Marquis de Custine

Astolphe-Louis-Léonor, marquis de Custine (1790 – 1857) was a French aristocrat and writer who is best known for his travel writing, in particular his account of his visit to Russia in 1839 entitled Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia. This tome documents not only Custine's travels through the Russian empire, but also the social fabric, economy, and way of life during the reign of Nicholas I. The Marquis de Custine may also be known to contemporary audiences as the European visitor in the 2002 film Russian Ark.

Astolphe de Custine was born into the French nobility on the eve of the Revolution. His father's family had possessed the title “marquis” since the early 18th century and owned a famous porcelain works. His mother, Delphine, also came from a prestigious family, and was known for her intelligence and great beauty.

Custine's father and grandfather both sympathized with the French Revolution, but were both guillotined. Custine's mother barely escaped the same fate. It was to be the beginning of a difficult life for Astolphe Custine.

Custine was raised by his strong-willed mother, and saw a lot of the writer Chateaubriand. Custine was given an excellent education and seemed to be headed towards a life in society. He spent time in the diplomatic service, attending the Congress of Vienna, and even accepted a military commission. In the early 1820s, Custine went along with a marriage arranged by his mother. The Marquis, later to admit his homosexuality, genuinely loved his wife and had a son with her, but she died after only a few years of marriage.

On October 28, 1824, after his wife had died, Custine's life was irrevocably changed. That night, Custine's unconscious body was found in the mud outside of Paris, stripped to the waist, beaten, and robbed. The attack had been carried out by a group of soldiers with one of whom Custine allegedly had attempted to have a sexual encounter.

The exact reason for the attack was never proven. Nevertheless, news of the incident quickly spread around France — “From this time on to the end of his life Custine would figure, in the cruel gossip of the day, primarily as France's most distinguished and notorious homosexual.” Even though the literary salons, as opposed to the society salons, remained open to Custine, many people who were friendly with him sneered at him behind his back. That same year, several family friends would die, Custine's infant son by his late wife, and his mother. In the years after this tragedy Custine became very pious.

Custine gravitated toward the Romantic movement and spent the next few years writing poetry and novels. Custine wrote one play and purchased a theater to produce it, but the play closed after three performances. None of his literary works received much attention. Heinrich Heine called Custine “un demi-homme des lettres.”

Custine eventually discovered that his knack was for travel writing. He wrote a decently received account of a trip to Spain, and was encouraged by Honoré de Balzac to write accounts of other “half-European” parts of Europe, like southern Italy and Russia. In the late 1830s Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America appeared, whose last chapter contained the prophecy that the future belonged to Russia and America. With that, Custine decided that Russia would be his next writing effort.

Custine visited Russia in 1839, spending most of his time in St. Petersburg, but also visiting Moscow and Yaroslavl.

Custine mocked Russia for its veneer of Europe hiding an Asiatic soul. Custine criticized St. Petersburg for being the creation of one man, and not the result of spontaneous historical forces. Custine, however, loved Moscow architecture, and said Russia would be a great power if its capital were ever moved back to the older city.

Most of Custine's mocking was reserved for the Russian nobility and Nicholas I. Custine said Russia's aristocracy had "just enough of the gloss of European civilization to be 'spoiled as savages,' but not enough to become cultivated men. They were like 'trained bears who made you long for the wild ones.'"

I came here to see a country, but what I find is a theater . . . The name are the same as everywhere else . . . In appearances everything happens as it does everywhere else. There is no difference except in the very foundation of things.

I don't reproach the Russians for being what they are; what I blame them for is their desire to appear to be what we [Europeans] are . . . They are much less interested in being civilized then in making us believe them so . . . They would be quite content to be in effect more awful and barbaric then they actually are, if only others could thereby be made to believe them better and more civilized.

(Kennan, 80)

Custine criticizes Nicholas for the constant spying he ordered and for repressing Poland, but does not criticize him for being a total autocrat or for maintaining slavery. Custine had more than one conversation with the Tsar, and concluded it was possible that the Tsar only behaved as he did because he felt he had to. "If the Emperor, has no more of mercy in his heart than he reveals in his policies, then I pity Russia; if, on the other hand, his true sentiments are really superior to his acts, then I pity the Emperor." (Kennan, 76)

Kennan describes Russia as a horrible domain of obsequious flattery of the Tsar and spying. Custine said the air felt freer the moment one crossed into Prussia. In the middle 20th century many saw predictions of Stalin in Custine's description of Nicholas I.

La Russie en 1839 went through six printings and was widely read in England, France, and Germany, but banned in Russia.

Quotations

"Nations have always good reasons for being what they are, and the best of all is that they cannot be otherwise."

"The love of their country is with them only a mode of flattering its master; as soon as they think that master can no longer hear, they speak of everything with a frankness which is the more startling because those who listen to it become responsible."

Quotations are from George F. Kennan, The Marquis de Custine and his Russia in 1839, Princeton University Press, 1971.

Further reading

• Luppé, A., Astolphe de Custine (Monaco: Éditions du Rocher, 1957)
• Muhlstein, Anka, A Taste For Freedom: The life of Astolphe de Custine (New York: Helen Marx Books, 1999)
• Tarn, Julien Frédéric, Le marquis de Custine, ou, Les malheurs de l'exactitude (Paris: Fayard, 1985)de:Astolphe de Custine