Renée Elton Maud

“ To reach this poetic spot where the dear dead rest so peacefully, one effects the crossing of a narrow arm of the Gulf on a ferry bridge worked by ropes fastened at either end, by means of which one is enabled to pull oneself over the deeply-shaded waters of the beautiful Gulf of Finland. Ludwinstein dominates its full immensity interspersed by thickly-wooded islands; there the great northern sun bathes itself before setting in its multi-coloured glory. Then is the time to steal quietly away to think—and pray—on the island of Death and Life and Hope. ”

“ The religious ceremony in the Imperial Chapel was indescribably beautiful. I fancied myself in Fairyland. My aunt was of course in full Court dress and looked a real picture in her velvet dress with a lot of her jewels on her kakochnik or head-dress.
About this cradle surrounded as it was by so much love—and also by so much hate, during these already troublous times—one could not help but ask oneself, with anxious feelings at the bottom of one's heart, as to what the future held in store for this innocent babe, born in the purple: the hope of the Romanoffs—the target of its enemies. ”

“ The mock-monk sipped a few drops in the manner of a connoisseur, which indeed he had become, having accustomed himself to the taste of the famous vintages of the Winter Palace, and then addressing himself to his interlocutor he appeared to be interested in some special work of art on one of the tables in the room, which the latter felt obliged to show him for closer inspection. On returning to Rasputin's side he noticed the monk had become paler as he passed his hand across his face as if desirous of concealing a strong pang of pain. ”

“ May the damaged walls of the Kremlin express to this great people—whose passions were being let loose at the same time that they were being deceived—the shame felt by them at the sight of the blood spilt around them, blood shed among brothers by a Revolution which has brought them only a civil war and mortal struggles, and will soon have produced more victims than all the Romanoffs together have done with their sentences of exile to Siberia—many but too well deserved, though accounted to them as a crime. ”

“ I brought back from the Caucasus a memory that was sunny and full of gratitude for the charming welcome that I found there. My aunt often gives me news from there and old friends still send me their remembrances, and with all my heart I send them the same.
The Caucasian has the right to be proud of his beautiful country, with its ever blue sky and its ever temperate climate which seems to give him that wonderful joie-de-vivre expression which appeals so deeply to the stranger, who is always struck by that warm and unforgettable charm of welcome which greets him at every turn. ”

“ May a Romanoff worthy of the name that he bears rally the real Russia—she who endures and is silent, not being able to do more for the moment—and so make of her again a great power worthy of respect and gaining it, the terror of her ignoble neighbour, Germany—and not her vassal. ”

“ Germany's plan and interest are therefore to help all the smaller separatist non-Russian people, Finland, etc., to stand on their own feet as free political entities and autonomies.
May this revolutionary night not delay much longer to envelop the country of the German Kaiser, whose greatest pleasure seems to be in shaking and overturning the various thrones of the earth in order to consolidate on their ruins his own—a dangerous game to play, for the revolutionary mirage develops into a very virulent germ once spread amongst a discontented populace. ”

“ Although Petrograd is more primitive than Paris, yet it impressed me far more, with its wide arteries, its large quays, its superb Neva, like an arm of the sea.
Russia is the country of space, of dreams—the country of all that is magnificent. It gives one an unforgettable impression. ”

“ The dream of all this Northern Nature enfolded me more closely now than before; in this country where the sun sinks to rest in all the glory of its opalescent rays, in all this translucency of nature which is not shared by us, but belongs entirely to it and seemingly admits us a little way into the abstract world of souls who are no more—but who watch—and everywhere I encountered the shadow of my adored and adoring grandmother. ”

“ The celebration of my Aunt de Baranoff's birthday was a great event: a regular défilé of celebrities both civil and military; every regiment seemed to have been represented and the drawing-rooms were more than ever filled with flowers—a regular avalanche in fact.
The dinner-party in the evening was of the gayest. I sat between Colonel Échappard and the Russian Minister at Dresden and was anything but dull.
In Russia birthday anniversaries are always made a great deal of. The heroine of the occasion is always dressed in white or pearl grey and no one is allowed to wear black. ”

