Meanwhile I inherited a small landed property, inhabited by about four hundred persons of both sexes.  I hastened to put in practice my method.  I abandoned one-third of the land, including their houses, to the peasants, and let them the two remaining thirds for a certain sum of money.  In my agreement with them it was settled that, if the emancipation which the Government was preparing (1859) turned out more advantageous to them, they were to accept it in preference to mine.  It is needless to add that, when the official emancipation was proclaimed, the peasants and I found it more advantageous and adopted it.  If I were to compare the two methods, I should say that mine tended chiefly to the liberty of the peasants’ person and labor, and that of the Government to give them a quantity of land sufficient for their subsistence.

The great inconvenience of this last method was that it obliged the peasants to pay a heavy rent to redeem their land, and that during forty-nine years!  Nevertheless, their passion to possess land was so strong that they cheerfully submitted to such hard conditions.  The redeeming rent (rente de rachat) was to be paid by the peasants, either in money, according to an estimate fixed by law, or by work done for the proprietor, i.e., by corvies.  This last mode of payment, sanctioned by law only for a short period, disappeared more and more every day, so that the majority of the peasants no longer worked for the proprietors, but paid their rent in money.

I can say more:  About two millions of peasants were entirely liberated with regard to the proprietors, thanks to an immediate payment of the redeeming rent.  In such cases their annual rent (redevance) was capitalized, and the Government gave the proprietor an obligation for the amount of the capital, which bore five per cent, interest, and was to be redeemed in the course of forty-nine years by annual drawings (tirages); the peasants then to pay their redeeming rent to Government, and thus become free and independent proprietors.  For some time both peasants and proprietors seemed to find this proceeding the most profitable, and agreements of this kind became more and more frequent every day.

I can hardly say how happy I was when I saw for the first time my dear, beloved, and deeply respected Russian peasants free at last, and proprietors of the land they had till then cultivated as serfs!  What a change!  The same creatures, serfs yesterday, became men, conscious of their human dignity; their aspect, their language, are those of free men.  In the mean while, in getting rid of their serfdom, they preserved their usual good sense, wisdom, and bonhomie; no impertinence, no arrogance whatever can be detected in them; they are full of self-respect, yet polite.  I saw them discussing with the authorities some business of theirs.  They maintained their new rights, and, when wrong, never hesitated to acknowledge it.