would have found that everything had
been done in perfect order.

Perhaps the most ingenious means for preventing administrative abuses
was devised by the Emperor Nicholas I. Fully aware that he was regularly
and systematically deceived by the ordinary officials, he formed a body
of well-paid officers, called the gendarmerie, who were scattered over
the country, and ordered to report directly to his Majesty whatever
seemed to them worthy of attention. Bureaucratic minds considered this
an admirable expedient; and the Tsar confidently expected that he would,
by means of these official observers who had no interest in concealing
the truth, be able to know everything, and to correct all official
abuses. In reality the institution produced few good results, and in
some respects had a very pernicious influence. Though picked men and
provided with good salaries, these officers were all more or less
permeated with the prevailing spirit. They could not but feel that they
were regarded as spies and informers--a humiliating conviction, little
calculated to develop that feeling of self-respect which is the main
foundation of uprightness--and that all their efforts could do but
little good. They were, in fact, in pretty much the same position
as Peter's Procurator-General, and, with true Russian bonhomie, they
disliked ruining individuals who were no worse than the majority of
their fellows. Besides this, according to the received code of official
morality insubordination was a more heinous sin than dishonesty, and
political offences were regarded as the blackest of all. The gendarmerie
officers shut their eyes, therefore, to the prevailing abuses, which
were believed to be incurable, and directed their attention to real or
imaginary political delinquencies. Oppression and extortion remained
unnoticed, whilst an incautious word or a foolish joke at the expense of
the Government was too often magnified into an act of high treason.

This force still exists under a slightly modified form. Towards the
close of the reign of Alexander II. (1880), when Count Loris Melikof,
with the sanction and approval of his august master, was preparing to
introduce a system of liberal political reforms, it was intended
to abolish the gendarmerie as an organ of political espionage, and
accordingly the direction of it was transferred from the so-called
Third Section of his Imperial Majesty's Chancery to the Ministry of the
Interior; but when the benevol