“I did not care, and do not care if our action was unconstitutional. We found that we must rely,” said Nabokov, “on the highest law, the will of the people.” Kakoshtin, of the Cadet Party, and a professor in Moscow University, declared: “Whatever fate awaits us, it will be nothing compared to the sufferings of our predecessors who have fallen in the fight for liberty.” Three members of the “Group of Toil” declared that the first Duma would be an encouragement to the people to overthrow the present system. Mourontzev, and Prince Dolgoroukov were there, leading members of the first Duma. Petrunkevitch ended his speech: “If you open for us the doors of the prison, we will quietly enter with the knowledge that we have fulfilled a duty to the Fatherland.” Burning words these, but they waked not an echo. The Administration was in complete control of the situation. Repression was the order of the day, repression as widespread and efficient as in the days of Nicholas I; the autocracy, buttressed by an army which, however lacking in discipline and supposedly honeycombed by disaffection, nevertheless rallied still to the command and service of the master. At this time there was issued the call for a third Duma. As Prime Minister sat cold Stolypin, whose reputation as a governor-general was the reverse of liberal. He had risen by virtue of rigid efficiency. His best friends did not know his beliefs. He had dissolved both the first and second assemblies, and had done his best to pack the third. “I want a Duma that will work, not talk,” he declared. The murmurers said that the Russian Parliament had become a farce; that the administrative officers were following to the best of their ability instructions from St. Petersburg to deliver a roster of safe men; that those who had agitated unwisely were being removed from the likelihood of candidature; that the Senate, with its membership of retired officials, had so construed each provision of the election law that the unquiet classes were as far as possible disfranchised; that every influence was being used to make the third a “dummy Duma,” hopelessly manipulated into the reactionary camp. Throughout this time of shattered ideals and discouragement, a very small band of real believers still held high the torch of faith. Most prominent among them was Alexander Goutchkov, he who among the Moscow Constitutional Democrats (the “Cadets” of the earlier times) had in a critical Polish debate of the party spoken and voted alone for a united Russia. When at length the third Duma had assembled, the so-called Octobrists or Moderates, who had a small plurality, prepared a reply to the Speech from the Throne. Very respectful it was, with no demand for general amnesty or suggestions of confiscation or national devolution. It read in part:--