IN the course of an interview which Anna Wyrubewa gave to a foreign newspaper correspondent a short while after she had been released from the fortress of SS. Peter and Paul, where she was confined for about three months following the outbreak of the Revolution, she said that the Empress Alexandra had never been so near to insanity as during the weeks which followed upon the murder of Raspoutine. What she failed to relate, however, was the manner in which she succeeded in preventing the half-balanced mind of the miserable woman from snapping altogether under the strain put upon it by circumstances.

When the outsider tries to form an opinion as to all the events which preceded the rebellion that destroyed the Throne of the Romanoffs, it is essential he should remember the state of mind of the Czarina at this particular time, as well as the condition of her nerves—a condition which was very nearly akin to the one into which a man falls when, after having been the victim of a pernicious drug habit, he finds himself unexpectedly and suddenly deprived of his favorite morphia or cocaine. The Empress had been living for months under the influence of these mysterious night sittings during which Raspoutine evoked for her, as she firmly believed, spirits of another world from whom she sought inspiration and in whom she found comfort. All at once this moral aid, which had helped her to live, was denied to her, and she did not know any longer what she was to do, surrounded as she felt herself to be by ever-increasing dangers which threatened not only her own person, but that of her beloved child, that son in whom she firmly believed Russia would find its salvation and who was destined to become one of the greatest and mightiest Sovereigns the country had ever seen reign over it since the days of Peter the Great. She felt absolutely at sea, like a ship deprived of its pilot and abandoned to inexperienced hands, ignorant of the first principles of navigation. Neither her husband, whom at heart she despised, nor her friend, Anna Wyrubewa, whom she had never entirely initiated into all the details of her secret intercourse with the dead, nor her faithful advisers, Sturmer and Protopopoff, could make up to her for the irreparable loss of the companionship which, thanks to Raspoutine, she believed she had succeeded in establishing between herself and the soul of the only man she had ever truly loved.

It is only after having grasped these essential facts in the life of the misguided Empress of Russia that it is possible to come to a reasonable appreciation of her person, character, and intrigues.

Once this has been done, it becomes relatively easy to understand the influence which Raspoutine had acquired over her mind, and not to share the general opinion that there existed something immoral in her relations with him. Immorality alone could not explain this entire submission on the part of a cultured, well-educated, elegant woman to the will of a dirty, uncouth, ignorant peasant. Besides that, Alexandra Feodorowna was far too proud to forget for one moment the social difference which separated her from the “Prophet.” In her intercourse with him she remained the Empress, and on his side he was far too shrewd not to remember it also. He knew very well that one indiscreet word, one imprudent gesture, would have put an end at once to his influence, and the man as well as his accomplices were working for far too great and far too important an object to compromise its success by anything which might have savored of immoral intrigue.

The state of health of the little Cesarewitsch also was not the real reason why the latter’s mother would not allow Raspoutine to leave

her. She believed in the efficacy of his prayers for her son, but this belief alone would not have been sufficient to make her so entirely submissive to his will and to reduce her to the state of slavery into which she had been entranced. No, the secret of Raspoutine’s influence lay in the simple fact that, thanks to the hypnotic faculties which he undoubtedly possessed, he had contrived to acquire an absolute dominion over her mind, and to persuade her that every time she prayed with him she was put into direct communication with her dead lover; that this lover had been allowed by the Almighty to come to her help in the troubles and perplexities of her life, to guide her in her conduct as a woman and a mother and in her duties as a Sovereign.

During the hours of agony which followed upon the news of the murder of that man whom she had considered as a holy creature and a real Prophet of God, Alexandra Feodorowna blurted out something of what lay on her mind to her devoted friend and companion, Anna Wyrubewa. The latter had removed from her own house to the Palace of Tsarskoye Selo, so as to be able to remain in constant attendance on the miserable Empress. Seeing her so forlorn and desolate, she bethought herself of rousing her faculties, and tried to persuade her that, though she had lost her advisers and counselors, she had yet a duty to perform, which consisted in going on with the work they had suggested to her to start. Peace was more than ever necessary to Russia, as well as to the dynasty, against which such fierce attacks were being launched. The sacred principles of autocracy that were being everywhere challenged ought to be maintained, and how could this be done when the army which was the only force on which the Czar could rely was being kept at the frontier and uselessly butchered in battles it could not by any possibility win? There were other mothers besides herself in Russia who were crying over their dead sons and appealing to her to spare those who were still left to them. This war was a monstrous crime against humanity, as well as against the whole of the Russian nation. It must be stopped because otherwise worse calamities even than those that had already fallen on the country would occur. The performance of a duty was sometimes painful, but this ought not to prevent any right-minded person from trying to accomplish it. It was quite evident that the duty of the Empress required her to work toward the conclusion of peace with Germany, and this had been already suggested to her not only by the devoted friends she still had in the world, but by the spirit of the dead ones who had loved and honored her while they had been alive on earth.

