ments.

The Commission and the Government would have willingly dispensed with
all further advice from the nobles, but it was necessary to redeem the
Imperial promise. Deputies were therefore summoned to the capital, but
they were not allowed to form, as they hoped, a public assembly for
the discussion of the question. All their efforts to hold meetings were
frustrated, and they were required merely to answer in writing a list
of printed questions regarding matters of detail. The fundamental
principles, they were told, had already received the Imperial sanction,
and were consequently removed from discussion. Those who desired to
discuss details were invited individually to attend meetings of the
Commission, where they found one or two members ready to engage with
them in a little dialectical fencing. This, of course, did not give much
satisfaction. Indeed, the ironical tone in which the fencing was too
often conducted served to increase the existing irritation. It was only
too evident that the Commission had triumphed, and some of the members
could justly boast that they had drowned the deputies in ink and buried
them under reams of paper.

Believing, or at least professing to believe, that the Emperor was
being deceived in this matter by the Administration, several groups
of deputies presented petitions to his Majesty containing a respectful
protest against the manner in which they had been treated. But by this
act they simply laid themselves open to "the most unkindest cut of all."
Those who had signed the petitions received a formal reprimand through
the police.

This treatment of the deputies, and, above all, this gratuitous insult,
produced among the nobles a storm of indignation. They felt that they
had been entrapped. The Government had artfully induced them to form
projects for the emancipation of their serfs, and now, after having been
used as a cat's-paw in the work of their own spoliation, they were
being unceremoniously pushed aside as no longer necessary. Those who
had indulged in the hope of gaining political rights felt the blow most
keenly. A first gentle and respectful attempt at remonstrance had been
answered by a dictatorial reprimand through the police! Instead of being
called to take an active part in home and foreign politics, they
were being treated as naughty schoolboys. In view of this insult all
differences of opinion were for the moment forgotten, and all parties
resolved to join in a vigoro