responsible only to the Czar himself. The Third Section had its prototype in the privileged bodyguard of Ivan the Terrible, which laid the whole country under contribution. Another Czar, Alexis, had his secret police, and his son, Peter the Great, invented a police system of a most formidable kind. It was known as the Preobrajenski, from the place where it had its headquarters, and was in fact a modern civil Inquisition, more terrible, more powerful even than the religious Inquisition of Spain. Peter the Great very likely felt that, with the many changes he introduced into national life, which so often roused the most obstinate resistance, he ought to have ready to his hand an instrument of coercion supported by espionage. It was in effect the Third Section, as we have seen it since, and although it was solemnly suppressed by Peter III. in 1762, it survived in that Third Section, just as the latter survives in the existing organisation of the Russian police. For many years, under Alexander II., the Third Section was much more than a State police; it was a power apart in the Government, exercising independent authority, having many privileges, placed [Illustration: HOW PRISONERS USED TO BE DEPORTED TO SIBERIA.] outside and above the laws. Its chief, who was also called the Head of the Gendarmerie, was by right a member of the Council, and he was the most confidential servant of the Emperor, with whom he was ever in the most intimate relations. He exercised something like absolute power; his veto could in effect control all appointments, because he could adduce police reasons based on police knowledge against any person. He had, in fact, complete control over everyone and everything in the empire; he could arrest, lock up, exile, cause anyone he liked to disappear. [Illustration: _Photo: Bergamasco, Petersburg._ COUNT SCHOUVALOFF, CHIEF OF THE "THIRD SECTION."]