International Film ServiceGrand Duchess Elizabeth
International Film Service
Grand Duchess Elizabeth
The latter was a lady of considerable intelligence and a physician of no mean skill whom the Empress had put at the head of the private hospital she had organised at Czarskoi Selo long before the war broke out. Later on when other lazarets and ambulances, the number of which increased every day as the terrific struggle went on, were organised in the Imperial residence, the Princess Dondoukoff was appointed general superintendent of all these establishments, and it was she who coached the Czarina as well as her daughters in the dutiesof a Red Cross nurse. She was of a pushing temperament, had the reputation of being loose in her morals, though personally I saw nothing that could have justified it, and was also gifted with a remarkable propensity for intrigue. No one liked her, but everybody feared her. She insinuated herself thoroughly into the confidence of the Empress, who referred to her in everything, and willingly listened to her. She was of course among the followers of Rasputin, and with him and Madame Wyroubieva formed a trio which it would have been difficult not only for the general public but also for the immediate attendants of the Russian Sovereign to fight against.
The Princess Dondoukoff used to give drugs to Alexandra Feodorovna which the latter used to take unknown to her medical attendants and which were declared by them, when they discovered the fact, to have had a good deal to do with her shattered nerves. This may or may not have been true,—I shall not venture an opinion upon the subject,—but certainly my mistress was far too fond of the Princess, and would have done better to have seen less of her, if only from the point of view that the weight which she laid on her opinions considerablyincensed the doctors who were in regular attendance upon her, who objected to the manner in which their own prescriptions were neglected.
The Princess introduced at Court a quack medical man from Thibet called Bachmanoff, who, she pretended, had brought with him from his country all kinds of secret remedies which she advised the Czarina to try on the little Grand Duke Alexis. The fond mother believed her, and Bachmanoff became one of her favourites. It is impossible to say whether he would have cured the child, because the latter’s nurse, a sailor called Derewenko, of whom he was inordinately fond, and whom I have already had occasion to mention, threw out of the windows all the powders and potions which Alexandra Feodorovna asked him to give to her son, and took great care the boy should not get anything but what his own doctor had ordered him to take. Ultimately the Grand Duke got better and stronger, and last year he might have been pronounced cured, at least in so far as the chronic ailment from which he was suffering could be cured. But the Empress in her joy at this unexpected recovery was persuaded that it had taken place, thanks to the Thibetan, in whom she believed more than ever.
The friendship for Madame Wyroubieva was perhaps even worse than the attachment of the foolish Sovereign to the Princess Dondoukoff. Madame Wyroubieva was the daughter not of the Emperor’s private secretary, as she represented herself to be, but of a State Secretary (which is quite a different thing, being a purely honorific position) called Tanieieff. She had been married to a navy officer with whom she could not agree, and they were divorced, not because he had grown mad, as she declared (divorce for insanity is not allowed in Russia), but because he had found reason to object to her conduct. The Empress, for reasons no one ever understood, took her part and invited her once or twice to the Palace of Czarskoi Selo. Madame Wyroubieva made the most of her opportunities and soon became quite indispensable to Alexandra Feodorovna. She it was who, with the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, introduced Rasputin into the Imperial household, and with him she established such control of the Czarina’s actions that soon the latter became simply a tool in their hands.
Madame Wyroubieva was, above everything else, a grabbing woman. She fully meant to make a fortune out of the position of trust she was supposedto occupy. Both she and Rasputin were in their turn in the hands of a gang of adventurers who used them for their own ends, and they set up a shameful exploitation of the public exchequer for which unfortunately the Empress was made responsible. The latter only looked upon Rasputin as a saintly personage, a kind of orthodox yogi whose prayers were sure to be taken into account by the Almighty. Terrible things have been hinted at in regard to her relations with him, but all that I can say is that to my knowledge, at least, she was never alone with him for one single moment, and that except in regard to the health of the heir to the throne, my mistress never spoke with him of anything else but religious subjects. The public said that he was all powerful at Court, but I feel convinced that these rumours arose from certain unscrupulous persons who had an interest in spreading them because they managed (thanks to the intimacy of which they boasted with a personage who, as they related, could turn and twist the sovereigns at his will and pleasure) to obtain army contracts and other things they desired. Among them were Protopopoff and Sturmer, and the notorious Manassevitsch Maniuloff, whose blackmailingpropensities caused him to be arrested and sentenced to several years’ hard labour from which he was released by order of the present Russian government. Rasputin in reality was treated in the Palace as a kind of jester who was allowed to do as he wished—a sort of fool, after the pattern of Chicot in Dumas’ novels, and neither Nicholas II., who liked him even better than did the Empress, nor the latter ever thought of him as of anything else than a holy pilgrim (for that was what he proclaimed himself to be) whose vocation was to go about preaching the gospel to the world. One must not forget that there have been many such in Russia, and that the natural tendency to mysticism, which is one of the characteristics of the Russian character, has always welcomed them with effusion. The Empress, who, though a German, was more superstitious than any Russian, fully believed that the presence of Rasputin at her side was a shield against all possible dangers. She therefore refused to be parted from him, and whenever anything happened of a nature to cause her worry she used to send for him, when he would prostrate himself on the ground and invoke the powers of Heaven to deliver him and his friends from evil. He wasa thorough fanatic, or at least professed to affect the ways of a fanatic, and he used to force the Empress to prostrate herself before holy images beside him, and to remain with her face pressed to the floor for hours in earnest supplication to a God whom, he averred, he was the only one to honour as he ought to be honoured. It is difficult to realise that an Empress of Russia, and one of the haughty temperament of Alexandra Feodorovna, could lend herself to such ridiculous practices, but so it was, and I can only say what I have seen without attempting to explain it. But it was not surprising that when the Imperial family came to hear of all this, it should have been indignant and tried to oust from the Palace a man whose presence in it tended to discredit royalty at a time when, on the contrary, every possible means should have been resorted to in order to raise its prestige.
