It is when considering this point that one feels tempted to ask what would have become of Nicholas II. had he had beside him one of these intelligent women, endowed with a strong character, and understanding the nature of her duties as a wife, as a mother and a sovereign. It is likely that if he had found such a help he might have prevented or at least have contrived to give a different shape to the crisis through which Russia had to pass. The war was an unavoidable misfortune, owing to the firm determination of Germany to provoke it, no matter in what way, or under what pretext, but it would have been possible to conduct it differently than was the case. One could also have been prepared for it, and one ought to have realised that the old and superannuated system of government so utterly rotten, where everything was left in the hands of corrupt functionaries, who had never learned anything out of the book of history, for whom the intellectual development of nations meant nothing at all, and who did not look beyond their personal advantages in all the great crises which might come to shake the equanimity of the country, that this system had served its time, and was bound to collapse under the weight of the universal contempt. But Nicholas II. called together a Duma which he had determined beforehand to deprive of every initiative, and of the liberty to say what it wished concerning the needs of the country that had entrusted it with the defence of its interests. He made many fine promises which he never intended to keep, and when he spoke about the necessity of bringing about a close union between the Czar and the representatives of his people, he never wished to give to the latter the possibility to approach him, or to lay their grievances at his feet. Had there been in Russia an Empress worthy of the name, and competent to fill the position she occupied, she would have told her husband that the duty of them both consisted in remaining loyal towards their subjects. She would have exposed her person, and risked her life if necessary, in the accomplishment of the task which had been allotted to her by Providence. She would have spent her time otherwise than in the practices of a piety that was nothing else but superstition mingled with erotic tendencies.