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aristocracy, the service aristocracy of the generals andhigher officials, a very heterogeneous group thanks toPeter's new 'table of ranks' (see p. 106), suspected themof aiming at the position of the German electoral princeswho "have so strengthened themselves that the Emperornow has no power, while they have become the masters."They made play with ideas of natural law and socialcontract and demanded the creation of a legislative body,in which they would entrench themselves.There remained the decisive voice of the two thousandofficer-gentry present in Moscow. One section of themsponsored proposals somewhat on the lines of the PolishDiet, but the great bulk, and especially the guards'officers, clung to old ways against new-fangled devicesand came out for the formula already quoted, "autocracysuch as Your glorious and renowned predecessors had.""God grant," a country squire wrote, "that we don'tget instead of one autocratic sovereign ten powerful anddespotic families." He was satisfied. The conditionsoriginally signed by Anna were solemnly torn up.The victorious gentry naturally required their particulargrievances to be met and their privileges to beextended, and they gained all that they wanted in thecourse of the next generation (see pp. 142-146); but theywere too lacking in corporate feeling and political developmentto appreciate the need for any kind of constitutionalframework to alter the basis of government.When Catherine the Great issued her charter (1785)establishing the nobility and gentry as an 'estate,' it hadno effect upon the political structure of the state or thelegal plenitude of her power.After 1730 nearly a century elapsed before any furtherspecific attempt was made by the upper classes tochallenge the principle of autocracy, as distinct fromthe person of the autocrat. (Three tsars were deposedby palace revolutions, and murdered.) The challenge,when it came, was revolutionary (December, 1825).The Decembrist rising in St Petersburg and certainregiments in the south took the form of an eighteenthcenturycoup d'etat, but it was entirely different in idea.It was led by groups of discontented guards and army85