Close behind his toys, the little Tsar himself was seen advancing. There was a timid swagger in his gait, but he walked alone, and his uniform looked simple after the finery we had seen. The aged metropolitan of St. Petersburg stood in wait for him with the holy kiss and a bunch of green herbs dipped in consecrated water. Behind the Tsar came his mother and his wife, who were refused the sprinkling, but gained the other blessing. Twelve feet behind them their trains extended flat along the floor, and, as in a fairy tale, armed men stood ready to help with the weight of each. At a safe distance behind the trains were halted the Grand Dukes in two or three rows of repeated splendour.
With voices of thunder and voices from the tomb, the priests chanted, and called, and read the golden book as only Russian priests are able, and the rows of crimson choir sang the wailing responses between. Upon the right the flashing crowd was busy bowing and signing the cross. Rarely is such religious zeal to be witnessed as the Grand Dukes displayed in crossing themselves; for in this evidence of sanctity they surpassed the very bishops. But the stiff-necked generation on the left remained unmoved. One or two peasants crossed themselves as they were accustomed; a few more complied when the priest shook the solid cross threateningly in their direction; but the black phalanx stood unmoved—polite but detached spectators of these curious survivals.
The service ceased, the bishops stood aside, the altar was carried away, the Empresses swept to their corner among the white-shouldered ladies on the right of the throne. In the open space the little Tsar stood solitary. Gathering together all the initiative in his nature, he walked slowly up the floor, mounted the steps, faced round to the assembly, and sat down upon the negligent ermine robe. A brilliant official handed him a large parchment, and he stood up to read. Amid the intent silence of contrary hopes and expectations, his voice sounded clear. All knew that a turning-point in history had come, and that to this little man one of the world’s great opportunities had been offered.
But with every sentence that was pronounced, the hopes of the new age faded. As commonplace succeeded commonplace, amid the usual appeals to Heaven and the expression of such affection as monarchs always feel for their subjects, it was seen that no concession was made, no conciliation attempted. The one paragraph in which something comparatively definite was said about the Imperial heart’s solicitude for the peasants and the future enlightenment of the people—that paragraph was marked by the dangerous old phrase of “unwavering firmness,” and by fresh insistence upon the necessity of order.[7] When the end came, and the colours were waved, and the band played, and the officials shouted, “Hurrah!” while the Imperial procession marched from the hall, the members of the party of progress stood dumb. They knew now that for the future they had only themselves to look to, and that the greatest conflict of all still lay before them. Had the Tsar but granted an amnesty to the thousands on thousands of prisoners still lying in gaol because their political views did not coincide with his own, it would have been difficult to measure the extent of his future influence. But one of the world’s opportunities had again been offered him, and not for the first time he had refused it.
Nevertheless, come what will, the 10th of May was really a turning-point in history. On the evening after the battle of Valmy, where the new order of citizen-soldier held its own against the mercenaries of kings, Goethe said to his comrades on the field, “To-day a new age begins, and we can say we were present at its birth.” Those were the words that rang in my mind as I watched the uniforms and decorations disappear in their carriages, and then followed the new deputies, and saw the prisoners waving their handkerchiefs in greeting from the barred windows of the Cross prison over the river, and stood among the crowd at the new Duma’s door, and listened to the deep-mouthed cheers, while the whole air sounded with the cries of “Amnesty!” and “Freedom!”
St. Petersburg is particularly rich in the dignified classic architecture of the eighteenth century, but of all the examples of this style none is so beautiful as the interior of the Taurida Palace, which Catherine II. built as a present for her lover Potemkin. With little change it has now been converted into the simplest and noblest of all Houses of Parliament, and it was there that the first meeting of Russia’s chosen representatives was opened at four o’clock that afternoon. The first business was the election of a Speaker or President. Every one knew that Muromtzeff, a Constitutional Democrat, and one of the members for Moscow, would be elected. In his youth he had been Professor of Law in Moscow University, but had been driven from his Chair by a Government which trembles at excellence in any form. Since then he had won a high reputation at the bar, and was known as the greatest authority on Parliamentary procedure. His character, his dignified bearing, and his long service to liberty all contributed to make his election certain, but when it was found that he had been chosen by 426 votes to 3, this evidence of the Duma’s spirit rather startled the politicians who believe in the blessings of a solid Opposition.
His few and dignified words in thanking the members for raising him to this high position in a State that at last had become constitutional, formed a fit opening for the new Parliament’s work. But it had been arranged beforehand that the first real speech should be delivered by Petrunkevitch—Ivan Petrunkevitch, one of the members for Tver, an aged and distinguished Zemstvoist, and leader among such Radical reformers as are not Socialists—one of those who at the beginning of the Tsar’s reign urged him in vain to constitutional ways. Inevitably he chose as his subject the demand for amnesty. His speech was utterly irregular. There was no motion or question before the House. He broke every rule of Parliamentary procedure. But that did not matter in the least. One thought filled all hearts—the thought of those thousands of prisoners—seventy-five thousand of them, it was said—still lying in gaol for their love of freedom, and it was of amnesty and amnesty alone that all except a few ungenerous spirits wished first to hear.
The meeting was then adjourned over the next day, in order that Muromtzeff might report his appointment to the Tsar, who from the Winter Palace had rapidly sought the country retirement where he could feel himself comparatively courageous.
On the afternoon of that Friday, the 11th of May, the State Council, to which had been entrusted equal powers with the Duma, condescended to meet. No crowd watched its members arriving, no prisoners waved them good wishes. An Upper Chamber is raised above the interest of the masses and the gaol-birds of freedom. Its members were quite aware that it was their part in the new constitution only to fulfil the two functions required of such bodies as the British House of Lords—to oppose a permanent barrier to progress, and to provide a cheap reward for obsolete insignificance. As there was yet no progress to bar, and few but themselves were obsolete, they had no call to hurry.
So in the heat of the summer afternoon, having taken a day to recover from the strain of the previous ceremony, they began to gather leisurely in their new hall. In theory they were the same old “Council of Empire” which for many years had served as a field for the display of decorations. And certainly the decorations had not lost their lustre. It was the same uniformed throng as had gathered in the Winter Palace, and they had assumed the same glitter. Conspicuous even among their glories was one ancient courtier, who had maintained the Empire under Nicholas I. before the Crimean War, and still went smiling round his orbit, brave with the sixty-five medals of his years of service, while Orders stood clustered on his breast thick as stars upon the Milky Way; for, unhappily, he had not followed the example of others, and made room for his honours by increasing his girth.