The bulk of the Tsar’s subjects are peasants, and he very often spoke of their life and their customs. Indeed, he displayed the keenest interest in plans to better their condition and to raise their standard of culture. Sovereigns, I have noticed, carefully eschew any reference to questions which they and their ministers are unable to solve, and it is to me significant that neither the Tsar nor the Kaiser has ever spoken to me of the Polish question. The Tsar was, however, aware that the Bourbons and the great Polish family of Zamoyski are now connected--my cousin, Princess Caroline of Bourbon, married a Zamoyski--and he very delicately appointed a gentleman of that family to be in attendance on me during my stay in Petersburg. From intercourse with this gentleman and with other Poles I met in Russia I discovered that there is a profound difference between the Russian and the Polish character. There always remains something of the Asiatic in the Russian, but the Pole belongs to the West. He has the Slav charm and the Latin culture. I know of nothing sadder than the tragedy of Poland. That splendid nation, which once saved Europe from the Turks, has been parcelled out between three Empires, but neither the iron will of the German Emperor nor the autocratic power of Nicholas II. has succeeded in killing the Polish spirit. Small wonder that both at Berlin and Petersburg the subject was not broached at Court. Since then the war has come. Will the end of it witness the resurrection of Poland as a nation? The Emperor is perfectly well aware that my sympathies are with the democracy. But naturally I never attempted to force my ideas upon him. I am able to understand that a sovereign who wields absolute power and to whom the most powerful of his ministers is obliged to yield may be necessary for Russia at the present day. I am convinced that the world will be happier--princes and people alike--when democracy has triumphed, but I realise that in a country like Russia, the bulk of whose population is unlettered, it would be foolish, as well as dangerous, to introduce suddenly and without preparation methods which are successful in the West. Education, and education alone, can establish the victory of democracy.