CHAPTER V
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.
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.