VISITS ABROAD
The beginning of the visits of the young Emperor and Empress to foreign
courts was marked by one of those misfortunes which seemed to dog
their footsteps wherever they went. The Minister for Foreign Affairs,
Prince Lobanoff, died suddenly at a railway station where the Imperial
train had stopped for a few minutes. He was a man of great ability and
wide diplomatic experience, and, moreover, was a staunch friend of the
young Empress, who mourned him with all her heart. He would undoubtedly
have given her good advice later on, which she often needed, and might
have put her on her guard against the insidious counsel which she so
often received from people interested in seeing her commit blunder
after blunder. His successor, Count Mouravieff, was a protégé as well
as a favourite of the Empress’s mother, who was responsible for his
appointment. He was also a man of unusual ability, but one who knew
very well on which side his bread was buttered, and who was far too
worldly wise to attach himself to a woman who, he knew but too well,
would never succeed in making herself popular in the country on whose
throne she sat.
One of the first visits paid by Nicholas II. and his Consort abroad was
to the German Emperor and Empress in the town of Breslau, which had
been chosen in order to give a more intimate look to the interview, and
to divest it from the more official character it would have had, had
it taken place in Berlin. They were received with great pomp. William
II. assumed his best manners and tried by all means in his power to
make his guests feel comfortable. He was the first cousin of Alexandra
Feodorovna and at one time had imagined that he would find in her a
staunch ally in his various schemes. But during those first months
of her married life the Czarina had learnt another lesson, and that
was that she had better avoid meddling with politics. She therefore
confined herself to the exchange of banalities with her German cousins,
so that the Empress Augusta Victoria afterwards remarked that she had
never expected to find “Alix” so very frivolous. The fact is that the
young Czarina had taken great care to be splendidly dressed for the
occasion. Worth had sent a special messenger to St. Petersburg to
confer with her as to the clothes she would require for this great
event: her first appearance as the Empress of All the Russias at
Foreign Courts. For the great State dinner which took place in Breslau
my mistress wore a gown the tissue of which had been specially woven
in Lyons for her, a lustrous white satin brocaded with golden lilies
and feathers, the low bodice profusely trimmed with gold lace. In her
hair was a diadem of sapphires and brilliants, and on her neck reposed
priceless sapphires and pearls, the longest row of which fell down
to the bottom of her skirt. She looked truly magnificent, but this
splendour was bitterly criticised by the German people, who declared
she wanted to impress them with her riches. Another thing which also
displeased her hosts was the fact that she had brought her gold toilet
service, and caused to be put aside the silver one that had been
prepared for her, which out of compliment for her had been specially
brought from the Royal Treasury in Berlin. This silver toilet set
had belonged to the famous Queen Louise, the mother of William I.,
and the Kaiser had imagined that by allowing it to be used by his
Russian guest he was paying her a great compliment. When he heard it
had been discarded by her he was mortally offended, and even made a
cutting remark to that effect, which in her turn she bitterly resented,
saying that it seemed to her that her cousin William still thought her
the little Hessian Princess of as little importance as she had been
before her marriage. All these things might have been avoided with a
little tact, and often did I deplore this habit the Czarina had, of
impulsively saying things that hurt. I had tried to dissuade her from
dragging along with her this heavy toilet set, which, in fact, got her
into trouble wherever she went, but she would not listen, and told me
that it did not concern me what she had decided, and that I had only to
execute the commands given to me, so perforce I had to remain silent.
Another whim of the Empress was to carry with her the beautiful lace
trimmings of her dressing table. Wherever we went they had to be taken
out and adjusted to the table before which she sat to have her hair
dressed, and sometimes this caused unnecessary work which exasperated
her maids, because all tables were not of the same size, and the lace
had to be adjusted under difficulties, as of course it could not be
cut. It was point d’Angleterre and Brussels lace, and one of the sets
was composed of old Argenton, valued at twenty thousand francs. The
set had to be changed every day, and was further ornamented with satin
ribbons of different colours, that added to its impression of richness.
