One note, however, was missing entirely in his poetry: it was the appeal to the sentiments of freedom and citizenship. This appeal came from the “Decembrist” poet, Ryléeff. THE “DECEMBRISTS” The Tsar Alexander I. went through the same evolution as his grandmother, Catherine II. He was educated by the republican, La Harpe, and began his reign as a quite liberal sovereign, ready to grant to Russia a constitution. He did it in fact for Poland and Finland, and made a first step towards it in Russia. But he did not dare to touch serfdom, and gradually he fell under the influence of German mystics, became alarmed at liberal ideas, and surrendered his will to the worst reactionaries. The man who ruled Russia during the last ten or twelve years of his reign was General Arakchéeff--a maniac of cruelty and militarism, who maintained his influence by means of the crudest flattery and simulated religiousness. A reaction against these conditions was sure to grow up, the more so as the Napoleonic wars had brought a great number of Russians in contact with Western Europe. The campaigns made in Germany, and the occupation of Paris by the Russian armies, had familiarised many officers with the ideas of liberty which reigned still in the French capital, while at home the endeavours of Nóvikoff were bearing fruit, and the freemason Friends continued his work. When Alexander I., having fallen under the influence of Madame Krüdener and other German mystics, concluded in 1815 the Holy Alliance with Germany and Austria, in order to combat all liberal ideas, secret societies began to be formed in Russia--chiefly among the officers--in order to promote the ideas of liberty, of abolition of serfdom, and of equality before the law, as the necessary steps towards the abolition of absolute rule. Everyone who has read Tolstóy’s _War and Peace_ must remember “Pierre” and the impression produced upon this young man by his first meeting with an old freemason. “Pierre” is a true representative of many young men who later on became known as “Decembrists.” Like “Pierre,” they were imbued with humanitarian ideas; many of them hated serfdom, and they wanted the introduction of constitutional guarantees; while a few of them (Péstel, Ryléef), despairing of monarchy, spoke of a return to the republican federalism of old Russia. With such ends in view, they created their secret societies.