and in which there is no possibility of disappointment. Having lost his faith in Liberalism, he adopted the most energetic repressive measures, and sought to root out abuses by severe punishments. In a word, the young enthusiastic sentimental republican, who at first took Washington as his model, became in the later years of his reign a victim to religious melancholy and a devoted adherent of Metternich.

The events which produced this remarkable change in the Emperor had a very different effect on a large section of the young noblesse. The study of French literature, and all those intellectual influences which had made him first a sentimental Republican and then a believer in constitutional monarchy, had affected them in a similar way, and their enthusiasm was not, as in his case, counteracted by the sobering influence of a responsible position. During the wars. with Napoleon, and the subsequent occupation of France by the Allies, they became to some extent acquainted with the social and political life of Western Europe, and with the opinions and aspirations of the various political parties. On returning home they were struck with the contrast, and their excited patriotic feelings led them to seek the causes of this difference. Much that had formerly seemed to them in the nature of things, now appeared barbarous and disgraceful for a nation that professed to be civilised. The general air of poverty, the apathy and ignorance of the people, the corruption of the administration, the venality of the law-courts, the brutality of the police, the frivolity of St. Petersburg life, the want of energy in all classes of the nation-these, and a thousand little facts which had hitherto passed unnoticed, made upon them now a painful impression. What irritated them most of all was the talk of the elderly men, who praised all that was old and condemned every attempt at reform as a dangerous innovation. They felt, as one of them afterwards said, that they had got a century ahead of their fellow-countrymen.

It is always a very dangerous thing for a little group of people to get a century ahead of their contemporaries, and so it proved in this instance. The apathy of those around them, and the

decidedly reactionary spirit of the Government and the Emperor, drove these men first into extra-legal and then into positively illegal means of realising their reforming aspirations. At that time the most approved means of producing political and social reform were secret political societies. So it was in Germany, in France, in Italy, in Spain, and in Greece, and the young Russians naturally followed the prevailing fashion.

In

The first Russian secret society was formed about the year 1816, under the title of "the Union of Salvation," and was composed chiefly of officers of the Guards. Its professed aim was to struggle for the common weal, to aid in carrying out all beneficial measures of the Government and all useful private undertakings, and to oppose evil of every kind-especially the malpractices of the officials. 1818 it was reorganised on the model of the German Tugendbund, and received the new name of "Union for Public Welfare." Under this new form it proposed to itself-besides the vague aim of assisting the Government in all beneficial measures-certain definite objects, the principal of which was the obtaining of representative institutions. In the years 1819 and 1820 its members rapidly increased, till nearly all the young nobles who had any pretensions to being

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civilised" and "liberal" were in more or less intimate relations with it. Though it was in form and organization an illicit secret society, it had little or nothing of the nature of a conspiracy, and the great majority of the members had certainly no illicit designs. They still believed in the Emperor's liberal sympathies and intentions, and on more than one occasion it was proposed to inform his Majesty of the aims and intentions of the society, and to petition him to aid them in their work.

Whilst the great majority of the members were thus entirely innocent of treasonable or revolutionary designs-indulging in impracticable, idealistic sentimentalism, and trusting to moral rather than political propaganda for bringing about the national regeneration,-there was a small minority animated with a very different spirit, and this minority greatly increased when it became evident that the Emperor was adopting the policy of Metternich. Many came to

see that they had nothing to hope from voluntary concessions on the part of his Majesty, and concluded that the autocratic power must be abolished. Some were in favor of constitutional monarchy, but this idea met with little favor. French writers had proved that all forms of government in which the supreme power is hereditary must lead to despotism, whilst republican institutions preserve political liberty and insure a wonderfully rapid development of the national resources, all which was supposed to have been proved to demonstration by the history of Greece and Rome in ancient times, and more recently by the history of the United States.

These differences of opinion caused the society to be broken up, and the more violent members formed a new society, which took for its principle of action the French saying of its president Pestel: "Les demi-mésures ne valent rien; il faut faire maison nette!" What Pestel understood by these words was to raise a military insurrection, to annihilate the Imperial Family, and to form a provisional government under his own Presidency, after which the Empire would be transformed into a federation of semi-independent provinces, resembling the United States of America.

