established between them relations of the closest intimacy, linking the
Empress and the Lord of Potsdam. She took the habit of sending him a
kind of diary of what she was doing and of what went on at the Russian
Court--a diary in which she did not spare her mother-in-law, or her
husband, whom she reproached with not taking her part more openly.
Of course it was not easy to carry on such a correspondence. The young
Empress was closely watched, a fact of which she was but too well aware.
She tried the medium of the German Embassy, but apart from the fact
that it would have seemed a suspicious thing to send there letters in a
regular way, the Ambassador, Prince Radolin, refused to be the means of
forwarding messages of which he did not know the import, and did not
care to be involved in an intrigue that would inevitably have brought
him to grief if discovered. Some other way, therefore, had to be
devised, and for a time it seemed as if it would be next to impossible
to find any. Once or twice the Princess Hohenlohe, wife of the Imperial
Chancellor, who, through the fact that she was the owner of large
estates in Lithuania, often visited St. Petersburg, brought with her
messages from the Kaiser to the Empress Alexandra, and took back with
her to Berlin the latter’s replies. But this was not sufficient, and
during the first visit paid by the Czar and his Consort to the German
Court William and the young Czarina came to an understanding, after
which their correspondence continued through the medium of friends of
the Kaiser, who somehow appeared regularly in Russia whenever this was
considered necessary.
People, and there were some, who happened to be in the secret of this
intercourse pretended that one of the things which William II. urged
upon his cousin was the necessity of getting rid of the influence of the
Empress Marie, who, by reason of her avowed French sympathies,
constituted a danger to German expansion and to German progress in the
Muscovite Empire. The fact that for the present Alexandra Feodorowna was
still considered a nonentity at the Russian Court was not of much
importance because it was thought that if she were once to become the
mother of a son she would immediately be raised to the position of an
important personage in her husband’s house and country. And it must not
be forgotten that in the course of the summer of 1895 the Empress was
known to be about to give birth to her first child, who of course had to
be a boy and an Heir to the Russian Throne.
Alas, alas for these hopes!
It was a Grand Duchess, Olga Nicholaiewna, who saw the light of day on a
November morning in the Imperial Palace of Tsarskoye Selo. The
disappointment was intense and extended to all classes of the nation,
except among the members of the Imperial Family, who made no secret of
the fact that they were delighted the little Hessian Princess they all
disliked so intensely had not fulfilled her husband’s and her subjects’
expectations. The news of their joy reached the ears of Alexandra
Feodorowna through the channel of the Kaiser, and added to her
bitterness against her Russian relatives, which made itself felt in the
affected manner with which she continually made allusions in their
presence to her regrets at having accepted the position of Empress of
All the Russias. She openly spoke of her contempt for this “land of
savages” as she called it, and more than once her attendants heard her
give vent to the exclamation of “My country, my beloved country, why am
I parted from Thee?”
IV
A SAD CORONATION
Contrary to the custom observed at the Imperial Court of Russia, the
young Empress insisted herself on nursing her baby. This met with
general disapproval, not only from Marie Feodorowna, who, never having
thought of the possibility of such an infraction of the traditions of
the House of Romanoff, felt considerably affronted at this piece of
independence on the part of her daughter-in-law; also from all the
dowagers of St. Petersburg, who considered the innovation as _infra
dig._ and declared that such a breach of etiquette constituted a public
scandal.
Some enterprising ladies, who, by virtue of their own unimpeachable
positions, thought themselves entitled to express their opinions,
ventured to say so to Alexandra Feodorowna herself. She was indignant at
what she termed an insult, turned her back on those voluntary advisers,
and flatly declared that she would refuse henceforward to admit into her
presence people who had forgotten to such an extent the respect due to
her and to her position as the wife of their Sovereign.
Matters assumed an acute form, and during the first ball which took
place that season in the Winter Palace the incident was discussed most
vehemently. One wondered what would happen later on, and how the Empress
would behave in regard to those givers of unsought advice in the future.
