CHAPTER XI

THE BIRTH OF THE TSAREVITCH

Whilst the war was running its course the Emperor, in the solitude of his palace at Tsarskoye Selo, was anxiously awaiting the day when the Empress would again become a mother. In the years that had elapsed since he had wedded Alexandra Feodorovna, four daughters had been born to the Imperial couple, and their arrival into the world had been a source of bitter disappointment to their parents. The idea that the Throne could pass to a collateral line was a cruel grief for Nicholas II. In his first manifesto issued to the nation, on the day of his accession, he had proclaimed as his heir his brother, the Grand Duke George Alexandrovitch, to whom was granted the title of “Grand Duke Tsarevitch,” generally borne only by heirs apparent, and not presumptive. The manifesto added that this title was only to be borne until God “had seen fit to bless with the birth of a son” the marriage of the Sovereign, which was then about to take place. But the years went on, and the much-wished-for boy still had not arrived to fill with joy his parents’ hearts. As one girl after another came to increase the Imperial Family, people at last gave up the idea that the Empress would ever become the mother of a male heir, and this did not add to her popularity.

In the meantime, the Grand Duke George, whose health had always been more or less delicate, developed acute symptoms of tuberculosis. He was at first ordered to the South of France, whither his mother, the Empress Marie Feodorovna, accompanied him, but he derived no benefit from his stay.

At last he was sent to the Caucasus to try what high mountain air would do for him. The Grand Duke liked the Caucasus, and especially the free kind of life he was able to lead in the residence which he had built for himself on the heights above Abbas Touman, in the vicinity of the Kazbek. He was of a very retiring disposition, timid in the extreme, and was never more at his ease than with his inferiors or people with whom he need not trouble himself to stand upon ceremony. He knew that, as Successor to the Throne, he was not looked upon with friendly eyes by a certain section of the Court, although he had no ambition whatsoever, and only wanted to be left alone. This made his retirement more congenial; he felt he had more independence than he could have obtained in St. Petersburg had he stayed there. His mother visited him frequently, and endeavoured to persuade him to return to the capital, if only for a few months during the summer season, but he constantly refused, declaring he was quite happy amid the rugged beauty of the wild surroundings. People said that he had found another attraction at Abbas Touman, and that he was secretly married to a lady he had met there. It is difficult to know how much truth there was in this rumour, but it is certain that some legend, full of intangible mystery, hovered about the Grand Duke George, and that, when talking about him, people supposed to be well informed gravely shook their heads and said that “it was a pity, a great pity.” They would never explain, however, why they used such words.

But, as years went on, the public ceased to interest itself in the doings of the Tsarevitch, until, one fine summer day, it was startled by the news of his sudden and unexpected death.

Tragedy was not absent from it, and the end of the second son of Alexander III. had something appalling through the extraordinary circumstances that accompanied it. He had gone out alone for a ride on his bicycle, as he often did in fine weather. As he did not return in time for dinner, people began to get anxious, and his attendants started in search of him. They met on the way an old woman, who related that she was seeking help for an officer who had fallen on the road and evidently hurt himself. That officer proved to be the Tsarevitch, who was found lying on the grass, with blood oozing out of his mouth, and already lifeless. It was related later on that he had been seized with sudden hæmorrhage from the lungs, and had died before help could come; but the real circumstances attending that sad end never were known, or, if known, never told to anyone.

The attendants of the Grand Duke were severely blamed for allowing him to go out alone on such expeditions; but they tried to excuse themselves by saying that he refused to be accompanied by anyone in his frequent and much enjoyed mountain excursions, and that it was next to impossible to disobey him. True or not, the excuse was admitted, and the remains of George Alexandrovitch were brought back with great pomp to St. Petersburg and laid to rest in the fortress beside those of his father. The Empress Dowager was perhaps the only person who really mourned for him; in Court circles one felt that his death was the solution of a difficulty which would inevitably have arisen had circumstances occurred to dispossess him of the title of Tsarevitch. His brother, the Grand Duke Michael, was not, however, awarded the title, but merely recognised as heir presumptive to the Crown, without any other qualification.