When Alexander died, and Nicholas succeeded in 1825, an attempt was made to carry out the programme, but it failed most signally. On the morning when the oath of allegiance was to be administered to the troops in St. Petersburg, several companies refused, and collected in the Senate Square. So far the conspirators were successful, but here their success ended. They had rashly crossed the Rubicon without making any plans for further action. The soldiers, deceived as to the point at issue, were ready to fight, but they had no leader. The command was hastily offered to several officers in succession, and successively declined. Every one Every one commanded and no one obeyed. All waited for something, they knew not what, and in the meantime the troops which had taken the oath were being formed in front of them, under the command of Nicholas himself. The Governor-General of St. Petersburg rode in amongst the mutineers, and exhorted them to return to their duty, but his words

had no effect, and he was shot down by one of the officers. The two Metropolitans made a similar attempt, but with as little success. At last, when all attempts at persuasion proved fruitless, the artillery fired a few round of grape-shot and cleared the square. A similar attempt in one of the southern provinces proved equally unsuccessful. The whole thing collapsed without any serious effort. A hundred and twenty-one officers were tried for high treason. Of these, five were condemned to the gallows and executed, and the others were transported to Siberia. Here ends the first chapter in the history of Russian secret societies.

The Emperor Nicholas was very different from his sentimental brother. At no period of his life did he ever show even a Platonic affection for liberty in any form. He put his faith in military discipline—especially in drill-and considered it one of the chief duties of a Tsar to stamp out what the Liberals called "the spirit of the time." effect this, he adopted and pushed to its extreme limit the Metternich system of police supervision and repression, and for a time the system served its purpose. During his reign tranquillity reigned in Russia. The administration was incredibly corrupt, but there were no public expressions of disloyalty or liberalism-two words which were in his Majesty's mind synonymous-and no revolutionary movements even in the stormy times of '48. The police considered it necessary occasionally to send a few "restless" people to Siberia, and once they discovered-malicious ill-intentioned people said invented—a political conspiracy; but there was nothing that could be called, even in elastic official language, a secret society. Had Nicholas died in 1852, his last moments might have been comforted by the conviction that he had fulfilled the whole duty of an autocrat, and that the system he loved so well had proved a brilliant success. That illusion was rudely dispelled by the Crimean War.

In the history of England and France that war is but an episode of second-rate importance; for Russia it was an event of the first magnitude, for it was the direct cause, as I have elsewhere explain

ed, of all those great reforms which have made the present reign one of the most important epochs of Russian history.

In many respects the present reign resembles that of Alexander I. Both open with a violent outburst of reform enthusiasm, and in both cases the Emperor puts himself at the head of the reform movement. For a time all goes well. Great reforms are conceived and partly executed, and many sanguine people believe that a national millennium is at hand. But gradually the enthusiasm cools under the influence of chilly experience. The chilling process naturally takes place more rapidly among those in authority. The new institutions do not work nearly so well in reality as on paper, and new forces appear which do not readily submit to control. The Government think it well to apply the curb, first in an intermittent, irritating way, and then in a more decided, systematic fashion. This is naturally resented by the enthusiastic, sanguine people, and the cry is raised that the reaction has set in. It is no longer possible, they say, to trust to the Government for the realisation of the expected millennium. If it is to be realised, extra-legal means must be employed. In a word, the stage is again prepared for the entrance of secret political societies.

In the present reign the cooling process commenced almost as soon as the emancipation law began to be put in execution in 1861. Serf-emancipationthe conferring of liberty and civic rights on forty millions of human beings-is of course a grand thing of which a nation should be proud, and with which every patriotic man with any pretensions to being civilised and liberal must warmly sympathise; but when this great event accidentally deprives you of all power over one-half of your estate, and you find that your serfs are dissatisfied because they do not get the whole of it, you will probably feel-especially if your liberalism and patriotism be of the vaporing, rhetorical type-that really liberalism may be pushed a little too far. So, at least, thought many of the Russian proprietors. On the other hand certain youths, not amenable to sobering influences, held that the Emancipation law and the Government in general were not nearly liberal enough. These consid

