled to recommence the war with 
 Turkey. The Czar accused the Porte of hav- 
 ing fomented revolts among the tribes of Cir^ 
 cassia, of having broken through the amnesty 
 granted to the Servians, and encouraged the 
 opposition of Persia. The Sublime Porte re-^ 
 
38 THE CZAR AND THI-: SULTAN , 
 
 proached Russia with having disturbed Walla- 
 chia and Moldavia, by facilitating the sudden 
 outbreak of Ypsilanti in order to favor the Grreek 
 insurrection. The war with the Turks was 
 fated to be a more serious one than that with 
 the Persians; the Emperor resolved to march 
 in person at the head of his troops, but was 
 obliged himself to acknowledge his military in- 
 capacity. His presence was a hinderance to 
 the progress of the campaign, as the general- 
 in-chief dared take no decision without pre- 
 viously transmitting it to the Autocrat, who 
 was incompetent to control the matter. 
 
 Like his brother Constantine, Nicholas has a 
 real passion for military evolutions, and, though 
 he has never confessed it, he thinks at the bot- 
 tom of his heart what Constantine spoke out 
 aloud. That Prince detested war, because it 
 spoiled the soldiers and dirtied the uniforms. 
 
 Nicholas is without a rival for passing nu- 
 merous regiments in review, in the Place of 
 Arms, at St. Petersburg. Woe to the soldier 
 who shall be convicted of a button badly fas- 
 tened, or a buckle out of its place ! The eagle 
 eye of the Emperor will search in the very 
 thickest part of the ranks for infractions of this 
 description, and his inflexibility is known. But, 
 we repeat, he has no other resemblance to the 
 Great Frederick than his liking for fine men. 
 The presence of the Emperor, then, was inju- 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJrD. 39 
 
 rioiis to the troops in the early stages of the 
 campaign. We can not enter here into the 
 details of this war ; we must confine ourselves 
 to indicating its results. For the first time 
 since the commencement of the rivalry between 
 the Turks and the Russians, the latter crossed 
 the Balkans, and, on the 19th of August, Die- 
 bitch found himself under the walls of Adrian- 
 ople. 
 
 Negotiations commenced, and on the 14th of 
 September, peace was concluded. The Darde- 
 nelles, it was agreed, should be open to ships 
 of all nations. The Porte should pay the Czar's 
 government 12,000,000 ducats (Dutch), and 
 recognize his protectorate over Greece and the 
 Danubian Principalities. All the Turkish for- 
 tresses established on the left shore of the Dan- 
 ube were razed to the ground. 
 
 Thus Nicholas — victorious over the Persians 
 victorious over the Turks — had met with noth- 
 ing but successes. He had founded a solid and 
 formidable alliance with the government of 
 Charles the Tenth, and promised himself, with 
 the co-operation of that king, the accomplish- 
 ment of vast designs. Asia, daunted and over- 
 come, trembled before him ; Europe, seeing 
 him thus allied, must certainly feel the weight 
 of his influence. The revolution of 1830 ar- 
 rived to disturb the bosom of this powerful 
 calm. 
 
40 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 The news of this great event reached St. Pe- 
 tersburg on the 9th of August. The letters of 
 the embassador, Pozzo di Borgo, had, it is true, 
 given cause to fear some popular movement in 
 case the rumored menaces of the coup d)etat 
 should be realized ; but no one at the Czar's 
 court had foreseen that things would go to such 
 extremities. The astonishment of Nicholas, it 
 it said, amounted to absolute stupor. Never- 
 theless, it is false to affirm, as has so often been 
 affirmed, that the first movement of the Em- 
 peror was to attempt a royalist crusade in favor 
 of the fallen Bourbons. The dispatches of Poz- 
 zo di Borge inform us that his master was by 
 no means satisfied with the minister Polignac. 
 Therefore, at the commencement of the new 
 reign, Nicholas accepted the revolution from 
 which it had sprung ; decided upon, not hatred, 
 but defiance of it, in case of its attempting a 
 liberal propagandism throughout Europe. The 
 autograph letter he received from Louis Phil- 
 ippe was well calculated to reassure him upon 
 this point. Abject and prolix in its form, this 
 letter resembled closely a petition from a school- 
 boy, begging pardon from his master for having 
 caused a moment's tumult in the habitual qui- 
 et of the school-room. Its termination was as 
 follows: "Will your Majesty be pleased not to 
 lose sight of the fact, that as long as Charles 
 the Tenth reigned over France, I was the most 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 41 
 
 submissive and faithful of his subjects, and it 
 was only at the moment when I saw the ac- 
 tion of the laws paralyzed, and the exercise of 
 the royal authority totally annihilated, that I 
 thought it my duty to defer to the national will, 
 by accepting the crown to which I had been 
 called. It is upon you, Sire, above all, that 
 the eyes of France are fixed ; she loves to rec- 
 ognize in Russia her most natural and power- 
 ful ally ; and that her confidence will not be 
 deceived, I have for guarantee the noble char- 
 acter, and all the qualities which distinguish 
 your Imperial Majesty. I beg of your Majesty 
 to accept the assurance of the high esteem and 
 the unalterable affection with which I sign 
 myself, your Majesty's devoted brother, 
 
 ''Louis Philippe." 
 Greneral Athalin, brother-in-law to the King 
 of July, was charged to bear to St. Petersburg 
 this document, so little honorable to French di- 
 plomacy. He was coldly received. The an- 
 swer of Nicholas, published in the newspapers, 
 excited general indignation. The days of July 
 were spoken of in it as deplorable. It was as 
 remarkable for haughtiness and assurance, as 
 the letter of Louis Philippe had been for humili- 
 ty. Finally, however, the Emperor accepted the 
 facts accomplished, recognizing in the advent 
 of the younger branch of the Bourbons a new 
 curb for anarchy, ready to break its chains. 
 
42 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 However, when the revolution broke out in 
 Belgium, Nicholas imagined he saw in the 
 events of Brussels a system of propagandism, 
 which would spread every where in Grermany 
 — even in Poland — and against which it was 
 the duty of all established governments to take 
 energetic precautions. Notes were exchanged 
 between the cabinets of Vienna, Berlin, and St. 
 Petersburg. Their apprehensions were not long 
 in being realized. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE POLISH REVOLUTION THE GRAND-DUKE CON- 
 
 STANTINE HIS MYSTERIOUS DEATH COUNT OR- 
 
 LOFF CAPTURE OF WARSAW. 
 
 Ever since the French Revolution of July, 
 Poland had been in a state of agitation, excited 
 by the Liberals and the French Republicans in 
 concert. The fermentation had reached all 
 classes : nobles, priests, and peasants were an- 
 imated by the ardent desire for independence, 
 and the conduct of Nicholas was not qualified 
 to calm them. Violations of the charter grant- 
 ed by Alexander succeeded each other without 
 interruption. Constantine, moreover, the vice- 
 roy of Poland, though having married a Polish 
 lady, had not succeeded in making himself 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 43 
 
 loved by the Poles. In the midst of this ex- 
 pansive and light-hearted people, he lived like 
 a savage, and frequently he would only emerge 
 from his gloomy inertness to practice acts of 
 severity, which he pushed even to a pitch of 
 atrocity. 
 
 The following anecdote is well suited to give 
 an idea of the gentleness of Constantine's char- 
 acter. During a grand review, he wished to 
 give a foreigner of distinction a remarkable 
 proof of the respect in which discipline was 
 held by the soldiers. With this view, he ap- 
 proached one of the generals of the service, and 
 without a word of reprimand or advice, pierced 
 his right foot with his sword. The unfortu- 
 nate man did not move : it was only when the 
 Grrand-duke had withdrawn his weapon, the 
 blood flowing abundantly, that he allowed him- 
 self to fall down. 
 
 Facts of this kind, in a sufficient number, 
 amply attest the ferocity of the Grovernoy of 
 Warsaw. It is, therefore, not to be doubted 
 that the hatred with which he inspired the Po- 
 lish army had much to do with the events we 
 are about to describe. 
 
 On the 29th of November, 1830, at seven 
 o'clock in the evening, a troop of young Polish 
 noblemen, belonging to the school of cadets, at- 
 tacked the Belvidere, the ordinary residence of 
 the G-rand-duke. The servants of the Prince, 
 
44 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN; 
 
 who attempted resistance, were pursued with 
 drawn swords. The Grrand-duke, terrified and 
 scared, fled in haste with his wife, whom he 
 would not allow even to take a few of her jew- 
 els with her. During this time a revolt had 
 broken out among the Polish troops, and the 
 regiments of the Grrand-duke's private guard 
 were attacked and routed. By the 30th, the 
 insurgents had taken possession of all the quar- 
 ters of "Warsaw. Constantino, still under the 
 influence of terror, caused the town to be evac- 
 uated. The entire populace armed themselves, 
 and proceeded to the pillage of the arsenal. 
 
 Scarcely had the insurrection commenced at 
 Warsaw, when the Russian ministers at Vien- 
 na and Berlin received orders to demand what 
 amount of assistance Austria and Prussia would 
 lend against the Poles. The reply was, that 
 the Prussian and Austrian troops would act in 
 concert to maintain the treaties of 1815. 
 
 Nicholas well knew the spirit of hatred 
 which inspired his entire people against the in- 
 surgents. This hatred had been brought to a 
 pitch by the privileges Alexander had granted 
 to Poland. " The conquered, then, are prefer- 
 red to the conquerors !" said the old Russians. 
 The journals of the period relate that the en- 
 thusiasm of the Czar's troops, when they heard 
 of the war, reached to absolute delirium. With 
 a rapidity unheard of, a hundred and fifty thou- 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 4f5 
 
 sand men, commanded by Diebitch and Paskie- 
 vitch, marched upon Warsaw. 
 
 The Czar insisted upon absolute submission 
 from the Poles. In a manifesto, he expressed 
 his indignation at the traitors who were daring 
 enough to propose conditions to him. 
 
 After the victory of the 30th of November, 
 a provisional government, presided over by the 
 Prince Czartoryski, had assumed the direction 
 of the affairs of Warsaw. The General Chlo- 
 picki, appointed dictator, hastened to convoke 
 the Diet, and when he saw that all arrange- 
 ment would be impossible and war inevitable, 
 he gave in his resignation, not hoping to achieve 
 the salvation of his country by means of resist- 
 ance. Skzenecki replaced him in power, and 
 on the 21st of January, 1831, the Diet of War- 
 saw proclaimed the deposition of Nicholas from 
 the throne of Poland. 
 
 Terrible and obstinate was the struggle : now 
 victorious, now conquered, the heroic insurgents 
 were doomed to a fatal overthrow. Diebitch, 
 who had opened the campaign, and gained the 
 questionable victory of Ostrolenska, was ac- 
 cused of leniency by the Russian army, who 
 breathed only vengeance. The Count Orloff, 
 one of Nicholas's intimate friends, was sent to 
 inform him that General Paskievitch would re- 
 place him in the command in chief A few 
 days after the departure of Orloff, Diebitch died, 
 some say of cholera, others of poison. 
 
46 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 The Count Orloff is the grandson of the fa- 
 vorite, of sinister memory, of Catharine the 
 Gfreat. It is known that the confidant of the 
 Semiramis of the North (as Voltaire malig- 
 nantly calls Catharine), Orloff the First, was 
 one of the principal actors in the gloomy trage- 
 dy in which Peter the Third succumbed. If 
 certain writers are to be believed, the grandson 
 must be considered as in every respect worthy 
 of the grandfather. When Elizabeth, the wife 
 of Alexander, died, the Count OrlofF was near 
 her. Also, as we have just stated, Diebitch 
 died after having been visited by him ; and a 
 short time after the death of Diebitch, Constan- 
 tine died of an unknown malady, during the 
 sojourn of the same Orloff under his roof. These 
 terrible coincidences have led to the ghastly sen- 
 tence of *' Poisoner" falling upon the intimate 
 counselor of Nicholas. It would take too long 
 to examine into the probability of this frightful 
 accusation ; we will add, simply, that Orloff is 
 not unaware of the rumors afloat on his account, 
 and Schnitzler, in declaring them to be false- 
 hoods, affirms that the Count is in the habit of 
 laughing at them among his friends as ridicu- 
 lous inventions. 
 
 With Paskievitch the war took a more rapid 
 course : beaten in several directions, the Polish 
 army diminished sensibly. Finally, the defeat 
 of Grrochow brought the Russian cannons to 
 
OR, NrCHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 47 
 
 the very walls of Warsaw. Every body knows 
 the details of this memorable siege ; the Poles, 
 reunited in their capital, no longer hoped to 
 conquer, but to die gloriously. The struggle 
 was bloody and heroic. At length, on the 8th 
 of September, the Russians entered the out- 
 skirts, and the town was given up to pillage. 
 Nicholas had made an end of the Polish insur- 
 rection. 
 
 This astonishing effort of a people long the 
 victims of oppression had lasted from the 19th 
 of February to the 18th of September — seven 
 months. 
 
 The vengeance of Nicholas was pitiless. All 
 Europe still remembers the horrible treatment 
 to which the insurgents were subjected. Po- 
 land was incorporated with Russia, and became 
 a province of the empire. 
 
 The Asiatic scourge, the cholera, which had 
 recently ravaged London and Paris, broke out 
 with terrible and destructive violence at St. 
 Petersburg. If it had been possible for the 
 most civilized people on earth, the people of 
 Paris, in the midst of the exasperation caused 
 by the reiterated attacks of the epidemic, to 
 give themselves up to excesses of atrocious de- 
 fiance against those they suspected of having 
 poisoned the public health, what is there to as- 
 tonish us in the blind and savage fury of the 
 monjecks of St. Petersburg ? It was a great 
 
48 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN : 
 
 occasion for this wretched populace to satisfy 
 the stupid hatred which animates them against 
 the foreigners established in the Russian capi- 
 tal. Nicholas had at first prudently withdrawn 
 before the scourge ; but when he heard of the 
 prowesses of his dear children with the long 
 beards, he returned in haste. There was no 
 need for either troops or cannons against this 
 rabble of bewildered peasants. The Emperor 
 rode up to them. Relying upon his majestic 
 form and resonant voice, he addressed the mon- 
 jecks in a long sermon, in which he informed 
 them that the cholera had been sent by Heaven 
 as a punishment for their faults. Who could 
 doubt the truth of words spoken by the repre- 
 sentative of Heaven upon earth? He added, 
 ** and instead of doing penance and praying for 
 forgiveness, you double your faults and load 
 your consciences with fresh crimes : on your 
 knees, unhappy beings, and ask pardon from me 
 and from Christ !" On hearing these words 
 proceed from their batouska, the monjecks pros- 
 trated themselves with their foreheads in the 
 dust. Severe examples were made among them, 
 and order was restored. 
 
 It has been said that Nicholas, on approach- 
 ing the monjecks, cried out to them, '^What! 
 are you Frenchmen ?" This detail is difficult 
 of belief, as the simile would hardly have been 
 politic ; to address his people in the name of 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 49 
 
 the Most High was certainly wiser. Besides, 
 the Czar never objects to employ the particular 
 power with which he is invested as spiritual 
 chief of the orthodox Church. He loves to pre- 
 side at the holy synod, of which the majority 
 is composed of military officers ; it is curious 
 enough to see these colonels and generals, pre- 
 sided over by a patriarch who never takes off 
 the whalebone stock and epaulet, make and 
 unmake saints, like a consistory of cardinals. 
 A few years ago, in order to please the imagin- 
 ations of the monjecks, and also to enrich the 
 province of Voronesch, the Pontiff of the North 
 canonized Mitrophane. 
 
 Y. 
 
 MUTINY AT THE MILITARY COLONIES THE WAR OF 
 
 THE CAUCASUS DIGEST OF THE RUSSIAN LAWS 
 
 ^SERFDOM IN RUSSIA THE FIXED POLICY OF 
 
 THE CZAR. 
 
 Araktchkief, the grand vizier of Alexander, 
 had founded in Novogorod the Great certain 
 military colonies, with a view to populating a 
 portion of Russia not very agreeable to inhabit, 
 and which might, at the same time, form a re- 
 serve of soldiers, already practiced, to recruit 
 the armies of the Empire. It appears that the 
 
 D 
 
50 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ', 
 
 cruel treatment and minute severities practiced 
 had driven the soldiers to a state of irritation 
 which was soon unable to contain itself longer. 
 
 These unfortunate men, not hoping for any 
 improvement in their position, resolved upon at 
 least enjoying the charms of vengeance. They 
 swore to cut the throats of all their chiefs, with 
 those of their families : they kept the oath, and 
 even went beyond it. Two hundred officers 
 were massacred with horrible refinements of 
 cruelty. Some perished, gradually flayed alive ; 
 others were slowly consumed by fire in their 
 barracks. The soldiers killed all who came in 
 their way, those against whom they had no 
 complaint equally with those they had the most 
 cause to hate. 
 
 M. de Custine relates the following curious 
 anecdote : 
 
 The soldiers had surrounded the dwelling of 
 a captain: they first killed, quietly, before the 
 eyes of the father of the family, the wife and 
 children of the wretched man. The latter then 
 said to them, ^' Leave me my life ; you have de- 
 prived me of all I loved. I have never done 
 you any harm — I have never punished you 
 either unjustly or too severely." '^ It is true," 
 replied the soldiers, with gentleness; ''we love 
 you dearly, but we have sworn to kill all the 
 officers, and we can not commit an injustice in 
 your favor. Farewell, dear father." 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 51 
 
 This ridiculous application of the terms of 
 affection gives a perfect insight into the heart 
 of the Russian peasantry ; we shall meet with 
 new examples of it in narrating the insurrec- 
 tion of the serfs of Vologda. 
 
 Under an absolute government, it would seem 
 that the history of a reign must be one of fa- 
 tiguing uniformity. No political struggles oc- 
 cur to vary it ; wars and catastrophes alone 
 break in upon the monotony. After the war 
 in Poland commenced that of the Caucasus, an 
 externally bleeding wound in the side of the 
 immense empire of Russia. In order to give 
 a just idea of the struggle between Christians 
 and Mussulmans, we may employ the compar- 
 ison which has often been made between Al- 
 geria and Circassia, Schlamyl and Abdel Kader. 
 There are, however, great differences between 
 the countries and the men. The Atlas has no 
 gorges so inaccessible as those of the Caucasus ; 
 the Circassians are more warlike than the Ka- 
 byles; and, finally, if Schlamyl is, like the Al- 
 •gerian hero, a chief of an old national race and 
 a religious reformer, he is an Abdel Kader, but 
 an Abdel Kader who does not allow himself to 
 be taken. 
 
 The Russians advance slowly into this coun- 
 try, defended as it is by hardy mountaineers ; 
 and sometimes, through an audacious coup de 
 main on the part of the enemy, they lose in one 
 
52 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 day positions which it has taken them years to 
 attain. Few accounts of this war reach the 
 European newspapers, and, above all, no unfa- 
 vorable accounts; the Czar does not like his 
 defeats to be made too widely known. This 
 was shown to be the case in 1852. 
 
 He who writes these lines recollects to have 
 heard in July, 1852, that Schlamyl had just 
 entered upon a campaign at the head of fifteen 
 thousand men, supported by his brother, who 
 commanded ten thousand cavalry. According 
 to the narrator — who was a merchant of Odes- 
 sa, and had just returned from a tour in the 
 south of the empire — the Circassians had raised 
 the Turcomans on the shores of the Baltic, and 
 had excited them to such a point that they set 
 fire to the Russian fleet. The imperial troops, 
 attacked suddenly, had been driven back be- 
 yond the Kuban, and Vorontzof was besieged 
 in a fortress. In a word, the Russians, during 
 a struggle of fifteen days, found themselves re- 
 duced to the very position which they occupied 
 with regard to the Tcherkesses in 1822. 
 
 Whatever may be the exactness of this story, 
 there can be no doubt but that the Russian 
 arms make very little progress in the Caucasus: 
 the army known in St. Petersburg as the army 
 of the Caucasus is looked upon as a tomb. A 
 man condemned to go to the Caucasus is a man 
 condemned to death, or very nearly so. 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 53 
 
 Nicholas is aware that the avarice and thefts 
 of the administration do more injury to his sol- 
 diers than the balls of the Tcherkesses. He 
 makes every possible effort to remedy this, but 
 obtains very few fortunate results. It has been 
 stated to us that out of fifty thousand men who 
 started from the interior to join Greneral Yoron- 
 tzof, twenty-five thousand perished on the road 
 — perished of cold, hunger, and bad treatment. 
 The employes keep the names of the dead men 
 standing on their books equally with those of 
 the living ones, and are thus enabled to realize 
 enormous profits. 
 
 Chance, or a direct accusation, sometimes 
 leads to these crimes reaching the ears of the 
 Emperor, when he sends one or more of his 
 aides-de-camp to the place : they arrive unex- 
 pectedly, find out as much as possible of the 
 particulars, and relate them to the Emperor, 
 who frequently makes frightful examples of the 
 offenders. It is for duties of this kind that the 
 innumerable aides-de-camp of the Czar are re- 
 served. Who has not heard of the formidable 
 staff attached to the imperial household? it 
 reckons about a hundred and twenty superior 
 officers. All these officers are sure agents, al- 
 ways ready to carry out the policy of Nicholas, 
 and to accept missions of any kind. 
 
 We have already said that, by the conspiracy 
 of the 26th of December, the Emperor had been 
 
54 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 able to judge of the corruption which had reach- 
 ed all classes ; the bureaux were full of fraud, 
 theft, and every kind of illegality. Justice was 
 rendered unjustly, and law was constantly elud- 
 ed. The Czar resolved to be the Justinian of 
 his empire. 
 
 Speranski was directed to prepare an official 
 collection of the Russian laws. The archives 
 '■ — military, civil, and synodal — the ukases of 
 the imperial cabinet, and the judgments of the 
 different branches of the administration, were 
 put together. All these materials formed a 
 general collection {Sobrassie Zako?tu), consist- 
 ing of thirty-nine thousand nine hundred acts. 
 It is not without interest to remark, that in this 
 enormous number, thirty thousand nine hundred 
 and twenty of these acts were anterior to the 
 accession of Nicholas ; five thousand and sev- 
 enty-three were promulgated between 1825 and 
 1832. The Czar, it is seen, has alone produced 
 more laws than several deliberative assemblies. 
 He himself presided at the compilation of the 
 acts which we have just spoken of, and which 
 it was of course necessary to make agree in all 
 their details. 
 
 Already forty-five quarto volumes of the Svod, 
 or Russian Digest, have been published, and 
 regulate the decisions of the Russian tribunals. 
 
 During a long period, Nicholas passed all his 
 nights and days in superintending these arduous 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 55 
 
 labors, and in bringing them to a satisfactory 
 result, in spite of the dumb resistance of the 
 bureaucrats. It often happened that the gen- 
 tle Empress, seeing her husband with red and 
 sunken eyes, went to him in the midst of his 
 col labor ateurs^ and said to them, '' Now, gen- 
 tlemen, let my husband enjoy a little repose ; 
 come and take a cup of tea with us." 
 
 At the present time, this ardor of the Emper- 
 or for work has ceased, either from fatigue and 
 discouragement, or because the desired result 
 has been attained. The ministers are not all 
 in direct communication with the Emperor as 
 formerly : he only admits to that honor those 
 whose labors particularly interest him. The 
 others, even to the secretary of the empire, 
 merely send him their reports, their journals, 
 and other documents. 
 
 After the corruption which exists, serfdom is 
 the greatest evil with which Russia is afflicted. 
 We need scarcely occupy ourselves with the 
 well-known effects of slavery, and all the ills 
 which it drags after it. The Emperor has di- 
 rected legislation to the question of serfdom : 
 he has not dared to deal with the great prob- 
 lem of general emancipation, which has now 
 more than ever become a necessity, but he has 
 prepared the way for it. He has endeavored, 
 by degrees, to make the peasants conceive the 
 hope of becoming free, and to make the mas- 
 
56 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 ters understand that their human property must 
 some day or other be taken from them. How- 
 ever, he can be reproached at the present mo- 
 ment with having done either too much or not 
 sufficient. 
 
 In order to set an example, he has taken care 
 that the serfs attached to the crown lands should 
 be almost entirely free. This custom causes the 
 most immoderate joy to the peasants belonging 
 to lands which have just been acquired by the 
 Emperor. In 1837, vast properties were pur- 
 chased by the crown in the districts of Vologda. 
 The monjecks of the surrounding lands, excited 
 by the sight of the privileges acquired by the 
 new serfs of the Emperor, sent a deputation to 
 St. Petersburg to beg the Czar to buy them also. 
 The Czar received it very well ; too well, it 
 will be seen. '^I wish I could satisfy you," 
 he replied, ^'but it would be necessary for me 
 to buy the whole of Russia. My most lively 
 desire, my children, is to see you free, and I will 
 do all that is possible in order to obtain your 
 liberty." These words, and others of the same 
 kind, led to the most sanguinary results. The 
 deputation, on its return to the villages, stated 
 every where that the batouska wished for the 
 liberty of the monjecks^ but that he was not the 
 master — that he was prevented from carrying 
 out his intentions by the wickedness of the boy- 
 ars, etc. The excitement of the peasants be- 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 57 
 
 came greater and greater, until at last they rose 
 and comnfienced massacring their masters, con- 
 vinced that in doing so they would be making 
 themselves agreesihle to their g-ood father. The 
 disaster was immense, the cruelties committed 
 were of an unheard-of description, and the re- 
 pression of this insurrection caused the ruin of 
 the boyars whose serfs had risen. The peas- 
 ants constitute the wealth of the land, and all 
 the guilty ones were transported to Siberia, 
 with their wives and families. 
 
