Here, in the ante-chamber where it was their custom to await the pleasure of the Emperor, they found the rest of the ministers assembled, Count Baranoff alone excepted, a very significant exception. They had all received a special summons to attend the Imperial presence, and were looking somewhat downcast, an aspect due to the belief that the coming interview would end in their dismissal. From the vast crowd that had gathered in front of the palace there came with regular iteration, the cry of “Down with the Ministry!”—a cry plainly heard by those within the ante-chamber. “Alexander will throw us to the wolves to save himself,” said Plato Zuboff, an old lover of Catharine’s, and one of the two actual assassins that had drawn the fatal sash around the throat of her son Paul. “Think you that he will listen to the cry of the _canaille_?” said Pahlen. “That were to show himself a weakling—to set a premium upon future disorder.” “But the intellectuals, too, are clamouring for our downfall,” answered Zuboff. “What! have you not seen to-day’s issue of the _Journal de Petersbourg_? Read that.” And producing a copy of the newspaper he directed Pahlen’s attention to a column containing an article to the effect that the continuance in office of the regicidal ministry was a public scandal, certain to alienate the sympathies of the European chancelleries. In any other country but Russia, concluded the writer, with a boldness rarely found in the Muscovite press, the ministers would now be on their trial for murder. “What was the censor doing,” frowned Pahlen, “to let language like this go forth to the world?” “Doing! The will of the Empress Mary,” replied Zuboff, in a lower tone, glancing, as he spoke, at the door of the presence chamber, where, as he knew, the ex-Czarina was sitting in conference with her son Alexander. “Her one aim is to send us to the gibbet. Since Paul’s death she has never ceased intriguing against us. The picture is her latest weapon. Before daybreak this morning her hirelings were traversing the city with the cry, ‘Go, see the picture at the Orphan Asylum.’ And when the Black People had seen, and were cursing us, then her agents raised the further cry, ‘To the Winter Palace, and shout for the downfall of the Ministry.’ You hear them singing her tune.” “And when you remember,” chimed in another minister, “who the Governor of the city is, and who is the Chief of the Police, you can understand why the people have been allowed to march at will through the streets.” “Then the hand of Baranoff is in all this,” said Pahlen, biting his nails. “Without doubt,” returned the other. “The picture-idea emanated from him, and was eagerly adopted by the Empress. We should have made him a partner in the abdication-plot. We thought to exclude him from the Ministry; it is he who is excluding us. To-day Baranoff triumphs all along the line. We go; he remains.”