This hesitation on the part of the Sovereign did not please at all the small group of men who had entered into the schemes of the Empress. They knew very well that so long as Nicholas Nicholaievitch remained in power it would be impossible to bring to the front the question of a separate peace with Germany for which they were steadily working. It was therefore determined to force the Empress to extort from her husband the decision they wished for; consequently Raspoutine asked her to attend a prayer-meeting he wanted to hold, during which he said that it had been revealed to him that she would come to learn many things hitherto kept from her knowledge, but which it was time she should hear. What occurred at this meeting no one ever could ascertain exactly. It seems pretty certain that Raspoutine evoked the spirit of Colonel Orloff, and that the customary game of making a pencil write by itself was resorted to, with the result that Alexandra Feodorowna returned to the Palace fully convinced that, in resisting her demand for the removal of the Grand-Duke Nicholas from his position as Commander-in-chief of the army, the Czar was endangering not only his own life, but also the Throne, and the chances of succession to it of his only son. The Empress implored her husband to listen to her, telling him that if he really felt alarmed about taking any violent measures against the Grand Duke, he ought at least to dismiss the latter’s head of the staff, General Januchevitch, to whose blunders all the disasters that had overpowered the Russian armies were due. She represented to her bewildered spouse that public opinion claimed some one should be punished for all the unsuccesses which had attended the war, and that it would be satisfied to a small degree if the General were removed from his command.