Under such lamentable conditions young Alexander grew up to adolescence. He was greatly attached to his mother, and applied to her as his adviser and friend in all questions, while he could hardly conceal his profound aversion for his father. The King noticed this growing hostility in his son and heir, and blamed the Queen for having incited it. He saw in it a deep-laid plot on her part to secure a controlling position which would enable her, at any given opportunity, to place her son on the throne and to assume the reins of government under his name. The breach thus created between the father and the mother, and every day widened by the excesses and orgies of the King, reached its climax when the question arose who should be appointed instructors to prepare the prince for his future duties as the head of the Servian nation. Milan wanted Austrian instructors for his son, because he had been leaning on Austrian influence; the Queen, in sympathy with the national demands as well as prompted by her own impulses, insisted on Russian preceptors, to initiate him into the maze of European politics and to open his mind to the aspirations of Servian genius. It is said that one day when the discussion had grown very warm between husband and wife, and when he accused the Queen of purposely estranging his son’s heart from him, she reproached him with the indignities he had heaped upon her, with his many acts of infidelity, and with his low and vulgar excesses, which, she said, imperilled the dynasty. The King was dumfounded by this torrent of invectives, which he could neither stop nor contradict, but which left in his heart a wound which his pride would not permit to heal up. It seems certain that from that day his resolution was taken to obtain a divorce from his wife for a double purpose: first, that he might not be hindered by her from following his low inclinations; second, that he might withdraw his son from the Queen’s influence and surround him with his own creatures. The question was, how could he obtain this divorce from a wife whose conduct was exemplary, and who was almost worshipped by the whole people for her private and public virtues? It was clear to him that to succeed in his design he had to ruin her character, and on this conviction he built a plot of diabolical malice. Under a plausible pretext he arranged a private meeting in the Queen’s apartments between her and the Metropolitan of Servia. This bishop was known to have an almost worshipful admiration for the Queen; upon him, therefore, it was supposed, the suspicion of illicit relations with her could be fastened easily. No sooner had the Metropolitan entered the Queen’s apartments than the King, accompanied by some of his intimates, appeared on the scene and “surprised the guilty couple.” The plot failed miserably; the King’s hand appeared too visibly in the arrangement and execution to leave any doubt in the public mind as to the Queen’s innocence. His evident intention to brand an innocent and much wronged wife as an adulteress lowered Milan even more in the estimation of the people, and they commenced talking openly of the necessity for his abdication.