This answer became known at once, and it traced between the Monarch and his subjects one of these white lines which in a tennis ground marks the antagonistic camps, and out of two players makes two enemies ... and this line went on getting wider and wider as time went on. It still existed when Nicholas II. abdicated, but it had then become an abyss. In general there is nothing sadder in the world than a misunderstanding between two people both possessed of good intentions towards each other. It is something worse than a discussion, worse than a quarrel, and even worse than hatred, because it is the only thing which sound reasoning cannot conquer, and which is bound to go on aggravating itself from day to day. How much worse therefore is a thing of the kind when it has established itself between a nation and those who rule it. The great, the supreme misfortune of Nicholas II. consisted in the fact that he never could understand his people or their wants, whilst Russia on the other hand was, through circumstances independent of its will, brought to distrust the real feelings harboured by the Czar in regard to its welfare, and to indulge in comparisons which certainly were not to his advantage, between him and the Sovereign to whom he had succeeded, who had possessed the full confidence of his subjects. This fatality which has dogged all the footsteps of the Emperor who abdicated a year ago, from the very first moment that he had ascended his Throne, can be partly attributed to the defective education which he had received, together with the deplorable weakness of his character; and partly to the state of absolute subjection in which he had been kept first by his father, during the whole time of the latter’s life, and later on by his wife, together with the complete ignorance in which he remained in regard to the wants, the aspirations, needs and character of his people. He was a despot by temperament, perhaps because he had never seen anything else but despotism around him, and perhaps because he had got a mistaken idea in regard to the duties which devolved upon him. He had always been told that he ought to uphold intact the principle of autocracy, thanks to which his predecessors had maintained themselves upon the throne. He had seen Alexander III. adopt him with these principles with success, and he had forgotten, or rather he had never known, that in order to be a successful autocrat, one must neither prove oneself a tyrant, nor an oppressor of people’s consciences and opinions. His first steps as a Sovereign had hurt all the feelings of loyalty of his subjects. Among the many addresses of congratulation that had been presented to him on the occasion of his marriage and of his accession to the Throne, there had been one from the Zemstvo or local assembly of the government of Tver, a town which was known to be very liberal in its opinions, in which was expressed the hope that the Monarch would try to govern his