The present Imperial Family is no longer so numerous as it was. All the brothers of the late Tsar have died, with the exception of the Grand Duke Paul, who lives for the most part abroad, at his house in Paris, with his morganatic wife, the Countess of Hohenfelsen. At first this marriage created an enormous stir, and the Emperor deprived his uncle of his rank in the Army as well as of that part of his income which came from the Imperial domain, ordering it to be paid for the benefit of his children by his first wife, the Princess Alexandra of Greece.
Very soon after settling in Paris the Grand Duke had made for himself a brilliant position. The Countess also was not dissatisfied at the enforced exile. She queened it from the very first in Paris, where her house became a rendezvous of the Russian colony, and where she could freely see those members of the Imperial Family who came for a holiday in the gay capital, or who had settled in it permanently, like the Grand Duke Alexis, who, after the Japanese War, had preferred to retire to the banks of the Seine rather than remain on those of the Neva.
The Grand Duke Alexis had another attraction there: it was his friend Mademoiselle Balleta, a French actress. She had a very pretty house somewhere in the vicinity of the Champs Elysées, not far from the apartment which the Grand Duke occupied in the Avenue Gabriel. It was at her house that Alexis Alexandrovitch spent most of his time, and it was there he was taken ill with the attack of pneumonia that carried him off to the grave at a relatively early age.
After the death of the Grand Duke Alexis, the Emperor relented in regard to his brother, and the Grand Duke Paul was allowed to return to Russia and was restored to his former rank in the Army. He did not abuse the liberty given, and has only been seen at the Court of St. Petersburg on rare occasions, such as the marriage of his daughter the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna with Prince William of Sweden, and the celebration of the Borodino centenary.
Strange to say, his children are on good terms with the Countess of Hohenfelsen, whom not only do they visit but at whose house they stay during their frequent visits to Paris. The Grand Duke Dmitry Paulovitch, her stepson, is even credited with a great affection for her. He is a very nice young man, and it is openly said in St. Petersburg that both the Emperor and Empress want him to marry their eldest daughter, the Grand Duchess Olga Nicolaievna. There have even been rumours that the Tsar had the intention to change the order of succession to the Crown by issuing an ukase passing it, in the event of the death of his only son, the present Tsarevitch, to his eldest daughter and her consort, if the Grand Duke Dmitry Paulovitch.