The Woman at Home, 1895
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This article about Alexandra was written by Marie Adelaide Bulloc and published in the March 1895 issue of the English women's magazine The Woman at Home, created by Scottish journalist Annie S. Swan.
The article:
THE CZARINA.
HER IMPERIAL MAJESTY THE CZARINA OF RUSSIA.
(PRINCESS ALIX OF HESSE.)
BY MARIE ADELAIDE BELLOC.
IN the Exhibition of portraits of Fair Women lately held in London, one of the most admired modern exhibits was a drawing by Kaulbach, lent by the Queen, representing Princess Alix of Hesse, a sad-eyed, sweet-faced girl, strongly recalling to some of the older visitors to the Grafton Gallery the "Princess Alice" of their youth.
The present Czarina of Russia is tall and slight, with hazel eyes and fair hair; she and her elder sister, the Grand Duchess Serge of Russia, enjoy the privilege of being the prettiest granddaughters of Queen Victoria. After her mother's death the future Empress spent a great deal of her life at Windsor and Osborne, and she is, in education and sentiment, quite as English as many of her English-born cousins; whilst to the Queen she recalls, as none of her sisters has ever done, the late Grand Duchess of Hesse, our Princess Alice, whose deep affection and exceptional intellectual powers were of such help to her mother during the dark days which followed the Prince Consort's death.
THE CZAR.
The Czarina was the fourth daughter and sixth child of the Grand Duke and Duchess of Hesse; she was born at Darmstadt on the 6th of June, 1872, and ten days later her mother wrote to the Queen, "Many thanks for your dear letter, and kind wishes for the birth of our Baby — a nice little thing, like Ella, only smaller and with finer features, though the nose promises to be long .... We think of calling our little girl 'Alix (Alice they pronounce too dreadfully in German) Helena Louisa Beatrice,' and, if Beatrice may, we would much like to have her as godmother."
The infant Princess was christened on the first of July, the anniversary of her parents' wedding day, and to the four names already mentioned by her mother, was added, by the Queen's suggestion, that of Victoria; her sponsors were the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Cesarewitch and Cesarevna, Princess Beatrice, the Duchess of Cambridge, and the Landgravine of Hesse.
THE CZARINA.
During the six brief years which elapsed before Princess Alice's death, there were constant references in her letters to "Aliky." "She is a sweet, merry little person, always laughing, with a deep dimple in one cheek just like Ernie," and then a little later, "She is quite the personification of her nickname 'Sunny,'" wrote the mother.
The Darmstadt Royal nursery was presided over by Mrs. Orchard, an excellent English nurse, who remained Princess Alix's closest attendant for many years after the break up of the happy, united little family group.
For her own sake it is to be hoped that the young Empress cannot remember the weeks which preceded the death of her mother. Then a child of six years old, Princess Alix herself was one of the first in the Grand Ducal household to be taken with the disease — diphtheria — which, after attacking all the children in turn, as well as their father, resulted in the death of little Princess May, to be followed a few days later by that of the tireless nurse and young house mother, Princess Alice herself. Many fine portraits, and a beautiful recumbent monument by Sir Edgar Boehm, representing the Grand Duchess holding Princess May in her arms, remain to keep living in the minds of Princess Alice's younger children the mother they lost so early, and the subject of my sketch is believed in Germany to have always had for her memory a special cult.
After his wife's death, the Grand Duke's ties with his English connections became still closer, and he made a point of spending a portion of each year at Balmoral. As his elder daughters — Victoria, Princess Louis of Battenberg; Elizabeth, Grand Duchess Serge of Russia; Irene, Princess Henry of Prussia — married, Princess Alix became his closest companion and friend; indeed, so attached was the Grand Duke to his youngest child that he could not bear to be separated from her even for a short time, and he always accompanied her when she paid visits to her married sisters.