The Empress Dowager, when she heard all that was going on, raised her voice, and, disliking though she did to meddle in what she considered did not concern her, she made representations to the Czar when the latter paid her a visit in Kieff, whither she had transferred her residence. Nicholas listened to her, but did nothing. Others followedthe example of Marie Feodorovna, and the Grand Dukes individually and collectively tried to open the eyes of the head of their dynasty to the evils caused by the presence of Rasputin. Everything proved useless, because the Emperor just as much as his wife was under the spell of the clever comedian whose strong will had completely mastered his own weak intellect. I have often witnessed the prayer meetings which were organised in the Czarina’s private oratory, at which Rasputin presided. Few people were admitted to them, and the congregation generally consisted of Madame Wyroubieva, the Princess Dondoukoff, the Czar and his Consort. The Imperial children were sometimes told to attend them but not often. Rasputin used to pray aloud, and then preach, touching in his sermons on subjects of every kind that had not the remotest claim to be considered religious. And then he assured his audience that the Lord had revealed himself to him and ordered him to acquaint the Czar with such and such a thing, choosing the one he had at heart at that particular moment. The Empress generally went into hysterics whilst listening to him, and it was on that account I was asked to remain in the vicinity of the room,so as to be able to come to her help. I had often to unlace her or else she would have choked, and for this purpose I took her into another apartment. The fact that one or other of her maids saw me carrying away some part of her clothes gave rise to the most malicious rumours. The most curious thing about it all was that the Emperor looked on unmoved whilst his wife was almost writhing in strong convulsions and extended no help whatever to her, because Rasputin assured him that these convulsions were a manifestation of the good spirits, and a proof that the prayers of the Czarina had been accepted by the Almighty.
I know that all this sounds incredible and yet it is but the truth. The unfortunate woman whom the world has slandered in the most cruel manner possible was after all nothing but a miserable being whose mental balance was unstrung, to say the least. It would have been more sensible to have put her in an asylum than to have accused her of immoral practices of which she was incapable. Of course others who were witnesses of the daily actions of Alexandra Feodorovna in Czarskoi Selo could not be expected to look at things with the same eyes as I did and I do not feel any surprise atthe disgust which filled all the good and devoted servants of the dynasty when they heard about these mysterious meetings during which the Holy Ghost was supposed to descend in person on the heads of Nicholas II. and his wife. There were some still in existence, among others the Princess Wassiltschikoff, one of the most prominent women inSt.Petersburg society, who took it upon herself to write to my mistress to warn her of the manner in which she was discrediting herself and the dynasty. The Czarina was terribly offended on receiving this letter, and fell into one of her rare fits of passion. She complained to the Emperor, and the author of this epistle that had aroused her anger was forthwith ordered to leaveSt.Petersburg and to retire in disgrace to one of her estates in the country. Alexandra Feodorovna clenched her teeth and could hardly restrain her tears when speaking about what she called “this infamous letter.” At that moment of rage I believe she could have killed the lady who had thus ventured to tell her things which she considered the most insolent she had ever heard in her whole life. She was destined to feel still more offended a few days later when the Grand Duke Nicholas Michaylovitsch,a cousin of the Czar, presented to the latter a memorandum in which he adjured him not to listen any longer to the advice he received from his wife, and to dismiss the gang of adventurers whose presence at his side was discrediting him. He also was repaid by being sent into exile for the audacity with which he had dared to criticise the conduct of Alexandra Feodorovna.
There is, therefore, nothing surprising if those who had come to look upon Rasputin as upon a national danger should at last have made up their minds to remove him by fair means or foul. Of course what lay behind his assassination was the desire to put an end to the influence of the Empress over her Consort, and to pave the way towards her internment in a private asylum or in a convent where it was felt that she would be happier than anywhere else. So long as Rasputin existed such a thing was not to be thought of, but it was secretly hoped that if he were finally put out of the way the mind of the Czarina would snap altogether and it would then become a relatively easy matter to persuade Nicholas II. to separate himself from her, when it was hoped that the dynasty would recover some of the prestige which it had lost. This, so far as Iknow, is the real key to the murder of the adventurer whose career constitutes a unique episode even in the annals of Russian history that has recorded so many queer things. In describing it I have anticipated events, and must now return a few years back and speak of the outbreak of the great war, even if superficially, because its declaration sounded the knell of the Romanoff dynasty and, in a certain way, sealed the fate of the illustrious lady at whose side I spent so many years before misfortune overwhelmed her.
THE GREAT WAR
Itis useless to repeat that when the great war broke out no one in Russia expected it, the Czar least of all. I shall not touch upon the serious part of this awful drama; I only mention it in so far as it has to do with the unhappy Empress. She was quite overpowered by it, and thought it the culminating point of her misfortunes. Apart from her apprehensions for that Russia whose Sovereign she was, she felt deeply the fact that she was going to be at war with her own kith and kin, and with her beloved brother of whom she was so fond. No one doubted among her surroundings that France and Russia united together would surely and quickly beat the Germans, but the Czarina knew very well that whatever the outcome of the struggle she would become one of its principal victims. She was perfectly aware that the nation which disliked her so intensely called her the “German” quite openly, and that she would probably be suspectedof favouring the land of her birth in preference to that of her adoption; she chafed beforehand at the injustice of the accusation. Everybody noticed her intense emotion on the day which followed the declaration of hostilities, when, during the religious ceremony which took place in the Winter Palace, she stood beside the Czar, and listened to the reading of the manifesto announcing to the nation that Germany had challenged it to mortal combat. Before she left Peterhof (where the Court was spending the summer) forSt.Petersburg, I ventured to express to her my hope that she would have sufficient strength to bear the fatigue and emotions of the trying day. “I can bear anything now,” she replied. “Since I did not die yesterday, it seems to me that nothing will ever kill me.” Momentous words which I was to remember more than once as time went on and one disaster followed upon another.
When the war broke out the Empress Dowager was in England. She telegraphed to her daughter-in-law to take her place at the head of the Red Cross until her return to Russia, and to take the first measures necessary to ensure its activity. The Czarina was but too willing to do so, but she encounteredunusual opposition and even hostility on the part of the officials interested in the society, who criticised all the improvements which she suggested, and even refused to follow the instructions which she gave them. This, of course, was a source of bitter mortification to her, and she was but too glad to retire altogether from the management of the whole affair as soon as her mother-in-law returned. But this was wrongly interpreted by the public that said the Sovereign was not interested in the cause of the wounded, because she disapproved altogether of the war, and would have liked to see Russia come to an agreement with Germany.
The position of my unfortunate mistress grew more and more difficult as time went on. At first the triumphant (for so it was called) march of the Russian troops into Galicia and the capture of Lemberg seemed to point to a successful campaign, but then came the first reverses, followed by the great retreat which meant abandoning to the enemy some of the most fertile provinces of the Russian Empire and the whole of Poland. The loss of the whole line of fortresses which defended the Vistula was also an awful blow dealt both to Russia’s might and to Russia’s welfare as well as prestige. Ofcourse the whole country waxed indignant at this unexpected series of disasters, and of course the government was made responsible for them.
The want of foresight on the part of the War Office was attributed to the general corruption which existed in all Russian administrative spheres, and also to the partiality of the Czar for certain favourites, against whom he would never listen to any criticisms and whom he continued to employ though the whole country had recognised their utter incapacity.
