Christianity and Patriotism
triumphal music playing two hymns at once, one glorifying an emperor and beseeching every blessing from God for him; the other, cursing all emperors, and invoking destruction on them all.
Those persons who expressed their feelings of love particularly well were presented with decorations and rewards, and some persons for the same services or simply from overflow of sentiment were offered the strangest and most unexpected gifts: thus the French squadron made the Russian Tsar a present of a golden book, in which, I believe, nothing was written, or if there were, it was something no one wanted to know; while the commander of the Russian squadron, among other presents, received a still more amazing object, a plough made of aluminium and covered with flowers; and there were many other equally surprising gifts.
Moreover, all these strange actions were accompanied by still more strange religious ceremonies and public services, to which, one would have thought, the French had become unaccustomed. There can hardly have been so many public services performed since the times of the Concordat as during this brief period. The French became all at once extraordinarily devout, and carefully hung up in the apartments of the Russian sailors the very images which they had so scrupulously removed from their schools as the pernicious instruments
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