CHAPTER IX

Rasputin, taken individually, did not deserve any notice. He was

never in possession of the influence which was attributed to him,

and his voice was never preponderant in the councils of the Czar. It

served the interests of those whose tool he had become to spread the

notion that he had acquired it, and that, thanks to the religious

enthusiasm which he had contrived to arouse among a certain small

circle of influential men and women, he had installed himself in the

confidence of his Sovereign. Unfortunately for Russia, these people not

only had accomplices in their evil deeds, but also had the means to

spread their opinions among the public and the ability to make these

opinions penetrate into all the different classes of the nation. They

discredited the Imperial family; they discredited the Government of the

day; they discredited the monarch, until it became at last a political,

and I shall even say a national, necessity to suppress them, together

with the adventurer whom they had put forward and thanks to whom they

had been able to play unmolested for so many years the most nefarious

of games.

Unfortunately, the slaying of Rasputin did not destroy the persons

who had used him. It did not put an end to the many abuses which had

brought Russia to the sad state of chaos in which it found itself at

the moment of its great trial. The man himself was but an ensign, and

the loss of an ensign does not mean that the regiment that carried it

about has shared its fate.

Rasputin was the last representative of the old régime. His appearance

on the horizon of Russian social life was but the last flicker of a

detestable past. During his time of favour and of success the two

forces that struggled for supremacy in the land of his birth fought

their last battle, in which he was the stake. We must rejoice that it

was not the force which he was supposed to incarnate in his enigmatical

and mysterious person that remained master of the field. Whether he

would have been killed under different circumstances is a question to

which it would be very difficult to find a reply. Most probably the

spirit of mysticism which lies at the bottom of the Slav character

would have prevented even his worst enemies, let alone his simple

adversaries, from trying to remove him from the position into which he

had been thrust. They would most likely have shrugged their shoulder

and waited for that intervention of St. Nicolas, who, according to

Russian traditions, always arrives at the right moment, to put straight

everything that has gone wrong.

The peril in which Russia found herself placed gave energy even to

those to whom that quality had hitherto been unknown, and it was felt

everywhere that, together with the Fatherland, the Czar ought to be

saved from a danger of which, perhaps, he did not himself realise the

real importance. Rasputin, and especially Rasputin’s followers, had

worked as hard as they could to make Russia’s Allies, and especially

England, unpopular with the Russian nation. He paid with his life for

the attempt, and one can only rejoice that such was the case. As things

stand at present, it is principally toward Great Britain and America

that Russia must look for its salvation. What I am writing to-day

has been my earnest and deep conviction for long years, and I have

preached it not only since the beginning of this war in all the books

and articles which I have written, but also long before any one ever

thought or suspected that the day would come when the English Union

Jack and the Stars and Stripes would float beside the Russian flag and

the French Tricolor on the same battlefields, united against one common

enemy. I have always considered that in human life, as well as in the

existence of nations, it is essential to recognise the superiority

of others where this superiority exists, and that true civilisation

consists in assimilating to oneself with gratitude the virtues of

other nations, whose example one ought to follow instead of trying to

ridicule. Russia, with all its vast resources and with its immense

territory, would do well to imitate England and the United States in

their immense work of culture and to call the latter countries to her

help in developing her own national existence on proper and useful

bases. In doing so she would not abase herself; she would only prove

that she was great enough to admire the greatness of others.

It is certain that if Anglo-Saxon influence had been so dominant in

Russia in the past as it is to be hoped it will remain in the future,

we should not have seen occur in Petrograd incidents like those

connected with the career of Rasputin. We should not have witnessed all

these perpetual changes of Ministers, over which Germany has rejoiced

with such evident relish. We should not have heard people defy the

authority of the Czar, as unfortunately has been the case.

We former monarchists, who have been brought up in the old traditions

of loyalty to bygone days, have often been accused by this crew of

adventurers of harbouring revolutionary ideas. They have reproached us

with the spirit of criticism that has sometimes induced and prompted

us to speak out what we thought and to lay blame where blame was due;

to criticise where criticism was almost a national necessity. Time

shall prove whether we have been mistaken. It seems to me, however,

that as English ideals and English respect for individual liberty and

individual opinions become more and more familiar to Russians and

penetrate into the Russian mind, the public, will acknowledge that we

have not been so very wrong when we have raised our voices against

the importance which individuals such as Rasputin have been allowed

to take in our society and in our governmental circles, and against

this corrupt system of administration, which, thanks to its crawling,

flattering propensities, caused our people to kneel at his feet with

the idea that by doing so they were pleasing the higher authorities,

who most of the time knew nothing about the developments for which this

intrigue was responsible. Russia has still something oriental about

her, and in some respects she resembles the Greek empire which fell

under the blows dealt at it by the power of Islam. It needs new life

and new blood in its veins. It requires the support of this strong,

earnest British civilisation, which is, perhaps, the most beautiful the

world has ever known.

I have always been accused of being too pro-English in my ideas and

opinions. If being pro-English means the wish to see my country

freed from the abuses, the existence of which has prevented her from

developing herself on the road of a progress embodied in the respect of

the individual, together with the institutions that rule him, such as

Great Britain has known for so many centuries, then I will willingly

confess it, I am pro-English. I feel sure that all good Russians share

my feelings. We have had enough of the German Kultur and of German

intrigues. They it is that have brought my beloved Fatherland to the

brink of ruin. The whole sad incident of Rasputin’s rise and fall

has been the result of German interference, and it would never have

assumed the proportions to which it rose if the German press had not

exaggerated it and German spies spoken about it, not only abroad, but

also in Russia itself.

When thinking about this story, which savours in some of its details

of superstitions of the Middle Ages, one must always remember what

I said at the beginning of this sketch of the career of a man whom

circumstances and the hatred of our enemies transformed into a kind

of monster devouring all that it touched. This fact is that Russia

is still the land of many surprises, because of its tendency toward

mysticism, always so strong in all the Slav races. Before Rasputin

appeared there had been other sectarians who had drawn thousands of

men and women around them and who had inspired crowds with feelings

of fanaticism in no wise different from the ones which the modern

“Prophet,” as some called him, the modern Cagliostro, as others had

nicknamed him, had evoked in the breasts of the simple-minded people

whose confidence he had abused and whose spirit of superstition he had

impressed. But these had remained strictly in the field of religion and

had not meddled with any other questions. They had grouped around them

only persons convinced of the truth of their teachings, while Rasputin

had gathered about him men determined to use him for the benefit

of their money-seeking, money-grubbing schemes; men who saw in the

misfortunes that had fallen upon their Fatherland only the possibility

to enrich themselves at her expense. They would not have sacrificed the

smallest things for her welfare; far less would they have given up the

chance to add to the ill-gotten gains they were daily accumulating.

Without those persons the whole story of Rasputin would have ended in

ridicule. Thanks to them and to their rapacity, it finished in blood.

It was, after all, the aristocracy that finally got rid of Rasputin,

perhaps to the great relief of many persons who out of weakness, or

let us say kindness, had hesitated before taking the strong measure

of sending him away where it would have been difficult for him to do

any more mischief. And it is doubtful whether his removal anywhere

than to a place whence there existed no possibility for him to return

would have stopped the evil which the very mention of his name alone

was sufficient to cause. Credulous persons exist everywhere and will

always exist; timorous ones also abound in the world. Even if Rasputin

had been exiled it would have been relatively easy for those who

reaped such a rich harvest out of the blood and the tears of the whole

Russian nation to attribute to him powers which he did not possess,

to threaten with his vengeance the persons who might refuse to lend

themselves to their dirty schemes. He would have been a perpetual

menace suspended over the heads of those who would have tried to rebel

against the directions issued by the enterprising scoundrels who abused

the prestige which his so-called holiness had won for a man who in

other times and in another country would not have arrested for a single

moment the attention of any one, let alone the crowds.

Rasputin is dead! Let us hope that his former supporters have lost,

together with him, their audacity and their power of doing mischief.

But to say that he was ever a paramount strength in Russian politics is

an error which I have tried to correct as far as lay within my power.

Rasputin’s story is simpler than many persons think, and perhaps the

best explanation that can be given of it is to be found in the Book of

Esther in the Bible, a careful perusal of which is recommended to those

who are interested in the character of Rasputin.

PART II

THE GREAT REVOLUTION

CHAPTER I

On the 15th day of May, 1896, Moscow was celebrating the Coronation

of the Czar Nicholas II. of Russia. In the large courtyard inside the

Kremlin, an immense crowd was gathered, awaiting the moment when the

Sovereign together with his Consort would come out of the Cathedral of

the Assumption, to make the customary round of the different shrines

and churches, which according to the ancient custom, they had to visit

after they had assumed the old Crown of the Russian Autocrats. Among

this crowd, there were persons who remembered having witnessed the same

kind of ceremony thirteen years before, when Alexander III. had been

standing in his son’s place. What a splendid apparition it had been

that of this Czar, gigantic in stature, whose quiet and strong features

seemed in their placidity to be a true personification of the might of

that Empire at the head of which he stood. One had hoped at that time,

that he would preside over the destinies of his Realm for long years to

come, and no one had given a thought to the possibility that he would

so soon be lying in his coffin. Now it was with mixed feelings of pity,

combined with a sympathy which already was no longer so strong as it

had been when he had ascended the throne, that all were awaiting the

new Monarch, who had become in his turn the chief of the old House of

Romanoff, so that when the golden gates of the Assumption were thrown

open to give passage to the procession which was escorting Nicholas

II. all the heads of the numerous people gathered in honour of the

occasion, under the shade of the ancient belfrey of Ivan Weliky, turned

with an anxious curiosity towards the Sovereign about to show himself

for the first time before his people, in the full pomp of his Imperial

dignity.

What did one see? A young man thin and slim, who seemed to be entirely

crushed under the weight of the massive crown which was reposing on his

head, and of the heavy robe of cloth of gold, lined with ermine, which

was thrown upon his shoulders. He was tottering as he walked along,

and his pale, tired face, together with his uncertain steps, bore no

resemblance whatever to the firm and superb countenance of his father

thirteen years before. As he reached the door of the Church of the

Holy Archangels, one noticed that he suddenly stopped, as if unable to

proceed any further, completely worn out by the fatigue of the long

ceremony that had come to an end a few moments before, and the hand

which was holding the sceptre, enriched with precious stones, which

the Metropolitan of Moscow had just handed to him, dropped down at his

side, whilst the symbol of might and of power which it was holding,

escaped from its grasp. Chamberlains and lords in waiting hastened to

pick it up, and the crowd never noticed what had occurred, but those

who had witnessed the incident, were deeply impressed by it, and

different rumours began to circulate in regard to it, rumours which

would have it that it was a bad omen, whilst persons well up in the

study of history, and especially in that of foreign countries tried to

find an analogy between it, and the remark made by Louis XVI. on the

day of his Coronation at Rheims, when he had complained that his crown

was hurting him, and felt too heavy for his head.

A few days later there happened another event, which reminded one of

a similar coincidence between the life of the unfortunate King whose

head was to fall on the scaffold of the Champs Elysées, and that of

Nicholas II. It occurred during the popular feast which is always

given in Moscow after the Coronation of a Czar. A crowd amounting to

several thousands of men and women, some say three hundred thousand,

had gathered together on a field known by the name of Khodinka Plain,

in the immediate neighbourhood of the town, to be present at it, when

suddenly a panic which was never accounted for nor explained, seized

this multitude, and about twenty thousand human creatures were crushed

to death in the short space of a few minutes. The emotion produced by

this disaster among all the different classes of society was very deep

and terrible. The only person who accepted it with calm and even with

indifference, if the reader will forgive me for this expression, was

the Czar himself, who, however, and this is a justice which I must

render to him, only heard much later the whole extent of the disaster,

but who at the same time, did not try to learn anything definite about

it, on the day when it took place, and who, under the direct influence

of his Consort, gave directions to reply to the French Ambassador, the

Comte de Montebello, who had enquired whether he ought to postpone the

ball he was giving that same night, that “he did not see any necessity

for doing so.”

This answer became known at once, and it traced between the Monarch and

his subjects one of these white lines which in a tennis ground marks

the antagonistic camps, and out of two players makes two enemies ...

and this line went on getting wider and wider as time went on. It still

existed when Nicholas II. abdicated, but it had then become an abyss.

In general there is nothing sadder in the world than a misunderstanding

between two people both possessed of good intentions towards each

other. It is something worse than a discussion, worse than a quarrel,

and even worse than hatred, because it is the only thing which sound

reasoning cannot conquer, and which is bound to go on aggravating

itself from day to day. How much worse therefore is a thing of the kind

when it has established itself between a nation and those who rule it.

The great, the supreme misfortune of Nicholas II. consisted in the

fact that he never could understand his people or their wants, whilst

Russia on the other hand was, through circumstances independent of its

will, brought to distrust the real feelings harboured by the Czar in

regard to its welfare, and to indulge in comparisons which certainly

were not to his advantage, between him and the Sovereign to whom he had

succeeded, who had possessed the full confidence of his subjects.

This fatality which has dogged all the footsteps of the Emperor who

abdicated a year ago, from the very first moment that he had ascended

his Throne, can be partly attributed to the defective education

which he had received, together with the deplorable weakness of his

character; and partly to the state of absolute subjection in which

he had been kept first by his father, during the whole time of the

latter’s life, and later on by his wife, together with the complete

ignorance in which he remained in regard to the wants, the aspirations,

needs and character of his people. He was a despot by temperament,

perhaps because he had never seen anything else but despotism around

him, and perhaps because he had got a mistaken idea in regard to the

duties which devolved upon him. He had always been told that he ought

to uphold intact the principle of autocracy, thanks to which his

predecessors had maintained themselves upon the throne. He had seen

Alexander III. adopt him with these principles with success, and he

had forgotten, or rather he had never known, that in order to be a

successful autocrat, one must neither prove oneself a tyrant, nor an

oppressor of people’s consciences and opinions. His first steps as a

Sovereign had hurt all the feelings of loyalty of his subjects. Among

the many addresses of congratulation that had been presented to him on

the occasion of his marriage and of his accession to the Throne, there

had been one from the Zemstvo or local assembly of the government of

Tver, a town which was known to be very liberal in its opinions, in

which was expressed the hope that the Monarch would try to govern his

people with the help and with the co-operation of these same Zemstvos

or local assemblies, the aim of which was the improvement of the local

conditions of existence of the population of the different governments

or provinces of the Russian Empire. There was absolutely nothing that

was revolutionary in this address. Unfortunately there happened to

be in the vicinity of the young Empress a person whose influence had

always been perniciously exercised, whenever it had manifested itself:

the Princess Galitzyne, her Mistress of the Robes. Out of a feeling of

personal dislike, or rather hatred, against one of the signatories of

this document, which, on account of the consequences that followed upon

its composition, became historical, Princess Galitzyne explained to the

Sovereign at the head of whose household she stood, that this appeal

in favour of a liberal system of government ought to be discouraged,

if not crushed, at once. Alexandra Feodorovna was then beginning to

acquire the absolute power over her consort’s mind, which she was never

to lose in the future, and she spoke to him of the matter suggested by

the Princess, on the very day that different deputations, coming from

all parts of Russia to express their good wishes to the young Imperial

couple, were about to be received by them in the Winter Palace.

Nicholas II. has never in his whole life had an opinion of his own,

but he has shown himself enthusiastic for all those that have been

suggested to him. He promised his wife “to say something,” which would

put into their proper place the people daring enough to dream of

anything likely to diminish his own power or prerogatives. He forgot,

however, one thing, perhaps the most important one, and that was

that these persons he was about to see, were not at all those who had

signed the unlucky address, of which it would have been far better for

everybody to forget the text as soon as possible. The result of this

first intervention of the Empress in affairs of State which did not

concern her is but too well known. The Czar instead of thanking the

people who had come to lay at his feet the expression of their loyalty,

declared to them that they ought never to “indulge in any senseless

‘dreams.’” The words were repeated everywhere, and ran from mouth to

mouth in the whole of Russia. They inflicted on the young popularity of

Nicholas II. a blow from the effects of which it never recovered.

This was the prologue of the tragedy which came to an end, if it has

done so, with the signature of the Manifesto of Pskov. After this rise

of the curtain was to begin a drama, all the different acts of which

appear to us shrouded in bloody clouds.

One questions at present whether this drama could have had a different

end from the one which we are witnessing, or whether the historical

evolution that has been accomplished in the course of the last few

months in Russia could have been avoided, or at least otherwise

directed. Personally I believe it to have been unavoidable, but it

could have unfurled itself with dignity, if the Crown had consented

to concessions which would have taken nothing away from its greatness

or importance, but which would on the contrary have lent to it a new

lustre. In any case it would have been possible for autocracy to

die, or better still, to live otherwise. No matter what reproaches

could have been addressed to the Romanoffs in the past, no matter the

injustices and the cruelties they had committed in the course of their

family history, there is one thing which cannot be taken away from

them, and that is that they have all of them been strong and courageous

men, incapable of trembling before the attacks of any enemies, however

powerful, or before the fury of a revolted mob. Nicholas II. was the

first one among them who proved himself unable to inspire either love

or hatred in his subjects, and for whom they held nothing but contempt,

because they very quickly grasped the fact that he would never be able

to give to himself or to others an account of the position he stood in,

or to realise the tragedy of his own fate.

People who knew him well have wondered whether he ever understood what

his duty really meant. I think, however, from the personal knowledge

which I have of his character, that in a certain way he wished to do

what was right, but I doubt whether he knew the responsibilities of

his position, and the fact that he ought to put the interests of the

State before those of his own family. For him his wife and children

held the first place, and were the first objects of his consideration.

This would have been a virtue in a private person, but it could easily

assume the proportions of a crime in a sovereign.

[Illustration:

_Copyright, International Film Service, Inc._ (_Courtesy

Seattle Times._)

THE FIRST BOLSHEVIKI CABINET]

His father had left to him a splendid inheritance, which he might

have kept intact with a little care, and very small trouble. Before

the Japanese war it might have been still possible for him to rule

his country autocratically, though not despotically; but after

Moukhden and Tschousima, and especially after the revolution which

followed upon these two catastrophes, and which would have been hardly

possible, had they not occurred, the thing became more difficult,

if not impossible, because the Russian nation had begun to wonder

at the causes that had brought about these terrible disasters, the

consequences of which had been the loss of Russian prestige in the Far

East, and even in Europe. It would, however, still have been possible

to save something out of the former form of government, if a serious

and honest appeal had been made to the nation to help to consolidate

its strength, and if an attempt had been made to modify it according

to the exigencies of the times and of the moment. But after the famous

day which saw rivers of blood flow in the streets of St. Petersburg,

and the wholesale slaying of thousands of innocent workmen, whose only

crime had consisted in wishing to lay their grievances before their

Czar, every attempt to keep up the old order of things was bound to

fail. Something else had to be tried to save the dynasty together with

the country, but not the granting of a so-called Constitution, which

it had been determined beforehand to leave a dead letter. If on the

occasion I have just referred to, Nicholas II. had found sufficient

courage to meet his people face to face, and to speak with them as

his great grandfather had done on an occasion far more critical even

than the ones which prevailed in 1905, it is likely that the divorce

which finally separated him from his subjects would never have taken

place. But he went to Tsarskoie Selo as soon as he heard there was

likely to be trouble in his capital, forgetting everything else but

his own personal safety, which, by the way, had never been seriously

threatened. He proved himself to be a coward, and cowardice is the

last thing which a nation forgives in those who rule it. The Czar lost

in consequence of his conduct every prestige he had left. And he also

lost the respect of Russia, owing to the shameless corruption which

established itself everywhere during his reign, when at last everything

under the sun could be bought or sold in the country, to begin with, a

Court appointment, and to end with, the highest functions in the State.

The Emperor was unable to refuse anything to those whom he liked, and

he never grasped this essential fact, that when one gives too easily

and without discernment, it inevitably follows that one also allows

people to take what perhaps one would never have granted, had one

thought about it.