The Empress knew all these things: she had even been asked more than once to interfere and to bring them to the notice of the Czar, but she had always refused to meddle in questions which she felt were so important that any false step might be accompanied by terrible consequences. Once during one of the flying visits which the Commander in Chief, the Grand Duke Nicholas, paid toSt.Petersburg from the front, he had tried to enlist her sympathies in favour of a vast plan of reform he wanted to bring through, but she was so mistrustful of him that she had thought it better to do nothing but to declare to him that she did not think herself competent to offer advice in view of thegeneral difficulties presented by the situation. She felt frightened at the persistence with which certain people who were not over well disposed in her favour wanted to get her mixed up in matters where the smallest blunder might bring upon her head the wrath of the whole nation. But at the same time she attempted to do what she had never tried before, that is, to discuss with her husband the events of the day and give him the benefit of her opinions, which, though always moderate, were distinctly in favour of the continuance of the autocratic system. She once told me that she thought it would be far more advantageous to the nation if the Duma were permanently prorogued, at least for as long as hostilities lasted, because she feared for one thing that its criticisms would destroy the faith of the nation in its government, and for another, that it would prevent by the discussions it would be sure to raise the conclusion of a peace favorable to Russian interests. This peace the Czarina called for with all her heart, and she would have sacrificed much to see it concluded. This got to be known, the more so that she never even tried to hide it, and the rumour arose that she was negotiating the conditions of such a peace with her Germanrelations. This I do not believe for one moment she had ever done or wanted to do, but those intent on her destruction naturally accused her of intriguing in a sense favourable to German interests. She had unfortunately antagonised every single party in the country, the aristocracy to begin with, and also the extreme radicals and socialists who made her responsible for all the measures of repression which the government had begun to take against them. The poor woman had become the scapegoat of all the sins of Israel.
Nevertheless she fought bravely against these terrible odds, and she applied herself to give to the Czar some of the energy which he lacked, and of which perhaps she possessed too much. It was then that she paid different visits to the Front, a thing which she had never been allowed to do whilst the Grand Duke Nicholas was commander in chief, and she tried to cheer up her husband, and to encourage him in the new responsibilities which he had assumed when he had dismissed his uncle and taken upon himself the functions of Commander in Chief of the Army. He had been forced into his decision by the general wish of the public, who were dissatisfied with the Grand Duke Nicholas, andhoped that the presence of the Sovereign at the head of his troops would infuse courage into the hearts of the latter and induce them to make every effort against the foe. But the troops were not to blame for the reverses which had overtaken them; the lack of ammunitions was the cause of the evil, and this could not be remedied by any commander in chief, but would have required a thorough and radical reform in the whole administration of the War Office.
There existed no one in Russia powerful enough to enforce this reform. In the circumstances in which the country found itself placed, it would have required the energy and the iron will of a Peter the Great to overcome the obstacles standing in the way of any reforms of a sweeping nature, and Russia had for sovereign Nicholas II., the weakest that had ever carried the sceptre of the Romanoffs.
During these anxious days the Empress took to confiding in me and sometimes called me to her side, generally during the night when she could not sleep and was haunted by all kinds of fears in regard to the future. She told me then that she felt persuaded a revolution would follow upon the war, and that this time it would be a serious one whichwould require considerable energy before it would be suppressed. The idea that it might eventually prove successful never entered her mind, and I have often wondered at her utter blindness in this matter. But she felt so convinced that the greater part of Russia was still attached to the principles embodied in an all-powerful autocracy that no one was taken more unawares than herself by the promptitude with which the Russian nation accepted the overthrow of the dynasty. And yet she had been told often enough that this dynasty was in danger if it did not decide to make concession to public opinion that clamoured for a change. She still nursed illusions, and she honestly believed that her personal efforts in favour of wounded and disabled soldiers had made her popular with the army, that it felt grateful to her and to the Czar, and that it would not allow them to be harmed. She liked to relate anecdotes tending to prove this, and whenever she returned to Czarskoi Selo from one of the frequent visits she made to the Front, after the Emperor had assumed the supreme command, she liked to call me to her side and relate to me all that she had seen whilst there, and how the wounded whom she had visited had thanked her for her kindnesstowards them, not knowing that their thanks had been uttered in obedience of a command and had never proceeded from the heart of those who had uttered them. There had come, however, one fatal day when, instead of the cheers to which she had been used, the Empress was received with a dead silence by the troops when she accompanied her husband to a review of regiments about to be sent to the fighting Front. This was the first time that such a thing had happened to her, and the poor Czarina was so upset by this proof that she had lost the affection of her soldiers that she declared she would no longer show herself among them. Of course her friends tried to cheer her up, and to explain to her that this had been a pure accident, but the impression had been produced, and its effects were to be lasting ones. The first two years of the war dragged on, and sometimes I wondered whether my beloved mistress would ever live to see the end of this awful conflict. She was getting weaker and weaker and her nerves were so entirely destroyed that all those who still cared for her were getting quite alarmed on her account. The Emperor alone seemed quite unconcerned and failed to notice the great change that had come over his wife. Heimagined that she was anxious about the war, but did not dream that her health was getting worse every day and that she had lost the energy she had been endowed with before, in the hopeless struggle she was fighting against forces which were bound to overcome her in the long run. All her former vivacity had left her. She had become sweeter than she had ever been, even during her first years of married life, and she accepted with gratitude every small service one rendered her. The haughty pride with which she had in former times met any unpleasantness that occurred to her had disappeared. She had become resigned to everything that might befall her, but her great anxiety was for her husband and children, especially the former, against whom she dreaded an attempt at assassination whenever he was at the Front. During the sleepless nights which had become her portion she fancied all kinds of evils, and then she would proceed to the telephone which put her in direct communication with head-quarters and speak with the aide-de-camp on duty, asking for news of the Emperor. I do not think that she ever obtained more than an hour or two of repose in the twenty-four, and sometimes, when considering this,I did not, as I had previously, blame the Princess Dondoukoff for administering to her opiates destined to give her some rest. All this constituted a terrible state of things, but still it was nothing in comparison with what was to follow, and the unfortunate Czarina was soon to drink to the very dregs the cup of sorrow that had been destined for her.
