Part 4

But all nations now require something to occupy the public mind; and an impression appears to be rising in Russia, that the residence of the sovereign should be transferred to Moscow. Nothing could be more likely to produce a national convulsion, and operate a total change on the European policy of Russia, and the relations of the northern courts. Yet it is by no means improbable, that the singular avidity of the Russian court to make Poland not merely a dependency, but an integral part of the empire, by the suppression of its very name, the change of its language, and the transfer of large portions of its people to other lands, may have for its especial purpose the greater security of Russia on the West, while she fixes her whole interest on a vigorous progress in the South.

There are some problems which still perplex historians, and will probably perplex them for many an age; and among those are, the good or evil predominant in the Crusades, the use of a Pope in Italy, (where he obviously offers, and must _always_ offer, the strongest obstacle to the _union_ of the Italian States into a national government,) the true character of Peter the Great, and the true policy of placing the capital of Russia in the northern extremity of the empire.

It appears to be now at least approaching to a public question,—Whether Peter showed more of good sense, or of savage determination, in building a magnificent city in a swamp, where man had never before built any thing but a fisherman’s hut; and in condemning his posterity for ever to live in the most repulsive climate of Europe? Some pages in these volumes are given to the inquiry into the wisdom of deserting an ancient, natural, and superb seat of empire in the South, for a new, unnatural, and decaying seat of sovereignty in the vicinage of the Arctic circle; of retarding the progress of civilisation by the insuperable difficulties of a climate, where the sea is frozen up for six months in the year, and the rivers and land are frozen up for nine! The question now is, Whether Peter had not equally frozen up the Russian energies, impeded the natural prosperity of the empire, and flung the people back into the age of Ivan I.?

Of course, no one doubts that the Russian empire is of vast extent and substantial power; but its chief power is in its central provinces, and in its faculty of expansion into the south. Its northern provinces defy improvement, and can be sustained only by the toil of government.

The probable view of the case is, that Peter was deluded by his passion for naval supremacy. He had seen the fleets of Western Europe trained in their boisterous but ever-open seas; and he determined to have a fleet in a sea which, throughout the winter, is a sheet of ice, and where the ships are imbedded as if they were on dry ground. He had then no Black Sea for his field of exercise, and no Sebastopol for his dockyard. He touched upon no sea but the Baltic; and, under the infatuation of being a naval power, he threw the Russian government as far as he could towards the North Pole.

Moscow should have remained the Russian capital. With an admirable climate, at once keen enough to keep the human frame in its vigour, and with the warm summer of the south, to supply all the vegetable products of Europe; its position commanding the finest provinces of Western Asia, Russia would have been mistress of the Black Sea a century earlier, had probably been in possession of Asia Minor, and have fixed a Viceroy in the city of the Sultans.

The policy of Catherine II., evidently took this direction; she made no _northern_ conquests; she withdrew her armies on the first opportunity from the Prussian war, in which Russia had been involved by the blunders of her foolish husband; and though she engaged in that desperate act by which Poland was partitioned—an act which, though perfidious, was originally pacific—the whole force of her empire was thrown into southern war.

This policy is still partially maintained. The war of the Caucasus, an unfortunate and unjustifiable war, now exhibits the only hostilities on which Russia expends any portion of her power. The success of that war would evidently put the eastern, as well as the northern shore of the Black Sea, in her possession. The southern shore could then make no resistance, if it were the will of Russia to cast an eye of ambition on the land of the Turk. We by no means infer that such _is_ her will; we hope that higher motives, and a sense of national justice, will rescue her reputation from an act of such atrocity. But Asia Minor, on the first crash of war, would be open to the squadrons of the Scythian. This policy was interrupted in the reign of Alexander only by the French war. When the providential time was come for the destruction of Napoleon, his rage of conquest acted the part for him which the false prophets were accustomed to act for the kings of Judah and Israel. It urged him headlong to his ruin, and all his distinguishing qualities were turned to his overthrow. His ardour in the field became precipitancy; his sagacity became a fierce self-dependence; the old tactic which had led him to strike the first blow at the capitals of Europe, urged him into the heart of the wilderness; his diplomatic confidence there exposed him to be baffled by the plain sense of Russia, and his daring reliance on his fortune stripped him of an army and a throne.

