Rasputin (Translated) E-Book

J W Bienstock

• Herausgeber: David De Angelis
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

We put at the head of this book the name of Rasputin, of this fantastic, almost legendary figure, because in the last decade of the regime. Tsarist, Rasputin is the one who personifies more intensely its madness and criminality, and because the date of his death coincides, a few days apart, with that of the end of this regime. The reign of the last of the Romanovs, which lasted twenty-three years, is marked by a series of acts that seem a perpetual challenge to the Russian people. All that the country possessed in terms of ability and honesty was discarded by the power, and around the throne was pushed an ever-growing crowd of careerists, adventurers, prostitutes, thieves and swindlers of all kinds and all classes, thaumaturges and wizards, a diverse crowd of strange beings, lawless and faithless, who dug a gulf, deeper and deeper, between the emperor and his people. The expression that, better than any other, characterizes the relations that, since the beginning of this reign, were established between the Court and the people, is the expression that was commonly used in the emperor's environment: "We and they". We, that is, the Court and its two props: the inept bureaucracy and the depraved police. They, i.e. all the rest of Russia, the immense people of one hundred and sixty-three million souls, in whom one saw an enemy, momentarily subjugated, but whom one must never forget to treat as an enemy. The most outstanding, the most extraordinary, the most dramatic figure of this Court, unique in the history of modern times, was, as we have said, Rasputin. Much has already been written about this all-too-famous character; however, neither his complete biography, nor the specific and precise character of his action, nor all the details of his death have yet been brought to light. Today, we have documents that allow us to partially fill this gap. We have the newspaper of one of Rasputin's first victims, the wife of General Loktin, who followed the famous staretz step by step, and noted the most picturesque and strangest details of his very bumpy life. We also possess another paper, that of the priest Heliodorus, who was at first a fervent friend of Rasputin, and later became the most ardent of his enemies. And finally we now have the complete file of the judicial inquiry made after Rasputin's assassination. Thanks to these elements we can trace a complete biography of the character or at least give the most essential notions. But in order to understand the part played by Rasputin in the history of the last few years, in order to understand how this illiterate, uncouth, repugnant peasant, called unclean by all those who approached him, could be for some time the true dictator of Russia, instead of the emperor, we need to briefly say what Russia and its ruler were.

Leseprobe

RASPUTIN

THE END OF A REGIME

J. W. BIENSTOCK

Translation and 2022 edition by ©David De Angelis

All rights reserved

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

I. THE ACCESSION TO THE THRONE OF ALEXANDER III. - HIS POLICY. - THE IMPERIAL FAMILY IN GATCINA. - THE CHILDHOOD OF NICOLAS II. - HIS TUTORS.

