If the Empress were guilty of any glaring weakness, it was, paradoxically, that of stubbornness. She did not allow any interference in what she considered her own province. Her grandmother and the Prince Albert had tolerated none; her distant connection, Princess Clementine of Coburg, was ultra-obstinate; another of her connections, Ferdinand of Bulgaria, has also manifested the Coburg peculiarity. It is an interesting psychological study: in some of the family this trait is manifest in their undeviating pursuit of worldly ambition, in others it is apparent in their views of morality and domesticity. In the case of the Empress, morality, domesticity and religion were subjects in which she brooked no contradiction. Had the Emperor been less religious, he might have (from a worldly point of view) influenced his wife to have seen less of Rasputin. But he made no attempt to interfere with her on religious questions, remembering perhaps how wholly she had relinquished the faith of her fathers to embrace his own. The Empress has been accused of contributing to the downfall of Russia through her association with Rasputin. The finger of scorn and hatred has pointed at her, and an almost universal voice has cried, “Thou art the Woman.” But history, if not always just, is at least generous, and it may be that Alexandra Feodorovna will one day be given the benefit of the doubt, and allowed to appeal against the sentence which has been passed on her. For many years prior to her advent as Empress of Russia, the movement for Freedom had been slowly but surely spreading over the entire country, and the creation of the Duma strengthened public opinion. But certain Revolutionaries--themselves as evil as their prototypes in the French Revolution--did not scorn to employ base agents in order to attain their base ends. These men used Rasputin--with what result is now apparent. But have the murders of Rasputin and the Empress cleansed Russia and enabled it to be rechristened Utopia? The ashes of Rasputin are scattered to the four winds, the blood of the innocent cries aloud to Heaven for vengeance; but Russia--drunken with carnage, liberated from her ancient yoke, and delivered of her rulers--has as yet only produced Robespierres. CHAPTER VI