Strange to say, the Czarina enjoyed far more her visit to the Vienna
Court than the one she had paid to her Berlin cousins. She had always
felt curious to know the Empress Elizabeth, and the fact that the
latter had consented to come out of her retirement, and to be present
at her reception in Vienna, could not but flatter her. Moreover, she
felt attracted by the personality of the beautiful Bavarian Princess,
whom a sad fate had transformed into a Mater Dolorosa, and the two
ladies were from the first sympathetic to each other. By a delicate
attention, which I fear no one appreciated, the Czarina had selected a
white dress for the State dinner which was given in the Hofburg, and
during the whole time she stayed in Vienna, she made it a point not
to appear in colours, out of respect for the feelings of the Empress
Elizabeth, who never, as long as she lived, left off her mourning for
the Archduke Rudolph.
We also, during this tour, went to Balmoral, where the Empress met her
grandmother, Queen Victoria. The old Sovereign had been very kind to
this grandchild of hers, ever since the untimely death of her mother,
the Princess Alice, and had had her often with her. But this stay at
Balmoral was not a success. Perhaps it was hardly possible it could
be one, because my mistress’ disposition was not one which brooked
interference, and Queen Victoria, who had heard, as she generally did
all that concerned her immediate family, of the growing unpopularity of
the young Czarina, took her to task for it and began advising her as to
what she ought to do. The Empress, however, did not accept any advice,
thinking that no one outside of Russia could appreciate the growing
difficulties of her situation, and, besides, not caring to initiate her
grandmother into the various intrigues rampant in the Russian Imperial
family. So she received coolly the exhortations of the Queen, and when
the two ladies parted it was not as warmly as might have been expected.
Of course the culminating point of the foreign visits of the Emperor
and Empress was Paris. It awaited them with an enthusiasm the like of
which the French capital had probably never before seen. From every
side one heard cries of “Vive l’Impératrice!” resounding in the air,
and the appreciations of the newspapers and of the public were all of
them warm and full of sincere admiration. But the Empress, who was in
a delicate state of health, did not seem to care for the elaborate
programme of festivities which had been planned in her honour, and
showed herself more than usually listless and indifferent. She was
tired, and besides felt embarrassed at what she considered to be
exaggerated expressions of admiration with which she was greeted. She
showed it so plainly that somehow the Parisians felt that she did not
quite appreciate their efforts to please her, and they began in their
turn to criticise her, together with her manners and her dresses.
Though Worth had surpassed himself, yet the clothes which he had made
for this occasion lacked the true Parisian chic which is required by
the gay city. And it began to be whispered that the Czarina did not
know how to dress herself, a grave reproach in French eyes. There
occurred also another incident which illustrates the want of tact
which so often interfered with the conduct of my Imperial mistress,
and which characterised all her entourage and court. The Russian
Ambassador, Baron Mohrenheim, gave a luncheon party at the Embassy to
which he invited the leaders of that part of French society called
the Faubourg St. Germain. Among those who responded to his appeal
were the Duchesses de Luynes and d’Uzes, the Countess Aimery de la
Rochefoucauld, and the Duchesse de Doudeauville. The Czarina had been
told that these ladies were not in favour in Republican circles, and
she felt afraid to show them any attention which might be interpreted
as a desire to please the enemies of the Régime which was welcoming
her. She consequently allowed them to be presented to her, but spoke
but a few words to them, and showed herself so cool in regard to them
that of course she gave grave offence, and Baron Mohrenheim was told
that his “_Impératrice n’était pas aimable_.”
Of course a woman with a little experience of the world might have
known how to conciliate the different elements with which she was
brought in contact. But Alexandra Feodorovna was not a diplomat, and,
moreover, never could hide her feelings. She thus contrived to wound
those whom, perhaps, in her secret heart she was most anxious to please.