II. NICOLA'S YOUTH. II. - THE JOURNEY TO THE FAR EAST. - THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER III.

III. THE FIRST YEARS OF THE REIGN OF NICOLAS THE - THE MARRIAGE OF THE EMPEROR. - NEW INFLUENCES.

IV. KODINICA. - DOMESTIC POLICY.

V. MYSTICISM AT THE RUSSIAN COURT. - THE RELICS OF SAINT SERAPHIM. - SOME PREDECESSOR OF RASPUTIN.

VI. THE RUSSIAN-JAPANESE WAR. - THE PRODROMES OF THE REVOLUTION.

VII. GREGOBIO RASPUTIN.

VIII. THE "NEOKLYSTOVCIN" - THE INFLUENCE OF RASPUTIN ON THE TMPERIAL FAMILY.

IX. RASPIITIN'S RELIGIOUS PRACTICES. - SOME OF ITS VICTIMS. - MITIA KOLIABA. - A REPORT OF THE OCRANA.

X. RASPUTIN AND HELIODOR.

XI. A RECEPTION AT RASPUTIN'S HOUSE.

XII. OCCULT FORCES.

XIII. THE WAR AND THE GERMAN INFLUENCE AT THE COURT OF RUSSIA.

XIV. TRADITIONS.

XV. THE ATTACKS. - THE ASSASSINATION OF RASPUTIN.

XVI. WITNESS STATEMENTS.

XVIII. REVOLUTION.

INTRODUCTION

We put at the head of this book the name of Rasputin, of this fantastic, almost legendary figure, because in the last decade of the regime. Tsarist, Rasputin is the one who personifies more intensely its madness and criminality, and because the date of his death coincides, a few days apart, with that of the end of this regime. The reign of the last of the Romanovs, which lasted twenty-three years, is marked by a series of acts that seem a perpetual challenge to the Russian people. All that the country possessed in terms of ability and honesty was discarded by the power, and around the throne was pushed an ever-growing crowd of careerists, adventurers, prostitutes, thieves and swindlers of all kinds and all classes, thaumaturges and wizards, a diverse crowd of strange beings, lawless and faithless, who dug a gulf, deeper and deeper, between the emperor and his people. The expression that, better than any other, characterizes the relations that, since the beginning of this reign, were established between the Court and the people, is the expression that was commonly used in the emperor's environment: "We and they". We, that is, the Court and its two props: the inept bureaucracy and the depraved police. They, i.e. all the rest of Russia, the immense people of one hundred and sixty-three million souls, in whom one saw an enemy, momentarily subjugated, but whom one must never forget to treat as an enemy. The most outstanding, the most extraordinary, the most dramatic figure of this Court, unique in the history of modern times, was, as we have said, Rasputin. Much has already been written about this all-too-famous character; however, neither his complete biography, nor the specific and precise character of his action, nor all the details of his death have yet been brought to light. Today, we have documents that allow us to partially fill this gap. We have the newspaper of one of Rasputin's first victims, the wife of General Loktin, who followed the famous staretz step by step, and noted the most picturesque and strangest details of his very bumpy life. We also possess another paper, that of the priest Heliodorus [1] who was at first a fervent friend of Rasputin, and later became the most ardent of his enemies. And finally we now have the complete file of the judicial inquiry made after Rasputin's assassination. Thanks to these elements we can trace a complete biography of the character or at least give the most essential notions. But in order to understand the part played by Rasputin in the history of these last years, in order to understand how this illiterate, uncouth, repugnant, and qualified peasant (as did all those who approached him) could be for some time the true dictator of Russia, instead of the emperor, we need to briefly say what Russia and its sovereign were. We will begin with a brief summary of the life and reign of Nicholas II, and after indicating the characteristics of some of the people who surrounded him, we will turn to the biography of Rasputin, which will take us to the edge of the events that shook not only Russia, but the whole world.

[1] The Holy Devil, published by the historical magazine "Goloss Minuvciavo"(The Voice of the Past)

I. THE ACCESSION TO THE THRONE OF ALEXANDER III. - HIS POLICY. - THE IMPERIAL FAMILY IN GATCINA. - THE CHILDHOOD OF NICOLAS II. - HIS TUTORS.

The truth about the lives of sovereigns is generally not known until long after their death or fall, and that is only when the historical documents, memoirs, and intimate journals of contemporaries and family members of the Court are published. But Nicholas II is an exception. During his reign, while he was still all-powerful, and some time before the war, in Berlin, came out a work, voluminous and anonymous, entitled "The last of the autocrats". In this work, the author parades before us the entire intimate life of the ruler, his Court, his ministers, his high officials, not forgetting the occult forces that, in fact, directed the internal and external policy of the country. It has been known for some time that the author of this work is V. P. Obninsky, and this name gives a special value to the documentation of the book. President of the Kaluga zemstvo, member of the first Duma, V. P. Obninsky has always found himself in the center of Russian political and public life. In his youth he was an officer in the guard regiment to which Nicholas. II, and became his friend. Admitted to the world of the Court, Obninsky, was able to observe very closely Nicholas II, then Crown Prince, and the customs of the Court and the high bureaucracy. His sincerity, his high moral value, the high esteem in which he was held by all his colleagues in the Duma and by all those who dealt with him, confirm that V. P. Obninsky is a trustworthy witness. In addition to this strong work of documentation, we now possess on Nicholas II and his Court, of the hundreds of. testimonies and a heap of documents that the Russian Revolution has given to publicity.