But, when Russia had recovered from this invasion, her first efforts were pointed in the old direction. She recommenced the Turkish war, seized Moldavia and Wallachia, crossed the Balkan, threatened Constantinople, and, with the city of Constantine in her grasp, retired only on the remonstrances of the European powers.

M. Schnitzler imagines that the direction of Russian conquest will be towards Germany, and contemplates the all-swallowing gluttony which is to absorb all the states from the Vistula to the Rhine. We wholly differ from those views. The condition of Europe must be totally changed before the policy of Russia will attempt to make vassals of these iron tribes. It would have too many battles to fight, and too little to gain by them. To attempt the absorption of any one leading German power would produce a universal war. Poland is still a thorn in its side; and it would take a century to convert its intense hostility into cordial obedience. Prussia and Austria are the political “Pillars of Hercules” which no invader _can_ pass; and if Germany can but secure herself from the restless and insatiable ambition of France, she need never shrink from the terrors of a Tartar war.

If war should inflame the Continent again, the Russian trumpets will be heard, _not_ on the Elbe, but on the shores of the Propontis. Asia Minor and Syria will be a lovelier and a more lucrative prey; while probably Egypt will be the prize which will draw to the waters of the Mediterranean, the maritime force of the world.

On the whole, the volumes of this Franco-German are intelligent, and may be studied with advantage by all who desire to comprehend the actual condition of an empire, which extends from the Baltic to the Sea of Kamtschatka, which contains seven millions of square miles, nearly sixty millions of souls, is capable of containing ten times the number, and which is evidently intended to exercise a most important influence on the globe.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A GERMAN HEADSMAN.

(_Das Grosse Malefizbuch._ HERAUSGEGEBEN VON WILHELM V. CHEZY. Landshut: 1847.)

The peculiar and powerful interest attaching to narratives of remarkable crimes, and of their judicial investigation, is abundantly evidenced by the avidity with which that class of literature is invariably pounced upon by the public. Independently of the romance incidental to the subject, of the doubts and intricacies and conflicting circumstances of extraordinary criminal trials, well calculated to captivate the imagination of the vulgar, and rivet attention on their recital,—such cases possess a psychological interest, making itself felt by the least intelligent of readers, appealing with almost equal force to the scantily educated and to the scholar, to inexperienced youth and thoughtful age. By the former, it is true, the exact process by which such narratives lay hold upon the feelings and imagination, may not be easily detected, but the charm, if unseen, is not the less potent. The great success and enduring reputation of books of this kind, are the best proof of their strong and universal fascination. Whilst the legal works of GAYOT DE PITAVAL are long since shelved and forgotten, the title of his _Causes Célébres_[1] continues as familiar to our ear as those of the most notable literary productions of our own century; the book itself—of frequent reference, and found in every library of importance—has obtained the honours of repeated translation, and of reproduction in numerous forms. Those twenty volumes, it might be thought, were an ample supply of this species of reading, sufficient to stock the world and blunt the public appetite for such records. But the varieties of the subject are inexhaustible, as much so as the infinite shades and capricious directions of human passions, the unceasing diversity and perverse ingenuity of human crime. And Richer’s continuation of what Pitaval began, found as eager readers as its compiler could reasonably desire. In later times, two Germans, Messrs Hitzig and Häring, have edited with considerable success a work of a similar nature.[2] Others doubtless will appear. There can be no lack of materials. Each successive half-century yields matter for a new and lengthy series. Meanwhile, and although civilisation, impotent wholly to check crime, is also unable to strip its annals of novelty and pungency, the remarkable criminal records of ruder ages are frequently recurred to and reproduced, as wilder and more romantic in their nature than those of a recent day. Alexander Dumas has collected from various quarters a voluminous work of this nature; and, although its greater portion was already a thrice-told tale, the book is one of the most popular of his multifarious productions. Feuerbach the celebrated jurist, the impartial narrator and critic of the extraordinary history of Caspar Hauser, the indefatigable labourer in the arid vineyard of the law, whose lightest literary pastime would to most men have been toil,[3] deemed it not unworthy his learned pen to collate and comment two volumes of trials,[4]—volumes familiarised to the English reader by a recent translation. His well-stored mind and skilful handling imparted new depth and value to the subject, and doubtless the book would not so long have awaited a transfer into our language, but for the warlike circumstances and interrupted Continental communication of the period at which its first edition appeared. The interest of such narratives is no way diminished from their scene being in a foreign land; indeed, it is most engrossing when exotic, since the illustrations of the peculiar laws and characteristics of other nations is then superadded to that of the eccentricities of crime. And, perhaps, the most fertile field at the disposal of the curious in such matters, is afforded by that wide country, claiming to include in its bond of brotherhood every land wherein the German tongue resounds. The variety of the laws by which the kingdoms and provinces of Germany have at different times been governed, tends greatly to diversify its criminal calendar. And, doubtless, in many old libraries, private and public, in the dusty and rarely-opened book-cases of provincial barons and _Freiherrn_, on the shelves of museums, and in municipal collections (scarce less neglected and unread) of ancient books and manuscripts, much curious reading of this description, well worthy of publicity, lies buried and forgotten.