“ The power of Russia only makes itself felt in their country by troops which are quartered there. They look upon these soldiers as so many intruders, and despise the Russian peasant, whom they consider coarse and savage.
The Cossack does not work at home; the young girl is allowed to do nothing, but may amuse herself to her heart's content; a married woman must work very hard up to even the most advanced age. She must be submissive and laborious, like the woman of the East.
Apparently resigned, the Cossack woman has nevertheless in her home more real authority than the woman of the West. ”

“ I wrote to one of my friends twelve years ago: "May Society here [Petrograd] , so brilliant but often so light and so indifferent, not experience one day the horrors and crimes of our revolution in France of 1793."
People spoke, it is true, of the great and bloody contest that was unfolding itself in Manchuria with airs of deep regret, due, however, much more to the shame inflicted by successive defeats and by their notable inferiority than to the poignant feeling they should have experienced at seeing their country tried and unhappy. ”

“ When women received the right to vote in Finland, the accomplishment of this achievement was the cause of a frenzy of delight.
We were always a large party at Monrepos, a perpetual coming and going of friends. On the occasion of the visit of my French friends, Monsieur and Madame de Saint-Pair, we had arranged together to visit Imatra, the famous waterfalls of which are known the world over. The great fall is superb—the foam reaching to an immense height—but I prefer the smaller fall, although it is stiller but a good deal wider than the great fall. ”

“ Ordinary—and extraordinary—confessor to all the troubled consciences which chose to make her house their meeting place, nothing struck me as being more strangely dissimilar than this immaculate soul—almost unique beneath the snow-laden sky of this frozen country—to those who invaded the blessed atmosphere of that drawing-room, pouring out all their griefs and faults into her ever-sympathetic ears. ”

“ Many an illusion has already taken wings at the sight of what is passing now, and of that which is bound to come. In the future we may not see the Great Republic dreamt of by Kerensky and others, but rather the destruction of Great Russia itself, and a collection of little republics springing up, small not by the narrowness of the confines of such, but by the weakness of their constitutions, which shall be either completely independent one from the other, or else bound together by the most slackened Federal system. ”

“ As for the Montagnes-russes, or toboggan runs, and really "ice mountains" in Russian practice, nothing could be more heating, the descent being more than swift, so swift and so narrow that on each side there are planks forming walls to prevent a serious fall; but the emotion warms one up, and that is exactly what one needs in that country of ice and snow. ”

“ The Russian Court was the most luxurious Court in the world, combining as it did all the wealth and luxury of the East and the West. It was a rule that all the numerous palaces of the Emperor should be kept up during his absence just as though he were in residence—always ready to receive him at any moment.
I often accompanied my aunt to the Palace of Peterhof to see my uncle, Prince Cherwachidze, who was Grand Master of the Court of Russia, specially attached to the person of the Empress-Dowager, being also Grand Master of her Court; and he sometimes came to spend his evenings with us. ”

“ It seemed an interminable flow as it passed, as not only the Neva freed itself thus of its winter coat, but also the great lake Ladoga; and, watching, one could not help associating all this apparently aimless rush of the ice towards the great salt sea with the passage of life, with all its hurry and scurry—here to-day, gone to-morrow!
At Petrograd the water is—or rather was—undrinkable, and my aunts recommended me never to touch a drop; consequently one is obliged to buy the drinking water at the chemists, who get it at a certain special place. ”

“ For that great Russia, the country of my devoted grandmother, Baroness de Nicolay, who, however, was born in London, her father, Baron de Nicolay, being at the time attached to the Russian Embassy there. He subsequently became Russian Minister at Copenhagen, where on account of the many friendships he had formed in society and his deep attachment to the then King and Queen of Denmark and all their family—who held him in the greatest esteem and intimacy—he remained more than twenty years, refusing every offer of advancement in consequence. ”

