er for Foreign Affairs declared that the
authorities expected a person of my name to cross the frontier about
that time with a quantity of false bank-notes, and that I had been
arrested by mistake. I must confess that this explanation, though
official, seemed to me more ingenious than satisfactory, but I was
obliged to accept it for what it was worth. At a later period I had
again the misfortune to attract the attention of the secret police, but
I reserve the incident till I come to speak of my relations with the
revolutionists.

From all I have seen and heard of the gendarmerie I am disposed to
believe that the officers are for the most part polite, well-educated
men, who seek to fulfil their disagreeable duties in as inoffensive a
way as possible. It must, however, be admitted that they are generally
regarded with suspicion and dislike, even by those people who fear the
attempts at revolutionary propaganda which it is the special duty of the
gendarmerie to discover and suppress. Nor need this surprise us. Though
very many people believe in the necessity of capital punishment, there
are few who do not feel a decided aversion to the public executioner.

The only effectual remedy for administrative abuses lies in placing the
administration under public control. This has been abundantly proved in
Russia. All the efforts of the Tsars during many generations to check
the evil by means of ingenious bureaucratic devices proved utterly
fruitless. Even the iron will and gigantic energy of Nicholas I. were
insufficient for the task. But when, after the Crimean War, there was a
great moral awakening, and the Tsar called the people to his assistance,
the stubborn, deep-rooted evils immediately disappeared. For a time
venality and extortion were unknown, and since that period they have
never been able to regain their old force.

At the present moment it cannot be said that the administration is
immaculate, but it is incomparably purer than it was in old times.
Though public opinion is no longer so powerful as it was in the early
sixties, it is still strong enough to repress many malpractices which
in the time of Nicholas I. and his predecessors were too frequent to
attract attention. On this subject I shall have more to say hereafter.

If administrative abuses are rife in the Empire of the Tsars, it is not
from any want of carefully prepared laws. In no country in the world,
perhaps, is the legislation more voluminous, and in th