> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://theparnassian.com/en/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# "There is no power on earth more absolute than that of the sovereigns of Russia: throughout their empire their will is the only law; obedience the only morality
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/na-zemle-neizvestno-vlasti-bolee-absoliutnoi-chem-vlast-gosudarei-rossii-vo-vsei-ikh-imperii-ikh-volia-est-edinstvennyi-zakon-poslushanie-edinstvennaia-moral/
- Published: 2023-11-02T18:13:59.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:35:26.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Books, Monarchies, Society, Saint Petersburg

"*There is no power on earth more absolute than that of the sovereigns of Russia: throughout their empire their will is the only law; obedience the only morality. Yet we shall see their pitiable condition, and how their power, having overstepped every limit prescribed to men, has destroyed itself and proved, unhappily, far more restricted on every side, since it is obliged to depend on the instruments it employs. It is precisely through blindness that most sovereigns busy themselves with forging such chains; they forget that, having ceased to respect the wishes of a free people, they are sooner or later compelled to submit to the whims of a mere fool.*"

**Claude Carloman de Rulhière, Secretary of the French Embassy in Saint Petersburg**, who witnessed the inglorious end of the reign of Peter III and the accession of Catherine II, in his little-known pamphlet on the coup of 1762