CONFESSIONS
OF THE CZARINA
[Illustration]
[Illustration: THE CZARINA
From a photograph taken shortly before the Czar’s downfall.]
Confessions
of the Czarina
_by_
COUNT PAUL-VASSILI
_Author of_
“BEHIND THE VEIL AT THE RUSSIAN COURT”
“LA SOCIÉTÉ DE BERLIN”
ILLUSTRATED
[Illustration]
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
CONFESSIONS OF THE CZARINA
Copyright, 1918, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published April, 1918
D-S
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
PUBLISHERS’ NOTE ix
INTRODUCTION xi
I. BETROTHAL AND MARRIAGE 1
II. MARRIAGE AND LONELINESS 18
III. MY COUNTRY, MY BELOVED COUNTRY, WHY AM I PARTED FROM THEE? 25
IV. A SAD CORONATION 34
V. DAUGHTERS, DAUGHTERS, AND NO SON 44
VI. THE EMPRESS’S OPINIONS ABOUT RUSSIA 53
VII. WHAT THE IMPERIAL FAMILY THOUGHT ABOUT THE EMPRESS 66
VIII. SORROW AND UNEXPECTED CONSOLATION 76
IX. PHILIPPE AND HIS WORK 88
X. ANNA WYRUBEWA APPEARS ON THE SCENE AND HE SAW HER PASS 99
XI. AND HE SAW HER PASS 112
XII. LOVED AT LAST 127
XIII. HE DIED TO SAVE HER HONOR 137
XIV. A NATION IN REVOLT 147
XV. A PROPHET OF GOD 157
XVI. SHE SAW HIM ONCE MORE 166
XVII. MY SON! I MUST SAVE MY SON! 177
XVIII. ANOTHER WAR 188
XIX. MY FATHERLAND, MUST I FORSAKE THEE? 199
XX. IT IS YOUR HUSBAND WHO IS LOSING THE THRONE OF YOUR SON 208
XXI. PEACE, WE MUST HAVE PEACE 219
XXII. THE REMOVAL OF THE “PROPHET” 229
XXIII. ANNA COMES TO THE RESCUE 240
XXIV. YOU MUST BECOME THE EMPRESS 251
XXV. THE NATION WANTS YOUR HEAD 261
XXVI. A CROWN IS LOST 271
XXVII. A PRISONER AFTER HAVING BEEN A QUEEN 281
XXVIII. THE EXILE 291
PUBLISHERS’ NOTE
A few months before the great war broke out, there appeared a book,
which, under the title _Behind the Veil of the Russian Court_, bearing
the signature of Count Paul Vassili, a name that had become famous
through the publication of the volume called _La Société de Berlin_. A
lively interest was aroused by _Behind the Veil of the Russian Court_,
dealing as it did with the intimate existence of four Russian Sovereigns
and their respective Courts. The author of this book was declared to be
already dead, out of a very natural feeling of precaution for his
personal safety. Count Vassili was living in Petrograd at the time, and
most certainly would have been banished to Siberia, and perhaps tried
for _lèse-majesté_, if that fact had been discovered. At the present
moment the reasons for concealing it exist no longer, and Count Vassili
is free to live once more and to publish another work of even greater
interest--the life of the former Czarina Alexandra. In relating it,
together with some most characteristic incidents which so far are but
little known, Count Vassili remarks to the public what a small circle
only have known; persons more or less interested in keeping the facts as
secret as possible. Count Vassili had known the Empress personally, in
fact was regularly and most exactly informed by numerous friends as to
all that went on at the Russian Court, and with all manner of intimate
details concerning the existence led by the Czar and by his Consort in
their Palace of Tsarskoye Selo. It is interesting to note that in
_Behind the Veil of the Russian Court_, written at a time when but few
people foresaw the fall of the dynasty of Romanoff, Count Vassili
declared the event bound to take place in the then very near future.
INTRODUCTION
I am not a coward, and it was not out of a feeling of uneasiness in
regard to my personal safety, that I had not the courage to publish in
my own name the book which, some thirty years ago, produced such a
sensation when it appeared in the _Nouvelle Revue_ of Madame Adam, under
the title of “La Société de Berlin.” But I was living in Germany at the
time, and though I would have felt delighted had the publication of this
volume driven me out of the Prussian capital, from which I was to shake
the dust from my shoes with such joy, a few years later, I had there
relatives who would most undoubtedly have fared very badly at Bismarck’s
hands, had my identity been disclosed. And once I am alluding to these
distant times, it is just as well to say that the book in question had
not at first been written for the benefit of the general public, but
consisted of private letters addressed to Madame Adam, who, being
happily still in the land of the living, can add many corroborative
details. She suggested to me to publish some of these letters; I
assented without suspecting the scandal which would follow, and which I
do not regret in the very least, now that events have justified the
mistrust with which the Prussian monster inspired me. The secret was
well kept and one of the victims of it was poor Mr. Gérard, the
secretary of Queen Augusta, who was accused of being the author of this
book, an accusation that has clung to him ever since, and from which I
am happy to relieve him.
