Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/224

198 assembled for its first session, the question of the redistribution of land became at once the chief topic of the debates. The second Duma took it up also, and after the dismissal of the second Duma the Government considered the same question again. Monsieur Stolypin, who was Prime Minister at the time, introduced his very much discussed Land Reform Bill, which provided to a great extent for the distribution of State and Crown land to the peasantry; but this land reserve was big and would not have been exhausted for a long time. The chief object of Monsieur Stolypin's land reform was to break up the communal ownership. There was no appropriation of private owner's land and no private owner was forced to sell his property. As a result, 2,000,000 new farms sprang up in different parts of Russia. Later on, he also paid for his honesty, like so many others, by perishing from a bomb explosion at Kief.

But the enemy Rasputin feared most of all others was Grand Duke Nicholas, who had learnt a great deal about the so-called "Saint" and esteemed him accordingly; Rasputin knew this and was consequently not free from anxiety. I have been assured that at a ball given at the Palace since the War, the Grand Duke Nicholas, assisted by young Grand Duke Dmitri Paulovitch, seized the mock monk, who naturally was there, the pupils of his eyes more charged with magnetism than ever, and tearing off the pious emblems with which he was