of odors; the sweetness of lilies in tall Chinese vases, the delicate fragrance of violets and lilies of the valley bunched in silver bowls, the perfume of hyacinths in rare lacquered pots.
To guard this paradise, to tend its lawns and pick its flowers, to groom its horses, polish its motorcars, clean its floors, make its beds, polish its crystal, serve its banquets and bathe and dress its Imperial children took thousands of human hands. Besides the Cossacks, a permanent garrison of five thousand infantrymen carefully chosen from all the regiments of the Imperial Guard provided guard detachments at the palace gates and foot patrols in the Imperial Park. Thirty sentries were always stationed inside the palace, in vestibules, corridors, staircases, kitchens and even in the cellars. The guardsmen were supplemented by plainclothes police who inspected the servants, tradesmen and workmen and kept notebook records of all who came and went. In bad weather, the Tsar could look from any window and see a tall soldier in a long greatcoat, cap and boots pacing his round. Not far away, there was usually a forlorn policeman with galoshes and umbrella.
Inside, an army of servants in gorgeous livery moved through the polished halls and silken chambers. Equerries in red capes bordered with Imperial eagles, and hats waving long red, yellow and black ostrich plumes, stepped noiselessly on the soft soles of their patent-leather shoes. “Resplendent in snow white garters, the footmen ran before us up the carpeted staircases,” wrote one visitor to the Imperial palace. “We passed through drawing rooms, ante-rooms, banqueting rooms, passing from carpets to glittering parquet, then back to carpets.… At every door stood lackeys petrified in pairs in most varied costumes, according to the room to which they were attached; now the traditional black frock coats, now Polish surcoats, with red shoes and white stockings and gaiters. At one of the doors [stood] two handsome lackeys with … crimson scarves on their heads, caught up with tinsel clasps.”
Nothing had changed, neither the trappings nor the rhythm of palace life, since the days of Catherine the Great. Court protocol, handed down from a forgotten era, remained as obstinately rigid as a block of granite. In the palace, courtiers backed away from the presence of the sovereigns. No one ever contradicted a member of the Imperial family. It was improper to speak to a member of the family without being spoken to, and when walking with the sovereigns, friends did not greet each other or even notice each other’s existence unless an Imperial personage did so first.
Frequently, court protocol almost seemed to conduct itself, taking its own course, making its own decisions, running on its own vast internal energies of tradition, exclusive of all human management. One day Dr. Botkin, the court physician, was surprised to receive the award of the Grand Cordon of the Order of St. Anna. According to protocol, he asked for a formal audience with the Tsar to thank him for the decoration. As he saw Botkin daily in his capacity as physician, Nicholas was surprised by the request. “Has anything happened that you want to see me officially?” he asked. “No, Sire,” said Botkin, “I came only to thank Your Majesty for this.” He pointed to the star pinned on his chest. “Congratulations,” said Nicholas, smiling. “I had no idea I had given it to you.”
Everything at Tsarskoe Selo centered on the Tsar. Outside the palace gates, Tsarskoe Selo was an elegant provincial town dominated by the life and gossip of the court. The mansions of the aristocracy, lining the wide tree- shaded boulevard which led from the railway station to the gates of the Imperial Park, pulsed with the rhythm that emanated from the Imperial household. A week of excited conversation could follow a nod, a smile or a word sent by the sovereign in an unusual direction. Severe crises arose over matters of promotion, decorations and clashing appointments for tea. Invitations to the palace were hoarded like diamonds. No greater delight offered itself than to have the telephone ring and hear one of the deep male voices of the palace telephone operators announce, “You are called from the apartments of Her Imperial Majesty” or, if the caller was one of Her Majesty’s daughters, “You are called from the apartments of Their Imperial Highnesses.”
The master of court life, the impresario of all court ceremonies, the bestower of all stars and ribbons, the arbitrator of all court disputes, was a Finnish nobleman advanced in years, Count Vladimir Fredericks. In 1897, at the age of sixty, Fredericks became chief minister of the Imperial court; he held the post until 1917, when it ceased to exist. Nicholas and Alexandra were devoted to “the Old Man,” as they referred to Fredericks. He, in turn, treated them as his own children and in private addressed them as “
Fredericks, according to Paleologue, the French Ambassador, was “the very personification of court life. Of all the subjects of the Tsar, none has received more honors and titles. He is Minister of the Imperial court and household, aide-de-camp to the Tsar, cavalry general, member of the Council of Empire.… He has passed the whole of his long life in palaces and ceremonies, in carriages and processions, under gold lace and decorations.… He knows all the secrets of the Imperial family. In the Tsar’s name he dispenses all the favors and gifts, all the reproofs and punishments. The grand dukes and grand duchesses overwhelm him with attention for he it is who controls their households, hushes up their scandals and pays their debts. For all the difficulties of his task he is not known to have an enemy, such is the charm of his manner and his tact. He is also one of the handsomest men of his generation, one of the finest horsemen, and his successes with women were past counting. He has kept his lithe figure, his fine drooping mustache, and his charming manners … he is the ideal type for his office, the supreme arbitrator of the rites and precedences, conventions and traditions, manners and etiquette.”
As old age crept over him, Fredericks became ill and his energies sagged. He dozed off in the middle of conferences. He became forgetful. During the war, Prince Bariatinsky arrived at the palace to present the Tsar with the military order of the Cross of St. George. “Fredericks went to announce the Prince to His Majesty,” wrote Botkin, “but on his way from one room to the other, forgot what he was supposed to do, and wandered off, leaving the Emperor to wait for the Prince in one room and the Prince to wait for the Emperor in an adjoining room, both bewildered and angry at the delay.” Another time, Fredericks approached the Tsar and said, “I say, did His Majesty invite you for dinner tonight?” When Nicholas looked at him in utter bewilderment, Fredericks said, “Oh, I thought you were somebody else.”
After Fredericks, Nicholas’s favorite among the inhabitants of his court was Prince Vladimir Orlov, Chief of the Tsar’s Private Secretariat. A highly cultivated, sarcastic man and a descendant of one of the lovers of Catherine the Great, the Prince was known as “Fat Orlov” because he was so obese that, when sitting, he was unable to see his own knees. Orlov had been a cavalry officer, but in middle age he no longer was able to mount a horse. At parades when the Tsar and the Imperial suite rode by on horseback, Orlov was seen in the middle of the cavalcade, marching along on foot.
Naturally, these courtiers were fervent monarchists, “
A graceful two-story building in simple classical style, the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo was made up of a center and two wings. In the central building were clustered the state apartments and formal chambers. The ministers of court and ladies- and gentlemen-in-waiting had apartments in one of the two wings. In the other wing, Nicholas and Alexandra established a world and led a carefully scheduled and domestic existence.
The Empress Alexandra’s first command as a bride was that the rooms of this wing be redecorated. Curtains, rugs, upholstering and pillows were done in bright English chintzes and in mauve, her favorite color. On the second floor, the rooms selected as nurseries were cleared of heavy furniture, and simple beds and dressers of lemon-wood were installed, with covers of cheerful English cretonne. Under her direction, the general appearance of the private wing became that of a comfortable English country house.
Mounting guard over the frontier between this private world and the rest of the palace was a gaudily fantastic quartet of bodyguards. Four gigantic Negroes dressed in scarlet trousers, gold-embroidered jackets, curved shoes and white turbans stood guard outside the study where the Tsar was at work, or the boudoir where the Empress was resting. “They were not soldiers,” wrote Alexandra’s friend Anna Vyrubova, “and had no function except to open and close doors and to signal by a sudden noiseless entrance into a room that one of Their Majesties was about to appear.” Although all of these men were referred to at court as Ethiopians, one was an American Negro named Jim Hercules. Originally a servant of Alexander III, Hercules was an employee, bound to the family only by loyalty. He took his vacations in America and brought back jars of guava jelly as presents for the children.