The success of _La Société de Berlin_ induced Madame Adam to publish
other letters in the same style, devoted to other European capitals,
with which, however, I had nothing to do, except those dealing with St.
Petersburg life. The pseudonym of Count Paul Vassili remained a kind of
public property divided between the _Nouvelle Revue_ and my poor self.
Just before the war, when, indignant at the manner in which Nicholas II.
was compromising the work of his great father, I wrote the book _Behind
the Veil of the Russian Court_, I bethought myself of assuming once more
the old pseudonym. I was living at the time in St. Petersburg, as
Petrograd was still called, and my brothers were in the Russian military
service. I did not wish them to get into trouble. As it happened, my
identity was suspected, and unpleasantness followed; but it is no stigma
to have been ostracized by the Russian police under the old régime, so I
did not mind or care.
I had not written the book out of any motives of revenge; on the
contrary, I had many reasons to be personally grateful to Nicholas II.
for various kindnesses I had met with at his hands; but it was
impossible for any real Russian patriot to gaze unmoved at the German
propaganda that was going on in the Empire, or to forgive its Sovereign
Lady for disgracing herself together with the crown she wore, by the
superstitious practices that had put her into the power of intriguing
persons who ultimately brought about her own destruction, together with
the ruin of the dynasty. It was impossible for any one who had known
Russia during the reign of Alexander III., when the whole of Europe had
its eyes turned upon her, and was clamoring for her alliance, not to
feel deeply grieved in noticing the signs of the coming catastrophe
which had been hovering in the air ever since the fatal Japanese war.
The Monarch had become estranged from his people and his wife was the
person responsible for it; or rather the people who had succeeded in
getting hold of her mind. I do not wish here to throw stones at
Alexandra Feodorowna, and in relating now what I know concerning her
life, I will try not to forget that misfortune has got claims upon human
sympathy, and that where a woman is concerned one is bound to be even
more careful than in the case of a man.
The former Empress of All the Russias is to-day a prisoner, condemned to
a horrible exile. She deserves indulgence; the more so that her follies,
errors, and mistakes were partly due to a morbid state of mind, verging
if not achieving actual insanity. Her existence, like that of the hero
in the beautiful poem of Félix d’Arvers, had its secrets, and her soul
its mysteries. The fact that she was a Sovereign did not shield her from
feminine weaknesses, and, though she had always remained an innocent
woman--a fact upon which one cannot sufficiently insist--in view of all
the calumnies which have been heaped upon her, yet, like the unfortunate
Marie Antoinette, to whom she has been more than once compared, she had
also met on her path the devotion of a Fersen, as accomplished, as
brave, and as handsome, as the Swedish officer whose name has gone down
to posterity, thanks to his love for the poor Queen who perished on the
scaffold of the Champs Elysées. While the latter was spared the sorrow
of losing such a faithful friend, Alexandra Feodorowna was destined to
be an unwilling witness of a cruel and unexpected tragedy, which ended
brutally any dreams she might have nursed in the secret of her heart,
and put her good name at the mercy of an infuriated man. Therein lies
the drama of her life; a drama the remembrance of which probably haunts
her to this day in the solitude of the lonely Siberian town, to which
she has been banished by a triumphant Revolution.
This drama, which I am going to relate in the pages about to follow, was
made the subject of a shameless exploitation that took advantage of the
sorrow and despair to which it gave rise, that neither spared the woman
nor respected the Sovereign, and that finally overthrew the Romanoff
dynasty, and brought about the ruin of Russia. It seems to me that the
revelation of it can harm neither its heroine, nor the country over
which she reigned for twenty-two years; while, on the other hand, it may
help the public to understand some of the causes of the great Revolution
which was to be followed by such momentous consequences, not only for
Russia, but also for the whole world.
Before relating it, I must, however, beg my readers to keep always in
mind the fact that the Consort of Nicholas II. was not a normal woman;
that madness was hereditary in the Hesse-Darmstadt family to which she
belonged, twenty-two members of whom had, during the last hundred years
or so, been confined in lunatic asylums; that consequently a different
standard of criticism must be applied to Alexandra Feodorowna than to an
ordinary person in full possession of all her intellectual faculties.
The whole course of her history proves the truth of what I have just
said, and claims indulgence for her conduct.
As for this history, I think that, such as it really was, few people
have so far come to an exact knowledge of it, and that no one yet has
related it as I am going to do. The information that has reached me has
come almost day by day from sources which I have every reason to know
are excellent. I have applied myself to eliminate many facts which
appeared to me to be of too sensational a nature. I want also to point
out to the reader that, though this book is called the _Confessions of
the Czarina_, yet it does not contain one single word which I would like
him to believe to have been uttered personally by the former Czarina. It
is a story written ONLY by Count Paul Vassili, who accepts its
responsibility in signing his name to it.
PAUL VASSILI.
February, 1918.
CONFESSIONS
OF THE CZARINA
CONFESSIONS OF THE CZARINA
I
BETROTHAL AND MARRIAGE
Toward the close of February in the year 1894 the health of the Czar
Alexander III. of Russia began to fail.
