the girl I used to know, a surpassingly beautiful and stately woman. The petals of the rosebud had unfolded. She was the center of a brilliant group of grand duchesses and ladies, all wearing the strange, but beautiful, dress of the Russian court, with long hanging sleeves. On her head was a kokoshnik, a crescent-shaped diadem, flaming with diamonds, from which fell a long white veil, and her stateliness and beauty distinguished her from all the other sumptuous figures surrounding her. A stranger who had never seen her before would have been certain that it was she, and not one of the others, who was empress.

"How good to see you again, Eulalia, after all these years!" she said, coming toward me; and she put her arms round me and kissed me.

And in that greeting I realized that the czarina had not changed. She was still the affectionate and unaffected friend I had known years before. We had a hundred questions to ask each other, but almost before we had had time to begin, we had to stop talking to attend to the imposing ceremony which was beginning on the frozen Neva.

From the window I saw that a pavilion, like an exceedingly decorative band-stand, had been erected on the ice just in front of the palace, and I watched a procession of ecclesiastics in stiff Byzantine robes and glittering miters move slowly across the road separating it from the palace, followed by the grand dukes and the emperor. The singing of the choir floated to us through the frosty air, and the empress crossed herself devoutly. She is a sincerely religious woman.

I watched the emperor standing motionless beneath the fretted and gilded canopy of the pavilion, and the thought suddenly flashed into my mind that the Russian emperors alone claim the right to govern the souls as well as the bodies of their subjects. The autocrat is a great ecclesiastical personage as well as a secular ruler, and the Russian Church depends upon him and can do nothing without his consent. remembered that banishment to Siberia

I

was the punishment for those who deserted the orthodox church and refused to believe as the czar believes and to pray as the czar prays. The kings of Spain and the emperors of Austria are sons, not rulers, of the church, and I had been taught that the pope was king of kings. It seemed to me that no worse form of despotism could be conceived than the concentration in the hands of an autocratic ruler of the spiritual and temporal power, and as these thoughts crowded into my mind, there seemed to me something sinister and terrible in the ceremony I was watching, and I realized, as I had never done before, the immensity and the awfulness of the power wielded by the motionless figure beneath the gay pavilion. Nobody rejoiced more than I did when the emperor published the manifesto of April, 1905, granting his subjects religious liberty, and I realized that the stupendous claim which had made me shudder when I thought of it, as I watched the sumptuous Twelfth Day ceremony from the windows of the Winter Palace, had been renounced forever. In point of fact, Nicholas II had no desire to maintain it, and he renounced it as soon as an appropriate occasion arose.

After the picturesque ceremony which had stirred these thoughts had ended, and the archbishop had dipped a golden cross into the water running below the ice of the river, the holy water was brought into the palace to the empress, and the emperor joined us. He gave me a characteristically Russian welcome. His manner was engagingly simple and unaffected. The contrast between him and the German emperor was extraordinary. The kaiser, a constitutional monarch whose power is strictly limited, shows by his bearing and his manner, as I have indicated elsewhere, that he holds the divine right of kings to be a cardinal article of faith. When one is with the czar, it requires a certain effort of the imagination to remember that he possesses autocratic power over the lives of 160,000,000 human beings. The Russians are the most hospitable people in the world, and the emperor and empress are not excelled by any of their subjects in

kindness and generosity to guests. They both insisted that as long as I remained in St. Petersburg I must be with them as much as possible and, in point of fact, although I slept at the hotel, I was constantly at the Winter Palace and had my part in the intimate family life of the imperial family.

When a man likes nothing better than to remain at home with his wife, it is a sure sign that he is very much in love with her. Judged by that test, there is no happier couple in Europe than the emperor and the empress of Russia. They are never more contented than when together, and it was obvious to me that the czar simply adores his wife. It would be strange if he did not, for there is not a gentler or sweeter woman in the world than the beautiful czarina. And both of them are devoted to their children. They used to make me come with them sometimes to the nursery, where the little grand duchesses used to welcome us with shrieks of delight. What games there were! People who think of the czar as a frowning despot would have been astonished to see a vigorous pillow-fight going on between. him and his children. And away from the formalities of the court, closeted with her children, the czarina was always radiant

and happy. Under the spell of their prattle and of their caresses she was transformed. The smiling mother seemed a different woman to the beautiful, but grave, lady seen by the public in the ceremonies of the court.

