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i7] MY DIFFICULT POSITION 513
house of the town. Nothing whatever resulted from
these sittings; and as to the fourth Duma—the one for
the defence of which the people had so to speak taken
up arms—it was simply dissolved by a governmental
decree—a decree of which no one took the trouble to
inform the Russian representatives abroad. I at least
only heard of this dissolution very much later.
As I continued to receive more and more grievous
news I began to wonder whether I was entitled to keep
my post as Ambassador, in view of the radical
metamorphoses undergone by the Provisional Government.
When I had sent in my adherence to this Government in
March it was mainly composed of men whom I
considered respectable and suitable. The abdication of the
Emperor—except as concerned the rights of the little
heir to the throne—had taken place in a regular and
legal manner ; the subsequent act of the selected heir,
the Grand-Duke Michael Alexandrovitch, referred the
question of the succession and that of the definite form of
the Government of the Empire to the decisions of the
future Constituent. Speaking theoretically and generally,
I had no objection to the establishing of a great and
sound Republic in Russia; but it was only the country
itself—through a Constituent Assembly regularly and
calmly elected—which had the right to proclaim such a
tremendous change; hence the decision of M. Kerensky
and his four colleagues was stamped with flagrant
illegality in my eyes.
Finally, at the head of the Government—instead of
Prince Lvoff, President of the Council, originally
appointed by the Emperor, and of M. Rodzianko, President
of the Duma—there was a Dictator with no mandate,
belonging to an extreme party, surrounded by other
protagonists of extreme parties, who laboured to secure
to these parties a crushing majority in the future
Constituent, and meantime the support of an armed force
which had lost all notion of discipline. To remain in the
service of the State under such conditions was, especially
for an Ambassador, to lend one’s name to a state of
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