Two days after the return of the Empress from her visit to Novgorod, in
the earliest hours of December 17 (December 31, Western Calendar) was
struck the first blow of the “bloodless” Russian Revolution, the
assassination of Rasputine. On the afternoon of December 16 (December
30) I was sent by the Empress on an errand, entirely non-political, to
Rasputine’s lodgings. I went, as always, reluctantly, because I knew the
evil construction which would be placed on my errand by any of the
conspirators who happened to see me. Yet, as in duty bound, I went. I
stayed the shortest possible time, but in that brief interval I heard
Rasputine say that he expected to pay a late evening visit to the
Yusupoff Palace to meet Grand Duchess Irene, wife of Prince Felix
Yusupoff. Although I knew that Felix had often visited Rasputine it
struck me as odd that he should go to their house for the first time at
such an unseemly hour. But to my question Rasputine replied that Felix
did not wish his parents to know of his visit. As I was leaving the
place Rasputine said a strange thing to me. “What more do you want?” he
asked in a low voice. “Already you have received all.” All that his
prayers could give me? Did he mean that?
That evening in the Empress’s boudoir I mentioned this proposed
midnight visit, and the Empress said in some surprise: “But there must
be some mistake. Irene is in the Crimea, and neither of the older
Yusupoffs are in town.” Once again she repeated thoughtfully: “There is
surely a mistake,” and then we began to talk of other things. The next
morning soon after breakfast I was called on the telephone by one of the
daughters of Rasputine, both of whom were being educated in Petrograd.
In some anxiety the young girl told me that her father had gone out the
night before in the Yusupoff motor car and had not returned. I was
startled, of course, and even a little frightened, but I did not then
guess the real significance of her news. When I reached the palace I
gave the message to the Empress, who listened with a grave face but with
little comment. A few minutes later there came a telephone call from
Protopopoff in Petrograd. The police, he said, had reported to him that
some time after the last midnight a patrolman standing near the entrance
of the Yusupoff Palace had been startled by the report of a pistol.
Ringing the doorbell, he was met by a Duma member named Puritchkevitch
who appeared to be in an advanced stage of intoxication. In answer to
the policeman’s inquiry as to whether there was trouble in the house the
drunken Puritchkevitch said in a jocular tone that it was nothing,
nothing at all, only they had just killed Rasputine. The policeman,
probably a none too intelligent specimen, took it as a casual joke of
one of the high-born. They were always joking about Rasputine. The man
moved on, but somewhat later he decided that he ought to report the
matter to headquarters, which he did, but even then his superiors
appear to have been too incredulous to act at once.
Protopopoff’s message, however, so disquieted the Empress that she asked
me to summon another of her trusted friends, Mme. Dehn, whose name I
have mentioned before. Mme. Dehn came and we talked over the mystery
together, but still without conviction that Puritchkevitch’s reckless
statement contained any real truth. Later in the day, however, came a
telephone message from Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovitch, asking to be
allowed to take tea with the Empress that afternoon at five. The message
was conveyed to the Empress, who, pale and reflective, answered formally
that she did not care just then to receive his Highness. Dmitri took the
reply in bad grace, insisting that he must see the Empress as he had
something special to tell her. Again the Empress refused, this time even
more curtly. Almost immediately afterwards, almost as if the two men
were in the same room, there came a telephone message from Felix
Yusupoff asking if I would see him at tea, or later in the day if I so
preferred. I answered that the Empress did not wish me to receive any
visitors that day, whereupon Felix demanded an audience with the Empress
that he might give her a true account of what had occurred. Her
Majesty’s reply was: “If Felix has anything to say let him write to me.”
Several times before the day ended telephone messages came from Felix to
me, but none of these would the Empress allow me to answer.
Felix finally wrote a letter to the Empress. I cannot quote this letter
verbatim, but I remember exactly its contents. By the honor of his house
Prince Felix Yusupoff swore to his Sovereign Empress that the rumor of
Rasputine’s visit to his home was without any foundation whatever. He
had indeed seen Rasputine in the interests of Irene’s health, but he had
never decoyed the man to his palace, as charged. There had been a party
there, on the night in question, just a few friends, including Dmitri,
to celebrate the opening of Felix’s new apartments. All, he confessed,
became drunk, and some foolish and reckless things were said and done.
