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MY EMPRESS
MY EMPRESS
TWENTY-THREE YEARS OF INTIMATE LIFE WITH THE EMPRESS OF ALL THE RUSSIAS FROM HER MARRIAGE TO THE DAY OF HER EXILE BY MADAME MARFA MOUCHANOW FIRST MAID IN WAITING TO HER FORMER MAJESTY THE CZARINA ALEXANDRA OF RUSSIA WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD MCMXVIII HER FORMER MAJESTY THE CZARINA ALEXANDRA OF RUSSIA WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD MCMXVIII Copyright, 1918,
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
MY APPOINTMENT It is the custom, or rather it was the custom, at the Russian Court, not to allow any Princess marrying into the Imperial family to bring with her maids from her own country. I believe that this custom was also observed at Foreign Courts, at least in former times. Therefore, when it became known that the heir to the Russian Throne, as Nicholas II. still was when he became the affianced husband of the lovely Princess Alix of Hesse, was about to bring a bride to his parents’ home, s
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
THE FIRST MONTHS OF THE CZARINA’S MARRIED LIFE International Film Service The ex-Czar Nicholas II of Russia Owing to the haste with which the royal wedding was celebrated there was no time to prepare in advance suitable apartments for the Czar and his bride in any of the Imperial palaces either in St. Petersburg or in Czarskoi Selo. The latter residence had from the very first been spoken of as the future abode of the young couple, being a favourite one with the new Sovereign. But the Alexander
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
BIRTH OF GRAND DUCHESS OLGA The uncomfortable winter which followed upon the marriage of the Czar came at last to an end without his young bride having been much seen in public. The ladies prominent in St. Petersburg society were presented to her during a great reception which she held in the Winter Palace, but this presentation consisted simply in their passing before her with a curtsey, whilst her Mistress of the Robes, the Princess Galitzyne, whispered their names into her ear. She spoke to n
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
THE CORONATION The christening of the Grand Duchess Olga Nicolaievna was solemnised with great pomp at Czarskoi Selo, after which the Court moved to St. Petersburg, and the young Empress took possession of her new apartments in the Winter Palace. These had been gorgeously fitted up with magnificent silk hangings manufactured in Lyons, and copied from those which adorn the rooms occupied by Marie Antoinette in the Royal Palace of Fontainebleau in France. This had been a surprise of the Czar to hi
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
VISITS ABROAD The beginning of the visits of the young Emperor and Empress to foreign courts was marked by one of those misfortunes which seemed to dog their footsteps wherever they went. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Prince Lobanoff, died suddenly at a railway station where the Imperial train had stopped for a few minutes. He was a man of great ability and wide diplomatic experience, and, moreover, was a staunch friend of the young Empress, who mourned him with all her heart. He would undou
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
THE GRAND DUCHESS ELIZABETH At the risk of rousing a storm of indignation against me, I must say that one of the misfortunes of the Czarina was to have in Russia an elder sister already married to a Russian Grand Duke. I know that it is an established legend that the Grand Duchess Elizabeth is a saint, who ought to have been canonised in her lifetime. But, in reality, things were not as represented. The Grand Duchess was a very ambitious woman, and moreover one who cared for nothing and for nobo
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
THE CZARINA’S FAMILY RELATIONS The Empress, like all German Princesses, had been brought up in a family atmosphere which had a great deal of the bourgeois about it. Her father had been comparatively a poor man, and his household had been conducted on most modest lines, as can be seen from the letters of the Czarina’s mother, the Grand Duchess Alice of Hesse, addressed to her own mother, Queen Victoria. Neither pomp nor magnificence had presided over the rearing of the young Princesses left mothe
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
LIFE AT CZARSKOI SELO I have often been asked details about the kind of existence by the Imperial family in the interior of their home. So long as I was in their service I never spoke of what I saw, and in general avoided mentioning anything connected with the family life of my masters. It seems to me now that I am not committing an indiscretion if I do so, because I have nothing to say but good of the unfortunate Czar and Czarina. They were a most affectionate couple, and to look at them and to
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
THE COURT AND ATTENDANTS OF THE CZARINA When the Empress married, her household was formed in a hurry, which was a great pity, because it was not composed entirely of the best people from an intellectual point of view. The Empress Dowager was so absorbed by her grief that she could not give to the subject the attention she otherwise would have done. The Emperor, on the other hand, knew very little about St. Petersburg society, and especially about its gossip. When the name of the Princess Galitz
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
THE CZARINA AND ST. PETERSBURG SOCIETY At the time of her marriage St. Petersburg society was well disposed toward my unfortunate mistress, and it would have been easy for her to have made herself popular. Unfortunately she had, as I have said, a sarcastic tongue, and made no secret of her likes and dislikes; nor did she hesitate to ridicule certain customs to which old and important dowagers clung with persistency. She always feared to be thought too familiar, owing to the fact that the Imperia
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