“ Your winter coat must necessarily be very warm, lined with fur and very thick, with a very high fur collar, which when raised—and it must always be raised—must entirely cover the ears; a fur toque is the most practical head-dress, with one's hair done low on the forehead, as the cold is so intense that it seems to wish to penetrate like a chisel just where the nose begins, between the eyes. ”

“ It was in vain that Grand Duke Nicholas and others informed the Empress what Rasputin really was, and told her of his depraved life and his false miracles, it was in vain that they told her that he and his friends would destroy Russia—all these efforts of persuasion were of no avail. ”

“ Every one's surprise was great on perceiving the faithful butler with a napkin like a child's immense bib tied beneath his chin, he in his anxiety having forgotten to remove it and no one venturing to remind him of its existence as neither my aunt, on account of her short sightedness, nor my uncle, owing to his usual state of oblivion, had noticed the grotesque appearance of the poor man, as he trotted and scrambled round the table balancing the huge dish and threatening everybody with a douche of its contents. ”

“ Princess Lobanoff was another frequent guest at my aunt's, she was maid of honour to Grand Duchess George, and was so imbued with the sense of her own importance that she could not even cross the courtyard of the palace on foot and always had her carriage ordered for the transit.
She finally married an American who lives in California. What must be her impression of that democratic country, I wonder? But what would she feel like being in Russia now! The sister of Princess Lobanoff had married an Englishman, Sir Edwin Egerton, then Minister at Athens; he was much older than his wife. ”

“ While I was at Michaelovka the Revolution was gaining ground every day. Russia was going through a critical period of her history and one felt as though one was living on a volcano—yet, in the end, an approximative degree of order came out of what looked like being chaos.
An attempt against the Tzar's life was really to be feared, and during a certain time the railway line from Peterhof to Petrograd by which he often travelled had a military guard, a close cordon of troops being placed below the embankment on which the train passed, on both sides of the track. ”

“ Amongst my aunt's numerous men-servants there was one called Coucoulsky who was the head butler—very fat and rotund, with the usual flat head of the Pole, wearing enormous whiskers, with a pair of tiny sparkling eyes always filled with astonishment. The poor man was no longer young—il sue, il souffle, il est rendu—and to put him into this state it was merely sufficient for him to offer to his little Princess on a huge silver tray some wonderful pièce montée, which he held at such an angle that one always expected to see the contents flung into her lap. ”

“ At first every one was contented with the Revolution; it was hailed as a saviour by those who thought themselves free from the pro-German clique. Matters went well, everything seemed new-born, but when once anarchy broke through its bounds faces began to lengthen, and a feeling of despair arose—which feeling has gone on increasing ever since. ”

“ My dear little aunt—Aunt Maka, as I called her—seemed to be in love, so much in love with her husband that morning and night, especially when at Petrograd, she rushed off as fast as she could cover the ground to the telephone to converse with the object of her adoration, who was always in waiting on his Imperial Mistress wherever she happened to be—Gatchina, Peterhof, Tsarskoe-Celo or Petrograd, at the Anitschkoff Palace. ”

“ As my uncle experiences a good deal of difficulty in speaking English, the long sojourn in our midst used to get rather on his nerves, especially after King Edward died, as it was so hard for Queen Alexandra to reconcile herself to parting with her Imperial sister. Whenever the Empress thought of departure, the Queen threw herself into the Empress's arms and begged her to remain—and remain she did. Neither did the visits to Sandringham satisfy my uncle, who was only really happy in one place and that place was Copenhagen—where he seemed to become young again! quite young! ”

“ All the very smartest and best-known people in society made a point of going to the ballet once or twice a week. Afterwards we went to supper at a restaurant—my weakness was for "l'Ours," then very much the fashion. The Théâtre Michel, where French plays were given, was also a great rendezvous, and during, the intervals our box was always packed with visitors.
In summer, after an evening party or the theatre, we sometimes drove to the Islands—the Hyde Park of Petrograd. It was a delightful thing to do by the light of those white nights, and it filled one with joy. ”