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When a theologian dared to take issue with the Orthodox Church, the Czar pronounced him insane, ordered him committed to an asylum. After a series of special treatments, the man confessed that the Czar was right, he was indeed insane—a story that might, with a twist or two, have come straight out of the Moscow treason trials or out of Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon.
However, such incidents had their justification, as no less a personage than His Majesty graciously explained to the marquis at a grand levee. "Despotism," the Czar charmingly admitted, "is the essence of my government; but it is in keeping with the character of the nation."
The Future In Black. The marquis regretfully concluded that the Czar was not far wrong about the Russians, at that. "Other nations have tolerated oppression; the Russian nation has loved it; she still loves it . . . An oppressed people has always merited its suffering; tyranny is the work of nations . . . However, it cannot be denied that this popular mania has become the principle of sublime actions. In this inhumane country, if society has denatured man it has not shrunk him . . . He is not good but he is not paltry . . .
"With this obedient people . . . even outbursts of vengeance seem to be regulated by a certain discipline. Calculated murder is executed in cadence; men kill other men militarily, religiously, without anger . . . with a calm more terrible than the delirium of hatred."
What was to become of such a people? Custine offered a gloomy prophecy.
"The spectacle of this society, all the springs of which are taut like the trigger of a weapon that one is about to fire, frightens me to the point of dizziness . . . I see as compensation for the misfortune of being born under this regime only dreams of arrogance and the hope of domination . . . Since I have come to Russia I see the future of Europe in black."