The Imperial Family of Russia 2

Alexander II. was crowned at Moscow on the 7th of September, 1856. Nicholas began his reign in the midst of a storm of revolution, whose effect was to make him uncompromising and unyielding in character. "While I live he shall never return from Siberia," was his response to a piteous appeal for the pardon of a man who had been twenty-five years in exile for taking part in the insurrection of 1825. "Take a new rope and finish the execution," was his answer when told that the rope had broken while a conspirator was being hanged. The news of the repulse at Eupatoria was such a shock to him that it led indirectly to his death. A nature stern and unbending cannot meet misfortune as complacently as can its opposite; the blast that prostrates the sturdy oak passes harmlessly over the pliant bush, which rises when the storm is done, and stands as proudly as ever. Nicholas began his reign with acts of severity—Alexander began his with acts of mildness. He instituted the reformation in the army already hinted at; he projected railways, promoted commercial and industrial enterprises, pardoned all exiles who had been more than twenty years in Siberia, and in various ways sought to bring back the prosperity that had been impaired by the war. The greatest glory of his reign, and one that will make his name revered while his nation endures, is the liberation of the serfs. From the time of Catharine II. the subject had been agitated; Catharine had proposed it, some of the Cabinet ministers of Alexander I. greatly desired it, and Nicholas frequently busied his mind with projects for improving the condition of the serf. Three years before his death he drew up a plan of gradual emancipation, but it did not meet the approval of his Cabinet, and was set aside. Alexander gave his thought to the subject on frequent occasions; and finally; in March, 1861, the proclamation of gradual emancipation was issued. He encountered a great deal of opposition in his Cabinet and among the heavy proprietors of serfs. The shock of the change was great, and for a while the best friends of the measure faltered, but in a little time the crisis was passed, and the nation began its career of freedom. Some of the nobles, like some of our Southern slaveholders, did not believe emancipation possible, and refused to prepare for the change. Many of these persons were ruined by it, and still remain idle, morose, and discontented. Others, in the time between the notice and the enforcement of the proclamation, labored intelligently, and now find their estates more prosperous than ever. The people of all classes are becoming every year more and more adapted to the new order of things, and the feeling is almost universal that there is much good in store for Russia. She is yet in her developing stage. Time, patience, and energy will accomplish all that her ardent friends can wish. The grandest results in the nation’s progress are still in the future, and from generations yet to come Alexander will receive his warmest praise. There are said to be islands in the Pacific where the death of a chief is followed by a careful measurement of all the masculine menibers of his tribe. The tallest and strongest among them becomes his successor, and is crowned with all the dignity possible in a region where textile clothing is unknown, and pint of cocoanut-oil rubbed over the skin is considered a full-dress suit for a gentleman. If we did not know to the contrary, we might suppose that physical size and strength were the standard of Imperial selection in Russia as well as in those mythical isles of the Peaceful Sea. Peter the Great was almost a giant in stature, and might have made the fortune of an enterprising showman. Anne, Elizabeth, and Catharine were blessed with great strength of body; Catharine in particular was wont, in moments of wrath, to strike her attendants with such force as to prostrate them, and there are various traditional stories that recount her great bodily force. Paul, the first Alexander, and Nicholas each exceeded six feet in height, and the same is the case with the present Emperor. With hardly an exception, every masculine member of the Romanoff family was or is of a form and bearing to prove him "every inch a king." Nicholas once went in disguise to Stockholm. As he stepped upon the pier, a Swedish officer stood in his way; Nicholas, in plain clothes, frowned upon him as any other traveler might frown, and the officer, half trembling, stepped aside. "What devil of a man can that be?" he said to a friend; "he must be a king, or if not he ought to be one." Nicholas frequently went incognito about the streets of St. Petersburg, but his disguise was generally discovered before he was long on his way. The first time I ever saw Alexander was one afternoon on the Nevski, the Broadway of St. Petersburg. One of those little sleighs, of which there are twenty thousand in the city, was driven near me, and came almost to a halt in consequence of a blockade of vehicles. My eyes wandered carelessly over the crowded street and rested on the sleigh, which did not differ in appearance from dozens of others that were in sight. But something in the face of the man in the sleigh, or rather in the portion of it visible above the fur collar, arrested my attention. There was a look of lofty superiority in the eye and on the brow; the form was erect as a statue, and did not move as others did to regard the cause of the delay. In a moment there was a shout, and one person after another raised his cap as the sleigh dashed through an opening and diminished in the distance. "Voila l'Empereur," said a Russian friend at my side. Here was the Autocrat of all the Russias, the ruler of seventy millions of people, and holding authority over one-eighth of the territorial extent of this globe, passing before me unattended, and with no outward indication of his imperial power. In all the hurry and confrision of that busiest street of St. Petersburg he was recognized and cheered by the populace. There are not many rulers who possess, as he does, the hearts of their subjects, and can move among them without a surrounding of guards, and secret police to protect them from assassination, and lead the applause at the time it should be given.

