CHAPTER XIV
THE CZARINA, HER CHILDREN AND HER CHARITIES
It would be difficult to find a better mother than the Empress Alexandra. She entered into the smallest details of the training of her daughters and her son, and she tried before everything else to imbue them with the same serious points of view with which she looked upon life and its numerous duties. She insisted on her children always speaking the truth, and the only time I ever saw her really angry with the little Alexis was one morning when he was caught by her telling a falsehood. She had suffered so much through the insincerity which continually dogged her footsteps that she made up her mind to save her children from this misery, and she applied herself to make out of them sincere people. She had been very lucky in the choice of the lady who was appointed to superintend the education of the young Grand Duchesses. Mademoiselle Toutscheff was a person of the highest moral character, who gave herself up to her duties of governess to the daughters of Nicholas II. with a complete devotion. People said that she had been the whole time in variance with the Empress, and that she had left at last because her advice had been disregarded. But this was not quite correct. It is true that she objected to the introduction of Rasputin to her pupils, but that was principally because she feared the influence which this illiterate peasant might come to exercise over the impressionable minds of the young girls entrusted to her care, whom she did not wish to see afflicted with the superstitious religious exaggerations to which their mother unfortunately succumbed. This led to friction between her and Alexandra Feodorovna, and she preferred to resign her functions rather than to remain at her post after having lost the confidence of the mother of her pupils. There may also have been another reason for her going. The Grand Duchess Olga was already twenty years of age, and she had developed an independent character which had made the position of Mademoiselle Toutscheff extremely difficult. She thought that it would be to the advantage of everybody if she severed her connection with the Imperial family before she had spoilt it by unseemly quarrels.
In a certain sense she was right, because it was unfortunately an undoubted fact that the Empress had become quite fanatical in her allegiance to the Greek Orthodox Church, and that she tried to induce her daughters to follow her example. Happily for them the girls had a great deal of common sense, and they managed to keep themselves free from the religious excesses into which their mother had fallen. They loved her tenderly, and would have given their life for her, and she on her side doted on these girls. When they were babies she spent most of her spare time with them in their nursery or schoolroom, and later on she shared with them all her occupations and associated them with her life as much as she could. She never parted from them or from their brother, and there was not a thing which concerned their well-being, down to the smallest details, into which she did not enter. When the war broke out she with her two eldest daughters followed a course of training as sisters of charity, and in the hospital which she opened in Czarskoi Selo she nursed the wounded soldiers with them.
In regard to the little boy whose advent had been such a source of joy to his parents, the Empress was also full of solicitude. She had taken upon herself his religious training, and every morning had him brought to her room for an hour, when she would read to him the gospel and teach him the catechism. She was a fond, but by no means a foolish mother, and what she aspired after was to make out of her children honest men and women and worthy members of society. But at the same time she had very determined opinions in the matter of education, and there were things which she could not understand, as, for instance, the necessity for her girls to have some amusements in their lives. She imagined that it was quite enough for them to live with their parents, in possession of all that their hearts could desire in the matter of material satisfactions, and would not hear of the necessity of marriage for them. She could not bring herself to look upon them as upon grown-up women, and considered them always in the light of babies in need of her care. She is not the only mother who may be reproached for this failing, and she was more reproached for it than she deserved to be.
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The ex-Czarina and Her Son
The little Grand Duke Alexis had a tutor, an Englishman, whom he liked very much, and also a French master. His mother wanted him to have a complete command of foreign languages, knowing by experience how difficult it is for people placed in high positions to get on without it. The boy was a bright and intelligent child, and if he had only had good health, he might have made greater progress in his studies. But half of his time was spent in bed, and naturally this interfered with the course of his lessons. His sisters also were not in possession of the best of health, and this extreme delicacy of her children was a source of perpetual anxiety to the Czarina. She also objected to what she declared was a tendency towards frivolity on the part of her girls. Tatiana especially was extremely fond of nice clothes and of jewellery, and her mother was continually trying to subdue her extravagances in that direction, notwithstanding the fact that she very well knew the like reproach might be applied to her own self. She was continually drawing the attention of her daughters towards the sufferings of others, and her instructions bore fruit, because when the war broke out the Grand Duchesses displayed wonderful qualities of self-abnegation and devotion to the cause of suffering humanity. Tatiana in particular was quite marvellous, and worked indefatigably in the relief committee at the head of which she stood, which proved the only one that did any good, and where malversations did not take place. She renounced any pleasures she might have obtained in the way of buying this or that thing that attracted her fancy, and at last when money became scarce she sold a beautiful pearl necklace which her father had given to her on her eighteenth birthday, to relieve some of the distress which was being constantly brought before her notice. The lessons of her mother had borne fruit.
The Czarina was naturally extremely charitable, and moreover she had very sane ideas in regard to the relief of suffering and misery. She had especially at heart the fate of small children, and the society which she and the Emperor founded, which was destined to encourage poor women in their aspirations after maternity by teaching them how to take care of their offspring, was an elaborate and most intelligent affair. She would certainly have brought it to an excellent result if the Revolution had not interfered and destroyed her plans in that respect, as it destroyed so many other things.
