CHAPTER VI

THE ENTOURAGE OF THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS

The painful circumstances under which the nuptials of Nicholas II. and Alexandra Feodorovna were celebrated prevented them from gathering St. Petersburg Society around them, and getting to know it well enough to be able to select their friends therefrom. The deep mourning for the late Emperor obliged his successor to remain in retirement for a whole year, and that retirement was the more complete because the newly wedded Imperial couple had taken up their first abode with the Dowager Empress in the Anitchkov Palace. Consequently they were deprived of a home of their own.

It is true that in the course of the February following upon her marriage the Court was presented to the young Empress at one solemn reception. But this did not efface the feeling of being a stranger among those with whom she lived, and it weighed heavily upon Alexandra Feodorovna’s mind. She felt lost, and of course was more susceptible than she would otherwise have been to the impressions that were given to her by the few people she was allowed to see.

The Empress Dowager was wrapped up in her grief, and had hardly emerged from it when her relations with her daughter-in-law became strained. Her sister, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, lived in Moscow, and with the other Grand Duchesses the bride had nothing in common. Consequently she was left almost entirely to herself in an atmosphere which was not congenial to her tastes. She was thus thrown upon her immediate surroundings, and became more or less intimate with her Mistress of the Robes, the Princess Mary Galitzine.

This lady has played an important part in the life of the Empress.

The Princess Galitzine, who came from a family belonging to the merchant class, was a remarkable woman. She had been married when a girl of sixteen to Prince Galitzine, who was about thirty years older than herself, but rich, in a high position, and boasting of the title of Serene Highness, which so very few families possess in Russia. He was a man of an easy temperament, content with everything, and living a life of his own, in which his wife had little or even no part at all. She was not pretty, but clever, ambitious, charming when she liked to show herself so, and wonderfully attractive to men. She knew it, and did not repulse the homage offered to her. Her pursuit of pleasure was so zealous that had it not been for her husband and the influence of his family, it was freely stated she would not have been forgiven so easily her irregularities of conduct. She was ambitious, intriguing, and unsparing in her criticisms. At the same time she was a faithful friend to all who looked to her for protection and who worshipped at her shrine.

When the question of appointing the Household of the new Empress came to be discussed, people wondered who was to become Mistress of the Robes. Rumour said that it would be Madame Elizabeth Narischkine, a person of great tact, kind, generous, amiable, with no remarkable intelligence perhaps, but possessing a perfect knowledge of the world and polite in the extreme. Princess Kourakine, her mother, had been Mistress of the Robes to the Empress Marie Feodorovna when she first arrived in Russia. Madame Narischkine had been reared in the atmosphere of a Court, and also had been lady-in-waiting to the Grand Duchess Olga Feodorovna. She would have been an excellent guide for the young Empress, at the head of whose Household she is to-day, and certainly if she had been chosen from the first to occupy that position a good many of the blunders innocently committed by Alexandra Feodorovna would have been avoided.

But the Emperor determined to give the post to a lady of independent means rather than to one in the Court entourage. The name of the Princess Galitzine was put forward by one of her former admirers, wanting thus to acquit himself for past kindnesses, and Nicholas II. appointed her, being impressed by her great name and position, by the reputation for independence which she had contrived to win for herself, and a certain brusquerie in her manners and speech when she expressed her opinions.

The Princess had been a widow for some years when she was appointed Mistress of the Robes. This gave her the opportunity to obtain an apartment in the Winter Palace, and thus to be constantly at the beck and call of her Imperial mistress. She began by saying that she did not care for the brilliant position which was offered her, and that she had only accepted it because she thought it her duty not to refuse the benefit of her experience to the young wife of her Sovereign. In reality, she was delighted beyond words.

She also wanted power and money, and she got both. Her finances--which had been rather entangled when she appeared at Court--she soon set straight; not by means of the Imperial gifts showered upon her, but through the knowledge which she acquired and which she used with great intelligence and _savoir faire_. As for power, she managed to establish herself so firmly in the good graces of her Sovereign, that not only was she listened to and consulted in everything, but also she was given the highest title that can be awarded to a woman at the Russian Court, that of Head Mistress of the Robes. This title, _bien entendu_, Alexander III. had refused to confer even upon Princess Hélène Kotchoubey, because he did not care to establish a precedent in a function that can only be compared with that of _surintendante_ at the Court of the French kings, the inconveniences of which were pointed out when it was granted to the Princesse de Lamballe, by the ill-fated Marie Antoinette.

