Read Ebook: My empress; twenty-three years of intimate life with the empress of all the Russias from her marriage to the day of her exile by Mouchanow Marfa

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Already in those early days there existed a party against her, which never missed an opportunity to compare her with her mother-in-law, and this not to her advantage. The Dowager had been immensely liked, partly because she had always made it a point to appear to like every one she knew or met. She had not perhaps been more talkative than her daughter-in-law, but she had smiled sweetly and nodded kindly to all her acquaintances, and she had never noticed the shortcomings of her neighbour. Alexandra Feodorovna, on the contrary, was inclined to be satirical, and had a keen sense of humour, that was not destined to add to the pleasures of her existence. She drew most clever caricatures, and was fond of showing them. One day she produced a wonderfully clever sketch of the Czar, sitting in a baby chair, whilst his mother was scolding him for refusing to take a plate of soup she was handing to him. The drawing passed from hand to hand, and did not contribute towards establishing harmonious relations between the two Empresses, whilst the public was scandalised to see the Czar made fun of by his own wife, who ought to have been the first person to show him respect and deference. All these were but small things, but they constituted the drop of water which ends by wearing away the hardest rock. Many times I wished to warn my mistress of the criticisms to which she willingly lent herself by her manners and conduct, but I never dared; and those who could have done so, like her Mistress of the Robes and her ladies in waiting, did not sufficiently consider her interests to bring to her observation these small matters, which in reality were important ones, in regard to her future comfort and happiness.

What with one thing and another, the unpopularity of the young Sovereign was already an established fact when the Coronation took place at Moscow. It appeared quite plainly on the day she made her public entry into the ancient city, when the crowds greeted her with absolute silence, whilst they vociferously cheered the Dowager Empress. Alexandra felt this deeply, and when she was alone in her rooms she wept profusely over this manifestation of the displeasure of the nation in regard to her person. It was the first time that I had seen her giving way to grief of any kind, and it affected me very much, especially in view of what was to follow. I had already learnt to love this sweet, gentle lady, who seemed to be pursued with such persistent bad luck, and whose actions were misunderstood by the very people who ought to have appreciated the real motives which guided her. The Empress had a high sense of duty, but a mistaken idea of what it consisted. She was far too desirous of winning the approval of her subjects to set herself to do it in the right way, and besides, she had no one to point out to her the various idiosyncrasies of the Russian nation and of Russian society. She did not wish to go against what she considered to be the national feelings of the people over whom she reigned, and yet she contrived to wound these feelings at almost every step she took.

On her return to the Kremlin she dropped into an easy-chair beside her bed and burst into loud sobs, not heeding my presence or that of her other maids. Not caring for them to witness this explosion of sorrow, I sent them away, and tried to comfort my mistress to the best of my ability, entreating her to control herself, and not to distress the Emperor with the sight of her grief. But Alexandra Feodorovna kept weeping until at last I induced her to repair to the nursery, where the sight of her little girl sleeping in her cot brought back her composure.

And this was the woman who was represented to be cold and unfeeling, and who was reproached for her utter indifference in presence of a catastrophe of unusual magnitude! Had she but listened to the cry of her own heart, and not always lived in dread of making mistakes and of going against the sympathies of her surroundings, she would certainly have fared much better, and most probably would have been far more liked.

The Coronation was far from the success that had been expected, and the Court returned to Peterhof with a feeling of relief that it was over. A few quiet weeks followed, perhaps the happiest in the whole life of Alexandra Feodorovna, who started then to organise what afterwards turned out to be quite an institution--sewing classes at which she presided, where ladies of society made garments for the poor which were distributed to the latter at Christmas, something like Queen Mary of England's Needlework Guild. This was her first venture in the charitable line, and for some time it proved a successful one, because many ladies entered into the spirit of it, unfortunately out of interested motives, and because they expected that it would bring them to the Sovereign's notice and thus contribute to the success of their worldly career. But here again the Empress did not realise what lay at the bottom of the willingness with which her appeal was responded to, and she did not show any special favour to the women who had entered into its spirit. These were very soon disgusted at what they called Imperial ingratitude, and at last the sewing classes of Czarskoi Selo came to an end, at least so far as the fashionable world was concerned, because they continued to be frequented by the wives and daughters of the small tradesmen of the Imperial borough, eager to be brought into personal contact with their Czar's wife, and with this new element they prospered and contrived to do a great deal of good. Later on, during the Japanese war, they were transported to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, where they remained installed until the Revolution, the present war having given them a new stimulant.

VISITS ABROAD

The beginning of the visits of the young Emperor and Empress to foreign courts was marked by one of those misfortunes which seemed to dog their footsteps wherever they went. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Prince Lobanoff, died suddenly at a railway station where the Imperial train had stopped for a few minutes. He was a man of great ability and wide diplomatic experience, and, moreover, was a staunch friend of the young Empress, who mourned him with all her heart. He would undoubtedly have given her good advice later on, which she often needed, and might have put her on her guard against the insidious counsel which she so often received from people interested in seeing her commit blunder after blunder. His successor, Count Mouravieff, was a prot?g? as well as a favourite of the Empress's mother, who was responsible for his appointment. He was also a man of unusual ability, but one who knew very well on which side his bread was buttered, and who was far too worldly wise to attach himself to a woman who, he knew but too well, would never succeed in making herself popular in the country on whose throne she sat.

We also, during this tour, went to Balmoral, where the Empress met her grandmother, Queen Victoria. The old Sovereign had been very kind to this grandchild of hers, ever since the untimely death of her mother, the Princess Alice, and had had her often with her. But this stay at Balmoral was not a success. Perhaps it was hardly possible it could be one, because my mistress' disposition was not one which brooked interference, and Queen Victoria, who had heard, as she generally did all that concerned her immediate family, of the growing unpopularity of the young Czarina, took her to task for it and began advising her as to what she ought to do. The Empress, however, did not accept any advice, thinking that no one outside of Russia could appreciate the growing difficulties of her situation, and, besides, not caring to initiate her grandmother into the various intrigues rampant in the Russian Imperial family. So she received coolly the exhortations of the Queen, and when the two ladies parted it was not as warmly as might have been expected.

Of course a woman with a little experience of the world might have known how to conciliate the different elements with which she was brought in contact. But Alexandra Feodorovna was not a diplomat, and, moreover, never could hide her feelings. She thus contrived to wound those whom, perhaps, in her secret heart she was most anxious to please.

The little Grand Duchess Olga had accompanied her parents during these visits, and notwithstanding the many things she had to do, and the numerous calls upon her time, my mistress never forgot to be present at her child's undressing in the evening, and had her brought to her room the first thing in the morning. I generally wakened the Czarina at eight o'clock, when I would hand her a lace and silk morning jacket, which was brought to me by the maid on duty, and then she would ask for her daughter, with whom she played for half an hour or so before glancing at the morning's papers and taking the cup of tea which she liked in the morning. It had to be very strong and bitter, and she never took sugar or cream with it. When she was dressed she used to partake, with the Emperor, of an English breakfast, which, after having been fixed for half-past nine o'clock, was, later on, partaken of much earlier, so as not to interfere with the children's lessons. The Empress was fond of eggs, and of a certain crisp kind of bacon, such as was generally found at Windsor or Balmoral, or any of the residences of Queen Victoria. She was, in general, very English in her tastes, and English was the only language used in the Russian Imperial family circle. This attention of Alexandra Feodorovna to her daughter was of course praised in Paris as well as in London, but not appreciated as it ought to have been in St. Petersburg, where it was said that she would have done better to have been less of a good mother, and more of an Empress. The Imperial family especially criticised it freely, and called her a Mere Gigogne in derision. When one daughter after another was born to her, these criticisms became even more acute, and it was said that she wasted all her time looking after little girls whose existence was of no interest at all to the Russian Empire.

I must here relate a fact that, so far as I know, has never been made public. After the Coronation the Empress, owing to over-fatigue, had an accident which destroyed some hopes of maternity she was nursing. She had not spoken of her condition in her family, and she told me that she felt very glad she had not done so, because most probably she would have been accused of some imprudence or other, the more so that her doctor said that the expected child would, in all probability, have been a boy. Nevertheless the thing somehow came to the knowledge of the public in the sense that it was suspected, though no one knew for a certainty whether it was true or not, that such an accident had taken place, and with the usual wickedness of humanity, it was rumoured that the Sovereign had had reasons to hide the condition she found herself in, and that the accident in itself had been brought on more voluntarily than accidentally. I was one day asked whether these sayings which circulated freely in St. Petersburg were true or not. Imagine my indignation and anger on hearing my beloved mistress accused of so terrible a thing, the accusation having not the slightest foundation to justify it. When later on my Imperial mistress began to honour me with her confidence, I implored her whenever she thought she had reasons to suppose that she was about to become again a mother, to mention the fact at once, and give it as much publicity as possible. But she was so persistently pursued by bad luck that this also proved later on a source of much trouble to her, when she happened to be attacked by an illness which was at first attributed to a condition that in reality did not exist.

When we returned to St. Petersburg after this triumphant journey abroad, we were welcomed there with more effusion than had been even expected. The French alliance was becoming very popular, and the Russian nation moreover felt flattered at the idea that its Sovereigns had been made so much of wherever they had been. We went at first to Czarskoi Selo and then moved for the winter season to the capital, where the Empress, as usual, received the ladies of society after mass on New Year's day, after which began the usual round of gaieties that made St. Petersburg such an attractive town at the time I am writing about. But instead of the seven or eight balls generally given during the winter, the Empress arranged to give only four, varied with four theatrical performances in the little theatre of the Ermitage Palace, which had been built by the Empress Catherine. These performances, which were always composed of classical pieces, were declared to be dull, and people found one excuse or another to absent themselves from them, thus beginning the system of boycotting which, later on, was extended to all the Empress' entertainments. She was voted a bore and no criticism could have been worse, considering the existing state, together with the habits and customs, of the society of the Russian capital.

THE GRAND DUCHESS ELIZABETH

The latter, in spite of her impetuous and, if the truth need be said, haughty disposition, stood in awe of her eldest sister, a feeling out of which the Grand Duchess Elizabeth knew very well how to make capital. She set herself to persuade her sister that it was indispensable she should affect a far stronger attachment to the orthodox faith than she really professed, and that if only the orthodox clergy should think they had found in her an energetic support, she would rapidly become popular. It must not be forgotten that at that time the influence of priests in general was fast waning, and that they were aware of the fact. It is not surprising, therefore, that they tried to find a ally among the Imperial family, and that the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, who made a profession of being absorbed in the practices of a narrow devotion, became the object of their pet affection. She was quite conscious of this fact, and being a far cleverer woman than she looked, she used it to her own advantage and to the detriment of her sister.

Elizabeth Feodorovna had the reputation of being a semi-saint. In reality she was nothing of the kind, for she liked the bad as well as the good things of this world to an inordinate degree. Fond of admiration, she had not been insensible to the one which she inspired, and her admirers had been many, to begin with her own husband's brother, the Grand Duke Paul. But she had carried all her intrigues in a grand manner, and had never allowed them to interfere with the general comfort of her existence. Worldly to her finger tips, she yet affected the manners of an unworldly woman, and she "took in" most of those with whom she came into contact by her hypocrisy, for it could hardly be called anything else.

At heart she was jealous of her sister, just as she had been jealous of the Empress Marie Feodorovna, during the latter's reign. It was for this reason principally that she had been so glad to go to Moscow, where she knew she would be the first lady in the town, and would enjoy a semi-Imperial position. She did not care to see any one put before her, and she applied herself to render the young Czarina unpopular by every means in her power.

Of course the unfortunate Alexandra Feodorovna, who knew nothing about Russia and still less about Russian society when she married, believed all that her sister told her, and the latter gave her a totally false opinion as to most of the people whom she saw, or with whom she was thrown into contact--the Empress Dowager to begin with, and all the other members of the Imperial family. Among the latter the young Czarina might have found friends but too happy to guide her, such for instance as her own sister-in-law, the Grand Duchess Xenia, who was about her own age, and who would have been only too glad to be of use to her. But the latter's husband, the Grand Duke Alexander Michaylovitsch, was credited with ambitious designs, and was moreover one of the most intelligent men of his day. This was more than sufficient to eliminate him from the number of the people whom it was deemed expedient for Alexandra Feodorovna to see much of.

I shall quote one instance of the kind of influence which the Grand Duchess Elizabeth exercised over her sister. One day the Empress came to me and told me that her sister had sent her some relics of a famous saint in the Orthodox Church, who was buried in the cathedral of Rostoff on the Don, telling her at the same time that she ought to have them dissolved in water and then drink this water early in the morning before she had partaken of any other food. Should she do so, success would come to the Russian arms without fail. The poor Empress was torn asunder between her conviction that her duty required her to obey her sister and her distaste for the abominable beverage she was expected to swallow. I tried my best to persuade her that the whole thing was nonsense, but then Rasputin, who was one of the instruments of the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, interfered, and, after much hesitation, the unfortunate Czarina at last made up her mind to drink the dirty relics as she had been ordered, and, as a consequence, was abominably sick.

