Princess Catherine Radziwill

“ We Bourbons of the old stock cannot bow before the popularity of the mob, and try to make it accept our own. We can work for the people, act in unison with the nation in all grave questions where its welfare is in question; we cannot accept its sovereign right to dictate to us its laws. I know that my ideas are out of fashion, ‘que je suis démodé,’ but whom do I hurt by clinging to my old traditions, to the ancient glories of my house, which have also been those of France, it must not be forgotten? ”

“ We live in strange times, when strange things happen which at first sight seem unintelligible and the reason for which we fail to grasp. Even in Russia, where Rasputin had become the most talked-of person in the whole empire, few people fully realised what he was and what had been the part which he had played in Russia’s modern history. Yet during the last ten years his name had become a familiar one in the palaces of the great nobles whose names were written down in the Golden Book of the aristocracy of the country, as well as in the huts of the poorest peasants in the land. ”

“ Destructive as it was, the Boer campaign was not a war of annihilation. On the contrary, without it it would have been impossible for the vast South African territories to become federated into a Union of its own and at the same time to take her place as a member of another Empire from which it derived its prosperity and its welfare. The grandeur of England and the soundness of its leaders has never come out in a more striking manner than in this conquest of South Africa—a blood-stained conquest which has become a love match. ”

“ Alexandra Feodorovna used to go every afternoon to pray on the grave of the man whose influence had proved her bane, until at last the Revolution imprisoned her, and threw to the winds the ashes of the greatest enemy that the dynasty of the Romanoff’s had ever known. When the body was exhumed by the angry populace, one found on its breast a sacred image, bearing the names of the Empress, and of her three daughters, last memento of an affection which had proved so fatal to those who had nursed it. ”

“ She had witnessed that loss of her illusions to which her friend had referred, and suffered from it just as he had foreshadowed. She had seen her beloved France not able to come out of the mesh of intrigues and miseries into which the man who by the force of events had become ruler had entangled France, and she had realised that her conception of a Republic, such as she had dreamt of, was an impossibility; that it is not by changing its form of government a nation rises to greatness and glory. ”

“ Those who got rich there, though they may have built for themselves splendid houses while they dwelt in the land, never looked upon South Africa as home, but aspired to spend their quickly gained millions in London and to forget all about Table Mountain or the shafts and factories of Johannesburg and Kimberley.
To such men as these England was a pretext but never a symbol. Their strange conception of patriotism jarred the most unpleasantly on the straightforward nature of Sir Alfred Milner, who had very quickly discerned the egotism that lay concealed beneath its cloak. ”

“ Russia appreciated its importance; the world admired it; the Czar, though he may have shed bitter tears over its necessity, felt grateful for the talent which was displayed in such a terrible emergency; but people in Petrograd began looking for those upon whom they could fix the responsibility for this awful disappointment which had overtaken them. This was the moment for which Rasputin had been waiting with the patience of the serpent watching for its prey, and of which he hastened to make use with the infernal cunning he usually displayed in all the evil deeds with which he was familiar. ”

“ There never was a Throne relinquished with less dignity, there never was an act of abdication accomplished with less consciousness of the importance of its meaning. When one recapitulates all the details of the drama which was performed at Pskow, one can, when one is a Russian, feel but one passionate regret—that no one was found by the side of the last crowned Romanoff to drive a knife into his heart or put a bullet through his brain, and thus spare this haughty dynasty the shame of having been dragged into the gutter by its Head. ”

“ A brilliant man was Laguerre, but a character that did not inspire confidence and sacrifice, one of those tools which are indispensable to every conspiracy. His eloquence was unrivalled, his wit something marvellous, his way of handling irony as a weapon, quite indescribable; but though he was a politician, he was not a political man, and even less a statesman.
Déroulède was a patriot, if patriotism is synonymous with rabidness. He could influence the masses by the torrent of his words. ”

“ Alas! history has already replied to those questions, and it is history which tells us that, thanks to Alexandra Feodorovna, the inheritance bequeathed by Peter the Great to his posterity has been squandered and lost. If there has ever existed a woman who has proved fatal to all those with whom her lot has been thrown, it is this little Hessian Princess, whom fate or chance associated with one of the greatest political crises of which Russian history will keep the record and the remembrance, and for whose tears no one will find any pity, even when her sorrows will need it most. ”

