> ## 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.

# Germain de Lagny on the Condition of Russian Serfs and the Knout in His 1853 Book
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/zakon-zashchishchaet-tolko-zhizn-i-imushchestvo-boiar/
- Published: 2025-07-20T09:43:39.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:41:35.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Books, Mores, Society

> The law protects only the life and property of the boyars. The serf, regarded as a ploughing machine, has no need of laws; a plough may spend the night in the street, in the snow, in the rain. What else is a serf in Russia but a wandering plough?

> For the serf there is no law, no courts, no legal procedure. For him there is only the landowner, and the court is the landowner too.

> For the serf, property is something unheard of; the word simply does not exist in his vocabulary.

> The knout! There is no word in French, nor in the language of any other civilised people, that embodies in itself so much superhuman cruelty and suffering!

> The knout! At this one word the Russian's heart turns cold, the blood freezes in his veins, the word throws him into a fever, plants terror in his soul and crushes a nation of 60 million. But do you know what the knout is? It is death, you will say. No, it is not death; it is a thousand times worse.

> Schooled to submission and to appalling slavery, the peasant is utterly indifferent to everything around him. His steward robs him; his master, to satisfy his lust, takes his daughter, and he thanks him for the honour done to his family.

**"The Knout and the Russians. Manners and Institutions of Russia", Germain de Lagny, 1853**