In March 1901 Balmont took part in a student demonstration on the square in front of Kazan Cathedral which was violently disrupted by police and Cossack units. Several days later, at a literary event in the Russian State Duma, he recited his new poem "The Little Sultan" (Malenkii sultan), a diatribe against Tsar Nicholas II, which then circulated widely in hand-written copies. As a result, Balmont was deported from the capital and banned for two years from living in university cities. On 14 March 1902 Balmont left Russia for Britain and France, lecturing at the Russian College of Social Sciences, Paris. While there he met Elena Konstantinovna Tsvetkovskaya, the daughter of a prominent general, who in 1905 became his third (common-law) wife. In 1903 Balmont returned to Russia, his administrative restrictions having been removed by Interior Minister von Plehve. Back in Moscow, he joined Bryusov and Polyakov in the founding of the journal "Vesy" (The Scales), published by Scorpion.