Whether Anna Wyrubewa was sincere or not in thus pleading a cause which she knew her Imperial mistress had but too much at heart even without her interference, I shall not attempt to guess. Russia was most certainly going through a terrible crisis, and those who thought that the quick conclusion of a peace after which so many were secretly longing and sighing was indispensable were by no means a small minority in the country. It is quite likely that the Empress’s confidante was sincere in her conduct, and it seems pretty certain that she had no pecuniary or material advantages in view when she lent herself to the dangerous scheme suggested to her by Sturmer and the latter’s accomplices. They were not disinterested; they had decidedly ambitious views as to their own future, and they were most certainly in the employ of Germany, to which they had promised their co-operation. Protopopoff was a man who, in regard to the large fortune he was credited with possessing, was entirely self-made; he had never shown any hesitation as to the choice of the means by which he had acquired it. Sturmer thought himself endowed with the genius of a Bismarck or of a Richelieu, and dreamed of the glory of a peace that would leave Russia in appearance as strong as ever, but united by the closest of ties to the German Empire, of which he had been all through his political career a devoted admirer and servant. He had always preached the necessity of the renewal of the former alliance that in bygone times had united the Hohenzollerns and the Romanoffs. His vanity felt deeply flattered upon hearing from his friends in Berlin that the Kaiser, as well as the latter’s Government, considered him the one great Minister Russia had ever possessed and were looking up to him to heal all the evils and all the miseries which the war had brought about. He did not care for the treaties that had been signed between Russia and her Allies, and probably shared the opinion of Mr. von Bethmann-Hollweg that all such documents were nothing but scraps of paper, not worthy of any notice on the part of intelligent people. He cared only for success, for titles, decorations, power, and a crowd of flatterers about him. Russia had ceased to be for him a matter for consideration. She would always fare well, in his opinion, if only he were allowed to direct her destinies. The war itself, with all the terrible breakage it had brought about, did not trouble him. It had begun with broken treaties and broken faith, broken honor and broken word; its result had been broken houses in broken lands, broken men, and broken hearts, but about these last Mr. Sturmer did not think at all.

And what about the third personage in this sinister tragedy? What about Manassavitch-Maniuloff, who had been all along the Deus ex machina of this dark intrigue, and the chief spy and accomplice of William II.? It was he who had engineered the conspiracy for peace which was being carried on by the Empress under his supervision. It was he who had been the real creator of the Raspoutine legend, and he was perhaps the one who at first suffered the most through the collapse of the adventurer. When the “Prophet” was murdered, Maniuloff was in prison under the accusation of blackmail. Once before he had escaped a trial that had been postponed on the personal order of Nicholas II. addressed to the president of the court. But after Raspoutine’s disappearance the influence of Sturmer alone had not been able to help him. He was sent before a jury and sentenced to two years’ penal servitude, which, however, he was never to undergo. The man had more than one arrow to his bow, and when the Revolution broke out he contrived to let Kerensky know that he could put at his disposal most incriminating documents in regard to the part played by the Empress in the peace negotiations which had taken place in the preceding February between Petrograd and Berlin. The bait probably took, because the spy who had for a long number of years cheated everybody was sent across the frontier to expiate his sins and most probably to go on for the benefit of the new masters of Russia with the nefarious game he had been playing in regard to all those who had had the misfortune to employ him.

After Sturmer had been compelled to resign his position of Prime Minister and leader of the Foreign Office he had, nevertheless, remained, as I have had already the occasion to tell, in close relations with the Court and with the Emperor and Empress. He had acquired a new ally in the person of the Metropolitan of Petrograd, Monseigneur Pitirim, a friend and favorite of Raspoutine, who now came to offer his consolations to the half-distracted Alexandra, and who also told her that it was henceforward her duty to go on doing all that the dead “Prophet” had suggested to her, no matter how much it might cost her. Between his preachings, the advice of Sturmer and Protopopoff, and the adjurations of Anna Wyrubewa, the Empress was at last persuaded to forget for a while the deep grief into which she had allowed herself to fall and to resume her political activity. But when she attempted to influence the Czar to approve of what she was about to do she found, to her surprise, that he did not show the same enthusiasm for her schemes as he had done before.

What had happened was this: The Imperial Family had once more tried to open the eyes of the Sovereign as to the folly of his wife’s conduct. Nearly all the Grand Dukes and Grand Duchesses in Petrograd had sought his presence in succession, implored him to save the dynasty before it was too late, and to call together a responsible Ministry, chosen from among the men who had the confidence of the country and who represented it in the Duma. Their remonstrances had not convinced Nicholas II., but they had caused him to pause before consenting to the conclusion of a peace with Germany, which he began to fear he would not have the power or the strength to impose upon public opinion in Russia. He believed in his wife, and he felt convinced that she was the only disinterested friend left to him; at the same time he could not make up his mind to take a decision which—this much he knew—would be deeply resented by his Allies as well as by his own subjects. In his perplexity he preferred to wait for events to develop themselves in one sense or in the other, totally oblivious of the fact that there are periods in the life of nations when waiting is also a crime.

And while this struggle was going on in his mind, that of his wife was becoming more and more the prey of the evil advisers who had secured her sympathies and were abusing her confidence. They were becoming bolder and bolder as time went on, and at last they suggested to her to urge upon the Czar the necessity of returning to the front, where, they told her, he could come to a better understanding of the feelings of the army and be at last convinced that it was, like the rest of Russia, only longing for peace. Nicholas caught eagerly at the suggestion and departed, leaving the Empress mistress of the field and free to do what she liked, together with her friends.