The Princess Galitzine had never liked the Dowager Empress, whom she had always mercilessly criticised whenever an opportunity had occurred. She was most anxious for Alexandra Feodorovna not to fall under the influence of her mother-in-law, whose natural amiability of character would have always been exercised in favour of graciousness being shown to everybody, even the people one did not like.

Marie Michailovna, as the Mistress of the Robes was familiarly called, had but a limited knowledge of etiquette such as it was formerly in existence at the Russian Court. This led her into many blunders, for which the Empress was made responsible.

The nuances, the tact, that exquisite knowledge of the world which had distinguished Princess Kotchoubey, who was a great lady, recognised as such everywhere, were dead letters to her successor.

The dignity, the ease without familiarity, which distinguished the Russian Court disappeared, and Princess Galitzine introduced stiffness where formerly magnificence reigned. She acted as if it was beneath her to show kindness to those persons with whom she came into contact, and did what she could to accentuate the cold way in which Society was held at a distance by the Empress.

Her receptions were amusing to follow and to watch. Whenever someone unknown to her presented himself or herself, although arriving from some distant province of the Empire, the Princess Mary literally crushed them with the few dry remarks and the way in which she caused them to feel that they ought never to have come.

She hardly said “Good morning” to these personages, and never said “Good-bye”; she treated them as if they had no right to exist, and yet very often these same persons were of considerable importance in their own districts. Thus, when they returned home they naturally related that they had not even been accorded a polite welcome in the capital, whither they had travelled to pay their respects to their Sovereign.

The Princess Galitzine also wielded considerable influence in political affairs, although she never understood much about them. Nevertheless, several people were appointed to high positions by her efforts. For instance, of General Kouropatkine, who, it is said, was her special protégé, she sang the praises so long and so often to Nicholas II. that the Emperor superseded General Vannovski--who for a number of years had been at the head of the War Office, and who was an outspoken man, and decided that he could not do better than appoint General Kouropatkine to that responsible position.

She also interested herself in foreign politics. Once she had a serious altercation with Count Muravieff, just before the latter’s death, concerning a dispatch which he wanted to send to London about his negotiations with Japan on the Korean question. Count Muravieff, however, though the most courteous of men, was not one to yield in important questions, and refused to satisfy the Princess Galitzine.

When the war with its disasters had come to an end, and was followed by the Revolution as an aftermath, the Princess Galitzine became even more energetic than formerly. She was a warm partisan of M. Stolypin, who owed much to her influence. They were of sympathetic temperaments, perhaps because they both had the reputation of being able to do everything that they wanted. Certainly Marie Michailovna never missed a single opportunity. She was the partisan of the rigorous system being introduced, but nevertheless welcomed the Duma when it was decided to call one together. Gossip said that she was the echo of the wishes of Nicholas II., simply because very often she had inspired those wishes.

Students of contemporary history hold the opinion that she discredited the Throne, and that she raised against her Sovereigns such a storm of hatred that it is difficult to foresee when and where it will end. She managed to make them unpopular even in the many good deeds they did, and she inculcated in the young Empress a feeling of suspicion against her people which is to be feared nothing will ever drive from her mind. The Princess Galitzine died some two or three years ago.

Madame Narischkine is a charming woman, gracious, dignified, amiable, polite, and a great philanthropist, giving up all her spare time in the cause of charity, and especially concentrating her activity upon the work of attending to the physical and moral wants of the inmates of prisons. No one knows the good she has done in that direction, and she is so busy that even if her nature was not foreign to any kind of intrigue she could not find the time, as every moment is employed in one way or another. She is a _grande dame_ in manners and appearance, though quite small, and by no means good looking. But she is the right person in the right place--or, at least, she would be if the influence of her predecessor had not destroyed beforehand any effort she might feel inclined to make in order to introduce some changes in the conduct of a Court which now exists but in name, for the Empress has so entirely retired from the world that it has ceased to be considered of any importance by Society. The great mistake of allowing Court life to decline was clearly understood by the great Marie Thérèse, who, when she wrote to her daughter, Marie Antoinette, said: “I am glad to hear that you are going to take up again all the official receptions of Versailles. I know how empty and dull that kind of thing is, but, believe me, if it is not observed, the inconveniences that result from its neglect are far more important than the small annoyance that it causes.”

