Late at night we heard that the Grand Duke Michael had renounced the throne, and that the fate of Russia was to be settled by the Constituent Assembly.
Next morning I found the Czarina in Alexis Nicolaïevitch’s room. She was calm, but very pale. She looked very much thinner and ever so much older in the last few days.
In the afternoon Her Majesty received a telegram from the Czar in which he tried to calm her fears, and told her that he was at Mohileff pending the imminent arrival of the Dowager Empress.
Three days passed. At half-past ten on the morning of the 21st Her Majesty summoned me and told me that General Korniloff had been sent by the Provisional Government to inform her that the Czar and herself were under arrest and that all those who did not wish to be kept in close confinement must leave the palace before four o’clock. I replied that I had decided to stay with them.
“The Czar is coming back to-morrow. Alexis must be told everything. Will you do it? I am going to tell the girls myself.”
It was easy to see how she suffered when she thought of the grief of the Grand-Duchesses on hearing that their father had abdicated. They were ill, and the news might make them worse.
I went to Alexis Nicolaïevitch and told him that the Czar would be returning from Mohileff next morning and would never go back there again.
“Your father does not want to be Commander-in-Chief any more.”
He was greatly moved at this, as he was very fond of going to G.H.Q.
“You know your father does not want to be Czar any more, Alexis Nicolaïevitch.”
He looked at me in astonishment, trying to read in my face what had happened.
“He is very tired and has had a lot of trouble lately.”
“Oh yes! Mother told me they stopped his train when he wanted to come here. But won’t papa be Czar again afterwards?”
I then told him that the Czar had abdicated in favour of the Grand Duke Michael, who had also renounced the throne.
Not a word about himself. Not a single allusion to his rights as the Heir. He was very red and agitated.
“But if there isn’t a Czar, who’s going to govern Russia?”
I explained that a Provisional Government had been formed and that it would govern the state until the Constituent Assembly met, when his uncle Michael would perhaps mount the throne.