"Do try and get the empress to smile, Eulalia," said one of the grand duchesses to me at some court function.

But that was sooner said than done. There is not a trace of artificiality in the empress's character. She seemed unable to pretend she was enjoying herself when, in point of fact, she was fatigued and bored. Moving as the central figure of a splendid pageant, I think she was always wishing the ceremony to be at an end and to find herself free to be with her children again.

The tastes of the emperor are as simple as the empress's and in curious contrast to those of most of the members of the imperial family. Neither of them likes the late supper-parties which most of their relatives indulge in. Early to bed and early to rise is my motto, and supper-parties hardly finished at two o'clock in the morning bored me unutterably. When I went to the opera with the emperor and empress, we used to take time by the forelock and sup in the second entr'acte, in order to be able to go straight to bed when we got

home. The ballets given at the Marinsky Theater were exceedingly beautiful, and the empress followed the movements of the dancers with evident enjoyment from the stage box. Behind the box is a charming room, and there it was that supper used to be served.

"Here is your high tea, Eulalia," the empress would say merrily, and then we sat down to a square meal of cold meat and countless cups of tea, to which I used to do ample justice, as I did not dine before going to the theater.

His love of simplicity does not, however, prevent the emperor from enjoying society. Like most Russians, he is fond of it, and his animation and vivacity at court balls was delightful and, moreover, genuine. I liked to watch him dance the mazurka, that rushing, almost violent, dance that they say only a Slav can dance to perfection. It was obvious that he enjoyed it. When supper was served, we went to a long table on a dais, set at one end of a great hall, and I discovered that the Russian court has a very charming custom which does not obtain elsewhere. The emperor and empress took their places, facing the general company, with their royal guests and other members of the imperial family to right and to left of them; but we had hardly been a minute at table before the emperor rose and went to one of the tables below the dais, where he

The

sat down and chatted with the people supping at it. After talking for five minutes, he went to another table to greet other guests, and then passed from group to group, sitting down at each table for a few minutes. And with the Russian instinct of hospitality, the emperor played the part of host so well that the conversation became more animated at each table he visited. The presence of some sovereigns, too careful of preserving the distance between themselves and persons who are not of the blood royal, sometimes casts a gloom on their guests.

Perhaps the emperor's obvious enjoyment of a ball was due to the fact that it is but seldom that he can allow himself relaxation. There is not a busier man in the world. I once remarked to him that I find it impossible to get through the work of the day unless I follow a definite rule, and I asked him how he divided up his time.

"I get up early," he answered, "and after a light breakfast I work until eleven. Then I take a walk and come back for luncheon at half-past twelve. After that comes the task of giving audiences to ministers and others and, when work allows it, I take a drive before tea in order to get some fresh air. Immediately after tea I am busy again with my secretaries, and work with them lasts until dinner-time." "A strenuous day," I said.

"The ballets given at the Marinsky

Theater were beautiful"

"But that is not the end of it," he answered, smiling. "I am very often obliged to go back to work straight from the dinner-table, and sometimes it is not finished until far on into the night."

The emperor's devotion to duty is in striking contrast to the almost traditional love of pleasure displayed by the grand dukes. A foreigner might easily be led to suppose that the house of Romanoff is at heart in sympathy with democratic ideas. The lack of formality at court, the marriages between grand dukes and commoners, the presence of unlettered peasants at certain of the ceremonies of the Winter Palace, the share taken by some of the members of the imperial family in amusements accessible to anybody who has money in his pocket, their supper-parties in restaurants, and their enjoyment of the café concerts of the capital-all these things might deceive the stranger. To know the grand dukes and grand duchesses is to realize that they neither understand the aspirations of the democracy nor sympathize with them, for, reflecting the glory of autocracy, they are more firmly convinced than any other royal persons in Europe that a gulf divides them from the rest of mankind. And this conviction is so deep that they appear to believe that the most ordinary actions are ennobled by

the mere fact that they are performed by persons in whose veins flows the imperial blood. The life led by most of them would be unbearable to me. A perpetual round of amusements becomes in the end as wearisome as the tread-mill. How people who are not in the first flush of youth can day after day sit up until two o'clock in the morning, as too many of them do, eating unnecessary suppers and drinking champagne, I cannot understand. High tea with the emperor and empress pleased me better than late suppers with the grand dukes and grand duchesses. Indeed, when I yielded to persuasion and went out with them for an evening's amusement, my sleepiness used to divert them immensely. "Eulalia, you 're yawning," they would

say.