On March 1/14, 1881, by the Catherine Canal in Petersburg, Emperor Alexander II was killed by a revolutionary's bomb. His son succeeded him. The testimonies unanimously affirm that the new emperor, Alexander III, was a brutal man, uneducated, capable of some willpower, and of all the family virtues, but that he had little interest in politics, and had contempt for the profession of arms, unlike his ancestors who had a true cult for the profession of arms. As soon as the new sovereign took the throne, the first question that arose was whether or not to publish the ucase, already studied and compiled by the special commission, chaired by Loris Melikoff, which granted the Russian people a kind of Constitution. But the assassination of Alexander II, who had several liberal reforms to his credit, and among others, the emancipation of the peasants, was greeted with indifference even in the liberal spheres of Russian society. The reactionary party, pushed above all by the famous Pobiedonostzev, took advantage of the emotion of the advanced parties to obtain from the emperor a negative answer to this question. The capital punishment inflicted on all those who had taken part in the assassination of Alexander II; was the second act of the new government. Neither the admirable letter of L. N. Tolstoy, nor the one addressed by the revolutionaries themselves, succeeded in shaking the decision of the emperor, who was already a slave of the reactionary party. Five revolutionaries were set on fire, and among them was a woman, Sofia Perovskaia. This was the first time in Russia that a woman was executed. Later, and especially in the last years of the reign of Nicholas II, the hanging of women, became an everyday occurrence. "Bunches of female bodies hang from the gallows," said the great poet Andreiev; but in 1881, this first condemnation of a woman, made a deep impression in Russia. With the rise of the new kingdom, they immediately began to do a "clean sweep" in the administration. Anyone suspected of liberalism was ruthlessly discarded. Russia was divided into a series of provinces, entrusted to governors whose mission was to stifle life and any attempt at social organization. Between the new emperor and the Russian society, an abyss was dug, created by distrust and mutual suspicion, and the thirteen years of the reign of Alexander III, count among the periods of darkest reaction, crossed by Russia. Following the impression of the horrible death of his father, Alexander III was seized by a morbid terror. He felt a great pain to parade, to be the one whom everyone looks at. He took Petersburg in horror. He was afraid to cross those wide perspectives, those great squares, where he feared, at every step, to see some revolutionary rising, carrying bombs. To escape this nightmare, Alexander III, decided to install the Court permanently in Galcina. Since the time of Paul I, Gatcina, with its palace that looked like a cold and empty barracks, with its wide clean and deserted streets, with its immense lonely park, seemed the residence of a dethroned sovereign. There, Alexander III, who, in the words of Count Witte, "did not know what to do with his autocracy", exiled himself and his family, judging solitude to be the best way to avoid the infernal machines and revolver shots. Such was his fear, that he did not wish to inhabit the great halls of the palace, and chose, for his residence, and that of his family, the mezzanine, which probably, in the time of Paul I, was reserved for servants, and whose ceiling was so low, that a man of average stature could touch it with his hand; and Alexander III was very tall in stature. Obninsky has made a picturesque description of the imperial apartment in Gatcina: "the small rooms, not only could not contain the imperial furniture, but it was even impossible to place a grand piano, and the Empress Maria Feodorovna had to be content with an upright piano. Chairs, of the most common ones were lined up along the walls, papered, and hanging on the wall were ancient and modern pictures, along with simple photographs fixed with tacks." From the account of the same witness, we see that here, too, as always, the appearance of the