“ I am persuaded that one of the reasons why he always tried by inference to disparage Sir Alfred Milner was his annoyance at the latter's calm way of going on with the task which he had mapped out for himself without allowing his mind to be troubled by the outcries of a mob whom he despised from the height of his great integrity, unsullied honour, and consciousness of having his duty to perform. Neither could Rhodes ever see in political matters the necessities of the moment often made it the duty of a statesman to hurl certain facts into oblivion and to reconcile himself to new circumstances. ”

“ It did not take a long while before the general public, which, at that time, looked very much for its inspirations toward the Imperial Family, had come to the conclusion that the young Empress was a capricious, rude, and most disagreeable kind of person to whom it was preferable to give a wide berth. Once this legend had been transferred into the domain of history, every action, every word, every gesture of Alexandra{74} Feodorowna was watched with attentive and critical eyes, always ready to make capital out of all her mistakes and to amplify all her errors into crimes. ”

“ Her receptions were singularly eclectic. Apart from the family, friends and relations of the Noailles, one met people who belonged to an entirely different grade—journalists, artists, politicians, even those of an advanced shade; members of the Republican government, and diplomats or foreigners happening to be in Paris. She received them all with the utmost grace, and liked to see them surround her, like the satellites of her fame and of her high social position. In its way her vanity was as remarkable as it was charming. ”

“ All these silly people who surround our Czar would like to see him commit stupidities. They only think about themselves and about the profits which they can make. War is a crime, a great crime, the greatest which a nation can commit, and those who declare war are criminals. I only spoke the truth when I told our Czar that he would be ruined if he allowed himself to be persuaded to go to war. This country is not ready for it. Besides, God forbids war, and if Russia went to war the greatest misfortunes would fall upon her. ”

“ Not a religious man by any means, he yet possessed that religion of nature which pervades the soul of anyone who has ever lived for long face to face with grandeurs and solitudes where human passions have no entrance. It is the adoration of the Greatness Who created the beauty which no touch can defile, no tongue slander, and nobody destroy. Under the stars, to which he confided so much of the thoughts which he had kept for himself in his youth and early manhood, Rhodes became a different man. ”

“ Noticing my surprise, he did me the honour of a lengthy explanation: “You see, my friend, here in this beautiful France of ours we never look beyond the present day; we enjoy ourselves without any thought of what the morrow may bring. We have seen so many changes, so many revolutions, that we have entirely lost the feeling of stability, without which no nation can achieve really great things. In politics one must have either stability, faith in the principles which one is called upon to defend, or else enthusiasm like that felt by our troops at Marengo. ”

“ The Czar, weak as usual, yielded. Alexandra Feodorowna declared that she did not care for the “hateful things,” and proceeded to buy out of her allowance the most gorgeous ornaments she could lay her hands upon, getting heavily into debt in consequence, a fact which did not help to make her popular with her subjects.
She had an unpleasant manner that told against her. Not affable by nature, timid to a certain extent, she imagined that her position as Empress of Russia required her to show herself haughty and disdainful with the people who were introduced to her. ”

“ Rhodes was a great Englishman in spite of his faults, and perhaps on account of his faults. Beside the genius of a Darwin or of a Pasteur, the talent of a Shakespeare or of a Milton, the science of a Newton or of a Lister, his figure seems a small one indeed, and it is absurd to raise him to the same level as these truly wonderful men. The fact that the activity of Cecil Rhodes lay in quite a different direction does not, however, diminish the real importance of the work which he did, nor of the services which he rendered to his country. The mistake is to judge him as a universal genius. ”

“ But the descendants of Louis Philippe never could make up their minds to any resolution, whether grave or frivolous. They always professed the fallacious opinion that the will of a nation ought to be respected, no matter how or in what way expressed. France was for them a master before whose decrees they never for one moment felt the temptation to rebel. They accepted those decrees so well that now no one dreams of looking upon them as pretenders to anything, be it a throne, or simply the wish to have their word considered at times when the vital interests of their country are at stake. ”

“ Everybody, with few exceptions, hoped that it would be another daughter, none more ardently than the Dowager Empress, who would have infinitely preferred the Throne passing to her youngest son than to any boy born to a daughter-in-law whom she made no secret of disliking, and whom she distrusted even more than she disliked. She realized very well that Alexandra Feodorowna, if she was the mother of an Heir to the Imperial Crown, would become a most important personage in the State, as well as in the eyes of her husband. ”

