THE WINTER PALACE, THE SCENE OF “BLOODY SUNDAY.”
day were quite as splendid as any the French ever conceived even in the days of greatest pomp and show.
On another occasion I was received at the Winter Palace by a well-known and powerful nobleman of the Court, who has been close to the Empress for many years in the dual capacity of high functionary and friend. He is one to whom my high thanks are due for some of the material contained in these articles, for he not only told me some of the anecdotes which are here related, but he verified much of the material that I had collected from other persons and sources.
Peterhof is the favourite residence of the Tsaritsa and four of her five children were born there. One of the several buildings of this palace boasts a charming romantic history. About half a century ago when the first Nicholas was soon to be Emperor of Russia, he paid a visit to the German court. During the visit a tournament was held and Nicholas, then a Grand Duke, acquitted himself with honour. At the close of the tournament the victors rode past and close under a balcony, where were seated the ladies of the court and the Royal Family. A young Prussian Princess tossed a wreath of roses which the Russian Grand Duke caught on his sword.
The incident proved the beginning of an attachment which culminated in their marriage. Some years after, when the Grand Duke had become Emperor, he bought the great park of Peterhof and built a palace for his Empress. Remembering the incident of the wreath of roses, at the tournament at the Prussian court, the device of a sword and a wreath of roses was made the predominant decorative figure of the palace. You may see it there to-day. Now as then, Peterhof belongs to the ruling Empress. Tsarskoe-Selo is an Imperial residence belonging to the government. Both of these palaces are within an hour of St. Petersburg.
Any visitor may stroll through the outer gardens and adjoining parks of the palaces and at any time one may meet the Tsaritsa or the Grand Duchesses driving or riding. The Tsar is the only real prisoner of the family, although Alexis, the four-year-old heir, is jealously guarded.
The Tsaritsa rides badly. Despite the fact that she is commander and “honorary Colonel” of at least two cavalry regiments she does not sit a horse well and never rides for pleasure. In this respect she is very unlike many modern Queens, notably the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, who was a marvellous horsewoman, possessing that rare hypnotic influence over the most spirited horses that the animals themselves are quick to recognise and yield to. It is only on such occasions as a review of one of her own regiments that the Tsaritsa mounts a horse. Ordinarily she drives—in summer in an open carriage, and generally unescorted.
The children may from time to time be seen playing about the lawns with a favourite pony, or driving in little wicker-work carts. They are as full of frolic as any little girl in America, and in the nursery and the household apartments of the palaces they are as ingenuous, as irrepressible and often quite as embarrassing as any children we all know. Royal manners, at least in the children, are no different from manners of other people, and the daughters of even an Emperor and Empress have sometimes to be rebuked quite as severely as any children the world over.
The Tsaritsa dresses very plainly. Richly often, but in general effect simple. The Court has never approved her clothes, chiefly, I think, because of her inability to wear good clothes well. As a child she dressed in the utmost simplicity and the habit has remained with her. At certain court functions etiquette prescribes her costume. When she dons court dress known as Old Russian, she has merely to wear elaborate clothes that have been described in detail for her generations ago. It is when she dons costumes for everyday wear that she fails to please a fastidious court.