From then on the writer's visits to the Palace became rare, but he used each one as an opportunity to "speak the truth regardless," as he put it. In 1862 Tolstoy solicited for Ivan Aksakov who'd been banned from editing his "Den" (The Day) newspaper. A year later he helped Ivan Turgenev out of an exile the latter found himself in after having contacted the "London propagandists", as Alexander Herzen and Nikolay Ogarev were then known. In 1864 Tolstoy tried to exert his influence upon Alexander II to make him alleviate the plight of the imprisoned Chernyshevsky. Asked by the Tsar for the latest news in the world of literature, Tolstoy said: "The whole of Russia has gone into mourning for Chernyshevsky to whom an injustice has been done..." - "No, Tolstoy, I beg you never to remind me of Chernyshevsky, please," the monarch hastily retorted. This aborted conversation, as it happened, brought to an end a friendship that had lasted for forty years.