By chance, on leaving the house, one of the guests had shot a dog in the
courtyard. That was absolutely all. This letter was not answered, but
was turned over to the Minister of Justice.
Thoroughly aroused, the Empress now ordered Protopopoff to make an
investigation of the whole affair. She called into council also Minister
of War Belaieff, a good man, afterwards murdered by the Bolsheviki. The
police, at their commands, went to the deserted Yusupoff palace, first
searching for and finding the body of the dog which Felix said they had
shot. But the bullet hole in the dog’s head had let out little blood,
and when the men entered the palace they found it a veritable shambles
of blood and disorder. Evidences of a terrific struggle were found in
the downstairs study of Prince Felix, on the stairs leading to an upper
room, and in the room itself. Then, indeed, the whole power of the
police was invoked, and somebody was found to testify that in the dead
of night a motor car without any lights was seen leaving the Yusupoff
Palace and disappearing in the direction of the Neva. Winter nights in
Russia are very dark, as everyone knows, and the car was soon swallowed
up in the shadows. The river was next searched, and by a hole in the
ice, not far from Krestovsky Island, the police found a man’s golosh. By
Protopopoff’s orders divers immediately searched the hole in the ice,
and from it was soon dragged the frozen body of Rasputine. Arms and legs
were tightly bound with cords, but the unfortunate man had managed to
work loose his right hand which was frozen in a last attempt to make the
sign of the cross. The body was taken to the Chesma Hospital, where an
autopsy was performed. Although there were bullet holes in the back and
innumerable cuts and wounds all over the body, the lungs were full of
water, proving that they had thrown him alive into the icy river, and
that death had occurred by drowning.
As soon as the news became public all Petrograd burst into a wild orgy
of rejoicing. The “beast” was slain, the “evil genius” had disappeared
never to return. There was no limit to the wild hysteria of the hour. In
the midst of these demonstrations came a telephone message from
Protopopoff asking the Empress’s advice as to an immediate burial place
for the murdered man. Ultimately the body would be sent to his Siberian
village, but in the present circumstances the Minister of the Interior
thought a postponement of this advisable. The Empress agreed, and she
replied that a temporary interment might be arranged at Tsarskoe Selo.
On December 29 (January 12) the coffin, accompanied by a kind-hearted
sister of mercy, arrived at Tsarskoe. That same day the Emperor came
home from the front, and in the presence of the Imperial Family and
myself the briefest of services were held. On the dead man’s breast had
been laid an ikon from Novgorod, signed on the reverse by the Empress
and her daughters as a last token of respect. The coffin was not even
buried in consecrated ground, but in a corner of the palace park, and as
it was being lowered a few prayers were said by Father Alexander, priest
of the Imperial chapel. This is a true account of the burial of
Rasputine, about which so many fantastic tales have been embroidered.
The horror and shock caused by this lynching, for it can be called by no
other name, completely shattered the nerves of the family. The Emperor
was affected less by the deed itself than by the fact that it was the
work of members of his own family. “Before all Russia,” he exclaimed, “I
am filled with shame that the hands of my kinsmen are stained with the
blood of a simple peasant.” Before this he had often shown disgust at
the excesses of the Grand Dukes and their followers, but now he
expressed himself as being entirely through with them all.
But Yusupoff and the others were by no means through with the Rasputine
affair. Now that they had murdered and were applauded for the deed by
all society, it seemed to them that they were in a position to claim
full legal immunity. Grand Duke Alexander Michailovitch, the Emperor’s
brother-in-law, went to Dobrovolsky, Minister of Justice, and with a
good deal of swagger told him that it was the will of the family--that
is, of the Grand Dukes--that the whole matter should be quietly dropped.