Those in the confidence of the inner circle of the Imperial Family, who
constituted the small society which used to form the immediate
surroundings of the Sovereign, whispered that the Emperor was taking a
long time to rally from the attack of influenza which had prostrated him
in the beginning of the winter, and that steps ought to be taken to
ascertain whether or not he was suffering from something other than the
weakness which generally follows upon this perfidious ailment. But they
did not dare to mention openly their fears, because it was the tradition
at the Russian Court that the Czar ought not, and could not, be ill;
whenever any bulletins were published concerning his health or that of
any other member of the Imperial Family, it was immediately accepted by
the general public as meaning that the end was approaching. In the case
of Alexander III., his robust appearance, gigantic height and strength,
seemed to exclude the possibility of sickness ever laying its grip upon
him. In reality things were very different. The Czar had been suffering
for years from a kidney complaint, which had been allowed to develop
itself without anything being done to stop, or at least to arrest, its
progress. He was by nature and temperament an indefatigable worker,
accustomed to spending the best part of the day and a considerable
portion of the night, seated at his writing-desk; he rarely allowed
himself any vacations, except during his summer trips to Denmark, and he
never complained when he felt unwell, or would admit that his strength
was no longer what it had been. He had a most wonderful power of
self-control and a very high idea of his duties as a Sovereign. On the
day of his accession to the Throne, when, on his entering for the first
time the Anitchkoff Palace, which was to remain his residence until his
death, he was greeted by the members of his household with the
traditional bread and salt, which is always offered in Russia upon
occasions of the kind. When implored to show himself a father to his
subjects, the giant’s blue eyes had shone with even more kindness in
their expression than was generally the case, and in a very distinct and
quiet voice he had replied:
“Yes, I will try to be always a father to my people.”
This promise, given in the solemn moment when the weight of his new
duties and responsibilities was laid upon him, the late Czar had always
kept faithfully, honestly, with a steadfast purpose and an indomitable
will. He had put upon his program among other things the resolution
never to complain at any personal ailment or misfortune that he might
find himself obliged to bear. This resolution he kept up to the last
moment, and he went on working at his daily task until at last the pen
fell from his weary fingers and he had to own himself beaten. But during
the last memorable year of his life he must have more than once felt
that the end was drawing near, though he never spoke about it, with the
exception of once, when finding himself alone with one of his intimate
friends, General Tcherewine, he told him that he did not think he had
long to live, adding, sadly:
“And what will happen to this country when I am no longer here?”
The General became so alarmed at this avowal of a state of things he had
suspected, without daring to acknowledge, that he tried to open the
eyes of Empress Marie as to the state of health of her husband. But the
Czarina refused to see that anything was the matter, and angrily
reproved the General for daring to suggest such a thing. The latter
subsided, and sought one of the doctors who were generally in attendance
on the Emperor, asking him to tell him honestly his opinion concerning
the Czar. The doctor retrenched himself behind professional secrecy, and
only replied vaguely. The truth of the matter was that he did not wish
to own that he had been rebuffed by Alexander III. when he had asked the
latter to allow him to make an examination of him, and that he had never
dared to insist on its necessity.
At this time, when his father’s life was trembling in the balance, the
heir to the Russian Throne, the Grand-Duke Cesarewitsch, was twenty-six
years old. If the traditions of the House of Romanoff had been adhered
to in regard to him, he ought to have been married already, as it had
been settled by custom that the eldest son of the Czar ought as early as
possible to bring home a bride, so as to insure the succession to the
crown. But the Empress Marie had never looked with favor at the
possibility of seeing her family circle widened by the advent of a
daughter-in-law, and whenever the question of the establishment of her
eldest son was raised she always found objections to offer against any
princess whose name was mentioned to her as that of a possible wife. The
French party at the Imperial Court, which at that moment was in
possession of great influence, tried hard to bring about the betrothal
of the future Czar with the Princess Hélène of Orléans, and at one time
it seemed as if it would be really possible to arrange such a marriage,
in spite of the difference of religion.
But another circumstance interfered; during one of his visits to
Germany, where he often repaired as the guest of his aunt, the
Grand-Duchess Marie Alexandrowna of Coburg, the Grand Duke had fallen in
love with the Princess Margaret of Prussia, the youngest daughter of the
Empress Frederick, and the sister of William II., and had declared that
he would not marry any one else. To this, however, Alexander III.
decidedly objected, saying that he would never consent to a Prussian
princess wearing again the crown of the Romanoffs. He expressed himself
in such positive terms in regard to this matter that the Grand Duke did
not dare to push it forward, and it was soon after this that he was sent
on a journey round the world, while the Princess Margaret was hurried
into a marriage with a Prince of Hesse by her brother, who, furious at
her rejection by the Czar, decided to wed her offhand to the first
eligible suitor who presented himself. The young girl wept profusely,
but had to obey, and the Cesarewitsch for the first time in his life
showed some independence, and declared to his friends that since he had
not been allowed to marry the woman he loved, he would not marry at all.