The little Grand Duchess Olga had accompanied her parents during these
visits, and notwithstanding the many things she had to do, and the
numerous calls upon her time, my mistress never forgot to be present
at her child’s undressing in the evening, and had her brought to her
room the first thing in the morning. I generally wakened the Czarina at
eight o’clock, when I would hand her a lace and silk morning jacket,
which was brought to me by the maid on duty, and then she would ask
for her daughter, with whom she played for half an hour or so before
glancing at the morning’s papers and taking the cup of tea which she
liked in the morning. It had to be very strong and bitter, and she
never took sugar or cream with it. When she was dressed she used to
partake, with the Emperor, of an English breakfast, which, after having
been fixed for half-past nine o’clock, was, later on, partaken of
much earlier, so as not to interfere with the children’s lessons. The
Empress was fond of eggs, and of a certain crisp kind of bacon, such as
was generally found at Windsor or Balmoral, or any of the residences
of Queen Victoria. She was, in general, very English in her tastes,
and English was the only language used in the Russian Imperial family
circle. This attention of Alexandra Feodorovna to her daughter was of
course praised in Paris as well as in London, but not appreciated as
it ought to have been in St. Petersburg, where it was said that she
would have done better to have been less of a good mother, and more of
an Empress. The Imperial family especially criticised it freely, and
called her a Mere Gigogne in derision. When one daughter after another
was born to her, these criticisms became even more acute, and it was
said that she wasted all her time looking after little girls whose
existence was of no interest at all to the Russian Empire.
I must here relate a fact that, so far as I know, has never been made
public. After the Coronation the Empress, owing to over-fatigue, had
an accident which destroyed some hopes of maternity she was nursing.
She had not spoken of her condition in her family, and she told me
that she felt very glad she had not done so, because most probably she
would have been accused of some imprudence or other, the more so that
her doctor said that the expected child would, in all probability,
have been a boy. Nevertheless the thing somehow came to the knowledge
of the public in the sense that it was suspected, though no one knew
for a certainty whether it was true or not, that such an accident
had taken place, and with the usual wickedness of humanity, it was
rumoured that the Sovereign had had reasons to hide the condition she
found herself in, and that the accident in itself had been brought
on more voluntarily than accidentally. I was one day asked whether
these sayings which circulated freely in St. Petersburg were true or
not. Imagine my indignation and anger on hearing my beloved mistress
accused of so terrible a thing, the accusation having not the slightest
foundation to justify it. When later on my Imperial mistress began to
honour me with her confidence, I implored her whenever she thought she
had reasons to suppose that she was about to become again a mother, to
mention the fact at once, and give it as much publicity as possible.
But she was so persistently pursued by bad luck that this also proved
later on a source of much trouble to her, when she happened to be
attacked by an illness which was at first attributed to a condition
that in reality did not exist.
[Illustration: _Paul Thompson_
OLD BANQUET HALL OF THE CZARS]
When we returned to St. Petersburg after this triumphant (for such it
was considered to have been) journey abroad, we were welcomed there
with more effusion than had been even expected. The French alliance was
becoming very popular, and the Russian nation moreover felt flattered
at the idea that its Sovereigns had been made so much of wherever they
had been. We went at first to Czarskoi Selo and then moved for the
winter season to the capital, where the Empress, as usual, received
the ladies of society after mass on New Year’s day, after which
began the usual round of gaieties that made St. Petersburg such an
attractive town at the time I am writing about. But instead of the
seven or eight balls generally given during the winter, the Empress
arranged to give only four, varied with four theatrical performances
in the little theatre of the Ermitage Palace, which had been built by
the Empress Catherine. These performances, which were always composed
of classical pieces, were declared to be dull, and people found one
excuse or another to absent themselves from them, thus beginning the
system of boycotting which, later on, was extended to all the Empress’
entertainments. She was voted a bore and no criticism could have been
worse, considering the existing state, together with the habits and
customs, of the society of the Russian capital.