lic or a
constitutional monarchy. Many of the educated classes and members of
the Duma advocated a constitutional monarchy of the English type, while
others, particularly the socialistic groups, favored a republic, a
democratic republic; whatever they meant by that is not clear. Needless
to say the great mass of people did not know the difference between one
kind of government and another but they shouted as loudly as those who
knew. One soldier demanded a republic like that of England, another
insisted on a republic with a tsar at the head, the wife of the porter
of the house where I lived cried as if her heart would break because
"they wanted a republic," and some of the peasant women in the country
clamored for the tsar because "if they take away the tsar they will also
take away God and what will then become of the muzhik." In one place at
the front several regiments almost came to blows over this question. An
orator ended his eloquent speech by saying that "from now on Russia
will have but one monarch, the revolutionary proletariat." This phrase
puzzled the soldiers, they also misunderstood the word "monarch" which
they thought to be "monakh" (monk). They therefore concluded that it was
planned to put a monk on the throne, and an argument arose whether they
would have a monk or not. Some were in favor and others opposed. By the
time it got to the next regiment the question was whether they would
have the monk Iliodor as their ruler. It was no longer a question
whether Russia was to have a tsar but whether the tsar should be a monk
or not, and whether it should be Iliodor or some other one.

Strange to say, as evening came a kind of fear seized the population,
particularly the more ignorant. It was difficult for them to shake
off the terror of the old police; all the time that they were talking
against the tsar they had a feeling that they were doing wrong, and that
some one was denouncing them. It was hard for them to believe that all
that they saw and heard during the day was real and that the old regime
was powerless. Some one would start a rumor that a monarchist general
with an army was marching on the city and that he would kill and burn.
Early Friday evening, March 16, as I was walking down the street,
soldiers ran by me shouting for every one to get under cover for several
hundred police from Tsarskoe Selo were coming and that there would
be street fighting. Frightened mothers grabbed their little ones and
h