The Imperial Family of Russia Go to part 1 of the story Catherine the Great A few days later I saw the Czarevitch, the Emperor’s eldest son, riding along the Nevski in much greater state than I had seen his father. He was cheered by the people, who had formed a dense crowd in front of the palace where the heir to the throne resided, and naturally enough the cheering ran along the street where he drove, just as it runs along the line of spectators when there is a display of any sort on Broadway. The Czarevitch was accompanied by his handsome wife, to whom he was married about two months before, and it was hard to say which was the more applauded, the Grand Duke or the Grand Duchess. The Princess Dagmar, as she is best known to the world, is a woman of unusual beauty. She is somewhat above the medium height, has a graceful figure, a pleasant girlish face, features that seem to combine the Italian and German types, and a profusion of hair which she wears in an apparently half-careless way. Her graceful bearing and sweetness of manner have won her the respect and love of all who have met her since she made her residence in the Russian capital. She is popular among all classes, from noble to peasant, and I think it would be no easy task to find a subject of the Autocrat of all the Russias who does not wish her long life and prosperity. Her husband, the Czarevitch, is of the frame and bearing which I have already described as the possession of the Rornanoff family. His education, like that of all the members of the Imperial family, has been carefully attended to, and when he ascends the throne he will have no reason to complain that he is ignorant of his duties. He is said to be more conservative than his father, and in sympathy, to a considerable extent, with the "Old Russian" party, which believes not in the modern abominations of railways, telegraphs, and kindred things, nor in the emancipation of the serfs, nor intimate intercourse with foreign nations. How far he may sympathize with the Unprogressives I cannot say; it is possible that he is one of the most liberal of liberals, and the story of his conservatism may be an invention of the enemy. But development, like revolutions, cannot go backward; the heir to the Muscovite throne will find that Russia will not be stopped in her progressive career, and should he attempt to build a Chinese wall of exclusiveness around his empire he will find himself sadly deficient in materials. No great measure can be carried out unless it has the approval of the jmperial Council, and no intelligent councilor is likely to advise a retrograde movement for Russia. The Empress of Russia, a tall stately lady, with a sad face and the appearance of an aristocratic invalid, is rarely seen in public. She appears only at the State balls and other festivities where etiquette demands her presence, and it is evident that she would prefer to be shut off altogether from the stare of curious eyes. Since the death of her eldest boy, six years ago, she has never been in good health and spirits; she was most devotedly attached to her first-born, and his loss nearly broke her heart. By birth he was heir to the throne; by his death the heirship fell to his brother Alexander, whom I have just described. Next to him is the Grand Duke Vladimir, and next the Grand Duke Alexis, whose name is so well known to Americans. And the heir to the throne, after the Grand Duke Alexander, is the son of the present Czarevitch, born in May, 1868, and now of the age when candy is of more consequence than scepters, and a trundle-bed has greater attractions than a throne. There is a romantic incident connected with the marriage of the Czarevitch and the Grand Duchess Maria Federovna, otherwise known as the Princess Dagmar. The alliance was first contracted between the Grand Duke Nicholas and the Princess; all the details of the engagement were settled and the marriage was to take place as soon as the Grand Duke’s health permitted. He was sent to Nice in the hope that he would recover, but he grew worse instead of better. The Princess loved him and prayed often for his restoration, but her hopes and prayers were of no avail. With the soft breezes of the Mediterranean fanning his cheek, and wafting through his open window the odors of the vine and the olive, he breathed his last. The intelligence fell heavily upon that Danish heart which had been pledged to the young life now gone forever. But the Princess Dagmar was betrothed to the heir to the Russian throne, and, like the throne, she passed to the successor of the boy who had died. After the delay which etiquette demanded, the wedding took place, and the daughter of the King of Denmark became a subject of Russia. The day before the wedding she visited the Garrison church, where the members of the House of Romanoff, since the time of Peter the Great, are buried. Before the latest of all those tombs, where rested the remains of him to whom she had been betrothed, knelt the young princess and placed a funeral wreath on the cold marble. And as she bent before the tomb, her tears told her sorrow, as tears tell the sorrows of those not born in the purple nor cradled or reared in royal and imperial luxury. The Imperial Family of Russia Go to part 1 of the story