Before this, however, there had been made by his aunt, the Grand-Duchess
Elisabeth, an attempt to betroth him with the latter’s sister, the
Princess Alix of Hesse, who had spent a winter season in St. Petersburg
as her guest, and who was spoken of as likely to be considered an
eligible bride for the future Emperor of All the Russias. She was not
yet as beautiful as she was to become later on. The awkwardness of her
manners had not impressed favorably St. Petersburg society. Smart women
had ridiculed her and made fun of her dresses, all “made in Germany,”
and had objected to the ungraceful way in which she danced, and declared
her to be dull and stupid. If one is to believe all that was said at the
time, the Grand-Duke Nicholas Alexandrowitch shared this opinion, and it
was related that, one evening during a supper at the mess of the Hussar
regiment of which he was captain, he had declared to his comrades that
there was as much likelihood of his marrying the Princess Alix as there
was of his uniting himself to the Krzesinska, the dancer who for some
years already had been his mistress. But during the spring of the year
1894 things had changed. As the Czar’s health became indifferent, his
Ministers bethought themselves that it was almost a question of state to
marry as soon as possible the Heir to the Throne.
Mr. de Giers, who was in possession of the portfolio of Foreign Affairs,
and who (this by the way) had always been pro-German in his sympathies,
gathered sufficient courage to mention the subject to Alexander III.,
saying that the nation wished to see the young Grand Duke married and
father of a family. The Emperor understood, and a few days later, in
despatching his son to Coburg to attend the nuptials of his cousin, the
Princess Victoria Mélita, with the Grand Duke of Hesse, he told him that
he would like him to ask for the hand of the Princess Alix, and to offer
to the latter the diadem of the Romanoffs.
The Cesarewitsch did not object this time. For one thing, he did not
think his father was really ill, and he was becoming very impatient at
the state of subjection in which he was being kept by his parents. He
imagined that, once he was married, he would be free to live his own
life; what he had seen of the Princess Alix had not given him a very
high opinion of her mental capacities, and therefore he believed that
she would be contented with the grandeur that was being put in her way,
and would shut her eyes to any little excursions he might make outside
the beaten tracks of holy matrimony. The woman he had loved had been
removed from his path, and perhaps in the secret of his soul he was not
so very sorry, after all, to show her that he had consoled himself. It
seems also that Miss Krzesinska, the Polish dancer by whom he had had
two sons, had been won over to the marriage by means about which the
less said the better, and had used her influence over her lover to
persuade him that the Princess Alix was of so meek and mild a
temperament that they would be able to continue their relations after
his marriage with her, which perhaps would not be the case were he to
wed some one gifted with more independence and more intellect. Nicholas
has always been of the same opinion as that of the last person with whom
he spoke. He therefore yielded, went dutifully to Coburg, and just as
dutifully proposed to the young Princess whose arrival in Russia was to
herald so much misfortune to her new family, as well as to her new
country.
The engagement was announced on the 20th of April, 1894, but was not
made in Russia the subject of welcome it had been expected. Everybody
felt that love had played no part in this union, which politics alone
had inspired. The open repugnance which the bride displayed for
everything that was Russian, and the hesitation she had shown before
consenting to adopt the orthodox faith, had not predisposed in her
favor St. Petersburg society. The Empress Marie, whose consent had been
a matter of necessity, did not hide the want of sympathy with which this
marriage inspired her; the Imperial Family did not care to see put over
its head the insignificant Princess it had snubbed two years before; the
nation, violently anti-German as it had become, wondered why it had not
been possible to find for its future Sovereign a wife in some other
country than the one which seemed to consider as its right the privilege
of furnishing Russia with its Empresses.
By a curious anomaly, in Darmstadt, and in Berlin, the betrothal was
exceedingly unpopular, and the press spoke of it as of an open scandal,
on account of the change of religion imposed upon the Princess Alix. The
only two people who rejoiced at her good luck were Queen Victoria, who
always liked to see her daughters and granddaughters well married; and
the Kaiser, who, since his earliest years, had been the particular
friend of the future Czarina, and who had succeeded, at the time when
she had shown herself reticent in regard to all her other relatives, in
winning her confidence and her affection, perhaps out of gratitude,
because he had been the only one who had troubled about her in general.
The first weeks which followed upon the engagement of the Cesarewitsch
were spent by him in England, whither his fiancée had repaired, and
while there he had been very much impressed with the grandeur of Great
Britain, and with the kindness which Queen Victoria showed him. He would
have liked nothing better than to be allowed to remain where he was for
an indefinite time, forgetting all about Russia, which (this is
unfortunately an uncontested fact) he never liked nor troubled about.
Events, however, were progressing, and very soon it became evident even
to the most indifferent onlooker that the days of Alexander III. were
numbered. The dying Sovereign was taken to Livadia in the Crimea,
whither his son was hastily recalled. When the latter arrived there took
place a small incident which, better, perhaps, than anything else, will
give an idea of the young man’s utter want of comprehension of the
gravity of the events which went on around him. A few hours after he had
reached Livadia his father’s friend, General Tcherewine, called upon
him, to make him a report concerning the health of the Czar. The Grand
Duke listened to him in silence, then suddenly inquired:
“What have you been doing the whole time you have been here? Have you
been at the theater, and are there any pretty actresses this year?”
