_Tuesday, August 18th._--When Alexis Nicolaïevitch found he could not walk this morning he was in a terrible state. Their Majesties have decided that he shall be present at the ceremony all the same. He will be carried by one of the Czar’s cossacks. But it is a dreadful disappointment to the parents, who do not wish the idea to gain ground among the people that the Heir to the Throne is an invalid.
At eleven o’clock, when the Czar appeared at the top of the Red Staircase, the huge crowd in the square gave him a magnificent reception. He came down slowly, with the Czarina on his arm, and at the head of a long procession slowly crossed the bridge connecting the palace with the Cathedral of the Assumption and entered the church amid a frantic outburst of cheering from the crowd. The Metropolitan Bishops of Kiev, St. Petersburg, and Moscow and the high dignitaries of the Orthodox clergy were present. When Mass was over, the members of the Imperial family in turn approached the holy relics and kissed them. Then they knelt at the tombs of the patriarchs. Afterwards they went to the Monastery of Miracles to pray at the tomb of St. Alexis.
Long after Their Majesties had returned to the palace the crowd continued to collect in the square in the hope of seeing them again. Even when we came out several hours later there were still hundreds of peasants outside the palace.
_Thursday, August 20th._--Popular enthusiasm is waxing from day to day. It seems as if the people of Moscow are so proud of having their Czar with them, and so anxious to keep him as long as possible, that they mean to hold him here by manifest proofs of their affection. The manifestations are increasingly spontaneous, enthusiastic, and expressive.
Alexis and I drive out in a car every morning. As a rule we go to the Monks’ Hill, from which there is a magnificent view of the valley of the Moskova and the city of the Czars. It was from this spot that Napoleon gazed on Moscow before entering it on September 14th, 1812. It is certainly a marvellous view. In the foreground, at the foot of the hill, is the Monastery of Novo-Dievitchy, with its fortified _enceinte_ and sixteen castellated towers. A little further back is the Holy City, with its four hundred and fifty churches, its palaces and parks, its monasteries with their crenellated walls, its gilded cupolas and innumerable domes of brilliant colours and strange shapes.