Word: empresse
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Most glittering and ceremonious of festivals was the last Russian coronation, May, 1896. Each in her gilded coach, two empresses followed in slow procession, the first, Dowager Empress Marie, to be greeted with huzzahs of adoration; and the second, Alexandra, with a sudden silence, variously interpreted. Baroness Buxhoeveden, friend and lady-in-waiting to the last empress, says the crowds were struck dumb with holy awe. But Princess Radziwill, member of the St. Petersburg aristocracy Alexandra failed to please, calls the dumbness "a solemn, ominous silence . . . majestic absence of emotion on the part of the multitude...
...after daughter, and never an heir to the throne. Troubled by this her failing, she resorted to mystic seances (Princess Radziwill includes table-tipping, which the Baroness denies) conducted by a smooth character who turned out to be ex-jailbird and Parisian hairdresser. This Philippe prophesied a son; the Empress believed herself with child; a date was publicly announced, and excitement ran high. But no child appeared-the Empress having suffered the undignified phenomenon of phantom birth...
Years later the Cesarevitch actually was born, a sickly child, victim of an hereditary disease in Alexandra's family. Again the harassed Empress resorted to religion, and Rasputin, notorious mendicant, promised a cure. In gratitude, Alexandra fell completely under the spell of this man-she was his dupe, and he in turn the dupe of countless office-seekers, climbers, charlatans...
...Significance. Empress Alexandra Feodorovna was variously accused of misguiding her royal spouse, of sympathizing traitorously with her Vaterland during the War, of antagonizing the Russian aristocracy, and terrorizing the peasantry-in short, of causing downfall to the Russian empire. That this one woman should be held responsible for the inevitable revolt against centuries of abuse is patently ridiculous. But she served as convenient symbol-though less charmingly than Marie Antoinette...
Both biographies exonerate the Empress, but from extremes of viewpoint. With infinite richness of detail, and anecdote of close personal relationship that ended only hours before the tragic finale, the Baroness depicts her mistress as devoted mother, and faithful servant of Russia, indefatigable in charity, painstaking in her advice to the tsar. The Princess, on the contrary, emphasizes Alexandra's ineptitude for social leadership; her temperamental incompatibility with Russian subtleties of mood and method; her stubborn persistence in meddling with political affairs which she did not understand...