The General, surprised, replied:
“But, Sir, I could not possibly go to the theater while the Emperor is
so ill.”
“Well, what has this got to do with going or not to the theater; one
must spend one’s evenings somewhere.”
Tcherewine, who related to me himself this story a few weeks later,
added:
“He will always remain the same; he will never understand anything that
goes on around him.”
It was during the last days of the useful life of Alexander III. that
the plan of marrying immediately his son and future successor to the
Princess Alix of Hesse, and of performing the ceremony at Livadia, was
suggested, at the instigation, it is said, of the German Ambassador in
St. Petersburg, General von Schweinitz, who had received instructions
from Berlin to try and hasten the event as much as possible. But the
Czar would not hear of it, declaring that the Heir to the Russian Throne
could not be married privately. He consented, however, to a telegram
being sent to the Princess Alix, inviting her to come at once to
Livadia, to be presented to him. She obeyed the summons, but not without
reluctance. She did not care for her future husband, and as she
elegantly expressed it, to a lady whom she honored with her confidence,
she “did not care to find herself in the Crimea at a time when no one
would think of her, and when she would be compelled to be the fifth
wheel to a coach.” She was, however, persuaded, and left for Warsaw,
where her sister, the Grand-Duchess Elisabeth, was to receive her, and
to accompany her farther.
At Berlin she was met by William II., who traveled with her a part of
the way, and during a long interview which lasted over five hours gave
her his instructions as to what she ought to do in the future. As we
shall see, she was to follow them but too well.
The Princess reached Livadia three days before the Czar breathed his
last. He found sufficient strength to receive her, bless her, and wish
her happiness in her new life. She replied (this must be conceded to
her) with great tact to those solemn words of farewell, and, suddenly
surmounting her previous repugnance, she declared herself ready to
abjure at once the Protestant faith, and to embrace that of her future
husband and subjects. Some people say that she declared she wished to
procure this last joy for Alexander III., but this is doubtful,
considering the fact that her conversion took place only on the morrow
of the death of the latter.
As soon as it had become an accomplished fact, she was given the title
of a Russian Grand Duchess and of an Imperial Highness. Her name
appeared in the liturgy, and she was treated with all the honors
pertaining to a future Empress. But she found herself lonely and
forsaken amid her newly acquired grandeur. The Dowager Empress was too
entirely taken up by her grief to pay any attention to the haughty girl,
who, already during those first few days of her new life, showed herself
resentful when she thought that she was not awarded sufficient
importance. The young Czar was so absorbed by the many duties and
obligations which fell upon his shoulders that he had no time to remain
with her as long as she would have wished, perhaps, and his family
simply ignored her. Her days were spent in attending the many funeral
services which, according to etiquette, took place twice, and sometimes
thrice, daily beside the bier of the deceased Monarch. She found herself
placed not only in an awkward, but also in an absurd, position, and if
she did not realize other things, she understood this one but too well.
When the body of Alexander III. was brought back to St. Petersburg, the
Princess Alix accompanied it, together with the other members of the
Imperial Family, and one could see her, deeply veiled, during the
funeral ceremonies which took place at the fortress, standing beside the
Dowager Empress, silent and attentive to all that was going on around
her, and making mental notes as to everything that was taking place. She
began to assume a Sovereign’s attitude, and she tried to take, as if
accidentally, precedence over the Grand Duchesses. One of them, the
Princess Marie Pawlowna, soon perceived the game, and one afternoon as
the future bride was keeping close to her prospective mother-in-law,
seeming to dance attendance upon the latter, the Grand Duchess pushed
her aside most unceremoniously, saying as she did so:
“Not yet, not yet, Alix; this place belongs still to me.”
Affronted, the young girl withdrew; but when she got home to the Palace
belonging to her sister, where she had taken up her abode, she declared
that she wished to return to Darmstadt because her position was too
false in Russia.
Scene followed upon scene; and Nicholas II. was treated for the first
time to the hysterics of which he was to see, later on, so many
repetitions. At last the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII.,
interfered, and it was partly at his instigation, and that of Queen
Victoria, who wrote upon the subject to the Empress Marie, that it was
at last decided that the marriage of the new Czar with the Princess Alix
was to take place immediately after the funeral of the former’s father.
I shall never forget that day. In the vast halls of the Winter Palace
the whole of Russia was represented, eager to witness this unique
ceremony, the marriage of a Reigning Emperor, an event which had never
taken place before. The bride was on that day the object of great
[Illustration: THE CZARINA
When she was Princess Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt, before her betrothal to
the Czar, 1894.]
sympathy. One pitied her for finding herself so suddenly placed in a
position for which she had not been at all prepared, and one felt
disposed to grant her every indulgence in case she made a mistake of
some kind or other, which was almost an unavoidable thing. Some people,
whose English sympathies predisposed them in her favor, rejoiced openly
to see the Throne occupied by a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and
hoped that the latter’s influence and example would induce the new
Empress to try and persuade her husband to renounce the principles of
the tyrannous autocracy followed by his predecessors. The man in the
street, however, remarked that nothing but bad omens surrounded this
hurried marriage, and recalled the old Russian proverb, that
“wedding-bells ought never to be heard in conjunction with funeral
ones.”
