The Grand Duke Vladimir had announced the Emperor's death to the vast crowds in the traditional Russian fashion. The words "death" or "die" being considered ill-omened by old-fashioned Russians, the actual sentence used by the Grand Duke was, "The Emperor has bidden you to live long." ("Gosudar Imperator vam prikazal dolga jit!") The words conveyed their message.
The body of the Emperor having been embalmed, the funeral did not take place for a fortnight. As the crow flies, the distance between the Winter Palace and the Fortress Church is only about half a mile; it was, however, still winter-time, the Neva was frozen over, and the floating bridges had been removed. It being contrary to tradition to take the body of a dead Emperor of Russia across ice, the funeral procession had to pass over the permanent bridges to the Fortress, a distance of about six miles.
Lady Dufferin and I saw the procession from the corner windows of a house on the quays. On paper it sounded very grand, but like so many things in Russia, it was spoilt by lack of attention to details. The distances were kept irregularly, and many of the officials wore ordinary civilian great-coats over their uniforms, which did not enhance the effect of the cortège. The most striking feature of the procession was the "Black Knight" on foot, followed immediately by the "Golden Knight" on horseback. These were, I believe, meant to typify "The Angel of Death" and "The Angel of the Resurrection." Both Knights were clad in armour from head to foot, with the vizors of their helmets down. The "Black Knight's" armour was dull sooty-black all over; he had a long black plume waving from his helmet. The "Golden Knight," mounted on a white horse, with a white plume in his helmet, wore gilded and burnished armour, which blazed like a torch in the sunlight. The weight of the black armour being very great, there had been considerable difficulty in finding a man sufficiently strong to walk six miles, carrying this tremendous burden. A gigantic young private of the Preobrajensky Guards undertook the task for a fee of one hundred roubles, but though he managed to accomplish the distance, he fainted from exhaustion on reaching the Fortress Church, and was, I heard, two months in hospital from the effects of his effort.
We were able to get Lady Dufferin into her place in the Fortress Church, long before the procession arrived, by driving across the ice of the river. The absence of seats in a Russian church, and the extreme length of the Orthodox liturgy, rendered these services very trying for ladies. The Fortress Church had been built by a Dutch architect, and was the most un-Eastern-looking Orthodox church I ever saw. It actually contained a pulpit! In the north aisle of the church all the Emperors since Peter the Great's time lie in uniform plain white marble tombs, with gilt-bronze Russian eagles at their four corners. The Tsars mostly rest in the Cathedral of the Archangel, in the Moscow Kremlin. I have before explained that Peter was the last of the Tsars and the first of the Emperors. The regulations for Court mourning in Petrograd were most stringent. All ladies had to appear in perfectly plain black, lustreless woollen dresses, made high to the throat. On their heads they wore a sort of Mary Queen of Scots pointed cap of black crape, with a long black crape veil falling to their feet. The only detail of the funeral which struck me was the perfectly splendid pall of cloth of gold. This pall had been specially woven in Moscow, of threads of real gold. When folded back during the ceremony it looked exactly like gleaming waves of liquid gold.
A memorial church in old-Russian style has been erected on the Catherine Canal on the spot where Alexander II was assassinated. The five onion-shaped domes of this church, of copper enamelled in stripes and spirals of crude blue and white, green and yellow, and scarlet and white, may possibly look less garish in two hundred years' time than they do at present. The severely plain Byzantine interior, covered with archaic-looking frescoes on a gold ground, is effective. The ikonostas is entirely of that vivid pink and enormously costly Siberian marble that Russians term "heavy stone." Personally I should consider the huge sum it cost as spent in vain.
Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, in those days, of course, Prince and Princess of Wales, represented Great Britain at Alexander II's funeral, and remained in Petrograd a month after it.
A week after the funeral, the Prince of Wales, by Queen Victoria's command, invested Alexander III with the Order of the Garter. As the Garter is the oldest Order of Chivalry in Europe, the ceremonies at its investiture have 570 years of tradition behind them. The insignia, the star, the ribbon, the collar, the sword, and the actual garter itself, are all carried on separate, long, narrow cushions of red velvet, heavily trimmed with gold bullion. Owing to the deep Court mourning, it was decided that the investiture should be private. No one was to be present except the new Emperor and Empress, Queen Alexandra, the Grand Master and Grand Mistress of the Russian Court, the members of the British Embassy, and the Prince of Wales and his staff. This, as it turned out, was very fortunate. The ceremony was to take place at the Anitchkoff Palace on the Nevsky, which Alexander III inhabited throughout his reign, as he preferred it to the huge rambling Winter Palace. On the appointed day, we all marched into the great Throne room of the Anitchkoff Palace, the Prince of Wales leading the way, with five members of his staff carrying the insignia on the traditional long narrow velvet cushions. I carried nothing, but we made, I thought, a very dignified and effective entrance. As we entered the Throne room, a perfectly audible feminine voice cried out in English, "Oh, my dear! Do look at them. They look exactly like a row of wet-nurses carrying babies!" Nothing will induce me to say from whom the remark proceeded. The two sisters, Empress and Queen, looked at each other for a minute, and then exploded with laughter. The Emperor fought manfully for a while to keep his face, until, catching sight of the member of the Prince of Wales's staff who was carrying his cushion in the peculiarly maternal fashion that had so excited the risibility of the Royal sisters, he too succumbed, and his colossal frame quivered with mirth. Never, I imagine, since its institution in 1349, has the Order of the Garter been conferred amid such general hilarity, but as no spectators were present, this lapse from the ordinary decorum of the ceremonial did not much matter. The general public never heard of it, nor, I trust, did Queen Victoria.
The Emperor Alexander III was a man of great personal courage, but he gave way, under protest, to the wishes of those responsible for his personal safety. They insisted on his always using the armour-plated carriages bought from Napoleon III. These coaches were so immensely heavy that they soon killed the horses dragging them. Again, on railway journeys, the actual time-table and route of the Imperial train between two points was always different from the published time-table and route. Napoleon III's private train had been purchased at the same time as his steel-plated carriages. This train had been greatly enlarged and fitted to the Russian gauge. I do not suppose that any more sumptuous palace on wheels has ever been built than this train of nine vestibuled cars. It was fitted with every imaginable convenience. Alexander III sent it to the frontier to meet his brother-in-law the Prince of Wales, which was the occasion on which I saw it.
During the six months following Alexander II's assassination all social life in Petrograd stopped. We of the Embassy had many other resources, for in those days the British business colony in Petrograd was still large, and flourished exceedingly. They had various sporting clubs, of some of which we were members. There was in particular the Fishing Club at Harraka Niska in Finland, where the river Vuoksi issues from the hundred-mile-long Lake Saima.
It was a curious experience driving to the Finnish railway station in Petrograd. In the city outside, the date would be June 1, Russian style. Inside the station, the date became June 13, European style. In place of the baggy knickerbockers, high boots, and fur caps of the Russian railwaymen, the employees of the Finnish railway wore the ordinary uniforms customary on European railways. The tickets were printed in European, not Russian characters, and the fares were given in marks and pennies, instead of in roubles and kopecks. The notices on the railway were all printed in six languages, Finnish, Swedish, Russian, French, English, and German, and my patriotic feelings were gratified at noting that all the locomotives had been built in Glasgow. I was astonished to find that although Finland formed an integral part of the Russian Empire, there was a Custom House and Customs examination at the Finnish frontier.