DISASTERS AND THE SECOND REVOLUTION
Thelast days of the year 1916 were sad ones for my poor Empress. First came the assassination of Rasputin, which was a terrible source of grief for her, because she firmly believed that so long as he was at her side no harm could befall her, and certainly as events turned out she had not been so far wrong in her superstitious fears. During the first days which followed upon the murder of her favourite she would sit motionless for hours in her boudoir, doing nothing, absorbed in thoughts which must have been most painful. Christmas—the last to be passed by the Imperial family in their beloved Czarskoi Selo—was a sad one, and the Czarina did not even attempt to shake off the melancholy forebodings with which she was troubled. She was preoccupied with the idea of avenging the destruction of the man whose existence she had considered in the light of a fetich. Itis a well-known fact that she caused the young Grand Duke Dmitry to be exiled in Persia, as a punishment for his share in the conspiracy that had deprived her of her favourite. She who had always been so kind turned cruel and merciless, and I once heard her exclaim that henceforward she would no longer listen to her heart, but follow only the dictates of her reason.
There was one man who had obtained her favour on account of the ardour with which he had espoused all her views; this was the Minister of the Interior, Mr. Protopopoff. He had been one of the most intimate friends of Rasputin, and he was continually urging upon the Czarina the necessity of being firm, and of refusing mercy to those who had shown themselves so entirely merciless in regard to a man who had been a holy creature. Alexandra Feodorovna found some consolation in her grief by talking it over with Protopopoff, who finally won her adhesion to the plans which he had formed to establish once more in Russia an absolute government.
Christmas had come and gone and a New Year had begun. The difficulties of the military and economical condition of the country had increasedto an alarming degree. We did not perceive it at Czarskoi Selo, but in Petrograd, asSt.Petersburg now was called, everybody was complaining of the high cost of living and the impossibility of procuring for oneself the indispensable necessities of existence. The population was getting impatient, and dissatisfaction was spreading. Those who could see the signs of the approaching storm tried to persuade the Czar that he had better remain in the vicinity of the capital, and not go to the Front where, after all, his presence was not absolutely needed. But Nicholas II. would not listen, perhaps because both his wife and Mr. Protopopoff persuaded him that there existed no reason for alarm. The Empress had implicit confidence in the Minister and was convinced that a small display of energy on the part of the government would very quickly do away with the impatience of the population. She wished to get her husband out of the way, not at all, as has been said, because she wanted to make a coup d’état, but because she did not wish the Czar to be worried by his family, who were making frantic efforts to get the Grand Duke Dmitry recalled from exile. At first her intention had been to accompany Nicholas II. to head-quarters,but then her children had fallen ill with what had been considered at first an attack of influenza, but subsequently turned out to be measles, and she would not leave them. The Emperor departed, promising to return immediately if any serious trouble occurred, and keeping meanwhile in close touch with his wife and the commander of the garrison of Czarskoi Selo. During his absence the Revolution took place, brought about by a revolt of the troops entrusted with the defence of Petrograd. They went over to the Duma as soon as they heard that it had taken upon itself to institute a new government.
The Czar had been surrounded by traitors, therefore he had not even been apprised of all that was taking place in Petrograd. Two urgent telegrams which were despatched to him by the President of the Duma, Mr. Rodzianko, never reached him, as we heard later on. Had he received them it is likely he would have hastened back, and perhaps his presence in the capital might have averted the catastrophe. But his attendants were mostly won over to the cause of the Revolution and purposely left him in ignorance of the gravity of the events which were taking place, until it was too late.The Empress also was not informed of the extent of the revolt, and it was through an indiscretion of one of her servants that she got at last an inkling of the truth. She sent for Count Benckendorff, the head of the household, and asked him to get her all the information possible concerning the extent of the rebellion. The Count, who throughout this sad story behaved with the greatest loyalty to the cause of the sovereigns whose confidence he had won by his long and faithful services, tried to go to Petrograd, where he hoped to learn some details as to what had taken place during the two preceding days, but found it impossible because the railway line was already in the hands of the revolutionaries, and no train from Czarskoi Selo was allowed to proceed. He had perforce to content himself with the news which he could obtain by telephone, and soon this means of communicating with the people likely to keep him informed as to what was going on was stopped.
The Empress, almost mad with anxiety, walked to and fro in her apartments, wringing her hands, and saying the whole time that she knew the Czar had been killed and the news was being kept from her. It was with the greatest difficulty that shecould be prevailed upon to send a telegram to General Roussky, who was then supposed to be loyal, enquiring after the Emperor. In about two hours she received a reply saying that Nicholas II. was on his way to Pskoff and expected to arrive there that same night.
This somewhat allayed the anxieties of the Empress, and just about then the condition of the Grand Duchess Olga, who had taken the measles in a more serious form than her sisters, became suddenly worse, and she was thought to be in danger, as pneumonia had declared itself and complicated her condition. And then Alexis, who had been removed to another wing of the palace in the hopes that he might escape the contagion, sickened in his turn, so that the unfortunate Czarina had another anxiety to fight, which after all was perhaps the best thing that could have happened to her, because the necessity of attending to her children prevented her from brooding on what was happening to her husband, which otherwise she would have done the whole of the time.
The next thing we heard was that the Duma had sent two delegates to confer with the Czar; we hoped that from this conference something goodmight result, and that Nicholas II. would be induced to call together a responsible ministry. The Empress herself was persuaded he would do so, and remarked that if Prince Lvoff accepted the position of Premier, things would not be so bad, because at heart he was a loyal monarchist and would not lend himself to any aggression against the person of his Sovereign. She seemed more cheerful than she had been for the last two or three days, and showed herself pleased that it was Mr. Gutchkoff, whom she knew personally and had always liked, who had been despatched to Pskoff. “Perhaps, after all, we shall weather this storm,” she remarked, and she further observed that in the grave circumstances which resulted from the unfavourable course the war had taken, it was perhaps just as well if the sole responsibility for what was to follow did not rest upon the Sovereign alone. Neither she nor any of us had the faintest idea of what was actually taking place at Pskoff. About midnight I left the Empress. She had been persuaded to retire to bed, the Princess Dondoukoff having promised to watch by the children and to call her at once should any change take place in their condition. She was thoroughly exhaustedand we were all glad to see her at last take some rest, I had lain down also in a room adjoining the bedchamber of my mistress when at about three o’clock in the morning I was awakened by a soft knock at my door. Thinking that one of the children was worse, I got up instantly and went to hear what had happened before disturbing the Empress. Standing on the threshold I found the Czarina’s old groom of the chamber with a pale and frightened countenance. He pulled me aside and in a terrified voice exclaimed: “Something dreadful has happened: the Emperor has abdicated!”
“What?” I exclaimed, not believing my ears, and inclined to think that the man had gone mad.
“The Emperor has abdicated,” he repeated, and forthwith began to sob.
I dropped down in a chair, and thought that the end of the world had come, and so indeed it had—of a certain world at least.
“Who told you?” I enquired. “How did you come to hear it?”