Footnote 1:

_Causes Célébres et Intéressantes_, by FRANÇOIS GAYOT DE PITAVAL. Paris: 1734.

Footnote 2:

_Neuer Pitaval._ Leipzig: 1842-6.

Footnote 3:

He beguiled his leisure by a metrical translation of, and commentary on, the Indian poem, _Gita Gowinda_.

Footnote 4:

_Merkwürdige Criminalrechtsfälle._ ERFURT, 1808-11. A third edition appeared in 1839, under the title of _Merkwürdige Verbrechen_.

It is from a literary lumber-room of this kind, we suspect, that Mr Chézy has extracted the contents of the three curious volumes now before us, containing, as their old French name implies, details of crimes and malefactors. “What we,” he tells us in his preface, “are wont to call criminal archives, were in many places styled by our forefathers ‘Malefice-books,’ records kept partly by the public executioner, who, in his capacity of torturer, had frequent occasion to share in criminal investigations.” From this passage, and from the expression _herausgegeben_ (edited) in the title-page, we understand that the “_Grosse Malefizbuch_” is not to be viewed as an original composition, which the word _verfasser_, (author) employed in the preface, might have led us to believe. This makes a certain difference in the critical view to be taken of the book. Were it a mere fiction, intended as an imitation of the probable style of the headsman, inditing, chiefly as matter of duty, but yet not without a certain rude feeling and interest in the task, the crimes and circumstances his sanguinary profession brought under his notice, we should admit some skill in the tone adopted. But, as an editor, Mr Chézy has performed his part in a lazy and slovenly fashion. He appears to have contented himself with merely modernising the orthography, and (slightly) the language. With excellent stuff to work upon, he had it in his power to make a very complete and remarkable book: he has been contented to put forward a meagre and deficient one. We would not have had him greatly alter the text. Here and there a little curtailment might have been advantageously practised, or a paragraph judiciously interpolated. But the volumes should have been richly garnished with notes and commentaries, instead of being wholly without them. From the first page to the last not a line appears—at the end of each volume we vainly seek an appendix—explanatory of the singular usages so frequently referred to; referred to usually in as cursory and off-hand a way as if they were matters of present custom, to which all men were still habituated, and concerning which none needed enlightenment. Mr Chézy seems conscious of his fault, for he tells us, in a half apologetic tone, to bear in mind that he is a poet, and not a scholar. No great depth of scholarship was essential for what we would have had him do. A very moderate amount of study and patience would have put him in possession of the necessary information. Its want is wofully felt as we wander through his bald pages, at whose foot not the smallest fragment of a note attracts the reader’s eye, and removes the tantalised feeling with which he encounters distant and unexplained allusions, and is compelled to guess their purport. “This work,” says Mr Chézy, “intended to represent men and circumstances as they once may have been, is not confined within the limits of the documental authority. The Malefizbuch may be styled a poetical Pitaval.” In view of this professed design of poetising his materials, and of conveying, through a romantic medium, information concerning old times and obsolete customs, we can but repeat that the author’s performance has fallen short of his project. But the subject was too good to be wholly spoiled, even by the clumsiest treatment, with which, however, it would hardly be fair to charge Mr Chézy, whose faults are rather of omission than commission. And the anathemas we are tempted, in our progress through his pages, to invoke upon his head, are frequently checked by the occurrence of interesting passages and striking incidents.

