496 engineers to the Moscow Town Council, in which the
burning political questions had been freely discussed. In other large
towns, when the mayor prevented such discussions, a considerable number
of the town councillors resigned.

From the Zemstvos and municipalities the spirit of opposition spread to
the provincial assemblies of the Noblesse. The nobles of the province of
St. Petersburg, for example, voted by a large majority an address to the
Tsar recommending the convocation of a freely-elected National Assembly;
and in Moscow, usually regarded as the fortress of Conservatism, eighty
members of the Assembly entered a formal protest against a patriotic
Conservative address which had been voted two days before. Even the
fair sex considered it necessary to support the opposition movement. The
matrons of Moscow, in a humble petition to the Empress, declared that
they could not continue to bring up their children properly in the
existing state of unconstitutional lawlessness, and their view was
endorsed in several provincial towns by the schoolboys, who marched
through the streets in procession, and refused to learn their lessons
until popular liberties had been granted!

Again, for more than a month the Government remained silent on the
fundamental questions which were exercising the public mind. At last,
on the morning of March 3d, appeared an Imperial manifesto of a very
unexpected kind. In it the Emperor deplored the outbreak of internal
disturbances at a moment when the glorious sons of Russia were fighting
with self-sacrificing bravery and offering their lives for the Faith,
the Tsar, and the Fatherland; but he drew consolation and hope from
remembering that, with the help of the prayers of the Holy Orthodox
Church, under the banner of the Tsar's autocratic might, Russia had
frequently passed through great wars and internal troubles, and had
always issued from them with fresh strength. He appealed, therefore, to
all right-minded subjects, to whatever class they might belong, to join
him in the great and sacred task of overcoming the stubborn foreign foe,
and eradicating revolt at home. As for the manner in which he hoped this
might be accomplished, he gave a pretty clear indication, at the end
of the document, by praying to God, not only for the welfare of his
subjects, but also for "the consolidation of autocracy."

This extraordinary pronouncement, couched in semi-ecclesiastical
language, produced in the Liber