My mistress has been reproached at different times for having shown herself indifferent to the cause of national education, and for not having considered that problem with the attention it deserved. But this was also an unreasonable reproach. The Empress could not, even if she had so wished, have interfered with the conduct of the different educational establishments for women in the Empire. These were all of them placed under the patronage of the Empress Dowager, who was far too jealous of her privileges in that respect to have consented to share them with her daughter-in-law. The same thing might have been said in regard to the work of the Red Cross, which was entirely controlled by Marie Feodorovna, who brought to it great knowledge and considerable ability. But at the same time she would not allow the young Czarina to interfere with it, and when the latter tried in her various visits to the Front to suggest this or that improvement in the management of the different hospitals she inspected, her mother-in-law instantly protested and declared herself affronted by what she considered to be a criticism on her management. The young Empress had to devote herself to the care of the wounded in the different hospitals which she had organised at Czarskoi Selo, and her work remained confined to the great committee for relief of the refugees from the invaded countries and other victims of the war, which the Emperor had founded at the beginning of the campaign, and the care and patronage of which he had placed under the management of his wife. It was an interesting but at the same time a most disheartening work, because it was impossible to follow its execution, and one had perforce to depend on people more or less reliable. My mistress often regretted that she was debarred from putting her experience and her great love for her neighbour at the service of the army. This, however, was denied her, perhaps not without reason, because by that time she had already become most unpopular among the troops, who had taken to calling her “the German.” One day when she was inspecting a field ambulance, she heard the expression in reference to herself and was so overcome by it that she could not restrain her tears. The poor woman, though she knew that she was regarded with anything but affection by her husband’s subjects, yet had believed that the army at least appreciated her care and her desire for its welfare. The discovery that such was far from being the case was a great blow to her. As time went on, carrying away with it all her hopes of winning the love of the Russian nation, she became hardened and ceased to conceal the contempt which she felt for a world that had failed to realise and to believe in her good intentions. But through it all she applied herself to hide from her children the intensity of her disillusions, and she went on instilling into them those high principles to which she had tried to remain faithful herself. Her great misfortune was that she lived in great times, and that she had no greatness in her to meet them. This was a calamity, but by no means caused by her own fault.
Sometimes she was touching in the attention she gave to the smallest detail connected with the training and the welfare of her children. One may say that even before the great catastrophe which fell upon her, her attention had been entirely concentrated on her babes. She liked to be present at all the daily routine of their existences, and whenever her daughters were to be produced before some of their relatives, she made it a point to superintend their toilet, and to brush their long hair. The girls were generally dressed in white, winter and summer, and it was only when they had reached their twelfth year that she consented to dress them in dark colours during their school hours. But even then they had to change for dinner and to appear before their parents in the light gowns their mother was so fond of. Their clothes were always made in the best houses, and their linen just as dainty and magnificent as their mother’s. In summer and on board the Imperial yacht, they were generally attired in sailor hats and blouses, and were allowed to run about as much as they liked, and to talk to the officers and sailors. They shared their mother’s love for the sea, and the six weeks or so that these annual excursions in the Finnish waters lasted were the real holidays of the children as well as of the Empress.
The latter has also been accused of not showing any amiability in regard to the foreign guests who from time to time visited the Court of Czarskoi Selo. In this there may have been a certain amount of truth, but the apparent coldness of the young Czarina proceeded from the everlasting fear which haunted her that she might be compromised by showing herself too effusive towards strangers. She knew that any attention she showed to her visitors would be widely commented upon, and as these with few exceptions were German princes, this circumstance added to her embarrassment, because she was very well aware that she was supposed to harbour strong Teuton sympathies. In regard to her English relatives she was handicapped, because the Queen of Great Britain was the sister of the Empress Dowager, and when she came to Rewal with King Edward, she was naturally more with Marie Feodorovna than with the niece with whom she had so very little in common, and who had done nothing whatever to win her sympathies.
From time to time the sister of the Czarina, Princess Henry of Prussia, put in an appearance at Czarskoi Selo, and her brother, the Grand Duke of Hesse, was also a frequent visitor there. But these visits were never official ones, and mostly passed unnoticed by the general public that had left off troubling about what went on in the home of the Sovereign. The members of the Imperial family were also rare visitors at Czarskoi Selo, and avoided putting in an appearance there unless absolutely compelled to do so. Alexandra Feodorovna knew so perfectly well how to convey to her guests the knowledge that they bored her that it was no wonder they did not care to court this knowledge and that they preferred not to annoy her with their presence. The Empress Dowager used to appear on the family anniversaries, such as birthdays, name days, and others of the kind to offer her congratulations to her son and daughter-in-law, and every winter the young Czarina used to come to St. Petersburg from Czarskoi Selo to pay her mother-in-law one solemn visit of ceremony; after which the two ladies did not see each other for a long time. All this was abnormal, but once these relations had been established it was next to impossible to change them, and so the breach which separated my mistress from the world as well as from her husband’s family widened and widened, until at last she found herself alone in presence of danger, of sorrow, and of one of the greatest catastrophes which history will ever record. Whether the fault was wholly hers or was shared by others, is a point upon which I shall not attempt to give an opinion.