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Few princesses have controlled a Court to the degree of perfection that she did, and her manner, in that respect, never left anything to be desired; nevertheless, her receptions were always cold, and it was difficult to feel at one’s ease in her presence. She was extremely respected, but she never unbent, though full of sympathy for the woes or joys of others. At first she had tried to be of use to her husband, but soon found out that he had very little time to give to her, and that her constant ill health bored him to the extreme. All her hopes and ambitions, therefore, had turned and were centred upon her eldest son, the Grand Duke Nicholas, to whose education she had attended with the greatest care, going so far as to read the same books that he did, and to practically follow with him his course of studies. She loved him passionately, and her affection was fully justified, for the young man was not only attractive in the extreme, but also gifted with the rarest qualities of heart and mind. There is no doubt that had his life been spared he would have made a remarkable Sovereign, but he died at the early age of twenty-two years, from the results of a fall from his horse, which caused a disease of the spine. He was about to be married to the Princess Dagmar of Denmark. The Empress never recovered from this blow, and from then her own health began steadily to decline. She grew silent and melancholy, and her sadness increased still more after her only daughter’s marriage with the Duke of Edinburgh, and consequent departure to live in England. Then came further disappointments, political anxieties, all the terrors of Nihilism and its constant menace to the Emperor. Domestic sorrows, too, ensued—the association of Alexander II. with the Princess Dolgorouky; and at last, when the poor Empress died, it was more from a broken heart than from the illness from which she had suffered for a number of years.