It was also Elizabeth Feodorovna who was responsible for the introduction of Rasputin into the immediate circle of the Imperial family. Before that she had presented to her sister a Frenchman, called Philippe, who was supposed to be one of the first mediums in Europe, and for a short time this Philippe was quite an important personage at Court. It was about the time the Japanese war broke out, and the intriguing Frenchman did his best to consolidate his influence and power, by making all kinds of prophecies as to the course the struggle was about to take. Events, however, gave the lie to his predictions, because instead of the brilliant successes which he had prophesied, defeat attended the course of the campaign, and the Russian armies were routed. This shook the reputation of the medium, and, finally, after another failure of a private nature he was dismissed, principally at the request of the Grand Duke Nicholas, who called upon the Czar and revealed to the latter the many intrigues of which Philippe had been guilty. When he was gone the Empress spent her time turning tables alone or with a few chosen friends, and she at last got her nervous system into such a condition that it is no wonder she fell an easy prey to Rasputin when the latter was presented to her by her sister, with the assurance that he was one of the greatest saints the Russian Orthodox Church had ever known.

THE CZARINA'S FAMILY RELATIONS

The Empress, like all German Princesses, had been brought up in a family atmosphere which had a great deal of the bourgeois about it. Her father had been comparatively a poor man, and his household had been conducted on most modest lines, as can be seen from the letters of the Czarina's mother, the Grand Duchess Alice of Hesse, addressed to her own mother, Queen Victoria. Neither pomp nor magnificence had presided over the rearing of the young Princesses left motherless so soon, and it was only at Windsor and at Balmoral that Princess Alix had seen what a Sovereign's existence meant. But on the other hand she had been very happy with her sisters and with her brother to whom she was particularly attached. For some years after their father's death she had been practically the mistress of his household, and she had felt bitterly his marriage with their cousin, the Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg. The latter, whose mother was a Russian Grand Duchess, had, in her own way, just as imperious a character as her sister-in-law, and soon relations between the two girls became more than strained. As is well known, the marriage of the Grand Duke of Hesse turned out a most unhappy one and ended with a divorce in which the Princess Alix sided with her brother, and allowed the latter's wife to see that such was the case. This brought about a family quarrel, which was further accentuated by the re-marriage of Victoria Melita with her other cousin, the Grand Duke Cyril of Russia, which incensed the Empress to such a degree that she used all her influence over the Czar to persuade the latter to exile Cyril and his bride, and to deprive them of their fortune and rank at the Russian Court. This was a most unfortunate action, because it roused against the Czarina the wrath of all her relatives, who already did not like her, and who in consequence went over to swell the ranks of her enemies, alas, already too numerous.

I have always regretted that my Imperial mistress was not able to make for herself friends among her own relatives. This partiality which she always exhibited in regard to her Hessian connections was a very unfortunate one, and added certainly to her unpopularity. Had she been wise, she might easily have found a warm support in the Czar's sister, the Grand Duchess Xenia, and the latter's husband, whose kind feelings in regard to her would have secured for her the allegiance of all the sons of the Grand Duke Michael, the great uncle of the Czar, and the most respected member of the Romanoff family, as well as the oldest. Unfortunately she did not see the necessity for doing so, and she feared the influence undoubtedly exercised at one time over the Czar's mind by Xenia, his favourite sister. Consequently she kept her at arm's length, and avoided inviting her to Czarskoi Selo. The Imperial family, finding itself snubbed at every step, boycotted in its turn their Empress, with the result that the latter drifted every day a little farther from those who ought to have been her natural friends and supporters.

Had Alexandra Feodorovna been surrounded by people who wished her well, they would have tried to educate her mind, and to bring to her notice the necessity of observing certain details pertaining to etiquette of which she had never been taught the necessity in her small Darmstadt, but which she could not neglect in her position as Empress of Russia. Kindness would have done wonders with her, and no one would have appreciated it more than herself, but opposition of any kind had the effect of exasperating her and of driving her to do precisely what she ought not to have done. She had the idea that as the wife of an autocratic ruler she was placed above every kind of criticism, and that no one dared to make any remark concerning her conduct or manners. Of course this was a mistaken idea, but it had so thoroughly taken hold of her mind that nothing could ever drive it away, and it has certainly contributed to the misfortunes which have assailed her later on. Alas! alas! how often have I not regretted that this sweet Princess, so attractive in many ways, could not be brought to look upon the world with other eyes than those of an enemy. If only she had believed those who sincerely loved her, how different her life might have been!

