The next best thing, therefore, was to find some one who would be willing to become consciously what the “Prophet” was unconsciously, the instrument of the vile crew whose ambition was to make money by all means out of the terrible situation into which the country was plunged. These unscrupulous people all felt that they would never again in the whole course of their life have another such opportunity of becoming rich beyond the dreams of avarice, and they were not the kind of people to allow it to escape them. Every effort was therefore put forward to bring Mr. Sturmer to the notice of the Emperor, and to the attention of all those capable of suggesting to the latter the choice of this functionary to replace Mr. Goremykine, who had openly declared that he could not any longer go on fighting against the subterranean forces which were slowly but surely working against him, and making his position more unbearable every day. The candidate who would have been the most welcome to public opinion was Mr. Krivoscheine, but he was the last man whom Rasputin’s friends would have cared to put forward. On the other hand, Mr. Sturmer, for personal reasons into which it is useless to enter here, when approached by Manassevitsch-Maniuloff, had not hesitated a single moment in promising to indorse the purposes of the small group of persons who had made up their minds to become the real rulers of the State. As soon as he had declared his willingness to join with them in the future an energetic campaign was started in his favour, not in the press nor in the Duma, nor even among the public, but in the immediate vicinity of the Sovereign, a campaign in which some of the highest authorities in the Greek Church were enrolled, and in which the Empress herself was persuaded by some of her personal friends to take part. The expected then occurred. The Czar was finally persuaded that in Mr. Sturmer he would find a faithful servant, which in a certain sense he did, and also a minister determined to govern according to the old principles of autocracy with an utter disregard for the liberal parties, as well as for the Duma. The Duma had not spared the Government during the whole summer, and its activity had been viewed with dismay by certain members. Yet the country was glad to find that at last there existed among its representatives men courageous enough to say what they thought, and to try to save Russia from the abyss into which it was felt that she was falling through the influence not so much of Rasputin himself as of those who surrounded him and who used him for their own ends.