One of the most interesting ceremonies of Holy Week in this chapel was the procession on Maundy Thursday of the Blessed Sacrament being carried to the tomb, when the four Catholic Ambassadors--France, Italy, Spain and Austria--in full-dress uniform, hold the dais, followed by the Catholic personnel of the various Embassies, also in full dress.
The Austrian Ambassador was the late Count Aerenthal, who has since played such an important political rôle in Austria, and specially during the last few years of his life; it was he who united Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Austrian Crown.
The Italian Ambassador was Count Tornielli, a small man with a good-looking, amiable face; the French Ambassador was Monsieur M. Bompard, who played a rôle on this occasion that he would not have dared to play in France!
I often met Prince Hohenlohe, at that time Military Attaché to the German Embassy in Petrograd, and a cousin of the Kaiser’s, as well as the chief of His Majesty’s spy bureau in Switzerland. It has since been proved that he was a very dangerous one, and had received enormous sums at Paris--where he had also subsequently become Military Attaché--which he distributed to numerous “Bolos”; as for so many people “L’argent n’a pas d’odeur”! He was also present that day, wearing a green plume in the style of a feather brush in his officer’s shako.
The works of Leon Tolstoy enchanted me; but for all that I did not like the man who had traced those talented lines. A humbug of the first water, a great Socialist for every one but himself--like most people of his class--Tolstoy had managed to instil his false doctrines into the minds of the students, those thousands of “fish out of water” who are a thorn in the side of Russia, doctrines which caused them to take so energetic a part in the first Revolution also.
May his ashes be agitated in his tomb and suffer at the sight of all the blood spilt, for it is not to be denied that his writings are greatly responsible for the Revolutions which have succeeded each other in Russia; but I fear they rejoice at it!
Possessor of a great fortune, he lived in the greatest luxury, though he posed for poverty and simple tastes, having himself photographed writing his works in a poor cottage for propaganda on post cards, or working himself behind a plough in a field.