The most unconcerned person seemed to be the bride herself as, amid the
hushed expectation of the crowd assembled on her passage, she entered
the chapel of the Winter Palace on the arm of him who since a few days
was Nicholas II., Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias.
A murmur of admiration followed her as she passed. Seldom has anything
more beautiful graced human eye than Alexandra Feodorowna in her
wedding-dress, as she slowly walked along, with a diamond crown on her
head and a long mantle of cloth of gold lined with ermine falling from
her shoulders, and carried by Court officials in embroidered uniforms.
She was a real vision of loveliness, “divinely tall and divinely fair,”
and in the general feeling of admiration excited by her radiant beauty
but few people noticed the thin, set lips, pressed together in firm
determination, and the hard chin, which gave a disagreeable expression
to what otherwise would have been a faultless face. Behind her, also in
white attired, walked the Empress Marie, sobbing the whole time, and
leaning on the arm of her aged father, the King of Denmark. Every heart
went out to her in her widowhood and loneliness; while many wondered
whether her successor, on the Throne she had graced so well, would ever
become as popular as she had been during her short reign of thirteen
years.
An hour later a State carriage with outriders drove the newly wedded
couple from the Winter Palace to that of Anitchkoff where they were to
take up their residence with the Dowager Empress until their own
apartments were made ready for them. The bride was greeted with
vociferous cheers by the crowds. It was the one solitary occasion in her
life when she could have the illusion of being popular with her newly
acquired subjects. Eighteen months later these were to show to her in an
unmistakable manner that such was far from being the case, when she was
making her entry into that old town of Moscow, where the Imperial Crown
was to be put on her brow, to replace the orange flowers which had
adorned her head on her wedding morning.
II
MARRIAGE AND LONELINESS
One must be fair. The first months of the wedded life of the young
Empress Alexandra were not months of unmixed happiness. This, though
partly her fault, was also due to circumstances and the people who
surrounded her. Though the Consort of one of the mightiest monarchs in
Europe, she yet found herself relegated to an absolutely secondary
position; she discovered very quickly that no one considered her to be
of any importance whatsoever beside her mother-in-law, the
Dowager-Empress Marie. The latter had been one of the most popular
Sovereigns who ever graced a throne, and from the very first days after
her arrival in Russia she had applied herself to the task of pleasing
the people. Like her sister, Queen Alexandra, she identified herself
completely with the nation that now claimed her as its own, and she
entered into all its interests and pursuits, without any exaggeration,
but with that quiet, lovely dignity which never failed her, no matter in
what position she found herself. Her influence over her husband had
been immense, but no one had ever noticed it; on the contrary, she had
persistently remained in the background and tried to pass for a
pleasant, amiable, and just a little frivolous, woman who cared for
balls, pretty clothes, fine jewels, and the pomp which surrounded her at
every step she took. She held very properly the idea that it lowers a
Sovereign to appear to be under the sway and influence of his wife, and
so, though Alexander III. never took any decision of any importance
without having first of all discussed it with her, in public she avoided
not only talking politics, but even the appearance of being interested
in them.
On the other hand, she had always been, not only conscious, but also
very jealous, of her power. She did not in the least care to give it up
after her widowhood. Her children, strange to say, had always stood in
awe of her, much more than of the Czar, who was a most affectionate and
loving father, while Marie Feodorowna had always treated them more from
the point of view of Sovereign than mother. This had been especially the
case with the Grand-Duke Nicholas, who, when he found himself Emperor,
discovered that he could not avoid taking the Dowager Empress’s opinion,
especially in matters concerning his domestic life. He was told by her
that the inexperience of his young wife made it imperative she should
be guided by the advices of people older than herself.
This, however, did not suit at all Alexandra Feodorowna, and she found
an unexpected support in the person of her own Mistress of the Robes,
the Princess Galitzyne, who did not like Marie Feodorowna and was but
too glad to put spokes in the latter’s wheels. That was the cause of
much trouble, and brought about strife in the Imperial Family, which
might have been avoided by the exercise of a small amount of tact.
The young Empress, compelled to live in two badly furnished, poky little
rooms on the ground floor of the Anitchkoff Palace, became impatient and
fretful, and did not care to make a secret of the fact. She felt hurt,
too, at several incidents which occurred about that time, the first one
of which was connected with the introduction of her name in the liturgy.
She wished it to figure immediately after that of the Emperor, while
Marie Feodorowna pretended that hers ought not to be relegated to a
secondary place, but be mentioned before that of her daughter-in-law.
The two ladies quarreled desperately on this subject, and at last the
matter was referred to the Synod, which decided, in view of the existent
precedents, that the name of the Consort of the Sovereign ought to be
called before that of his mother. The Dowager was furious, while
Alexandra Feodorowna was triumphant, and not wise enough to hide it from
the world, expressing herself quite loudly in regard to the pleasure
which she experienced in seeing defeated the attempt made by her
mother-in-law to relegate her to an inferior place which she did not in
the least wish to occupy.
