In the present Tsar, Nicholas II., one finds a type of sovereign not only different from either King Edward or the Kaiser, but, in my experience, unique. Sovereigns may have moments of an affectionate emotion; they rarely have consistent tenderness. In their most intimate relations of family life they are apt to resume suddenly the frigid tones of royalty; and I have seen a king, talking even with his mother, get himself unexpectedly into his royal manner and speak as stiffly as if he were giving his mind to some lower breed of human being. Many a person, chatting tête-à-tête with a sovereign alone, has been charmed by the simple naturalness of his manner, and meeting him an hour later, before others, has wondered if it could be the same man. Not so the Tsar. He has more human tenderness than I ever saw in any other man. He enters a crowded audience-room with the same charming kindliness and unconsciousness of self that he has in the privacy of family life. His eyes have always the one clear gaze of a clean soul.
He is not at first impressive, simply because he is incapable of playing a part, even a royal one. But the more you see of him the more he grows on you. He has no love of display, of uniforms, of the parade of royal power. He is wise with the wisdom of sympathy, and eager to help his people, and benevolent in his thought of them to a degree for which I know no parallel. I think it must be due to the unmistakable irradiations of this kindliness of heart that no attempts have been made upon his life, even during the bitterest frenzies of revolutionary hate.
In the menace with which the existence of royalty is surrounded, one would expect to find the Imperial family living amid all the oppressions of constant fear. On the contrary, I thought them the happiest royal family I have seen. They were so naturally affectionate and happy that it was even possible to forget that they were royal. They had apparently accepted the dangers of their life as soldiers do—as we all accept the lesser dangers of our ordinary day—and were unaffected by them.
What they thought of the problems of their rule I do not know; and I do not know enough of their people to understand what those problems really are. But surely no power could be more beneficently exercised than this man’s must be; and if his spirit could only animate the instruments of his authority and the innumerable officials who are necessary to administer it, the mad asperities of recrimination in Russia would be as impossible to the administration and its opponents as they are to the Tsar himself.
He is a Dane, through his mother, and his qualities are those that make the Royal Families of Denmark and Sweden so charming. But these are the constitutional monarchies of a kindly and contented people, who have no cause to rebel against a government that is their own creation, and who show no awe of a ruling family as unassuming as themselves. I think, if one must be born Royal, it would be wise to be born to a Scandinavian Crown.
I have rarely felt happier than I did when I heard that Nicholas II. had called on his subjects to take a share in the government of the vast Russian Empire. The publication of the Imperial Manifesto of October, 1905, in which the Emperor announced the creation of the Imperial Duma, was an event of first-class importance, and I admired the spirit of the nation which had shown its determination to limit the power of the Crown and the wisdom of the Emperor in yielding to the desires of his subjects.
“This is the first step,” I said, “on the path which must ultimately lead to the substitution of democratic for autocratic government in Russia.”
My affection for the Emperor and Empress, my enthusiasm for the advancement of democratic ideas, my recollections of a long visit to Russia, all combined to intensify my interest in the dawn of freedom in a land which I felt, when I visited it, was part of Asia included in Europe by some strange mistake of the geographers.
It was mid-winter when I arrived for the first time in Petersburg, magical beneath its snow mantle, and I came as a simple tourist to see the country and to study the conditions of Russian life. I established myself in a hotel as a Spanish countess, feeling delighted that nobody knew who I actually was, and revelling in the freedom of strict incognito. But I had not been in the hotel five hours before a Grand Master of Ceremonies arrived and betrayed my secret. From that minute everybody knew that the countess was an Infanta of Spain, and my liberty was gone. It is my usual experience. I arrive somewhere, believing that not a soul knows where I am, and, almost before I have taken possession of my rooms, there is a whirr of the telephone bell and somebody at the other end saying: “Eulalia, how did you get here? You must come and see us at once.”
The Grand Master of Ceremonies brought me a message from the Emperor and Empress, telling me how delighted they were to know that they were going to see me soon, and suggesting that I should come to the Winter Palace the next morning for the Twelfth Day ceremony of the Blessing of the Waters.