of Rothschild, and a preliminary contract had been signed,
when, at the instance of the London firm, M. Wyshnigradski, the finance
minister, was informed that unless the persecutions of the Jews were
stopped the great banking-house would be compelled to withdraw from the
operation. Deeply mortified by this attempt to deal with him _de
puissance a puissance_, the tsar peremptorily broke off the
negotiations, and ordered that overtures should be made to a non-Jewish
French syndicate. In this way anti-Semitism, which had already so
profoundly influenced the domestic politics of Europe, set its mark on
the international relations of the powers, for it was the urgent need of
the Russian treasury quite as much as the termination of Prince
Bismarck's secret treaty of mutual neutrality which brought about the
Franco-Russian alliance (Daudet, _Hist. Dipl. de l'Alliance
Franco-Russe_, pp. 259 et. seq.).

For nearly three years more the persecutions continued. Elated by the
success of his crusade against the Jews, Pobedonostsev extended his
persecuting policy to other non-Orthodox denominations. The legislation
against the Protestant Stundists became almost as unbearable as that
imposed on the Jews. In the report of the Holy Synod, presented to the
tsar towards the end of 1893, the procurator called for repressive
measures against Roman Catholics, Moslems and Buddhists, and denounced
the rationalist tendency of the whole system of secular education in the
empire (_Neue Freie Presse_, 31st January 1894). A year later, however,
the tsar died, and his successor, without repealing any of the
persecuting laws, let it gradually be understood that their rigorous
application might be mitigated. The country was tired and exhausted by
the persecution, and the tolerant hints which came from high quarters
were acted upon with significant alacrity.

A new era of conflict dawned with the great constitutional struggle
towards the end of the century. The conditions, however, were very
different from those which prevailed in the 'eighties. The May Laws had
avenged themselves with singular fitness. By confining the Jews to the
towns at the very moment that Count Witte's policy of protection was
creating an enormous industrial proletariat they placed at the disposal
of the disaffected masses an ally powerful in numbers and intelligence,
and especially in its bitter sense of wrong, its reckless despair and
its cosmopolitan outlook and connexions. As