“ Every political party in Russia was agreed in thinking that with the disappearance of this dangerous man the dynasty had won a battle just as important for the safety of its future existence as would have been a victory on the battlefield against a foreign foe. The names of the murderers, though pronounced nowhere, were blessed by all sincere Russian patriots, who cried out when they heard that Rasputin was no more, “Thank God that this adventurer is dead and long live the Czar!” ”

“ Schreiner, Merriman, Hofmeyr, Sauer and other one-time colleagues, he carried his vindictiveness to an extent so terrible that more than once it led him into some of the most regrettable actions in his life.
Cecil Rhodes possessed a curious shyness which gave to his character an appearance the more misleading in that it hid in reality a will of iron and a ruthlessness comparable to a Condottiere of the Middle Ages. The fact was that his soul was thirsting for power, and he was inordinately jealous of successes which anyone but himself had or could achieve in South Africa. ”

“ He had neither the qualities nor the aptitudes which constitute a hero. He never understood his own power, nor realised the influence which, at a certain moment, he wielded over the masses; he was almost without ambition; he seldom knew what was required of him; and no one was more surprised than himself when suddenly he found that he had become the most popular man in all France.
His rise as well as his fall prove very forcibly that the time is past, and past for ever, when adventurers, by the glamour which they exercise over the crowd, can become masters as well as leaders. ”

“ Russia is not dead yet. Russia shall show the world that, betrayed as she has been, she can still lift the yoke put upon her, save herself, and help to save the world for the great cause of Democracy. ”

“ A man who did not think himself something extraordinary, and who, perhaps, had more genius in his little finger than others in their whole body, was Guy de Maupassant, that cruel observer of the human heart who understood so well the feelings of his generation, and who was to die so miserably, first losing that intellect which had made him such a strong man and such a remarkable writer. ”

“ He liked to spend the night in the open air, gazing at the innumerable stars and listening to the voice of the desert, so full of attractions for those who have grown to discern somewhat of Nature's hidden joys and sorrows. South Africa became for him a second Motherland, and one which seemed to him to be more hospitable to his temperament than the land of his birth. ”

“ It is impossible to speak of South Africa without awarding to Cecil Rhodes the tribute which unquestionably is due to his strong personality. Without him it is possible that the vast territory which became so thoroughly associated with his name and with his life would still be without political importance. Without him it is probable that both the Diamond Fields to which Kimberley owes its prosperity and the Gold Fields which have won for the Transvaal its renown would never have risen above the importance of those of Brazil or California or Klondyke. ”

“ Poor Mérimée was not destined to survive the fall of that Imperial regime of which he had been one of the strongest supporters. He died broken-hearted a few days after the disaster of Sedan, writing pathetically to one of his friends just before his end: “I have tried all my life to fight against prejudices, and to be a citizen of the world before being a Frenchman. But all these cloaks of philosophy are now of no avail to me. I bleed to-day of the same wounds as these idiots of Frenchmen, and I weep over their humiliation.”
Octave Feuillet was a great favourite of the Empress. ”

“ He had been singularly blessed by Providence with all the qualities, physical, moral, and intellectual, that help to make a man attractive. He had talent, moreover, and remarkable eloquence, and he believed in monarchy as a system and as a tradition to which all his past as well as that of his race enjoined him to remain faithful. He had earnestly hoped that through Boulanger the cause to which he had devoted his life would triumph, and he did not hesitate to lend to the General the prestige of his personal influence over his own followers. ”

“ In the hour of danger we have seen all these members of the great Mother Country rush to its help. The spectacle has been an inspiring one, and in the case of South Africa especially it has been unique, inasmuch as it has been predicted far and wide that the memory of the Boer War would never die out, and that loyalty [xii] to Great Britain would never be found in the vast African veldt. Facts have belied this rash assertion, and the world has seldom witnessed a more impressive vindication of the triumph of true Imperialism than that presented by Generals Botha and Smuts. ”

“ General Boulanger in prison was a danger to the safety of the Republic; General Boulanger in a voluntary exile ceased to be a subject of dread to anyone. In France, more than in any other country, cowardice is fatal. She turned her head away from her favourite of the day before when she found out that he had not the courage to take a single risk in order to ensure his future triumph. ”