But Providence interfered in favor of Alexandra Feodorowna, because she
suddenly was taken with an attack of the measles, not the German ones
this time, but the real, authentic thing, and the Court festivities
about to take place were immediately postponed in spite of the
protestations of different Court officials, who urged that they could
very well take place in the absence of the Empress, and that their
abandonment would be a serious blow to trade, which already was very
bad, and which had discounted the profits it generally made during a
winter season when the gates of the Winter Palace were thrown open with
the usual lavishness and luxury displayed there on such occasions. Trade
and its requirements were about the last thing which troubled the mind
of Alexandra Feodorowna. She was of the opinion prevalent in Poland at
the time of the Saxon dynasty that when Augustus was intoxicated the
whole nation had to get drunk, and though she detested or pretended she
detested Court balls and festivities, yet she was adverse to others
enjoying them while she herself was debarred from doing so. Girls in
their first season eager for showing off their pretty frocks, and lively
young married women in quest of gaiety, were told to forego expectations
of such pleasure, and the gates of the Palace remained closed for the
first time in many years, to the general disappointment of St.
Petersburg society and of its prominent members.
This disappointment, however, was soon forgotten in the expectation of
the Coronation about to take place, the date of which had been fixed for
the 15th of May. Great preparations were made for it. Those who
remembered the pomp which had attended that of Alexander III., thirteen
years before, wondered whether the ceremony about to be repeated would
be as brilliant as the one which they had not yet forgotten. The whole
of St. Petersburg society, with few exceptions, repaired to Moscow for
the solemn occasion, and all the Foreign Courts sent representatives to
attend the festival. One tried to guess how the young Empress would
carry herself through the trying ordeal, and whether she would
condescend for once to show herself amiable toward her subjects in the
ancient capital of Muscovy, the population of which had always professed
far more independence of opinions than that of St. Petersburg, where
conversations were more restrained and guarded, in view of the constant
presence of the Imperial Family within its walls. The one thing which
everybody was looking forward to was the public entry of the young
Sovereigns in the old town, an entry which was to be made with unusual
pomp and solemnity.
I remember very well the day of the ceremony. I had a seat in a house
situated on the great square opposite the residence of the
Governor-General of the town, a position which was still occupied by the
Grand-Duke Sergius. Together with some friends, we watched the long line
of troops, followed by representatives from all classes in the country;
by Court officials on horseback, in gold-embroidered uniforms, behind
whom rode, surrounded by a brilliant staff, the Czar himself, mounted on
a gray charger; a small, slight figure, contrasting vividly with his
father thirteen years before. Nicholas II. had already acquired the
expression of utter impassibility which was never to change in the
future. He surveyed with a grim look the vast crowds massed in the
streets, who cheered him vociferously, but he did so with a look that
expressed neither pleasure nor disappointment, but simply indifference
mixed with tediousness.
Behind him came a long row of State carriages all gold and precious
stones, the diamonds which glittered on them being valued at several
millions of rubles. In the foremost, the carriage of Catherine the
Great, with an immense Imperial Crown on its top, rode the Dowager
Empress dressed in white and looking as young almost as she had done on
the day of her own Coronation. Hurrahs without end greeted her
appearance; the people cheered her with an enthusiasm such as had rarely
been seen in Russia, while, pale and trembling, she bowed incessantly
from right to left, with tears streaming down her cheeks. These hurrahs
followed her all along her way from the distant Petrowsky Palace to the
gates of the Kremlin, which she entered at last, amid the acclamations
of the multitude assembled to see her pass.
Immediately behind her, divided only by a squadron of cavalry, drove her
daughter-in-law, also dressed in a white gown, and sparkling with all
the jewels belonging to the Crown, which she had assumed for the first
time on that solemn day. A dead silence, contrasting painfully with the
frenzied reception awarded to Marie Feodorowna, greeted her successor on
the Throne of Russia. This contrast was so evident that everybody
present was struck with it, and something like a presentiment of evil
passed through the mind of most of the assistants of this strange scene.
