As usual, the populace, whether reactionary Slavophils or Liberals of the type of Western Europe, vented its spleen on the Government. For a time the strongest bureaucracy in Europe was driven to act on the defensive. The Czar returned stricken with asthma and prematurely aged by the privations and cares of the campaign. The Grand Duke Nicholas was recalled from his command, and, after bearing the signs of studied hostility of the Czarevitch, was exiled to his estates in February 1879. The Government inspired contempt rather than fear; and a new spirit of independence pervaded all classes. This was seen even as far back as February 1878, in the acquittal of Vera Zazulich, a lady who had shot the Chief of the Police at St. Petersburg, by a jury consisting of nobles and high officials; and the verdict, given in the face of damning evidence, was generally approved. Similar crimes occurred nearly every week[223]. Everything therefore, favoured the designs of those who sought to overthrow all government. In a word, the outcome of the war was Nihilism. [Footnote 223: _Ibid_. chap. xvii. The Government thereafter dispensed with the ordinary forms of justice for political crimes and judged them by special Commissions.] The father of this sombre creed was a wealthy Russian landlord named Bakunin; or rather, he shares this doubtful honour with the Frenchman Prudhon. Bakunin, who was born in 1814, entered on active life in the time of soulless repression inaugurated by the Czar Nicholas I. (1825-1855). Disgusted by Russian bureaucracy, the youth eagerly drank in the philosophy of Western Europe, especially that of Hegel. During a residence at Paris, he embraced and developed Prudhon's creed that "property is theft," and sought to prepare the way for a crusade against all Governments by forming the Alliance of Social Democracy (1869), which speedily became merged in the famous "Internationale." Driven successively from France and Central Europe, he was finally handed over to the Russians and sent to Siberia; thence he escaped to Japan and came to England, finally settling in Switzerland. His writings and speeches did much to rouse the Slavs of Austria, Poland, and Russia to a sense of their national importance, and of the duty of overthrowing the Governments that cramped their energies.