During the summer of 1898, the Grand Duchess Olga caught the scarlet fever. The English nurse who was in charge of the Imperial nursery was left with the second little girl who had been born to the Czar and Czarina, the Grand Duchess Tatiana, and the Empress took it upon herself to nurse the sick child unaided. I begged permission to share with her the care of the invalid, and it was after this that my mistress began to confide in me to a certain degree, and to speak to me about some of her many anxieties and sorrows. I can remember her so well during these days and nights sitting by the cot in which her small daughter slept, clad in a dressing gown of white flannel which I had almost compelled her to buy for the occasion, her fair head resting on her hand, absorbed in her thoughts, and with that sweet but anxious expression on her beautiful face, which already at that time had begun to settle on her features. She complained to me once that she had been reproached by her relatives for exposing herself to the danger of contagion. "As if that mattered," she said, "even if I died, for the Emperor would always find another wife who perhaps would be luckier than I have been, and able to give him an heir. No one would miss me, with the exception perhaps of these children," and she started weeping bitter tears. I tried to comfort her, saying that she must not talk in that way, because no woman had ever been more loved by her husband than she was by the Emperor. "Ah, my dear," retorted the Empress, "what good does it do me to be loved by my husband when all the world is against me? It is the nation's love I would wish to win, and how can I hope to do so, so long as I have not given an heir to Russia!" Poor woman, she really imagined that the cause of her unpopularity was the fact that she had no son!

This reminds me of the state of mind into which my poor mistress was thrown at the birth of her second daughter, Tatiana. She had been worrying the whole time of her pregnancy at the idea that she might have another girl, until at last the thought of it had become quite an obsession, and her nervous system had been absolutely shattered as a consequence. When the child came into the world there was a profound silence in the room, and the doctor informed the Czar, by a previously arranged sign, of the sex of the infant, which it was deemed necessary to conceal from the mother at first. But the Empress saw the anxious and troubled faces around her when she had recovered from the effects of the chloroform which had been administered to her, and her first words were: "My God, it is again a daughter. What will the nation say, what will the nation say?" and she burst into loud hysterics.

LIFE AT CZARSKOI SELO

I have often been asked details about the kind of existence by the Imperial family in the interior of their home. So long as I was in their service I never spoke of what I saw, and in general avoided mentioning anything connected with the family life of my masters. It seems to me now that I am not committing an indiscretion if I do so, because I have nothing to say but good of the unfortunate Czar and Czarina.

So far as I have been able to judge, this was an error, at least in some details. The Czarina was very fond of the land of her birth, this cannot be denied, but she was too affectionate a mother not to see that it would have been impossible to carry on a purely German policy in Russia, and the thing to which she clung the most was her throne and the possibility of seeing her own son occupy it in time. She was ambitious for him as well as for herself, and though this may be deplored, yet there is nothing astonishing in the fact.

She did not care for St. Petersburg and the luxury of her apartments in the Winter Palace, and after the Japanese war and the Revolution she persuaded the Czar to give up residing there and to make his permanent home at Czarskoi Selo, or in Livadia in the Crimea. They used to come sometimes to the capital for some military festivity or other, but their sojourn there was always of short duration, and never extended beyond a few hours. The only time they resided in it again, and this only for three days, was on the occasion of the celebration of the jubilee of three hundred years of the accession of the Romanoff dynasty to the throne of Russia. After they left it then, they were never more to sleep under its roof, though their rooms were always kept ready for them. Sometimes the Empress stopped there for a cup of tea, when on one of her rare visits to St. Petersburg, to inspect some charitable institution, but she never liked them, though she had furnished them with such care and she never felt at home in those immense halls which could not be made homely or comfortable, in the sense generally attached to this word.

