Princess Catherine Radziwill

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!” ”

“ In a certain sense, Rasputin was the curse of Russia. Thanks to him, the purest existences were subjected to a whole series of base attacks and of vile calumnies. Thanks to him, our enemies were given the opportunity to pour out upon us, upon our institutions, our statesmen and even upon our sovereign the poison of their venom, and to represent us to those who do not know us in a light which, thanks be rendered to God, was an absolutely false and untrue one. ”

“ I feel sure that all good Russians share my feelings. We have had enough of the German Kultur and of German intrigues. They it is that have brought my beloved Fatherland to the brink of ruin. The whole sad incident of Rasputin’s rise and fall has been the result of German interference, and it would never have assumed the proportions to which it rose if the German press had not exaggerated it and German spies spoken about it, not only abroad, but also in Russia itself. ”

“ His family, as we have seen, detested the Empress, and was ready and prepared to side against him on the first notice of his downfall, which it effectively did. What was left in Petrograd of aristocracy had withdrawn itself from him, lamenting over evils which it knew itself powerless to allay, and had come to the sad conclusion that the further it kept from Tsarskoie Selo the better it would be for everybody. The Emperor stood alone, forsaken by all those who under different circumstances would have considered themselves but too honoured to die for him, let alone defend him against his foes. ”

“ It is a thousand pities that men like Paul Milyukoff, Prince George Lvoff, Rodzianko and others, to whose initiative was due the success of the Revolution, allowed themselves to be overruled by Kerensky, until he was left alone to bear upon his shoulders the whole burden of the government and the whole responsibility of the war, when he collapsed like a weak reed at the first real attack directed against him. ”

“ At the time I am referring to, it was an acknowledged fact in the whole of Russia that it was governed by some mysterious and dark powers which in secret were proceeding to any amount of malversations, most harmful for the prosperity of the nation, as well as for its prestige in Europe. The one general feeling which prevailed everywhere was one of immense lassitude at a state of things one knew but too well could not last, but which no one yet felt strong enough to try to ameliorate, change, or overturn. ”

“ The only brother of Nicholas II., the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovitsch, saw the influence of the Empress exercised against him in a manner which was even more odious, because she contrived to deprive him of the control not only of his fortune, but also of his personal liberty to manage his estates. With her mother-in-law, the Dowager Empress Marie, Alexandra Feodorovna showed herself absolutely abominable in her disdain, haughtiness and pride. ”

“ He helped as much as he could to accredit all the legends going about among the public in regard to his own person, and he imagined that the best way to add to his reputation as a man who did not care for the opinions of the world was to treat this world with disdain and with contempt, and to transform into his humble slaves ladies belonging to the highest social ranks, just as he had transformed into his hand-maidens the peasant girls who had fallen under his spell. ”

“ He would have been a perpetual menace suspended over the heads of those who would have tried to rebel against the directions issued by the enterprising scoundrels who abused the prestige which his so-called holiness had won for a man who in other times and in another country would not have arrested for a single moment the attention of any one, let alone the crowds.
Rasputin is dead! Let us hope that his former supporters have lost, together with him, their audacity and their power of doing mischief. ”

“ One could also have been prepared for it, and one ought to have realised that the old and superannuated system of government so utterly rotten, where everything was left in the hands of corrupt functionaries, who had never learned anything out of the book of history, for whom the intellectual development of nations meant nothing at all, and who did not look beyond their personal advantages in all the great crises which might come to shake the equanimity of the country, that this system had served its time, and was bound to collapse under the weight of the universal contempt. ”

“ Together with Count Witte a whole political party was working, without the least consideration for the prestige of the dynasty which it was discrediting, to show up the rulers as associated with the common adventurer and sectarian, who, under other conditions, would undoubtedly have found himself prosecuted by the police authorities for his conduct. They had other thoughts in their heads than the interests of the dynasty, these money-seeking, money-grubbing, ambitious men. They represented nothing beyond the desire to become powerful and wealthy. ”

“ This latent animosity, the first signs of which manifested themselves on this memorable occasion, became even more acute after the catastrophe of Khodinka. Russia did not forgive its Empress for having danced the whole of the night that had followed upon it, and for having given no sign of regret at a disaster that had cost the life of more than twenty thousand people, who had perished in the most awful manner possible. ”

“ A kind of bargaining established itself between people desirous of making a career and Rasputin, eager to enrich himself no matter by what means. He began by playing the intermediary in different financial transactions for a substantial consideration, and at last he thought himself entitled to give his attention to matters of state. This was the saddest side of his remarkable career as a pseudo-Cagliostro. He had a good deal of natural intelligence, and while being the first to laugh at fair ladies who clustered around him, he understood at once that he could make use of them. ”