The three volumes of the Malefizbuch are various in the form and nature of their contents, although all bear reference to the same subject, and illustrate, in different points of view, the criminal laws and customs of a rude, cruel, and superstitious period. Besides the absence of notes, the author is guilty of the common German carelessness about dates and places, and is often very vague in his indication of both. This is especially the case with his first volume, which many readers will consider the best, by reason of a certain melancholy interest running through it. We are appealed to for our sympathy with the misfortunes of an executioner’s son, who, after absenting himself from his country, and obtaining an education superior to his station, is compelled to accept the loathsome inheritance of his father, and wield axe and work rack in obedience to the law’s stern dictates. This volume (each volume has a special title, independently of the general one) is called “Ten Narratives from Master Hammerling’s Life and Memoirs.” They are chapters rather than detached narratives, for a connecting thread runs through them, and they in fact form a complete history of the childhood and youth of _Meister Hämmerling_, the German Jack Ketch. The name of the latter personage upon an English title-page, would be suggestive of little beyond the drop at Newgate, and penny tracts sold at street corners. But none who have any acquaintance with the German headsman of the middle ages, will be so unjust as to class him with the vulgar and prosaic official who executes in England the last sentence of the law. Formerly, by the laws of the empire, the SCHARFRICHTER was held _ehrbar_ or of honourable repute. The broad bright sword was the only instrument of death he condescended to touch, and consequently his dealings were with men of gentle blood, for whom decapitation was especially reserved. Infamous chastisements were inflicted by the dishonouring hands of the _Henker_ or common hangman, who was considered _anrüchig_ or infamous. Gradually, the two offices were blended in one, the headsman’s privileges were abridged or became totally obsolete; and the grim romance attaching to the stern saturnine man who, on days of notable executions, appeared on the scaffold in bright scarlet mantle, and peaked hat with sable feather, and with one flashing sweep of his terrible blade severed heads from shoulders of well-born criminals, was dissipated and forgotten. Still, on the crowded and diversified canvass of the middle ages, the strange figure stands prominently forth, recalling, by its associations, many a dark deed and wild legend. But the change is great since then. “The executioner now-a-days,” says Mr Chézy, “is a citizen like any body else, an elector and eligible; if he possess enough property, he may be sent as deputy to the second Chamber, and perhaps give his vote against capital punishment. The headsman of former centuries has faded into a tradition; and a poet may therefore be allowed to sketch his portrait once more, perhaps for the last time, in all its different aspects and mysterious horrors.” And without further prelude, we are introduced to the last minister of the law, a meek and melancholy man, who remembers, one still Sabbath morning, that it is his bounden duty to keep up the record in the Malefizbuch, begun by his great-grandfather, the first of his race who could write. Whilst pondering over this necessity, he incidentally recapitulates some of his privileges and advantages; how he is of as good descent after his kind as the best nobleman in the holy Roman empire, tracing back his genealogy to the days of Henry the First of Germany, surnamed the Fowler, who nominated his ancestor to the office of executioner, since when the family has held house and ground, goods and profits, in fief of the crown. And how he is no way subject to the authorities of the land, further than that he is bound to serve them with sword, axe, wheel and cord, with ladder, screws and tongs, pitch, sulphur and rods, either in his own person or by his assistants, as his letter of privileges dictates. Neither is he infamous, like those of his men who remove dead beasts and do such like unclean work; and, whoever addresses him with contemptuous speech, shall be fined according to law of the empire, as if he had insulted a lord of the council. Finally, when the number of unfortunates slain by his hand shall exceed five hundred, the headsman has a right, if it so please him, to abandon his charge, and mix once more upon equal terms with his fellow-citizens. After this recapitulation, Master Hammerling takes up his own history from the day of his birth, when he was laid in his father’s arms as he returned from burning an old witch upon the market-place. This he finds set down in his father’s hand-writing, and also how he was christened by the name of Berthold, on the very day on which Black Hannah, the child-murderess, was executed; whilst her accomplice, long Heinz, was compelled to look on at the execution, and was then flogged out of the town and district. The latter would have been hung, had not the executioner saved him, in virtue of an old privilege, which he exercised less out of love for Heinz than for fear of its becoming annulled by disuse. Had a daughter instead of a son been born to him, he had a right to save the poor girl who had fallen victim to a base seducer. So was it set forth in the headsman’s charter.