tive writers were placed under strict supervision, and
peremptorily silenced as soon as they departed from what was considered
a "well-intentioned" tone. The number of university students was
diminished, the chairs for political science were suppressed, and the
military schools multiplied. Russians were prevented from travelling
abroad, and foreigners who visited the country were closely watched by
the police. By these and similar measures it was hoped that Russia would
be preserved from the dangers of revolutionary agitation.

Nicholas has been called the Don Quixote of Autocracy, and the
comparison which the term implies is true in many points. By character
and aims he belonged to a time that had passed away; but failure and
mishap could not shake his faith in his ideal, and made no change in his
honest, stubborn nature, which was as loyal and chivalresque as that
of the ill-fated Knight of La Mancha. In spite of all evidence to the
contrary, he believed in the practical omnipotence of autocracy. He
imagined that as his authority was theoretically unlimited, so his power
could work miracles. By nature and training a soldier, he considered
government a slightly modified form of military discipline, and looked
on the nation as an army which might be made to perform any intellectual
or economic evolutions that he might see fit to command. All social ills
seemed to him the consequence of disobedience to his orders, and he
knew only one remedy--more discipline. Any expression of doubt as to
the wisdom of his policy, or any criticism of existing regulations, he
treated as an act of insubordination which a wise sovereign ought not
to tolerate. If he never said, "L'Etat--c'est moi!" it was because he
considered the fact so self-evident that it did not need to be stated.
Hence any attack on the administration, even in the person of the most
insignificant official, was an attack on himself and on the monarchical
principle which he represented. The people must believe--and faith, as
we know, comes not by sight--that they lived under the best possible
government. To doubt this was political heresy. An incautious word or a
foolish joke against the Government was considered a serious crime, and
might be punished by a long exile in some distant and inhospitable part
of the Empire. Progress should by all means be made, but it must be made
by word of command, and in the way ordered. Private initiative in any
form was a thing on no acco