 From all that we have said about Nicholas, it 
 can be seen that one general idea regulates his 
 policy. Struck by the evils which had been left 
 him by his brother Alexander, he determined 
 to take in all things the contrary course to that 
 which had been adopted by his predecessor. 
 Alexander inclined toward liberal ideas ; Nich- 
 olas has shown himself anti-liberal to an excess. 
 When the poet Pouchkin died, mourning was 
 universal throughout Russia, the Emperor him- 
 self taking part in it. A young man, excited by 
 the glorious regrets which this death excited, 
 wrote an ode in honor of the deceased poet, and 
 in which he held out to himself some hopes of be- 
 coming, at a future day, one of the ornaments of 
 Russian literature. The Czar could not look with 
 a favorable eye upon this audacious young man, 
 who coveted glory in a country where it belong- 
 ed to the sovereign alone, and the worshiper of 
 
58 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN I 
 
 the muses was sent to calm the ardor of his im- 
 agination beneath the climate of Tobolsk. He 
 came back at the end of three years, sick and 
 entirely disgusted with poetic glory. Alexan- 
 der used to affect to pay no particular attention 
 to the national language and customs, and did 
 not conceal his partiality for foreigners. Nich- 
 olas is a fanatic in behalf of the joustoms, lan- 
 guage, and religion of Russia. When he meets 
 a merchant in the streets of St. Petersburg who 
 is shaved in the European fashion, he says to 
 him, ''I saw you formerly with a beard ; why 
 have you cut it? Are you ashamed of the cus- 
 toms of your ancestors?" The Russian ladies 
 in general know very little of their national 
 language. Ivan Grolovine relates that those 
 who surround the Empress learn some phrases 
 by heart, and say them in a high voice when 
 the Emperor passes. Alexander had abolished 
 the torture ; but, as we have before said, the 
 law is constantly violated in Russia. In the 
 affair of the assassins of Araktchief 's mistress, 
 many of them had their limbs broken under the 
 reign of Nicholas ; and Klimaf, a native of Low- 
 er Russia, died after being subjected to a pun- 
 ishment of the kind in question. 
 
 The Czar, imitating his brother in this re- 
 spect, issued a ukase in which the event was 
 spoken of as being ''frightful," and in which 
 the authorities were ordered to allow nothing 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 59 
 
 which resembled the torture to take place in 
 the prisons. But Nicholas is not always so 
 humane. 
 
 It will be remembered that the Princesa Trou- 
 betzkoi had followed her husband in his exile 
 to Siberia. The first portion of the punishment 
 compelled the Prince to work for seven years in 
 the mines of the Oural. The unhappy couple, 
 buried alive, nevertheless had children. At the 
 end of seven years, the Princess addressed a pe- 
 tition to the Czar, in order to be allowed to send 
 her children to school. The Czar replied that 
 the children of convicts^ themselves convicts^ 
 would always be sufficiently learned for their 
 station. 
 
 The unhappy young woman endured her 
 horrible life in the mines for seven more years. 
 When the fourteen years had expired, the Prince 
 and all his family were sent to an extreme part 
 of Siberia, chosen designedly by the Emperor, 
 and not yet marked in any map by the Russian 
 geographers, who are, nevertheless, very minute. 
 The poor mother, frightened on her children's 
 account by the cold, hunger, and wild animals 
 which threatened them, again broke silence, 
 and a letter was forwarded to the Czar by a 
 courageous relative of the lady : in the letter 
 she begged the favor of being allowed to reside 
 with her children in one of the towns of Siberia. 
 The Autocrat, turning with a terrible look to- 
 
60 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ) 
 
 ward the relative, said, ^'I am astonished that 
 any one dares to speak to me of the family of a 
 man who has conspired against me." 
 
 The Emperor Nicholas leads a life of the 
 most feverish activity. He rides, walks, holds 
 a review, superintends a sham fight, goes on 
 the water, gives a fete^ exercises the navy, and 
 all in the same day. He travels incessantly ; 
 passes over at least fifteen hundred leagues ev- 
 ery season; and all those who are attached to 
 his person have to share his fatigue. 
 
 The Empress, who will follow him every 
 where, loses her health by doing so, and it is 
 said that the young Grrand-duke Constantine 
 will fall a victim to the mode of traveling 
 adopted by his father. Nicholas is in the habit 
 of traveling not less than seven leagues an hour 
 in an open caleche. 
 
 In 1848 the journals related that the Emper- 
 or, on receiving the intelligence of the revolu- 
 tion of February, cried out, '' Grentlemen, to- 
 morrow we must mount our horses." If he 
 ever said so, he took care not to do so. On the 
 contrary, for more than a year the Czar re- 
 mained perfectly quiet, affecting (in his own 
 words) to let Europe find its own way out of 
 the anarchy in which it was plunged. The 
 revolutionary flame had at that time reached 
 Vienna, Milan, and Berlin. 
 
 It was upon the question of the Danubian 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 61 
 
 Provinces — the future seat of the war which 
 seems impending — that Nicholas first threw 
 off his inactivity. He invaded the Principali- 
 ties in order to protect them against the revo- 
 lutionists of Europe. Soon afterward, Austria 
 called upon him to assist her against the Hun- 
 garians, who threatened a dismemberment of 
 the empire. Then appeared the famous mani- 
 festo in which the Emperor announced that it 
 was time to destroy the revolutionary principle. 
 Here our task ends. The newspapers have 
 informed the public of the subsequent acts of 
 the Emperor. We have said enough to fa- 
 miliarize our readers with the man who now 
 threatens to upset the balance of power in Eu- 
 rope, and to accomplish the will of Peter the 
 Great, by making Constantinople — which in 
 Russia is called Czaropol, the city of the Czars 
 — the capital of his empire. 
 
62 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 THE SULTAN ABDUL MEDJID. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE DEATH OF SULTAN MAHMOUD ABDUL MED- 
 JID ASCENDS THE THRONE HIS INDULGENCE IN 
 
 THE PLEASURES OF THE SERAGLIO VALIDE-SUL- 
 
 TANA KHOSREW THE REFORMS COMMENCED 
 
 BY MAHMOUD. 
 
 The Sultan Abdul Medjid Khan, born the 6th 
 of May, 1822 (14th Chabam, 1237), thirty-first 
 sovereign of the family of Osman, and twenty- 
 eighth since the taking of Constantinople, suc- 
 ceeded his father. Sultan Mahnioud Khan, on 
 the 1st of July, 1839 (Behy-el-akir, 1255). 
 
 The bold reformer of the old empire of the 
 Osmanlis, Mahmoud, was dying. Exhausted 
 by a struggle of thirty years' duration against 
 Europe and his own subjects, weakened by the 
 excesses of the seraglio, worn out, above all, by 
 his immoderate indulgence in wine, life was 
 departing from him before the period of its nat- 
 ural termination. In an apartment immedi- 
 ately above the one in which the monarch was 
 about to give his last sigh, the high dignitaries 
 of the state were deliberating as to what meas- 
 ures ought to be taken in this difficult moment. 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 63 
 
 The situation was a critical one. The future 
 appeared full of uncertainty and danger. The 
 security of Turkey was compromised at the 
 same time by a vassal who had revolted, and 
 an ally who had broken faith. Mehemet Ali 
 was preparing to invade Turkey, and Nicholas 
 to protect it. Mahmoud was surprised by death 
 in the midst of his work of civilization ; and as 
 he had destroyed much, he had not sufficient 
 time to reconstruct every thing. The violent 
 reforms which he had introduced into the gov- 
 ernment had wounded a great many private in- 
 terests and public prejudices. The discontent 
 which had been concealed during the lifetime 
 of Mahmoud, would it not lead to a terrible ex- 
 plosion now that he was dead ? The spirit of 
 the janissaries was existing still, and was wait- 
 ing anxiously for the hour of vengeance. The 
 ulemahs and dervishes, who saw in the new 
 reforms the loss of their privileges and riches, 
 would of course make desperate efforts to bring 
 Turkey back to the ancient regime. And then, 
 who was the successor of Mahmoud ? A young 
 prince who was scarcely out of his childhood. 
 Could he support a burden under which his fa- 
 ther had almost sunk? The council which was 
 deliberating on these points, above the very 
 death-bed of the reformer, was composed of 
 Khosrew Pacha, Halil, Said, and the two cham- 
 berlains, Izzet and Riza. 
 
64 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ) 
 
 Koshrew Pacha, a veteran minister, inured 
 to the struggles of Oriental politics, where peo- 
 ple often have to fight not only for power, but 
 even for life, was a sort of Turkish Talleyrand 
 — lame, like the French diplomatist, false and 
 versatile like him, and, like him, ready to serve 
 all ideas and all parties. He had resolved a 
 very difficult problem, that of sharing, during 
 fifty years, in all the intrigues of the Divan, 
 without leaving his head behind him. Halil 
 was the son-in-law of the Sultan Mahmoud, 
 and the adopted son of Khosrew ; nevertheless, 
 a jealousy existed between them, although for 
 the time being their projects worked together 
 well enough. 
 
 In spite of the secret dissensions which sep- 
 arated the members of the Divan, they were 
 all agreed upon one point-^the necessity of 
 persevering in the course commenced by Mah- 
 moud. Turkey, they all felt, could not go 
 backward without perishing. 
 
 Unfortunately, Reschid Pacha, the friend of 
 reform, the talented adviser of Sultan Mah- 
 moud, the thorough European, thanks to his 
 acquaintance with the manners and customs 
 of London and Paris, was absent. 
 
 Mahmoud, before ceasing to live, had al- 
 ready ceased to reign. He had given orders 
 that no one should be allowed to enter his 
 room, thus depriving himself of the adieus of 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 65 
 
 his friends and the embraces of his family. In- 
 explicable pride of despotism, which respects in 
 itself the incarnation of Divinity, and will not 
 let its subjects learn, by viewing its sufferings 
 and death, that it is not of a different nature 
 from their own ! 
 
 The orders of the dying man were broken 
 by Khosrew, who went to him to receive his 
 last wishes. The Sultan did not recognize 
 him. Khosrew then sent to inform the Sul- 
 tana and Prince Abdul Medjid, the heir to the 
 throne, that the Sultan had now only a few 
 minutes to live. Mahmoud's sufferings lasted 
 during the night of Sunday, until Monday, the 
 1st of July, 1839. At seven in the morning it 
 was evident that he was on the point of death. 
 Imam, the grand almoner of the Padischa, was 
 sent for, in order that he might fulfill the last 
 religious ceremonies. Khosrew and Halil went 
 to the new Sultan, and were the first to kiss 
 the imperial papoosh. 
 
 Whether from a Mohammedan's indifference, 
 or from a habit already acquired of concealing 
 his thoughts, the young man appeared neither 
 very much afflicted by the death of his father, 
 nor very much pleased at being called to the 
 throne. 
 
 He remained cold, silent, and a little timid. 
 Perhaps he was frightened at his coming great- 
 ness, and incapable of analyzing his confused 
 
 E 
 
66 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 sensations. Without delay, however, he ap- 
 pointed his brother-in-law Halil to the com- 
 mand of the army, and invested Khosrew with 
 the dignity of grand vizier, a title which had 
 been abolished by Mahmoud. Khosrew had 
 contrived to gain the confidence of the Sultana, 
 and he again exercised the most unlimited in- 
 fluence over her son. 
 
 The enemies of the Sultana have accused 
 her of having, with a certain satisfaction, seen 
 the young Prince abandon himself to the ener- 
 vating pleasures of the seraglio. Others, go- 
 ing still further, pretend that she herself chose 
 the beauties destined to sustain the ardor of 
 the young man's passions, hoping that by these 
 means she would prolong the intellectual mi- 
 nority of her son, and her own power over him. 
 This assertion is as difficult to deny as.it is to 
 prove. 
 
 The guns of the citadel and of the vessels in 
 the port soon announced the fatal news to the 
 inhabitants of Constantinople. Public officers 
 cried out the consecrated formula through the 
 streets of the capital: "His highness^ our 
 most magnificent Lord^ Abdul Medjid^ has 
 risen to the throne. God will that his reign 
 make the happiness of his people /" 
 
 Constantinople received the news of Mah- 
 moud's death with grief, mingled with surprise. 
 That which always takes place under similar 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 67 
 
 circumstances occurred. The multitude could 
 scarcely believe in the death of a man whose 
 energetic character had so long been the object 
 of wonder. They were frightened at the va- 
 cancy caused by the loss of such a man. What 
 would become of the reform which had just 
 been commenced ? By whom would it be fin- 
 ished ? It seemed to every one impossible but 
 that the funeral of the great reformer must be 
 followed by a civil war. 
 
 These fears were not realized. But the par- 
 ty of the old regime were not so entirely sub- 
 dued that their conqueror could without dan- 
 ger disappear from the scene. As early as the 
 month of June, when the desperate state of the 
 Sultan was already known to a great many 
 persons, a formidable plot had been organized 
 by the softas and the muderris of the religious 
 schools. 
 
 This conspiracy was supposed to have a 
 branch among the janissaries, who had lately 
 been abolished. Rumors of revolt were abroad 
 in all directions ; a crisis appeared inevitable, 
 and might destroy, at the same time, the throne 
 of the Sultan and all the future welfare of 
 Turkey. 
 
 Circumstances favored the discontented in a 
 singular manner: the death of Mahmoud, the 
 ascent to the throne of a prince who was only 
 sixteen years old, a war with Egypt — and a 
 
68 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN,* 
 
 very unpopular one, because it was said to be 
 excited merely by the personal hatred of Khos- 
 rew against Mehemet Ali — the absence of the 
 fleet, the few regular troops stationed at Con- 
 stantinople, which could scarcely be said to be 
 defended by a weakly-organized militia — every 
 thing seemed to promise a prompt and easy 
 success to the conspirators. 
 
 Nevertheless, no one moved. The hand of 
 Mahmoud still weighed upon the discontented, 
 and Khosrew was always on the watch. The 
 octogenarian Yizier exhibited, at this crisis, a 
 presence of mind, a moderation, and an activ- 
 ity beyond every thing. He proved himself 
 not to be below the task which had been as- 
 signed him by the Sultana, and Abdul Medjid 
 owed to him the preservation of his endangered 
 throne. He sent for Hussein, the pacha of 
 Yardin, the terrible executor of the orders of 
 Mahmoud against the janissaries. 
 
 The presence of Hussein within the walls of 
 the capital was significant. It filled all minds 
 with the profoundest fear, and order was main- 
 tained almost without the effusion of blood. 
 
 Doubtless some executions took place, and 
 several disappeared in a mysterious manner. 
 People spoke to one another in a low voice of 
 strangling and midnight drowning. But the 
 imagination of a people habituated to see its 
 masters shed blood with a haughty contempt 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL AIEDJID. 69 
 
 of human life, exaggerated greatly the number 
 of victims. Abdul Medjid, at all events, took 
 possession of the throne definitively. But, be 
 fore following the history of his reign, we mus* 
 say some words about the changes introduced 
 by Mahmoud, and the state of Turkey before 
 his ascent to the throne. 
 
 The power of the Turks had gone on increas- 
 ing without interruption from the establish- 
 ment of the Ottoman dynasty to the glorious 
 reign of Soliman, when it reached its height. 
 After the death of this great monarch, the prog- 
 ress of the Osmanlis appears to cease, and their 
 decadence continues to increase up to the pres- 
 ent day. Strange circumstance ! The fall of 
 an empire, which once threatened civilized Eu- 
 rope with universal subjection, far from being 
 a cause of security and joy to us, is now the 
 occasion of grave embarrassment and serious 
 apprehension ! 
 
 The causes of this rapid and premature de- 
 cadence are not difficult to perceive. 
 
 The Turks have never looked upon them- 
 selves otherwise than as victorious soldiers en- 
 camped in the midst of subjugated enemies. 
 By natural indolence, just as much as by na- 
 tional pride, they have never deigned to assim- 
 ilate the conquered population to themselves, 
 nor to intermarry with them. 
 
 Europe in the meanwhile was progressing 
 
70 • THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN,' 
 
 with rapid strides along the path of civiliza- 
 tion, while the Turks remained buried in dark- 
 ness. They did not even adopt those purely 
 material inventions which double the power of 
 modern armies. The great point above all was 
 this : while remaining barbarians, they had 
 lost much of their primitive energy, preserving 
 thus the disadvantages of the savage state, 
 without possessing any of its advantages. 
 
 Formerly the princes of the Ottoman dynasty 
 commanded their armies in person. Afterward 
 they shut themselves up in their seraglios and 
 gave themselves up to pleasure, while the grand 
 vizier directed the affairs of the nation. 
 
 Under this system, the usurpation of the high 
 functionaries was greatly to be feared. In or- 
 der to avoid this danger, the sons of great per- 
 sonages were prevented by law from inheriting 
 the offices and riches of their fathers. Accord- 
 ingly, there could be no fixed system of gov- 
 ernment — no fixed and traditional idea. Every 
 thing was the effect of chance — every thing 
 went as it might. The most important offices 
 were sold by auction, the smallest ones were 
 purchased by presents : venality and corrup- 
 tion were in all the bureaux. There was no 
 justice for Christians ; every where the power 
 was strong to oppress and weak to protect, if it 
 ever was taken with the fancy to do such a 
 thing. The pachas hastened to extract money 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 71 
 
 from the ray as in order to get rich without de- 
 lay, and these despoilers were in their turn de- 
 spoiled for the profit of their masters. 
 
 By a fatal contradiction, the hereditary prin- 
 ciple, which was proscribed at Constantinople, 
 was established at the extremities of the em- 
 pire in a perfectly feudal manner. The pachas 
 had become almost independent of the Sublime 
 Porte, like the dukes and counts in France 
 under the last of the Carlovingians. The num- 
 ber of these undisciplined vassals, who occupied 
 and lived upon the richest provinces, was very 
 great. 
 
 The Mussulman people was gross and super- 
 stitious. The ulemahs or interpreters of the 
 laws and religion, as judges and ministers of 
 worship, encouraged this ignorant fanaticism. 
 The dervishes, while rivals of the ulemahs, were, 
 like them, enemies of all progress and all for- 
 eign innovation. Let us add, however, thai 
 the horror of the Turks for persons of different 
 religious opinions from their own never reached 
 persecution. Contempt renders them indiffer- 
 ent to the conversion of infidels. They accept 
 it willingly, seldom invite it, and never com- 
 pel it. 
 
 . The janissaries, composing the military forces 
 of the empire, had little by little mixed them- 
 selves up with civil life, and formed a pre- 
 torian democracy, which was very turbulent 
 
72 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN; 
 
 and very formidable to the sultans and grand 
 viziers, w^hom they elevated or overturned ac- 
 cording to the caprice of the moment. For the 
 rest, without discipline in the field of battle, in- 
 capable of applying themselves to the maneu- 
 vers and tactics of the modern art of war, de- 
 riving no instruction from their defeats, they 
 w^ere only able to trouble the peace of the 
 state by sanguinary revolts, without being able 
 to defend it against the aggressions from out- 
 side. 
 
 Such was the situation of Turkey at the 
 end of the eighteenth century. 
 
 Selim III., a prince who, to great nobility of 
 mind and great simplicity of disposition, join- 
 ed upright and elevated views, was the first to 
 understand the necessity of a reform. Bat he 
 failed before the indomitable spirit of the janis- 
 saries and the obstinate resistance of the ule- 
 mahs, and his attempt cost him his life. 
 
 Mahmoud was destined to be more happy. 
 He was the last of the blood of Osman, which 
 fact rendered his life sacred. The Turks do 
 not respect the lives of their sultans, but the 
 dynasty is inviolable. 
 
 Before it was possible for him to move a 
 single step onward in the path of civilization, 
 Mahmoud had two obstacles to overcome — the 
 pachas and the janissaries. 
 
 First of all he attacked the feudal usurpa- 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 73 
 
 tion of the pachas and the dere-beys. These 
 feudatory but rebel chiefs were successively 
 destroyed. By means of some treason, Soly- 
 man, the pacha of Bagdad, and the famous All 
 de Tebelen, pacha of Janina, fell. 
 
 The fate of the janissaries was for a time 
 postponed. Mahmoud was patient, and dis- 
 simulated his hatred beneath caresses and in- 
 sidious flatteries. There exists a Turkish prov- 
 erb, which says, ^' Kiss the hand of your ene- 
 my until you are able to cut it off?'* 
 
 The great blow was not struck until 1826. 
 Mahmoud had wished to organize the army in 
 the European manner. The janissaries revolt- 
 ed. The sultan had expected this : he was 
 ready. Hussein, the former aga of the janissa- 
 ries, was the executor of the burning vengeance 
 of his master. The repression was prompt and 
 terrible. The janissaries were surrounded, fired 
 upon, beaten down from all parts, and their bar- 
 racks were given up to the flames : six thou- 
 sand of them perished ! 
 
 Delivered from the military and feudal an- 
 archy which had been slowly devouring his em- 
 pire, Mahmoud thought that his grand projects 
 of reform would be applauded and encouraged 
 by the whole of Europe. Nothing of the kind, 
 however, was the case. The most cruel obsta- 
 cles, on the contrary, were thrown in his way. 
 He had to sustain continual wars, which all 
 
74 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 ended unfortunately. He was deprived of Bes- 
 sarabia and Grreece, saw the whole of Egypt 
 rise against him, and was obliged to sign the 
 treaties of Adrianople and Unkiar-Unkelesi, 
 after having lost the whole of his navy, which 
 was destroyed at Navarino by the united forces 
 of England, France, and Russia. 
 
 So many reverses and humiliations did not, 
 however, shake the heroic perseverance of Mah- 
 moud. The more civilization appeared to be 
 against him, the more he determined to approx- 
 imate to it as much as possible. He felt that 
 his most noble revenge would be to steal from 
 his enemies, by imitating them, the secret of 
 their superiority. 
 
 Mahmoud began by alleviating the condition 
 of the rayahs, and calling them to equal civil 
 rights. ' By the destruction of the janissaries 
 and the feudal pachaliks, he had re-established 
 the unity of the Ottoman race — the problem 
 now was to establish the unity of the empire. 
 
 He finished the organization and drilling of 
 his army in the European fashion, and made it 
 throw off the national costume, knowing well 
 the influence which dress has over the man- 
 ners and habits of a people. He accredited em- 
 bassadors to the courts of the great European 
 powers ; and while he sent young Turks to 
 Paris for their education, he invited the most 
 distinguished men in art and science to come 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 75 
 
 to Constantinople. Roads, post-offices, quar- 
 antine establishments, and other ameliorations, 
 which it would be superfluous to enumerate 
 here, prove that his solicitude extended to ev- 
 ery thing. Finally, after a reign of thirty-two 
 years, he died a painful death. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE HATTI-CHERIF OF GUL-HANE PERSONAL AP- 
 PEARANCE OF THE YOUNG SULTAN THE TURK- 
 ISH females' admiration of HIM HIS HA- 
 REM. 
 
 Mahmoud met with the fate of all great re- 
 formers. It is impossible for them to succeed 
 w^ithout violence and cruelty ; and they are pun- 
 ished for this violence and cruelty by scarcely 
 ever witnessing the success of their work, and 
 never gathering together the fruits of their la- 
 bor. Happier than his father. Sultan Abdul 
 Med j id was able to do good without being 
 obliged to mix much evil with it. 
 
 However, the reign of Abdul Medjid com- 
 menced under the most sad auspices. Ibrahim 
 had just gained the victory of Nezib, the news 
 of which Mahmoud was fortunately prevented 
 from hearing by his death. This Egyptian war 
 was weakening the forces of Islamism by divid- 
 
76 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 ing them; it was disturbing and humiliating 
 the empire. But soon the situation improved. 
 Mehemet Ali, as every one knows, was obliged 
 to abandon Syria, and content himself with 
 Egypt. After long negotiations, which pride 
 rather than interest rendered very difficult, the 
 five Great Powers signed the treaty of 1841, to 
 which Turkey was admitted as one of the con- 
 tracting powers : she entered for the first time 
 into European rights, an honor claimed for her 
 by Mahmoud in 1815, and refused — thanks to 
 the intrigues of Russian diplomacy. 
 
 These external difficulties did not prevent 
 Abdul Medjid from occupying himself at once 
 with the internal affairs of the country. Al- 
 though the tanzimat (the name given by the 
 Turks to reform) was contained in germ with- 
 in the innovations brought about by the Sultan 
 Mahmoud, its regular and definitive establish- 
 ment in reality only dates from the reign of 
 the present Sultan. The principle of the tan- 
 zimat was the consequence, or, rather, the di- 
 rect application of the hatti-cherif of Grul-Hane, 
 a famous act due to the inspiration of Reschid 
 Pacha, the confidant of all Mahmoud's thoughts, 
 and the most remarkable statesman of modern 
 Turkey. 
 
 On the 3d of November, 1839, a day which 
 will be always celebrated in the annals of the 
 Ottoman Empire, in presence of the Sultan and 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 77 
 
 his ministers, the bodies of ulemahs, the civil 
 and military functionaries, the embassadors of 
 all the friendly powers, the sheiks and imams 
 of every rank, the Greek and Armenian patri- 
 archs, the rabbis of the Jews — in fine, all the 
 important officials of the capital, Reschid Pacha 
 make known the contents of the hatti-cherif, 
 which had just emanated from the supreme 
 power. 
 
