[47] It really seems that a perverse fate intervened to protect Rasputin. One day the Czar was given a document in which the excesses of the _staretz_ were set forth highly circumstantially. In reading it the Czar observed that on the day and hour at which one of the acts mentioned in the document were alleged to have taken place Rasputin had actually been at Tsarskoïe-Selo. Nothing more was required to convince the Czar that the whole report was simply a tissue of lies.
[48] The Grand-Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna had founded a small religious community, of which she was the Superior, at Moscow. She lived there retired from the world, devoting all her time to prayer and good works.
[49] I had all these details from the lips of Mlle. Schneider, reader to the Czarina, who had once been in the household of the Grand-Duchess Elizabeth, who had always remained very fond of her.
[50] The circumstances of Rasputin’s death are to be found in the newspapers of the time. I will briefly recapitulate them here. His death was the result of a plot in which some of the participants were the Grand-Duke Dimitri Pavlovitch, first cousin of the Czar, Prince Yussoupoff, whose wife was the niece of Nicholas II., M. Purichkevitch, a monarchist deputy in the Duma, and Dr. Lazarevsky, who accompanied him. The Grand-Duke wished to show by his presence that it was not a case of an act of rebellion against the Czar, but merely the execution of a miscreant whom the nation had judged and found guilty of abusing the confidence of his sovereign.
Rasputin was killed on the night of December 30th. Prince Yussoupoff had gone to fetch him in his car very late in the evening, and brought him to his house. They first tried to poison him, but as the poison was slow in taking effect, Prince Yussoupoff and the deputy killed him with revolvers. His corpse was thrown into the Neva and was picked up two days later.
[51] I am referring, of course, to the articulate portion of the nation. The untutored masses cared nothing about him, and among those who knew of his existence a large number were favourable to him. Many considered his death an act of vengeance on the part of the courtiers who were jealous of their privileges. “The first time that one of ourselves gets to the Czar, he is killed by the courtiers,” they said.