wn kin
perhaps, whose only crime was that they were hungry and had dared to
say so. One regiment turned upon its officers, refusing to obey them,
and made them prisoners. Another and another joined the revolting
forces. It was like the scenes in Paris on the 14th of July, 1789. The
people had gathered to protest, and, hardly knowing what they did,
they had turned their protests into a revolution. Regiments loyal to
the Czar were hastily summoned to fire upon their revolting comrades.
They hesitated. Leaders of the mob rushed over to them, pleading with
them not to fire. A few scattering volleys were followed by a lull,
and, then with a shout of joy, the troops last remaining loyal threw
down their arms and rushed across to embrace the revolutionists. At a
great meeting of the mob a group of soldiers and working men was
picked out to call upon the Duma and ask this body to form a temporary
government. Another group was appointed to wait upon Nicholas II and
tell him that henceforth he was not the Czar of all the Russias, but
plain Nicholas Romanoff. Messengers were sent to the fighting fronts
to inform the generals that they were no longer to take orders from
the Czar, but from the representatives of the free people of Russia.
With remarkable calmness, the nation accepted the new situation.
Within two days a new government had been formed, composed of some of
the best men in the great empire. The Czar signed a paper giving up
the throne in behalf of himself and his young son and nominating his
brother Michael to take his place. Michael, however, was too wise. He
notified the people that he would accept the crown only if they should
vote to give it to him; and this the people would not do.

[Illustration: Revolutionary soldiers holding a conference in the
Duma]

The government, as formed at first, with its ministers of different
departments like the American cabinet, was composed of citizens of the
middle classes--lawyers, professors of the universities, land-owners,
merchants were represented--and at the head of the ministry was a
prince. This arrangement did not satisfy the rabble. The radical
socialists, most of whom owned no property and wanted all wealth
divided up among all the people, were not much happier to be ruled by
the moderately well-to-do than they were to submit to the rule of the
nobles. The council of workingmen and soldiers, meeting in the great
hall which had formerly housed the Duma, began to take u