It may not be to the advantage of his intellectual faculties that Nicholas failed to see the vast political scheme which lay behind this offer; it is certainly to the honor of his moral character that he refused it, and this in spite of the supplications of his wife, who entreated him not to plunge their country into a war which, as she repeated, could only prove disastrous for its future, as well as for that of the dynasty. In spite of his natural defects, of his cruelty, harshness of heart, and utter disregard of the rights of others, the Czar was still a gentleman and he could not be induced to do anything capable of dishonoring him as a gentleman, though he may have lent himself to actions degrading for a Sovereign. During the terribly responsible days which preceded the declaration of war he behaved quite irreproachably. It was later on that he was influenced by Raspoutine and by the Empress to lend himself to political schemes unworthy of him, as well as of the nation over which he ruled. On the 1st of August, 1914, twelve hours after Germany had thrown her gauntlet into his face, he showed himself for the last time to his people on the balcony of the Winter Palace. An immense crowd had gathered together in the big square which it faces, and for the last time, too, cheered him vociferously, forgetting in this solemn moment all the follies, mistakes, and errors which had saddened his reign and raised a barrier between him and this great Russia that his father had made so prosperous and so mighty. If in that supreme moment he had been able to find words capable of electrifying this crowd into believing in him again, who knows but that the reverses which were to crowd upon him could not have been avoided, or at least diminished! But Nicholas II. never knew how to speak to his subjects or how to touch their hearts. He remained impassible and indifferent in the most critical hours of his life and of theirs, and this incapacity to rise to the height of the situation of the moment was perhaps one of the things which contributed the most to his fall.