The Czarina's first governess was an Englishwoman, Miss Jackson, a lady chosen because of her exceptional culture and intelligence; she directed her Royal pupil's studies, and arranged what lessons should be given to her by the professors of the Darmstadt University; she also laid the foundation of that thorough knowledge and love of music which is one of the most distinguishing traits of the new Czarina's character. When her school-room days came to an end, she had as lady-in-waiting and constant companion Fräulein von Fabrice, the daughter of a distinguished German general; this lady accompanied her to Russia, and will remain with her in her new home.
THE CZAR AND CZARINA.
The new Czar's affection for his orphan cousin was known for a long time before their betrothal was formally announced. After the death of the Grand Duke of Hesse, Princess Alix spent a considerable time with her sister the Grand Duchess Serge, to whom she is tenderly attached, and as the latter was by marriage aunt to the Cesarewitch, the two young people had many opportunities of meeting one another. Their formal engagement took place during the wedding festivities of the young Grand Duke Ernest of Hesse and Princess Victoria Melita of Coburg. Queen Victoria, who was at the marriage, as grandmother to both the contracting parties, was the first to be told the news, and to wish the Cesarewitch and her favourite granddaughter joy; on the same day one of the Russian prince's own friends observed to an English acquaintance, "If this marriage ever takes place, your Princess Alice's daughter will have for a husband a kindly, unaffected and well-intentioned if not brilliant young man; he is his father over again, with some of his mother's highly sensitive nature added."
THE CZARINA.
Probably there was no living prince of whom so little was known, and yet who was so often engaged to be married in the imagination of those round him, as the present Czar of Russia. Public rumour assigned him in turn to one of the beautiful Princesses of Montenegro, to Princess Elsa of Wurtemburg, to Princess Hélène of Orleans, to Princess Maud of Wales, and various others of his English cousins, Princess Alix's name, curiously enough, being the one most rarely mentioned in connection with that of her Russian cousin.
It was said, probably with truth, that Princess Alix hesitated for a considerable time before she consented to definitely make up her mind to undertake the heavy duties and harassing life which seem to be a fatal part of each Empress of Russia's existence; and in addition to these considerations there was to the young Princess the even graver one of enforced change of religion. Till lately Lutheran Princesses married to Romanoffs had always to adopt their husbands' faith, Russian names being given to them on their new Orthodox baptisms; this rule was lately relaxed, to the great satisfaction of the German nation, for German Princesses were those most affected. Writing on the matter, the late Princess Alice once observed, "What a good thing! The changing I always thought too bad, and nowadays so intolerant and narrow." Thus knowing her mother's decided views on this subject, it is natural that Princess Alix should have hesitated before consenting to a marriage, of which change of faith was a leading condition, for owing to the Panslavist and intensely Orthodox policy of the late reign, Russia has gone back, at any rate where her Empresses are concerned, to the old system.
THE CZAR AT THE AGE OF SIX.
Still, the following fact should have been, and doubtless was, considered a good omen by the Czarina. Her own sister, the Grand Duchess Serge, favourably impressed with what she saw of the Greek Church, made up her mind, some two years after her marriage, to embrace her husband's religion, and took the opportunity of telling him so during a visit to Jerusalem. Princess Alix had also a good precedent in the Empress Dagmar, who was, it will be remembered, received into the Greek Church on the same day that her solemn betrothal took place in St. Petersburg, and only four days before her marriage was celebrated in the Winter Palace.
The Czar, Nicholas II. strikingly resembles his mother and the Princess of Wales, and bears an almost absurd likeness to his cousin, the Duke of York. He is fair, blue eyed, and well built, though slight in figure; and wears a moustache and rather full whiskers.
THE CZAR WHEN A CHILD.
His childhood was spent in the charming Anitschnoff Palace; but he was only ten years of age when his grandfather, the Czar Nicholas I., was assassinated. The terrible news was told the child without due precaution, and he was so affected by the awful occurrence that for some time his condition gave rise to great anxiety. Fear of the Nihilists, and the knowledge that unknown dangers surround him, have overshadowed the whole of his life, and he is said to have often expressed envy at the ideal existence led by his English and Danish cousins. Those brought into contact with him have noticed the painful effect produced on his nerves by the noise of anything resembling an explosion.