THE CZARINA AND HER MOTHER-IN-LAW I have heard that many different tales have been circulated concerning the relations of my mistress with the Dowager Empress. It is useless to pretend that they were pleasant, but, on the other hand, neither of the two ladies gave vent to open manifestations of hostility, whatever they may have thought in the interior of their hearts. During the first months following the marriage of the Czar things went smoothly, because it was impossible to show more deference
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
THE CZARINA’S DAILY OCCUPATIONS I have often been asked what the Czarina used to do with her days and whether it was true that she spent them in absolute idleness. And just as often I have wondered what could have given rise to such an opinion. The Empress was, on the contrary, one of those industrious women whose hands are never at rest, and who require to be always occupied in some way or another, either mentally or with some manual work which keeps their attention concentrated on its intricac
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
THE JAPANESE WAR AND THE BIRTH OF THE CZAREVITSCH The first really great sorrow and anxiety which fell on my beloved mistress was the Japanese war. I am not writing here a political book, and indeed understand nothing about politics, but what I do know is that no one could have been more affected by the disasters which destroyed the Russian army and fleet than was the Empress. She used to spend hours weeping in her room, where she allowed no one, not even her children, to enter, and it was from
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
THE CZARINA, HER CHILDREN AND HER CHARITIES It would be difficult to find a better mother than the Empress Alexandra. She entered into the smallest details of the training of her daughters and her son, and she tried before everything else to imbue them with the same serious points of view with which she looked upon life and its numerous duties. She insisted on her children always speaking the truth, and the only time I ever saw her really angry with the little Alexis was one morning when he was
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
THE FIRST REVOLUTION I often wondered whether the Empress had quite appreciated the magnitude of the first revolutionary movement which took place in Russia during and after the Japanese war. She had been repeatedly told that it was a mutiny of no importance, bound to be crushed by the government. The Czar as well as his ministers had purposely left her in the dark, the former because he did not wish to alarm her, and the latter because they feared that she might try, in presence of the danger w
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
THE CZARINA’S FRIENDS Alexandra Feodorovna did not make any real friends during the first years that followed upon her marriage. Indeed it was only after the Japanese war that she started the intimacies for which she was so much reproached by her subjects. The most notorious was that for Rasputin, but there were two others just as nefarious—that with Madame Wyroubieva and with the Princess Dondoukoff. International Film Service Grand Duchess Elizabeth The latter was a lady of considerable intell
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
THE GREAT WAR It is useless to repeat that when the great war broke out no one in Russia expected it, the Czar least of all. I shall not touch upon the serious part of this awful drama; I only mention it in so far as it has to do with the unhappy Empress. She was quite overpowered by it, and thought it the culminating point of her misfortunes. Apart from her apprehensions for that Russia whose Sovereign she was, she felt deeply the fact that she was going to be at war with her own kith and kin,
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
DISASTERS AND THE SECOND REVOLUTION The last days of the year 1916 were sad ones for my poor Empress. First came the assassination of Rasputin, which was a terrible source of grief for her, because she firmly believed that so long as he was at her side no harm could befall her, and certainly as events turned out she had not been so far wrong in her superstitious fears. During the first days which followed upon the murder of her favourite she would sit motionless for hours in her boudoir, doing n
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
HOW THE CZARINA WAS ARRESTED A few dreadful days followed upon the one which had brought us the news of the abdication of the Czar. The Empress tried to get into communication with him, but though she contrived to speak with him over the wire, it was from the first evident that every word was listened to, and she gave up any attempt at confidential conversation. What worried her was that instead of returning to Czarskoi Selo, Nicholas II. had elected to go to Mohilew. My mistress, who had had ab
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
LIFE IN PRISON It was only on the first day which followed upon the return of Nicholas II. at Czarskoi Selo that he was allowed to see his wife without witnesses. The very next morning Korniloff again appeared at the Palace and delivered the following instructions to the gaolers (one can hardly call them otherwise) who were to watch over the deposed monarch and his family: I. The Emperor was not to be allowed to communicate with his Consort, except during mealtimes, when of course conversation c
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
EXILE—I AM DISMISSED Towards the middle of the summer vague rumours reached us that in consequence of the agitation which was already shaking the country to a considerable degree, the Government had decided to remove Nicholas II. to another and safer residence than Czarskoi Selo. It was feared that if an insurrectionary movement took place at Petrograd, the mob might proceed to the Imperial Borough and murder the former Czar. At least this was the pretext put forward by the ministers, to explain
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