One remembered Marie Antoinette at Rheims during the Coronation of Louis
XVI. when she also had been received with silence and contempt by the
[Illustration: THE DOWAGER EMPRESS MARIE FEODOROWNA]
French nation, who a few years later was to send her to the scaffold.
Perhaps something of the kind crossed the mind of Alexandra Feodorowna
herself, because it was evident that she was suffering from a violent
desire to give vent to tears and rage. I saw her from the place where I
stood, through the open large windows of the State carriage in which she
sat quite alone, according to the requirements of etiquette, immovable
like an Indian goddess, looking neither right nor left, but straight
before her, her haughty head thrown back, two red spots on her cheeks,
and a set expression on her thin lips closely joined together. She
understood but too well the meaning of this strange reception she was
awarded; too proud to complain, she seemed to ignore it. Once and once
only did I see her start, and that was when, amid the profound silence
which prevailed around her, a voice, that of a child, was heard
exclaiming:
“Show me the German, mamma, show me the German!”
And with this cry in her ears and in those of other listeners, the big
coach with Alexandra Feodorowna sitting in it, in all the splendor of
her white dress and glorious jewels, vanished in the distance within the
walls of that old fortress called the Kremlin, which, seen in the
glamour of dusk already falling, looked more like a prison than a
palace.
Three days later I was to look once more on the slight and erect figure
of the Consort of Nicholas II. as she emerged out of the bronze gates of
the Cathedral of the Assumption walking under a canopy of cloth of gold
and ermine, with ostrich plumes towering on its top, the Crown of the
Russian Empresses standing high upon her small head and the long mantle
of brocade embroidered with the black eagles of the Romanoffs trailing
from her shoulders. She looked magnificent, but there was something in
the expression of her haughty features which reminded one of the
prophecy of the Italian sculptor in regard to Charles Stuart: “Something
evil will befall that man; he has got misfortune written on his face.”
Beside his wife, Nicholas II. looked the insignificant personage he was
to remain until the end of his reign and very probably of his life. He
could no more bear the weight of his Crown physically than he was able
later on to carry the burden of his responsibilities. As he walked, he
staggered and trembled; and one could distinctly notice the signs of the
extreme fatigue under which he labored. Supported on either side by two
attendants, who carried the folds of his Imperial mantle, he tried to
keep erect the scepter which he held in his right hand, and the orb
which reposed in his left.
And then occurred the memorable incident of that memorable day.
When the long procession reached the doors of the Cathedral of the
Archangels where, according to custom, the newly crowned Czar was
obliged to repair for a short service of thanksgiving, I saw Nicholas
II. reel from right to left as would have done a drunken man, and
suddenly the scepter which he grasped fell heavily from his hand to the
stone floor, before the altar of the church.
It would be difficult to describe the emotion produced by this untoward
incident, which was at once interpreted by the superstitious Russian
people as a bad omen for the reign which had just begun. Strange though
this may seem, yet it is absolutely true, that the faith of the Russian
nation in Nicholas II. was shattered from that day when it had found him
unable to carry the symbol of his supreme power and Imperial might and
not strong enough to bear its weight.
This was not, however, the only unlucky incident which was connected
with this sad Coronation, which in so many respects reminded one of
several others that had marked the marriage festivities of Marie
Antoinette, and the anointing of Louis XVI. at Rheims. I will not
describe here the horrors which were enacted on the Khodinka field, when
more than twenty thousand people were crushed to death during a popular
festival given in honor of the Czar’s assuming the Crown of his
ancestors; I shall only mention the part played by Alexandra Feodorowna
in the gruesome tragedy. As everybody knows, unfortunately for her
reputation in history, she danced the night which followed upon it, at
the French Embassy. But what is not so well known is the fact that when
she and the Emperor were asked by Count de Montebello, the French
Ambassador, whether the ball which they had promised to attend had not
better be postponed until the next day, which would have been an easy
matter, Alexandra Feodorowna had exclaimed that she could not understand
why such a fuss was made because “a few peasants had been victims of an
accident likely to happen anywhere,” while Nicholas II. had replied that
he did not see any necessity to make any alteration in the program which
had been officially sanctioned and adopted since a long time.
