CHAPTER XIX
HOW THE CZARINA WAS ARRESTED
A few dreadful days followed upon the one which had brought us the news of the abdication of the Czar. The Empress tried to get into communication with him, but though she contrived to speak with him over the wire, it was from the first evident that every word was listened to, and she gave up any attempt at confidential conversation. What worried her was that instead of returning to Czarskoi Selo, Nicholas II. had elected to go to Mohilew. My mistress, who had had absolute confidence in General Roussky, did not trust General Alexieieff, whom she considered as quite capable of betraying the Czar out of ambition. Events proved that she had not been wrong in her appreciation as to the General, and what she did not know, but was to learn much later, was that he had practically made it impossible for the Emperor to return to Czarskoi Selo, and almost compelled him to go to Headquarters, where he intended to keep him until the Provisional Government at Petrograd had made up its mind whether it ought or ought not to arrest the former Sovereign. We all of us remained in utter ignorance of what was happening at the Front, or in Petrograd itself. The Czarina on the evening of the day following the abdication, when it had become already known that the Grand Duke Michael had refused to accept the throne relinquished to him by his brother, and when no one knew what was going to happen further, the Czarina called me to her room, and asked me to try to go to Petrograd and find out what people there were thinking about the whole situation. She gave orders for a carriage to be put at my disposal, as the railway trains did not run regularly, but I declined it, thinking that it would only attract attention and invite the rebels to stop me if any among them met me. I repaired alone and on foot to the railway station, where I boarded the first train that was leaving for the capital. No one noticed me, and I made my way undisturbed to the house of a friend, who, I knew, was likely to be well informed as to what was going on. Great was my surprise to find that she did not care at all to receive me, and almost ordered me out of her apartment, saying that it was as much as her life was worth to talk with a personal attendant of the Empress. She absolutely refused to answer any of my questions, and I had perforce to beat a hasty retreat. Other people whom I sought did exactly the same thing, and I found all my acquaintances echoing the general opinion which, I discovered, was prevalent in the capital, that it was the Czarina who, by her betrayal of Russia to the Germans, had been the cause of a Revolution which all the sane and reasonable members of society were deploring. The one subject of lamentation was the want of character, as they called it, of the Grand Duke Michael, who, according to the general opinion, ought not to have played into the hands of the Revolutionaries and refused his brother’s succession. At that time the idea of a Republic, which now has become a familiar one, had not yet taken hold of the public mind, and people were only desirous of seeing established a constitutional monarchy. What made me quite aghast was to find that the rumour had been spread that this refusal of the Grand Duke was due to an intrigue of the Empress, who had, so it was related to me, caused to be conveyed to him a message to the effect that should he dare to accept the throne she would put herself at the head of a movement against him. The very thought that my poor mistress could have done such a thing was ridiculous, but in times of crisis like the one we were going through, the wildest tales are believed, and in the case of Alexandra Feodorovna it was but too easy to make Petrograd accept the idea that she was planning to bring forward the rights of her son, even against the desire of her husband. As I proceeded along the Nevsky Prospect I met sandwich men carrying large placards with seditious inscriptions concerning the Czarina, and on one of them her immediate imprisonment, trial for high treason and execution were put forward and claimed. Cries of “Down with Alexandra Feodorovna!” were heard everywhere, and my heart sank within me at the thought that perhaps my beloved mistress would fall a victim to the fury of the mob. The remembrance of the French Revolution and of Marie Antoinette, to whom the Empress was so fond of comparing herself, came back to me, and without waiting for further news (which I did not know where to obtain, because no one in Petrograd seemed to know anything) I made my way back to Czarskoi Selo, and before presenting myself to the Czarina, I sought Count Benckendorff, to whom I related my experiences in the capital. The Count listened to me, and looked very grave when I mentioned to him the exasperation, for it could hardly be called otherwise, of the rough elements of the population of Petrograd against Alexandra Feodorovna. We discussed for a few minutes the possibility of removing her from the Palace to some other place where she would be in comparative safety, but gave up the idea as impracticable, because, for one thing, the Empress would never have consented to abandon her sick children, and then, there was already such a close watch established around the Palace of Czarskoi Selo and its inmates, that it would have been next to impossible for any one to get out without the fact being at once reported to the Revolutionary Government. Besides, it was necessary to learn what the Emperor himself meant to do, and what were his plans for the future. The situation was therefore extremely serious, but all that one could do in the present circumstances was to wait. The Count enquired of me the names of the servants among the personal attendants of the Czarina whom I thought quite trustworthy, and I mentioned a few. He considered it necessary to establish a kind of secret guard around her for fear that an assassin might find his way to her apartments, and indeed for three days and nights he remained himself outside her door, not caring to trust her safety to any one else. If ever there was one faithful man in the world it was Count Benckendorff.