The next day, December 21 (January 5), Alexander Michailovitch drove
with his oldest son to Tsarskoe Selo and, without the slightest
assumption of deference or respect, entered the Emperor’s study,
demanding, in the name of the family, that no further investigation of
the manner of Rasputine’s death be made. In a voice that could easily be
heard in the corridor outside the Grand Duke shouted that should the
Emperor refuse this demand the throne itself would fall. The Emperor’s
answer to this insolence was an order of banishment to their estates of
Nicholai Michailovitch, Felix, and Dmitri. At this the wrath of the
Grand Dukes knew no bounds. A letter blazing with anger and impudence,
signed by the whole family, was rushed to the Emperor, but his only
comment was a single sentence written on the margin: “Nobody has a right
to commit murder.” Following this came a cringing letter from Dmitri
who, like Felix, tried to lie himself out of all complicity in the
crime. On his sacred honor, he declared he had had nothing to do with
it. If the Emperor would only consent to see him he promised to
establish his innocence. But the Emperor would not consent to see
Dmitri. Pale and stern he moved through the rooms or sat so darkly
plunged in thought that none of us ventured to disturb or even to speak
to him. Into this troubled atmosphere a letter was brought to the
Emperor by the Minister of the Interior, who had a right to seize
suspicious mail matter. It was a letter written by the Princess Yusupoff
to the Grand Duchess Xenia, sister of the Tsar and mother of Felix
Yusupoff’s wife. It was a most indiscreet letter to be sent at such a
time, for it was a clear admission of the guilt of all the plotters.
Although as a mother (she wrote) she felt deeply her son’s position, she
congratulated the Grand Duchess Zenia on her husband’s conduct in the
affair.
[Illustration: THE EMPRESS AND YOUNG GRAND DUKE DMITRI, AFTERWARDS ONE
OF RASPUTINE’S ASSASSINS.]
[Illustration: MINISTER OF COURT COUNT FREDERICKS, THE EMPRESS IN HER
RECLINING CHAIR, AND GRAND DUCHESS TATIANA TAKING TEA IN THE WOODS IN
FINLAND, 1911.]
Sandro, she said, had saved the whole situation, evidently meaning that
his demand for immunity for all concerned would have to be granted. _She
was only sorry that the principals had not been able to bring their
enterprise to its desired end._ However, there remained only the task of
confining _Her_. Before the affair was finally concluded, she feared,
they might send Nicholai Nicholaievitch and Stana to their estates. How
stupid to have sent away Nicholai Michailovitch!
This was by no means the end of letters and telegrams seized by the
police and brought to the palace. Many were written by relatives and
close friends, people of the highest rank, and they all revealed a depth
of callousness and treachery undreamed of before by the unhappy
Sovereigns. When the Empress read these communications and realized that
her nearest and dearest connections were in the ranks of her enemies,
her head sank on her breast, her eyes grew dark with sorrow, and her
whole countenance seemed to wither and grow old. A few days later the
Grand Duchess Serge sent her sister several sacred ikons from the shrine
of Saratoff. The Empress, without even looking at them, ordered them
sent back to the convent of the Grand Duchess in Moscow.
I should add that from the day of the assassination of Rasputine my mail
was full of anonymous letters threatening me with death. The Empress,
perhaps more than any of us, instinctively aware of the endless
ramifications of the Rasputine affair, commanded me in terms that
admitted of no argument to leave my house and to take up residence in
the palace. Sad as I was to leave the peace of my little home, I had no
alternative than to obey, and with my maid I moved into two rooms in the
Grand Ducal wing of the palace, occupied also by maids of honor and
reached by the fourth large entrance to the palace. From that day, by
command of their Majesties, every movement of mine was closely guarded.
The soldier Jouk was assigned to my service and without him I never left
the palace even to visit my hospital. When in the February following my
only brother was married I was not allowed to attend the wedding.
Little by little, in spite of fears, the palace took on a certain air of
tranquillity. In the evenings we sat in the mauve boudoir of the
Empress; and as of old, the Emperor read aloud. At Christmas their
Majesties saw that the customary trees and gifts were sent to the
hospitals and that the usual presents were distributed to the servants.