It was only on the third day following upon the catastrophe, when the
clamors of public opinion reached even the deaf ears of the Czar and of
his Consort, that they decided themselves at last to pay a visit to the
various hospitals where the victims of the tragedy had been carried.
They went there in great state and ceremony, the Empress dressed in lace
and satin, holding in her hands a large bouquet of flowers which had
been presented to her by the officials to whom had been deputed the
charge of receiving her at the gates of the houses of suffering and
death, whither her duties had called her, much against her will. It was
related later on that a little girl ten years old or so, perceiving the
roses held by the Sovereign, had exclaimed:
“Oh, the pretty roses!”
“Give them to her,” said the Emperor.
“Certainly not. Flowers are most unwholesome in a sick-room,” replied
Alexandra Feodorowna, and she turned away without another word.
V
DAUGHTERS, DAUGHTERS, AND NO SON
It was not generally known at the time of the Coronation that the
Empress was about to become a mother for the second time. She had not
mentioned the fact to her family and not to her mother-in-law, not
wishing to be bothered with advice as to the manner in which she should
take care of herself--advice which she was beforehand determined not to
follow. But the strain of the Coronation festivities, with their
attendant emotions and unavoidable fatigue, told upon her, and this was
the principal reason which induced the Emperor to repair with her to
Illinskoye, the country-seat of the Grand-Duke Sergius, close to Moscow,
immediately after the departure of the Foreign Envoys, who had been sent
to Russia to represent their respective Governments.
The public wondered at this decision, the more so that it was openly
said that the responsibility for the disaster of Khodinka rested with
the Grand Duke, who had not known how to take the necessary precautions,
which, if resorted to, would have prevented the catastrophe. No one
suspected that the real reason for this determination of Nicholas II. to
spend a few quiet weeks with his uncle and brother-in-law was due to the
state of health of Alexandra Feodorowna.
The measure, however, was not to prove successful, because a very few
days after the arrival of the Imperial pair at Illinskoye its hopes of
an increase in the family were dashed to the ground, and an unlucky
accident deprived the Empress of a son and the country of an heir, it
having been proved that the child born too early was of the male sex.
The fact was kept a close secret, as those in authority did not care for
the nation to become aware of the disappointment which had overtaken its
Monarch, and even Alexandra Feodorowna was not told of the full extent
of the misfortune. She learned of it much later, after the birth of the
only boy she ever had. To her anxious questions concerning the sex of
the prematurely born infant she never got any satisfactory reply, and
though she might have suspected the truth, yet it was not revealed to
her at the time. She was only adjured to take care of herself and to
avoid every kind of fatigue, a difficult thing to do, considering the
fact that the Russian Sovereigns were about to start for a tour of
visits at the different European Courts. These visits, with the
exception of the stay in Paris where they were received with a burst of
the most extraordinary enthusiasm ever witnessed in the French capital,
did not turn out so successfully as had been hoped and expected. For one
thing, Prince Lobanoff, who held the portfolio of Foreign Affairs and
was by common consent considered as the ablest statesman in Russia and
one of the cleverest in Europe, died suddenly on the Imperial train at a
little station of the Southwestern Railway line, called Schepétowka,
almost in the arms of the Emperor. Nicholas, seeing him stagger, rushed
to his help. This sad event gave rise to many comments, and it was then
that people began to whisper in Russia that the young Empress had got
the evil eye and brought bad luck to all those who came into too close
contact with her.