Another cause of discontent arose in connection with the Crown Jewels.
Marie Feodorowna had liked to wear them more often than any of her
predecessors on the Throne, and, though her own private collection of
pearls and diamonds was one of the most magnificent in Europe, yet she
loved to put on the exceptional stones, tiaras, and necklaces which were
the property of the State. Her husband, Czar Alexander III., also liked
to see them adorn the person of his idolized wife, and in order to spare
her the annoyance of going through the long ceremony associated with the
demand of any _parure_ it pleased her to require from the Treasury, he
had had the jewels she cared for the most transferred to the Anitchkoff
Palace, where they were kept in a special safe in the Empress’s bedroom.
After the latter’s widowhood, the question arose as to whether she was
to be allowed to retain the custody of all these precious stones, or
whether, properly speaking, it was only the reigning Empress who had the
right to wear them; had they not better be returned to the place which
they had occupied before in the Imperial Treasury?
Some Court officials considered that this was the proper thing to do;
the more so that, as it happened, the young Empress had not personal
diamonds or pearls at all worthy of her new position. She had received
some wonderful presents from her husband when they had become engaged,
but the usual amount of jewels bestowed upon marriage on all the Grand
Duchesses of Russia had not been offered to her, on account of the hurry
with which this marriage had been achieved. It was therefore essential
that she should be given the opportunity to adorn herself on all State
occasions with the brilliants that the Crown held in reserve for the use
of the Sovereign’s Consorts. No one thought of subjecting the Empress to
the ordeal of going to her mother-in-law, to beg from the latter the
permission to use the things to which she was legally entitled, and one
would have thought that the best way out of the difficulty would be to
have the jewels returned to their original place of abode, and
reinstated in the Treasury.
But one had not reckoned with the Dowager Empress! She absolutely
refused to give up the ornaments she had been so fond of, and when
driven out of her last intrenchments, and obliged to capitulate, she
protested that it was not usual for an Empress to wear what belonged to
the Crown, before that Crown had been officially laid upon her head, and
said that she would relinquish the possession of the famous jewels only
after the Coronation of her son and daughter-in-law. The Czar, weak as
usual, yielded. Alexandra Feodorowna declared that she did not care for
the “hateful things,” and proceeded to buy out of her allowance the most
gorgeous ornaments she could lay her hands upon, getting heavily into
debt in consequence, a fact which did not help to make her popular with
her subjects.
She had an unpleasant manner that told against her. Not affable by
nature, timid to a certain extent, she imagined that her position as
Empress of Russia required her to show herself haughty and disdainful
with the people who were introduced to her. Her extremely indifferent
knowledge of the French language, which was the only one in use in Court
circles, also added to her unpopularity. Her mistakes in that respect
were repeated everywhere and ridiculed by the old ladies whom her want
of politeness had contributed to offend, and before she had been married
three months she found herself not only unpopular, but even disliked by
almost every person she had met.
Then, again, Alexandra Feodorowna was possessed of a wonderful, but most
unfortunate talent for drawing caricatures, of which she made no
secret, but which, on the contrary, used against all those she disliked,
and their name was legion! She found herself, of course, extremely
lonely, without any friends of her own rank, and deprived of that
liberty of going about she had enjoyed so much at Darmstadt. She had
taken a violent dislike for all the Princesses belonging to her new
family, and even the grace and liveliness of the Grand-Duchess Xenia
Alexandrowna, her sister-in-law, had failed to win her heart. She did
not care for Russia; its climate did not agree with her, its language
she could not learn; its religion she despised in those early days which
followed upon her marriage, though she was later to become a fanatical
adherent of the Greek Orthodox Church; its manners and customs she could
not assimilate. All these circumstances put together made her sullen and
angry, and added to her general discontent. She at last determined to
try and assert herself, and, though secretly despising the weakness of
character of her husband, whom she continually chaffed for his blind
submission to his mother, she endeavored to supplant the latter in his
heart and mind, and to substitute herself for Marie Feodorowna, not only
in domestic, but also in political matters.
We shall presently see how this experiment was to be tried, and what
were its ultimate consequences.
III
MY COUNTRY, MY BELOVED COUNTRY, WHY AM I PARTED FROM THEE?
The spring of 1895 brought few changes in the existence of the young
Empress.
For one thing, she contrived to influence the Czar to take up his
residence in the small Palace of Tsarskoye Selo, which later on they
were to inhabit permanently, but which at that time was still badly
furnished and rather forlorn in appearance, owing to the fact that no
one had ever lived there since the death of Alexander II. It had been a
favorite resort of his, and of his morganatic wife, the Princess
Youriewsky, and for that reason had been shunned by his successor, who
had elected to establish himself in the huge castle of Gatschina. This
place was left to the Dowager Empress for life, and thither she repaired
in the beginning of the spring, not, however, without having made a
feeble attempt to influence her son and daughter-in-law to accompany
her. But for once Nicholas II. did not react, and ignored the
invitation. His wife was expecting the birth of her first child, and
this circumstance gave her more influence, and to her wishes more
weight, than would perhaps have been the case under ordinary
circumstances.