 The scene took place in the interior of the 
 palace of Top-Kapon, situate in the vast plain 
 of Gul-Hane. Reschid Pacha had placed the 
 hatti-cherif under the invocation of the Prophet 
 himself: it was offered to the people as being 
 simply a development of the Koran applied to 
 the ideas of the present century. This will, 
 perhaps, appear simply a religious precaution, 
 a paradox, a political falsehood. Is not the 
 Koran the symbol of fixedness ? Such is, with- 
 out doubt, the general idea of the book, but 
 Mohammed's gospel is composed of shreds tak- 
 en from every thing. It is at the same time a 
 political, religious, jurisprudential, and even hy- 
 gienic code. It can furnish arguments for all 
 causes without it being necessary to interpret 
 it in too free a manner. Let us, for instance, 
 open the Koran. 
 
 We read the following : '' O unfaithful, I 
 do not adore what you adore ; your religion is 
 your religion, and my religion is my religion,^^ 
 
78 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN *, 
 
 Do not these words seem to command, or, at 
 all events, to permit religious toleration ? 
 
 Elsewhere it is said : ^^ If you have need of 
 a things and the thing he in China alone^ go 
 to China and get it^'' which evidently author- 
 izes the Mussulmans to adopt what they think 
 suitable in the customs of other nations. 
 
 In another passage, Mohammed recommends 
 them to take from the enemies of Islam their 
 own arms, and to fight them by means of them. 
 Thus the organization of the army in the Eu- 
 ropean manner can be easily defended from the 
 charge of irreligion. 
 
 By the hatti-cherif of Grul-Hane, the Sultan 
 assured to all his subjects, without exception, 
 Mussulmans or ray as, perfect security for their 
 lives and fortunes, a regular mode of taxation, 
 an equally regular mode of recruiting the army, 
 and fixing the period of military service ; he 
 abolished the monopoly and venality of the pub- 
 lic offices ; and insured the public administra- 
 tion of j ustice and the free transmission of prop- 
 erty. 
 
 This hatti-cherif was followed by different 
 rules, all conceived in the same spirit: the 
 law courts, public institutions, finances, the 
 army and navy, and all the administrations, 
 were founded upon the systems of Europe, 
 and, above all, upon that of France, and that 
 in a wise and just degree, with every attention 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 79 
 
 to the moral condition, customs, and traditions 
 of the Turks and rayas. 
 
 After the affairs of Egypt had been arranged, 
 a fortunate peace permitted Turkey to effect 
 its reforms without violence, and soon after- 
 ward the Sultan, understood by all his subjects 
 without exception, became their idol. 
 
 Abdul Medjid deserves this popularity by the 
 wisdom and greatness of the work w^hich he 
 has accomplished ; but what has confirmed this 
 popularity is his extreme kindness, which some- 
 times amounts almost to weakness. We will 
 here sketch the portrait of the young reformer, 
 and say what we have learned of his habits and 
 disposition. 
 
 Sultan Abdul Medjid, the twenty-first child 
 of Mahmoud, was commencing his seventeenth 
 year when he ascended the throne. He looked 
 a little older than he really was, although his 
 appearance was far from announcing a robust 
 constitution. Some months previously an in- 
 flammation of the lungs had endangered his 
 life. He had been saved by the care of an 
 Armenian Roman Catholic, Meriem-Khadoun, 
 who w^as renowned for his cures. Slender and 
 tall, he had the same long, pale face as his 
 father ; his black eye-brows, less arched than 
 those of Mahmoud, announced a mind of less 
 haughtiness and of less energy. His lips are 
 rather thick, and he is slightly marked with 
 
80 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN) 
 
 the small-pox. At this epoch of his life, his 
 features did not present a very marked expres- 
 sion, as if no strong passion had yet agitated 
 the young breast. But his eyes, large and 
 very beautiful, sometimes became animated 
 with a most lively expression, and glistened 
 with the fire of intelligence. Although Abdul 
 Med j id had not been subjected to the captivity 
 usually reserved for the heirs to the throne, his 
 education, which had been directed according 
 to the custom of the seraglio, had been very 
 superficial, and had not prepared him for the 
 heavy responsibility which was hanging over 
 him. 
 
 Abdul Medjid was much indebted to nature: 
 he afterward perfected his education, and has 
 become a most accomplished prince, remark- 
 able above all for his passionate love of litera- 
 ture and the arts. 
 
 His mother, foreseeing the approaching great- 
 ness of her son, had given him a female slave, 
 and already a new heir was promised to the 
 empire. Yalide-Sultana had but this one child, 
 who was deeply attached to her. Originally a 
 Greorgian slave, given to Mahmoud by the 
 Sultana Esma, Yalide-Sultana was pretty, be- 
 nevolent, and affable. She was then only thir- 
 ty-five years of age. Her influence was fear- 
 ed, for it was asserted that she was opposed to 
 the reforms. But some tens of thousands of 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 81 
 
 bottles of wine having been thrown into the 
 Bosphorus, which was a legitimate vengeance 
 upon a beverage which had killed Mahmoud, 
 and some few changes having been also effect- 
 ed in the harem, there was an end to her at- 
 tempts at reaction, which, as is seen, were not 
 very threatening. 
 
 The first time the young Sultan presented 
 himself to the eyes of his subjects, he was 
 dressed in the European trousers and coat, over 
 which was thrown the imperial cloak, fastened 
 by a diamond aigrette. On his breast he wore 
 the decoration of the Nicham-Iflichar ; his head 
 was covered with the fez, surmounted by a dia- 
 mond aigrette. The new king, while thus con- 
 tinuing the costume of his father, nevertheless 
 presented only a pale resemblance to him. Sim- 
 ple without affectation, he cast around him 
 glances full of softness and benevolence. Ev- 
 ery thing announced in him the debonnaire 
 successor of an inflexible ruler ; nothing hither- 
 to had indicated what great and precious qual- 
 ities were concealed beneath the modest and 
 tranquil exterior. He was received favorably 
 by his people, but without any demonstration 
 of enthusiasm. It was feared that this deli- 
 cate youth could scarcely be equal to the im- 
 portance of his duties. People pitied him, and, 
 at the same time, trembled for the future pros- 
 pects of the country. The women alone, touch- 
 
 F 
 
82 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 ed by his youth and his appearance of kind- 
 ness, manifested their sympathy for him open- 
 ly. When he went through Constantinople to 
 the Mosque of Baiezid, they ran toward him 
 from all parts : '* Is not our son handsome ?" 
 they cried, adopting him with affection. 
 
 Abdul Medjid would not inhabit the old se- 
 raglio. This palace recalled to him too many 
 melancholy souvenirs : too much blood had been 
 shed there ; too many innocent persons had per- 
 ished there ; and, above all, too many sultans 
 and brothers of the Sultan had been murdered 
 there. Abdul Medjid forsook it, proving thus 
 that he wished to break off all connection with 
 the sinister history of his ancestors. Abdul 
 Medjid is not married. He has only his con- 
 cubines. A legal marriage is forbidden to the 
 Sultan. It has been feared that families, hon- 
 ored by so high an alliance, might become too 
 powerful. Democratic equality, beneath an ab- 
 solute master, is the foundation of the institu- 
 tions of Turkey. 
 
 Thus the Sultan alone is deprived of the four 
 lawful wives which the Koran allows to those 
 who can support them. The harem is com- 
 posed of about thirty cadines or ladies, and a 
 still greater number of odalesques or waiting- 
 women. 
 
 Among the cadines two or three only are 
 looked upon as favorites. There are also dancers 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJlD. 83 
 
 and singers, who, by a caprice of the master, 
 may sometimes be raised to the rank of sul- 
 tana. 
 
 The women belonging to the Sultan are nev- 
 er either Turks or Grreeks. It is forbidden to 
 shut up a free woman ; and since the suppres- 
 sion of piracy, European women have ceased to 
 be brought to the seraglio. The seraglio is re- 
 cruited, then, exclusively from Georgians, Ma- 
 lays, and Abyssinians. Accordingly, the Sul- 
 tan having only slaves for his wives, is himself 
 the son of a slave — a reproach which the Turks 
 do not spare him when they are discontented 
 with him. 
 
 At the moment of our writing, Abdul Med- 
 jid has already nine children, among whom five 
 are daughters. He had a great number of sis- 
 ters, for whom he always testified considerable 
 affection. He has now only three alive. They 
 have been married to high functionaries at the 
 court. Formerly it was enacted that male chil- 
 dren sprung from similar unions should be put 
 to death immediately after their birth. It is 
 useless to add, that this barbarous custom no 
 longer exists. Abdul Medjid has only one 
 brother. 
 
84 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 III. 
 
 ABDUL MEDJID's LOVE OF LITERATURE HIS PAT- 
 RONAGE OF THE FRENCH DRAMA THE EDUCA- 
 TIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF TURKEY ITS CIVIL AND 
 
 CRIMINAL JURISPRUDENCE THE MILD BUT FIRM 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE SULTAN's ADMINISTRATION 
 
 DEGRADATION OF KHOSREW THE FINANCES 
 
 THE ARMY AND NAVY PRESENT PERSONAL 
 
 APPEARANCE OF THE SULTAN CONCLUSION. 
 
 It is not alone from political motives that 
 Abdul Medjid favors the development of civili- 
 zation ; he understands it and loves it. He 
 shows, above all, a great liking for the men and 
 institutions of France. He has made a careful 
 study of the French language. The magnifi- 
 cent present which he offered to one of the 
 greatest of French poets has not been forgotten 
 — a homage from royalty to the literary genius 
 of the country. All the French classical au- 
 thors are familiar to him, and latterly he caused 
 the Malade Imaginaire and the Bourgeois 
 Gentilhomme to be played before him. 
 
 It is very odd to see the Turks, with their 
 vague, floating literature, translating and rep- 
 resenting Moliere, whose good sense is so plain 
 and so precise. But what is more extraordina- 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 85 
 
 ry than all is that they should have chosen the 
 Bourgeois Gentilhomme^ a piece which for the 
 last two hundred years has made the Parisians 
 laugh at their expense. When the Bourgeois 
 Gentilhomme was represented at the court for 
 the first time, the Turkish embassador, seeing 
 his sacred customs parodied, rose and left the 
 theatre in indignation. The Turks of the pres- 
 ent day are less scrupulous and less susceptible. 
 It can be seen that they are becoming civilized ; 
 they understand pleasantry, and do not even 
 mind being made the subject of it. 
 
 If Abdul Medjid loves literature, he wishes 
 to have his taste for it shared by his subjects, 
 whom he is always endeavoring to rescue from 
 their ignorance. It is from his reign that the 
 reorganization of public instruction must be 
 dated. 
 
 In 1846 an imperial decree ordered the form- 
 ation of a council, to which were intrusted all 
 questions of public instruction, and the task of 
 erecting a building to serve as a new university. 
 
 The state of the muktebs, or primary schools, 
 is satisfactory enough at the present day. Ele- 
 mentary instruction in Turkey is gratuitous 
 and obligatory. 
 
 The law ordains that each Mussulman, as 
 soon as his sons or daughters have reached their 
 sixth year, shall have their names inscribed in 
 the books of one of the public schools, unless he 
 
86 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN; 
 
 proves his intention of educating them at home, 
 and shows that he possesses the means of doing 
 so. At Constantinople there are now existing 
 396 muktebs, or free schools, frequented by 
 22,700 children of both sexes. After four or 
 five years passed in the mukteb, the child who 
 wishes to continue his studies further enters a 
 secondary school, where instruction on all points 
 is also gratuitous. There are now six of these 
 schools at Constantinople, containing 870 pupils. 
 The superior instruction has been divided into 
 several branches : the school of the mosque of 
 Ahmed and that of Suleiman, for the young 
 men who are intended to fill public appoint- 
 ments ; the college of Yalide- Sultana, founded 
 with the same view ; the normal school, for the 
 education of the professors ; the imperial school 
 of medicine ; the military school, the naval 
 school, and the agricultural school of San Ste- 
 fano. Abdul Medj id, who has studied the writ- 
 ings of the political economists, has understood 
 that agriculture must be the principal source 
 of the riches of the empire. Indeed Turkey, 
 distanced by other nations in trade and com- 
 merce, should be, above all, an agricultural 
 country, and a producer of raw materials. It 
 was this conviction which led to the establish- 
 ment of San Stefano, where sixty-six young 
 men, half natives and half foreigners, are in- 
 structed. Agriculture, for the rest, is much in 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 87 
 
 want of encouragement. For a long time past 
 it has been in a deplorable condition. The 
 Turkish peasant is ignorant, and wedded to his 
 old routine, while the exactions of every kind 
 to which he has been subjected up to the pres- 
 ent time have entirely discouraged him. 
 
 Abdul Medjid himself superintends these dif- 
 ferent schools, and visits in person at the fre- 
 quent examinations by which the progress of 
 the pupils is tested. In a vast hall, decorated 
 with military trophies, and provided with sci- 
 entific instruments of every kind, a hundred 
 young men, of from fifteen to twenty years of 
 age, modestly await the Sultan, whom they 
 love as much as they revere. No noise takes 
 place among them — no conversation — no laugh- 
 ter ; all eyes are turned toward the throne, 
 which stands in the middle of the room, and 
 A'-hich is as yet empty. 
 
 At length Abdul Medjid appears and sits 
 lown — near him the sheiks, the ulemahs, the 
 ninisters, and the principal pachas. Each pu- 
 pil advances in turn toward the throne, and re- 
 plies to the questions which are put to him by 
 one of the professors, one of the ministers, or 
 by the Sultan himself. The questions refer to 
 mathematics, literature, and art. When Abdul 
 Medjid puts a question, he does so with the 
 greatest kindness. If the pupil replies correct- 
 ly, a soft smile lights up the Sultan's face ; if 
 
88 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 he makes a mistake, the Sultan corrects him 
 with indulgence and without making him the 
 least reproach. When the examination is fin- 
 ished, the rewards are given to those pupils who 
 have chiefly distinguished themselves. 
 
 The young Turks are very intelligent and 
 very docile ; without vanity ; exceedingly con- 
 scientious, and bent upon doing their duty. 
 They are grave, but polite in their demeanor, 
 and never quarrel or dispute. 
 
 There are numerous libraries at Constantino- 
 ple; the number of volumes which they contain 
 may be estimated at 80,000, reckoning both 
 MSS. and printed books. The literature of Ara- 
 bia, Persia, and Turkey is represented in them ; 
 and the collection includes philosophical and 
 theological works, poetry, history, books of sci- 
 ence, and an immense number of those treat- 
 ises on conduct and mannofs, to which the 
 Turks attach almost as much importance as the 
 Chinese themselves. The printing-press does 
 its work at Constantinople, but as yet but 
 slowly. The periodical press has produced a 
 sufficiently large number of journals, printed 
 sometimes in French, sometimes in Turkish or 
 Grreek. 
 
 The reign of the Sultan Abdul Medjid has 
 been sullied by no execution, by no act of cru- 
 elty. None of his ministers have ever lost their 
 lives when they have lost their power. In the 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 89 
 
 West, the despotism of the East has been ill 
 understood, and much exaggerated. 
 
 The deaths, by poison and the rope, which 
 are so often spoken of in Oriental history, only 
 happened to the viziers, the pachas, the ule- 
 mahs, and scarcely ever to simple subjects. The 
 ministers of the Sultan were, for a long time, 
 looked upon as mere slaves, whose lives and 
 property belonged to him. These ministers 
 were originally chosen from among young pa- 
 ges, who had been brought up in the seraglio, 
 under the name of itchoglaus^ and who really 
 were slaves, whence it resulted that all those 
 who occupied the great offices of state were, as 
 a matter of course, looked upon as such. If 
 Abdul Medjid has not been cruel, like the great- 
 er part of his predecessors, he has known how 
 to employ a just severity when there has been 
 cause for it. He has often shown that the laws 
 are to be executed with firmness, and that the 
 guilty can not escape, under any pretense. Thus 
 Hassan, the pacha of Koniah, was condemned 
 by the high court to perpetual labor at the gal- 
 leys for having killed his servant upon a very 
 slight provocation. This high court occupies 
 itself with all offenses against the state, trans- 
 gressions of the Sultan's edicts, and abuses of 
 power on the part of his officers. 
 
 The high court also acts as a court of review, 
 and establishes uniformity between the deci- 
 
90 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN; 
 
 sions of the other courts. In Turkish trials 
 there is very little pleading, and there are no 
 advocates. The case is decided according to 
 the evidence of the parties interested, and their 
 witnesses. 
 
 The lowest courts are called gazas, and the 
 courts of appeal mevleviet. There are twenty- 
 two of the latter courts in the whole empire. 
 
 This civil tribunal of each province also acts 
 as a criminal one. '' Mixed tribunals," as they 
 are called, also exist, for the purpose of decid-^ 
 ing questions between natives and foreigners. 
 Their jurisdiction is above all commercial; in 
 1847 Turkey received a new commercial code, 
 formed on the model of the French law. 
 
 Not contented with reforming the law courts, 
 the Sultan Abdul Medjid has also endeavored 
 to effect important improvements in the finan- 
 cial arrangements of the empire, and to repress 
 the abuses openly practiced by all functionaries. 
 He commenced by making a striking example 
 of Khosrew Pacha, who, convicted of receiving 
 bribes, and of having appropriated public funds 
 to his own use, was, despite his incontestable 
 public services, degraded from office, and con- 
 demned to make heavy retributions. 
 
 The budget-receipts varies from 650,000,000 
 piastres to 750,000,000 (six to seven millions 
 sterling). The principal sources of revenue are 
 the tithes, which are not, properly speaking, a 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 91 
 
 contribution, but a claim the state exercises, as 
 a landlord upon his tenant; the vergn, which 
 is on the same principle as the English income 
 tax ; the poll tax, or haradj, which falls exclu- 
 sively on the non- Mussulman subjects, and 
 which it is proposed to abolish as soon as pos- 
 sible, as too humiliating; the produce of the 
 customs, or gumruk; finally, the indirect taxes, 
 or ihtifab ; the patent, stamps, octroi, building, 
 and posting taxes. 
 
 The budget of expenses is about 731,000,000 
 piastres, under d£7,000,000. The civil list of 
 the Sultan figures at 75,000,000 piastres 
 (£700,000) ; cost of the army, 300,000,000 
 (£2,800,000) ; and that of the navy, 37,000,000 
 (£350,000). 
 
 When the reform shall have produced all its 
 results, it is incontestable that the resources of 
 Turkey will be doubled without difficulty. 
 
 The Sultan's troops are peaceful, but he neg- 
 lects nothing that can exalt the military splen- 
 dor of his empire, and provide for its security. 
 In recapitulating the forces of Turkey, we find 
 
 A regular active army of 138,080 men ; a 
 reserve of 38,680 men ; 51,500 irregular troops ; 
 110,000 contingent irregulars — total, 448,000. 
 The soldiers of the regular troops are well drill- 
 ed, and accustomed to a severe discipline ; the 
 officers well instructed. The artillery is espe- 
 cially excellent. 
 
92 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 The navy consists of thirteen ships of the 
 line and fourteen frigates, to which must be 
 added a certain number of corvettes, steamers, 
 brigs, and goelettes. The sailors are moderate- 
 ly disciplined ; if the education of the officers 
 still leaves something to be desired, it must in 
 justice be stated that it is making every day 
 the most satisfactory progress. 
 
 Neither years nor the exercise of power have 
 altered the character of Abdul Medjid. His 
 physiognomy alone is slightly modified by age. 
 A traveler, recently admitted to the honor of 
 being presented to him, has described him to 
 us as follows : 
 
 He found Abdul Medjid very simply dressed; 
 he wore the Prankish costume, in vogue since 
 the adoption of the reform. His face, thin and 
 pale, seemed rather fatigued ; his physiognomy 
 was gentle and benevolent, but stamped with 
 a vague and profound sadness ; his eyes were 
 half closed, and his head, slightly leaning upon 
 his shoulders, seemed as though it had already 
 succumbed to the too prolonged burden of su- 
 preme power. He received the traveler, who 
 was presented by Ismael Pacha, with a gra- 
 cious smile, and conversed with him for some 
 time. It was easy to discern, from the Prince's 
 expression, that he understood the words ad- 
 dressed to him before they were translated. 
 But it does not appear that the Sultan is in 
 
O.i, MCHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 93 
 
 the habit of conversing with foreigners except 
 through the means of an interpreter. Abdul 
 Medjid put several questions to our traveler 
 about France, and inquired the object of his 
 voyage. 
 
 The latter giving him certain details of his 
 numerous travels in various parts of the globe, 
 the Sultan appeared to muse, as though he — 
 the poor captive chained to the throne — envied 
 the erratic liberty of his interlocutor. 
 
 For the rest, Abdul Medjid is himself a trav- 
 eler, and has visited various parts of his em- 
 pire. The custom vsrhich some of the success- 
 ors of Soliman adopted of secluding themselves 
 in their seraglios, concealed from all eyes, was 
 one of the principal causes of the decline of the 
 Ottoman power. The same was true respect- 
 ing the Grreek princes of the Lower Empire. 
 Abdul Medjid has not wished to live a stranger 
 among his people : he has thought it useful to 
 know his subjects, and to acquaint himself 
 with their wants. The Sultan has made two 
 journeys : the first, in Roumelia, lasting thir- 
 ty-eight days ; the second, in the Archipelago, 
 lasting twenty-four days. He was every where 
 received with great enthusiasm, not only by 
 the Mussulmans, but also by the rayas of all 
 sects. He was thus enabled to experience, in 
 his own person, how much he was loved and 
 admired by his grateful people, and to strength- 
 
94 THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN ; 
 
 en himself in his determination to follow in the 
 footsteps of his father. At Smyrna especially, 
 the welcome given to the young Prince was 
 marked by the liveliest sympathy, and the Eu- 
 ropeans established in that commercial town 
 were not the last to honor him with triumphal 
 arches. In this last voyage the Sultan was ac- 
 companied by his brother, Abdul Aziz Effendi 
 This prince, far from having been put to death 
 according to the old custom in respect to broth 
 ers of the reigning monarch, is treated with 
 the utmost kindness. The mistrust of his sov- 
 ereign has not even condemned him to the 
 shameful captivity of the seraglio. The troub- 
 les which agitated Western Europe in 1848 re- 
 acted upon Turkey. The affair of the Hun- 
 garian and Polish refugees, the expulsion of 
 whom was demanded by Russia and Austria, 
 is well known. This expulsion was nobly re- 
 fused, and Abdul Medjid was supported in his 
 course by the influence of both France and En- 
 gland. It was also very popular among the 
 Mussulmans, hospitality with this people being 
 a sacred duty, which they have always relig- 
 iously fulfilled. 
 
 If we have succeeded in the preceding pa- 
 ges, the reader has without doubt perceived the 
 striking contrast which exists between the two 
 autocrats of the East 
 
OR, NICHOLAS AND ABDUL MEDJID. 95 
 
 Pale, melancholy, and care-worn, the Sultan 
 is the living symbol of decline. His distin- 
 guished countenance bears the sad impress of 
 a race formerly glorious, but which is begin- 
 ning to disappear. 
 
 The Czar, on the contrary, with his Hercu- 
 lean form, his vulgar demeanor, and his im- 
 placable character, is the true chief of a barbar- 
 ous nation — a nation restrained only by a false 
 civilization, and waiting but for a signal to be 
 transformed into a ferocious beast, ready to fall 
 upon and devour all Europe. 
 
 Among the Christian tribes of the East there 
 has long existed a tradition, prophesying that 
 after 400 years of possession the Turks should 
 be expelled from Constantinople. Mahmoud 
 II. entered Byzantium the 29th of May, 1453. 
 The 400 years expired, then, on the 29th of 
 last May. 
 
 Will the Future confirm the denial which the 
 Present has thus far given to this prophecy ? 
 
THE TURKS IN EUROPE. 
 
 I. 
 
 ADVENT OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE ITS EXTENT 
 
 PROGRESS OF ITS CONQUESTS SIEGE OF CON- 
 STANTINOPLE BY BAJAZET ITS CAPTURE BY 
 
 MOHAMMED IL CHARACTER AND QUARRELS OF 
 
 THE GREEKS CONQUESTS OF SOLIMAN I. HIS 
 
 POWER, THE EXTENT OF HIS DOMINIONS, AND 
 GRANDEUR OF HIS REIGN. 
 
 The Ottoman Empire first made its appear- 
 ance upon the stage of the world at the con- 
 clusion of the Middle Ages. Its infancy, its 
 prime, and its old age extend over the three or 
 four centuries of the modern era. With one 
 foot in Europe, and the other in Asia and Af- 
 rica — with the Straits of the Dardanelles and 
 the passage to India in its power, when the 
 hour of its fall shall have struck, it will (unless 
 it recovers itself) strew with its ruins three 
 quarters of the globe and two thirds of the old 
 Roman empire. Even at the present day its 
 territory is immense, stretching from the Dan- 
 ubian Principalities to the Black Sea, the Cau- 
 
 G 
 
98 THE TURKS IN EUROPE I 
 
 casus, the Caspian, the Persian Grulf, the Syrian 
 Sea, and the shores of the Adriatic — not to 
 speak of Egypt and the other African provinces, 
 over which, however, truth obliges us to own 
 that it no longer possesses aught but a weak- 
 ened sway. 
 