things was but a reflection of the intimate life; and the life of the imperial family was of the simplest. "One would never have thought that this was the most terrible center of power for its vastness and magnitude, that here the fate of a people of more than one hundred and fifty million souls was decided; one would rather have believed oneself in the estate of a mid-century squire, living in the closest circle of domestic interests. Not even the visits of the ministers served as a distraction: they were one of the inevitable annoyances of existence, something like the veil of mold that covers a pond, picturesque, but harmful". In this environment Nicholas and his brothers grew up. Lacking any serious education, Emperor Alexander III did not see the need to give his heir useful knowledge for his future. For Nicholas and his brothers, more than just good professors, a good father was sought. In Gatcina, as at other times in old Russian families, they were guided by the principle: mediocre teachers, chosen at random, and good nannies, attached to the family. This part fell to the sons of Alexander III, to the Englishman C. Heath habitually called Karl Ossipovic. Equipped with a good bookish education, a pleasant watercolourist, and a dedicated sportsman, Mr. Heath combined these qualities with a deep devotion to the imperial family that had taken him in. But neither forty years spent in Russia, nor the cohabitation and conversations with the chosen portion of Russian society, ever gave him a true cognizance of the country, the people, and its history; so that the influence of this man was confined, like that of any good nurse, to the walls of the nursery. His influence prevailed only on one point, that is the use of the English language, so that even later, when he was emperor, the speeches of Nicholas II were nothing but the literal translation into Russian of English phrases. Every kind of sport had the greatest place in the occupations of the imperial boys; they were good riders, good marksmen and great hunters. None of them had special artistic dispositions, and for painting and music Nicholas and his sister Olga felt aversion even more than indifference. The characters of the children were very different. The heir, Nicholas, was proud of the importance of his origin; the second son, George, was gloomy and taciturn; perhaps the illness that was to kill him was affecting his character; the third son, Michael, his father's favourite, was a boy with rosy and chubby cheeks and a cheerful disposition. Alexander III frequently mingled with the games of his children, and was often seen crouching on the ground playing with the little family. The professors of the young grand dukes, as we have said, were chosen among the mediocre ones. On the other hand, if anyone had ever wanted to make the future emperor understand some words of truth, he would have been prevented from doing so by the man who was in charge of their education, the famous Pobiedonoszev, or by General Danilovic, the obtuse and alcoholic officer who attended all the lessons of the heir. In addition, the three grand dukes exceptionally lazy track and their ignorance, almost phenomenal, was known in court circles. For example, at the age of seventeen, Nicholas, attending a performance organized by Mr. Heath, where Puskin's The Miserly Knight was being performed, frankly confessed that he had never read anything by Puskin and was unaware of his existence. Obninsky, who reported this fact, and who personally attended the performance, added that all bystanders were embarrassed by the confession of the zarevic. In military science, the result was not much brighter. The Minister of War, General Vannovski at the time, had systematically discarded men of intellect from important positions, so that the officers in charge of teaching military science were inferior to the other professors of the heir grand duke. Religious ceremonies, parades, magazines in uniform, this is what the education of Alexander III's children was limited to. By a strange irony of things, as governmental life in Russia became more complicated, the education of the future sovereigns was entrusted to less and less capable men and was reduced to its minimum. Alexander I had had for his teacher La Harpe; Alexander II the great poet Jukovsky; Nicholas II was given General Danilovic, Pobiedonoszev, who was no longer the ardent young professor of Alexander III's time, but a dull, fanatical, cunning old man. The palace chaplain Janicef taught him canonical di. ritto; Bunge, political economy; Zamyslovski, history. Nicholas' tutor, Mr. Heath, often told him: "while you are heir, take advantage to listen to the truth; when you are emperor it will be too late". Unfortunately, Nicholas did not have anyone around him who could tell him the truth.

II. NICOLA'S YOUTH. II. - THE JOURNEY TO THE FAR EAST. - THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER III.

The first great event of Nicholas Alexandrovich's personal life was his journey to the Far East. The journeys to get acquainted with the customs of different countries were part of the education program of the grand dukes, although all measures were taken to keep the truth hidden from their eyes during these trips. These trips were prepared at length by the officials in charge of carrying out the program. All speeches were compiled and studied in advance, and the agents of the Ocrana were all mobilized, to represent the people enthusiastically applauding the passage of the grand dukes. Protocol rarely left room for the unexpected, unless it was inadvertently. The late poet Slucevski, official chronicler of those journeys, recounts in his memoirs rn picturesque incident that occurred in 1880, during a visit of Grand Duke Vlarlimiro Alexandrovic in the great cities of the Volga. In Samara, among the local curiosities, he was introduced to an old woman, one hundred and twenty years old, who could barely stand on her legs, but had retained her lucidity of spirit. The old woman prostrated herself before the Grand Duke, kissed the hem of his uniform, then made the sign of the cross.

