Page:Russian Novelists (1887).djvu/47

Rh It offered a point of meeting for every new current of thought which agitated Russia, as well as for everything that had been repressed throughout the reign of Nicholas. The Masonic lodges insensibly became a moving power in politics, which led to the liberal conspiracy crushed out in 1825. A horror of the revolutionary ideas of France, and the events of 1812, had produced a great change in the Russian mind; besides, Russia, now temporarily estranged from France, became more influenced by Germany ; which fact was destined to have a considerable effect upon their literature. During the whole of the eighteenth century, France tutored the Russian mind in imitation of the classics. It now became inculcated with the romanticism of Germany.