Alexander the Second suffered terribly when he became aware, too late for him to master it, of the new intellectual movement and its political results in his empire. The situation was the more painful to him, because his own conscience as well as the old Russian party held him principally responsible for it. It was he who had set free that liberal propagandism which had culminated in this terrible agitation for the destruction of society, and which had entirely outgrown his control. Alexander’s mental condition, on this discovery, would form an interesting subject for the psychologist. From the day when he began to reign as an enthusiastic, well-intentioned man of thirty-seven, to the days of his disappointments as a ruler and reformer, ending with one of the most terrible catastrophes of modern times, his career challenges, for adequate treatment, the genius of a Shakespeare. No wonder that he became despondent and thought of abdication,--a thought which reappeared with ever increasing force to the end of his reign.
Nor was this feeling of discouragement and weariness of life caused exclusively by the fear of personal danger; on the contrary, Alexander knew only too well that he was not the only object of Nihilistic persecution, but that all those dear to his heart and also those whom he honored with his confidence and friendship were equally exposed.
The attempt on the life of General Trepow had still another effect on the Czar. It effectually eradicated from his mind his previous predilection for liberal reforms and a paternal government; it stirred up a feeling of resentment and hatred against revolutionists, reformers, and liberals which had never been noticed in him before, and which manifested itself in the most severe measures of repression. To his great chagrin he saw soon that these measures were utterly unavailing to repress the spirit of rebellion in the empire and in his own capital. Nihilism spread with the unconquerable fury of a contagious epidemic and defied all measures of the authorities to check it. On the twenty-first of February, 1879, Prince Krapotkine, Governor of Charkow, was assassinated; and shortly after, attempts were made on the lives of General Drentelen, a great favorite at court, and of Count Lewis Melikow, Secretary of the Interior.