This Grand Duke had been the favourite child of Alexander III., and as such enjoyed the affection of the nation. But he, too, was of a retiring disposition, and though he represented his brother with much dignity on important State occasions, such as the funeral of Queen Victoria and the Coronation of King Edward VII., it was very well known that his tastes did not lie that way, and that he preferred home life to any kind of festivity. He gave a proof of the direction in which his tastes lay when he married the lady of his heart against the wishes of the present Tsar and of the Dowager Empress. In consequence, he was deprived of his right to a possible Regency, and even of his civil rights; moreover, the management of his own private financial affairs and of his personal properties were also taken away from him.

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.

Immediately after her funeral imposing manifestations by students took place in front of the Kazan Cathedral, and proclamations were freely distributed among the public relating the details of this terrible death.

The sensation caused by it was equal to that which seized upon Russian Society when, under the reign of Alexander II., Vera Zassoulitch fired upon the Prefect of St. Petersburg, General Trépoff. That attempted murder was the beginning of another phase of the revolutionary movement which ended with the assassination of the Emperor. Mademoiselle Vietroff’s suicide opened the later phase out of which was to burst the Revolution which claimed so many victims in 1905.

The country did not recover its calm after that sad occurrence. Students and Universities became more active than ever in trying to sow discontent among the working classes, and especially in the factories, where anarchist ideas generally find the most support. The Government, as usual, blundered; either they did not see the danger, or saw it too late, or, again, looked for it there where it did not exist. It persecuted uselessly young boys led astray by their comrades, and utterly unable to endanger public order, and it let alone the most mischievous leaders of the movement who succeeded in removing suspicion from themselves. The police behaved atrociously in its measures of repression. Sure of the protection of the Tsar, the police proceeded in the most ruthless manner to persecute every manifestation of public opinion, when it imagined it was directed against its authority, and it had no regard as to the personality of those whom it thought fit to attack. Thus one day, a general in a very high position, who held the important post of administrator of the private fortune of the Imperial Family, Prince Viazemsky, happened to pass along the square opposite the Kazan Cathedral whilst the police were trying to disperse some groups of students who had assembled there for a funeral mass for one of their comrades. He was so indignant at the brutality displayed in securing the dispersal that he interfered in order to put an end to it. Immediately the head of the secret service of the Okhrana complained to the Emperor, who, without even listening to the explanations which Prince Viazemsky wanted to offer, deprived him of his post, and ordered him to go abroad at once, exiling him from the capital, without even allowing him to try to clear himself.

When the war with Japan broke out it was felt that whatever might be its end, the miseries that it would entail, even if victory came to the Russian arms, would serve as subjects not only of discontent, but also of encouragement to the revolutionist party. Consequently, rigorous measures became more frequent than before. The Minister of the Interior at the time was M. de Plehve, a man well known for his despotic character, who had for long been at the head of the secret political police before he became a member of the Cabinet. He was perhaps the most intensely hated personage in Russia, and in a certain measure he had deserved the dislike and the animosity of the public, whom he persecuted ruthlessly whenever he thought he could detect the least symptom of opinions not in accord with those which he advocated. During his tenure of office people without number were exiled or imprisoned; a good many were hanged in secret in the courtyards of the various prisons in which they were confined; and consciences as well as individuals were terrorised not into submission, but into silence.

But Plehve, with all his faults, at least was an honest man, a conscientious man, and not a flatterer. He knew he was destined to be murdered, but he would not have gone one step to escape the danger that he felt was continually lurking over his head. He was inexorable in the way in which he fulfilled his duties, but he would have been incapable of telling a lie to please his Sovereign or to gain some personal advantage. Yet his sarcastic temper and want of consideration for the feelings of others were bound to create enemies even among his colleagues; indeed, they did not scruple to use every means to destroy his influence.

