The secret police agents, who were working with him, and thanks to whom he had been enabled to make the enormous profits that had added so many millions to his fortune since the war had started, began to spread the rumour that the Grand Duke was plotting against the Czar, and wanted to usurp the latter’s throne and crown, out of fear of being called upon to render an account of his activity during the nine months of the campaign. Though it was quite evident that the responsibility for the lamentable want of organisation which had culminated in the momentary defeat of the Russian troops lay upon the War Office and the Artillery and Commissariat Departments, and though the War Minister, General Soukhomlinoff, had been dismissed in disgrace before being sent to the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul to await there his trial; though strenuous efforts had been made to punish those to whose carelessness this mass of misfortunes had been due, yet Rasputin and his friends applied themselves to the task of representing the Grand Duke as being more guilty than any one else, and of having on purpose kept secret the real state of things, out of fear that he would be called upon, if he revealed the truth, to surrender his command. There was not one word of truth in these accusations, because Nicholas Nicholaievitsch had, on the contrary, worked harder than any one to repair the blunders of others, and had never shared the blind confidence in victory which so many people who knew nothing about the real condition of affairs professed to nurse. He had done all that it was humanly possible to do, in order to save a situation which had been doomed from the first day that it had begun to develop. If he had failed, this had been in no way his fault, but that of circumstances and of fate which had proved too strong for him.