by a display of
defiant animal courage. Alexander III. resolved to do the like. He had
always been noted for a quiet persistence on which arguments fell in
vain. The nickname, "bullock," which his father early gave him
(shortened by his future subjects to "bull"), sufficiently summed up the
supremacy of the material over the mental that characterised the new
ruler. Bismarck, who knew him, had a poor idea of his abilities, and
summed up his character by saying that he looked at things from the
point of view of a Russian peasant[228]. That remark supplies a key to
Russian politics during the years 1881-94.

[Footnote 228: _Reminiscences of Bismarck_, by S. Whitman, p. 114;
_Bismarck: some Secret Pages of his History_, by M. Busch, vol. iii.
p. 150.]

At first, when informed by Melikoff that the late Czar was on the point
of making the constitutional experiment described above, Alexander III.
exclaimed, "Change nothing in the orders of my father. This shall count
as his will and testament." If he had held to this generous resolve the
world's history would perhaps have been very different. Had he published
his father's last orders; had he appealed to the people, like another
Antony over the corpse of Caear, the enthusiastic Slav temperament
would have eagerly responded to this mark of Imperial confidence.
Loyalty to the throne and fury against the Nihilists would have been the
dominant feelings of the age, impelling all men to make the wisest use
of the thenceforth sacred bequest of constitutional freedom.

The man who is believed to have blighted these hopes was Pobyedonosteff,
the Procureur of the highest Ecclesiastical Court of the Empire. To him
had been confided the education of the present Czar; and the fervour of
his orthodoxy, as well as the clear-cut simplicity of his belief in old
Muscovite customs, had gained complete ascendancy over the mind of his
pupil. Different estimates have been formed as to the character of
Pobyedonosteff. In the eyes of some he is a conscientious zealot who
believes in the mission of Holy Russia to vivify an age corrupted by
democracy and unbelief; others regard him as the Russian Macchiavelli,
straining his beliefs to an extent which his reason rejects, in order to
gain power through the mechanism of the autocracy and the Greek Church.
The thin face, passionless gaze, and coldly logical utterance bespeak
the politician rather than the zealot; yet there seems to be good reason
for bel