Alexander III. had been just as generous as his son showed himself

to be later on. But his generosity was only exercised in regard to

what belonged to him personally, whilst no one was more careful than

this sovereign of the public exchequer. He had seen what corruption

meant during his own father’s reign, when abuses had also prevailed,

which though in no way comparable to those that established themselves

towards the close of the one which has come to an end a year ago,

were still sufficiently grave and serious to cause anxiety to a

Monarch eager and anxious for the welfare of his State. He therefore

had applied himself to put an end to them, and knowing as he did,

admirably well the character of the Russian nation, he took up morally

the famous stick of Peter the Great, with which he dealt at times

most severe blows to those whom he believed to be in need of them.

The result of this system made itself felt within a very short time,

and when Alexander III. died, the old custom of taking bribes, which

had been formerly so prevalent in Russia, had nearly died out, or at

least existed upon such a small scale that it could no longer do any

harm. But under Nicholas II. the old evil was revived, and finding no

obstacle in its path, it soon assumed most unheard of proportions,

and became at last a regular institution. Soon everything in the vast

Empire of the Czars was put up at public auction, everything could be

purchased or sold, and everything became buyable, provided a sufficient

price was offered for it. The Emperor knew nothing, and saw nothing,

and no one dared to tell him anything, whilst many unscrupulous persons

found it to their advantage to profit by the changes that had taken

place to enrich themselves quickly and with very little trouble. The

whole country was seized with a perfect fever of speculation, and with

the frantic desire to win millions as rapidly as possible. When I say

the whole country, this is not quite exact, because it was not the

country, but only some people in it, who, thanks to the position which

they occupied, or to their relations in influential circles, found

themselves able to take a part in this general plundering. The Japanese

war which was to have such a sad end, was entirely brought about

through certain concessions being granted by the Russian government on

the River Yalou which never belonged to the Russian State, to a number

of persons who hoped to transform them into shareholders’ companies,

and to make money out of them. They had bribed officials who persuaded

the Emperor to sign the decree which was presented to him, of which

he failed to see the importance or the meaning, or the strange light

in which it put him, to distribute thus what he did not possess, and

what had still to be taken away from the Japanese government before

it could be disposed of. This war, one cannot sufficiently repeat it,

was brought about willingly and knowingly, by people who saw in it an

opportunity to enrich themselves at the expense of their fatherland,

thanks to the ammunitions and provisions they would be able to deliver

for the use of the army in the field, and which that army never got at

all. The system of an organised plundering which in the present war has

had such mournful and such tragical consequences, was then inaugurated

with a success that went far beyond the most sanguine expectations of

those who indulged in it. Huge fortunes were made in the space of a few

months whilst our troops were in want of everything, and enduring cold,

hunger and thirst. The Czar remained in utter ignorance of all that was

being done in his name. He never suspected anything. But his people

never forgave him for this indifference to its fate. One sees it to-day.

One wonders what was in the mind of this Sovereign, who having ascended

the throne amidst so many sympathies, had contrived to lose them within

the space of a few months! Did he ever realise the importance of the

ocean of unpopularity which was submerging him slowly, and the waves

of which were rising higher and higher, with each day that passed? One

would like to know it now, when one tries to go back to the sources of

the tragedy to which he has fallen a victim. Or was his character so

shallow and so careless, that he only looked at the outside of things,

and could not appreciate their real depth? He was of a very reticent

nature and disposition, and rarely confided in any one, not even in

his wife, whose inspiration and advice he was nevertheless to follow

so blindly. And the tastes for solitude which he was to develop so

strongly later on soon brought him to lead a kind of existence that can

be compared only to that of the Mikado of Japan, before the reforms

that were to change everything in that country.

That he was surrounded by flatterers goes without saying, but he could

nevertheless have manifested some desire to learn the truth, and not

have been so continually busy with the exclusive wish to maintain his

own authority, which in spite of his efforts to the contrary, no one

in the whole of Russia either respected or feared. All the concessions

which politically were squeezed out of him, came too late, or else

were accepted by him at the wrong time. Even when he seemed in the

eyes of the public to be following the advice which was given to him

by disinterested and honest persons, he tried in an underhand way to

counteract the efficacy of the measures he had himself ordered to be

taken, and whenever he resigned himself to the inevitable, he did not

understand the reason why he was so doing.

With it all he was in some respects an intelligent man. He cared for

good reading, for arts, for music, for all the things which help to

make out of life a pleasant thing for irresponsible individuals. He was

fond of study, very painstaking, but ignorant, and doing all that was

required of him, in an almost automatic manner; kind, it is true, but

incapable of coming to any serious resolution or determination of his

own accord; devoid of political sense, occasionally most obstinate,

and, unfortunately for him as well as for his country and dynasty, he

had the misfortune in all the circumstances when a sacrifice of some

fraction of his Imperial prerogatives came into question, not to be

able to understand either his people or the times he was living in, and

to have no thought for anything else but the safety of his own family,

forgetting utterly that his country and its welfare ought to have come

before them.

When he resigned himself to grant that shadow of a constitution, the

advent of which was hailed with such enthusiasm by the whole of Russia,

he might still, had he liked, have regained some part at least, of

his lost popularity. His personal prestige, or rather that of the

position he stood in, was still so great among the nation, that it

would have felt gratitude toward him, for every favour he would have

chosen to confer upon it, if only he had not taken back all that he

had given, almost immediately after he had awarded it. It is quite

certain that the first Duma committed many errors, but it should have

been remembered that no human achievement can reach perfection at

once; and the excitement and effervescence that had followed upon the

opening of the first Russian Parliament ought to have been allowed to

cool down, and been given sufficient time to make an honest trial of

its rights and privileges. At the period I am referring to, and this

notwithstanding all that was said to the contrary, a revolution like

the one which took place the other day, would have been an impossible

thing, because the Sovereign could still rely upon the army, and it

would have been better for him had he always leant upon it rather than

upon the low crowd of state functionaries with which he was exclusively

surrounded and out of which his wife had picked her favourites. He

might have checked the then rising tide of radicalism with which he

found himself unable to cope later on, and in the strength of which he

was to remain to the end mistaken, because he dreaded it when it was

not dangerous, and imagined that he had subdued it, at the very moment

when it had become, thanks to his own errors, and to his own faults,

sufficiently strong to carry him away on its waves.

Such a thorough weakness of character was bound to bring about the most

serious consequences, and these did not fail to produce themselves. If

Nicholas II. had had beside him a wife able to lead him, to advise him,

to open his eyes which perhaps he did not quite close, but which he

was never to succeed in keeping sufficiently open, and to show him not

only the perils which surrounded him (these she never forgot to point

out to him in an exaggerated manner), but also to bring to his notice

his duties towards his subjects, he might have become a Sovereign like

any other, neither better nor worse, insignificant perhaps, but never

really dangerous for his country or for his dynasty. Even if that wife

he was so devoted to had wished not to identify herself with State

affairs, had kept outside them, and not surrounded herself with people

lost to every sense of shame, he might have come out of the numerous

difficulties with which he found himself confronted, if not exactly

to his honour and credit, at least without losing too much of his

prestige. But Alexandra Feodorovna was the fatal and dissolving element

which destroyed, thanks to her attitude and conduct, every scrap of

respect for the Sovereign, and who inspired in the whole of the nation

the desire to get rid of an authority in which it believed no longer,

and in which it saw only an obstacle in the way of its development and

of its historical evolution. The Empress understood even less than her

husband the state of mind of his subjects; she raised between him and

them a barrier which nothing could destroy, because it was made out of

the contempt which they both inspired in the whole of Russia.

There is one curious thing contrasting with the facility with which

Nicholas II. accepted the opinions of others, and with his total

absence of personal initiative; and that is the persistence with which

he maintained himself during the whole time that his reign lasted, in

one line of conduct which never varied in regard to the determination

to govern his country in a despotic sense, and which was the more

singular that he never knew the meaning of real authority. He always

kept listening to those who represented to him that the first duty of

a Russian Emperor consisted in keeping up the prestige of the police

before the mass of the citizens. Under no reign in Russia, if we

except the dark period of the Opritschnikys under Ivan the Terrible,

did the police play such an important part in public life, or become

guilty of more abuses and of more malversations of every kind. I

will not mention here the horrors which took place during and after

the revolution of 1905, when no one felt secure against an anonymous

denunciation, the consequences of which might be that one saw oneself

exiled in Siberia, simply because one had not sufficiently bribed

the police officer in charge of the district where one lived; but

later on, even after things had calmed down, the might of what was

called the Okhrana, remained just as formidable as it had been before.

Literally no one could feel safe under this so-called liberal Czar,

whilst under the reign of his father everybody possessed of a good and

clear conscience could rest peacefully in the certitude that neither

the security of his domicile or his personal safety would ever be

threatened or infringed upon by the caprice of this secret power called

by the vague name of “administration.”

But after all was he really liberal, this Czar who had so little

known or understood how to endear himself to his subjects, or did he

merely say that such was the case, in order to dissimulate despotic

leanings which were the more dangerous that they exercised themselves

without any judgment or without any justification for their explosion?

A considerable number of persons have wondered about it, and have

found themselves unable to solve this riddle. To hear him speak,

one would have thought that such was the case, whilst it was hardly

possible to talk with him for any length of time, without finding him

a sympathetic, kind personality, curious mixture of totally different

elements in a character that was chiefly remarkable for its weakness.