ered that more land and less taxation should have been given to the peasantry, and after due consideration arrived at the conviction that the best way to mend matters was to write and disseminate the most terrifically seditious proclamations. Then there were the disorders in the universities, and above all there were the Nihilists. What are the Nihilists? That is a question which I have often put to men who ought to be competent authorities, and I have never received a satisfactory explanation, but there is no difficulty in describing the popular conception of them. According to popular opinion they were a band of fanatical young men and women-many of them medical students-who had determined to turn the world upside down and to introduce "a new kind of social order," founded on the most advanced principles, communistic and otherwise. They had discovered that the two chief fountains of crime and human misery, viz. lust and the desire of gain, might be hermetically sealed by abolishing the obsolete institutions of marriage and private property. When society would be so organized that all the natural instincts of human nature would find complete and untrammelled satisfaction, there would be no inducement to commit crime. That could not of course be effected instantaneously, but something might be done at once. The adherents of the new doctrines accordingly reversed the traditional order of things in the matter of coiffure: the males allowed their hair to grow long, and the female adepts cut their hair short, adding occasionally the additional badge of blue spectacles. Their appearance naturally shocked the aesthetic feelings of ordinary people, but to this they did not object. They had raised themselves above the level of popular notions, were indifferent to so-called public opinion, despised Philistine respectability, and rather liked to scandalise people with antiquated prejudices. Besides this, they had a special grudge against the worship of aesthetic culture. Professing extreme utilitarianism, they explained that the shoemaker who practises his craft is in the true sense a greater man than a Shakspeare or a Goethe, because humanity has more need of shoes than poetry. Strange to say, the opera found favor in

their eyes-perhaps because the founder of modern theoretical Communism had included operatic representations in his phalanstère programme. Perhaps the most curious part of this curious phenomenon was the prominence of the female element in all the demonstrations. When the students held meetings against the orders of the authorities, ladies in short hair and blue spectacles were generally among the orators.

Let it be distinctly understood that I am describing not the Nihilists but simply the popular conception of them. Some of their friends have assured me that this conception is radically false. According to these authorities there never were any Nihilists. The people to whom this name was applied were simply students (who desired beneficent liberal reforms. The peculiarities in their costume arose merely from a laudable neglect of trivialities in view of graver interests. However this may be -and I do not pretend at present to decide the question-many people were alarmed, and the reaction was prepared in consequence. To illustrate this, I may quote here part of an unpublished letter, written in October, 1861, by a man who now occupies one of the highest positions in the Administration. At that time he was regarded as ultra-liberal, and consequently we may assume that, relatively speaking, he did not take a very alarmist view of the situation. Here is what he says, writing to a near relative: "You have not been long absent-merely a few months; but if you returned now, you would be astonished by the progress which the Opposition one might say the Revolutionary Party -has already made. The disorders in the university do not relate merely to the students. I see in the affair the beginning of serious dangers for public tranquillity and the existing order of things. Young people, without distinction of costume, uniform, and origin, take part in the street demonstrations. Besides the students of the university there are the students of other institutions, and a mass of people who are students only in name. Among these last

are

certain gentlemen in long beards and revolutionnaires in crinoline who are of all the most fanatical. Blue collars -the distinguishing mark of the stu

dents' uniform-have become the signe de ralliement. Almost all the professors, and many officers, take the part of the students. The newspaper critics openly defend their colleagues. Mikhaïlof has been convicted of writing, printing, and circulating one of the most violent proclamations that ever existed, under the title of, To the young generation.' Among the students and the littérateurs there is unquestionably an organized conspiracy, which has perhaps leaders outside the literary circle. The Polish students have not yet spoken out in this movement, but they are so self-confident that . . . . the police are powerless. They arrest any one they can lay their hands on. About eighty people have been already sent to the fortress and have been examined, but all this leads to no practical result, because the revolutionary ideas have taken possession of all classes, all ages, all professions, and are publicly expressed in the streets, in the barracks, and in the ministries! I believe the police itself is carried away by them. What all this will lead to it is difficult to predict. I am very much afraid of some bloody catastrophe. Even if it should not go to such a length immediately, the position of the Government will be extremely difficult. Its authority is shaken, and all are convinced that it is powerless, stupid, and incapable. On that point there is the most perfect unanimity among parties of all colors, even the most opposite. The most desperate 'Planter,' agrees in that respect with the most desperate Socialist. Meanwhile those who have the direction of affairs do almost nothing, and have no plan or definite aim clearly in view. At present the Emperor is not in the capital, and now, more than at any former time, there is complete anarchy in the absence of the master of the house. There is a great deal of bustle and talk, and all blame they know not whom." ↑

*

The expected revolution did not take place, but timid people had no difficulty in perceiving signs of its approach. The press continued to disseminate under a

* An epithet commonly applied, at the time of the emancipation, to the adherents of serfage and the defenders of the proprietors' rights.

