Upon arriving at Livadia Princess Alix hastened to the bedside of the moribund Emperor. The following day, in the royal chapel of Livadia she was received into the Greek Orthodox Church under the name of Alexandra Feodorovna. Her own preference was for the name Catherine, but yielding to the wishes of Nicholas, she accepted the name of his choosing. The wedding day was fixed for the following Wednesday, but the nearing end of Alexander necessitated a brief postponement—only till the end had come, and all that remained of him had been transported to St. Petersburg and laid to rest beside the remains of his father, and his father’s fathers for many generations, in the golden-spired Chapel of the grim fortress of Saints Peter and Paul on the banks of the swift flowing River Neva. Some there are, believers in omens, who attribute many of the difficulties of her life as Tsaritsa to the name she took when she was received into the Russian Church,—Alexandra Feodorovna, after the grandmother of the Tsar, her husband. For Alexandra has long been an ill-fated name in the unhappy land of Princess Alix’s adoption.{125}
A daughter of the Emperor Paul who was called Alexandra had a very tragic end. When she was but seventeen years of age her grandmother, Catherine II, arranged that she should marry the King of Sweden. The preparations for this royal wedding were all elaborately made and on the day set all was well, so far as the world knew. The tables were laid for the marriage banquet and the bride, all robed and ready, awaited her royal bridegroom. The guests were assembled and the priests stood by in their gorgeous mantles of gold. Suddenly His Majesty the King announced that he would not go on with the wedding! His courtiers and suite pleaded and implored him not to offer so terrible an insult to the daughter of an Emperor and to the whole Russian nation. But in vain. The King was obdurate.
The news was tardily announced to Catherine, whose wrath knew no bounds. The guests withdrew and the Swedish party quit the Winter Palace and returned to Stockholm. The humiliated Alexandra was given no further choice even after this terrible ordeal, but was speedily married willy nilly to an Austrian Grand Duke. But she really did not survive the shock of the failure of her marriage with the King of Sweden, and she died of humiliation and a broken heart—only nineteen years of age.
A daughter of Nicholas I was named Alexandra. She was early married to a step-son of Napoleon Bonaparte. But a fatal disease carried her off be{126}fore she was twenty, again emphasising the traditional tragedy associated with his name.
Alexander II had a daughter Alexandra, a lovely, golden-haired child, but she succumbed to an illness in childhood.
No wonder then, that the superstitious feared for the future of Princess Alix, when she took for herself the name that has so often been borne by daughters of sorrow in Russia. But Alexandra was the name Nicholas chose for her, and that sufficed. The mourning family returned to St. Petersburg after the death of Alexander III and as soon as preparations could be made, the wedding took place—the entire Court laying aside its mourning weeds for one day. Thus edged in black, the official ceremonial life of the Tsaritsa began.
At the wedding ceremony, she did not show to advantage. She was reserved in her manner to the point of severity, and a trait was noticed on that day that has militated against her ever since. Despite her natural physical grace she does not know how to dress! Her simple German training had not taught her how to wear beautiful clothes. Possibly the wearing of lovely gowns well is an instinct born in some women. At all events on her wedding day, the Empress-bride failed to please the court.
A few days later when the young Tsar was receiving deputations from different parts of the Empire, there occurred a rupture between him and{127} some deputies from the Province of Tver, which he has never been able to outlive, and for some unexplained reason the sentiments that he then expressed in heat, were accepted as the sentiments of the Empress as well. The Chairman of the deputation humbly offered the congratulations of the people of Tver, and ventured to add that it was their hope that the new Emperor might be pleased, in the course of his reign, to grant certain liberties to his people, perhaps even a Constitution. This hope was partly based on their faith in the young Empress, whom they expected would have liberal sympathies as a result of her life in Germany and her affiliations with England. But the Tsar burst forth into a terrible tirade against such notions, told them “to be done with these idle dreams,” and even threatened the whole deputation with banishment.
The whole country was astounded at this uncalled for outburst, and a lurking suspicion sprang up that the Tsaritsa might not be so liberal as they had hoped. And this indeed seems to have proved true, for whatever influence the Tsaritsa has exerted in Russia from that day to this, has been in the direction of Reaction and severe administration. She has always accepted the point of view of her husband. Nicholas II believes himself a God-ordained Autocrat, and the great ambition of his life is, not to hand on to his successor a happy and peaceful nation living under a constitutional monarchy, but an absolute autocracy, and Alexandra{128} Feodorovna has supported and worked for the realisation of this ambition.
When one remembers the glorious, golden romance of this girl, one’s imagination is fired to highest heat, and one rejoices when the child who was called “Sunny,” who early battled bravely with life, was at last coming unto her own. But alas! At the very moment when it would seem that Providence had filled her cup to the full, the dark clouds began to gather, and the little German Princess, when she ceased to be Princess Alix, also ceased to be “Sunny.” Instead of entering upon a period of life rich in blessings, showered with happiness, she faced graver responsibilities, greater hardships and harder battles than she yet had known. The crudest blows of fate were yet to fall upon her.
The wedding of the Tsar and Tsaritsa was almost the only bright day of the winter of 1894 in St. Petersburg society. Mourning was resumed before even the usual wedding ceremonials were ended and few court functions were held until after the coronation, which took place the following spring. This event was looked forward to by the entire court and the most elaborate arrangements were made to make it the most magnificent and dazzling spectacle of the kind that a traditionally magnificent court had yet known, an historic occasion, notable from every point of view.
During the festivities celebrating this event, the young Empress might have been expected to have{129} won all hearts. Instead, the popularity of the Dowager was enhanced, and the suspicions against Alexandra, which had been aroused during the wedding celebration, were deepened.
Russia, always poor, was in especially straitened circumstances the year of the coronation. Crops had failed—t............