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Updated: June 4, 2025
Once his enemies did actually succeed in having him expelled from Petrograd for a while, but immediately the czarevitch became critically ill and during his absence the czarina was almost continuously hysterical.
That he says prayers with the Empress and they summon Rasputin's ghost.... That's all rot of course. But he does just what the Empress tells him, and they're going to enslave the whole country and hand it over to Germany." "What will they do that for?" I asked. "Why, then, the Czarevitch will have it under Germany.
You see I am here from Petersburg; though it has meant leaving Nathalie with her nurses, and Alexis Vassilyitch to spend every night at the yacht-club at baccarat. Besides, Moscow always bores his Majesty; and even the Czarevitch isn't with him this time, you know." "Caroline, I wish " Madame Gregoriev's hesitating voice trailed into silence.
The poor little prince, of course, was made sick; whereupon, the Empress would hurriedly send for Rasputin, upon whose arrival the Czarevitch "miraculously" got well. In this manner this low-born fakir obtained such a hold over the Czar and Czarina that he was able to appoint governors of states, put bishops out of their places, and even change prime ministers.
I have recounted elsewhere how, when Nicholas II. visited India as Heir Apparent in 1890, I saw a great deal of him, for he stayed ten days with my brother-in-law, Lord Lansdowne, at Calcutta and Barrackpore, and I was brought into daily contact with him. The Czarevitch, as he then was, had a very high standard of duty, though his intellectual equipment was but moderate.
As has been explained since, Madame Virubova had previously administered a drug to the young czarevitch, and by applying the antidote Rasputin had obtained immediate results.
But a much more touching sacrifice in May of the same year a sacrifice conceived in the purest and most innocent spirit of loyalty was that of the young girl Yoko Hatakeyama, who, after the attempt to assassinate the Czarevitch, travelled from Tokyo to Kyoto and there killed herself before the gate of the Kencho, merely as a vicarious atonement for the incident which had caused shame to Japan and grief to the Father of the people His Sacred Majesty the Emperor.
The present Emperor of Russia, and his younger brother, the late Czarevitch George, likewise started on a tour round the world, which in the case of George was cut short at Bombay by that sickness to which he subsequently succumbed, while the globe-trotting tour of Nicholas was brought to a sudden close through his attempted assassination in Japan.
The six months' court mourning, now thrown back, had revealed a lining of glowing rose. St. Petersburg, from humblest serf to Czarevitch, was filled with life and joy. And the society of the capital had plunged into a fever of gayety unknown for twenty years. Amusements began at noon and ended the following dawn.
The Czarevitch was courteous, gentle and sincere, but though full of good intentions, he was fatally inconstant of purpose, and his mental endowments were insufficient for the tremendous responsibilities to which he was to succeed, and in that one fact lies the pathos of the story of this most unfortunate of monarchs.
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