The man replied that the new ministry had advised the commander of the town of Czarskoi Selo by telephone that the Czar had abdicated in favourof his brother, and that the troops had to be advised of the fact immediately.
“How shall we tell the Empress?” was my first thought.
Of course neither my informer nor myself could undertake the painful task of apprising her of the new misfortune which had overtaken her. We decided that the only thing to do was to inform Count Benckendorff and to ask him to perform the sad mission. But as we were proceeding to his apartments we met him coming to those of the Empress. He had also been informed of what had taken place at Pskoff a few hours before, and he was about to communicate them to my unfortunate mistress. I went back and aroused her. She was not sleeping, and got up immediately. She had been bracing herself all the time for some new calamity, and when told that Count Benckendorff wished to speak with her had felt convinced that he wanted to apprise her that her husband had been murdered. In comparison with such a catastrophe, the loss of her throne seemed a small thing, and perhaps her first feeling was one of relief at finding that her apprehensions had been groundless. But what she could not bring herself to understandwas the fact that it had not been in favour of his son that the Czar had abdicated. “There must be a mistake. It is impossible that Niky has sacrificed our boy’s claims!” she kept repeating. But when at last compelled to believe that such had been the case, she gave vent to an expression of rage which showed how thoroughly she despised the weak-minded man to whom she was bound, and exclaimed: “He might at least in his fright have remembered his son!”
I think that these words are the most cruel condemnation that the cowardice of Nicholas II. ever obtained, and deserved.
International Film ServiceGrand Duchess Anastasia
International Film Service
Grand Duchess Anastasia
As may be imagined, there was no sleep for any of us after this. When dawn appeared at last it found the Empress entirely dressed, already calm and resigned, kneeling before the sacred icons in her oratory, and invoking the protection of God for her children. Then she went up to her daughters’ room and acquainted the two younger ones, who had not yet been attacked by measles, of the change which had taken place in their destinies. The girls were stunned, as may easily be imagined, and Anastasia, the youngest, began to cry. TheEmpress watched her tears and then in a hard voice remarked, “It is too early to cry yet; keep your sorrow for another occasion,” and she went out of the room without adding another word.
But though she was told that her son’s condition was serious, she did not approach his sick-bed that whole day. It seemed as if she could not bring herself to look upon the child whose advent into the world had been such a source of joy to her, and who had been despoiled of the great heritage to which he had been born. It was evident to all those who knew her well that some time would have to elapse before she could bring herself to forgive her husband for the injury he had done their only son, and perhaps she would never have forgiven it had it not been for all the other misfortunes which were to follow upon this hasty abdication.
HOW THE CZARINA WAS ARRESTED
Afew dreadful days followed upon the one which had brought us the news of the abdication of the Czar. The Empress tried to get into communication with him, but though she contrived to speak with him over the wire, it was from the first evident that every word was listened to, and she gave up any attempt at confidential conversation. What worried her was that instead of returning to Czarskoi Selo, Nicholas II. had elected to go to Mohilew. My mistress, who had had absolute confidence in General Roussky, did not trust General Alexieieff, whom she considered as quite capable of betraying the Czar out of ambition. Events proved that she had not been wrong in her appreciation as to the General, and what she did not know, but was to learn much later, was that he had practically made it impossible for the Emperor to return to Czarskoi Selo, and almost compelled him to go to Headquarters, where he intended to keephim until the Provisional Government at Petrograd had made up its mind whether it ought or ought not to arrest the former Sovereign. We all of us remained in utter ignorance of what was happening at the Front, or in Petrograd itself. The Czarina on the evening of the day following the abdication, when it had become already known that the Grand Duke Michael had refused to accept the throne relinquished to him by his brother, and when no one knew what was going to happen further, the Czarina called me to her room, and asked me to try to go to Petrograd and find out what people there were thinking about the whole situation. She gave orders for a carriage to be put at my disposal, as the railway trains did not run regularly, but I declined it, thinking that it would only attract attention and invite the rebels to stop me if any among them met me. I repaired alone and on foot to the railway station, where I boarded the first train that was leaving for the capital. No one noticed me, and I made my way undisturbed to the house of a friend, who, I knew, was likely to be well informed as to what was going on. Great was my surprise to find that she did not care at all to receive me, and almost ordered me out of herapartment, saying that it was as much as her life was worth to talk with a personal attendant of the Empress. She absolutely refused to answer any of my questions, and I had perforce to beat a hasty retreat. Other people whom I sought did exactly the same thing, and I found all my acquaintances echoing the general opinion which, I discovered, was prevalent in the capital, that it was the Czarina who, by her betrayal of Russia to the Germans, had been the cause of a Revolution which all the sane and reasonable members of society were deploring. The one subject of lamentation was the want of character, as they called it, of the Grand Duke Michael, who, according to the general opinion, ought not to have played into the hands of the Revolutionaries and refused his brother’s succession. At that time the idea of a Republic, which now has become a familiar one, had not yet taken hold of the public mind, and people were only desirous of seeing established a constitutional monarchy. What made me quite aghast was to find that the rumour had been spread that this refusal of the Grand Duke was due to an intrigue of the Empress, who had, so it was related to me, caused to be conveyed to him a message to the effect thatshould he dare to accept the throne she would put herself at the head of a movement against him. The very thought that my poor mistress could have done such a thing was ridiculous, but in times of crisis like the one we were going through, the wildest tales are believed, and in the case of Alexandra Feodorovna it was but too easy to make Petrograd accept the idea that she was planning to bring forward the rights of her son, even against the desire of her husband. As I proceeded along the Nevsky Prospect I met sandwich men carrying large placards with seditious inscriptions concerning the Czarina, and on one of them her immediate imprisonment, trial for high treason and execution were put forward and claimed. Cries of “Down with Alexandra Feodorovna!” were heard everywhere, and my heart sank within me at the thought that perhaps my beloved mistress would fall a victim to the fury of the mob. The remembrance of the French Revolution and of Marie Antoinette, to whom the Empress was so fond of comparing herself, came back to me, and without waiting for further news (which I did not know where to obtain, because no one in Petrograd seemed to know anything) I made my way back to Czarskoi Selo, andbefore presenting myself to the Czarina, I sought Count Benckendorff, to whom I related my experiences in the capital. The Count listened to me, and looked very grave when I mentioned to him the exasperation, for it could hardly be called otherwise, of the rough elements of the population of Petrograd against Alexandra Feodorovna. We discussed for a few minutes the possibility of removing her from the Palace to some other place where she would be in comparative safety, but gave up the idea as impracticable, because, for one thing, the Empress would never have consented to abandon her sick children, and then, there was already such a close watch established around the Palace of Czarskoi Selo and its inmates, that it would have been next to impossible for any one to get out without the fact being at once reported to the Revolutionary Government. Besides, it was necessary to learn what the Emperor himself meant to do, and what were his plans for the future. The situation was therefore extremely serious, but all that one could do in the present circumstances was to wait. The Count enquired of me the names of the servants among the personal attendants of the Czarina whom I thought quite trustworthy, and I mentioneda few. He considered it necessary to establish a kind of secret guard around her for fear that an assassin might find his way to her apartments, and indeed for three days and nights he remained himself outside her door, not caring to trust her safety to any one else. If ever there was one faithful man in the world it was Count Benckendorff.
