The moral atmosphere of the Court was shocking. Rasputin, chief agent of the Kaiser, was posing, just as the Kaiser himself posed, as a God-fearing, prayerful man sent by Divine-right as a deliverer. The monk's mission was, however, to deliver Russia into the hands of Germany. The next pages of the _dossier_ contain advice notes of German funds paid to the "saint" through the most unsuspicious channels. As instance of these I copy the following dates and extracts, the actual letters of advice themselves being of a pretended business character and of no importance: April 6th.--Payment to His Excellency Boris Sturmer by Jules Wick, Morskaya 57, advocate, sum due from the estates of the late Baroness Nikeleuko, of Doubno.--78,600 roubles. April 18th.--Payment made to Gregory Rasputin by Nicholas Pokotilo. Address Select Hotel, Ligovskaya 44, Petrograd, representatives of Messrs. Solovoioff, of Odessa.--62,460 roubles. June 1st.--Payment to His Excellency D.A. Protopopoff made for rent of lands at Vyazma, by Alexander Koltchak, agent of the estate of Prince Tchekmareff, less 15 per cent, commission to Messrs. Montero and Company, of Kieff;--21,229 roubles. June 3rd.--Payment to Vera Zoueff, dancer at Luna Park, by G. Merteus, Nevsky 81, Petrograd.--13,000 roubles. (The woman who passed as a Russian was one, Bertha Riehl, a German dancer, and a secret agent of Berlin.) June 17th.--Payment to Sophie Tatistcheff (who had married Baron Roukhloff, one of the Tsar's secretaries who had control of his Majesty's private correspondence), by Safonov's Bank, in settlement of an insurance claim for property destroyed by fire at Poltava. I have copied these in their order of sequence, but the items number over one hundred, and reveal payments of huge sums of German secret service money to Rasputin and his friends, thus forming a most illuminating disclosure as to the manner in which Russia was rapidly being undermined. With such dark forces at work in the very heart of the Empire, it is indeed marvellous that General Brusiloff could have effected his superhuman offensive between Pripet and the Roumanian frontier. He started with his four armies early in June, 1916, and by the middle of August had captured 7,757 officers, 350,845 men and 405 guns. Berlin became seriously alarmed at such a situation. All Rasputin's plotting with Sturmer, Count Fredericks, Protopopoff, Countess Ignatieff, Madame Vyrubova, and a dozen other less prominent but equally importunate officials, together with all the steady stream of German marks flowing into Petrograd could not stem the Russian tide on the German and Austrian front's. The Russian "steam-roller" seemed really progressing.