One could like him, one could even admire some of the qualities which

he undoubtedly possessed, but it was utterly impossible to respect

in him the Monarch, or to esteem the man, so strange did his conduct

sometimes appear, a conduct which finally dragged him into an abyss,

together with his family and with his dynasty. Physically, he had a sad

and kind face, affectionate and clear blue eyes, a charming voice, much

affability in his manners; a wonderfully bright smile, reminding one of

his mother’s, a most cordial manner of shaking hands that went straight

to the heart and made one suspect a lot of things which in reality did

not exist; a rapid and quick walk, a certain hesitation in his speech,

and in the expression of his face at times; such was the man. Morally,

he was possessed of honesty of purpose to such an extent that he could

realise its absence in others; he had no will of any kind, but a good

deal of obstinacy; principles which were always forgotten when they

interposed themselves between his personal welfare and his duty; no

sense of responsibility, but a very exalted opinion of his own rights,

and especially of his might; the conviction that autocracy ought to be

maintained at any cost, and simultaneously the sincere desire, during

a short while, to govern according to the change of system to which

he had been compelled to submit, more by the force of things and of

events, than through his personal opinions; absolutely no consciousness

of the great events with which he found himself mixed up, or of the

wants of the country over which he ruled; no conception of the aims

he ought to have had in view; no real sympathy for his people, but a

vague wish to help them; an unacknowledged dread of finding himself

thrown into any intimate contact with the mob, combined with the hope

that this feeling would not be noticed by the public at large; far too

much confidence in incapable advisers; an exaggerated mistrust of the

persons courageous enough to tell him the truth, an absolute incapacity

to resist bad influences; sometimes considerable dignity, and often

useless haughtiness; a good deal of superstition combined with

religion; a deep conviction that his own person was something so sacred

that though it might come to be attacked and criticised, yet nobody

would be daring enough to lay a sacrilegious hand upon it; a complete

incapability of making any distinction between his friends and his

foes, and such a persuasive manner that no one could ever contradict

or resist him, so that the Revolution in which he lost his Crown must

have surprised him to the extent of paralysing all his faculties of

realising its importance and its extent; such was the Sovereign.

CHAPTER II

By the side of this Monarch in whom his subjects at last lost every

vestige of confidence, there stood a sinister figure, the bad genius

of a reign that would most probably have been far more peaceful if

it had not been there: the figure of his wife, the Empress Alexandra

Feodorovna, “the German,” as she had been called even long before the

present war broke out. It was undoubtedly to her that were due, at

least to a considerable extent, the various misfortunes which have

assailed the unfortunate Nicholas II., and it was also she, who, in the

brief space of a few short years, discredited him together with the

throne to which he had raised her. It was she who destroyed all the

prestige which the Monarchy had retained in Russia, until the day when

she tarnished it. She was another Marie Antoinette, without any of the

qualities, or the courage that had distinguished the latter, who had

become the object of the hatred and furious dislike of her subjects,

more on account of the vices which were attributed to her, than of

those which she really possessed. In regard to the Consort of the Czar

Nicholas II., it was just the contrary that occurred, because the

general public never became aware of all the strange details concerning

the private life of this Princess, who compromised by her conduct the

inheritance of her son, together with the Crown which she herself

wore. On her arrival in Russia she had been met with expressions of

great sympathy, and it would have been relatively easy for her to

make herself liked everywhere and by everybody, because the peculiar

circumstances which had accompanied her marriage had won for her a

sincere popularity all over Russia. At the time she arrived there as

the bride of the future Sovereign there existed in the country a strong

current of anglomania, which disappeared later on, to revive again

during the last year or two. The Princess who came to Livadia from

Darmstadt was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria of Great Britain, by

whom she had been partly brought up, a fact which spoke in her favour

because it was supposed that her education would have developed in her

liberal opinions, love for freedom, and the desire to make herself

liked as well as respected by her future subjects, who received her

with the more enthusiasm that they all hoped she would influence in the

right direction her husband, whose weakness of character was already

at that time known by those who had had the opportunity of becoming

acquainted with him. One felt therefore inclined to forgive her any

small mistake she might be led into committing during those first days

which followed upon her arrival in her new Fatherland. One pitied

this young bride, whose marriage was to follow so soon the funeral of

the monarch whose untimely death was lamented so deeply by the whole

of Russia, and one felt quite disposed, at least among the upper

classes of St. Petersburg society, as well as in court circles, to

show oneself indulgent in regard to the almost inevitable errors into

which she might fall, at the beginning of her career as an Empress.

This feeling was so strong that during the first months which followed

upon her marriage, the popularity of her mother-in-law, who had been

so sincerely loved before, suffered as a consequence of this general

wish to make an idol of Alexandra Feodorovna. The eyes of everybody

were turned towards the new star that had arisen on the horizon of the

Russian capital.

Amidst this general concert of praise which arose on all sides in

honour of the newly wedded Empress, there were a few persons who,

having had the opportunity to listen to some discordant notes, kept

aloof and waited for what the future would bring. At the time of the

death of Alexander III., a man belonging to the prominent circles of

Russian society, who had been for a long period of years upon terms of

personal friendship with the German Royal Family, happened to be in

Berlin, and during a visit which he paid to the Empress Frederick, the

aunt of the future wife of the new Czar, he told her how many hopes

were set in Russia upon her young niece. He was very much surprised to

hear the Empress express herself with a certain scepticism in regard

to the bride, and finally say that she felt afraid the Princess Alix,

as she was still called at the time, would not understand how to make

herself beloved by her subjects, or how to win their hearts. Seeing the

astonishment provoked by her remark, she added that the character of

the girl about to wear the crown of the Romanoffs, was an exceptionally

haughty and proud one, and that as in addition to this defect she was

possessed of an unusual amount of vanity, she would most probably have

her head turned by the grandeur of her position, and would put forward,

in place of the intelligence which she did not possess, an exaggerated

feeling of her own importance. The gentleman to whom I have referred

returned therefore to Russia with fewer illusions concerning Alexandra

Feodorovna than the generality of his compatriots indulged in.

I must give the latter their due, they did not keep these illusions

for any length of time, because from the very beginning of her

married life the new Czarina contrived to wound the feelings and the

susceptibilities of all those with whom she was thrown into contact.

She had absolutely no tact, and she fancied that if she allowed herself

to be amiable in regard to any one, she would do something which was

below her dignity. She applied herself to treat everybody from the

height of her unassailable position, and she took good care never to

say one word that might be interpreted in the light of a kindness or

amiability towards the people who were being presented to her, so that

though they tried hard to attribute her utter want of politeness to

a timidity which in reality did not exist, yet they felt offended at

it. Russian society had been used to something vastly different, and

to a certain familiarity in its relations with its Sovereigns. The

mother of Nicholas II., the Empress Marie, had been worshipped for the

incomparable charm of her manners, and the simple kindness with which

she received all those who were introduced to her, asking them to sit

down beside her, and talking with them in a charming chatty way,

full of sweet and unassuming dignity. Her daughter-in-law abolished

these morning receptions which had brought the Sovereign into close

intercourse with so many different people. She received the ladies who

had asked to be presented to her, standing, surrounded by her court,

with two pages behind her holding her train, and she merely stretched

out her hand to be kissed by those whom she condescended to admit

into her august presence, without speaking one single word to them.

Of course the people whom she treated with such rudeness felt hurt

at it, and it began to be said among the public that the Empress was

not at all amiable, and people abstained from seeking her presence

or appearing at Court, unless it was absolutely necessary to do so,

leaving thus the field free to people devoid of self respect, to whom

one impoliteness more or less did not matter. The balls at the Winter

Palace, which formerly had been such brilliant ones, became dull and

monotonous. The smile of the Empress Marie was no longer there to

enliven them. At last the Czarina left off giving any, and no one

missed them, or felt the worse for their absence. One felt rather

relieved than otherwise not to be compelled any longer to appear in the

presence of the Empress.

As time went on, an abyss was formed which divided the Consort of

Nicholas II. from her subjects, whose feelings manifested themselves

quite openly on the day of the solemn entry of the Imperial Family into

Moscow, on the eve of the Coronation of the new Sovereigns. The golden

carriage that contained the Dowager Empress was followed all along its

way by the cheers of the population of the ancient capital, whilst a

tragic silence prevailed during the passage of the coach in which sat

her daughter-in-law. The contrast was such a striking one that it was

everywhere noticed and commented upon.

This latent animosity, the first signs of which manifested themselves

on this memorable occasion, became even more acute after the

catastrophe of Khodinka. Russia did not forgive its Empress for having

danced the whole of the night that had followed upon it, and for

having given no sign of regret at a disaster that had cost the life

of more than twenty thousand people, who had perished in the most

awful manner possible. The divorce between her and her subjects was

accomplished definitely after that day, and without any hope of a

future reconciliation coming to annul its effects.

This unpopularity, and let us say the word, this hatred of which she

became the object, did not remain unknown to the Empress, who either

noticed it herself, or else was enlightened on the point by her

German relatives, with whom she had remained upon most intimate and

affectionate terms. She attributed it at first to the fact that she had

not during many years given a son to her husband and an heir to the

Russian Throne, but later on she was compelled to acknowledge that the

dislike which she inspired was due to other causes which were dependant

on her own self. The discovery angered and soured her, and made her

nasty and ill natured. She tried to avenge herself by the assumption

of an authority in the exercise of which she found a certain pleasure,

because it procured her at least the illusion of an absolute power,

allowing her, if the wish for it happened to cross her mind, to crush

all those who were bold enough to criticise any of her actions or her

general demeanour.

Her character was obstinate without being firm. She believed herself

in all earnestness to be the equal of her husband, and did not think

of herself at all as his first subject, so that, instead of giving to

others the example of deference towards their Sovereign, she applied

herself to lower him down to her own level, to diminish his importance,

and to show quite openly that she did not in the very least respect

either him or the throne which he occupied. One heard a number of

anecdotes on the subject, among others one to the effect that during

a regimental feast, at which the Imperial Family was present, the

Empress, who had arrived a little in advance of the Czar, did not rise

from her seat when he entered the riding school in which the guests

were assembled to receive him. This want of deference was commented

upon in unfavourable terms, and caused such a scandal that Alexandra

Feodorovna was taken to task for it by her mother-in-law, with the only

result that she impertinently told the latter to mind her own business

and to hold her tongue. The Dowager Empress did not allow her to repeat

such a remark, and withdrew herself almost entirely from the Court,

much to the regret of all her admirers. All these things were perhaps

not important ones, at least from other points of view than the purely

social one, but they constituted this drop of water, which by its

constant and continual dripping ends in attacking the solidity of the

hardest granite. Very soon it became a subject of general knowledge

that no one cared for the Empress, and one came to the conclusion

that this initial want of sympathy would easily become very real and

implacable hatred.