When, after my conversation with him, I entered the presence of my mistress I found her in a violent state of agitation. The news had reached her that the Empress Dowager had gone to Mohilev to see her son, and Alexandra Feodorovna felt persuaded that the journey had been undertaken for the purpose of persuading Nicholas II. to separate himself from his wife. It was quite useless to point out to the distressed Princess that such a thing would not have had any motive at the present time, when the Czar had resigned the throne. She would not listen to me, but cried and sobbed, declaring that nothing in the world would ever part her from her children and that she would rather kill herself than give them up. She could not understand how it was that her husband, of whose affection she had felt so sure, had not alreadyreturned to her, especially in view of the fact that all her children were so dangerously ill. The idea that Nicholas was no longer a free agent, or able to do what he liked, had not occurred to her, and when I pointed out to her that such might be the case, she would not listen to me, exclaiming, “Who could dare to stop him? After all, he is always the Czar.” The magnitude of the catastrophe which had just taken place she had not yet appreciated.
But the same night rumours that the Revolutionary Government had decided to arrest the former Sovereign reached Czarskoi Selo. None among us would credit them in the beginning, so utterly impossible did the whole thing seem. But Count Benckendorff, who perhaps had at his disposal sources of information others did not possess, told us that unfortunately the news was but too true and that delegates had been sent to Mohilev with instructions to take captive Nicholas II. What they meant to do with him he could not tell, and for the matter of that no one knew. The question arose as to how the Empress was to be made acquainted with this new misfortune, and it had not yet been decided by the Count, who wished to waitfor an official confirmation of the rumour, when he was called to the telephone and told that the new commander of the military district of Petrograd, General Korniloff, wanted to speak with him.
The General told Count Benckendorff that he had been commissioned by the new government to deliver a certain message to the Empress, whom he affected to call Alexandra Feodorovna, and that he wished to see her immediately about it. To the reply that Her Majesty was sitting beside the bed of her sick children and could not be disturbed, Korniloff declared that it was imperative he should execute his commission, and that unless the Empress complied with his request he should use force to obtain admittance.
There remained nothing to do but to ask him to wait for a few minutes until the Czarina had been communicated with. Count Benckendorff repaired to her apartments, and communicated to her the curt request of the Commander in Chief. She said at once that she would be ready for him in half an hour, and declared that she was sure he had some bad news for her concerning the Emperor.
“Perhaps they have killed him!” she exclaimed,“and then they will kill me, and what will become of these poor children?”
Korniloff arrived at the Palace accompanied by all of the officers of his staff. He was escorted also by an infantry battalion, which he caused to be stationed in the big square in front of the Palace. Received by Count Benckendorff, he was conducted to the large drawing-room in which the Empress used to give her audiences in the days gone by, and in a few minutes the Sovereign entered the apartment, dressed all in black, with no other ornaments but one row of pearls round her neck. She bowed stiffly and, having sat down, motioned to the General to do the same, asking him at the same time to what she was indebted for the honour of his visit. There was a ring of irony in her voice which, as I was told afterwards, struck all the listeners painfully and must have offended the General. He rose and in rude accents said: “I must request you, Madam, to stand up, and to listen with attention to the commands I am about to impose upon you.”
Alexandra Feodorovna raised her eyes in mute surprise, but without protesting rose up from her seat, a thing which, by the way, I never understoodhow she could have done. Korniloff then proceeded to read to her an order signed by all the ministers, which declared that she was to consider herself under arrest, that she was forbidden to receive or to send any letters without the permission of the officer in charge of the Palace of Czarskoi Selo, that she was not to walk out alone in the park or grounds, and that she was to consider herself obliged to execute any further orders that might be given to her. He announced to her at the same time that he was about to change the guard at the Palace and that she would be strictly watched.
A dead silence reigned in the room after these words of the old soldier. Count Benckendorff, who was present, felt as if the earth had opened under his feet, but he deemed it inadvisable to say anything. The Empress simply bowed her head, then asked Korniloff not to remove her children’s attendants until they were recovered from their illness, and especially to allow the sailor who for years had taken care of little Alexis to remain with him. The General said that he had no objection to this; then she simply turned her back upon him and without saying anything further left the room. Korniloff then gave his instructions to CountBenckendorff, who, when he was left alone with him, entreated not to be dismissed, declaring that he meant to share the fate of his masters in any case. The Commander made him then responsible for all the interior arrangements of the Palace, and advised him that for the future he should have to apply to the State Treasury and not to the administration of the former Sovereign’s private fortune for the money necessary for current expenses, and he requested him to be as economical as possible in the matter of these expenses.
The Empress, as if dazed, went to her bedroom. There I was waiting for her. One look at her face was sufficient to make me realise that something absolutely dreadful had taken place. Alexandra Feodorovna threw herself face downwards on a sofa placed at the foot of her bed, and exclaimed between the most heartrending sobs: “We are lost, we are lost! What will become now of these unfortunate children; what will become of them?” And for a long time she sobbed on, and would not be comforted by anything that I could say.
News of the arrest of the unfortunate Sovereign spread like lightning through the whole Palace, and, as if she had been stricken with the plague,nearly all her attendants left her in the space of a few hours. Out of her six maids, only one remained “true to her salt,” as they say in the East, and even the women who had waited on the Grand Duchesses hastened to pack their things and to run away, in spite of the fact that the young Princesses were known to be desperately ill. The Princess Dondoukoff was removed by order of Korniloff, and for two days the sick children were attended only by their mother and myself. The Empress was experiencing in the most cruel way imaginable the ingratitude of mankind. If Count Benckendorff had not had his own cook prepare her meals, she would have been exposed to death from hunger amidst all the splendours of her magnificent Palace. At last the Count had to apply to the Revolutionary Government, and servants were sent to replace those who had abandoned us, and to ensure the regular service of the prisoners. All through these dreadful days none of us knew what had happened to the Czar, and this incertitude was, as can easily be imagined, adding to the misery and anguish of his wife. At last Count Benckendorff received a wire from Prince Dolgoroukoff (not Dolgorouky, as the foreign papers have printed; they are twodistinct families), one of the attendants of Nicholas II., that the deposed Sovereign was being brought back to Czarskoi Selo, where the Revolutionary Government had decided he was for the present to be interned.