For obvious reasons I refrain from naming the writer of this letter, which accidentally fell into my hands.

more or less disguised form ideas which were considered dangerous. The Kolokol, a Russian paper published in London by Herzen, and strictly prohibited by the Press-censure, found its way regularly into the country, and was eagerly read by thousands. The youth, it was said, was being corrupted by socialistic, ideas. Young girls of respectable family had been heard to express most objectionable views on the subject of matrimony. Not a few suspected that a great Nihilist organization had been secretly formed for the overthrow of society; and this suspicion found confirmation in several great fires which broke out in St. Petersburg and other towns, and which were believed to be the work of Nihilist incendiaries.

Soon a new event came to strengthen the reactionary influences. In the beginning of 1863 the Polish insurrection broke out. That ill-advised attempt on the part of the Poles to recover their independence had a curious effect on Russian public opinion. There was at that time in Russia a very large amount of generous liberal sentiment, which was, perhaps, not very deep, but was at least genuine so far as it went. Both the Government and the better section of the educated classes were ready to grant to Poland very considerable concessions. The Poles were to have their own administration and almost complete autonomy, under the vice-royalty of a Russian Grand Duke. Whether the scheme would have succeeded, if the Poles had shown sufficient political tact and patience, is a question that need not here be discussed. Political tact and patience are not prominent features of the Polish character, and certainly they were not displayed on this occasion. The new administration committed some grave mistakes, and the Poles appealed to arms. As the news of the rising spread over Russia, there was a moment of hesitation. Those who had been for several years habitually extolling liberty and self-government as the necessary conditions of all progress, and sympathising warmly with every Liberal movement, whether at home or abroad, could not well frown upon the political aspirations of the Poles. The Liberal sentiment of that time was so extremely philosophical and cosmopolitan that it

scarcely distinguished between Poles and Russians, and liberty was supposed to be a good and grand thing in Warsaw as well as in St. Petersburg. But underneath this fair artificial growth of cosmopolitan liberalism lay the volcano of national patriotism-dormant for the moment, but by no means extinct. Though the Russians are, in some respects, the most cosmopolitan of the European nations, they are at the same time capable of indulging in violent outbursts of patriotic fanaticism; and these two contradictory elements in their character were brought into contact by the news of the Polish insurrection. The struggle was only momentary. Ere long the patriotic feelings burst forth, and carried all before them. The Moscow Gazette thundered against the pseudo-Liberal sentimentalism which would, if unchecked, necessarily lead to the dismemberment of the empire; and Mr. Katkoff, the editor of that paper, became for a time the most influential private individual in the country. A few, indeed, remained true to their convictions. Herzen, for instance, wrote in the Kolokol a glowing panegyric on two Russian officers who had refused to fire on the insurgents, and here and there a man might be found who confessed that he was ashamed of the severity displayed in Lithuania.* But such men were few, and were commonly regarded almost as traitors. The great majority of the public thoroughly approved of the severe energetic measures adopted by the Government, and when the insurrection was suppressed, men who had a few months previously spoken and written in magniloquent terms about humanitarian liberalism, joined in the ovations given to Muraviéff! At a great dinner given in his honor, that energetic and by no means too humane administrator, who had systematically opposed the emancipation of the serfs, and had never concealed his contempt for the Liberal ideas recently in fashion, could ironically ex

* I have heard, at least, two genuine, nominally orthodox Russians make statements of this kind. I must, however, in fairness add that the conceptions commonly held in Western Europe regarding Muraviéff and his administration are, though not without a foundation of fact, in my opinion, gross exaggerations.