 Every one must frankly confess that the 
 Turks were indeed a valorous race, when, pour- 
 ing down from the table-land of Tartary in the 
 very heart of Asia, they fought their way into 
 the kingdom of the Persians, invaded Asia Mi- 
 nor and the Archipelago, and then, crossing 
 the straits which separated them from Europe, 
 penetrated into Hungary, Poland, Grermany, 
 and even Italy. They measured their strength 
 with Tamarlane, that "king of soldiers ; they hu- 
 miliated Charles V. and Louis XIV. ; received 
 the homage of England ; and bestowed alms on 
 Charles XII. Of all the nations of Europe, the 
 Republic of Venice was the only one which de- 
 fied them. The Turkish nation is heroic on 
 the battle-field, moderate in victory, and pru- 
 dent and reserved under a reverse of fortune ; 
 it elevates to the highest possible point its idea 
 of itself, entitling itself " sublime," and some- 
 times deserving this high degree of personal 
 esteem in the public acts of its sovereigns ; it 
 is sober, patient, fanatical in religion as in the 
 pursuit of glory, and yet, in spite of this, toler- 
 ant ; it is hospitable though haughty, skillful 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 99 
 
 and reflective in diplomacy, and in the observa- 
 tion of treaties the most honorable people on 
 the face of the earth. Internal vices alone 
 would ever have been able to endanger so mar- 
 velous a body ; and there are indeed some very 
 profound vices in its religious and civil consti- 
 tution, in the administration of its public af- 
 fairs, in the state of its military discipline, its 
 finances, and, in fact, in its whole organization. 
 As early as the middle of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury (1338), the Turks had already commenced 
 their incursions into Europe, whither they ad- 
 vanced under the conduct of Soliman, son of 
 Orcan, after having first vanquished, in Asia 
 Minor, the effeminate Greeks ; they also made 
 some progress in the country under Amurat I., 
 another son of Orcan. The expeditions, how- 
 ever, which were carried out on this side of the 
 Bosphorus, were nothing but so many plunder- 
 ing forays, and men, or rather women, hunts. 
 According to Duncas, the historian of the Pa- 
 leologian emperors, after the Turks had seen 
 the Grreek women, they thought them more 
 beautiful than their own, and became deeply 
 enamored of them. It was a long time, how- 
 ever, before they dared to attack Constantino- 
 ple. They did not dare to entertain the project 
 before the reign of Bajazet, and even then they 
 did not put it into execution, for a very wise 
 reason, in which we perceive the first dawn- 
 
100 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 ings of that prudent skill which has subse- 
 quently often characterized the policy of the 
 Ottoman government. 
 
 As Bajazet, after having beleaguered the 
 capital of the Greeks, was about to proceed to 
 the assault, his G-rand Vizier took the liberty 
 of dissauding him from his purpose. He rep- 
 resented to him that the empire already pos- 
 sessed more extent than solidity ; that he would 
 give proof of prudence by remaining, at least 
 for a time, contented with his vast dominions 
 in Asia ; that the capture of Constantinople 
 would only excite a general reaction among the 
 Christian princes, and that from the day on 
 which the G-reek empire, the bulwark of Chris- 
 tianity, was overthrown, the Ottoman conquests 
 might be compromised. He advised him to 
 send embassadors to propose terms of peace to 
 the Emperor Paleologus, on condition of the 
 latter paying an annual tribute. 
 
 This advice was followed ; Bajazet sent em- 
 bassadors charged with regulating their de- 
 mands according to the attitude assumed by 
 the government ; and the embassadors played 
 a part analogous to that lately played by Prince 
 Menschikoff, only with more success. They 
 set about intimidating the Emperor, and this 
 prince, alarmed more than became his dignity, 
 eagerly accepted much more onerous and de- 
 grading terms than any which Bajazet and his 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 101 
 
 Vizier had intended. It was in this manner 
 that he not only submitted to pay an annual 
 tribute, but, what was far more grave and sig- 
 nificative, he consented to see established at 
 Constantinople a Turkish mosque and a court 
 of justice, the jurisdiction of which, it is true, 
 was limited in such a manner, that whenever 
 any dispute was to be decided between a Grreek 
 and a Turk, the right of giving the casting vote 
 was vested in the Christian patriarch. Thus 
 the Turks had no need to take Constantinople 
 for the sake of obtaining a footing there ; this 
 they effected in accordance with the principles 
 of a nascent intellectual system, which was 
 destined, at a future day, to lead them to the 
 attainment of great things. 
 
 This cowardly Emperor saw only one meth- 
 od of defending himself against the Turks : aft- 
 er having given such a shameful proof of his 
 weakness, he dispatched embassadors to Tam- 
 erlane, a man sprung from the people and elect- 
 ed king of the Scythians, and whose armies 
 covered Upper Asia. He hypocritically offered 
 to become Tamerlane's vassal if the latter would 
 deliver him from the proximity of the Turks. 
 Tamerlane, a man of a savage but great mind, 
 sent back, in reply to this base proposition, an 
 answer impressed with the contempt with which 
 it inspired him. However, as he loved war, 
 and he and Bajazet were then at variance, he 
 
102 THE TURKS IN EUROPE: 
 
 led his forces against him in the terrible battle 
 of Pruse, in Bithynia, made him a prisoner, and 
 kept him in a state of captivity, in which he 
 died. 
 
 It was not until the reign of Mohammed II. 
 (1453) that the Turks entered Constantinople. 
 Before going into the particulars of this import- 
 ant act, it will not be without utility to state 
 what, at this period, was the feeling and the 
 state of civilization of the Greeks and of the 
 Ottomans. It is necessary, if we would obtain 
 a correct appreciation of the great events in 
 history, to go to their first sources, because we 
 always find there some profound and lasting 
 principle, which, after having produced, and 
 seen these events pass by, survives them, and 
 brings about others, until the exhaustion of the 
 social period which it sways. This particular 
 period was especially a religious one, but in 
 the vulgar acceptation of the word, for the two 
 nations. 
 
 The Grreeks were at that time, as they had 
 been under the Lower Empire, subject to the 
 dominion of that gross kind of superstition which 
 degrades the mind as much as religion elevates 
 it. Among these men, so easy to be moved, 
 and so disposed to all kinds of subtlety, the 
 monks had introduced every thing calculated 
 to derange the imagination. 
 
 '* When I reflect," says Montesquieu, speak- 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 103 
 
 ing of this subject, "on the state of profound 
 ignorance into which the Grreek clergy plunged 
 the laity, I can not avoid comparing it to those 
 Scythians who were accustomed to put out the 
 eyes of their slaves, in order that nothing might 
 disturb the latter, and hinder them from churn- 
 ing their butter." 
 
 We know very well that when the Crusaders 
 leagued together in the West to go and capture 
 the Holy Places, which the Greeks had been 
 unable to preserve, all that the latter were good 
 for was to afford hospitality to the armies on 
 their way to engage with the Infidels. Super- 
 stition had weakened the minds of their princes 
 as it had those of the common people. While 
 the Emperor Basil was employing the soldiers 
 of his sea army in the erection of a church to 
 St. Michael, he had allowed the Saracens to pil- 
 lage Sicily and take Syracuse. His successor 
 Leon, by employing the crews of his fleet for 
 the same purpose, had allowed the same Scyth- 
 ians to occupy Tauromenia and the island of 
 Lemnos. Andronicus Paleologus went even 
 further than this. He abolished his navy alto- 
 gether, because he had been assured that God 
 was so well pleased with his zeal for the peace 
 of the Church, that his enemies would never 
 dare to attack him. At Ephesus, the Chris- 
 tians would only oppose to the Arabs who 
 were besieging them a picture representing 
 
104 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 the Virgin, and had succumhed in conse- 
 quence. 
 
 The Greeks, who were great talkers and great 
 disputers, naturally addicted to sophistry, had 
 not ceased for a moment to confuse and perplex 
 religious matters by their controversies. As 
 the monks were in great credit at the court, 
 which was more feeble in proportion as it was 
 more corrupted, the result was that the monks 
 and the court corrupted each other reciprocally, 
 and were both in a vitiated state. The emper- 
 ors had often a very difficult task to calm the 
 theologians ; some of them, indeed, committed 
 the error of irritating their interminable contro- 
 versies, by attaching importance to them, as if 
 the fate of the empire depended on them. In 
 addition to this, the clergy captivated the mass- 
 es, who likewise took a share in the most ab- 
 stract discussions; and the bishops absorbed the 
 civil power, to see it perish of impotency in 
 their hands. We know the answer which the 
 old Andronicus received when he sent word to 
 *he Patriarch of the Church to confine his at- 
 tention to Church matters, and to allow him 
 (the Emperor) to govern those of the empire: 
 "It is," replied the Patriarch, "as if the body 
 were to say to the soul, ' I have nothing in com- 
 mon with you, and I have no need of your as- 
 sistance to fulfill my functions.' "* 
 
 * The question was subsequently treated even more ex- 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 105 
 
 The Turks, on their side, were also under 
 the influence of superstition, but it was a su- 
 perstition of a very different, and, indeed, in 
 some degree, opposite character. Their faith 
 was closely allied to a spirit of conquest and 
 personal bravery. Just as the Christians were 
 inactive and cowardly in the presence of dan- 
 ger, were the Mussulmans animated with cour- 
 age under the influence of religious inspiration. 
 A Christian general had been seen to cry at the 
 moment of going into action ; Mussulman sol- 
 diers had been seen to weep on hearing that 
 their general had concluded a truce. It is easy 
 to perceive what would be the course of things 
 between two rival nations of a state of mind 
 so contrary to one another. 
 
 Mohammed II. laid siege to Constantinople. 
 At this epoch the Grreeks and Latins were dis- 
 puting about a patriarch. Their folly was such, 
 that the Grand Admiral Lucas, the most pow- 
 erful man in this tottering empire, was not 
 ashamed to say "that he preferred seeing the 
 Turkish turban dominant in the capital rather 
 than the Latin hat." In place of concerting 
 together for the defense of the city, Greeks and 
 Latins avoided and cursed each other. The 
 great church was deserted, and the sacraments 
 
 plicitly by Gregory VII., in a letter to Herman, " When a 
 person is master of spiritual affairs, he is, a fortiori, master of 
 temporal ones also^ 
 
106 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 were refused, during the siege, by the priests, 
 to those who did not profess the opinions which 
 they for the moment held. 
 
 On the side of the Christians, prophecies, 
 drawn from the Bible, were spread about the 
 city. According to them, the Lamentations of 
 Isaiah, Ezekiel, Amos, and Jeremiah applied to 
 the city. One prophecy announced that the 
 ememy would penetrate into the middle of the 
 town, as far as the Square of the Bull, but that 
 the inhabitants would then be rallied by an 
 angel who had come down from heaven, and 
 would drive the foe to the extremities of Asia. 
 Supernatural voices proclaimed the end of the 
 city, of the empire, and of the reigning family ; 
 there was a prediction to the same purport, at- 
 tributed to St. Leon the Wise, which has re- 
 cently been discovered in a convent. It con- 
 sisted of two tables, one of which contained 
 the names of the emperors, and the other those 
 of the patriarchs. On these two tables, the 
 names of the last emperor and of the last pa- 
 triarch were not to be found. There was an- 
 other prediction, proving sufficiently clearly 
 that the Christians of those days were only so 
 in name, and saying that ''the destruction of 
 the Grreeks was necessary for the triumph of 
 Christianity." 
 
 In opposition to this, on the side of the Turks, 
 a passage of the great Prophet was circulated, 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 107 
 
 in which he said to his disciples, '' Have you 
 ever heard of a city, one side of which looks 
 upon the land, and the other two upon the 
 sea V 
 
 '* Yes, Messenger of God !" 
 
 " The last hour of judgment will not strike 
 ere this city will have been conquered by seven- 
 ty thousand sons of Ishak. On approaching 
 this city, they will merely have to say, ' There 
 is no god but Grod, and Grod is great.' " 
 
 In another place we read, *' They will carry 
 Constantinople before them, and the best prince 
 is the one who will achieve this conquest, while 
 the best army is his army." 
 
 Every night there was heard outside the 
 walls the cry, " There is no god but Grod," 
 which the besieged answered by their Kyrie 
 E lei son. 
 
 At last the signal for the assault was given, 
 and the seventh of the Paleologi, Constantine 
 Dragoses, lost his life with his empire, ten cen- 
 turies after the reign of Constantine. Moham- 
 med found the besieged huddled together in 
 the churches, especially in that of Saint Sophia. 
 They were waiting for the fulfillment of the 
 prophecy which told them that an angel was 
 to give a sword to a man of the lower classes, 
 to save them and drive back the Turks, when 
 the latter had penetrated as far as the Square 
 of the Bull and the Column of Constantine, 
 
108 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 not only into Asia, but to the utmost limits of 
 Persia. 
 
 The historian Duncas, who was an eye-wit- 
 ness of all these wretched doings, adds : '' Such 
 was the hate of the Greek and Latin Christians 
 for one another, that if an angel had come down 
 from heaven and said to them, ^ Accept the 
 union of the two churches, and I will disperse 
 your enemies,' both parties would have much 
 preferred being delivered up to the Mussul- 
 mans." 
 
 After taking Constantinople by storm, and 
 overthrowing the Grreek empire, Mohammed 
 neglected no means of turning his victory to the 
 best advantage : he repeopled the capital, in 
 which he installed a new patriarch, and built 
 mosques. In the course of the two years fol- 
 lowing he entered Mitylene, crushed a revolt of 
 the Grreeks, defeated the Wallachians and Mol- 
 davians, obtained possession of Bosnia, Albania, 
 and Negropont, and concluded a peace with 
 Servia and Venice. Turkey in Europe was 
 founded, and the Sultan who was destined to 
 succeed Mohammed was the very man, of all 
 others, to increase and consolidate his predeces- 
 sor's conquests : the prince we allude to was Sol- 
 iman I. (1530). 
 
 Soliman wielded, at the same time, both his 
 sceptre and his sword with a vigorous hand. 
 He began by taking Belgrade, the Island of 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 109 
 
 Rhodes, and Buda. He laid siege to Vienna, 
 reduced Moldavia to the condition of an impe- 
 rial fief, entered Hungary, and was subsequent- 
 ly powerful enough to dispatch three fleets 
 against the Spanish and Portuguese, with a 
 view of supporting France, with whom he had 
 concluded a treaty of friendship^ of which we 
 shall presently speak. 
 
 Nothing is more calculated to give us an 
 idea of the high position of the Ottoman Empire 
 under this Sultan's reign, with respect to the 
 powers of Christendom, than what we are about 
 to relate. 
 
 The Emperor Charles V., King Ferdinand 
 of Austria, and the Kings of Poland, of Hun- 
 gary, of Russia, and of France, sent embassa- 
 dors to Soliman to beg for peace. These em- 
 bassadors had received instructions to treat of 
 the object of their mission only with the Sul- 
 tan himself. It was the Grand Vizier Ibrahim 
 who received them. He commenced with a bit- 
 ter criticism on the conduct of the Princes of 
 Christendom to one another, and on their quar- 
 rels with the Pope. He told them that *^they 
 ought to blush at such conduct, and that, if 
 they desired to obtain peace, they ought to be- 
 gin by restoring the money and the provinces 
 which they, as Christian princes, had extorted 
 from one another." 
 
 The embassadors, believing that this speech 
 
110 
 
 THE TURKS IN EUROPE I 
 
 was, on the part of the Grand Yizier, an indi- 
 rect method of asking them for money, replied 
 that they had brought some for his Highness. 
 
 '^My master," replied Ibrahim, *'does not 
 want money : those towers which you behold 
 are absolutely full of it, and, as far as I am con- 
 cerned, I feel more inclined to advise my mas- 
 ter to undertake the conquest of the whole 
 world than to allow himself to be corrupted by 
 presents." 
 
 The embassadors tried to excuse themselves 
 in the best way they could, and said that all 
 they now desired was to obtain an audience of 
 the Sultan. After the lapse of a week, this 
 was accorded them. They had the honor of 
 kissing the Sultan's hand, after he had refused 
 to restore Hungary. 
 
 Soliman did not acknowledge Ferdinand as 
 king of Hungary and Bohemia. He simply en- 
 titled him, in his letter. Commandant of Vien- 
 na, The Emperor Charles V. he called simply 
 Charles, and neither he nor his Grand Yizier 
 ceased repeating '' that there could not exist 
 two emperors on the face of the earth; that 
 there was only one, namely, the Sultan, just as 
 there was only one God." 
 
 After a second campaign in Austria, in which 
 Soliman had taken the field at the head of two 
 hundred thousand disciplined troops, the em- 
 bassadors of the same powers came once more 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. Ill 
 
 to seek the Saltan, and Ibrahim treated them 
 in a manner even more haughty and patroniz- 
 ing than on the first occasion. It was quite 
 sufficient, he said, for them to address them- 
 selves to him, the Grand Vizier : '' What I do, 
 I do," he continued; ''out of a groom I can 
 make a pacha ; I give domains and states to 
 whomsoever I choose, without my master mak- 
 ing the slightest observation on ray so doing ; 
 and, in fact, whenever he orders any thing that 
 does not suit me, nothing is done. War and 
 peace are in my hands ; the Sultan is not bet- 
 ter clothed than I am ; his treasures and his 
 lands are in my keeping ; all is confided to me." 
 He then added: " Charles is waging war in 
 Italy, and, at the same time, threatens the 
 Turks with war, and the Lutherans with a 
 forced conversion. He talks of assembling 
 Catholics and Protestants in a council, and has 
 not the power to realize his promises. Were I, 
 at the present moment, to desire such a thing, 
 I would compel the members of the two com- 
 munions to unite with one another in religion. 
 Charles, in writing, enumerates his titles ; this 
 is neither modest nor prudent, for he takes ti- 
 tles which do not belong to him. How, for in- 
 stance, can he dare to entitle himself King of 
 Jerusalem? Does he not know that it is the 
 Grrand Seignor who is master at Jerusalem? 
 Does he imagine he can deprive my master of 
 
112 THE TURKS IN EUROPE: 
 
 his states, or does he want to show his contempt 
 by this conduct ? I know very well that Chris- 
 tian nobles visit Jerusalem in the garb of beg- 
 gars : does Charles believe that, if he were to 
 make the same pilgrimage, he would, on that 
 account, be King of Jerusalem? I will, for the 
 future, issue orders forbidding any Christian to 
 go to the place !" 
 
 One of the embassadors endeavored to excuse, 
 in the best way he could, the assumption of the 
 title, which he said was a mere form of the 
 Chancellor's office, and assured the Yizier that 
 the King made no pretensions to the dignity. 
 On this, Ibrahim continued as follows : " But 
 there is something still worse : Charles places 
 his brother Ferdinand on an equality with my 
 master : it is quite proper for him to love his 
 brother, but does he wish to humiliate my mas- 
 ter by bringing him down to his brother's level ? 
 Charles ought to be ashamed of writing to us 
 in this tone. The King of France is contented 
 with signing * Francis, King of France.' For 
 this reason, we have commanded Barbarossa to 
 obey the King of France, as he would the Grrand 
 Seignor, and to respect his commands. Should 
 Charles conclude a peace with us, then, and 
 then only, will he be emperor, for we will take 
 such measures that the Kings of France and 
 England, the Pope and the Protestants, shall 
 acknowledge him as such." 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 113 
 
 Ibrahim concluded by saying that he could 
 not show Charles V.'s letter to the Sultan for 
 fear of irritating him ; but that he would grant 
 Charles V. a truce of three months, in order that 
 he might make his demands in a more fitting 
 manner, and express himself more respectfully. 
 
 Ferdinand's embassador was treated more 
 courteously. Ibraham himself condescended to 
 dictate what he should say to the Sultan in 
 order to preserve a portion of Hungary not yet 
 conquered by the Turks. The following was 
 the wording of the document : '' King Ferdi- 
 nand, thy son, considers all he possesses as thy 
 property, and every thing in his hands as be- 
 longing to thee. He was not aware that thou 
 wishedst to keep Hungary for thyself, for, had 
 he known it, he never would have waged war 
 there. But since thou, oh father ! desirest to 
 have that country, he offers thee his best wishes 
 for thy prosperity and health !" 
 
 The Christian embassadors thanked Ibrahim 
 for such obliging condescension on his part, and 
 were admitted to kiss the hem of the Sultan's 
 robe. 
 
 Having expressed a desire that the peace 
 should last for some time. Soli man replied to 
 them : ** I grant it you, not for seven years, but 
 for three centuries, if you do not break it ; the 
 Sultan will be a friend with friends, and an 
 enemy with enemies. But, with regard to 
 
 H 
 
114 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 Charles, if he wishes for peace, let him send an 
 embassador to the Sublime Porte." 
 
 As for the treaty of peace, the embassadors 
 were not even allowed to read it. Ibrahim told 
 them, "That concerned only his master and 
 himself, and that he would at some future time 
 inform the different powers what share was al- 
 lotted to each of them in it." 
 
 Soliman made his power felt as much in 
 Asia as in Europe. It was at the termination 
 of a most fortunate expedition into Persia that 
 he concluded with Francis I., king of France, 
 the treaty of friendship^ which was, between 
 the Porte and a Christian state, the first trans- 
 action having the form of an international right. 
 In it were measures for the independence of 
 the consular jurisdiction in civil matters, and 
 for the form of trial in criminal cases, which 
 were to be submitted by the cadi to the Sub- 
 lime Porte, and in which the sentence could 
 not be delivered without the hearing of a 
 French interpret^er. A French consul, or any 
 other Frenchman, could no longer, as former- 
 ly, be rendered responsible for the debts left by 
 any compatriot who might have fled the coun- 
 try. Lastly, every French subject had the 
 right of disposing of his property by will, and 
 slavery was abolished between the two nations. 
 In addition to this, Soliman wrote a letter to 
 the King of France, assuring him that he would 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 115 
 
 protect the Catholics and the Holy Places. For 
 three years Soliman waged war against the 
 coalesced forces of Venice, the Empire, and 
 the Pope. After a murderous contest, during 
 which Venice was besieged and on the point 
 of falling, a treaty was concluded. It made 
 very little alteration in the frontiers of Austria, 
 but it obliged that power to pay the Porte an 
 annual tribute. With regard to Venice, it stip- 
 ulated the abandonment of Malvoisia and Na- 
 poli, in the Morea ; of Nadin and Urana, on 
 the coast of Dalmatia ; and of the islands of 
 Skyro, Patmos, Paro, Antiparo, Nio, ^Egina, 
 and Stampalia, besides the payment of 30,000 
 ducats for the expenses of the war. 
 
 Soliman triumphed over the combined Chris- 
 tian forces in the Mediterranean, hoisted his 
 flag in the seas of India, and came in contact 
 with the forces of the Portuguese in the most 
 distant portions of the globe : he had fought in 
 Europe and i\.sia at the same time, and always 
 been victorious. 
 
 Soliman is justly called the Great. His 
 reign was rendered illustrious, also, by monu- 
 ments and remarkable men, ministers of state, 
 legists, poets, and others, as well as by essays 
 relating to instruction, to military art, to the 
 constitution of the fiefs, and to the regulations 
 of police. 
 
 But, unfortunately, while he was extending 
 
116 THE TURKS IN EUROPE ; 
 
 his power and his glory abroad, the germs of 
 decay were already sown in the interior of his 
 empire. It was under his reign that the influ- 
 ence of the harem, which was so great in the 
 palmy days of Ottoman history first began to 
 be felt. We have already seen the excessive 
 authority which Soliman allowed his Grrand 
 Vizier to assume, but how much more to be 
 deplored was that which vile eunuchs of the 
 seraglio arrogated to themselves at the same 
 epoch ! The venality of the intendants of the 
 provinces dates from the same period ; we shall 
 see it, subsequently, figure as the cause of the 
 frequent revolts of the pachas, become too pow- 
 erful from their wealth, and of the misery of 
 the people, which is a no less fruitful source of 
 disturbance in nations. 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 117 
 
 11. 
 
 STATE OF EUROPE IN THE MIDDLE AGES FEU- 
 
 ' DAL WARS MISERY OF THE PEOPLE RELIG- 
 IOUS SCHISM THE TURKS INVADE POLAND 
 
 EMBASSADORS AT CONSTANTINOPLE THE SPEECH 
 
 OF MOHAMMED IV. ON THE SITUATION OF THE OT- 
 TOMAN EMPIRE COMMENCEMENT OF HOSTILITIES 
 
 AGAINST THE RUSSIANS WAR OF POLAND 
 
 TREATY WITH FRANCE LEAGUE OF CHRISTIAN 
 
 STATES TREATY OF CARLOWITZ, AND ITS CON- 
 SEQUENCES. 
 
 What was the state of matters in Western 
 Europe at the time of which we are speaking? 
 
