River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1880-06-24
THE LATE EMPRESS OF RUSSIA.
n Love Marriage that W ls Blighted
with Anxiety and Has Now Ended I'm
4aafh
New York Sun.

love Marriage that W as Blighted
with Anxiety and Has Now Ended I'm
aSeath.
New York sun
when Alexander III. determined mn
on marriage, every German princess
aapired in secret to the honor Of becon,-
ing the empress Of all the Russians. His
choice fell upon Maximiliana vii
helnlina Augusta Sophia Maria, daugh
ter of Iudwig H., grand duke of Hesse,
and of Wilhelmina Louisa, daughter of
Charles Louis, prince of Baden; and his
selection proved a happy one. The
marriage, on April %, is4l, almost
caused revolution in the court regime
If st. Petersburg. The Emperor Nicho-
las and NJ. de Nesslrode had made the
winter palace a sort of a gloomy tomb.
When the wife of the czarevitch, now
the czarina, changed her name ON her
wedding day--as is customary with all
ladies who marry into the imperial
family of Russia-and became Maria
Alexandroyna, she did not change her
nature. She was extremely cheerful
and vivacious and charming, if not very
beautiful. In the Russian court she
sdon began to exert the marked intiu
ence that might be expected u ema-
nate from woman who, besides being
lovely, was also good and pure minded.
TIE stale conventionalisms lnd rigid
fo1malities that hitherto had prevailed
in imperial circles began 10 thsw before
her sunny face and infectious hyeliness.
AT that period she was Il great lover of
excitement and pleasure She was eX-
trenely fond of dancing, and she danced
with the ellfrdm of German girl.
| There was no aristocratic party which
she did not attend, and wherever she
went she was the soul of the entertain
ment
a love-maniage was something new
in the stately atmosphere that had for
years Constructed the blood" of the
Russian court. The chivalrous conduct
and the handsome cOuntenancc of the
emperor had made their impress upon
the heart of his wife, and the imperial
| pair showed by the affectionate attitudes
that they involuntarily assumed toward
each other that something beyond polit-
| cal necessity cemented their union.
! The empress made limited number Of
warm personal friends who became en-
| Enthusiastically devoted to her and her
! interests, so that up to the time of her
| death she had lost none of the intimates
who were early attra cted to her side.
! The maids of honor who were selected
IN the first year of her reign were TO the
last her bosom companions, and among
them are Mn. Malzolf, the Baroness
| Fetinghoff, the Countess Mile Tolstoy,
| formerly the governess of the present
duchess of Edinburg, and the Countess
Blondof The latter played an impor-
tant part in the politics of the national
party when, in 1861, the emperor de
creed the abolition of serfdom.
After the first few years of her mar
RED life the czarina began TO exhibit
singular, and, to many, an unaccounta-
he change in her life. She gradually
retired from entertainments and pleas
ures, and became, after time, so COM
plotely withdrawn from the outer cur
rent of court life, that her history from
that time until her death, consisted of
the mere routine of home existence
and travels. Her solitude was in no
small degree traceable to the unkind-
ncSs of the ear, and, of late, possibly To
the jealousy of the Princess Dolgorouki.
But her devotion TO her husband was
almost unparalleled; and to her anxiety
fo, the safety of the emperor, during
thn period Of the attacks upon his
life, must be ascribed much Of the
recent failing of her health, although
the loss Of her first son in 1865 was Il
hlpw from which she never fully recoy-
cred
The late empress seemed studiously TO
simn court intriguing Hel political in
hi}ence was, indeed, so small that IN the
Winter palace she was called a mere
ghost. For many years, past she took
hardly any part in the fetes in the Rus
sian court She was seldom seen in the
street, except when the emperor held
ore of his grand reviews Then she
would follow him in an open carriage
wearing the ensigns of her dignity, and
the glowing purple color brought into
st}ll stronger relief the soTrowful paleness
other complexion. Her life turned to-
ward the domestic hearth. Her chief
prcoccupation was TO make her apart
tmcnts a kind of sanctuary, in which the
emperor might forget all the anxieties
| inherent in power She did not seem to
know the value of money. One of her
ladies-in-waiting once appealed TO her
fN teslsitlltt III Dclldil III u utSlllhtt
widow of staff officer
Solve her five roubles" said the en-
press.
The lady hesitated, and mildly sug-
gested that the widow might expect
something more.
rs five roubles too hitler the en-
press said. Then give her i've thousand.
For several years Maria Alexandrovna
suffered from an infection Of the lungs,
apd she passed the winters in Italy. Her
first winter in Italy will ever be re-
n1embered by the Muscovites for the
money that it cost them, and by the
Italians for the money that she lavish
cd. upon them wherever she passed.
Her charity seemingly knew no bounds.
At Naples she was styled the "Cussian
MadOna" A whole host Of waits fol-
lowed to Russia "the fairy" that 50 kind
ly5smiled upon them, but half of them
soon died from the cold.