The woman who had become the object of it, instead of trying to fight

against the general dislike which she inspired, did absolutely nothing

to try to persuade her subjects that she was not the detestable being

she had been represented to be, but that she cared for their welfare,

in spite of her cold appearance. The haughty and mistaken pride which

was one of the chief features in her strange character, led her to

retire within herself and to try to avoid seeing the people, who by

that time had grown to meet her whenever she appeared in public, with

angry and unpleasant expressions in their faces. The Imperial Court

under her rule was quickly transformed from the brilliant assemblage

it had been into a desert--a solitude no one cared to disturb. The

Empress amused herself chiefly in turning tables and in evoking spirits

from the other world, in company with mediums of a low kind who abused

the confidence that she so unwisely and unnecessarily placed in them,

and predicted for her (as it was to their interest to do) a happy and

prosperous future.

Then came the war with Japan, together with the disasters which

attended it, a war that shook most seriously the prestige of the throne

of the Romanoffs. It brought to light all the defects, the disorder,

and the inefficiency of the War Office; it enlightened the nation as

to the real worth of the people who were standing at the head of its

government, and it sounded the first knell of the Revolution which

was at last accomplished. This war afforded another pretext to the

public for attacking the personality of the Empress, who according

to the rumours which circulated at the time, had only looked upon it

from the joyous and glorious side, and never noticed its earnest and

sad one. It is a fact that neither disasters like those of Moukhden

and Tschousima, nor even the revolutionary movement that broke out in

consequence of them, affected her equanimity. She remained absolutely

cold in presence of these grave events and was absorbed in the joy of

the new maternity, which just at that time was granted to her--the

birth of the long expected and hoped for Heir to the Russian Throne,

which occurred in the very midst of the Japanese campaign. This event

certainly did not contrive to make her more popular among her subjects,

whilst on the other hand it increased considerably her importance, so

that after the appearance in the world of the son she had so ardently

wished for, she began to display more independence in her conduct than

had been formerly the case, and to discuss more eagerly, and more

authoritatively than she had ever been able to do before, matters of

State which her position as the mother of the future Sovereign gave her

almost a right to know, and to interfere with. She brought forward her

own opinions and judgments, which never once proved in accord with the

real needs of the Russian people. The Empress was neither good, kind,

nor compassionate. Her nature was cold, hard and imperious, and she

had never been accessible to the divine feeling which is called pity

for other people’s woes. She would have signed a death warrant with

the greatest coolness and indifference, and more than once her husband

decided, thanks to her intervention, to confirm those submitted to his

consideration. This last fact became known, and, as may be imagined, it

did not procure her any sympathy among her subjects.

[Illustration:

_Copyright, International Film Service, Inc._

THE BOLSHEVIKI HEADQUARTERS IN PETROGRAD]

It was about that time, that is just before the birth of the Heir to

the Throne, and whilst the war with Japan was being fought, that people

began to spread dark rumours concerning the private life of Alexandra

Feodorovna. A most extraordinary friendship which she contracted with

a lady whose reputation left very much to be desired, and who had been

divorced from her husband under circumstances that had given rise to

much talk, Madame Wyroubieva, was severely criticised. The Empress

remained deaf to all the hints which were conveyed to her on the

subject. She kept the lady in question beside her, gave her rooms in

the Imperial Palace, and took her about with her wherever she went,

without minding in the least the impression which this bravado of

public opinion produced everywhere. Another friendship for a certain

Colonel Orloff, an officer in her own regiment of lancers, also gave

rise to considerable gossip, which increased in intensity when after

the death of the latter, who committed suicide under rather mysterious

circumstances, the Empress repaired every afternoon to the churchyard

where he was buried, prayed and laid flowers upon his grave. One

wondered why she did such strange things, and of course persons were at

once found to explain her motives in a manner which was the reverse of

charitable.

The Emperor knew and saw all that was going on, but said nothing. His

wife by that time had acquired over his mind quite an extraordinary

influence, and either he did not dare to make any remarks as to the

originality which she displayed in her conduct, or else he imagined

that her position put her so much above criticism that it was useless

to interfere with what she might feel inclined to do in the matter of

eccentricity. A legend soon established itself in regard to Alexandra

Feodorovna. She was said to suffer from a nervous affection, which

obliged her at times to keep to her own apartments, and not to appear

in public. People tried, thanks to this pretext, to explain her absence

on different occasions when her position would have required her to

show herself to her subjects. But the truth of the matter was that

the Empress did not wish to see anybody, outside the small circle of

people before whom she need not constrain herself to be amiable or

pleasant; and that utterly forgetful of the duties entailed upon her

by her high rank and great position, she wanted only to live according

to her personal tastes, surrounded by flatterers or by people resigned

beforehand to accept and bow down before her numerous caprices, and to

fulfil with a blind obedience all the commands it might please her to

issue to them.

She mixed openly in public affairs, and began to play a leading part

in the conduct of the State. Her husband never dared to refuse her

anything, and the Empress attempted to lead the destinies of Russia in

the sense which she had the most at heart, that is in one corresponding

to the interests of her own native country. She had remained entirely

German in her tastes and opinions, and her English education had

had absolutely no influence on her character. Thanks to an active

correspondence which she kept up with her brother, the Grand Duke of

Hesse, she was able to acquaint the Emperor William II. with a good

many things that he would never have learned without her. This is the

more curious, if one takes into account the fact that during the first

years which had followed upon her marriage, and especially after the

different journeys which she had made in France, Alexandra Feodorovna

had expressed great sympathy and admiration for everything that was

French, perhaps on account of the great enthusiasm with which she had

been received by the French population. But later on, thanks to the

influence of the unscrupulous people into whose hands she fell, her

ideas became transformed, and she boldly tried to fight against the

French leanings of her husband, and to lead him towards an alliance

with Germany, in which she thought that she saw the advantage, and even

the safety of her throne, and of the son she loved above everything

else in the world.

All these facts could not long remain unknown, and soon the public

began to discuss them, together with the story of the different

intrigues of which the Palace of Tsarskoie Selo became the centre.

Thanks to the friends whom she had chosen for herself, the ante-chamber

of the Empress was transformed into a kind of annex to the Stock

Exchange, where all sorts of people, honest or dishonest, used to meet,

in order to obtain through her intercession more or less extravagant,

if not dangerous, favours. Thanks to Madame Wyroubieva, there were

introduced into the intimacy of the Czarina certain members of the

orthodox clergy recommendable only by their love for money and for

lucrative employments, or rich dioceses and monasteries. The Empress

together with her sister, the Grand Duchess Elisabeth, who after the

murder of her husband had become a nun and the superior of a cloister

which she had founded in Moscow, and to whom one might have applied

with success the remark of Marie Antoinette in regard to her aunt

Madame Louise of France, “she is the most intriguing little Carmelite

in the whole of the kingdom,” tried to mix themselves up in every

important matter in the State, and to lead it according to their

own lights and aims, making use of the Emperor as of an instrument

of their own private ambitions and desires. They were both fierce

reactionaries, who from the first day that Nicholas II. had promulgated

the Constitution of the 17th of October, had tried to persuade him to

recall it. It was thanks to the initiative of the Empress that the

first Duma was dissolved, and that the government began to exercise

considerable pressure over the elections in order to prevent the

candidates whom it believed it could not trust from being chosen by

their constituents. One Minister after another of those whom the

Czar appointed in rapid succession, resigned their functions, until

at last it was an acknowledged fact in Russia that no honest trial

of constitutional government could or would be attempted so long as

Alexandra Feodorovna would be there to counteract its existence. When

the Revolution broke out in the year 1905, and especially at the time

of the disturbances which took place in Moscow, it was the Empress

who excited her husband to adopt rigorous measures in order to crush

it, measures which led to nothing, and which only made Nicholas II.

a little more unpopular than he already was among his subjects. It

was related, whether true or not I cannot say, that when the famous

Semenovsky Regiment was sent to Moscow to reduce into submission the

insurrection which had broken out there, Alexandra Feodorovna had

desired to say good-bye to the officers before their departure, and

that the only recommendation which she had made to them had been not to

show any mercy to the insurgents. She had read without understanding it

in the very least, the history of the French Revolution in 1789, and

one had often heard her say that to show any weakness or compassion in

times of danger was equivalent to signing one’s own death warrant. Her

friends were nearly all of them men and women with a bad reputation,

and amidst the circle of her own immediate family she had only

contrived to make herself enemies. Thanks to her influence, and to her

petty personal spite, the young Grand Duke Cyril, the son of the Grand

Duke Vladimir, was deprived of his titles and dignities and exiled from

Russia for having dared to marry his first cousin, the divorced wife of

the Empress’s brother, the Grand Duke of Hesse, the Princess Victoria

Melita of Edinburgh. This punishment, however, was promptly cancelled,

thanks to the numerous protests which followed upon it from all

quarters, but the two people concerned never forgave the Empress her

attitude in regard to their union, and we saw an echo of this hostility

the other day when the Grand Duke Cyril on the outbreak of the

Revolution tried to play the part of Philippe Egalité in the Romanoff

family, and went with his regiment to put himself at the disposal of

the new government appointed by the Duma.

The only brother of Nicholas II., the Grand Duke Michael

Alexandrovitsch, saw the influence of the Empress exercised against

him in a manner which was even more odious, because she contrived to

deprive him of the control not only of his fortune, but also of his

personal liberty to manage his estates. With her mother-in-law, the

Dowager Empress Marie, Alexandra Feodorovna showed herself absolutely

abominable in her disdain, haughtiness and pride. With the persons

composing her court and household, she was unpleasant and bitter. Even

in regard to her own daughters she proved herself heartless, and she

never once during the twenty-three years which followed her arrival

in Russia until the day of her downfall, tried to do any good around

her or induce her husband to accomplish one of those actions full of

generosity and mercy which unite a nation with its Sovereign, and make

their hearts beat together for some noble cause or other. Then again

there occurred the Rasputin incident. I have discussed it at length in

the first part of this book, and shall therefore not enter here into a

second description of the career of this strange personage, this low

Cagliostro of a reign that did not deserve to have any great nobleman

or even gentleman for its favourite. The only thing which I want to

point out to the reader, is the responsibility which devolves upon the

Empress in this disagreeable story, which more perhaps than anything

else hastened the fall of the old Romanoff monarchy. Whether she was

really persuaded of the holy character of the sinister adventurer who

had contrived so cleverly to exploit her credulity, or whether there

was in this curious infatuation for an unworthy object a question of

hypnotism, combined with the extravagance of a badly balanced mind

and imagination, it is difficult to say, especially when one has not

followed otherwise than by hearsay the different incidents of this

almost unbelievable tragedy. It is probable that the mystery, such as

it was, will never be quite explained, but one may reasonably suppose

that the perpetual invocations to spirits of another world, which

Alexandra Feodorovna had practised for so many years, have had a good

deal to do with the obstinacy with which she insisted upon imposing

this personage upon all those who surrounded her, and with which

she allowed him to interfere with the details of her family life, a

thing which went so far that one day the governess of the young Grand

Duchesses, Mademoiselle Toutscheff, a most distinguished lady, went to

seek the Emperor, and told him that she could no longer be responsible

for the education of his daughters if Rasputin was allowed to enter

their apartments at every hour of the day and night. The only reply

which was made by Nicholas II. to this communication was that the

Empress ought not to be crossed, on account of the state of her nerves.