When, after my conversation with him, I entered the presence of my mistress I found her in a violent state of agitation. The news had reached her that the Empress Dowager had gone to Mohilev to see her son, and Alexandra Feodorovna felt persuaded that the journey had been undertaken for the purpose of persuading Nicholas II. to separate himself from his wife. It was quite useless to point out to the distressed Princess that such a thing would not have had any motive at the present time, when the Czar had resigned the throne. She would not listen to me, but cried and sobbed, declaring that nothing in the world would ever part her from her children and that she would rather kill herself than give them up. She could not understand how it was that her husband, of whose affection she had felt so sure, had not already returned to her, especially in view of the fact that all her children were so dangerously ill. The idea that Nicholas was no longer a free agent, or able to do what he liked, had not occurred to her, and when I pointed out to her that such might be the case, she would not listen to me, exclaiming, “Who could dare to stop him? After all, he is always the Czar.” The magnitude of the catastrophe which had just taken place she had not yet appreciated.
But the same night rumours that the Revolutionary Government had decided to arrest the former Sovereign reached Czarskoi Selo. None among us would credit them in the beginning, so utterly impossible did the whole thing seem. But Count Benckendorff, who perhaps had at his disposal sources of information others did not possess, told us that unfortunately the news was but too true and that delegates had been sent to Mohilev with instructions to take captive Nicholas II. What they meant to do with him he could not tell, and for the matter of that no one knew. The question arose as to how the Empress was to be made acquainted with this new misfortune, and it had not yet been decided by the Count, who wished to wait for an official confirmation of the rumour, when he was called to the telephone and told that the new commander of the military district of Petrograd, General Korniloff, wanted to speak with him.
The General told Count Benckendorff that he had been commissioned by the new government to deliver a certain message to the Empress, whom he affected to call Alexandra Feodorovna, and that he wished to see her immediately about it. To the reply that Her Majesty was sitting beside the bed of her sick children and could not be disturbed, Korniloff declared that it was imperative he should execute his commission, and that unless the Empress complied with his request he should use force to obtain admittance.
There remained nothing to do but to ask him to wait for a few minutes until the Czarina had been communicated with. Count Benckendorff repaired to her apartments, and communicated to her the curt request of the Commander in Chief. She said at once that she would be ready for him in half an hour, and declared that she was sure he had some bad news for her concerning the Emperor.
“Perhaps they have killed him!” she exclaimed, “and then they will kill me, and what will become of these poor children?”
Korniloff arrived at the Palace accompanied by all of the officers of his staff. He was escorted also by an infantry battalion, which he caused to be stationed in the big square in front of the Palace. Received by Count Benckendorff, he was conducted to the large drawing-room in which the Empress used to give her audiences in the days gone by, and in a few minutes the Sovereign entered the apartment, dressed all in black, with no other ornaments but one row of pearls round her neck. She bowed stiffly and, having sat down, motioned to the General to do the same, asking him at the same time to what she was indebted for the honour of his visit. There was a ring of irony in her voice which, as I was told afterwards, struck all the listeners painfully and must have offended the General. He rose and in rude accents said: “I must request you, Madam, to stand up, and to listen with attention to the commands I am about to impose upon you.”