According to Henri Troyat's biography of Lev Tolstoy, he wrote two letters to Nicholas II in 1897 protesting the persecution of the Molokhans, religious sectarians whose children had been forcibly taken away by the state because they were not being brought up in the Orthodox Church. The first version of the first letter read as follows:
"Majesty, for the love of God make an effort and, instead of avoiding the matter and referring it to commissions and committees, decide, without asking anyone's advice, you yourself, acting on your own initiative, that these religious persecutions, which are bringing shame upon Russia, must cease; the exiles must be sent back to their homes, the prisoners released, the children returned to their parents, and above all, the whole body of administrative laws and regulations abolished, as they are so complicated and obscure that they are just so many pretexts for illegality."
Tolstoy submitted this letter to the Molokhans for their approval; they took fright at its tone; so he revised it at their request. This version (which unfortunately Troyat does not include) was the one given to Nicholas personally by a member of his military staff, Alexander Olsufeyev (who must have been a very brave man). Neither Tolstoy nor the Molokhans received a reply from the emperor.
On September 27, 1897, according to Troyat, Tolstoy wrote a second letter to Nicholas II. Again he received no response. He then told his daughter Tatiana to seek an audience with the Procurator of the Holy Synod, Pobedonostsev. She was permitted to see him on January 27, 1898. After she had described the Molokhans' despair at losing their children, Pobedonostsev said, "Yes, yes. The bishop of Samara has gone too far. I shall write to the government right away." Apparently it was Pobedonostsev's intercession with the tsar that finally carried the day, and the Molokhan children were at long last reunited with their parents.