He seemed to approve of everything that was going on in his house,

and, this is the point which has always seemed so incomprehensible in

his character, he even appeared to view with a certain pleasure the

admittance into the intimacy of his home life of this uncivilised and

uncouth creature called Rasputin, whose hand Alexandra Feodorovna bent

down to kiss with a reverence that she had never before in the course

of her whole life shown to any one else, not excepting Queen Victoria

of England, whom she had tried to snub during the official visit which

she had paid to her after her marriage.

The complete indifference of the Czar as to what was going on around

him and under his own roof, combined with his weakness of character

and his unreasonable love for his wife, did not add to the feelings

of respect that his subjects ought to have entertained for him. In a

very short time extraordinary rumours began to circulate concerning

all that was supposed to take place at Tsarskoie Selo, rumours

which, disseminated as they were among the population of Petrograd,

contributed in no small degree to the promptitude with which it

rallied itself to the cause of the Revolution that put an end to the

reign of Nicholas II. It was related amongst other things that the

Commander-in-Chief of the Army, the Grand Duke Nicholas, had one

day told his Imperial nephew that if he did not lock up Alexandra

Feodorovna in a convent, he would come himself at the head of his

troops, to carry her away, and confine her within the walls of the

monastery of Novodievitvchy. True or not, the story was repeated

everywhere, and it procured for the Grand Duke a considerable number of

friends and sympathisers.

Soon after this it was related that the Empress was in connivance

with the numerous people who had made it their business to plunder

the national exchequer, and that she looked with indulgence upon the

malversations from which profited the partisans and the accomplices,

for one could hardly call them by another name, of Rasputin. She began

to be hated even more ferociously than had been the case before, and

at last the police had to let Nicholas II. know that his Consort would

do better not to show herself too often in public, because an attempt

against her life might easily come to be made, under the influence of

all the stories which one heard right and left concerning her private

conduct and her affection for a being who was accused by the whole

nation of being fatal to Russia’s prosperity at home and good renown

abroad. The Czar listened to all this, as he was to listen later on to

the remonstrances of his own family, but he did not act on all that he

had been told. He continued to see Rasputin, partly because, according

to the tales of those who were in the secret of what really went on

in that strange Imperial household, the frank way of speaking of this

uncouth peasant amused him and pleased him, being something so totally

different from the language which he was accustomed to hear. But

contrary to what was generally believed, he did not discuss with him

matters of State, any more than did the Empress. It is to be hoped that

this last assertion is correct, and that Rasputin in regard to Nicholas

II. only played the part sustained by Chicot at the court of Henri III.

of France, that of the King’s Jester, capable occasionally of telling

some truths to his master. But during the last months which preceded

the removal of this sinister figure from the horizon of Tsarskoie Selo,

no one in Russia would believe in such a version, seeing that this

Jester could dispose according to his pleasure of all the high places

in the State, that he had created ministers, functionaries of paramount

importance, church dignitaries, and that whoever addressed himself to

him generally got what he wanted, whilst it was his friends who were

controlling the government of the vast empire of the Czars. One did not

realise that this had become possible only because all persons endowed

with the slightest independence of character, had gradually become

estranged from their Sovereign, and had come to the decision to abandon

him to his fate, disgusted as they were by his weakness in regard to

his wife, and being moreover unwilling to accept the responsibility

of duties which they were not allowed to fulfil according to the

dictates of their conscience. One after another the Ministers, who

at the beginning of the reign of Nicholas II. had helped him to rule

Russia, had been dismissed by him, or retired of their own accord,

and their places had been taken by simple subaltern functionaries,

preoccupied only with that one single thought of remaining as long as

possible in possession of the places which they had been called upon

by a caprice of destiny to occupy, and for which they knew at heart

that they were not fit. Everybody who had a sense of decency left,

had fled from Tsarskoie Selo, not caring to enter into conflict with

the mysterious and subterranean powers, which, to repeat the words

used by Professor Paul Miliukoff in his famous speech in the Duma

a few days before the Revolution, alone decided the most important

questions in the State. The whole country was disgusted at the conduct

of those who ruled it, and this disgust was soon to change into an

absolute contempt. The unpopularity of the Empress had extended itself

to the person of the Czar himself, whom one was beginning to render

responsible for the different things going on under his roof and to

accuse of seeing, without any emotion, the Imperial prestige and honour

sullied, and this autocracy for which he cared so much dishonoured.

This unfortunate Emperor did not find anywhere a support. His mother

had been estranged from him; his whole family had turned against him,

after numerous and useless attempts to open his eyes as to the dangers

which surrounded him and the position in which he stood before his

subjects. His brother had been systematically kept away from him by the

Empress, who did not care to have in her vicinity a man in whom she

saw an eventual pretender to the throne of her son. His sisters tried

to remove themselves as far from him as possible. He was longing for

disinterested affections, and there is therefore nothing wonderful or

surprising that he sought them from the wife whom fate had associated

with his existence, whom in spite of everything he continued to

love tenderly, and whose nefarious influence was to lead him to his

destruction.

[Illustration:

_Copyright, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y._

THE BOLSHEVIKI GENERAL STAFF]

And she, this woman who alone stands responsible for all this ruin that

has overtaken her consort, and his dynasty, did she ever understand

the terrible responsibility that she had assumed? Did she ever try

to be for her husband the faithful companion whom he required, and on

whom he might have leant in the hour of danger and of peril? Did she

attempt to develop in him those strong and virile qualities a sovereign

conscious of his might requires to be able to handle it wisely? Did

she ever enter into the needs of her people, or identify herself with

the interests of the nation whose Empress she happened to be? Alas!

Alas! history has already replied to those questions, and it is history

which tells us that, thanks to Alexandra Feodorovna, the inheritance

bequeathed by Peter the Great to his posterity has been squandered and

lost. If there has ever existed a woman who has proved fatal to all

those with whom her lot has been thrown, it is this little Hessian

Princess, whom fate or chance associated with one of the greatest

political crises of which Russian history will keep the record and the

remembrance, and for whose tears no one will find any pity, even when

her sorrows will need it most.

CHAPTER III

In one of her letters addressed to her daughter Marie Antoinette, the

Empress Marie Therese wrote: “I am glad to hear that you have decided

to re-establish the old etiquette and representation of Versailles.

However tiresome it may be, its inconveniences are still far less than

those which arise out of its absence. A Court must learn to know well

its sovereigns.” These words of a woman who knew better than any other

queen had ever known how to uphold the prestige of her crown, ought

to have been remembered by the Czar Nicholas II., because it is an

undoubted fact that the custom which was established during his reign

to keep the Emperor and his family isolated from the nation over which

he ruled, had a good deal to do with the change that established itself

gradually in the ideas of the people, as well as in the minds of the

aristocracy, in regard to the reigning house. One forgot that there

existed in Russia an Emperor, and one only remembered the manifold

abuses which were the consequence of the detestable government to

which the nation was subjected. All the personal ties that might have

bound the monarch with those who could in an emergency have defended

him against danger, had been snapped asunder by that monarch himself.

St. Petersburg, which formerly (I have now in mind only the upper

classes) had converged towards the sun represented by the Imperial

Palace and its inhabitants, learned how to do without it, and it was

no longer considered to be an honour to have relations, no matter of

what nature, with any member of the House of Romanoff. The Imperial

Family, in imitation of the conduct pursued by its Chief, seemed as

if it wished to efface itself and to lead the existence of common

mortals, which it did not succeed in doing, because it had been brought

up too far from the world in general, represented by that portion

of humanity which suffers and which works in silence, to be able to

enter into its interests, and to make them its own. On the other

hand that same family gave the first signal of rebellion against the

system represented by the masters of the Palace of Tsarskoie Selo,

whom it applied itself to discredit with an energy which was the more

tenacious that it would have liked to be in their place. The Grand

Duchess Vladimir, especially, together with her two sons, who had never

cared for the Head of their dynasty, were the first ones to greet in

their house all the discontented people who abounded in the Russian

capital, and to deplore in their presence the scandal occasioned by

the strange conduct of the Empress. The Revolution which was to come

later on was prepared silently in the palaces of the very persons who

ought to have fought against it, as well as in the homes of those old

servants of the monarchy, who would have wished to save it from the

disaster, which they saw but too well, was fast overtaking it, but who

had to own themselves powerless to do so, and had to acknowledge with

sorrow and with shame that it was discrediting itself a little more

with each day that was passing. The nation, on its side, was preparing

itself for the impending struggle. The systematic manner in which the

labour party in Russia organised itself in view of the approaching

Revolution, has never been sufficiently known or appreciated abroad.