Nicholas and his Consort first proceeded to Breslau, where William II.
with the Empress came to meet them and received them with the greatest
cordiality. It was at that time that arrangements for his correspondence
with the Czarina were made, much to the joy of the latter, who, as time
went on, felt more and more in need of the help and advice of members of
her own family. From Breslau, the Emperor and Empress proceeded to
Vienna, but there a succession of unpleasant small incidents,
insignificant in themselves, but destined in the course of time to bring
about totally unexpected results, took place. Francis Joseph had
decided to receive his Russian guests with all the pomp and splendor for
which the Austrian Court had always been famous, and the Empress
Elisabeth, after much pleading, had at last been persuaded to come to
Vienna and to do the honors of the Hofburg to them. At the State banquet
which was given there, she appeared, regal and magnificent, clothed in
that deep mourning which she never gave up after the tragic death of her
only son, the Archduke Rudolph, and she was far more observed and looked
at than the young wife of Nicholas II., who resented the fact deeply. It
is not generally known that at that time (later she outlived the
feeling) Alexandra Feodorowna had a very high opinion of her own beauty
and could not bear to play second fiddle in that respect to any one. She
always hated pretty women whenever she saw them in a position to rival
her, and the fact that Elisabeth of Bavaria, in spite of her fifty-seven
years, eclipsed in many respects her own young and radiant beauty did
not help to put the Czarina into a good temper. The interview,
therefore, passed according to the rules of strict courtesy, but no
cordiality permeated it. Wise politicians and diplomats began shaking
their heads and murmuring that after this experiment it would become
hard indeed to bring about pleasant relations between the Court of the
Hofburg and that of Tsarskoye Selo.
From Vienna, the Russian Sovereigns went on to Copenhagen to pay to the
aged King and Queen of Denmark their respects, but there also things did
not go smoothly. The Russian Imperial Family had always been popular in
Denmark, which the late Czar Alexander III. liked extremely, and where
he used to spend happy weeks every summer. One had hoped that this
tradition would continue, but after having seen Alexandra Feodorowna for
three days Queen Louise had remarked that it would be just as well if
she did not visit too often.
But what everybody in Russia looked forward to was the visits which
Nicholas II. and his wife were about to pay to Balmoral and to Paris. In
the first of these places they were made the objects of a warm and
entirely homelike reception on the part of Queen Victoria. The latter
had always been interested in the children of her favorite daughter, the
Princess Alice, and had immensely rejoiced to see her youngest
grandchild ascend the Throne of Russia. The Queen, however, was
beginning to feel some misgivings as to the latter’s fitness for the
high position that she had been thrust into. She was perhaps the best
informed person in Europe as to all that went on in Foreign Courts, and
she had heard, not without serious apprehensions, of the growing
unpopularity of Alexandra Feodorowna. She took the first opportunity
which presented itself to talk seriously to her granddaughter and to
try and persuade her that she ought to make some effort to win the
respect and the affection of her subjects. To Victoria’s surprise, the
old lady never having been thwarted or contradicted, the Czarina replied
that she did not know in the least what she was talking about, and that
what Russians required was not amiable words but a sound administration
of the whip. Under these circumstances the conversation very quickly
came to an end, though the Queen, astounded as she was at Alexandra’s
impertinence, tried, nevertheless, to renew it with the Czar. The latter
simply replied that his grandmother must have been misinformed, because
everybody loved the Empress. After that Victoria gave up the subject,
and she would probably never have mentioned it to any one had it not
subsequently reached her ears that the Empress boasted among her friends
about the way in which she had snubbed her grandmother. This was rather
more than the equanimity of the Queen could stand, and in her turn she
related her unsuccessful attempts to make the young Czarina listen to
reason, not making any secret of the fact that the future of the latter
filled her with the greatest apprehensions.
In Paris, the Empress found herself more at her ease. Flattery was
poured down upon her in buckets. All the newspapers praised her looks,
her jewels, her general demeanor, and it was only here and there that a
dissenting voice was raised, as in the person of a dressmaker who
remarked on the want of taste which had presided at the confection of
the dresses with which Alexandra Feodorowna tried to astonish the
Parisian natives. On the whole the visit was a success, and it inspired
with new zeal all the promoters of the Franco-Russian alliance, among
whom the Empress was most certainly not to be reckoned.