As soon, however, as peace had been concluded, there were unmistakable symptoms that the rigorously repressive system of Nicholas was about to be abandoned.  In the manifesto announcing the termination of hostilities the Emperor expressed his conviction that by the combined efforts of the Government and the people, the public administration would be improved, and that justice and mercy would reign in the courts of law.  Apparently as a preparation for this great work, to be undertaken by the Tsar and his people in common, the ministers began to take the public into their confidence, and submitted to public criticism many official data which had hitherto been regarded as State secrets.  The Minister of the Interior, for instance, in his annual report, spoke almost in the tone of a penitent, and confessed openly that the morality of the officials under his orders left much to be desired.  He declared that the Emperor now showed a paternal confidence in his people, and as a proof of this he mentioned the significant fact that 9,000 persons had been liberated from police supervision.  The other branches of the Administration underwent a similar transformation.  The haughty, dictatorial tone which had hitherto been used by superiors to their subordinates, and by all ranks of officials to the public, was replaced by one of considerate politeness.  About the same time those of the Decembrists who were still alive were pardoned.  The restrictions regarding the number of students in each university were abolished, the difficulty of obtaining foreign passports was removed, and the Press censors became singularly indulgent.  Though no decided change had been made in the laws, it was universally felt that the spirit of Nicholas was no more.

The public, anxiously seeking after a sign, readily took these symptoms of change as a complete confirmation of their ardent hopes, and leaped at once to the conclusion that a vast, all-embracing system of radical reform was about to be undertaken—­not secretly by the Administration, as had been the custom in the preceding reign when any little changes had to be made, but publicly, by the Government and the people in common.  “The heart trembles with joy,” said one of the leading organs of the Press, “in expectation of the great social reforms that are about to be effected—­reforms that are thoroughly in accordance with the spirit, the wishes, and the expectations of the public.”  “The old harmony and community of feeling,” said another, “which has always existed between the government and the people, save during short exceptional periods, has been fully re-established.  The absence of all sentiment of caste, and the feeling of common origin and brotherhood which binds all classes of the Russian people into a homogeneous whole, will enable Russia to accomplish peacefully and without effort not only those great reforms which cost Europe centuries of struggle and bloodshed, but also many which the nations of the West are still unable to accomplish,