It has constituted for those who have followed the slow evolution

which was the consequence of the premature revolutionary movement that

had failed in 1905, one of the most interesting political problems

of the twentieth century. I have lived in Russia during the years

which have immediately preceded the war, and I have been in personal

relations with some of the leaders of this party. I can therefore

write about it from the point of view of a witness eager to watch the

slow transformation, which out of a party essentially violent in its

view and aspirations had produced a political faction, sufficiently

ripened and saddened by the unsuccesses of its first fight not to seek

elsewhere than in a too rapid solution the end of the difficulties

under which it had been condemned to develop itself. It was quite

sufficient to have witnessed the manifestations that used to take place

each first of May, to come to the conclusion that the workman who was

walking the streets, singing and carrying revolutionary flags, in 1906,

was quite a different man from the one who indulged in manifestations

of the like kind in 1913 and 1914. The general strike which preceded

the war by a few weeks upon which the Germans founded so many useless

hopes was, notwithstanding its revolutionary character, rather an

expression of opinion on the part of a powerful and perfectly well

organised party than a rebellion against authority. The workman had

at last realised that he had got the future for him, provided he did

not allow his natural impatience to carry him too far, and that he

could resist the temptation to proceed too quickly with the plans

which he had formed. He had also realised another thing, and that was

that neither the liberals nor the octobrists, nor the party called

that of the cadets, nor even the revolutionary socialists, were strong

enough to constitute a government, and that all the plans they were

continually talking about, would only end in speeches more or less

empty and devoid of practical common sense. The workman applied himself

to avoid mistakes, which perhaps he had noticed before he had quite

grasped their importance. He understood on the other hand perfectly

well the fact that the immense industrial movement, which had developed

itself during the years that had followed immediately upon the war with

Japan, was bound to increase still further in importance, and that the

future belonged to those who would be able to profit by it, to guide

it, and to direct it in the sense of a great and general reform of the

different abuses which had corrupted all the higher classes of the

nation. The number of factories which suddenly arose everywhere, the

speculation that followed upon the rise in the value of all kinds of

industrial securities, and the knowledge that the workman very quickly

acquired as to the different means thanks to which the fortunes of

so many people come, no one knew from whence, had been edified, gave

him a strength which became the more formidable that he was compelled

to remain silent in presence of so many spectacles that revolted

his sense of integrity. In regard to this particular point, the

impossibility to hold public meetings proved a blessing in disguise for

the development of the activity of the labour party, because it allowed

it to proceed in secret to a propaganda that became the more dangerous

for the security of the government in that there existed no one able

to point out to those among whom it flourished its perilous, and even

to a certain extent, its disastrous sides. Under the very eyes of the

police, the mass of the workmen employed in the different factories

scattered all over Petrograd, prepared itself for the mission which it

felt but too well was bound sooner or later to devolve upon it; so that

whenever it allowed its voice to be heard, it was always with prudence,

and even with a certain amount of cautious wisdom that prevented the

general public and the authorities noticing how strong and powerful it

was getting, and what a wonderful instrument it would prove later on,

in the hands of those who in the meanwhile were leading it in secret,

until the day when, thanks to their help, it would be able in its turn

to lead others.

It must here be remarked that the Russian government of that time

never understood the wants of the labour party. It is sufficient to

recall the terrible drama which was enacted in the Lena gold fields

of Siberia, when the troops, called to the help of the owners of the

works, fired on the mass of workmen who were simply asking for some

legitimate improvements in their conditions of existence, to come

to the conclusion that, according to the words of Hamlet, “there

was something rotten in that state of Denmark.” Only, neither the

government nor the upper classes of society, who were all of them, or

nearly all, in the dependence of a few lucky speculators in stocks and

shares, nor these speculators themselves, whose number was getting

larger and larger every day in St. Petersburg, cared to remember that

such was the fact.

During the years which immediately preceded the great war, the whole

of Russia had become one vast Stock Exchange, the securities of which

were quoted at every street corner, where the only things that had any

value, were those which could be turned into a shareholder’s company.

The Emperor Alexander III. had tried, during the whole time of his

reign, to improve agriculture in his land, and he had tried to bind

together the different social classes of the nation, by a common love

for their native soil. It had been told at that time that he had been

wrong in looking upon Russia exclusively from the agricultural point of

view, but in presence of the things which have happened recently, one

may wonder whether after all he had not been right, because it is quite

certain that the change of system that had followed upon his death, and

the exclusive protection which to the detriment of everything else,

industry was awarded, during the twenty-two years of Nicholas II.’s

administration, and especially during the time that Mr. Kokovtsoff

remained at the Treasury, darkened the judgment of the people who

under different circumstances, and if they had made less money, would

have probably noticed the progress made by socialism, and the growing

influence of the labour party over its adherents, who from the outset

had been determined to break this might of capital which was of no good

to the country, and simply added to the importance of lucky speculators.

[Illustration:

_Copyright, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y._

SOLDIER AND SAILOR CITIZENS’ DUMA]

As for the Emperor, he had ceased to count for anything in Russia,

after the failure of the so-called Constitutional government, which

he had inaugurated rather out of caprice than because he had become

convinced that it was indispensable to the welfare of Russia to see it

ruled by a responsible Cabinet. At the time I am referring to, it was

an acknowledged fact in the whole of Russia that it was governed by

some mysterious and dark powers which in secret were proceeding to any

amount of malversations, most harmful for the prosperity of the nation,

as well as for its prestige in Europe. The one general feeling which

prevailed everywhere was one of immense lassitude at a state of things

one knew but too well could not last, but which no one yet felt strong

enough to try to ameliorate, change, or overturn. If the war had not

broken out, it is likely that this condition, which hovered between

a dream and a nightmare, might have gone on for a long time, because

though the public realised perfectly well that the Throne, as well as

the man who occupied it, represented only a dead thing, yet it appeared

still so immense that no one dared to touch it, but continued looking

upon it, with the same eyes one would have done had it remained the

great one it had been formerly.

The war broke out and awakened the nation out of the state of marasm

into which it had fallen. During the first weeks which followed upon

its declaration there took place in Russia an explosion of enthusiasm

such as had never been witnessed before. It did not, however, last

any appreciable length of time, and collapsed together with the news

of the reverses that attended the Polish campaign. Nowhere were these

reverses felt more than amidst the ranks of the labour party, which,

as a direct consequence of them, acquired all at once an importance it

had hardly dared to hope it could win so soon. Factories became the

principal organ of the national defence, and the word “ammunition” was

transformed into the flag under which all those who were dissatisfied

with the government then in power enrolled themselves as well as the

people who longed for the end of an order of things the faults and

mistakes of which were known in Russia long before they came to be

recognised abroad. The workman suddenly became the individual to whom

was awarded the greatest importance, there where the question of the

salvation of the Fatherland came to be raised. He was the one to whom

everybody said aloud what he had been himself aware of long before,

that it was from him, and from his efforts, that depended victory over

the enemy who had audaciously invaded Russian territory. This workman

(this must never be lost sight of) was intimately connected with the

army in which he had served, with the army that had far more confidence

in him, and in his knowledge and efforts, than in the incapable

government that had sent it to be slaughtered without providing it

with any means to fight its foes. The workman became thus conscious

of his extreme importance, and he aspired to be awarded the place in

society which he imagined that he had the right to pretend to. He

raised his voice, and insisted upon its being listened to. Perhaps

Nicholas II. would still be in possession of his throne had he had

sufficient common sense to do so. There were at this juncture people

who tried to make the Sovereign understand that it was not enough for

him to have assumed the supreme command over his troops in order to

win back the popularity he had so completely lost, and that he would

do well, in the interest of his dynasty as well as in his own, to show

himself more frequently to the population of Petrograd, and to try

to get into direct touch with it otherwise than through his official

visits to the factories where ammunition was prepared for the army;

visits during which he was escorted with great pomp and ceremony by his

usual cortège of attendants and in the course of which he had never

found one single word of encouragement to say to those who were toiling

for the welfare of the Fatherland. The Emperor failed to grasp the

wisdom of this piece of advice, nor did he realise the importance of

another one, which proceeded from the few friends he had still left to

him, the advice to call together a national and responsible Ministry,

composed of men chosen among the representatives of the country in the

Duma, and in possession of the confidence of the latter. He understood

even less the necessity, recognised everywhere outside the gates of his

Palace, to try and raise the prestige of the Crown, by getting rid of

the compromising personalities, whose presence at his side dishonoured

him as a man, and discredited him as a sovereign. He did not see,

and perhaps no one dared to point out to him, the shameless money

speculations which were taking place everywhere in Russia, and even

under his own roof; the bargaining of everything that there was to sell

or to buy in the country; honours, dignities, distinctions, places,

and the Fatherland itself, by a gang of shameless adventurers, who had

found the protection which they needed to carry on their plunder within

the walls of the Imperial residence. He believed what his wife kept

repeating to him, that once he had declared such was not the case, no

one would dare to think that he consulted Rasputin or the metropolitan

Pitirim in regard to State affairs, and he simply laughed at those

who pretended that he was doing so. He was blind until the end. He is

perhaps blind still, and it is quite possible that he will persist in

remaining so until the day when his revolted subjects will come and

claim his life, after having compelled him to surrender his throne.

Unconscious creature, unable to notice the dangers amidst which he had

been living, or the abyss that was already swallowing him up.

It is when considering this point that one feels tempted to ask what

would have become of Nicholas II. had he had beside him one of these

intelligent women, endowed with a strong character, and understanding

the nature of her duties as a wife, as a mother and a sovereign. It is

likely that if he had found such a help he might have prevented or at

least have contrived to give a different shape to the crisis through

which Russia had to pass. The war was an unavoidable misfortune, owing

to the firm determination of Germany to provoke it, no matter in what

way, or under what pretext, but it would have been possible to conduct

it differently than was the case. One could also have been prepared

for it, and one ought to have realised that the old and superannuated

system of government so utterly rotten, where everything was left in

the hands of corrupt functionaries, who had never learned anything

out of the book of history, for whom the intellectual development

of nations meant nothing at all, and who did not look beyond their

personal advantages in all the great crises which might come to shake

the equanimity of the country, that this system had served its time,

and was bound to collapse under the weight of the universal contempt.

But Nicholas II. called together a Duma which he had determined

beforehand to deprive of every initiative, and of the liberty to say

what it wished concerning the needs of the country that had entrusted

it with the defence of its interests. He made many fine promises which

he never intended to keep, and when he spoke about the necessity of

bringing about a close union between the Czar and the representatives

of his people, he never wished to give to the latter the possibility

to approach him, or to lay their grievances at his feet. Had there

been in Russia an Empress worthy of the name, and competent to fill

the position she occupied, she would have told her husband that the

duty of them both consisted in remaining loyal towards their subjects.