Though at Tsarskoye Selo Alexandra Feodorowna obtained more liberty than
had been the case throughout the weary months of the preceding winter,
yet she found that she had to keep in mind the necessity not to give any
reason for the criticisms which she knew but too well were directed
against her from every side. Needless to say, she might have avoided
these criticisms by the display of some elementary notions of tact. In
her way she was a very truthful woman; she even carried her love for
veracity sometimes too far. She had no experience of the world, and her
life at Darmstadt had not prepared her for the responsibilities of her
position as Empress. She did not care for St. Petersburg society, which
she considered frivolous, and she made no secret of this fact. Of course
people resented it.
Her mother-in-law, the Empress Marie, though she had always kept herself
very well informed as to all that was going on in the select circles of
those privileged beings who were received at Court, yet had taken good
care to appear to ignore the many love-affairs which were either known
or suspected in regard to these people. She had so much tact that
whenever anything she disapproved of occurred, among these Upper Ten
Thousand of people, she let them see that such was the case, but never
mentioned it in public.
The Empress Alexandra, on the contrary, spoke with acerbity of every
small incident which came to her knowledge, and declared loudly that she
would refuse to admit in her presence the persons guilty of
indiscretions. During the second season which followed upon her
marriage, when Court receptions interrupted by the mourning for the late
Czar were once more resumed, the Empress struck off from the list of
invitations submitted to her the names of some of the most prominent
members of St. Petersburg society, giving her reasons for doing so. The
result was that nothing but old frumps, or mothers with marriageable
daughters, attended this particular ball, and that the Empress in her
turn was boycotted by almost everybody of note in the capital, who did
not care to have themselves or their relatives publicly branded as not
worthy to be admitted within the gates of the Winter Palace. The effects
of this ostracism became apparent on the New-Year’s reception which
followed upon this incident, which only four women attended, wives of
Ministers, who, in virtue of their husbands’ position, could not well do
anything else. The Emperor, surprised at this absence of the feminine
element, on an occasion when it was generally very conspicuous,
inquired into the matter. When told the story which had given rise to it
he forthwith consulted his mother, and the latter, profiting by the
occasion, told her son that he had better have the names of the people
about to be invited at Court balls submitted to her for inspection, and
not to the young Empress. Of course this became known at once, with the
result that the popularity of Marie Feodorowna increased, while that of
her daughter-in-law, on the contrary, diminished with every day that
passed.
Rebuffed on every side, Alexandra Feodorowna first sought comfort and
advice from her sister, the Grand-Duchess Elisabeth, who, by reason of
her residing in Moscow, where her husband, the Grand-Duke Sergius,
occupied the position of Governor-General, did not often see her. The
Grand Duchess, in response to an invitation which she received to come
to Tsarskoye Selo, took the first train. When consulted by the Empress
in regard to the difficulties with which she found her path beset, she
could not find a solution for them, perhaps because she did not honestly
seek it. Elisabeth, as well as her husband, was very ambitious, and they
would not have been sorry to see Alexandra Feodorowna estranged from all
her new family, in order to have her entirely under their influence and
control, and to dominate through her the weak Nicholas II., whose
character was already beginning to be known, with all its faults and
defects, by his near relatives, as well as by his Ministers and
advisers. Elisabeth, therefore, advised her sister to try and keep at
arm’s-length from her mother-in-law, uncles, aunts, and cousins, and
especially to be suspicious of her two brothers-in-law, who were
represented to her as being her natural enemies, notwithstanding the
fact that one of them, the Grand-Duke George, was consumptive and did
not live in St. Petersburg, the climate of which he could not endure,
while the second, the Grand-Duke Michael, was a youth of sixteen, hardly
out of school.
Alexandra Feodorowna, however, became suspicious of this advice, perhaps
because she distrusted the Grand-Duke Sergius just as much as her other
relatives. Yet advice she felt she must have. It would have been natural
for her to seek that of her brother, the Grand Duke of Hesse, and of her
other sisters, the Princess Victoria of Battenberg and the Princess
Henry of Prussia, but while the former had never been her favorite, the
latter refused--at the instigation of her husband, most probably--to be
mixed up in things which did not concern her, and intrenched herself
behind her ignorance of Russian customs and Russian society. The Empress
felt frantic, and it was then that she was seized with violent attacks
of homesickness, which she did not attempt to conceal. More than once
she was heard to say that she wished she were back in Germany, where at
least she would find people capable of understanding her and of advising
her well and soundly.
Germany has always, as is but too well known to-day, maintained an army
of spies in Russia. Very quickly a report of what was going on in
Tsarskoye Selo reached the ears of William II. He saw his opportunity
and forthwith wrote to his cousin, reminding her of their former
friendship and telling her that he was entirely at her disposal to help
her, by his knowledge of Russian affairs, which he professed was very
great, and by his experience of the world.