His father had left to him a splendid inheritance, which he might have kept intact with a little care, and very small trouble. Before the Japanese war it might have been still possible for him to rule his country autocratically, though not despotically; but after Moukhden and Tschousima, and especially after the revolution which followed upon these two catastrophes, and which would have been hardly possible, had they not occurred, the thing became more difficult, if not impossible, because the Russian nation had begun to wonder at the causes that had brought about these terrible disasters, the consequences of which had been the loss of Russian prestige in the Far East, and even in Europe. It would, however, still have been possible to save something out of the former form of government, if a serious and honest appeal had been made to the nation to help to consolidate its strength, and if an attempt had been made to modify it according to the exigencies of the times and of the moment. But after the famous day which saw rivers of blood flow in the streets of St. Petersburg, and the wholesale slaying of thousands of innocent workmen, whose only crime had consisted in wishing to lay their grievances before their Czar, every attempt to keep up the old order of things was bound to fail. Something else had to be tried to save the dynasty together with the country, but not the granting of a so-called Constitution, which it had been determined beforehand to leave a dead letter. If on the occasion I have just referred to, Nicholas II. had found sufficient courage to meet his people face to face, and to speak with them as his great grandfather had done on an occasion far more critical even than the ones which prevailed in 1905, it is likely that the divorce which finally separated him from his subjects would never have taken place. But he went to Tsarskoie Selo as soon as he heard there was likely to be trouble in his capital, forgetting everything else but his own personal safety, which, by the way, had never been seriously threatened. He proved himself to be a coward, and cowardice is the last thing which a nation forgives in those who rule it. The Czar lost in consequence of his conduct every prestige he had left. And he also lost the respect of Russia, owing to the shameless corruption which established itself everywhere during his reign, when at last everything under the sun could be bought or sold in the country, to begin with, a Court appointment, and to end with, the highest functions in the State. The Emperor was unable to refuse anything to those whom he liked, and he never grasped this essential fact, that when one gives too easily and without discernment, it inevitably follows that one also allows people to take what perhaps one would never have granted, had one thought about it.