upon arriving at livadia princess alix hastened to the bedside of the moribund emperor. the following day, in the royal chapel of livadia she was received into the greek orthodox church under the name of alexandra feodorovna. her own preference was for the name catherine, but yielding to the wishes of nicholas, she accepted the name of his choosing. the wedding day was fixed for the following wednesday, but the nearing end of alexander necessitated a brief postponement—only till the end had come, and all that remained of him had been transported to st. petersburg and laid to rest beside the remains of his father, and his father’s fathers for many generations, in the golden-spired chapel of the grim fortress of saints peter and paul on the banks of the swift flowing river neva.
some there are, believers in omens, who attribute many of the difficulties of her life as tsaritsa to the name she took when she was received into the russian church,—alexandra feodorovna, after the grandmother of the tsar, her husband. for alexandra has long been an ill-fated name in the unhappy land of princess alix’s adoption.{125}
a daughter of the emperor paul who was called alexandra had a very tragic end. when she was but seventeen years of age her grandmother, catherine ii, arranged that she should marry the king of sweden. the preparations for this royal wedding were all elaborately made and on the day set all was well, so far as the world knew. the tables were laid for the marriage banquet and the bride, all robed and ready, awaited her royal bridegroom. the guests were assembled and the priests stood by in their gorgeous mantles of gold. suddenly his majesty the king announced that he would not go on with the wedding! his courtiers and suite pleaded and implored him not to offer so terrible an insult to the daughter of an emperor and to the whole russian nation. but in vain. the king was obdurate.
the news was tardily announced to catherine, whose wrath knew no bounds. the guests withdrew and the swedish party quit the winter palace and returned to stockholm. the humiliated alexandra was given no further choice even after this terrible ordeal, but was speedily married willy nilly to an austrian grand duke. but she really did not survive the shock of the failure of her marriage with the king of sweden, and she died of humiliation and a broken heart—only nineteen years of age.
a daughter of nicholas i was named alexandra. she was early married to a step-son of napoleon bonaparte. but a fatal disease carried her off be{126}fore she was twenty, again emphasising the traditional tragedy associated with his name.
alexander ii had a daughter alexandra, a lovely, golden-haired child, but she succumbed to an illness in childhood.
no wonder then, that the superstitious feared for the future of princess alix, when she took for herself the name that has so often been borne by daughters of sorrow in russia. but alexandra was the name nicholas chose for her, and that sufficed. the mourning family returned to st. petersburg after the death of alexander iii and as soon as preparations could be made, the wedding took place—the entire court laying aside its mourning weeds for one day. thus edged in black, the official ceremonial life of the tsaritsa began.
at the wedding ceremony, she did not show to advantage. she was reserved in her manner to the point of severity, and a trait was noticed on that day that has militated against her ever since. despite her natural physical grace she does not know how to dress! her simple german training had not taught her how to wear beautiful clothes. possibly the wearing of lovely gowns well is an instinct born in some women. at all events on her wedding day, the empress-bride failed to please the court.
a few days later when the young tsar was receiving deputations from different parts of the empire, there occurred a rupture between him and{127} some deputies from the province of tver, which he has never been able to outlive, and for some unexplained reason the sentiments that he then expressed in heat, were accepted as the sentiments of the empress as well. the chairman of the deputation humbly offered the congratulations of the people of tver, and ventured to add that it was their hope that the new emperor might be pleased, in the course of his reign, to grant certain liberties to his people, perhaps even a constitution. this hope was partly based on their faith in the young empress, whom they expected would have liberal sympathies as a result of her life in germany and her affiliations with england. but the tsar burst forth into a terrible tirade against such notions, told them “to be done with these idle dreams,” and even threatened the whole deputation with banishment.
the whole country was astounded at this uncalled for outburst, and a lurking suspicion sprang up that the tsaritsa might not be so liberal as they had hoped. and this indeed seems to have proved true, for whatever influence the tsaritsa has exerted in russia from that day to this, has been in the direction of reaction and severe administration. she has always accepted the point of view of her husband. nicholas ii believes himself a god-ordained autocrat, and the great ambition of his life is, not to hand on to his successor a happy and peaceful nation living under a constitutional monarchy, but an absolute autocracy, and alexandra{128} feodorovna has supported and worked for the realisation of this ambition.
when one remembers the glorious, golden romance of this girl, one’s imagination is fired to highest heat, and one rejoices when the child who was called “sunny,” who early battled bravely with life, was at last coming unto her own. but alas! at the very moment when it would seem that providence had filled her cup to the full, the dark clouds began to gather, and the little german princess, when she ceased to be princess alix, also ceased to be “sunny.” instead of entering upon a period of life rich in blessings, showered with happiness, she faced graver responsibilities, greater hardships and harder battles than she yet had known. the crudest blows of fate were yet to fall upon her.
the wedding of the tsar and tsaritsa was almost the only bright day of the winter of 1894 in st. petersburg society. mourning was resumed before even the usual wedding ceremonials were ended and few court functions were held until after the coronation, which took place the following spring. this event was looked forward to by the entire court and the most elaborate arrangements were made to make it the most magnificent and dazzling spectacle of the kind that a traditionally magnificent court had yet known, an historic occasion, notable from every point of view.
during the festivities celebrating this event, the young empress might have been expected to have{129} won all hearts. instead, the popularity of the dowager was enhanced, and the suspicions against alexandra, which had been aroused during the wedding celebration, were deepened.