As the Imperial children grew up, their mother adopted the custom of spending most of her time with them when the state of her health so allowed. She had always been very delicate, and developed violent nervous headaches which totally prostrated her and confined her to her bed in a dark room, sometimes for two or three days at a time. These attacks left her terribly weak, and she would require care and quiet to get over them. Sometimes another attack would overpower her before the effects of the first one had passed away. This was the origin of the rumour that she was an unnatural mother who for days did not allow her daughters to approach her. Nothing of the kind ever took place, but when my poor mistress was laid up her sufferings were so intense that sometimes the sound of a footstep in the next room would add to the agony which she endured, and of course she had to be left alone at such periods. But the world, always cruel and unjust in regard to her, would have it that she confined herself in her apartments because she could not bear her children, and it pitied them in consequence.

But when she was in good health, the Czarina gave up every minute of her time to her family. She took upon herself the religious instruction of her son and daughters, and she tried to rear them in the strong principles which she herself professed. Both the Czar and herself observed with extreme punctuality the rites of the Greek Orthodox Church. During the whole six weeks of Lent, no meat appeared on the Imperial table, and at festivals as well as on Sundays, the whole family attended all the morning and afternoon services which were celebrated in the chapel of the Palace. Afterwards the Empress built a church in Czarskoi Selo, which became one of the most beautiful shrines in the whole of Russia, and she regularly went to it, forsaking the private chapel of her own residence. She had arranged for herself an oratory in one corner of the building, from which she could, unseen herself, follow the religious services. This eccentricity, which proceeded from the fact that the Czarina did not care to be the object of the attention of the congregation, was also made the cause of violent and unseemly attacks upon her person and character.

But in general she did not care for society. Her Mistress of the Robes was about the only woman admitted to her intimacy as long the post was occupied by the Princess Galitzyne, but after the death of the latter and the appointment of Madame Narischkine, the relations of the Empress with the head of her household became purely formal, and the only real confidante she possessed during the last six or seven years which preceded the war and the Revolution was a woman who was destined to do her an infinity of harm and whom she would have done much better to have kept at arm's length--the too famous Madame Wyroubieva, about whom I shall have something to say later on.

THE COURT AND ATTENDANTS OF THE CZARINA

When the Empress married, her household was formed in a hurry, which was a great pity, because it was not composed entirely of the best people from an intellectual point of view. The Empress Dowager was so absorbed by her grief that she could not give to the subject the attention she otherwise would have done. The Emperor, on the other hand, knew very little about St. Petersburg society, and especially about its gossip. When the name of the Princess Galitzyne was mentioned to him as that of the best lady for the difficult position of Mistress of the Robes, and chief adviser of his young wife, he accepted it as a matter of course, having only in mind the great name and the prominent position of the Princess.

She was a haughty, selfish, self-centred woman who soon made for herself numerous enemies, thanks to the offhand manner with which she treated all those with whom she found herself thrown in contact. She never applied herself to the task of teaching her young mistress the difficult lesson of trying to make herself popular, but on the contrary tried to inspire within her the same prejudices in regard to the people she disliked that she herself entertained. She was about the worst adviser a newly married Sovereign could have had, and one can only wonder why this fact was not recognised earlier than it was; for it ultimately became a question as to who was the more disliked, the Empress or her Mistress of the Robes.

The Princess Galitzyne, nevertheless, soon became a power at Court. She contrived to obtain large grants of money which the successive ministers of finance who took over the succession of Count Witte, were but too happy to arrange for her, in return for her protection. She was greedy and avaricious, cruel and cold hearted, and utterly devoid of scruples. In the Palace she was heartily disliked, yet no one dared to say a word against her, because it was well known that eventually she could become a terrible enemy of those of whom she thought she had reason to complain.

The Princess died a year or two before the great war, and for some time her place remained empty, until at last it was offered to Madame Narischkine, an intimate friend of the Empress Dowager, and one of the most respected women in St. Petersburg society.

Madame Narischkine was quite a different woman from her predecessor. She was kind, polite, amiable, and highly principled, as well as conscientious. She would never have hurt a fly, and she had always applied herself to smooth the path in life of all the people in whom she had happened to be interested.