- Why do you make the sign of the cross, grandmother? - Grand Duke Vladimir asked.

- And how would I not? - muttered the old woman, - when God allowed me, before I died, to see a tsar for the second time?

- And what other tsar have you seen? - asked the Grand Duke.

- But yes, I saw the tsar himself, our father Emilian Pugacef, - pronounced the old woman of Samara, to the horror of all onlookers.

The Grand Duke hastily departed. The next day the governor submitted his resignation. The trip of the heir grand duke to the Far East, was to have the purpose, in addition to education, to strengthen the international relations of Russia, to forge new diplomatic relations with the Far East, and to increase the prestige of the reign of Alexander III. But the trip, combined for zarevitc, was ill-suited to achieve this triple purpose. At that time, Alexander III had already discarded from the Court all the great political men surrounding Alexander IL What were the men of the day? General Cerevin, who employed in drinking the time he did not spend at Court; or General Richter, a great Baltic proprietor, an honest man, but without any political idea; there was no one who could make a worthy escort to the heir Grand Duke, and capable of worthily representing Russia, and it was designated, as head of the Mission, the old and almost blind General Bariatinski. But, if nothing else, this voyage could have a result: to detach the heir from the singer Labunskala with whom he was very much in love. The cruiser Pamial Azova (I remember Azov), which was carrying the Tsarevich and his entourage, was the scene of the most scandalous orgies and revelry during the entire voyage, in which the heir and his brother George participated. The abuse of alcoholic beverages frequently led to brawls, and during one of them, Nicholas so rudely mistreated his brother that he threw him down the stairs of the bridge. Grand Duke George, with a bruised chest, never recovered from that fall, which hastened the development of the tuberculosis from which he was already suffering. At the first port of call he had to go ashore and be taken back to Russia. After this accident, he dragged himself along for a few more years, then died at Abaz-Tuman, a seaside resort in the Caucasus. Nicholas continued his journey, led a cheerful life, enjoyed all the pleasures, and finally reached Japan, the Japan that was to be such a tragic part of his life. The Russian travelers, due to their lack of tact, ignorance of Japanese customs, and too much coarse nonchalance, irritated the Japanese people from the very first days, especially during their visits to the temples where they did not hesitate to mock the images of Buddha and other gods. A fanatic, a member of the Honor Guard assigned to the Russian Mission, officer Sanso-Tsusa, took it upon himself to avenge the gods. He struck a saber at the head of the Tsarevich; the second blow was stopped by one of Nicholas's traveling companions, the heir to the Greek throne, George. 'That saber was the first wound made by Japan to Russia. No one then could foresee the consequences of that incident. Nicholas held a grudge against the country that so strangely exercised hospitality, but above all he returned to Russia with a far more serious wound than appeared at first. The Russian professors called to observe him, noted, on his return, that if the brain matter had not been affected, the skull bone was also affected, and the decomposition of the bone substance began to occur on both sides of the wound. Nicholas felt strong pains in the head and Professor Zakarin stated that, in the long run, it was to be feared a repercussion on his psychic faculties, and on his mental balance. Now, in a country where the emperor's personal politics play such a large part, such a disturbance of his health could not remain without consequences for his people. However, this trip did not bring any change in the existence of the Tsarevich, who, as soon as he recovered from his wound, again took part in the dissolute life of the officers of his regiment. Alexander III, who, as we have said, did not like military life, did not try anything to divert his heir from it. The officers of the Guard regiment divided their time between worldly distractions and scandalous orgies. The regiment to which Nicholas belonged was contaminated by the vice for which the friend of the emperor of Germany was condemned, and which the prince of Oldemburg, chief of the guard, in spite of exemplary punishments, did not succeed in eradicating. It is true that at that time this vice was widespread, not only in the high society of Petersburg, but even in the imperial kinship. Scandals broke out every day, but Alexander III, in this less courageous than William II, ordered to suppress them. Once, however, and by order of the emperor, twenty officers were expelled from the army, which, moreover, did not prevent them from making a brilliant career later on. Among these expelled officers were two future archbishops: Seraphim and Hermogenes. We will have the opportunity to speak again about the latter when we tell the story of Rasputin, of whom he was the protector and powerful friend, before becoming, with Heliodorus, one of the fiercest enemies. It is curious to note that this vice was special to certain regiments of the guard. So while the Preobrajenzi, with their colonel at the head, scandalously indulged in it, the Hussars were immune to it; on the other hand, drunkenness among the Hussars was legendary, and the most famous alcoholic of the time was Grand Duke Nikolaevich, who commanded the regiment where the Zarevich did his novitiate. M. G., who was serving in the same regiment of the guard at the time, published his memoirs, from which we take a description of one of these orgies, which had such a great place in the life of the officers. "Whole days were spent drinking, and in the evening one was in the prey of hallucinations among which some were so frequent that the servants, accustomed to that strange condition of the officers, already knew what they had to do case by case. Thus, for example, the grand duke commander of the regiment and the hussar officers in his family, after a day of drunkenness, imagined that they had become wolves. So they all undressed, and, naked, ran at night in the deserted streets of Zarkoie-Selo. There they squatted on the ground, and with their heads turned to the sky began to emit mournful howls. As soon as he heard them, the old dispenser brought to the palace stairs, a vat, filled it with champagne and brandy, and the whole company, approached, jumping, to the vat, and lapped the drink, shouting, screaming and biting. "These scenes did not go unnoticed in the population of the small town, but no one was excessively indignant about them, since the customs of Zarkoie-Selo society, were not much superior to those of the hussars. And it also happened that one had to tear the Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich from the roof of the house, where he perched, completely naked, to sing a serenade to the moon or to his beloved, a rich merchantess from Petersburg." Such was the environment in which Nicholas II's youthful years were spent. No one cared for his occupations, no one supervised his distractions, no one noticed that his organism was beginning to be poisoned by alcohol, that his complexion was yellowing, that his eyes, too bright, were already circled and swollen; no one prepared the young man for the future part of a ruler. In the meantime, the most terrible reaction, the oppression of speech and thought, hastened the development of new social currents, before which the premature death of Alexander III was about to put him.

