organized into flying detachments which scoured the city
in automobiles and hunted down the police as though they were wild
animals. The jails and prisons too were broken into and all the
political prisoners liberated. And so fell the notorious Peter and
Paul Fortress, the Bastille of Russia, in which some of the finest
minds of the Russian revolutionary movement, both men and women, had
been done to death with horrible torture. In the confusion some
criminals also escaped, but in spite of their presence in the fighting
crowds, there was very little looting or disorder, such as invariably
attends violent uprisings. Schlusselburg Prison, another monument to
martyred advocates of freedom, also fell. Then, headed by one of the
old revolutionists, just released from a long imprisonment, the people
turned on the most hated of all the old institutions, the headquarters
of the secret police. This building was stormed, its defenders killed
and then burned to its foundations, together with all its records.
Everywhere the revolutionary forces were successful, meeting
comparatively little resistance.

Meanwhile the Duma continued inactive, except that Rodzianko sent a
second telegram to the czar and also a telegram to each of the
prominent army commanders, begging them to make their personal appeals
to the czar, that he might be persuaded to take some action which
would at least save him his throne nominally.

"The last hour has struck," wired the Duma president. "To-morrow will
be too late if you wish to save your throne and dynasty."

And again the czar, misled by a false adviser, refused to heed.
Various accounts would seem to indicate that he was drunk at the time.

By this time 25,000 soldiers of the garrison had joined Kerensky's
revolutionary army under the red flag. Then came a committee from
these soldiers to the doors of the Duma with the demand:

"We have risen and helped the people overturn the autocracy. Down with
czarism! Where do you stand?"

President Rodzianko, speaking for the Duma, showed them his telegrams
demanding a ministry of the czar responsible to the people, and said
that they stood for a constitutional democracy. The soldiers were
satisfied. Then soldiers began arriving at the Taurida Palace, the
meeting place of the Duma, to acknowledge their recognition of its
authority. This was done under the influence of deputies Kerensky,
Tcheidze, and Skobelev, all Socialists, who felt the need of having
t