The representatives of the Entente at Athens pursued these unedifying tactics in the firm conviction that the cause of M. Venizelos was their cause; which was true enough in the sense that on him alone they could count to bring Greece into the War without conditions. As to the Entente publics, M. Venizelos was their man in a less sober sense: he kept repeating to them that his opponents under the guise of neutrality followed a hostile policy, and that his own party's whole activity was directed to preventing the King from ranging himself openly on the side of the Central Powers. The Entente Governments, whatever they may have thought of these tactics and slanders, did not dream of forbidding the one or of contradicting the other, since the former aided their client and the latter created an atmosphere which relieved them from all moral restraints. They only upbraided M. Venizelos gently for keeping out of Parliament. So M. Venizelos, seeing that he had gained nothing by abstention and forgetting that he had {94} pronounced the Chamber unconstitutional, obeyed. Early in May, two of his partisans carried two bye-elections in Eastern Macedonia, and the leader himself was returned by the island of Mytilene. Three seats in Parliament could not overturn M. Skouloudis; and it cannot be said that his re-appearance on the scene enhanced the credit of M. Venizelos with the nation. Ever since the landing of the Allies, and largely through their own actions, his prestige in Greece declined progressively. He was reproached more and more bitterly for his "invitation" to them; and these reproaches grew the louder, the closer he drew to the foreigners and the farther he diverged from his own King. In a letter from Athens, dated 24 May, occurs the following passage: "Venizelos becomes every day more and more of a red republican. How that man has duped everybody! We all thought him a genius, and he simply is an ambitious maniac." Later on M. Venizelos explained why he had not already revolted. A revolution there and then, no doubt, would have saved a lot of trouble; "But before the idea of revolution matures in the mind and soul of a statesman, there is need for some evolution, which cannot be accomplished in a few moments," he said. Since October, this idea had had time to evolve in his mind and soul. But his hate of "tyranny" was not blind. It was peculiarly clear-sighted, and he judged the difficulties with precision: "Such a step would not have been favoured by the Entente Powers, whose support would have been indispensable for its success." Then again: "If before the Bulgarian invasion of Macedonia I had kindled a civil war, public opinion would have held me responsible for the invasion, and that would certainly have arrested my movement." [17]