We can well imagine the mingled feelings of surprise and awe which must have overwhelmed the retiring and somewhat austere German Princess, as she came in contact now for the first time with the great world, and with the homage of a vast people which from that day was to be her’s for all the rest of the days of her life. Princes and potentates, like peasants from the isolated villages of the Steppes, bent their knees in humble obeisance, while soldiers stood at salute as she passed. She knew full well that she was leaving behind her forever the simple life she had always known up until now. She knew that she was going to a death-bed scene, between ranks of gold and silver. Though her path was scattered with flowers and the plaudits of the people continuously rang in her ears, she knew what the end of the journey must be, and she must have known too, in a dim, tragic way, all that lay beyond the endraped gold, toward which she was speeding in the Crimea.
CHAPTER III
ASSUMING THE BURDEN
Upon arriving at Livadia Princess Alix hastened to the bedside of the moribund Emperor. The following day, in the royal chapel of Livadia she was received into the Greek Orthodox Church under the name of Alexandra Feodorovna. Her own preference was for the name Catherine, but yielding to the wishes of Nicholas, she accepted the name of his choosing. The wedding day was fixed for the following Wednesday, but the nearing end of Alexander necessitated a brief postponement—only till the end had come, and all that remained of him had been transported to St. Petersburg and laid to rest beside the remains of his father, and his father’s fathers for many generations, in the golden-spired Chapel of the grim fortress of Saints Peter and Paul on the banks of the swift flowing River Neva.
Some there are, believers in omens, who attribute many of the difficulties of her life as Tsaritsa to the name she took when she was received into the Russian Church,—Alexandra Feodorovna, after the grandmother of the Tsar, her husband. For Alexandra has long been an ill-fated name in the unhappy land of Princess Alix’s adoption.
A daughter of the Emperor Paul who was called Alexandra had a very tragic end. When she was but seventeen years of age her grandmother, Catherine II, arranged that she should marry the King of Sweden. The preparations for this royal wedding were all elaborately made and on the day set all was well, so far as the world knew. The tables were laid for the marriage banquet and the bride, all robed and ready, awaited her royal bridegroom. The guests were assembled and the priests stood by in their gorgeous mantles of gold. Suddenly His Majesty the King announced that he would not go on with the wedding! His courtiers and suite pleaded and implored him not to offer so terrible an insult to the daughter of an Emperor and to the whole Russian nation. But in vain. The King was obdurate.
The news was tardily announced to Catherine, whose wrath knew no bounds. The guests withdrew and the Swedish party quit the Winter Palace and returned to Stockholm. The humiliated Alexandra was given no further choice even after this terrible ordeal, but was speedily married willy nilly to an Austrian Grand Duke. But she really did not survive the shock of the failure of her marriage with the King of Sweden, and she died of humiliation and a broken heart—only nineteen years of age.
A daughter of Nicholas I was named Alexandra. She was early married to a step-son of Napoleon Bonaparte. But a fatal disease carried her off before she was twenty, again emphasising the traditional tragedy associated with his name.
Alexander II had a daughter Alexandra, a lovely, golden-haired child, but she succumbed to an illness in childhood.
No wonder then, that the superstitious feared for the future of Princess Alix, when she took for herself the name that has so often been borne by daughters of sorrow in Russia. But Alexandra was the name Nicholas chose for her, and that sufficed. The mourning family returned to St. Petersburg after the death of Alexander III and as soon as preparations could be made, the wedding took place—the entire Court laying aside its mourning weeds for one day. Thus edged in black, the official ceremonial life of the Tsaritsa began.
At the wedding ceremony, she did not show to advantage. She was reserved in her manner to the point of severity, and a trait was noticed on that day that has militated against her ever since. Despite her natural physical grace she does not know how to dress! Her simple German training had not taught her how to wear beautiful clothes. Possibly the wearing of lovely gowns well is an instinct born in some women. At all events on her wedding day, the Empress-bride failed to please the court.