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His eldest son, the Grand Duke Nicholas Constantinovitch, was the hero of a scandal which resulted in his exile to Taschkent, where he remains to the present moment, having married there the daughter of a police officer.

As for the other children of the Grand Duke Constantine Nicolaievitch, one daughter is the Dowager Queen of Greece, who is so beloved everywhere, and whose popularity in her adopted country is as great as it is in her own; the other, the Grand Duchess Wéra, died a short time ago, the widow of Duke Eugène of Würtemberg. The second son, Constantine Constantinovitch, is the cleverest man in the Imperial Family; he has written several volumes of verses, and is President of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. His youngest brother, the Grand Duke Dmitri, is a keen sportsman, and one of those happy creatures that have no history.

The second brother of Alexander II., the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievitch, was a very handsome man, whose features closely resembled those of the Emperor Nicholas. But with this resemblance the likeness ended. He was not stupid in the strict sense of the word, but ignorant, self-opinionated, stubborn, and very vindictive, a trait he shared in common with his elder brother. There is a curious anecdote about him, for the authenticity of which I can vouch. He was once president of a commission, one of the members of which was a great personal friend of the Sovereign, a man who always had his franc parler, and whose opinion had often been taken into consideration by the stern Nicholas I. This man disliked the Grand Duke, and having suddenly noticed that the latter counted under the table upon his fingers whilst discussing certain credits for the Army, interrupted brusquely with the remark: