It seems to me that I have scarcely said anything about this great and famous capital, which in my opinion is built on somewhat precarious foundations.  No one but Peter could have thus given the lie to Nature by building his immense palaces of marble and granite on mud and shifting sand.  They tell me that the town is now in its manhood, to the honour of the great Catherine; but in the year 1765 it was still in its minority, and seemed to me only to have been built with the childish aim of seeing it fall into ruins.  Streets were built with the certainty of having to repair them in six months’ time.  The whole place proclaimed itself to be the whim of a despot.  If it is to be durable constant care will be required, for nature never gives up its rights and reasserts them when the constraint of man is withdrawn.  My theory is that sooner or later the soil must give way and drag the vast city with it.

We reached Moscow in the time the chevochic had promised.  As the same horses were used for the whole journey, it would have been impossible to travel mote quickly.  A Russian told me that the Empress Elizabeth had done the journey in fifty-two hours.

“You mean that she issued a ukase to the effect that she had done it,” said a Russian of the old school; “and if she had liked she could have travelled more quickly still; it was only a question of the wording of the ukase.”

Even when I was in Russia it was not allowable to doubt the infallibility of a ukase, and to do so was, equivalent to high treason.  One day I was crossing a canal at St. Petersburg by a small wooden bridge; Melissino Papanelopulo, and some other Russians were with me.  I began to abuse the wooden bridge, which I characterized as both mean and dangerous.  One of my companions said that on such a day it would be replaced by a fine stone bridge, as the empress had to pass there on some state occasion.  The day named way three weeks off, and I said plainly that it was impossible.  One of the Russians looked askance at me, and said there was no doubt about it, as a ukase had been published ordering that the bridge should be built.  I was going to answer him, but Papanelopulo gave my hand a squeeze, and whispered “Taci!” (hush).

The bridge was not built, but I was not justified, for the empress published another ukase in which she declared it to be her gracious pleasure that the bridge should not be built till the following year.  If anyone would see what a pure despotism is like, let him go to Russia.

The Russian sovereigns use the language of despotism on all occasions.  One day I saw the empress, dressed in man’s clothes, going out for a ride.  Her master of the horse, Prince Repnin, held the bridle of the horse, which suddenly gave him a kick which broke his anklebone.  The empress instantly ordained that the horse should be taken away, and that no one should mount it again under pain of death.  All official positions in Russia have military rank assigned