Confessions of the Czarina

by Princess Catherine Radziwill

Great preparations were made for the auspicious event, and once more the hopes that Nicholas II. might have at last an Heir to his Throne and Crown were awakened. It is related that everything had been got ready, that even the guns which were to announce the birth of a new member of the Romanoff dynasty had been placed on the ramparts of the fortress of SS. Peter and Paul to be fired as soon as the event had taken place, when the suspicions of the Empress Dowager were awakened by the attitude of her daughter-in-law as well as by her physical appearance. She began to watch her, and to do so with the more care. The time for the latter’s presumed confinement had passed without that confinement having occurred. Alexandra Feodorowna was observed to be in tears, and her nervous condition became almost alarming, but she refused to see a doctor, and declared that she felt sure she would be better as soon as the suspense under which she was laboring was over. She remained long hours closeted alone with Philippe, who seemed to be the only man capable of bringing some calm to her over-excited system.

Some member of the Court took upon himself the task of writing to the Grand-Duke Nicholas Nicholaievitch in the Crimea, advising him that something had gone wrong with the Empress, and that Philippe was concerned in it. One must give the Grand Duke his due. He had never meant any harm to his cousin’s wife when he had brought the impostor to Court. As we have seen, the latter had been most careful in his whole demeanor while the Grand Duke had remained at hand to control his conduct and his actions. This did not prevent him from rushing back to St. Petersburg as soon as he heard of the strange doings which were shaking the equanimity of the inhabitants of Tsarskoye Selo. He had no sooner seen the Emperor and the Empress than he guessed what had really occurred. He forthwith proceeded to tell the Monarch that the medical attendants of Alexandra Feodorowna must see and examine her, whether she liked it or not, because her state of health was a question which did not interest her alone, but was of the utmost importance to the whole country as well as to the dynasty. He hinted at certain gossip which was going about, to the effect that it was the intention of the Empress to palm off a supposed son on her husband and on his family. Altogether he spoke so strongly that Nicholas II. became seriously alarmed, and for once in his life asserted his authority and compelled his wife to submit to a medical examination.

The result stupefied him as well as other people, because it was ascertained that the hopes of motherhood of Alexandra Feodorowna had only existed in her imagination; that there was no prospect whatever of her giving to Russia that Heir for whose advent the whole country was so eager. Of course the scandal was great, though an attempt was made to soften it by the publication of an official bulletin stating that an unfortunate accident had destroyed the hopes of the Imperial Family. For those who had perforce to become aware of the true circumstances of this whole adventure, the Empress remained under the shadow of a ridicule which was to cling to her for a long time and was not forgotten even when the present war broke out.

The Grand-Duke Nicholas had a stormy

interview with Philippe. The impostor pretended that he was not to blame, that the Empress had misunderstood him altogether, and that he, together with the rest of the world, had honestly believed in her supposed hopes of maternity. But in the mean while it had been discovered that during the séances which he had held at Tsarskoye Selo he had mesmerized Alexandra Feodorowna, and abused the confidence she had reposed in him by trying to worm out of her State secrets she was believed to know. The Grand Duke kicked the man out of the Palace, and told him that if he ever dared to set his foot in it again he would have him sent to Siberia under escort. He proceeded to acquaint the Emperor with all that he had discovered and to request the latter to issue orders for the expulsion from Russia of the impostor who had thrown so much ridicule on him as well as on the whole dynasty, who had acquired, thanks to his underhand maneuvers, such a disastrous influence over the mind of his Imperial Consort.

Philippe disappeared and was never seen any more. No one knew what happened to him, or where he was sent, and no one troubled. He had been a nine days’ wonder and he sank into oblivion, but the Empress’s mad infatuation for him was not forgotten so easily. The more so because she did not attempt to hide her grief at his removal, and bitterly reproached the Grand-Duke Nicholas for his interference in a matter which, as she declared, did not concern him. Angry words were exchanged and the old intimacy which had existed between the Grand-Duchess Stana, her husband, and Alexandra Feodorowna not only came to an end, but was replaced by a hatred the more bitter that it had perforce to be concealed under the veil of politeness and amiability. The Empress’s nature, as we know already, was essentially a vindictive one, and the insult, as she considered it, to which she had been subjected on the part of Nicholas Nicholaievitch was to be avenged by her many years later on the day when, thanks to her and to her new favorite, Raspoutine, he was deprived of his position as Commander-in-chief of the Russian armies in the field.

X
ANNA WYRUBEWA APPEARS ON THE SCENE AND HE SAW HER PASS

AFTER the disastrous Philippe incident, the character of the Empress Alexandra changed considerably. She became a sullen, morose, melancholy woman, with a grudge against the world in general and the people with whom she lived in particular. Her sisters-in-law, the Grand-Duchess Xenia Alexandrowna and the Grand-Duchess Olga of Oldenburg, tried to come to her help and to enliven her by attempting to bring her out of the solitude in which she shut herself up, and if she would only have responded to these efforts it is possible that the whole course of her life might have run differently. But the Empress persisted in seeing enemies in everyone of her relatives, and, instead of trying to break through this wall of hostility with which she believed herself surrounded, she used all her powers of persuasion to induce her husband to take the same attitude of antagonism in regard to his family which she had adopted herself. Of course this was not forgiven her.

Nicholas II.’s sisters, who loved him dearly, were affronted when they discovered that their former intimate relations with their brother had come to an end, and that for some reason or other he looked upon them with suspicious eyes. Xenia simply shrugged her shoulders, and, being very wisely advised by her husband, the Grand-Duke Alexander Michaylovitch, who, like all the members of that branch of the Romanoff family, was exceedingly intelligent, refrained from saying anything. But Olga, who was of a more enterprising turn of mind, accosted the Czar one day and talked to him quite seriously about the conduct of the Empress, pointing out to him the harm which she was doing him by her rudeness toward the members of the Imperial Family, and expressing the conviction that times were sufficiently serious. This was during the Japanese war. The Emperor listened to her, as he listened to everybody who spoke to him, with courtesy and attention, but the only reply which she could obtain from him was to the effect that the Empress was in a bad state of health, that her nerves were quite unstrung, and that it would be wrong to take anything she said or did too seriously.