Behind the veil at the Russian court

by Princess Catherine Radziwill

Through the night which preceded that fateful November 1st he was very restless, but at length, towards the morning, fell asleep. The Empress went into the next room and lay down for an hour, then returned to the dying man. At about nine o’clock he awoke, but did not move, lying on his back, supported by high pillows, and with his eyes wide open, with a cheerful expression in them, as if looking into the great unknown. Father John and his own confessor, Father Yanischeff, came to his bedside, and asked him whether he would not like to receive the Sacrament once more. He cheerfully consented, and after the ceremony was over, he had the Heir to the Throne called to him, and talked to him seriously for a few minutes; then he blessed his other children, and added a few words of thanks to his servants and to those who surrounded him. And he once more asked for the Queen of Greece. When she approached him he took her hand, and merely said, “Olga Constantinovna!” looking at her with his blue eyes that were already glazing over. The Queen knelt beside him, with difficulty restraining her tears, and he pressed her fingers with his own. Then he sank back in his pillows, as if unable to bear any more.

Towards three o’clock he had himself dressed, put in his arm-chair, and wheeled near the window, which he asked to be opened wide. The Empress came and knelt beside him, supporting him with her arms, and the family were called again. Alexander lay back quite calm, but his breathing was getting more and more difficult. He kept pressing the hand of his wife, and then, amidst a profound silence, not even broken by a sob, one last deep sigh was heard and a great light went out.

The Empress remained immovable beside him whilst the doors were opened; and the suite, household, and servants were brought into the room and defiled for one last farewell before the dead man and his kneeling wife. They reverently bent down and kissed the dead and the living hand, then retired sobbing bitterly.

A witness of this heartrending scene, Prince Sergius Troubetzkoy, then Head of the Imperial Household, made a sketch of it, which is preserved by a few chosen friends, and no more precious memento exists than that simple drawing, traced amidst all the anguish that accompanied that solemn hour.

The body of Alexander III. had not yet been placed on his funeral bed, when the ears of the inhabitants of Yalta, who through days of anguish and suspense had waited for news from the Palace of Livadia, were startled by the booming of the big guns of the Pamiat Merkuria; and as they listened to these minute guns they understood that all was over, and that it was the last farewell of the Black Sea Fleet to its dead Sovereign.

That same evening, on the lawn opposite the entrance to the Palace of Livadia, an altar was erected and Father Yanischeff, in golden vestments, emerged from the gates and solemnly administered to a numerous assembly the oath to the new Sovereign. Of all the pomp, the glory, the hopes, that had embellished the reign of Alexander III., nothing was left except a woman’s broken heart and the tears of a whole nation.

The body of the dead Emperor was taken to St. Petersburg, and laid to rest beside those of his ancestors, in the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul. For days the population of the capital passed before the bier to take a last look at the familiar features of its beloved Sovereign. How small he was, covered almost entirely with the folds of his Imperial mantle of gold and ermine—that same mantle he had so proudly worn on his Coronation day in Moscow! The expression on his face was calm and serene; he had truly entered into his rest.

All the countries of the world sent representatives to attend the funeral; the whole of Russia prostrated itself at the foot of the catafalque upon which Alexander lay. Nothing was wanted to make the ceremony an event to remember for ever. But its chief feature was that it was not a mere ceremonial time of mourning; there was displayed the genuine grief of a great nation, the cry from the heart of a people: “We have lost a Father, and there was no one greater or more virtuous than this man in the whole of Israel!”