The children too had their Christmas celebration, but over us all hung a
cloud of sorrow and of disillusionment. Never had the Emperor and
Empress of Russia, rulers of nearly two hundred million souls, seemed so
lonely or so helpless. Deserted and betrayed by their relatives,
calumniated by men who, in the eyes of the outside world, seemed to
represent the Russian people, they had no one left except a few faithful
friends, and the Emperor’s chosen ministers every one of whom was under
the ban of popular obloquy. Most of them were accused of being the
appointees of Rasputine, but this at least I am in a position to deny.
Sturmer, Minister of the Interior, and afterwards Prime Minister, was,
according to Witte, recommended to the Tsar after the assassination of
Pleve. The well-known fact that Sturmer was head of the nobility in the
Government of Tver, that he was possessed of enormous estates, and that
he had held several important positions at Court, ought to be sufficient
proof that he needed no help from Rasputine or any other man. Sturmer
was an old man, not brilliant perhaps, but certainly a man of high
principles. He was arrested by the Provisional Government, and in the
fortress suffered such frightful hardships that he died within a day
after the Government, unable to fasten on him the slightest guilt,
released him from prison. The Social Revolutionary Sokoloff, a just man,
if wrong-headed, has declared publicly that had any Constitutional
Assembly been held in Russia, the responsibility of Sturmer’s death
would have been laid upon Milukoff personally.
As for Protopopoff, he was appointed by the Emperor mainly on his record
as a confidential agent of the Duma, and as a personal representative of
Rodzianko, President of the Fourth Duma. After Protopopoff’s return from
an important foreign mission on behalf of the Duma he was presented to
the Emperor at G. H. Q., and in a letter to the Empress a few days
later, he expressed himself as delighted with the man. The appointment
was made in one of those moments of impulse characteristic of Nicholas
II, yet it must have been the result of some reflection, as it was the
Emperor’s expressed desire at this time to name a Minister of the
Interior who could work in harmony with the Duma. Protopopoff, who,
aside from his relations with Rodzianko, had for many years been a
delegate from his own Zemstvo to the Union of Zemstvos, naturally
appealed to the Emperor as an ideal popular candidate. No one could
have been more astonished than he when, almost immediately after his
appointment, Rodzianko and almost the entire majority party in the Duma
joined in a clamor for Protopopoff’s removal. The only charge I ever
heard against him was that his mind had suddenly failed. Protopopoff,
who was a man of high breeding, was nevertheless exceedingly nervous,
and I always thought, somewhat weak-willed. He was not the infirm old
man he has generally been represented, being about sixty-four years of
age with white hair and mustache and young, bright black eyes. That he
had plenty of physical and moral courage was proved by his conduct after
the Revolution. Walking to the door of the council chamber of the Duma
he announced himself thus: “I am Protopopoff. Arrest me if you like.” He
was arrested by orders of Rodzianko, but was released later, only to
meet death by the bullets of the Bolsheviki. That Protopopoff was on
friendly terms with Rasputine is true, but that Rasputine had anything
to do with his appointment, or with his retention in office after the
attack by the Duma, is simply absurd.
Maklakoff, Minister of the Interior before Protopopoff, was a former
governor of Chernigoff. The Emperor met him in the course of a journey
to the famous fête of Poltava, a jubilee of the wars of Peter the Great.
The acquaintance was made in the leisure of a boat trip, and the
Emperor, in another of his fits of impulsiveness, decided that he had
found an ideal Minister of the Interior. Their friendship deepened with
time, and the Emperor found great satisfaction in his new minister’s
reports, which he declared reflected his own point of view. Nothing
against the administration of Maklakoff was ever even whispered until
late in 1914, when Nicholai Nicholaievitch, as supreme commander of the
Russian forces in the field, suddenly demanded his demission. Grand Duke
Nicholas, it must be said, continually interfered with the affairs of
the interior government, with which as military chief he had nothing
whatever to do, but in the early days of the War the Emperor seemed to
think it the part of wisdom to suffer this irregularity. Reluctantly he
yielded to the request for Maklakoff’s demission, saying to him with
genuine regret: “They demand it, and at such a time I cannot stand
against them.”
