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When her Highness almost tearfully interceded for her husband, the Tsaritsa promised to be his advocate, always with the same amiability, assuring her that she loved her as her own child, and had she carried her under her heart, she could not have loved her better.

I don’t like this Russian sentimentality: it is honey on the knife’s point.

Yet it appears that her Highness does not deceive herself; she once said in my presence that the Tsaritsa was worse than the rest: “pire que tout le reste.”

To-day, coming home from the interview, she remarked, “she will never forgive me if I bear a son.”

One day when our conversation had turned on the Tsaritsa, an old peasant woman whispered into my ear, “She has no business to reign; she was neither born to it, nor is she a Russian. And we know how she was taken prisoner, brought into the camp with only a chemise on, and given into custody. The man on duty, our officer, gave her a coat. The Lord alone knows of what rank she is; they say she used to wash shirts in Finland.”