Category: Biographies
I was born on the beautiful estates in South Russia which belonged to my grandmother and my uncle. My father was Ismail Selim Bek Smolsky, whose ancestors hailed from Lithuanian Tartary, and my mother, before her marriage, was Mlle Catherine Horvat, whose grandfather had been...
I am going to write of Gregory Rasputin as I knew him. My personal acquaintance with him lasted from 1910 to 1916, but I know that I might as well attempt to cleanse the Augean...
12. CHAPTER VIThe long days passed in their monotonous progress. I no longer seemed to belong to the outside world. I heard nothing, nobody came near me--I was as one dead. But, if my days we...
4. CHAPTER IVThe Empress was an early riser. She had six dressers, of whom the chief, Madeleine Zanoty, was an Italian by birth, whose family had long been in the service of the Hesses. Loui...
3. CHAPTER IIIAlmost immediately after my arrival at Tsarkoe Selo, I made the acquaintance of Anna Virouboff, the Lady of the Avenue, and my distant cousin, as her grandfather and my grandmot...
10. CHAPTER IVOn the morning of Thursday, March 9th, the Empress came into the Grand Duchesses’ bedroom; she was agitated and anxious, as she had been informed that the Emperor would arrive a...
1. CHAPTER II was born on the beautiful estates in South Russia which belonged to my grandmother and my uncle. My father was Ismail Selim Bek Smolsky, whose ancestors hailed from Lithuanian...
11. CHAPTER VThe Tsarevitch was now almost well, and running about the Palace much as usual. I do not think he noticed many changes, the Revolution conveyed nothing to him except when he mis...
2. CHAPTER IIMy childhood and early girlhood were passed quietly at Revovka and the Crimea. But I loved Revovka, and, whenever I went to stay with my uncle at Livadia, I took with me a littl...
7. CHAPTER IOn Saturday, February 25th, 1917, the Empress told me that she wished me to come to Tsarkoe Selo on the following Monday, and I was (let me confess it) still in bed when the tel...
8. CHAPTER IIEarly on the morning of March 2nd the Empress came into the Grand Duchesses’ bedroom. She was deathly pale--she seemed hardly alive. As I ran towards her I heard her agitated wh...
6. CHAPTER VII have dealt with the subject of Rasputin before touching on that of the War, but his name is also connected with the War, as he is supposed to have been a German spy, and to ha...
9. CHAPTER IIIAfter our usual visit to the children (March 7th) the Empress and I went into the red drawing-room, where a fierce fire was burning in the huge grate, and we recommenced our wor...