Germain de Lagny on the Condition of Russian Serfs and the Knout in His 1853 Book

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