SKELETONS IN ROYAL CUPBOARDS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12765, 17 June 1911, Page 9 (Supplement)

SKELETONS IN ROYAL CUPBOARDS.

t ' ■ .*» ■ ■ P 0 THE HAND THAT GRIPS THE GREAT WHITE g TSAR. IJ _ o (From "Cassell's Saturday Journal.") ,

Seventeen yeare under the shadow of tho hidden hand—the secret hand waiting to deal terrible death! Think what it must mean." Such wero the words of a gentleman in tho Russian Winter Palace., when a visitor to tho palace, who had just been received by tho Tsar, expressed bis astonishment at the aged, appearance of the mighty emparor-r-the young man of but forty-three years of ago •u-hom he had just, left Deeply-graven on the face of that man of forty-three wna the stamp and care of. sadness, of almost weariness with life as a burden. His hair and beard .were streaked with crey, and the eyes that looked into Kis were filled with a strange sadness. ,Thb face, ho said, was like that of one who knew h« wari the victim of some terrible mortal disease to which he was resigned as the will of .Heaven. Long before ths Tsar even, came to the throne the shadow of the hand must have been upon him. The great •dining-room of the Winter Palace must be- for ever linked in , his mind with the horror- of a night when ho was only a child of twelve.

A BOMB AT A ROYAL BANQUET.

Into the gloom of the darkness of the February night the tall windows ot the Winter Palace shot gleams of the brilliance that filled its halls and ma«liifioent rooms. Outside, in the night shadows without the palace walls, there slowly paced the great-coated sentinels. Thay were set so close together that each man had only a few yards to watch. At short spaces there were collected little groups of soldiers waiting, under the command of officers, to dash lo any place to which a summons called them to faca any unforseen danger. At all ent~ance> of the palace _ wero chosen men under most trusted lieuten-. antE. The Tsar, Alexander, was well guarded. The magnificent dining r room was abhze with a hundred lights. Upon the table gleamed the -wonderful gold and silver plate, and masses of the choicest flowrera from the royal gardens filled the room with delicious scent. In. the kitchens an army of cooks stood prepared for the word.to send up the waiting delicacies they had been busy* for bo many hours in preparing. All was 'ready. Bub the royal banqueters were lute. At last, with preceding attendants, the Tsar and Tsarina and their guests were about to start in profession from the hall in which they were congregated, when suddenly there fell mpon their <sars a sound at winch biave men started and blanched with terror, and ladies, with shrieks of alarm bursting from their lips, clung in horror to them for protection. It was a dreadful sound—like the swish of a muffled roar of cannon. . Once again mm-der had dogged the life of the Tsar—sought to strike him down, with those he best loved around him, in that palace into which it seemed a. miracle treachery could glide. "A dynamite bomb had been exploded under the floor of tho great diningroom, dealing death to the waiting attendants and to the guard of soldiers below;. If tho royal party had not been late they must have fallen its vievtims.

Only thirteen months later the man who had so miraculously escaped that night was brought home a mangled corppe. .As ha Avas driving through the streets there, had .suddenly come hurtling through the air some small black things which, falling beneath the carlirwte in which ho sat, transformed tho mighty Tsar of All Russias into n mangled human being stricken with tho hand of terrible death. His assassination called upon the present Tsar's father to ascend the throne and to live under the shadow of the terrible hand. For thirteen years Alexander lived; when he died, in 1894, tho present Tsar, Nicholas the Second, succeeded to his throne and descended into the shadow.

THE TSAItEVTTCH AND HIS ENG-

LISH PRINCESS

In the summer days of 1894 a young man, with a pleasant, refined face, rather inclined to melancholy, with moustache and pointed beard and serious large eyes, might have been seen paddling or rowing about, habited in flannels, in the by-ways of the Thames, close to Walton-on-tho-Thames. Ho uas the young Tsarevitch, the present Tsar, enjoying himself, while prosecuting his suit to the lady whom he hoped to win as his bride.