Of modest habits, very simple with his family, Alexander III was one of those men who do not like to worry about their health, and do not speak willingly of their suffering. Thus the nephritis that had seized him had been able to progress slowly, before the excessive weight loss of the sovereign caused serious concern among his family. If Borki's attack, which nearly blew up the imperial train, failed to kill either the Tsar or any member of his family, it did at least accentuate his illness. Doctors in fact attributed the sudden worsening of his condition, not so much to the emotion, as to the fatigue experienced in supporting with their own hands the roof of the carriage, so that the family could get out safely. The famous Professor Zakarin and Professor Leyden, called late, could only note the inexorable case and predict approximately the time of the end. Emperor Alexander III went, to die, to the Crimea, to the palace of Livadia. His slow agony, the anxiety and exhaustion that he caused to his intimates, this end of an emperor, who died as a simple bourgeois, surrounded by his family, where in Russia we are accustomed to violent deaths of kings, to palace revolutions with all that they have of mysterious to the popular spirit, these peaceful circumstances that accompanied the last moments of Alexander III, inspired general sympathy, so that acts of revolutionary terrorism ceased almost completely during the last time of the emperor's life. At the palace different ambitions and different influences struggled around the bedside of the dying man. In fact, all the religious influence. The court chaplain Janicef, hated and feared the famous John of Cronstad, called to Livadia. Both of them wanted to give the sacraments to the ruler, and the contest was established between them. Finally it was Father John who won it. At the same time, dramatic conversations of the dying man with his sons were taking place. Nicholas, of a timid nature, as if he foresaw the horrors of his reign, wanted at all costs to renounce the throne. On the other hand, George, who witnessed the agony of his father, was, he too, condemned by evil. Michael, too young. The Emperor was extremely repugnant to the regency of the Grand Duke Vladimir who, just at that moment, was compromised in the scandal for embezzlement of millions collected for the monument of Alexander II. Nicholas was therefore forced to accept the crown, and had to, while his father was still alive, sign the manifesto proclaiming his assumption of the throne. Alexander III died on October 20, 1894, preserving until the last moment full mental lucidity.

