Once a Grand Duke by Grand Duke Alexander of Russia

Author:Grand Duke Alexander of Russia [Russia, Grand Duke Alexander of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Borodino Books
Published: 2017-06-28T04:00:00+00:00

2

The fiancée of the new Czar, Princess Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt, had arrived from Germany on the eve of the death of Alexander III. The Minister of the Imperial Court was too excited to think of ordering a special train and she traveled as an ordinary passenger. Taken to the Palace Chapel of Livadia she was baptized according to the rites of the Greek Orthodox Church. The wedding was performed in St. Petersburg, scarcely a week after the funeral. The honeymoon consisted of attending two masses a day and receiving visits of condolence. The whole thing looked grotesque. I doubt whether the greatest of theatrical producers could have staged a more appropriate prologue for the tragedy of the last Czar of Russia.

The young Empress spoke Russian with difficulty. Her predecessors used to benefit by the lapse of time between their betrothals to the future Czars and their ascension to the throne. The wife of Alexander III had lived in the country for seventeen consecutive years preceding her coronation, but Princess Alix was given exactly ninety-six hours to study the language and get acquainted with the national customs. Unable to grasp the relative standing of the innumerable courtiers she made errors, irrelevant in themselves but tantamount to formidable crimes in the eyes of St. Petersburg society. It frightened her and created marked reserve in her treatment of visitors. This in turn gave circulation to comparisons between the friendliness of the Dowager-Empress and the “snobbish coolness” of the young Czarina. Nicholas II resented this malicious matching of his mother against his wife, and very soon the relations between court and society became antagonistic. Then we all went to Moscow for the ceremony of the coronation.

The day of the “Khodynka Massacre” drew nearer. The causes of the tragedy may have remained a puzzle to the foreign correspondents—Richard Harding Davis being one of them—but the experienced officials anticipated the worst long in advance. The ability of the Czar’s uncle, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, then Governor-General of Moscow, to handle millions of people attracted by the festivities, was questioned on all sides.

“Are you certain, Nicky,” I asked the Emperor before leaving St. Petersburg, “that Uncle Sergei realizes the difficulty of the task?”

He made a gesture of impatience:

“Of course, he does. Please, Sandro, try to be fair to Uncle Sergei.”

“I am fair, Nicky, but I remember how concerned your father was on this occasion. He supervised every detail personally. It is not so easy to distribute gifts to half a million people packed into a field that was really never planned to hold such crowds. Think of all the agitators anxious to exploit this opportunity to create a disturbance.”

“I believe, Sandro,” he answered coldly, “that Uncle Sergei knows it all just as well as you do, if not better.”

I bowed my way out.

The first two days in Moscow gave the lie to the gloomy prophets. Beautiful spring weather, ancient city decorated with flags, bells ringing from the domes of sixteen hundred churches, cheering multitudes, the young Czarina

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