Beyond her Mistress of the Robes, the Empress Alexandra has four ladies-in-waiting in constant attendance upon her, who live in the Palace. Her daughters have a governess who also wears the Imperial cipher in diamonds on a blue ribbon, which distinguishes the maids of honour from other ladies in Society; and then there is a German lady, a Mademoiselle Schneider, who came with the Empress to Russia from Darmstadt, and who is supposed to read to her aloud. The Empress has also a secretary who attends to her business and her official letters; but outside this limited number of persons her only other friends are Madame Vyroubiev (who stays with her day and night, and who is in possession of all her confidence), and a monk called Gregor Raspoutine, upon whose counsels she places dependence but about whom rumour has been exceedingly busy.

After the _Grande maîtresse_, or Mistress of the Robes, the greatest functionary of the Imperial Court is the Minister of the Household. This post has always been occupied by an intimate and personal friend of the Sovereign, as for instance, Count Adlerberg under Alexander II., and Count Worontzoff Dachkoff under his successor. The present holder, General Baron Freedericksz, is _the_ type _par excellence_ of a perfect courtier, and a gentleman in the fullest acceptation of the word.

The Baron, who began his career in the First Horse Guard regiment, is a personage very much liked, perhaps because he has always been found to be inoffensive. He has an imposing presence, and his long, drooping moustache gives him the appearance of one of those musketeers whom Dumas has immortalised in the stories of d’Artagnan. But there ends the resemblance. He has little energy, and is without independence save that derived from an enormous fortune. He would seldom oppose, still less tell a displeasing truth to, his Sovereign. He has fine manners, tact, knowledge of the world, and all the advantages of a handsome physique, clothed in a brilliant uniform. He has no desire to play a political rôle, being one of these happy-go-lucky fellows who thinks the world a nice place to live in, and has no desire to see farther than that pleasant fact.

The Master of the Imperial Household is Count Benckendorff, whom I have already had occasion to mention. He is a gentleman who has always done the right thing, even when it was not palatable to him. His brother is Ambassador in London, where he is likely to remain for some time to come.

The Military Secretary of the Emperor is General Prince Orloff, the son of the former Ambassador in Paris and Berlin. He owes his position to his name and fortune, but it is rumoured he is liked neither by the Sovereign nor by his Consort. The Princess Orloff, his wife, by birth a Princess Belosselsky and the granddaughter of the Princess Hélène Kotchoubey, is certainly the smartest woman in St. Petersburg. She is rather spare in figure; nevertheless she looks supremely elegant when she enters a room, and the charm of her appearance is such that looking at her one entirely forgets to talk to her, which perhaps is just as well.

The Emperor has three aides-de-camp with whom he is on exceedingly familiar terms. This friendship dates from the time when, as Heir to the Throne, he was performing his military duties in the Preobrajensky Regiment of the Guards. These are M. Narischkine, the son of Madame Elizabeth Narischkine, Colonel Swetchine, and Colonel Drenteln. Nicholas II. treats them not only with kindness, but also allows them an intimacy which he does not permit to others, however exalted. In their company he often attends dinners at the messes of the different regiments of the Guards, remaining with them until the small hours of the morning, and forgetting for a few brief moments that he is a Sovereign, in the pleasure of listening to Bohemian girls singing their wild ballads, or in that of sipping slowly a glass of champagne. These dinners are almost the only recreation which Nicholas II. allows himself, and they constitute for him a distraction unspoilt by the trammels of etiquette, or the vigilance of masters of the ceremonies eager to remind the Sovereign of duties which he would fain forget.

Except the people whom I have mentioned, and the officers of the Imperial yacht, who are also more or less admitted into the intimacy of the Imperial Family, the Emperor and the Empress have no friends, no people with whom they can talk or discuss the events of the world. The solitude in which they live is complete, their isolation from mankind entire, and in view of this disastrous fact one can only wonder that the mistakes they make are not even more serious than is the case.