 Europe had emerged from the Middle Ages, 
 in which the whole civilization of antiquity had 
 been swallowed up. Several times had she 
 seen barbarians pass as conquerors over her ter- 
 ritories without daring to resist them ; she had 
 undertaken the monstrous and disorderly Cru- 
 sades, the object of which was to obtain, by 
 conquest, possession of the Holy Places; and 
 she had succeeded, at a critical juncture, in 
 driving the Mussulmans out of France and 
 Spain. Her princes had wasted all their en- 
 ergy in fighting among themselves for heredi- 
 tary rights and the aggrandizement of their ter- 
 ritories. The war of the Gruelphs and the 
 
118 THE TURKS IN EUROPE! 
 
 Ghibellines, between the Emperors of Grerma- 
 ny and the Popes, had lasted three centuries. 
 The Italian Republics alone, with the house of 
 the Medici at their head, had exerted them- 
 selves to save some of the elements of civiliza- 
 tion from destruction, and pave the way for the 
 revival of learning, while the Republic of Yen- 
 ice was the principal bulwark of Christendom. 
 
 The Christian religion had suffered immense- 
 ly. As early as the seventh century, Moham- 
 med had wrested from it almost the whole of 
 Asia and Africa. From the ninth to the thir- 
 teenth, the Grreek and Latin theologians had 
 been engaged in a series of quarrels, which had 
 ended in a schism, dividing the religion of Eu- 
 rope between the Pope of Rome and the Patri- 
 arch of Constantinople. 
 
 Lastly, the sixteenth century had witnessed 
 the Reformation, by Luther, deprive Rome of 
 the greater portion of Germany, as well as En- 
 gland and Switzerland, leaving her, at most, 
 only a third of the population of Europe. It 
 was after suffering these secular mutilations 
 that Christian Europe found herself placed face 
 to face with the Turks, toward the conclusion 
 of the reign of Soliman I. 
 
 Othman II. was the Pic de la Mirandole of 
 sovereigns, if it is true that he was only twelve 
 years old when a comet made its appearance, 
 and afforded matter for the curiosity and su- 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 119 
 
 perstition of the nations of the East. Serious 
 historians have gravely related that there ap- 
 peared in the heavens a curved sword, five 
 times as long as a lance and three feet broad, 
 which was seen for a whole month, glistening 
 brilliantly after sunset. The diviners and as- 
 trologers indulged in endless discussions on the 
 phenomenon and the events which it presaged. 
 Othman settled the question himself by saying 
 that it foretold fresh victories for the Ottomans, 
 and thereupon engaged in a war with Poland, 
 from which country he returned loaded with 
 booty. 
 
 Amurat IV. also invaded Poland, and con- 
 cluded a treaty of peace which had been hum- 
 bly begged of him. 
 
 Under Mohammed IV. (1649), the Emperor 
 of Grermany, alarmed at the progress of the 
 Turks, sent embassadors to the Grrand Vizier, 
 who, in his turn, sent them to Constantinople. 
 With bent head and face prostrated on the 
 ground, they wiped away the dust from the 
 entrance of the Sublime Porte, and it was only 
 by abject submission that they obtained a peace 
 of twenty years, during which time the Turks 
 carried their arms into Asia. We may remark, 
 that at this period embassadors and ministers 
 used to swear to observe the peace agreed upon. 
 
 A speech which Sultan Mohammed IV. made 
 to his grand council after the conclusion of this 
 
120 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 peace is very remarkable, especially the follow- 
 ing passage, which depicts in a few words the 
 state of prosperity and grandeur to which the 
 empire had then reached : 
 
 '^Posterity," he said, ''will find it difiicuH 
 to believe the exploits of our glorious ancestors. 
 They saw at their feet the power of the Ro- 
 mans, so long established in Grreece ; the} 
 snatched Egypt from the hands of the Circas- 
 sians, the most warlike race of all the Tartars ; 
 they partly subjected to their power Persia and 
 Hungary; they caused Grermany to tremble, 
 and, what is more, have given a ruler to the 
 Scythians, who boasted of never having receiv- 
 ed laws from any one. Let us cast our eyeM 
 around us : is there any one of our neighbori) 
 who does not respect our empire ? The Chris • 
 tians, those deadly enemies of our holy religion, 
 acknowledge their weakness, and are expect- 
 ing, every moment, to see themselves become 
 ours by conquest. The Republic of Yenice 
 alone dares to defy our power — ^that wretched 
 republic, which scarcely merits our attention, 
 when we compare it with the grandeur of our 
 own dominions." 
 
 It was after this speech that an expedition 
 was sent against the island of Candia, which 
 was taken from the Venetians. 
 
 The first hostilities between the Muscovites, 
 or Russians, and the Ottomans, date from the 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 121 
 
 reign of Mohammed IV. The Cossacks, har- 
 assed by the Russians, had come to solicit the 
 protection of the Porte, and had obtained a 
 promise that they should be defended from any 
 attempts of the Muscovites or the Poles. The 
 King of Poland wished to reassume his pro- 
 tectorship over the Cossacks. A discussion of 
 this description could not fail to bring about a 
 war. The Porte, however, proceeded with great 
 delicacy before beginning it, and a letter which 
 Mohammed addressed, at this juncture, to the 
 King of Poland, is a curious type of the easy 
 good nature, mixed with haughty pride and 
 methodism, which we constantly find in the 
 Mussulman character : 
 
 '' We learn," he says, '' that thou hast made 
 an irruption into the country of the Cossacks, 
 although thou art not ignorant that they have 
 taken refuge under the shadow of our wings. 
 By this action thou hast been the first to break 
 the peace which existed between thy kingdom 
 and our majestic empire, and which has been 
 faithfully respected by us. We are authorized 
 by our holy law to treat thee as an enemy, and, 
 if we chose, we could make thee feel what it 
 is to provoke a lion who has laid aside his rage. 
 But we are pleased to take thy weakness into 
 consideration, and, from a sentiment of pity, 
 we warn thee to take thy arm off the Cossacks, 
 as quickly as possible to recall thy troops who 
 
122 THE TURKS IN EUROPE I 
 
 are beyond the frontiers of thy kingdom, and, 
 in addition to this, to ask our pardon for thy of- 
 fense. If thou refusest to submit to our com- 
 mands, and art bent upon maintaining thy in- 
 justice with the sword, our law announces to 
 thee through our mouth the death of thy per- 
 son, the desolation of thy kingdom, and the 
 slavery of thy people, while the whole universe 
 will impute these great calamities to thy wick- 
 edness and obstinacy alone." 
 
 The King of Poland thought that he was in 
 a condition to resist. Two months afterward 
 Mohammed took the field, and, laying siege to 
 the fortified town of Kaminieck, carried it by as- 
 sault in ten days. He then inundated Poland 
 with his army, granting, however, peace on 
 rather hard conditions, the fulfillment of which 
 conditions he did not, perhaps, take sufficient 
 trouble to insure, for they occasioned a terrible 
 reaction, which commenced in Poland, and 
 spread rapidly in Grermany. This, in truth, is 
 a brilliant point in Polish history. After his 
 return to Adrianople, Mohammed received intel- 
 ligence that the Polish senate refused to ratify 
 a peace that rendered the nation tributary to 
 Turkey, and the Polish people preferred death 
 to the disgrace of such a treaty. John Sobieski 
 resumed the offensive against the Turks, beat 
 them, and was named king after the death of 
 Michael. But he was not seconded by the Em- 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 123 
 
 peror and the Pope as well as he had expected 
 he should be, and Mohammed soon regained the 
 upper hand, but not, however, before he had 
 met with an amount of resistance which an- 
 nounced that the power of the Ottomans had 
 reached its apogee. 
 
 In 1671, France had dispatched an embas- 
 sador to Constantinople, with three men-of-war 
 and a fire-ship. This embassador was the 
 bearer of a note containing several demands, 
 and especially one for authority to repair a 
 church, which had been refused, at Jerusalem, 
 and a request for the free passage of the Red Sea. 
 
 The Porte, on this occasion, would not make 
 any promise that the flotilla should be saluted, 
 declaring that the pretensions of the embassa- 
 dor, on this head, were unbecoming. Upon 
 this, the embassador also passed without salut- 
 ing, and a ball was sent from a Turkish galley, 
 and killed a French sailor. The Sultana- Ya- 
 lide (the mother of the Sultan), who for a long 
 time played a principal part in the seraglio, de- 
 termined to have satisfaction for this act of 
 audacity on the part of the French, and, under 
 pretext of making an appeal to their gallantry, 
 embarked on the Bosphorus, and demanded from 
 the embassador that her vessels should be sa- 
 luted by him, which act of homage he dared 
 not refuse, in spite of the insult which had been 
 offered to his flag. 
 
124 THE TURKS IN EUROPE ! 
 
 This embassador was Monsieur de Nointel. 
 He was first received by the Grand Vizier, 
 Koeprili, and, being a good speaker, began to 
 launch out in praise of Louis XIV., and that 
 monarch's grandeur and power. Koeprili an- 
 swered that 'Hhe Padischah of France was in- 
 deed a great sovereign, but that his sword was 
 still new;" and on the French who were pres- 
 ent talking of the ancient friendship which 
 had subsisted between France and the Porte, 
 he added, with a laugh, '' The French, it is true, 
 are old friends, whom we are continually find- 
 ing among our enemies." 
 
 The Sultan happened to be at Adrianople, 
 and Monsieur de Nointel proceeded thither to 
 state the object of his journey. An audience 
 was granted to him, but as he was inclined to 
 enact a scene similar to that which had turned 
 out so badly for him in the Dardanelles, and 
 refused to incline himself on entering, the cham- 
 berlains pushed him so violently that he fell 
 down. This little mishap did not hinder him 
 from making a speech half an hour long, to 
 which the Sultan contented himself by simply 
 replying, ^' Let this embassador address himself 
 to our Lala !" The Sultan afterward renewed 
 the former arrangements relative to trade, and 
 added a certain number of articles concerning 
 the protection of the Catholics and the Holy 
 Places. 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 125 
 
 Men were now about to enter on the eight- 
 eenth century, and the events which had taken 
 place in Western Europe paved the way for a 
 greater amount of dignity and a more honor- 
 able resistance on the part of the Christian 
 states. As there was a report of a new attempt 
 of Turkey against Poland, the Czar sent to the 
 Sultan an embassador with a letter, inviting 
 him to abstain from declaring war against Po- 
 land, and informing him that the Muscovites 
 and the Cossacks were decided to protect that 
 country, and conclude an alliance with the 
 other Christian powers. The Grand Vizier re- 
 plied that ** these were ugly words: that this 
 unbecoming language might cost the Czar dear ; 
 that the resolution of the Porte with regard to 
 Poland was made up ; that the Czar ought to 
 have busied himself about the matter sooner, 
 and in a more conciliatory tone ; and that, 
 moreover, if the Czar and the other princes 
 were not contented with the Sublime Porte, 
 the Sublime Porte cared very little about that !" 
 
 This piece of boasting was not happy, and 
 was, perhaps, the last that was pushed so far. 
 A league was formed between Poland, Venice, 
 and the Emperor of Grermany. History shows 
 them to us simultaneously attacking the Otto- 
 man Empire on the side of Poland, Hungary, 
 Dalmatia, and the Morea. The Turks dis- 
 played incomparable bravery in various battles, 
 
126 THE TURKS IN EUROPE: 
 
 and covered, with the people they massacred, 
 Austria and the other countries through which 
 they passed. 
 
 It was after this campaign with Poland that 
 the treaty of Carlo witz was drawn up (1699). 
 It was the first in which we meet with the 
 principle of international right resulting direct- 
 ly from the equality of the contending forces, 
 or from their exhaustion. 
 
 On this occasion, all idea of Turkey exacting 
 the tributes which she had previously levied on 
 the other powers was totally out of the question. 
 The Porte's endeavor to obtain an annual in- 
 demnification for the cession of Transylvania 
 and Zante completely failed, and the demand 
 was not even honored by a discussion. Of the 
 three contracting powers, Venice was the one 
 which made the greatest sacrifices, by abandon- 
 ing Lepanto, and destroying the fortresses at 
 the entrance of the Grulf, and the works at Prev- 
 esa. She remained, however, mistress of the 
 Peloponnesus and all Dalmatia, with the excep- 
 tion of a tongue of land which was annexed to 
 the Ottoman territory with Ragusa. All the 
 country between the Kerka and the Narenta, 
 as far as the mountains separating Bosnia and 
 Herzegovina from Dalmatia, with a line of seven 
 fortresses, connected with each other at the foot 
 of these mountains, remained in the possession 
 of the Republic. This was a powerful barrier, 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 127 
 
 which cut off the inhabitants of Bosnia and 
 Hersek from the use of the streams of Dalmatia, 
 and prevented them from obtaining access to 
 the maritime towns by shutting them out from 
 the sea. On the side of Ragusa, the territory 
 of the Republic was defended by the deep 
 channel of Cattaro, at the entrance of the Gulf 
 of Castel-Nuovo. 
 
 As for Poland, what she obtained was far be- 
 neath the pretensions which she had put for- 
 ward ten years before. She recovered Kami- 
 nieck, however, and witnessed the Porte's vol- 
 untary renunciation of all its pretensions on the 
 Ukraine and Podolia. On the side of Poland 
 and Hungary, the Turkish territory was con- 
 tained within the Dniester, the Slave, and the 
 Unna. 
 
 It certainly is a surprising thing that the 
 commissioners of the league manifested very 
 little zeal in matters not connected with ques- 
 tions of territory ; they d id not even broach the 
 question of Jerusalem and the Holy Places, 
 ^ which, however, a short time subsequently, was 
 favorably arranged without any effort, as we 
 shall see. 
 
 Such was the treaty of Carlowitz, which did 
 away with the oppressive tributes in money, 
 and by which the Porte acknowledged as a 
 principle of international right the mediation of 
 negotiations in the interest of all concerned. 
 
128 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 In fine, this treaty, while loudly proclaiming 
 the decay of the Ottoman Empire, was destined 
 to connect its destinies in a more regular man- 
 ner to those of the States of Europe. 
 
 On the ratification of the treaty, which took 
 place at Constantinople, the envoy of the Em- 
 peror of Austria, Count Ottingen, did that which 
 made up for many former omissions. He ob- 
 tained three firmans in favor of the trade and 
 the rights of his countrymen, and one, in par- 
 ticular, designed to protect the Catholic priests 
 residing at Jerusalem against any kind of vex- 
 ation and extortion on the part of the Grreek 
 and Servian bishops. The Sultan assigned, at 
 Jerusalem, to the Catholics of the three con- 
 tracting parties, the church of St. John, the sep- 
 ulchres of Sion, the convents of Bethlehem and 
 of Nazareth, with their tombs and gardens, the 
 sacred places of Safed, Saida, and Rama, and, 
 lastly, the chapel of the Holy Virgin. He au- 
 thorized the celebration of the accustomed cer- 
 emonies of Palm Sunday on the Mount of Olives, 
 and at the birth-places of St. John, St. Joachim, 
 and St. Anne ; allowed the reception of pilgrims 
 in the convent at Jerusalem, as well as at Da- 
 mas, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Saida; and 
 gave his permission for the ruined monuments 
 to be restored. 
 
 France was then represented in Turkey by 
 an embassador, whose originality has made him 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 129 
 
 distinguished in the annals of diplomacy. This 
 was a certain Ferriol, Marquis of Argent al — a 
 man more arbitrary and self-willed on rtiatters 
 of etiquette than is desirable in missions of that 
 nature, and who left far behind him the pre- 
 tensions of M. de Nointel. He chose to enter 
 the Sultan's presence with his sword on, con- 
 trary to the recognized custom, and persisted in 
 this with such obstinacy, that during the ten 
 years of his residence in Constantinople he pre- 
 ferred renouncing an audience altogether to 
 giving up his idea. He also took a fancy to 
 sailing on the Bosphorus in a yacht exactly like 
 that of the Sultan ; the Grand Vizier warned 
 him to desist from indulging in this whim, un- 
 less he wished his boat to be scuttled, while the 
 rowers, who were Turks, received each 200 
 strokes of the bastinado. This did not hinder 
 the Porte from granting the embassador the 
 same privileges as had been accorded to the 
 Emperor's envoy, the Count of Ottingen ; and 
 when, some time afterward, the Marquis went 
 mad, and news was brought the Grrand Vizier 
 that he had lost his reason, the latter contented 
 himself by remarking, *' He had already none 
 left when he came here." 
 
 Such were the consequences of the treaty of 
 Carlowitz, the first entered into between the 
 Porte and the Christian States, possessing at 
 the same time a certain character of generality 
 
 I 
 
130 THE TURKS IN EUROPE: 
 
 and of international right. Historians seem to 
 agree in dating from this treaty the decline of 
 the Ottoman Empire. But it appears to us that 
 it would be more correct to regard it as the 
 stopping point to the development of her power, 
 which was still redoubtable, and redoubted till 
 the treaty of Kainardji, imposed on her by Rus- 
 sia sixty years later, after a series of sanguin- 
 ary conflicts. But, at any rate, considerable 
 progress had been made: the European States 
 found themselves released from the annual pay- 
 ment of the pecuniary tributes which had form- 
 ed their shame — and this was already a sign of 
 rehabilitation for them. As to the Ottoman E m- 
 pire, it entered into relations with those States, 
 which were to be more regularly observed. 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 131 
 
 III. 
 
 RUSSIA DEMANDS PEACE OF THE PORTE TREATY OP 
 
 AZOV FIRST EMBASSADOR FROM THE PORTE ' 
 
 TROUBLES AT THE HOLY SHRINES ^VIOLATION OF 
 
 THE TREATY OF AZOV BY RUSSIA WAR THE 
 
 CZAR MADE PRISONER, AND RESTORED TO LIBER- 
 TY-r-TREATY OF THE PRUTH WAR WITH AUS- 
 TRIA TREATIES OF BELGRADE AND PASSARO- 
 
 WITZ ESTABLISHMENT OF CONSULS NEW QUAR- 
 RELS AT THE HOLY SHRINES CONSPIRACY TO 
 
 RESTORE THE ARMENIAN KINGDOM POSITION OF 
 
 FRANCE AND ENGLAND AT CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
 TREATY OF 1740 ENCROACHMENTS OF RUSSIA. 
 
 A SHORT time after the treaty of peace of Car- 
 lowitz, which regulated the relations of the Porte 
 with Grermany, Poland, and Venice, Russia ex- 
 perienced the want of a similar treaty, and sent 
 an embassador to Constantinople to solicit one. 
 The Porte never refused to grant peace, and 
 I rarely abused its power, if people would only 
 flatter the sentiment of superiority and fatherly 
 protection which it was pleased to claim to it- 
 self. Some writers have ascribed to the Turks 
 a constant dissimulation in their diplomatic pro- 
 ceedings ; nothing is further from the truth than 
 this opinion. There will be found to have been 
 in all their acts a remarkable degree of open- 
 
132 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 ness and good faith, even in yet barbarous ages, 
 while elsewhere the spirit of trickery and hy- 
 pocrisy was almost the universal characteristic. 
 
 The Russians obtained the treaty they asked 
 for. This treaty, concluded at Azov in 1700, 
 stipulated for the demolition of Togham, of 
 Grhazi, of Kerman, Schohin-Kerman, and Nus- 
 zret-Kerman. It fixed the frontier across a sol- 
 itude of twelve leagues from Or to Azov : it 
 granted in the district between Or and the cas- 
 tle of Mejusch, to the Tartars as well as the 
 Russians, the right to hunt, fish, cultivate bees, 
 cut down wood, and make salt. It awarded 
 to the fortress of Azov an extent of territory of 
 seven leagues, in the direction of the Kuban. 
 The Grim-Tartars were interdicted from mak- 
 ing any incursions upon the Russian territory, 
 freedom of commerce was recognized, and pro- 
 tection was guaranteed to pilgrims traveling to 
 Jerusalem. Finally, an embassador from each 
 power was to be sent to tjie other with a delay 
 of not more than six months. This, we be- 
 lieve, was the first embassador the Porte had 
 ever consented to send to a foreign country. 
 
 The clause relating to religious liberty, it 
 was found, could not be observed for any great 
 length of time. Three years after the conclu- 
 sion of the treaty, the priests having begun to 
 preach in the Turkish language, and wishing 
 to convert the Mussulmans and the Schismat- 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 133 
 
 ios, the latter rose up in arms against them. 
 Their patriarch, Aviettis, threw several Catho- 
 lics into prison, and when he furthermore car- 
 ried his complaints before the Grand Yizier, the 
 latter made a reply which displayed no great 
 admiration on his part for the Christians, who 
 could never live together in peace at these 
 Holy Shrines, to which their devotion seemed 
 to attach them. He reproached them harshly 
 with their want of good understanding ; and 
 as other Armenians brought fresh complaints to 
 the Grand Vizier against the Catholics, ''What 
 are Catholics ?" he inquired of the complain- 
 ants ; "are they not infidels?" The Metropol- 
 itan, who was the spokesman, having replied 
 in the affirmative, ''Good," added the Vizier; 
 "the Sublime Porte can not trouble himself 
 with the difference between Catholics and 
 Schismatics." In spite of this contemptuous 
 declaration of tolerance, however, the college 
 of Jesuits was closed, and the Jesuits dispersed, 
 and settled in Persia and Constantinople. 
 
 Eleven years after the treaty of 1700, the 
 Russians having infringed it, the Porte marched 
 against them, crossed the Pruth, and scattered 
 their army. The Grand Vizier commanded in 
 person ; he might have carried the Czar away 
 prisoner : he contented himself with a treaty, 
 the terms of which, it must be confessed, were 
 of the hardest kind for Russia, and which was 
 
134 THE TURKS IN EUROPE I 
 
 called the Treaty of the Pruth. The following 
 are its principal dispositions : 
 
 *' Azov and its dependencies were to be re- 
 stored to the Porte ; Kamiensca, Samara, and 
 Thigan razed to the ground ; the artillery de- 
 livered to the Turks. Russia was to renounce 
 any interference with the affairs of the Zapo- 
 rogue Cossacks. No Russian, with the excep- 
 tion of the merchants, was to be allowed to re- 
 side in Constantinople. All prisoners were to 
 be returned to the Sublime Porte ; no opposi- 
 tion was to be offered to the return of Charles 
 the Twelfth, King of Sweden, to his own king- 
 dom ; if this King and the Czar could come to 
 terms, they were recommended to make peace. 
 After the signature of the treaty, the Czar was 
 at liberty to retire, on condition of his leaving 
 his chief counselor of state, and another of his 
 friends, as hostages." 
 
 It was on this occasion that the following 
 circumstance took place, on which will be 
 found imprinted, in a striking manner, the 
 good sense and good faith of the Mussulman 
 character : Charles the Twelfth, having lost 
 his army, had taken refuge in Turkey, where 
 he was received with the most generous hospi- 
 tality. Having learned that the Grrand Vizier, 
 after having taken the Czar prisoner, had re- 
 stored him to liberty, he went, completely fu- 
 rious, to the Grrand Yizier, and, in his rage, 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 135 
 
 was guilty of the indignity of tearing that 
 Prince's robe with his spurs. The Grand Viz- 
 ier contented himself with replying to the vag- 
 abond monarch, " Who would have governed 
 his kingdom in his absence, if I had kept him 
 prisoner ? It is not good for kings to be absent 
 from their own countries." 
 
 Treaties were but indifferently observed in 
 those days, and a very little matter would at 
 any time serve to lead to their being broken, 
 and hostilities resumed. In 1718 war broke 
 out again between the Porte, Austria, and Yen- 
 ice ; and after one campaign, and the terrific 
 battle of Belgrade, it was again necessary, as 
 was always the case, to arrange matters ami- 
 cably. The treaty of Passarowitz did not sensi- 
 bly modify the frontiers of Venice, but th«)^;e of 
 Austria were fixed in a positive manner. A 
 line was drawn, following first the Alt, then 
 the Danube, as far as ten leagues above the 
 confluence of the Timok ; subsequently, the 
 chain of mountains as far as Parakin ; from 
 thence, down in the direction of the Little Mo- 
 rava and the Dina ; so that Belgrade, Parakin, 
 Istolaz, and Csacsac were ceded to the Emper- 
 or, while Zokol and Rasna were left to the 
 Turks. 
 
 On the right bank of the Unna, to the east, 
 the Emperor kept lezenouiz, Dubiza, and Old 
 Novi. This new arrangement of the frontier 
 
136 THE TURKS IN EUROPE ; 
 
 was far more favorable to Austria than that 
 which had been fixed by the treaty of Carlo- 
 witz, as it gave her a portion of Servia, and 
 made her frontiers more secure. The line was 
 well marked by seven rivers — the Alt, the Dan- 
 ube, the Timok, the Little Morava, the Dina, 
 the Slave, and the Unna. 
 
 The Porte undertook to keep in check the 
 pirates of Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and Dulcig- 
 no. No asylum was to be afforded to the ban- 
 dits of the frontiers. The Porte was to keep 
 charge of the Hungarians of distinction who 
 had sought refuge in the Ottoman territory. 
 
 Finally, it was agreed that the treaty should 
 be ratified at Constantinople, by embassadors 
 extraordinary, on a delay of one month, and its 
 duration was fixed for twenty years. 
 
 The article relating to commerce contained, 
 besides the freedom of trade, such as with 
 France, England, and other powers, the mutual 
 privilege of establishing consuls. Those of the 
 Turks in Austria were to have the title oi Lords 
 of the Passport, 
 
 This peace was the most advantageous that 
 had yet been obtained by Austria. The army 
 was conducted by the Prince Eugene, who had 
 covered himself with glory under the walls of 
 Belgrade, and had shown himself, at the same 
 time, a great commander and an eminent 
 statesman. But the hazardous chances of war 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 137 
 
 had decreed that the possession of Belgrade 
 should again fall into the hands of the Turks, 
 and Austria again submit to the harsh condi- 
 tions of a conqueror, from the year 1739, the 
 date of the treaty of Belgrade. 
 
