They had always attributed their wrongs to the nobility, who, they believed, had cheated them out of their land and their rights under the Emancipation Act.

But now it was not the nobility, not the hated Boyars who were cruelly refusing to give them land and liberty, but it was the Little Father, he whom they had always trusted and adored! It is a critical moment when the last illusion drops from the eyes of a confiding people.

The _Duma_ at this moment was engaged in a task of supreme difficulty and responsibility.

Millions of people hung upon its words and acts.

A group of inexperienced but terribly determined men were facing an equally determined group of well-seasoned officials, veterans in the art of governing.