She would have exposed her person, and risked her life if necessary,

in the accomplishment of the task which had been allotted to her

by Providence. She would have spent her time otherwise than in the

practices of a piety that was nothing else but superstition mingled

with erotic tendencies.

What did Alexandra Feodorovna do during those solemn hours of a

supreme crisis? I do not wish to be hard on her now that misfortune

has overtaken her, but the truth must be told, and it is necessary to

point out that her principal preoccupation during the months which

preceded the Revolution consisted in defending Rasputin against the

attacks directed against him from all sides, and in isolating the

Emperor from all the people capable of enlightening him in regard

to the conduct and the character of the sinister personage whom her

imagination had transformed into a Saint, and to whose presence at

her side she attributed a miraculous power, capable of protecting her

and her family, against every kind of danger. Under his influence

and thanks to the impulse which he gave to her activity, she applied

herself to persuade the Czar to conclude a separate peace with Germany,

working upon the humanitarian feelings of Nicholas II., and repeating

constantly to him that he owed it to his subjects to put an end to a

useless effusion of blood, and not to go on with a perfectly hopeless

struggle. If the Revolution had not taken place it is most probable

that a separate peace would have been signed between Russia and Germany

during the course of the next few months, and it is also likely that

if this intention of the Empress had not transpired outside the gates

of her Palace the Revolution would not have broken out when it did,

because all the different political parties in the Duma were agreed

as to the advisability of putting it off so long as the enemy was in

occupation of a part of the country. But Alexandra Feodorovna poured

the last drops into a glass which was ready to overflow, and the hatred

which the Russian nation bore her found at last its justification in

the general opinion which suddenly exploded like a barrel of powder in

the whole of the country, that she also was a traitor, who had been

won over to the German cause, and who was ready to give up into the

hands of the adversary against whom one had been fighting for so many

long and anxious months of a struggle during which so much blood had

flown, this Russia that had offered her the Imperial diadem, which she

had found nothing better to do than to sully with the mud of the dirty

roads whither her steps had taken her.

Here I must make a pause, and try to analyse the real part played in

the drama by the unfortunate Sovereign on the head of whom so many

curses have been showered. I do not believe that it was in order to

hand over to her own native country, the one which had become hers by

marriage, that Alexandra Feodorovna lent herself to the intrigue in

which it is unfortunately an uncontested fact that she took an active

share. It seems to me, so far as I can judge of things which did not

take place in my presence, that her intentions were sincere according

to her lights. She was not an intelligent woman by any means, and what

she possessed in the way of intellect had disappeared in a vanity

and haughtiness of which it is hardly possible to form an adequate

idea. She cared only for her crown, and for autocratic power over

her subjects, and under the influence of those who represented to her

that the least concession to the spirit of the times was bound to

further the cause of a revolution which she abhorred, she had awarded

her protection to this reactionary party represented by men like

Sturmer, Protopopoff, and others of the same kind. She had preached

to her husband whenever she had had the opportunity for doing so, the

necessity to stand firm, and never to sacrifice one fraction of the

principle of absolute power over his subjects. She had pointed out

to him on every possible occasion the example of Louis XVI., who had

been beheaded, because he had not had sufficient courage to resist

to the pressure exercised over him by the revolutionary elements in

the French monarchy. She did not grasp in the very least that times

were different, that ideas as well as men had changed, and that a

sovereign who in a moment of danger does not seek help from his people,

or try together with them to find a solution to the difficulties of

a threatening situation, courts an inevitable ruin. The Empress has,

without any doubt being allowed as to this point, been the direct cause

of the misfortunes as well as of the fall of her husband, and probably

when history will be called upon to judge her, it will show itself even

more severe in regard to her and to her conduct than her contemporaries

have been, because she has certainly done more to destroy the respect

of Russia for the throne to which she had been raised than the most

violent revolutionary attacks that were ever directed against it.

Instead of trying to bring her consort nearer to the nation at

whose head he stood, she only inspired him with suspicions and even

with dislike for this nation, or at least for the best among its

representatives.

There happened circumstances when the Empress interfered directly

in the affairs of the State, and persuaded the Czar to do what she

required of him; as, for instance, the exile in Siberia, this Siberia

whither she was to be sent herself, and the arbitrary arrest of several

leaders of the labour party, whom, under some futile pretext or other,

the government threw into prison a few weeks before the outbreak of the

Revolution, in spite of the indignant protestations made by the Duma

on the subject. It was also Alexandra Feodorovna, who, on the advice

of the metropolitan Pitirim, a creature of Rasputin, who had caused

him to be appointed to the See of Petrograd, the most important one in

the Empire, persuaded the Emperor to follow the advice of the minister

Protopopoff to prorogue the Duma, and to arm the police with machine

guns, in view of a possible revolt of the inhabitants of the capital

against the government, a fatal and most imprudent measure, if there

ever was one, which decided the fate of the Romanoff dynasty.

In this last occurrence, it was less out of fear of the debates that

might take place in the Duma, than because he wanted to have his

hands untied in regard to the conclusion of peace for which he had

been working ever since he had been called to the ministry of the

interior, that Protopopoff induced his Sovereign to resort to a measure

absolutely devoid of common sense, and the only effect of which could

be to add fuel to a fire that had been smouldering for months, if

not years. It proved fatal for everybody, and it is still a question

whether it was not to be more fatal for Russia than anything else which

Nicholas II. had ever done, because it has thrown her into an era of

revolution and of trouble, for which she was neither prepared nor ripe.

At that time I am writing about, the members of the Imperial family

together with the aristocracy were beginning to get more and more

alarmed at the manner in which events were unfolding themselves, and

were wondering as to what could be done to put an end to the influence

of the Empress and of her favourites. One of the oldest, and the only

surviving personal friend of the late Czar Alexander III., Count

Vorontzoff Dachkoff, when he visited the Emperor to take leave of him,

on his resignation of the functions of Viceroy of the Caucasus, had

tried to remonstrate with him on the subject, and to point out to him

the necessity of getting rid of Rasputin and of the followers of the

latter. He had known Nicholas II. as a child, and he could therefore

talk with him more familiarly than any one else in Russia: “I must tell

you the truth,” he said. “Do you know that, thanks to your Rasputin,

you are going to your ruin and endangering the throne of your son?”

The old soldier, who had served under four sovereigns, became quite

eloquent in his speech. The Czar listened to him in silence, and at

last exclaimed almost with a sob: “Why did God lay upon me such a heavy

burden?”

After Count Vorontzoff, the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna tried

to do something to save her son. She had left Petrograd months

before, not caring to live in the vicinity of her daughter-in-law,

whom she disliked as much as did the other members of the Imperial

family. When Nicholas II. visited Kieff in October, 1916, where his

mother was residing, the latter had a long conversation with him, in

which she pointed out to him the peril which threatened him and the

dynasty, unless he decided upon an energetic step, and removed from

her side the favourites of his wife. But even Marie Feodorovna was

powerless in presence of the dark and occult powers that held her son

in their trammels, and nothing followed upon her remonstrances or

her adjurations that he might consider the dangers with which he was

surrounded, and try at least to conjure them.

After this interference of the widow of Alexander III., some of the

members of the Cabinet who were not of the same opinions as Messrs.

Sturmer and Protopopoff, attempted to reason with their Sovereign,

among others Count Ignatieff and Mr. Bark, but they were also not

listened to, and the former at last handed in his resignation which was

accepted with alacrity, Alexandra Feodorovna not trying even to hide

the extreme satisfaction she felt at its having taken place.

Count Ignatieff had been the most popular minister of public

instruction Russia had ever known, and his departure was looked upon

in the light of a national misfortune, adding to the dislike with

which the Empress was viewed everywhere. Mr. Bark did not feel himself

at liberty to abandon the department of finances of which he had

the charge at the very moment when a new loan was being floated, but

he avoided seeing the consort of his Sovereign, and only appeared at

Tsarskoie Selo, when he could not help doing so.

[Illustration:

_Copyright, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y._

FOREIGN MINISTER LEON TROTZKY]

On the 1st of November, 1916, one of the cousins of the Czar, the

Grand Duke Nicholas Michaylovitsch, who was perhaps the cleverest

member of the Imperial family, a man wonderfully well learned, and who

had acquired the reputation of an excellent historian, thanks to the

remarkable studies which he had published on the life and times of

Alexander I., and the Napoleonic wars, made another effort to shake

the influence of Rasputin, Protopopoff and the Empress. He asked the

Czar to receive him, and during a long and heated conversation which

he had with the latter, he read to him a letter which he had prepared

beforehand, in which were exposed not only the political, but also

the private reasons, which made it an imperative necessity to remove

Rasputin from Tsarskoie Selo. As the Grand Duke told his friends later

on, there were in this letter some passages that might have wounded

Nicholas II. in his feelings as a husband, not only as a sovereign. But

the Czar did not reply one single word, only went to fetch the Empress,

and in his turn read to her the incriminating epistle. When he reached

the passage in which remarks were made concerning her, Alexandra

Feodorovna rose up in a passion, and snatching the document out of

her husband’s hands, she tore it up into a thousand small pieces. In

the course of this memorable conversation, the Grand Duke asked the

Emperor whether he knew that the appointment of Protopopoff was the

work of Rasputin, with whom the former had become acquainted at the

house of one of their common friends, a certain Badmaieff.

“Yes,” replied the Czar, “I know it.”

“And you find this a matter of course,” exclaimed his cousin.

Nicholas II. replied nothing.

In spite of the angry tone which the discussion had assumed, the

Emperor remained perfectly civil to the Grand Duke. The latter

afterwards remarked that he had been more than surprised to meet

with such utter indifference, and at the same time such kindness, in

appearance at least, from his cousin. It seemed as if nothing that he

could say could move the Czar, who, during the most heated moments of

this interview, handed the matches to his kinsman, when he noticed

that the cigarette of the latter had gone out. At last the Grand Duke

exclaimed: “You have got Cossacks here, and a great deal of room in

your gardens. You can have me killed and buried without any one being

the wiser for it. But I must tell you the truth, and say to you that

you are going to your ruin.”

The Czar continued to be silent, and his cousin had to take his leave,

without having been able to obtain one single word from him by which he

might have guessed whether he had been believed or not.