The news was immediately communicated to the Empress and proved a consolation to her in her sorrows. We all of us, the few who were left of the splendid retinue of servants of former days, wondered how our master would look, and braced ourselves for the painful task of receiving him, a prisoner of state, in the Palace where he had ruled as an all-powerful autocrat. It was on a dark and dreary March morning that he returned to us. Strict orders had been given to the soldiers composing the guard in charge of the Palace gates not to treat him otherwise than they would a colonel, (he had persisted all through his reign in wearing a Colonel’s epaulettes), because he was henceforward to be known as plain Nicholas Alexandrovitsch Romanoff, and though we had been apprised of the fact, yet we were not prepared for what was to follow, and we were horrified to see, from the window at which we watched, the officer on duty give orders to salute Prince Dolgoroukoff, who sat besidethe Emperor in the automobile that brought them home, with the honours due to his rank as general, whilst the deposed Sovereign was treated as his inferior. The meaning of the Revolution had never been made so plain to us as by this significant incident.
At the top of the staircase of the Palace, Count Benckendorff, dressed in full uniform, was awaiting Nicholas II., whom he received with the same ceremonial as in the time when he was still on the throne. The noble-hearted gentleman showed in those days of adversity of what stuff he was made, and did all that lay within the limits of his power to atone for the neglect and ingratitude of others.
The Emperor hardly greeted him. He rushed up the stairs, taking two steps at a time, towards the apartments of the Empress. Alexandra Feodorovna was standing on the threshold, pale and lovely, with a hectic bloom on her cheeks which reminded one of the glory of her past beauty and youth. Neither husband nor wife could speak as they fell into each other’s arms.
LIFE IN PRISON
Itwas only on the first day which followed upon the return of Nicholas II. at Czarskoi Selo that he was allowed to see his wife without witnesses. The very next morning Korniloff again appeared at the Palace and delivered the following instructions to the gaolers (one can hardly call them otherwise) who were to watch over the deposed monarch and his family:
I. The Emperor was not to be allowed to communicate with his Consort, except during mealtimes, when of course conversation could touch only upon indifferent subjects. When he wanted to visit his children, with whom he was allowed to remain as long as he liked, the Empress was to leave the room immediately he had entered it.
II. Neither the Sovereign nor his Consort were allowed to walk out alone and unattended in the park and grounds, but were always to be escortedby a non-commissioned officer and three soldiers with armed rifles.
III. When they went to church they were to be brought to the private chapel of the Palace by the same escort, and not permitted to converse with each other.
IV. Every time one of their attendants had to see them he or she had to be thoroughly searched by the officer on duty and a woman specially appointed for the purpose.
The young Grand Duchesses, when they had recovered, were not put under the severe control to which their parents were subjected; they could stay with their parents, and especially with the Emperor, as much and as long as they liked. Olga made use of this permission more than her sisters, and she used to spend hours with her father, to whom she was particularly attached. But at the same time a strict though not so apparent watch was kept over their actions, and they were not permitted to leave the Palace grounds for the town of Czarskoi Selo, not even to visit the numerous hospitals where they had hitherto worked as sisters of charity.
None of the numerous members of the Imperialfamily, who were nearly all in Petrograd, manifested a desire to see the chief of their race; on the contrary, in many cases they went over to the cause of the Revolution, as, for instance, the Grand Duke Cyrill, who was the first to lead the troops of which he had the command to the Duma, to swear allegiance to the new government. But several members of the former household of the unfortunate sovereigns came to put themselves at their disposal, among others old Madame Narischkine, the Mistress of the Robes of the Empress, who, though she had never been liked by the latter, remained faithful to her to the end, and even petitioned to be allowed to go to Siberia with her, a request which was refused her by the government.
The Czar accepted all these irksome regulations with complete indifference. He used to take long walks with Count Benckendorff and Prince Dolgoroukoff, with whom he chatted the whole of the time with the most complete unconcern. He did not seem to mind in the very least the presence of the men deputed to escort him during these walks, but on the contrary made it a point to thank them when they had brought him home, and to exchange a few words with them. He used to read thepapers very regularly, and seemed always anxious to learn what was going on at the Front. The Empress, on the contrary, refused absolutely to submit to the irritating restrictions imposed upon her, and during the whole time that she was kept at Czarskoi Selo never once went out of the Palace, not caring to take her walks under the watchful eyes of an escort. She treated everybody with complete disdain. When the Czar entered the room where she generally sat with her children, she made him a deep and respectful curtsey, and immediately quitted the apartment, before the officer on duty had an opportunity to request her to do so. She had never got over the fact of Korniloff having ordered her to stand up whilst he had read to her the orders of the new government, and more than once in her conversations with me had referred to this cruel humiliation, repeating, “Can you imagine! He made me stand up, me, the Empress of Russia,” and she did not care to incur a similar humiliation a second time. Though she was repeatedly told that her health required her to be in the open air, especially when spring arrived, she would not listen to any remonstrances on the subject, but kept strictly indoors, snatching onlybreaths of fresh air from her window which she used to keep wide open, and beside which she sat working at garments and bandages for soldiers, which she asked me to forward to the Red Cross. She never opened a book or glanced at a paper, and except needlework her only occupations consisted in going to church and giving lessons to her youngest children. She refused every kind of sympathy and remained silent and forlorn in her misery until the day when she was told that she was about to exchange her present prison for another, far worse in every respect.
A few days after the one which had seen her confined in captivity a commission sent by the Government had arrived at Czarskoi Selo to ask the Empress to deliver to its keeping the crown jewels, as well as her private ones. She had consented to receive the members of this commission and told them that so far as the crown jewels were concerned they had never been in her charge and could be found in the Winter Palace; but her own diamonds and pearls belonged to her personally and she was not going to give them up unless compelled by force to do so, when she would solemnly protest against an act which she considered in the light ofa robbery pure and simple. Her attitude was so firm that the commissioners withdrew without having achieved their mission, and afterwards Kerensky, to whom the matter was referred, gave up the point and allowed my mistress to retain possession of the ornaments she had clung to with such determination and energy.
But the silver which adorned the Imperial dining table was all seized by the Government, under the pretext that it was State property, until eventually Nicholas II. found himself without one fork or knife with which to eat. At last Count Benckendorff made an arrangement wherewith part of this confiscated silver was bought back by him and the money handed over to the treasury. But as the private fortune of the Czar had been confiscated, it was the young Grand Duchesses, Olga and Tatiana, who out of their own funds redeemed these things.
