So severe was the Russian government in the measures adopted to repress the revolutionists that mere school-girls were exiled, imprisoned or executed. Many well-born girls made it their chief aim to help the peasants, enduring the privations and hardships of the labouring classes. Madame Vera Phillipova, a young woman of great beauty, was long the most popular person in the revolutionary movement. She became identified with the conspiracy of “the Fourteen,” and was thrown into the SchlÜsselburg for the term of her natural life.