Behind the veil at the Russian court

by Princess Catherine Radziwill

After the birth of the fourth daughter of Nicholas II., the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicolaievna, the Empress gave herself up entirely to practices of a narrow devotion, mixed with superstition.

It was then that rumours arose that she favoured the visits of spiritualistic mediums. Also a report was circulated that she went from convent to convent and from church to church, promising golden vestments to all the miraculous images of the Virgin, of which there are such a considerable number in Russia, if only she were granted through their intervention the son for whom her soul longed.

Following upon this, according to popular report, the Empress fell into a kind of melancholia that gave at one time considerable cause for anxiety to her medical attendants. As one misfortune after another crowded upon the country, that melancholy took an acute shape, and it is not to be wondered that when, after an interval of two years or something of the kind, there appeared again in her state of health a likelihood of her becoming a mother, the event was awaited with anxious expectation, not only by herself but also by the Emperor.

It was about this period that the revolutionary propaganda, which previously had only slumbered, began to show renewed activity. Discontent had reached its height, and it is only to be wondered that the era of political assassination under which Russia was to be terrorised for such a number of years, and which it is to be feared is not yet ended, did not begin sooner. Indeed, the anarchist party had from the very beginning of the reign of Nicholas II. evinced signs of preparation and activity, believing that it had at last some chance to push through its programme of bloody reforms, because events had given some colourable pretext for remonstrance.

Elsewhere I have given the actual text—never before published—of the letter which Nicholas II. received from the Revolutionary Committee in answer to his “senseless dreams” speech. His only feeling when he read it was indignation at the audacity of those people who thus tried to rule the actions of the Sovereign and to reprove them by sketching out to him a programme of government so different from his own. He instructed his Ministers to find out the authors of this message. Immediately were put into requisition all the numerous political spies that the police has at its disposal. The Universities especially were watched, as it was well known that among the students a great percentage of anarchists was to be found. Immediately after these measures had been adopted an extraordinary agitation could be observed in all the higher educational establishments, and one February afternoon and evening manifestations of students took place on the Nevski Prospekt, in front of the Anitchkov Palace, where the Emperor was residing with his mother and his young wife.

At that time, however, the special service of the Okhrana, or personal guard of the Sovereign, still existed. General Tchérévine took energetic, though not violent, measures to put an end to the disorder, so that it might not have time to develop itself dangerously or to disturb—outwardly at least—the established order of things.

But after the Coronation matters changed, and the revolutionary committees became more active. The catastrophe of the Khodinka Field was used to attack the person of the Sovereign, and they did not spare him. Anarchist proclamations were distributed right and left, and in reply the police made wholesale arrests without due discrimination between the people whom it suspected of favouring the active revolutionary propaganda and those who were really guilty.

Among the persons who were thus imprisoned was a young girl of extraordinary talent and beauty, who, though full of sympathy for the cause of what she considered liberty, had, nevertheless, never been in communication with the leaders of the anarchist party. Some forbidden books had been found during a police search that had taken place in the rooms which she occupied in some furnished lodgings, and this afforded quite sufficient pretext to arrest her and transfer her to the fortress.

What took place during some six months that she spent there, separated from everybody, and not even allowed to communicate at first with her own father and mother, no one knows. Certainly some cruel scenes must have been enacted, because one day, at the very time when, owing to energetic efforts on the part of her friends, Mademoiselle Vietroff was about to be released, she was found dead in her cell, burned to death under the most horrible circumstances. She had had the courage to empty over her bedclothes the oil out of a paraffin lamp that she was allowed to have, and to set fire to them, after having laid herself down on the bed, where she remained until the flames had done their work.

The scandal was enormous, and people wondered what could have induced this lovely, charming, highly gifted girl, to commit such an awful suicide. Dark things were hinted at, and terrible rumours accused the authorities of the prison of having driven her to seek release from suffering and shame through the only means left at her disposal.