In general it became extremely difficult to meet the expenses of the Imperial household, because the government refused to supply the means to do so, and the treasury grumbled at every request made by Count Benckendorff for funds. Every day saw something disappear of the former luxurywhich had presided at the daily existence of the Czar and of his family, until at last life at Czarskoi Selo became almost ascetic in its simplicity. Meals consisted only of three courses, and the favourite, Zakuska, or relishes with which every Russian dinner or lunch begins, were suppressed. Wine disappeared altogether from the table, and several automobiles were sold, whilst the chauffeurs were dismissed. I even had to beg the Empress not to use as much linen as she had been in the habit of doing formerly, because we lacked the means to wash it, and these were but small miseries among the more important ones which assailed us.
Among the many annoyances and indignities put upon the Emperor and Empress was the order given by the Revolutionary Government not to address them any more as Your Majesty, but to call them Colonel and Mrs. Romanoff. The Czar took it good-humouredly, or, rather, contemptuously, but the Empress was extremely affected by this insolence. “We have been crowned in Moscow,” she used to say, “and nothing can change this now. The Czar is always the Czar. No one can rob him of this dignity, even if he has renounced it of his own accord.”
Of course when we were alone with her we addressed her in the old style. Beginning with Count Benckendorff, and ending with the last of the few servants who had voluntarily elected to remain in the service of the former sovereigns, we were very careful not to make them feel more than could be helped the change that had taken place in their destinies. But when one of the officers on guard was present it was more difficult, because he used to reprove us quite aloud if we ventured to speak with our master and mistress in the old respectful way to which we had been used. The government was so particular in the matter of the title allowed to Nicholas II., that all the newspapers which were addressed to him bore the superscription of “Colonel Nicholas Alexandrovitsch Romanoff.” And on the letters which the Empress received, the appellation of “Her Majesty the Empress” was scratched out, and replaced by “Alexandra Feodorovna Romanoff.” It was the repetition of what had taken place with Louis XVI. when he was designated by the name of Capet by his gaolers, and, strange as it may appear, it was among all her misfortunes the one which, outwardlyat least, seemed most to affect the unhappy Empress.
Of course correspondence was a forbidden thing for all of us. Letters were strictly censored and even the smallest parcel brought to the Palace was examined two or three times before being handed over to the person to whom it belonged. Books were equally the object of suspicion, and at last the Empress and Emperor gave orders that new ones were no longer to be forwarded to them, as had been done previously.
Of course all these vexatious measures depended a good deal on the personality of the officer in charge of the interior arrangements and guard of the Palace. If he were a humane man things would not be so bad, but if he happened to belong to the ranks of the rabid republicans or anarchists there was not an obstacle that he did not put in our way or an unpleasantness that he spared us. I remember one of the latter who, one morning when I was expecting a parcel containing a new blouse from the Empress’s dressmaker, absolutely refused to let it pass until I had unpicked the lining to prove to him that no letter or message had been concealed between it and the stuff itself. It wasthe young Grand Duchesses who were most to be pitied among the prisoners of Czarskoi Selo. The girls were the sweetest things imaginable, and their beautiful characters came out in a splendid light during that trying time when, at an age where girls generally know only the sunny side of life, they had to become acquainted and to be actors in one of the greatest tragedies history has ever had to chronicle. And yet they realised perhaps even better than did their father and mother, the full extent of the drama which was being played around them. Olga, in particular, seemed to have a forewarning that it was only beginning and that it might end in blood just as it had begun in tears. She was a clever, thoughtful woman, with a considerable amount of common sense, and sometimes she used to confide to me her apprehensions in regard to the future. “If the Germans get near to Petrograd, or if a new revolution breaks out there,” she often said, “we shall be its first victims, and either the mob or the Government will put us to death.”
Tatiana was not so resigned as her sister. She revolted against the terrible injustice of which she was the victim, and she could not understand howafter all the care she had taken of wounded soldiers and miserable refugees whom her committee had helped, her good intentions had been misunderstood, and how she could have been put aside at a moment’s notice and deprived of the possibility of going on further with the work to which she had given all her energy, and with which she had been so successful. She had an impetuous nature, more like her mother’s than like the placid temperament of her father, and she would have liked to be able to express aloud the contempt which she felt for all those whose victim and prisoner she was. The two youngest daughters of the Czar and Czarina were still too much in the schoolroom to be able to do aught else but be astonished at the change which had taken place in their existence. They looked at all that was occurring with big, surprised eyes, and were more ready to weep than to attempt to fight against a fate which had proved too strong for them. They clung to their mother more than did Olga or Tatiana, and hardly left her protection. The Empress, who had never been a fond mother in the sense of caresses, had changed in that respect since the misfortunes that had fallen upon her, and she now hugged her girls and drew themto her breast with a passionate earnestness which made the children exclaim that now they were happier than they had ever been before, because their mother embraced them just as much as if they had been poor little waifs, with a mamma ignorant of what etiquette meant. The remark had something touching about it, and I think that the Empress realised this as well as did others, because she showed herself more affectionate towards her daughters than she had been used to do, and was no longer absorbed by her exclusive tenderness for her son. She seemed indeed to have lost her interest in the latter since the day she had realised that he was no longer the heir to one of the greatest thrones in the world.
The child himself understood it, and he was perhaps the one who suffered most from the consequences of the change which had transformed him into an ordinary little boy, after he had been the most important personage in his family. He fretted over this change, and I fancy that at times he felt resentful against his father and mother for having so easily acquiesced in their own degradation. He would have liked to see his father make a stand against the Revolution, and at least refuse to surrenderthe rights of his son and heir. One day he betrayed something of his feelings when he told Count Benckendorff that if he had not been ill but with the Czar at Headquarters, as he generally was, he would never have allowed him to abdicate. The Count did not reply, but I imagine that he regretted such had not been the case. Indeed to this day it is incomprehensible to me how Nicholas II. could have been induced to sacrifice the rights of his son, and not to have insisted on the latter being proclaimed Emperor in his stead.
In the meantime the days dragged on, and we were all wondering whither all this was to lead. The feeling that a change of some kind was bound to take place floated in the air, but no one could guess of what nature this change was to be. At times the fear would seize us that the Government would remove the Czar and his Consort to the fortress, which would have meant that they would be tried, and perhaps condemned to terrible penalties for their imaginary crimes, but hard as we all tried to penetrate the secret of the future, we did not succeed in doing so, and when this future was revealed to us, it surpassed in horror all that we had ever imagined or dreaded.