III. THE FIRST YEARS OF THE REIGN OF NICOLAS THE - THE MARRIAGE OF THE EMPEROR. - NEW INFLUENCES.

The assumption of the throne of Nicholas II was greeted by the entire Russian society with the hope that in Russia always accompanies the beginning of a new reign. After the gloomy reaction of the previous reign, everyone wanted to believe that with the young emperor, whom the people knew little, a better era was about to begin in Russia. The terrible famine of 1890-92 had shaken society out of its ten-year slumber and raised important political and economic questions. The new sovereign was called upon to resolve them. Alexander III, as we have said, had come to the throne under the impression of his father's tragic end. Terror had induced him to postpone his coronation, to hole up in Gatcina, to isolate himself in the fjords of Finland and of. Denmark. Like a stalked animal, he had accumulated the hatred and anger that made him a maniac of autocracy. Nicholas II had no immediate reason for fear or hatred. He could act freely and be loved by his people who were all disposed in his favor. But the Russian society, which placed its hope in the new ruler, too easily forgot how heavy was the inheritance left by Alexander III to his successor, and on the other hand did not realize that, educated in the atmosphere of piety and adulation of the Court - this young man with a weak character, of mediocre intelligence, quickly brought to an almost superhuman height, convinced that he had received his power from God, was very ill-prepared for the part of great reformer that was his due. Moreover, the illusions of Russian society did not last long. From the very first acts of Nicholas as monarch, it understood that it was necessary to renounce its "foolish dreams" of fairness and progress, and realized that the new ruler did not love his people who, on the contrary, distrusted him and did not want to have anything in common with him. Nicholas II married later than is customary among royal heirs. He was twenty-six years old when in exceptional circumstances, almost the day after his father's funeral, he brought his bride, Princess Alice of Hesse, to the altar. Alice was not unknown to Russia. A few years earlier her father, the Grand Duke of Hesse, whose daughter had married Grand Duke Sergius Alexandrovic, had taken her to the Russian court. Despite her beauty, the young princess had not achieved the success she had hoped for there. The Empress had found her cold and haughty. As for Nicholas, he was, at that moment, too much in love with one of his mistresses, the ballerina Censiskaia, to think of another woman. And since in the bourgeois family of Alexander III, the Empress Maria Feodorovna always had the last word, the hoped-for engagement did not take place. And Alice, nicknamed "Hesse's fly" in St. Petersburg, returned to Germany, resenting in her heart the offence inflicted on her by Nicholas and her mother. However, Emperor Alexander, who did not want to die without marrying the heir to his throne, and who saw no better match for him, ended up winning the empress's hostility and her son's indifference to Alice of Hesse, and it is easy to imagine her triumph when, shortly before her death, Alexander III asked for her hand in marriage to the zarevic. It was not difficult to choose between the mediocrity of Hesse's small court and the magnificence of the Russian throne. Accompanied by a small retinue and modest luggage, Alice returned to Petersburg, and, after two months, she was Empress of Russia. "In the midst of the hard trials which are inflicted upon us by the inscrutable ways of the Almighty (so the manifesto of October 21, 1894), we believe, together with all our people, that the soul of our beloved father has blessed from heaven the chosen one, dear to his heart and to ours, who is called to share with us, with her believing and loving soul, our unceasing cares for the good and prosperity! of our fatherland." It is now known how little the hopes expressed in this pompous manifesto were realized. However, Alice of Hesse, who became Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, was adopted rather sympathetically by Russian society. She was said to have a doctorate in philosophy, a friend of culture and progress, and a spirit open to accepting constitutional ideas. But, even during the period in which her health seemed normal, no sovereign act justified the hopes placed in the influence of the young empress, who, moreover, soon began to manifest psychic disorders, hereditary, it is said, in the family of the grand dukes of Hesse.