-government and reorganising the Law Courts should be
pushed on energetically. The important laws for the establishment of the
Zemstvo and for the great judicial reforms, which I have described in
previous chapters, both date from the year 1864.

* The students of the St. Petersburg University scandalised
their more patriotic fellow-countrymen by making a
pro-Polish demonstration.

** In fairness to Count Muravieff I must say that he was not
quite so black as he was painted in the Polish and
West-European Press. He left an interesting autobiographical
fragment relating to the history of this time, but it is not
likely to be printed for some years. As an historical
document it is valuable, but must be used with caution by
the future historian. A copy of it was for some time in my
possession, but I was bound by a promise not to make
extracts.

These and other reforms of a less important kind made no impression on
the young irreconcilables. A small group of them, under the leadership
of a certain Ishutin, formed in Moscow a small secret society, and
conceived the design of assassinating the Emperor, in the hope that
his son and successor, who was erroneously supposed to be imbued with
ultra-Liberal ideas, might continue the work which his father had begun
and had not the courage to complete. In April, 1866, the attempt on the
life of the Emperor was made by a youth called Karakozof as his Majesty
was leaving a public garden in St. Petersburg, but the bullet happily
missed its mark, and the culprit was executed.

This incident formed a turning-point in the policy of the Government.
Alexander II. began to fear that he had gone too far, or, at least, too
quickly, in his policy of radical reform. An Imperial rescript announced
that law, property, and religion were in danger, and that the Government
would lean on the Noblesse and other conservative elements of Society.
The two periodicals which advocated the most advanced views (Sovremennik
and Russkoye Slovo) were suppressed permanently, and precautions were
taken to prevent the annual assemblies of the Zemstvo from giving public
expression to the aspirations of the moderate Liberals.

A secret official inquiry showed that the revolutionary agitation
proceeded in all cases from young men who were studying, or had recently
studied, in the universities, the seminaries, or the technical schools,
such as the Medic