"It is two hours past my bedtime," I would answer.

And then we laughed, and it was probably the Grand Duke Alexis who would suggest that we should all drive out to the islands and have another supper at a café concert. Then I would strike and go home, scolding myself for sitting up so late and marveling at the extraordinary vitality of the rest of the company, starting merrily on the long sledge drive to the islands, where they would sit by the hour in a private room overlooking the little.

stage on which the unsuccessful artistes of Paris danced and sang.

Perhaps it is because I am Spanish and not Russian that I failed to see the pleasure to be derived from spending the night in frivolity, for, in point of fact, there is nothing characteristically grand-ducal in this curious craze; it is simply Russian, and Moscow merchants will spend thousands of rubles in extravagant amusements between midnight and sunrise. The grand dukes are typical Russians. They have the virtues and the failings of the typical Russian, and I am not sure whether it is a virtue or a failing-they are, like all the Russians I have ever met, exceedingly susceptible to feminine charms. To the Russian love is everything, and in Russia women have more power to change men's lives than in any other land.

But if the majority of the members of the imperial family love extravagant amusement, there is one notable exception to the rule. The Grand Duchess Elizabeth, widow of the Grand Duke Sergé, who was assassinated by revolutionists, shares the simple tastes of her sister, the empress, and detests the empty formality of courts as much as I do. When we were girls, we saw a great deal of each other at Windsor and in the Isle of Wight, and it was a great delight to me to talk over the old days when I visited her in her palace within the fantastic battlements of the Kremlin. She was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful women in Europe, and her husband was extraordinarily handsome. Indeed, their beauty and their bearing made them the most distinguished couple at the great gathering of royal personages I met at Buckingham Palace when the Jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated. After the terrible death of her husband, the grand duchess devoted herself to the education of the Grand Duke Paul's motherless children, the Grand Duke Dmitri and the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, and, that task accomplished, she became a sister of charity. She has founded a convent in Moscow, where she follows a severe rule, and devotes herself to hospital work and the care of the poor,

realizing that even a princess has no excuse to shirk the responsibilities of life and to lead a useless existence.

How is it that there is such a marked difference between the tastes of the emperor and those of his uncles and cousins? The answer is not difficult to find. The emperor's love of simplicity comes from his mother, the Empress Marie, who, now that she can indulge her own tastes, lives the greater part of the year with Queen Alexandra in a small villa on the Danish coast. When I visited them there I found that they were living as simply as private persons who know nothing of the life of courts. But while recognizing the influence of his mother in the formation of the emperor's character, I like to think that something of the spirit of Peter the Great has been conserved in the imperial family, and that the love of work, the courage, and the simplicity displayed by Nicholas II are in some measure gifts from his great ancestor. One afternoon I drove out to the islands in a troika, a sledge that might have come from fairy-land, covered with glistening trappings and luxurious furs, and drawn by three horses abreast, and, on my way, I stopped to visit the little house in which Peter the Great lived when he was building his new capital. It is a tiny cottage, a mere hut, with two rooms. Nothing could be simpler or more unlike the vast Winter Palace. Yet I felt, as I left this humble abode, that the spirit of the man who was content to live in it still reigns in the splendid home of his descendant, the present emperor.

I have referred to the courage of Nicholas II, and it may surprise those who know him only by repute that I should emphasize this trait of his character. I myself had often heard that he was timorous and dreaded assassination. It was therefore a great surprise to me to find that he often walked from the palace to my hotel, with only a single aide-de-camp in attendance. Although his grandfather had been assassinated by revolutionists, he himself appeared to be absolutely fearless, and to disregard the risk he ran by walking about St. Petersburg. If precautions are taken.