It has often been remarked that a good son makes a good husband. The Czar is devoted to his mother, and when he came back from a long tour in the East — broken, it will be remembered, by an attack on his life made by a Japanese fanatic near Kioto — those who witnessed the meeting between the Czarina and her beloved "Nicky" were profoundly touched by the sight. Speechless with emotion, literally crying with joy, she clung to him, her arms round his neck, audibly thanking God for having allowed him to return safe home.
THE CZAR AT THE AGE OF FIFTEEN.
The little German Grand Duchy has already given three Empresses to Russia, and one of the facts which have contributed to make the present Czar's marriage popular in that great Empire, is the remembrance of the Empress Marie, the mother of the late Czar Alexander III. and the Duchess of Edinburgh, and great-aunt of the present Czarina.
The months which succeeded her engagement were in all respects especially trying to Princess Alix; but the most happy and peaceful days of that period were those spent in England in company with the then Cesarewitch, who delights in nothing so much as in a brief holiday in the land where Nihilism throws no dread shadow, and where, if only as the Princess of Wales' nephew, he is sure of cordial sympathy.
Shortly after the Princess's return to Darmstadt, where she was always a welcome guest in her brother's Grand Ducal Palace, came the first disquieting rumours of Alexander III.'s condition, to be in time followed by a summons to Livadia. The young Princess started without delay, and, after a journey taken in terrible suspense, finally met her betrothed, amid the humble though sincere demonstrations of welcome offered her by her husband's future subjects.
Whilst all Europe was concerning itself with the Princess's marriage, its possible postponement, probable date, and indulging in more or less idle rumours as to her reception into the Greek Church, she herself, following in this as in many other things her mother's example, was proving herself the best of nurses and the most tender of comforters to the dying Czar and his stricken wife, who must indeed have felt that in the matter of their son's marriage they had nothing left to wish for.
The days which followed the late Czar's death are still present to most of us. Princess Alix, although always clothed in pure white, and without any sign of mourning, according to a wish expressed by the newly widowed Czarina, took her full share of the burden of grief crushing the Imperial family. Within a few days of the last act in the sad tragedy enacted at Livadia, the young Czar's betrothed was received into the Greek Church, and given the formal temporary title of Grand Duchess Alexandra Feodorovna.
In his first proclamation to his people Nicholas II. associated himself publicly with his future wife, and it soon became evident, probably for the first and last time in the history of a reigning house, that an Imperial wedding was to follow an Emperor's funeral.
Of the splendid pageant which took place in the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg, on the 26th of last November, two figures must surely in our recollection stand apart and alone from those surrounding them — those of the Empress-bride and the Empress-widow, one life scarce beginning, and an existence practically ended as regards all that makes life worth living, and yet both striving, especially on that strange wedding-day, to put self aside for the sake of their dead and living; surely no more pathetic sight can ever have been witnessed than that of the still youthful Empress Dagmar dressed for the last time in the white and silver which constitutes in Russia the most brilliant of gala costumes; and those of the vast multitudes who had eyes to see and hearts to understand must have felt truly moved when they saw the gently nurtured, newly wedded Czarina driving "home" after the marriage ceremony through the serried ranks of human beings among whom might so easily have lurked a self-constituted tyrannicide.
Nicholas II.'s liberal policy is believed to be greatly owing to the advice and influence of his young Empress; she has become a true Russian at heart, and one of her first actions as Czarina was to examine several schemes having for their object that of assisting the poverty-stricken peasantry in practical ways; and she is once more proving the immense power wielded by those possessing the allied qualities of goodness and intellect.
THE GRAND DUCHESS SERGE OF RUSSIA.
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