Two days later M. Durnovo relinquished his portfolio, but became secretary of state and retained the dignity of senator. Thus with a new and untried cabinet, Russia awaited the assembling of her first Duma. All through the night of May 9 troops were poured into St. Petersburg. The sun rose the morning of the 10th upon a miniature army in possession of the capital. From dawn the streets were a-flutter with excitement. Flags were extended from myriad windows. Squadrons of cavalry and regiments of infantry were moving hither and yon--mostly in the direction of the Winter Palace. All streets tending that way were early blockaded. Orderlies and aides-de-camp galloped through the most crowded thoroughfares. Officers in their most splendid uniforms filled the hotel lobbies. The spacious square before the Winter Palace was occupied by more troops than on any occasion since that Sunday, fifteen months before, when Father Gapon headed a certain procession of working-men who sought to wait upon the Czar, their “Little Father,” and were shot down like an enemy on a battle plain. On both occasions the shadow of the statue of an angel of peace supporting a cross--symbol of surpassing love and infinite compassion--fell across the square. Cossacks of the royal guard in coats of scarlet, and dashing Lancers, were quartered about that beautiful figure, and the slender shadow cast by the towering column touched them as with a warning finger. The privileges of the balcony in the throne room were extended to the foreign correspondents whose credentials had satisfied the police and palace authorities. Arrayed in evening clothes since mid-forenoon, we sweltered with the soldiers in the piping hot square before the palace. Shortly after one o’clock the doors were thrown open to us, and we filed past various and sundry officials, who scrutinized our passes (each one of which bore the authenticated photograph of the bearer), and we passed in more haste than dignity to our several coigns of vantage around the marble gallery. Presently the privileged of the bureaucracy who had been “commanded” to appear in full court dress began to take their places--the senators and councilors of state, the generals and admirals, the foreign ambassadors, and, lastly, the Duma deputies. With mild interest we watched these groups gather. These were but the spectacular background for an intense, though brief, drama about to be enacted--how significant, how tragic, no one knew, nor cared to guess.