No doubt that to Father that home was full of Tsar-spirits, looking down on him from portraits condemning this final surrender of autocracy. A life-sized portrait of Mother when she was young, happy, and beautiful hung in Father’s study—his favorite portrait. It was by Kaulbach, painted in 1903. He stopped and examined it as if he had never seen it before.
No doubt in Mother’s mind were the words Aunt Ella said to her once: “Remember what happened to other Empresses!” Mother may also have thought of the painting of Marie Antoinette and her children by Mme. Vigée-Lebrun, which was given to Mother by the President of France. Was she thinking now of a common misfortune? Or, possibly, she thought of the words of the Emperor Joseph II, brother of Marie, when he prophesied to his pretty sister the coming disaster: “In very truth, I tremble for your happiness; the revolution will be a cruel one and perhaps of your own making.” But it was not the case with my Mother: revolution was of the traitors’ making. I often ask myself, why was Mother so drawn to this unfortunate woman, who in character and education was so different from my Mother? At home in the glass wardrobe, were Olga’s and Tatiana’s christening gowns. They were copies of the dresses of Marie Antoinette’s children. In another case were a few copies of the Queen’s own dresses, made for Mother in Lyons during one of her early visits to France. We were all puzzled by the fascination Marie had for Mother, who was a student of history and had an aversion for its tragic pages.
Our departure was scheduled for midnight, August 13th, new style. Before the fateful hour arrived we were served tea. Midnight came but no summons. Nevertheless, shortly after one in the morning, we assembled in the semicircular hall. Our personal luggage was standing at one side. Soon Count Benckendorff came with a message that General Tatishchev had informed him that he was not allowed to come to the palace but would be at the station to meet us.
Books and magazines were brought to us. We could not read anything. My thoughts went back to the pages Mlle. Schneider had read to us while we were recovering from our illness, and to the painting on the wall of Marie Antoinette in a large hat, sitting with her children and a white, long-haired dog at her feet. This large, gold-framed painting, approximately six feet high, dominated the room. Below it there was a simple, inlaid console table and on the floor, on either side, stood two tall red French enamel vases. Somehow I had the idea that they had been a gift to the family from Cousin Wilhelm. From the time of the outbreak of the war, I had a strong impulse to break them.
Father, who long before had read all the best known books on the French Revolution, asked for those volumes again when the reign of terror swept our country. My older sisters read them, too. Marie and I, because of our weakened eyes, went through only certain parts. No doubt these traitors and the revolutionists had read them also, and followed the same pattern. Kerensky likewise was probably not ignorant of these events. There are so many similarities between the French and the Russian Revolutions.
Now the French Revolution stood full of meaning before me. During the coronation festivities in France, when Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were being crowned, a number of shocking disasters occurred. These were similar to the tragedy that occurred at the coronation of my parents. In the former, when France’s economy declined and conditions were bad, only 35 per cent of the land was held by the French peasants; the rest was in the hands of the Church, the nobility and the crown. But Russia economically was strong in spite of the war and the devastation of the western areas.
When a daughter was born to the royal couple, Marie Antoinette had eighty attendants at her service. History records that she was a gay woman with demands for unlimited luxury and extravagance. It was also said that during the critical economic conditions in her country, she had purchased an enormously expensive jewel for herself. They discovered much too late that this was not true.
The Russian people would not have believed that Father and Mother had been extravagant. As Father commented, when the revolution broke out 75 to 80 per cent of Russian soil was in peasant hands. When one of the children in our family was born, we had only a few attendants. Besides, Mother never cared for gaiety or luxury. During the war we repaired our own clothes and made our own beds. As Louis XVI was betrayed by Mirabeau, so Father was betrayed by the Allies, with the help of the Duma and men like Kerensky, Ruzsky, Lenin, and Trotsky, and other foreign instigators. Many foreign elements gave aid and encouraged the revolution in my country. As horrors occurred in France, so did they in Russia. Marat asked for a quarter of a million lives, but Trotsky, Lenin, Apfelbaum and others of the clique demanded more than fifteen millions. Allegedly they all were guilty of something. Most of the educated classes, millions of peasants, and forty thousand Greek Orthodox clergymen were killed.
Many of the revolutionists were shipped to Russia for the purpose of inciting the plundering, robbing and strangling of Russia. They were supported by the prisoners of war, mostly Austro-Hungarians and Germans. They were helped by a powerful branch of the Christian church, who were apparently desirous of detaching our people from the Greek Orthodox Church. Fortunately the Russian people were and still are very devoted to and proud of their own religion which they consider to be the true exponent of the Christian faith as delegated to us by the Apostles and particularly by the Apostle Paul. (Read M. Pierre Gilliard’s book, Thirteen Years at the Russian Court.)
Distressed and restless we sat in this room, wondering if the same misfortune that befell the court of Louis XVI was awaiting us. In one instance to stimulate the revolution, the weapon was the jewel; in the other, Rasputin. We wondered whether the other courts of Europe and particularly our own royal relatives were making any efforts to save Russia and ourselves.