Every spring and autumn the coming fashions were brought to the Empress, so that she might make her choice. She usually had about fifty dresses for each season, as I have had already occasion to explain, but whenever any unlooked for event occurred she would order special gowns to meet it. Her hats were generally made by Bertrand, a French firm in St. Petersburg; she ordered about twenty-five or thirty for the summer season and several fur toques for the winter. She liked white hats, which she often wore, and for a long time remained faithful to the small bonnets affected by Queen Alexandra of England in her youth. Later on she took to large hats, which were generally trimmed profusely with ostrich feathers. About these feathers the Empress was most fussy. The St. Petersburg climate is so very damp that it is almost next to impossible to keep feathers curled in summer, especially in Peterhof, on the Baltic shore, where the Court, as a rule, spent July and August. We had, therefore, to have the trimmings of the Empress's hats seen to every day, and messengers used to go daily to St. Petersburg to carry to Madame Bertrand the different millinery as well as the feather boas of Alexandra Feodorovna to be freshened and rearranged.

As a rule, the Czarina used to spend something like ten thousand roubles a month on her toilet, and sometimes even more than that. She was extravagant,--there is no doubt about it,--but then she was the Empress of Russia, and considered it part of her duties to appear magnificently attired. The Emperor, too, liked to see her well dressed, and especially richly dressed. The latter was easy, but the former more difficult, because of the peculiar ideas of my Imperial mistress in regard to her clothes.

When her household was organised she was given eight maids to attend upon her, of whom there were to be always two on duty during the day, and two during the night, when they had to sit in a room in the near vicinity of the Imperial bedchamber, ready to be called in case of emergency. In the usual order of things they would have had to dress the Czarina's hair morning and evening, but the latter hated to have different hands perform this task, so she arranged to have a hairdresser come each day to arrange her coiffure, which was never very elaborate except upon official occasions, when a diadem had to be fixed in her hair. I was always present when she dressed and undressed. It was part of my business to see that everything connected with her toilet was in order and that nothing she required was missing. She never twice wore the same pair of gloves, but liked old shoes and slippers. As for her stockings they were of the finest silk, and manufactured specially for her by the firm of Swears and Wells in London.

This system of having eight maids was continued for about ten years or so, then one of them died, and another one asked to be relieved from her duties, and they were never replaced. The Czarina thought that it was quite sufficient for her to have six attendants, and she abolished the night waiting, which had always been so irksome to the people concerned in it. She used to dismiss her maids at eleven o'clock and then retire to her bedroom, where she read or worked alone, but did not require any more attendance, except in case she felt ill or one of her children was indisposed. She was exacting, but never unjust or cruel, and she hated to be the cause of inconvenience to other people. At first she had never dared to alter anything in the customs of the Russian Court, but later on she asserted herself and made many changes in the interior arrangements of the Palace, all of which were practical and tended to the amelioration of the condition of her numerous servants, who nevertheless did not show themselves grateful to her for her anxiety about their welfare, and who in the hour of her misfortune mostly abandoned her, or turned with alacrity against her.

THE CZARINA AND ST. PETERSBURG SOCIETY

At the time of her marriage St. Petersburg society was well disposed toward my unfortunate mistress, and it would have been easy for her to have made herself popular. Unfortunately she had, as I have said, a sarcastic tongue, and made no secret of her likes and dislikes; nor did she hesitate to ridicule certain customs to which old and important dowagers clung with persistency. She always feared to be thought too familiar, owing to the fact that the Imperial family, from the very first day of her arrival in Russia, had drilled into her ears the caution that St. Petersburg was not Darmstadt, and that the free and easy manners of a little German town would be out of place at the Court of the mighty Czar of All the Russias. She had therefore fallen into the other extreme, and disciplined herself to be as stiff as possible. The Empress Marie had been in the habit of receiving in her own private boudoir the ladies who craved an audience from her, and of asking them to sit beside her. Her daughter-in-law made it a point to give her audience standing, and to converse for a few minutes without ever offering a chair to the old women who had applied for the honour of an introduction to her. She coldly extended to them her hand to kiss, which further incensed them, and her natural shyness, added to this stiff reception, of course made her many enemies. She began to be criticized, and that in no friendly spirit. Unfortunately she became aware of this, and it set her from the very first against the people she ought to have tried to make her friends. Then gossip, and that mostly ill natured, too, did its work, and all kinds of anecdotes were put into circulation concerning the want of kindness of the young Empress. She was accused of being sarcastic and of making fun of old people whom age and past service ought to have preserved from the ridicule she was supposed to shower upon them. Then, again, the Czarina had the imprudence to express in public her disgust at what she called the loose manners of St. Petersburg society. She tried to become acquainted with all the gossip going about town, and declared that she was going to reform the morals of her empire, proceeding by striking off the list of invitations for a Court ball the names of all the women supposed rightly or wrongly to have had a flirtation of some kind. The result was that hardly any ladies appeared at this particular ball, with the exception of mothers with girls to bring out, and the whole of St. Petersburg rose up in arms against its Empress. It was decided to boycott her, which was done, and the Empress Mother was asked to interfere and to explain to her daughter-in-law that it was not her business to brand with any kind of stigma the names of ladies in regard to whom no open scandal had ever taken place. The incident assumed such proportions that the Czar was asked to interfere, and he decided that in future the list of invitations for Court festivities was to be submitted to his mother and not to his wife, who was still too great a stranger in Russia to know who ought or ought not to be invited to the Winter Palace.