 The events we have just narrated had occu- 
 pied the tolerably long reign of Amur at lY., 
 the only sultan who had ever achieved much 
 by his own independent acts. He had eman- 
 cipated himself from the guardianship of the 
 grand viziers, and from the influence of wives 
 and ulemahs. He had kept under a check of 
 the severest discipline the turbulent janissaries 
 — ^the glory of the Turkish armies so long as 
 they remained in subjection to the laws of the 
 hierarchy — the most active dissolvent of the 
 empire after they had shaken off its yoke. 
 
 The forty years immediately following form 
 a period far less heroic. During that time we 
 see the reign of Ahmed HI., which lasted twen- 
 ty-seven years, constantly checkered with bat- 
 tles with the Imperial forces. The eunuchs 
 mixed themselves up in public affairs ; and the 
 janissaries, indignant at such a state of effem- 
 inate baseness, revolted. This was the great 
 epoch of grand viziers and ladies of the seraglio. 
 The Sultan Achmet, who had thirty-one chil- 
 dren, excelled chiefly in ordering fetes for the 
 amusement of his harem, and possessed a tal- 
 ent quite his own for different species of illu- 
 mination 
 
138 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 In 1727 the schismatic Grreeks again com- 
 plained to the Sublime Porte of the preachings 
 of the Jesuits, and the latter received orders to 
 desist from further attempts to convert the sub- 
 jects of the Sultan. The Grreeks, always ani- 
 mated by a sectarian spirit, profited by the oc- 
 casion to burn down a Catholic chapel. 
 
 On their part, the Armenian Catholics, so far 
 from being grateful for the moderation of the 
 Turks toward them, and the protection they 
 had never ceased to enjoy from the Porte, com- 
 mitted the fault of entering into a vast plot, 
 whose aim was nothing less than to re-erect an 
 Armenian kingdom, and place its crown on the 
 head of an electoral prince — John William of 
 the Palatinate. At the head of this conspiracy 
 was a certain Israel Ori. 
 
 The two maritime powers, France and En- 
 gland, had established themselves on an excel- 
 lent footing at Constantinople during the wars 
 of the Porte with the other powers of the Con- 
 tinent ; this they had effected by playing the 
 part of mediators in the different treaties that 
 had intervened, and especially in those of Car- 
 lowitz and Passarowitz, in which England had 
 taken an honorable initiative. They exercised 
 a great influence over the decisions of the Di- 
 van, and the viziers, who had formerly shown 
 themselves so difficult of access, were now in 
 constant communication with the embassadors. 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 139 
 
 The French embassador, M. de Villenftiive, 
 fulfilled the most brilliant mission that signal- 
 izes the history of the dealings of France with 
 the Porte. He was able to make her voice be 
 listened to in a crisis of the first importance, 
 and to prevent the explosion of an imminent 
 war between the Porte and Russia, on the oc- 
 casion of the famous treaty relating to the prov- 
 inces of the northwest of Persia. 
 
 In the peace of Belgrade, M. de Villeneuve 
 had also made the intervention of France avail- 
 able. This peace was not only concluded by 
 her intervention, but, what had never been 
 known till that time, under her guarantee, con- 
 formably to the rights of nations. By this con- 
 duct, at once able and just, the embassador of 
 Louis XV. had rendered every thing possible for 
 his nation with the Divan. He crowned his 
 mission by the Convention of 1740, which was 
 the renewal, in eighty-five articles, of all previ- 
 ous stipulations between France and the Porte, 
 ^nd whose authority continued to regulate the 
 relations between the two powers till the cam- 
 paign of Egypt, which saw it suspended for an 
 instant, to be revived immediately after the 
 conclusion of peace. 
 
 We have now run through half of the eight- 
 eenth century : the hour of a deep and rapid 
 decline is about to sound for the Ottoman Em- 
 pire. War will become fatal to it, and from 
 
140 THE TURKS IN EUROI'E : 
 
 the treaty of Kainard^i, after a series of the 
 most cruel reverses, will date that supremacy 
 of Russia over the Porte which has never ceased 
 increasing for an instant, and which weighs 
 upon the decisions of the Divan to the detri- 
 ment of the other European powers. 
 
 Ever since this period, Russia has continued 
 to gain in point of territory, without losing any 
 thing ; she has gained in Europe, at the ex- 
 pense of Sweden, of Grermany, and of Poland, 
 as well as that of Turkey; in Asia, she has 
 gained by conquest territory from Persia, Greor- 
 gia, Tiflis, Erivan, Circassia, etc. ; in America 
 she has also made acquisitions, which serve for 
 the carrying out of her ulterior projects, for the 
 realization of which Behring's Straits are open 
 to her. 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 141 
 
 IV. 
 
 INTERNAL CAUSES OF DECLINE IN THE OTTOMAN 
 
 EMPIRE RUSSIA AND THE PORTE WAR WITH 
 
 POLAND TREATY OF KAINARDJI BAD FAITH OF 
 
 RUSSIA AS TO THE CRIMEA THE PORTE DE- 
 CLARES WAR AGAINST HER THE TURKS CON- 
 QUER THE GERMANS, AND ARE ROUTED BY THE 
 
 RUSSIANS TREATY OF JASSY NAPOLEOn's 
 
 EASTERN POLICY THE ENGLISH FLEET IN THE 
 
 TURKISH WATERS DISUNION OF FRANCE AND 
 
 ENGLAND, AND ITS RESULTS. 
 
 Let us turn our attention for a moment to 
 the interior of the Ottoman Empire. 
 
 War, becoming less frequent, left a freer 
 course to the development of its constituent 
 elements, and the vices of its fundamental or- 
 ganization were therein displayed. Despotism 
 and slavery had planted cowardice in the hearts 
 of the population, and the plurality of wives 
 occasioned anarchy in their families. The se- 
 raglio had usurped a preponderating influence 
 over the divan, and the intrigues of sultanas 
 and eunuchs often took the place of mature de- 
 liberations. On the other hand, the ulemahs 
 (priests) formed a body which exercised great 
 influence over the public mind, and frequently 
 interfered in the management of affairs. The 
 
142 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 janissaries — that redoubtable body of warriors 
 on the battle-field — could not exist in peace, 
 and indolence had transformed them to turbu- 
 lent pretorians, who, allying themselves with 
 the ulemahs, gave check to and even succeed- 
 ed in overthrowing the ruling power ; justice 
 was administered without any fixed or defined 
 laws, by all-powerful cadis. The administra- 
 tion of finances was at the mercy of disloyal 
 intendants or provincial governors, and reduced 
 by them to a system of extortion and tyranny. 
 Finally, the pachas, imperfectly controlled, oft- 
 en too rich and too powerful, frequently de- 
 clared themselves in open revolt. Such is the 
 aspect presented by the empire of the Porte to- 
 ward the middle of the eighteenth century. 
 We will return at a later period to this subject. 
 Russia followed a directly opposite progres- 
 sive course, and nourished a keen resentment 
 toward the humiliating treaty of the Pruth. 
 Catharine II. was on the throne. She had few 
 other projects more at heart than the reveng- 
 ing of past defeats ; her dream was to see the 
 Empire of the Czars reflected one day in the 
 waters of the Bosphorus, and therein she in- 
 herited the projects of Peter the Grreat and Paul 
 the First. The reforms introduced by the vig- 
 orous hand of Peter the Grreat were faithfully 
 observed ; the army was thoroughly disciplined, 
 and, after the example of the ancient Romans, 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 143 
 
 labored with one hand at .the public works, and 
 with the other at the extension of the bound- 
 aries of their country. Large ships floated on 
 the Baltic and the North Sea ; the administra- 
 tion of the finances had acquired a certain or- 
 der, and the clergy were curbed in subjection to 
 the laws. It was in such a position, on the one 
 part and the other, that those implacable en- 
 emies — Russia and Turkey — were about once 
 more to engage in hostilities. 
 
 Russia wanted nothing but an excuse for 
 war, and frequently showed herself willing to 
 break through the last treaty. A prophetic 
 sign — which has been reproduced more than 
 once since, under the auspices of the political 
 policy of this power — was the following. At 
 the same time, on the two extremities of Turkey, 
 at Greorgia and Montenegro, appeared inspired 
 monks, who agitated those countries by their 
 preaching, and foretold the arrival of the Rus- 
 sians. At the same time when the Porte was 
 harassed by two insurrections simultaneously, 
 Russia sought for a quarrel with Poland, whose 
 integrity had been guaranteed by the treaty of 
 the Pruth, and marched an army against her. 
 
 The conduct of Russia was equivalent to a 
 declaration of war, and as an appeal to the re- 
 ligious question in the very provinces of the Ot- 
 toman Empire was clearly evident in it, the 
 Porte became furious with indignation, a feel- 
 
144 THE TURKS IN EUROPE: 
 
 ing which was shared hy the entire population 
 of Constantinople. The holy standard was 
 brought out from the grand mosque, and as, 
 when the question is that of religion, men of 
 all countries invariably think they can not 
 serve its sacred cause better than by cutting 
 each other's throats, the Mussulmans proceed- 
 ed in various quarters to massacre the Chris- 
 tians. 
 
 The Russians soon made peace with Poland, 
 and allied the Cossacks to their cause. Sever- 
 al murderous battles took place, and it was 
 easy to judge, in the course of this terrible war, 
 of the progress the two Empires had made, 
 each in an inverse sense to the other, during 
 the preceding peace. After a few successes, 
 the Ottomans were constantly defeated by land 
 and sea, and the burning of their fleet in the 
 Bay of Tschme was the funeral-pile of the by- 
 gone splendor of their empire. This was un- 
 der the reign of Mustapha III. 
 
 Still more deplorable was the fact that every 
 reverse experienced without the Empire was re- 
 sponded to within by some evidence of its in- 
 ternal vices. The janissaries revolted, and over- 
 threw the Sultan ; the palace was the scene of 
 numerous crimes ; the finances were deficient, 
 and the several pachas rose in open rebellion in 
 Roumelia and in the Asiatic provinces. The 
 Ottoman Empire was fast tottering to immi- 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 145 
 
 nent ruin ; the Porte was compelled to beg for 
 peace, and this peace was concluded at Kain^ 
 ardji in 1774. 
 
 The treaty of Kainardji was as advantageous 
 to Russia as that of the Pruth had been bur- 
 densome and humiliating. She availed herself 
 largely of the position her victories had given 
 her. RomanzofT, who conducted this affair un- 
 der the eyes of his sovereign, displayed a re- 
 finement of arrogance in its dictation little cred- 
 itable to him as a warrior or a statesmen. He 
 had insisted that the conference should take 
 place at Kainardji, as it was there the valiant 
 Weiszemann had fallen beneath the Ottoman 
 cimiters. 
 
 The treaty of Kainardji, consisting of twen- 
 ty-eight articles, stipulated particularly for the 
 independence of the Tartars of the Crimea, of 
 Bessarabia, and of the Cantons of the Kuban, 
 with the exception of their still depending, in 
 a religious sense, on the descendants of Islam ; 
 the restitution of the countries conquered from 
 the Khan, with the exception of the ports of 
 Kertsch and Jenikalaa ; the abandonment of 
 the Russian conquests in Moldavia and Walla- 
 chia, Bessarabia, Greorgia, Mingrelia, and the 
 Archipelago, with the exception of Azov, the 
 two Kabartais, and Kilburun ; the liberation 
 of all prisoners ; the privilege of navigating the 
 Black Sea and the Mediterranean ; the great- 
 
 K 
 
146 THE TURKS IN EUROPE I 
 
 est advantages for Russian commerce ; the safe- 
 conduct of travelers, and particularly of pil- 
 grims to Jerusalem ; the most honorable treat- 
 ment of embassadors, consuls, and interpreters ; 
 an improved administration for Moldavia anc 
 "Wallachia ; the title of Padischah for the sov 
 ereigns of Russia ; the construction of a Greeli 
 church at Pera ; the right of the Empress tc 
 protect the Greek religion and its churches. 
 Finally, of all treaties previously concluded, 
 that of Azov, in 1700, on the limitation of the 
 territories, alone was to remain in force. All 
 the others, and particularly that of Belgrade, 
 were annulled. Of Poland, the principal cause 
 of the war, not a word was said, probably be- 
 cause Russia entertained, with regard to this 
 country, fixed designs, and Turkey was no 
 longer in a position to offer any obstacles to 
 their accomplishment. 
 
 The representative of Austria, the Baron de 
 Thugut, who had assisted in the drawing up of 
 the treaty, spoke of it in the following manner, 
 from which it is evident that that diplomatist 
 perfectly appreciated its tendency : 
 
 '' This treaty," he wrote, ^'is a model of abil- 
 ity on the part of the Russian diplomatists, and 
 a rare example of simplicity on the part of the 
 Turkish negotiators. By the terms of this 
 treaty Russia will remain the mistress, and 
 will be at liberty, whenever she shall think the 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 147 
 
 opportunity fitting, to make descents upon the 
 shores of the Black Sea. From her new fron- 
 tier of Kertsch she will be enabled, at forty- 
 eight hours' notice, to conduct an army to the 
 very walls of Constantinople. A concerted 
 league with the chiefs of the schismatic relig- 
 ion will, in that case, undoubtedly break out, 
 and the Sultan will have nothing to do but to 
 fly to the remote parts of Asia, leaving the 
 throne of the Ottoman empire to a more able 
 possessor. The conquest of Constantinople by 
 the Russians may be achieved without notice, 
 and even before the news of it can be conveyed 
 to the other Christian powers." It would have 
 been difficult to read the future more correct- 
 ly, and to foresee with greater exactitude the 
 dangers now threatening the interests of the 
 West. 
 
 From the time of the treaty of Kainardji to 
 that of Adrianople, we see Russia mistress of 
 the whole political scene of Europe. Venice 
 and Austria, who had played such an important 
 I part after the treaty of Carlowitz, are effaced; 
 Poland is absorbed; France and England ara 
 scarcely mediating powers. Russia directs the 
 diplomatic negotiations of the Porte, and dic- 
 tates and expounds all matters at Constanti- 
 nople. This, however, is insufficient for sys- 
 tematic ambition. Russia's desire is to extend 
 her territory still further; and to insure still 
 
148 THE TURKS IN EUROPE I 
 
 more firmly her moral domination. We shall 
 see her find the means of doing so. 
 
 The treaty of Kainardji had recognized the 
 independence of the Crimea. But the Crimea 
 was of too much importance to Russia for the 
 latter to be satisfied with the mere protectorate 
 of that province, while its actual sovereignty 
 remained with the Tartar princes. The in- 
 trigues of the Russian agents soon rendered 
 available the jealousies which divided the reign- 
 ing family of the Khans. They speedily ex- 
 cited dissensions in the peninsula; a khan pro- 
 tected by the Porte was deposed; another, fa- 
 vored by Russia, mounted the throne. The lat- 
 ter was a feeble prince ; he was intimidated, and 
 yielded up his rights to the Empress Catharine. 
 
 The Porte, indignant at the bad faith of Rus- 
 sia, resolved on a declaration of war, which the 
 people demanded with one voice (in 1787). It 
 counted on the support of Sweden and Prussia, 
 and on the good offices of France, who, having 
 long yielded to the influence of Austria, no 
 longer served her old and true friends save by 
 the intrigues of her diplomatic agents. But 
 the Ottomans, instead of any such assistance 
 — promised to them by a treaty — saw a new 
 enemy, who had no excuse for attacking them, 
 appear on the field. This was the Emperor 
 Joseph II., who reckoned on sharing the spoils 
 of the Turkish Empire with Catharine. 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 149 
 
 The Turks, in no way discouraged by this 
 unforeseen aggression, rushed with fierce im- 
 petuosity upon the Grerman troops, conquered 
 them, and compelled the Emperor to sign the 
 treaty of Sistow, which re-established things in 
 the position they had occupied before the war. 
 
 The struggle between the Porte and Russia 
 had a different result. The Russians, com- 
 manded by the intrepid Suwarrow, defeated the 
 Turks by land and sea, entered Wallachia and 
 Moldavia, captured Ismail, the last bulwark of 
 Turkey in Europe, and by this coup de main 
 spread terror throughout the length and breadth 
 of the Ottoman Empire. 
 
 The mediating powers then insisted upon 
 peace; it was concluded in 1792 by the treaty 
 of Jassy, which confirmed and guaranteed to 
 Russia the possession of the Crimea, of the Isle 
 of Taman, of a part of the Kuban, and of Bes- 
 sarabia. The Dniester became the new fron- 
 tier of the two empires. 
 
 All these successes were nothing for Russia 
 but a few steps on the road of her insatiable am- 
 bition toward universal autocracy. She looked 
 with the same covetous eye upon the provinces 
 of Wallachia and Moldavia with which we have 
 seen her regard the Crimea. She had secretly 
 gained over to her cause two princes of these 
 provinces, who were considered, and with good 
 reason, to be unfaithful to the Porte, from whom 
 
150 THE TURKS IN EUROPE: 
 
 they held their authority. These princes were 
 Ypsilanti and Morousis. 
 
 The Emperor Napoleon had considered the 
 gravity of the danger with which the ambition 
 of the cabinet of St. Petersburg threatened the 
 west of Europe, and resolved to dissipate it. 
 His minister at Constantinople — Greneral Se- 
 bastiani — was instructed to take advantage of 
 every circumstance to rouse the drooping cour- 
 age of the Porte, and induce it to offer some af- 
 front to the despotism of Russia. M. Sebasti- 
 ani, apprised of the faithlessness of the two prin- 
 ces of Wallachia and Moldavia, opened the eyes 
 of the Sultan, and obtained their deposition, and 
 the substitution of two governors notoriously 
 opposed to the Russians. 
 
 So significant an act of authority on the part 
 of the Porte must necessarily have led to war ; 
 as, according to the treaty of Jassy, the reign- 
 ing Waivodes of the provinces in question could 
 only be displaced with the consent of Russia, 
 unless they had terminated the period of seven 
 years, fixed for the reign of those contemporary 
 princes. 
 
 The Russian embassador demanded his pass- 
 ports ; the embassador of England threatened to 
 withdraw also, in the face of a fact which test- 
 ified that the Porte intended throwing itself 
 into the arms of France, with whom England 
 was then at war. The Porte, with the support 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 151 
 
 of Napoleon, had no fear of Russia ; but great 
 embarrassments, on the subject of commerce, 
 would result to Turkey in case of a broil with 
 England. At the instigation of the latter pow- 
 er, the Porte committed the inconsistency of re- 
 placing the two princes it had deposed. 
 
 But Russia was not satisfied; she invaded 
 Moldavia and "Wallachia. Loud cries of war in 
 Turkey responded to these new hostilities. 
 
 This was in 1807 ; unfortunately, France and 
 England were at deadly war, and during this 
 terrible struggle the great questions of the lib- 
 erty of the world and the safety of the west of 
 Europe were lost sight of. England consider- 
 ed that the Porte, being at war with Russia, 
 would become a favorable ally to France. She 
 resolved to force it not only to declare peace, 
 but to contract an alliance with Russia. En- 
 gland spoke menacingly; her embassador de- 
 manded nothing less than the expulsion of the 
 French embassador from Constantinople, the 
 occupation of the forts of the Dardanelles and 
 the direction of the Turkish fleet for England, 
 and the provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia 
 for Russia. This strongly resembled a division 
 of the Ottoman Empire between the cabinet of 
 St. James's and that of St. Petersburg. 
 
 Such were the incredible propositions made 
 by England to the Porte. They threw the Di- 
 van into a cruel state of alarm, and the English 
 
152 THE TURKS IN EUROPE: 
 
 embassador himself, not feeling very much at 
 his Ci^se after he had made them, escaped dur- 
 ing the night. The English fleet had received 
 orders to support his demands : it entered the 
 Dardanelles, captured the forts, with eight ships 
 of the line, and anchored in the Bay of Con- 
 stantinople before the seraglio. 
 
 General Sebastiani conducted himself like a 
 man of courage and intelligence. Seeing that 
 the population of Constantinople felt keenly the 
 affront offered by the English to the Divan, he 
 inflamed their zeal, roused the dormant cour- 
 age of the Sultan, Selim III., and offered him 
 his services, and those of the French ofliicers at 
 Constantinople. The town was soon put in a 
 state of vigorous defense, and the English fleet, 
 considering itself in peril, withdrew. It sailed 
 for Alexandria, the gates of which had been 
 opened to the English by treason, and from 
 which they were destined soon to withdraw, as 
 they had previously done from Constantinople, 
 after the battle of Rosetta, when they were 
 beaten by the Albanian Palikaris of Mehemet 
 Ali. 
 
 The years 1807 and 1808 were disastrous for 
 the Ottoman Empire. The internal evils of 
 which we have spoken produced more and more 
 gloomy effects. While without the army was 
 giving battle, with greater or less success, to the 
 Russian troops, the capital was the scene of san- 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 153 
 
 guinary revolts. The janissaries there showed 
 themselves more turbulent than ever, and the 
 Sultan fell a victim to their fury. This de- 
 moralization spread to the army. The Grand 
 Vizier, who commanded in person, had the 
 greatest difficulty in preventing its entire dis- 
 solution, and keeping in subjection about him, 
 at Adrianople, a disorganized mass of 25,000 
 Osmanlis. Fortunately, at this moment, Na- 
 poleon, in dictating the treaty of Tilsit, had 
 thought of the Porte, and insisted that an arm- 
 istice should be established between it and 
 Russia, and that this should be followed by 
 a peace concluded through the mediation of 
 France. The evacuation of Wallachia and Mol- 
 davia by the Russians was to precede all con- 
 ference on the subject of this peace. The Porte, 
 wishing to stand equally well with England, 
 with regard to whom it had insults and hostili- 
 ties to wipe out, as with France, from whom it 
 had just received, for the second time, the most 
 unequivocal marks of friendship and interest, 
 concluded a treaty of peace with Grreat Britain, 
 and replied to the propositions and representa- 
 tions of France by receiving the embassador of 
 England with enthusiastic welcome. 
 
 Napoleon, annoyed at this act of ingratitude, 
 withdrew from the Porte the powerful media- 
 tion he had so generously introduced into the 
 treaty of Tilsit. The result of this was to de- 
 
154 THE TURKS IN EUROPE I 
 
 liver Turkey, as it were, a prey to Russia, and 
 to compromise a question which remains unset- 
 tled to this day ; but he himself attacked the 
 colossus of the north from another quarter. 
 
 At the news of this, the Russians, who had 
 already commenced the evacuation of Walla- 
 chia and Moldavia, retraced their steps, com- 
 manded by the able Greneral Kutusoff. The 
 war continued till 1812, and was concluded by 
 the treaty of Bucharest. 
 
 By this treaty, the Porte, who had commenced 
 the war in the hope of reoccupying the Crimea 
 and the Kuban, was on the point of being once 
 more dispossessed of Wallachia and Moldavia. 
 But again, at this juncture. Napoleon crossed 
 the Niemen, and the Russians, interested in 
 obtaining a speedy peace, hastened to conclude 
 one. He delivered over to them the mouths of 
 the Danube, Bessarabia, and a part of Moldavia 
 on the East of the Pruth. 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 155 
 
 V 
 
 RIVALRY OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE THE SULTAN 
 
 MAHMOUd's REFORMS INSURRECTION OF THE 
 
 PACHA OF JANINA, AND OF GREECE THE POW- 
 ERS AGREE TO PUT AN END TO THE DISTURB- 
 ANCES ATTEMPT ON NAVARINO RUSSIA SEEKS 
 
 A QUARREL WITH THE PORTE DIGNITY AND 
 
 COURAGE OF THE LATTER THE TURKISH FORCES 
 
 DEFEATED TREATY OF ADRIANOPLE RUSSIA 
 
 DOMINATES OVER TURKEY. 
 
 During the disastrous war which the Porte 
 had engaged in with the ever-victorious Russia, 
 England and France, more than ever occupied 
 by their fierce rivalry, had each descended to 
 intrigues utterly unworthy of the high charac- 
 ter of the two nations, hut which were a nec- 
 essary result of their fixed idea of the mutual 
 and total destruction of each other. The En- 
 glish embassador. Lord Adair, had attempted 
 to wrest from the French the Ionian Isles, the 
 possession of which had been granted them by 
 the treaty of Tilsit. This he endeavored to do 
 by fomenting an insurrection of the natives. 
 On his part, M. Latour-Maubourg had harassed 
 the Porte to obtain its alliance against England, 
 and its adherence to the Continental System ; 
 and he had well chosen his time to succeed, 
 
156 THE TURKS IN EUROPE: 
 
 namely, that of his bearing to the Sultan the 
 news of the battle of Wagram, and of the peace 
 just concluded by France with Austria. 
 
