THREE:Nobody could feel sure when they got up in the morning that they would go safely to bed at night; the slightest offence given to the Emperor meant imprisonment or Siberia, and his orders were so preposterous that it was difficult not to offend him.
If the cruel, unjust marriage laws of England, which until a few years ago were in force, had been universally and fully carried out, making the husband an almost irresponsible tyrant and the wife a helpless, hopeless slave, domestic life would have been hell upon earth. But as the great majority of men had no wish to ill-treat their wives, confiscate their money, deprive them of their children or commit any of the atrocities sanctioned by the laws of their country, families upon the whole went on in harmony and affection. It was only now and then, when a man did wish to avail himself of the arbitrary power placed in his hands, that the results of such iniquitous laws were brought before the public. At the same time, however, the knowledge of their existence and the tone of thought, prejudices, and customs which consequently prevailed, had an influence upon men who were not the least tyrannically inclined, but merely acted in accordance with the ideas and opinions of every one around them.[234]What is the matter? she exclaimed.[39]What they wanted was a free and just government under a constitutional king, but they failed to realise that their party was far too small and too weak to have any chance of carrying out their plans, and that behind them was the savage, ignorant, bloodthirsty multitude with nothing but contempt and derision for their well-intentioned projects of reform and law and just government, pressing onwards to the reign of anarchy and devastation which they themselves were doing everything to help them to attain.