I remember that one day whilst we were discussing the question of what kind of new clothes she would want for the coming winter, I remarked that she ought to order more evening dresses than she had done. The Empress interrupted me with the remark that she did not mean to have any more, because there would be no necessity for her to have them. I then observed that it would be a great disappointment to the many young girls about to make their appearance in society for the first time if no Court balls were given. Alexandra Feodorovna got quite angry, and, getting up with impatience, exclaimed, "I cannot understand why it is expected of me to amuse all the silly children their parents are bringing out."

Happily for her no one was present when she gave way to this fit of temper, but one may imagine how it would have been commented upon by any of her numerous enemies had they chanced to overhear it. This state of antagonism which existed between Alexandra Feodorovna and the smart set of her capital was not extended to other places. In the Crimea she liked to have people about her, as I have already related, and she even gave dances for her daughters. But though the Grand Duchess Olga had attained her eighteenth year during the winter which preceded the outbreak of the great war, her mother did not attempt to invite any one to the Palace of Czarskoi Selo to amuse her. The Empress Dowager had to arrange some entertainments in her own Anitschkoff Palace for her granddaughter's benefit, but each time they were invited to attend them there was an explosion of grief on the part of their mother which completely spoilt their pleasure. The Czarina had a morbid fear of the sharp tongues of the ladies of the capital, and she was always expecting that her daughters would be subjected to the same kind of criticism which had been applied so liberally to her own self. This she wished to guard them against. The idea was a mistaken one, because everybody admired and liked the graceful girls, who had always an amiable word for those they met, and who seemed so happy and so delighted whenever they had an opportunity of enjoying themselves like all other girls of their age.

The only person who at one time was in possession of the confidence of the Czarina to a limited degree, the Grand Duchess Anastasia, wife of the Grand Duke Nicholas, tried, without success, to get her to look upon people with more indulgence, and not in such a morbid way. My mistress would not hear reason, and at last declared that it was useless to be an Empress of Russia if one could not do what one liked, and that all she craved was the privilege to be left alone and allowed to enjoy, unrestrained, her taste for solitude.

In that respect the Empress was certainly not quite normal, and at times she most undoubtedly suffered from what is called the mania of persecution. People abroad have attributed this abnormal condition of hers to the dread of revolution, the spectre of which was supposed to haunt her constantly. This, however, was not at all the case, because long before any one had an idea that revolution might break out, my mistress was already affected by that strange fear of seeing strangers approach her. The fact is that she had become morbid, thanks to the latent dislike which she knew but too well was felt in regard to her, and which worried her to the extent that she felt disgusted with the world in general and had come to the conclusion that it was not worth while to try to conciliate it, but that the best thing to do was to avoid seeing too much of it.

People have spoken at length of her tastes for occultism and spiritism, and said that she looked for consolation for imaginary woes to the practices of turning tables and other rubbish of the same kind. Unfortunately this was true to a certain extent, because it is a sad fact that the Empress liked to sit at tables for hours in the hope that they would begin turning, and she firmly believed that people could come back from the other world and manifest themselves to their friends. But what is not so generally known is that it was the Grand Duke Nicholas, the future generalissimo of the Russian armies, who first set her to do so. He it was who brought to the Palace of Czarskoi Selo a man called Philippe, who professed to be a powerful medium, and who certainly inspired the Czarina with great confidence. For a year or two he remained in favour, then was dismissed quite suddenly because he had been found out by accident, but so completely that even Alexandra Feodorovna could not defend him.

THE CZARINA AND HER MOTHER-IN-LAW

The Japanese war, however, brought her back to Russia, and it was during its course that there happened the one great event in the life of Alexandra Feodorovna--the birth of her only son.

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