This drama, which I am going to relate in the pages about to follow, was made the subject of a shameless exploitation that took advantage of the sorrow and despair to which it gave rise, that neither spared the woman nor respected the Sovereign, and that finally overthrew the Romanoff dynasty, and brought about the ruin of Russia. It seems to me that the revelation of it can harm neither its heroine, nor the country over which she reigned for twenty-two years; while, on the other hand, it may help the public to understand some of the causes of the great Revolution which was to be followed by such momentous consequences, not only for Russia, but also for the whole world.
Before relating it, I must, however, beg my readers to keep always in mind the fact that the Consort of Nicholas II. was not a normal woman; that madness was hereditary in the Hesse-Darmstadt family to which she belonged, twenty-two members of whom had, during the last hundred years or so, been confined in lunatic asylums; that consequently a different standard of criticism must be applied to Alexandra Feodorowna than to an ordinary person in full possession of all her intellectual faculties. The whole course of her history proves the truth of what I have just said, and claims indulgence for her conduct.
As for this history, I think that, such as it really was, few people have so far come to an exact knowledge of it, and that no one yet has related it as I am going to do. The information that has reached me has come almost day by day from sources which I have every reason to know are excellent. I have applied myself to eliminate many facts which appeared to me to be of too sensational a nature. I want also to point out to the reader that, though this book is called the _Confessions of the Czarina_, yet it does not contain one single word which I would like him to believe to have been uttered personally by the former Czarina. It is a story written ONLY by Count Paul Vassili, who accepts its responsibility in signing his name to it.
Toward the close of February in the year 1894 the health of the Czar Alexander III. of Russia began to fail.
Those in the confidence of the inner circle of the Imperial Family, who constituted the small society which used to form the immediate surroundings of the Sovereign, whispered that the Emperor was taking a long time to rally from the attack of influenza which had prostrated him in the beginning of the winter, and that steps ought to be taken to ascertain whether or not he was suffering from something other than the weakness which generally follows upon this perfidious ailment. But they did not dare to mention openly their fears, because it was the tradition at the Russian Court that the Czar ought not, and could not, be ill; whenever any bulletins were published concerning his health or that of any other member of the Imperial Family, it was immediately accepted by the general public as meaning that the end was approaching. In the case of Alexander III., his robust appearance, gigantic height and strength, seemed to exclude the possibility of sickness ever laying its grip upon him. In reality things were very different. The Czar had been suffering for years from a kidney complaint, which had been allowed to develop itself without anything being done to stop, or at least to arrest, its progress. He was by nature and temperament an indefatigable worker, accustomed to spending the best part of the day and a considerable portion of the night, seated at his writing-desk; he rarely allowed himself any vacations, except during his summer trips to Denmark, and he never complained when he felt unwell, or would admit that his strength was no longer what it had been. He had a most wonderful power of self-control and a very high idea of his duties as a Sovereign. On the day of his accession to the Throne, when, on his entering for the first time the Anitchkoff Palace, which was to remain his residence until his death, he was greeted by the members of his household with the traditional bread and salt, which is always offered in Russia upon occasions of the kind. When implored to show himself a father to his subjects, the giant’s blue eyes had shone with even more kindness in their expression than was generally the case, and in a very distinct and quiet voice he had replied: