At the entrance to the chapel the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and the members of the higher clergy were waiting for the procession. Holy water was presented to the Emperor and to his bride, and then the marriage ceremony began.
The chapel of the Winter Palace is quite small, and it would have been impossible for all the people assembled there to enter; but one after another those present peeped into it, just to see how things were going on, and always reported to the less fortunate ones that the bride was keeping her lovely head bowed down, and that, notwithstanding the emotion under which she was seen to be labouring, she kept quite calm, and made her responses in a firm though low voice. The bridegroom appeared more agitated, and had to be prompted by the priest. The Empress Marie was quite broken down by grief, and sobbed bitterly during the ceremony. When it was over she folded her son in her arms in one long and tender embrace, and also kissed most affectionately her new daughter-in-law. Then all the Royal and Imperial personages present came and offered their congratulations to the newly married couple, after which mass was celebrated, the procession re-formed and proceeded once more through the State rooms of the palace to the private apartments, where lunch was served for the bride and bridegroom and their family.
It was then known why the marriage ceremony had been delayed. It seems that an over-zealous police official had not allowed the coiffeur who was to fix the crown on the hair of the Imperial bride to enter the Winter Palace on account of his having forgotten to provide himself with the necessary entrance card. The unfortunate man protested and implored to be allowed to pass, but it was of no avail; and whilst he was discussing and protesting, Alexandra Feodorovna was sitting before her dressing-table, wondering what had happened and what she was going to do if he did not turn up.
At last he was discovered by one of the valets of the Emperor. But a whole hour had been lost, and it was past twelve o’clock when at last the bride was ready and able to proceed to church.
After lunch the Dowager Empress was the first one to leave the Winter Palace for Anitchkov, where the young people were to reside with her until their own apartments were ready to receive them. Half an hour later Nicholas II. and his bride entered a State carriage, drawn by six white horses. An immense and enthusiastic crowd cheered them as they emerged from the gates of the Winter Palace on the way to Anitchkov. The Empress kept bowing repeatedly, but she was so nervous that she appeared to move her head mechanically, and her eyes were filled with tears which she tried hard to restrain. It seemed as if she only then realised the weight of the duties and responsibilities which were henceforward to rest upon her shoulders, and, too, as if she shrank from them. Anxiety was in her countenance, her smile had lost its sweetness, but nevertheless her mien more than anything else, gave one the impression of a great dignity, and she certainly seemed fitted for the high position which had become hers.
The Sovereigns proceeded to the Kazan Cathedral, where they worshipped at the shrine of the Virgin, who is one of the patron saints of St. Petersburg. Next, they passed before the Roman Catholic church which is situated on the Nevski Prospekt, where they found standing on its threshold the Catholic Archbishop with his pastoral cross raised before him. The Emperor ordered the carriage to stop, and he accepted with reverence the wishes expressed for his happiness and that of his newly wedded Consort. That interview created a precedent, for never before had the Imperial House publicly acknowledged the existence of another religion than the orthodox one in Russia. It was freely commented upon at the time and taken as an indication of tolerance in the religious opinions of the new monarch.
A few minutes later the doors of the Anitchkov Palace were opened to the newly wedded couple. At the head of the staircase, waiting to welcome them, stood the Dowager Empress, still clothed in her white gown. She pressed to her heart her Imperial son and her new daughter-in-law, and tenderly conducted them to the rooms prepared for them, which were those the Emperor had occupied as a boy. They were quite small, and hardly fitted to be the residence of a mighty Sovereign; but, such as they were, the young couple settled in them, and there they spent the first months of their wedded life. There began the new existence of Alexandra Feodorovna; there commenced her career as an Empress, and there she became acquainted with her first sorrows and her first joys as a wife.
CHAPTER II
A CHARACTER SKETCH OF NICHOLAS II.
When the present Tsar of All the Russias ascended the Throne he was absolutely unknown to the public. Unfortunately, he is almost as unknown at the present day, although nearly twenty years have elapsed since he succeeded his father. Nicholas II. is one of those timid, weak natures who nevertheless like to assert themselves at certain moments in matters utterly without importance, but which, to their eyes, appear to be vital ones. His mind is as small as his person; he sees the biggest events go by without being touched, or being even aware of their great or tragic sides.
His education had been neglected, and he was brought up as befitted an officer in the Guards, not as the heir to a mighty Empire. For a number of years after he had emerged from his teens he was treated as a little boy, and not allowed the least atom of independence. The Empress had studiously kept her children in the background, and her sons hardly ever went out of the schoolroom. When Nicholas was about fifteen he was given a tutor in the person of General Danilovitch, a most respectable man, but a nonentity, and not even a personage belonging to the upper ten, or possessed of manners or education in the social sense of the word. He was of that class of people who eat with the knife, and though he did not communicate this peculiarity to his Imperial pupil, yet he did not teach him those small conventions which