In the place of Maklakoff was named Tcherbatkoff, a friend and protégé
of Nicholai Nicholaievitch, a man whose former office had been head of
the remount department of the State. Doubtless he knew a great deal
about horses, but of the interior affairs of State he knew so little
that even the influence of Grand Duke Nicholas was powerless to retain
him in office longer than two months.
Tcherbatkoff was followed by Khvostoff who, previous to his appointment,
was an entire stranger to Rasputine. Khvostoff had made a record as
governor of Nizjni Novgorod, and afterwards as a vigorous anti-German
orator in the Duma. He was also supposed to be a devoted friend of the
Imperial Family. Soon after his appointment Khvostoff began sedulously
to cultivate the friendship of Rasputine, and it is a matter of police
record that this Minister of the Interior frequently played on
Rasputine’s unfortunate weakness for drink. Possibly he thought that by
getting the poor man intoxicated he could worm from him the many Court
secrets he was supposed to possess. Failing in this Khvostoff began,
with the help of Chief of Police Belezky, a plot against Rasputine which
nearly succeeded in the latter’s assassination. This being discovered
the demission of Khvostoff became imperative.
Soukhomlinoff, who when I knew him was an old man of seventy-five, was a
former military governor of Kiev, and before his appointment as Minister
of War, had been a great favorite of the Emperor. That he showed
brilliant ability in the mobilization of the Russian Army in 1914 was
admitted by the Allied Governments, and in fact no intrigue against him
developed until some time after the beginning of the War. His principal
enemies were Grand Duke Nicholas, General Polivanoff, and the notorious
Goutchkoff. In my opinion their propaganda against him was instigated
solely with the object of impairing the prestige of the Emperor. The
crimes laid at the door of Soukhomlinoff were almost countless. He was
accused of withholding ammunition from the armies, of harboring German
spies in his house, and in general of being completely incapable of
performing his duties of office. Of him the English historian Wilton
says that time alone will prove whether the odium of the Russian war
scandals rested on Soukhomlinoff or on Grand Duke Nicholas. At all
events it was poor old Soukhomlinoff who was arrested, tried before a
tribunal of the Provisional Government, and sentenced to life
imprisonment. His young wife, who was arrested with him, occupied a cell
next to mine in the Fortress of Peter and Paul, and without regard to
the charges brought against her, I had reason constantly to admire the
courage and self-possession with which she bore the hardships of prison
life. So great was her dignity and self-command that she became
universally respected by the soldiers, and I am confident that this
alone saved us both from far worse indignities than those which we were
called upon to bear. In prison Mme. Soukhomlinoff managed to keep
herself constantly occupied. She wrote and read whenever writing
materials and books were procurable, and her clever fingers fashioned
out of scraps of the miserable prison bread really beautiful sprays of
flowers. For coloring matter she used the paint from a moldering blue
stripe on the walls of her cell, and scraps of red paper in which tea
was wrapped. After months of imprisonment, bravely endured, Mme.
Soukhomlinoff was brought to trial before a court of the Provisional
Government. Her examination was of the most searching character, but at
its close she left the courtroom fully acquitted, to the applause of the
numerous spectators. Taking advantage of an amnesty pronounced some time
later Mme. Soukhomlinoff got her aged husband released from prison and
saw him safely to Finland. It is rather an anticlimax to the story that
after so many trials borne together the marriage of the Soukhomlinoffs
was dissolved, Mme. Soukhomlinoff marrying a young Georgian officer with
whom she later perished under the Bolshevist terror.