“ The unfortunate Gousieva had been only one of many. When she had found it out an intense rage had taken hold of her, which had been further enhanced and strengthened by the monk Illiodore, to whom she had related her misfortune. He had already at the time she sought him out become the deadly enemy of his former friend Rasputin. The miserable woman had lost everything—home, children, husband, relatives—on account of her mad infatuation for the deceiver who had made her forget her duties by the fascination which he had exercised over her weak mind. ”

“ Russia, the great Russia of the past, is not dead. She possesses far more vitality than she is given credit for, and she still has sound, true, and honest elements amidst her citizens. When attempting to judge her, one ought to think of the great French Revolution, and to remember that in France, also, it took years before its work was at last consolidated and set upon a sound basis. One must bear in mind that in France, too, a period of terrorism made people despair of the future and fear that the end of their Fatherland had come. ”

“ Amidst the discontent which, it would be idle to deny, had existed in the Russian empire during the period which immediately preceded the great war the personality of Rasputin had played a great part in giving to certain people the opportunity to exploit his almost constant presence at the side of the sovereign as a means to foment public opinion against the Emperor and to throw discredit upon him by representing him as being entirely under the influence of the cunning peasant who, by a strange freak of destiny, had suddenly become far more powerful than the strongest ministers themselves. ”

“ They are obliged to do what I like, and what I like is for the good of Russia. As for these ministers and generals, and all these big functionaries whom every one fears in this capital, I do not trouble about them. I can send them all away if I like. The spirit of God is in me and will protect me.
“Thou canst say this to those who have sent thee to see me. Thou canst tell them that the day will come when there will be no one worth anything in our holy Russia except our Czar and Gricha, the servant of God. Yes, thou canst tell them so, and be sure that thou dost it.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ She had jealously kept away from him all the people from whom he could have heard the truth or who could have signalled to him the dangers which his dynasty was running by the furtherance of a policy which had become loathsome to the country and on account of which the war with Germany had taken such an unexpected and dangerous course.
The Empress, like all stupid people, and her stupidity has not been denied, even by her best friends, believed that one could rule a nation by terror. ”

“ Monstrously selfish, she never looked beyond matters purely personal to her or to her son, whom she idolized in an absurd manner. She, who had been reared in principles of true liberalism, who had had in her grandmother, the late Queen Victoria, a perfect example of a constitutional sovereign, became from the very first day of her arrival in Russia the enemy of every progress, of every attempt to civilise the nation which owned her for its Empress. ”

“ She believed herself in all earnestness to be the equal of her husband, and did not think of herself at all as his first subject, so that, instead of giving to others the example of deference towards their Sovereign, she applied herself to lower him down to her own level, to diminish his importance, and to show quite openly that she did not in the very least respect either him or the throne which he occupied. ”

“ As things stand at present, it is principally toward Great Britain and America that Russia must look for its salvation. What I am writing to-day has been my earnest and deep conviction for long years, and I have preached it not only since the beginning of this war in all the books and articles which I have written, but also long before any one ever thought or suspected that the day would come when the English Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes would float beside the Russian flag and the French Tricolor on the same battlefields, united against one common enemy. ”

“ He proved himself to be a coward, and cowardice is the last thing which a nation forgives in those who rule it. The Czar lost in consequence of his conduct every prestige he had left. And he also lost the respect of Russia, owing to the shameless corruption which established itself everywhere during his reign, when at last everything under the sun could be bought or sold in the country, to begin with, a Court appointment, and to end with, the highest functions in the State. ”

“ Alexandra Feodorovna remained the only person the Czar would listen to, and Alexandra Feodorovna was but the mouthpiece of people like Rasputin, Sturmer, and Protopopoff, who kept telling to her that she must not yield, and that the only thing capable of restoring peace to Russia was to subdue the rebellious spirits who dared talk about the necessity of making concessions to public opinion, coupled with the firm determination to crush, even by force, any manifestations which might be made in that direction. ”

“ The workman applied himself to avoid mistakes, which perhaps he had noticed before he had quite grasped their importance. He understood on the other hand perfectly well the fact that the immense industrial movement, which had developed itself during the years that had followed immediately upon the war with Japan, was bound to increase still further in importance, and that the future belonged to those who would be able to profit by it, to guide it, and to direct it in the sense of a great and general reform of the different abuses which had corrupted all the higher classes of the nation. ”