The Emperor considered him something like a watch-dog, whose services and vigilance one could not do without, but whom one had no necessity to treat decently or to admit into one’s confidence. One day, when Plehve wanted to deal with some matter not immediately connected with his department, Nicholas II. told him quite plainly that he ought not to speak to him about things which concerned other people. And yet when the offended Minister offered his resignation the Emperor refused to accept it, giving as his reason that “He had no one at the moment who could replace him so well at the head of the police.” “At the moment,” you will note, to the servant of his own creation!

Plehve was very fond of knowing everything that was going on, and while knowing perfectly well that he had any number of adversaries among those who surrounded the Sovereign, he wished to be kept aware of everything that was going on in the family circle of Nicholas II. Having at his disposal all the necessary means of being well informed, it was related that he had organised a police service at the Imperial Palace of Tsarskoye Selo which kept him conversant with all that was being done and said there. It was even said that he had had his telephone wires connected with those of the private telephone of the Emperor, and could thus listen to the latter’s conversations. This fact, so the report continues, came to the knowledge of the Sovereign after the murder of M. Plehve, and he was so enraged that he forgot the respect due to the dead. He did not attend the funeral ceremonies, and it was only with the utmost difficulty that he was persuaded to consent to a pension being given to the widow of the deceased statesman.

Plehve was murdered under the most awful conditions. He was driving to the Warsaw railway station on his way to Tsarskoye Selo for his weekly report to the Tsar. When almost opposite the station a bomb was thrown in the front of his carriage. The effect was terrible. The carriage and its occupant were reduced to pieces, and it was with great difficulty that some remains of torn flesh and bones were found and gathered together to be brought home. To recognise them was impossible; nothing remained to tell that a mighty Minister had been blown into atoms.

The news of the event was at once telephoned to Tsarskoye Selo. The only comment which the Emperor made was that it would be necessary to send immediately a high official to put under seal the papers of M. Plehve, so that none should get lost or mislaid. He did not even send a message of condolence to the widow. It was said by way of explanation that the news of the murder must be held back from the Empress, who was on the eve of her confinement, and whose nerves might receive a shock in consequence, and that the Emperor did not want to leave her at such a time.

This explanation was not believed by the general public. The Emperor, however, did not mind what the world thought about him, or in what light it regarded his actions. He was only thinking of the child the Empress was expected to give birth to. Would it at last be a son, an heir to the dynasty of the Romanoffs, or would another daughter be born to him? That was the thought which alone engrossed him, and was the first object of his preoccupations. The war with Japan had already begun; our first ships had been sunk, several battles had been fought and lost, the _Petropavlovsk_ had gone down with its load of men, brave Admiral Makaroff at their head; our soldiers were trudging in the dusty, hot plains of Manchuria, suffering from the torrid heat until they should perish from the icy cold; thousands of homes were mourning their dear ones fallen under the bullets of the enemy; revolt was brooding in the country, Ministers and people in high positions were daily falling under the knives or pistols of assassins. Yet none of these things concerned Nicholas II. so much as the yearning that God should give him a son.

At last, one August morning, it began to be rumoured in Peterhof, where the Court was spending the summer, that a happy event was impending. Courtiers and Ministers and ladies-in-waiting assembled in the halls of the Palace in expectation of the announcement of the birth of the fifth child of the Imperial pair. They did not wait very long. As the clock struck noon a doctor entered the room and told the assemblage that at last an Heir was born to the Throne of All the Russias.

Great was the joy in the Imperial Family, and great was the excitement in St. Petersburg when the guns of the fortress proclaimed by three hundred shots that the succession to the Throne of the Romanoffs was so far assured in the direct line. But through the country as a whole the event, which under different circumstances would have been hailed with joy, passed almost unperceived, so much was the public mind absorbed by the grave political events that were taking place. Russia was mourning too many of its children to welcome with anything but indifference the boy whose advent into the world had filled with such joy the hearts and the lives of Nicholas II. and Alexandra Feodorovna.