One more person of whom I can speak with knowledge was, although not a
minister, falsely alleged to be an appointee of Rasputine. This was the
Metropolitan Pitirim, a man of impeccable honesty and very liberal
views regarding Church administration. The Emperor met him in late 1914
on one of his visits to the Caucasus, Pitirim then being Exarch of
Georgia. Not only the Emperor but his entire suite were enchanted by the
charming manners, the piety, and learning of the Exarch, and when, a
little later, the Empress met the Emperor at Veronesh, he told her that
he had Pitirim in mind for Metropolitan of Petrograd. Almost immediately
after his appointment the propagandists began to connect his elevation
with the Rasputine influence, but the truth is that the two men were
never at any time on terms of more than formal acquaintanceship. As for
their Majesties, they liked and respected Pitirim but he never was an
intimate member of their household. Practically all their conversations
which I overheard concerned the state of the Church in Georgia, which
Pitirim insisted was lower than in other parts of the Empire. The Church
of Georgia, Pitirim alleged, received too little support from the State,
although it deserved as much if not more than others, because Georgian
Christianity is the oldest in all Russia. According to tradition this
Church was established by the Holy Virgin herself who, after a shipwreck
off Mount Athos, visited Georgia, converted its chiefs and established
the first Christian temple. Pitirim was essentially a churchman, yet he
always advocated a certain separation of Church and State. That is, he
desired the establishment of a parish system whereby the support of the
Church should be the responsibility of the people rather than of the
Imperial Government. Unworldly to the last degree, he nevertheless came
in for his full share of slander and abuse. After my arrest by the
Provisional Government my mother visited Kerensky in my behalf, and was
astounded when he brutally told her that one of the charges against me
was that all my diamonds were gifts from Pitirim, the inference being
that we were on unduly intimate terms.
Another high personage to whom I wish to pay the tribute of just
appreciation is Count Fredericks, chief minister of the Court. This
honorable gentleman had spent almost his entire life in the service of
the Imperial Family, having first been attached to the person of
Alexander III. Nicholas II and his family he served with ability,
discretion, and rare devotion. In virtue of his office he had to deal
personally with the affairs of the Grand Dukes, their complicated
financial transactions, their morganatic marriages, and other
confidential affairs. Everyone, except those of the Grand Dukes who with
reason had earned his contempt, loved this charming man whom their
Majesties usually spoke of as “our old man.” Count Fredericks, in his
turn, always called them “_mes enfants_.” His house was to me for many
years a second home, his daughters, the elder Mme. Voyeikoff, and the
younger one, Emma, being among my dearest friends. Emma, who suffered a
painful curvature of the spine, had the compensation of a rarely
beautiful singing voice with which she often charmed the Emperor and
Empress. Count Fredericks was arrested by the Provisional Government,
but owing to his great age, was afterwards released.
The charge has often been brought against Nicholas II that he
surrounded himself with inferior men. The fact of the case is that in
the beginning of his reign he chose as his chief advisers men of ability
and integrity who had been friends of his father, Alexander III. Later
he chose men who in his opinion were the best ones available, and it
must be admitted that there were few men of first-class ability among
whom he could choose. The events of the War and the Revolution prove
this, for neither of these two terrible emergencies produced in Russia a
single man of conspicuous merit. Not one real leader appeared then nor
in the years which have since elapsed. Truly has a distinguished
American writer pointed out that never could Bolshevism and its insane
philosophy have taken such strong roots in Russia, had not the soil been
previously so well prepared. Every Russian who really loved his country
must admit the truth of this statement. Too many exiled Russians,
however, still cling to the delusion that some outside influence was the
cause of their country’s downfall. Let them acknowledge the truth that
it was Russians themselves, especially Russians of the privileged
classes, who principally are responsible for the catastrophe. For years
before the Revolution the national spirit was in a state of decline. Few
men or women cherished ideals of duty for duty’s sake. Patriotism was
practically extinct. Family life was weakened, and in the last days, the
morale of the whole people was lower than in almost any other country of
the civilized world.
May the blood of the thousands of innocents who have perished in War and
Revolution wipe out the sins of the old hard-hearted and decadent
Russia. May the millions still living, in exile and under Communist
oppression, learn that only by repentance and by toleration of others’
weaknesses can there be any possibility of a restoration of national
life. Not by any outside help but by our own efforts, by loyal Russians
coming together, not as political groups but as compatriots, can great
Russia rise again out of her shame and desolation and become once more a
nation among the nations of the earth.