 Mahmoud reigned. He was far from a fee- 
 ble prince, but after the treaty of Bucharest, 
 agreed to by his Grrand Vizier, and which he 
 had signed sorely against his will, this sultan 
 had well understood that the safety of the Ot- 
 toman Empire could not be looked for from 
 without. He supported the humiliations with 
 which the individual selfishness of the powers 
 overwhelmed him, and nourished the project of 
 undertaking and pursuing the most searching 
 reforms in the interior of his empire. With re- 
 gard to this determination, his principal causes 
 of disquietude were, on one side, the undisci- 
 plined restlessness of the janissaries, who, after 
 having assassinated Selim, kept the throne un- 
 ceasingly in check ; and, on the other, the Wa- 
 habis, a species of schismatic Mussulmans who 
 had obtained possession of the holy cities of 
 Mecca and Medina, and interdicted the pilgrim- 
 age thereto of the true believers. At their 
 head was the famous Abdallah, who, under the 
 pretext of religious enthusiasm, had conceived 
 the project of restoring to Arabia her nationali- 
 ty, and making himself her ruler. It is known 
 that Mahmoud, some years later (1826), ex- 
 terminated the body of janissaries at Constanti- 
 nople, whither the daring Abdallah, conquered 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 157 
 
 by Ibrahim Pacha, was himself led in triumph, 
 and beheaded. 
 
 But other and still graver troubles were about 
 to show themselves in the heart of the Ottoman 
 Empire. One of the most powerful pachas of 
 that military feudal system which formed the 
 pillars of the empire, revolted. This was All 
 of Janina, who for some time offered a heroic 
 resistance to the armies of the Porte, but suc- 
 cumbed at last, while disseminating among the 
 surrounding people the magic cries of Constitu- 
 tion and Liberty. 
 
 The history of the insurrection and declara- 
 tion of independence of Grreece is known ; the 
 Greek insurrection failed in Wallachia, in Mol- 
 davia, and Macedonia, from want of cohesion ; 
 but in Ancient Greece, where the inhabitants 
 were more homogeneous and more numerous 
 than the Mussulmans, and, moreover, favored 
 by their mountains, it took a more obstinate 
 and decisive character. Ypsilanti, Mavrocor- 
 dato, Botzaris, Kanaris, and a hundred other 
 Greeks, acquired imperishable glory by their 
 sustained devotion to the liberty of a country 
 of which nothing remained but the name. The 
 consequences, however, of such an event could 
 not of necessity have been otherwise than un- 
 important, as the independence of Greece was 
 not confined in its causes to a general order of 
 things, but much rather to certain intrigues, in 
 
\oS 
 
 THF. TURKS IN El ROPE : 
 
 which it would not perhaps be difficult to dis- 
 cern traces of the hand which, since the treaty 
 ofKainardji, has never ceased to weigh heavily 
 upon the Porte, and which agitates the East at 
 the present nnoment. 
 
 The struggle had lasted seven years. France, 
 England, and Russia, came to an understand- 
 ing that it was time to put an end to it, with 
 all the more reason from its being highly in- 
 jurious to the commerce of the East generally, 
 but especially to that of the Mediterranean, 
 where piracy borrowed the outward appearance 
 of war and independence. The treaty con- 
 cluded by these three powers, on the 26th of 
 July, 1827, pronounced and guaranteed the in- 
 dependence of Grreece, recognizing her as a 
 state, and circumscribing her within the some- 
 what narrow limits she bears at the present day. 
 
 But — a circumstance that is utterly inex- 
 plicable, except by a hypocritical and mistaken 
 feeling of greediness between them — France 
 and England consented to the destruction of 
 the Turkish fleet, and proceeded to its accom- 
 plishment, in concert with Russia, by the cow- 
 ardly surprise and the abominable crime of 
 Navarino. 
 
 That day was, without doubt, one of high 
 festival for Russia ! France and England had 
 blindly rendered themselves the slaves of her 
 designs. 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 159 
 
 Russia could not now moderate her ambition 
 a single instant. She immediately sought for 
 a quarrel with the Porte, and, in order to give 
 an air of lawfulness to the war with which she 
 was again about to overwhelm her fallen foe, 
 plunged into such a deplorable situation by the 
 course of events, she published a sort of mani- 
 festo in the style of the fable of the Wolf and 
 the Lamb. Russia reproached Turkey with 
 having oppressed the Servians, the Wallachi- 
 ans, and the Moldavians — Russia, who is her- 
 self so liberal in the government of the people 
 subjected to her rule ! She accused Turkey of 
 having infringed the treaty of Bucharest, and 
 the conferences of Akerman. 
 
 The Porte felt bound to reply to this, and did 
 so with equal dignity and courage. ,''All the 
 accusations brought forward by Russia against 
 the Sublime Porte," such was its language, 
 *' are false and unjust. They have no other 
 design but that of cloaking the insatiable love 
 of conquest and usurpation by which the cab- 
 inet of St. Petersburg is distinguished. If 
 treaties have been violated, Russia alone is to 
 blame." 
 
 The Porte followed these words by an expose 
 of facts, proving that it was in reality Russia 
 which had been guilty of flagrant violation of 
 the treaties. But words and even courage are 
 often powerless against brute force. The Rus- 
 
160 THE TURKS IN EUROPE I 
 
 sian army crossed the Balkan, and the Turkish 
 army, in spite of numerous acts of bravery 
 worthy of the best days of Ottoman splendor, 
 again succumbed, and the Russians entered 
 Adrianople victorious, where they proceeded to 
 the dictation of a new treaty, swollen by new 
 pretensions. 
 
 The treaty of Adrianople was the crowning 
 blow given by Russia to Turkey. The Em- 
 peror Alexander displayed a high order of abil- 
 ity in its dictation. He did not show himself 
 exacting on the question of territory ; but on 
 all other subjects he imposed his will in such 
 a manner as to insure his influence over the 
 Ottoman government. He restored to the Porte 
 the two Principalities of Wallachia and Mol- 
 davia, with Bulgaria, Roumelia, and all the 
 fortresses which the Russian army had con- 
 quered during the war. The Pruth continued 
 to form the European boundary of the two em- 
 pires, from the point where it enters the Mol- 
 davian territory to its confluence with the Dan- 
 ube. From the latter point to the mouth of 
 St. George's Canal, the Russian frontier was 
 to be the right bank of the Danube, so that all 
 the islands formed by the various branches of 
 this immense river were declared to belong to 
 Russia. 
 
 In Asia, the Pachaliks of Kars, Bayazed, and 
 Erseroum, with a large part of that of Akal- 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 161 
 
 zike, were restored to the Turks. In the last- 
 named pachalik, Russia only reserved to her- 
 self a small district inclosed in the upper part 
 of the basin of the Kur, which contains the 
 fortress of Akalzike. The Russian negotia- 
 tors called this '' simply setting their frontiers 
 straight. 
 
 It was stipulated that the Principalities of 
 Wallachia and Moldavia should preserve the 
 same rights and privileges which had been 
 guaranteed them by former treaties. 
 
 Full liberty to trade through the whole of 
 the Ottoman Empire was secured to Russian 
 subjects, and Turkey consented to pay an in- 
 demnity for the losses incurred through the war 
 by Russian merchants, as well as another in- 
 demnity — the nature of which was to be regu- 
 lated at a later period — for the expenses of the 
 war itself. 
 
 No legislative provision, on the part of the 
 Porte, could interfere with the Russians in the 
 exercise of their commercial rights. 
 
 Russians, whether residing or traveling in 
 Turkey, were only amenable to the jurisdic- 
 tion of the embassadors and consuls of their 
 nation. No Russian ship could be visited by 
 the Turks, either at sea or in the ports of the 
 Ottoman Empire. 
 
 The Dardanelles and the Bosphorus were 
 thrown open to all merchant-ships of every size, 
 
 L 
 
162 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 loaded or not, coming or going from the Black 
 Sea to the Mediterranean. 
 
 It was further declared that the same favor 
 would be accorded to ships of all other nations 
 who were not at war with the Sublime Porte. 
 
 In case of any infraction of the preceding 
 regulations, or in case the embassador of Rus- 
 sia did not receive full and prompt satisfaction, 
 when demanded by him, the Porte acknowl- 
 edged that Russia possessed the right of im- 
 mediately declaring war against the Ottoman 
 Empire. 
 
 Lastly, the Sultan declared his adherence to 
 the treaty entered into by those Powers who 
 had settled the independence and boundaries of 
 Grreece, which he had hitherto refused to ac- 
 knowledge. 
 
 The valuation of the expenses of the war, 
 which were insisted on in a note apart, amount- 
 ed to the enormous sum of d£5,000,000, and the 
 Russians had the right of remaining in the coun- 
 try until the expiration of the period of pay- 
 ment, which was fixed at ten years. 
 
 As we see, the ability of the conqueror pierced 
 through the moderation which he had manifest- 
 ed with regard to territory. It was thus that 
 there were certain other conditions stipulated for, 
 which, while leaving Wallachia and Moldavia 
 still attached to Turkey, placed them under the 
 nrotection of Russia. It was decided that the 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADrNCE. 1 C3 
 
 hospodars should hold their dignity for life, and 
 could only be deprived of it with the consent 
 of Russia. The hospodars were to exercise a 
 perfectly independent rule in their principalities, 
 without the Sultan or his agents being able to 
 interfere. 
 
 The Sultan renounced his right to the con- 
 tribution in kind and money which he was ac- 
 customed to draw from these provinces. But 
 it was agreed, in order that he might be indem- 
 nified for this, that he should be paid a fixed 
 sum annually, the payment of this sum not com- 
 mencing, however, until after the evacuation of 
 the country by the Russian troops — that is to 
 say, at the expiration of ten years. 
 
 By this treaty, too, the Porte w^as bound to 
 give up to Russia all that she had hitherto pos- 
 sessed to the north of the left bank of the Dan- 
 ube, including towns, fortresses, and land. 
 
 No Mussulman subject of the Porte could 
 reside there. Those Turks who possessed he- 
 reditary estates, or who had legally acquired 
 landed property, or property of any .other de- 
 scription, in the territory ceded to Russia, were 
 bound to dispose of it within a period of a year 
 and a half 
 
 Such was the treaty of Adrianople (1829), 
 concluded with the knowledge of the great 
 Western Powers, scarcely a year after the crime 
 committed by them at Navarino. It needs no 
 
164 THE TURKS IN EUROPE ! 
 
 commentary; the Grrand Seignor was, so to 
 speak, no more than a nominal sovereign in a 
 considerable portion of his empire; while the 
 Powers of the West, from their fatal rivalry and 
 foolish projects of individual ambition, groaned, 
 and still groan, under the fearful weight of the 
 Colossus which stretches one hand over Europe 
 and the other over Northern America, and whose 
 covetous glance is fixed with eager avidity on 
 Asia, situated opposite to it. 
 
 VI. 
 
 CONSEQUENCES OF THE EXCLUSION OF THE PORTE 
 
 FROM THE TREATY OF VIENNA REBELLION OF 
 
 THE PACHA OF EGYPT THE TREATY OF LON- 
 DON PRINCE MENSCHIKOFf's MISSION TO CON- 
 STANTINOPLE IN 1853 PROCEEDINGS OF FRANCE 
 
 AND ENGLAND THE PRETENSIONS OF RUSSIA 
 
 THE GUARDIANSHIP OF THE HOLY PLACES, AND 
 
 OF THE CHRISTIAN SUBJECTS OF THE PORTE 
 
 DISCUSSIONS AND NEGOTIATIONS. 
 
 The Porte had not been summoned to the 
 Congress of Vienna, which in 1815 had regu- 
 lated the affairs of the states of Europe, and 
 established a certain solidarity among them. 
 The result was for Turkey the absence of that 
 collective protection, in conformity with the 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 165 
 
 laws of nations, and that mutual respect which 
 these states have since practiced, n:iore or less, 
 toward one another. Turkey has lived in ab- 
 solute isolation ; and it is to that isolation that 
 we must attribute the repeated dismember- 
 ments of which she has been the object. It is 
 certain that the separation of Grreece and the 
 conquest of Algiers — which we, for our part, 
 by no means regret — could not have taken 
 place if Turkey had shared in the Holy Alli- 
 ance ; perhaps, even, she would not have lost 
 the Ionian Isles — the independence of which, 
 under the protection of England, and in ex- 
 change for the port of Praga, in Epirus, she 
 was compelled to recognize in 1819 — if she had 
 asssisted at the Congress. But, at any rate, 
 she would have been respected by Russia, and 
 would not have had to submit to the treaty of 
 Adrianople, by which she received her death- 
 blow. Russia, held in check by the authority 
 of treaties, and by the assured power of the 
 Ottoman Empire, would have confined herself 
 within the limits of her territory, and would 
 have been compelled to carry her ruthless act- 
 ivity in an opposite direction. 
 
 This observation alone, and the facts sug- 
 gested by it, sufficiently prove that the integ- 
 rity of states, as well as their interior tranquil- 
 lity, can have no real guarantee but in their 
 mutual association and solidarity. It is in that 
 
166 THE TURKS IN EUROPE I 
 
 association, founded on a broad and liberal basis, 
 that governments and nations will find shelter 
 from those continual agitations which lead them 
 to quarrel one with another, as we have seen in 
 the simple picture which the examination of 
 the destinies of the Ottoman Empire has un- 
 folded to our eyes ; it is in that pacific solidar- 
 ity, we say, that the spirit of internal institu- 
 tions will be enabled to develop itself with 
 strength and liberty, and to produce, in due 
 order, civilization and its admirable effects. 
 
 The isolation, then, of the Turkish Empire 
 left it a prey to covetousness from within and 
 without ; and if the Sultan had not yet been 
 driven from Constantinople, his empire owed 
 its existence to a negative rivalry between Rus- 
 sia and the Western Powers alone. Scarcely 
 had the affair of the Grreek independence been 
 regulated by the Powers, ere the Porte again 
 saw itself the object of a revolt, by which it 
 was destined to lose another of its provinces. 
 
 Up to 1832, Turkey had found Mehemet Ali, 
 the Pacha of Egypt, to be the most submissive 
 of subjects. She had received important serv- 
 ices at his hands, particularly against the in- 
 surgent Grreeks, But she soon had cause to 
 complain of the ambition of her vassal — now 
 rendered too powerful by the concession that 
 had been made to him of the Isle of Candia. 
 Mehemet conceived the project of taking pos- 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 167 
 
 session of Syria, with perhaps the idea of mak- 
 ing it a road for him to the capital of the em- 
 pire. He had a considerable army, an excel- 
 lent navy, and had the command of considera- 
 ble capital, derived from his right of property 
 over the land in Egypt, and from the commer- 
 cial monopoly he exercised. 
 
 The Sultan Mahmoud, justly irritated by this 
 act of rebellion, sent an army to attack him. 
 It was defeated, in battle after battle, at Da- 
 mas, at Homs, at Alep, and at Beylam, by the 
 Egyptian army, commanded by Ibrahim, eld- 
 est son of Mehemet. The whole of Syria was 
 in a short time in the hands of the rebel Pacha ; 
 and Ibrahim, emboldened by success, marched 
 on to Upper Asia, and occupied it without re- 
 sistance. 
 
 It was in the critical state into which this 
 new reverse had plunged the Porte, that it 
 accepted the support of Russia, and signed the 
 private treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, by which 
 the latter Power engaged to defend the Porte 
 against all attacks from within or without, on 
 condition that the Porte should close the Dar- 
 danelles, in case of war, against all other na- 
 tions. 
 
 The Porte, thanks to the Pacha of Egypt, 
 was in a most precarious position. Would the 
 "Western Powers suffer the safety of Turkey to 
 depend entirely on Russia, and permit the ar- 
 
168 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 rnies of the Czar to protect her even in Syria 
 and Egypt ? The question became grave, and, 
 for the first time, was known by its true name : 
 '' The Eastern Question." All Europe, Par- 
 liaments, press, and cabinets, began to look 
 upon it as a matter of vital importance. 
 
 The powers then saw the error they had com- 
 mitted in 1815, in not summoning the Porte to 
 the Congress of Vienna. It was felt that the 
 dependence into which that state was about to 
 fall, placed the entire political edifice of Europe 
 in danger. It was with a view to the tardy 
 reparation of that fault that Prince Metternich 
 proposed the reunion in Vienna of a new Con- 
 gress of the Powers, to which the Porte was to 
 have been invited, as well as a greater number 
 of representatives of the various states. The 
 advice of Prince Metternich was not entirely 
 followed ; it was confined to the adoption of 
 simple conferences between England, France, 
 Russia, Austria, and Prussia, to regulate differ- 
 ences between the Porte and its Pacha. The 
 Porte was invited to take a part in the discus- 
 sions ; bul^ whether it was that congresses ge;n- 
 erally had been far from favorable to its inter- 
 ests, and especially the recent one that had de- 
 clared the independence of Grreece, or whether 
 it considered itself safe in the support of Rus- 
 sia, assured to it by the treaty of Unkiar-Ske- 
 lessi, it declined sendins: an embassador. 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 169 
 
 This treaty was a source of uneasiness to En- 
 gland, who was, doubtless, far from pleased to 
 see the arm of Russia extended across Syria 
 even to the route to the East Indies ; France 
 could no longer, with indifference, endure the 
 prospect of Russia reaching to the Mediterrane- 
 an ; and Austria felt too keenly that she was 
 in danger of being crushed by the Colossus of 
 the North. 
 
 In justice to Russia, it must be admitted that 
 she had the good sense not to aggravate the sit- 
 uation. She took measures to attest that she 
 wished to preserve the compromised peace of 
 Europe, which, in truth, she had the greatest 
 need to do, in order to assure her dominion in 
 the states of the Caucasus and her meridional 
 provinces, as well as for the security of her com- 
 merce in the Mediterranean. Russia then ad- 
 vised the Sultan to abstain from war with the 
 Pacha of Egypt, and made the same invitation, 
 joined to a menace, to the Pacha himself. 
 
 It must also be said that Russia neglected no 
 possible precaution to meet every contingency ; 
 her fleet had already entered the Bosphorus, 
 and was anchored at Sizepoli, the nearest port 
 to Constantinople. 
 
 England, though interested in the preserva- 
 tion of peace equally with the other powers, did 
 not act in these circumstances with becoming 
 gravity and openness. Not having met with 
 
170 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 that absolute submission from the Pacha of 
 Egypt that she expected, she allowed caprice to 
 usurp the place of reason, and conceived a some- 
 what lively hatred for Mehemet Ali. That feel- 
 ing, above all, took possession of Lord Ponsonby, 
 her embassador at Constantinople. Although 
 speaking officially and continually of peace to 
 the ministers of the Porte and to the embassa- 
 dors, his colleagues, this diplomatist never 
 ceased to excite the Sultan against his vassal, 
 and to urge him to resume the offensive for the 
 reconquest of Adana and all Syria. Mahmoud, 
 naturally irritable enough, and not needing any 
 additional excitement to urge him to hostilities, 
 also dissimulated, and prepared to reopen the 
 campaign. He was soon once more on the of- 
 fensive, to the great satisfaction of Mehernet 
 Ali, who reckoned on further victories. And, 
 in fact, his son Ibrahim routed the Turkish 
 army as soon as it made its appearance in Up- 
 per Asia, and Mehemet himself sent the bulletin 
 of the battle of Nezib to the different Powers. 
 
 In the position in which this last triumph 
 had placed him, Mehemet Ali seemed tolerably 
 near to Constantinople ; and there is every rea- 
 son to believe he would have dared to attack 
 the Sultan on his throne, and perhaps deprive 
 kim of it. Like a prudent man, he manifest- 
 ed his pretensions within certain limits ; he de- 
 manded the recognition of himself as the inde- 
 
THEIR R[SE AND DECADENCE. 171 
 
 pendent and hereditary Prince of Egypt, and 
 the possession of Syria and the pachalik of 
 Adana. 
 
 It was time that the mediating Powers should 
 interfere. The conferences were opened at Lon- 
 don ; France and Russia declared at first for the 
 annexation of Syria to Egypt, with the heredi- 
 tary government in the Pacha's family; the 
 other Powers were of a contrary opinion. Rus- 
 sia soon joined them, and France alone persist- 
 ed in her opinion. She believed that England, 
 in consequence of the good understanding that 
 had existed between the two cabinets since 
 1830, would not sign without her ; but the re- 
 sult proved the contrary. England signed, and 
 France remained isolated — not to say excluded 
 ' — from the treaty of London of the 15th of July, 
 1840. 
 
 The treaty of London withdrew from Mehe- 
 met Ali the pachalik of Adana and Syria, with 
 the exception of ancient Palestine and the Isle 
 of Candia ; but, nevertheless, assured to him the 
 hereditary government of Egypt. 
 
 The signing Powers engaged themselves to 
 defend the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. 
 
 The treaty of London was the subject of 
 lively discussions in France. It seemed unin- 
 intelligible that England should have separated 
 from France on such an important matter, as, 
 for the past ten years, these two Powers had 
 
172 . THE TURKS IN EVK0F1& . 
 
 constantly acted together. Acut^ 'Tiinds fan 
 cied they detected in it an act of trj'^.kery on the 
 part of Lord Palmerston, then foreign secretary. 
 M. Thiers, who then held the portfolio of foreign 
 affairs in France, endeavored to interest the 
 country in his opinion, and to demonstrate that 
 France was especially interested in Egypt. 
 
 It now remains for us to describe, and we will 
 do so in a few words, what has passed and is 
 now passing, in 1853, at Constantinople. 
 
 In the month of March last, there were tid- 
 ings of considerable armaments on the part of 
 Russia having appeared on the coast of Turkey. 
 The fleet is maneuvering in the Black Sea; an 
 embassador extraordinary of the Emperor Nich- 
 olas, the Prince Menschikoff", arrives at Constan- 
 tinople with a staff* composed of several gen- 
 erals, and the admiral in command of the fleet; 
 the embassador, it is said, has reviewed the 
 forces, by land and sea, on his passage. He 
 presents himself as a sort of emanation of this 
 menacing aspect. What has he come to do? 
 For some time the secret is his own. He pre- 
 sents himself without etiquette at the Sultan's 
 reception; he ostentatiously abstains from the 
 customory visit to the minister of foreign af- 
 fairs, and such is the impression caused at Con- 
 stantinople, by the presence and conduct of 
 the Russian embassador, that his want of re- 
 spect to the minister is considered equivalent 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 173 
 
 to the disgrace of the latter. The minister of- 
 fers his resignation to the Sultan, and it is ac- 
 cepted. 
 
 At the news of this event, France sends a 
 fleet to the Grreek seas. The English fleet, 
 summoned by the charge d'affaires of Grreat 
 Britain, remains anchored at Malta, and the 
 admiral in command finds that he has inter- 
 preted the wishes of the cabinet at London bet- 
 ter than its minister at the Porte. 
 
 Two months elapse, occupied by fluctuating 
 opinions and affairs in Europe. Nothing is 
 spoken of but this famous embassador from 
 Russia and his mission. 
 
 At the end of this time, we learn from the 
 newspapers that the question is nothing but a 
 religious one between the Grreek and Latin 
 Christians, under the protection of Russia and 
 France. 
 
 As far as France is concerned, the following 
 are the facts : At the request of the govern- 
 ment, presented by its embassador, M. de La- 
 valette, the Sultan had, in 1852, consented to 
 restore to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, delegated 
 by the Holy See, the key of the great gate of 
 the church of Bethlehem ; to give orders for 
 the replacing, in the Grotto of the Nativity, a 
 star, ornamented by a Latin inscription, which 
 had disappeared in 1847 ; and, finally, to ac- 
 cord to the Latin communion the right of eel- 
 
174 THE TURKS IN EUROPE*. 
 
 ebrating their religion in the church of the 
 Holy Virgin. 
 
 The cabinet of St. Petersburg speedily trans- 
 mits to the cabinet of the Tuileries the assur- 
 ance that its intention was not to force the 
 Porte to withdraw the concessions that had 
 been made, and, in fact, in sending an embas- 
 sador extraordinary to Constantinople, it was 
 disposed to adopt the statu quo on that point. 
 
 But this was on a condition that was not 
 mentioned. Russia, on her part, wished for 
 something more than the immunities of mere 
 form : this was the special and direct protect- 
 orate of all the Christian subjects of the Sultan 
 — who form nearly one half of the population 
 of his empire — and, what is more, the nomin- 
 ation of the patriarch of the Grreek religion : 
 pretensions which far exceeded the conditions 
 stipulated in the treaty of Kaniardji. 
 
 It will readily be believed, that, at such a 
 price, Russia would willingly have allowed 
 France to enjoy in peace the modest advant- 
 ages she had obtained from the Porte, and 
 which in no point exceeded the ancient stipu- 
 lations. Her national susceptibility was reas- 
 sured by dispatches such as the following, in 
 which the old diplomacy of European cabinets 
 is seen in all its pristine splendor. 
 
 " Every thing tends to restore confidence as 
 to the events that have recently so deeply 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 175 
 
 agitated public opinion. France and Russia 
 are in concert : all that remains to be decided 
 is whether the cupola of the Church of Jeru- 
 salem will be redecorated in the modern or in 
 the Byzantine style.'''' 
 
 Another dispatch : 
 
 ''At the moment when all appeared amica- 
 bly settled, an incident arose relative to the 
 guardianship of the Holy Sepulchre,'''' 
 
 A third dispatch arrives : 
 
 '' Let every body be reassured ; there will 
 be a convention between the Porte and Rus- 
 sia ; another between the Porte and France ; 
 and a third between France and Russia /" 
 
 Finally, from beneath the puerilities related 
 by the most serious journals to occupy their 
 readers' minds, appears the real object : this is 
 an ultimatum from Russia to the Porte, in 
 which the former insists upon the protector- 
 ship, not to say the spiritual sovereignty, over 
 twelve millions of Ottoman subjects ! 
 