russia, always poor, was in especially straitened circumstances the year of the coronation. crops had failed—the winter had been severe—and peasants were starving in different parts of the empire. yet the coronation show cost the government many millions of dollars. the harness worn by the horses that drew the carriage of the empress alone cost more than one million dollars!
the german princess, born amid frugal surroundings, simply reared, early taught to value pennies, and never affluent, on this occasion found herself in a strange setting, indeed. her coach followed the carriage of the dowager empress. eight snow-white horses adorned with red morocco trappings trimmed with exquisitely engraved gold, champed their teeth on bits of solid gold, and above their heads waved snow-white ostrich plumes; in her shining chariot sat the empress in a silver and satin gown with an ermine cloak over her shoulders, ropes of diamonds hanging from her shoulders, and a crest of diamonds above her head. how wonderful a change from the life she had always known! too great a change, perhaps. for even now her manner did not please the populace. the dowager was hailed with acclamations and unprecedented enthusiasm. the empress was received in dead silence. the situation was an im{130}possible one. she tried to smile upon the throng, but her smiles were stony and cold, and people remarked to one another that she only “stared in disdain.” after the long and tedious coronation service, as the emperor was painfully making his way to the church of the ascension, staggering under the weight of his royal robes and crown, he stumbled and fell in a long swoon—just as he has fallen ever since under the weight of responsibilities and cares he has never been strong enough to carry.
the following day the coronation festivities were interrupted by a terrible catastrophe. some five thousand peasants were crushed or trampled to death in a stampede and panic preceding the distribution of certain simple meals, which were to have been in honour of the great event of the coronation. the calamity has never been satisfactorily explained, but there seems to have been a general lack of efficiency among those who had the distribution in charge. no sooner was word received of the disaster, than the dowager empress hurried to the overcrowded hospitals, administering personal comfort, and relief, and cheer to the surviving wounded. her great activity and sympathetic devotion endeared her yet more to the people, and as long as she lives, thousands will revere her for her expressions of grief and solicitude on this occasion.
nicholas, however, made himself conspicuous by doing nothing. on nearly every occasion during the course of his reign when he has had a signal opportunity for doing the right thing, he has acted{131} precisely as he acted on this occasion—he has turned his back and gone off. and alexandra feodorovna has acted in concert with her husband. they both attended the ball at the french embassy that same night, thus horrifying not only russia but the civilised world.
i do not believe that the tsaritsa is lacking in heart warmth or human sympathies, but her life is dominated by one man. before she was an empress she was a woman, and as a woman she loved, and as a woman she gave all to that love, and to the end of the chapter one must look for the real life of the tsaritsa in those spheres where her personal love for this one man holds sway.
from the coronation day the tsaritsa never regained a place in the affections of the russian people, and having recognised this fact, and having realised the futility of usurping the place of the dowager empress, she simply ceased trying. the russian people don’t dislike her, they merely do not know her.
when travelling through the interior of russia, i constantly heard the tsar spoken of by the peasants. sometimes reverently, of late more often disdainfully, occasionally in the terms of the old russian proverb: “god is in heaven and the tsar is far off.” but i do not recall of ever hearing a peasant speak of the empress. when i have asked about her the moujiks have invariably shrugged their shoulders in silence. they often have a bright coloured lithograph of her on the walls of their houses, and they all think the picture very beauti{132}ful. more than that, they know nor care not at all.
once in an interior village i heard a group of peasants discussing the tsar with a trace of old-time superstitious reverence and i asked, “what of the empress?”
a shaggy old moujik shook his towsled head stolidly as he replied: “she is the little father’s woman—but what can we know of her?”
the tsaritsa entered upon a life of unusual difficulty from the moment she crossed the russian frontier. she realised even at the time of her wedding, and more than ever at her coronation that she was not liked at court, so she did what any sensitive soul would have done under similar circumstances—she turned from the people who criticised her, who failed to appreciate her trying, turned to those whom she loved, who loved her. how many women in our own country have been through just such experiences! not called upon to serve as queens or empresses, but summoned to positions they never were fitted or trained to occupy. with the realisation of failure comes a terrible disappointment and sorrow, sometimes heartbreak. good women then turn to the fruits of love and in their children seek the salvation necessary to counteract the first failure.
the dowager empress had never approved of the marriage of nicholas to princess alix. she herself had always been exceedingly popular with the russian people. in her affliction and bereavement the sympathy and affection of the nation went{133} out to her. at the coronation of her son and his spouse, her warm personality so completely outshone that of her younger successor as empress of the people, that a circle of the court immediately gathered about her. from that day to the present time the influence of the dowager empress and her “court party” has been more potent than that of the tsaritsa. at times this influence has been directed openly against her rival and always to the embarrassment of the younger woman. for several years they were not even on speaking terms and to-day they rarely meet save on formal occasions when court etiquette demands the presence of them both at some particular function. the attitude of the dowager empress has been a source of continual pain to the tsaritsa and besides actively militating against her, it has been one more strong influence driving her away from the usual interests and activities and more into her family life.
this estrangement between the two first women of the court has also tended more than anything else to isolate nicholas. it has resulted in periodic ruptures between the tsar and his mother, and it has strained his relations with his numerous relatives and important personages of the court, who have remained loyal to her.
these are some of the reasons why the life which ought to have been bright and happy has been utterly miserable, and now there are indications that a complete nervous breakdown may crown the burden of her years.