The Princess Ahx, daughter of Princess Alice, was staying in the neighbourhood and the young Tsarevitch had conio a-wooing. Everyone liked the young wooer, but there were difficulties. The Queen, Victoria, hardly favouring his suit. Ho was so delicate, she objected, and Princess Alix was also frngilo. And she loved the Prmeess Alix. If she married that suitor, khe must stand beside him amidst all thoso terrible dangers •which would one day enshroud him when he was called to become Tsar. The Princess would with him cocao under tho shadow of tho terrible hand. But "Nicky," as the voting Tnarevrtch was playfully called by his royal friends, triumphed over all the difficulties that stood between him smd tho realisation of his love. Th& Princess .(rave him lie™, heart, nnd tho young girl—the marriage- having been c<»lobr:rtorl in 18<M—went to share with lima the glories and the terrors of his thrmio

What would hapnon .to that younor royal married oounle.?.. The people of ths different nr»t:ons wn?chr<l t^em anxionoly. The Ilufwam. themselves wet* filled wit-'i. ■qipevstjtiouH. fears regarding thorn. From one corner of the Tt^ir's vast ■■flqimnions. to ih<» other, thpre spread fh*» rumour* of sad omens amd evil porteits. "The Fnfortnnnfo

Fsar" was the name applied to him. He was doomed to disaster, cind his beautiful young wife with him.

PALACES OF TRAGEDY

A thrill of fearful, slow-gathering disaster ran through tho land when, on tho occasion of the royal festivities in connection / with the coronation, there came the news of the awful tragedy at one of the royal fetes when two thousand men, women and children were crushed to death in a panic. Tho royal palaces of Russia have teen the places in which innumerable •tragedies have occurred, and to each of- them there are attached the stories

of ghostly figures and omens of coming calamity and death. In one palace a white lady is the warning. In another it is a mysterious white bird that is discovered suddenly fluttering before the eyes of the astonished sentinels, and that disappears as^ mysteriously as it corner. In another it is the procession of a funeral party of ghostly figures .slowly sweeping along the gloomy passages of the palace bearing , a shrouded .figure to its grave. Palace guards at the time of the Tsar's coronation whimpered to each other of these signs, and waited in terror for the disasters they heralded. The Tsarina was^ a young, delicate and somewhat timid girl. The Tsar was delicate and highly strung. With the terror of the secret hand upon them

they lived their lives, watched over and guarded by guards who themselves, while prepared; to die for them, yet believed that all they might do to shield them from harm would be in vain. HOW TFIE TSAR Js GUARDED. For weeks before the Tsar exchanges one of his royal prisons for another, his watchers are taking precautions. Inquiries are made of the occupants of every house in the streets through which he will pass, driven at break-neck speed, to the railway-sta-tion. The station is guarded by serried raws of, soldiers. and the platform swarms with police. In tho train a special guard of soldiers travels, and a carriage is specially reserved for the most courageous and skilful detectives. Before the train there travels a pilot engine to test whether there are secret mines laid under the rails. Along the F.rdes of the .milwav, t^ousrh all the hundreds of-miles the train rushes over at its topmost speed, arc- sentries nlac*<d at small intervals, distant only a few yards from each other, and at every bridge there is a special guard. At sixty miles an hour the Tsar comes whirling by. Arrived safely at his new prison he is guarded as he was at his last.

A life to test the stoutest nerve and try the bravest . heart. No wonder that, to his other troubles, tho Tsar has had added the anxiety of his wife's breakdown in health. The strain has told upon the strength of the brave lady who, in his greatest dangers, has refused to leave the side of the man to whom she has pledged herself to ba his companion in evil days as well as fair.'

DEATH ALWAYS LURKING NEAR,

Suspicion and solitariness! They aro the atmosphere in which the Tsar and his wife live. Other royal personages who would otherwise bo glad to visit them are forbidden to do so by the impossibility of their being freely entertained. A meeting on the royal yacht- is as much as can be safely indulged in. The visit of a royal personage would necessitate entertainments and excursions, and in spite of myriads of secret police, and myriads of spies, no chief of the police •will be responsible for tho royal safety on such occasions.

Every servant is a spy upon his masier. The amount of gold spent yearly on the secret police amounts to millions that would almost keep an army. Every letter that passes through the post office is carefully scrutinised. In no country in the world has state espionage been so cultivated. Letters are opened, read, copied if it is thought desirable, and once more placed in envelopes to be forwarded to the unsusnectinn; addresses.

. Every restaurant, cafe, and place of public resort swarms with its paid spies. Terror and suspicion hang over the country like a pall; and in the midst of it all, wheie its deepest shadows lie, stands the figures of the slight, delicate, pale-faced, melancholy man with the frank, honest, pathetic eyos. and by his sidfi the fair, fragile lady he loves and who loves him.