 Is it possible that a sincere motive for so ex- 
 ^orbitant a pretension can be found in the con- 
 cession obtained by France ? No one can think 
 it ; for, on the terms in which we have seen it, 
 this concession is almost insignificant. But 
 Russia has been able to make it a pretext for 
 her insatiable ambition. Moreover, her ulti- 
 matum is opposed to the spirit of the interna- 
 tional convention of the 15th July, 1840, and 
 
176 TIIK TURKS IN EUROPE I 
 
 to the treaty of the 13th of July, 1841, the 
 object of which is evidently the recognition, 
 by the contracting Powers, of the authority of 
 the Ottoman Empire. 
 
 Can it be Russia's intention to throw down 
 the gauntlet to Western Europe by an open vi- 
 olation of the spirit of the treaties ? This is 
 scarcely probable. It is more reasonable to 
 suppose that Prince MenschikofF may somewhat 
 have exaggerated the forms, and perhaps the 
 object, of the mission with which he had been 
 charged, and that even now the cabinet of 
 Russia will recognize the propriety of allowing 
 the sparks of the fire which it had kindled to 
 expire of their own accord. Supposing even that 
 the successive proceedings of France and Aus- 
 tria toward the Porte may have been of a na- 
 ture to excite her anger, there is still, on the 
 part of Russia, a little too much emphasis in 
 the manner of her envoy. Russia has no occa- 
 sion to increase her strength by menaces ; no- 
 body denies her a position among the great Pow- 
 ers, but with that she should be content. She 
 wishes to emerge from barbarism — it is her 
 right ; but she should avoid all national tend- 
 encies which remind us of it, and should re- 
 press them herself by that high intelligence 
 which some of her statesmen, and particularly 
 her sovereign, are said to possess. 
 
 We can not avoid throwing out an observa- 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 177 
 
 tion with reference to this new attempt on the 
 part of Russia : it is, that grave objections 
 must always exist to the mixing up questions 
 such as that of the Holy Places with politics ; 
 and, in our opinion, for two reasons. The first 
 is, that religion and her divine principle of 
 charity must be compromised by making her 
 the object of scandalous and even bloody quar- 
 rels between nations. The second is, as it has 
 been well put by Montesquieu, '^ That care 
 should be taken to avoid giving too much im- 
 portance to such questions, and leaving the 
 public to suppose that the destiny of states de- 
 pends upon them." And, indeed, nothing is 
 more fitted than such a belief to disturb the 
 reason of men, and to weaken — without their 
 being at all aware of it — the power and au- 
 thority of governments. 
 
 Moreover, much might be said as to what 
 really are the Holy Places. The opinion of St. 
 Jerome, after living in their neighborhood for 
 several years, and at a period before schism 
 existed, is well known. Time has probably 
 wrought changes in the state of things; we 
 can not believe that ''all kinds of traffic and 
 crime" (according to the expression of the learn- 
 ed father of the Church) have perpetuated their 
 existence to our own days at Jerusalem and 
 Bethlehem, but it is at least too true that they 
 are the scene of ceaseless quarrels between the 
 
 M 
 
178 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 Christians, to the great scandal of the Mussul- 
 mans ; and that the protection, if it be true 
 that it is necessary, of the collective Powers, 
 would have to be accompanied by means of 
 authority and discipline of a nature to enforce 
 the preservation of peace — in these places so 
 deserving of veneration and profound respect 
 — on the part of the professing devotees, who 
 are always showing their fists and ready to tear 
 each other in pieces, or to violate the hospitality 
 they enjoy on the Ottoman soil, and when the 
 Catholic religion and the Greek religion are 
 not separated as much as by a hair's breadth in 
 matters of doctrine, but solely by their ambi- 
 tious views of supremacy. 
 
 Russia, whose mind is incessantly turned to- 
 ward that system of universal supremacy of 
 which Peter the Grreat laid the foundations in 
 his political testament, pretended to see a state 
 question in the re-establishment, demanded 
 and obtained by France, of a privilege in per- 
 fect uniformity with the old arrangements. 
 This was certainly exaggerating the motive of 
 the demonstration she lately made at Constan- 
 tinople, and no one can perceive any thing else 
 in it than a pretext, which has already been 
 used twenty times to satisfy her ambition and 
 her projects. 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 179 
 
 VIL 
 
 REGENERATION OF THE WEST FUNDAMENTAL LAW 
 
 OF THE MUSSULMANS THE KORAN THE SUN- 
 
 NAH AND THE CONSTITUTIONS OF THE PRINCES 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 THE TURKS AS A PEOPLE, AND AS INDIVIDUALS 
 
 CAUSES OF DECAY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 
 
 MEANS OF POSSIBLE REGENERATION. 
 
 When it is a question whether the Ottoman 
 Empire shall live or die — whether it will be 
 confiscated by the European Powers, in order 
 to add to their respective territories — or wheth- 
 er it will be regenerated with their concurrence 
 and by their aid — it becomes necessary that 
 we should thoroughly examine its situation, its 
 gradual decay, and the elements essential to 
 the restoration of its strength, its grandeur, 
 and its dignity. 
 
 The Turks, as we know, descended from the 
 table-land of Tartary, in the heart of Asia, and, 
 after wresting successively Asia Minor and Con- 
 stantinople from the Grreeks, rendered effemin- 
 ate by superstition, advanced into Europe, in- 
 vaded Hungary, the Danubian Provinces, the 
 islands of the Archipelago, Malta, and Western 
 Greece as far as the Adriatic, and made irrup- 
 tions into Grermany and Poland. But here the 
 
180 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 expansive power of this virile race stopped, 
 after having, for three centuries kept Europe 
 in a continual state of alarm, and beheld the 
 princes of Christendom incline their heads 
 humbly before its decisions. 
 
 At the expiration of this period, the vices of 
 its internal organization, and the absence of in- 
 tellectual progress on the one side, and the re- 
 vival of learning and religious reforms which 
 took place among the nations of the West, on 
 the other, changed the aspect of affairs. Tur- 
 key fell rapidly from her relative position, while 
 Grermany, Poland, and Venice leagued with 
 each other, and placed, by their brilliant vic- 
 tories, a limit to the Ottoman power. 
 
 But there was another nation which had 
 now appeared in Europe, and fought, so to say, 
 single-handed against Turkey. This was Rus- 
 sia, a virile, and also a warlike race, and one 
 which, at an early period, was fortunate enough 
 to possess a chief endued with eminent genius, 
 and who felt that there was another power in 
 the world besides the force of arms, namely, 
 civilization. The Czar Peter had conceived the 
 idea — a natural one, by-the-way, to all men 
 of great ambition, at epochs which are still 
 barbarous — of seeing Russia one day exercise 
 universal sway. But he did not proceed to ef- 
 fect this after the manner of a Genghis-Khan 
 or a Timour : he traveled incognito among 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 181 
 
 those nations that were furthest advanced in 
 civilization, and studied the improvements in- 
 troduced into their navies, the organization of 
 their armies, of their finances, and their insti- 
 tutions in general. He then returned into the 
 midst of his hordes, and set about laying the 
 foundations of a great state. It was by prop- 
 erly organizing an army, up to that time un- 
 disciplined, and by regulating the finances, 
 that Peter the Grreat first gave to Russia a 
 principle of resistance, which was destined 
 soon to become the principle of a power supe- 
 rior to, and irresistible for Turkey, which had 
 remained plunged in the deep ruts of her mili- 
 tary system, and deprived of proper civil in- 
 stitutions. 
 
 In order to understand exactly the causes 
 which have brought about the decay of the 
 Ottoman Empire, and the resources which are 
 still left it, we must extend our glance to the 
 foundations of the constitution which has reg- 
 ulated its existence, the more especially as th< 
 Turkish social system is not at all analogous 
 to that of Europe, of which latter we naturally 
 possess some notion. The fundamental laws^ 
 the religion, and the manners of Turkey, beav 
 a stamp of originality with respect to ourselves, 
 which it is absolutely necessary for us to be 
 aware of, in order to arrive at a just apprecia- 
 tion of the Past and Future of this extraor- 
 dinary nation. 
 
182 
 
 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 Mohammed, who was its founder and legis- 
 lator, at the commencement of the seventh 
 century, had, in imitation of Moses, felt deep- 
 ly the utility of a system of unity in its insti- 
 tutions, and established it on the unity of Grod. 
 But he did not, like the Hebrew legislator, 
 provide for that classification of the social ele- 
 ments, which renders Deuteronomy an almost 
 universal code of laws. Mohammed thought 
 that faith alone was sufficient to imbue na- 
 tions with animation, and make them live. 
 This is a pretty general error with all secta- 
 rians. He had no conception of that natural 
 law of the world, or of that active intelligence 
 of men's minds, which has assumed, in mod- 
 ern as well as in former times, so great a de- 
 velopment in Europe, and has founded, under 
 the very eyes of various systems of religion, 
 and without any injury to their principles, the 
 marvelous state of civilization which we wit- 
 ness at the present day. 
 
 Mohammed put forth the Koran, said to be a 
 collection of leaves that fell successively from 
 heaven, and containing, at the same time, the 
 divine and human doctrines of the Turks — in 
 fact, all that it is necessary for them to know. 
 *' All that is not in the Koran is useless and 
 profane." It was under the influence of this 
 belief that a too-celebrated Caliph caused the 
 immense and precious library at Alexandria, 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 183 
 
 containing the treasures of the erudition of 
 the antique Grreco-Roman civilization, to be 
 burned. 
 
 The Sunnah is the supplement of the Koran. 
 These two books contain the written legisla- 
 tive measures of the Prophet. The Koran is 
 the book of the law — civil and criminal, as 
 well as at the same time the religious code.* 
 The Mussulmans consider it as a divine book, 
 come, like the Tables of the Law, ready writ- 
 ten^ from above, '^It is so pure in its elo- 
 quence, so Just in its ideas, and so perfect in 
 its creation, that it was not in the power of 
 any man to create such a book !" 
 
 The truth is, that it certainly lays down, in 
 a very perfect manner, the principles of relig- 
 ion and the main elements of morality. Drawn 
 up, however, with a degree of enthusiasm well 
 calculated to fascinate a people of an ardent 
 nature, and with a great leaning toward the 
 marvelous, it contains, as a code of legislation, 
 numerous defects. It neither precisely fixes 
 nor develops civil rights. It says hardly any 
 thing of criminal law, and is altogether silent 
 on the subject of administrative and commer- 
 cial law. Nowhere in it do we find mention of 
 
 * We here mean the Constitutive Mussulman Law, such 
 as it existed previous to the Hatti-cherif of Gul-Hane, pub- 
 lished in 1839, and destined to introduce profound reforms 
 in the politics and administration of the Turkish Em- 
 pire. 
 
184 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 any organized and properly constituted body. 
 The rules of all proceedings are to be derived 
 from custom and natural right. 
 
 The Sunnah contains a collection of tradi- 
 tional laws emanating from the words and ac- 
 tions attributed to the Prophet, with the de- 
 cisions of his successors, the earlier Caliphs. 
 The Sunnah has been commented on by vari- 
 ous doctors, and when the commentaries and 
 the book do not agree, the legists and ulemahs 
 meet for the purpose of consulting the Koran. 
 There are also, as a supplement to this body 
 of laws, the Opinions of the Doctors^ the 
 Kucunameh^ the Aadel^ and the Ourf or the 
 Constitution of the Princes. 
 
 What distinguishes the Mussulman doc- 
 trines, when viewed in relation to the civil 
 law, is the absence of all subtilty and useless 
 development. The laws and the judicial de- 
 cisions appear, almost always, to be dictated 
 by reason and equity. These qualities are par- 
 ticularly apparent in the various modes of ac- 
 quiring property, and the results they involve. 
 If the law is obscure, we must not accuse its 
 principle so much as the commentaries which 
 have been written on it, as well as the usages 
 of a theocratic government, that concentrates 
 jurisprudence in the hands of the priests, and 
 confounds it with religion. 
 
 Up to the present day, the Turks have re- 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 185 
 
 mained in a purely religious, dreamy, theocra- 
 tic state, like all the races of the East ; for, 
 let it be clearly understood, in the East there 
 are merely so many different religions, and not, 
 properly speaking, different nations. In this 
 stage of their existence the Turks have cer- 
 tainly no reason to fear a comparison with the 
 races of the West, such as they were before 
 the revival of letters. As a people, they have 
 surpassed them by their virile power as well 
 as by their morals. The Mussulman religion, 
 imperfect as it is, has produced men whom 
 common fairness compels us to designate as 
 persons of noble character and good faith, as 
 well as great lovers of justice ; as conscien- 
 tious, hospitable, religious, tolerant, and faith- 
 ful to the engagements they had made ; in a 
 word, as honest men, as all travelers and mer- 
 chants who have had dealings in the East are 
 well aware. 
 
 But all this is not sufficient to form a civil- 
 ized nation, which requires political and civil 
 laws, public privileges, a system of jurispru- 
 dence, of administration and of education, 
 sciences, arts, manufactures, commerce, and 
 a disciplined public force ; it requires, in a 
 word, such institutions as will effect the pro- 
 gressive and regular development of its intelli- 
 gence and its prosperity. 
 
 The Ottoman people, with that absolute 
 
186 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 unity which they possessed through their re- 
 ligious constitution, and the idea, shared by 
 them in common with many other nations, 
 that they were destined to obtain universal 
 supremacy, and endowed, besides, with the 
 warlike instincts of the Tartar races, were 
 capable of extending their conquests very far, 
 and have given the world the most brilliant 
 proofs of their martial valor and superiority. 
 But from the day on which Christian nations 
 were aroused from their torpor and profound 
 helplessness, and entered the path of civiliza- 
 tion, while Turkey remained stationary, their 
 relative positions completely changed. From 
 protecting and ruling others, as it formerly 
 did, the Porte is, at present, protected and 
 ruled itself, and may be considered fortunate 
 if it can be maintained in its actual posi- 
 tion. 
 
 The absence of regular institutions, we as- 
 sert, left room for imperfections and vices 
 which caused the decay of so great an empire, 
 and which we will shortly enumerate, with 
 the reflections suggested to us by an attentive 
 examination of its history. We shall see that 
 the constituent qualities most proper to favor 
 the spirit of conquest, and particularly the 
 absolutism of the religious dogmas, became so 
 many elements of dissolution as soon as the 
 territorial development had reached its apogee. 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 187 
 
 The first and most fatal consequence of re- 
 ligious absolutism in the Ottoman Empire was 
 the exclusion of the G-reeks from the political 
 state, from the army, and from public offices. 
 
 For the first time, perhaps, in history, a 
 people of conquerors were seen to establish 
 themselves in the country of the conquered, 
 and hold them in subjection, without incorpo- 
 rating them with themselves, and without ac- 
 cording them, for several centuries, any pos- 
 sible means of social assimilation. Was this 
 done to perpetuate a feeling of antagonism in 
 the very heart of the Empire ? What was the 
 position of these rayas^ who were neither free- 
 men nor slaves, and who had every day before 
 their eyes the humiliating recollection of their 
 defeat, contrasted with the history of their an- 
 cestors, and the beauty of the country which 
 they had lost? The least unfavorable result 
 which such a state of things was calculated to 
 produce, is what we actually behold at the 
 present day — namely, a foreign power, out of 
 a sympathy of co-religion or policy, stretching 
 out its hand over these helots ; for, if the 
 Christians had not been pusillanimous, they 
 would, long since, and of their own accord, 
 have thrown off the yoke of the Mussulmans, 
 who are scarcely more numerous than them- 
 selves, if we take the whole extent of the em- 
 pire into consideration, and who are numeri- 
 
188 THE TURKS IN EUROPE: 
 
 cally much inferior in Turkey in Europe. 
 With the exception of the glorious war of inde- 
 pendence, which emancipated ancient Grreece, 
 the Christians of the East have never been 
 good for any thing but for base intrigues and 
 religious quarrels with the members of the 
 Latin Church. Long did they dishonor the 
 classical country of Socrates, Aristides, Leon- 
 idas, and Aristogiton, whose sons they would 
 not have dared to proclaim themselves, in the 
 face of the world, before 1821. But we must 
 frankly confess that the state of degradation 
 in which the Porte kept the Grreeks, at the 
 same time that it classed them among its sub- 
 jects, contributed to maintain them in their 
 effeminacy and undignified position. Had 
 they been initiated by their rulers into the 
 social privileges of the state, by an equal par- 
 ticipation in civil and religious offices, they 
 would have attached themselves to the empire 
 as to a new fatherland, and the emulation of 
 the two races, and the two religions, could not 
 have failed of proving beneficial to the develop- 
 ment of existing institutions, under a govern- 
 ment capable of balancing both parties, and 
 deriving advantage from them. Even at this 
 day, it seems hardly credible that out of thirty 
 million individuals, subject to one Sultan, 
 twelve millions are excluded from political 
 and civil rights, and are neither connected by 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 189 
 
 their intelligence with public affairs, nor by 
 their arms with the army ! I do not hesitate 
 in believing that the exclusion of the Grreeks, 
 since the Turks conquered the country, has 
 been the principal cause of the decay of the 
 Ottoman Empire, which has resulted from the 
 exacting spirit of the religious dogmas.^ 
 
 The second of these causes has been the body 
 of the ulemahs or Mussulman clergy. The 
 ulemahs direct public worship (if I may use 
 the phrase, which is not strictly correct, as the 
 Mussulmans do not practice public worship, at 
 least in the sense attached to the expression in 
 Europe), as well as the matters relating to 
 jurisprudence and education. This circum- 
 stance gives them immense influence over the 
 people. For some time they were extremely 
 useful ; by closely connecting religious faith 
 and morality with public spirit, they con- 
 tributed to the grandeur of the empire, and 
 
 * We must bear in mind one thing, which is, that really 
 not one element of unity is now remaining upon the old 
 Byzantine territory, an3 that even the religion retains nothing 
 resembling a national fact. Turkey in Europe is a collec- 
 tion of races which possess, strictly speaking, no national 
 character. Thus we find among them 1,100,000 Turks; 
 1,500,000 Albanians; 400,000 Bulgarians; 3,000,000 Slavo- 
 nians, Servians, and Illyrians ; 1,000,000 Greeks; and 
 4,000,000 Romanians, or Wallachians. The rest are com- 
 posed of Tartars, Franks, and Jews. 
 
 Servia is almost independent, as are also Wallachia and 
 Moldavia. 
 
190 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 sometimes even gave the government good ad- 
 vice. But, in mixing themselves up too much 
 with politics, the ulemahs were not always in- 
 spired for the best; they invariably opposed 
 their powerful influence to all progress tending 
 to the development of the civil institutions of 
 the country, or any reforms whatever. For 
 the Sultan to speak to them of foreign innova- 
 tions or importations, was to turn them all 
 against him, although the Sultans had never 
 given up their supremacy in matters of relig- 
 ion. Even at the present day, the ulemahs 
 are the chief obstacle in the way of the re- 
 forms introduced by the Sultan Abdul Medjid 
 and his vizier, Reschid Pacha. It is only with 
 great difficulty that they can be got to lend 
 themselves to any thing calculated to extricate 
 the Mussulmans from the rut-marks of barba- 
 rous times. They possess this characteristic 
 in common with the priests of all the religions 
 of antiquity, who were at the same time in- 
 dispensable and hurtful, from their not seeing 
 the difference between religion, which fears 
 neither the brilliancy of learning nor the at- 
 tacks of the world, and superstition, which, 
 like all things that walk in darkness, is timid. 
 The janissaries, too, once rendered eminent 
 service to the state in the times of its wars 
 and conquests, but they became pretorians 
 when peace had permitted them to lead a long 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 191 
 
 life of idleness. They proved themselves am- 
 bitious, turbulent, and addicted to excess. On 
 several occasions they lighted the torch of civil 
 discord, and even dethroned their sovereigns. 
 
 The ulemahs did not disdain to ally them- 
 selves sometimes to this turbulent militia, in 
 order to check the government. The janissa- 
 ries, as we know, were disbanded or destroyed 
 in 1826 by Sultan Mahmoud, in the same 
 manner as Peter the Great destroyed the Stre- 
 litz, but their spirit has survived them in the 
 Osmanlis, a kind of military aristocracy, who 
 pretend to descend exclusively from the orig- 
 inal Turkish conquerors, and are, at present, 
 the right hand of the ulemahs. 
 
 We can not avoid considering plurality of 
 wives as another cause of the decay of the 
 Ottoman Empire. The Koran allows every 
 Mussulman to have four wives. This is an 
 unfortunate reminiscence of patriarchal cus- 
 toms. Plurality of wives degrades woman, 
 deprives her of her natural rights, and intro- 
 duces rivalry into families and division among 
 the children, which are certainly two elements 
 of social dissolution. We can hardly believe 
 that the Prophet adopted this system, when 
 the principle of unity was so strongly impress- 
 ed on all his other conceptions. Our theolo- 
 gians say that polygamy was tolerated for the 
 purpose of flattering the sensuality of the Arabs, 
 
192 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 and have used the words, '' The lax state of 
 morals in the East /" This is a mistake ; 
 morals are less lax in the East than they are 
 in the West, and modesty, as far as the rela- 
 tions of the two sexes are concerned, is far 
 more usual there than with us. As for reserve 
 and sobriety, they are often pushed by Mussul- 
 mans to the greatest lengths, and are prescrib- 
 ed by the laws of their religion. We must 
 conclude, therefore, that Mohammed, when 
 allowing a plurality of wives, only had in view 
 an object of political economy ; but he was 
 deceived in his calculations, for a united state 
 of society is not formed out of divided families. 
 The Prophet put the finishing blow to this 
 great error by permitting slavery and the trade 
 in human beings. 
 
 If to so many elements of internal perturba- 
 tion we add the bad administration of a judicial 
 system based on no fixed laws or mode of pro- 
 ceeding, intrusted to the discretion of a cadi, 
 and offering, at most, merely the right of ap- 
 pealing to the ulemahs ; and, likewise, the per- 
 manent state of disorder in which the finances 
 have always been, taxes being levied at dis- 
 cretion by agents, who ruined the people and 
 checked productive labor, we shall, we think, 
 gain some idea of the fundamental causes 
 which have reduced the Ottoman Empire to 
 the situation into which we have seen it fall. 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 193 
 
 In spite of all that has happened, however, 
 Turkey may yet, perhaps, recover her position. 
 
 As we are aware, death surprised Sultan 
 Mahmoud in the midst of his projects for the 
 regeneration of Turkey, but he left a political 
 testament which deserves to be mentioned 
 here : '' Let protection be equally extended to 
 every one ; let justice be equally distributed 
 to every one. Mussulmans must only be dis- 
 tinguished from other men at the mosques, 
 Christians at the church, and Jews at the syn- 
 agogue." The great principle of equality con- 
 tained in these words, struck at the root of the 
 evil which had mainly contributed, in our 
 opinion, to the decay of the Ottoman Empire, 
 namely, the system of exclusion which had 
 always been pursued with regard to the con- 
 quered races. The celebrated hatti-cherif of 
 Gul-Hane was framed in the same spirit of 
 just concession, and equal rights were hence- 
 forward granted to all subjects of the Sultan, 
 while liberty of conscience was placed upon a 
 well-defined basis under the protection of the 
 law. The rayas, or Christians have begun to 
 take their position among the servants of the 
 state, and share in the administration of the 
 provinces. Some of them have even been at- 
 tached to various embassies, as in the case of 
 Prince Kallimachi at Paris, and M. Musurrus 
 at Vienna. 
 
 N 
 
194 
 
 THE TURKS IN EUROPE : 
 
 The old abuses in levying of the taxes, and 
 in the civil and military administration of the 
 provinces, have disappeared, and the system 
 of commercial monopoly, with the exception 
 of a few privileges granted in accordance with 
 certain stipulations formerly made with the 
 European powers, have been abolished, so that 
 we may confidently look forward soon to see 
 the time when trade shall be completely free 
 and unshackled throughout the empire. Last- 
 ly, education is making rapid strides, not only 
 in the schools subject to the control of the 
 ulemahs, but in those which are independent 
 of them, and in which the studies are under 
 the direction of English, French, Grerman, and 
 Italian professors. 
 
 If to this picture of manifest regeneration we 
 add the recent institution of a National Bank 
 in full activity, destined to regulate the credit 
 of the country, and to withdraw from circula- 
 tion doubtful money ; and if we bear in mind 
 that the Turkish government has also laid the 
 foundation of a rail- way in the empire, we have 
 every cause to believe that Turkey may still 
 flourish, and ultimately raise herself to an 
 equality with the most civilized nations of the 
 earth. If she is still behind the age in some 
 essential particulars, she possesses, on the other 
 hand, certain social qualities in a higher degree 
 than the nations of Europe. Polygamy is on 
 
THEIR RISE AND DECADENCE. 195 
 
 the decrease, thanks to the example set by 
 several of her reformers, and slavery is virtually 
 suppressed, since the slave-bazaar at Constan- 
 tinople has been closed, and the infamous 
 traflSc in human beings only carried on secret- 
 ly. The Ottoman Empire, we repeat, may yet 
 live and flourish, without having to pass 
 through the ordeals, always doubtful in their 
 results, of violent revolutions, and may yet 
 become a connecting link between the institu- 
 tions of Europe and those of the nations of 
 Asia. All that is requisite to effect this is 
 that England and France shall do their duty, 
 and we have every reason to believe that they 
 will. 
 
 THE END 
 
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