It was said at the time that the Grand Duchess had run to the place of assassination and, flinging herself on the remains of her dead husband, had recovered his brains and wrapped them in her handkerchief.
The Grand Duke was not a good husband, and beautiful as she was—an elder sister of the Empress—their home was not a happy one.
Ever since her husband’s death she has devoted her life to acts of charity.
All attempts against Trepoff, chief of the police, failed that year, he having to resort to every kind of ruse to escape, even going so far as to drive about concealed in a post and telegraph van.
Bombs were to be expected in a crowd; in churches; in fact, everywhere!
CHAPTER XII
THE Court left Petrograd for Tsarskoë-Celo in January 1905, not to return again for two years.
The Empress lived in constant dread of some misfortune befalling the Emperor or the Tzarevitch, and had to endure the most cruel tortures in consequence. Not a day passed without there being some plot discovered, and once, even, an infernal machine was found connected by wires to the infant’s bed when he was but a few months old!
The Empress, tall and still a beautiful woman, had, however, no longer the delicate beauty which I believe she possessed at the time of her marriage. She was very cold in appearance and manner—perhaps due to shyness as some affirm—and in conversation never seemed to have the courage to start a subject, possibly finding nothing to say.
The notion that this limitation is necessary to a Sovereign-Lady is negatived by the conversational powers of the Queen of Italy, for instance, who expatiates upon the doings of the King, of herself and her children from the time of their rising—very early, as I was informed by Her Majesty, and from which I decided that it is not worth while to be a Queen—till they go to bed: a flowing stream of information.